The Parts of Adoption No One Warns You About | Marie Baars - The Briefcase & The Barn - EP 79

January 21, 2026

Gary: [00:00:00] He is saying around three 30,

Kyle: oh, we can do this. You show my silver play button. [00:00:10] Welcome back guys, through the episode of the Briefcase in the bar in a series of the Furious Security show where we talk about business life, Christianity. More episode, I don't know what it's 70 something, 78, I think [00:00:20] maybe.

Kyle: Um, yeah, like my silver play button and that poem. Yeah. Is that a chat GPT poem or did somebody write that from the heart? [00:00:30] Yeah, so, uh, hold up, I'll hold this up here a second. People can read it. See it. So this is YouTube, 3000 subscribers presented to the Furious a Curious Show. And this comes from [00:00:40] our Vandenberg family, uh, center clause party.

Kyle: And so we've been doing this since I was a little kid, where you do a gift exchange at Christmas. And uh, with the, the [00:00:50] person whose name you have, you also have to make something to do with that person. Um, and a poem. Some sort of like handmade thing, uh, about that person. And so [00:01:00] always a

Gary: poem, right?

Kyle: Always a poem and a handmade thing.

Kyle: So for me, I had my brother Martin, that just a random exchange thing that, um, created it. And so IMDT came up with a [00:01:10] slingshot this year. And so I made him a wooden slingshot. I went outside, got some branches and made a slingshot that he can, uh, he needed to shoot a ball at his present, whatever. That was [00:01:20] his thing.

Kyle: And then, uh, I, uh, you wrote a poem about him. I wrote a poem about him as well. And so my brother-in-law, Ron had me, so he made me a silver play button, uh, which you usually get when you have a hundred [00:01:30] thousand subscribers, I think on YouTube. And then he wrote that poem and you can read.

Gary: Okay. I did not, I did not know that you had so a hundred thousand subscribers.

Gary: You get something special on YouTube. [00:01:40] Yeah, you got a, a play button. Okay. You got a ways to go, but you're, you're working on her. 3% of the way there. He's furious. He's curious sometimes. Serious. Father of three sons, he runs the show. Rolling [00:01:50] Tesla, watch him go. Makes you think, makes you twitch. Drops the question.

Gary: Flips the switch. Ever wonder why we do that thing? Uncomfortable Truths. That's his zing. Challenges, traditions and [00:02:00] old rights between golf swings and late nights. 3000 people say, oh hey, let's see what crazy thing he'll say. Tesla's charged the mic is hot Golf club's ready? Give it a [00:02:10] shot. Furiously curious.

Gary: That's the brand making folks think. Was the plan. And here we are at three K Strong. Keep that curiosity a rolling along. [00:02:20] It's pretty impressive.

Kyle: Yeah. So yeah, it's kind of a fun thing that it's just a, not just like a, a, what do you call it? White, white elephant. Yeah. No, you

Gary: gotta be more creative than that.

Gary: I prefer the white elephant personally, where I [00:02:30] can just go to the freezer and grab 10 pounds of hamburger

Kyle: and put it in a box and give it to somebody. But there's some really cool ones we've done over the years. Nicole actually one year made a safe out of cardboard and you actually needed [00:02:40] to like use a code to, to make it work.

Kyle: So Marie's coming on. I was gonna ask her pick up, pick it up. Yeah. I'll

Gary: ask her to see if she's, Hey Marie. Hi. I [00:02:50] was just recording the podcast and seeing if you wanted to come on for an episode today, but sounds like you're pretty busy. Oh wow. Yeah. Do you want it? Love to have you on the show.[00:03:00]

Gary: Um, Tara's only here. She's here for one more hour. Oh, just bring the kid along. Bring it Dom along. [00:03:10] He'll be fine here. Cole's hanging out. Yeah. We'll, 1 45. You'll be here at two. We'll be here at two. We'll do a quick, quick, quick recording. [00:03:20] Okay. Well, I'm currently laying up Oh, BS and the summer dress, so, okay.

Gary: I wasn't sure what you were gonna say.[00:03:30]

Gary: You are on speaker phone. Sorry. I should, yeah, I

Kyle: can hear Kyle, so

Gary: I,

Kyle: um, okay. Well, should I wear a dress [00:03:40] to my

Marie: listeners?

Kyle: You

Gary: don't need to peel to anybody. If there's one thing I learned from Kyle, just piss everybody off. [00:03:50] No, just as you were, hon. We'll see you in Yvette. We'll see you. We'll record. We'll record when you get here.

Gary: Don't, don't think too much about, okay. Watch

Kyle: this guys. Snap.

Gary: [00:04:00] Marie's

Kyle: here.

Gary: Okay. I'll be there

Kyle: as soon as I can.

Gary: Okay.

Kyle: See you soon. Sweet. Yeah.

Kyle: Do we keep going? Yeah, we'll just keep going until she gets here. No, we'll do, [00:04:10] this will be an extra one. Oh, this will be an one extra short one. Yeah, we need one of those. Oh, okay. One of the Katie? Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. We'll keep going then. Um, I got some uh, [00:04:20] notes. That was a rabbit trail if there was one.

Kyle: That's okay. That's what the show

Gary: is. It's all rabbit trail. All that's where we're going. People do not care. People just, no, people appreciate the authenticity. I mean,

Kyle: people are only, [00:04:30] yeah, this thing is never gonna grow much. But

Gary: I

Kyle: interviewed a doctor. There's just

Gary: not enough Dutch foreign people. I think these kid people should have more kids.

Gary: So we have more watching, more listeners show. Yeah.

Kyle: Yeah.

Gary: And [00:04:40] they are trying hard, actually, it's not even a fair comment. Probably most of the people that listen, there's probably the average amount of children is like seven or something.

Kyle: Uh, yeah. I mean it depends how that your home you go, which area? [00:04:50] If condoms are still allowed or not, um,

Kyle: uh, you're gonna be fine, Gary. Um. But I was gonna say something really [00:05:00] profound and it's totally gone now. Show notes. Show notes. Uh, there was something else, but, okay. Either, either way. Uh, we got a question about baptism. Yeah, good question. Uh, [00:05:10] I quote, uh, I notice quite a few people who switch from churches with infant baptism to believers baptism, and it's not even the reason they leave.

Kyle: I know you and Gary [00:05:20] came from that. Was that a consideration at all? My friend just switched to your church from a Pato church, and it wasn't because of that at all. I haven't had a chance to talk to him if it was a big deal for him yet or [00:05:30] not. Seems like people will switch at the drop of a hat. Oh, I love it.

Kyle: I love the drop of the hat comment. It's not a, that's not a fair comment. No, that's right. I could just share how, why, why I [00:05:40] switched. So we, me and Nicole were, uh, um. Separated. Uh, they were just dealing with a lot of different things and Nicole was like, I'm not going back anymore. I'm pretending that everything's fine.[00:05:50]

Kyle: 'cause I'd like you just dress all night. Go there. I'm, I'm, I'm done with that. I felt like I wanted to stay. Uh, when I was 21 and first got saved, I read a book called Cult to Stay like [00:06:00] Caleb Brecky. And it really pushed, like, if there's problems in your church, what are you doing about it? Mm-hmm. And so I was part of starting guys, uh, prayer groups and uh, um, guys groups for young guys, the prison ministry, Mexican ministry, [00:06:10] full pull.

Kyle: And everything fell hard on my face, but I still kind of felt like I, I should stay. Um, but there was a couple that we knew, um, from God that said, Hey, go to a [00:06:20] church for a while. That's gonna be better for your marriage, uh, that you can, can walk alongside you. I guess there wasn't a lot of support where we were at.

Kyle: And so I was, is

Gary: that fair that there wasn't a lot of support where you [00:06:30] at? Or was it more just the fact that you weren't really being that honest about how you were doing?

Kyle: No, I, I was being honest. But you No. There wasn't that much support. No, no. There's support. Like we had support, like for [00:06:40] example, when our daughter died, we had meals for three months.

Kyle: Unbelievable support. Unbelievable support. It's like the people don't know how to think, you need to be educated in how to respond to these things as well. Right. It, there's, there's a [00:06:50] lot of, a lot of things going on Anyways, so we switched for that reason, for just for six months and then we were gonna go back.

Kyle: Yeah. Again, that was our plan. And Sorry, did you come to our church or did you go [00:07:00] somewhere? I went central. Between Went Central? No, I went to Central and I went to the Promontory campus 'cause it was chairs in the gym. And I love the idea of as being as far away from formalism as possible. Yeah, I can see that.

Kyle: I can identify that. And so I [00:07:10] really like that, like Pastor Jonathan Newfields, uh, uh, preaching very good preacher. Uh, but one thing I massively noticed when I was, after I left was like. I didn't need to be in church to minister to other people. I need to be in church to be [00:07:20] ministered to like I needed re I needed help.

Kyle: Okay. Uh, and I had always kind of thought of it as like, I need to help others now. I need to help others now. 'cause I'm a Christian now and I have to help everyone else. And I didn't realize I needed to be [00:07:30] discipled and I needed to be taught. And there was like, I need to humble myself. And so that's why we stayed.

Kyle: And so that, the baptism thing, I was never really convicted on at all. Either

Gary: way.

Kyle: [00:07:40] Either way. Yeah. I understood adult baptism more. 'cause I'm like. You know, if you actually believe that you could do it. Like it just made more sense, like just from the limited knowledge I have. [00:07:50] But my dad used to tell me before I went out and he knew I'd go out and party and stuff like that.

Kyle: He's like, Kyle, remember you have a baptized forehead. I'm like, what does that mean? Like it doesn't help me get into heaven anymore. Stuff like that. So I was [00:08:00] never had no conviction of it at all. And so that makes it really easy to switch. I know some Dutch reformed churches where baptism is wildly important and they don't, [00:08:10] it is a big deal when someone becomes a Baptist.

Kyle: Like,

Gary: uh, sorry, are you saying it's not where you come from? No, not as big of a deal. No.

Kyle: Okay. Well, I, it depends who you, it depends who you, who you talk to. [00:08:20] Depends who you talk to. But I know that like, um, Dutch performed churches where, um, or perform churches where like it's really, you're almost basically you're saved when you get baptized.

Kyle: It's assumed you're [00:08:30] saved. They would never

Gary: admit that, but that it's practically how they act.

Kyle: Exactly. Yeah. And I, from what I understand there, it's a way bigger deal. It is to go to a Baptist church. It really is. So I think the issue is, is [00:08:40] people will be able to switch wi quickly on something when there isn't a deep conviction of a, a deep belief.

Kyle: That's why it's easy to switch.

Gary: Uh, I wouldn't even say that. I would say that people, [00:08:50] um, that that might be part of it, but I think, um, it's really unfair to say, Hey, people stay there. Like anytime that you might lose literally friends or [00:09:00] family because you're going to make a change. You can hardly say that people are where they're at because they feel convicted about it.

Gary: Right. You can't say, oh wow. They Yeah. That [00:09:10] true too. Feel they really love their church. They love the lord, they love everything they believe there. If you were gonna literally lose family trust and respect because you're making a change on a Sunday where you worship [00:09:20] wowsers. Yeah. That's crazy stuff. You know what I mean?

Gary: And it's very common. It's very common. And it's, it's not just here to stay, come from way easier to stay than way easier to stay. [00:09:30] And, and so I have a lot of grace for people that do stay. I also think it's important to stay at churches.

Kyle: Yeah. Healthy churches. Yeah. I, I, I [00:09:40] know someone that all churches are unhealthy, Kyle are, are not, um, uh, leaving their church, uh, even though they don't believe in the Bible.

Kyle: And they [00:09:50] don't believe in anything that's taught like, like nothing. Like basically basically an atheist. Yeah. But they're not leaving 'cause it will cause too many probleming problems. So they go to church every Sunday. That,

Gary: [00:10:00] that would be very common. That's that would crazy. Very common. That's that's very common.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah. That means that they're, that's religion. Yeah. That is the epitome of religion. Yeah. [00:10:10] Um, people don't, yeah. It's back to the end comment was people don't leave flippantly. I mean, I have a lot of experience with this 'cause I have met as a leader with a lot of people that are [00:10:20] wanting to become members of our church.

Gary: And you do not become a member of our church unless you're baptized as a believer. Um, people struggle with it. They would come from the angle of, Hey, I've done profession of faith. Um, [00:10:30] I would say, yes, you professed your faith. You shouldn't, well, it's been baptized when you professed your faith. That's, you know, that's, that would be my angle.

Gary: Um, I also think, well it's fear monger [00:10:40] too, that if you get baptized again, that's like one of the most heating things. Yeah. And most people, if you were, if you read the Bible, you would say that wasn't, you didn't, you weren't baptized. Right. And I [00:10:50] think the idea of, I mean, I don't think Jesus was baptized as a baby.

Gary: Right. So I, there again, I just struggle with the circumstance, whole connection. Yeah. I, I, I struggle with the, I [00:11:00] struggle with the defense. Um, it's really hard to read it objectively if you have been indoctrinated your entire life. And I know indoctrinated has negative connotation. I I didn't mean [00:11:10] it that way.

Gary: I meant if you have been taught something, something, it does not matter how wrong it is. It's very hard to literally start thinking differently. Um, and then there's the other piece [00:11:20] with the baptism where people, um. Yeah. First of all, it's not a salvation issue. So then people will, it's a secondary issue.

Gary: Yeah. It's a total secondary issue. So we can be great friends and have great [00:11:30] theological discussions and love and hang out and even go to church together. And our church, there's people that land in both camps. Yeah. And I think that's how it should be. Yeah. Um, I can see. Yeah. There's nothing I see.

Kyle: There's not, [00:11:40]

Gary: yeah. I, I, I don't, I don't think practically you can have a church that believes both, which there are those churches. I have friends that go to a church like that right now. And I actually been meaning to ask them kind of how it's working. 'cause it, it's [00:11:50] 'cause I love the idea of it, but I just don't think as church leaders, you can teach something and then say, oh, by the way, on it, it's enough of an important issue where, hey, we're gonna probably have a separate church over it.

Gary: Um, but I [00:12:00] don't think that should keep us from, from, from standing alongside brothers and sisters. That, that would, well you need to connect in the gospel first, your love for Christ. If that's not there, then don't even talk to me about Bism. No. And that [00:12:10] is really the rabbi I have. So it's like, here we have a bunch of unsaved people being hyperfocused on that.

Gary: Now there again, it's because of. Um, it's partially just because of the tradition and the things that are, [00:12:20] that it's steeped in. And I find it interesting because it's reformed churches that are doing this, and they come from the reformation, which was a breakaway from all of the, and, and they have great judgment at times, some [00:12:30] denominations, some last obviously, but a lot of it, it's like this judgment of Catholicism, like, and a lot of ways it practically, it's just like, do you see what you're doing?

Gary: Do you see the irony of the, the ceremony [00:12:40] and the baby? And like, do you see the irony? Right? But you don't because you're in it and it's important and you have to do it. If you don't do it, you're shamed. Yeah. So the minute you're shamed, right, because you don't do a tradi, because you don't [00:12:50] do something like.

Gary: All of a sudden now you have, you're starting to have a lot of people do things for the wrong reasons. And that, to me is concerning.

Marie: Yeah.

Gary: So even in our church, it's, it's, it's becomes a bit of an issue where it's like, Hey, you [00:13:00] have somebody who's 30, 40, 50 years old, they come to our church. They, some of them are, you know, they're obviously, most of 'em are probably professing Christians.

Gary: Um, and they have baggage, let's say, from what they're [00:13:10] taught. And the idea of them being, let's use the word rebaptized, they don't even like that term, but baptized as a believer, they would consider it insulting to their family. Yeah. [00:13:20] Um, right. Like it's hurtful to their family. They would say, Hey, I've professed, I believe, do I really need to go through this ceremony and be baptized?

Gary: And in our church we do. And, and the, and it's, it's challenging 'cause [00:13:30] you have a lot of amazing people that are

Kyle: Yeah.

Gary: Not on the fringes or even serving. They're, they're, they're discipling other people. They're trying to follow the Lord. But it's just this rub of like, hey, it's amazing how their [00:13:40] family stuff ties into how we live.

Gary: Right. And I think ultimately, and you would agree with this, I think, and, and you've probably done it. We need to respectfully, very [00:13:50] respectfully say, Hey, this is a mo a thing of conviction for me. And if somebody is reading the Bible, they should be able to be, you know, basically, [00:14:00] hey, they should be able to respect that.

Gary: And if you're doing it humbly with respect, you should be able to think differently on an issue like this. Yeah. It's, it's not a salvation issue. Most, I don't know anybody that would say it's a salvation issue. No, [00:14:10]

Kyle: no. But like Central was Pato Baptist and I would've switched, I still would've gone to Central.

Kyle: Like there was all, there were so many other things that I went for and stayed for than it was the baptism thing. Well, that's

Gary: what [00:14:20] I find kind of humorous about our church. I guess that's where I was going when you, they specifically used our church as an example. There's just a lot of people that show up there that are really struggling with the Baptist thing.

Gary: They definitely are [00:14:30] not fully convinced that they should be getting rebaptized. Yeah. But of course the teaching, the, you know, we're preaching the gospel. Change is

Kyle: hard. Yeah. Change is hard. So certain things Yeah. Are pushed really, really hard. [00:14:40] Um, what about you when you switched from, uh, uh, a Paal Baptist Church, infant Baptist Church to uh, an adult Baptist church?

Kyle: Was that a thing at all that you thought about or? No, but I had so many other things. It's a long

Gary: conversation. [00:14:50] Yeah, yeah. I was so broken. I was living in sin in so many areas, and I think that's where, even for me today, I have to remember the journey and how gracious God's been. And I think people, we don't do that because we're always [00:15:00] looking at the exterior and people are always presenting way better than their heart is.

Gary: So then it's just so easy to judge, but it is. Yeah. Um, so that was [00:15:10] not my concern, although it quickly became a thing 'cause it was expected to be baptized there. And so I very graciously say to people, if I had to go get baptized now

Kyle: yeah.

Gary: In my forties, it would be a [00:15:20] lot more difficult than it was in my twenties when I was more of a weather vane probably.

Gary: Right. A little more style more than you are now. That's incredible. Oh,

Kyle: ouch. Sorry. Sorry, Gary. [00:15:30] Ouch.

Kyle: Um,

Kyle: singer. You took that way too hard. Uh, I'm a big [00:15:40] baby, right? You know that right? A MB you appear to be a lot tougher, so I know. It's so disturbing. Okay, I wanna talk about a couple verses about, um, working for salvation versus believing, [00:15:50] which is a big thing. Like we can't say ourselves as Calvinists.

Kyle: There's nothing we can do. So there's two verses that I came across recently. Um, that, uh, or one verse, which made me think, another verse that'll [00:16:00] read, which I kind of think are interesting. So. Uh, they're at the bottom of the notes there if you wanna read along. God, uh, Ephesians two, eight and nine. God saved you by his grace when you believed had or had [00:16:10] faith.

Kyle: Some, um, translations say, and you can't take credit for this, it is a gift of God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. So it's not by what we're doing or not [00:16:20] doing. It's by believing it's by grace. And then, uh, Romans four, verse five and two, the one who does not work but believes in him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as [00:16:30] righteousness.

Kyle: So work to the one who work does not work. But the opposite believes. So believing is not a work, it's not doing [00:16:40] something. Believing is just, do you believe it or not? Like, is it true or not true? And I think that people, a lot, a lot of people get hung up on that. That believing is still doing something.

Kyle: Believing is not doing [00:16:50] something. Do you actually believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, that he's actually God, that the resurrection, that he actually rose from the dead and that what he says is true and [00:17:00] will you submit your life to it? Do you believe that, uh, or not? That is what believing in Christ is.

Kyle: It's not something we do. It's like, do we believe in when he says, I will forgive you [00:17:10] if you confess your sins. Turn from them and follow me. It's a belief thing and belief is not working. Um, but, uh, I think there's a lot of, um, people I've [00:17:20] interacted with struggle with that and say that no believing is still doing something.

Kyle: No. Believing is not doing something. Like, do you believe you know when the sun coming up in the morning? Or, [00:17:30] or do you believe that, you know, that type of car is the best? Like you're not doing something. It's a, it's a, it's a state of your heart in in, is it true or not true? So [00:17:40] anyways, but two verses, uh, stucco to me.

Kyle: Any thoughts on that? Yeah,

Gary: yeah. Maybe you just need to pray. Help me with my unbelief. [00:17:50] And I think there's a lot of examples of people in the Bible that were literally, like, I'm reading that book by MacArthur about the disciples right now. Mm-hmm. It's only working my way through that book. [00:18:00] 12 Ordinary Man, 12 Ordinary Men.

Gary: And it's just like, man, these guys literally walked with the Lord. They saw him heal people, raise people from the dead and they were. They were doubting. Yeah. So like, you know, [00:18:10] we're, we're humans. We're, we're very, very sinful. We really struggle and I think if we can acknowledge that first and just pray for God to help us, and I think, I think I had a whole bunch of verses kind of along [00:18:20] those lines in my head, especially this past Sunday, pastor Curtis preached the gospel and I was thinking like, Hey, you know, whosoever knocks, the door will be open seek and he shall find.

Gary: Yeah. Like, do we believe that? [00:18:30] Like do we believe that? Well, if we do, then we would, our actions would show If we do, yeah. That's what we, well, I guess what I'm saying is it's so, it's so easy for us to find things that will help us doubt. There's so much doubt in [00:18:40] general in our hearts 'cause of the way we're created.

Gary: We should look for

Kyle: things that help us not doubt. Yeah. Like how, how, how do you,

Gary: negativity. Negativity. And actually I've been in trouble from family members for [00:18:50] this. 'cause I can be pretty negative and just doom, doom, dooms, dare. It's totally true. It's like people, negativity sells way more than positivity.

Gary: Right. People love the Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's

Kyle: what the news is for. That's what, but [00:19:00] how, but how do you grow your belief in something and anything like a belief about baptism. You go study it. I belief about business. You go study it and you or you practice it. Yeah. Literally. If

Gary: you live by faith, I mean the [00:19:10] lord is faithful.

Gary: Right. And it may look different than what we think, but he'll show us that. Right? That's right. If, if we don't, but if your faith is weak, live that way.

Kyle: Yeah. Go read, spend time in the Bible. Yeah. And actually like, [00:19:20] like, help me believe this to be true God. And like, read it again and again. That's how, that's how my convictions have deepened.

Kyle: It's not because I've just been like, just waiting. No, you [00:19:30] go and look at the evidence. Like, read Lee Strobel's book The Case for Christ. You know, like understand that like Jesus is a historical figure that actually happened like once you, [00:19:40] that's how we get faith. That's what faith and belief is. It's not something that you just get zapped and have, or not have no, like, you look at the evidence and all of a sudden you're like, I can't help myself believe this to [00:19:50] be true.

Kyle: This is the way, that's what belief is. Anyways,

Gary: um, how long are we at Kyle? We're gonna make a short episode and then we're [00:20:00] gonna do one more 20 minutes. This

Kyle: is gonna be a real short one. Really short one. We can ha we used to only do a half hour, so, uh, I got one more question on this topic of religious stuff.

Kyle: Oh, can we talk about

Gary: [00:20:10] something? It feels like you wanna wait. A lot of preaching, man. Can we go into something like really secular?

Kyle: Okay, I'm a little late. But considering the fact that Canada is a democracy and not a con constitutional republic, like the [00:20:20] United States democracy only lasts until the, the lower class of society realizes they can vote the wealth from the rich as soon as they are at [00:20:30] 50.1%.

Kyle: When will Canada implode? Oh, this is exactly what I was talking about earlier on the last episode. It's already imploding.

Gary: No, we're gonna have an actual revolution. Did I have to say that earlier [00:20:40] today? Yeah, did, yeah. Yeah, you did. Yeah. Another episode we did revolution. It's coming.

Kyle: But that, I mean, that's what happening right now.

Kyle: We got 40% of the Canada that gets paid by the

Gary: other. Yeah.

Kyle: And the [00:20:50] problem is, as people,

Gary: as people do, the people that are doing really well obviously don't want that to change. Right. And you can't, you can't mandate. [00:21:00] Uh, equality. Like you don't get to mandate equality. You need to have policy in place that generally makes it possible for people that are struggling.

Gary: And the problem is when you have the devaluation of money, [00:21:10] you are naturally going to have people that are asset holders, which are relatively wealthy people become very, very wealthy. And you're gonna have people that, that have nots are going to be perpetually poverty stricken. We're all [00:21:20] equal. Some are just more equal than others.

Gary: Yeah. Two legs, bad animal farm, two legs bad, four legs good. Is that what it is or is it the opposite? Four legs bad's from the same book.

Kyle: Is it really? George Orwell? I don't remember that [00:21:30] book. It's a great book. I learned it from Miss Turra. Um, yeah. Anyways, not much to say about that. Uh, another quote, uh, on, uh, [00:21:40] you want secular stuff.

Kyle: So one of the most, um, astounding things about I just preaching comes with big responsibility, right? So how much preaching do you wanna do? I'm not preaching. There's sharing a belief you have. Oh. [00:21:50] Um, one of the most, okay. A quote from Ronald J. Schneider. One of the most astounding things about the affluent minority is that we honestly think we have barely [00:22:00] enough to survive in modest comfort.

Kyle: Let me read that for you again. Yeah. One of the most astounding things about the affluent minority, AKA Gary Bars, [00:22:10] is that we honestly think we have barely enough to survive in modest comfort. It's a belief that it's never enough [00:22:20]

Gary: the more you have. Yeah. I guess if I, I would agree with that. 'cause I can go into that mindset, but I do think that you, um.

Gary: If you think rationally about it, which sometimes I do, [00:22:30] and you look around, which it's easy enough to look around right. And see how people live. You're your, your spending always just rises to meet your income. So, you know, [00:22:40] so you have incredible self-control. Yeah. And some people do, but I don't, so I always think, Hey, if all of a sudden life changed and you live went to live on almost next to nothing, like you would just make it work.

Gary: Yeah. And I also think, and there again, [00:22:50] correct me if I'm wrong, but in the society we live in, you can get a lot of stuff for free if you're struggling. Yes. I see it. I see benevolent fund, I see people getting help with counseling. I see people get help with a lot of things. I [00:23:00] see that, that, you know, you obviously get more and more government help, less money you have.

Gary: I see that people can go get food baskets at the food bank. How many days a week can you go to Salvation Army and get a five? For sure. Yeah. Like you, [00:23:10] you know, you could eat at Ruth and I was probably every night. If you were really like, you're not gonna die of starvation, you may. Really hard. Not ever go on a Mexico mission trip or a trip on a holiday, but [00:23:20] you know what I mean?

Gary: Yeah. So it's, it, it's different. It's just that we have different ideas of what we should expect. And in the culture that you and I live in, there's an expectation of like, there's [00:23:30] great pride in being wealthy, right? Yeah. And being well off financially. Yeah. Materially, I should say. Yeah. So

Kyle: yeah, it's switch your beliefs about what's important.

Kyle: Yeah. But also you're a, you're a [00:23:40] slave to your debtor. And so I see more and more it's just like, and your debtor, if you wanna feel free, what you desire a debtor is whatever you That's true. Whatever you desire. It may not be money, but, [00:23:50] but if you're not in debt and like you live within your means, you're cannot, like, like there's a lot of people that are super stressed out about their debt and like, have to have double income.

Kyle: Not [00:24:00] me, but I should be. Uh uh, well, I said there's some days where it comes up a bit. My natural hurts. Don't beat that.

Gary: Hurts. [00:24:10] Don't matter. Too heavy. No, it's mine over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter. Right. Okay. Anyways, I think, uh, we're gonna wrap up. We're gonna, this is gonna be [00:24:20] real, shorty, real short.

Gary: It's totally fine. That's totally, that's true. Totally fine. For all those people that hate those hour long episodes, this one's for you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Peace out. [00:24:30]

Kyle: Oh, whatever. Whatever. I'm not too particular.

Kyle: What's the plot into, uh, what are they called? Um, the [00:24:40] squirrel and the mouse and the cat. Squirrel. Mouse and cat Squirrel. Mouse and Cat Dogs. Bunny. [00:24:50]

Kyle: Oh, Tom and Jerry? Yes.[00:25:00] [00:25:10] [00:25:20] [00:25:30]

Kyle: At what time?[00:25:40]

Kyle: What time did you start recording here?

Gary: Oh, we, so we already have like, we have a short little extra one now. Like we have a 25 [00:25:50] minute. We did one 40

Kyle: minuter. Okay.

Gary: We have a little extra 25 minute

Kyle: outfit. Change for you. Sorry. Outfit change for you. [00:26:00] Wow. I hadn't done one yet. Oh, shoot. Yeah, these girls have horseback riding day.

Marie: Okay.

Kyle: Water. No. Get out. Not till four 30. [00:26:10]

Gary: Okay. How late do we wanna be for kid? I mean, kid pickup. Yeah.[00:26:20]

Gary: You didn't keep the dress on, huh? [00:26:30] I

Kyle: was wearing a summer dress. Nice. Literally sleeting outside. Oh, it's nasty. Eh.[00:26:40]

Gary: Sweaty

Kyle: laundry will all be done. [00:26:50] Total episode, right? You did. You put pressure? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, my Thursday. Oh

Gary: my,

Kyle: oh my.

Gary: Seriously. How many people [00:27:00] watch? Well, 250 at least. Maybe more.

Kyle: Yeah. Well, especially now that Marie's on, so Yeah, it's gonna be really, everyone's gonna be like, what is going on? Let's, it's gonna be

Gary: really short though.

Gary: It's gonna be short. Yeah. You can always [00:27:10] leap our way through it and we'll talk way afterwards. That's, that's true. True.

Kyle: Um,

Kyle: how close are how far?

Gary: Oh, just natural. Good. You're just

Kyle: close to it. [00:27:20]

Gary: This thing working. Kyle's not prepared for this

Kyle: talk. Maureen,

Gary: hello.

Kyle: Talk,

Gary: talk, talk. Yeah. Let's get some sound talk.

Gary: [00:27:30] We got, yeah. Are we good? We got

Kyle: everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Briefcase of the Barn, a series of a furious curious show where we were talking about business, life, Christianity, and more. With me and [00:27:40] Gary and Marie Bars, we

Gary: brought the kitchen.

Kyle: This

Gary: time,

Kyle: the better half, the better half bedroom.

Kyle: Tough. What this [00:27:50] podcast is about,

Kyle: add that you guys have a terrible marriage. We talked about that last week.

Kyle: I haven't listened to last week's or the week before because

Kyle: we just recorded it. [00:28:00]

Kyle: Oh. But last week's when this is recorded, I haven't listened over Christmas break at all. Yeah. You haven't listened to

Kyle: Christmas once.

Kyle: Okay.

Kyle: Nope.

Kyle: Um, do you get feedback much? Do [00:28:10] people talk to you about it?

Kyle: Yeah, usually. Well, a lot of people ask me if I care that Gary talks about all [00:28:20] the details of our life on the podcast, which I don't really, um, yeah,

Kyle: you do listen to what we actually [00:28:30] talk about.

Kyle: Yeah. That's the only reason that I listen so that I know what people know.

Kyle: Yeah. Is basically everything. So

Kyle: Nicole doesn't, Nicole doesn't listen. She, she [00:28:40] goes, she gets boring. She doesn't,

Kyle: it's pretty short, so it's, I can handle it.

Kyle: Fair enough. Okay. We got a question, uh, about, uh, [00:28:50] fostering. Mm-hmm. Which I know you guys do mail back question. I love, would love to hear from Gary Marie about their fostering journey.

Kyle: How do they get started? How to navigate when your spouse is not [00:29:00] 100% on board. Uh, where do people start when they are interested? Thanks for sharing the content.

Kyle: Well, [00:29:10]

Kyle: not everyone's saved out here. Look how mild, look how mild Gary he is. When Marie's around, he is just quiet. Little mouse

Kyle: sober. Second thought, right? That's what he always says, um, that [00:29:20] I'm the sober. Second thought. No. Um, I,

Gary: submissive, heman.

Kyle: I wish. Um, I [00:29:30] don't really, things are fine. Um,

Kyle: I, I mean, where, where do we start with this [00:29:40] question? Do we start at the beginning or like,

Gary: do you need to do what I normally do or just run over your top of you and just start talking and then you, you time to think. No,

Kyle: just let just. [00:29:50] Just, I don't want you to, you, you people put it at, answer the question when I'm not here, but people can

Kyle: add, um, put it at 2.2, 2.0 speed.

Kyle: Um, well keep [00:30:00] purely Iger. It just, I just don't know. Do I start, like, how, how did you decide, how did you get into

Gary: the place where you decide to adopt? Well,

Kyle: I, I am the reluctant, I was [00:30:10] the reluctant spouse. I was the one that did not want to adopt or foster. 'cause I, I had no, that was never on [00:30:20] my heart when I was growing up.

Kyle: And as a kid, that was not something that I even really knew about or had any, [00:30:30] like, I knew that, that people did that, but I didn't really know anything about that. So I didn't have, yeah, I just didn't have any connection to that. And [00:30:40] I, my thoughts and my plans and my goal and my desires for my life was that I was gonna be a mum and that's what I wanted to do.

Kyle: I [00:30:50] did not ever think that that was gonna be in a non-traditional way. So when we got [00:31:00] married and then we were struggling with infertility, that was just like tragic to me. And I did not see how God could give me [00:31:10] such a desire to be a mom and then not allow me to have children and like that, that would be my [00:31:20] whole goal and intention and like heart for my life, and then have that be impossible.

Kyle: Like that did not make sense to me and I, [00:31:30] so I, and I didn't see any other option as a viable option. So Gary had presented it a few times and I shut it down [00:31:40] very clearly. Like I said, I will never adopt. I said, and I mean,

Kyle: how, how long into the marriage was this?

Kyle: Less than two [00:31:50] years.

Kyle: Okay.

Kyle: Like

Kyle: and you guys knew pretty quickly that kids were home?

Kyle: Yeah.

Kyle: We adopted Noah in 2024 and we 2014.

Gary: Yeah. And

Kyle: we got married in 20 of 2014 and we got married in [00:32:00] 2010. So we went from like married infertility, starting the adoption process. Like we started the adoption process probably 23rd. [00:32:10] Yeah. So by year two we knew that we like that, did some testing and that was not gonna happen.

Kyle: Very

Gary: unlikely we'd have kids.

Kyle: And even through like, [00:32:20] just like basic fertility treatments of like taking hormones and stuff that was not gonna work or it didn't work. And I was quite, [00:32:30] I was in bad shape, like mentally and emotionally.

Kyle: So were you angry or like what was the

Kyle: No, it just like, it messes with your hormone so bad.

Kyle: Oh, taking all that stuff? Yeah.

Kyle: Oh, okay. So then I [00:32:40] was just not in a good, and I was obviously like grieving too. Yeah. Through that you. And young, young, and

Gary: just figuring out how

Kyle: I [00:32:50] was 22.

Kyle: Okay. Wow. That is young.

Kyle: Yeah. So, um, just

Gary: started

Kyle: farming. Yeah. Gary worked like, and you were, you

Kyle: were 36,

Gary: it [00:33:00] was close. No, I was 27 or 28, 29.

Gary: Yeah, sorry. I was, but

Kyle: Gary was working like

Gary: five till 11 every day. Yeah. And five in the morning to 11 at night every day. Yeah. [00:33:10] For probably a good, '

Kyle: cause you had won her over, so you didn't need to have to That's

Gary: right.

Kyle: So

Gary: box

Kyle: checked, carry on. So I, it took [00:33:20] like through it's

Gary: unchecked now, just so you know.

Gary: It's unchecked. Beautiful, beautiful. It's really working out. So

Kyle: it took quite a bit of, like, I, when we decided that we [00:33:30] would work on private adoption, that's kind of where I'm like, okay, let's, let's think about like infant adoption. So in BC you can adopt a lot of different ways, but one [00:33:40] of the ways is private infant adoption, which is where you.

Kyle: Pay basically to be on a wait list. You do a whole process, you do education, you do a home study, and [00:33:50] then, um, somebody that is pregnant that is looking for a plan for their baby can place a baby for adoption. And they pick from the list. They pick from a, [00:34:00] like they create a book of your who you are and all that.

Kyle: So, um, and do you remember how, how

Kyle: did you get to be okay with that part? Do you remember that? I

Kyle: bargained my way through that process. Okay. [00:34:10] Yeah. I said, okay, we'll just do this meeting. Okay, we'll do the home study. Okay, we'll do this. And then

Kyle: just one step at a time,

Kyle: one step at a time. And I, [00:34:20] I wasn't, it just felt, I guess it was just a grief riddled process for me.

Kyle: Really? Like that I was [00:34:30] surrendering.

Kyle: And why were you okay with it right away? Or way sooner?

Gary: Uh, different personality. Um, way less. I think it probably is different for men as a general rule. Maybe not always. You wouldn't wanna [00:34:40] stereotype that. But most guys I talk to do not feel the grief of infertility like women.

Gary: And actually that is very hard on a marriage that just, that difference is very hard. Men feel trapped. 'cause if they share how [00:34:50] they feel, they're not being supportive of their wife. 'cause their wife is obviously really feeling it.

Kyle: Yeah.

Gary: Women live in a world, especially in our culture, in our community specifically of people [00:35:00] getting married, having babies, being pregnant, sharing their story, being pregnant.

Gary: And for me, I had fostered as a young guy. I've always kind of had, I mean, Marie could tell, it's a whole nother conversation we could [00:35:10] have about my heart for. People that struggle and the problems that's causing her marriage even recently. Very funny story. I dunno if she feels like she can share it, but, um, not today.

Gary: Not [00:35:20] today. Another day. Another another day.

Kyle: It's another subject for another day. It's another subject. But,

Gary: but yeah, just the idea of, hey, I was probably there in, in my head and just way I'm so pragmatic. I'm pragmatic to a fault. Mm-hmm. And I think [00:35:30] a lot of guys are, I think it's very problematic in a marriage.

Gary: It's like the feelings, facts, conversation for me it's just like, Hey, we'll talk about the facts. This will be solved very quickly. Yeah. Well that's not how relationships work. That's not [00:35:40] how Marie life works. Yeah. Yeah. And I think,

Kyle: well also I was 22.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle: Like I, and I

Gary: never allow any grace for growing up.

Kyle: And Gary was [00:35:50] however old that he was at that 28. And he, and he wasn't like, like middle twenties. I had graduated high school and got married and [00:36:00] he had like lived a whole life. Yeah. Yeah. And I. Had not. So then he was just, normally

Gary: she says, and he's been to prison multiple times,

Kyle: and he just [00:36:10] expected me to be like a full-fledged adult with the same life experience as him.

Kyle: And that just wasn't true. Be

Marie: perfect,

Kyle: but also like, [00:36:20] yeah, to this, like, to this day, even, like as much as I, I have six kids and I have all, like [00:36:30] my, the infertility piece is still a very present part of my life. And like at every function [00:36:40] with groups of women, every single time you were together in, in groups of, let's say three or more women, the story, the [00:36:50] conversation goes to pregnancy, childbirth, how, if you had a C-section or a natural birth or what, how this worked for you or [00:37:00] breastfeeding or.

Kyle: Any of that stuff. And that is not a conversation that I can be a part of, can be a part of and that every single [00:37:10] time and like it doesn't super bother me, but like

Kyle: still reality, it definitely bothers

Gary: other people. And Marie is very gracious in that. And [00:37:20] I remember in early there again, I was pragmatically walking her through it.

Gary: And to be fair, like some of it needed to happen. Like when you are struggling with infertility and people say [00:37:30] dumb things, you no different than anything. You have to be okay with being people, being stupid. People are stupid and people say dumb things usually just out of ignorance, not trying to be hurtful.

Gary: [00:37:40] So Marie often people would say hurtful things or just, you know, and she was hurt. Or you start to get in the spot where all your family members and siblings, sisters are having babies or you know, all your friend group [00:37:50] and Marie worked through it. I remember how you were just hurting. Well

Kyle: even like my sisters were both pregnant together at the same time and [00:38:00] like that's just.

Kyle: There's just like little things that, like, are they the end of the world? No, but they're little like grief. It still hurts. Sticky grief points along the journey. [00:38:10] I mean, I

Kyle: just like when people don't grow up with a dad and know bunch of guys talk about their relationships with their dads. Yeah. It's like it there's different life things that you can't really Yeah, totally.

Kyle: And it's, I'm [00:38:20] not, I don't think that people like need to do anything different or say anything different to me about it. It's the reality, but it's just the reality of it that like, [00:38:30] like if I were talking to somebody that is working towards adoption, like adoption is not. Fixing infertility like that, it does not fill those [00:38:40] holes.

Kyle: It does not like people look at, like, if you look at me and you see me and you don't know me, you would not assume that I am infertile. Right? Yeah. People do [00:38:50] not assume that. So, and that, I don't know, it doesn't, not that I need people to, for those that are listening,

Gary: we have a lot of kids and some of them are less than nine months [00:39:00] apart.

Gary: So that's why we're laughing.

Kyle: But it so it just, the adoption, like people like, oh, you must be busy. I'm like, well, like, you know, they like insinuate that you're just like,

Marie: [00:39:10] for all the time making lot of babies and they're like,

Kyle: well, yeah, not really. But anyways, like, I dunno, you just, yeah,

Kyle: fair enough. Okay.

Kyle: So you, so

Kyle: [00:39:20] it's, I bargain my way through that process and I would, so I would still say now that like, if you are in that. Infertility place and your 'cause. That's a lot of [00:39:30] what spurs people to adoption is infertility, which isn't, I don't think a bad thing, but you just have to be aware that you're going to be dealing with this [00:39:40] in some way, shape, or form forever.

Kyle: Um, well I guess unless you get miraculously pregnant at some point in time, but I dunno. Anyway, [00:39:50] then, um,

Kyle: so we, did you ever get an answer to why God allowed this to happen this way? Like, did you ever get compare? I think

Kyle: more now I can look back and see [00:40:00] like how the process has grown and refined me and how the kids that I have, have grown and refined me.

Kyle: And [00:40:10] how the mom that I am now is because of the challenges that my kids have and the way that I have to [00:40:20] advocate and like, that's basically my life is. Therapy and dealing with really difficult struggles with kids. And [00:40:30] I mean, in the foster care world, like I'm considered a professional parent because of all the training and like certification and stuff that [00:40:40] I continually do.

Kyle: But so I guess I see that I see the purpose of it, and I, because of how my heart [00:40:50] was then, like I never would have been, I never would've done those things and I wouldn't be the woman of faith or of a [00:41:00] parent or wife that I am because it just like, it's just been a slow dying to myself. And even when I thought that I had nothing, there was nothing of me left to surrender.

Kyle: Like, oh [00:41:10] no, I just get like one more kid and like, oh no, there was something left and now there's nothing else. There's, okay, so that. And

Kyle: so Noah was [00:41:20] adopted, uh, through the BC system. Mm-hmm.

Kyle: Through a private agency. Okay. Yeah. And then Hannah, we adopted from Japan, so we wanted to do a different, I still felt like I needed [00:41:30] another baby and I didn't wanna adopt through NCFD at that point.

Kyle: So we,

Kyle: Hannah was your second?

Kyle: Hannah was her second, and we adopted to her from Japan. So that was a [00:41:40] whole other rigamarole process. And if people want to talk about that, then I that, and you and you guys were pretty much on

Kyle: the same page about having a second, uh, baby. [00:41:50] I'm on whatever page on, that's kinda how it's,

Kyle: yeah.

Kyle: Like we were on the same page of having more children. For sure. I definitely was the one that felt like [00:42:00] I needed, needed a baby. Like that was where my heart was at that point. And then,

Kyle: because How old was Noah?

Kyle: [00:42:10] He was, he was

Gary: 14 now, or 11

Kyle: now. But he was, when you adopted him, he was in a baby.

Kyle: No, he was a newborn when we adopted him.

Kyle: Oh. He was two When we adopted, we adopted [00:42:20] Hannah. Oh, okay, okay. And Hannah was a month old when we adopted her or when we brought her home. Yeah. And then, um, but while we were waiting to adopt Hannah, we started the process [00:42:30] to become foster parents

Kyle: because

Kyle: a desire to be

Gary: to Phil Gary's, she's, no, she's questioning, she's wondering.

Gary: No. Why

Kyle: Was that a [00:42:40] desire to go and care where there was a need

Kyle: that was just put on your heart some by something? Or was it It was just

Gary: biblical car [00:42:50] care for the orphans and the widows.

Kyle: I know, but you also told me before there were some guilt about your experience in your, in your twenties with the foster kid you had.

Gary: Yeah. No, that's fair. That's completely separate. But that wasn't part of

Kyle: that. [00:43:00] I dealt with that. Okay. This was about like, uh, knowing that we could handle more kids and so. But not [00:43:10] sure what that was gonna look like, permanency look like in her family. So foster care seemed like a, something to pursue and look into.

Kyle: So we started that process. They called us to do our [00:43:20] foster care home study, like the week, or it was after we had got the call to adopt Hannah, but we only, we went to Japan like four days later after [00:43:30] we got the call about like matching us with her. So it was like, they called me and said, oh, we're actually flying to Japan.

Kyle: Like, I think it was that day. So, [00:43:40] so they, we started the process when Hannah was one, actually, they waited a full year and then we started our foster care home study, and then we had our first placement when Hannah [00:43:50] was like 20 months

Gary: old. And I'll, I'll summarize what dealing with the ministry of children and families is like, you get on a list, you agree to foster and you set all [00:44:00] your criteria.

Gary: So you, you would say, Hey, you would, you know, we'll take kids up to five years old. We have two little kids, we're not gonna take a 12 year. So we get on the list, we say, we'll take kids to probably five or six. We probably gave some age like that. [00:44:10] The first girl that came to our house was 16 years old.

Gary: Well, they just aren't aware or they didn't No, they just do not care. Well,

Kyle: they, Gary's making it seem like you have no power [00:44:20] in that situation, but like you do. You

Gary: can always say though, but,

Kyle: and it was, but its just, you have, you have to away from that. When you start as a, when you start as a foster parent, they do, you do respite and relief, it's called.

Kyle: So you're [00:44:30] supposed to do short term where you're having a kid from somebody else that's a foster parent while they go on their holiday or they, which anyone

Gary: can do that. I would encourage you to [00:44:40] look into that. If you're listening to this and this, God puts this on your heart in any way, sign up for respite and relief fostering.

Gary: It's such a blessing.

Kyle: One of the questions here is how do you navigate when your spouse is not a hundred percent on board? [00:44:50] So what if you have a spouse that says, Hey, I wanna do this respite care thing, and the other one says no. Like,

Kyle: well, respite care. Is very different than

Gary: fostering

Kyle: foster care [00:45:00] because it's,

Gary: I'll tell you what Foster is, it's short term.

Gary: Can I share What fostering is? Fostering is when we have five kids and we're like, we're pretty tapped out parenting and Marie's gone to Ontario to [00:45:10] some conference with a bunch of ladies and they are in a, the ministry calls, they're in a pickle, right? So we're fostering at this point and we're kind of like, Hey, we, we, we need a break from having kids.

Gary: They say, Hey, we have a little [00:45:20] guy, he's four months old. It's a, it's a voluntary care placement and it's just gonna be a few weeks. It's gonna be a few weeks. And that little guy that was three years ago that that happened almost, [00:45:30] and he's still living with us, that's fostering, like, that's when you start getting to the spot where, because you're living in the unknown.

Gary: And I think that's the beauty of fostering and dealing with the ministry. [00:45:40] None of us and people are listening to, some people have probably lost kids and had just tragic things happen to their family, and they realize that God is sovereign and, and things are outta their control. But most of us parent as if we are in [00:45:50] full control, especially of our little kids.

Gary: Mm-hmm. When they're two, we think we're in control. Mm-hmm. And, you know, and, and to be fair, to some extent we are, we can put them in the room, but like, literally we're not, you know, we are powerless. Well, and that is, and so you really [00:46:00] realize that that's a lot of what,

Kyle: what causes people to hesitate about it is like, how, well, how can you, how are you gonna handle if you're a little guy get from [00:46:10] your, from your home?

Kyle: You're like, well that would be terrible,

Gary: but you'll deal with it and it may

Kyle: happen. Like that could happen to us in the next years.

Kyle: Anytime. Yeah. But

Kyle: it's,

Kyle: I mean, [00:46:20] I mean it's a great example of uh, um, what Christ told us to do is to sacrifice our own comforts and what might be, what we might be losing.

Kyle: Right. Well, I

Kyle: don't, sorry, I shouldn't say his name on the podcast. [00:46:30] Probably we could be, he cannot, he deserves to have. A permanent family. So when he came, like he's never been to another [00:46:40] foster home. He came to us since he was four months old. He's had a permanent, consistent family for this entire time.

Kyle: Whether or not we get to be his mom or dad or not, he deserves to [00:46:50] have a permanent, consistent family for however long that gets to be as tragic as it would be if that got lost for him. He deserves to have a family [00:47:00] for whatever that midterm situation looks like, and we can hope and pray that he gets to be with us forever.

Kyle: But that's not, or

Gary: another great home [00:47:10] or another. It's not. It's not another black and white. It's not that simple.

Kyle: But it's not, it's, it doesn't, like you have to think about what these kids deserve. [00:47:20] And just like we would want for our own kids, if we weren't able to parent that, that's what these kids humans deserve, deserve.

Kyle: We would want someone to

Gary: step into the mess. I think what happens [00:47:30] is humans would be there to, to be there

Kyle: even when it gets really, really hard. And that's. Like, and

Gary: if Christians aren't gonna do it, if you go to a church and you call yourself Christian and you are [00:47:40] adamant about following the word of the Lord, if you are that person and you are like literally, like just think you pulled the Bible above all else, but then you can't step into the uncomfortableness of a bit of mess [00:47:50] with kids from broken homes.

Gary: Dig deeper. Yeah.

Kyle: And I think

Gary: that's what really gets me, like if I really think about it, gets me fired up because we have a swath of people [00:48:00] that are so adamant and vocal about so many things in our culture and so fired up. And we have literal children who barely have a home to go to. I mean, that's why the people that do sign up are [00:48:10] dying.

Gary: Yeah. Because they just keep getting kids. Well. Well that's

Kyle: where the respite and relief thing is comes in where we say like, if, if your family's unsure or your [00:48:20] spouse is unsure, if you can start by doing respite and relief, it's, it's low commitment. So like we're going. To Mexico. I don't know when this comes out, if it's after or whatever, but we, [00:48:30] and so our little guy can't go to grandma's or stay home with, I am with Gary's niece that's gonna stay with our other kids.

Kyle: Like he has to [00:48:40] go to a foster home, a ministry

Marie: approved home.

Kyle: And it is almost impossible to find somewhere for him to go.

Gary: Wow. Because there's, and he's not that he's three or like he's every [00:48:50] he, but he's not that big of a deal, right? Yeah, yeah. Like, it's just, yeah. But it's a whole

Kyle: process to become a respite home.

Kyle: But it's, it's such a blessing for us, for [00:49:00] families like ours to be able to have somewhere that is safe, that we feel good about that can take our kid for the week. I mean, [00:49:10] lots of, lots of play and probab like we've been in this situation in the past with some of our other kids when they were still, before we adopted them, where things were really tough.

Kyle: [00:49:20] Like they're. I got when Kingston and Gracie and Sky were babies, like they were all babies together at the same time, and we were exhausted. And so [00:49:30] they went to respite every other weekend, or Gracie and Sky did just for a season. For a season. And that is like, I, [00:49:40] we needed that break. We needed that sleep.

Kyle: We needed that time with our older kids. And that's the other

Gary: thing, right? When you get in this, that space and that's, those are the reasons that people don't do it, right? Those, [00:49:50] those would be the arguments where it'd be like, Hey, the safety of my other kids. There's a lot of reasons, right? Mm-hmm. But I think a lot

Kyle: of it is just not wanting to inconvenience your life.

Kyle: [00:50:00] That's which makes sense. Yes. Which makes sense. Which makes sense. I would say because we're humans, we all like things to be more comfortable. A lot of. Foster care is an inconvenience in your life. That's [00:50:10] my alarm to tell me I have to go pick up my kids from school.

Marie: You're good. You're good. We got it.

Kyle: Um, so it is,

Kyle: so where do people start if they're interested?

Kyle: If they want to at least start with the respite care, is that just you go to bc [00:50:20] ministries.com or something or

Kyle: Yeah, to, yeah, I'd, I can find the, if you Google Foster Care, Birch Columbia Foster Care, you'll find the page and then you do a application [00:50:30] form. Sometimes you go to a, I think it's a Zoom, um.

Kyle: Like info meeting where they talk about it and they try to talk you out

Gary: of it, which is great. They do, they do a good [00:50:40] job. They try to talk you out. It, they'll talk about the hardships. They're in defense of the ministry as a general rule. And in Chillowak we have great social workers, great team. We, we feel we've been [00:50:50] really blessed.

Gary: We've, we've had a few challenges, but overall we feel very well supported. Yeah. And

Kyle: then you do a like to be, so one of the obstacles, and it's what keeps people out of it a [00:51:00] bit, is that to become just even a respite provider, you have to do a home study. So that is like,

Gary: they just dig, right? They ask all kinds of questions, eight

Kyle: or 10 meetings [00:51:10] where you, where they ask you questions about your life and they write a whole report about your family and Yeah.

Kyle: Yeah. That's, [00:51:20] yeah. The thing is

Gary: too is that, um, the thing that's cool is that, and I mean, I just ranted a bit earlier, but like the bulk of the people that are fostering in our circle are Christians or [00:51:30] good jagged.

Kyle: Yeah. But not at the, not at. That's the people that we know. That's not

Gary: in chill act though.

Gary: There is a good swath of people that are [00:51:40]

Kyle: Yeah, there is, but that's, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say half of the foster homes in Chill Oak are Christian.

Kyle: It's interesting, um, I think it was Pastor Matt said in a recent [00:51:50] sermon, if you want Jesus to be your savior, you also have to have him Lord of your life, but not like, so you're not Lord of your life anymore.

Kyle: So it's not about what you want or don't want, it's about what does God want you to do. [00:52:00] And I think that's kind of what this whole topic presses on me when I'm thinking about it, is like, 'cause I have this internal resistance to the idea as well. Like, how is this gonna affect my three boys if I foster do all these things?

Kyle: [00:52:10] And they're like, wait a minute, is it about what I want or is about what God wants me to do? And if I believe I'm a Christian, then it's not, actually I shouldn't think about it. I should, you know, pray about it. Live [00:52:20] open. Handedly live. Yeah. But

Kyle: there's a deal, like we, I mean I had a moment with our, one of our older kids yesterday and.

Kyle: Where [00:52:30] the weight of being a sibling and she's adopted. She's adopted, but she is much [00:52:40] healthier and more stable than some of our other kids. And she carries the weight and the burden of being a sister to some of our more challenging kids. And it is [00:52:50] heavy and it is hard. It affects everybody. Yeah, it really does.

Kyle: And it is, it is a, it is a challenge. And so it takes like wise parenting on my side to be a [00:53:00] good support to her and to also protect her when I can. So we, the way we do things in our house is probably different than other people do them. Like none of our [00:53:10] kids, if we had, in a perfect world, none of our kids would share a bedroom.

Kyle: Right now, two kids do. But otherwise, 'cause everybody needs their own space and. There's just [00:53:20] certain things that we have to really be, that

Gary: are very different than a typical home with all parties.

Kyle: Yeah, because we're trying, as much as everybody's equally loved, everybody has to be [00:53:30] treated very differently because their needs are so different.

Kyle: And so does it a hundred percent affects your kids? Do I think that it's all negative? [00:53:40] No, I think that it's shaping or shapes them too. Yeah. Yeah. And I think if we can guide that and provide the [00:53:50] support adequately for our older kids, then I think that it can be a gift to them. But it does. And I guess Ray, a journey is fair to [00:54:00] say

Gary: we're not at times.

Gary: And I think that's really what all, all parents probably need to admit. So when we prayed last night, last night was a good example. 'cause it was a total gong show. It was a disaster dinner or [00:54:10] leading up to dinner was a disaster. And it's like, hey, when we prayed at supper, it was just praying, like just sharing the gospel, the kids.

Gary: Mom and dad are sinful. We fall short.

Kyle: Yeah.

Gary: Yeah. We [00:54:20] desperately need the Lord, you kids. Yeah. Whether you see it or not desperately need the Lord. That's all what all of our sanctification is. I know. And I guess that it's like, hey, if you are willing to live in that, yeah. I don't think you're gonna [00:54:30] stiff arm back to the actual question.

Gary: You're never gonna stiff arm your spouse. You're not gonna guilt trip your spouse. You're gonna pray for your spouse, that their heart would be there. You're gonna share your heart. 'cause you're allowed to do that in your [00:54:40] marriage. And then you're just gonna wait for them to catch up. And like with Marie and I too, I probably was more forceful than I needed to be.

Gary: 'cause that's my nature, unfortunately. But as a general rule, we were on the same [00:54:50] page we went to. She went willingly to all the stuff. It wasn't as if she's miserable and coming along and all my husband wa Yeah, yeah. Like it wasn't like that. Right. And it

Kyle: was. It's, [00:55:00] it's just definitely been a process, much more of a process for me.

Kyle: And even in

Gary: it, even doing it, it's been very like, well,

Kyle: it's also the majority of the struggle of it is [00:55:10] my, is for me to carry. Right? Yeah. Because you're wrong. So

Gary: I'm really good at loading up the, the pack meal.

Kyle: See, I gotta hate to sell all

Gary: the best with those six kids. [00:55:20] Yeah, yeah. Should I buy this business?

Kyle: What, what do you wish, um, people would understand about, uh, families that foster, and what, what do you, what do they need? I know you guys help a lot of other [00:55:30] people and, and have a big impact, but, uh, what do you wish that people in the church would, uh, understand more about your guys' journey and how could they help?

Kyle: Besides prayer, which obviously is huge, [00:55:40] but is there certain things that, uh, are really beneficial that people do, uh, and help you guys? Uh, because obviously fostering has its challenges and adoption and, [00:55:50]

Kyle: um. Come on, man. I don't know.

Kyle: I

Kyle: could, things we're, we're pretty well, like people support us really well.

Kyle: Um, [00:56:00]

Kyle: not saying that you need it, but maybe there's other families that are fostering, like in

Kyle: encouragement is really helpful. Like, especially like my [00:56:10] kids act different than anybody else's kids. Mm-hmm. Act like in a,

Gary: to varying degrees. To

Kyle: varying degrees. But

Gary: it's pretty encouraging actually. Not you say that you think about, 'cause we [00:56:20] sit in the front at church mostly 'cause I'm too distracted and, and I don't wanna see the looks of people turning around, looking at us.

Gary: So I just sit right in the front. So only the pastors frowns at me. But like, people [00:56:30] often, often come up after church and are encouraging, which is pretty special. 'cause I know at other churches that's not necessarily the case. You, you act out. You are a horrible parent. Yeah. Like take the kid out back and [00:56:40] get him a tune up.

Gary: Right. Yeah. So there again, I'm not saying we, like, we had kid that was trying to

Kyle: blow out the candles on the advent like thing during the sermon. Like I, I mean, I would do that too when I

Kyle: was a [00:56:50] kid and I wasn't adopted. So,

Kyle: so it's Are you

Kyle: sure? Well, trust me, I am sure I should, I should have been adopted, I'm sure.

Kyle: No, I, it's, I'm sure

Kyle: like, [00:57:00] encouragement is helpful and like offering people that offer me parenting advice, like, not helpful. It's not helpful. Not helpful because [00:57:10] unless you have parented kids like mine, you don't understand like, my kids' brains are not, are not the same. Yeah. So it's that. [00:57:20] Yeah.

Kyle: Encouragement is helpful. Understanding. Like we were at skating the other day and like one of our youngest kid was throwing an absolute fit and like lots of people. [00:57:30] Knew me and saw me, and three people came and asked me if they could help me. Well, one, they did help. There was random people just talk.

Kyle: It's pretty amazing. One came and said like, oh, can I, Marie, can I help you? [00:57:40] And I said, yeah, can you go get Gary and then somebody else, oh, Marie, can I help you? And like, oh, can you take this kid's skates off? And like, and I, I think,

Kyle: well, I think it's cool about [00:57:50] that actually help

Kyle: but help is, help is a two way street because people offer to help all the time, [00:58:00] but you have to have an idea of how people can help you and be willing to accept help.

Kyle: Well, I was just gonna say that [00:58:10] that's what he

Kyle: was gonna say. Like, could I have managed to do all of it by myself at when the kids throwing an absolute fit at skating? Yeah, I could have, but I had [00:58:20] three people that I know. Offer to help me so I can say, yeah, you know what, this kid's trying to get her skates off.

Kyle: She'll happily or whatever, miserably, wait. [00:58:30] But, or I can say, Hey, can you take her skates off and you can go get Gary from me? And you, like, I can ask people to do something. So it's to be able to think [00:58:40] what's, what's next on your list that I, that you can tell this person to do. So in our like, deepest, darkest struggles of times where life was really hard, [00:58:50] I, I had a list on my phone of what I, what I needed help with.

Kyle: I needed somebody to pick up this kid from school. I needed [00:59:00] somebody to, I needed help with my laundry. I needed, like, I just had practical. And then when somebody say, what can I do? Like, can I help you in some way? I could say, this is my [00:59:10] list. And if you can't do any of those things, that is totally fine, but these are the things that I need help with right now.

Kyle: But I think even learning to ask for help or being able to perceive it as something you learn, I'm assuming that wasn't [00:59:20] always that way. At least how we grew up asking for help. Isn't that, uh, romanticized?

Kyle: No. And it's, and it's still like, it is humbling to accept help,

Kyle: [00:59:30] but it's also really refreshing.

Kyle: 'cause I remember I was at your house, I dunno, a couple months ago and I was running after you, your kids with a Nerf gun and there was Nerf bullets everywhere and I'm like, Hey, do you want me to help pick those up? And you were like, yeah, please. I was [00:59:40] like, oh, that was really refreshing. Like, 'cause you were just like, yeah, I need help.

Kyle: And a lot of people will be like, no, it's fine. Whatever else like that, you're like, no, it's not fine. It's not exactly, exactly. Nothing's fine. But you owned it. That must've been something that [00:59:50] you've maybe through the fostering journey that you've learned just to be able to say yes to. Yeah.

Kyle: Yeah. And I also have had to kind of get over having people in my house,

Gary: which really hated.

Gary: So a lot of people, I like that [01:00:00] women do not want other people. Well, it is

Kyle: uncomfortable to feel like you can't. It's easy to feel like you can't live your normal life 'cause you have people in your house. [01:00:10] And I have like, a lot of the help that I need is by having people in my house. There's still areas

Gary: of growth there.

Gary: I think even just the idea of like, hey, you can sit [01:00:20] down and you could read a kid a book or sit and do nothing with a kid and that would be okay. And that's hard. Yeah. I mean that's, that's hard for anybody. Yeah. Like somebody else is working there. I'm like, hey, they're getting paid to work. It's, you know, and there we're [01:00:30] more blessed than most.

Gary: 'cause we do have a lot of help. I think that there's people, I think just acknowledging and encouraging. You do gotta get, we gotta wrap this up here. Yeah, I do. Um, I think just people [01:00:40] just being encouraging is a huge, huge piece. Yeah. And I think what's not helpful is saying I could never do that. That that just needs to [01:00:50] stop.

Kyle: Yeah. Or you're such a saint.

Gary: Yeah. No, we are really, really, no, I'm

Kyle: just a human. Really Savage, like, yeah. When somebody says that, what I'm imagining is they are [01:01:00] thinking, they are looking at like, or thinking how hard this is and that they could never do it. And I'm like, you. I am or how much they would struggle in [01:01:10] doing it, like, or how they don't wanna do it.

Kyle: Yeah. I am struggling just as much as you imagine that you would struggle. Like Yeah. When you think I have, I would not have patience to deal with that. Like no, I don't either. [01:01:20] Like,

Kyle: yeah. Beautiful. Yeah,

Gary: and the other thing is, is that whatever you have, I mean, you know, comparison is a thief of joy and the idea of how we live in our society comparing [01:01:30] is, is ridiculous.

Gary: Yes. There's women that have 11 kids and run a tight ship. There's people that have one kid and that is all they can handle. Yes. Just 'cause of their makeup or their history. Mm-hmm. That is [01:01:40] totally fine. We don't need to be looking at people compare. I, I totally,

Kyle: I, I totally agree. I just also know that No,

Gary: she said that was about at the end, she didn't say, but, but no,

Kyle: I, [01:01:50] I just also know that when I had two kids.

Gary: You didn't realize how much time you had it? Well,

Kyle: parenting was really hard. It felt like [01:02:00] very difficult. And I like, it just was a struggle. But

Gary: whatever you have is a lot. That's the saying, I would say. Yeah. So when, whatever you have, so when,

Kyle: and then when I had three kids, that was a lot. And then [01:02:10] when I, I, well, I never had four kids.

Kyle: I went from three to five. So I, it just, everything was a lot all through. But God also give you

Kyle: the grace of what you need when you need it. I mean, you [01:02:20] see that with someone

Gary: or not, or you just literally come to the end of yourself. Like, I think that's the idea of God will give you what you need. Like sometimes you just don't have it.

Gary: And I think that is really,

Kyle: really

Gary: where you get

Kyle: sick. But it's like when you [01:02:30] see someone get like stage four cancer, they know they're gonna die and be like, oh, I could never go through that stuff like that. Well, they couldn't either until they had it and they went through it.

Kyle: Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah.

Kyle: [01:02:40] Yeah. And that's totally that be like, well, you, yeah, you just, you just don't know what you're capable of until you're doing it. But it's two to wrap. We need wrap up. What's your favorite wrap? Well wrap, wrap up. What's

Gary: your [01:02:50] favorite, Marie, what's your, what's the thing that you have enjoyed most about being.

Gary: About our journey of fostering and adopting. What do you think is the most special thing about it? [01:03:00]

Kyle: Um, when kids that, like the growing attachment of with my kids. [01:03:10] Hmm. Like, as like kids get just the, the closeness that has grown over time, like [01:03:20] feeling fe when, 'cause a lot of this parenting is not about how you feel like it's a lot of a choice.

Kyle: So when [01:03:30] that feeling lines up with that choice, like that's one of the biggest joy it feels like. Yeah. But also I would say like the, the growth in myself and [01:03:40] the sanctification process for myself. Mm-hmm. Like I, I just really am thankful you're a

Gary: hundred times the lady you are. When I married you, you were pretty awesome when I married you.

Gary: I'm [01:03:50] thankful. What

Kyle: about this guy? How was he growing?

Gary: Just his head.

Kyle: How is, how, like, through this [01:04:00] process?

Marie: Yeah.

Kyle: Well, I would say like, one of the biggest things lately is just that he, like, [01:04:10] we're really on a team. Like we're very, we're the best team that we've ever been.

Kyle: Oh, that's awesome.

Kyle: And I think that we're in a stage of parenting [01:04:20] that, that we need.

Kyle: Oh yeah. All that's like our, our parenting needs both parents as much as possible. And so that, whereas when the kids were littler, it [01:04:30] could just be me and that's all that they, that was really needed. But now, like, yeah. So I think that that's the,

Gary: we'll wrap up this podcast while you're gone. We can keep going.

Gary: Thank, thank you we're much. We're we're [01:04:40] going hard Very much. Yeah. Appreciate it.

Kyle: Are you gonna grab Dom or I gonna grab.

Gary: You gotta grab 'em, throw 'em in the van. Okay.

Kyle: I'm gonna leave

Gary: a little late. Text somebody once you're driving. Yeah. [01:04:50] Are we still going? Yeah, we're still going. Yeah, that was, uh, that was good.

Kyle: Move over here. Switch a roof. There we go. I don't [01:05:00] have much to dad anymore. Do you have anything to say? No. What'd you think of that? She's, well,

Gary: yeah. Yeah. Marie's very well, very good communicator. Um, yeah, I [01:05:10] think part of what's lost in that conversation, I think you could probably talk to Marie for three hours about it.

Gary: Oh yeah. There's a lot of, there's a lot to unpack there. Yeah. I think the part that, even this last part about her attachment is just the story [01:05:20] of our children and how kids have come and gone. Mm-hmm. They've went, we've transitioned kids back to be with their, with their birth families and then it hasn't worked out.

Gary: And yeah, we've just had a lot of, um, [01:05:30] things that you really can't even imagine how brutal it is. And that's just how life is and life's hard. And I think that, um. I think that was the crux. If there was [01:05:40] something to be taken from it. It's, it's don't, don't, don't shy away from something just because it does feel completely impossible.

Gary: Right. And, uh, but also don't run into things just 'cause you think it's a great thing to do. Like [01:05:50] seek, seek wisdom. Yeah. Seek counsel, seek wise counsel. Seek wisdom. If you're six fi two closest friends say you do not have the capacity to be a foster parent or adoptive parent [01:06:00] unless they're horrible friends.

Gary: I mean, that's probably sage advice. And if, if your parents and everyone else is not, you know, you, it takes a village Right. To raise an idiot. So you wanna make sure that you, uh, you got your village with you.

Kyle: Yeah. [01:06:10] If people have questions, send 'em in about this topic though, and maybe, uh, Maria come back or, yeah, she could come back on.

Kyle: You can ask them, answer the questions. I actually would love to have Nicole and Marie, um, [01:06:20] on, uh, the show as part of the live event that we do a section live event where they were joining us on stage. But, um, I don't know if I can convince, uh, either of them to do that, so. Oh, Marie. Okay. Reese. [01:06:30] You's totally out for that.

Kyle: Whatever I tell her she does. She'll just gotta get that my half.

Gary: She's

Kyle: good. Yes. Gary? Yes.

Gary: Gary. Where? Where? Gary? Yeah.

Kyle: How high? [01:06:40] Okay. That

Gary: says

Kyle: pardon? I think that's, how long are we at here, Kyle? We are at, uh, 42 minutes. Time goes, [01:06:50]

Gary: time goes fast when my wife's voice is talking.

Kyle: Yeah. This is my, uh, fourth podcast recording today.

Kyle: Your head must be pounding, so I'm ready to cap it. I really wish it wasn't [01:07:00] raining so I could go for a run. Can run. I'll probably go anyway, but yeah. Up the hill. Yeah. Okay, guys. Peace. Thank you for listening. Yeah, take care. Have a

Marie: great [01:07:10] [01:07:20] [01:07:30] week.

‍

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