Homecoming 2021 - Inspirational Singing, Men and Women's Roundtable Discussion

this is [Music] thank you jesus [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] my jesus made that sacrifice [Music] thank you oh [Music] everybody oh [Music] hello greetings family and friends and welcome to this 2021 hybrid homecoming experience here at the south union church of christ we want to take this time and invite you to share this homecoming weekend experience with as many people as you possibly can we believe that as god blesses us that he expects for us to be a blessing to others as well now you know brothers and sisters uh the last year and a half has been anything but ordinary yet through it all we've seen that god has done some extraordinary things he's helped us to grow in our walk with him yes we have been challenged yes we have been stretched to grow yes we have experienced both joy and pain we've experienced good times and some challenging times we've been through some ups and some downs yet through it all god has been a consistent provider and so we're thankful to still be here to experience the joy that flows from person to person and i believe that the lord has us right here in this moment in time so that we can make a difference in our community in our families and throughout the world you know it's important to know that while you're in the midst of this pandemic you're not in it by yourself all around the world children of god are uniting together in prayer uniting together in fellowship because we believe that god is in fact the answer we know that through our difficulties the lord is still able to provide and so what we would like to do at this time is invite you to participate and to receive encouragement as we listen in on a men's and women's round table discussion we believe that god is going to bless us in the midst of our pain god has still been a provider god can still make ways and yet sometimes you just need to be encouraged to know that you will make it through amen let's tune in and let's listen to what god has done in the midst of this pandemic we have christian men and christian women who are willing to share and we pray that it will encourage your soul invite someone tell them that the south union church of christ 2021 hybrid homecoming experience is live online real time we hope that you enjoy be blessed you are here [Music] moving in this place i worship you i worship you you are here moving in this place i worship you i worship you lord we call you we make a miracle work that is who you are [Music] that is who you are you are here [Music] changing every life [Music] miracle workers is that is who you are you are here changing every life i worship you i worship you you are here changing every life i worship you [Music] [Music] jesus rose with our power in his hands [Music] is [Music] [Music] in [Music] jesus rose they tell me that the angels came down from glory and they rode [Music] and jesus is [Music] [Music] jesus rose jesus rose with all power in it this [Music] hello and on behalf of the south union church of christ i'd like to welcome each and every one of you to this 2021 homecoming event that we put together we pray that this morning service was a blessing in your life and you will continue to keep tuning in to the south union church of christ for your spiritual growth and that you will be blessed by each and every worship service that you attend or participate in as well as bible study we invite you to call us and contact us if you have any bible questions or anything of that sort we're here for you but today we have a special treat we have a group of our brothers here gathered together that's going to help us out and help us through this um period of covet that we're all struggling with that we're all going through we're going to ask each and every one of them a list of questions and prayerfully it'll be something that'll help you in your daily lives as well our panelists are i'm gonna have them introduce themselves we're gonna start to my right here my name is frederick thompson i'm a member as you all know south union church of christ for a number of years i can't recall how many now maybe because of covet and i forgot on my left good evening south union and those watching virtually my name is brother damon galloway i've been a member of south union for over 30 years and i would just like to say that it's just been a blessing just being a part of this great congregation my lovely wife my two kids we just love being here and i'm brother kerry rockmore i've been a member of south union church of christ as some have said before i came out the womb but anyway i've been here a while and it's been a blessing in my life to be a part of this congregation to be a part and amongst the members of the south union congregation that makes it such a strong and welcoming and loving uh uh community of of saints here we uh thank you again for tuning in and prayerfully this will be a blessing in your life hello my name is brother walter jeffrey and i have been attending here at the south union uh congregation for some 44 years uh actually i obeyed the gospel here at south union and it has been my pleasure to have served as deacon for some 30-yard years my entire family attends here my beautiful wife norma my children and i have two i'm blessed with two grandchildren and they too are coming up here in the fall so that's all all on me amen all right they saved the best for last this is uh brother marquis wilmore i'm here uh i'm a member here at south union i've been a member uh it's opportunity for like 22 23 years uh me and my wife my wife uh sabrina wilmore and we have two boys darius and donovan we just bless have been blessed to be here at south union for 20 something years we thank you amen well this round table was a brain child of our minister brother randall tucker senior so we put this group of gentlemen brothers together and we're going to sit down we're going to have a chit chat a rap session whatever you want to call it these days i don't know that maybe maybe a little old school for everybody but anyway whatever you want to go with but we're going to talk have serious conversations as well about the things experiences that we've come across during this period of covet the things that how it affected our families um how it affects our work life and and how it affects uh um just our interactions with each other and people in the community um so you know we have a wonderful group of brothers here the world well versed in bible scriptures so uh we're going to ask them a number of questions and we're going to see what we come up with but the first thing that we should or want to focus on i should say is a question i would ask is what are some of the challenges that you guys experienced through this period of covet i'm going to start to my right again with brother thompson is that okay that's fine all right some of the challenges the biggest challenges you know is worshiping not being able to to uh worship like we normally worship you know not being able to be massless to be able to touch not be able to fellowship but having to do it within the restriction level that's been a big challenge you know it's been a big challenge you know being social distance that's a big challenge and you know and just that has been the biggest challenge for me amen understood yeah because not not having that fellowship not being able to fellowship with one another you know yeah we as brothers you know we can cut it up fellowship with one another you know but that's as far as it goes we can't really do that like we used to yeah yeah because we got to be so distant you know right understood and then we came dwell in the building for a long time to do that so we you know that's been a big problem but other than that just the regular things that we have to go through in this pandemic it had to go through in this pandemic because still has to go through it right you know it's kind of hard you know to breathe a lot of times and these masks too yeah well i heard that like that yeah yeah so it's things like that how about you uh the biggest thing for me um being a teacher in education right about now throughout covet um it's difficult because my own kids are in the school system right um and a lot of times you're a father figure to the students that you're teaching and you're trying to instill in them you know the goals and the aspects of you know it's about your family and so one thing that you know i try to challenge my students and even my kids on a daily basis is every time you take that mass down you're playing russian roulette with your own family because you could possibly take it home and it we hear the same thing every day this mask is hot it's hard to breathe it's hard to talk it's hard to listen to you so you know as an educator um i find myself 50 of the day is really dealing with coving um cleaning the desk cleaning the seats trying to figure out whether or not the kids are showing symptoms worrying about my own kids especially at lunchtime when all the masks are down right just on a day-to-day basis it's something that you you're thinking about constantly so it's never um an opportunity where i can just put that down and lay it to rest it's it's with me every day right so that's the biggest challenge i have so i have a question for you in the school environment um do you have challenges well dealing with uh your peers people that you work with you have new rules and guidelines that you have to adhere to that sort of thing was that a challenge to get up to speed with those new restrictions that you have and the things that you had to do um when we first started throughout the this pandemic it caught everybody by surprise um and i think for us when we uh left after that spring break there was really nothing set in place uh i think everybody just scrambled hey let's get kids uh a chromebook let's send them home they can do it but they forgot it's difficult to control school outside of school so now we're dealing with the fact of we have to get the kids to get up and get online then you're thinking about the little babies the elementary kids how are they turning their schoolwork how are they learning um the restrictions um it was it was it was difficult to get the kids acclimated to it because you have to have the six feet apart you have to sanitize every day and a lot of times you know i don't have to remind them you know we're asking the staff and students to do things that we don't normally do every day and so that is difficult now we fast forward to this year the restrictions are all gone the plastic wrap is going off of the water fountains the six feet size they're they're they're not involved right we're asked to close the doors now so i'm in the classroom seven times a day or one sorry four times a day with 25 to 30 students and constantly every day it's for your mascara put your mask good with covered with coffee um and now we are starting to see students disappear meaning they're showing symptoms and they're disappearing every day oh wow and we're not being notified um on whether or not they are symptomatic or they're showing symptoms we just basically get an email that says you could have possibly come into contact with someone that could have possibly had covey right um so it's definitely a challenge on a day-to-day basis um but the only thing i can just hold on to throughout this time is just holding on that god got me um and you got the situation staying on my foundation with being active in the church is sort of like an outlet so that's that's basically um how i deal with on a day-to-day basis excellent well said thank you for that walter i know you have a young granddaughter in college now so i know you're worried about her safety but i'm sure with everything that's going on your entire family you know that we all are worried about our families and their safety as well but uh what are from your perspective what are some of the things that you're concerned about and challenges that you faced uh during this time well uh my daughter she is in her second year at texas state we're very proud of her and she has been vaccinated and she has told us that last year basically the majority of her classes were video of zone and it was not that bad but she says now things have changed and it's more person-to-person classes she said the classrooms are pretty crowded there are people virtually everywhere i don't mean virtually everywhere but i mean they're all over the campus and she's able to to just you know withstand it and and go on uh as a matter of fact uh my youngest grandchild turned two on september 11th and we are constantly concerned about his health now i do have a nephew that recently had a had a child and i be the child maybe seven eight weeks old and the second day that he was in daycare a child came up with covet so they had to remove him from that daycare center for a while and i mean it's it's it's pretty tough uh because the first go-around it appeared that the children were not uh being stricken as much if any this go around i guess it's the delta variant that is causing many children to uh get ill with it uh we heard in the news i believe that was a four-year-old that uh passed away and very quickly from what i understand there was no intensive care or ventilator or anything and and then i understand that there may have been a one-year-old that passed away from it so there's been a lot of i guess you'd say issues regarding covet um our entire family had to counsel the crews and we loved taking cruises uh matter of fact uh right after covert um hit jeffrey and i both found ourselves retired and we had planned to take several cruises to travel a bit we had we're avid moviegoers and we figured we might spend at least a couple of days a week at the movie theater and all of that has stopped but i'm just happy to say that our family uh children and our granddaughter we're all vaccinated and uh we hope that that you know helps us from either catching it or spreading it or whatever but it has been pretty trying not being able to do some of the things that you uh plan to do in your retirement and uh you know if god says the same we'll keep on uh keeping hope alive and at some point sister jeffrey now we may be able to uh enjoy our retirement uh even more excellent amen mark now you deal with the public directly so we can't wait to hear what you got to say some of your experiences and challenges and stuff you got to deal with so we'll let you go with that keep it to a minimum well you know i'm not a long-winded person but i'm going to tell you now you know i deal with the public and everything on everyday uh basis um you know with the public you know what i'm you know what i'm doing you know we have to wear mass every day so you have to wear your mask to to to ride transportation and everything so a lot of folks don't want to wear their masks i mean we have a you know it's a big problem with people don't want to add but uh you know what can you do you turn around you we we provide masses for them we make sure we uh they put it on before they get on uh transportation um you know we we have a lot of people that's i don't know i mean it's just like you know they just don't want to abide you know i guess they act like we don't have we are under a pandemic i mean it's like yeah you know exactly people you know they act like we're not in the pandemic uh we just hey you know it's i'm fine you know it's i'm you know you know i'm healthy you know anything's gonna happen to me and everything but hey this this is real you know me and my family you know has been uh vaccinated as well makes you wanna go on vacation like brother jeffrey no i don't want to go on vacation just yet my wife tried to get me to go but i'm just i'm kind of waiting now you know but uh you know yeah we've been vaccinated and everything and uh but you know just working with the public it's different right it's very different i mean i tell people all the time you know just do what the city officials tell you to do and and and just let's just write it out until it gets better you know so but you know i think that's pretty much it that all i have on that sounds like good advice to me so now we explored a little bit of the challenges that we've uh experienced during this period of covet so now let's switch channels and let's talk about some of the positive things that have come out of this period of covet or this pandemic period some of the positives oh we got to think about that a little bit we gotta think about that some of the positive things we're gonna talk about all the negatives so i mean i'm trying to figure out i'm gonna throw one out there so we haven't had many family gatherings but there's some of them family members that i want to gather with anyway so you know you could take that as a positive i don't know about you guys but i'll express it i'll let you guys don't get mad when you see this here now he he just playing now they don't know which ones i'm talking about so i'm covered anyway no i love everybody but i guess the probably one positive thing is that they turn around they came out with this this vaccine you know i mean that's that's a positive that's a plus i mean you still have people that don't want to take it you know because they're saying that you know it's you know it's not going to do anything so uh the positives they came with the vaccine and uh you know if you able to get the vaccine go get it i mean look here we look look at all of us we don't all have been vaccinated and look at us we look all right we absolutely brother jeffrey come on give us some word of advice you know um one of the positive that i see in this is that we are streaming our worship services we're streaming bible classes evening services uh and and i do think that um you have to look at it as being positive if we are reaching more people and i'm told that we are uh reaching people that may not uh would have turned uh tuned in or there were some people that uh were convalescent and shed in at home and now they're able to uh view and and worship you know live stream and um and i think that's uh that has to be a really good uh positive because uh the word of god is is getting out there and to be quite honest uh doing this pandemic a lot of us have uh seen a lot of i guess you'd say domestic violence increase we've seen road rage increase we've just seen a lot of i guess you could say senseless robbery shooting and if we ever needed god we need god now in the midst of this uh pandemic yeah i'm just gonna allude to this a lot of us are simply calling it uh a pandemic but often i have called it a plague and this plague is upon us it has changed the way we do a lot of things it has changed our lifestyle so it it has to be a plague in that sense but uh i think with the with the help of god uh the i guess you said the technology the changes there are people who uh are working from home and uh some are absolutely and enjoying it and i'm not sure if that's a a good thing for companies and for employment or not but that has been some of the things that i see that have changed and may or may not be positive but we have them and we have to deal with them amen brother galloway what are some of your positive takes from this pandemic period some of the positives that i take i see communication wise we're getting better at communicating with one another um before even with all without using the technology um you know it was pretty much hiding by now we have to stay connected in order to get things done um just take for example uh sister rochelle jacobs she does an excellent job with sending out those reminding no text those text messages for us to do uh sunday morning service evening service bible class um we have a great partnership when we're working uh with dr shannon lewis and brother tucker they're doing insane and saved um and even with with sister sims when she's doing uh the medical advice that she's given us um when she's telling us everything that's going on medically with the pandemic but then too i've noticed um a lot of people also probably they're getting into hobbies and they're finding out there's things that they can do as an example my daughter um she's taking up knitting and crocheting okay uh my son he's started to learn how to stream videos okay so it's it's allowing some of us or many of us to find these sitting talents that we probably normally would ignore if the pandemic wasn't here excellent excellent excellent yeah i i can uh echo that as well now that you mention it my family as well has come a little bit closer my immediate family since they probably don't have or have the opportunity as much to not that they were you know far apart anyway but since they couldn't you know go their different ways go out to dinner by themselves you know this sort of thing uh so much they gather more at the house now right and the two sons will sit down and play video games for for hours you know so uh to me i find joy in you know watching them you know bond together and spend more time together where i hadn't seen it before because i was out doing you know my thing and you know so it's a beautiful thing but uh yeah yeah i take that away as a positive uh from my perspective closer together yes sir absolutely yes not only immediate families but it's brought our church family i think closer together the ones that you know that we do um fellowship with um in person as well as the ones on virtual you know he's brought us closer together it made us more aware of my spirituality i feel like it has you know because now we know that there is we feel like there is god those that then really believe more so now they believe because he's the only one that we have we can turn into we can't turn each other so we have to turn to the law i feel like that's the good part about it absolutely absolutely this part yeah yeah i mean to me absolutely and i think one positive thing is you know since we've been back open i mean we you know we haven't had nobody that has got sick you know so i mean you know with people has been coming back and uh everybody has been healthy and and obeying the uh the rules uh you know from leadership and everything so i think you know we've been doing pretty good we have we have done a good job on that yeah excellent excellent yeah we've we've been uh pretty diligent and uh uh steadfast on the rules that we set in place for worship and so far prayerfully they've been working out i think everybody is pleased with the efforts that we put forth and um you know every all our members they always cooperative and willing to work with us so that's a blessing at this particular congregation when you have members that are willing to work with you on the things that you're trying to do and implement so that that definitely has been a blessing here at south union oh yeah but also i i guess if we could reach out just a little bit further and uh maybe there's uh some things that affect your family directly or have affected your family directed directly because of this uh period that we're in these trying times and that sort of thing if you could we could speak on that or identify any particular thing that might help somebody out there in the audience oh well i really can speak on that uh the pandemic has from our distant family it it has caused a lot of time to go in between our visiting you know our time with with our loved ones as an example my mother-in-law we hadn't seen her in over three years and um of course when the pandemic started we wanted to keep her safe and we didn't even go visit her until all of us got vaccinated um that was a challenge in itself seeing my mother that took about a year and a half and then when she got vaccinated she started coming to visit just a little bit especially for my sister's wedding so just trying to stay together with your extended family has been extremely difficult you don't want to put anybody at risk you're tired of just talking on the telephone um teaching our more seasoned relatives how to uh use the cell phone to maybe do video calls that's been a challenge but all in all it's been working but it's just not the same as it was before the pandemic exactly i agree with you on that i agree with you on that because i mean it's like you know we went from in 2019 or the beginning of 2020 uh you know just doing everything going everywhere you know uh visiting with family you know everybody coming to your house you going to everybody else house and now you can't hardly do that you know it's like you turn around you have to you know uh well uh you know i'm gonna come by but you got you know hey make sure you have your masks on and uh you can't stay alone yeah so you know it's like so you you you know it's it's been it's been a trying time i can tell you that yeah absolutely when we um look at the family dynamic i've had several people to come to me and confide in me that their adult children or will not take the vaccine and some have really poured out their hearts on their feelings on that and a lot of them are hurt and they don't know um what they can do they've talked to them they've done everything they can and their children will not take uh the vaccine i i had a friend of mine that said that his son was really really healthy he was a bodybuilder type weightlifter uh he told him that you know dad i'm in excellent shape and and but we see that it has affected uh athletes and and when we talk about the family dynamic my son was telling me that someone had told him of a family of seven that had not been vaccinated all seven of them came down with covet and all seven of them died and i was thinking about just how tragic that was and i said you know it would have been even more tragic if they if there was one that had been spared and they had to live with that with that as to why you know their family not them and so you know when you look at the family dynamic it is something that uh touches all of us because there are people who i have uh came down with covet and they were released from the hospital but they are still very ill from it some recover you know recover really really well and go about their uh normal duties and tours like nothing ever happened but there are some that will uh be ill from now on uh from it so it's something that is not predictable how you'll end up so i think we need to be careful within our families as to whether or not a family member brings it to us or whether or not we transmit it to someone else exactly i just can't understand why these athletes choose not to do that not to take you know the vaccine and a lot of young people do you know look up to them when they should be looking up to god and they say well if they're not going to take it and they can do what they do and making the money i don't need to take it either you know don't i don't understand that maybe y'all can you know you know brother thompson um from the school setting when you sit and have conversations with the young adults 16 to 18 their biggest fear is that they came out with the vaccine too soon it came out too quick so there has to be something wrong with it and a lot of times i try to tell them you know things are different now back when we had you know similar plagues like uh the mumps you know the amiibo the measles chickenpox polio um we can do reverse uh technology we can figure out things um and i told them i always tell them i'm just shocked that it took a year because of the technology and of course the other biggest fear is that they're starting to say now well i'm starting to hear people that are vaccinated they're getting sick and you know you try to explain to them that those things are going to happen even when you take just like a regular vaccine um but i also kind of throw this at them you know most of the times when they're getting ready to go to college they have to take that meningitis shot yeah yes they do and a lot of times i don't see anybody saying hey what's in the meningitis shot we just take it exactly and we take it blindly so you know and i just kind of question sometimes they're thinking and a lot of times it is the religion background um there's not a big push or a big faith in god we're just out here just we're just doing our thing we're we're blindsided by what's going on we don't have anything to hold on to and so being a christian um in the school system you know they always teach you don't talk about religion don't talk about god you know that's a that's a taboo but how can you not when you see that we have a lot of people that are confused and lost and our you know our our job as a christian is to be that light or to shine some light on they have somebody that they can depend on that losses starts at the top starts at the top being lost that's a little question brother galloway i know we was talking about thompson talking about athletes and stuff like that so you know the school system you i mean the school you work at i know you have football games and stuff like that so the athletes at that school i mean do they uh i mean has it been a number where they have tested you know i mean came down with the virus or anything when it first started oh yes they were um and i can remember when it first started they were having like the the summer camp training camp uh before the football season they were getting sick throughout that time and so they canceled uh the football try trainings twice now they've brought it back and so what i see i see a lot of the football players going to practice they're walking in the hallway already sweating you're coming into your classroom half of those are walking with yeah and so you know you know now they don't shower anymore so you take all of that practice all of that touching all of that closeness you bring that into the classroom and that's the situation that we're in and if especially if the athlete is one that says i don't believe in a vaccine and i'm just here just for football your guard is down that's right you're right brother the guard is down completely and so that's what i'm talking about it's it's now more so it's not about mask or unmask it's do you care about the people around you right they don't they don't they don't yeah absolutely but we have a a a a a person or someone above us that will guide us and keep us right we have a god that is able to do all things right so uh we rely on him and lean on him we will be all right exactly absolutely but now that we're speaking of sports let's continue on that realm how about those cowboys i'm just talking we supposed to be oh yeah anyway anyway speaking of sports so how do you think this uh covet period affected our your interaction with sports with your favorite sports team i know for a period there in 2020 we couldn't go to the stadiums and root our team on we have to you know sit behind the tv we do that anyway but now everything is kind of open up you know you look until you see crowds of people and cheering teams on and i'm sure they're happy about that but still we are still here so you know it was good though because it put more more going back to the basketball season and put more games on tv oh yeah yeah i wanted to do more games yeah so that's a play that's probably positive i guess more games but it's not good for the for the fan that you don't like to be there in person but now that's another question how are they going to deal with that everybody that's going to attend these games now you getting back to 17 20 30 000 people do you think all those people have been vaccinated no oh no no no okay so you look at the numbers and the statistics probably not so how are they gonna work that and who's gonna pull it out and say well uh people that came they were vaccinated or they said they were vaccinating anybody can say you are sure you know but how many got sick out of that well they're not gonna post that well sit and wait uh we're in it now we we have some good things sunday's gonna come up tomorrow we're gonna be sitting there for somebody and i'm telling in oh stadiums since you know gang you know these you know games been coming back stadium has been full yeah i mean they ain't like they social disney in every seat all the way up close to each other so you know i know me you know uh you know i haven't been to a game in a while but i just get nervous when i hear somebody coughing right man you know i mean it's just like hey i'm like i turn around look like who was that i think i'd rather just stay home yeah exactly flip the channel there you go well you know for me uh i get students all the time mr galloway are you going to today's game no that's for you guys mr gal is going to go home [Laughter] excellent excellent night night brother jeffrey uh how has it effect you you know i know them cowboys i know you know you go down there to dallas and get down there to the stadium and everything how'd you think about it jerry would say how about them cowboys but the thing that um i've gone to a couple of sporting venues as a matter of fact my wife's niece or our niece is the head volleyball coach for louisiana tech and we went to a couple of the games that were here at houston baptist and i noticed there were fewer people wearing masks i didn't necessarily notice the players being particularly careful and uh i just hope that at some point uh we get to the point to where this is you know a mute because um i looked at the college football games today some of them and i looked at the football game and there are a lot of people that just will not wear masks and i don't know if they're spreading it and you won't know uh until maybe a day or so after whether you contracted it or not and i just think we need to make sure that we still uh enjoy ourselves if we can but we need to protect ourselves we need to protect one another i would hate for someone to directly feel that they got covered from me uh and i mean they can survive or they i i would feel terrible by transmitting it uh to someone so i think we need to uh make sure that we not only protect ourselves or we protect them you know and i'm protected now i'm sitting by brother jeffrey so he all right so i wouldn't be sitting by him if he wasn't all right yeah same here go around the table we all we all had this conversation before we sat down at the table uh yeah so is there any more advice any more input we want to uh share with our listening audience and again we encourage our listening audience to if you're uh go ahead and put in your chat your comments your uh questions and things like that we like to hear from you so go ahead and enter your thoughts in the chat box we'd appreciate that um one thing that i guess that i would challenge everybody even especially the south union family um a lot of people are still out and about they're doing the things that they normally do and i think the first thing that usually starts to dissipate is church involvement and just like brother tucker always says um we're starting to get complacent and used to watching sunday service on the couch um but we can go to the store we can go to the football games um go to work we can go to work and we do this on a day-to-day basis but i don't know i don't know how you fellas feel about it but why do we push god to the to the back of the table when it comes to worship this should be the safest place exactly it should be his presence should be in the building um if this is one place where we should feel most comfortable it should be here oh yeah so um i know we we we have to have our protocols in place but this should be the place where we pack the house um and keep god first because again we are delight and you can't worship by yourself sitting on the couch absolutely absolutely yeah so we're trying to make it an environment so that people feel comfortable with coming here and we encourage that as well we want to see you in the place and we put as many guidelines as we thought were necessary to keep you safe in things that we do so we encourage you to come out and worship with us here at the south union church of crisis brother galloway alluded to take your bed clothes off when you roll and you slippers off come on down come on down come on down with that knife yeah absolutely convenient to have uh have your coffee and your donut and cake and have church at the same time too i'd like to add that uh on a weekly basis the building is sanitized or disinfected and i would like to think that no one has caught covert from attending here at the south union church of christ but i i also would like to have a conversation a civil i guess you'd say serious conversation as to why someone uh does not uh want to take the vaccination or fear the vaccination because i've heard people say that it it is experimental now i've heard of people that have been uh terminally ill and they would jump at the chance to take an experimental drug if it would help them there have been people that have gone to other countries because they were working on an experimental drug and they have spent good money to go over there and give that experimental drug a try but now with uh as brother galloway said with the technology that we have today it is kind of surprising that it took them as long as it did but perhaps if it took them that long they were making sure that it was perfected i can remember the first time i was diagnosed with hypertension i went to the doctor and the doctor says well uh i'm going to prescribe this medication and i knew a lot of people at that time that had been taking medication for hypertension and i don't know of anybody that says no i'm not gonna take this medication because i don't trust it and i was the one that didn't and i go all the way back to the days of of polio standing in line waiting for the shot and then that was the gun then that was the sugar cube and every time it was necessary to take it my parents made sure i was there to take it in i didn't know any better i i know people now even and i knew people that had contracted polio and it was not a pretty sight to see someone uh walking on those questions you knew what they had been stricken with so i just want to say um i i'd love to um be informed as to why taking the vaccine is is so bad and what what's in it that's the thing that got us to be here today yeah taking the vaccine taking vaccines sure absolutely not that just remember now but jefferson told his age now he said polio of television if i'm not mistaken and we said that there would be no history but i believe one of the presidents of the united states uh even had uh oh yeah and i'm sure he wished he'd had a vaccine but it did not stop him from becoming president oh yeah so uh let's look on the bright side of that but i do know that i have not heard of anyone here that in the united states that has come down with polio in recent years i'm not even sure that maybe they are still giving it out um i i don't see anybody anybody remember uh smallpox when you had the i don't know if they still do smallpox vaccination so uh give it a chance they got a new name for it now they called the immunization shot and yeah you know the best advice we can give is you know hey wear your masks uh make sure you you wash your hands make sure you wipe everything down uh just make sure you go take the vaccine hey you take the vaccine you'll be all right like i said earlier look at us sounds like good work it's a wisdom to me yeah excellent one thing that i don't do a lot of uh is washing my hands immediately but i want to thank sister jeffrey because i often look around and and she'll look at me and she's got some of that sanitizer for my hands and i'm thinking well well thank you so uh that works and uh i'll tell you what um i i wish i could remember but uh as long as it's different next to me she's gonna always have my hands sticking out well i'm gonna tell you this here bruh jeffrey i think all women yeah actually absolutely they look they looking they did you wash your hair if you ain't wash your hands they got something excellent excellent gentlemen i think um i know all the gentlemen y'all are tired of not wearing your cologne uh come on out and put your brood on oh god come on brother galloway you ain't that old you be talking about high karate or something man you know anyways man that was some powerful stuff wow commercials were great anyway we digress but we want to thank everybody for tuning in and prayerfully this was a a blessing in your life but i want to close with a scripture that if you're feeling frustrated with the things that are going on in your life and that sort of thing and you need some calm and peace in your life this is a scripture that i go to it's uh john 14 the 27th chapter and i'm going to read to you the commentary uh version of it because i just like that and it reads i give you peace the kind of peace that only i can give it isn't like the peace that the world can give all right so don't worry or be afraid so yes sir amen amen so if you have any stress in your life and that's what we all do from time to time let's take it to god kneel down in prayer and hand it over to him but we hope that you all be safe throughout this period of pandemic and we pray that you your families are doing well thank you for tuning in and we want to thank you again for tuning in and keep viewing the south union 2021 homecoming event thank you again thank you thank you all right and get your booster shots woke up this morning with my mind my mind it was stayed on jesus well i woke up this morning my heart it was [Music] oh jesus hallelujah my [Music] my hallelujah [Applause] if it is we woke up this morning i woke up this morning with my mind and it [Music] you is i woke up this morning hallelujah [Music] [Applause] i've come to receive my blessings to know [Music] just for that harvest is i believe everything i believe that i speak i believe he gave it to me have you come to receive you received how long have you been waiting away just for that harvest is [Music] everything i believe is oh is [Music] is [Music] good afternoon everyone out there in virtual land we bring you greetings from the south union church of christ my name is erica tucker and i'm sitting here with some of the most wonderful blessed encouraging sisters here at our congregation and we have come today just to have girl talk you know it's good to have girl talk isn't it yes it is that's right but it's not just any old girl talk we are here to give you the teeth on today we're gonna not only talk about how good god is but some of the positives that he's done in the pandemics we're going to talk about how he's blessed us individually how he's blessed us collectively how he's blessed our families our children and just all the things that he has done now we know you didn't quite know what all you were going to get in this conversation and i just want you to know we don't either but i can guarantee it's going gonna be good um i just want to take a moment let me tell you who i have well uh i'm gonna let them tell you themselves who they are all right who do we have at the table with us hi everyone i am tina lewis george and i'm just so excited to be here i am a covet 19 survivor y'all i got covered when it first started so i do have a testimony and i'm just grateful i'm honored and i'm blessed to be a a part of south union and i'm just uh just so grateful and i'm just gonna start this over i'm just grateful y'all that god is just so amazing that he loved me so much that in the distress of going through covet 19 he allowed me to be here to share with you all today good afternoon everyone i am elizabeth williams and i'm just so thankful to be here during this pandemic i've been through many trials and tribulations i've had some great things that have happened to me and i've also been through some very trying times but you know what i kept god first and i pushed through and i really appreciate this opportunity to be with this group of ladies so we can have a good time today amen amen and as i've already stated you all i'm erica tucker i am the wife to uh minister randall or r.l tucker senior and i'm just happy to be at the table to find out more about my great sisters here you know it's always a beautiful opportunity when we have a chance to just get to know each other and in the pandemic you know we've you hear all about socially distant socially distant well in that distant space sometimes we forget you know we don't really know what's going on with our sisters so this is an opportunity for us to just come together and find out well what did god do for you so i'm just happy to be here ladies thank you my name is mandurah ellis and i'm so happy to be here with this group of young ladies today and we have all had so many experiences doing this pandemic and we were happy to share some of our experiences with you hopefully you will maybe get an idea from us of some things we've done or maybe we'll learn something from each other so i'm happy to be with this group i hope you enjoy our presentation good afternoon everyone i'm charisse turner and as all of these wonderful ladies have stated i'm very thankful to be here and very grateful to have come through this whole thing called a pandemic something that we could never imagine that we would have to live through so uh the lord has really been good to me and i'm so thankful for the social socialization right now because i found myself a little too comfortable being at home just me amen and uh that's good on the one hand but you don't want to get too comfortable because as we said we all need the socialization and i'm thankful to be here with my wonderful sisters and we encourage you to stay strong to be here with us to go through your own experiences and enjoy enjoy thank you good afternoon i'm erin thompson i am a member here at south union i'm also a single parent who throughout the pandemic homeschool two kids so between god prayer and and a masseuse and a muslim let's throw that in i had to have a masseuse on deck those things and long walks brought me through the pandemic and also to throw in a full full-time job at the same time where my job required me to be owned constantly so i'm thankful to be here amongst these ladies to you know share experiences and continue to gain more wisdom and also talk about the things that god has brought us through and how he has allowed us to triumph in a time where we possibly would have just crashed so just so thankful to be here well all right sisters you all see who all is in the room and as you can tell they are ladies who have different experiences but we serve the same god and so we've been able to reflect just over how god has worked in each one of our lives you know it seems as though um while we're all going through a similar situation god has had different blessings for each and every one of us tell me ladies what are some of the positives that you have seen that have been birthed out of the pandemic well for me of being a covet survivor y'all the relationship that i have now with god i'm more closer in my walk i realized my purpose yes my purpose and y'all going through covet was not a good experience i had days that i just felt like i was about to check out of here but god we have to remember we have to talk to our future about our past how he delivered he delivered me through so much so in the positive side of it my relationship with god my walk i've been able to birth some things i am a published author i wrote my my book total deliverance of survival story and it was actually written before the pandemic and when the pandemic hit i was supposed to been doing a book tour but that didn't happen but other things happen i i talk about soul ties on saturday i um in the process of starting a non-profit i am a domestic violence survivor so out of that for love alone has been birthed through the pandemic and i chose for love alone because it's for love along that we go we go through so much we give so much and it's for god's love alone that he reaches down and he gets us in the midst of a pandemic to get on purpose it is just so much happening and it's been a lot you know my relationship with my sons i am a singer uh i'm single i'm a widow and i live by myself and going through the pandemic of going through like not knowing if i was going to make it through i have 10 grandchildren and my sons and that's what i thrived on not just my relationship with with god my family and it was just you know like i said being in a dog if you've ever gone through it and i know some of you out there have it's like you in a missed uh abyss of of darkness you know and i even have symptoms now i guess i can say i'm one of those long haulers that uh with the covet i my taste and smell that was one of the first things that i um had went away and i even experienced that now i can't it'd be days like well i can't taste as good my smell and i'm more tired i find myself waking up at night and y'all i couldn't sleep for days wow so coleman i just want to say this guys to the people out there covet is real and there is a lot of positive in it all we just got to know that god is a deliverer we got to know that he is with us you know one of my favorite psalms is uh is psalms 23 you know i would recite i would just have conversations conversations with god and for me it's a lot of positive in it and sometimes we don't even see the positive but when we go through it we can go back and say i can see it now absolutely and god bless you for bringing you through covet you know and you talk about how your sense of taste and smell were gone yes well somehow in the pandemic my sense of taste was heightened i've been eating everything a lot of people have that the sense of taste is but even still i loved how you said that your favorite psalm was psalm psalm 23 the lord is my shepherd right and i know that god has shepherded us all through a lot i heard you aaron you said that you have been brought through um virtual school i know you were clinging to the lord it's just shopping taking you through this uh that wasn't the only thing i was clinging to the lord in certain discipline areas but um you know the thing about that i heard from you sister george and and i want to commend you on is because you talked a lot about um your purpose right so just imagining if this pandemic would not have happened how many of us would not have landed in our purpose would not have a future to speak about and what god has you know driven us towards and walking in our path so i'm just curious has anyone else kind of experienced that too to where they've developed a stronger purpose for themselves based on how god has moved throughout the pandemic for them i can definitely say that when we look for the shining light in the pandemic speaking of myself i transitioned jobs right when the pandemic hit i was the principal of an elementary campus and god blessed me to move up to middle school and the first thing that i thought of was how am i going to be able to connect with my staff and my students virtually here i am taking over this 1500 campus student campus 1500 campus of students right 120 teachers they don't know me they don't know anything about me it's in a um predominantly um area where let's start over it's an it's a high performing campus and to see my face is not typically what you would see in this type of campus so being able to build that trust with my students and my community was going to be very difficult that is a positive that i was able to shift from elementary to middle school but the negative was just not being able to really connect so i had to redefine my purpose why me god why did you select me to move this campus forward but the campus needed something that was missing that i could bring yes they needed that positivity they needed someone to encourage them they needed someone to reinspire all the teachers purpose into why they became an educator that's cool and so i didn't realize my true purpose until i had to go through that when we talk about other positives one of the positives that i think that i know speaking for my family and i know probably many of the rest of you all is um being forced to spend time at home absolutely allow for us to rebuild that strong foundation of what a family truly was meant to be our daily lives took over but god is still in control so he forced the world to stop and say wait a minute we need to reestablish this firm foundation of your family yes because i think we were a lot of times we were ships moving in the night yeah our kids were growing up we were hi bye to our husbands and our wives our spouses we really didn't appreciate the quality time that god has granted us with and so i really feel that if we have to look for a positive allowing us to rebuild that firm foundation of a family was huge and i appreciated that opportunity absolutely and it's a positive thing to find out that you actually like your people because there are so many that may not have had that same experience you know because we have to keep in mind not everybody has a positive home life so to know that you've made it on this side you know finding out that you are you are friends again with your husband you actually like the people that your children are and are growing into is a beautiful thing sister ellis i know you've had um you've raised children and now you're raising grandchildren so to have more time to spend with them i know is a great thing yes and the uh positive that i'm going to speak on is god created something yeah everybody nobody knew what to do everybody was dumbfounded at all this happening at the same time so god created what we know as zoom amen maybe maybe it was here already but not today to the um extent that we thought we were going to be exposed to it i didn't know what zoom was zoomed what is that you know because you know us older people you know we don't know all these terms anyway so when they said zoom what is that so god created this positive for us the first thing was to worship god to continue worshiping god and that was the one thing that we were all i'm sure very very upset about when they said stay home don't go out well how are we going to worship yes you know because that's really uppermost in our minds now as to how uh to worship god like we should and so we knew we had to go to church every sunday but then then god created this positive and he gave the insight into it in our our worthy and intelligent and i don't know what all to say kerry about you brothers here how to get on board with that and provide us with a way to worship god yes and that was the main thing amen then there were other positives with uh with uh the pandemic and as far as zoom was concerned we found out that we could attend our meetings yes we could play games we could even win prizes and we could continue having our our beloved ladies bible class and you know we're really enjoying that bible class because and if there are ladies out there who have not tuned in you need to because we are having a marvelous time and many of us have have opportunities to to expound and tell you some things that's on our hearts about god and then also the other positive was he created a way for our children to still attend school yes now there were some hardships which i'm sure we're going to talk about later on when we talk about how it has affected the children and i'm sure sister elizabeth can can uh speak on that too but um the positive is he created the what created the way for us to continue and also he attended the way for us to visit our doctors yes i'm sure a lot of us have been what do they call it telemeter medicine yes and in fact i was on with my doctor and uh then i i uh read something about the telemedicine and said well you know the doctor can get right up there and look into your eyes on zoom and it's just really strange talking to your doctor on zoom and you have to be sure to make a maybe make a list of the things you're going to talk about because when you're on camera like this you know you have a tendency to forget so telemedicine has been god created that you know in order to for us to stay healthy that's right so that was something so and also zoom uh was created for us to slow down where we were going to all of these places these meetings and because i'm sure all of us sitting here had a lot of meetings we were involved in not only our church meetings but other meetings school meetings and others we slowed down we had to sit still and look and sometimes you know as children of god we have to just be still sometimes yes be still and just think and internalize what is being said so those are some of the positives that i thought about as far as uh zoom is concerned yeah it's one of the main positives that we have working so now you're telling us you're ready to to create your own youtube channel because you know how to operate you know all this technology you can create a youtube channel now you know i wouldn't put it past this to ellis this is one of the busiest ladies i know so to hear her say that the pandemic and has allowed her to slow down is huge [Laughter] in fact one of my church friends here they call us the the energizer energizer bunnies yes but we're slowing down now but we have had our day absolutely sister ellis i love how she says older you're mature there's no old oh thank you you are just mature and we love it well i knew i had an advantage in being with this group of ladies today you made my day no we always thank you cecile it's because you're always so poised and so you know well spoken and well put together and energetic and so it's just a beautiful thing to be able to look up you know to a lady and a sister such as yourself a godly sister yourself so we thank you for bringing your wisdom to the table thank you for that compliment yes of course all right ladies so we know there are some positives that you all have had and so at this time we're just going to ask you to type them right in the chat if there's something that you know that has been birthed out of the pandemic that's a positive not in only in your life but in your community type it right there in the chat we would love to be able to hear that as well but not only has there been positives but there have been some personal um i guess some things we've learned about ourselves personally in the pandemic you know i learned when i remember when we were all virtual i'm an educator i'm in education i'm a school counselor and at one point when the pandemic first hit you know they sent everybody home and so we were working virtually and then when they announced that all of the administration and uh the the auxiliary uh faculty staff would have to return back to campus i was like oh man because the kids were going to still be at home i'm just thankful that god blessed us to be in a situation where they could still have home supervision you know so my husband was able to be there with them but i was trying to figure out why i got to go back here with you why is it me why is it me but then you know kind of like charisse what you said earlier i was becoming comfortable with being at home yes you know so i i can see why god pushed me back out you know into the world so i learned that it may not be meant for me to be to work from home because i get comfortable i mean comfortable [Laughter] too comfortable and so god pushed me back where he knew i could thrive best and i had to learn that about myself you know anyone else have learned something about themselves through the pandemic you know what i learned about myself throughout the pandemic is you know keep in mind i've worked from home for the last going on 10 years and so typically when i'm at home i'm at home with myself working just doing my own thing no one else interrupting and to invite kids into that space where you're having to juggle kids your own thoughts their thoughts their teachers thoughts their friends thoughts because you're taking in all of you you're hearing it all and to have that happening for eight hours a day on top of doing your own work i realized that it almost caused me to panic in a sense because i didn't know how to adapt to this new change where you're having kids in the space and everything else that comes with the whole virtual learning territory and so what i learned about myself is i'm really someone that needs to kind of take that walk take a breather get out for a moment and i even had to get that you know thought into my kids let's step away from the laptop for a moment let's take a walk let's take a breather let's decompress because i found that i'm really someone that has to have a moment to breathe otherwise anxiety will set in these racing thoughts panic are set in but no god told me he said aaron get up from your laptop get the kids up from their laptops and let's take a walk you need that breath of fresh air because we have to believe the scriptures when it teaches us that god will provide a way of escape not just from being from sinful things but you know self-destructive yes and that's what it was self-destruction it was the the mental strength strain and stress that came along with the whole new way of life there was no escape you wasn't known to sleep in the same situation and i'm already someone that's kind of reclusive in a sense i have to have my alone time and so to have that happen it was like whoa what is this where are we going oh no so so talk to us about the space you're in now because i believe your children are back in school right yeah yeah it is um it's an adjustment because i had already kind of trained myself into this is where we are this is how life is going to be you know and so to have the school district say okay it's time for everyone to go back in it was kind of wait a minute i got to get up at 6 30 now i can't get up at 7 15. you know right before it's one of those you have to prepare yourself every day and every night to you know mentally say okay they got to get up they got to be here you got to fix lunches you have to do this but i will tell you though um it's been great i will say because now i feel like i can breathe again i um a few things you know i live by myself no kids no pets just me so i'm pretty much used to that but the socialization was one i also realized you know i'm a very structured individual so i was doing things that was out of structure and i think that threw me for a loop it was like first of all i don't really watch a lot of tv why am i sitting down and watching dateline in the mornings really dateline of all things right i don't even know why but it's like i was doing those types of things and to tina's point she's we i knew when she was writing that book it's done her book's done published and ready yes she knew i'm working on something as well is it done no it's not why isn't it done can you tell me it's not done because i took myself out of structure and and and also i realized during that time i really hadn't mourned my mother's death she passed away in 2016 i moved here for that i hadn't mourned so i i went to therapy because i that was something that i realized i need to do to continue to move into the purpose the lord has already designed for me and i'm i was being my own roadblock so um it's been fantastic i mean now i feel like i'm over some humps and i'm now i've got my stuff more organized let's get this going write that book and get it done so i and i i will um take any encouragement at any time because uh sometimes i think i'm just kind of on my own little pathway and and i do need i do need and desire and and require the encouragement so anytime you want to send me an encouraging word i welcome it committed to encouraging you to do what you feel as though god has purposed you yes and the path and to walk the path he's laid out before you yes but not only it's interesting because i heard you say that you you know fell out of structure you fell out of the routine of it all right but you were comfortable enough with going and pursuing help you know sometimes we don't realize that being off your routine it's hard to get back yourself sometimes you need that additional outside person that individual that can say hey wait a minute let's reflect over what's happening here and let's get you to a space of equilibrium and norm that works for your life so i was glad to hear that you said you were willing to go to um therapy yes because some of us are going to need some post pandemic therapy sessions a lot of us are because we don't realize how it has impacted us like for example you know sometimes i had to tell myself okay people are more than uh spit and droplets yes let's just be honest you know that is a person it's not just the germs and droplets you know that we were so used to hearing about all the time is that real absolutely but at the same time god still wants us to be able to have that you know interaction and and um um just camaraderie you know with one another um you know you said something about watching dateline and i'm curious to know if anyone else felt like they were watching things on television that kind of maybe was out of character for them kind of was triggering in a sense or maybe some things that just made them go hmm would i normally help you watching this is this normally something that i would do yeah it's kind of sort of like whenever there's a major disaster we find ourselves glued in but why we're setting ourselves up for pre-depression yeah yeah for me what kept me going that keeps me going all the time so you said that you were watching something different but for me hallmark stayed home so hallmark is my channel of choice and it just allowed me to watch it you know consistently but over time you know what you fall in love you meet you fall in love you get married wash rinse repeat yes that's the recipe that's the recipe right there different characters exactly right yes well one thing i learned about myself is i still have cooking and i didn't skills an invite yeah we're waiting for the invite i had gotten to the point where i wouldn't say well i'm going to cook this or that i would ask john well where are we going to eat not what are we going to wear so i had gotten to that point because i just was not doing a lot of cooking so then i learned that uh i can still cook and then i invented recipes i cooked desserts i cooked some of everything yes and then also i i concentrated more on religion yes we prayed a lot because that was praying time well in fact it still is praying time yes absolutely and i prayed more and i just just we listened to brother tucker and then we would turn to listen to other ministers uh preach and uh it's just made me feel more even more religious because that was the time when we wanted god to have mercy on us and not call us home at that time and also i learned how to adjust my schedule you know with all this going that we were doing right well then i had to learn to go to the grocery store at 7 30 in the morning instead of later on because you didn't want to get close to anyone yes and you were afraid you know afraid and all of that so i had to adjust my schedule so those were some of the things that i learned about myself you know especially the cooking we'll be waiting we'll be waiting i found out i was a great uh i guess uh tutor in the kitchen because brother tucker started cooking right now so yes you know when we first got married and he would walk in he would tell me oh that's what you put in that oh i don't eat that oh that's that's what you use oh i don't like that and i'm thinking to myself well you've eaten this about three times you know and so i used to put up this imaginary wall and i tell them hey there's imaginary wall right here in the kitchen don't cross it but i had to let that wall down and he started cooking in the kitchen and i tell you he could cook a mean shrimp scampi all right now he can cook a mean salmon okay i think that's about the two i think we're doing it he can barbecue oh yeah oh yeah he became a grill master in the pandemic so yes i mean being the being the one that stayed home with the kids for school you know they were gonna either have shrimp salmon or burgers it was oh yes anyone else yes for me the one thing that i learned is it's okay not to be okay amen i learned that i'm stronger than i think i think i am yeah because i can do hard things i've learned all those things about me and i've learned that i can't do everything it's all gonna come in in time just like you charisse i had other things that books that need that i could have written that could be written by now right but they're not done yet but i know that god is gonna allow me and that is my prayer for him to allow me to get it done right and also i've learned that i can't do everything yes i can't save everybody and all i can do is my part yes even in the midst of what i went through not going through an abusive marriage that god delivered me from that going through colvin and recently i really think i had a what they call a breakthrough infection a few months ago i was having some i didn't go get tested but i really felt like i did but going back i got to talk to my past my future about my past he's delivered me so i've learned that god is my deliverer yeah and again it's okay not to be okay yeah and i have to i love acronyms y'all it i have to talk to kim girl come over here we got to keep this thing moving we're going to keep it moving i can't be idle because in the midst of being idle that's when my mind starts to wonder and i know with that i have a quote that i wrote years ago when i took that focus off of me that's when i found me because it's not about me i am here to serve and that's why i encourage people that's why i post and i i do what god has for me to do because in this pandemic people got to understand there is hope absolutely you know we as christians we are the light we are the city that sits on the hill even the midst of this trying time we have to give people hope yes so i just want to reiterate okay we're in a we're in a pam dammit but it's okay not to be okay right but we will be okay absolutely and i love that kim kim and i say keep [Laughter] okay but you know it's so cool to hear you talk about just being still and still in that still moment like keeping it moving and still you know but being still in the sense of hearing from god being still long enough to have him to speak to you yes and i think a lot of times people don't talk about you know god has spoken to me he really has revealed this to me people don't share that enough to let them know he does speak to us that's his children he speaks to us yes and it's only up to us to actually do what he's saying to do and when you do that you do get that that that kim you get the key i don't know i don't know but stella said not the karen but that's absolutely right and and you said that you have to be still so that you can hear god but a lot of times we have to be still so that we can see god working amen sometimes we're moving so fast that we're missing his hand and we have to and i that's the one thing that i love about the pandemic it's put us in a space where we're only solely trusting and leaning on the lord we don't know when this pandemic is going to leave we don't know how long it's here for we don't know who it's going to take by grace of god we're still here yes and we're thanking him every day but what we do know is that it is in his hands and we have to be focused on seeing his hands move not eat not just over our lives but it's the entire world the entire world is waiting on his hand and that's the beauty of this pandemic i think it's making all of us look up and if they're if you're so used to looking out and looking side to side and watching what this person is doing watching with that person was doing i know a lot of times many of us became so engaged on social media because we felt as though that's all we had and we got to be careful with that because we're so busy watching what everyone else is doing that we're not watching what god is doing that's right and that's the key we have to folk put the focus more so on what he's doing through people because he is moving policies in the lives of others but it's not about the person it's about the hand of god that is upon them and upon us all yes well about social media yeah it's it's great it's a great tool but a lot of times we have to remember it's a lot of facades yeah it's a lot of a lot of facades yes yes so uh yeah it's a fabulous tool but once again the lord is always in control and he has to be first so that you can discern that's right you can discern yes i think the pandemic has allowed us to be resilient it showed us that we can be resilient in many different ways creativity it pushed us past what we even could imagine that's right and that's only because we had him pushing us and i don't think if we were not presented with this pandemic we would still be stuck doing the same thing over and there should be there will be no growth i'm curious to know like what and you talked a lot about the future and and walking in your purpose i'm just curious about what kind of future it is that we all you know see ourselves stepping into like how do we see ourselves moving in the future i know for me i see myself um being still listening and taking those walks as i mentioned early on but i'm just curious has anyone else kind of had a revelation of how god has spoken to them and what they're supposed to do going forward in the future for themselves coming out of the pandemic a lot of times you know we walk like the world sometimes in which we're afraid to say what we want to happen because you know sometimes you'll say well if i speak it out if i put it out there and then don't do it i don't want people you know yeah oh yeah i think about it but i believe as a child of god you have to declare and decree and believe that he's gonna usher you into that space and into that moment i know god has placed a lot of things on my heart to do um some consulting work you know in education and so i'm trusting that he's blessing me to have the the partnerships the conversations with people you know the creativity and actually the product that he wants me to to use to bring him glory one because it's gonna usher me into a different realm you know you never know who god has for you to talk to and who god has for you to befriend on this earth if you stay in your comfort zone so i see a future of god pushing me out of my comfort zone into the the space that he desires me to be yes love it love it i personally i i hope and pray because i do get comfortable and i get oddly enough kind of shy about like going for it so uh i my goal is to bring more awareness to the cycling community amongst our african-americans um anybody of course it's all inclusive but nevertheless african americans you know we have um our health histories are are you know questionable so uh during the pandemic i was fortunate enough to be the part of a club a cycling club started during the pandemic we are over 200 members now and so that brought awareness to our communities of how getting on a bike and having camaraderie can bring you health and wellness socialization and it was outdoors so we really didn't have to pull back as much so i i just pray to bring more awareness to the cycling community and that is going to take some social media but it will be for real it will be no facade so uh hopefully you know i just say prayerful about that and just to move in that direction and this sister is not talking about just your little average you know after you get off of work bike ride around the neighborhood tell us how long are the the journeys that you all take well our cycling club has four four levels but i personally am with the sprint group and today we wrote 56 usually on the weekend it's like 70 miles sometimes we do a hundred um but there are different tiers for everyone we have something for everyone but i personally ride with that group and i personally am going to move into probably some track racing our club is named after major taylor who was the first african american to win the mile race uh in 1899 he won the track race for one mile so a lot of major tailors throughout the us and we're just you know bringing more awareness so uh yeah but there's something for everyone okay everyone everyone's invited but don't think you're gonna go out there with your little schwinn we have to start somewhere but yes i i that that's a goal and and hopefully you know i mean i've had members of our body to ask me about it and i want to just just whatever i can do to help someone absolutely to move toward their health and wellness that's i'm always happy to do that and keeping the temple healthy yes you know as god expects us to yes and one thing with going forth is stop saying we're going to do yes yes yes yes that's true i'm going to clean that closet i'm going to go here i'm going to call that person or whatever it's now time to do those things yes for example um i'm with the yates fabulous 50s all of us who were students at yates during the 50s we have a group called the uh fabulous 50s and we do events and then uh to raise money for for our scholarships for yates students at the end of the year each june we give e8 students and so we have just started our person-to-person meetings and so they were sitting there saying well we're going to do this and we're going to have this fundraiser this fundraiser so i stood up and i said now we're just talking fundraisers now is the time to do it to do the fundraising so we decided to just do this very simple one stay at home tea where you send your friends letters you know and ask them to to contribute and so uh after a few days after we passed out the materials one of the members called and she said guess what she said i have two hundred dollars already i said two hundred dollars she said yes you said some more going to be sending in some more money she said so it's working all right so instead of saying we're going to do that even comes with a church like yes brother o'tucker gets up and talk about the committees and there are people sitting here and i don't know whether i don't mean here i mean in the uh congregation who never served on a committee yeah i feel like if you're going to be a member of something it should be at least one thing you're doing within that organization or the church or whatever it is so we have to stop now saying because god has really shown us as you mentioned worldwide yes pandemic what he can do so we know what he can do so if we know all of that and we're trying to go to heaven we need to really stop we need to get if we need to get more religious we need to need to read our scriptures go to bible class we need to do it now yes and on another level even in the home we need to do things and uh doing i guess when i guess i'm jumping the gun we were going to talk about what are we going to do to relieve stress those are some things that comes in with that and we you us we have learned how to doing this pandemic you know you can't go and where you can't be with people and all this we have learned how to create our own fun yes we have we have learned how to make our own fun sometimes we would get in the car go to the park and just sit and look at the people you know it's a lot of fun it's a lot of sometimes we'll do fun then again i will pick up some food and drive down to to galveston yes and then go down and watch the people fish we'll have our little food in the car we'll eat and we'll watch them fish either we'll go to herman park and i keep in my car plastic place a tablecloth and some cups and forks and napkins pick up some food make a spread in herman park and have your own little picnic that's fabulous and watch the children play yes so those are some things that we can do instead of saying we don't know what to do we're stuck in this house go and make your own fun that's right and we've even been to kemah to the park down there and watch the speedboats you know things like that and uh when you get older you know you don't have a lot of your friends are gone and so and with this pandemic we can't even go and visit the friends we have that much yeah so we have to make our own fun so those things that we need to do now things we can do do them now because tomorrow is not promised to us that's right i love how you brought up the fact that it it pushed us to appreciate simplicity we have become a world that was just so inundated with flashing lights and everything being you know over the top and thinking you had to have these outlandish you know gatherings or what have you and just being able to enjoy the simple things of a fish sandwich on the side of the bank of the river you know all of that absolutely and you talked about we had to create our own fun how many of us at this table have done a tick tock in the pan dinner oh yeah i was going to mention that so some ways that we relieved some stress in our household we brought out the good old board games yes uh we had some really really strong uno battles my children and i ken was the the camera master we did some tick tocks it's a great way to relieve stress yeah exactly so we really really enjoyed ourselves and i think it goes back to what i mentioned earlier it it strengthened our bond as a family yes my kids are much older and they really don't want to spend a lot of time with their their dad and i but this you know kind of get down here you're going to spend some time with us i mean you're not going to be on the phone all day yeah so it really allowed us to strengthen our bond and plus you had to let them know mama still got it that's right absolutely sister george you did a tick tock also well my tick tock is more inspirational because i talk about domestic violence and i'm on tick-tock talking about that i shared a poem that i wrote i am a bmw uh it's on there and uh just some inspirational stuff so i'm definitely going to be doing more tick tocks and it's going to be more related to my book and uh one of the things in my book is we were playing by nfl rules i was thinking about that other the other day it's going to be coming out real soon but it's more about speaking to the audience about domestic violence so that's what mine is about and for me that is a way of stress for me it helps heal me i wasn't able to write my book until i was able to forgive right and even in the midst of this pandemic you know still dealing with the aftermath of the the death of my husband and everything else and you know that's why i say it's okay to be okay and i had to learn that and even with the healing from uh going through covet i was still healing myself so now i can actually say that i i'm there i am down that's one thing that i you know what you were saying uh aaron about your purpose i i know that i'm on purpose with what god has for me to do because i was telling sister erica about my easter speech the easter speech way back in the day i haven't always been in the church i was in in the baptist church and i had a i didn't have these speech my sister did so my mom would train uh teach her to speak every day and it was time for her to get up and speak that speech and she didn't do it she started crying so my mom grabbed me and put me on the stage and i said that speech i'm go i'm sharing that to say this when god i didn't realize god had called me way back when to speak he was preparing me and here it is this little timmy girl did not did not know her work didn't know she was beautiful and i tell this story all the time i didn't realize i was that beautiful until i was in my late 30s when you allow people to tell you who you are when they did not create you that's one of the things that i have learned from my purpose and that god has prepared me to be an orc of him to always give him the glory in everything that i do and that's one of the things that i have learned and i do believe not believe i know that it's my purpose that's right that's that is so heartwarming to hear and i say that because going through the pandemic i um on my job i switched levels like i switched teams i moved to i got a promotion and and with that promotion came more eyes on you because i moved from i don't know if many of you know what i do i'm a recruiter but i moved into a executive level role to where i'm recruiting mainly for our vps our you know evp so a lot of my interaction was with the ceo and with that it came more scrutiny on you know the kind of candidates you present because their representation of you and in what you do and and how you vetted them to make sure they're properly prepared for these roles so moving into that i question am i good enough for this and am i strong enough for this how am i going to handle that change and still be present for these virtual learners that i have sitting right behind me and so it was a huge battle mentally and it took a lot of prayer it took actually falling on my knees and crying out and asking god to give me the strength because he placed this in my lap when he didn't have to right because it was something that i did not apply for it was something that was given to me and you know the things that he gives to us no one can take from us and so i excelled in that role right and just as i'm excelling in that role another opportunity came knocking with a different company to say hey we want you to come here not only just that company but three saying hey we want you we want you we want you and so having to make you know new decisions about switching over to different roles it really has improved where how i feel about myself and how i see myself in terms of corporate america and being able to walk in that path and still know that i am strong because god made me who i am and if they want me they want me because he has chosen me to be there it's amazing when you tell that story it takes me back to the life of david david was out there with the sheep you know he was out there in the field he didn't know that god had chosen him that's right he did not know that god was getting ready to anoint him and then after god anointed him god landed upon him his spirit with power and that's what we have to be mindful of when god has placed you on a path he's not just putting you on the path for you to walk he's also assembling himself with you on the journey and he's reigning his spirit down on you with power you are going to be able to do some things that you didn't even think you could do yourself people will see you and try to say that wait a minute you don't have this gift or you don't have that talent or you don't have this ability or try to get plant the seed of doubt in your mind but when you know that god is with you and has purposed you to do something walk in that trust that look to that lean on that and watch god blow your mind yes and that's where i am i don't know if i don't know about you all but in the pandemic god has blown my mind see what all he's done i know out there in in virtually and god has done some things for you um so we just want you to take a moment and join the join the conversation type in the chat what have you seen god do that has blown your mind that maybe god has planted you in rooms that you didn't even know existed type that in the chat take this time and just let us know share with us ladies i have really enjoyed the conversation i don't know about you i'm having a good time all day because sister ellis is a she is a bowl of knowledge and wisdom and experience but we know that god has uh we know that time is of the essence because we don't want to hold you alone because we know y'all have some stuff to do out there we have enjoyed having this conversation um we do want to be mindful though i know one last thing we want to talk uh touch on before we go because we don't want to leave without having this conversation we kind of touched about our children and brought them up but we never really talked about some of the things we saw our children face and encounter and then how how we're seeing them kind of come through it you know we can talk about them being there but what are we seeing happen that you see your children not only they've they've broached a difficult or a challenge um moment challenging time but then they're coming through it can we speak to that conversation i can absolutely speak to just children in general that i've seen in the in the school system this pandemic has brought on a lot of anxiety from our kids it's brought on a lot of depression and depression is something that's it's diagnosed very easily you may not see the signs but the signs are there it also has brought on an increase of students wanting to harm themselves we've seen an increase of students wanting to commit suicide which is absolutely horrible horrible at this time for our kids to even be thinking about that when our kids were at home virtually and they're now transitioning back to face to face we have also seen an increase of lack of socialization skills which is causing a lot of conflict between students they don't know how to resolve conflict yes yes and so now we are trying to re-teach what it is like to be amongst your peers right we're re-teaching anxiety strategies how to help kids not become overwhelmed so what i say to parents is make sure that you are listening to your kids make sure that you are checking their cell phones checking all social media kids are very very private yes and that phone is the key to a lot of the issues that our kids are dealing with so parents stay on top of your children's social media accounts follow them stay on top of their cell phone check their text messaging check the games that they play these are windows of where predators can really take hold of our children and we've seen an increase of that in a virtual setting because the lack of that interaction with your peers they were very reclusive and they went to their cell phones yes you know so this pandemic has caused a lot of inconveniences for the parents because the parents you know as you mentioned had to deal with all of this and then also computer breakdowns i know with my grandchildren you know some of their computers broke down and uh so they had to do it they oh some of their computers broke down and they one two three we have to think about our parents some of our parents uh well many of our parents are inconvenienced with this pandemic some of the computers i know with my grandchildren some have broken down and it's been days before they could get another one so that has brought on some problems and also health problems as we know and it's still happening with our children getting sick so that's one of the main things that's happening now and we the children are faced with you know they go to like my little grandson he's he's out but he didn't have the covet but he came down with something yeah an allergy or something so he's at home right now so they are getting ill so we have to pray even harder to god to please protect our children while they're faced with this pandemic absolutely and i know i heard you um sister elizabeth you talked about how it has our children are dealing with anxiety you know and how that has become a heightened reality you know in the lives of our children but i also want to speak to our children are watching how we respond you know and what we're doing to be you know socially healthy right in this moment and in this space and i know a lot of times i have to check myself oh erica put your cell phone down because your children are watching you know we don't want to set forth the wrong example that you don't have to sit and talk to each other but that you should be you sh you know because you have your phone so you don't have to talk to each other no but that you should use the cell phone for what the cell phone was created for it was created to talk to people it was a it was a means that was supposed to allow you to connect yeah with people and we've used the cell phone to deconnect yes you know from the world and we have to be careful with that not to allow our children to grow up because they're starting with cell phones younger at a younger age and so they're setting a pattern of being disconnected from their youth and you know um what i've learned about my children doing the pandemic is specifically with my son is that he's not the most sociable person yes he's not the one that's going to you know raise his hand if the teacher doesn't call on him he's not going to raise his hand so being virtual it caused more anxiety for him for him having to turn on his camera he didn't like that he didn't want people to see him he did not want people to see him he was hesitant even about answering questions because he would whisper to me what if i get it wrong someone's going to laugh you know because he wasn't around his peers so he wasn't you know having that encouragement from being in the class sitting with his friends and his friends answering questions and that feeding you know him being able to feed off of that so he had to you know develop a skill within himself to say okay maybe i should answer it or better yet he had to have mom to nudge him and say answer that question she's talking to you turn your camera on so i realized something about him is that his confidence wasn't there so he needed to be at home with me for a moment so i can help him with his confidence and to continue to build him up and since he's gone back to school this year i will say when he comes home i ask well how did it go today did you answer questions he was like it was good i answered her questions i said okay that's good good job for you high five on that because i want to continue to encourage him to be brave especially being a young black you know guy it's difficult because oftentimes they get picked on for not raising their hands or the teacher might think oh he's just having a bad day or he's a problem child it's not that it's his confidence you have to build him up and so him being at home and having that moment with him i was able to continue to encourage him to hey answer the questions you know this we worked on this you got this you can do this and so him going to school now he's having a better year good that's good i tell you i don't know if the i pray that all of our children are having a great year you know and building having those positive friendships and building those forging those positive relationships but if the children aren't having a good year i know the parents are because they happy not to have to be in the house with them by themselves again but yes all in all you know it is truly awesome to see how god not only has worked in the lives of the adults he's also working in the lives of our children because they are they are going to learn if they haven't learned it already that we don't have to have anxiety we don't because god's word tells us to be anxious for nothing because we have a god that we can turn to make our requests and trust that he is going to cover that that's right trust him in that moment and so this is an opportunity not only for adults to lean on him but children to learn to lean on him as well and i tell you our children are watching we pray that there are some out there watching this conversation right now because we want you to know that god is with you just like he's with your parents he's with you too and all you have to do is believe that he is right there listening to you and just let them know what it is that you're dealing with there is a god that is bigger than the power problem you're facing there's a god that's bigger than the bully you have to face on school at school there's a god that's bigger than any challenge that's in your life right now he is right there with you and he is able to lift you up and carry you over just as he's done in the lives of all of us here at this table yes he can all right ladies is there anything else that we did not talk about on today i just had one quick thing i do not have children but i'm i'm the health and wellness lady okay so that's right so i was fortunate to be consulted by parents to combat some of these anxieties and depression and get them off the machine the video games so i would train i had a certain amount of kids that i would train and uh they you know one hour and one of them one quick story i would have to train him before school so i'm at his house at seven and that is commendable for a young kid he just turned into a teenager to get up now it was challenging when i ring the doorbell he's just getting out of the bed every single time and now he's doing this thing where he hides from me and i have to go find him because i waste time he's like timewaster.com you know what no we're not doing that so you know and i guess the the um prize was that he went to camp and he ended up working out every day at camp and he ended up sharing with his friends come work out with me and got some kind of award so they are listening yeah i mean sometimes we don't think they are right and they're listening and then they take it and share it so i say to the young kids out there keep moving and when we ask you to move we're doing it out of love right and it will be fun i promise you it may not seem fun at first but it can be a lot of fun so just keep moving keep moving because the lord has a lot in store for you and you want to be healthy enough to receive those blessings the lord made you a person not a potato and i would just like to say that even though we've talked about all these things we still are facing challenges that we have to ask god to please help us to overcome because we are faced with still social distancing we are faced with um crime yes you know there has been an increase in crime and so we have to be more aware of that and we are faced with not seeing our relatives who live far away because i i really wish i could see my my daughter and her family that's been going on two years now but thank god he invented the what is that boom so we can talk and we talk face to face quite a bit very nice and then um also there those of us who have businesses we're trying to come back from that that has been a challenge so we have to keep praying to god to continue to bless us if it's his if it's his in his uh mind to do for us that we will overcome these challenges so we have to and pray for each other who are having challenges that we don't have that we have to pray for each other yes amen i know our family has faced you know a considerable number of different challenges from the health decline of you know family members and loved ones and um those of us who thought we were so busy are now becoming caretakers we have you know some cousins that are now caretakers of not just one parent but two and so that has ushered them into a different season of life but all in all you know you never know how much you can bear until situations change you know and and just watching them be a blessing to their parents as well as growing individually because they also face some of their own challenges you know internal and external but all all in all god has been right there with him and he's you know they're leaning on him and we're just seeing just it's almost like you just see wings taking you know taking form and taking taking shape because while things are happening and the devil may be throwing curve balls you know it just seemed like you just start floating above it you know some it's not always pretty yeah you know when you see a bird and they're learning how to fly it's not always pretty because sometimes they fall but all in all they grow to have a beautiful sore and that's what i see happening in the lives of our family members so that's awesome and i would also say that you know to speak on our family members for those of you that don't know we're sisters [Laughter] but to speak on that what else we've also seen god preparing them mentally for those things so i thank god for the mental preparation that goes into each and every struggle each and everything that we've gone through he's preparing us he's speaking to us he's showing us and he's revealing to us how we are to to move throughout situations so i'm thankful for his his comfort i'm thankful for his warmth and his love that he's given to us and i just want to say i'm just thankful for the journey amen amen and i just want to leave everyone with this we got to just trust god when we can't trace him he is with us he allows what he allows and what he allows he will get us through it amen absolutely he saw it all happening before it was even in our eyesight in our line of view you know so that's interesting well anyone else has anything that else they like to share or anyone have any big news in the pandemic oh well stay tuned people you never know you never know what god would birth out of this fantasy we have had a great time have y'all had a good time just because we stopped don't mean you all have to stop go ahead and drop in the chat if this has been helpful to you or if you've just uh had a great time if you just say uh hey girl you know whatever it is that you feel like sharing in the chat we ask you to do so now we'd like to thank all of the each and every one of you all for coming out on today we know you could have been doing anything on this sunday but you chose to stop by and have this conversation with your sisters yes all right well until next time we are just happy to be a part of the 2021 virtual homecoming experience we're thankful that god has allowed us to even have an opportunity to see another year see another home coming we didn't know what this homecoming was going to look like or what it was going to present but god did and we just trust that he he knows best all right ladies well we're signing out i'm erica tucker and i have with me erin thompson charisse turner mandurah alice elizabeth williams and tina george and we're just sister servants sister servant the great god i love you all and like our preachers say we love you and there's not a thing you can do about it signing out ladies my my my my my my what a tremendous time we've had in here on today amen if this men's and women's roundtable discussion has blessed your life just take a moment and drop a line in the live chat and let those that you've seen on screen know how greatly they are appreciated you know the lord continues to bless us even in spite of us and here it is family the lord is a very present help in the time of trouble in the time of distress we know that we have refuge in christ jesus our lord and so as we trust that god will continue to take us up and carry us on we praise him for his preservation power we know that with every challenge there will be an opportunity for god to be glorified let's embrace this moment and let us remember that we are not in it by ourselves you're not in it alone you have those who are working with you praying for you and trust and believe that god will see you through remember not to stumble at fear but to walk by faith amen we take a moment to say thank you to our great leadership here at the south union church of christ our elders and deacon our elders brother john ellis brother fred holland brother leonard davis and brother wilfred dogen we thank god for our deacon brother walter jeffrey we thank god for our media ministry team led by brothers kerry rockmore and desmond wright we praise the lord for our graphic designer brother wendell hart and we thank god for their giftedness and their skill as they have helped to navigate us through this time of pandemic last but not least we thank god for our praise and worship leaders haven't they done a wonderful job on today you know god continues to bless us and we must continue to trust him we invite you to continue to watch continue to be encouraged as you will hear from a powerful preacher at 6 30 in the person of brian moss for our special 6 30 bible class don't go too far we look forward to seeing you here again very soon 6 30 p.m tonight we'll be back with a special word of encouragement from minister brian moss of fort worth texas the lake como church of christ stay tuned and be blessed now remember as always that here at south union we love you and there's not a thing that you can do about it to god be the glory we'll see you soon [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] ah uh um [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: South Union CoC Media

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Length: 144min 52sec (8692 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021