S2S Sisters: "From Selfishness to Serving – A Sister’s Testimony" by Kayla Rogers

Our prayer is that you will be filled with the knowledge of His will, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power. All right, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to another session of Strength to Strength Sisters. We're so excited to have everyone here. We love to see your faces, so if you have the courage, you can turn on your video and say hi.

The vision of Strength to Strength Sisters is to encourage women to be catalysts in advancing the kingdom through biblical teaching, testimonies of faithful women, and thought-provoking discussions.

My name is Linda Amant, and I am coming to you today from Boston, Massachusetts. I want to welcome Kayla Rogers from New Hampshire. She lives in a fairly log-style home in the woods of New Hampshire with her husband and three little boys, three very sweet little boys.

Kayla comes from a broken upbringing to a life of passionately serving those around her, first of all, Christ and those around her. We've been in Kayla's home, Jonathan and Kayla's home, and we've been very blessed by their passion, just their fire for Christ and His kingdom and the church. So blessed by that. I've been very blessed to have my path in life crossing with Kayla's and to be a friend of hers. Her sourdough is amazing.

So this call will be recorded today for our YouTube and podcast platforms, but you will not be recorded unless you turn on your video or your speaker. As I said before, we love to see your faces. After the call, there will be a time for you to share your thoughts, inspirations, questions, whatever you would like to say with Kayla, and we would love to hear from you if you have something to share.

So we're going to start by praying for Kayla before she speaks. Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for this beautiful day. We thank You for Your mercy, and we thank You that You are here with us. We thank You for what You have done in Kayla's life as she has fallen upon the rock, Christ Jesus.

We just thank You for her passion, for Your kingdom, and for serving You. I ask that You would give her a special grace today and the next hour as she speaks to us, and that You would fill her heart again with the fire and passion that was in there when she found You.

Just bless her home, bless her, bless her husband as he's caring for the little boys and Madison with the baby. Just be especially near her and give her words, fill her with Your Spirit, and give her calmness. Thank You again for being with us. We ask that You would be with each one on this talk today, that Your presence would be among us. All this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Go ahead. Thank you so much, Linda, for having me and thinking of me and praying for me, especially praying for me. I am so thankful to be here, and I am just in awe and in honor to, yeah, just talk with everyone today.

And yeah, to just share how the Lord has blessed me and has encouraged me and brought me out of just the world's clutches and Satan's clutches. And I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful that I have the ability to be here and, yeah, just to give God the glory.

So starting out, I come from a background of just in the world, there was little to no, actually no Christian influence, not much talk of Jesus or God or I know of them or knew of them as a child, but it wasn't a godly home.

And yeah, I'm so thankful God has created me to be a daughter, a wife, a mother, things that I just feel that I never could have done without Him. I feel that I feel so unworthy of the children I have, the husband I have, and just God's grace. And yeah, His blessings are so abundant in my life. And yeah, to know the brokenness that I come from and where it starts. And yeah, so I'll share about that. And so my parents lived over in Western Mass when they had me, and I want to say back in 1996.

And my parents quickly realized that parenthood was very hard and very challenging, and I was the only child, and my mother actually decided that she wanted to leave my father for another man. And so that was a really hard time.

I was three when that had happened. My parents separated, and I ended up being shifted quickly to living with my dad and his sister at the time. And my mother was living with a new man, and so I didn't get to see her too much. I spent a lot of time with my dad, which was a wonderful time, a great time of bonding. And yeah, I just felt like I was able to see his hurt. Even though I was a three-year-old little girl, I felt like I was able to see how much pain that caused him with my mom leaving, and it broke his heart, and it stuck with me. And by the age of five, my dad met my stepmom, and then my mom ended up taking me back in.

So I then moved in with her, her boyfriend, and not very far away from my dad, and my dad ended up moving in with my stepmom. And so quickly, things shifted really fast, and I now had a new stepsister, a new male figure in my life, and I barely saw my dad. And so the safety and security I felt with spending time with my dad kind of shifted really fast to my mother, who I felt loved me and still loves me. And we have definitely a relationship now that I only know is because God is in my life. And she and I have walked a very difficult path, but she is there for me. She is.

And I'm thankful for our relationship now. But moving forward, the man that my mom had decided to leave my dad for was an abusive man, and they ended up, unfortunately, having a very tumultuous relationship. And as a five, six, seven, eight-year-old little girl living with them, it became like a very volatile environment. And I then was watching my parents go through a really messy divorce. My stepmom was kind of the catalyst for the divorce and separating things. And it was a really difficult time as a young little girl to start out my life, having my only security be in my dad, then shift to my mom, and then watch as my whole life crumbled in front of me.

I ended up going through many different homes with them. And so my mom ended up moving after their divorce settled. She moved to Vermont, and she moved me and her boyfriend into basically a hunting cabin without plumbing, without heating. Well, it had a stove, so it had electricity hooked up to it, but no plumbing, no bathroom, no heating. And it was basically a shack.

In the middle of March, she pulled me out of school. I was going to public school at the time. She pulled me out of school, and she said, "This is our new home. This is where we're going to live, and we're going to build it." And I'm like, "Okay.

Whatever you say." And so I watched as almost every other day they would fight and scream and yell. And I learned this deep fear and loneliness that being the only child, watching this relationship just unfold and just be so chaotic. There was no stability in my life. I would see my dad every other weekend based on their divorce settlement, and we would spend time for a few hours. I would go and stay at their house, but my dad would go out. My stepmom is a—she's been a really wonderful woman, and I'm thankful for our relationship now. I'm very thankful that she's forgiven me, and I've forgiven her, and we've gotten to a good place. But she, unfortunately, struggles a lot with alcohol.

And so they would go out on Friday nights and Saturday nights, and so she would spend most of Sunday hungover. And so what we would do, my dad and I would end up when I would stay there, we would go out and do fun things. We'd go to museums, and we'd go to parks and just do really fun things. So I have fond memories of that.

But watching someone drink like that, I just thought it was normal. I had no idea that, oh, sleeping in bed all day wasn't normal when I would go there. So yeah, definitely in this place, I felt that there was no one I could turn to. I was a quiet child. My parents always told me I was an easy child because I stuffed my emotions. I didn't necessarily make a fuss because I knew that it would be a fight or someone would be angry with me or it would turn into screaming and yelling. And so I felt that in this time, it's better to stay quiet because someone won't get mad at me or won't yell at me or won't be my fault.

And so that's carried with me as I've gotten older and has really crippled me. And I'm so thankful for God's just protection and also His word because I wouldn't be able to have healthy relationships.

But I ended up around 14. So from 8 to 14, I spent time with my mom and her boyfriend, primarily watching them build this house. I went back to public school. And so I went to a Catholic school at this point. That was the closest school to us. And so my mom enrolled me in a Catholic school. So I started to learn about the Pope and Catholicism. And this is my first real memory of anything involved with the Lord. And although it was something that was very nuanced with the Pope and everything, I remember being in a third-grade class and asking, "Who's the Pope?" And everyone turned at me and gasped because I was in Catholic school.

Everyone knew about the Pope.

But I didn't because I didn't come from any religion. My parents are pretty atheistic and still are. But I felt a sense of peace there just being with people. And I met friends there and really quickly saw, okay, there's something good about Jesus. And I think He seems peaceful. And so I took that with me. I ended up leaving that Catholic school and going into high school. I decided to move in with my dad. And I ended up moving in with him at 14 and my stepmom just to try things out. I lived with him when I was five years old. And so I was like, "Hey, I'm going to try this. I'm going to see what it's like.

Maybe my stepmom's changed. Things are going great every other weekend, so why not? I'll try it." Immediately, I move in, and I fall in love with public school. I have the best of friends. I meet a boyfriend and quickly fall into the temptation of sexual sin. And I went into this relationship not knowing I was a young 14-year-old girl. I didn't know what love was, what care and compassion were.

I just knew fighting and screaming and anger. And so that boyfriend ended up being abusive to me. And so I ended up going through this really rocky emotional time of becoming a teenager, learning about myself and being this young woman, and then having to deal with emotions of a relationship and watching my own relationships crumble around me with my parents. And so I would spend most of my time either at my boyfriend's house or I'd spend my time at my friend's houses because I just felt more comfortable there. I didn't want to be home. I didn't feel comfortable, and I didn't feel close to my family.

And so I ended up going back to my mom's because the relationship got so toxic that I couldn't get away from it. I just needed to leave. And so I moved back with my mom around 14, 15-ish. And then I went to the high school there and fell into the same temptations of sexual sin and partying, drinking, alcohol, drugs. And I was totally focused on myself. I focused only on myself. I only wanted to please myself. I didn't want to respect my parents. They would tell me to do something. I'd do the opposite. I just didn't want—I just was angry with them. I was angry that they just let me do whatever I wanted. They didn't give me rules and responsibility and structure.

So I just did whatever I wanted. I said, "Okay. If I'm going to live the way I want to live, great. I'm going to do whatever I want." And it caused so much pain, so much pain for myself, for others. I didn't treat people well. I didn't take care of people. I didn't respect my parents. I didn't find their authority respectful. I took advantage of them and people around me. And I was so selfish, so, so selfish.

And I knew that I wasn't a good person. I felt it inside. I knew that I was just terrible, and I just wanted to feel something. I didn't want to feel alone, and I never wanted to be alone. That's why I always had to have a boyfriend or whatever. I just wanted to be around people all the time because I was lonely. And I knew I was lost, but I didn't know why I felt this. There wasn't anyone speaking into my life about Christ. There wasn't anyone speaking to my life about even a meaning. I just felt like life was meaningless, so I'm going to live the way I want. And I failed my classes.

I would stay out late, did whatever I wanted, snuck out, did anything and everything. And at that point, both of my parents were in new relationships. My mom had left her previous abusive boyfriend, moved in with a different guy who's now actually my stepdad, and would be gone nights, weekends. I was just there to fend for myself at home. So I was like, "You know what? I'm just going to move in back with my dad." Great. My dad said, "You're not moving in with me. I can't handle you. I don't know where you're going to go." So both my parents were fed up with me, done with me at the age of 15 years old.

And so I was like, "Where am I going to go? What am I going to do? I don't know where to go. I'm 15." So I actually moved in with friends. And one of my friends' families was like, "Hey, we'll take her in."

And this was the first time I felt like, "Okay. No one cares about me, about my life, about anything because I've created this. I've created a monster. I've created myself, and no one wants to be around it except for the friends that I devoted so much time and energy to because they felt like family to me."

And so very quickly after I moved in with my friends, I ended up—my dad actually moved to Florida. So took off, sold—actually, they didn't sell their house. They just foreclosed on it, sold everything, and said, "Hey, we're going to Florida. Bye." This was right at 15 years old, a very, very, very difficult age to be in as a young girl. And my dad leaving, my mom wanting nothing to do with me, I just felt like, "I have nothing. I have no one." And this is when I started to still seeking relationships in the world, still seeking pleasure in the world, and then deciding, "You know what? I'm just not going to eat. And I'm just going to focus on all of my sports."

I played lacrosse. I played basketball. I skied. I ran. I'm trying to think of anything else. That's primarily the sports I did in high school. And I constantly had to be busy with friends. I constantly had to be doing stuff. And I just was like, "You know what? I'm just not going to eat. Maybe someone will care about me then." I dove so deep as a 15-year-old in my sophomore year in high school into this deep, selfish, now thin child. I would hide in my room and just do obsessive crunches. And then if I was sitting at home alone in my friend's house, I would go out for miles and miles of runs, come back, and just be so exhausted and so faint that I couldn't stand.

I just had to lay down. And I got sickly thin. My mom would come every once in a while, and she would check in on me. And she took me out shopping one time, and she was like, "You know, do you want to come back?" And I was like, "Yeah, I'll come back. You care? Sure. That sounds great. I'd love for you to take me back in again. This sounds amazing." And my mom ended up taking me back in, back into Vermont. And I started working at the preschool that she was working at, just voluntary. And I still continue with my eating disorder. It was the only thing that gave me what I felt like meaning.

I felt like, "Okay. I could focus on myself in this way and be very thin and just not eat. And maybe someone would care." I got so thin that there was a woman that her daughter actually had an eating disorder that worked with her. And she ended up saying, "Hey, Kayla is really, really thin. I think you should take her to the doctor." And my mom was like, "She's fine. What do you mean? She's just a young girl." So she took me in. I got an assessment, and I was basically what happened when they checked my pulse and my heart rate is they stood me up quickly and then sat me back down, stood me up, sat me back down.

And my pulse could not recover fast enough. And if I can remember correctly, I forget the terminology that they use. And so my pulse couldn't recover enough that I almost passed out. And they're like, "She needs to be admitted to the hospital." My mom's like, "What?

You just need to go to the hospital. What are you talking about?" And they're like, "No. She's really sick. She needs to go to the hospital." And so that's when I couldn't start junior year of high school. I couldn't go back to see my friends that I had left and became my family. They're like, "Where are you? What are you doing?" I got my phone taken away. I got everything taken away from me. I went inpatient in a hospital, actually over here in Boston. It's called Walden Behavioral Care.

And I'll tell you a full circle story after this. But there, I met a dietitian, a registered dietitian, and she was the first person to sit me down and to say, "Kayla, you're killing yourself. You're going to die the way you're going. You need to stop this. I don't care what you have to do. You need to remember that this is your life. This is who you are, and you're going to die. You're going to die, and you're not going to survive this if you keep going down this road." I was five, seven, or eight at next to nothing. I think I was maybe 80 or 90 pounds. I was tiny. And at that point, someone believed in me.

Someone cared about me enough to speak into my life and say, "Hey, wake up. You're going to die." And so after that, I just said, "Enough's enough. I'm going to start caring about myself." I got out of inpatient, started going outpatient. And so at this point, I got my GED.

I started college classes. I was 16 now. And I ended up going to college and saying, "You know what? I think I'm going to go back to Florida. I'm going to try to rekindle my relationship with my dad."

So I go at the age of 17 years old, move down to Florida. At this point, I'm healing. I'm doing better. I'm recovering. I start to feel better about myself. But then once I get to Florida, I live on my own, go all into the same sins, get right into going out, drinking, partying, boys, anything. I just wanted to feel again. And I was alone, and I could do whatever I wanted. I was free. I lived on my own. I was working and going to college and doing all of this. And at that time, I met one of my friends, and she had left a church and decided to go into the world. And so we became fast friends.

She lived right behind my apartment. And so we met at a party, and we just became really fast friends, hung out all the time, just went to parties together. And about two months into hanging out, she was like, "Hey, I'm actually going to go back to church." And I was like, "You went to church?"

I couldn't believe it, but she went to church. And I was like, "Hey." She was like, "Do you want to come with me?" And I was like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not. Yeah. I don't think I'm ready for that." And she was like, "Well, there's these Bible talks that they do for college students." I was like, "Hey, that sounds great. I think you should go to that." I didn't want to go to Sundays. And so for the first time, I walked into this church Bible study, and I can just remember feeling—I still can remember feeling the love 10 years ago now. Just this overwhelming love and these people just coming up to me with this joy and this peace and this compassion for me that I was just—it was just unbelievable.

After just being in the world with all these people that just couldn't care much about me, I felt for the first time, "Wow, these people care about me. There's something about this church." For the first time, and we all sit down, and everyone starts opening a Bible. This is the first time I've ever opened a Bible. I don't know what John is. I don't know what any of these books mean. I don't know what the New Testament, Old Testament, nothing. It sat up on a pedestal when I went to the Catholic school that I went to when we would go to mass. And so we ended up—they're just telling me to flip to these things.

I was like, "Scripture? Like 3:1? I don't even know." So I had her help me. But after that, I just kept going and kept going and kept going to these midweeks that these college students would have. And I fell in love with Scripture. I fell in love for the first time. I felt like I belonged. I knew that there was something about Jesus. There was something that I mattered.

Fast forward to July of 2013, I actually went to my first Sunday service that my future husband had gone to as well. We had no idea, never met there. But we went to the same Sunday, and it was my first Sunday ever that I went to this church.

And he thought he saw me. I thought I saw him. We joke about it now. But yeah, it's amazing to think back. I started studying the Bible then with this girl that ended up getting restored and coming back to Christ. And I became a Christian and left. I did a complete 180. I left all of my friends, all of my relationships, the drinking, the partying, everything. I left it all. And I was like, "This is it. This is my new life. This is who I am. I am a daughter of Christ.

I'm devoting everything to you, Jesus. I have nothing. I have nothing at the foot of your cross. Just take me and make me whole. I just want to feel loved." And I felt loved. I felt for the first time that I mattered to Jesus, and that's all that mattered to me. I felt so filled up and so whole. This warm and fuzzy feeling that I felt was so completely overwhelming and so beautiful. And so I ended up moving back up north to my mom. And by this point in 2014, I was part of the church. I had been baptized back in September of 2013. And so I was a new young Christian, and I ended up meeting my now husband at a church campus retreat.

And so we were part of the ICOC way back when. And so he was at college. I was at college. And we had met at this campus retreat actually up in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. And quickly, we decided to start talking and went on dates. And we quickly just fell deeply, deeply in love very, very fast. And we ended up falling into temptation. And we would go on this vicious cycle of feeling bad about falling into sin, then repenting, talking to people, getting open about it, talking. And then this repetitive cycle of, "We should have been married. We should have been married. We needed to be married. And we needed to just figure it out as a married couple."

And we ended up waiting two and a half years into our relationship to get married. And it really broke my heart. I felt, as a young Christian, I knew I was so new in the faith. I didn't know. I felt like my relationship was worldly. I felt worldly. I didn't know what to do. And at this point, I'm still going to college. I get into my program to become a registered dietitian. And I am still going to college classes. I'm still working at a hospital. And I'm now in a relationship that feels just like my husband, but it wasn't. And we were told that, "No, you got to finish school. Finish school. You got to have a career.

You got to do this, this, this, and this, then get married." And we're like, "Okay. We should have gotten married." And looking back on it, we both agree that it was something that God took us through the most incredible revolution for me because I needed to heal. I needed to heal internally. I needed to know that it was safe. I needed to know that the man that I was going to marry was going to bring me closer to Christ. And he most certainly does. That man, I feel so unworthy to be married to him. And he, every single day, calls me higher. And he tells me the things that I do wrong and the things that I need to grow in.

And the Lord speaks through him. And he speaks so deeply through him. When I mess up, I know that my husband will admonish me and share with me, "These are the scriptures you need to look to." And it has called me so much higher. And it has called me so much closer to my Lord and Savior. And I know that my relationship will help me get to Christ.

And I know that God knew I needed to go through all these things and meet my husband, Jonathan, because he wants me to get to heaven. And I wasn't going to change. And so I'm so thankful for that. Even to this day, any little thing I go through, it's just so funny sometimes. But I'm just so thankful. And so fast forward, we get married. I go on birth control because I'm now in my program. I'm now going through my rotations to become a registered dietitian. And I'm like, "I can't have a baby right now. No way."

And we just went through the most difficult first year of marriage because of preventing pregnancy. And I had such severe pain of jealousy and not turning towards God and knowing that I needed God, but I needed to focus on my career and focus on everything else when, in reality, I didn't. I needed to focus on my relationship with Christ and my relationship with my husband and to have a baby. I needed to not prevent this anymore. And so after I finished all of my schooling, I finally said, "You know what? Let's have a baby.

Let's have a baby." And so I was told by many people, "It takes time. It takes time." It did not take time. I quickly had a baby, quickly got pregnant. And I was like, "Am I ready for this?" I thought I was going to have eight months. I had no idea.

Am I ready for this? I remember sitting there. I collapsed when I saw that pregnancy test. And I knew that I was going to be saved through childbearing. I knew I was because I was living for myself. I was living a false lie of going to school, getting my career, and doing all these things that meant nothing. It meant nothing. It meant absolutely nothing.

When I ended up giving birth to my baby, we had gone through a different church. We ended up finding out we had someone in our small group that ended up leaving. And we were like, "Why are you leaving?" And so he was like, "Hey, I'll meet with you." He ended up meeting with Jonathan and had given him this book called King Jesus Claims His Church. And it was by Finnie Caravilla. And my husband devoured that book so fast, would read hundreds of pages, literally just sit there all night and just read these pages, read these pages over and over again. "Kayla, look at this. Kayla, look at this." And I'm like, "What is happening? I'm pregnant.

I'm working in my field. I'm new to all of this." I mean, I wore a dress to occasions. I always wore pants and leggings. I wore makeup. I wore jewelry. I had a beautiful wedding ring. I wore earrings. I had long-flowing hair. I never even knew what a head covering even was and anything about modesty, really, so coming from my background. And we were learning about all this stuff for the first time. Worldly entertainment, my clothing, my dress, my ability to be pure and use my body as a temple and not make others fall into temptation because of the way I looked and flaunting my body and flaunting things. And so I read 1 Corinthians 11.

I said, "Jonathan, this is a command. I need to start doing this." He showed me. We read the passages. We watched a head covering YouTube video. I don't know how many times. I was like, "I think I need to do this. I think I need to do this." And I ended up asking my father-in-law, who they're basically like my parents. They're so wonderful to me. They're so amazing to me. And I respect them. They've been my family. And he's a pastor. And I said, "Hey, do you mind talking to me about this? This looks like it's a command. I think I should be following this. I don't think I should have long-flowing hair anymore." And he's like, "No, no, no.

That used to be the times. That was cultural. You don't have to worry about that. You have beautiful long hair. It's fine. It's fine." And I'm like, "I don't know. It just doesn't sound right." And so I'm very close to giving birth to my first baby. We start going to a new church. We're going to two different church services. So we're going to church all day. I'm heavily pregnant.

I start wearing the head covering. I start taking off my jewelry. I start not wearing makeup. I quit my job. I literally quit my job. Everything that I've worked for for the last however many years, I quit. My dream job. And I knew in my heart that I needed to be a wife and a mother and also, first and foremost, a daughter. I needed to be Christ's daughter again. I needed to focus on Him first and foremost because that's the only thing that matters in this world. And so we ended up leaving the ICOC. And we then just started falling in love with Jesus' teachings. We got rid of our TV. We got rid of our second car.

We sold our house. We moved into a tiny apartment with this now brand new baby. And I'm like, "Are we crazy? No. We're crazy for Christ. We love Jesus. And we want to obey Him." And people thought I was out to lunch. "Kayla, you look Amish. You look like you're going to jump on a horse and buggy." And I knew that I was obeying Christ. I knew that my son was going to see his mom in a dress every single day because I knew that that was modest, knew I was modest in front of him, knew that he was going to look for a wife someday that wore a dress, hopefully, as my example. And I just felt like, "Wow, I don't have to adorn myself anymore."

And I love that scripture of 1 Timothy 2:12 and 15 that she'll be saved through childbearing if she continues in faith, if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with self-control. And I was saved. I am saved, richly, richly rewarded through my faith. And I feel like the scales have been just lifted off of my eyes with leaving everything that I had in the world. It meant nothing. It meant nothing to when I had my son. And now I have two other sons. I have three sons.

And I knew that I wanted to glorify God. And I wanted to teach people about Christ. And I knew that that needed to be my mission. I knew that I didn't need to adorn myself. And like in 1 Peter 3:3, "Don't adorn yourself. You need to have inward beauty, this inward beauty that will radiate in a quiet spirit. So much of this world is so loud. You have to be this strong woman." And I don't want to be strong. I just want to be a wife and a mother.

And I'm just so, so thankful, so thankful for the opportunities that I've had to walk this life. And to fast forward to now with our three little boys. And we're just living with our church family up here. We're a safe haven for two families that need a place to stay right now. They're all living with us. And we just want to give more than we can receive. So I'm just so thankful that I've been able to share my time and share what God's done in my life.

Thank you so much, Kayla. Wow. That made me laugh and cry.

Me too. Yeah.

It's amazing. Amen.

Praise the Lord. I just feel like it's so exciting to—it's so exciting to hear a story like that. And our stories are all equally wonderful. It's so encouraging. It's just so encouraging. And it's so exciting to me to think about God preparing you.

And yeah, it's just amazing. Amen. Yeah.

So now we can get on to our question-and-answer period. If there's anyone that would like to have a question for Kayla or an inspiration or comment, we would love to hear from you.

Hi. My name is Theresa. If I may comment, or is there someone else going to go? Okay. I'm from the Edmonton area in Alberta. So hello to all the Canadians. And I had a question. I mean, we're just coming out of regular Protestant churches. And many months ago, my husband was like, "Maybe we should look for an Anabaptist church." And the only thing we could find was a cute little Mennonite body of believers about 49 minutes away from us in Pickardville.

And they really love the Lord. And they are sending missionaries to their own Mennonite people in Belize and the like. But anyway, the thing is, we have a heart for missions. And we've given a lot for missions. And we've given to groups that are—they're not Anabaptists.

But they also really love the Lord. And this college Bible study where you found the Lord,

I feel that the Lord has—he does a work in us, even in those settings, where we might go, "Well, oh, they don't wear head coverings. And they go to movies." But you know what? Sometimes we can—so about five years ago, if I would have known everything I know now, I might have rejected it.

I wouldn't have been able to handle it. And it seems like the Lord just babystepped me in this direction. And I don't know. What do you think about that? Are they still doing a valid work? Or are we supposed to be a bunch of Anabaptists?

I love that. I love that. Personally, I feel that I was flat out from the world. I had no Christian besides going to Catholic school, but never opening the Bible. I was straight off the street. I didn't know anything. And so what really inspired me and kept me coming was the people around me in that room, the people around me that exemplified Christ and showed me that it was okay, that it's okay to let your guard down. It's okay to love people. It's okay if someone hurts you because Jesus loves you no matter what.

And I knew that no one was going to judge me. No one was going to hurt me. No one was going to make me feel like I needed to be something or do something because they all love Jesus. And when I started learning about scripture, that's what brought me to learn about scripture was because I felt safe. There was a place where my children just got home, that I felt safe there. And so I felt that in your setting, if there are people like that that go to movies or do "worldly things," that they need Jesus too, right?

They still need that example. And not that they're not going to go to—they're not going to go to heaven if they watch movies. I think teaching them about worldly entertainment and just teaching them, God can speak through you. God can speak through your life. God can speak through having people in your home. That's one thing that I've noticed a ton is the wide variety of people we've had in our home with our children and what people get from that.

My oldest is three. Well, he'll be four in August. And so it's a lot. It's making dinner, taking care of the kids, and hosting. So when people look at that and they're like, "There's really something to you guys in this Bible that you guys keep talking about." So that's just my encouragement is have people in your home, no matter what walk of life they are. You never know what you're going to do and say that God's going to work through and just going to really sit on their hearts, right?

I hope that answered your question. We started attending the Mennonite church. And I had already been wearing head coverings at home for prayer. And it was becoming a real pain. I would either throw my hoodie over top or—and so I knew I wanted to get a head covering. And I was trying to figure out what I was going to do. And then we started going to the Mennonite church.

And I'm like, "Oh, I better get something now." And I got some—I'm like, "But I don't want to wear those little white thingies." So I'm like, "I like the Hutterite ones." So I decided to get something that looked more Hutterite.

But so I've had some reaction from people in my life since then. I decided I'm going to wear it all the time. And they feel—and I'm like, "Are they going to feel like I'm holier than now?" And they have felt like their reaction is as if I'm judging them. I don't even say anything.

Yeah.

This judging. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I hear you. I hear you. I get bandanas like this that I wear. My friend made me this dress because it's a nursing dress.

She made it for me. And I get bandanas. And so coming from my world, my husband's amazing. I'm so thankful for his input in what I wear. It helps me a ton because I don't know what I look like to other people. I just do my own thing. But so I have noticed my husband said it's kind of like under the radar with bandanas.

That's what he's told me. And I go with it. So I just get these—I actually—this is like a handkerchief, I think. But I get bandanas. And I roll with it. And I just fold them over, tie them under. And I feel that I can pray. I can talk about God. I can do everything and still feel like I'm worshiping the Lord. And my head is covered. And I don't look "like a group," like a group of—I used to do the same thing. I used to wear a little scarf around my neck or have a hoodie on at home. I do the same thing.

But yeah. Okay. Maybe someone else has a question.

Thanks for those questions. Those are great. Sorry. I was just going to say, Theresa, I find your comments very interesting because I was actually born in Edmonton. And we're spending the winter in Boston, but we are planning to move to Calgary.

So I would love to touch base with you sometime or if you would to connect with you. Oh, the interesting thing is I was raised a Mennonite in an Anabaptist, I guess you'd call it, type of setting, and came to have many of the same questions like, "Do you have to be an Anabaptist type of person?" Anyway, so yeah.

Just thought I'd share that with you. But thank you for sharing very much. Yeah. Thank you. And I have come to appreciate so many people from so many different backgrounds, love and learn from them from all walks of life, all denominations, all settings of, yeah, Christians. It's been one of such an enriching experience.

So is there anyone else that would like to share or comment? Oh, do you mind if I add something? I don't know. Can you hear me? Yep. Go ahead. Okay. First off, I just wanted to say, Kayla, I can relate a lot to your testimony, also coming out of college and kind of a broken family, not quite the extreme that you've been through, but totally get it.

And also, Theresa, just your comment about kind of leaving Protestant churches and exploring Anabaptist. We've been kind of going to a conservative Mennonite church for the past year or so. And also just feeling convicted about the head covering just on my own. And we started getting goat milk from a conservative Mennonite family and really falling in love—I mean, well, I shouldn't say falling in love, but just being really impacted by being around them and sharing time with my kids with them, just having bad experiences with a lot of other women that profess to be Christian. And I'm not saying that there aren't Christians that are Anabaptists. And in fact, we do have friends that would not identify as Anabaptists, but we have a lot to grow on together.

And I've watched a very close friend of mine become really interested in the David Berceau material. And we went to high school together. And this is catching up 10 years later. So it's just amazing what God can do in all of our lives. So we've all come from a very different background and journey. And praise God. So I just want to say that.

Amen. Thank you. It was Caitlin? Yes. Sorry. I haven't been on the street much. I've emailed some of you, so. Where are you from? I'm from Missouri, up kind of in the city. So I'm moving to Arkansas right now, though. We're in the process of moving our house. So a lot going on. Oh, and I hope you have a blessed move. Oh, wow. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for sharing your comment. It means a lot to me. Yeah. For sure.

For sure. We have a comment here in the chat box that says, "This is such a beautiful story. In some ways, similar to mine. Thank you for sharing. It makes me happy to know that there are others in the Anabaptist faith that weren't brought up in it. I came from a past of drugs, partying, disrespecting my parents, and utterly worldly. I now go to an Anabaptist church my family loves and dress modestly and wear the head covering. And I've never felt more loved by Christ." So I'll share that with you, Kayla, too. Amen. Thank you so much for sharing that, Doreen. So sorry my baby was fussing a little bit. But wow. That sounds so familiar.

And thank you so much. Yeah. I feel so unworthy of where I am and what I've come from. And I'm thankful that there are people that everyone needs Christ, no matter what background. And coming from that, you are worthy of Christ.

You're worthy of his love and his teachings. And so, yeah, what a blessing. What a blessing. Amen. That you've chosen Christ and your family gets to witness you change. That's the biggest example is you in their lives. So keep up.