Impact investing doesn’t have to be insecure or risky per se, but it’s a different way of doing things. And so that’s a shift in mindset and that can be definitely scary.
Introduction
Well, if you’re wondering what impact investing, social entrepreneurship, Rwanda being a mom of four kids and finding a way to get a lot done in her one life.
life, you’ve come to the right place. You are going to be in for a treat to meet my friend, Michele. Michele has got quite the story to share and I think it’s gonna inspire you,
as it inspired me to want to take the next step in my own life. So thanks for being here. – Hi everyone, I’ve got Michele Dudley here with us.
us today and if you don’t know Michele, Michele created an organization originally called Fashion and Compassion and now it’s known as BraveWorks and BraveWorks .org.
She is a social entrepreneur and she’s passionate about educating, empowering and advocating for those overcoming poverty and injustice with a particular focus on women and youth.
And BraveWorks today serves people. people in the United States, Africa, South and Central America. She’s married and she’s a mom of four kids and she is now an empty nester.
So welcome, Michele.
Thank you so much, Kim. I’m so grateful to be here. I am so grateful to have you on the show. And I haven’t interviewed a social entrepreneur yet on the podcast.
So, you know, part of the goal of the generous girl is to to help women be more empowered financially to take the next step. And today we’re going to be focused on finances and friendships.
And I think you bring such a neat perspective and story that everyone’s going to really be blessed by when they hear how you live in Charlotte, but your reach and your impact has been around the globe.
So let’s start. How about with how how you got started with being a, you know, one of the co -founders of fashion and compassion, now known as BraveWorks? Yeah, absolutely.
BraveWorks
So it started back in 2008. I went with my church, you know, on a trip to Rwanda and Burundi, and it was, you know, that quintessential life -changing experience. It was really a vision trip where we were looking at,
we were visiting a partner and looking at how our church could, praying about how our church could engage. engage. As a result of that trip, my life was so changed. And it was changed largely from an experience I had at a genocide memorial,
where this church, it was a Catholic church where 11 ,000 people were killed in a matter of like five hours. And we, it was the only time I’ve been back to this location many times now. And it’s the only time when I was there,
the tour was given by a survivor. And it was incredibly moving. And I remember remember standing kind of amongst the bones there and feeling like Lord I have not been engaged in the plight of the suffering like I’ve basically been ignoring the plight of the suffering and and that needs to change and so there were a series of a lot of things that happened between then and starting fashion and compassion but but
basically it was starting to engage with these ministries first and Africa. And then I met a woman who was a survivor of trafficking and sexual exploitation in Charlotte.
And the combination of those things just really led organically to starting fashion and compassion. We originally just started selling paper beads from Uganda. And then this woman that I met in Charlotte who had come out of prostitution was trying to start a baking business.
And she was looking for opportunities to help the women she was– was serving. She was trying to help other women basically move away from prostitution and she was always looking for job opportunities. So I said what if we took these broken paper bead necklaces I’ve accumulated from these sales you know and then these beautiful Ethiopian crosses I’d picked up on a trip and what if we hire them to put them together and
that was kind of the genesis. So anyway and then it’s just been a joy to just see God at work. I’m through just different things over the years that I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of or be a part of starting,
so. – So if you’ve done the Strengths Finder or Myers -Briggs, tell everybody your personality, your temperament. – Yeah, well,
if you’re familiar with the Enneagram, I’m like a seven -wing eight. – Okay. – So, and then– – A lot of times I’m a challenger. (laughing) – Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like to do a lot of different things.
So that’s kind of definitely shows up in when you look at like kind of the different things I’ve had my hands in a lot of different things and I like it that way. And then on the Strengths Finder,
gosh, my top, I’m definitely learner, connector, belief. I’m trying to think of what some of the other ones I’ve well, I just think when people have a heart and God’s God’s,
you know, laid something on their heart that, like you said, he really hadn’t been involved in the plight of suffering. It is challenging to know, how do I even take that next step? So I’d love for you to encourage the listener who has the heart and doesn’t know how to get started.
What would you say to them? Because you were telling me in the pre -conversation, a lot of these just started organically. Like you didn’t really have the plan. or the strategy and then they threw conversations.
Michele: And yes, everything that I’ve been engaged in has started organically. And it’s part of a process of listening and putting yourself in spaces where you can meet people that are different from yourselves and have different experiences.
Right. So the first thing was that trip. Right. It exposed me to an incredible African leader, his name’s Celeste Moussakura, who’s become a dear friend. And it was partly my journey. with him, as well as getting to know the pastor’s wife at the church I was at at the time and that led to that.
But then on my second trip to Africa, I met a young man and we became friends and he ended up two years later having a daughter who was blind. And then we walked alongside him and his family and ended up helping him start a small school for the blind in Rwanda.
Wow. You know. And then, I mean, and then I heard an inspirational speaker here in Charlotte. I was at just a really small event that Steve Smith, former Carolina Panther, was speaking at and talking about how he was basically purchasing homes and gentrifying communities,
fixing them up, and then partnering with local nonprofits to move families, mostly single moms, transitioning out of homelessness into them. And I was like, oh my gosh, that’s brilliant. And that’s a way to,
like, actually, invest and make a difference. And so then I kind of filed it away. And when I got a little bit of an inheritance from one of my parents, I was like,
this is what I want to do with that money is invest to make a difference. So it’s a little bit of, I think, being in relationship with people, especially people outside of your maybe normal proximity,
including yourself, proximate to people that are different from yourself. And then let’s– listening and being open to what God may do. And then listening to those nudges,
I joke with my husband, sometimes I’m like, Oh, I had this idea today. And he’s like, Oh, no. But I say, I may not act, I don’t act on all my ideas, all the things that I feel like,
you know, God gives me. But then there are the ones that kind of stick with you and they won’t go away. And so I really try to pay attention to that where you just really, realize there’s no way this idea or the person I met just happened by happenstance.
Rwanda
Kim: Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Well I have a real heart for Rwanda raising our kids at Saddleback Church and Rick Warren has really invested with the peace plan in Rwanda and two of our daughters one when she was in 10th grade one when she the other on an 8th grade went on a missions trip to Rwanda.
And I remember thinking, “Ah, you know, is this okay to send my eighth grader to Rwanda?” But just the level of exposure that they had with going to hospitals,
with AIDS patients and the stories of the genocide, and like you said, the matter of time, how quickly so many people lost loved ones. ones and Immaculate,
the book, Left to Tell. – Yes, I read this, yes. – That’s an incredible story of hiding everybody in the bathroom and she came and spoke. So it is so remarkable what people live through and we have no idea often.
And there’s so much to learn, so many ways. And our little life that is not little in God’s eyes, but… you know as we’re on this planet he as we were available and generous with our time -tellers treasures he’s just able to do you know so much through our one little life and again I don’t even like to call it little because it’s not but exactly exactly but he is so powerful and I love the way that you just kind
of like followed the breadcrumbs that God has put before you and I know you had mentioned in the pre -conversation your own journey with one of your children and the retinal disorder.
Can you talk about that because that I’m sure with your heart involved and then these other people you already knew and how you’d help them in Rwanda how that all came together because that’s pretty amazing.
amazing.
Michele: Yeah, so I felt led to step down from leading fashion and compassion in 2019. And that was a super tough decision and but it kind of related to what I talked about of like I like to do a lot of different things.
And so I just felt led to be available to engage in some other things. And shortly after I stepped down from that, our youngest son was done. with a condition called retinitis pigmentosa.
That’s a degenerative retinal disease that usually over a period of decades leads to blindness. And it was a huge blow. It was just months also before COVID. We had four kids close together,
but he was the last one at home by himself. So didn’t have a lot of family around. Fortunately, after COVID, the kids did all come home. But all that to say, it was really,
really tough. And so he gets this diagnosis. I’m supposed to leave to go to this conference a few days later. And I was just praying like, God, should I go? Should I not?
And of course, you know, when you just get something like that, you’re like Googling everything, trying to find out what you can. He doesn’t really want to talk about it that much. I mean, you know, and so I decided, all right,
well, I’m just going to go ahead and go to this conference. Maybe it’ll help me get my mind off of it, or I can pray about it or whatever. And so I end up just by a series of God -obained things at this dinner on faith and science that I would not have naturally chosen to go to.
Dr. Francis Collins
And the keynote speaker is Dr. Francis Collins. And for those of you who might not know who he is, he is the former director of the National Institute of Health and Tony Fauci’s boss. Tony Fauci became household name.
This is before COVID. This is just a few months before COVID. before COVID. But, and he basically is probably the most at the time that I’ve met with him. And still, today he’s super influential is the most influential person in biomedical and genetic research in the world.
I mean, and super smart and knowledgeable. So I stand up and ask a question about my son’s condition. And he gives me a wonderfully encouraging answer that there’s lots of research going on around the eye and it’s exciting and all this.
But I didn’t know anyone really at this con. and I was just praying the whole time like Lord I just need some encouragement like will you send someone my way you know something about this because it’s a rare disease you know and um and so I’m kind of like moseying back to the bus to that’s going to take us back to the hotel and um I get on the bus and I sit and there’s an empty seat beside me because I was
there by myself and who’s one of the last people that gets on the bus and sits next to me but Dr Collins and we end up having this beautiful 30 minute conversation about, you know, my son’s condition and then also about the school for the blind that I’ve been connected to in Rwanda.
And it was just like the biggest hug from the Lord, that it was like, I see you, I know your plight and it’s going to be okay. And it’s not that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.
No, right. It hasn’t been easy at all. But that I’m here with you. was just like this reassurance of his presence that was so incredibly powerful. So thank you for sharing that.
And you’re so right. We just need those hugs from the Lord and the one conversation, the one phone call, the one text someone sends right at the right time. The person we quote randomly run into is just never never by mistake.
Oh, I love that. Well, thank you for sharing that. So what would your life look like today? If you hadn’t stepped into these areas where you felt like the Lord was calling you internationally?
Because sometimes I think as moms, you know, you have four kids, I have four kids, there’s plenty going on with raising four kids. And, and it is easy to that can be our focus and not have the margin to do anything else.
So have you you looked at your life? Because obviously you’ve been obedient to what God has called you in these various areas and the numerous boards you currently serve on. Like how do you look at your time to live a balanced life and still have Sabbath and then be involved?
I’d love for you to speak to that ’cause I think that’s really helpful for all of us. – Yeah, that’s a great, great question. When my kids were all at home, I mean, we had four kids in four years. So they were… were, we had them close together.
I really tried to integrate them as much as I could in the ministry and things that I was involved in. In fact, we hosted two students from Burundi, and they didn’t live with us at the same time, but they lived with us over eight years.
So they’re like brother and sisters to our kids. And we took our kids on a trip to Africa. You know, now I think most of them have been a couple times. So we tried to engage them as much as we could in the ministry.
the ministry so that it wasn’t like this is my life over here and it’s not connected to our family. And even today, you know, that’s one of my big prayer requests right now as they’re kind of in college and kind of newly graduated is how to continue to engage the work and the things that I’m passionate about and engage them in that kind of work.
It can be a challenge. I sometimes stack my travel schedule. I’ve kind of become known as someone who travels. a lot, which is kind of dangerous because then you get asked to go on more travel things.
I don’t know how that works, but anyway, so yeah, so that makes it, that makes things a little bit challenging because they tend to come in bunches together. And that’s something I actually need to really learn and improve my discipline around because then it makes my time when I’m at home more chaotic because I’m trying to get all this stuff done.
So like I’m kind of in a busy travel time right now. But really what I love, I don’t know, we talked about this a little bit before, but there’s a wonderful organization called Praxis,
Praxis
the website’s praxislabs .org and they have this rule of life, which is kind of an ancient, maybe ancient isn’t the right word, but I believe it’s from the,
it’s like a Catholic tradition maybe originally. like, or started by some monks, and I’m not speaking to the origins really properly, but it’s essentially like a set of principles that you strive to live your life by,
and they have a wonderful six, kind of these six principles, and that include, you know, time off of devices and Sabbath, and even using your platform to speak up for others who may not have the same access that you have,
and And so I look at it as when I read it, it’s like it feels unattainable in a lot of ways, but I look at it as kind of aspirational in terms of something that I’m working toward and always can improve.
Kim: Well, I think you and I, you know, having four kids, you have four kids, I have four kids, and then the challenge, both of ours, I mean, our groups of kids are all raised now. now, it was a challenge when they were little to try to hear,
for me, living in Orange County, trying to raise the kids and know that it’s not reality everywhere. Orange County’s quite different than Tijuana, 45 minutes away kind of thing. And how do we teach our kids by talking about it and everything,
but is there a way we can actually bring them there so they can see things? that no matter what we say like I had a friend she was kind of like an assistant who helped me at one of my jobs and she’s her three -year -old granddaughter she was helping her you know finish her dinner and and she’s like you need to finish up because you know they’re starving people around the world and the little three -year -olds like
well why don’t we mail the food to them then yeah it’s simple so yeah and one time it reminds me I met this plastic surgeon in Newport Beach and he had teenagers and you know really successful practice and I asked him have you taken your kids you know because he could do cleft palate surgeries and all the things as plastic surgeon and he’s like no you know I’m just kind of afraid for them to be traveling as
teenagers and I’ll wait till they get older and that made me sad because I feel like it’s so formative and there’s so much that our kids can learn by seeing how 90,
95 % of the world lives quite differently than those of us here in the United States. And I think fear holds us back for sure with wanting to protect our kids.
Gratitude
And I think I shared this story on one of the really early podcasts. but we had gone down to Mexico, Southern Mexico, Chiapas, and my daughter saw a mother giving a pair that was in a gutter to her little three -year -old,
and he just took it and ate it and was grateful and said, “Thank you.” And my daughter ended up writing an essay at her public school in junior high about how we never see that, that would never happen here.
And, you know, I could have preached till I was blue. blue about being generous and grateful for the food, but the fact that she saw, I didn’t even see that happen, even though we were all walking together in this little city.
So it’s things like that. So I feel like there are so many ways that God can use us if we can just do whatever He’s calling us to do,
take that next step. Like one time I was asked with Saddleback Church to go with a group of women to church. Turkey and it was in the height of just like so many carpools I was in all the kids were at home and I saw the email and I just deleted it and it was like there’s just no way I don’t even think I prayed about it you know it was like okay no no and then the email came another email came and finally I
was like okay prayed about it and yes I feel like I’m led to go and it felt very I didn’t know how it was all gonna happen and And then I ended up 24 hours before the flight to Turkey got so,
so sick. And I thought there’s even no way I can get on the plane in 24 hours and like 10 hours before I stepped on the plane. The sickness lifted. And it ended up being a really very powerful trip where these women came from all the Stan countries like Uzbekistan,
Pakistan, all of those groups. And they were women’s ministry leaders. but then they had suffered some kind of just trauma.
And so this whole conference was to bless them and minister to them, and there was a whole prayer team. And it was, I don’t really know to this day why I was there, but it certainly gave me so much compassion.
And I just felt like we were a gift to even the people who put this conference on. It was just such a gift for those women. women. And it just, I resonate with you when some,
you have a conversation and someone’s giving you this idea to just take that next step. ‘Cause like your life, I don’t know what my life would look like either if I haven’t gone ahead and taken those little steps.
And who knows what those steps are going forward that the Lord’s gonna put before you, but put before me that I wanna encourage everyone listening. just go ahead and do the next thing and don’t be afraid I think is the bottom line.
Yeah absolutely and I think that when we go on these trips I mean sometimes it’s easy to think we’re going and we’re serving and we’re meeting all these needs but really I tend to look at the trip I mean I kind of don’t love the term mission trip anymore because I really I like the idea of vision trip like I’m going to see and and to learn about a ministry or what’s going on in this country or learn about this
country and I read tons of books before I go to a new country to try to really understand, you know, go in with some kind of more education about the culture and the political history and that sort of thing because I do view it as such a privilege to be able to go and encounter and then also kind of thinking as I go,
Lord, what are you calling me to hear long term? This isn’t just… an experience if I go for a week and I hold some babies and stuff I’m not making a transformative difference necessarily you know but not to say that we can’t do things on these short trips that can be very impactful like it sounds like this ministry was because it was that you were about it because it was truly healing women and giving them a
space a space to be poured into and to be prayed for and and all of this but I think that really when we go on the trips, thinking about and praying about, what are you calling me to do?
– Yes, what’s my next step? – Who are the people I can stay, yeah, who are the people I can stay connected to? And how might these, and then that’s where kind of these friendships that I’ve made over the years, you know,
people then go through life. And then all of a sudden you’re like alongside them as they’re facing these different life challenges and you have the opportunity to respond with, you know, and whatever God calls you to do. So how do you see generosity in this work?
And obviously the podcast is all about generosity, how it’s interwoven into the five pillars. So I’d love to hear how you’ve seen others be blessed and then how you’ve been blessed with being generous with your time,
your talents, and your treasure. Yeah, well there’s been really nothing more meaningful in my life. I mean, besides my family, I think then, then being engaged in these different ministries and being able to also commit our own resources towards seeing that,
seeing the work. I mean, particularly this school for the blind. I mean, one thing that is was kind of amazing was my parents came on one trip with me to Africa and it was in 2009.
And that’s when I met the guy who ended up founding the school. And so it’s almost become become like a family journey with this school because my parents knew him even though they have they’re older now and you know have some health issues so they’re not they haven’t been able to go back and the school opened its doors in 2015 they haven’t been able to see it physically or see the kids it’s just been such a
beautiful thing for just our extended family to be a part of you know we’ve been kind of a key financial giver to this school for a long time since the beginning,
so that’s been really, really meaningful. And I think I tend to, the thing that I need to do personally is I really try to stay connected to communities of givers or experiences that challenge me in my relationship to money.
I grew up in a family that was very focused on money. My both my parents grew up without much, but then my dad really basically decided that he was going to change that in his own life and worked extremely hard and invested well.
And so it was a big part of our life, you know, values was basically the security of money. And so there’s, so I kind of battled that some,
if that makes sense in my own life. So I am on the board, one of the organizations I’m on the board of is Women Doing Well. And I know you’ve had Julie Wilson on your podcast. And yes.
Women Doing Well
And so, I facilitate the pathway of Women Doing Well, which is a 12 -week experience of that talks about your purpose, your passion, and your plan. And that has really kind of helped keep me grounded in terms of what’s really important and my own personal relationship with money and really making the choice daily to release.
and to trust God with that. That’s been super helpful and really, really encouraging. And then the other thing that I’ve been particularly growing in with our generosity in the last few years is I’ve been really educating myself around impact investing.
I mentioned that we’ve purchased some units here in Charlotte that we’re partnering with some local ministries that are helping families transition out of homelessness. And I view that as kind of like an impact investment.
And it’s a way to. make an investment that’s also serving. And then I’ve tried to kind of explore how can we transition to, you know, I think that we’ve fallen into the world’s trap around investing where we have a financial advisor or we invest in all these mutual funds,
but we don’t really, a lot of times the things we’re invested in are actually undoing the very things we’re trying to do with our philanthropy and our giving. And usually our investment are a lot larger than our giving.
And so– – We’ll give an example of what you mean by that. – Yeah, so, well, take a foundation or, you know, a foundation of this, I mean, say we have a small family foundation,
you know, we only have to give away 5 % of our giving. I mean, of our, you know, endowment essentially per year. But 95 % of it is invested somehow, right?
right? If we think about the money that we hold in our 401 (k )s, you know, in our retirement plans, all of those things, it’s invested usually in public equities in the stock market.
We don’t really know what those companies are doing because oftentimes it’s in mutual funds or our financial advisor is doing it and they’re making it so it’s very diversified, right, the right way to invest. But it may at a lot of times these things are doing bad things in the the world.
And a friend of mine, she actually hired someone to basically analyze her, she did it for her foundation, but to analyze all of the giving. And she found that she was like investing in the very thing she was trying to do.
They were contrary. So actually, there’s a few of us that are getting together, we’re going to pilot really trying to help. It can be scary as a woman when you start entering some of these spaces.
this is how I felt, that there’s a lot of men, and I don’t know all the terms, I don’t know how to do this impact investing. Especially if you start looking at doing investing in ventures or private equity type of things,
there’s a lot of acronyms and different things that get thrown out there. And so we’re actually going to pilot a group this spring where we’re gonna bring women together who wanna kind of learn about this. – That’s fine.
of us who have some experience are going to share our stories and our experience in hopes of encouraging other women, especially as you know, like Julie Wilson and women doing well and just all the facts show that women are going to be are coming into more ownership of wealth.
That’s right. They already own more of the wealth and it’s only going to grow. And so we really need to be empowered to steward it well and steward it in ways that are going to make a difference. difference for the kingdom and the world in positive ways.
So I think it’s a really exciting frontier that is, you know, but it can be scary, too, when you look at your own, you know, because especially I grew up in a family that was money of security.
Impact Investing
And so, you know, to take it and put it in a way that, I mean, impact investing doesn’t have to be insecure or, you know, or risky per se, but, but it’s a different way of doing things.
And so that’s a shift in mindset and that can be definitely scary. – Maybe you’re increasing your giving percentage as a result. – For sure, no,
and we’ve definitely been on that journey as well. So that’s kind of, it’s really kind of using everything that God has given to us. How can we use all of it, not just what we’re donating? Though I still think,
I also am careful that I don’t. want my impact investing to take away from our giving, if that makes sense. Like they should be working together toward ideally toward the same goal.
– Right. Well, I feel like you mentioned you were a learner and I am also a learner. And I think in this stage now, being an empty nester, maybe someone’s listening and they’ve got the toddler at home and it’s like every minute is so precious and it feels like now the kids are grown.
and not that I get just I don’t want to say lazy with my time but those minutes that I used to count is so precious you know now it’s like well I have an hour and I’ve lost that urgency that I had four close together as well but the exciting part about thinking of you know people live so much longer in today’s world so let’s just say the listener is 50 I mean she could have 40 years left 50 years years,
and could be the queen of impact investing, even if she has nothing today. – I’m in my 50s and I’m just getting started, so. – All that’s available on YouTube,
all that you can Google, all the ways that we can just learn on our own, but we can join groups, join the group like you’re talking about. There’s so many opportunities out there for women today that did not used to exist.
So, I just want to really encourage the listener. If you’re listening and you’re hearing Michele’s story and you’re thinking, wow, look how she’s been involved in these different countries, these relationships. You can have just the same opportunities as Michelle by just taking that next step.
And maybe it’s your fault. And you can do it. Go ahead. Yeah. And you can do it in your own neighborhood. Yes. I mean, you know, and you can do it in your own community. It doesn’t have to be across the world. I mean, I’ve tried to be at both ends, you know.
– That’s right. – It doesn’t have to be necessarily across the world that all these opportunities are right at our doorstep. – No, that’s a great call out, great call out.
Bible Verse, Favorite Book, and Bargain
Okay, so we always wrap up with the,
you know, favorite book and favorite Bible verse and a recent bargain. But is there any book that, when you’re talking about impact investing, that you would also say would be a great book for someone to read?
– You know, there’s a book written by… by Andy Crouch that I actually read in the fall, but I encouraged my son to read it. And we had this hour long conversation on Sunday about it. And so it’s called strong and weak.
It’s not one of his newest books. If you’re familiar with Andy Crouch, but it is so good. And it talks about how Jesus is the kind of perfect embodiment of authority and vulnerability and how for true flourishing,
we need a balance of authority and vulnerability. and what happens when those things are out of balance. And I think it speaks to how we engage in the world. And I mean, so it doesn’t directly talk about impact investing,
but it kind of talks about our approach to life. And so I highly encourage people to read that. I think it’s a really, really awesome, awesome book. And my son even told me that he’s making some changes in his life as a result of reading it.
So that was really encouraging. And what Bible verse do you follow? My favorite Bible verse is Proverbs 16 -9, which says, “A man plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps.” Because I’ve just seen throughout my life where I’m like,
I have lots of plans, as I said, I have lots of ideas. And I have to kind of like lay them with open hands before the Lord and say, “Okay, Lord, you know, what’s next?” And I may take steps and then he may say,
“No, we need to take a left turn here.” But just holding my plans kind of open and for his leading so and then the bargain I was like the thing that came to mind that was most recent is I had the opportunity to go I’ve never done this before and it’s not really in my normal wheelhouse but I went to the Sun I was invited to go to the Sundance Film Festival a couple weeks ago in Park City and it was with
Windrider which is a wonderful organization that is creates kind of conversations around spirituality connected to the films and they bring students from many of the smaller Christian colleges but because I went as a part of Windrider we families in Park City open their homes for people coming to the Windrider Summit and we basically paid like a hundred and fifty dollars for five days to stay I believe at the generosity
of the families and they and they enough families open their home in Park City for people to attend this conference. I mean so it’s like a few hundred people and they’re just like they’re the kids everyone’s spread out all over the place staying in all these different people’s homes in some cases the families are there in some cases they’re not but I just was so impressed with the generosity and then of course it felt
like yes it felt like a deal deal to stay in Park City for $150 for five days. – No, that’s beautiful. That is great. I love that little Sundance.
We lived in Salt Lake City, in fact too, where our kids were born there on our way before we migrated back to California and that whole cute little ski resort of Sundance is just adorable. So it has a special place in my heart.
Oh, that’s a very fun bargain. And like you said, the generosity of the people who own those beautiful homes too. to welcome people and that’s That’s how it should be making thousands and thousands of dollars renting to all the people coming for Sunday It’s so yeah,
it’s amazing. Yeah, okay So people want to learn more about any of the organizations you’re involved with now It should they go to brave works dot org Yeah,
brave works org is about brave works and then restoration residences calm is my affordable housing initiative. I mean, it’s a very simple website.
And then if, since I’ve mentioned the blind school, there is we, if they want to learn more about that, well, they can send me a message through the restoration residences website, but also education equals hope is kind of there’s some information about that school,
education equals hope .org. So, okay, perfect. Well, would you mind praying praying us out and praying for the listener who might have heard your story today and felt like,
Lord, what is it that you want me to do? What is my next step? I would love for you to pray for her. Absolutely. Okay. Lord, just so grateful for this time with Kim and for this podcast.
And I just am so grateful for all the listeners that are out there that are seeking and praying how they can be more generous and how they can use the resources that you’ve given them, the time,
the talent, the treasure to make a difference in their community in the world. And so Father, I just pray that you would help each of us take a step really every day or to just be willing to listen,
to hear your voice in terms of the relationships that we have and where you really are at work. I mean, it kind of goes back to that. black and beat quote about praying about where you see God at work and joining him there and just listening to those voices and writing down those ideas,
praying about them and then seeing where the Lord takes a step. And it doesn’t mean starting anything new. It could just be joining with wonderful initiatives in your own community or your church that are already under go. Lord,
we thank you that through our serving, through our giving that you teach us so much. And you really, it’s a. part of our sanctification process of becoming more like you. And so we’re grateful for these opportunities to engage with you in the world.
We love you so much. We pray this all in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, Michelle. I know why several people said you have to have her on your podcast. I’m so grateful that you were so generous with your time to be here.
And I can’t wait even to follow your journey for the next five years. You’ll probably have started five new organizations. Thank you.
No, this has been so fun. And thank you for your work, your NCF and, um, and, and this podcast. So well, it’s a blessing to journey together. So thanks for living a generous life.
So God bless. No, absolutely. You too. Thanks so much for joining us. today on the generous girl podcast. We’re so glad that you’re here.
And if you know of someone that you think needs to be a guest on this podcast, please reach out to us. New episodes are released every other week and you can follow us on YouTube and on all platforms.
Thanks for being here and we’ll see you next time.
