Bishop is the inspiration for Angel Studio’s latest film, Sound of Hope. And we hope his story will inspire an adoption revolution in America.
Everybody. It's Bill Fortney with an army and normal folks. And we continue now with part two of our conversation with Bishop W. C. Martin, right after these brief messages from our general sponsors. So Donna was struggling, and you said God put it on her mind to adopt or fault. At the first we didn't know what he meant give back. So what we've done.
When I got home that evening, she went to telling me about it, and see the thing of ideas.
I told her, you're gonna lost your mind.
You have lost your last mind because see the even while I felt like that, because of my biological son, my biological son, Princeton was born with severe brain damage. My wife stayed in labors for eighteen and a half hours and the doctors didn't know she couldn't have a child normal birth. After the jokes, he came out with brain damage. And all I can think of this was my This was a handful because even the doctors when he was born tried to get us to award him to the state. He was just that bad. And I told her he's not mongoloid at all, but he do have brain damage. And he's forty some years old now about forty four years old now, and we still have to take care of him, you know. And he was a handful as that's what I'm saying. We already had our hands full with him. And then the donna she came along and yeah, my natural daughter. And then when she gonna tell me about a doctor, and I thought she was lost her mind because she was. It wasn't like you had a bunch of money. No, no, we didn't have. No, you were piecing it together, that's right, uh huh.
And one you already got chands full with a special needs son and another little girl. You got a whole church, You got a pastor, which means on the week days, every night you out taking care of somebody. And and it's not like you you you living high. I mean, you're making your bills, making it and now she wants to go bring somebody else. You got to feed care for, spend time on, spend money on. So you said what I would have said, to listen, you have lost your mind.
See, because when you start, like when you was in a situation like I am, you have compound interest problems. That's why I put it feel like that. It was it was interest with compound, you know.
So.
We we we we talked to the Lord about it, and God told us foster and a doctor. So when I knew one thing, she had already called set up her appointment. And here's what's so amazed. Nobody didn't you tell you about that? Yeah, she had when I found out about it after a fact, you know, after the fact, and uh, and that woman and that and that. They told her said, well, said we got a four class. We don't have no room for nobody else, but you come on and bring your sister, because she called her sister to go with him, said y'all can come on, but we can't promise you nothing. To go to the class door to the class, and got there. They had two empty seats. The Lord provided that too. Emptasy called two people's counsel and they were able to get to see So late on I started going to the assets with them. I think when they got Millway calls. In Texas, you got to go sixteen weeks over what they call pride classes. And I started around maybe the ninth of the tenth you know week, somewhere along in there. Uh, and started going because I had to beat us for some of it, uh, because I saw she was just animates about it. She wasn't gonna stop, and I got involved in it and everything. So after we got the class women taking their class. When they on their mind, I'm telling you it. I mean, our team of elephant can't pull it out, so you might well hang it up. So it was going to be an amazing time. Well, already got my son president, I'm scattered all over the place. So her sister Diane, she got a little boy by the name of Nino. And see what help was. She was the first and we didn't know. To be honest with you, I did not know all about a doctor. I ain't helped. No, I didn't a clue what was going on in ever since. So when she got the little boy, and then a lady a few months later, a lady called her and said, look, they're just closing up in a foster home down here, and y'all know where you can get two little children, a little boy and a little girl. And Susan, who was our caseworker, did not want to bring those two to our house. Why because they was too tough. She felt like we've been in experience that we wouldn't have known what to do. The little girl was five years old and the little boy was three. Now, I said, you don't think that I can handle a five year old in a three year old. I am too old a cat to be fooled by a kidding. You can hang that up because that ain't possible. And just like she was, I said, they was tough. What what makes them tough?
What are the circumstances that you might find in the background of these children?
Neglect, abuse, hungry? See what happened? Mercedes mother got killed in Dallas, Texas in a bad drug deal. Mercedes had to feed Tyler, her little brother, and the police find them walking down the street eating out of garbage can.
But I promise you one thing, Hold it, hold it, hold whoa? Whoa? All right, So Mercedes and Tyler are the two. First of all, Donna's sister adopts Nina and then Susan. The caseworker calls you, that says, these two are tough, And these two are Mercedes who is and Tyler? It's five?
It's five, is the daughter? It's the daughter? And Tyler's little boys three her their mother was killed in a bad drug deal beforehand, and nobody took care of them and they're walking down the street. Was turning into garbage Kansas in the United States of America at five and three, and nobody.
That what was told of us. So I really don't know why. But one thing I can tell you that I do know nobody was able to handle Tyler and mercedis that's why there was in nine homes in one year.
Oh so then they go to foster home, right, but they're so traumatized that their behavior is so bad that foster homes are now bouncing them. So not only have they lost their mama, been through that trauma, now they've literally been in nine different foster homes where now they're just passed around like an old pair of shoes.
That's right, there's like a rubber ball.
And the thing of it is, you see, they present a picture of many children in the system. And this is why, and I got to hit this right here, this is why I feel that we have lost some spiritual connection, some spiritual knowledge and understanding about the children. It is crazy to me, it's past crazy. It's ludicrous for a child to be in nine homes in one year. First of all, you asked about the background. First of all, think about it, what do you expect for a.
Child that don't know no better?
No one ever taught them, no one ever shown them the love, the compassion, and and and and and and most of all giving them that father in love mother love with no one never spent the time with them. And then you tell them, oooh, it's so bad. Well, what do you expect. They don't know nothing, No one ever spent the time with them, and they ended up a system that they didn't have nothing to do with. It had been better for them to just stay what it was and bring them here in the world and letting them loose like they are nothing. And one of the things that were gonna all have to understand, these are children that God allows in this world, and if God allowed them in this world, we gonna have to change the dynamics of what's going on in the world. See, that's why I don't understand the church. And I say this's boldly. I don't understand the church. I don't understand some of the things that goes in the church. He's more than church than preaching a sermon, singing to him, taking the other offering, you know, a fellows.
It's more childer than that. That's one thing I love about Jesus.
He demonstrated to us, you looking at the church, demonstrating the church to how the church ought to be. We ought to be out there doing something to save this generation of children. And until we do that, there's an indictment against the church because we haven't done do whatever. It don't make no sense that you have four hundred thousand children in a system and you got over four hundred thousand churches in this world.
Do the math.
What is one church? Every church in America will take one child? What we will empty this thing completely out? And if you got to go all the way to Possum Trot to show well a little church send back in the woods. We're literally nothing to say, Hey, look, we're gonna do something about the problem. We see we got the problem, and we understand the problem. But we're gonna do some about it. And you get twenty three people to adopt seventy seven children out of the system with nothing. Come on, now, let's be real. We overlook what Jane one twenty seven pill. Religion is under foul that God, except that we take care of the wittles and the orphanation and we also got to understand one other thing too. Adoption is just not adoption. God himself started adoption. Now the only way we was able to get back to God with through adoption, and we're missing it because of the fact that we don't know that Moses was an adopted child. It was not a formal adoption, but it was informative, but it was an adoption. We got to get esther was an adoption. So God himself started and if you read Ephesian that first chapter, you'll find out it was god good pleasure to adopt us through his son Jesus, to get us back in relationship with him. So I don't want to just go around remend. But we got to understand right now that we got a critical problem on our hand. We got a major problem on it and God is looking at the one inentitive that he ordained to fix this problem, and that's the church.
Gosh's can I get an amen? I know?
So you heard him say it, and we'll just go ahead and reiterate it.
Two hundred people.
At Bennet's Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Little Possum, Tron adopted seventy seven. Sure, that's the sound of hope, We'll be right back some Mercedes and Tyler lived in nine houses and Susan with the state who didn't know you yet, figuring it out. And you said, what you think I can handle a three and five year old? We're going to take them. In fact, we want the Mustaffic culture. And you took him.
See right where you are now when it said we couldn't handle him. But here is what God did. My wife and I decide to pray about this thing. Lord, those our children, we want them. Susan said no. We said yes, but then when we talked to the Lord, he said yes. And what happened is we actually, Lord, touch that woman's heart. Now, I said, this last light, touch that woman's heart and let those children come in out of home. But I know he was going to do it like that, and she ain't up when a triple bypassed in the hospital. But the thing of it is her supervisor called and she said, soon it's in the hospital. The children are being your home in the morning. That next morning they showed up with Tyler and Mercedes, little boy and the little girl by racial children, and Susan ended up recovering so fast that she blew the doctor's mind because they say they had never seen a case like this where the woman was recovery so fast and back in the field doing her work.
Tell me about Coler and Mercedes. What you saw when they first showed up.
I saw two little children, hungry and neglected. I saw two little children that didn't understand because I now, we'll forget it. When Tyler saw me, he just ran the hug just grabbed me around my knee and just started hugging me. Just he just houng onto me. And Mercedes grabbed my wife and just hong on these two little children. I don't know how the Lord. I saw how the Lord provided, but I didn't understand it. A lot of things God does, we don't understand. We just go out and accept it. And that those kids. And I'm not gonna sit up here and tell nobody this was an easy row to hold. Man, dumb kids. Give me a PhD degrees and child psychology. I'm telling you. They tore my mind up, but we wouldn't refuse to give up on they was hungry and see here was the thing. He was the crazy thing. Mercedes, in the midst of that, she developed our habit are stealing. Oh, then the girl can steal. Lord knows that child can steal. Good Lord, chicken steal. She was aff at five years old. She was a professional thief. That she saw something that she wanted, she was gonna get it one way or the other. Mercedes stole food because evidently they've been hungry and she was gonna make sure that they wasn't gonna be hung again. So what she did, she stole food. We go to bed that night, Mercedes, get him go in there and steal food. And my wife showed them when they got there. Someone say them going nice box to see all the food that y'all can get. Food, We got water, we got drink, whatever you want, we got it here. But then she didn't. She didn't take that at heart. So she said that, well, okay, thank you. Mercedes stole someb food and she had an old backpack. She stuffed it in the backpack under the bed and I kept I didn't miss the food, but I kept walking by the room. What it was, I told my wife, But I ain't right in that room. And now I just don't. Every time my pants doing like something with them. And see, we didn't know that we didn't.
Know that look.
And I went in there one morning after they went to school and ripped that room apart. Looked under the bed. I saw this old backpack underneath that room. Opened it up. That was old food. Just look at benning there for months, and she kept packing up because she said, if I leave this house, I'll have some food to go with me. And that's how but I ended up breaking that.
Heabit.
It took me a few years. Mercedes. We would ride along one day in Mesa. He said, oh, Daddy said, I hear this sad. Remember somebody that must ben stole something. I said, okay, I see. And one night I was doing a revival and we was on my way back home. We stopped that hour heart to get some, you know, to eat, and she had got them funny face pancakes. And I saw the policeman walking there and I told him I was man. I said, I got this little girl and she was still you blind, and I said, can you help me out in any kind of way? He went out there and got them hand coming in with the rolling around her. Here, he said, who is merceades? I said, and she looked up and she forgot about them paying them funny faced pan and look up at that man. He said, girl, if I catch you stealing again, I'll put you under the jail house. Let me tell you something, I ain't gonna steal no more. And see she didn't steal no more. She did not steal no more that end of her day. Tyler was, on the other hand, he was just more of a He was just a boy. His big his passion was little trucks, and if you wanted to do something to hurt his feeling, take one of his trucks. I mean, he just he just liked he had lost his life. So he take them the trucks and line them up on the floor. He just sit there and just just drew over those trucks. So he was just just a freak behind those trucks. So if he do something wrong, well, one day, I remember he was in school. After he had got in school, and he'd go out there and you know, and I told them, y'all bring happy face in that I almost see no sad face. Bring them happy face, because they take to give them happy face when they have a good day. So Tyler kept bringing them sad face, and I started taking them trucks when I started taking them trucks. That broke his spirit, and he started doing bringing them happy faith. And he's so slick that one day the way he got off the bus, he they got a curve all right there. He stuck his homework up in there. And see he used to do that, but but to send it. All the children have grown up. They grown now. Tyler got two children, You got a girl and a boy. Mercedes got two girls, and they all got children now. But then when they start having a problem, and I'll tell them that, well she doing this and he's doing.
Well, go look in the mirror. You'll see why look at yourself, because you did the same thing.
Did I really do all that? Are you done wasting that sister? Tell you something?
So okay?
So at this point you've got Coyler, Mercedes at your place, You've got listen, Nino, Nino, Nino at your sister lost bus, and you're doing what you feel called to do. But it ain't easy. And I gotta believe folks in the neighborhood are looking at you like you're a little crazy at first, little hop out, a whole lot, a whole lot crazy. Why are you doing this yourself? You're already struggling just to pay your bills. Now you got a feed two more. You got trouble is your own, and now you're just bringing more.
Mess on top of your lives.
I dealt with that, and I dealt with that one little nugget that I forgot to throw in the pot, the Benny temper.
Now it's not the Bennie temper. When my wife's mother.
Died, we was in this old church and a woman came in and done three night crusade for us. She prophetically told the whole church, you all gonna be on television all over the country. It's gonna be a book, it's gonna be newspaper articles, it's gonna be radio, it's gonna be a movie. She told her that. Before everybody was saying yeah right back in these woods, no way. They didn't believe it. She prophetically spoke that in the church, and needed did we know that that was the plan for God had for us? So now I wanted to throw that in pathetically. So you see what happened. How they all begun anyway because it was this woman and she did. We didn't know how God was gonna do it. And once we got adopting them children. We still didn't know, didn't have a clue, So we got Tyler, we got gonna say that there is no then the then the they sails. The people began to talk that man that lost his mind? That I mean, that was the word. And then someone was saying, what is he doing?
Now? He always doing something, y'all.
I don't know what y'all gonna do with that man down there, but y'all need to get that man out of this community.
But I wouldn't stop.
So what happened went on, and I guess the next question gonna be, how did the church get involved?
You just got two peoples here that's going a dot. How did the church get involved? Good question. I'm glad Jackson because what helpened was.
I did not know that there was so much biblical information concerning adoption. So after we got and now after we taken the class, we started getting and we carry the children to the church out of they still giving a problem, but we sell them to the church. And once we got them to the church, I'll get to looking up in the Bible and discovering that all of us has been adopted back to Jesus. I started preaching about adoption. Doesn't let them know. Hey, look you got here through adoption. God brought us you and this church because through adoption.
You love Jesus. Because adoption. I love what you said about Moses. You know, it's the truth. It is the truth.
He was in a basket on the river and he got plucked out and loved and taken care of. See, that's what we got to understand about adoption. I never thought of Moses is an adopted baby. But Moses dumpted esther wa too.
And let me tell you one that a lot of us don't believe Jesus was an adopted child.
Oh not true. What's true? Most I mean, Joseph wasn't his biological daddy. That's right. Come on now, man, But what what do you tell them? He said?
He said, Look, he said, don't be afraid to take Mary as your laws are ready to wh that she is caring is of the holy ghosts.
But train him and teach him. Right, Joseph was not Jesus, He wasn't father, see.
But he was his father because when they saw Jesus the frail, I know you, you the Coppinger son.
That's the way they expressed by Jesus.
So that's why they couldn't believe then a hard time believing that he was the son of God.
They didn't understand.
And see, when you look at the adoption, y'all help me, now, help me. When you look at adoption, adoption only mean one thing. You lose all your rights to one family and you gain all the rights to a new family.
Now bring that home.
On the spiritual level, I can preach that when you was in sin and you were lost in this world, Jesus brought you in. You lost all your rights out there in the world, and Jesus gave you a brand new life. He changed your whole everything. Now you got heaven in view.
Now you're one of the king kids, so you're saying, and as a Christian, you are spiritually adopted.
You are spiritually adopted on their way.
Ain't no other way, Okay, So I gotta believe you get in your all day Sunday service situations at Possum try and you bring it.
I'm telling you. It's got the people help to know. Now they got to know. They got to understand. Why did God come out of his way to bring me back? Why would he do that I mean.
I'm lost. I'm in a world of lostness.
And there's a man that leave his heavenly home and come into darkness. The Bible said, while we were yet in sin, Jesus Christ died on the tree. But why because of love? And this is the love that's in the church. This is the love that he implemented to the church. His church ought to be the one that rise up. And let me tell you all something else too. The the Congress can't fix this problem. The president can't fix this problem. They cannot your your representatives, your senator, they can't fix this problem.
They can't fix this problem.
But the Church help me, holy ghost, Ah, thank you Lord, the Church. You about to make me feel something in here. Church, one other entity on this earth that you know that God ordained other than the church on the day of p intercost, when the Church was ordain and established to be able to take care of God's business. And that when God ordained that church. Remember what what what he said? If you keep on reading in the Book of Act, you're gonna say and as if they went out, as the apostles went out, thousands of soul was added to the church. It was the lame, It was the halt, it was it was the one. And you know what, Jesus was always concerned about those that didn't have a way out. When when when he he he had a feast one time, said a man had a feast one time. And in this feast this man had you know, he invited the leak folks. All of them couldn't come because they had excuses. I got to feed my cow, I just got married, I just got this, and I get them.
So he that the man theself, we'll.
Go out, go down in the hedges and in the bout and invite the lame, the halter, the the one that's less fortunate, invite them all to the feast. And this is what Jesus is doing to us, and inviting all of us to the feast.
But in the midst.
Of that, we got children that need to be invited to the feast. They in a system that if somebody don't like myself, don't get up and tone the bell and let this world know that this is not the will of God. It is God's will. He came here freedom to set all of us free. He came, he said, I came to accept and kept it free. Now where are those children? They're in a system that they didn't calls. They in a system that they know nothing about, they didn't ask to be in it, but yet instilled there in it. So we as a church, what are we gonna do? Are we gonna consider sit down and continue to let this problem go on? Are we gonna change the dynamics of it? And said, look, if the Lord needs somebody here, I send me. I go out there and do some nobody.
And so your church did we? Did we not? We not just talk us, we walk us. We'll be right back. So what did your church do? We?
When I started breathing, then I had numbers. They come to me and say, look what how can we We want to do this?
What can we do? But we can ain't drive? But we ain't talking about wealthy folks here.
No, no, no, we talk about people. That about people in the wood in coming. That's like in top Possum Trock even the name of itself. You ought to know that they ain't doing wealth down there.
I mean what you know?
It kind of like what what the Bible saying? Can anything any good thing come out of Nazareth? Can any good thing come out of possum truck, you know. So we showed them that something good is in possum trump.
So so your parishioners came to you inside. All right, we hear you. What do we do?
What do we do? I went to the state.
They said, we can't drive one hundred and twenty miles round trub That's what my wife out had to do.
They're taking no classes, not at night.
Cause we when we came to them, I'm wondering what they be willing to do.
The classes here. I went to the state.
I said, look, I got some people who want our dogs, but they can't drive. The woman said, if you can find me eight families, I think with five families, we'll come to y'all church. I found thirteen families that were willing you a doubt. That started it right there.
So the classes you had to go to the state actually came to your church and taught. Their families came to church and they taught the classes impossible tried. That's right at the church. Holy I thought, the state and the church can't work together. Well, that's a lie, okay, the devil is a lie.
See, And this is what I told them. I said, your rules is on paper. You can revise them or do anything you want to do with those rules. I got sixty six here. I can't do nothing right. I'm not the author and I'm not the finisher of it, so I can't change it. It's not in my hand. The Congress is the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. They are the want to make the changes. So if any changes to be done, they got to make it. So I got to abide by what it says. And this is the thing of them, the state and church. And see this is what see. We got to understand now that the enemy will do anything he can to keep us from coming together. That's his elbow separation. He loves separating and he'll use any little clue he can to do that.
Do you mean he might craft narratives that would divide us? That's his job. Uh? So you're saying, Satan's job is to conquer us and divide us, is to.
Craft narratives and tell stories about one another so that we can be divided, divide it. I just wonder, so you're saying that's Satanic, Yeah, that's Stena.
Hmm, that's it.
That's not God, because you know why. That's okay? Now just look at him. Jesus came and died for what the sins of the world, so that included all of us. I don't care what color you are. I don't care if you can't talk good. I don't care if you got napping hair, straight hair, blue, health, gray. He died for the sins of the world. And because he died for all of us, it means that he given us an opportunity to come in. So he said when they went to asking Jesus one day, well, why at the father, he said, when you see me, you see the fathers, because we are one. This is what he wanted the church to be one. His church ought to be one. All this other stuff that we're just doing, but we're gonna help to get back to basics, and that is the word of God, because it's the only surety that we have is believing in the word of God, because the Bible said he standing watch over his.
Word to perform it.
So you shared this little bit of information with the lady from the state and said, I got thirteen families, and you got kids of these homes. But you're gonna have to come teach my families in my church because we can't be driving all them the place at night that far.
And so they did, they did, but only they cut the classes down. It wasn't on sixteen classes no more. Okay, I think it was ten classes. Okay, yeah, but they did, they did, they did, And now you got you.
You've got your sister in law, Donna's sister Dan and thirteen more families and you'all go to taking kids.
We started taking kids and not just taking them.
Not thosshing, adopting them, making them my heart and our family and family.
That's right, cause why did set it up? We was in there. We had to keep up. I think of like six months. After six months, you were standing in front of Jurdge, he was hitting that gaple and seeing they're yours now, and see we didn't even know, we didn't even know that that's what they wanted to do. But they said that was the greetment that we signed. After six months, they become our children. So all the children that we'd gotten name has been changed, every left one of them along the lines.
You got a really if you thought Tyler Mercedes were challenging, you brought in another girl in your family, your new daughter.
Her name Terry Terry.
I don't know if I'm supposed to put Well, it's in the movie, so I'm not putting her business on the street. She comes from an extraordinarily abusive situation sexually, physically, mentally, spiritually.
She'd been in.
Foster homes and were horrible, and when she got to you, she was one tore up little.
Girl, messed up. I mean how she was nine years old and terry life was so so traumatized because what happened was the state said if we was able to handle Tyler, and my stated so. Then they came up with the slogan, all the problem children that we have, we're gonna send on the possum trot. That's what we ended up with. All of them the worstest children that was in the system. But Terry was one of those. Her mind was just completely wopped. She used to stay her foster Pam was a professor at a college, and because Terry was so messed up, the woman couldn't deal with her no more. So we got in Ry as respite for this woman go on vacation. Two weeks later they came back to state, came back and told us that the woman don't want Terry back, So got to break that news to her.
She's already messed up. Got to break that news to her.
So when they called in the house that evening and told her about him, I mean, she must have cried for a while because she felt like.
That this is it.
But she didn't realize that this was one of the best things that ever could happen to her, because now she's getting in a spiritual home. But the problem that Terry had was adapted to our lifestyle. We weren't these people that you know, go out do all this kind of stuff. She didn't have that to worry about it because my home was clean, you know, because that lord looking at her our household, and I had to kind of walk up right before him. But then Terry had a hard time of a depth.
Example.
She would she was use to this old I don't know what kind of lifestyle you would call him, but she would leave home dressed one way because she knew I had her. I was very particular about it because she was a big girl, and she was a good looking girl. And because my wife got in there and got that head straightened out, she was ready. You ain't looking at her looking like no little ghettold child. You know, not finna go out and look a little whocha mama on the street. That ain't gonna happen. You finna put some clothes on and you're gonna go. But what she did, she had to change the clothes in her backpack. She would go out there to that school teob If she get there, she would go in the bathroom and change. And I decided one day, I said, I'm just gonna go out here and see what's going on there.
She was sitting.
Outside the door in the hallway in some little daisy duke bridges.
Man.
I must have blowed the roof off of that building. I was so upset with her.
Looked at her backpack and then the luck she had all kind of little short, tight outfits in there that she was changing clothes. She said she did that because she didn't think that people were noticing her enough.
She wanted to be seen.
I said, Terry, as big as you are, you mean to tell me folks can't see you. And she was not no ugly girl. She was a very attracted young lady. But she just wasn't getting all the attention that she wanted. But we finally got it.
Well, don't you think that comes from a childhood of being starved from attention?
I think if it had to be because she she felt that was in her mind that she wasn't getting attention from where she had come from. So now she had to do something to put that focus on her and make people look at her.
The other thing that she when you first got her, she had an interesting coping mechanism. She thought she was a cat.
She did. And the reason, look, does she really tell you I'm a cat? I don't.
She didn't say, hey, I think I might be a cat. She looked at you, I'm a cat. I'm a cat, she said. And it either why it happened like that.
Her pride family that she had, they didn't deal with her with the issues that she had. So what they did that brought her this big tom cat. And she spent so much time with that cat. And when a man was already weak in the beginning she was beginning, that was the only friend, and she began to take the mentality of a cat.
So she thought she was a cat. Did she walk around acting like a cat? Yes, she did it me hours, yeah, she did that. She didn't crawl around man what you talking about? Are you for real? Is Jesus in heaven? Now? Now, let me ask you something.
If people came by your house and you had all these kids and what of them crawling around by the cat, they must thought you were crazy.
Well, I mean, you know I had.
It wasn't nothing I can do about it. Had to do something to try to help out.
But we did. We did well. One day we got ready to eat.
Yeah, I told her, I said, tell her, I said, And my wife called, said, come on with and eat y'all, and tear Joe in there, y'all go wash up. She came walking up in there, and I looked at him. I didn't say anything, But then the Lord quickened my spirit. That's a cat now. And that food was looking so good on that table, all that greens and things up there, and candy yem, sweet potatoes and all that stuff looking good, all that mother chicken and corn bread and rice lambon. And I said, she went to pull that chall where are you going? I can eat? I eat what she said. I mean eat what I said. Oh baby, you a cat. This is for adult. You can't you can't do that here. So what you gonna have to do y'all go out there and y'all find me some of them. It was mold in the freezer. Hear what you can eat here? And said, I can't eat that stuff. I said, well, if I know what to feed you, I'll probably do better.
Boy. She got hot, She got hot, she got mad, She stormed out. See what it want?
She wanted to eat, But then again she wanted to keep her same attitude.
And I just told her that ain't finna help in here, honey.
So you going out there and you're gonna stay out there on that porch, and you're gonna sleep out there, and you're gonna eat out there, because that's what cats, that's what cats do. I don't allow catching my house. Some people do, but I don't. They got too much hair falling all over the place. And I find some cat hair in my food. I'm gonna have somebody got to go home, you know. So I broke She she finally realized, because when that when I'm hungry pain, When that big intensa started whooping on that little one and she got hungry, she decided then that that cat day was over, cause we fixed that problem human. She became a human then, and we and we hadn't had to deal it. One time she came back up and said, what's wrong. Oh, I don't know what you're doing.
I don't know. Her mind started regressing back in it old man.
I said, all right, now you'll be back out on that porch again, eating dead Alma's and food like that, so you better straighten up here.
And she broke. We broke that stuff. Tyr, stop doing that.
That is so funny. I gotta tell you something. I hate bad table manners. And one time my daughter she just had the worst worst habit of smacking and carrying on and she wouldn't sit up at the table and she'd lean on her elbows and scoop food like she was a caveman or something. And one time I just had enough and I said, you act like a dog, and I took her her utensils from her and put on the floor and I made her get on her hands and knees and eat from that plate like a dog dog bomb. And you know, all the kids were laughing and stuff, and she was down there crying. I said, and you're gonna finish your food. I'm gonna car for that food. You know what.
The next day, and from then on share great table manners. It only took one time. One time. See, if you're gonna act like a dog, like a dog, you're gonna be like a cat.
There it is. When I read that and then saw that in the movie, I recollected about when when I did that with my daughter, and I just I started dying laughing. I was like, you get her, brother, you get her. Because sometimes love looks hard, doesn't it. Look Let me tell you something.
My mama taught me tough love A lot of a lot of a lot of love like this. I mean, you don't understand tough love because they're so used to getting their ways and doing what they want to do. But you got to have some sense now there. You just can't do things till going on. You got to come up with a plan. And see all of this is not a textbook idea. This is just old playing mother with something that my mama would have done us. If we just start acting like that, yeah, PhDs, don't even it, don't even, but no way care. You know, in sense trumps it when it comes to stuff like that, they're not gonna get it. And see that's the thing that bothers me. About this system. The system is broken all over this country. It's a broken system, and they gonna have to do something to fix this system. And instead of getting a guy that who's costs he done wrote a book, ain't never done anything. I told I told his senator, this represented that came down a church. I said, you know what need to happen, I said, each one of them congressmen and their senators and represented them need to get two or three THEMB children and take them home with them for one weekend. Then you can talk some stuff then. But right now, getting a guy that ain't never been there, done there, or done anything else, they're gonna.
Write a PhD Green book, what's wrong with you?
Man?
That book ain't no good because you need to talk to someone who done got down in the grime, who done dirty their hand and you know what's going on. This would changed them. So this guy said, look, I need to come down there and talk with you. And they brought a cool down there and we met and we told them the system is broken. It need to be fixed. And going up that Congress can't fix it. But you need to talk to the little your folks like me that doesn't been there done that and got a T shirt and a cap to prove it. They show y'all what y'all need to do.
You mean, when just average normal folks see areas of edn't fill it?
That's it, is it. We'll be right back.
So now you got terror, you got Mercedes, you got Tyler.
Everybody thinks you're crazy your daughter. Now you get thirteen people to get trained up. And they started adopting from.
They started adopting, and we ended up singer parents adopting children. Wow, grandmothers and grandparents. Everybody that wanted training got the training. But at the same token, there was adopting children. And was it easy?
Own't know? It wasn't did your church in the throes of it? Could you?
Could you sense the stress and anxiety as people were bringing kids in and the difficulties both financially and socially. I guess, I guess what I don't understand is what was the timeline from when you guys really started doing this work until you felt like you had persevered through it and it was really working for everybody? How long did that take?
It took.
It took some years. It took a few years for us to get that point because it's hard work. It's hard. It's a out of work that would make you or would keep you up at night. You had to patrol your own home. You got to watch everything, and sometimes they wasn't used to that. So over a period of time it went that way. H In the movie two to My, My, My, My, My, two of My top pit peas, when Tyler was afraid of hot water, he was just start screaming, Wow. I think he was burned as a child and had to the water was too hot for him. But then when the bishop went back to church and began to tell the church that you try to bathe, the little boy went screaming and hollering because you're afraid of water. And when like things, that was just going crazy or crazy or crazy just down here, down here, down here. When he stood up and said the children can't take the noise anymore, he hit on the drummer about three or four times. They can't take the noise anymore, he said, So, I know you all are feeling bad, because I feel it too. But it's time for us to rise up. All of you are that's going through all this trauma. I want you to come and stand around across and left began to pray. That moment, it kind of flipped things over. Well, people began to do this and come together in our church and work together to help out what was going on.
So you mean like other church members when they knew, right, So when one couple or single mother, when somebody had adopted a child and they were struggling, other church members recognized it and then they came and help.
That's what helpened.
And see in my home, my wife and I if there was a mother or father who was dealing, who had a child that they couldn't handle. Now I got tired, I got Mercedes, I got Terror and got Josh, then I got Prince. But then again, well just get we're bringing the child to my house and keep them of them a few weeks. We done more risk in anybody else, because every time you turned around, we just turned to bringing them in, keeping them, helping them, and sending them back home. So we got together and began to pray like never before. And the Lord who had to pray us, I need to turn that thing around. Then family began to share one another burdens. Family began to understand what can we do and help? And this is something that I want to share with everybody. All of us may not be able to foster and may not be able to adopt, but in the process of it, all all of us can do something. If you can't do anything but just cook a meal. If you can't do anything, but just go pick up the kids and take them and buy my hamburger a coke somewhere, give the family a break. If that's all you can do, do it, but do it. Don't talk about it, do it. That means that God doesn't leave anybody out. And I said last night that anything God is involved in it, I want to be involved in it. And I feel that so necessary, that this is so important that we all can be how you may say, we can share in this process together. And that's what happened down there. All of us got involved and shared in the process together. The other part that I love about the movie. At the very end of the movie, it shows all the real families. They showed who played who they showed the real person, but it also shows something else. It shows togetherness. It shows that the family helped reached that plateau, that the children are happy and they got their own families and they are happy.
And we're gathering at this big.
Feast down there, barbecueing and music playing and riding horses and just enjoying ourselves. That let anybody know, whatever storm you are going through, with whatever problem that you are having, the sun is gonna shine. If you just stay in the process and give up on the process, the sun is gonna shine. The sun will shining bright and pretty that day and all of the families and all of the families had adopted, had all their children there, and it was a beautiful occasion. That's when people put something in a child's life, and when they came out of their comfort zone and put something in child life. I know for a fact, I know for a fact, even here right now, everybody can do something to help to say this generation of children.
There was another scene in the movie you just talked about two. There's a third where you call the state and you say, okay, we we can We've got another family, or our church has another group that can take on another child. Were told it ain't no more there's no more children than need a home.
That's right.
Your church eradicated children's needs from home within like a one hundred mile radius in every direction of Fosso tromp, your little church, your little struggling financially not wealthy, but rich in spirit. Group of two hundred people shut down the foster care system and the need for it than a one hundred mile radio.
See this is why I say, I'm sorry to rupt you, but that math you not the math gonna add up well.
So I have interviewed over the last fourteen months all manner of people that do walk things, but we have had four or five or six guests who do work in and around foster care systems adoption, trying to figure out better ways, better policy because like you say, the system is absolutely broken.
I've interviewed.
Women who have organizations because they were once trafficked, and the traffickers stamp their girls with tattoos. And when these girls get rescued from that trafficking and they try to move on from their life, every time they see themselves in a mirror, they hate themselves because they see the evidence of their trauma. And so she removes their tattoos from I've seen just over and over again. But the thing that I've learned, probably the most profound lesson I've had since doing this work of an army in folks, and all the amazing people have interviewed, is this the vast majority of people that are homeless, the vast majority of people that are trafficked, the vast majority of people that fill or overfilled jails, the vast majority of people that are on the streets, the vast majority of people that.
Are that are.
Part of the systematic issues in and around our society and culture today. We're once lost children and they came through this broken foster system and never found somebody to love them and care for them and be part of what you said, the process of fixing them and long term, And it is so clear to me we could solve seventy five percent of our country's issues if we just didn't have the need for a foster care system and all these unwanted, unloved children that end up being the very demographics and the data points that we talk about. We could think so much of what els is if we just take care of our children. An impossum trot. There's a church of two hundred people from a low income area and I would assume are all black, that eradicate with one hundred mile radius of their little spot. Like you say, off in the trees, the need for foster care and thusly for a generation have had to have had a lasting impact on the culture and society in that area because you've eradicated so much of what becomes the issues, the thing that we need to understand. And this is why I feel that God has an indictment against the church because of the the empowerment of the church. If you come to Possum trip and come to our church, it's nothing out there. We got we got a we got the church.
Here on this side, you see a base, a basketball court that Malabada Lutheran Church in southern California. Send a mission team up there and put a basketball court up there, nothing over it to the little golds sitting there. On each end you got the church. Then on the other side you got a cemetery. That's all out there. You see dirt, that's that's even today. There's so many needs at that church. It's unreal. But we never stop to look at needs that we have. We look at needs of others. If you look at this whole thing, we should should have the same attitude that Jesus. Jesus left his home in Glory and came here to save us.
So what he is looking at?
And I told him last night that the first law of nature is self first, but the first law of grace is others first service. Service. Jesus was about service. He was about we so busy. The church is nowadays is about church work. But Jesus was about ministry work, and he left this for the church to take care of.
You don't have to have X, Y and Z to get up and preach about there's a need here.
There should not be a child waiting on a home, but it should be a home waiting on a child.
Because while we don't have.
To this system, what we had, we'd done the best we could. But what we had and the Lord was with us. We never did lose any children. We kept them home.
That's amazing. We'll be right back.
The thing that I don't understand a lot of people hear me talk and they they said, well, that guy man maybe out of this.
I'm not out of my mind. I'm in my mind.
Because I sit there across from you now for almost of us two hours.
You ain't nothing about you out of your mind, you know.
But the thing of it is how they expect us to do this and do that. Well, I don't expect you to do anything. Just do it. It's not how, just do it, and somebody well, how did you do that? It ain't no how. We just did it. It wasn't about what we had or what we didn't have. This was a job that we had to do because God was letting his country know if I can show up in them bushes, I should and show up right here in Memphis if they did it in the bushes with nothing, and right now, and let me tell you something else too. The resources that's out there now, it's crazy. We had it with no resources. We did it with no resource. There are so many different resources out there now that can strengthen families and helping family.
You know, I'm a part of Careportal.
Care port is a powerful organization and it does things seem and there's others out there that's doing things to help you. We did not have all of that. What we had was love, togetherness and the love of God, and we worked together to do what we've done. I got one little girl, I think it was ABC came down and did a story and they did about three families up there, and this little girl was in this family.
One of the Minnesota's church.
She jumped up and say she was just crying out one day the interview and she said, I don't know why my mama gave me up. And every day I cried about why did she give me up? If she didn't love me, why did she bring me in this world? And she said that hirsts me. One day she came to church, went home that evening, went in the bathroom and got a raisar blade, cut her shelf alder, just cut herself. Holder They rushed to the doctor. He said it they'd have been ten minutes later, she'd have bled to death. They got it there. They stopped the bleeding. Today, that same little girl, it's one of them. She's she gonna she finished end up in the Olympics as a track star. She got a bachelor degree in child psychology. Wow, she said she wanted to help other children. This little girl is. You're gonna probably hear her speaking somewhere because she's powerful. The first time she saw them moving, she walked up to me and she said, Bijamon, I just want to thank you for saving my life. We got to understand, we don't have a clue. That's what it's locked in that system. We got some of the greatest minds and some of the most strongest peoples. It's locked in the system.
Doctors, president, lawyers, preachers, teachers.
I mean, you go home, But they in a system, and that ain't it't got no way out to be that or they can be part of the demographics we talked about in jail one day.
That's right. See, the difference is what you're putting in them. What are you putting in them?
See, I don't believe that this was no accident. I don't believe me being up here is no accident. I believe I'm here because of the divine will of God to raise this awareness concerning what we need to do.
Y'all.
This is a problem, and this whole nation need to know. It ain't getting better, it's getting worse. But the thing of it is what are we gonna do. We can't talk how bad they are when we never done anything to try to help them.
How can you expect for.
A child to respond when nobody ever taught them anything? So what they do they act out of the only way they know how and do some stuff I said last night, I went to see a little boy one day, five years old, I said, man, what you want for Christmas? He said, I don't want no toys. I don't want no little ponies. I don't want no clothes. All I want is a mother and a father, somebody to love me. Five years old. It's that too much for a child to ask.
For the sound of hope. The possum Trot story, it's not based upon a true story. It is a true story.
And until we, as a people of God rise up and say let's take it by force, we're gonna keep on mushrooming the problem.
This is gonna keep on happening.
But I believe that there's enough preachers, enough churches in the United States of a miracle to fix this problem and to keep it fixed.
All of our guys leave their contact information. Would you please share your email address in case there's people moved and they just have questions about adoption and.
All that I can give them the whole nine yard. Okay, go for it. Okay.
My My address at Bishop W. C. Mart In the name of the church is Benny Chapel Baptist Church, and my address is p O. Box eleven, forty seven, Central Texas, c E. N. T. E R Texas seven five nine three five. My email address is all like in Rabbit Martin, m A R T I N AT B C B like in Boys C like in Charles Ministry, M I N I S T R O Y dot or my number that you can be reached me at nine three six five nine one seven two nine nine.
If any are interested in the work that Bishop Martin's done and involving yourself in the needs of children, there's a man right there who can walk you through the whole thing. Now, I got another question, is your church need? What is your church need?
We need right now? We need doors on the church. Our doors on the church. Doesn't that have been there ever since in the nineties that need to be replaced.
We got some.
Double doors, two double doors on the front, and we got three single doors, one on the on the east side and one.
In the back. Are they ridding up and leaking? Well, yeah, the roof is leaking. Uh, real bad.
We have dirt for a parking lot. We need to do something about that parking lot for the kid. We don't have no playground nothing like that. Only thing we got out there, that goal that that that that church came down and put up there out there. You know that pad, that concrete pad out there. But we have nothing else out there for the children to do, and we'll try to get something done out there. I had tried to get a grab one time from the state to try to put a playground out there, but that didn't happen either, so I let that go.
You need doors, roof leaks, you need asphalt, and you need a playground.
Right.
Listen up, everybody. These are our people without a whole lot of means, who have eradicated the need for the foster system in Possum Trot, Texas. If you have ever listened to this show and thought about, well, I can't get involved in this. But I can't get involved in this, but I would like to write y'all come on, yeah, I want you to watch the movie. But it's not like they're making millions off loyalties of a movie. Trust me from Undefeated, I can tell you it doesn't work that way. There's fame and there's fortune. Fames easier. Fortune is pretty fleeting, and it's producers and the people who distribute the movies that make the money. These folks are not getting rich off this thing. They're just telling their story because they won't inspire people to do the right things.
They have needs. So I don't think I've.
Ever pled with our listeners the way I'm pleading now. Guys reach out to a community, not just Special Martin, but this whole church AND's community who have spent everything they had, their emotional spiritual capital as well as what little money they could pull together to really change then entire area of our country, and they have needs. I hope God blesses you with some help here.
I praise God that he would, and I believe he will.
I I think that it's in God's hand, and I think that he gonna send them in from the north side, east and west and they're gonna do something. I don't know what, but they're gonna do something. You know, we're a type of people that we're not choosing. We just accept whatever God does. And if you can't do anything, just keep us in prayer.
Well, keeping your prayers the easy part, everybody. The movie is a Sound of Hope, the story of Possum Trot from Possum Trot, Texas. It's Angel Studios latest film. You go to angel dot com you can download the movie and watch it Lisa and I watched it a couple of nights ago and Bald Bishop w C. Martin w C stands for w C. He is the pastor of Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Possum Trot, Texas. He is a country boy, grew up on a farm with no water, no electricity. He is a hardworking man from Houston who spent six years in seminary to become a pastor of little Old Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist Church and poss and pride. But do not mistake this man for any man's fool. He is also a visionary. He's inspirational, he is loving, he is a father to many, and he's an inspiration to me. Crazy Lord and Bishop Bardon, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you take the time to join us really for a couple of days. I know you spent time down in Oxford, Misissip. We have Alex yesterday talking to some folks, and I know you're going to leave here and go be part of a lunch with a bunch of clergy here in Memphis, and I hope they will listen to you, because so much of what else is in Memphis could be fixed by what you and your church did. And you're gonna have an audience of a bunch of clergy here in Memphis, and I hope you would you say move them, move them up and out and doing something.
Amen, Bishop Martin, thank you so much for God, God bless you. Can I just.
Close and prayer. Please, Gracious Father, We thank you so much for you, our God. You are a leader, you have a life, giver of a life sustain on And we can't do anything, Lord God until you anoint us and you prepare us for the task that's set before us. We have a problem here, Lord, and you were calling on us to be the arms and feet of Jesus. The problem is we have hundreds and thousands of children who are in a system that need a home. You said, Lord God, that the harvest is plentiful, but the labors are few. To pray that more labels was come in. And we ask you today the center me in from the north, south, east, and west, fix it here just like you did, Impossum. Try call your people's Lord God to stand in attention, Bring healing and deliverance to our children.
To this nation.
Bring us on one card that we can carry out your will. We praying our Father that somebody listening will come running. What can I do to help? What can I do and get the mental Lord God, and go out and then bring some deliverance to these children.
We thank you, Lord God for this.
Establishment here, and we pray Lord God, as they continue to go, you will continue to rouse them higher and higher that they are able to accomplish your will.
We thank you, Lord God.
And all do we fail to ask, don't fail to give In Jesus name, we pray Amen and thank God.
Amen. Now where's the chicken? That's a good question. Thank you for being here.
God, biss yourself, and thank you for joining us this week. If Bishop Martin or other guests have inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by adopting a child, rallying your community to adopt all of its orphans, getting involved with care portal, or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at Normalfolks dot us, and I promise you I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends that are on social Subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it. Join the army at normalfolks dot us. Consider becoming a premium member. There all of these things that will help us grow an army of normal folks. Thanks to our producer, Iron Light Labs.
I'm Bill Courtney.
I'll see you next week.