Episode 8 Transcription-Brent
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And now for the next episode of Letters From Home, sending encouragement to your doorstep by capturing the heartbeat of God’s people. One story at a time. Today’s guest is
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Brent Busby. He and his wife, Becky, and their Children live in Edmonds, Washington Brent teaches and coaches at short cast high school. In his story, he shares about his roller coaster college years, his spiral downward, his near death experiences and his faithful God who led him to it. Please surrender, and it changed life in the PSF P. And you’ll hear lots of fun facts as only he can tell. Brent Busby, thank you so much for coming over to our house today, being willing to share your story when our family thinks of you. Brandt. We’re just so thankful cause you we’ve had a high school or you teach it short Crest High School. We have had, ah, high school student there for the last 13 years, at least one student at a time in you or one of those special people in our lives who has had an impact on every child arguing, you know, seventh grade. Still, we’re looking for to him getting toe have you in his life is Well, you’re such a pillar there it shore crest and being a family of faith. Knowing that you’re there has meant so much to our family. I can’t tell you. I feel really honored to have you here today. I heard that you have the voice. Came home a few weeks ago, brought me this this little folded piece of paper with a little testimonial on it of your life. And I read it in the boys and I were talking about it. And Mike and Jordan, like Mom, you should interview Mr Busby for the podcast. He’s got a great story,
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a true story, a great true story.
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So welcome. And where your faith journey began, Brent
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Well, I was born in 1968 and Sunny said Washington and lived there for 10 years. Then our family moved to Spokane, Washington, and we were very much involved with the church all growing up. I have three brothers, and they would all attest to the same thing. We’re very much instructed in the Lord from from birth, and that was what we did on Sundays and Wednesdays and all the church activities and with the community very much faith. The Christian faith was a part of our lives. But as I got older and we started considering colleges and life after high school, I realized that my faith waas maybe not existent. I realized that my pastor, youth pastor on my parents and again the community believers around me. Maybe that was their faith. But I knew that I had never made a choice to make that my faith where I believed it wholeheartedly, I could trust in the Lord. I could pray and know that God was answering my prayers or that someone was that God was listening. That was it was more just rehearsed. It was Mawr ritual or just what was known. And it wasn’t to tell my college years that I really it came to the time of seeking the Lord, and I remember that specifically at age 22. And so I was in my junior year. I believe it would work college and writing a motorcycle out to a party is Yamaha 6 50 There’s various thoughts that because it was such a specific moment for me in my faith, I remember a lot of details of that motorcycle, right? It was probably about an hour’s ride out to Idaho at this party that was out in in Idaho, and so I wanted to get there and I was trying to get their rapidly. My girlfriend was there, and I didn’t want another boy’s tryingto discover her. So I was writing with sort of, ah, reckless nature. I remember in my mind, getting closer to the lake and the party. It’s probably about 10 or 15 minutes away. The road turned from pavement to gravel. Suddenly not only that, there was like a hairpin turn, Aziz. Well, and so if you could think of sort of a rule lake and you’re going to the cabin destination, that was that was sort of the scenario, and I missed signs that showed it turning from pavement to gravel. Least I wasn’t aware of it or not thinking. And in my mind I thought I was like evil can evil. I was a really good motorcycle guy. I remember having that thought, you know, Hey, look and evil, Eat your heart out. And so I started racing in a particular way. That was very good, just bold and confident in my motorcycle skills of which I didn’t really have. I’d only been riding this motorcycle for a few months anyways, the bike laid down when it hit the gravel. So I was just skidding with the bike pretty much horizontal to the the road. And I knew that at the speed I was going in the direction that I was gonna crash and I was It was a matter of a split second thought that I’m going to be dead or I will be seriously injured cause it was just a wall of pine trees that shielded me from the going down to the lake. And so I knew that I would just be in bad shape or dead. And that was all I I thought of. And so, on the hairpin turn, that bike miraculously righted itself right as I got to the edge where all the trees were and then it followed the the hairpin turn of which I was at this point, so paralyzed in fear I wasn’t doing anything. I was just bracing and holding on for the impact. And again just realization that my life could be over. Very writer of seconds here. So gradually, as it turned and made its way on a straightaway. I started to have confidence to pull the brake lever, hoping that I was, you know, still keep this good street going here. I was like, Wow, how does this happen? And I knew that in that moment that again because I had been felt like I was so close to death that something that saved my life. I didn’t at that time parallel to Jesus or I was going to be saved. Or it was more that I knew someone, something. The deity out there, there was something of divine intervention that just happened, and I there is no doubt, no question. So I got off the motorcycle and I just took a deep breath and I said, Wow, there’s a God. There is a God and I kind of just said, God, I don’t know how that just happened but it happened. And I remember in that moment that at that very moment that there had been another time. A couple of years prior, I was mountain climbing and rock climbing, actually without ropes, sort of free solo idea in a precarious situation, of which me and my friend were just not being safe and not thinking about it. And I had also resigned that I might possibly die because of how it was hanging on to the rock in that moment and trying toe get to the next little hold And my life was again spared what I believe. But I only made that connection because of what had just happened. I realized then that my life is now being saved. Maybe a second time now. And this time it was connected with God is saved my life yet again here. I didn’t connect at the first time and I never really would have acknowledged it that way in the moment of climbing these rocks for a couple of years. So this really registered to me this time. And so I went to the party and I was just sort of still baffled and mystified that
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you didn’t have a scratch.
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No, nothing. Nothing. I
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something new. You were just I’m stunned. I remember
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the gravel sliding up into my pant leg. Aziz, the bike was parallel with rocks shooting up into my calf. That’s how parallel was. It was like if you think you’re dangling in the pant leg was dangling and the rocks were shooting up into my But anyways, I got up to the party and I tried to kind of point that out to my girlfriend that
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who say that I not
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necessarily spiritually but that I like Man, you should have been there. If that was on TV, we would have made the highlight reel on ESPN, you know, world across night highlights. But anyways, that really stuck with me. That event that happened in late August 1990 was when that happened. So that fall, then there was a couple other significant events in my life in particular on the football team. From
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you play football?
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Yes, yes. So
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that’s another part of the story. Why
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would I think you’re gonna say you wrestled?
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It’s your the wrestling. Go to the O. We’re good football, Teoh.
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Where were didn’t have a wrestling program with collagen Did wrestle in high school and wrestle that peel you before I had transferred to wit word. But what work didn’t have arresting program and football was very much my passion growing up since I was a little guy than her football. So So, yeah, this would have been my third year of college. Well, there’s a tragedy that happened. One of my teammates had taken his life and that really, really grabbed Mia’s Well, Now, remember, I had this idea that there is a God because of the motorcycle happening, maybe a month or two earlier, but that was very much a thought of mine. But it wasn’t like I went out in pursuit. I got to get to church and God saved me, and I’m convicted all these different sins, prodigal sins or whatever might be associated with my life. But I do know that when this next event happened, that may be shipped me even further. Like, Wow, there’s something going on here. I had talked to this individual right before he had taken his life and, well, the night before, just prior and we were to dance, and I was having a good time, and I met up with him casually talking at the dance, and he he says, Buzz, I just don’t get it. I don’t get it. And in that moment I didn’t realize he was so low. I knew he was talking about some girlfriend things or, you know, I knew that he was struggling with some connections with his girlfriend and the football team. And I sort of was, um may be complacent or flip it in my response that Oh, lots of ladies in the CIA. Lots of lots of fish in the ocean that there’ll be another girl. You know, that was sort of my hope for him in the moment. You
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just thought it was like an everyday conversation. He didn’t know this was momentous.
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Yeah, And so the next day, I remember thinking, I’ve got this all all figured out. I have this idea of God he’s watching over me. I have this girlfriend and she loves me and thinks I’m a wonderful guy. And I had a great game that day just prior. And we had the dance that night where I saw my teammate. But I
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just had this feeling like I
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was almost invincible, like I had very much figured life out, and it was almost easy. Too easy, you know? Well, only a few minutes after that thought I got the call that my friend had taken his life and it was like that was such a contrast of feeling peace and it feeling it like Planet Earth that’s figured out my life’s in order. It was such a contrast to the next few months of my life, but in particular that moment of my judges dropped. And I was like, uh, what? And then from then on, I it was just crushing for May, I couldn’t sleep, got depressed. Everyone else seemed to sort of move on from that suicide, and they kind of like my teammates, and it seemed like they just were moving on with life and have gotten over it. But I was very much not getting over it. But not only not getting over, but even getting worse in my mentality, and my thoughts about tryingto make sense of it all. You
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got your finger on what it was that bothered me the most. Well, I probably need a
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core is actually awful.
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There was something I thought I thought Well, if Charlie who? We had a similar personality and we got a long road, good, if Charlie could do this. When I
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thought everything was all right with Charlie, that just life was fine,
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I did. What about me? What I go so low is to perhaps take my life. Or could there be something tragic in that way for my own self? And so then that was, Ah, very specific, scary thought to me. So, um, the season was still going and shortly after again this memorial time and is passing. We were in the locker room after a practice and the guys were having, just, like, rude, coarse locker room guy talk conversation that pretty much inappropriate for sure. And our quarterback, who I respected his faith very much. John. He called the rest of the team out or in particular, the guys that were chatting, kind of nasty, said
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guys, that’s not how we talk in the locker room. This is not
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good. It doesn’t honor God, you know that. And again, where was the Christian College? So you that’s
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that. You could say that because you could maybe say that. But yet John had put
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himself out there in the moment and was calling the other guys out, and he looked at
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me straight at me and says, Come on, Buzz, this this isn’t how we talk. Is it? Well, because he
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had directed his comment directly at me, I didn’t know what to do because here’s my other buddies, my linebacker pals and, you know, and, uh, did I want to align with them, or did I want to be? May be considered the proved one or the guy who could could, you know, couldn’t couldn’t say nasty word or have bad thoughts or conversation? Did I want to align myself in such maybe, maybe a legalistic way or something, somebody being judgmental or whatever.
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And I knew I didn’t have the faith at the time to stand up for my own thought or belief or opinion. And here, John, he was very bold and courageous to call the other guys out. And I wanted that I wanted to be able to, but I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t. I wanted to actually also play both sides of the fence. You know, I wanted to be popular in both realms, but when he called me out, I knew that he lived his life one way he didn’t live it on both sides, and for me, that was the great controversy going on and again, just my lifestyle and who I waas as a person so over
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the linemen, looking at you like.
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It sounds like time to slow down to this moment. I thought Yeah, never all eyes turned to bust me because he was the devising boat. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna be the deciding Vote it. Busby says it’s okay to probably talked, and it’s OK if
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Buzz Me chooses. So what I did in that moment is gave kind of a wishy washing answer that played both
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sides. But I knew it wasn’t right. ST. John
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ask you about that later. Did he look atyou? A disappointment. Like when you were saying that wishy washy were you like,
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you know, you know, you know, he just happened, I think, to catch me. I know he didn’t think I was any sort of saint or a good person in that particular way. I think it happened
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to catch me, and John and I were friends to that way. And so maybe it was a friendship thing. I actually sought him out After that. I started looking more closely at his life and his involvements and what he was doing with this time because I was still in a state of searching. I knew God was riel, but my teammate who had taken his life. That was still something I was really struggling with. I continued to struggle with that, even as a season wrapped up, just wrestling with, you know how somebody could do that and why. And what was my role in all of that when I wasn’t there for him that night? Before Teoh give him maybe more hopeful advice other than there’s more more fish in the sea. That’s something that again was was part of me just the search, you know? So a couple other things unfolded before the semester ended the season it ended. I had a couple other misfortunes. Well, actually was three in particular. My grades started to sink on, and I knew that it was more and more of a struggle to just study and get stuff turned in my job that I held at the little retirement home, which I really enjoyed that job. But I just I just walked off the job. I said, I don’t I don’t need this.
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Really. Yeah, I know. I never I wasn’t a quitter. I wouldn’t
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quit anything. I would always be respectful if I was gonna be, you know, quit a class or, you know, quit, needed to be off a job or whatever. I would tell that person. So I just said, I’m done. When I walked out
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for you and it wasn’t half center, it was just I couldn’t figure it out
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and I was frustrated, and I didn’t want to be at work in the moment, and I was tired of feeling like I couldn’t find the answer. And so because I was kind of trapped there in that moment in time at work, with those thoughts going on, I knew there’s like I just I couldn’t keep coming to, Ah, work situation and feeling like I wasn’t getting the job done but thinking about other stuff. And so I just I just walked out and that was very uncharacteristic.
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And then
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my little Pontiac Firebird broke down and my expenses were tight. And so that was another thing That’s sort of like heaped on me, and I started again, just feeling like frustrated and hopeless in knowing there was a God. But now why wasn’t God helping me out? Where was God and who was God? That was all starting to play into my my mentality, so I got through Christmas with your
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parents, aware or
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no good buddies that you were. My parents don’t were in
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the Seattle area at the time. They’d since moved. Moved over there a couple of years prior. And eso I was pretty much on my own And Spokane. I had a brother that lived in town who was not a Christian, a time and my other two other brothers lived, lived out of state terms like family and turned into somebody I could really count on. I had a couple of good buddies, but everything was private with me and my thoughts. I tried to share a little bit with my girlfriend, but that was another last straw. She decided to break up with me. So maybe she saw this going on anyways and said, I’m out or, you know I’m done with you. So that happened, and I I remember. It was a Sunday morning in February again. All this wrestling had been going on just prior to this morning. It could have been the night because I don’t remember the detail, but it could have been the night before, or a day or so before I read in the Book of James in Chapter one, says, Consider it pure joy when you go through struggles of many kinds. And
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again I had a church background. So I had a
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Bible with me, you know, around and Whitworth College Christian College. There was, you know, Bibles around. But I had a Bible, and that was a handy book in the midst of all the rest that I really wasn’t too interested in reading. But for some reason I had picked the Bible up and my searching I turn to James and and
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that didn’t make sense to me. How am I supposed
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to consider it pure joy when I’m going through these struggles? That was a great contrast for me. I was
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like, I almost laughed at it. It was, What if the Bible is true? This makes
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absolutely no sense to me. I’m supposed to be happy or joyful anyways and my horrible circumstances, because I certainly validated all my circumstances and struggles is going through our time, and I was supposed to be joyful in that. So
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I had read that
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either the night before a day before. That was kind of in my mind, that little dichotomy. I got up Sunday morning in February in particular, actually, February 17th 1991. I I got up in the morning and again I quit my job. Typically, I’d be working on a Sunday, but it quit my job. So kind of looking for something to Dio and my card broke down. And then in that moment I said, You know what? I’m going to go see my parents. I’m gonna go figure out what’s going on. And I knew the faith of my parents, and it was the first time I sort of thought of talking to them and seeing what they thought about it
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all on where I was at. So
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that’s encouraging. You know that you have your parents, like is a resource like
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Yeah, and that was the foundation
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of going to church and knowing that we were brought up in a Christian family, that I could turn to that, Uh, certainly be wondering who I would turn Teoh
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if I didn’t have a Christian family or my parents would maybe scoff our mock me for trying toe figure out who God waas and where God was
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so in your car driver, just pick up the phone. Well, that my car was broke down. So that’s why I said, you know what? I times were kind of It was a little tough, tough times. I
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and I was kind of proud person. We’re gonna ask people for money. I could have taken a bus down like a metro or something, down to the bus station and Spokane, which was downtown. But I just said, you know, I got the day. So I’m just gonna walk down there. I’ll save a few bucks, and I’ll just
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walk down there and buy a bus ticket. I might go see Mom and Dad.
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I bought the ticket, was just still wrestling and frustrated, disappointed and where it was at in life and all the things going on. And I went up to this part just barely outside of Spokane Finch Arboretum. It’s just a real naturalistic type part trees and flowers and I walked into this park and quiet, sunny, partly cloudy day was still cold mid mid February. But I walked through the park and went towards the far end of the park, and there was this enormous rock, this huge rock, and for whatever reason, I just kind of scrambled up on that rock. And I knew I had lots of time and just sitting on that rock, and I just started Teoh pray to God, and it was the most sincere prayer had ever prayed. But I just poured my heart out, Remember just sobbing, just asking God, if he was for real, why it couldn’t he come show himself or reveal himself or give me some a sign of hope and just what I was feeling, You know, the struggles that I was going through and, uh, after, I don’t know, it seemed like a good probably 10 15 minutes, it just pouring it out. I walked off the rock not necessarily feeling anything different or air in any response, and I walked another 20 yards and there was a little stream that flowed through this part. Kind of split the park in half. Almost. There’s a little bridge over this stream, and I paused as I was walking to the other side of the bridge. I paused right on the middle, and I just looked down at the stream and get in a serious state of bewilderment and searching. I looked at the stream. And then I looked up at the sky and it was a get a partly cloudy day. But the sun was beaming through and I remember looking up with the sun and just staring at the sun. And and I had this thought of audacity that the scientists could not tell me that I couldn’t look at the sun. I can look at the sun for however long I want to look at the sun
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because they always say it will burn You hurt your eyes And I was like and I don’t care Tell May I’m going blind. I don’t care.
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Right now I am gonna look at the sun and that that was the little paramount
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you have glasses on and concede today’s
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something OK, so I looked at the sun and and then gradually I
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lowered my head and I looked at the at the stream again.
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But because I had stirred
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in the sun for so long when I looked at the stream, the light radiated so strongly off the stream, the glare, it just shook me. It just like it, like was a bolt of lightning right into my eyes, back at me and it just jarred me. And in that jarring, that very moment of jarring me, God revealed himself. And that was the point.
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Where was your sign that year? It said, God, it just was the miracle moment
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for me because all the anguish of the past six months disappeared the piece that I was searching for, the restlessness that enormous struggle had been going through with everything. It just disappeared. It was a complete piece. In that moment. There was also this voice speaking into my heart or my mind saying, Brent, you’re not in control of life. I’m in charge of your life, not you. And it dawned on me that all of that past struggle was because I had been trying to handled things on my own. I had been searching for answers on my own, my own thought, and I hadn’t surrendered to God’s control over my life. And in that moment of complete peace, like the weight of the world, it disappeared. I knew that I needed to be grateful for the Lord saving my life for eternity. I had, you know, as we talked about the motorcycle, I’d recognize that something someone had saved my life from that. And they spoke of when I was free climate without the ropes. I believe someone had spared my life in a precarious situation. But this time I knew it was for, like, eternal purpose. And I had this little watch on my wrist at that time that you get out of, Ah, cereal box and it It was something special I had warned for the past year or so, and I almost coveted it. It was very important to me. It was the Washington Bullets, a basketball team, now the Washington Wizards. But I really liked it, you know,
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kept kept good time. And I liked wearing it well, so it was important
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to me. But I took the watch off and I walked to the other side of the bridge again. It’s just a small bridge and a small little stream. I walked over to the other side and I said, Okay, God, I get this. I need to dedicate my time to serving you because you’re in control of my life. I’ve been doing it on my own thinking. I was supposed to be Mr Sports star, you know, popular with with my girlfriend life supposed to work out with good grades and your cars never gonna break down. And you’ll always have your your finances in order and all that have been done on my own. And so at this point, I was like, Wow, you want me to serve you? And this is because you’re in control of my life and it means eternity. And it was a complete surrender. But it was also like something I wanted to dio. It wasn’t like an obligation. Or now I’m going to have toe live. Ah, life. That’s not gonna be any fun. Or I’m gonna have to follow these rules and sacrificing so much it was Oh, I get this. You’re in charge of my life and you have specific things for me and a purpose for me here on planet Earth. But also all enjoy eternity.
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It all that just came together. And I again I had had Bible verses. I had all this knowledge and went to church saying songs none of that
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really matter to me prior to I mean in a lasting sense or an applicable sense that didn’t register how I could live a life, a Christian life and how it could be meaningful to me. It was more just that was morality that was doing the good right thing. And so I came to that saving on
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Did you make it home? And were you able to talk with your parents about the rock? Or how did that go when you got home?
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So I threw the watch as far as good in the park. I through the the watch as far as football. Yeah, just symbolic
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of Okay, Lord, I’ve dedicated my life to you. I’m on your timetable. What you would have me do. So my first thought was I got to go back in, you know, convert my girlfriend and tell her the good news that she just looked at me like, you know, I was kooky
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Did I thought he had broken up with you, But you still were,
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like, I wanted to get back together with its with their so pieces back together. Yeah. We’re gonna think this is what she needs in her man, right? A good, godly Christian man who’s converted anyways. So she was still
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in town. You know what? We were farm. So I postponed the bus ride for a few hours anyways, and I talked with her and that didn’t go so well. But I still I wanted to share. I did want to share with my parents. What I going What? What’s going through? So I went home and I shared that first with my mom. I remember sharing that with my mom very specifically. And also I shared some of my again prodigal sins. My struggles might my life before this. You know, there was this sense of wanting to say to my mom in particular in this conversation that I’m a Christian, but it’s now I really wasn’t before. I know I probably had pretended and maybe use a mom thought it was as it was a you know, a my good son, but so I poured my end. I just remember my mom’s just acceptance of me in that moment and just being able to give me a hug and say, You know, we love you and she’s probably just
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OK, well, is this for real, you know, because it was just some sort of
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whimsical moment he’s having or whatever that was a powerful time. Teoh go over and visit with them and have them substantiate A. I spoke with my dad as well, but I just remember that first conversation with was with my mom. That was the start of things, and I have never looked back. I ended up from, so the semester it ended and I took that semester off from Wentworth and I stayed over in Seattle with them.
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That’s pretty major.
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So you that was major to me. And I told my friends to That was the other thing. I told everybody I had met Jesus, and that’s why I was making these changes and the car that broke down. I just gave that my my team teammate. So after
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that semester, you you took that semester off. Did you end up finishing college?
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I did, I did. I took a semester
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off and then I had one more year eligibility. So I came back in the fall and finished my last year on the football team and that Whitworth and then graduated with that semester. And I can assure you that though there’s been a lot of crazy moments since, and a lot of guys peaks and valleys that God has always been faithful. I have Ah, beautiful wife Now. Four Children. We’ve changed churches several different times. We’ve gone different places, moved and lived in different houses. But in all of that, I haven’t been perfect. You know, I have struggled in in various moments and with various things, but I know that my relationship with the Lord is for riel. I’ve grown in my faith and my love for him and others. And I will say this to those people who might be searching for God or searching for his peace. Wondering is God for real, that God’s word, the Bible promises to those who seek him diligently, who, with their whole heart seek him. He will reveal himself, and that comes from in the Bible comes from Jeremiah, 29 13 Matthew, 77 So you get the Old Testament news New Testament in other places in the Bible that are very specific as to God’s promises. And he does promise that. And I think for myself and I have talked with other people in their testimonies, and when they came to faith quite often it’s. What I’ve understood is when somebody is in a desperate moment where they cry out to God they’ve done it their own way for so long. But now that when things life isn’t working out for them their way and it’s just not convenient or fun, or that when they get in a low spot they
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kind of have to
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hit rock bottom in order to see that it can’t be done on their own strength. I think God wants us there in order to mold and shape us and create us in in his image. Second, Corinthians 5 17 explains that were a new creation, the oldest passed away. The new has come, and that’s what we are. If we don’t acknowledge that that we need his help, we can’t do it our own. It is all his strength that were even alive today. I mean, I can’t go to sleep and know that my heart’s gonna keep beating in the middle of the night. I mean, he does that and he opens my eyelids when I wake up in the morning. But if we don’t acknowledge that, then we’re doing it ourselves. And so I think I believe that God wants us in that moment of submission, that full submission and so I had to go through various struggles and moments, including what I shared to get to that point in life where I had to cry out to him and in some again miraculous or a mysterious way God delights and us crying out to him because it’s the person or the place, the source where we need to pour everything out. It has to be on him or to him so that he is the one who is giving us that hope, giving us that piece. He loves it when we come to him. But I Yeah, I think for again those 1st 22 years, when it really came down to it prior to seeking him, I wouldn’t come to him. I would come to my own means to accomplish what I needed to get done. And so that’s that’s my story of faith. And
spk_1: 37:15
I I encourage everybody give it the 30 day trial for it and see what you come up
spk_4: 37:23
with. Because he is for real. And if you you whole heartedly seek him, he will he will hear you.
spk_2: 37:29
Amen. Well, thank you for sharing your story. Really appreciate here.
spk_4: 37:34
Yeah. Thanks for for having me on the podcast here
spk_0: 37:39
is your P s. Some extras about our guests. Are
spk_2: 37:44
you ready for some questions?
spk_3: 37:46
Sure, whatever. Whatever you got who had far away
spk_2: 37:49
Most embarrassing moment.
spk_3: 37:51
Um, I took a can of glue, a spray paint can a glue like acrylic type blue or something.
spk_1: 37:59
And I thought it was antiperspirant and it was on one of my teammates. Hey was using it for an art project in school and had set it up there, and I wouldn’t grabbed it mistakenly. And five minutes later, my arm pits. I didn’t realize right
spk_3: 38:16
at the moment, but five minutes of my arms were just like Meyer. Pits were just
spk_1: 38:19
stinging, and they’re itchy. And what was that I use and
spk_3: 38:25
get some glue remover? That was That was an embarrassing moment.
spk_2: 38:31
Favorite food or weird food habits. Someone would be surprised to hear
spk_3: 38:36
the Hawaiian pizza, especially like my wife’s homemade Chicago style Hawaiian. That’s my favorite of all time knife. But now the weird food people may not know cause it’s just hard to find, and you almost have to make it yourself. It’s licorice milkshakes, black licorice milkshakes so and actually frozen Twinkies to those those air. Probably. What would people call weird, but to me, this I know that’s just good.
spk_2: 39:05
Last night I was talking to the boys and saying, Do you have any stories about Busby or sinks? Jordan’s it? Yeah, Mama, when he’s trying to psych you up about, you know, wrestling really well, he’ll say Now, that cat over there, he’s, uh, he’s probably just sitting there on a second box of Twinkies. But you you’re working hard. Your greatest athletic achievement.
spk_3: 39:32
Well, uh, that can be sort of like it’s hard sometimes. Just talk about your own accolades or whatever, but probably in my mind at was being the voted his most valuable player of our football team really last year. Yeah, so that was special to me to kind of in my own sport careers.
spk_2: 39:57
Sure I don’t. So it’s all history now.
spk_3: 40:00
Yeah, it is
spk_2: 40:02
the glory days. Did you ever wrestling? I think that was getter.
spk_3: 40:06
I have more nightmares about what I never accomplished in wrestling. Really like the matches that I lost that I wished I would have won what I didn’t get accomplished or done, and partly that’s how it I live
spk_1: 40:18
it out a little bit through coaching now.
spk_3: 40:20
The team. You know, it’s okay. Way We still got work to do.
spk_2: 40:24
Did you have any, like, sports? Fail?
spk_3: 40:26
Uh, the epic sports fail. Yeah, probably again. That that my last loss in in high school for For that, the state tournament. Oh, that really crushed what sport this was for wrestling. Oh, yeah. My last
spk_2: 40:45
state in your lost.
spk_3: 40:47
Well, I’d want a few, but I had won the region tournament the weekend before and very much was hopeful to win the title. And
spk_2: 40:56
what was your weight class here resting?
spk_3: 40:57
I wrestled it that my senior year I was a £168. Yeah. So that was my epic Fail there. Whatever.
spk_2: 41:07
Well, heart copping and state
spk_1: 41:09
Still trying to get over it to this day. Really? Okay.
spk_2: 41:13
Nightmares. Is there a talent you wish you had or a superpower?
spk_1: 41:17
I think that might
spk_3: 41:19
just needed come in visible. At times, I feel like I just want out of a situation or no, I just need to be gone from here. Boom.
spk_2: 41:27
Do you have any pet peeves?
spk_3: 41:29
I really Yeah. I really hate losing knowing you actually could have one. Yeah, and you made a mistake. And it was your mistake, not the other person or the other team or other outside factor that beat you. It was your own personal mistake and that that’s what really bothers
spk_2: 41:46
me. A book or Bible study that has changed your life.
spk_3: 41:50
Ah, guiding Blackerby did a study called Experiencing God, and in that it was very much how we can hear God’s voice and how it can see where God’s at work in order to join him in the kingdom. Work going on all around us. And that was very powerful because at the time, you’ve not been a Christian now for a few years. It wasn’t necessary clear to me how God might speak to us and how he might use us.
spk_2: 42:17
You have four Children. Would you say they are different? And how would you describe your parenting experience?
spk_3: 42:25
Okay, All the Children are different. States are Ehlvest, eyes 21 he’s the firstborn. So that’s always sort of a distinction. I feel like connected to him in certain ways. Like I might reveal information or truth that I might not divulge to the rest of the kids and Tate and I have really gotten along well the last year or so in our just conversations and being father, son. We’ve had a lot of good experiences together. And then look, he is over Gonzaga University, and Luke and I have a kindred spirit for our sports. Being athletic
spk_2: 43:02
was also like class president and
spk_1: 43:06
looks tried a few other actually going on. Yeah, like
spk_3: 43:10
it will guy. Absolutely. So he’s over at Gonzaga and I love that because it’s hometown for me Spokane and also have a passion for those Aggies in basketball team. And so he’s jumped right in and he loves college time now to Satara. She’s 17 and is our third born, although she’s adoptive. Tow us. We knew of her six months, and then we were able to finally get her here to the United States that at her second birthday. So it took about a year and 1/2 of paperwork. Teoh, get her out of the orphanage. And an exciting thing about Satara is were going to go in June. Becky and I are gonna take Stern. We’re gonna go back to that orphanage.
spk_2: 43:53
Oh, great.
spk_3: 43:54
So that is going to be very special.
spk_2: 43:56
What can you say? The country?
spk_3: 43:58
This is India. Yeah, So we’re going to Bangalore and then, of course, Jordans, Air youngest and Jordan. I have a very tight relationship with, as that happened when he was only one diagnosed with cancer, and we battled with chemotherapy and radiation and surgeries for five years and got rid of that cancer. And he’s healthy today. Got a lot of different medical stuff that we still have to do, and you will have that for a lifetime. We’re just grateful to God that we have him. But that relationship that I have with Jordan’s very sort of unique and that we have spent a lot of time at the hospital together when he’s been sick and not feeling well, there’s a special bond between Jordan and I that way.
spk_2: 44:50
What do you love about Becky?
spk_3: 44:52
I love about Becky than she’s, uh, an incredible mother. That’s my my thing that I have to say. She loves our Children so much, and they know that. And it’s the thing that I can step back and just really admire, know that God has really blessed her as a mother
spk_2: 45:11
So I was asking the boys last night. I wanted to ask you a couple questions about being a teacher, and I called just say, Oh, we we talked it just I last night. He’s 23 you know, graduate from college. Tube it, he said. Well, you couldn’t pass Buzz meetings room without him saying, Please, nerd put me in a headlock
spk_1: 45:32
rolling on the ground Give me a bruiser. So true,
spk_2: 45:36
he also said, I can’t stop laughing when I’m around him. And he said, What? Just a man of faith you are in all the kids say that you Hanna said that to last night. I called her. They all have loved being around you because you have such a joyful presence in Jordan said the other day. Mom, I was in Spanish class and he heard a loud bang on the window and everyone looked and he saw you. They’re looking at and through the window, and you had a Gonzaga shirt on, and you were like pointing to it like waving And he’s waving back and and then the teacher comes over. It’s like what? What was that all about? And he said, Oh, it’s It’s Busby and she goes, Ha Busby! Oh, okay. Another funny thing that one of the kids said, is that when somebody’s on their phone in the quarter, you’ll say, What you doing over there talking to Betty Boop and watching Looney
spk_1: 46:31
to Teoh? Anyone call him out, Call
spk_2: 46:35
them out as you should. Uh, what is the hardest part of teaching for you?
spk_3: 46:40
I think the hardest part of teaching for me is not being able to spend more time with the kids. Kids need attention today, and sometimes they don’t even know that. But you see that and it’s like you want to grab him. And you were so like for me in particular, kids in my class from my classroom. Oh, I’ve been it short crust for 20 years now, how and I’ve always taught special education
spk_2: 47:05
and I just want to say to having all of those special needs kids in the wrestling program. I almost weep every time I see all the kids wrestling. It’s his beautiful like embracing of kids. I have never seen coaching, and we are kids have been in a lot of sports and a lot of activities, But the tone that you and the other coaches set of love and caring and inclusiveness in making every every wrestler feel loved and accepted and like their valuable and they and that also encouraging them to raise their bar a little bit. I haven’t seen that in a program, and it is very evident, Brent. So thank you for that. It’s It’s It’s, I think it. It’s just one of those amazing things about the environment. They’re Short Crest, Interpublic High School. So what do you love about teaching? And then also what? What do you like about coaching and how you get that really great environment?
spk_3: 48:07
Well, what I love about teaching is my particular classroom again. A special needs classroom just to see the uniqueness is of how God makes individuals, that it’s very powerful of students of all different capacity, all different character, all different personality. And just to see that come out. It’s like kids have amazing gifts. I have a number of autistic kids, but the way they see the world and you know, it just speaks so much to me, and I love that it holds true, I’m sure for other teachers as well for me. It just starts with a passion. There’s such a need there such a need for these these athletes, student athletes to built up and encouraged and loved and told that they could do things that maybe they didn’t think they could. Dio Wrestling’s very difficult sport and they take their lumps, you know, And that’s not easy. And so, trying to instill hope and believe that they could do it and they can work hard and hard Work pays. And again, just you mentioned just It takes time to be around them, to get to know them, to motivate them, to inspire him. Toe can’t want them to be their best. And we are very much up front with the parents and the wrestlers that we’re hoping to train them for life after short crest. Because if really I’m just in it for a few years, that will see him. That’s pretty selfish in nature. It’s really we want to see them do well. Life after short crested wrestling is such a great way toe instruct that coach that teach that
spk_2: 49:57
what characteristics do you love most about God?
spk_3: 50:01
I love that God is omnipotent, all powerful. The reason I like. That is because I’m not, and I know that there’s a tremendous amount of time throughout the course of the day where I just feel weak. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. And
spk_1: 50:18
pretty much when you think
spk_3: 50:19
about Jesus on the cross or you think about Paradise City or you think about all the blessings that we have, when you get a thought of what God is doing in in the spirit world, we’ll
spk_1: 50:32
get sake. A little tap on the power
spk_3: 50:35
button and I can always tap into his power. And sometimes that’s power over attempting situation, its power over feeling fatigued, his power over feeling inadequate or insecure feeling like you’re lonely or not valued or appreciated. If we touch the touch, the power but not God, he will powerful e change our mind set her heart to to where it needs to be.
spk_2: 51:07
What are you most looking forward to about heaven?
spk_1: 51:09
No Paradise city. I very much looking forward to that. It’s going
spk_3: 51:15
to be awesome and incredible, but for me, I really want to meet Noah and there’s a couple other guys. But the guy, the Joseph I want to meet him and there’s a little old lady in the New Testament that Jesus at the church. She gave only two pennies in the offering plate, and
spk_1: 51:35
that’s what I’m looking
spk_3: 51:36
forward to meeting those individuals and then, of course, seen everybody in their whole what God fully intended them to be in a who knows what
spk_2: 51:46
physically like we, what second look like,
spk_3: 51:49
I don’t know. But to know that there’s no more crying and pain and anguish and setbacks, and to have that just Scott and we’re just living in glory and praising the Lord. That’s what I’m looking forward to
spk_0: 52:03
team in. This wraps up
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another story of how our great God is at work in our hearts and in our world. To find out more about Brent and this Seattle based podcast follow letters from home on Instagram. You keep Click, subscribe on iTunes or follow on Spotify. Next episode will go right into your
spk_0: 52:26
podcast library. Second, Corinthians 33 and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, right and not with ink but with the spirit of the living god. No, on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts