Collective Healing: 10 Year Celebration

As we continue to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of The Allender Center, we have two special guests from The Allender Center team joining Dan and Rachael this week: Linda Royster from the Training and Pastoral Team, and Sam Lee, the Director of Facilitator Development. Linda and Sam candidly share their experiences as BIPOC leaders on The Allender Center team pursuing the work of defining and healing trauma.

Episode Transcript

Dan: Rachael, do you have your party hat on?

Rachael: Always, Dan. Always.

Dan: No. No, you don’t always. That that may be one of the most significant fibs I’ve ever heard from you. Nevertheless, we are in another moment of celebration and oh my gosh, we have to, oh, delightful and so significant, uh, human beings with us to talk about something of the beginning and the middle and the direction the Allender Center is heading. So I will let you introduce one and I’ll introduce the other.

Rachael: Sure. Um, well, you know, as we continue this ten-year anniversary series, um, we are very privileged to have with us Linda Royster, um, who has been a part of the Allender Center in different ways in seasons since its inception. Um, and she is a therapist in North Carolina. Um, she is a preacher woman, a teacher, um, and a gardener. Those are a few things I can name at this juncture. Linda is also, um, coordinating on behalf of the Allender Center, a pilot program we are doing in partnership with the impact movement, along with various teaching curriculum, facilitation and supervision, realities of her role, um, which I will let her speak more to as this conversation unfolds. Welcome Linda.

Dan: And I, I’m going to introduce Sam at a moment, but I also need to say that Linda wrote a deeply significant portion of Healing the Wounded Heart, uh, addressing the issues of abuse, particularly in the lives of African-American women. So I’m, I’m not trying to encroach on your introduction, but I just, I’m so proud of that particular section that I just wanted to highlight and Sam Lee, oh my goodness. Um, one of the wisest human beings, I know, and his gift to us has been remarkable from early being, uh, in our externship program, one of the first, uh, or actually the first…

Rachael: No, Linda was the first.

Dan: Oh, Linda was the first. Okay. I thought they were sort of all together first. I’m sorry, again, you know, the celebration, I need to get my party hat on right. So further Sam is a therapist in Austin, Texas, which we forgive him for, but I also wish that he was still with us in Seattle. Nonetheless, Sam directs, uh, our work of helping people develop as practitioners, as facilitators, uh, and has a key role on our executive leadership team, along with Linda and Rachael and a few others. So folks, thank you for joining us, Sam and Linda. And let’s just start with an obvious question where have you wanted to blow up this organization at times?

Linda: Well, I think I’d like to start by saying that I think it feels like it was a lifetime ago that, um, I joined the Allender Center and one of the first, I guess, iterations of the externship. So, um, three of us who, who joined that first year and it was wild and beautiful and I was very, very excited about joining you Dan, and the team, um, in this work that felt so significant, not only for my, my people and my people, meaning BIPOC community, but just a significant work in and of itself. So I was excited and terrified and didn’t really know what I was doing, but willing to learn. And, uh, was a lot of mimicking you, Dan, but what would Dan do? What would Dan say what’s day? What would Dan’s approach be to this? So, um, and I, it was, it was extraordinary, extraordinary, and, um, there were moments that I, I hung on for dear life. So it was, uh, as a common phrase at the time was, uh, you’re building the airplane in midair and a terrifying experience.

Rachael: Well, and, you know, I think we should add for our listeners, when you say you were, you know, an initial extern with the Allender Center, you know, now we have a four week intensive training supervision, peer cohort teaching content that you get to after you’ve been through a few levels of training. Your externship experience was you’re going to jump in and for solo facilitate a training certificate group with very little orientation onboarding, just welcome. And we’re so glad you’re here.

Dan: Well, let me just go back and say, I love idea that it was an airplane we were tinkering on. It felt more like we just threw you off a cliff and hoped that you would fly. Uh, and you did. Uh, but, uh, to say that there have been very significant and I think really productive changes, uh, but as a Pilgrim pioneer, oh my gosh. Uh, you, you bore, uh, the intent of great good. And yet the reality of incredible incompetence, uh, in terms of developing an organization. So the fact that you smiled at us is just a sweet gift.

Linda: Yeah. I felt something of, um, like woke up privilege and, and in one sense, the calling to participate, I don’t think I was prepared for the measure of heartache and like the reality of the work that we’re stepping into. That it’s we were going with people into dark places. And I don’t think I didn’t prepare myself for the pushback from the kingdom of darkness that would show up externally, but also among us in ways that things played out to some degree much good. But also we were in warfare and I did not prepare myself ahead of time that, that I was stepping into that depth of warfare.

Dan: Yeah. Will want to come back to that. Sam, take us into something of the experience of either tinkering on a plane or being thrown off a cliff.

Sam: Yeah, I would say at the same metaphor as, uh, as maybe just asking a question, how did you learn how to swim? Well, I got thrown into the deep end. We figured it out how to do that. That was kind of the first couple of years of the externship. Um, but my entry point, uh, with, with, uh, with the Allender Center felt really different. I didn’t know who you were, Dan. I went to the Seattle school and took a couple of classes and I find that for me, who I feel connected to is like, are there this, like, there’s some good people here or there’s some goodness here. And that’s what I get attracted to. And I remember that was something that I felt, uh, as I was going through the Seattle schools, like, yeah, something he’s saying there’s some goodness here that I want to return back to. And that was my primary, like thought as I applied for an externship was like, I want to learn from these good people. And so, uh, that was kinda my entry point into they own their center.

Dan: Given that for both of you, I, what I’d love for you to be able to put some words to is what have you addressed, not just in your own life, but including, but in the world that you have a sense of calling to as a result of the work that you have done and are doing.

Linda: Yeah. I think part, part of that answer for me is realizing that not only that does everyone have a story, but virtually everyone I know has a story of trauma, which includes sexual trauma. Um, and I, and I think that, um, before working with you and Dan, Rachael, um, in the rest of the team, certainly now working with Sam, I would say that, that wasn’t foremost in my mind that people have stories of trauma and people have stories of sexual trauma. And so part of, um, part of how I enter my world is, is with the assumption that most, that, that I’m, or interacting with people that have not addressed their stories of trauma. I just make that assumption right or wrong. I make that assumption and it usually bears out that that folks have trauma that they’ve not addressed. And it doesn’t take much work for that to come to the surface. So I think I just have eyes now that it didn’t have when I first joined the Allender Center um, that, that in one sense, people long for healing and are both terrified by it. So that’s part of what I see in the context.

Sam: I would say for me, it’s always been the work of translation. I am a son of an immigrant, a family, second generation coming from Taiwan. And so coming to the United States, always having to do the translating work between two cultures, trying to understand, um, even the psychology field or theological field, or trying to translate that to something of my own story and, um, the culture and where I come from. And finally that there’s gaps and there are different places where I need to figure out, like I didn’t grow up with the concept of therapy or counseling, but I do know story. And, um, and, but having to do a lot of internal work, trying to figure out how that comes to be, but has been so rewarding to find meeting so many different people that, yeah, the translating work is there, but we all have this commonality of wanting to really find healing in our stories, um, and want to feel connected to ourselves, into the people that we love. And so this healing work transcends both the psychology field. And that’s what I love about the Allender Center is that we’re not just training people to become therapists, we’re training people to step into whatever context they’re in to bring and engage stories, engage people in a deeper and meaningful way. So that’s what I would say, translation.

Linda: It reminds me of, um, in part, in my story, when I think about the story work is that when we traditionally would think about folks needing help, we would send them to our pastors. Right. But, but part of what’s over, over the years was expanded for me, for my perspective is that it’s not only the pastors in the Black context that get to hold the stories or are instruments of healing, but that we are like spreading it out and diversifying that we all can step into story. We all can engage story. We have the power to do that. And the freedom. So it decentralizes the pastor is the only one who is the resource for healing in the Black context.

Dan: Both of you have been so central to what we call recovery weeks, where we take in 15 men for one week or 15 women for another week, and begin to address the stories of, of, of deep, deep harm, uh, particularly sexual violation. I love for you both to reflect a little bit about what that journey of addressing… and Linda, you began putting words to that and given what you wrote, uh, you know, in Healing the Wounded Heart, I love for both of you to sort of step back and say, uh, where has that taken you? What is it that you now see with regard to not only your own life, but an understanding of the work of God in people’s lives through that venue?

Sam: I think from the early onset, even engaging the category of trauma is still trying to have the concept is having that concept like, oh, I don’t have that trauma. I don’t have sexual trauma, these people, or this is what I hear of what trauma looks like. And so I recall when I was stepping into this work life being like, oh, recovery week, then sexual trauma, um, how do, how do I engage that if, you know, if I don’t have it, but I think where it has been meaningful for me in this journeying, both for my own healing is realizing that sexual trauma is pervasive. But at the same time, it’s not a sense of the gradations of like, like really capital T big trauma. It’s where we have all had a marring of our sexuality that needs to be engaged and healing can happen there. And so, as I found my own healing in my own sexual trauma, I feel like it’s giving me more expansive capacity to really want to engage people, men in men’s recovery week around their trauma. Uh, so it really has been also a personal journey of healing that allows the expanse to engage other people’s feeling 

Linda: It’s a part of my experience with the women’s recovery week is that I was a participant years ago at, um, at a women’s recovery week. And one of the many things that stood out for me was at the very end of the weekend together, Dan, you, you, you were kind of promoting the Allender Center, not being able to center the Seattle School and, and you kind of made the comment that, um, that some of us would be called to come to the school. And, um, going into that weekend, I knew after having read, um, your book having kind of read information about you and your approach, I knew that if I were to become a therapist, that’s where I wanted to study. I wanted to study your approach. Um, and so I, that that call, or that invitation resonated with me at the, at the very end of the week. So I had this personal experience of what it was like to go through a recovery week and then many years later to be, um, one of the facilitators there. So I, I valued that collective experience of storytelling. Um, and it’s not just the wonderful, good stories that we’re accustomed to telling, right? But it was telling the, the broken, terrifying, shame filled stories that maybe some people that never told before. And so I valued that, that collective experience telling story, which was just what I think we’re called to do in this process of healing. I think it is less one to one, although it includes one to one healing, but it’s far more a collective experience that reminds me of what the kingdom of God is meant to operate as it’s a collective and less individual experience. So I saw people wasn’t a lot of African-American people, but I saw women telling, taking the risk to tell their stories, um, in a group context, and to receive healing that was both mutual and reciprocal. Seeing the ways that they stepped into story, seeing the ways that you encounter engaged story, but also, um, also the way that the Holy Spirit showed up to aid you as you stepped into story with other people. And I will say that when I experienced that, um, and witnessed it, I, there were a moment that I was blown away. I remember moments where I thought there’s Dan has access to the Spirit in this moment. And the Spirit is leading him into the stories of these people that, um, is opening up story for them. And I just thought that was such a clear moment for me that I’m not doing this work alone. It is that the Spirit of the living God is aiding us in this work to give us insight into the places that we, we need to go that’s beyond our rationale or beyond knowledge that we have readily accessible to us. Um, how the Spirit will lead us to ask a certain thing that seems out of the blue, but nevertheless, it just is the thing to the asked in the moment. So, you know, all that, to say the collective experience of healing, um, and including the one-to-one moments of healing or extraordinary for me to witness.

Rachael: Yeah. I find myself, oh man, just relating to so many of the things like it’s, it’s actually really good. Um, and honoring to remember, and to think back to, um, you know, because 10 years in, in some ways, not that I would say I’m jaded, I don’t feel jaded. I just feel like the more you progress in an organization develops, the more complexity there becomes, the more you need people in roles that are holding administrative weight, leadership weight, and it takes you a little bit further away from the, on the ground work. And so I just am feeling a lot of gratitude for getting to remember, even for myself, like, how did I stumble into this? And what were the things that were so deeply transformative that made me want to say yes to something that was building itself in the air, and the risk and cost of that. So I’m just feeling a lot of gratitude to even hear your stories and to hear where you’re reflecting. I also think back to that, to those early days. And I think, uh, specifically for both of you coming into a context, you know, we’ve talked in other anniversary episodes about the reality that a group of us spent a whole year doing story work together as our… That was like, our externship was like, okay, let’s practice on each other and then launched the first training certificate. So I know both of you as we’ve reflected, even with our team over the past several years, there’s kind of different generations of people joining the team. And everyone just, almost like a family has a different experience of where they come into the organization. And you guys came in at such an early moment, um, that I know there were hardships, not just of a startup, but hardships interpersonally in an in relationships. And in feeling those questions, I think are true probably of most starting organizations, whether it’s a church or a nonprofit where there’s just a really thick culture and trying to navigate your place into it. Um, and I would be curious what were some of the hard things about coming into the Allender Center in it’s really like first and second year of, of offering trainings and, and different things as an employee, as a staff person. I know you might’ve had different experiences as students and participants, but

Linda: Yeah, I, I would say, you know, unless Sam, you want to step in, um, and, and I’ll follow after you.  

Sam: Go ahead.

Linda: I would say that there was significant goodness, but also significant heartache and harm. So part of the culture of the Allender Center, what felt so foreign to me. So my expectation was that I was stepping into a context where people love Jesus, that they love this, this methodology, this approach to trauma, um, and that, that all things would go well, then that there would be an easy reception or integration of new people. And I do believe the Allender Center team loved Jesus. Right? I do believe that there was a lot of desire for goodness, but the way things played out works for it and narrowly harmful. Um, and so the culture that I come from and then bringing that culture into the culture of the Allender Center was a clash. Um, and I just remember contorting myself trying to fit this culture that I’m stepping into without that being reciprocated. Um, and so there were moments of so many moments of feeling disrespected, dishonored, um, isolated, um, recognizing that I was stepping into a family that had a lot of history connection and bonds, and I felt shut out from that. But I loved the work and also felt the sense that by the Lord that I’m called to this work. So feeling trapped by the calling and the heartache of what was happening and unfolding, um, and then witnessing some structures of White supremacy in the context. And that was, that was heartbreaking for me, even though I had hoped against hope that it wouldn’t manifest in the context, but the structures of supremacy were there. Um, and I felt it in my body, I felt emotionally, psychologically. Um, and, uh, I re I would often hear trauma responses where my body would tighten up. My eyebrows would go up as if I’m bracing for some type of injury or, or assault. Um, and when that happens, when you’re in hyper alert, it’s hard to focus and it’s hard to be about the business that you’re called to when you’re scanning, even if you don’t even realize that that you’re scanning for potential assault. So that was part of that heartache and deep disappointment, and being in part of the Allender Center in the early days.

Dan: It’s so, both important to hear and so hard to hear the heartache that unwittingly, and sometimes almost with a refusal to see or hear. But if you can just put, before we turn to Sam, just a sense of how, how did white supremacy and a sense of disrespect to you as a Black woman? How did that, how did it come about? What did you see and experience in that?

Linda: Yeah, one example would be after having been with the organization for a number of years, that, uh, the sense that my voice wasn’t really invited into a space of, of teaching or co-teaching from my perspective as a Black woman, where someone else would come in and they would have opportunity to share whatever it was from upfront. And I wasn’t seeking to be upfront, but the dynamic was that, oh, they are new to this organization and their voice is sought after. And I’ve been here for a time and my voice isn’t, um, what’s that about that challenge to say, okay, this is, we’re doing extraordinary things with this organization regarding trauma. If we don’t start talking about racial trauma, that’s going to take us down as an organization. So those were some of the things that I remember swirling for me early on.

Dan: I, uh, I’ll just say, in addition to that, that as a teacher, um, we did not invite a brilliant woman in to teach. Uh, and in that process, uh, you know, even as you say, it is this intersection between how could I have missed, how could we have missed the reality? And yet part of that blindness, uh, is, is, is part of the reality of White supremacy in that I don’t have to see in order to be able to function. And therefore my absence of sight is convenient and more comfortable than to address what you you’ve named before, but naming even now, thank you, Sam, for you as well.

Sam: Uh, I, some of the similar things that Linda has brought up, uh, for me, I think I’d go back to what I said earlier. Um, particularly as an Asian-American translating acculturating, assimilating is always part of my story or our collective story, uh, particularly for Asian Americans. And so, um, you know, it’s, it’s the little things of, um, the snacks that we eat, how we hang out, um, what we choose, like we bring our culture, we bring our context and there is, um, uh, it’s just in the subtleties, you realize that this is very, this is going to be a very foreign, or this is a very White context that I’ve come to familiarize to, I have to contort into or adapt into. And so there’s always that sense. I can’t fully bring my full self and I had to figure out how much of me to bring. Um, and so when there, when that’s the invisible, like work that you’re doing in your body and, um, within sometimes it feels like, or how am I perceived in that? Am I, um, so my experience is probably, I like to kind of stay around a periphery just to see, um, and that’s the safe space for me, but of course there’s a longing for, to feel more connected to belonging, but also trying to figure out is this going to be a space that allows the fullness of who I am, um, to, um, to come forth. And so I think that’s some of the more like subtle things that makes it like, um, hard. And though we know we’re naming and stepping into this work, we’re also stepping into our own story as an organization, as a, as a community. Cause that encapsulates kind of the, the broader picture of what’s happening in our society, as we try to engage difference as we  try to engage how we’re seeing each other, um, more fully. So we’re not immune to this, um, to this, uh, collective trauma work. And so of course we have to look within and that’s of course

Rachael: Well, and I it’s like, as you say that Sam and Linda, I feel such deep grief because I know how much the confusion of having a, actually a very ethnically racially diverse team, even from the beginning, but that not necessarily translating into a diverse culture and a culture that actually could be hospitable to that diversity. And it took us a long time to actually understand that. And I can still recall when there was even an inch of that understanding how you and other colleagues of mine who had been there from the beginning were able to start to tell the truth about their experience in a way that was not seen, not honored, not acknowledged because that sense of like, but people have a place at the table. People are here you’re invited not actually seeing no, there is a deeper transformation. There’s a deeper repentance and there’s actually like a deeper work we need to do as a culture with our content with, as you’re saying, Sam, the snacks that we have. And certainly we are still very much in that work. So there is absolutely no sense of, oh, we’ve figured that out and now we’re a completely safe and hospitable place. Like I’m not at all claiming that, but I think it’s just important. So many people feel like, oh, if we have the people in the room or if we have a very diverse church or, you know, if this is true, then like we’re, we’re doing good things, we’re doing the work. And sometimes we might actually be setting up a more harmful environment because we’re not actually willing to become a place that is representative in the cultural experience in the leadership style, in the ways in which we eat together, the ways in which we teach and learn and, and transform. So I know it took, uh, um, even tremendous courage just to say these things here and now today. And I want to say thank you.

Dan: Oh, and to join your words, Rachael, and say, you know, in some ways, uh, from the beginning, I think we, and I’ll say we, but I think it’s more accurate to say I believed that we were telling a truth, telling truth well, and engaging realities that often I saw unaddressed in the context of most of the communities I’ve been part of. So in some degree, that’s true. On the other side, what I think had also, uh, added was a kind of self-righteousness, uh, we are a diverse community. We are engaging things that other people don’t engage and in that failed to actually address how unsafe in most White communities it is for you to bring your reality of what. And I want to come back to this phrase where adaptation becomes contortion, uh, we’re translation, uh, is actually assumed to be a form of a violation of the material itself. So you all have had to take so many risks. And I agree with Rachael, even this podcast is that, uh, but then to step back and to say, you know, what have you seen as a movement, even if it’s somewhat embryonic, what have you seen to be some of the, in one sense, good, uh, of the risks that you have taken.

Linda: Now, what comes to mind for me, um, is in the early days before I get to what’s happening now in the early days, is that yes, we had a lot of diversity, but there wasn’t a diversity of power. There were particular people who held the power. And so we looked to the outside world, like, there’s a lot of diversity on this team, but when it came down to values or norms or what was considered valuable or normative, it was a White power structure that we all in one sense or another had to stare ourselves to fit into. Um, and I think when we’re engaging in a kind of new environment, it requires a kind of adaptability, right. But when it’s, when it’s one sided, when it’s only one person or one group of people that have to do the adapting or the contorting, there’s something profoundly wrong with that context. I like where we are today. Um, there still more space for growth, but I like that we can actually have a conversation that we can actually begin to challenge one another and it’s mutual. And I’m not saying that the BIPOC folk don’t need challenging. Yeah, we do in our, in our own unique ways, but, but we can also challenge the power structures and the people that hold the power structures. And for me, there’s less fear of retaliation. There’s less fear that I will move out on what God has called me to. And so there’s been a loosening. And in one sense, I think the Allender Center has, is human size in my eyes now of like, if this doesn’t work out, God is working in other places. I hope this works out, but if it doesn’t, that doesn’t mean that God has forgotten about me or that my calling is now done. It is the sit like there is goodness happening here, and God is at work in all kinds of places. And I get to play with the Allender Center and outside of the Allender Center context as well. So for me, it is we’re beginning to have the conversation and we’re starting to make some significant changes regarding who holds power. And I know that there’s still work to do there, but there is a little bit more sharing of the power. And by that, I just mean whose voice is heard or, or taken seriously, like whose opinions, whose perspectives, what values are we holding, um, highly in high regard?

Sam: Um, I think when, when I think of that is this is a, an organization can be, um, can be static and organization can also be dynamic. And I think, um, you can look, I could look back and see that there were a lot of growing pains as an organization, both functionally, but also maturing and how they’re seeing understandings of trauma. And, um, in hearing voices from those that are oppressed and those that have been traumatized to expand what we’re growing and the growth sometimes comes with a lot of growing pains, and yet there’s also growth. So can we hold? I think I can hold it. And I feel well to tension of, like, there’s been a lot of growing pains, but there’s also been growth. And if there’s dynamic growth and there’s an invitation to all of us to listen, then there’s, there’s space, there’s space to meet one another in the places of pain, but also in the places of tremendous, like beauty. And I think both have been true in my felt experience, um, um, yeah, in this organization. So if we continue to stay in the embryonic insular stage, then yeah, it will feel problematic as a organization that doesn’t want to grow its legs and, and see where, uh, what they don’t know. And so I, I love the fact that at least in the season where the places where we’re expanding our legs and arms, um, and that feels well.

Dan: Well, I will add that both of you in what you have taught us, but what you teach, you know, in story workshop, what you’ve taught in, what we call NMTC one and two, an externship, uh, you know, across the board, uh, there has been significant curricular change, mostly led by Rachael and you Sam, but indeed Linda, your involvement. So, uh, just to see if we can capture a few sentences, what have you seen to be some of the changes you’re inviting people into as you’re both teaching and engaging our facilitators, uh, our participants, and in this sense, a larger audience with regard to the podcast.

Linda: Part of my experience and being on the teaching team and having opportunity to share, um, is really pushing the envelope, um, in the sense that, um, I talk more about the integration, dare I say, even the oneness of racial trauma and sexual abuse. Um, and I, and I know that that, um, is surprising and odd language for a lot of people to hear, but, um, the more I study it, the more I see it. Um, and I think that’s a way of taking us out of a circular conversation about race and racism. Racial trauma is to start differently about what it really is at its core. Um, so I’ve seen ways that I’ve kind of pushed the envelope a little bit and it’s risky, risky, then risky now to have that conversation. But, um, that, that’s where I am. That’s what I feel is important in the work that I do with the Allender Center.

Dan: Well, let’s just say, uh, there’s a lot to be said in those words. Uh, and I think given the reality of we’re coming to the end of 2021, I think with the upheaval and our culture, uh, particularly the polarization, uh, the accusations, this is a very important category that I think we can say needs some space on this podcast. So, uh, if that has confused our listener, uh, tune in tune in, uh, we plan to be here in the year 2022. Sam.

Sam: Um, for those that are listening, um, you don’t get to see what I see, cause I’m seeing some of the, um, video screens of, uh, of Rachael Dan. And then I see plants in each of the screens, uh, of their screens. Um, and there is a goodness to have a singular plant in the pot. Um, but plants are meant to be in a garden. And I think one of the expansions that I, I, um, I feel like we continue to grow as an organization is that our stories are not meant to just be individualistic. It’s we do have our own personal traumas and stories that are meant to be engaged in its fullness, but we share a common soil. We share a common, uh, earth that we live in. And so if we engaged personal trauma, we also had to engage the collective trauma that we are, um, in the midst of that’s been the most significant for me, the curriculum change is to be able to hold both. We’re meant to, to engage both the personal and the collective trauma that we’re in. And as you said, Dan, um, we’re living in, uh, I was caught apocalyptic times and not meaning like we’re living in like the world is about to end, but we it’s a sense that it’s revealing something. Apocalyptic means it’s a revelation, it’s a revealing of something. And so, so much of what we’re seeing, um, playing out in our society is, is, is actually allowing us to tend and engage. We’re in collective trauma together. And we need each other to do this healing work together. And it’s not meant to just be individual.

Dan: I cannot say anything more than what a sweet gift you both are to me, but thankfully to the larger organization and the presence you each bring the wisdom, but also your disruption, uh, the commitment of you actually believe there’s goodness in this organization. So you’re not going to actually endure, uh, a level of bullshit that you’ve endured at times. And in that I’m so grateful. Uh, you know, I’m also not, I’m also not like, come on, I’m old, can’t we just sort of slide out of this world with a little bit of the answer is come on. Of course not. So to come back and to go, you know, there needs to be a day, may it be soon where we actually get to wear party hats, not looking at one another in a digitalized world and actually be able to hold something akin to a champagne glass and to be able to say, um, we are becoming, um, through a hard and hard process, something more of what I believe the kingdom of God is inviting us to be, and your presence is with us. Um, not only teaching, not only leading, uh, but you’re willing to suffer for goodness, uh, has enabled us to become, uh, not just better people, but a better organization. So to that end, let me say to the two of you, thank you, and as well to you, Rachael, thank you.