Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
In today's episode, you'll hear about three mentors that changed Travis Bearden's life as he grew up without a father in East Texas.
Show Notes
Episode: 5
_______________
WELCOME
You Can Mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others.
_______________
SHOW NOTES
Travis Bearden on Linkedin
The Mentor Alliance
Gospel Village
Pine Cove
South Spring Baptist Church
Our Website: You Can Mentor
The Mentor Alliance
Gospel Village
Pine Cove
South Spring Baptist Church
Our Website: You Can Mentor
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor. Well, hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of You Can Mentor.
Speaker 1:We have a full house today. I'm here with Zach, Daniel, myself, and our guest, Travis. Welcome, Travis. We're so glad to have you.
Speaker 2:Glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Travis is actually long time friends with Zach. So, Zach, tell us how you know our friend, Travis.
Speaker 3:That's right. Yeah. I don't I don't really know how I know Travis.
Speaker 2:All I
Speaker 3:know is we've been friends for a long time, and, we became friends, I think, through a small group, through a men's, bible study. But Trapps has been my boy for, over a decade now. And I'm super excited for everyone to hear his story and hear how he became the man that he is today.
Speaker 1:Well, Travis, we are so grateful that you are here. So thank you. We're excited to hear more about your story. Before we dive into who your mentors were, if you will just kinda start us off by telling us a little bit about yourself and who you are and your family, and then kind of where you've been. So just walking us through a little bit of your past.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for thanks for having me. Thanks for y'all doing this. That's it's it's a really cool, I think, opportunity for others to get to hear perspective and feel connected with people that may have a similar story that they don't talk about, but also for, other men and women to wanna dive in to help normal kids.
Speaker 2:I think what? 70% of all kids graduating high school now will live in a single parent household. Woah. So huge need Mhmm. For men and women, good men and women to want to dive into discipling and mentoring relationships, like, I have had the privilege to be a part of and on both sides.
Speaker 2:So my background right now where I'm at, it's me and my wife, Lindsay, and my son, Titus. He's 7. Lindsay and I have been married 12 years this summer. Titus is 7. Catherine is 3.
Speaker 2:And, we are currently debating whether or not we, adopt another one that's in the cards, to be we talk about it every every month or so. Like That's awesome. Do we and when do we. We live in Tyler. We grew up in Tyler, both of us.
Speaker 2:I didn't know we're in Tyler, but, met her when we worked at a camp called Pine Cove. We were both counselors there. And then married right after I graduated from A&M. Lived in Dallas. I was an engineer.
Speaker 2:I was trained as a guy with a calculator for and I practiced engineering for 4 years. I did not enjoy it. It was really an act of discipline that I kept my job for 4 years while we paid off student loans and prepared for a house and to have a kid, and Lindsay finished nursing school. But at the same time, I wanted to figure out what else I wanted to do. Then I found a passion in financial planning and ran with that.
Speaker 2:I've been doing financial planning for 8 years, thanks to Lindsey's support. We moved to Tyler 4 years ago, 5 years ago at this point. And, just to get back to our hometown and grandparents and, really just love that city. And we were engaged in mentoring here in Dallas and got involved back in Tyler as well with an organization, I think, 4 Runner's tied to. But, so that's the picture of where we are now.
Speaker 2:Very involved with my kids, desire to be a good husband and a present dad Yeah. Involved in our church. Background though, it it wasn't as well put together as as a lot of people know these days. I met my dad when I was 19. He was a fugitive most of my life.
Speaker 2:He was caught. His 8th wife turned him in, whenever I was I was I actually just got done working at my 1st summer at Pine Cove when my mom called me into her room to tell me and my brother, they caught him and we're gonna get to meet him. They got divorced when I was 2. So, really, I knew him. I just didn't know him.
Speaker 2:There weren't a lot of solid memories associated with a father. My mom never remarried. We moved in with my grandparents, and it was me and my older brother, Daniel. He's 4 years older than me. But my grandfather passed away when we were young.
Speaker 2:I was in about 1st grade or 2nd grade. So that was he was our primary, head of household father figure. And then shortly after, my brother got sent to a boy's home about, 3, 4 hours away. And so, again, another mentor role in a family 4 years older than me. And so, really, childhood at that point on was me and my mom and my grandmother.
Speaker 2:Thank goodness for my mom. She knew the importance of needing a male role model in her son's life. And she was doing everything she could for that. She made tons of I mean, as well as many great single moms do, making tons of sacrifices to find mentors for both of her sons in different ways. Daniel through the boys home and then me through, really a variety of things.
Speaker 2:She had us she had us at church about 4 days a week. She helped, really plant the singles ministry at a church in Tyler called Green Acres and, had me in their youth ministry, gosh, every day almost. So there were a lot of small mentors from there, but really the major ones that really came into play in that in those seasons well, I'll back up there. I'm not gonna dive into that yet.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll lead a little bit more into the background. So, grew up grew up in Greenacres, with my mom there. And then really didn't come into the knowledge of fatherlessness until about middle school. So I went to a public school until elementary. In the middle school, I jumped into a private school out there where I looked very different than everyone else there.
Speaker 2:Everyone had a good family, a full family, as I would say, a full house. Their siblings lived in the same house as them, and so did both parents for the most part. And then if their parents did get a divorce, they oftentimes quickly remarried. So there was always at least 2 parents that seemed in the house. But, it I I remember the struggles early on recognizing that, like, whenever they had father son or father daughter lunches, and they would come in and be like, oh, this is really first time for me to come to terms with this.
Speaker 2:And, and then recognizing some of the things that other fathers did with their kids. If they were good dads, if they were good present dads and good husbands, I was starting to see it from afar. So, that was really how middle school and high school went was a struggle there of recognizing fatherlessness, being very much on my own. My mom worked hard. We didn't really do family dinners.
Speaker 2:It was a lot of Travis Finn for himself, not in a bad way. But, a great relationship with my grandmother and my mom, but a lot of definite grow up sooner than you need to. Drive sooner than you probably should to get a job sooner than you might need to. But, I had to be on top of myself on my homework and just making sure that if there is gonna be something at school or a sport I wanted to do, I no one was gonna enroll me for myself. I needed to be on top of it ahead of the curve.
Speaker 2:I remember asking my mom in 6th grade, like, hey. I see these, like, basketball camps. Is that, like, a thing I can do too? Because I I was seeing all sorts of friends. Thank goodness social media wasn't around.
Speaker 2:I would have been more aware.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But, I remember she was just sort of caught off guard and confused, and she was like, yeah, that I think that is something you should probably want to do. God bless her heart. She just had there were so many things she was trying to stay on top of to support us, that some of the key things that you see other boy boys and young men go through, I really had to take the reins on.
Speaker 3:Man, Travis, you just unpacked a lot right there. Mhmm. I think the main things that kinda come to my come to my head whenever I hear your story is it seemed like there was a lot of weight on you. It seemed like you experienced a tremendous amount of loss, just in, you know, not growing up with your dad around and the passing of your grandfather and your older brother being, sent off to go to a different school. I mean, one of those things is a ton to handle much less all 3.
Speaker 2:It def I'll I'll talk to that a little bit. It definitely felt so for a young kid at that stage, the things I didn't wanna be is that I I recognized burden on others. I I recognized what life was like. I mean, a a depression era grandmother telling me what it was like to never have food and things. And then, also from an immigrant family, my family's all Lebanese and she told me what it was like, you know, whenever they were persecuted or kids threw rocks at them or broke their windows and things.
Speaker 2:And so I I recognize what hardship was for them And for my mom seeing her work and support us and drive all the way out to, middle of nowhere, Texas just to drop my brother off or go do visits and stuff. And I saw all these burdens and I never wanted to be a burden. Mhmm. And so that looking back, it forced me to sort of quell desires to let others in or to to throw myself to others because I saw everyone else is just weighed down. I was, I would go find things for myself to do but I was never gonna ask anyone to spend time with me.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Because I I just thought everyone's got enough burdens and I don't wanna be a burden. I I became a good kid on the surface just so that I didn't cost anyone anything. Mhmm. Especially in those younger years.
Speaker 2:High school was a different story. But in the younger years, it was very much a a quiet, can find ways to entertain myself situation that may have, from a mentor's perspective or from someone else's eye, may have seemed like that kid doesn't really need much. He probably didn't need my attention. Mhmm. Squeaky Will gets the grease so to speak but I was intentionally not being squeaky.
Speaker 3:But that didn't mean that you
Speaker 2:didn't need something. No. 100%. 100%. Yeah.
Speaker 2:There was a lot going on in that quiet kid kid's head in the corner. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What were some of the things that you, were feeling or like working through in your head? Like what were were there any particular moments that you felt, anything that you remember that you felt a specific emotion or when you started to realize that? I don't know how to really ask this, but, when you started to realize that you were either missing something or wanted more, or wanted someone to give you the time and attention, were there any specific moments that you remember?
Speaker 2:You know, unconsciously, I was never at my house as soon as I could drive. I was always at one of my buddies' houses whose dad didn't seem to care that I was was around. He wasn't, like, for me or against me, But he was cool that I was there. Yeah. And so I would go to different people's.
Speaker 2:I was I mean, oftentimes I'd I I guess I didn't until I got to college, I didn't realize it was weird for someone to just eat dinner at someone else's house all the time. And I was just like, hey, I'm already here. Another plate didn't cost y'all anything. Might as well eat with you. I wasn't very much aware of burdening people at that point.
Speaker 2:And they were all friendly and allowed me in and to hang out often. But as I got older, I realized that was strange, man. Most people were like those kids were at home because that was their home. They were with their parents because that was their parents. They when I went over there, they were always there.
Speaker 2:Why weren't they somewhere else? If someone went to my house, I wouldn't have been there. Like, it was different. But I I became more aware of it, thinking hearing stories from other kids at school about things they did with their dads. That was middle school to high school ish is where a lot of this became super relevant is when I would hear about a dad doing a a basketball bracket with their kids like an NCAA bracket.
Speaker 2:And I remember not knowing what a bracket was. But some kid was doing it with his dad and his coworkers. And he was doing well and he was talking about it at school. Or learning to fish or going on a fishing trip or hunting. And I remember thinking to myself, I remember one night very specifically being so angry like why do I not know how to shoot a gun?
Speaker 2:Like, and the answer as clear as day is because you didn't have a dad. Like that that must be the reason you are inadequate in all of these things or why don't you know how to play basketball or why why didn't you get good at soccer earlier when all these other kids were in sports? And the blame in my mind always went to it was his fault. Why is your mom single? It's his fault.
Speaker 2:Why is your brother, at this, you know, not with you? It's not Daniel's fault that he's over there. It's it's our dad's fault that something happened to Daniel. All these different things were slow processes that every time there was a problem, it was my dad's fault and I was a victim. But also, I was at a loss.
Speaker 2:I'd there were things that I was missing in life that I just couldn't engage with other kids at school about and so I was naturally more and more quiet. I was more socially reserved especially in those scenarios and I was left to since I couldn't engage on what seemed like a normal boy interaction, I was left to make up my own ways to really create social relationship which is by goofing off or just being a funny kid or doing something outrageous that someone else wouldn't do, maybe get you in trouble, or get someone hurt. I would do that to create relationship.
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Whereas no one else really needed to because they could just talk about some hunting trip they went
Speaker 4:on. I'm so curious to know, like, how once you realize that, you know, there are a lot of things that are going on inside of you in questions and maybe anger or bitterness or unforgiveness that's kind of stewing in you. How those things start to manifest in like your teens or your early adult years, or you know, kind of what shifted in your life to sort of keep those things from manifesting negative negatively.
Speaker 2:Yeah. 100% accurate. Like, it was a lot of bitterness, unforgiveness, hatred, anger, a blame of all these things that seemed to be, you know, really pushed down that would only come out, in rare occasions whenever I accidentally let it out. Mhmm. I remember one time and I was on a soccer field and I just got let in a game and I was on the sidelines for a whole half.
Speaker 2:I was never that good. But the coach put me in to start the second half. And, I was just watching this other team sort of bully my friends and our team and I'm not that big of a guy. But I got out there to start the half and literally the first thing I did is I ran up and there's a header coming in the air and it was me and this other guy on the team. And I just lost track of the ball.
Speaker 2:And I remember all this rage just instantly let out of me. And I wasn't even that aggressive of a kid. And everyone was sort of shocked, like, their eyes got wide and they let back. And we just got in this aggressive fight. I instantly got kicked out of the game.
Speaker 2:And now my team was down 1 man the rest of the game. I was like, well, that didn't work well. Mhmm. Every now and then, rage or aggression was one way that it would get let out, but never never socially. Like, that was the one time I think other people have ever seen me get angry as opposed to just me in a punching bag or something.
Speaker 2:It would also come out, really when I was alone. Like I would just sit and I would stew and I would process and cry alone, about how just angry and really not derived but how much I I didn't have as a basic person as as a man growing up. How much I didn't know how to be a man and how how angry it continued to make me. So it was really I I handled it all very very alone. And I don't know why it didn't turn out worse, to be honest.
Speaker 2:The only answer I have is Jesus. I had a lot of friends that I was running in the same circles as that I look up when I'm in college and I come back home and literally one of my buddies, they were like, hey, did you hear about so and so? They found him drunk in a ditch. Literally in a ditch. He was my age.
Speaker 2:He was a friend of mine that I grew up with and my other buddies that they found in jail and this other friend that this this is going on or, had a few kids with some girl he was dating. And I'm like, god. Why why not me? Mhmm. So honestly that it was bottled up and it would have exploded had it not been for some other key men that the Lord put in my life to help me unpack this, which I'll talk about later whenever we get to when I met my dad in prison and who my mentor was at the time and how he helped me unbottle all of this hurt and rage and hate and unforgiveness.
Speaker 2:Because it was it was no one really got to know Travis until after the unforgiveness, hate, and the bitterness was let out. Because who I was up until then was just someone I was trying to either not be a burden on others or please them to like me because I was funny or something else. Right. Because I handled who I was very differently before then, before I had another man show me the way.
Speaker 3:So, Travis, so can you tell us about some of those men that, really helped turn the ship, so to speak?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there are 3, what I would say, sections of mentors that I've gone through. All important in all roles that I've tried to fill myself as I've gotten older and coach other men in how to fill. One of them was an organization called the Boys and Girls Club in East Texas. There was a mentor, Larry Gandy.
Speaker 2:He was my big brother. My mom got me in the Boys and Girls Club when I was in 3rd grade. Again, my mom, wonderful woman. She did everything she could to try and fill the role of fatherlessness. She was it seemed looking back, it seemed she was very aware of it and trying hard to solve that on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:So Larry, was my big brother from 3rd grade to 5th grade and we just did stuff together. Like he would just pick me up from the house, we'd go to a movie, we'd go play tennis, we'd go to the park. He would hang out with this 8, 9, 10 year old kid and do things. I remember going to look at Christmas lights in Marshall with him and his girlfriend at the time, now wife with many kids, years later and one of their friends. And I remember just being in the car.
Speaker 2:We got to drive and go look at things out and looking at the time I didn't realize how important it was looking back. That's what dads did with their kids. Yes. You just take them to look at Christmas lights. It was very that he didn't stop and say now let me tell you about being a man.
Speaker 2:It was just he was with me. He he carried me along whenever he was gonna go do something with his girlfriend. He invited me to things. I never had anything on my calendar so if he invited me to it of course I could go. My mom would have loved it.
Speaker 2:So Larry was very instrumental in those years of life to instill confidence in me that someone else wanted to be around me for no real purpose. I don't even think I understood what the Boys and Girls Club or the Big Brother Big Sister program was at the time. For some reason, I don't I think Larry must have picked me. I don't know how Larry came to be. But he was all of a sudden my friend that my mom let me hang out with.
Speaker 2:He was probably 19 at the time. Like, he was straight out of college or in college, and super nerdy if he ever hears this. But, went on to be a great educator and administrator in Yeah. In schools. I would love to ask him how intentional he was with some of those things or if he just was winging it.
Speaker 2:Like, were you thought who was coaching you in how to do this? Was there a program? Or did you just sign up for big brother and say, you know what? Pair me up with a kid. I'll just bring him along with me when I do stuff.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:I go with you bring up great questions.
Speaker 4:Yeah. For sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The second stage was that my mom did a really good job of keeping me in summer camps. One of those being Pine Cove. It was a Christian camp that I went to since 2nd grade every summer. And it was one week where you are in a cabin with 7 other boys your age and one college student.
Speaker 2:At the time, he was, you know, as old as any man could be. But looking back, I'm like, he was somewhere between 18 and 22. And, really that guy is your dad for the week. You sleep with him, you eat with him, you run around to all your activities with him. And every summer you get a different man that wants to look like Jesus and that wants to spend time with you and all these other kids throughout the summer and encourage and motivate and and teach.
Speaker 2:And I just got to be the beneficiary of that every year. I got to go to Pine Cove and have a different relationship with a man and I think of it like fostering. He may not ever see me again, whoever that man was at the time. And he has a he has a camp name. I don't even know half of their real names.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I remember a few of my counselors, but, a lot of times they're doing the grunt work of of like we said before they're really tilling the soil sometimes of of seed. They're planting some seeds but tilling the soil and sometimes the harvest gets to be had by someone else down the road. But it's equally important in that farming process to take care of the plot. So I mean that was I can always look back to right after those summers or even situations when I got in something difficult in high school or college that I would I would remember an engagement with one of those dudes or even one of my other, campers that was with me that would help snap me out of it or remind me of truth of who I am and what God wants for me.
Speaker 2:Because there was a lot of purpose and a lot of identity spoken at at camp for me.
Speaker 3:Was there one counselor at this camp that you remember in particular? Was there one man who kinda made made a big difference in your life as a kid? Yes.
Speaker 2:Please. Sure. So, there was one counselor that really left his mark. His name was Andrew Bacon. He went by the camp named Bunga.
Speaker 2:And it's interesting to think about the seasonal life that I was in at the time and the season he was in. Again, he was I think he's a freshman or a sophomore in college. I was a 17 year old going into my high school senior year, and I was a punk kid. Literally, I was into punk rock. I was in a punk rock band.
Speaker 2:I love to skateboard and rollerblade. Nice. I had to, I think I just dyed my hair blue, but I had to dye it back black, because Pinecove had a dress code. I found out about a week after I dyed my hair blue. So, looking back, it was very profound the things that Andrew did for our cabin, our entire cabin.
Speaker 2:That group of guys, it was his his first cabin ever to counsel. He he got in trouble at the end of that week because he forgot to cut his hair when camp started. And I saw him at church that following weekend. I was like, man, what happened to all your hair? He goes, oh man, rules.
Speaker 2:You know bro. And I was like, I I didn't find out until the next summer that they had rules on that stuff. But he was super dude, bro, at the time. He didn't have a lot of formula to what he did, but he he was intentionally involved with us and owned us. Like, he always said, you're my boys.
Speaker 2:Because we were like, Bunker, what are we doing? You know? What, you know, what what about we would ask him general questions about why this or something. He goes, because y'all my boys, man. It's you're just you're my boys.
Speaker 2:It it was really his response to a lot of things. I can remember it. One of my other friends, Brandon Nantz, he he would always quote Bongo of saying, you're just my boys. It's it basically is the only question I would I tell Titus now, you know, I try and train him, you know, why do, I love you, you know, because you're my son. I'm proud of you.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. That would catch me sometimes. Mhmm. But so, Andrew, what I would say he claimed us, which is very important in mentoring is to claim someone like So good. I'm not just casually with you.
Speaker 2:We're not dating. Like I'm trying to fill you out and maybe come back next time. There was none of that. I didn't need to be someone different so that it would convince him to come back at the next meal. He was coming back the next meal because I was his.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. That was important. Another thing is he named me which is weird, but that that stuck with me as a kid. So he he said I looked like someone from a TV show called MASH. And he was, I am gonna call you Clinger.
Speaker 2:And at the time, for some reason, that made me like him. He called me something different than was my real name than other people called me. I was now, just fun and important to him. I was I had a identity to him. Carrying that forward, when I worked at camp, I'm thinking about this now.
Speaker 2:I did that with another kid Yeah. Who I called dancing queen. We were roller we were skating, one activity thing. And I was just an 18 year old kid. It was my first summer at camp and he was a freshman.
Speaker 2:And I remember I just liked Jimmy. Jimmy is now a dubstep touring dubstep DJ. He was posting he was at Red Rocks last week Amazing. In Colorado That's awesome. Playing.
Speaker 2:But I remember I was like, dancing queen. And then from that point on, he was my lifelong buddy. Mhmm. Mentored him a little bit in college. I have a great relationship with his mom, now.
Speaker 2:And but we we really struck a chord heart to heart on a lot of similar situations where we were at, where he was at then, where I had been at before. But naming me was a really important thing Andrew did. Looking back, it's silly. And then next year the next summer when I worked at camp, he gave me that name as my as my camp name.
Speaker 3:One of my favorite aspects of the Lord is that he sets the lonely in families. And whenever I hear your story, even if it was only for a week, the Lord said the lonely the kid who was alone in a family. And, man, I bet that felt so good. So
Speaker 2:Yeah. It was good to be a part of something. And Pine Cove was always a part of something, that didn't rely on your performance.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like a like a sports team or something.
Speaker 3:That's huge.
Speaker 4:Say that again.
Speaker 2:So good.
Speaker 3:Always feels good to be loved for who you are Yeah.
Speaker 2:Not for
Speaker 3:what you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. So the yeah. The the the carrying that forward a little bit, I I have recognized that even as an older man there's there's constantly this desire in me to not want to waste some other dad's time. Like that, I don't want to be I still and maybe all fatherless kids, it may just be the situation that I was in.
Speaker 2:But I I constantly have to battle with fighting the urge to not wanna waste some other dad's time that I constantly feel like because I didn't have a dad, I'm gonna take more of his time. But he didn't have any time to give. He's got his own family. And so it takes a lot of convincing to think that I'm not or at least the right dad being intentional to think that I'm not a burden to him in his current family setup. I'm not in encroaching on anything.
Speaker 2:But it doesn't take, you know, one meal just to communicate warmth and welcome, even for a little while. But, yeah, that situation that no you're not just it's not just that you're not a burden, It's I claim you. Like, I want you here. You're you are desired to be around here. Life is good when you're around Travis.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's important.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Like, I mean, coming from a kid who grew up without a father as well, I mean, just that's why it's so hard to ask for help because you feel so bad, you know, you're like, man, not only do I need help, but I'm gonna waste this guy's time, but I'm I'm I'm gonna cause him a burden. Mhmm. And the best mentors know even if a kid's not asking for help, even if he's not speaking up, that that doesn't mean that he doesn't need help. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right? Yeah. And just how they can make you feel special and make you feel that not only are you not a burden, but you're a joy. And you are a pleasure to be with, and I want to spend time with you. I think that's so important as we mentor that we let our kids know, hey, man.
Speaker 3:I wanna be with you. Mhmm. I am not doing this because you're some side project, but I actually am choosing to spend time with you because you're worth it and because you matter and because I love you. And, there's so much power in that. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:So much power. Alright. Well
Speaker 2:Can we hear the final mentor?
Speaker 3:Let's talk about that last one. The big dog.
Speaker 2:So Chris Legg, is the final mentor that I would say has stuck since so since being at Pine Cove and going forward in adulthood. And he's had different roles in my life, but he's been a consistent father figure. The funny thing is it was just this last year I put together, I was like, wait a second. You're only, like, 10 years older than me. And he seemed shocked that I didn't put that together sooner, but I was like, I just thought you were, like, 30 years older, which is always a great thing to tell an older man that that your age.
Speaker 2:Chris is probably the most intentional of all of them in terms of a formula to love on another man in fatherlessness or woman. He was a counselor. He's a Christian counselor. He owns the most successful Christian counseling office in East Texas at the top moment right now. He's also our pastor at our church right now, which is super awesome.
Speaker 2:When we moved back to Tyler, I was like, oh, my gosh. Chris is a pastor. Of course, we're going there. Did our marriage counseling. My original engagement with Chris, he was in his young thirties, just finished up seminary and all of his degrees.
Speaker 2:He's super smart and but he was creating a discipleship program at Pineco for for boys and girls that had just graduated high school that weren't yet old enough to be counselors. Like, you can't put them with kids, but they're also they're out of the camper stage. So it was called Young Guns that I got in. And my wife was in Baby Ruth. It was the other one that he did.
Speaker 2:But, Young Guns was a 6 week long program to teach men how to grow up and be men. So to really advance the adolescence that America has us in right now until we're 30 and try and see if we can do something about it at age 18. And he did an awesome job with that. And then he also created another one called The Forge which is still currently going at Pine Cove for people between college and adulting. So Chris in that, it was me.
Speaker 2:There's 12 other dudes. And again, it was a situation which I feel like Chris sort of picked me out to a degree, but not at the time. This was an interesting one. In that 6 weeks, I didn't think I was that special to him. Afterwards, I felt incredibly special.
Speaker 2:He did a really great job of owning me and following up after he had had some time engaging with me for that 6 week period. Because the other guys that were in that program with me were really cool. All cooler than me. All more talented, better families. Just just better set of skills in life.
Speaker 2:All of them more successful than me now in terms of they're better humans. I love them all. And but afterwards, and this is probably where it shined, is he affirmed me behind my back, which which is really weird. Because at the time, I didn't think I was that special at all. And still to the degree I look back, I was like, there's nothing he should have seen in me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But it was actually my wife. The reason Lindsay started dating me is because Chris used me for examples of, like, here's ways you can do things good. And so when I I had met Lindsay 3 times before and she had forgotten me every time. This is no lie.
Speaker 2:She forgot me every time. I kept having to reintroduce myself. And then the 4th time when I met her, she goes, oh, hey. Yeah. You're Travis.
Speaker 2:And I was like, yeah. We had met before. She go, no. No. Chris said something about you.
Speaker 2:I was you know? And I was like, oh, yeah. No. Yeah. Very nice to meet you.
Speaker 2:I'm that's alright. So she'll reference this often, and he you ask Chris, he forgets. He's like, I I did. I I didn't realize I referenced him, but all the other Babe Ruths were he would use me as examples for things. So he affirmed me behind my back.
Speaker 2:And then later to my face, he was my first go to. So it was shortly after Young Guns ended that I say shortly after. It's like 2 weeks after that my mom called me in her bedroom and said we found your dad. And which is a really weird thing to go back to that he left when I was 2. He was on the road fugitive for a long time.
Speaker 2:And then they found him. We just never said his name. Like, we never discussed that he was a thing until then.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So so growing up, what did that look like in your life? Like
Speaker 2:It was awkward. You just don't talk about it. K. Like, you just you just sort of don't talk about that that fathers exist.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Or that your father might exist. Occasionally, I would bring it up. Not really with her. But but for the most part, you just he you shall not be named. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Except in secret and quiet whenever you're just alone and thinking about it.
Speaker 4:Mhmm. So when they found him, what was sort of your immediate response? Like, did you have a feeling like you wanted to meet him or did it feel like that chapter is closed?
Speaker 2:So this is this is really where Chris's mentorship in me takes off. When I would say Chris imposed himself into being a an adoptive father to me. Whether or not he knows what he was doing. I think he does. He's smarter than he looks.
Speaker 2:But, so my first reaction is I just left the only stable place I ever knew which was Pine Cove
Speaker 3:k.
Speaker 2:For the 6 week training program. Like, I immediately I just walked out my mom's room. My brother was on speaker phone. I just walked out. I was like, okay.
Speaker 2:Inch. So she told us they found him. We're like, okay. And, you know, they extradited him. And I was like, I know what that word means.
Speaker 2:And he's here in the, you know, Smith County Jail waiting his court date. So y'all can go, you know, see him if you want to. And I remember that's where it was left. And I was like, I'm just sitting there and I was like, and then my brother was quiet on the phone and I was like, okay. I just got up and I went and got in my car and I just drove.
Speaker 2:I didn't know where I was going but I ended up at Pine Cove. And I remember parking at camp. It was in the middle of camp session. And so there are all these students and kids there. And I was just sort of wandering around in the daze.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I
Speaker 2:was like, I don't belong here, but this is the only place I know that's stable and home. But I'm not supposed to be here right now. And I I found someone. I was like, hey. Where's where's Chris?
Speaker 2:And they're like, I think they're they're at lunch and dining. And so I walked into the dining room and everyone's eating, and I just it's just this weird memory. This is hazy, and I just walked to the back. And I find Kevin East. And Kevin was one of the first people I ran into.
Speaker 2:I was like, hey. This because Kevin was really involved in the Young Gun program. He was surprised I was there. He was like, hey. You're not supposed to be here.
Speaker 2:What's going on? And I was like, I need Chris. I have to talk to him about something. And, and then he went and got Chris. Chris got me.
Speaker 2:And then Chris was wonderful. I told him the situation. I said, hey. So you know, we talked a little bit about my dad. Well, here's the backstory.
Speaker 2:I told him everything and I was like, and he's here in town. And I don't know how to handle this. And Chris was the chaplain at the camp at the time, but also a crazy good licensed counselor. And he was like, you need to be in my office, like, right now. Like, we need to talk.
Speaker 2:And so Chris ended up just having me come to his office, like, weekly, maybe twice a week, maybe I don't even remember how often. But we were just sitting. We would talk. And it it didn't feel like a therapist interaction. It felt like a friend just wanted to chat with you about some things.
Speaker 2:And he helped to work out a lot of the the bitterness and the unforgiveness and the frustrations and all those things. He helped me line out a lot of the pain in a very loving and partnering way. And, it it was very much he was my he was my guide in that season. So what I wanted to do when I found out my dad was around, I have no idea. Chris helped helped me figure out what to do and help sort of drive what I should do, because he knew.
Speaker 2:I didn't know. I I knew I had all these stirrings of emotions, but Chris helped me understand, you know, you have these emotions. You're a man. You're alone. You're all these different things.
Speaker 2:Here's how you harness us. Here's what here's how you go forward. Here's what God would want you to do. Here's the cross. Here's Jesus.
Speaker 2:And he he helped guide a very tumultuous situation which really planted him as my really primary father figure in helping me figure out one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. So he was he gave a lot of time to me. He was very engaged. And then looking back, he didn't have a ton of time. He was having young kids.
Speaker 2:He was creating programs at Pine Cove. He had a lot on his plate and he still gave me time. Mhmm. Which is I mean, he's the only resource we'll never get more of. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:He also he he saw in me a situation where he felt like probably this needed to be said. But through the process of working out how to forgive my dad, how to meet him for the first time. Chris really spoken to me that he was proud of me, that he loved me, which was I mean of monumental importance to to tell a young man that you're proud of him. That that's also you're claiming them to a degree. Right.
Speaker 2:He always he always wants, me to think that I can see it in his eyes. He wants me to know that he wants me around. This is I still feel like a burden of his time. I'm going to his house tonight. I feel like that I always tell him that.
Speaker 2:I was like you got all these kids and you foster and adopt and you've got all these responsibilities like I I don't need to bring my problems to you. But over and over and over again, he lets me know that he wants me to. He wants me around. He wants me present for fun things which is still important to this day. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So before Chris, how many men had told you that they loved you before?
Speaker 2:Man, none none none that came to memory. Like, honestly, when Chris said it, it was probably the first time that I could that that that stuck. Yeah. That someone was proud of me or that they love me
Speaker 3:Yeah. From a
Speaker 2:man to a man, which is important. So Chris taught me this. I'm sure y'all teach it as well. Is the phrase, a man doesn't think doesn't believe that he's a man until someone he believes is a man tells him he's a man. So it's very important.
Speaker 2:He must he must think you are a man yourself, and then you must communicate to him and only then will he think he's a man. The manhood identity doesn't come from his mom. Furthermore, with women, he Chris Chris then said, okay. I've got this figured out. He did it through multiple studies.
Speaker 2:This is what it is. And he said, also, it must be the same for women. He had a test group of women. He goes, so you don't think you're a woman until someone you think is a woman tells you you're a woman. And then this one woman in the group said, no.
Speaker 2:That's why would you think that? And he was like, what? I was just she goes, I don't think I'm a woman until someone I think is a man tells me I'm a woman. Wow. Wow.
Speaker 2:That's powerful. Wow. I I don't know why. It brings emotion. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's powerful.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, like, I I mean man. Yeah. I mean, like, there are there are so many boys out there who don't know how to become a father. But, man, in regards to the female, just a man gives a woman such worth.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And he speaks identity over her and and he lets her know just that she is so valued and just that she has so much to offer, and that she doesn't have to go off and try to find those things in this world or from a boyfriend or from performance or anything like that but that they're gonna speak that over. That's just that's a game changer whenever Yeah. Whenever a girl hears that from a man that she respects and trusts.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:There's a
Speaker 2:lot of value to the 4 Runner mentors there. Yeah. That you partner not only with the kids but the moms. Yeah. Not just to relieve their burden but to speak identity.
Speaker 2:Yeah. To to say you're firm of the effort that you see. Like, I see you're trying. You're doing great. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And it's I mean, the power of life and death is in the tongue. And we have the opportunity to speak truth. Not only to the kids that we mentor but to their moms as well and to their siblings and to their brothers and to their sisters and
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:It's just being intentional with your words transforms lives. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that that relationship between you and Chris has affected more people than just you. You know? Oh, gotcha. It has affected your family in the way that you are now speaking to your kids and teaching them and, you know, even other people that have probably seen that relationship or heard about it and, that ripple effect. You know?
Speaker 1:That that one, for Chris to say, okay, I'm going to spend my time with you because you have value. And I'm gonna speak this identity over you as a man of God. And to welcome you in has not has not just changed your life, but it has now like vastly affected other people, which is just amazing, you know, that there's that much power in our words and in the relationships that we build, and in the way that we speak, you know, identity over each other in a in a mentorship relationship. You know?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. He he it sounds like he stepped in at such a critical Yeah. Moment in your life.
Speaker 4:Like, you were literally at kind of a crossroads in the news of finding out that your dad was back. And I just think about, you know, you really had, like, 2 paths in front of you. Mhmm. And it's like, Chris for, you know, for whatever reason, like the Lord planted Chris right at that crossroads in your life and guided you in the in the right direction. You know, have you have you thought about like what your, I mean, Caroline talking about, you know, this sort of impact, this sort of lifelong impact.
Speaker 4:Have you thought about how your life would be different had Chris not stood, at those crossroads with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think I've thought about that about whether or not Chris's involvement changed my trajectory. And I'll step back and anytime I'm in, like, a counseling situation, like where I get to be a counselor to middle schoolers or something, I oftentimes think I'm gonna screw this up. Mhmm. Like, there's something that I'm gonna do to mess up this mentoring relationship.
Speaker 2:So there's 2 ways to go there, and I'm typically an optimist until I'm responsible for something important. And then I think this could go bad. So, I think to where it was, Moses. And I learned this my first summer at camp is what what it was intended to teach, but Moses was out in the middle of the, wilderness. He was out in the desert, and he'd already given water to the people out of the rock once.
Speaker 2:You know, he struck the rock, water came out, gave all the people water. And the second time, they were really thirsty again naturally. And they needed some more water. God told them what to do and then he was gonna make more water come, but Moses, was like, well, the first time I just hit it with my big stick, so I'll do that again. He hit it with a stick, didn't work, hit it with a stick again, water came out.
Speaker 2:Moral of the story, at least to me, it was probably a lot a lot of people probably take other stuff from it. But what I saw was, wow, he didn't do what God asked him to do. So he was disobedient to God, but the people still got their water. Okay. Moses screwed up, but he wasn't gonna let the people be affected by it.
Speaker 2:He was still gonna take care of his people, but he's gonna deal with Moses on his own. He's like, you've got your own set of disciplines. I'm gonna bring your way. But this right here is for my glory. Moses didn't make the water.
Speaker 2:I made the water. I'm still gonna take care of my people. And so what I take from that is there's I'm not if God is gonna move in a boy's life or or a girl's life, it's I'm not gonna screw that up. But whether or not I get to be a part of it in a good way is completely up to my obedience. And so I think I think God was going to do in my life what God was gonna do in my life.
Speaker 2:I think Chris got to be a part of that in a very special way because of his obedience. Because when confronted with the situation that that there's this kid sitting here who just found out he's gonna be his dad. He could have gone two directions and really it was his crossroads. Like, do I accept this and run with it and be a part of God's plan in all these generations? Or, man, I'm busy.
Speaker 2:I've got so much going on. So I think these kids are God's kids. We're stewarding them and the extent of our obedience is is really not gonna have a bearing on whether or not God still loves and takes care of that kid.
Speaker 3:I just think it's so amazing that, you know, you got invested into by Larry. And then you got to experience a family at the summer camp by a counselor named Andrew. And that all set you up for whenever the stuff hit the fan, whenever you had an opportunity to meet your dad who you didn't know for the first time and you didn't know how to handle it and you didn't know where to go, you went to the only place that felt like home. Mhmm. You drove right to camp, and you looked for safety at that place.
Speaker 3:That was your refuge.
Speaker 2:And I
Speaker 3:just think that that's that's so cool that in your subconscious, you said yourself, I have no clue where to go, but I'm gonna go to the one place where I feel loved, where I feel like family. And, that's where transformation happened. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that you, like, gleaned all of these different things from each of those men, you know. Like from Larry, you gleaned, just the invitation. Just that there was this open invitation that you you were a joy to be around and that there was an invite waiting for you, you know. And even from these families that you went and had dinner with all the time, like these other these other men that and friends that you sat at the table with, that there was just this open invitation, because you were welcome there. And then with Andrew, there was ownership and there was, there was this specific value that you had and that you brought.
Speaker 1:And then with Chris that there was the open invite, there was the ownership and there was the trust and the vulnerability. And the fact that you could be all of you and these hard things that were going on that you could bring all of that openly. Just the Lord very appropriately laid the way, you know, paved the way for you and like as a 3rd grader that you needed the invite then. And then as a high schooler that you needed the ownership then. And then as a young adult to say, I need to bring all of these things together.
Speaker 1:I just think it's so cool in that, like, whether I mean, for you, like, those men were with you at different stages of your life, you know.
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And that like a child will glean something from every single person that chooses to spend time with them. Yeah. Someone who says yes to mentoring, to being present
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That a child will glean something. And that is I mean, you we walked through that with you which I just think is it's amazing to look at, you know, and just to see the faithfulness of the Lord.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That like, you know, as an as an older person mentoring someone, you you are you your actions, your words, your smiles, your invitations matter because something will be latched on to, you know, that you're able to now carry forward for you and your family and people you mentor or whatever.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I think you nailed something when you said present. Too many people, men and women, are intimidated by the concept of being a mentor or discipling when it really just is as simple as just be present. Yeah. Like, it's you don't have to there's you don't have to be a mentor.
Speaker 2:That's not something you'd be. Be present. And that that is essentially how you are a mentor.
Speaker 1:What have you, kind of been involved in when it comes to mentoring?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, our family, we like to mentor through a variety of ways and get involved with other kids. One of those has been through an organization called Mentoring Alliance in East Texas. It is formerly the Boys and Girls Club, went to Mentoring Alliance and Gospel Village, and their their heart and goal is pretty much the same as 4 Runners. It's Christ centered, fathering the fatherless.
Speaker 2:Wonderful organization. I I love them to death. And and then also through our church, I we didn't hit on that in what I some of my story, but my mom had me involved in church so much that some of the other dads that were in Sunday school just teaching casually or on Wednesday nights Mhmm. Had a a good consistent impact with me. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's something we like to do. South Spring is our church's name. South Spring Baptist Church. That's where Chris is currently the the pastor, And he is just a phenomenal shepherd. He has a very shepherding heart.
Speaker 2:And there is just growing like crazy. It's awesome. Thanks, Travis. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Thanks, guys.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much.
Speaker 4:If you're listening today and you want to learn more about, what some of the things that Travis mentioned today, he talked about the Mentoring Alliance. He talked about gospel village. Please visit visit our show notes, to get more information about that. And, if you have a friend who came to mind as you're listening to this episode who you feel like needs to hear this conversation, please send them to our website, you can mentor.com. We so appreciate you listening.
Speaker 4:And if you didn't take away anything else from this podcast, we just want you to remember you can
Speaker 2:mentor.