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You know Stephen. You know Zach. But how much do you really know about our other hosts? This week, our featured host is Kea Westbrook from Behind Every Door. Join us as Zach and Kea discuss the work and vision of Behind Every Door, the perspective she will bring to the podcast, and the story behind her job title as Director of Changing the Narrative.
Show Notes
You know Stephen. You know Zach. But how much do you really know about our other hosts? This week, our featured host is Kea Westbrook from Behind Every Door. Join us as Zach and Kea discuss the work and vision of Behind Every Door, the perspective she will bring to the podcast, and the story behind her job title as Director of Changing the Narrative.
Find out more about Behind Every Door:
behindeverydoor.org
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
youcanmentor.com
Find out more about Behind Every Door:
behindeverydoor.org
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
youcanmentor.com
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
Speaker 2:and give
Speaker 1:you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the You Can Mentor podcast. Zach Garza here, and I am with a special guest today, Kia Westbrook. Kia, say hi.
Speaker 2:Hi. Hi, Zach. Hi, everyone.
Speaker 3:So so Kia is with a nonprofit here in the great city of Dallas called Behind Every Door. And Behind Every Door is just it's a nonprofit that I love. I just think that they do absolutely amazing work and they have great hearts, and I just love the life transformation that's coming out of their work. And so it's our hope that we have miss Kia on often to kind of share about what they do and how they do it and the why. But today, the, point of this conversation is to learn more about Kia.
Speaker 3:So, Kia, can you just kind of tell us about yourself and kind of about your story and your history and where you come from?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So, okay, I'm the main subject.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:That's hilarious to me. So I am from San Antonio, born and raised in San Antonio. I went to school, that's college that is, at Xavier University in Louisiana.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:So not the one that wins all of the, or plays in the championships, but, or you know what I'm saying. But in any case, Xavier University in New Orleans. And I studied business. When I graduated, I returned home to San Antonio, where for, a short season, I owned my own home health agency. And so I did that a little bit.
Speaker 2:And then when that didn't work out the way I'd hoped, I left San Antonio, packed my bags, and headed toward Dallas. Okay. And I've done insurance, disability insurance. I did non profit working with an organization before I came to this non profit behind every door. I worked with an organization that was about the arts, bringing arts into communities, but that's where also where I encountered Behind Every Door, which was a better fit because of our faith, our alignment in faith, and I just kind of hopped over and been going ever since.
Speaker 2:So I've been here technically 6 years, but I've actually been 5 years officially with Behind Every Door. My first year was actually through the arts program that I was with, and we were partnering together, and then I came on board here.
Speaker 3:So gotta ask, if you're from San Antonio, does that mean that you're a San Antonio Spurs fan or what?
Speaker 2:I knew that's where you were going. Absolutely. All day. All day. You never give up on the Spurs.
Speaker 2:They are incredible. They will be back. I don't care what's happening on the West Coast right now. First of all, I'm a West Coast fan. West Coast is just who we are.
Speaker 2:We're the, champions, and then, San Antonio, of course
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Is paid.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. I was in San Antonio for about 2 years after college, and, man, there's some pretty good food down there.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's the best. Going down on the river walk, absolutely. The food is the best.
Speaker 3:I think I gained about £25 of just just It's
Speaker 2:the right to pass it.
Speaker 3:Straight up Mexican food is awesome.
Speaker 2:You're not eating at the right places if you don't.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Right? So, Kia, can, you just kinda share one about behind every door. So who who are y'all? What do y'all focus on in all of all of that good stuff?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So what we do behind every door is we build we run community run community centers and build relationships to build spaces for transformation is what we do. And so maybe just another way of saying that is we come into community, and we look for an opportunity to help being led by the holy spirit, of course, help transform lives. So we're intentional about being building relationships, but we're also intentional about doing that relationship building in the context or the environment of community center. Because, people love to get away, step away from their apartments usually.
Speaker 2:We have a park we have a we've had a boxing gym, we have basketball gyms, weight rooms where people can come work out. Just a place where you can get away, but still feel like you're at home. And so our centers are very much set up like a home environment. So you'll come in and you'll find couches and TVs, and maybe some coffee sitting out, maybe some light soft music playing, or maybe it's a lot of loud music playing if the if the, weight room is really busy. But it's just another an extension of the home.
Speaker 2:And but that's also an opportunity we can just get to know one another and hear one another's stories and grow from there. So space for transformation.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. So now your official title, Kia, is director of changing the narrative. So do you think you could kinda share about that and how you guys came up with that name?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We love to have fun titles with what we do. But sure. Absolutely. Director changing the narrative is actually, our CEO came up with that name, but it fits with the work that they were asking me to do.
Speaker 2:So it's twofold. 1, a lot of times, and I'm sure people are listening that are running nonprofits, is that it's important to be able to tell the stories about what you're doing and the stories of the families and the kids that you may be impacting. But we wanna also be very careful about how we tell the story, that we honor the people as we're sharing those stories so that we don't want to build a narrative, if you will, that makes it look like they're poor, incapable people that need saviors to come in and save them. And so it's just very careful about not trying to draw a dollar and and build a really, you know, horrible story. Because when you look at when you look at TV, it seems like everybody's trying to look for the sad, overcoming story.
Speaker 2:And the reality of it is we all have something that we've overcome, but there's nothing wrong with telling the bright story. There's nothing wrong when we're sharing with our potential partners and investors about the potential that lives in distressed areas. We we can talk about the minds of the kids and their creativity, but it's just maybe they're just not resourced. And the hopes that the hope that dwells inside the hearts and the minds of the parents and the kids. And so it's sharing that and saying, come alongside us and invest with us, walk with us, pour disciple with us, point to the kids, come and build relationships with us.
Speaker 2:And so it's really learning how to touch the heart of your partners, touch the heart of your potential investors through a more positive lens than always the dark lens. And yes, you can find those dark stories. There's broken homes and there's abuse and there's hunger and of course it's poverty and all of the sad things that you wanna see, But underneath all of that rubble, all of that trash are diamonds, and so we just wanna get to the point and tell the story about the diamonds that we can pull out of out of the rubble. And so that's one area of helping to change the narrative is how we steward and tell those stories honorably for the people that we serve. And then on the flip side of that is with the people that we serve.
Speaker 2:When you step into this community, you'll find a lot in in communities like these, distressed areas or low income areas, high crime areas is what I'm referring to. When you come into those type of communities, you do find the ugly. Like I said, it's usually drug houses and and and gun violence, and we some of our we had one summer that was just a horrible summer, and we lost, I believe, 4 kids that were killed to gun violence. And one was a 6 year old little girl that was shot in her home and trying to run from the from the gun violence. And so when you come in, you find that there's a lot of loss of hope and a lot of depression.
Speaker 2:And so one of the things that we wanna be able to do is change their narrative about the possibilities. They may not be able they stopped dreaming for themselves. I remember one time I talked to some teenage students, and my question to them was, what do you dream about? And they were really hard pressed to name what what what do I dream about? What do you think about?
Speaker 2:And I had one young lady that really took probably the course of the class, the time of the class to answer the question. And finally, she says, I I don't know. Maybe I dream about money trees. And so as long as it took for her to even say what she could possibly dream about, at the end of the day then, it was about money growing on trees, which tells you so much more about her heart and her desire, maybe what's missing in her life or what she feels like will help what her hope where her hope lies. And so we know how to come alongside her and talk about maybe it's the hope of what money can do.
Speaker 2:And so while you're dreaming about money trees, maybe there's something else, that's more tangible, right now that you can latch onto that that can help you get the very same thing. But that's what it's changing the narrative in the hearts and the minds of the young people and even the parents that we serve to say what's possible that you never thought to dream about. And so that might but what that looks like in terms of changing the narrative, it might mean let's get out of the community, let's take field trips. We go on we take our students on college college tours, which is great because what we do is we all jump in SUVs. We we rent several SUVs.
Speaker 2:We load up we load them up, and now we have 2 hours, 3 hours, maybe 8 hours, depending on where we go, in the car with young impressionable minds. And we get to talk to them about personal things, then laugh with them and cry with them, but really encourage them. So it's about all the different ways that you can change narrative, both for our partners, externally and internally. So it's really exciting to be because it it takes creativity. It's different all the time.
Speaker 2:It's challenging because the students that we may have encouraged last year, we'll get a whole new batch this year. Of course, some returning students. But the what their desires and what their needs are may be very different. And so it's fun just to say where to meet them where they are. What are your needs?
Speaker 2:What are your concerns? And it's very personal. You get to customize, not completely what you do your program, but you do get to customize with each person in terms of how you hear them, how you encourage them and see them. So that's I know it's a lot, but that's what I do in terms of changing the narrative. I took a long way to explain something very simple, and that is just honor and relationship in terms of we see you.
Speaker 3:And, Kia, that's so good. I can remember the first time that I heard you guys talk about that, talk about believing the best and changing the narrative, and I can honestly say that that has completely shaped how I engage with our kids. So, I mean, I just think that it's a really, really big deal because if the people that you serve feel like they're a project and that you're coming in to try to, quote, unquote, fix them, you're just not gonna get very far.
Speaker 2:Right. And kids are very perceptive. They know. Mhmm. They can tell what why you're there.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:They they can pick your heart no matter how you might try and change it.
Speaker 3:So, Kia, so tell me what part about your job are you super passionate about?
Speaker 2:The relationships. The opportunity to see the light come on in somebody's eyes. Mhmm. That's my favorite. So when you're talking or you're just sharing and a student has a question, it could be a simple question.
Speaker 2:It I'm trying to think of of something. Maybe we have an internship program with with with middle with middle school and high school students, or with little kids, we have discovery programs. But with the with the, high school students, maybe it's teaching them about how to budget their money or how to apply for a job. I remember one time we took a group of students on some mock interviews with a local bank. And to watch them sit in the lobby of that local bank dressed in their best clothes, getting ready to go into a panel interview was really a great experience because it seemed to be overwhelming to them, but they were asking questions.
Speaker 2:They were grateful afterwards because they were very straightforward with them in terms of what they needed to do, how they performed well. But to see the light come on to say, I'm in this, I'm being interviewed, I have an opportunity to get a job, that was a really great moment. But all the way down to a kid who just may be painting and gets excited because they want you to see what they've done. And may you don't have an idea of what's on the piece of paper, but you encourage them, or you teach them a song, or you teach them a rhythm, or you ask them to teach you. And so it's that engaging part.
Speaker 2:It's the light coming on inside that says that you can tell that maybe they may not have been at peace outside these doors, but in here, this really is a safe space when you know for sure that this is where they wanna be when they choose us. Because one of the things that we do is we're not a captured site in terms of we don't we're not on-site at school. The parents are not driving our students up to come in. If it's not what you'll find, and most people will probably attest to, you show up to places a lot of times because of the relationship with the people in those places. And so we wanna make sure we have the relationships with the students, but as well we wanna make sure we're bringing quality programming, quality opportunities for us to engage and build relationships.
Speaker 2:And that's what the students the students choose. And that feels so good when, you know, they have other opportunities when Christmas comes and everybody gets a bike, but they'll ride their bike up to the center because they don't wanna miss the center either, versus, hey. My bike is here. I've got something better, and I'm gone. And so it really is the relationships that's the most exciting for me, an opportunity to impact.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. If you guys have been tuned into our podcast, just something that y'all hear over and over and over is just relationships, relationships, relationships. We're all about relationships here. And so I know for me why I'm passionate about relationships is because I know what it's like to not have those. Right?
Speaker 3:As a kid, I just didn't have a ton of people who I felt like truly cared about me. And then whenever I was in college and I actually got that mentor, I, I received that attention and that affirmation that came from someone who wanted to be with me. Right. So you talk about the light coming on. You talk about relationships.
Speaker 3:Tell me about you, and was there someone in your life who built a relationship with you that kinda helped turn on that light?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And and before I I answer that question, I wanted what you just said about, people wanting to be with you as a child, that becomes very important because what you'll find in the lives of the adults, and not just the children, but in the parents as well, is a real fear of of abandonment. People coming and going and not being present because maybe with something personal for them has shifted and changed. Now they're no longer here. And so that's one of the things that we find that comes up quite, often is to reassure them that we're here, that the relationships are beyond the jobs.
Speaker 2:And that the and that at some point, these are not jobs that we're on, but assignments.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And that's a difference. That, a job, you know, comes and goes, and a lot of times it's about the money. And when it at a certain time, at 6 o'clock, all the lights go off, and we go to our separate corners. But when you're on assignment and and discipleship is is in your is your thought process, then that's what you do. You disciple and you walk together, which means I'm crying when you're crying and I'm celebrating when you're celebrating, and it's okay if you have a tragedy in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2:I'll be there with you, you know, barring any all other things being equal. But to answer your question in terms of where my mentorship came from, it's actually through the church. I was raised in the church, and so Sunday afternoon Sunday evening, what is it called? BTU, bible training, and then on Wednesday night for bible study, and then of course during the summer you would have the, vacation bible school. But what it was was it was our family extended.
Speaker 2:So we weren't just going to church, hear a word from God, and go home. Every parent in the church had a right to discipline me or had a right to porn to me or to correct me in love, and so you just had a whole lot of brothers and sisters, but you also had a whole lot of moms and dads, But it was a place that you know you felt loved, that people were concerned about you. I would be stopped at church. It wasn't unusual that maybe an usher would stop me at church and say, I heard you did. I heard you accomplished.
Speaker 2:It could go either way. It could be discipline or it could be, you know, lifting and support. And that meant so much to me that I still think at at a certain age that I am now, I can go back to when I left for college and all of the church moms pouring in and giving me journals and writing me personal letters. And I still have those because in the moment when I fell on hard times, it was their words that lifted me that I could go back and look at. And I'll just tell this really quickly, I'll I'll one of the things I'll never forget is I called one of those mentors, one of those mothers in my life that I'm still in con in connection with, And one day I just was I was really weeping and crying and hurting over something, and I said, I just want you to pray for me.
Speaker 2:And her response to me was pray for yourself. And I thought that was kinda harsh, and I was like, what are you talking about? I'm just really going through. But it's at that moment that I realized our mentorship or the discipleship that we had was shifting. She was needing to step away and release my hand a little bit so that now I could step into becoming a disciple myself.
Speaker 2:And so she the training was taking place to say, you can do this yourself and you have a relationship with God, try it, is what I was able to ascertain after a lot of like broken heart and what did she just do. Yeah, so that's what it was for me and when you get that, you understand really what I think any of us do, and really what I am do is is to say I am behind every door, and behind every door is me. So when we bring ideas to the table, a lot of times it's from what worked for us. If you come if you can't I didn't come from a single family home but maybe, you know, my my father worked around the clock and my mother was at home taking care of 5 kids. What was her support system?
Speaker 2:What worked for her? And so I just it's about looking back over the past with my friends and myself and finding out what we thought were spiritual markers in our lives and help shift the narrative for us. And then you try and bring that, and some of it works and some of it maybe not so much.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. Like, I just love it how, I mean, as a kid, I don't mean, like, I was in church every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, every Wednesday. And I was like, man, this is terrible. Like, this is so boring. Like, I hate coming to church, but I look back now and just for, for a long time, people were tossing seeds.
Speaker 3:And there's, there's just something about the church that can kinda keep you on the straight and narrow until until the time is right for us to get serious about our faith. So
Speaker 2:And, Zach, that's who we are here. It's everybody may not dawn the doors of a of a church building, but we are the church. And so by virtue of us being in community, we bring we brought Christ in. And that's not to say that Christ was not already here, but now we can walk together as a people and we can disciple our young students and walk alongside the parents and be support for them. And it's incredible when a parent walks in and shares their most vulnerable places with you, their most hoarding places.
Speaker 2:They share it's not unusual that the parents will come in and share with us the fears that they have raising their kids or the support that and the help that they may need in raising their child. We've asked parents we've had parents give us permission to go and take teacher conferences on their behalf because maybe they couldn't make it because they were trying to work, right, and and, you know, pay the bills or and even just to the trauma, any type of trauma that you can imagine that they will allow us to come and share with them to the point, like I said, when the little girl was killed at age 6, that the parents allowed us to come and weep with them and and to clean the ground with them. And saying we had some teenagers that were killed in front of our our center, and it was we were the ones that had to come in and clean up that mess from them being laid there. But but we wept with the father, and we listened to his pain. And it was a group of us, and we all just stood around, and we let him say whatever he wanted to say as long as he wanted to say it.
Speaker 2:But at that point, it was about the ministry of presence and then being able to give him hope after that, the hope that we know in our lowest times is Christ. And so it really is the church and the community, which is great. And so just being able to and even celebrate. Now when the graduations are happening, we finally have been here in the community long enough. We're we're seeing some of our students begin to graduate from high school.
Speaker 2:So it's helping them navigate what that looks like. The new word these days is adulting. So we get to help them adult. What does it look like not just to budget, but how do you apply, for scholarships? And if if not enough scholarships, then for FAFSA, and explaining that to the parents.
Speaker 2:And it's just amazing showing up at their graduations. Again, you said, relationship. It's the ministry of presence that somebody cares, and I care about you past 5 o'clock.
Speaker 3:So that term right there, the ministry of presence, Kia, do you think that you could share just a tiny bit more about that phrase?
Speaker 2:Sure. Because it's when you don't know what to say and in your heart. Because a lot of times when we come in and we do work in, and I keep saying distressed areas, but however you want it whatever label you wanna put in, you know, high crime, low income type areas. A lot of times when we come into those spaces, we wanna have the answer. And when trauma happens, I wanna be tell I wanna be able to tell you how to quick and get over your trauma, and don't cry.
Speaker 2:It'll be okay. Or if somebody dies, you you wanna be able to say you just wanna have the right thing to say or the right thing to do. And the reality of it is sometimes they're not looking for you to an give them the answer. Your being present is enough, and you have to know that to not even I don't have to speak. I don't have anything to say.
Speaker 2:I don't know any words to say. What can I say to make it alright that you've lost your child? What can I say to make it alright if maybe you lost your job and you don't know how you're gonna pay your bills and you're the only one? I don't know what to say. There was a mother that came in just last week that was at her end.
Speaker 2:She said I've gotten off of drugs. I've accepted Christ. I'm mentoring to my family. I want them to have a relationship with Christ. But the more and more I I I do for Christ, my life seems to be going upside down.
Speaker 2:And she's wondering, where is God? You know, I've I've done everything that I feel like I know to do, but yet all these bad things are happening. What possibly could I tell her in that moment about what God was doing in her life? I don't want to say something that God hasn't spoken to me, and and usually it's in those times of desperation to have something to say, we say the wrong things. And so that's where I then let ministry of presence take over, and it's just being in the room.
Speaker 2:Because sometimes somebody needs to know I'm not in this room by myself and I'm listening. Maybe it's handing them a handkerchief to wipe their eyes. Maybe it's a hug, but it is you being present and being a sounding board or listening to hold their hand, to go give them a plate, to give them a cup of water. But I have nothing to say, and I have no answers. But I'll be here as long as you need me to be here, and I'll walk with you through it.
Speaker 2:And that sometimes is difficult because, also, we wanna know if I get in here with you, I wanna know how long it's gonna take me to take you to get out of the muck and the mire that you're in. And then I can I can kind of gauge how long whether or not I wanna walk with you? But the ministry of presence and the ministry that we do says, I don't know when this ends, and I'm willing to be here with you until god releases you, until he lifts you, and and and you're just there. Mhmm. And and try and listen to the to the spirit in terms about how you respond, what the response looks like.
Speaker 2:I don't come with the answer or the response. You're just led by the spirit, and you let that person tell you what their need is.
Speaker 3:And, Kia, that's so good. That's so good. Just it is not good for men to be alone. And Yeah. I think so often one of the best things that we can do as mentors is just show up.
Speaker 3:And it's okay if we don't have the answers. It's okay if we don't know what to say. It's okay if we've never experienced it or if we feel awkward or uncomfortable. But if we can just show up and then the Holy Spirit can move through us just by us saying, hey. I don't know how to handle this, but I'm here for you and I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 3:That's a big deal for sure.
Speaker 2:It is. Well,
Speaker 3:Kia, you're awesome. And just to kinda give you guys just a just a little bit of insight of what we're trying to do here with You Can Mentor, we're really trying to expand our network and we're trying to find mentors and people who are in the nonprofit space to share their experiences, to share their wisdom, and to share their stories so that we all can get better. And one person that we have identified is Kia. And so I hope that you guys will be hearing some more about Kia and about what she does and just we'll we'll all be able to kinda learn from you because you most definitely have something to say, Kia.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Zach. I'm excited to be able to just share that and to share more about what we do because we serve kids and teens and adults in all different ways, of course, based on where they are. So I would love an opportunity to come back and share more with you about Behind Every Door, but thank you for letting me share what I could today.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. For sure, Kia. Well, thank you so much for your time, and thank you so much for sharing your stories and just helping us get to know you just a ton of it more. So thank you so much, Kia. And if you guys didn't hear one thing that we said throughout this whole podcast, you sure did miss a lot.
Speaker 3:But remember this, you can mentor.