The Plain Values Podcast EP #38 – From Addiction to Adoption Ministry w/ Larry Yoder

Larry Yoder (00:00:00):
I should be dead. We did a line of coke and it didn’t affect me. And I was like, “What is up with this? ” And

Marlin Miller (00:00:12):
You didn’t feel it at all?

Larry Yoder (00:00:13):
No, didn’t feel it at all. None of us are that far away from bad choices. I was trying to find something and I got in deeper than what I would’ve ever wanted to. It really is all because of Jesus that I’m alive.

Marlin Miller (00:00:32):
I sat down with my good friend, Larry Yoder, a while back and we talked about how he came to be doing the work that he is with Pure Gift of God. Now, Pure Gift works in the foster care, the adoption worlds. They raise millions of dollars for adoptions across the country, around the world. But Larry’s story is really, really fascinating. He grew up Amish. The way that he came to know the Lord and to work in this field is really, really an amazing story. The Lord surely protected him many, many times. Please meet my friend Larry Yoder. And if you like the content, if you get anything out of it, I will very humbly ask you to like and comment and smash that subscribe button. Thank you. This podcast is sponsored by my friends at Azure Standard. A while back, I had a chance to sit down with the founder, David Stelzer, right here at the table and we had a great conversation.

(00:01:35):
I love the Azure story. They started out as farmers back in the ’70s and I think in 1987 they began a nationwide food distribution company. And guys, they are non- GMO organic. They do it right. They do it so well and you can get a truck to drop food right in your town. Check them out at azurestandard.com and tell them Marlin and Plain Values sent you.

(00:02:20):
You and I have known each other for five years, seven years maybe. I don’t even know.

Larry Yoder (00:02:29):
I think it was when we came on with pure gift that we would’ve connected.

Marlin Miller (00:02:33):
The very first time.

Larry Yoder (00:02:34):
Yeah.

Marlin Miller (00:02:34):
Well, I remember hearing that the team was bringing on a new director and that, Marlon, you got to meet this guy. You got to meet Larry. Yep. And then I mean, goodness gracious, we just kind of grew and got to hang out a good bit,

Larry Yoder (00:02:51):
Actually.

Marlin Miller (00:02:52):
A fair amount. So I love to go back to really get a picture of who you are and how you ended up doing the work that you’re doing today. Let’s go back all the way and tell us about your childhood, please.

Larry Yoder (00:03:08):
Yeah. Oh my. Well, I might be processing out loud some of my story as we go through this. Wow. Way back. So I grew up Amish. I grew up in Kidron, Ohio, and I didn’t have a typical growing up Amish experience. So my mom and my stepdad got married when I was five years old. Technically, I would have been adopted by my stepdad. I took on his last name and I would say it’s like my last name’s Yoder, but I don’t have any Yoder blood in me.

Marlin Miller (00:03:52):
Really?

Larry Yoder (00:03:53):
So my mom was a Miller and my biological dad would have been a Raber. And so growing up Amish and because of that, and I would have known that my stepdad wasn’t my biological dad because I remember the wedding. I always felt a little bit different than my friends and my cousins and everyone else because I had a pretty good relationship with my stepdad up until I got a little bit older, then we had some struggles, but in that five years old to 10, I would say it was fairly good. So my first five years of life, me and my mom lived on the same property as my grandma and grandpa and my uncle. So I got really close with them. To this day, I’m still my grandma’s favorite. Don’t tell anyone. Just kidding. No, I love my grandma. She’s amazing. My grandpa passed away when actually Amanda and I were dating when my grandpa passed away.

(00:05:15):
No, no, no, no, no, no. We were not dating. So we were living in Baltimore, not dating. She had just moved to Baltimore. You were

Marlin Miller (00:05:23):
There with her?

Larry Yoder (00:05:25):
I was living in Baltimore. Now I’m jumping way ahead, but at 19 I moved to Baltimore. I got saved, moved to Baltimore. Anyway, Amanda moved to Baltimore about two years after and that’s a whole nother crazy story. So we were both living there. We came back for … There was a wedding and so Amanda and I actually drove back from Baltimore to Ohio together. Dude, it was the best six hours of my life. There’s a whole backstory of that where I was like, I knew she was the one I wanted to marry at that point. Well,

Marlin Miller (00:05:58):
I’m going to make a note

Larry Yoder (00:05:59):
And

Marlin Miller (00:06:00):
We will come back to that.

Larry Yoder (00:06:01):
Sounds kind of crazy. But anyway, so my grandpa passed away, but he was really sick. And so Amanda and I stopped by the house to see my grandpa and my grandpa thought that we were dating and he was like, “Oh, I’m so glad I got to meet you and all that. ” So it was cool that Amanda actually got to meet my grandpa before he passed away and we started dating a little while after that. But anyway, that’s rambling. So you grew up Amish. One of my core memories of growing up Amish is we … It was New Year’s Day. It would have been New Year’s Day or Christmas day. I can’t remember. It was one of those two. It was a bunch of snow on the ground. We got up super early, got on the buggy. All the cousins and aunts and uncles decided to go get my grandma and grandpa out of bed and do breakfast and just have a big family party.

(00:06:57):
And so we got up super early, got in the buggy, freezing cold, a couple feet of snow, I think. I remember snow and rode our horse and buggy up to grandma’s house, which is like five miles away.That was a core memory of being Amish. My family left the Amish when I was just out of eighth grade.

(00:07:22):
My immediate family, not my grandma, grandpa. I had a few aunts and uncles that had left the Amish, but we would have left the Amish at that point and then went to Mennonite Church up in Orville. Yeah, to back up a little bit, I didn’t really feel like I fit in in school with the Amish kids. I didn’t really feel like I fit in with the English kids. I had two cousins that I was really close to. They were brothers and one of them was a little bit older than me and then one of my best friends growing up was not Amish and was a couple years older than me. I met him. His grandma and grandpa lived next to … Were neighbors to my house and so I got to meet him and hang out. And so I didn’t grow up as a typical Amish boy.

(00:08:16):
I mean, my parents let me … I think I stopped going to church, the Amish church when I was probably in that 11 or 12 years old, something like that, which is kind of-

Marlin Miller (00:08:31):
That’s atypical.

Larry Yoder (00:08:32):
Yeah. Yeah. It really is. I didn’t really have any friends at church either. Actually, I got into drugs. I started smoking cigarettes and chew when I was like 10 probably. Are you

Marlin Miller (00:08:49):
Kidding?

Larry Yoder (00:08:49):
That’s

Marlin Miller (00:08:50):
Young.

Larry Yoder (00:08:51):
And smoked my first joint when I was probably seventh grade, maybe something like that.

Marlin Miller (00:08:59):
Can I back up a second? At the time, was your biological dad, was he Amish or was he not Amish?

Larry Yoder (00:09:07):
So my biological dad would have grown up Amish, but then left the Amish and would have never joined the church. He would have never went back to being Amish. And I actually didn’t meet him for the … I met him for the first time ever when I was 30 years old.

Marlin Miller (00:09:20):
No

Larry Yoder (00:09:21):
Kidding.

Marlin Miller (00:09:22):
Is he

Larry Yoder (00:09:22):
Still

Marlin Miller (00:09:22):
In the area or

Larry Yoder (00:09:23):
Is he- No, he’s living in Virginia. So he moved to Virginia when I was still a kid, but I wouldn’t have known him at that time. My mom wasn’t in touch with him or anything either. He moved to Virginia. I actually got married and has a family down there and so didn’t know … It was one of them things where my mom would say like, “Oh, when you’re older, we’ll talk about it. ” And that never really happened.

Marlin Miller (00:09:56):
And it just hangs in the back.

Larry Yoder (00:09:57):
Oh yeah. Always back there. Always back there. I would catch little glimpses or find out little things about him here and there. And I knew that at one point he was a truck driver and so I would kind of always envision what it would be like to randomly run into him at a truck show or you know what I mean? Stuff like that. I think I knew he didn’t live in the area or maybe I might not even have known that, but I would always kind of envision what it would be like to run into him or whatever. I don’t know. But it is something that you think about a lot pretty regularly. And one time someone asked if I’m mad at him or if I’m … There was like this rumor that I wanted to go beat him up or something weird, funny like that.

(00:10:48):
And I’m like, no. I did have a desire to know who he was and meet him, but I never felt any anger or hostility in my heart towards him at all. The reality is I blame my mom just as much as my dad for me not having that connection with him. It’s not like I … It’s life and it is what it is.

Marlin Miller (00:11:17):
Rarely are things that one sided.

Larry Yoder (00:11:19):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It’s never one sided. There’s always two sides of the story, but yeah, I did have a desire to know him and that was something I thought about a lot.

Marlin Miller (00:11:34):
So I kind of derailed you there a little bit. So you are now a teenager, starting to get into drugs, not going to church, all that.

Larry Yoder (00:11:48):
I started dating this girl when I was like in eighth grade. She actually went to the Mennonite church that we were part of and I got really good at living two different lives and she didn’t have any idea the stuff that I was into. At 12 years old, 11, 12 years old, started smoking weed and then it just got into cocaine and got into literally anything and everything I can get my hands on. It’s funny because just yesterday something sparked something where I remembered some stupid stuff that I did and I’m like, “Man, how did I survive?” And I was like, “Man, that was just stupid.” And then I was like, “No.” I was trying to escape something and I was trying to … When you do stuff like that to alter your mind, it’s like you’re trying to escape something. And I was just a kid trying to find a better way and what I needed was Jesus, but I was trying to find something else and find fulfillment in something.

(00:13:11):
My family actually … I was dating this girl and would actually go to Bible school with her while we were still Amish. My parents left the Amish and we started going to that church and so I remember I even got baptized at that church. I tried to quit smoking weed for that day and I couldn’t even stop smoking weed for that one day, but there was a longing in my heart for more. I knew that the life that I was living isn’t really what I wanted, but I didn’t really know how to stop and I didn’t really know how to really get out of that. And my friends were my life. I was dating this girl, I would leave her house, act like I’m home, that I’d just be pulling into a party. So I’d leave her house, go to a friend’s house and we’d be partying all night.

(00:14:10):
I remember one day pulling into upper driveway doing my last little bit of crystal meth and throwing my baggie in my coffee cup. She had no clue. Well, there was a couple times where they found out because I got arrested one night, me and some friends were on the way back. That would probably

Marlin Miller (00:14:33):
Do

Larry Yoder (00:14:33):
It. Yeah. Got pulled over and it was me and some friends and I had a bowl on me and actually I had some weed on me too and I shoved my weed and my socks and somehow they found my bowl, didn’t find the weed in my socks, put me in the back of a cop car, took me because I was underage. Were you

Marlin Miller (00:14:56):
Driving?

Larry Yoder (00:14:56):
No, I wasn’t, no. And took me in, called my parents, had to come pick me up, but I had my weed in my sock the whole time at the police station and went home and smoked that. It should have been a wake up call and my dad’s like, “So that’s where your money’s been going. ” Yeah.

Marlin Miller (00:15:20):
Were you working? Did you have a job at that

Larry Yoder (00:15:22):
Time? Yeah, I did. Yeah. I had a job ever since … So my parents left the Amish right after eighth grade, so they gave me the choice of either working or going on to high school. And of course, I mean, I hated school, hardcore ADHD, struggled through school. Yeah, never did well with learning that way. That wasn’t the way that I learned. And so of course if it’s my choice, I’m not going to school. And so I started working, was always able to hold a job probably by the skin of my teeth, but

Marlin Miller (00:16:00):
Were you high most days?

Larry Yoder (00:16:02):
I was high. I was high most days. I would say I got high most days. I mean, I wasn’t high all the time. It depends on which season of my life though. I mean, there were seasons where I would wake up, smoke weed and then take an energy pill and drink a two-liter Mountain Dew to get me through the day, smoke a pack of cigarettes. That was a regular routine for a while. And then the other drugs, like the cocaine and crystal meth and those things were more of a … I was never like hooked on crystal meth and cocaine to the point where I’d be like, “Oh, I have to have this. ” It’s a miracle. When I look back and think about it, it really is a miracle because I have friends that didn’t make it out. I have friends that are dead.

(00:16:58):
I have friends that spent so much time in prison, lost friends that got married and lost their families and …

Marlin Miller (00:17:06):
And you should have-

Larry Yoder (00:17:07):
I should have.

Marlin Miller (00:17:08):
You should

Larry Yoder (00:17:08):
Have become

Marlin Miller (00:17:09):
Addicted

Larry Yoder (00:17:10):
To that. 100%. Oh, so I was … How old was I? I OD’d one night. We were doing shrooms and meth and kind of just a slew of everything and

(00:17:26):
I went into convulsions, but we were watching … I remember we were watching Harry Potter or something. It was either Harry Potter or it was something like that. I was tripping crazy. And so the crazy stuff that you’re seeing in the movie amplified and oh man, I ended up going into convulsions on the ground. My cousin jumped on top of me slamming. He thought I was dying, called the ambulance, went in. That should have been a wake up call for me. One of the craziest things is after that, my cousin came over a week or so later, different cousin and he’s like, “Man, I got some good coke. We did a line of coke and it didn’t affect me. ” And I was like, “What is up with this? ”

Marlin Miller (00:18:29):
Well, you mean it didn’t even … You didn’t feel it at all?

Larry Yoder (00:18:33):
No, didn’t feel it at all. Sat down, the same cousin that I was with when I ordeed, me and him sat down and so this was right around the time where kids started getting into crack cocaine. I loved the rush. I loved the speed. The only thing I can think of is that God kept me from getting high. That’s the only thing I can think of. So these two instances happened pretty close to each other shortly after I would have OD’d and ended up in the hospital within probably a month or so, sat down and smoked an eight ball of crack. My cousin was geeking out. I was sitting there and no one was going to be just like this. Didn’t affect me.

(00:19:18):
So one time this was after I was saved at church during worship. We were singing that song. It’s all because of Jesus I’m alive and I just had this picture, God just brought this picture to mind of me in the hospital when I would eat and him walking into the room and I never really processed it like I should have been dead. It really is all because of Jesus that I’m alive and I don’t know why God chose to save me. I mean, I should be dead. I don’t know why, but I’m glad and I’m so grateful and Jesus … When I got saved that peace that I’d been looking for, man, there’s nothing like it.

Marlin Miller (00:20:33):
Okay, sorry, I’ve got a bunch of questions here. When I look at what you guys do with pure gift and I hear that, how did all of those experiences prepare you or set you up to be able to work with the kids that you get to work with today? Because a lot of them come out of some of those types of scenarios, really hard stuff.

Larry Yoder (00:21:12):
Yeah. Honestly, there’s so many connections. It’s insane. If I really think about it, I think those experiences growing up like that and getting into the things that I did and the people that put me around, I think that really helped me to understand and to have empathy and compassion and to just not judge people. I don’t want to be judged at my worst. If you think about birth moms, I think about this a lot, it’s easy to judge birth moms, it’s easy to judge people that have made bad choices. And what we tend to forget is none of us are that far away from bad choices and I was trying to find something and I got in deeper than what I would have ever wanted to. And when a birth mom in foster care or adoption, when a birth mom either chooses to give her child up for adoption or a foster situation where the child’s taken away, rarely is it because they don’t want the child.

(00:23:01):
If they get removed because of drugs or whatever, it’s not that easy just to quit. It’s a disease. And I was able to sit through some classes a while back that kind of helped me even understand this a little bit more with addiction and like addiction really is a disease and some people are … I’m not going to get into all this because I don’t really know what I’m talking about, but there’s people that have addictive genes that get awakened by … Someone can do some coke and instantly pretty much instantly be addicted, crystal meth, different stuff like that and even alcohol some are just prone to that and it’s not just something you can walk away from and like it takes time. And so I think it gave me the ability, like going through that and having those experiences gave me the ability to have compassion and even help others walk through that because it’s …

Marlin Miller (00:24:24):
Of our older friends, her and her husband have so much wisdom it’s eking out of their pores, I think. And she often says, we judge people very quickly because they sin differently than we do. And sometimes it’s more public. Other times I can be as nasty, sinful, disgusting in my mind as that birth mom that’s

Larry Yoder (00:25:01):
Dealing

Marlin Miller (00:25:02):
With, okay, now I have a baby, what do I do? And it’s no different. It’s no different, but you don’t know what I’m thinking, you don’t know how prideful I am, you don’t know how just vile and I just … It’s such a great reminder to have grace for people,

Larry Yoder (00:25:25):
Because

Marlin Miller (00:25:25):
My goodness, we’re all messed up.

Larry Yoder (00:25:30):
One thing that I’ve said in the past is like, and I strongly believe is that if you have issues … If you start judging someone, then go sit down and have a conversation with them because once you understand people’s story, once you understand … It’s harder to judge someone once you understand where they’ve been and what they’ve went through. Sometimes people just rub us the wrong way, but if we’d really get to know who they are and where they’ve been, what they’ve come through, we think differently of people.

Marlin Miller (00:26:06):
I remember, this is kind of a silly example, but I remember being in high school I think I would have been in junior because this guy was a senior, a year older and I thought he was cocky and arrogant and stuck up and I just thought he was a jerk. Years later, I got to know him better and I realized he was just painfully shy and I never took it into consideration that he’s not like me. I mean, I can talk to a stinking concrete door if I have to. And he’s not like me. Well, I think you get the point.

Larry Yoder (00:26:52):
Yeah. Well, and I always tell my kids, I have a 13 year old and a 12 year old and seven year old and a six year old, but especially my older boys, if there’s someone at school that’s being mean, someone at school that is lashing out, being a bully, this and that, it’s like they have stuff going on under the surface that is causing them to act out because I think people want friends. People genuinely want to have connection with other people and want to be nice

Marlin Miller (00:27:35):
And if they don’t, there’s a reason for

Larry Yoder (00:27:38):
It. Yes. And even that goes the same thing with when we’re working with kids at pure gift and just in general, it’s like one of the things that goes with TBRI is like seeing the need behind the behavior. We don’t just see their behavior, but it’s like, okay, why are they behaving this way? What’s the need that they’re trying to get met? My need that I was trying to get met doing drugs was I needed connection. I needed purpose. I needed something more than what I had and so that me doing drugs with my friends gave me a connection with them, like me getting high helped me to escape the pain of what I didn’t have. And so yeah, it’s all connected.

Marlin Miller (00:28:29):
This episode of the Plain Values podcast is being brought to you by my friends at Kentucky Lumber. Derek and I were talking this morning and he shared a story about how they like to do business and they like to do business with people that are like them and they like to be treated in a way that they treat their own customers. He told me about a customer of theirs that he had to fire and this was not going the way that it typically does. And this guy was not being happy with anything that they did and noth was good enough and finally Derek said, “You know what? You’ve disrespected my team enough and I think we’re done. And so you can go find your lumber someplace else.” And the attitude and the heart behind the way that Derek sees the world is exactly the way that I see the world and I have a hunch you might as well.

(00:29:29):
If you call Kentucky Lumber, just know that they might fire you if you treat them poorly. I’m kidding, of course, but they will treat you with the utmost respect because it’s how they want to be treated. And I think there’s a golden rule thing in there somewhere, but if you need anything at all to do with any lumber, wood flooring, wood siding, any type of wood product That has character just baked into it and a great team to match. Call my friends @kentuckylumber. You can find them at drywallhaters.com. So how did you get saved?

Larry Yoder (00:30:16):
Yeah. So I had this experience where I OD’d at least. I had another experience actually it would have been before this where I probably should have went to the hospital, OD’d on Coke. I got to the point where I was living this life where I had a girlfriend and had that life where I was hanging out with the youth group. I got baptized. So

Marlin Miller (00:30:55):
Two sided.

Larry Yoder (00:30:56):
Two sided. Two

Marlin Miller (00:30:57):
Sided.

Larry Yoder (00:30:57):
Yeah. On the other hand, I was doing drugs. I knew this wasn’t the life that I wanted and I just got so tired of it. I got sick and tired of it because I couldn’t really be myself in any of those scenarios. People that love me the most and cared for me and would have given everything for me, I was lying to. And I just got sick of it. There was a couple of people that I was going to church with that I got pretty close to and they were older and just didn’t judge me. I mean, they knew that I was struggling and that I had stuff going on and they didn’t know the extent of it, but they were never judging.

(00:31:52):
I played softball for a couple years and after a softball game one night we went to Lem’s Pizza and we just got to talking about life. I don’t know if they preplanned this. I need to ask them sometime. I don’t know if they preplanned this, but we just got to talking about how Jesus has forgiven them and the ways that they’ve been able to walk out of things that God helped them and forgave them for. And I was like, “Well man, if Jesus can do that for them, he can do that for me. ” And I surrendered my life to the Lord that night.

Marlin Miller (00:32:33):
Right there with them?

Larry Yoder (00:32:34):
Right there. Yeah. Right there with them. In the pizza shop. In the

Marlin Miller (00:32:37):
Pizza shop.

Larry Yoder (00:32:37):
That is. Oh. Actually, we were sitting at the picnic table outside of Lembs.

Marlin Miller (00:32:40):
Sure.

Larry Yoder (00:32:41):
And my life changed all the way. I knew that I had to dramatically change my life if I wanted to really get out of this stuff. At that point I wasn’t really doing much of the harder stuff like there. I was still smoking weed, but after that experience with the cocaine, I kind of like just fizzled out. And I went home, I ended up moving out of my parents’ house, broke up with my girlfriend and moved in with Leonard Evans, who he was living actually right down the street here. Really? He did a lot of discipleship stuff in this community, ran New Grands Cafe for a long time. He was like, “Hey, he led our youth group on a mission trip to Mexico.” So that’s kind of how I got to know him. And he was like, “Hey, yeah, you can come move in with me.

(00:33:46):
” I was trying to figure out what my next steps were. I had met a pastor, him and his wife had lived in Baltimore, moved back, were living in Dalton at the time and were leading worship at youth groups sometimes. They were here for a couple months and they were like, “Hey, we’re getting ready to move back to Baltimore to take over a small church. If you want, you can move out and live in our basement and help us with the church.” And so I ended up … I went to this little Bible school in Indiana for a couple months in between, but so I moved out of my parents, moved in with Leonard, went after this little Bible school for a couple of months, came back for a short period of time, a month or two, and then moved, packed up everything I owned, jumped on a Greyhound bus and headed for Baltimore.

(00:34:44):
I remember on my drive, on the ride to Baltimore, my uncle got me this can of chew and it was like, oh man, it was so good. I’d quit smoking by that point and the drugs I was able to just quit, completely walked away from the drugs. No

Marlin Miller (00:35:05):
Kidding.

Larry Yoder (00:35:06):
That’s a miracle in itself.

Marlin Miller (00:35:08):
Wow.

Larry Yoder (00:35:10):
And I was in Pittsburgh at a bus stop and I pulled out my can of chew. I was like, “Here I am, moving to Baltimore to really just get a fresh start. I don’t need this. Threw in the trash and that was it. I was at my chewing. Yep. That was it. Yeah. I remember crossing the bridge on 395 coming into Baltimore on a Greyhound bus and I was like, this is going to be my home.” I didn’t know how long. Almost 14 years later, I moved back to Ohio with a wife and four kids.

Marlin Miller (00:35:52):
You were there 14

Larry Yoder (00:35:53):
Years. I was there. Yep. Yeah.

Marlin Miller (00:35:58):
Did the people that moved back and forth and took you with them, did they see something in you? Did they know that this kid has something that he’s going to be in ministry?

Larry Yoder (00:36:15):
Yeah. So at youth group, they would always be like, “Hey, does anyone have any prayer requests?” And it was always like, “Oh, my great aunts, uncles, nephews, sister, we can pray for them.” I said, “Me, I need prayer.” And I think they just saw that I was like, “Okay, I really want to change my life.” And the interesting thing is when I first got saved and moved in with Leonard, I questioned, is this real? Is this really real? I felt different and I knew it was when … I had never really read through the Bible. Growing up Amish, you don’t really read the Bible together.

(00:37:23):
I didn’t really know how to read the Bible. I got a hold of this magazine Bible called Renew or Refuel or something like that. It was popular back in the day. It was like a Bible for teens or something and it was just the New Testament. I started reading through that and I knew that it was real when I would rather … I looked forward to just having that time of reading my Bible, worshiping, just experiencing the presence of the Lord. I’d rather do that than watch a movie, watch TV. And I was like, “Okay, this is real. God is real.This is what I’ve been wanting is the presence of the Lord.”

Marlin Miller (00:38:01):
How old were you when all of these huge changes were

Larry Yoder (00:38:05):
Going

Marlin Miller (00:38:05):
Down?

Larry Yoder (00:38:05):
I would have been 19. 19

Marlin Miller (00:38:07):
Years old? 18

Larry Yoder (00:38:08):
Years old. Yep.

Marlin Miller (00:38:10):
Wow. What were you doing as a job before you headed east?

Larry Yoder (00:38:16):
My first job was at a glue up shop, worked at a glue up shop for a couple years and then my uncle started a plumbing company, so I went and worked for him and did plumbing for a couple years and then Miller Septic. Miller Septic was my job before I moved. Yeah. Oh my

Marlin Miller (00:38:31):
Goodness. Were you on the big truck?

Larry Yoder (00:38:33):
I was on the little ones doing the Port of John’s.

Marlin Miller (00:38:35):
Okay.

Larry Yoder (00:38:36):
Yep.

Marlin Miller (00:38:37):
So you moved to Baltimore. Moved

Larry Yoder (00:38:39):
To Baltimore.

Marlin Miller (00:38:40):
Were they in urban church? What kind of

Larry Yoder (00:38:46):
Ministry

Marlin Miller (00:38:46):
Work

Larry Yoder (00:38:46):
Were you doing? So I moved from a dirt road to the row house to a row house right in the hood. We had a little patch of grass I could mow with a weed eater in five minutes in the front and a concrete pat in the back. You

Marlin Miller (00:39:01):
Were mowing the yard with a weed eater.

Larry Yoder (00:39:03):
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. No yard. It was tiny and it was a huge change. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So the church was small. I mean, when I first moved, Matt and Julie had just moved back and so I moved maybe a few months after they did and the church was kind of just like rebooting and I mean there was some Sundays where it was like me and one other person and them and slowly the church grew again, but it was very much inner city. I mean very much inner city church, very diverse, lived in a very diverse area and yeah, very different experience than growing up. But

Marlin Miller (00:40:00):
There again, because of your experiences you could identify and

Larry Yoder (00:40:05):
You could

Marlin Miller (00:40:06):
Relate

Larry Yoder (00:40:06):
To a

Marlin Miller (00:40:07):
Lot of the people that you would have run into. I mean, you’ve got to have tons of stories about running into folks that you would have never ever met here.

Larry Yoder (00:40:19):
Oh yeah. I mean, obviously. Yeah. Yeah, for real.

(00:40:24):
Yeah. Oh my. Where to start on that? So there was a kid that he became, like I said to me, I met him, he was probably 11 or 12 years old and he had a pretty rough life. His mom, he pretty much raised himself, got himself up for school. Mom had different guys around all the time. He would literally run away different times, come over to my house. A couple of days later, his mom would call looking for him. He would come back to Ohio, we’d come back to Ohio to visit, he would come with us. And he ended up making some bad decisions and ended up going to jail for quite a while and he had a couple kids always stayed connected even to this day.

(00:41:41):
We take for granted how we grew up, even in my scenario or we take for granted what we have here and how we grew up. There’s a lot of people that don’t have that. They don’t have that family. They don’t have that stability. They don’t have that backup and I ran into so many kids like that that made … Yeah, it’s rough. Oh man, so was it the week that Amanda and I got married or the month that Amanda and I got married, we started a youth group and we would go around and pick up youth kids for youth group. It was like an hour and a half to … We had a big church van and it was about an hour and a half to pick everyone up. We’d bring them to the church or to our house. We’d have dinner together because you got to feed kids, especially there.

(00:42:44):
And

Marlin Miller (00:42:46):
The tangible, here’s a need, let’s fill it.

Larry Yoder (00:42:50):
We had anywhere from 10 to 20 kids and sweetest kids. I mean, I remember one night we were talking about getting saved and being a Christian and the one kid asked the other kid like, “Are you a Christian?” And he’s like, “No, I’m not a Christian. I’m African American.” Didn’t even know. So these kids didn’t have a clue about the Bible and it was amazing to see these kids like, I don’t know, God just had a way of meeting these kids and I remember like, oh man, there was nothing that made me more excited than when these kids would surrender their lives to Jesus. And you would just watch God meet them where they’re at and not judge them, not like just be there for them and show up. And yeah, time after time we saw the provision of the Lord, the miracles happen and God changing the hearts and lives of people.

(00:44:08):
And it’s a journey. We did quite a bit of homeless ministry. I actually had a homeless guy, so there was a homeless kid that actually lived with me for a while. I was living at a friend’s basement and then I moved him in with me for a little while and his girlfriend at the time actually lived with Amanda at the girl’s house. Unfortunately, she was actually stabbed and killed then a little while later. So story after story of broken people but beautiful people and yeah I love the people that I got to meet and connect with there.

Marlin Miller (00:45:13):
Lisa and I talk about this quite a bit where the reality of what that act that Adam and Eve jumped into eyes wide open, that on act, it just wrecked everything and I know that it’s easy to say that and you think you get it like we as little people that think have it all figured out, we think we understand the extent that sin actually breaks things. I don’t think we have a clue. I don’t think we do. And it’s just ever reaching.

Larry Yoder (00:46:09):
It

Marlin Miller (00:46:09):
Just reaches into every nook and cranny and it just breaks communion, it breaks relationship and then you have all of these consequences and then neurological science today, and I know you know this, Caroline Leaf talks about how the brain will pass things down genetically through the DNA and it’s like, okay, well when the Lord says that he visits, he means it.

Larry Yoder (00:46:49):
Yeah.

Marlin Miller (00:46:49):
He means it. It physically gets passed

Larry Yoder (00:46:51):
Out

Marlin Miller (00:46:53):
And it just blows my mind. It’s both beautiful and

Larry Yoder (00:46:57):
Horrific

Marlin Miller (00:46:58):
At the same time.

Larry Yoder (00:46:59):
Yeah. And when you think about, I mean most kids in Baltimore that we connected with and that like the trauma that they experienced plus all the passed down stuff and you’d see it like Kareem’s mom had him when she was a teenager. He had a couple kids when he was a teenager. His grandma had kids when she was a teenager, just these cycles that just repeat themselves over and over again and it’s hard to break those cycles and it’s hard to, when it’s so much a part of you. Again, back to the whole thing of survival, God created us with the ability to like go through so much and survive. He gave us the ability to like tap into these survival modes to be able to just stay alive, really. And when you look at kids that come through foster care, when you look at how kids have been through hell, like stuff that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy and they’ve experienced at a young age, it’s like they go into the survival mode and then they get placed into foster care and of course they’re not going to trust the foster parents.

(00:48:32):
Of course they’re going to be acting out in school. Of course they’re going to be like they are living in this space in their brain of survival and

Marlin Miller (00:48:45):
That doesn’t go away.

Larry Yoder (00:48:46):
It doesn’t go away.

Marlin Miller (00:48:46):
When the danger is over.

Larry Yoder (00:48:47):
Exactly. Yep, exactly. It takes so much. It takes time. It takes healing. It’s a journey. It’s a lifelong journey.

Marlin Miller (00:48:59):
Of our favorite TBRI folks is Brian Post and he talks about we all have our own version of trauma and the best way to deal with it is write about it, talk about it, cry about it, write about it, talk about it, cry

Larry Yoder (00:49:22):
About

Marlin Miller (00:49:22):
It, write about it, talk about it, over and over and over and then that’s how you process it. That’s how you deal with it.

Larry Yoder (00:49:29):
And

Marlin Miller (00:49:30):
Then we all know folks who have never done that.

Larry Yoder (00:49:33):
Oh yeah.

Marlin Miller (00:49:36):
And we can even get really good at dealing with some things and other things are just too hard. And so you keep them in that box and you never work through it and it’s just there all the time.

Larry Yoder (00:49:54):
Unprocessed pain will come out in one way or another. At some point. At some point. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It’s so true about the whole processing your story.That’s why one of our programs that we run at Pure Gift is our Halo program and part of that is that we put together a book, a life book for the kids and we dig into as much of their story as we can and put it together in the book form and help them kind of process through it.

(00:50:26):
Whatever you don’t understand about your story, you tend to make up. So for me, I would make up these things in my head of what I didn’t understand about my biological dad or whatever. Whatever parts of your story that you don’t understand, you’ll make up and sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s worse. A lot of times it’s like this fantasy world that you place yourself in, but when you can start, even if it’s hard stuff, when you can start to understand the truth and the process through that, that’s when healing can start to happen. And so yeah, it’s so important to understand, process, cry about it, and work through it.

Marlin Miller (00:51:18):
Yeah. So is Amanda from Baltimore?

Larry Yoder (00:51:23):
No, she’s from here. Grew up in Fredericksburg. This is a funny story. So back to 19 years old, I had known Amanda. Amanda actually went to the youth group. Her and her family were in the same church that I would have been a part of from after eighth grade on that Mennonite Church. I always liked her dad. Her dad was always … I was a Chevy guy, he was a foregay, so we would always rally each other up and whatever and he brother was like my age and would have been in the same grade in school and so I knew them fairly well and when I got saved, broke up with my girlfriend, moved out of my parents’ house.

(00:52:17):
It was not too long after that I don’t know what sparked it exactly, but I just … Yeah, I don’t remember how this started, but I was like, “Man, there’s something about Amanda that I really like. ” And she gave me back in the day you would give out senior pictures. I probably still do, but so I had a senior picture, her senior picture that she gave me and I went off to this little Bible school in Indiana for a couple months and I told all my roommates that I was going to marry this girl and I just felt like, man, if there’s anyone in the world that I would want to be with, it would be her and spend the rest of my life with. I don’t know why. It’s the crazy … And I had these friends that were girls at this little Bible school and I would tell them like, “Look, I’m not interested in dating.

(00:53:19):
I have someone that I really like. ” I had no chance with this girl. And there was

Marlin Miller (00:53:24):
No

Larry Yoder (00:53:24):
Relationship.

Marlin Miller (00:53:26):
There was nothing.

Larry Yoder (00:53:26):
No chance. Totally

Marlin Miller (00:53:27):
Culture.

Larry Yoder (00:53:28):
No chance. I came back from Bible school one time on break, I think. Was this on break or was this after Bible school? My friends convinced me to ask her out. Well, I was freshly saved. I was trying to get my life figured out. I had just got out of a long relationship. I was nowhere ready, nowhere near, but I was just like, “All right, I’ll ask her.” So I asked her out, of course, I went down to Lemon’s Pizza. She was working at Lum’s Pizza and I pulled her aside. I was like, “Hey, can we chat?” She was like, “For sure.” And at that point we were friends. It’s not like we were strangers in any way, but we weren’t hanging out all the time either, not even close.

(00:54:12):
I asked her out and of course she said no. So I was like, “Oh God.” I was like, “I really screwed this up.” I was like, “All right, I’m moving to Baltimore.” And I was like, “If you bring it back to me, I’ll know that she’s the one for me. ” And I moved to Baltimore two years later and I talked to her on the phone a time or two and maybe saw her a time or two when I was in at New Grounds or whatever. About two years later, I was living in Baltimore and all of a sudden Amanda’s moving to Baltimore and I’m like, “What in the world?” My head just went into a tailspin because I had told God and this whole time I didn’t date anyone, didn’t date anyone in those two years. Anytime there was a girl that I got a little bit closer to, I was like, “Hey, look, I’m not interested in dating.”

Marlin Miller (00:55:07):
So you were still comparing everybody else to her?

Larry Yoder (00:55:11):
Oh yeah, 100%. Even

Marlin Miller (00:55:12):
Though you knew

Larry Yoder (00:55:13):
That- There was not a chance in the world. There was not a chance in the

Marlin Miller (00:55:16):
World. But you hadn’t given it up either.

Larry Yoder (00:55:19):
Okay. So here’s how I lived. I was just going after God. I knew that if I could choose anyone, it’d be her and I also wasn’t trying to get in a relationship either with anyone. If she would have married someone else, my life wasn’t going to be over. I knew that God had someone incredible for me, but if I could choose, it would be her. When I first moved to Baltimo where I started driving tow truck, I walked down the street to this towing company and I was like, “Hey, trying to get a job.” And they hired me. I was driving tow truck middle of the night back when just paper maps, no GPS, paper maps. This tow truck driver was crazy insane. He tried to hook me up with girls. I’m like, “No, dude, I’m not interested.” And he’s like, “Are you gay?” I’m like, “No, I have someone that I like and that I … ” My life wasn’t going to be over she was dating someone else, but if I could choose it would be her.

(00:56:33):
So here she is, moves to Baltimore two years later. Why did

Marlin Miller (00:56:36):
She go?

Larry Yoder (00:56:37):
So she went to Rosedale after high school, went to Rosedale and then came back from Rosedale and was like, “Okay, what am I going to do? I don’t want to just settle down. I want to do something for God.” And started asking around a little bit and she would have known the pastor’s wife, she was from Dalton. She would have went to that same church. She would have known them and then Leonard Evans as well. And Leonard was like, “Hey, why don’t you go to Baltimore? It’s six hours away, you can go. ” They’re doing a lot of ministries, like homeless ministry, youth ministry stuff out there. It’d be a great opportunity. There was a couple other girls that were living there at the time and yeah, so she decided to move and she was like, “Well, if I don’t like it. ” She almost didn’t come because of me.

(00:57:26):
She’s like, “I don’t want it to be awkward.” When she moved, I didn’t act like she didn’t … Yeah, I wasn’t weird.

Marlin Miller (00:57:36):
You’re not jumping up and down saying, “This is a sign.”

Larry Yoder (00:57:38):
Yeah, no. We’re supposed to get

Marlin Miller (00:57:39):
Married

Larry Yoder (00:57:39):
Now. Not at all. Not at all. About six months later, I think it was about six months later, something like that, I felt like, okay, I just felt like, I don’t know if it was myself or God, I just felt like now’s the time to ask her.

Marlin Miller (00:57:57):
Well, in those couple years, you were no longer

Larry Yoder (00:58:00):
A

Marlin Miller (00:58:00):
Total infant Christian.

Larry Yoder (00:58:01):
Yeah.

Marlin Miller (00:58:02):
You would have grown, you would have matured Supposedly.

Larry Yoder (00:58:09):
Yeah. I really was. My life dramatically changed. I mean, I found this peace and the presence of Jesus is what I was looking for and I had found that and I really, all I wanted was to walk with the Lord and I experienced God in just incredible ways in so many different areas of my life. At that point, I thought I had everything figured out and thought I knew everything too. And the older I get, the more I realize, the less I know. But I’m so grateful for that season of my life, so grateful for it and God’s kindness and mercy is … I’m sure God was sitting up there chuckling like, “Dude, you think you know it? No.” But here I am and we were doing life together. It was a small church. We did homeless ministry together. We did youth … Well, we weren’t doing youth ministry at that time, but just did a lot of life together and-

Marlin Miller (00:59:24):
What a great way to get to know each other.

Larry Yoder (00:59:26):
Yeah, exactly. What

Marlin Miller (00:59:27):
An

Larry Yoder (00:59:27):
Unbelievable

Marlin Miller (00:59:28):
… That’s

Larry Yoder (00:59:28):
A

Marlin Miller (00:59:28):
Huge blessing.

Larry Yoder (00:59:29):
Yeah. Six months later, I asked her out, she was walking home from work and I nabbed her and we went on a walk and asked her out again and she said yes. And I think it was nine months later we were engaged and I think it was within a year that we were married.That was almost 17 years ago.

Marlin Miller (00:59:56):
Yep, wow. Let’s do this. Let’s do this. I’m going to ask you one more question and then we will simply, we’ll just have you back and then we’ll keep going because … Oh my goodness. Dude, everything that Pure Gift does so many things that we can have another couple of hours on all the different facets of the ministry work and the foster and the adoption and all that stuff. So this episode is brought to you by Homestead Living Magazine. Homestead Living is a monthly print magazine that interviews all the big names in the homesteading world and they focus and educate in a wonderful way you can learn more and subscribe at homesteadliving.com. Last question. How can we pray for you and Amanda right now?

Larry Yoder (01:00:51):
Yeah. We’re navigating through raising kids and really trying to do that well. Amanda’s in the middle of her getting her master’s degree. She’s about a quarter of the way through. She’s got a one year accelerated course and she’ll be done with her master’s program. So really just trying to steward our time well. And when you’re in ministry or nonprofit world, it’s endless stuff you can do. And with kids as well. I have a teenager now. And I feel like we have a really great connection with our kids and I want that to remain. I want my kids to grow up. Everyone’s like all careful for the teenage years. I’m like, no, I love the teenage year. I embrace those years. I think for us, the way you can pray is just pray that we can go through this and keep the priorities the priority and raise incredible kids and navigate through busy times but learn how to … I want to learn how to slow down.

(01:02:18):
I want to learn how to have porch time. I love the … Enjoy life and I don’t know if that makes sense, but …

Marlin Miller (01:02:31):
Oh, it makes perfect sense. I can identify very much. Boy, Larry, thank you. Yeah. This is great. We will do it again. And then we’ll jump into more of the work that you guys do every day.

Larry Yoder (01:02:43):
Yeah. Sweet. Awesome.