Embracing Positive Words and Deeds from Uganda to the US

  Today's guest is Gilbert Mfitundinda. Gilbert is the author of a book titled Life's Lens, Looking Through the Eyes of a Compassionate International Child, a memoir about his life growing up in extreme poverty in Uganda and later moving to the United States. He is also the founder and CEO of a nonprofit called Love Restoration, an organization that provides education, nutrition, and healthcare to children in Uganda.

In our interview, Gilbert discusses his life in Uganda, how sponsors in the U. S. provided him the rare opportunity to stay in school, What it was like to move to the US and all the ways both big and small that people can empower and help others  Gilbert it's so nice to have you here with me today. Thank you for being here.

It's my pleasure being here Thanks best for hosting me The first thing I want to talk about with you is your childhood in Uganda where you grew up and I know you grew up in Extreme poverty there and I'd like you to talk a little bit about what your life was like as a child You Thank you so much for asking.

As a child, I grew up in the southwestern part of Uganda, in a town called Kisolo. It's pronounced as Kis ol, because of how well cunning a phrase it is. And the way I grew up, I'm the youngest of eight, so I'm the eighth born, plus mom and dad. And my family was a subsistence farming family, which meant we ate whatever we grew from our gardens.

So in times of harvest we had plenty to eat, but because of poor storage facilities and some other months, some food would be put to waste and we almost starved the other months. I remember October was the hardest month of the year.  Because it happens when you just finish planting and you don't have enough food to eat.

But my parents tried their level best, of course, to try and take care of us. We stayed in a makeshift house made of mud. The roofing was grass sashed and the walls were just like wood put together and patched like with mud. And the life was pretty normal. My family was a loving family. We still made fun of each other and we enjoyed each other's company, but opportunities were hard to come by.

It was easy to look at the situation around the family and be like, I don't think I'll ever go to school. I'm the youngest, but some of my siblings are dropping out of school. It turned out that six of my seven siblings dropped out of school simply because my parents were not able to send us to school.

And we're not talking about paying a lot of money for tuition. It's maybe like 15.  every three months to buy scholastic materials, but even that were hard to come by. And so paving was a daily struggle, but there were still so many reasons to be grateful for. I had nice, good parents and a nice family. At some point, you were able to get sponsored through an organization that did allow you some benefits that were different from your siblings.

How did that all play out? It was really a great honor in the immediate step.  The material extreme poverty situation. My parents were believers and would hope and pray that somehow, somewhere God would make a way for me and my siblings to be taken care of when I was seven years of age, I got the opportunity to be part of this.

A huge non profit organization that would,  was known to give students and children opportunities to go to school. And this meant they would buy you scholastic materials, books, pens, and if you needed to get some tuition, they would pay for that tuition. They run a program, what they call the Child Development Program, which normally was run at a school.

Church. And so I was able to be part of another church community and grew up with other children. But this gave me opportunities that my siblings didn't get. My whole personness was repressed with hope that on out measure only God can give. But through the generosity and kindness of a stranger, somebody that I didn't know, this organization got to pair me with somebody who at that time was from the U.

S. I never imagined ever stepping foot in the U. S. and hearing that you have a sponsor from the United States of America at that time was like, it's something unfathomable. You couldn't Israel up your mind around it. My world at that point was, My thinking was like the world ends, starts and stops like where I am, but knowing that there's somebody else there far away supporting you helped me know that perhaps I could make friends out of my community.

Perhaps there are other people that I don't get to see every day. There's another group of people that if given a chance I could connect with and I remember that relationship was transformative in ways that something that organization provided to me would turn out to be treasures for my family. I remember when I was eight years old. 

Through this non profit, I got to receive a mattress, and that was the first mattress that my family ever had. And so I bring it home, and I was eight, and I still hadn't learned to control my brother very well. And so I still made the bed wet, and so my parents were like, Gilbert, we can't trust you with You know, with this treasure and everybody else in my family wanted to use the mattress and the blanket and I remember that time because it was just one mattress and one blanket.

How can everyone use it every day? It was like impossible. My parents made an executive decision that this mattress and blanket become a shared treasure. So especially whoever felt sick would be the one to use the mattress and the blanket. Because I come from a very communal, best community. And so when you're sick, like somebody will come to check on you, and it looks good if they find you laying on a nice bed.

And I'm really grateful to have been part of this non profit that really supported me through the generosity of the stranger that they had paired me with. When you had the one mattress that everybody treasured, what was the way that everybody else was sleeping before the mattress or everybody else who didn't have the mattress?

So everyone else who didn't have the mattress and when even when it was shared like it would be brought like in the living room because normally when visitors come to check on you they find you in the living room but in the bedroom would like Just get logs of trees and like maybe make a bed shelf, like use the logs of trees to make a bed shelf structure and maybe add grass on it.

And then on top of the grass, maybe add like a mat and cover yourself with another mat. And that was actually an advancement from before, when we would just put a mat on the dirt floor and cover myself with another mat. And so like grass, so like when you harvest beans, I don't know if it's common here to slash beans and I don't know how to even express it well.

But it's, we would use grass, something that we have, like after getting the beans out, we use the grass from that. The other grass that was also common to use as a bed was dry banana leaves. They would be soft enough that if you put a mat on top of that, you would still have a good night's sleep, just like you would sleeping on the mattress. 

Where did the mat come from? So the mat, like ladies, like my mom and my sisters, they would go to a lake or a swamp and get papayas and Like size, like feature that we used to call Vu, and my mom and my sisters would make mats that would be used to sleep on. And also some of the mats that would be made would be used as gifts.

But during that time.  Marks were like also sold in the market if one was lucky enough to have money to go and buy an already made much, but that was expensive and so the other option was to go get papayas from a swamp, dry it and then use it to like my mom would use it to just make a mark and that would obviously take a longer time, but getting them the papayas  would  Oftentimes be free.

You just had to walk several miles to get it and color it on your head back home. But that was the normal life growing up. Like we would walk almost everywhere and the mode of transportation was like calling something on the head. Like it didn't matter whether it was water, whether it was the mattress, whether it was the mat, whether it was the harvest from the gardens in case your garden was not close to your house.

Cause oftentimes I come from a press. Well, there is a lot of round fragmentation. So a small piece of round here might be yours, but your next.  piece of land might be a mile or two from that other one. So I would make sure you go culling seeds to different gardens and then during harvest time you go culling back the harvest from there back home and it's all on the head.

And so growing up I had never thought you can have a gym membership or sign up for anything to do exercise because exercising is what we did whether we wanted it or not. What about, tell me about the water situation. What was the water situation like? The water situation, so when we still had like a grass house, like the water situation was very difficult.

We used to walk about four miles to get water. And so, when you brought water, and this would be like, normally it would go to a lake or to a stream, and then carry the water back home. And so, when you're walking those miles to get water, when you bring it home, you have to use it sparingly. Because oftentimes, one would carry five gallon jar can of water.

I have one sister who would carry like bigger portions of the water. But even when we had the water, you had to use it sparingly for a shower. You don't just use five gallons for one, one time shower. Oftentimes we would actually make a piece of cloth wet and then wipe yourself with a piece of cloth.

Because you didn't want to waste that much water and the water would bring would be for cooking for at times would actually bring the clothes to the stream and wash them from there and then when they are dry you just come home and make sure that the water you bring is not for washing clothes because oftentimes that would take A lot of time.

And again, going to a stream, at times you would, on a day like Saturday, the long distance, well then the owner struggle to getting the water. You would get there and all of a sudden all the members in the town and the nearby communities are all there. So you all had to line up for water. And sometimes lining up to even get to a point where you can fill your bucket, your gallon, or we call them jerkin.

So getting to a point where you would fill your container to color water home, sometimes it would take hours, even closer to eight hours. Some of my siblings actually, when They dropped out of school because they were not going to school. They ended up doing more of the chores like fetching the water and spending longer hours there.

And because I was lucky and I had support from an organization paying my tuition and giving me scholastic materials, like I was a little excused from doing some of the chores because some of the chores would take a very long time. And it's so common, like, In my community for even children to drop out of school just because of something like water because they spend a long time walking to the water source.

And then by the time they get from the queue and collect the water and they start walking home, if they are lucky to go to school in the class doesn't stop to wait for them. The class has it. moved on there on a different topic. And by the time they try to catch up, it ends up being overwhelming. And so some of my friends at that time also ended up dropping out of school just because of chores like collecting water.

What is the situation now, your understanding of the same community or other communities in Uganda? Is this a similar experience there now or have things changed? The experience now has improved. When I grew up, the government tried to bring tap water closer to the community. Instead of having to walk several miles to go to a lake or a stream, you're going to a central location that has many taps connected, but you still have to be waiting.

You have to be in line. So that might still take time. And actually let alone one thing that I didn't mention. So my family let alone built a better house with a different roofing instead of grass. It was a tin roof. And so if you're like today, many people, especially those with houses that have tin roof, they collect water from the roof when it rains.

So when, whenever it rains in my community, if you have Whatever container you have, you bring it outside and try to harvest water from the roof. And at one point, like, at my house, we actually, the non profit that was supporting me gave us a water tank, which was like, it was bigger, it was 2, 000 liters. And so we would like, during rainy season, when you have a thin roof, it would get filled up in a day or two.

And then that helped us minimize how long we had to walk for water. But that's also a seasonal one. You have water as long as it keeps raining. Once it starts drying again and you get into dry season, you have to go to the nearby community where, like, they have community press where you can be in line and get the water.

But still, if the people there are too many, then you're like, I would rather go to the stream. Maybe there are fewer people. You go to the stream, which might be farther than the community press that the government has been putting in. And so the water is still something that we struggle to get, even when there are a lot of wrecks.

But we don't have the infrastructure that brings the water to every home, and not every home has the luxury to even have a load that gets to the home. But like in my home growing up, if you had a car, you can't get it to where I was born and where my mom now lives. You lost your father, I think you were 14 years old when your father passed away.

That had to be really devastating, especially considering that your parents were subsistence farmers and I'm sure relied on each other to continue providing for the family. So what was that experience like, losing your father? It was obviously difficult losing my father, and I remember actually when my dad passed away when I was 14, sometimes, like, community members and my older siblings would make up stuff, like, you'll see dad again, and somehow you want to believe it, but it was very hard, like, the chores had to be different, my mom had to take on the load and responsibility of being a mom and, like, a dad, And some of my older siblings had to take the responsibility of caring for the young siblings like me.

And so it was overwhelming and it didn't make sense. I remember I was a young believer and I had learned some scriptures and I remember one scripture that I had learned was like, God does everything good for those who believe in him. I'm paraphrasing here.  It didn't feel good to lose someone. But during that time, I remember writing to the stranger that I had, this organization had paired me with.

And the stranger wrote back to me saying, I'm so sorry that your dad passed on, but we have a father who lives forever and was referring to the heavenly father. And so I still miss my dad. And it's been hard like growing up without my dad. It's the support from my mom and from my siblings and family.

From those who God has brought in my life has made life a lot better. And I'm a firm believer that maybe someday I'll see my dad again. It was hard. Yeah. So when you describe living in Uganda and the way in which people live and have to walk for water long miles and carry things on their head and things like that, then at some point later in your life, you ended up in the US and obviously things are very different in the US.

So what was that like for you to experience such a difference in the way of living? I've been here for close to eight years now, and I feel like I'm still adjusting, it's still in transition. And I still somehow like when I was young, I was told you can't just drink water that's not boiled, that will give you sickness.

And here in the U. S. they tell you the water from the tap, from the sink is clean enough to drink. And some part of my mind just doesn't want to believe that's true. And some part of me is, I still need to boil this water. And I remember when I got here, you want to do laundry and wash your clothes.  Back home, like, all the clothes, you hand washed them, and drying them, you had to wait for the sun to dry your clothes.

And so I got here, going for a shower, from a wet clothes to learning how to just turn on a shower, and I've been to places where they even have smart showers.  Like, to turn on the shower, it takes extra steps, so I had, like, when I got here, I had to learn all that, like, how to start a shower, how to do, they start a washer and dryer, and washing press, that's something that we hand washed.

And most places here, like in the U. S. or where I have been, there's a dishwasher and so I had also to learn how to use a dishwasher, which in so many ways, it's, wow, this is so easy, okay? This is so easy. And also the water, like whenever I had to take a shower back in Uganda, if you wanted to use hot water to shower.

You had to literally go start a fire, boil the water, put it in a bucket, and then shower. Then here you turn the shower like on some certain side and then the water gets warm. And I'm like, wow, there's no excuse for not showering me. If I showered less back in Uganda, it might be because, yeah, the water is so hot.

The water was hard to get, and if you wanted it warm, you had to put in effort, use firewood, like firewood was also a resource that we used to collect, and so we had to also use it sparingly. But here, knowing that you can just warm water and have water in the house. It's so humbling. And I mean, not everyone in Uganda goes through the same situation that I grew up with.

And so there are families in Uganda that have showers in their homes, that have running water in their homes. But my family was just different. And getting here and running, all that you can have water in your house, and you actually don't have to walk four miles.  To color a five gallon container of water and say, wow, this is so relieving.

So what are some things about the culture in Uganda where you grew up that are really positives that you don't necessarily see in the U. S.? It's not saying anything negative about the U. S., but things that are present in Ugandan culture that are really positive. In the Ugandan culture, most of the things are communal best. 

So if you, let's say you wanted to do a function, let's say maybe you wanted to do a wording. It's a responsibility for the entire family, the community and friends to contribute money towards the wording function. So like in so many ways, like what, what's called cloud funding here now. We do crowdfunding for their social life, but somebody gets sick and there's no social security and so social security is the community.

And so when somebody gets sick and the bill is high, every member of the family chips in and I have 5. We use the Ugandan shillings and some people contribute, of course, based on their abilities.  Cheap in 1, 5 in so many ways, you do things as a family compared to the individualistic way of living here, like where I am now, the house where I am now, I can hardly tell you that my neighbor, even the next door or the neighbor across the street, but back in Uganda, even now, I remember.

All my community members, even like to four miles and the way growing up, right as a child and a parent, you're like a child of the community. So in a parent in the community, if they find you doing something that they would consider a mistake, they could punish you and they still can punish you even today.

But here it's not even you can't punish someone. It's like everyone has their own perception of what's right. The government has the general laws and regulations, but the communal way of living in Uganda is way different with the individualistic way of living here. You grew up with, uh, strong faith in God, and through the non profit that you were sponsored through, you also got a lot of support.

Influence in that direction. Is that something that was just a part of your family and your community? Or was that more specific to you? That was more with my family. And like, of course, the nonprofit had a huge impact in my face as well. But in Uganda, is a Christian country, if you will. And so 85 percent actually of the Ugandan citizens will  I have a cross attachment, like 85 percent call themselves Christians, but it can be in a way that you just go to church every Sunday. 

Things like that. So it can be a traditional way of, of looking at it. But the church I went to growing up, it's the same church that my grandparents went to. And so it, it happens like that. You are born with parents who go to church, then you go to church and your children will go to church,  and then as you go through church and hear the word of God, uh, shared out metro, the horse spirit does.

His work and plants a seed in your heart and you accept him. And when I was 14 years of age, that's when I accepted Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. But I had been going to church and doing church activities from when I was like a child. And actually in the church, that's where you get the first name.

My first name Gilbert, I was baptized when I was a baby. And that's the name that my parents chose to baptize me with when I went to the church. But the last name, Mfitundinda, was given to me at birth. So in so many ways, the church does it.  A lot of influence on what names children are given. Mfitundinda is a name that means I have a protector.

And my parents thought that God had protected them and protected me when I was born. And that's why they gave me the name Mfitundinda. And so it's common to find names that often refer to how God takes care. There are, there are some names like in my community where someone would be called, it's only God who cares, and that's Hallelujah. 

And so then we have different names like that. I want to step back a little bit to the poverty that you experienced in Uganda, which in lots of different places, there's poverty and in different countries and in different ways it presents itself. You talk a little bit about, I would say like a hopelessness or despair that can sometimes happen or getting in a mindset that's a little bit more negative.

You talk about that in your book. What would you say about that sort of hopelessness that sometimes can take over when someone is living in poverty? Yeah. I mean, when you're living in extreme poverty, it's easier to think that I can, I will only be what I'm surrounded by. And if you look around and all is poverty, you look around and all is children dropping out of school, you look around and you see there are no opportunities, it's easier to think that you will never amount to anything.

Occasionally, of course, it also depends on the people surrounding you. Like I said, we live in a communal society, and so if you are surrounded by negative people who come to you and be like, Gil, but we see that nobody in your family has ever gone to college, you'll never go to college, you'll never amount to anything.

We look at community validation as something very important. And if you all that you're getting from the validation, like from the community is negative, you can easily think that that's all you're going to be. And I experienced a little bit of hopelessness when I was a child, because some of my siblings have started dropping out of school.

And so I couldn't imagine my parents saving up enough to send me to school. Education in my communities in Uganda is still looked to as a key to success. Because again, there are not many careers that you can do. There are not many fulfilling jobs you can do. If all that you're depending on is subsistence farming, you might have two acres of land, but if that's the land you're farming at day in, day out, I would make sure it's not going to yield much.

And if it's not yielding much, you can't be like, I'll get enough produce and sell some and get enough to maybe do something important, build a nice house or things like that. But I mean, it's like the whole person is growing up. Then the nonprofit that was supporting me had some. Social workers and community leaders who would talk to me and remind me that you might be in extreme poverty but this shouldn't be the one defining you.

Above all, you're defined by God. God has great plans for you. My community would look at me, as a child I was very shy, and so they would look at my weaknesses and inadequacies and of course that's some of the people and tell me like, because you're weak in such and such an area, you won't get this and be stressed. 

But then when you get other validation from leaders that tell you, Gilbert, you have a lot of potential. And even the stranger that I was paired with, they would write letters to me. And in the letters, they would tell me that, Gilbert, you have value. Gilbert, we believe in you. Gilbert, God has great plans for you.

And that time when I was a child, some of those were like, really? I have value. God has great plans for me. And at that time I started believing it, but I wouldn't have guessed what those plans were. But as I look back now and seeing where I am now,  I feel like I've been blessed in so many ways that I feel like I still don't think I have a lot, but whatever I have can be shared.

I think this is such a great example of what a huge difference it makes if there's someone, any person, any organization that shows a little attention or can provide some support. for a child who's living in poverty because you can imagine how different it would have been for you if that had not occurred.

And it's not that your life would have been horrible or something. It's just your life would have been very different. What sort of importance would you place on that in today's world going forward, people reaching out, people sponsoring, people doing something to help, attempting to help a child living in poverty?

How would you speak on that today? I would invite people to look at whatever they have, and if they can support someone in extreme poverty, then share, like, support that child if at all possible. But the other thing that I would also encourage people to do is, like, sometimes small things, like, The kind of words that you say to your neighbor, the kind of words you say to someone whom you think is insignificant, especially in a culture where today, like, some people might come from different backgrounds or different countries, and some others tend to look at them and say, so and so shouldn't get all the resources from my government or shouldn't be supported by so and so.

But I would encourage them to look around and say, be empathetic. If you were the one living in a situation like the one marginalized, what would you expect from others? And whatever answer they may get, and that might be for personal refraction. And so whatever comes to mind, be like, do you have a way to do that for someone who is in that same situation that you're reflecting on?

If that child is in extreme poverty, can you help them get out of extreme poverty? Or can you say a word that maybe will help them change their perception of things? Or who are those, or what the society or the environment has told them? And then if you can go ahead and do it. And for those actually in developing countries to change someone's life.

Like when I was a child, this nonprofit at that time, they used to give 32 a month, and that's the money that automation got me to school. Um, I've been in the U S but I know. Before I got here, I used to think that only those who are rich and wealthy can afford to part with 32 a month. But you get here and you realize, with 32  a month, I can't even, it's not even a water bill for my house.

It's not even a meal for a whole month, but that's automatically changing someone else's life. And so I think being considerate and reflecting on what one has and how they could be helpful to those. Sharing a little bit of what one might have might be helpful to those that have less would be a tangible way for, I believe, everyone to actually live.

Yeah, when you're describing that, it really does sound like a lot of people, it wouldn't be that much money for them and their lifestyle, but this is a huge, huge difference in a place like Uganda. It completely can change a child's life. And like you said, it could be like going out for a meal for one month, that amount of money could change a child's life.

So that is really an important message, I think. And I want to segue then to the organization that you started called Love Restoration. And that is another example of that. If there's donations, then you can provide those directly to children. Tell me what you do with Love Restoration.  With Love Restoration, actually it stemmed from six of my seven siblings dropping out of school.

And one of my elder brothers went to school and he's actually now the second head of education in the town that I grew up. And so with him, we started the Love Restoration to provide education, nutrition, and health care to children like my nieces and nephews. And so when my siblings dropped out of school, they did the next big thing, which like get married at a young age.

And as of today, I have over 40 nieces and nephews. And so some of my nieces and nephews had started dropping out of school. And so Love Restoration was started to somehow share the little that I sold and my brother sold we had with children in my community. So we operate through a school. Our school now has 340 children and 18 full time staff members, and when we started like in 2014, we started with 20 children.

The structure we had at that time were not good enough, and so we are actually in the process of building better facilities right now, and so there are some construction projects going on at Love Restoration School in Uganda.  But we also run a nonprofit here in the U. S. like to to invite people if there's anyone who wants to be a part of what we are doing, we receive tax deductible donations through the nonprofit here in the U.

S. It's called Maserains Africa. It's a nonprofit that some of the people that I met felt compelled.  Like to partner with me and we formulated that nonprofit to be a channel through which donations from here can be received and then sent to Love Restoration in Uganda for the work to be done. And it's gone through a lot of gross trajectory, like from when we started in 2014 to today.

And I feel like we've The generosity from others, it keeps growing. And so I would like to invite whoever gets to listen to this. Again, maybe what you can contribute might be a little. Like, maybe you can afford to buy a brick. Like a brick that can be added on the construction. Or you can afford to buy a tin roof that ultimately will be put on the roof.

We're actually also building a water tank that we have water tanks at our school and we have connected tap water at the school so children can come to school and if they need to take water home, they can come with their containers and bring water home instead of having to go and spend hours at home.

A well or at a water collection center. And so love restoration was a way to just share the little that I sold. And my brother sold with children, like my nieces and nephew, and we were hoping we'll get to impact many people. And like I said, education is still looked at as a key to success. And our schooling we have is basically like, it's like pre and elementary school. 

It's kindergarten and elementary school, but we have some people that are some that we support through high school and we are hoping that we'll continue to plant the seeds for our children to learn and hopefully as, as the Lord provides, maybe support some through high school, even to college and perhaps get fulfilling life. 

You also mentioned as part of Love Restoration that you address nutrition, and you mentioned in your book that there's still a lot of times where people, where children don't necessarily have food, they don't necessarily have a lunch. It's my understanding that you, at that school, you do provide food, at least when they're there.

And is that true that still to this day, sometimes children don't have food on a daily basis? Yes, it's still, still today children don't have food on a daily basis in their homes. And if they do, again, because our community has subsistence farming and you're eating food from your own garden, it's easy to eat the same food over and over again.

And so, like, if you're planting beans and potatoes, that's what you eat for lunch, that's what you eat for dinner, if you're lucky to have some. And then, so, it ends up causing my nutritional related diseases. So, actually, research has it that five of every ten children from my community have stunted growth.

which stems from what they eat. Some of the foods we eat have a deficient in some good nutrients. And at our school, we are hoping to, we provide a meal every day, but to provide more than empty calories, you obviously need more money. And so we've been trying to provide a nutritious meal, but our feeding program is not at the level that we would like it to be at.

Even when we feed the children, they don't get the best food because we don't have the funds to get them the best food. But our desire is to, hopefully in the future, get the feeding program to a level where we can provide better food, food rich in nutrients that any child who gets to eat it needs. I think it's wonderful, and I hope it keeps growing.

I think it will. I think it will. Reading your book and talking to you, you're a very motivated person, you're a very positive person, trying to do good works in the world, and I think that's, I think that's really wonderful. And I want to mention, too, that because of organizations that you were able to be a part of, You got a college degree and you got a master's degree.

So in your community, where you came from hearing those words that sometimes people said, Oh, you're too shy or nobody else went to college. You're not going to make it. You did and you even have a master's degree. So again, it's amazing what a sponsorship or an organization can really do for someone. Yeah, it's a lot that one can do.

And again, maybe not everyone can come to where I am or the out, like the life trajectory may be different, but like, it's a, it makes a huge difference just being there for others. And again, it comes back to what words are you saying about others, especially those who have some weaknesses. As human beings, we all have weaknesses.

I may not look like somebody else. I don't speak with somebody else.  My facial appearance looks like I'm shy, but does that really mean that I won't get a college degree, for example, does that mean that I won't get a good job, for example? Maybe not, but who are the people telling me that you have the potential, you're better than what these others are saying.

And also like now, as I look back, I look at what are some of the words that I didn't like hearing from others? What are the words that I liked healing from others? How am I being the positive influence that I had, the positive influence that I wish I got? I think that should be the way of life for everyone.

Trying to again look at the words that we are saying and say how empowering are they? If someone is weak, weak in some area, before we point fingers to their weaknesses, can we recognize that as human beings we have weaknesses by default? But can we, instead of focusing on each other's weaknesses and how others are better, is there a way to jointly join our forces and maybe do better with what we are all gifted with?

It might be talents, might be other strengths. I feel like the world would be a much more better place if the world If the people you need worked more in unity than focusing on what divides them or what makes them distinct or different. Is there anything else that you would like to share or that you would like to talk about today? 

There is always more to be said, and the book has more, but if I was to say maybe three things as we get close, as individuals, we can all be selfish in some ways.  My invitation to everyone listening to this is like, how will you try to be a little selfless today? And as you try to be a little selfless today, can you be empathetic with those that may be going through different struggles?

If you are struggling, my prayer for you is that you find some people to encourage you and let you know that maybe that your struggles might be a first season, or after the struggle, maybe there is a lesson or something that might be born from your struggle. And then my last one is as we hear encouragement and maybe share things and talk to people, especially in this world of social media, where it's easier for people to share.

Everyone to feel like they have a voice. Can we be careful with our wants? As we share, we share them with others. If let's say, for example, somebody is in extreme poverty, they may be going through extreme poverty, but poverty is not their middle name. It's not their first name. They have a name, a fast name.

They may, maybe they're not, they don't speak English, but if they don't speak English, they're still human beings. Can we say great words about them, words that reveal they are human beings, like, like we are? I really think that's so beautiful and wonderful and so true that we are all humans. We are all connected.

We are all exactly unique from each other, but we are all also connected and we all have value. And I think that's so much of what you put out there in your book and into the world and just honoring differences, being kind, all of these things that we are all, we're all connected and we can all help each other.

And I think that's a lot of what you stand for. And I really admire that. Thank you so much, Beth. Thank you so much for being on the show. I'm just honored to have you here. I really appreciate it.