Discover Advent in Everyday Moments: Joy

Jon: 00:00:40

Our special guest today is Dr.

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Sharon Runge, who is the Executive

Director of Kenya Connect (USA), a

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nonprofit that's working in rural

Kenya with the mission of enriching

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and engaging students and teachers with

21st century skills through an array of

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programs at 63 partner government schools.

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In this position, Sharon works with

Kenyan-led staff to develop partnerships,

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raise funds, develop and expand programs

and lead volunteer trips, which sounds

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interesting to me right off the bat.

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Yeah, I was gonna ask you

what this has meant to you

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personally, but you just answered

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Sharon: Yeah, yeah.

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I, I mean, it's been it's been

a, such a gift to me and, I'm so

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grateful that Tim invited me to

go to Kenya and that I said yes.

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Sometimes when I reflect back on

my experience with Kenya Connect,

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I think sometimes in our life

we're offered opportunities and

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sometimes we say no just because we

think it's too much of an obstacle.

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Like, you know, will the

kids be okay without me?

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Mike's working full-time.

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Will he manage, is this really

the prudent thing to do?

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And for some reason, my

inner voice said, go.

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And, my husband was incredibly supportive

and, and I went and, I never would've

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guessed at that point that this is

where I was gonna be and, and really

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become, Maybe the most important life

work I I've done besides raising kids.

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It's just been such a

dream for me personally.

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When I've brought volunteers

over, they feel like they're part

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of, the Kenya Connect family.

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I mean, when we go there we actually

get Kamba names and Kamba is one

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of the ethnic groups in Kenya.

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And the first visit when Reverend

Rosemary and I were there, we went

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to visit our partner school, . And

there were 300 children there.

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And.

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We're being introduced and all

these children are, looking at us.

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You know, sometimes when people

from the US come, it's the first

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time they've ever seen an American.

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And so we're, we're standing in

front of the school and James

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Musyoko says to the children,

well, what should their Kamba be?

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And suddenly, , there was this

murmur with the children and

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they were all like chattering

and suddenly a name comes forth.

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And I was given the name.

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Mutanu which means joyful.

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I think the whole time I was in

Kenya, I never stopped smiling.

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Every volunteer that's come over to,

Kenya Connect gets a Kamba name, . It's

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special to bestowed something like that.

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. Jon: today we have a special guest,

the Reverend Henrietta Wiley.

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Henrietta is Rector of Trinity

Episcopal Church in Towson, Maryland.

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She is brilliant, which we all agree with.

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Funny, meaning she has

a great sense of humor.

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I hope that's what funny means here.

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Also in your bio, Henrietta,

you said you were fat.

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Pink haired, which I do see.

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Middle aged, you are a lesbian

priest with the world's best

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spouse, whom we also love, Mary.

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. . And two madcap cats who may

make an appearance at any

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point during this presentation.

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Having known you for a number of years

and having literally experienced very

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profound and deep Joy, particularly

when we were in our cathedral years

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at the Cathedral of the Incarnation,

when we were at the altar together.

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You you, to me, have always

been just wrapped in joy and

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the personification of joy.

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And I'm just wondering if you have

a word to say to those of us like

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me, not Lauren so much, but me, who

tend to take myself so seriously.

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And want to know what do you

have a secret about that?

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How do we

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Rhetta: what, yeah.

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All right, so this shocks me to hear,

Jon, because as I recall, we needed to

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be separated at the cathedral because

we made each other laugh so much.

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That's my memory.

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Maybe I made that up.

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Jon: No, you're right.

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You're right.

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Rhetta: That's true.

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I remembered.

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So, I consider joy to be a gift of the

Holy Spirit, and and it is rooted to me

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in a sense, an unshakable sense of God's

love, an unshakable sense of God's love.

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And that As Kingsley said we have to

love people, but we get to love people.

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And when we do it well, it's awesome.

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It's so much fun.

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It's so much fun.

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And and so it springs from a sense of

being loved and from a sense of gratitude

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a habit of gratitude maybe which is

which may be a little bit trite at this

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point, but when you realize how precious

and wonderful everything is around you,

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even when things are pretty crummy,

there's always something beautiful.

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There's always someone who says good

morning to you at the right time, but

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most importantly, there is always Jesus.

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It is much, much easier

for me to access that joy.

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I would say it's also connected to

my vocation, my sense of vocation,

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which is as some of you may know,

I, I started out as an academic.

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And my academic field of

study was the history and

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literature of the Hebrew Bible.

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And I loved that, and I

continue to love that.

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But I felt hobbled.

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And what I mean by that is that

I was hopping around on one

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leg, and I was missing a leg.

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And I didn't know what it

was, and it was sacrament.

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And once I started practicing my

priestly ministry, it opened a

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floodgate of joy for me, because

worship is so real and powerful for me.

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Our forms, which can be stodgy, but

don't have to be our forms for me

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are Exquisite channels of glory and

love and power and presence of God.

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And so it makes it much easier for

me to access joy, which I think

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we all have the capacity for.

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But remembering how loved we are,

being grateful for that and allowing

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ourselves the vulnerability.

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Joy is a very vulnerable

emotion, actually.

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So allowing ourselves to be

vulnerable enough to experience

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joy is tremendously rewarding.

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Jon: today we have a very special

guest with us, Markiesha E.

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Wilson.

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Markiesha is a human capital consultant,

a leadership coach, An author and

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an expert in change management.

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In her bio that she provided for a TEDx

talk that she's given about forgiveness

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as a powerful tool in the workplace,

this is how she describes herself.

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Being an authentic leader is difficult and

especially difficult if you are a woman.

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Even more challenging if

you are a woman of color.

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She is a human capital professional

with over 15 years of proven experience

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in strategizing and partnering

with leadership teams to design

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and empower dynamic workforces.

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Markiesha is a leadership coach with

a unique ability to ignite growth.

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She is an expert level facilitator and

designer of highly rated interactive

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leadership and communications

courses for adult learners in the

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defense and financial industries.

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So, you know, the other thing I'm kind

of curious about, Markiesha, is you're

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totally unashamed about your faith.

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You talk about it in your

book, you have quotations from

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scriptures, you paraphrase.

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You have an NIV according to Markiesha,

something like that at the end of

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it I know your faith has sustained

you through so many difficult times.

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How else has your life experience

or your faith as a Christian woman,

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kind of informed your spiritual life?

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Yeah,

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Markiesha: it, it is.

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It is my, my Christian walk

is my whole hope for tomorrow.

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It's what gets me through.

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It's my source of strength.

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It is my blueprint for living.

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It is my source of joy.

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It is everything to me, right?

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If I can just tell you one little thing

about the TED Talk, when there's a rule,

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you can't bring up God in a TED Talk.

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Wow.

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And they said that is one of the

many reasons why TED Talks don't

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get published because you can do

one and they don't publish them all.

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I was, I felt blessed that they published

mine, but you cannot mention God.

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And at first I was like,

I don't want to do it.

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How am I going to not say God?

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And I heard God say, listen,

you gotta get the word out.

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This is, these are ways to get the

word out without getting the word out.

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Right?

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People will watch mine

and then they'll find me.

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And then they'll find what would sustain

me through my childhood, through trauma,

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through the death of two parents.

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You'll find that it was

God that enabled me to.

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become successful when I shouldn't have

been, when I graduated college early.

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You'll find it was God that enabled

me to be the only Black woman

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in these spaces and be respected

and make it through disrespect.

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You'll find that it was God in

everything that I have done.

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So I took the opportunity to do the

TED Talk to speak without saying

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God, but He's everything to me.

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I, you know, when he says I

am, he was talking Markiesha.

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I am whatever Markiesha needs.

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That was just for me, y'all.

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Jon: Thanks so much I do want to just kind

of and I have it right here, Markiesha.

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This is your book.

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Oh, that looks familiar!

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It looks familiar.

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It's called, it's got a very long

subtitle, like most books have these days.

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It's called, In the Climb, Eight

Audacious Actions to Overcome Life and

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Climb the Corporate Ladder with Joy.

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There's that joy message again