Author Kathy Harris Discusses Writing, Nashville, and Caregiving

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That is my wife, Gracie. And he does know the plans that he has for you. And sometimes those plans are not exactly what we think they are. And that's why I'm so glad to have this guest on today. Divine detours is a phrase that has captured her heart. And you ever feel like you have divine detours?

Well, I feel like I've been off-road detouring for many years. But Kathy Harris is with us, and she's a very accomplished author, been in the music business for a lifetime in Nashville. And she has amazing insights. She's been a great friend and mentor to me through a lot of my writing process. And by the way, she's one of us. She's one of us.

She is a caregiver as well. And she understands the journey, but she continues on with the work. And a couple of weeks ago, I talked about writing and the importance for us. And I thought, well, why not bring a really established writer, somebody who really knows this business and this industry and the work of it, and give us some insights and pointers as well. So Kathy, thank you for being here with me today. I'm so glad to be here, Peter.

All right. Give us a little bit of background on you. One of the things I love about you is, at seven years old, you knew you wanted to be a writer.

Seven years old. At seven years old, I was out playing Army in the Woods. Well, I was actually thinking I was Annie Oakley at seven years old, but I also would write in my diary that I was going to write books one day. And that's kind of what I set out to do. I kept that dream through all of my elementary and high school, went to college.

We didn't have creative writing offered at my college. And so, I decided to major in journalism and advertising with an English minor. And I was all ready. And then God decided to give me a detour. I saw a tour bus for country music artists, or gospel artists, going down the street of my campus, near my campus. And I thought, and it had Nashville on the marquee. And I thought, I want to go to Nashville and be in the music business. And so, after spending some additional time at home in southern Illinois, after I graduated about six months to nine months, I got a job offer from the Oak Ridge Boys. And they were a gospel quartet at that point. And I absolutely loved southern gospel music. And when I got the call from the Oak Ridge Boys to work for them on a, let's see if it works basis, I was excited to move to Nashville.

And 40-some years later, I'm still working for them in Nashville and in country music with a gospel on the side. So, that was my detour. That was before, you came on just as Elviro was getting ready to come out, correct? Well, you're going to make me tell my age, Peter. I'm not going to, no, no. You started when you were seven, remember? I did. Actually, I started when I was 20. So, I graduated early from college.

We don't have to know these things. Yeah, but I did start very early. They were gospel.

They were gospel at the time. But then Elviro came out and then it just, I mean, they just exploded. And you were right there with all of that, correct? Did I get my time frames right?

Is that right? I was there to see that change. I was there before the country music crossover happened.

And it was an interesting ride. It has been an amazing career to watch what's happened with them. And also to realize that they were four guys that sang gospel music that were able to break into country and pop with Elviro and to take the gospel to a lot of audiences that they would never have reached if they had stayed with gospel. Well, they have. And certainly, I think one of the more poignant, I've had a couple of the guys here on this program, but one of the more poignant moments was when they sang at the funeral of George H.W.

Bush. And they were scrambling to get there because Joe told the story and they were scrambling to get there, but it was to listen to them sing Amazing Grace there. And that's something that the former president wanted to hear. And then subsequently the world got to hear them.

So that was great. And you've been a part of all of that. You're in the fabric of their lengthy career and for the last 40 something years. And yet you've also been writing and doing all the stuff you do in the music business. But then you have not left your passion of writing. And you have now your newest book has come out.

I think it's a series of books and this is called Deadly Conclusion. These are all novels that you've written. And talk a little bit about that process with you.

Okay. I'll just say that my detour basically came when I turned 50 years old and I had wanted to write books since I was seven. And I realized that if I didn't write books that honored God, that I wouldn't be happy. And it's amazing because when I started writing that kind of novel, all of a sudden my writing flowed.

It was just a change for me. So basically God said, okay, you're going to use all of these years I've given you in country and gospel music and I'm going to give you something to talk about. And so my books aren't necessarily music heavy, but they're based in Nashville. And I started writing women's fiction and my agent and my editor said, no, you need to be writing romantic suspense. So my series is a romantic suspense series of three books, heavy on the suspense, light on the romance. And it just finished up. Can you hear me laugh? I'm not going to say where that defines a lot of caregivers life, heavy on the suspense, light on the romance.

The story of America's family caregivers, heavy on the suspense, light on the romance. Well, and I loved it, but the fact is you kept doing it. And this is what I was talking about two weeks ago with this audience, that we get distracted by a lot of things, but our core loves the things that we really love. You know, God doesn't waste all these things. A friend of mine told me was this, Jesus was a carpenter.

He doesn't even waste the sawdust, you know? And I really subscribe to that for me and all the things that God has obviously woven in your life, that you've taken this great tapestry and now you're doing it. And it's just very exciting to watch you do it. Peter, when my husband died, I was in the middle of caregiving my mom and dad. And there was a break of time when I just couldn't write because it was, let's see what we can do to reorganize life.

My parents were living with us when he passed, but eventually you work yourself back up there. And, you know, you just realize that as a caregiver, if you're going to be a good one, and I've learned this from you, I've learned this from my own experience, you have to have a little bit of life for yourself. And so my books was what I chose. I wanted to write those books. So all three of the books in this series have been written since I was a caregiver by myself with my parents.

And it has really helped me and they supported me as well. So, yeah, it's just a way to fit in a little bit of life for you and still be the best caregiver you can. So I finished three books as a caregiver.

You know, as a caregiver who's written books while caregiving, I understand how challenging that is. And I would call you sometimes and you'd be just like in the craziness of editing and going through it and all this stuff. And I said, well, do you need some help? And you said, no, I just have to just plow through it myself.

And you would just carve out an hour here, two hours here, that kind of thing. But it was really inspiring to watch you go through, particularly this last book, because you've had a lot of things going on in your life. And yet you soldiered through it. And that's one of the things I wanted this audience to hear is that you can carve these things out in the midst of whatever you're dealing with. Here are two people now, Kathy and me, both have done this.

Kathy and I both have done this. And I want to hopefully, you know, hopefully inspire people to not give up on this. That it's so important that it's so important that you do carve out that identity for yourself. She set out to be a writer at seven. Yes, she had some circuitous routes to get there and some divine detours and along the way, work with a major music business group and everything else.

But she's still doing it. And while serving as a caregiver, my challenges to each of us is, can we learn from that? Can we model that in our life?

And I believe that we can. Kathy, I want to also pick your brain on some things that a lot of people may get frustrated when they come to the blank page and they don't really quite know where to start. So when we come back from this segment, what I'd like for you to do is just give some tips on, you know, where to start, you know, how to, what do you look for?

How do you develop an outline? All those kinds of things. I don't write fiction. And so you're in a much different world than I am. And I'm not, you know, I have no expertise in this sort of thing, but you do. And I know that a lot of people would like to hear that. So when we come back, will you hang around and talk about that a little bit?

That's the hardest subject. And yes, I will. All right. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. We've got more to go. Don't go away. We'll be right back.

If you'll indulge me for just a moment, I have a special need that I would love your help on. We are treating our first ever patient in Cameroon. We've been working mostly in the country of Ghana. We have treated patients from Togo and as far away as Nigeria who come to the clinic in Ghana. And we did one patient in Kenya. But this is our first patient in Cameroon.

We're working with a facility there and we could use your help in sponsoring this man's leg. His name is Cyril. He's an above knee amputee. And the man who is building it at a prosthetic clinic in Cameroon, his name is Jude. And I read to him the scripture in Jude where it says, Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling.

I said, you understand the origination of your name? It was a guy named Jude who wrote that wonderful passage in scripture. What a great name for a prosthetist. And Gracie and I are asking for your help in sponsoring this leg. If you want to be a part of this, standingwithhope.com giving. I don't normally do these kinds of things, but I would very much appreciate your help in getting this leg for Cyril. standingwithhope.com slash giving. And we'll give you more information on that as he starts walking and leaping and praising God. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg. And we're so glad that you are with us. I'm talking with my friend, Kathy Harris, celebrated author, music business executive, and by the way, a caregiver, and she understands the journey we left in our last segment. I wanted to drill down and get some thoughts from her as she approaches a blank page.

And a lot of us have been there. And I know that I've gotten a lot of comments from this audience that individuals want to write, but don't necessarily know where to start, what to do, how to even whatever. So Kathy, when you start a book and you've done blogs, you've done books, you've done press releases, you've done so many different things over your career, where do you start? Do you have just an idea that hits you in your head? Where do you start?

I think the best way to answer that is to start small. And when I'm talking about that, I'm saying like in the writing career, I started with devotional or devotions, and I got my feet wet with that. I started with my journal, my daily journal. And then when you translate that into, okay, I'm sitting down and there's the blank page, first page for the book, you just tell the story in a draft mode and you don't worry about the junk that comes out. It's the one law in writing is to never worry about that first draft and just go on. I have found for me that the best way to write a book, and this is almost one of those things where you say, don't try this at home, is to have a really short deadline because I do better on deadlines and to know that I have to get it done quickly and to pray to God that he gives me the words and to sit down with that short deadline and to just start writing. One of the things that I told the audience a couple of weeks ago was to not try to set out the next great American novel, but set out to write something that means something to you, that speaks to you, whether anybody publishes it or not. Is that decent advice?

I think it's absolutely the best advice. You can't write except what's in your heart. I thought I wrote literary fiction. When I first sit down to write a novel, I thought, okay, I know I write literary style. I started writing and I looked at my text and I thought, that is as far away from literary as I've ever seen in my life. But then I just realized that was my voice.

You can hone your voice, but your voice should be you talking in many ways. I'm reading someone's novel right now. Actually, it's a memoir and I can hear this person's voice all over it.

And I think that's the beauty of it. You get to hear your voice in your heart and do not, do not be afraid. I had to learn this one too, to share yourself because that's where your writing will affect people. You have to share yourself. You can't hide yourself in your writing. You know, that ties into the whole message that I have for family caregivers is that your voice is important.

You don't need to have someone else's voice. I remember when I first started doing radio, there was a wonderful guy at Nashville, at IHART, right there on Music Row. And he said, leave the crutches at home. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, a lot of people, when they come to do radio, they start thinking they have to talk in a radio voice. Like, hey, we'll be right back, you know, kind of thing.

And they want to put on this affectation. And he said, be you, just be you. And I didn't know that I really had a great radio voice or anything.

I don't know that I still do. Gracie says, I do enunciate better now that I've been doing radio for a long time. So that's good. I don't know what I've talked like before, but she says, I do enunciate better. But I took that to heart and said, okay, I'm going to just be me. I'm going to speak the way I speak. I'm going to speak about things that I love.

And the writing extends from there. And I think that what you said is so perfect for us as caregivers, because we lose our voice or we don't value our voice. Our voice feels diminished, unheard, you know, unimportant. And I love that, that you're saying write in your voice because that's who you are and be yourself.

There's everybody else has taken, you know, so that's great advice. I agree, Peter. And I think that what happens when you're writing that way is it becomes cathartic for you. And I know my books have been cathartic for me.

They have been a journey that is perhaps not evident. It's not like my life, it's not like my books are a memoir, but they're cathartic for me because I work out life's problems in my books. And a lot of authors will tell you that. And novelists, they work out their own life's problems and their own decisions. And they, it's just for them as much as it's for the reader.

In fact, maybe more so. Well, now your books of this series, you're done with this series, right? This is the conclusion, the one you just released. Do you have, have you already gone on to the next one or are you just kind of taking a break right now? I mean, I know you're still in the throes of caregiving. Yeah, caregiving for sure.

And I work full-time still, although I work from home now, which is because of caregiving. But I have a series in mind that I'm excited to write. And I'm also, before that, I'm doing a co-write with someone who's an ex-undercover cop out of New York city. And we're doing a novel together, a crime novel set in Nashville. That is very cool.

That is very cool. So I know that just absolutely scratches an itch for you because you, you just come alive with this sort of thing. Are you, do you have any plans to do nonfiction? I would love to do nonfiction.

I had nonfiction before I was published in fiction. That's how I got my feet wet and how I met people. And one of the things that I want to say to your lifters too, who want to be writers and they're caregivers and they're sitting at home and they feel isolated. One of the cool things is writers have a community online and you can establish a community that maybe, maybe it's online.

You can do it at midnight or two in the morning when you have a break for yourself and you can start developing relationships that are so needed when you're a caregiver. That's a great thought. Do you feel that a lot of people, I think approach writing to think, okay, then I've got to send it to a publisher and I've got to do this.

I've got to do this. Those demands are not on us anymore. Do you feel like, I mean, because the industry has changed, are the opportunities greater for writers? Are they so relaxed that maybe there's so much out there or what are your thoughts on this now? I think in many ways, it's harder to be traditionally published because there are so many people trying to get the agent, trying to get the editor to take notice, trying to get the publishing company to want them, but there's always the opportunity for self publishing.

That isn't something I've done so far. I've had a traditional publisher because I really like having partners in what I do, but people don't let it stop them. There are so many, so many self published people that are just killing it out there as writers, you know, so don't let that be a deterrent. No, not at all. In fact, the ones that I know that love it, they wouldn't go back to traditional publishing.

They absolutely love it that way. I'm just kind of one of those people that likes to have a partner and somebody can give me their advice and that's what a traditional publisher will do. Well, in many respects, it's kind of like the music business. There are a lot of people that think they have to have a record deal, not realizing what they give up when they get a record deal. And, you know, one of the people I always admired in Nashville was Alison Krauss, who kind of said, you know, I'm gonna do my own thing here.

And she took control of her musical destiny, if you will, and set the table for a lot of people to follow that. And I think publishing is the same way. You don't have to have a publisher. If you really want a publisher, make sure you understand why and what that publisher can and cannot do for you because a lot of people, and I want you to unpack this a little bit, they think, okay, if I get a publisher, they sign my book, then they're going to make me a successful author. It doesn't work that way, does it?

It doesn't work that way anymore. And I work only in the Christian field, but I am sure it's general markets the same. An author is responsible for marketing their own products. So basically you write the book and you market the book. So there's just not time for them to do a whole lot for marketing for you. And one of the things that I'll say too, and I think this is kind of key, is don't let somebody discourage you.

You know, let them be open and listen. But when I started writing my series, actually my first book, which was not in the series, I have four published works now. And when I first started writing, I wanted to write with a music business Nashville connection. And the woman who became my editor and dear friend and mentor said to me, as I'm a sprout of a writer, she said, you're just not going to sell a Nashville based music industry novel.

It's just not something anybody wants. Well, I kept writing what I wrote and it still had Nashville and music in it and God knew the timing and it worked out that Nashville became one of the hottest cities in the world. And it became the, it kind of thing then. And it was just me doing what I had always wanted to do.

So don't be discouraged when somebody says, Oh, we don't buy books on baseball stars or something, you know, it's, you've got to do what you want to do. You know, I, you've been around some of the biggest names in the music business and you can testify to how many massive stars were passed over by so many record companies. I mean, I remember the story of Randy Travis down there on division street, washing dishes kind of thing. And, and he couldn't get arrested. It's Vince Gill couldn't get arrested at places, that kind of thing.

You know, it was just, there were so many stars that Elvis it all the way through that, that were passed over. People said, no, that'll never work. That'll never work. So you're absolutely right. Do not listen to naysayers, listen to your heart, write what you love. And if it's successful, great.

Otherwise you've still written a book and you've done a great job with it. And that's important to remember for us as people and particularly us as caregivers. I think this is where I, I really push hard for myself and my fellow caregivers.

Just do it. Let God worry about the results, but you be faithful to do, be a good steward of the creativity that he's given you. And I know that we're talking about writing right now, but it applies to so many other areas. And it's not just writing, it's you expressing your voice. And some of us will have a voice on the page.

Some of us will have a voice, you know, singing, speaking, whatever, but all of us have a voice to use at some point. Kathy, we're going to take a quick break. I'm going to come back.

You got a couple more things I want to ask you. We're talking with Kathy Harris. She is a wonderful author, mentor, friend, agent, music business executive, and caregiver, divinedetours.com. If you want to see her website, this is Peter Rose and we're going to be right back. Hey, this is Larry the Cable Guy. You are listening to Hope for the Caregiver with Peter Roseberg. And if you're not listening to it, you're a communist, get her done. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio. This is Peter Roseberger.

This is the program for you as a family caregiver, hopeforthecaregiver.com, hopeforthecaregiver.com. And we're talking with my friend Kathy Harris, kathyharrisbooks.com, kathyharrisbooks.com or divinedetour.com. All roads lead to Kathy. And you can go out and find out her heart and her books and her passion for helping other writers and for coaching and all the things. She's got just an amazing resume of things she's done. She could tell stories after story after story of things in the music business of stars that we have all followed for years.

She's had a front row seat to these sort of things. But I want to spend the last part of our time, Kathy, just talking about you as a caregiver, what that's done for you in your life, what that's changed for you, your insights, the way you approach work, the way you approach relationships with people, friends, business, all those kinds of things. And ultimately the way it affected you spiritually and what's happened in your life and your relationship with God through this journey. If you could just maybe spend a little time on that. I know I'm putting you on the spot. No, that's okay because I think you mentioned the spiritual journey.

I'll tackle that first. And God has taught me a lot through caregiving. And one of the things he's taught me is to take a day at a time and many times just an hour at a time or a minute at a time. Because as I've worked my way through what is now 10 real years of caregiving, and you and I've talked about this before, my husband had heart problems for a lot of our marriage. So there was a kind of a caregiving element to that. But 10 real years of caregiving, God has realized and he gave me Bible verses and all kinds of things. Just don't worry about tomorrow.

Do it an hour at a time or a day at a time. And that's been really important to me because we all look so far ahead and we worry and I do. But that's my spiritual takeaway really from caregiving. It's a very emotional, it's a very emotional, as you know, job. And it is my number one job. You said, you know, you gave my little list of things I have on my agenda. Caregiving is first, my work is second, and my books are third.

But it's taught me priority, I suppose in that sense. But what I started to say, it's been a very emotional job caregiving is. And that's why it translates so well for me to be a writer, because I take all those emotions that I'm feeling, those exaggerated emotions, and I maybe change them around.

You don't even identify them, but I put them on the page. You said earlier in the program that you really love Southern gospel music. Is there a particular hymn or a song that kind of sticks with you through a lot of these things that you like to just sing to yourself or when you hear it, you just kind of have to stop? Well, you know, my taste has changed and I listen to a lot of Christian contemporary now. Oh, I thought you were listening to rap on the hip hop.

Yeah, I do. I love rap as long as it's Christian rap. But the older I get, the cooler I am, Peter. But I know, I just heard and I was going to share this with you. I just heard Joe Bonsel sent me a link to Cain doing blessed assurance at Oceanway studio in Nashville. And that's an old hymn that is now done with a CCM kind of a style. And it was like the perfect thing. So spiritual, there's been such a revival, as you know, in coming on in the United States right now.

And this was just like the perfect thing. So how about blessed assurance? I'm actually doing blessed assurance this Sunday at church. That's I mean, I do the music out here and actually our pastors going to be away this weekend. And so I'm actually filling in at the pulpit too. So I'm doing the music and the message and I'm calling it aggressive assurance is the title of my sermon.

Cause I talk about that a lot here on the program of how much we all desperately need aggressive assurance and how much God provides for us. And you talk about Oceanway. I'm so old Nashville that I remember when that was Tony Alamo's church, the Oceanway studio, I'm dating myself now.

But that is like one of the best studios like in the country, maybe in the world. And I look forward to hearing that because I, that hymn, I don't know if you know this or not, but the lady that wrote the lyrics, I mean the music to that, I forget what it, I think it was Phoebe somebody. She went over to her friend Fanny Crosby's house and said, Fanny, I got this tune.

Do you have something that you can a lyric that you could do with this? And in 15 minutes, they had this done blessed assurance. I mean, arguably one of the most well-known recorded songs of all time, of course, Fanny Crosby was blind and, but she had this lyric, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. And it's written in nine eight.

So it's kind of a different kind of meter to play in. And then I think Dwight Moody got a hold of that and it went global, you know, and she wrote and wrote and 10,000 something hymns. I think she's credited with it. Sometimes she had to do a pseudonym because her publisher, she had, they had so many of her hymns.

They, they wanted to mix it up a little bit. So they had a different name for her. And when she died and I'm tying this in with some of the things we've talked about today, when she died, she had maybe $2,000 to her name. She was living with some, a family that was helping care for her husband, who she'd married some years before was also blind. And he died. They, he died after they had a little baby and the baby died. And so she had all this heartache. And at the end of her life, she only had about $2,000 because she had given away everything to missions into the ministries. And she'd made gone through a lot of money she'd made through her royalties, but, you know, she just kept writing and she kept writing even through her heartache and look how our lives are affected.

You right now, listening to this song, blessed assurance by somebody who refused to stop writing in the midst of heartache. That's a good lesson for all of us, isn't it? It is. And what, what a neat thing we need to be assured of Jesus is mine. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's it right there. And I, you know, you reminded me of something too, that I told myself early on when I would only have time to write myself to sleep and I, you know, I was busy with work and the caregiving and everything. I just said to myself, you know what, when I leave this world, I want to have used all of myself.

I don't want to necessarily, you know, I mean, you want to be physically fit and do the best you can, you have to, to be a caregiver. But at the same time, I want to have used myself. I don't want to have reserved my energy. I want to just expel it and, and, and, and use everything. And, um, I think you have to have that attitude. I've already determined I'm having a closed casket at my funeral because there ain't gonna be anything left to me. I'm probably just going to spontaneously combust and just be, poof, he's gone, you know, because at the rate I'm going, there just won't be anything left to me by then, but that's all right.

Because I'm in the same way. I mean, why we don't need to save it for a rainy day because we don't know about a rainy day. We just know today. And that's, that's the, obviously the lesson that God impressed on your heart so much through this, this is today, this Gracie, you know, she told me just last night, she said, you know, she wakes up every morning. This is the day that the Lord has made.

I will rejoice and be glad in it. And she's somebody who understands that her days have been tenuous. I mean, every day for her is gravy is, is a blessing because she has faced death so many times.

The good lesson to learn is that we have only this moment. I put a hymn on my CD. I need the every hour. And I put that on there because nobody's written a hymn that says I need the every minute.

So I got, maybe I can write that one. Sorry. It's a, it's, I won't believe it on the pollen that where I live, where you live, there's pollen. Everything is yellow where you live.

Everything is white still where we live. But I was down in Mississippi last week. And I think I had a, a secondhand pollen moment here, but I, I actually touched pollen for the first time in a while. So sorry about that for me coughing. I really do appreciate you taking the time here. I know that there are folks that listening who want to write, they want to have their voice heard. And I know that you've been an encouragement to them.

You haven't been to me for some years. And I want to leave you just final thoughts. There are a lot of people right now taking care of an aging parent.

Like you are trying to balance out a career. You've lost a husband you've, you've gone through some heartache. Final thoughts you'd like to say to those caregivers.

Just take a deep breath and take it a minute at a time and try to save at least 10 seconds of that minute for you. Um, also anybody that wants to write me a note at Kathy at kathyharrisbooks.com, I'll do my best to answer it. And, um, I'll refer them to some writer tools that might be helpful for them. So happy to help. And Peter, I just want to say thank you for the encouragement you've been to me. I discovered you when I started the caregiving journey.

I turned my radio on one day and there you were. And I just so appreciate everything that you've done to encourage me. Well, it is my pleasure and you, you and I have had, uh, the opportunity to have some great conversations about this and dig deep into these painful things that some of us have to face, but here we are, you know, we're not, and I think that's the, that's the goal we have is that we're going to go through harsh things, but we don't have to be miserable. And one of the things I admire about you is you're not miserable.

You are, you're pushing, you're claiming real estate every day through the best of your abilities and your abilities are pretty strong. So job well done. Thank you.

Now people want to find you. It's Kathy Harris books.com. I always go with divine detour, divine detour.com, but Kathy Harris books.com. And I would encourage you all. If you think you want to be a writer, if you think this is something that is a passion that you've just kind of been on the shelf for a while, go out to her website, take a look, look at her story, look at the things she's done. And then, like you said, she, she said you could write her well, take advantage of that. And please do. Kathy Harris, I really appreciate you being here with us today. We look forward to more conversations.

I look forward to more writing and I've got some writing projects that I'm going to talk with you about a little later as well. So anyway, listen, this is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. We've got to go.

We'll see you next time. You've heard me talk about Standing with Hope over the years. This is the prosthetic limb ministry that Gracie envisioned after losing both of her legs. Part of that outreach is our prosthetic limb recycling program. Did you know that prosthetic limbs can be recycled?

No kidding. There is a correctional facility in Arizona that helps us recycle prosthetic limbs. And this facility is run by a group out of Nashville called CoreCivic. And we met them over 11 years ago and they stepped in to help us with this recycling program of taking prostheses and you disassemble them. You take the knee, the foot, the pylon, the tube clamps, the adapters, the screws, the liners, the prosthetic socks, all these things we can reuse and inmates help us do it. Before CoreCivic came along, I was sitting on the floor at our house or out in the garage when we lived in Nashville and I had tools everywhere, limbs everywhere, and feet, boxes of them and so forth.

And I was doing all this myself and I'd make the kids help me and it got to be too much for me. And so I was very grateful that CoreCivic stepped up and said, look, we are always looking for faith-based programs that are interesting and that give inmates a sense of satisfaction. And we'd love to be a part of this.

And that's what they're doing. And you can see more about that at standingwithhope.com slash recycle. So please help us get the word out that we do recycle prosthetic limbs. We do arms as well, but the majority of amputations are lower limb.

And that's where the focus of Standing with Hope is. And that's where Gracie's life is with her lower limb prosthesis. And she's used some of her own limbs in this outreach that she's recycled. I mean, she's been an amputee for over 30 years.

So you go through a lot of legs and parts and other types of materials and you can reuse prosthetic socks and liners if they're in good shape. All of this helps give the gift that keeps on walking. And it goes to this prison in Arizona where it's such an extraordinary ministry.

Think with that. Inmates volunteering for this. They want to do it.

And they've had amazing times with it. And I've had very moving conversation with the inmates that work in this program. And you can see, again, all of that at standingwithhope.com slash recycle. They're putting together a big shipment right now for us to ship over. We do this pretty regularly throughout the year as inventory rises and they need it badly in Ghana. So please go out to standingwithhope.com slash recycle and get the word out and help us do more. If you want to offset some of the shipping, you can always go to the giving page and be a part of what we're doing there.

We're purchasing material in Ghana that they have to use that can't be recycled. We're shipping over stuff that can be. And we're doing all of this to lift others up and to point them to Christ. And that's the whole purpose of everything that we do. And that is why Gracie and I continue to be standing with hope. Standingwithhope.com.