An Army of Normal Folks - Gabrielle Clowdus: We All Have Homelessness In Us (Pt 1)

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

Dr. Gabrielle Clowdus is the founder of Settled, which helps churches build "Sacred Settlements", tiny home villages on their property where people experiencing homelessness and church members live in community. When she started this work of radical hospitality, she believed it was a homelessness ministry. Today, she believes that it's a ministry to all of us, as we all have some homelessness in us!  Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Four homes are filled with people coming out of chronic homelessness. On average, they were on the streets for 10 years. If this church hadn't stepped in and invited them home, they would have died on the streets. They are the most expensive to the public because they cycle in and out of the emergency rooms and detox centers and jails because we make homelessness illegal, most expensive to the public with the least amount of options available. this is the group of people that we look away from we step over we see them holding a sign saying anything anything anything and we make all of our quick judgments welcome to an army of normal folks i'm bill courtney i'm a normal guy i'm a husband i'm a father i'm an entrepreneur and i'm a football coach in inner city memphis and that last part it somehow led to an oscar for the film about one of my

That film's called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems are never going to be solved by a bunch of fancy people and nice suits, using big words that nobody ever really uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. That's us, just you and me deciding, hey, maybe I can help. That's what Gabriel, Cloudus, the voice you just heard is done. Gabriel is the founder of Settled, which partners with churches to build tiny home villages on church land for both people experiencing homelessness and church members to live in community together. And while it started as a homelessness ministry, she's discovered that really it's a ministry for all of us as we all have some homelessness in us, a desire for human connection.

that's greater than what we have today. I genuinely cannot wait for you to meet Gabriel right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News dives deep into one big global business story every weekday. A shutdown means we don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's no chance of bad news on the labor market.

What does a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, reveal about the economy. Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsize indicators of inflation. What's behind Elon Musk's trillion dollar payout? There's a sort of concerted effort to message that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside. He's left the White House. And what can the PCE tell you that the CPI can't? CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things. whereas the PCE index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Podcasters, it's time to get the recognition you deserve. The IHeart Podcast Awards are coming back in 2026. Got a mic? Then you've got a shot. Every year, we celebrate the most creative, compelling, and game-changing voices in podcasting. Is that you? Submit now at iHeartPodcastawards.com for a chance to be honored on the biggest stage in the industry.

Deadline December 7th. This is your chance. Let's celebrate the power of podcasting and your place in it. Enter now at iHeartpodcastawards.com. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years.

That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him.

So he had this little practice to the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionous History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ed Helms and welcome back to Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode. 32 lost nuclear weapons? Wait, stop? What?

Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s basketball player. Who still wore knee pads? Yes. It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Shear made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow. Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched. You're here.

What was that like for you to soft launch into the show? Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today. I forgot whose podcasts we were doing. Nick Kroll, I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich. So let's see how it goes. Listen to Season 4 of Snafoo with Ed Helms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful thing.

product, with every sip, you get a little something different. Visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentleman's cut bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. What'd I say?

You said Gabriela. Like, which sounds nice. Hang on just a second. Can we just call you Gabby? No. Well, it's the A. Why do you got to make this difficult?

I was so, no, you should be. I was so, I was so focused on not saying Gabriella and making the first A hard for Gabriel L. I put an A where the E is and now my vowels are messed up. It's just, it's happy cheese God. Gabriel. Gay.

Gay. Happy. Free is the cheese. L. L. El Yon, God. Happy cheese, God. You know, that's interesting because if I drew a horse.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right. And then I grew the ocean. Yeah. And I grew a, drew a bird speaking. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. What is that? Horse, sea, bird speaking. Merci Boku. Yes. So I do. I do phonetic imagery for things all the time. No way.

So, Gabriel. How hard is that? The only person that's ever helped. I got it. Okay. Gabriel. Childess. I'm just kidding.

Cloudess. Really long. We're going to proof off the whole interview. Welcome to Memphis. Thanks. From, you flew out of Minneapolis, I guess. Direct flight straight to Memphis on Delta. It was so nice.

Duh, it takes two hours. Great. Yeah, so you flew in today. Yeah. Are you flying out tonight or staying? Flying out tonight. You're not even going to enjoy our city for one evening. I have four little girls.

I need to get home. Yeah. I'm so sorry. Whoever is taking care of the four little girls can give you one day off. I love them. Yeah. Well, I loved mine too, but I sure needed a day off of them. I need a day off of them all the time.

I don't know how Lisa did it. Ours were one, two, three, and four. Okay. That's crazy. That's crazy. Crazy tall. We staggered. I mean, we've got three years apart.

That's pretty strong. Okay. So, welcome to Memphis. And everybody, Gabrielle, Cloudis, is the founder of Settled and St. Paul, Minnesota, which is a really kind of groovy, interesting deal that you're doing. And I love the word settled. I mean, it makes so much sense. What a great title. And obviously, I'm going to cliff hang it a little bit.

We'll get to that, obviously, because that's why you're here. But let's go back to the beginning. And my information on you picks up about when you were 12 and went on a mission trip. And I just kind of want to hear about that experience and how that kind of formed and evolved who you are and why you went this way. Sure. Okay, I'm 12 years old. My parents just get a divorce.

Um, it's, uh, in the 90s. It was the thing to do. And I get invited. Where were you living? I lived in Austin, Texas. Got it. Get invited on a mission trip with my best friend's family. We're going to Guatemala this summer.

Do you want to come? Why not? What else do I have going on? Yeah, that's cool. Stay at home when my parents are fighting over me. No thanks. All right. Let's go on a mission trip to Guatemala.

Get to Guatemala. Uh, uh, within days see real poverty for the first time. Visit the city landfill where there was a group, a community of 3,000 people living in the landfill. They were literally carving their homes out of trash. What do you mean? Like making igloos out of trash sheep?

Like compacted trash sheeps and carving shelter? Yes. Really? Yeah. I mean, I've seen some of the pictures and I've heard of the children. the unparented children in parts of the world hanging around traffic. I think I've read about it in India, but hanging around, or maybe South Africa, I can't remember. Peter Mudabazi did that.

What's that? Peter Mudabazi in Uganda. Yeah. But I've never heard of, yeah, your experience, I've never heard of in the world before. I neither, but I've heard of kids living around just basically for the, but you're saying a whole community of 3,000. We're talking a small town. Yeah, we are.

In Guatemala. Yeah. And they're making igloo hugs out of compacted trash heaps. Yeah. How do they eat? How do they clothe? How do they bathe? How do they do anything?

How do they educate? I don't know about the education, but clothing and food is being picked out of the trash. I mean, that is their entire world. So they're literally human waste. Don't, they're literally humans in waste. Yeah. I don't think there is such thing as human waste, so don't hang on what I said there. But what I am saying is, I see your face.

But what I'm saying is literally they're humans and waste. Yeah. So as a young, white girl from America seeing that, I couldn't unsee it. It was like, okay, now that I have seen this, what do I do with it? How long were you there? Two weeks. It doesn't take long. What were you doing?

with the 3,000 people in the human waste huts? We just came to share the love of God. And, you know... How do you share the love? Let me ask, seriously. How does someone that's living in a... It had to have reek, stench-wise. Yeah.

All right. So these people had to wreak themselves because that's what they lived in. And I can't imagine there's a lot of running water or bathing going on. Okay. So how, when you're living, in a trash igloo, searching other people's literally waste for your means, why does anybody

there even want to hear about God? I would think they'd be wanting to hear about just how they're going to get their next meal. You understand what I'm saying? Yeah, really. How could that be on their hierarchy of needs? I mean, a 12-year-old kid coming to say, God loves you, even though you live in a waste heap. How does that even work?

I really, when I read that, I was like, how does that? even how does that work you know yeah i don't know i mean the the the most impactful experiences in life are ones where it it changes everyone involved right and so when we we drove a bus to the landfill we showed up it the stench is uh revolting revolting it's it's beyond what you can imagine i didn't even want to get out of the bus and and then i heard the laughter of kids the bus and was just sort of drawn out of it. And the kids were happy and laughing and they just wanted, you know, there were foreigners there that probably were bringing treats and they wanted to play. And so we came with our treats and they embraced us as, as friends instantly

and we were just playing. And somehow God's love was present and it transformed us and you know, certainly brought joy to them. It didn't change their circumstance. They were still in extreme poverty, but it did, you know, it did touch us. It did transform my life to say, I, now that I've seen this, my life will look different. I will spend my life thinking about what I have seen and caring for people that are living in extreme poverty. And then you did it again, but not to Guatemala, right? Yeah, so the next year I went to Russia.

I was 13. I saw girls my same age being drugged and prostituted. And it was so shocking. It was just so shocking. When you didn't think the trash heap could get worse, let us show you this. I mean, honestly. Yeah. Yeah.

How heartbreaking. Yeah, it's really heartbreaking. You know, I didn't go back the third. year. You had enough? It took me a lot of years to process what I had seen in Russia. I'm actually surprised that a mission took someone your age to see that. That is, that's his, I mean, that's, that's traumatic.

It's also the moment, you know, I mean, it's the coming of age. It's the time when you're defining and deciding who you are as a human, right? Like, what am I going to do? why am I here? What's my purpose? What's my plan? And so it's such a defining moment in a human life that 12 or 13 years. And it was so significant. Did you have any perspective on who was drugging these children and putting in the prostitution? I mean, how did that even happen is what I'm saying? Yeah, I'm not sure. That wasn't really explained to us. So were you just talking to girls who'd been rescued from that?

No, no, we were watching it happening. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That, I don't guess that's a impression that could ever be a race for you. You can't unsee that. No, you can't unsee that? And not only can you not unsee it, but there's some responsibility that comes with it.

You know, I think often we talk about human rights and it's also like, and what what is our human duty? Like, what is our duty to one another? If I have seen something, if I have been exposed, if I know now, now what? And that seems to be true for just about anything. Once I learn about slavery in chocolate or slavery in coffee, it's like, okay, well, now I'm not going to support that anymore. If, you know, if I know about oceans being polluted, okay, now I'm going to make different decisions or I know about Chinese factories. Okay, I'm going to buy my things differently. It's every time we're exposed to a truth, we get the choice to make a new decision

and to be part of upholding what is good and what is right and what is lovely in the world. And, you know, every time our eyes are open to something, it's such a gift. And then we have the opportunity to make new decisions. And now a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first, please consider signing up to join the Army at normalfolks.us. By signing up, you'll receive a weekly email with updates about the Army and short episode summaries in case you happen to miss an episode. Or you prefer reading about our incredible guests. Please sign up.

The more numbers, the more impact. We'll be right back. The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News dives deep into one big global business story every weekday. A shutdown means we don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's no chance of bad news on the labor market. What does a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, reveal. about the economy. Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsize indicators of inflation. What's behind Elon Musk's trillion dollar payout? There's a sort of concerted effort to message that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside. He's left the

White House. And what can the PCE tell you that the CPI can't? CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things, whereas the PCE index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Podcasters, it's time to get the recognition you deserve. The IHeart Podcast Awards are coming back in 2026. Got a mic?

Then you've got a shot. Every year, we celebrate the most creative, compelling, and game-changing voices in podcasting. Is that you? Submit now at iHeartpodcastawards.com for a chance to be honored on the biggest stage in the industry. Deadline December 7th. This is your chance. Let's celebrate the power of podcasting and your place in it. Enter now at iHeartpodcastawards.com. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on revisionist history, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. years. That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur.

35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him. So he had this little practice. To the right, I'm sorry. To the left, I love you. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revision's History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Ed Helms, and welcome back to Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups.

On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single ever. Episode. 32 lost nuclear weapons. Wait, stop? What? Yeah. Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s basketball player. Who still wore knee pads?

Yes. It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Shear made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow. Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched. You're here. What was that like for you to soft launch into the show? Sorry, Jenna.

I'll be asking the questions today. I forgot whose podcast we were doing. Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich. So let's see how it goes. Listen to season four of Snap-Foo with Ed Helms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut.

I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product with every sip you get a little something different visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or bevmo this message is intended for audiences 21 and older gentlemen's cut bourbon boone county kentucky for more on gentlemen's cut bourbon please visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com please enjoy responsibly okay so you're 13 a lot. You're starting to form the beautiful things that you just said, which are phenomenal. And as I was listening to you, I was thinking, I don't know how with the overabundance of news

channels we have and the overabundance of social media that we just flood our brains with, how any American could not be aware of some of the things that you say, but how very few change their lifestyle or their purchasing habits or anything. a result of it. I don't know if that's apathy or a lack of concern or just choose not to think of it. But it's interesting what you just said about slavery in chocolate, slavery and coffee, children working in Chinese factories, Uyghurs being reeducated and forced to work in Chinese factories that are now exporting products

that we buy every day in the U.S. Yeah, I mean, I'm guilty of it. I don't think about it every time I make a purchase or any of that. So I just think it's interesting that you have this constructed as a teenager as a result of these mission experiences. So what happens after that?

I mean, you're a kid. I'm a kid. It takes a long time to process what I've seen. Are you talking to friends about it or are you internalizing it? Probably internalizing it. Yeah. You know, so I'm still also going through my own... You're also a kid.

Yeah. You're trying to figure out what's going on with your body and in your brain and who you are. Sure, yeah. And in the meantime, my own... My family is breaking apart. Yeah, so just internally kind of processing. What is this? What does God think about this?

How, what is my role in responding? I go to college for architecture. I'm really interested in humanitarian architecture. Where? Go to Texas Tech. That's cool, school. Hold it, but what's humanitarian? architecture. I don't know what that is.

It's like, okay, you're building your homes out of trash. What if we could, you know, come up with designs with the kind of vernacular materials that you have available to you that would add more durability, strength, beauty? Hmm. That's interesting. All right, so you're going to school for architecture. Going to school for architecture, start traveling again. specifically in Central America, start going around Central America, go get my master's in humanitarian architecture, continue down this path.

There is such a thing, a master's in humanitarian architecture, also from Texas Tech? That is from New School of Architecture. Okay, cool. And I don't know if the degree is actually humanitarian architecture, but that was my concentration. And that was my real focus. and finish my master's.

I think I'm, you know, start working for a nonprofit. We are converting shipping containers into preschools and orphanages and clinics. In South America. Actually, kind of all over the world. Really? It was a really neat little nonprofit, scrappy, and, you know, I'm, I don't know, 22 years old, and they put me as, like, a head of architecture. tiny and, you know, way bigger of a role than I probably should have taken on, but doing

cool stuff and just felt like, okay, this is the path, this is what we want to do, eventually move on and move overseas and continue on in this. We, I get married and we have this really cool opportunity to spend a year renovating a home on a private beach. Florida. Okay. That's pretty nice. We say yes to that. And so we move from Southern California to Florida. We live at this home renovating it for a year. And my husband and I... For what purpose? Our lives were so full in Southern California. Like so, so, so full with really good things, amazing things. We volunteered and we worked at nonprofits and we taught at our university and we part of social clubs and went to a lot of different churches and we're very, very active in

them, like full of really good things. But we desperately wanted to hear the voice of God for our lives. Like we, I'm forgetting who said it. There's a famous saying that's like, I'm just a coin in the pocket of God. Like spend me, spend my life however you wish. And that was our heart. It was like, you can do whatever you want with our lives. You can, whatever you want, what do you want? And so we just spent that year. We just kind of committed to like not making friends, not being on the internet, not watching TV, just, you know, not being involved in church, like just going to church, consuming and then leaving, not helping. And just like a year of really just like waiting for the whisper of God. We just feel like God often talks in a whisper because

he's so interested in us coming really close to his heart. And so he whispers so that we'll come closer and closer. And so we just quieted everything in our lives. And we said, we're just a coin in your pocket. Spend us however you wish. And that led to deciding to get a PhD in housing at the University of Minnesota. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I didn't even know Minnesota. was like a state. I'm like, where is Minnesota? It's up north. It's real near Canada.

Yeah. I mean, maybe I knew it was a state, but like I wasn't interested in visiting, let alone living there, and this is where we were going to move. It was one of the only PhD programs in housing in the nation. A PhD in housing. Yeah.

Just briefly. Okay. What is that? Well, it's no longer a thing. I was the last student that they accepted into their program and the last student that went through it. Wow. So I suppose as a society, the academic institute has decided that we don't need to study housing because we figured it out. But housing affects every single human being on the planet.

it. And it seems important to give some time and attention to the study of it. So was it just getting an enormous amount of information and write dissertations on, like, U.S. housing data and who has housing and the cost of how, just all things housing. All things housing. It was called housing studies. Now, I would think that that would be really interesting to people in New York. Yeah. The reason is, I'm in the lumber business, right? And when I read that, this is one of the reasons I was so interested, is lumber is a really huge predeterminer of future economic activity.

The reason is, you don't just go, if you're going to build something, my lumber, hardwood lumber, softwoods build a house, hardwoods furnish it. My lumber goes to cabinets and flooring and millwork and doors. Well, you can go to any building materials out and pretty much get a housing package in a week because they're 2x4s, 4x4s, 4x4s. But you have to order cabinets six months in advance. You have to order doors four or five months in advance. You have to order flooring months in advance, especially if it's custom to your application. So when our orders are robust, you can guarantee in six months,

economy is going to be pretty good because that's a real indicator that housing's happening because people are pre-ordering when my business, and I'm the lumber, so it takes me three months to get lumber to a cabinet guy. It takes him five months to get cabinets. So we're like eight months in front of the bell curve pretty much all the time. If my orders stink, there aren't being cabinets and doors and flooring and millwork being ordered, which means the housing market in six, seven, eight months, it's probably going to be really, really soft, which is going to have a drag on the economy because housing is such a big thing in our economy. How are we doing right now?

Terrible. Shoot. I know. But the point is, I would think, that people in the world of stocks, bonds, economics, all these tea leave reader people would love a person with a background and understanding how's like you would and looking at those indicators. And so I get your world was housing

from more of a more practical sense for those who need housing. But I'm just curious, was there any conversation about that in the Ph.D. program and all that? Oh, yeah. I mean, it was phenomenal. It was a really phenomenal degree.

And it's, you know, everything from the sociology of it to the economics of it to the policies. Okay. So that's, really cool. It was cool. All right, so now, I was not, they really shouldn't have said yes to me, okay? I don't know why I was accepted to the program. I have a bachelor's and masters in

architecture. Well, housing. The housing program really had nothing to do with design. It was, it was a social science. Yeah. I'm a designer. And so we, you know, we spent this year meditating, listening to God's voice, what do you want with our lives, right? And so then he moves us to the Midwest to a Ph.D. in housing. And we get there, and I learned really quickly that, like, I have no business being in this degree. I don't have, like, the background for this degree. We'll be right back. The forces shaping the world's economies and financial markets can be hard to spot.

Even though they are such a powerful player in finance, you wouldn't really know that you are interacting with them. And even harder to understand. Donald Trump's trade war, 2.0, is only accelerating the process of de-dollarization, which in a way is jargon for people turning away from the dollar. That is where the big take from Bloomberg podcast, comes in to connect the dots. How unusual is a deal like this? Unprecedented.

Every weekday afternoon, we dive deep into one big global business story. The biggest story of the reaction of the oil market to the conflict in the Middle East is one of what has not happened. Katie, you told me that ETFs are your favorite thing. They are. Explain that. Why is that the case? And unpack what it means for you. Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outside.

indicators of inflation. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Podcasters, it's time to get the recognition you deserve. The IHart Podcast Awards are coming back in 26. Got a mic? Then you've got a shot. Every year, we celebrate the most creative, compelling, and game-changing voices in

podcasting. Is that you? Submit now at IHeart Podcast Awards. for a chance to be honored on the biggest stage in the industry. Deadline December 7th. This is your chance. Let's celebrate the power of podcasting and your place in it. Enter now at iHeartPodcastawards.com.

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth. and its family waited for justice to occur, 35 long years.

I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice,

To the right, I'm sorry, to the left. I love you. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ed Helms and welcome back to Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw-ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu every single episode. 32 lost nuclear weapons? Wait, stop? What?

Yeah. Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s basketball player. Who still wore knee pads? Yes. It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Shear made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow. Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched.

You're here. What was that like for you to soft launch into the show? Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today. I forgot whose podcasts we were doing. Nick Kroll, I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich. So let's see how it goes. Listen to season four of Snap-Foo with Ed Helms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut.

I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. What's your husband's name?

My husband's name is John David. John David. John David. Does he go by a John David? John David. He should have come grown up in the South. We do two first names. Oh, Mary Elizabeth, John David, John Paul. Great.

Yeah, Mary Grace. I mean, we're full of two-name people. What's he do for a living? Stay-at-home Papa. Stay-at-home Papa. Even then? Yeah. Really?

So when we moved to Minnesota, you know, I was going to school, research, and, you know, working 12 hours a day. And so you really can't get like a nighttime architecture job. He's also in architecture. I got it. So we just really sensed like we didn't want to put our, we had our first child. We didn't want to put her in daycare. We just like, you know, anyone's going to be with her for eight hours a day.

We want to be it. So how old are you at this time, ish? 28. Okay. 28 mama one, getting a PhD, doing architecture. or John David's at home taking care of the kid because you don't want to send them, which I love that, to whatever.

And you've got all this back experience. You're obviously really bright. And you're going through life. I'm just curious. I'm a planner. What do you thinking about what's next at this point? Seriously. I mean, okay, you're coin and I get it,

but there's a human reality to all of it is. You've got to pay your bills. You've got to think about what's next. Yeah. Okay, here's the craziest part. My first date with my husband. On our very first date, he tells me that he has $150,000 in student loans. Yikes.

And then you went out with him on a second date. What was he studying? Architecture. Of course he was. We went to a private architecture school. Yikes. He must be really, really good looking. Yeah.

He is. He is. He really is. He really is. By goodness. He's the best human I know. That's pretty cool. So I was $22,000 and $150,000.

I didn't really know what that meant. Sounded like a lot. I was like, well, I mean, you're going to be a famous architect. Like, it's going to be fine. It's all good. It's great. John David Lloyd Wright. Exactly.

Yes. No problem. No problem. This is going to be great. Yeah. You will fund my humanitarian architecture. You'll be a famous architect. The loans won't be a big deal.

Turns out, $150,000 is doing a lot. That's a lot. And you all go to Minnesota to get your doctorate. Okay, so anyway. So we moved to Minnesota. We put a fleece out there. Are you familiar with the concept of a fleece? No.

It's sort of like, hey, God, if this is you, will you answer it in these ways? So we say, hey, God. Oh, I thought maybe it was you're fleecing your personal finances. Go ahead. No. There were no personal. financial finances to fleece.

Okay. And so, hey, if you really want us to do this, you know, I'll get into, I only applied to one program, just the one at the University of Minnesota. If you want us to do this, I'll get into this program, I'll get this advisor, and they will not only pay for my schooling, but they'll pay me to go to school. And so, turns out, they did all of those things. So move to Minnesota, get in the degree, get the advisor. They pay me to do the work.

But our pay was only enough to just cover our rent, nothing more than that, and not enough to cover that student loan. And then we also feel like John David's called to just stay at home, be at home, stay at home, Papa for our first one. And it looked, it looked bleak. I was about to say dire was my word, but go ahead. I will say that we definitely had some family and friends that were like, what are you doing with your own? life. It's kind of what I'm thinking. But if you've spent a year meditating in the presence of God and just saying, what do you want with our lives, it makes it really easy to take leaps of faith. And I feel like so many times he's brought us to the edge of a cliff and said, okay, jump.

And we look down and you can't see the bottom and there's no net. And, you know, several times in our lives. We've just grabbed hands and we've jumped. And every time God has been faithful, every time he's brought us to greater heights and more favor and more calling and more joy. So I would never, you know, I now welcome the scary jumps, the scary leaps. But so we're living there. We're two months into living in Minnesota. We live in this very cool artist loft. And, you know, just barely making it.

We get a call. from a person that we're barely connected with, and they call and say, hey, how are you doing on those student loans? We had no idea that they even knew about the student loans. My husband says, hey, it's kind of like a David and Goliath story every month. Like, we're just, like, waiting on God to, like, pay our bills. And they say, well, okay, like, how much are they?

I'm going to backtrack about one month earlier than that. We're standing in our bedroom in our new apartment. and I say, hey, John David, we've got $46,000 coming to us. And he's like, what? What do you know that I don't know? I'm like, I have no idea. I don't even know why I'm saying this, but I just feel like God's saying that we've got $46,000 coming to us.

Okay, that's great. So fast forward a month. We get this phone call from this distant person. They ask, how much are your student loans? And I tell them, you know, there's five student loans. Two of them have 10% interest, which is, can we just say, like, totally criminal, that student loans can have that kind of interest. And so they're like, okay, send me the information for those two loans. I'd like to pay those off for you.

We're just like overjoyed, get off the phone. We're so excited. I don't know. I don't know why. We go look up those loans. I add up those two loans. You'd think that I'd be able to add two numbers very easily in my own brain, but I couldn't. And I was using my phone, add it up. I'm standing in the exact spot that a month earlier I had been standing in and told John David, and the number of my phone is $46,000. So we fall to the floor. We're crying. We're praising God. And by the time we pull ourselves off the floor, go to our computer to email them the information for those two loans, we have an email back from them. And they said, I look through all my finances, and it looks like I can pay off all five loans. Send me the information for all five

of them, and I will pay them off tomorrow. Why did this person do this? Because they love you so much and they're so impressed by you? They barely knew us. They said that the Lord told them to pay it off. They asked that we never share their name and asked never to be repaid, but that we would just do the will of God with our lives. So can you tell us their names?

I'm just kidding. I'd like to give him a shout out. Okay, so not as bleak. Not as bleak. Yes. Okay, so when you experience a break-through... I don't know if you want me saying this out loud or not. Maybe we should send him this podcast episode,

and you can talk to him about classics business loans. Just keep going. All right, I'm going to delete that out of there. Yeah, well, you don't have to delete it, but just let's just say I need a benefactor worth more than $46,000. Go ahead. What is that? You need a miracle?

What's that? You need a miracle? No, I got a miracle about 15 years ago. You did? Yeah, a different way, but yeah, yeah. I started my business in 2001 was $17,000 on a wing and a prayer. And that was September 1st. 11 days later, our world fell apart.

Right? 9-11. And I'd spent every time I had. And somehow we got over that. And then my first CFO had embezzled $400,000 from this, which is all the money we had. And I went back to zero, and I thought it was going broke, built up. And then the housing crisis of 2007 happened. And it was then that I genuinely thought we were going to lose everything. And many did in my industry. And second, third, and fourth generational companies did. And I was a guy who started five years earlier with no family money, no backup, no dad. My mom was married a divorce five times.

So you went through it once. I went through it five times. So dad was not involved. Nothing. I had no backboard whatsoever. And we just, out of the blue, two big customers that we've been calling on for five years who didn't want to do any business, the fledging company, both showed up in one month and gave us fistfuls of orders, and it got us over the hump, and we now have 140 employees

and we'll do almost 80 million in sales this year, only 15 years later. So, yeah, no, I know what it is. to be looking into the abyss and things to be dire and wonder how you're going to feed your kid when the gig is finally up. And I also understand falling to your knees and the elation of and the weight being lifted off your shoulders of we may make it. What do you attribute it to? We certainly have always been faithful and steadfast in our faith.

You know, a lot of people have different experiences with regard to, look, I don't ever feel like God has literally spoken to me. I, as a Christian, obviously read the Bible and know there's miracles, and if miracles could happen 1,000 years ago or 2,000 years ago, why couldn't they happen a day? I get it all. I do, I guess I'm a doubting Thomas-ish. I do have, I have personally a difficult time understanding that someone actually hears the word of God. I personally feel like if you're quiet and you're still and you're prayerful and you're faithful, that the answers that come to you when you're in a decision-making mode or a crisis mode, those are the words of God. The answers that you arrive at, that's God leading you.

If you just put your ego aside and have sense enough to listen to what your brain's trying to give you the answer to, that is to me. So what do I attribute it to? staying completely committed to the process of working hard, doing things honestly in the right way, and being still long enough to hear the answers when they're given to you. And, yeah, that's, I guess, what I attributed to you. And the hard work of a whole bunch of really dedicated people who believed in, my vision and believed in me enough to stick with it when, in 2007, I had 60, I laid, I had

110 employees, I had to lay off 50, and the rest of them all took a 25% pickup. Wow. And nobody quit me. They took the 25% cut and stayed. Wow. So it doesn't also come with selflessness and dedication. and commitment on a whole group of people who are buying into your vision

of what you can build. So in that too. Yeah. But I'm interviewing you. I don't know why you're asking the questions. So here we go. The only I'll add is we have had several guests say they've heard the voice of God

and I also believe them. But anyway, you keep going with your story. It's not that I don't believe them. No, I'm not saying you don't. I'm not calling anybody who's ever said that dishonest. I am saying. I wasn't saying that. Alex believes me.

have a hard time and that kind of physical revelation, understanding that. I think it's an interesting conversation. That's what I'm saying. No, it is an interesting conversation. We've had a variety of perspectives on the show. It's a very interesting conversation, but I'm not saying I don't believe it. I'm just saying. It hasn't happened to you?

Mm-mm. And you want it to? What's that? Do you want it to? Nope. Okay. Well, that might be why it hasn't happened. Sure don't.

I don't want to because I don't want to have to explain it to anybody. So anyway... Let's keep progressing with your story. I'm not sure that we're not saying the same thing revealed to us in different ways. Yeah. And that concludes part one of our conversation with Dr. Gabriel Cloudis. And you won't want to miss part two. It's now available to listen to.

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