Everyone Has Dad Issues - Nicholson Thibault

Everyone has different like father dynamics and everyone I grew up in this in a culture where you were at home with your father or if your parents were split you still had them in your life but it was like that my father didn't grow up with his father and he had to become a father at 13 for his older for his younger brothers so he's never known the difficulty of being a son so how does someone who's never been a son understand a son and father that son so that's why I think the story speaks so well because it brings that group of people together and that group is much larger than we think my name is Nicholson Tibo also known as Nick I am a director, deacon, professor at Emerson College and this is my faithfully story. Welcome to Faithfully Stories the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life join us as we delve into their challenges moments of encouragement and answered prayers the Faithfully Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithfully an online community committed to empowering church leaders pastors staff and volunteers learn more at Faithfully.co get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry on the Faithfully Stories podcast. Do you tell me how your faith journey started? My faith journey started grown up Christian my parents came from Haiti in 1992 or 93 we started in Brooklyn I was born in the later part of 93 November and then we moved to Boston I'd say six to eight months after that and they've always been in the faith they've always grown up but you know as most kids we go to church because our parents bring bring us to church it wasn't until I really had an encounter at 14 I was at a young adult service again should I have been there my brother was a young adult so I kind of snuck in with him and I just remember sitting in the back and the worship leader had an alter call and there was just this this tug this burning sensation I've seen my parents pray I've seen my brother pray I've seen you know other leaders pray but it was actually the first time that I had my own encounter with the Lord and I just walked up to the to the altar kind of like stayed on the side but I just remember falling to my knees and that was the first intimate personal moment I had with Jesus Christ and from there I jumped right into youth ministry at my church I joined the choir and did the choir for a few years eventually became a youth leader around at once a 18 or 19 did that for a couple more years then I transitioned in 2016 from my Haitian church to Jubilee Christian church where I just continued to serve so since 14 I've been added so more than half of my life I've had a great relationship with the Lord and it's still growing to this day we're still reaching new depths still finding more about him discovery more about myself so yeah that's that's where it kind of started long story you know short what happened at 14 because a lot of times I listen to people stories like when you go deeper like something led to that moment and so I'm curious to you like what at 14 or something about the preaching that you heard that made you like go or was it just an internal like poll and you're just listening to you never actually taken the second but I think what I'm remembering about that year was at 14 that's when you are eligible to join the youth choir at 14 that's when you transition from like the kids ministry into the teenage youth ministry and I remember always wanting to be wherever my brother was and kind of like tagging along with him he was my guys about three and a half four years older than me so he's already been doing youth ministry much longer than me and I was just curious I think I was I was exhausted of no just doing the ritual of reciting verses because my that's what my parents want me to do singing from the hymns because that's what we do on Sunday morning I think I reached a curiosity with what is these encounters that everyone's having around me and I'm just kind of like standing there with my eyes closed but like peeking up every now and then it was just God why not talk to me why not you know have a relationship with me and I didn't know what was stopping it you know it's repelling it but it was just a worship night that my brother was singing at and he invited me and I said let me go you know I'll probably have more fun see some more friends it was just that draw close to me and I'll draw close to you I feel that's what's kind of resonating right now that's what that moment was was I had asked and I finally gotten a response and in that moment I just took the the step of faith and said I'm gonna follow this voice wherever it's going to leave me and now I've been doing that since so I think that's what was going on at 14 I was just generally curious I think it was an interesting year it's my first year of high school so that was a transition you know high school there's a lot of culture that happens and I could have easily fell into more worldly spaces but I was happy to be the Christian at school and I love that I went into my freshman year solidified with my relationship with Christ so what were you you're a high school years like as a Christian because like the way I understand my story and other people's story that like rope in the church they're like very Christian and doing all these Christian clubs but like in college that all goes away so I just curious as to like like is that a standard thing for most Christians but for you like you know no it wasn't I definitely I'm more so action than talk so I didn't go to any of the parties I stayed away from any kind of substance anytime you know there were certain activities that were happening in high school everyone would just know oh Nick he's probably not going he probably has some kind of church thing and for my first year it definitely felt like wow I'm missing out on something or being made front of because I'm choosing to go to Bible study or or youth night instead of going to these you know simple really like homecoming or multicultural night and for me I was so new in the faith I didn't yet have the discernment to know what's good and what's really to away from what God standard was so I just chose if I don't feel right about it if I don't have enough information about it I'm just not gonna go which led to a lot of my friends just saying I'm always missing out on things I played football and that was an experience as well because now I'm a I'm a jock my freshman year I was a captain of the freshman team so that had a level of popularity or notoriety to it it was just the balance of who am I as a Christian and who am I as a man and I think as I was journeying throughout high school I was able to discern like okay this is a this isn't a party this is just a gathering with my teammates this is homecoming we're just celebrating you know our big football game of the year now there were the basement parties that I had to exit out of there were the you know the extracurriculars that hey this is just not my praise and I think as I stood firm in that my friends started to protect me and friends who were also Christians but we're also living worldly because it's high school they were also protecting me like oh no Nikki's not gonna come Nikki Nikki's good in this space or and then it became easier to continue to walk in my faith and again I wasn't like I was doing anything extraordinary if I was in the locker room I may have been playing gospel rap I had discovered gospel rap which is definitely a good alternative from rap and hip hop so I would play that people would be interested let's cool beat what is that and that's how I would talk about Christ that way or I would pray before a game and then that was something that the team started doing that I didn't have to initiate other members of the of the football team would initiate so it became easier to be me without feeling like I was losing out on moments or memories as they would like to say now is there a part of my flesh I was like oh I wish I went to that party or I wish I went there absolutely I'm not going to say there aren't those moments but I think as I look back at the journey of my life I look back at my story I'm glad I made those decisions but transitioning into college was another beast completely well before we get to college one it is extraordinary it's extra ordinary because it's not ordinary for someone in high school at that age to have that maturity and discernment and say no that's not for me and so I'm curious as to like did you have other influences that helped you understand that about yourself or that's just naturally who you are like oh I get to decide for me I think I say this to my mentor all the time I think I was in an anomaly for about three to four years where youth ministry in Boston and the Haitian community was at an all-time high every church had an active youth ministry every church had an active youth choir there was a youth conference every other month we were partnering with brother and sister churches to host events together so there wasn't time for me to fall out of the rhythm of youth ministry I was either a choir rehearsal Bible study or Sunday morning church or a youth activity on Saturday there was no space for me to fall out of course they understood I played football or I was doing a club for school but if it wasn't outside like those parameters I was somewhere in church we have this saying in Haitian Creole it's called lego leglislaca it means school church home those are the those are the three elves that you're usually surrounded in so if I wasn't in a school activity I was in church so it wasn't anomaly because you were just so saturated with the spirit you you had a youth leaders that genuinely cared and not saying that's not the case for a lot of churches but when you have youth leaders who are in college themselves that are that are have midterms and finals that are worrying about their own lives still actively preparing retreats actively preparing Bible studies actively preparing conferences creating spaces for youth to grow and then coming off the cuffs of being curious about my own faith I was just set up to succeed and I know that's not the case for everybody but I'm grateful that was the case for me because it's protecting me from a lot it's healed me from past trauma it allowed me to have tools to prepare myself for whatever obstacles we're gonna come my way whether I fell or not I still knew how to prepare myself for those battles and overcome any battles that came my way so yes I can only I can only describe it as an anomaly because when I look back at my old church it's not the same there's not that same that same seed in the ground or someone's you know churning the soil it's it's a different time so I'm blessed to know that I had those three or four years at a pivotal moment of my life that set the foundation for why I am today yeah it's sad that it's an anomaly when I feel like it should be normal right it should be yeah it should be I call it the golden years too like I mean you were probably being born but like in the 90s in New York it was like youth revival everywhere and now see yeah I would I would love for that to still be the culture like today where we're still having youth conferences working for a mega church is beautiful but I love the intimacy of small churches because you can partner with each other you have four or five different churches coming together to host an event and that brings the community together because those are the really inner city kids that are getting the chance to you know have a space to worship and also see other kids from the same district just at a different church so hopefully that culture can come back in the church man you got some deep insights like so what happened in college so college funny enough this is why again I'd say I'm glad I walked my faith strongly in high school because even some professors were like Nikki don't dorm when you go to college and I was like what do you mean like I want to be able to experience college I want to you know break out finally get out of under my parents house experience the world and they just plainly said you're not ready for what the world is going to offer you and I understood it but I definitely wasn't ready for it so I eventually went to UMass Boston it's a it's a university but it's a commuter school so they didn't have dorms it it's one of the few UMass Boston campuses that don't have dorms they have dorms now of course after I left they have dorms but when I was going there they didn't have dorms they had apartment buildings that they were leasing out directly to the school so if you want to get an apartment building you could but it wasn't necessarily the same experience because then you'd have regular people living in your apartment as well so it wasn't necessarily the same so I just ended up commuting and college was different I didn't have the same protection I had when I was in high school I was meeting thousands of new people every single day it's commuter school so one person you meet on Monday if you don't have that same schedule or that same pattern you might never see them again so if you don't connect with them immediately you know good luck to you I wasn't as I was still active you've mentioned but you've been transitioning the old youth leaders were stepping down the new youth leaders were stepping in so I was trying to find my way and I want to ask myself and my still that same God fearing man I was in high school or was that just a chapter was that just the episode and now I'm gonna journey down new episode and I spent the first semester kind of to myself definitely a little bit shy most people tell you that's a lie but I do have a shy side so I kind of spent the first semester to myself stayed in the campus center and then I remember the beginning of the spring semester I was walking down what we call the catwalk at UMass Boston and there's usually tables for signing up for organizations and I saw this organization called Crew Christian Fellowship and I saw some familiar faces set high and that really it was like again I asked God is their relationship for me here or am I just going to have to like survive survive the the fun we'll call it of college and I found crew immediately got plugged in with them and that kind of became my place not only to worship but it also became my place to fellowship and kind of bring people in we had club spaces right near like the Black Student Center any other ethnic groups where there was Asian Latino I think it was Castellatina so we had a lot of pull in not just being a Christian organization but being able to tap into other organizations next to us and again I'm a sports guy like anime I enjoy running I enjoy laughs I'm a script writer I'm just also a Christian as well that's just who I primarily identify myself as so it's easy to talk to the Black Student Center and you know talk about pop cultures easy to join it with Castellatina and you know go to salsa nights or Latin nights and have fun but always still carry Christ where I went and that became interesting because again people then start to recognize the Christ and me and want to protect it protect that from the fun of college and it was always so I was always so curious and I still asked myself to this day God why do you protect me so much what did you not want me to experience that I didn't have to go through months of fasting months of prayer and we always talk about learning by trial of fire sometimes we learn by just observing the fire and never actually having to get burned and I'm grateful that I don't have the scars with the lessons I just have the lessons and I'm always just curious God why did you why did you have me go this route I guess I'll know when I when I meet him in heaven but college was because an interesting experience I held a worship night which had it happened I think in 10 years prior to me arriving at UMass Boston for many reasons but I had to talk to the to the school board I had to discuss with other advisors just to get it approved I had to show where all the money was coming from and where it was going I had to vet every guest artist that would have been appearing because of just prior I guess you'd say bridges that were burned with the with the school community so to do that was a staple it was as if I was planning a seed back into debt soil again and I was saying hey we're here because that's what I grew up learning in youth ministry was plan a seed wherever you go never be ashamed of the gospel Romans 116 so I did that thousand men's this night friends I knew from other organizations came to support and it was it was a beautiful moment I'm glad I did it I don't know if it's been done since I've left UMass Boston but everyone knows that Nikki when he was at UMass Boston he represented Christ and he left the he left a staple he left a mark there and I hope that someone else can pick up that mantle and continue to push it forward so it's funny that you ask God like why did you protect me so much I think that's why we met because he did not protect me because he knew I would always crawl back and so I have all the scars with the lessons and yeah sometimes I wish I didn't have the scars but knowing me I'm the type that like if it's not going to kill me I want to experience it because I want to know because I'm so curious you know what I mean and so yeah like I prefer your way of going about college and I's going so not to say like I had some like crazy experiences but like yeah I think I think that kind of mentality followed me throughout most of my life until I hit like 40 so I made a lot of mistakes and people tell me like you're so wise I'm like no these are just the lessons that I have to learn the hard you know so okay so like what were you majoring in in college so for my undergrad I majored in exercise and health science it was kind of a precursor to trying to get into grad school for physical therapy am I doing that today no but that's what I was doing when I was an undergrad at UMass Boston what did you after did you pursue PT so that's where this kind of journey now leads me to after 2016 so after 2016 finished graduating UMass Boston I'm preparing for applications for grad school and me my advisor have one more meeting I'd say at the top of the spring semester I'm like hey so this is my this is the audit you know this is what I've done you told me that we'll have this conversation now so you know what what colleges do you think would be good for me I want to I want to look at Duke I want to look at BU MCPHS UMass Lowell he's the college I'm looking at for my doctorate in PT and she goes oh you're missing some core classes and I'm like what do you mean every semester we've had these conversations I told you the trajectory of my life I wanted to be a physical therapist for the Boston Celtics or the New England Patriots I wanted the white picket fence I wanted to be made what do you mean I'm missing courses and I definitely take accountability of not doing my own due diligence and do my own research but you're my advisor I'm literally paying you to advise me so for the next I'd say 12 to 18 months I'm going between community colleges fulfilling other prerequisites whether it's physics one and two chemistry one and two or go these great classes that I could have fulfilled during my undergrad degree with my tuition I'm now paying extra for these for these individual classes I'm now taking more time in delaying it and 2016 is also when I joined Jubilee Christian Church so transition as I am navigating this I start to volunteer at a young adult ministry at Jubilee Christian Church is still happening today it's called influence and I start there as as their social media guy you know just doing some content for them on Instagram you know trying to activate Twitter Twitter was all a rage back then still is now just X and it's a crazy place try to stay out of it as much as I can so as I'm starting to volunteer for ministry again it's coming out of college I'm now fighting this poll I take physics one and two some colleges accepted some don't I take chem one and two some college accepted some don't so I'm fighting like God what do you have for me I'm trying to figure it out I get let go for my job at H&M I work there my whole college career do some odd jobs here and there and I wind up at AT&T from 2017 on to 2019 so in that time period I try to instead of going to physical therapy school I try to do a physical therapy assistant program it's a master's program doctor program but it get me still in the same field I slept my undergrad degree and I kind of navigate that way but as I'm facing these closed doors with every opportunity every school is telling me no PTA school is having their own requirements I'm advancing in the Kingdom more and more I start going from the young adult ministry to Sunday mornings from Sunday mornings to the woman's conference that we have one of our pillar events at Jubilee then from that the men's conference now getting more engaged with some of the executive and lead pastors at Jubilee so as I am finding difficulty in my undergrad degree which I was like hey God you know I just want to be a PT God's like hey why don't you just focus where you're growing right now and not where you're trying to force a door to open so I'd say around 2018 I'm still at AT&T but I stop I stop going to community college I stop trying to pursue PTA I just say God I'm gonna sit here I'm just gonna focus on videography and photography that's clearly where you have me growing I'm going to continue to just grow those seeds in this soil and live there and by the end of 2018 going to 2019 I have my first which I didn't know was an interview at the time but I have my first interview with our lead pastors pastor Matt and Mona Thompson and they're just talking to me seeing seeing where I'm at seeing how I'm doing asking me with attorney of my life and pretty much it was just the first step to going into full-time ministry and I started at Jubilee Christian Church in late October early November of 2019 why I'm continuing the story is because this leads to my master's degree as you well know in 2020 the world shut down so I got hired to be a social media manager at Jubilee Christian Church and when the world shut down I turned into a cinematographer editor as we were you know getting online church more and more active and bringing that to life we had to focus less on social media analytics and more so on how do we keep the church alive how do we keep hope alive not knowing when we're actually gonna come back in the building and we do that for about a year and my my mentor Pierre Huberson who's the production director at Jubilee is like hey you know you got some talent I'm like sure whatever you believe he also works at Emerson College one of the biggest top film schools in the country and he goes you should apply for Emerson I'm like hey I already didn't undergrad degree I don't really think I want to do another four year he's like no we have a master's degree and with your portfolio you'd get in I'm like I'm just a kid with a camera I don't think I'm made for Emerson College and low and behold I apply at that spring I just make the deadline and I got accepted out of an application process of I think 350 to 500 applications applicants I was one of 30 that got selected and I received my masters this past May I released my first short film and everyone always asks you had a bachelor's degree in health science and you're in filmmaking and I just say God God chose a different path so do I still have the bachelor's degree yes could I ever go back to it if that's his will the bachelor's degree doesn't expire I have to you know retake some exams update some some license but it's still there but as of right now God is telling a story with my filmmaking he's telling a story through my lens and that's saving people that's bringing people to Christ in a different kind of way outside of the typical you know worship leader or or preacher and who am I to slow his work down because I don't think that's the ideal form of worship or the ideal path so yeah that's my bachelor's degree exercise health science still want to be you know a physical therapist for the Celtics they just won a ring I could have gotten a ring but you don't either here nor there but yeah now I have a master's in film and media art and I'm a Christian filmmaker I am thoroughly convinced that storytelling is the future especially with the AI so you're in the right field what is your short story about so my short story tackles the the black family so we've seen in cinema over the decades the typical black absentee father trope and I think that's that is a real that's a real lifestyle for people they you know they live up they grow up in a single in a single parent home usually it's just with the mother and you know there's difficulties in how children both you know sons and daughters grow up in that environment but I've been blessed enough to grow up with a mother and father in the household but I've had my own difficulties and challenges with growing up with a different generation kind of man and what did that story look like how does the modern day son relate to the father who grew up fatherless but it's now learning to be a father himself so my story tackles Jason who's been a stranger his father for about 10 years since the passing of his mother and Richard who lost his wife doesn't really know how to emotionally communicate with his son anymore because the bridge to his emotions passed when his wife passed how do these two gentlemen relate so that's that's my short it tackles a lot of subjects in 20 minutes I leave in ambiguous ending because why not why not have people curious about what happens next and it really focuses on reconciliation and I love that word because reconciliation doesn't necessarily mean that everything's patched up but it's to start to something sometimes we look to receive you know apologies or look for people to always feel you know what we want to feel sometimes someone just needs to understand whether they'll still agree with your truth that's being understanding if you can understand where I'm coming from I can say where you're coming from we may not still agree but we can reconcile something and move forward and that's what my film whether I did it intentionally or accidentally I think what I love more more so about my film is the conversations that it's led to the messages that I've received from whether it's immediate family members or friends who came to the private screening on hey I reached out to my dad today we haven't talked in a few years but after seeing your film we finally had a conversation in the first time in a few years or I reached out to my son and I didn't even know that it would reach the older generation but fathers and mothers reached out to me saying hey I'm reaching out to so and so I'm reaching out to my sister I'm reaching out to an old friend because we don't know you know we don't know the day or the hour and why not do it today and at least attempt to reconcile so my film is you know it's it's still creating ways for the people who've seen it right now in a film festival journey waiting for my first acceptance to a festival but I think this film will speak to every generation every color and creed and race and I think it matters to also the black community of seeing that fathers are still in the household how do we understand each other even though we have different generations and different experiences in a nutshell yeah reconciliation is not letting the past determine your future what's the title of your short the invite the invite and where can people find it or is it on YouTube so right now I'm debating if I want to release it until it's at least made one festival or on but I do have a private link so if anyone ever wants to watch it it's a simple you can email me and I can leave that email with you and I can send you the private link and you can watch it there but it is it's hidden on my YouTube channel and on my video account every guy has a father issues you know so it'll speak to everyone everyone has a bad issue everyone has died as you wait that's why I love it everyone has different like father dynamics and everyone I grew up in this in a culture where you were at home with your father or if your parents were split you still had them in your life but it was like that my father didn't grow up with his father and he had to become a father at 13 for his older for his younger brothers so he's never known the difficulty of being a son so how does someone who's never been a son understand a son and father that son so that's why I think the story speaks so well because it brings that group of people together and that group is much larger than we think yeah I can send I can send you the link that's really good do you mind if I keep that in because I want to get into your relationship with your father go for it okay so like so your relationship to your father kind of inspired this movie what about your relationship like what do you remember about growing up with your dad so in terms of how my relationship with my father inspired the movie so 2016 was a difficult year we talked we talked about transitions getting ready to graduate college I also at the top of the year my house caught on fire this exact room that I'm sitting in was charred to a crisp it was unrecognizable got a phone call while it was at work comes to the house immediately the house on fire so for nine months we were homeless my parents still paying a mortgage on this house and paying rent on a small to room situation of a family of five that's used to their own spaces now clung together three months after the fire my father experienced a brain aneurysm I'm not ashamed of what I'm about to say because it's my truth but it took me three days to go see him I was the last immediate member to be a family member to go see him because I just have seen my father always so strong he's always gotten back up he's always fought and to know that he was tied up into you know tubes coming out of his brain drain the blood from his brain you know IVs all these things it was it was very hard for me to want to go see him because I was afraid it's just the last image I'm going to have of him so the movie was inspired one of the early drafts of of my short film was if if this was the last conversation you would have what would you say the movie has evolved from that concept but that was the initial seed that birth my film was was that moment of me standing in the hospital room talking to my father and seeing you know will you make it out he's still with us today he still annoys me as much as he's annoying me over the years but it was that it was that moment of what would we say to each other if we had one more last conversation growing up with a Haitian a Haitian father is not for the week to say at least he is very strong he is very proud he's very wise he doesn't take no as an answer I mean yes sir no sir it's when you see me you you come kiss me on the cheek you say good morning you say good night you let me know when you're going if I don't approve of something there's not really a conversation it's I said no that's really the end of it now if I can get my mom to say yes she can you know she can reverse that no my dad was a photographer by trade which funny enough the filmmaker now clearly we see where the seeds come from my father was a photographer by trade a taxi and limo driver on the side in between gigs he would he is one of 11 children his older brother he's number two in that line his older brother passed away at a young age and then he became the older brother there was never a consistent father figure in the house so he was the father so my father is really just known how to and he's always known how to make things happen so the family is okay it's always family first with him even if it makes us uncomfortable it was and at a later age I began to understand it when I was younger I was like that's no fun like that's always saying no we're not able to go these places when I will do these things but it was him always just seeing a bigger picture seeing the longevity of the the plan working out and not everything always worked out but under his hard shell I understood the soft love that was there and it's not easy getting to those deep layers but once you finally understand the intent and the heart behind it it made it a little bit easier being his son we connected with our love of sports he loves soccer so I played soccer growing up until I went to high school and then transitioned to football he was a little bit mad but he liked Tom Brady so it worked out he was like okay I guess if you're playing the sport Tom Brady plays but yeah my father a devoted devoted servant a preacher he's been preaching I think most of my life recently got ordained as a pastor last year so he he put a Bible in my hands when I was young every Friday was a nightly service at the house until I started youth ministry we had to learn a verse every week so all the verses that are ingrained in my spirit have come from him saying let's learn another verse let's learn another verse but there definitely were tough times where I just want to be a kid I just want to go play out my friends and it was no stance at the house or I have a photography gig you're going to stand on the side while you know I try to make this money and you know how I'll bring ends meet so there's a there's a there's a hardness to my father but in that same in that same vessel there's still a softness and a care and a love and that's where we relate on I'm also very convinced that God chooses our parents I mean obviously because we're born we don't have a choice but I also think it's because he's trying to teach us something about ourselves so like for you what did you learn about yourself through your father when I learned about myself through my father oh I learned how to carry myself with pride I think if that's one thing that I enjoy is the name Tibo there's so much pride in that name there's so much history in that name my father didn't meet his father until he was 36 years old and even in that his father asked him hey because of circumstances do you do you still want my last name I didn't know you existed but I'm happy you found me we connected and my father's like I've already established my own last name I'm honored that you would give that to me but I'm going to keep the last name Tibo and even in that simple act is taking ownership and pride of who you are and that's where I've been able to take ownership and pride of me being a Haitian American me being a Christian me being and an avid lover for film I take pride in the things that I enjoy that I reside with and that's because I saw my father who no matter what he whatever he's stuck by whether he's wrong or right he took pride in where he stood and I think we kind of lose that we like to be pliable we like to be bendable but you know sometimes we have to stand on our convictions whether they're right or wrong sometimes we have to stand on our convictions and I think where I've learned is to discern when I'm wrong and maybe I shouldn't stand on this certain conviction but if I believe something to be true and I know it is true don't don't bend stand on your truth because you don't know who needs you to take that truth to the next level so that they can find their truth so my father's taught me to stand on my convictions and that's one of the biggest lessons he's taught me oh he's also taught me how to how to respect and love so him and my mom have rarely shipped they've married fourth think over 30 plus over 30 plus years now I'm 30 well I'm 31 next month so they've been married a little over 33 34 years and marriage is hard marriage is difficult I'm not married yet hopefully soon but my father has shown that you know you have to always go back even when I may not like you but I love you and my father's shown me that you know just takes time it takes effort it takes in everyday battles getting up and intentionally loving your partner loving your loving your woman and being there for her as Christ loves the church you love your wife you submit you submit to her as Christ wants to church and it's probably one of the biggest lessons I take into how I try to mold my relationship and preparation for one day being a husband myself can you give me an example that you remember of your father doing that so my mother is a nurse so she works she works long hours so it's easy for typical or traditional relationships that you know there's certain roles that men carry in the relationship there's some roles that women carry relationship my father he could have when he came to the to the country he could have you know focused on finishing his bachelor's degree and kind of you know advancing his career he said no my photography can still travel with me I'll pick up you know taxi and limo driving and he paid for her schooling so that she can get her associates degree in nursing as she was studying he was taking care of me and my brother he was bringing us to to school he was preparing dinner my family's not the prototypical traditional family my dad does a lot of the everyday housework while my mom goes into work and you know takes care of us that way my dad's the one that you know takes us to parent teacher conferences he's the one that you know puts himself second whereas it goes against everything he's grown up as it goes against everything he knows he says if this is the way that our family's going to survive I will be second so that you can be first and even when my mom had to go back to school to get her bachelor's he just took on more of the load so that she wouldn't feel it so that we wouldn't feel it as children and I know he still wrestles with that I know it's still against his his inner philosophy of what a man should be in the household but he knows that he just wrestles with that with God and you know one day we'll understand it may not be in this world but when they will understand next world but he just chooses to put my mom's wants and needs first above his own while he still chases his dreams but he knows if the family's going to survive this is how we're going to do it dude I really like your dad more than you dude like he's right all the time now man if you can help a man who can actually do that like visibly lay down his wants for the needs of his family and especially his wife that's just like the most amazing things I always see and because it's so rare man you had such a special childhood yeah it's definitely it's definitely unique I I love that that's my story again I ask why it's my story but I love that that's my story it's never perfect there are very hard days we talked about scars earlier I've had my own scars still in high school college even as an older adult but the way I see my dad go through life the way I see my mom honor my dad even though she's the one that's you know punching in and out I have a unique story and I love that that's the story that I get to bring to other people and bring a new perspective a new voice into the room or into the chat so what are you hoping for at face Lee I just want to connect as I continue to grow I love that we have not entered the day and age where connecting with people isn't always physical it can be virtual now and I just kind of want to connect with my brothers and sisters in Christ in a different kind of way I have an amazing community here in Boston but with the day with day and age and internet my community could grow rapidly so with faithfully I'm just looking to connect with a different group of of Christians and kind of you know have conversations like these where we can talk about our walk we can talk about our experiences talk about life and see how better we can advance the gospel in our own different you know avenues I'm I'm a cinematographer director Deakin professor I teach at Emerson College now even there I still those known as the church boy and with that's what I love and whether it was high school undergrad or graduate school I was always known as the church boy that's what I still want to continue how do I how do I thrive so I'd love to connect with other people through faithfully maybe I'll connect with another professor or connect with a doctor here I don't know but I'm just looking for that connection and how can we be praying for you right now if you talk about transition I'm intentional with that word because even now I'm going through seasons of transition and one of my transitions is kind of coming out as a director and you know where it where does that avenue lead me I love the industry that I'm stepping into but I know the industry I'm stepping into doesn't necessarily put Christ first so how do I continue to walk in these spaces how do my actions speak for that so just prayer as I'm walking into a new industry prayer for my film that it reaches the right people so that I can continue to tell stories like this and maybe tell even feature films that have Christ resonating in it I think though the word Christ isn't said in my film you feel something and that's the curiosity that I was curious about a 14 that I'm trying to have someone be curious about as they see my works love it thanks man this was great thanks oh well that's if a podcast by guess thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast we pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey the Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly an online community committed to empowering church leaders pastors staff and volunteers the Faithly Digital Platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection foster collaboration and promote growth within 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