Eden Wild was born in Ethiopia, and lived in an orphanage until adopted by her American parents at age 3. She treasured memories of her siblings and friends in Africa, and as she grew older became intensely aware that some of the blessings she enjoyed in the U.S. weren’t available to them. One of the greatest of these was clean water. Eden wanted to make a difference. Now a junior in high school, she is already an experienced entrepreneur. At age 13, she and her family started a home-based busin...
May 02, 2024•25 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Kim Covington by all measures had a satisfying and successful career, with 30 years in television news and a long list of awards for her reporting and community service. But a near fatal accident in the news van motivated her to make a momentous change of direction in her professional life. The change was not due to her physical wounds, frightening as they were. In her words, “After I woke up from severe injuries and a traumatic concussion, I was never more awake to what God was calling me to do...
Apr 25, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 52
Hope. Sometimes it seems elusive, but it’s critical for pastors, leaders, and learners. And that’s the calling for Richard Parrish. He helps leaders who are weary in body and soul, offering spiritual resources with a health dose of encouragement, refreshments … and hope. Richard speaks from experience, having weathered all those challenges himself. He’s a listener and encourager, working locally and globally. He has been to Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and Uzbekistan working with leaders and on pro...
Apr 18, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 51
At age 6, Zach Vogel’s identity was rooted in baseball. He was already praying that God would make him a major league ball player. Then four years later when he collapsed for the second time during a game, he was diagnosed with Long QT Syndrome, a heart signaling disorder characterized by arrhythmia that caused him to pass out. It was more serious than that, though. It meant he had an increased risk of sudden death. At 10, it appeared Zach’s dreams were over before they began. What followed were...
Apr 11, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 50
There’s a whole new attack on society, one that most of us don’t have an idea of how to handle: security, identity theft, and fraud. Alan Saquella has made it his life’s work to help others protect themselves and fight against the danger of online crime. He is committed to shaping the next generation of security, intelligence, and fraud examiners, both professionally and as a mentor. In a day where dangers – real or imagined – can be delivered via your computer and phone, Alan’s background in bo...
Apr 04, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 49
Rick Morro went to Tanzania in 2012, and amidst the breathtaking beauty found heartbreaking ugliness in the plight of the Maasai people, and especially of the girls. Some were orphaned, others were abused, or runaways from forced marriages to much older men. Many were subjected to a tribal custom of genital mutilation that has been outlawed, but is still practiced by the Maasai. Most were suffering from lack of education and healthcare. Rick was so struck by the suffering that he came home, sold...
Mar 28, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 48
Jamie Heckerman has a passion for inclusion and the community. She got a degree in Parks and Recreation Management with an emphasis in therapeutic recreation. When she started working with Special Olympics Arizona in 2010, she found her life calling. Today, as president and CEO of the organization, she heads efforts to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. This gives them opportuniti...
Mar 21, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 47
Sgt. Brian Bower is a true Phoenician – a native who graduated from Washington High School and came back to town after a stint in the military. With a passion for service, he signed on with the Phoenix Police Department. His current assignment is as Silent Witness Coordinator. Since 1979, Silent Witness has paired with media and law enforcement to solve and prevent crimes. In that time, more than $5.5 million in rewards have been paid out , more than 8,000 felony arrests have been made, and near...
Mar 14, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 46
Angie Simon had a passion to change the world and prayed for God to use her in His Kingdom. In 2006, she went on a life-changing trip to Peru with Hope 4 Kids, a nonprofit formed by visionary Tom Eggum in 1973. Today she is still with the organization, serving as the vice president of international development. Hope 4 Kids International (H4KI) oversees the Water 4 Kids program, which has drilled more than 1,051 wells throughout Uganda, Kenya, India, the Philippines, Liberia, Bangladesh, Nepal, R...
Mar 07, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 45
Ask sportscaster Gary Bender what were the first games he announced, and he might say they were during his countless hours driving a tractor on the family’s farm outside of Ulysses, Kansas. He made up baseball games in Yankee Stadium, and football games in the Orange Bowl or maybe the Los Angeles Coliseum. He’d even sing the national anthem, and do the commercials. Ultimately, those imaged games became reality, as he announced some of the most memorable competitions in sports history, from a you...
Feb 29, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 44
Many people who are caregivers are not necessarily there by choice. At least not in the sense of choosing it as a profession – rather, choosing it through love for a family member with health issues. Dr. Nelly Clotter-Woods leads the Arizona Caregiver Coalition, whose sole purpose is to support caregivers and their families. Their website offers a wealth of material that not only talks about the coalition and what they do, but consolidates valuable information from other organizations and govern...
Feb 22, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 43
Kent Chase was flying high – literally. Jetting around the world as a pro golfer, he stayed at five-star resorts, met celebrities and presidents of countries he visited, and traveled with body guards. Also considered one of the best junior golf teachers in the world, he was featured on the cover of magazines. He had a wonderful family life. But then his wife developed breast cancer, and lost her life after an excruciating seven-year battle. Kent dealt with the pain by drinking himself into a rui...
Feb 15, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 42
As a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner for 30 years, Tara Sundem was a frontline worker in the growing opiate epidemic, caring for the newborns suffering through opiate withdrawal. Her passion to transform the healthcare experience for them and their families led her to found Hushabye Nursery, a nonprofit dedicated to caring for opiate-exposed newborns in their first weeks of life. The 12-bed inpatient nursery opened its doors and its arms to these babies and their mothers in November 2020. Hushabye N...
Feb 08, 2024•25 min•Season 4Ep. 41
Albert Celoza is a teacher and a lifelong learner. It's been his profession for many years, and now as executive director of the Arizona Interfaith Movement, he gets the opportunity to help individuals and groups learn more about the other faiths in our community. The organization's vision is a world of harmony, good will and peace among persons of all faiths, where the Golden Rule is a universal way of life. The goal is not for the different groups to compete in an effort to convert others, but...
Feb 01, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 40
Brendon Zastrow had a successful 21-year career in aerospace and engineering, when he made a dramatic career change into a more people-oriented arena. Today, Brendon is devoted to helping men, couples, kids, and coaching sports in his role on staff both at Dream City Church and the Phoenix Dream Center that helps victims of human trafficking, those in rehab, provide affordable housing for those in transition, and distributes food and clothing. In the midst of all this, he lost his beautiful 12-y...
Jan 25, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 39
Glenn Jordan went into his shop early the morning of August 26, 2021 at the All-American Eyeglass Repair to work on some orders. He was on the phone at 9:23 a.m. when the building was rocked by a natural gas explosion. Glenn survived thanks to fast work from first responders, but it would take the next 40 days at the Arizona Burn Center with second- and third-degree burns on 40 percent of his body, followed by 10 days of rehab. It’s been a long and painful recovery, but Glenn and his family were...
Jan 18, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 38
Dr. Joyce Buekers is a fourth-generation harpist. Her grandmother was the first woman in the Los Angeles Philharmonic and played with Walt Disney Studios for over 40 years, including the harp in the ground-breaking film Fantasia. While Joyce continued the family legacy, she also got an undergraduate degree in math, with minors in systems engineering and music. She followed that with an MBA in systems engineering, but after a successful 15-year marketing career with IBM she was involved in a life...
Jan 12, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 37
The American Red Cross just celebrated the 100th anniversary of alleviating human suffering through disaster relief ranging from home fires to devastating floods, earthquakes and wildfires. The organization also supports the hurting through blood donations, first-aid training, service to military families and more. Melody Birkett first experienced the power of Red Cross volunteers as a reporter for Phoenix radio stations when she saw them respond to disasters throughout the state. Today, as Regi...
Jan 04, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 36
Charlie Ellis has discovered that while we often put our military veterans on pedestals, we overlook the fact that many are struggling. His dad, a World War II vet and Pearl Harbor survivor, was in a wheelchair by the time Charlie was a teenager, and he witnessed first-hand the challenges his father faced. In 2014 Charlie was part of a team to rebuild a home for an elderly woman, and by the time it was done he knew his calling was to serve veterans in whatever way needed, and Operation Enduring ...
Dec 28, 2023•26 min•Season 4Ep. 35
He’s been called one of the best athletes to ever play the game of football. But J.D. Hill’s greatest accomplishments were still before him. J.D. excelled not just in football, but also lettered in baseball and track in college, an NCAA record that still stands today. He was drafted by the Buffalo Bills and also played for the Detroit Lions. But after his pro career came years of personal struggle and addiction to crack cocaine that led to loss of his three sons and wife of 20 years. That could ...
Dec 21, 2023•26 min•Season 4Ep. 34
His drug use and 35 years of alcoholism had caught up with Jim Morrissey. When he was arrested for DUI for the seventh time, instead of facing a few months in jail, he was looking at seven years in prison. Then one day he opened Pastor Greg Laurie’s “New Believer’s Bible,” and his life would never be the same. Today he has personally placed 2,198 copies of that Bible into people’s hands; and has sent another 4,000 to various churches and rehab centers. He started a nonprofit, Direction, Instruct...
Dec 14, 2023•26 min•Season 4Ep. 33
The concept behind Disciple Nations Alliance (DNA) focuses on the strategic role of the church in society, and was spread through conferences in Peru, Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, and Ethiopia. It was birthed in 1997 as a joint initiative of Food for the Hungry and the Harvest Foundation to envision and equip local churches worldwide to fulfill their strategic, God-given roles in the transformation of communities and nations. DNA promotes a “school of thought” centered on the...
Dec 07, 2023•26 min•Season 4Ep. 32
Loren Tapahe has been involved in business, government and media in the Navajo Nation for more than 40 years. In that time he has witnessed a lot of changes. He’s also seen many things that should have changed – but didn’t. He has worked for the Navajo Nation government, and as CEO of the American Indian Chamber of Commerce of Arizona, as publisher of the Navajo Times, and was the first vice president of the Native American Press Association (now the Indigenous Journalists Association). Loren sh...
Nov 30, 2023•26 min•Season 4Ep. 31
Lisa Scarpinato’s world changed 17 years ago when a friend told her of watching a local second-grader digging through the school cafeteria trash and stuffing discarded food in her pocket. The night she heard that story, she and her husband Vince committed to starting Kitchen on the Street. Today they create Bags of Hope – food backpacks that provide weekend nutrition to food-insecure children. But they didn’t stop there – they also have Family Food Pantries on school campuses and other locations...
Nov 23, 2023•25 min•Season 4Ep. 30
The story of Childhelp is so astounding, it should be made into a movie. It’s the true tale of two young actresses - Sara O'Meara and Yvonne Fedderson – who played the roles of the girlfriends on the television show “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.” It began on a USO Tour in 1959 when the two young women were in Japan, and came across 11 street children in a typhoon. They dedicated themselves to finding the children find a safe place to live, not knowing that protecting kids was to b...
Nov 16, 2023•26 min•Season 4Ep. 29
Kevin Youngblood has a passion for kids and education. Even more, a passion for making sure ALL children have access to quality education. He created an educational software dubbed Odysseyware to diagnose and prescribe solutions to learning challenges for at-risk youth in public and charter schools. He helped launch the Grand Canyon University Ventures program, and started Calvary Christian School in Georgia. He has been a speaker and lobbyist for K-12 education, and long-respected as a driven e...
Nov 09, 2023•26 min•Season 4Ep. 28
The diagnosis of ALS can be crushing to a family. Medically, there’s no known cure for the disease that affects control of the muscles needed to move, speak, eat and even breathe. The relentless progression of the disease impacts not only the patient, but the entire family. Dr. Jeremy Shefner is one of the country’s leading experts on ALS. With a moniker like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, many people know it simply as Lou Gehrig's disease, after the famous baseball player diagnosed with ALS on ...
Nov 02, 2023•26 min•Season 4Ep. 27
Isaac Durham is a member of the Hopi Tribe from Second Mesa. His wife, Prerna, was born and raised in India. At first glance, you might think the two cultures have little in common. But both young people are driven by a mission to change the world in the name of Christ. Isaac works part-time for CHIEF Inc. (Christian Hope Indian Eskimo Fellowship) and is president of Native Christian Fellowship at Arizona State University. He has served in ministries including Teen Challenge, Prison Fellowship a...
Oct 26, 2023•26 min•Season 4Ep. 26
Bud Brown has always had a passion for helping pastors. After leading churches of his own, he is one of three founders of Turnaround Pastors, a nonprofit that trains others to lead stagnant and declining churches through revitalization. They have walked alongside bewildered pastors, helping them to become confident leaders, and helping churches find the best pastoral candidates. In addition, Turnaround Pastors is a research, publishing, and training ministry. Bud has authored, “Lifeless to New L...
Oct 19, 2023•26 min•Season 4Ep. 25
There are many worthwhile nonprofits designed to help people of all ages and types. But sometimes the most impactful opportunities are the ones God surprises us with. We just have to be available. Bonnie Mock is a classic example of being available, both personally and professionally. From her role as steward/owner of The Crowning LLC, to her passionate involvement in workplace ministries and always being receptive to Christ’s invitation to help, to encourage, to teach. As she shares her stories...
Oct 12, 2023•26 min•Season 4Ep. 24
