Family, Faith, and New Beginnings

SPEAKER 01 : 0:10

Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. This is Jimmy Lakey, and I’m delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at Box 370367, Denver, Colorado 80237, or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a Word Power Daily Reading Bible Guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address, including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number, 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let’s join Barbara in the studio.

SPEAKER 02 : 1:04

And on this beautiful day in December, welcome to Call to Freedom. It was for freedom that Jesus set you free. When God gives you a gift, it’s eternally good because he’s forever and ever. Always has been, always will be. And love is always the reason he gives. And I pray today as you’re listening that love is the reason that you give. You give because you enjoy what you’re listening to or what you’re watching. You give because you see a need or you give because it is just blessing you every day. So those are reasons. And God gave his best gift. Oh, I can read in Isaiah 7. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son. This is when Israel was going through a terrible time, a horrible time. And God is presenting to them a promise of a child and bear a son. And she will call his name Emmanuel. And that is God with us. God with every one of us who wants God in our lives. Oh, it’s so good to have you join us today. Let’s do our Monday Bible slogan. And then I’ve got a surprise. Let’s do the Monday Bible slogan together. This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I do what it tells me to do. This is my Bible. It has given me new life. It is the word of God. You are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. If you would like to listen to Call to Freedom programs, you go to the website freedomstreet.org and click on resources and go to radio shows. And you can just choose from two or three months of radio shows. Listen to them, especially if you’ve heard one on the air and you’d like to hear more about that show. teaching from the Bible. Or you can download, as Mike Treem said right before, download an app, a KLTT app, KLTT radio app, and you can listen any time of the day. And you can also donate on the website. You can go to freedomstreet.org and donate on the website. And that is a blessing. to the bills that come in. You know the bills continually come in. They really do. So we’re thankful that you have been such a wonderful and faithful giver to the program. Also, you can go to Kimberly’s blogs. That’s The Voice of Freedom. That’s under Teachings. And also under Teachings are Darren Sessions, where we have converted all the CD programs to MP3. And what great titles of forgiveness, wonderful things on healing, wonderful things on you are God’s favorite. You really are God’s favorite. Also, in December, as you donate to Call to Freedom, you will get a 2026 calendar in January. So, you know, think about giving during the month of December here. And giving will go to Call to Freedom, Box 370367. Denver, Colorado, 80237. And then I will send a calendar with your receipt in January. So I just want to mention because there are, I’m sorry, I’m breaking it. No, this is Kimberly.

SPEAKER 05 : 4:24

It’s Kimberly breaking in and saying the giving online. We don’t want to leave you out of the whole calendar process, but we don’t. We do not have your physical address usually. And so we would have to get a physical address for you. And I’m just going to say that because we love you and appreciate you. But you would need to give us your address in a note on your online giving if you want to receive a calendar. That’s right.

SPEAKER 02 : 4:52

Or email us at Barbara at FreedomStreet.org. And you can put your total name and because even sometimes the last name is

SPEAKER 05 : 5:02

isn’t on the address of the so i’m glad you mentioned that right because we are really appreciating all of you who are going to the website and donating thank you so much for that we just would need to yeah we would need a little more information that we don’t get normally thank you

SPEAKER 02 : 5:17

So you’ll get a 2026 calendar as long as we have an address, a name and an address. Also, the meeting is this Saturday. Wow, it just came upon us. December the 13th, we have brunch at 930 at the restaurant. And I always enjoy those so much. And then the meeting starts at 10 o’clock. with singing and a Bible story, and also we have a gift exchange. So if you’d like to bring a gift on Saturday, a gift between maybe $10, $15, nothing above that, and we’re just going to have fun exchanging gifts. You were talking about that little, it was a racket of some kind with a little ball that was… They were bouncing it around in the room. Throwing it at each other. It was fun. It was really good. That was fun. Yes. All right. So I have a surprise. And Dana is here.

SPEAKER 05 : 6:08

Yes. So you’re going to be hearing three voices. We’ll see how this goes.

SPEAKER 02 : 6:12

Yes. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER 05 : 6:13

We might be interrupting each other. Yes. And I haven’t been here for a while.

SPEAKER 02 : 6:17

It’s kind of fun. Your two voices are so much alike that people are going to say, well, is that one person or is that two people? So maybe we ought to designate Dana. Do you have something to say? Or Kimberly, do you have something to say? But it was a shock to see Dana.

SPEAKER 04 : 6:31

We used to really enjoy fooling people on the phone. Yes, absolutely. We did. Yeah. We were guilty. Yeah. Precious Roger, don’t you think he worked for us and he probably was the one that could not tell us apart on the phone the most.

SPEAKER 05 : 6:47

We’ve done it to my husband, Matthew, too. And I think we’ve even tried doing that with mom, but I think she always could figure it out. I don’t remember.

SPEAKER 02 : 6:56

You’ve got a little bit higher timbre than Dana. Dana’s voice has gotten a little bit lower through the years. It’s so good to have you here.

SPEAKER 05 : 7:07

It’s nice to be here. It is so fun to have your presence with us.

SPEAKER 04 : 7:11

Yeah, it’s been really nice just to be in a little bit of snow and cold. I mean, I’m in South Carolina right now and that’s… It’s very hot and it’s still humid.

SPEAKER 02 : 7:20

Yeah, hot and humid. Well, tell us about now you decided to go to Pennsylvania and you were there for how long?

SPEAKER 04 : 7:28

I did. I went to Pennsylvania in November of 2023. Oh, yes. So, yeah, the kids decided that they were going to all leave Colorado. And I think Caleb had already been in Seattle for a little while. by that time or somewhere. No, no, no. He was in Vermont. Yeah. He has bounced around. He was in Hawaii and then he was in Vermont. Yeah.

SPEAKER 05 : 7:50

And Texas.

SPEAKER 04 : 7:51

Yeah. Yeah. He, he kind of does a little bit of interpreting, um, in ASL and for the deaf blind community. And that’s been really, you say a little bit to me, it’s huge. It’s a, You know, I want to give the deaf blind community the fact that they have their own community and sometimes the hearing people enter into that community. And we like to think that we’re kind of the saviors of that community, but we’re not, not even a little bit.

SPEAKER 05 : 8:19

He has really, I think, immersed himself. He has a love of learning in that community. And so I think of it as very, he does a lot, I think.

SPEAKER 04 : 8:29

He does a lot of protectile, a lot of ASL interpretation, and he really enjoys it. He enjoys, he worked at a school. Yeah, he did.

SPEAKER 05 : 8:38

For how, a couple of years at least. He did, yeah. That’s amazing.

SPEAKER 02 : 8:41

Tell us a story about his rock climbing. Yeah. The wall, the rock.

SPEAKER 04 : 8:49

So I think he was in Austin, Texas, just in gosh, it was probably a month or two ago. And he was at a deaf blind, you know, community helping them for about a week and just being there and enjoying it. And there was a young lady who was a paraplegic and she loved the zip line. Absolutely loved being on the zip line. But I believe this year they decided that the zip line was going to be at the top of a rock wall climb. So you have to climb all fours. You have to scale the entire wall in order to get to the zip line in order to do that zip line. And, you know, she was kind of bummed because she wasn’t able to participate. And her dad was super bummed. And so Caleb volunteered and they strapped her. She was about 120 pounds. They strapped her on the back of Caleb and he scaled this wall. And it really is a fantastic video. It’s super fun to watch. Yeah. Not only was she delighted because she reached the top of this, you know, rock wall that she would have never been able to do, but then she got to go on the zip line too. And her dad was in tears, you know, watching Caleb scale the wall. It was just, it was really sweet.

SPEAKER 02 : 10:02

And for a person, an individual person, Just scaling the rock wall is a real challenge. Then you’ve got a 120 pound person on your back scaling that wall. I’ll tell you, he has extra strength. Caleb is a strong man.

SPEAKER 04 : 10:20

Well, he just has a he has such a passion for helping people get to what their goal is. And it doesn’t matter what he has to, you know, exude in order to do it. It’s nothing for him because he’s helping somebody else.

SPEAKER 05 : 10:34

He has such a big heart. Yeah, I love his heart.

SPEAKER 02 : 10:37

I do, too. It was really something how he when he was a little boy. Oh, and he would just memorize chapter after chapter. But he had a little stutter. and it was gone it is gone he is so articulate yeah he and everything is so clear yeah and you would never just a slight little list but you know what it’s super precious he is marvelous yeah last time i talked to him i was coming home and i went into the office and somebody came into the garage because the office is behind the garage and he said grandma and i said what what are you doing here and he says well i had an appointment a dental appointment and i was early so i thought i’d come and check in on you he’s that kind of person yeah if somebody is close he’s gonna go see them he is gonna see them he’s gonna take the time to see them yeah that is wonderful absolutely wonderful so you decided to come to go to pennsylvania so

SPEAKER 04 : 11:38

So, yeah, the girls decided and their families decided to move to South Carolina. And Caleb and his partner were already either in Vermont or Connecticut or Seattle. I don’t remember. And so the door opened. So I’ve always been in touch with my ex-husband. And we were divorced in 2005. So it’s been a long time. But I think a lot of your viewers, Mom, know that he was in prison. Mm-hmm. for a majority of the time that I was raising the kids. So it was about 2000. It was 2007 when he went into prison and he got out in 2020. And, um, because it was 2020, they had very few abilities to have him stay in different places. And so he had to stay at his mom’s place. And after a couple of years of staying at her place, he would tell me this is worse than prison. Being in my mom’s house and having that control and just the same mentality, the same, you know, mentality that that wasn’t helpful while he was being raised day in and day out, very controlling. And so, you know, he would complain about it a little bit. And I remember just thinking, well, there’s nothing else here for me. And so we had a conversation and I was like, OK, I’ll just come live with you in Pennsylvania. Yeah. So that’s where I’ve been for two years, November 2023 to November 2025. I was in Pennsylvania, and we were living together. And just helping each other out, I would help him with projects, and I would make food for him.

SPEAKER 01 : 13:16

Be the chef.

SPEAKER 04 : 13:17

Yeah, and he would pay the bills and stuff like that. So it was really interesting. Who would ever do that with an ex? It takes a special ability to stop thinking and stop perceiving the way we used to. And it takes a special ability to be able to move forward without having to drag everything from the past. Yes. Cooperation. That’s including aggression, victimization, pity.

SPEAKER 03 : 13:51

Mm hmm.

SPEAKER 04 : 13:52

You know, resentment. You’ve got to be able to just say, okay, let’s dig into some of this because I don’t want to carry this around anymore.

SPEAKER 05 : 14:00

No, exactly.

SPEAKER 04 : 14:02

And us, you know, being able to live together and be in that format together for a while really, you know, I kind of had been moving out of, you know, resentment and some of that stuff. in my own way. Um, and so I kind of, you know, helped him start thinking about why the wise, the wise of, okay, what, what’s the question that you just asked me? Why did you ask me? Why did you feel you needed to ask me that? And just digging deep, digging really deep into, you know, some of the ways that we have done things for our entire lives and some of the beliefs that we have believed for our entire lives.

SPEAKER 02 : 14:42

We call that That tradition. And we are getting rid of that tradition, that religious spirit that we grew up with that is not beneficial at all. Yeah. It’s keeping us from loving, really, truly loving. Absolutely. I appreciate what you did. Wow. It took great courage. It did. Yes.

SPEAKER 04 : 15:01

Yeah, it did. You know, it also took me saying, I don’t want to work full time. So I’m going to fix food for this guy. Talk about the job you had while you were there. You know, for the first year that I was there, I just I really read a lot, read a lot of different books that I would have never read in my entire life. Really got into my own way of being and my own doing. And so finally, I thought, you know, I would like to just get out there and be with some people and have some fun. And so I applied at this place. It’s a museum. The house itself, the Zimmerman Center, was built in 1750.

SPEAKER 05 : 15:41

That’s so cool.

SPEAKER 04 : 15:42

And so the house itself was just fascinating to me. But then the actual job that I was hired for was a tour guide on their boat. And the boat itself was 113 years old.

SPEAKER 05 : 15:55

Oh, I don’t think you ever told me that.

SPEAKER 04 : 15:58

The Chief Uncus Boat in Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. The Chief Uncus Boat is 113 years old, and there’s just an amazing history and background to the boat itself.

SPEAKER 02 : 16:09

Well, you’re near Gettysburg and all those wartime, revolutionary wars.

SPEAKER 04 : 16:15

In fact, the bridge that was right there in Wrightsville, it connects Wrightsville and Columbia. The bridge was the bridge that was burned down in order for the soldiers not to be able to go over and take Lancaster, Pennsylvania. So huge civil war history in that area. They still every single year they have a celebration, a burning the bridge celebration and all this type of stuff. So the history there was absolutely fascinating. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER 05 : 16:44

Wow.

SPEAKER 04 : 16:44

So you learned a lot. Lots of history.

SPEAKER 05 : 16:48

Yeah. And then you actually got to give people tours when they came.

SPEAKER 04 : 16:52

We did. Yeah. I ended up not doing boat tours as much. There was just stuff about the boat that it and I didn’t.

SPEAKER 05 : 16:59

Go ahead.

SPEAKER 04 : 17:00

Well. Well, it’s funny. Since we’re being so honest. Yeah, since we’re being so honest. So I did all of the emergency stuff for the boat and all that type of stuff and learned all the touring that you had to do, you know, in order to be on the boat and be a tour guide for the boat. And then somebody, we were doing the last part of the emergency, and they’re like, oh, yeah, if this happens, you know, you’ll need to jump in and say, you know, you’d have to jump in and actually help them up out of the boat if anybody ever, you know, went in.

SPEAKER 03 : 17:28

Falls over, capsize, yeah.

SPEAKER 04 : 17:28

And I stopped and I paused, and I was like, yeah no uh-uh no i’m i’m never gonna jump in the water that’s not something i do i came from a landlocked state yeah and i don’t like water and i don’t like seaweed and i don’t i don’t like i don’t swim and so they were like at first they said well we’ll have somebody else on board with you and you can still do the tours and stuff like that and Finally, I just got to the point where I was doing check-in in the house and I got to know all of the information in the history of the house. And so I did all the house tours.

SPEAKER 02 : 18:07

Oh, that’s great.

SPEAKER 04 : 18:08

So it was absolutely fun. We used to go up in the attic in this really old building down to the cellar where they used to keep all the coffee and the tobacco.

SPEAKER 02 : 18:18

Have they remodeled or renovated at all? It’s the original stone and…

SPEAKER 04 : 18:22

That’s a great question. So the Zimmerman’s, it’s named the Zimmerman Center simply because the Zimmerman’s purchased it in 1998. And they did remodel an amazing portion of it. They rebuilt portions that had fallen, but the main structure itself didn’t have any remodeling done to it. The stone was still the exact same stone that they had to get off the property in 1700s in order to build this structure.

SPEAKER 03 : 18:51

So fun.

SPEAKER 04 : 18:51

It is. It was beautiful. Yeah. We even talked about little ghosts that we believe were still in the attic. And you skipped over the spiders. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, but that was the boat. That’s what I meant. You skipped over that part. Spiders in the boat. Nobody’s been around the river very much. You don’t realize how big the spiders are around water.

SPEAKER 02 : 19:11

Spiders and boats just go together. Sure. Spiders and boats. And there were a lot of spiders. That would get me off the boat really quickly. Big spiders.

SPEAKER 03 : 19:19

Big spiders with big butts.

SPEAKER 02 : 19:21

Big. So then your children decide to make a major, major move with their husbands, both girls.

SPEAKER 04 : 19:33

Yeah, down to South Carolina. And they’ve really enjoyed it down in South Carolina. They’ve loved it. Um, especially one of the girls has just been like, mom, you really need to come down here. Come on, mom. So over the last two years that I was in Pennsylvania, um, she, she decided, you know, to buy a condo and, and it was really sweet because she said, mom, I’ve got a condo. Why don’t you come down and rent from me and, and, uh, just be down in South Carolina for a while. So, So it’s been great. I have never lived anywhere that there there is a pond in my backyard. And in that around that pond, it has signs that says there are alligators in this water. So I’ve never lived anywhere where you have to really be careful. Watch for alligators.

SPEAKER 05 : 20:20

So, yeah, your cats. Yeah. If you just really don’t want them outside, do you? No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER 02 : 20:28

No, not really. So Emma and Koi are down there.

SPEAKER 04 : 20:35

And then Rebecca and Brandon and their two boys, Elijah and Parker.

SPEAKER 02 : 20:41

Oh, that’s wonderful.

SPEAKER 04 : 20:43

How old is Elijah? Elijah is almost three. He’s two and a half. He’s almost three. And Parker just turned 11 months.

SPEAKER 02 : 20:51

Oh, so wow. Rebecca had them pretty close together, but oh, as they grow up, they’re going to enjoy each other’s company.

SPEAKER 04 : 20:56

They’re already good friends.

SPEAKER 02 : 20:58

They really are.

SPEAKER 04 : 20:59

Elijah’s very careful around Parker and makes sure that, you know, he’s kind of protective already. Little brothers, big brothers.

SPEAKER 02 : 21:08

That’s so fun. Yeah. Fun ages. Yes. And you had some little, I wouldn’t say confrontations, but on your flight here, you met several. You’re so friendly. I know. Well, both of you, Kimberly and Dana, both of you are people persons. You just are so friendly with people.

SPEAKER 04 : 21:31

Well, I think the more I discover about being able to really truly understand yourself and When you get to a point where you understand yourself and there is stability in who you are, people are attracted to that. And it’s not only attraction to a stability of who you are, it’s attraction to a safety because you don’t need them to think something of you. You already know who you are. You already have a complete stability of who you are. And so people can see that when they look at you, there is a safety. There is there is a stability there. And one of the ladies, I was in peace. You could call it, there’s a peaceful calmness. Could, yeah, absolutely. But one of the ladies, I was in the Dallas airport waiting to go to Denver and she just kind of, she’s kind of scooted around toward me. I was standing by a window and she ended up sitting down right by my bag.

SPEAKER 02 : 22:28

Have you noticed that when there’s a whole list or whole line of empty seats and people come right up to where you are? You’re sitting right there. That happens all the time to me, too, as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER 04 : 22:39

And she sat right down and she pulled out this book and just started reading. And I was like, OK, that’s great. But I eventually just sat down and I was right next to her. And, you know, a conversation opened. She’s like, oh, I got to condense my bags. I got to put two bags into one. And so it opened up this conversation. Oh, I love how she did that, too. She’s pulling out food items. She’s pulling out bags of food. She looked at one lady beside her. Can you take this? And looked at me. Would you take this?

SPEAKER 02 : 23:07

Now, this is a dilemma for the airlines. People bringing out so many bags that now they have to postpone their leaving the airstrip because people are just…

SPEAKER 04 : 23:22

Yeah, there can be a delay if there’s too many bags that are trying to be put overhead. They can’t handle that quantity anymore. And so they are forcing people now to check in some of the bags that normally would have gone overhead. So she was combining two of those. Yeah, trying to condense. She had a couple of huge backpacks and, you know, it was just a way to open up and We ended up getting on the plane in two different areas, but I was by a window and there was a seat available right in between me. And she looked up and we locked eyes once again. And she sat by me. And I tell you, we just jabbered the entire hour and a half that we were on the flight. So, yeah, it was really beautiful. That’s great. Yeah.

SPEAKER 02 : 24:07

Did you say you had texted her today? I did. I texted her today. So now they’re friends. And so they’re texting each other. That is amazing. Yeah. That is really amazing. It’s like you when you were at the airport there and you saw a friend across the airport.

SPEAKER 05 : 24:22

Oh, that was a little bit different because it was somebody I knew from years ago.

SPEAKER 02 : 24:26

Yes. Right.

SPEAKER 05 : 24:28

But I was in I was in North Carolina and had this huge layover there and a huge like 12 hour layover. And I wasn’t supposed to. It just kept it kept going on and on. But she was on the same plane to get back to Tulsa. And it was somebody that I hadn’t seen in a decade. And I had met 25 years ago and we had gone to the same trip. So it was a little bit different. But yeah, it was really odd incident. Yeah, really fun to just make a connection like that. The world is smaller than we think.

SPEAKER 04 : 25:00

It really is. And, you know, you just, if you put forth even just a little bit of kindness and put down, I mean, we are so concentrated on our own needs and what needs to happen and what we think needs to happen. What we perceive and what we assume and our expectations really help us to focus only on ourselves. And when we start putting some of that down, it can be such a delight just to get to know somebody around you. Yes. Agreed.

SPEAKER 02 : 25:30

That’s why I take the beginning and the ending of the show and saying, take joy. Because joy is an acrostic. And the J stands for Jesus. The O stands for others. And the Y stands for you. And you’re right. We’ve always put ourselves as the main focus. Well, I’ve got to get… But that would spell yodge. Yodge.

SPEAKER 05 : 25:56

If we put ourselves first. Yeah, you first, then others, then Jesus. But most people… It wouldn’t spell joy anymore.

SPEAKER 02 : 26:04

Are focusing about what am I… What am I, these two, once they start laughing and joking. It had to come. It had to hit. I have a feeling I’m going to have to end the show here today, the program. It’s been such a delight to have my two daughters. Oh, and to think that we’ve had, I’m not even going to look at you two. But I want you to know that we love you. We really do love you. And, oh, I’m so thankful that you know God at this time of year, this time of your life, that you know where you’re going. You know who’s leading you every day and every evening. Oh, I’m so happy for you. I really am that you can feel absolutely the freedom that Jesus has set us free for. So make sure that you text somebody that you know, a friend. If you’d like a power pack, let me know by going to Barbara at Freedom Street dot org. And I will give you a power pack. Thank you. God bless you. Take joy.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:06

You may get in touch with Barbara at Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may leave your message at 1-877-917-7256. Call to Freedom is a listener-supported radio ministry. Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up Call to Freedom ministry. Our partners support Call to Freedom with prayer and monthly financial support. You will be blessed supernaturally. We invite you to visit Call to Freedom’s website, www.freedomstreet.org, where you can hear Barbara’s daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials. You may share your praise reports and heart cries by mailing them to Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may email us at barbracarmack at freedomstreet.org. Until next time, remember, Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy.