Parent Compass Radio

Mark: The word that we use is hood or street. I didn't think I was going to make it past a certain age. I'm going to go to jail, or I'm going to get killed.

Chanel: At 16, I end up getting pregnant with my first son. To me, I was doomed.

Mark: I didn't care about anybody. I didn't care about myself. I didn't care about anything. I just was so angry with God.

Chanel: He was heavily into drugs. He just started revealing these affairs.

Mark: God, if you don't do something, if you don't show me what I need to do, then I'm probably going to die like this.

Guest (Male): Alright, so we're ready to eat. I look at my stepbrothers and sisters as my real brothers and sisters. As soon as I met them, I just loved them. Ever since then, we've had a lot of memories. Looking at them now, I don't see them differently. They're my brothers and my sisters.

Altogether, there are Matthew, Patrick, Mark, Dean, and Greg. That's five brothers. And there are Nicole and Trinity, three girls. And then me. Nine altogether. It's crazy, but the atmosphere is normal because it's family. I don't really see them as stepbrothers and stepsisters. They are brothers and sisters to me.

I thank God for everything that he's given me, for the family. There's a reason for everything happening. I thank God for all the blessings that he's given me.

Mark: I know where I came from, and I know the decisions that I made and the mistakes I made. For God to bless me with my wife, to bless me to have a great family, to even bless us with a house and just my job, and all of the things I can just list out that God has blessed me with. There's no limit to his love. There's no limit to where he can pull you out of. He wants to show us that love.

Chanel: We have a blended family. God, in his awesome and wonderful power, brought us all together, but it was not an easy journey.

Mark: In West Dallas, we lived on a street called Fish Trap. At that particular time for us, that was where everything happened. You had your gangs, you had guys that were selling drugs, you had guys that were into boosting cars or stealing cars. Whatever you wanted to get into at that particular time, it was happening on that particular street.

When I was 16 years old, I was a freshman in high school. My girlfriend at the time was expecting my first son. Being that my father wasn't very active in my life, or was pretty much non-existent, I was faced with trying to figure out what being a father was all about.

It was about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, and guys my age were all hanging out on Fish Trap. Some of them were out there hustling. I didn't think I was going to make it past a certain age. Either I'm going to go to jail or I'm going to get killed, but I have to make a choice. I have to figure out what I'm going to do.

I remember asking myself a question: is this it? Is this all I have to look forward to? I call it my prayer, because after that moment, I would meet a guy who would tell me about Jesus, and that changed my life.

Chanel: My biological father was not around. I had a stepdad who was in the picture, but he was heavily into drugs. Normal family for me was mom working two, maybe three jobs. I was the oldest sister, so I had to maintain the house. I made sure my sisters did their chores and did everything they needed to do before mom got home.

My first relationship, I was 14 years old. At 16, I ended up getting pregnant with my first son. In order to try to make that right, we were told, "You guys need to get married." We were both very young. We didn't have any money. We didn't have any knowledge of what a marriage looked like. To me, I was doomed. I had this baby out of wedlock, and I got married to try to fix it.

I started getting closer to the Lord as far as reading my Bible for myself. The word became food. I had to have it. I would read it all the time. The more I read and got close to the Lord and into my word, it seemed like the further away I got from my husband at the time.

Mark: We were heavily involved in the church. I was raising my son at the time in the church. I jumped in with both feet. I was really just glad to have met Christ at that particular time. I'm one of the guys that's leading all of my friends. They waited on me to come into the lunchroom so that I could lead us in prayer before we eat.

One night, I made a choice. That one time, here comes my second son. When I graduated high school at the age of 18, I married my boy's mom. We moved out. Being married, we had another son. His name is Patrick, and he was the third of our three boys. One of the things that began to happen was my marriage began to go through some tough times.

Chanel: My husband at the time, his job made him go see a psychiatrist. He would go twice a week faithfully, and I would never go. For some reason, one day I woke up and said, "I'm going to go with you." He was trying to tell me it's not necessary, that I don't have to go. I really didn't want to, but for some reason, I felt compelled to go. And I went.

He just started revealing these affairs that he had been having. I was supposed to have known this. This is something that he told the guy that I knew. The Lord told me to be quiet. I just got quiet and let the psychiatrist reveal everything to me that was the truth. The whole time he was telling me, my ex-husband was just putting his head down like, "I can't believe she's hearing this for the first time."

Mark: I think we were married for three years. We would argue a lot. She would always complain about not having enough money and not wanting to really go to church anymore. For three months, I couldn't find them. I came to my house and there was nobody there. Her clothes were gone, and the kids' clothes were gone. For me, that was probably one of the lowest points of my life. That was the beginning of the downfall for me as far as the anger and the frustration with God.

Chanel: When I left that day, I said to him, "I'm not even angry anymore. I'm done." We had another son at the time. I packed them up and I called my grandmother and I told her I'm coming to stay with her. She told me to come on. I wasn't going to date. I wasn't going to look for anyone. From that day on, it was me, the Lord, and my kids.

Mark: After the three months, she would tell me that she legally separated from me. I didn't know why. I was still trying to figure out what did I do wrong, how can I change, how can I fix it, we can work this out. I remember going to pick up the boys one weekend. I picked up a bag that had their stuff in it, and when I was unpacking their bag, there were some letters in there that were written to her.

They were letters to a guy that she had been seeing for at least two years that we had been together. To this day, I don't think I ever felt anything that bad. I just asked the Lord, "Why does this happen to me? I was doing everything that you told me to do. I was trying to live right, I was trying to be a father to my kids, I was trying to be a husband, I was trying to be a provider."

I just shut all my emotions off. I didn't care about anything. I didn't care about anybody. I didn't care about myself. I didn't care about anything. I just was so angry.

God, if you can let this happen to me, even though I'm doing all of this, then why even live like you want me to live? That's when I realized that when we are so emotionally damaged and we don't really just trust the Lord to get us through it, I went right back to what I chose not to do. I went back to hanging out with guys I knew that sold drugs. Some of the guys I hung out with robbed or steal or do whatever they had to do to get money.

I had to stay 30 days in jail. I was involved with some people that were helping me raise money in an illegal way. That led me to my choice of relationships. The word that we use is hood or street, and she was that. She wasn't in church. She hung out with the boys. She sold drugs with the boys. She was out there.

We dated and my first daughter was born. Shortly after Kwonda was born, she was pregnant with Nicole, my second daughter. She had to go spend some time in jail. That's when it really began to hit me that I'm not making some very wise decisions. All the whole time there was just this pulling at my heart like, "This is not it. This is not how God wanted me to end up. This just can't be it."

God, if you don't do something, if you don't show me what I need to do, then I'm probably going to die like this.

Chanel: I knew that I was going to have to get some sort of education. I saw a flyer for a continuing education course in data connectivity.

Mark: The youth pastor that talked to me all of those years ago that told me about Christ was still part of my life. He told me about this continuing education class.

Chanel: My first day of class, when I was all pumped up for life, I went to the class. As soon as I stepped foot in the classroom, it's an all-male classroom.

Mark: Then in walks Chanel, who would probably be one of the only females that was taking this class.

Chanel: Everyone in the classroom was looking at me like I was a piece of chicken. They were just like, "Come sit here."

Mark: With all of those guys in there, we're kind of looking like, "Whoa, who is that?"

Chanel: I wanted to just run out of the classroom.

Mark: When I looked at her, I was like, "I know that girl from somewhere."

Chanel: I just so happened to look across the room and I remember seeing this guy I went to high school with. And it was a seat next to him. So I said, "Okay, I'm going to go sit by him because I know at least he's not a nut."

Mark: So she asked me, "Was the seat taken?" I said, "No."

Chanel: "Good, I'm going to sit right here by you."

Mark: He said, "Okay, come on to sit out."

Chanel: So I sat down by him. I was still a little scared, but at least I was sitting by someone whom I recognized.

I get home after class and the Lord gave me a dream. He showed me Mark and he said to me, "You see him? He's mine." And I said he couldn't be. I know his life. He has five kids. There's a lot of stuff that he says in class that he likes to do that he could not possibly be yours.

The Lord said, "Yes, he's mine. And when you go to school and when you see him again, you ask him why is he running?" This guy was going to think that I was a nut. I went to school one day, I was sitting in class thinking, "Oh gosh, I got to tell him what the Lord said." So we had a little break in class, and I went over to Mark and I was like, "Why are you running?"

Mark: "I'm not running from you, baby. I wouldn't run from you."

Chanel: "No, no, no. That's not what I mean. The Lord told me to ask you, 'Why are you running?'"

Mark: He just looked at me and his whole facial expression changed, and he was asking me how did I know him. I thought maybe somebody told her that they knew me from the past, or they knew me from being with the church. But she said, "No, nobody told me. The Lord just told me to ask you that."

Chanel: He said to me, "Wow, that's amazing because that's the prayer that I prayed." He asked the Lord to show him something. "Lord, if you don't tell me something, I'm just going to go completely this way, and I know I am."

Mark: I asked the question to God again, and he gave me the answer. It was kind of like going back to when I was 16 when I said, "God, is this it?" After that, he showed me his son. It was one of those life-changing moments for me where I realized that God is listening to me and he does love me and he does care about me. In two years, that was probably the first Sunday I went back to church.

Chanel: In all the books I read, there was the evil wicked stepmom. I didn't know how to be a mom to these children, and I didn't really want to be.

Mark: Living two different types of ways, I know that you don't like how this feels.

Chanel: I was really upset with him.

Mark: We decided that we would go through counseling. We didn't have anything.

Chanel: Unless he's going to rain down manna from heaven, we're going to sit in here and this is going to be our last supper.

Mark: That's not easy. As for me and my house, we're going to follow the Lord, and that's what we try to teach our kids.

Chanel: We make all these plans and we tell the Lord what we want and this is what we're going to accept, and all along, he has a whole 'nother plan for us. We've been married 12 years. Yes, it's been 12 years.

Mark: We dated for three years. We decided before we get married that we would go through counseling.

Chanel: From the first time the boys looked at each other, there was an instant bond. They ran to each other.

Mark: I mean, they just hugged each other. They were all over each other.

Chanel: They just loved each other from day one.

Mark: It's like they had been knowing each other forever. My boys call her mom. They call her mama. It's like she's just a mom to them.

Guest (Male): My dad is an awesome man for God, a man of God. Everything that we have, everything that he has, he basically gives all the glory to God for it. He didn't do any of this of himself. He did it for God. Now, that's how I'm trying to live my life now.

I am at school. I'm attending TCC, Tarrant County Community College. Right now, I am pursuing music. What I want in the future is to see my family all give God praise. I want to see us all do good in life, do great things. All of us do great things together, help each other up, pull each other up.

I'm a teenager and we all have this urge, and that urge within, you still got to serve God and love him and love others. My mom growing up, she was a strong believer throughout, no matter what happened. As my stepdad came into our lives, we saw how he was a Christian, and we just fell in love with him.

Chanel: There's no magic book that's going to tell you how to be a stepmom. All the books I read, there was the evil wicked stepmom, and I didn't know how to be a mom to these children and I didn't really want to be. But the Lord was like, "No, I put them in your life for you to be their mom." And so I said, "Okay Lord, teach me how to be their mom."

Mark: I approached it like, "Okay, at this house, I'm the dad of this house and Chanel is the mom of this house." So this is what we're going to do at this house.

Chanel: Slowly, he would put people in my life that would tell me things like, "Touch them. Put your hand on them." When you are combing the girl's hair, touch them. Because I would do the hair, but you're a little doll and I'm going to do it and then go on over there.

The Lord always made sure we were on one accord. So if I told one they couldn't do something and they tried to go tell their dad, the Lord would always have us, husband and wife, go back and say to them, "You're not going to do that."

Mark: I tell my kids all the time, "I know that you don't like how this feels." In a perfect world, we'd rather have your mom and your dad in the same house. To have to have two sets of rules, living two different types of ways, trying to figure out whom you need to ask for permission based on where you're going to be at a certain time, that's not easy.

Chanel: I let the children know, "I'm not here to replace your mom. I can never do that. But I am going to be your mom here."

Mark: As for me and my house, we're going to follow the Lord, and that's what we try to teach our kids. It's important to me for them to develop their own personal relationship with Christ. My marriage and my children bring out the desire to live for God even more.

Chanel: There've been times when we didn't have anything to eat. I was really upset with him for getting all the kids and like, "Why would you bring them all and we don't have anything to feed them?" He's like, "Well, it's our time with them and the Lord will provide."

"Unless he's going to rain down manna from heaven, we're going to sit in here and this is going to be our last supper and we're going to just starve to death." That's what I would say to him. And then he would say, "No, God is going to provide."

So we would pray, and I would let them pray. One of them would pray, "Lord, send us some food in Jesus' name." We went on to church and everything looked great. People saw us and I sang and the kids sang and it just looked wonderful. On the way home, I'm thinking, "Okay, there's a famine in the land."

We all came home from church and our screen door was kind of open a little bit. I was like, "Okay, now someone's been in the house. Go see the door is left open." In the crack of the door, it's two huge sacks of groceries, meats and potatoes.

Someone just passed by and they said the Lord put you on my mind and this is what he told me to do. "I brought it and I just set it on your porch." And the kids were like, "Whoa, God did that because we prayed!"

Later on, we found out it was a friend of ours from an old church we used to go to. He said that the Lord just placed us on his heart. The kids saw that. So they have been able to see God in their lives in a very real way.

Mark: We got them all together in the living room and we said, "Hey, let's just pray and ask God to give us a new house." Our kids were getting six feet tall and their heads were scraping up against the ceiling and all this kind of stuff.

I didn't have any credit. She had terrible credit. So we all got together and we prayed and it was very specific. Shortly after that, a friend of hers called her and said, "Hey, Habitat is doing a new blitz in West Dallas. They're going to be building houses. You guys need to try."

Habitat for Humanity. "I'm so convinced that I think God wants you all to do this, I'm going to give you guys the $25 credit check thing." About a week later, we got a call that said, "Hey, you guys qualify for the Habitat homes."

What Habitat does is, instead of you having to pay a big down payment, they let you do what they call sweat equity. Sweat equity is when you actually come and work on your house. The more people that you invite to come, the more hours you can get. So we had these large numbers of friends and family that would come. I think the amount of sweat equity hours that we needed was like 400, but we had like 800 sweat equity hours.

Chanel: We had so many people come that the Habitat people were trying to figure out like, "Who are we?" They said, "Who are you guys?" I mean, we had so many people show up they had to have them in shifts like, "You come in the morning and then you guys come in the evening." And it's like, "Wow, where did you all get all these people?" It was great to watch.

Mark: It was fun for us to just watch God allow our friends to be a part of this dream.

Chanel: I just could not believe that this was our home. It's still unreal to me. I'm still walking around going, "Wow, this is ours." Matthew walked in here and he just looked around and said, "It feels like a dream, Mom."

Mark: I never would have thought in a million years that I'd be here, actually buying my own house. I grew up in West Dallas, I was born in West Dallas, and I love West Dallas. To have a home in West Dallas and to have a place where my kids can come and be at peace and love one another and we can just be a family.

It's just amazing to know that we live here and that God gave us this. I can hardly explain the joy that I have, just how God answers prayer and got us to this point.

Guest (Male): Looking into the future, I see them going well because whatever's going to happen, God's going to be with us. He'll take care of us throughout whatever we're doing. Looking back in the past, he's done it and there wouldn't be a reason for him not to do it now.

Mark: My message would be for a family that's kind of going through some of the similar things or even just trying to figure out what the answer is. I would say trust God with your whole heart. At 16, I didn't know how I was about to be a father, didn't understand what that was all about.

God has taught me how to be that father. I had a failed marriage, wanted to be a better husband, God taught me how to be that husband. Just trying to take care of nine kids and provide for, God has taught me how to have faith in him enough to make sure that they are taken care of.

Chanel: God's love for us is beyond our understanding. There are no limits on how much he loves us.

Mark: He's able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or think. And he can do that. If he can do that for us, then I know he can do it for every family if they completely trust him with it.

Through all of the stuff that we went through, God wanted us to be totally committed to him. When we decided to just say, "Lord, you know what, we tried it our way, we did all of these things to try to make it work and it's just not working." So we want to totally surrender to you. I know that in my own self, I can't do that without the help of the Holy Spirit.

Chanel: Only God can change the heart of man.