Voices of Survival Live Today! One Thing We Can Do About The World’s Brokenness

I listened to your trial podcast tonight. Absolutely no problems! I was incredibly inspired and I want to bless you in what you’re doing! I love it!!

-Laura

I am so excited about launching Voices of Survival today! But I also feel the seriousness of the world’s brokenness. Anyone heard anything about racial conflict this weekend? Addiction struggles? Child abuse? Illegal immigration? Manipulative beggars?

Even for Christians, these issues can be confusing, distressing, and overwhelming.

Maybe you grew up, like me, on a quiet green farm in the country. You don’t understand what it’s like to be arrested, or to struggle with drug addiction, and it seems impossible to ever have any connection with someone who has experienced these things.

Or, maybe you have little children and you just can’t be in “urban-style” ministry right now.

But you want to expand your perspective. You want to know how to think about race, immigration, addiction, prison. You want to be like Jesus.

What can you do?

The world is desperately broken. Jesus is the only lasting answer. But people like Marnell and I who grew up in wonderful families on cozy green homesteads in the country, often struggle to know how to share Jesus in the hard places. We can’t save the world. Sometimes we want to run. But there is one thing that Jesus does for us, that we can all do for others.

We can listen.

Marnell and I have found that having someone at our kitchen table and listening, educates and changes us and teaches us how to pray. It makes us grateful for the happy childhood memories we have. (Such an oddity in our neighborhood!) But even beyond that, it tells the storyteller that they matter. It offers them dignity.

Now, we are inviting you to listen into these highly private conversations.

“Voices of Survival” shares, in their own voices, the stories of people in our Brady Street, Elkhart neighborhood, who have survived difficult times.

Why “Adult Content”?

This page is marked as “adult content” and is subscription-only at Patreon.com/voicesofsurvival. This is mostly to be vigilant about warning you that you should not listen to a podcast the first time with children present. We will never post content that glorifies sin. However, these stories are presented in their raw, usually broken form. While most storytellers make an effort to be respectful, some stories may contain occasional obscenities or discussion about drugs, jail time, or sexual struggles. 

You can listen to these podcasts for $3/month. Each month, we plan to post three or four podcasts, with no podcasts on holiday weeks. To start, we are posting on Thursday, but that could change. We posted one for early testers last Thursday, but that one will be available to you when you subscribe.

If you wish to tangibly contribute to our neighborhood, choose a higher subscription – $5/ month to help with food for hungry people, $10/ month to help with home maintenance yard work for the elderly Mary, or $20/month to help our friend Chris, who has struggled with addictions, to get his license back and pay legal fees.

Bonus – If you choose one of the subscriptions above $3, you are asked to enter your mailing address because you will be put on the Voices of Survival Christmas greeting list! But don’t worry, if you start at $3 you can always go higher later. You can also pick any other amount higher that $3 if you wish.

By the way, we plan to share the story of our neighbor Mary in podcast episode two this Thursday. We may share her own childhood story of racial struggle, even though that one should be second. But it seems that it would fit well considering the current events.

Is It Hard to Sign Up?

From the testers of the podcast —

• Never bought a subscription through Patreon before but it was fast and easy. -Kerra
• It took me all of 45 seconds! No joke. it was so very easy. Now, I had a Patreon subscriber account already so I didn’t need to sign up for a new account that saved some time but anyway … these podcasts will help stave off the cabin fever on day #65 of self quarantine inside our compound!! Thank you. -Gina
• I just subscribed and it was super easy and efficient. If I’d have one tiny complaint, it would be having to scroll down”forever” to get to the United States. And btw, you Do Not Need To Apologize for a subscription price. What a small price to be able to invest in this ministry. Thanks for doing this! -Susan

The Patreon app works great on phones, but is not essential –

• I just got done listening to your podcast. I thought it was fantastic. It worked really well. I was a little worried because my phone is basically on the edge … and I don’t know that it would download an app right now so I didn’t know if I could listen. But it worked great! I didn’t download anything. The link (in the email) took me right to the podcast. -Rebecca

We did hear of someone who had trouble listening from the email link, but then were able to listen in Patreon. Please keep us updated on any way we can help you troubleshoot. Katrina@500-words.com, or call or text me. If I am not smart enough to figure it out, I know someone who is!

Can You Use Your Normal Podcast App?

For those of you who do have favorite podcast apps, many of them will work well with Patreon subscriptions. Here is a list I found that shows which ones accept copied private Patreon RSS feeds. I’m assuming they will update regularly, so possibly even if your favorite is not on the list below, it might work. Or go here to see the article where I got the list below.

Please remember, you can listen right on Patreon as well. Best wishes, and contact us with ANY problems!

iOS Apps that work:

• Apple Podcast
• Castro
• Downcast
• OverCast
• Pocket Casts*
• Swoot

Android Apps that work:

• Beyond Pod
• Dog Catcher*
• Player FM * (Important:you must register an account with them to import our private RSS.)
• Pocket Casts * (Important please see this article in their support center.)
• Podcast Addict*
• Podcast Republic*
• Podcasts Tracker*
• Podcasty
• PodKicker
• Swoot