Mark Witas
Episode 164

Narrator: Welcome, friends, to another episode of The Story and Experience podcast. Join your host, Japhet de Oliveira with his guest today and discover the moments that shape us, our families and communities.

Japhet De Oliveira: Hey, welcome, friends, to another episode of The Story and Experience podcast. I am absolutely delighted to have the guests that I have today because I've known them for so long, and I'm delighted you're going to meet them. So if you're brand new to the podcast, we have a hundred questions. They progressively become more vulnerable closer to 100, and they're about stories and experiences that shape this person into the leader that they are today. I'm going to ask the first 10, then I'm going to hand over to them. So can we begin with, could you tell us your name and does anybody ever mispronounce it?

Mark Witas: Oh, wow. My name, Mark Witas, and I've been Mark Whittess, Mark Wheattes, Mark Withus. I've been lots and lots of things, but Witas is my name, and I threatened my wife when we had our first child that I was going to name him God Be, then you could be God Be Witas, and that would be... She said no, but that's how you remember my name.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay. Right. That's good. I would never guess. I would've never guessed, but you find out these things. Mark, what do you do for work?

Mark Witas: I'm the director of Mission and Spiritual Care at Adventist Health, Glendale. I've been doing that for two years.

Japhet De Oliveira: Great.

Mark Witas: And I love it.

Japhet De Oliveira: And this is a particular area that you've done this all the time in your life, career, or?

Mark Witas: No, this is a new gig.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay. All right.

Mark Witas: Yeah, I've been a pastor, I've been a principal, I've taught college, university classes, I've taught high school classes, junior high classes, youth pastor, and before I got into ministry, I was in the television industry. I worked for an ABC affiliate in Seattle, and before that, I swept the parking lot at a local 7?11 when I was 14 years old, and they gave me pinball money.

Japhet De Oliveira: Really?

Mark Witas: Yeah. I was able to play pinball. I was so excited. Evil Knievel is the best pinball machine, by the way, and I spent hours and hours on that, and it's really not paid off at all in my adult life.

Japhet De Oliveira: You don't have the little console now to play?

Mark Witas: I don't, no. Yeah, and I don't play video games. It's just pinball. Still, if I see a machine, if I'm in a restaurant and I see a machine or something, I'm sneaking over, I'm throwing 50 cents in that bad boy, and I'm going to play. I'm going to win a free game too.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's fantastic. Mark, hey, that's great. Just unpack your job in particular, a little bit like what you currently do because it's an interesting world.

Mark Witas: Yeah. It's largely an administrative role, but mixed with that is chaplaincy. So I have 15 chaplains that I work with. Some of them are full-time, a lot of them are part-time, per diem chaplains. And I schedule them. I work with them. I make sure that their certifications, all the things that administrators have to do. And along with that, I chaplain myself. So I go into rooms and I visit with patients. I work with administration on planning and implementation for things in our hospital and in our community. And I work with our community, with our Chamber of Commerce and with community leaders. Tomorrow all day I'm going to be at a homeless shelter and at Salvation Army working with a bunch of community leaders to bolster their program on behalf of Adventist Health. So yeah, it's a lot, but it's great. It keeps me busy. It keeps me out of jail, as they say.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah. Somehow I think it's a little bit more than that for you.

Mark Witas: A little bit.

Japhet De Oliveira: Just listening to you speak this week at the head office for our mission week and the stories you shared. I mean, stories are an important part of your life, right?

Mark Witas: Yeah. I think story's probably the biggest part of everybody's life, whether they're able to tell that story or not. But stories are what form us. It's just how the Bible was written, it's how our life was written. As we go back, we don't think in calendar, we think in story, right? Story after story and story, and those stories helped shape us and form us to be the men and women that we are.

Japhet De Oliveira: I like that. That's a great illustration. Now, where were you born, Mark?

Mark Witas: Los Angeles.

Japhet De Oliveira: Oh, really?

Mark Witas: Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: Wow. Did you grow up there?

Mark Witas: No. I was born and... Well, I guess everybody was born, but as soon as I was born, I was handed over to the state of California, and for the first five weeks of my life, I was in foster care and then I was adopted by a family that moved up to Seattle after my third year of life and grew up in Seattle.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay. All right. So as a child growing up in Seattle, what did you imagine you would grow up to be?

Mark Witas: Well, my mom always told me when I was a kid, they'd ask me, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And I always look at her and say, "A leaf." She said, "A leaf?" I guess I was very unimaginative. But I had all the typical dreams of either being a professional basketball player or a rock star. And other than that, I really had no plans.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, that's okay. That's okay. Here's a practical question. Are you an early riser or late night owl?

Mark Witas: I'm an early riser. It doesn't matter what time I go to bed, I'm going to wake up at 5:45.

Japhet De Oliveira: Really? Okay.

Mark Witas: Yeah. And I don't ever set an alarm, and that's just what time I wake up. And I go to bed 9, 9:30 every night. I like it that way.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's fantastic. Now, when you got up this morning, first thought that went through your mind today.

Mark Witas: Oh, well, I was in a hotel and my first thought was, I got to get everything in this suitcase because I'm checking out. But my typical morning first thoughts, before I open my eyes, I just say some things to God and request a few things, and that's my before I open my eyes. And then after that, I have a little routine. As soon as I'm done praying, I do Wordle.

Japhet De Oliveira: Oh, really?

Mark Witas: Every morning. And then I send my results to three or four people that share their results with me.

Japhet De Oliveira: How are you doing? Are you scoring well?

Mark Witas: I do. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I rarely get busted. And after Wordle, I check the stock market, and after I check the stock market... Yeah, I just had this little progression of things that I do.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's great.

Mark Witas: And spend some time in the word. Yeah. Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: Do you have coffee, tea, little green smoothie, water? What's the first drink of the day?

Mark Witas: Well, embarrassingly, I drink two large glasses of water with a Benafibre mixed in.

Japhet De Oliveira: Really?

Mark Witas: Yes.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's good.

Mark Witas: That makes me so happy.

Japhet De Oliveira: So happy. That makes me...

Mark Witas: This is going to be edited, right?

Japhet De Oliveira: No, it's not. This is exactly as it is. Okay. Benafibre makes me so happy. All right.

Mark Witas: It makes me so happy. And then I'll eat a banana, and then I'll eat a bowl of cereal and off I go.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's brilliant, man. I love it. I love it. Hey, personality, Mark. If people were to describe you, would they say you are an introvert or an extrovert, and would you agree?

Mark Witas: They would say I'm an extrovert, and I would agree.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah.

Mark Witas: I would much rather be with you than be by myself. Yeah. Even you.

Japhet De Oliveira: Even me.

Mark Witas: Even you.

Japhet De Oliveira: Despite me. Okay, that's great. Okay, last question here. Leadership question. Are you a backseat driver?

Mark Witas: No. I lead collaboratively. So when there are decisions to be made about my department that don't involve specific personnel, you can't do the private things. But yeah, I bring everybody together and I say, "I'm thinking this. I want to hear everybody's opinion, and I want you to be honest." And I'll listen to everybody. And after that, often I find out I'm not the smartest person in the room and I'll adjust and make it better because I've listened to a collective wisdom and I really, really believe in collective wisdom.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's fantastic, man. Love that. All right, great. Floors open, Mark. Where would you like to go between 11 and 100 now?

Mark Witas: Now, explain this again. If I said 11, you're going to ask me what my favorite color is. If I go to 100, you're going to ask me about my deepest darkest fear. Is that kind of the progression?

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, yeah,.

Mark Witas: Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: Color to fear. Yeah, sure.

Mark Witas: Yeah. Well, let's split the difference then and go to 50.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay. All right. 50, share about who has influenced you professionally.

Mark Witas: Currently, probably my boss, Sam Leonore. I came into a hospital from a church world, and very quickly found out that there are completely different languages. The lingo is different, the phraseology, everything. And so Sam has helped navigate those waters for me, and I look up to him for that. Sam has the ability to tell you that you're a complete dunce and make you feel incredible about yourself while he is doing it. And so I really admire that. But before that, there've just been some people that have really influenced the way I think, the way I feel, and I don't think I've met most of them. Yeah. Authors that I've read that have changed my worldview and...

Japhet De Oliveira: That's great.

Mark Witas: Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: Fantastic. All right, that was 50. Where next?

Mark Witas: Oh yeah. Well, let's keep going down the rabbit hole. Let's go to 73.

Japhet De Oliveira: 73. All right. Share something that you've had to unlearn in your life.

Mark Witas: I've had to unlearn a lot of things about God, and some people call that deconstruction. But yeah, my opinion of God has changed pretty radically to the point now where I would say the way I see the divine is that there's a very large table, and at that table there are chairs and there's a chair for everybody. Exclusion is counter to his character. And I don't know, I find a lot of churches, a lot of ideas exclude because, well, you're not like us, so you can't be with us, kind of a thing, and I find that that's just not true about the God that I believe in anyway. I've had to really change my... And that doesn't fly popular with a lot of people, but yeah, I think there's a big table, there are chairs and everybody gets a seat at the table. Everybody gets a seat at the table.

Japhet De Oliveira: Wow. Beautiful. Beautiful. All right. Mark, where next? Yeah.

Mark Witas: That was 73. Let's go 82.

Japhet De Oliveira: 82. If you could only keep three possessions, what would they be and why?

Mark Witas: All right. Are we excluding live things?

Japhet De Oliveira: I guess if you keep them.

Mark Witas: Oh, so live things count?

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Witas: Well, my son and my wife would be the first two, and then the last possession would be all of my friends. Yeah. I don't...

Japhet De Oliveira: The table.

Mark Witas: I'm not materialistic, I'm minimalistic. If you came into my house, you'd look around and you'd probably say, "Where's all the stuff?" Yeah. People are my investment. They're my love, they're my heart. Everything that matters to me is people.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's fantastic. Beautiful. All right, where next, sir?

Mark Witas: What was that? That was...

Japhet De Oliveira: 82.

Mark Witas: 82. Let's go... How many more are we doing?

Japhet De Oliveira: Well...

Mark Witas: As many as we want. Okay. Well then let's go to my age, 62.

Japhet De Oliveira: Okay. All right, here we go. Oh, what does a sense of community mean to you?

Mark Witas: Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: I mean, come on.

Mark Witas: It's everything. I was sitting at a meeting with a whole bunch of college pastors when I used to be a college pastor, and we were talking about the essence of things. And one of the college pastors said the best word to describe love is service. And we talked about that. And as I thought about it, I vocally disagreed with this person and I said it's not service. I can go out and I could feed homeless people and never think about them again. To me, the ultimate act of love is inclusion. When you have a seat at the table, when you're included, you're loved. I can give you a bag of lunch and walk away and not love you, but if you're sitting at my table and we're in conversation over a meal like Jesus did with so many people, that's when you're included, that's when you feel loved and a part of things. So I think developing community is the healing agent for the world.

Japhet De Oliveira: I'm going to ask a question. So 62 A. You have mentioned it a couple of times now, the table, inclusion. This passion, this vision that you have, is that because you felt that you've not included?

Mark Witas: Well, that's just not a fair question.

Japhet De Oliveira: Well...

Mark Witas: So I'm almost finishing my clinical pastoral education, my CPE education, and one of the things that's revealed to me is who I think I am. And that was greatly influenced by a father and a stepfather who demeaned me a lot and made me think a lot less of myself. So that really sunk into me. And that's my inner child. My inner child. Every time I do something well and I get kudos for it, my inner child is jumping up and down and saying, "See, dad? I told you I could be something." Right? So that's a part of it. The other part of it is my mom took in every stray in our neighborhood, every kid that got kicked out their house, and there were many. She'd pick up hitchhikers and bring them home and have them stay with us, and she just embedded in my character the idea that we need to bring them all in and we need to take care of them. So as a consequence, my wife and I, through our years, have invested in young people.

We have a line of kids that we've taken in and then set out into the world to be successful. There's dozens and dozens of them out there that call us mom and dad, as a second mom and dad, that just needed something, and it's maybe the most important thing to me.

Japhet De Oliveira: Wow. Thanks for sharing that. I think that it's not an uncommon narrative, right? A lot of people feel this way. So what would you say to somebody who feels like, "There's no space for me at the table."?

Mark Witas: There isn't mine for you. Yeah. There's no worse feeling in the world, and I've only experienced it a few times, but I've experienced it acutely, than rejection, than the idea that you're not wanted. And that goes from when you're 14 and you have a crush on somebody and you reveal that crush and they're like, "Eww. No." It stings, right? "Wait a minute, I want to be at the table with you." "Well, I don't want you at my table." And it starts at a young age with little kids on the playground. "No, you can't play with us," And it just keeps... Some kids grow up with that hammered into their heads so much that they just don't feel welcome, and you can see it in how they live their life, and I see it in patients' rooms, in beds with people that are sick, that part of the reason they're sick is because of how they feel about themselves and it's just been ingrained into them. And to bring somebody like that in...

Even though a lot of the times the result of all of that abuse is they're kind of weird, right? They're different. Weird not in, "Oh, you weirdo," But weird in that they're not normative. They act differently, and so it's a little uncomfortable. But walking with them in that discomfort, walking through the valley of the shadow of death with them is a life changer. It's a game changer for them. When somebody feels like they're a part of something bigger than themselves, it gives them purpose, it gives them meaning, it gives them value. So part of my journey has been trying to discover who I am through all of this.I'm probably arrogant now, I think. Somebody asked me, "Well, how do you know you're going to go to heaven after you die?" Or something like that, and I said, "Why wouldn't Jesus want to hang out with me? Man, I'm awesome." But I've crawled through all of this abyss of, uh, and come to the other side to realize that Jesus actually wants me at the table. He wants me there.

He has a chair right next to him. He wants to ask me about my day, he wants to know how I did that and this, and he wants to put the art that I made at school up on the refrigerator. I'm a part of the family and I think it's important for me to let everyone know that they are too.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah. I know this about you, and I would love everybody listening to know this about you as well, that in complex things, you bring people together to solve things, you don't let it fester. And you're an advocate for people as well. So could you share a story of a moment that you remember where God puts you in this place and you were able to be an advocate for someone else? I know you have so many of these, so just pick one. Just pick one because I think I'd love for people to hear that about you.

Mark Witas: Yeah. Well, the first one that came to mind when you said that, and if I sat and thought about it, maybe I could come up with a better one. But the first one that came into my mind includes violence.

Japhet De Oliveira: Oh, wow. Okay.

Mark Witas: Yeah. I was in Ukraine back in the 1990s, and I was there with a bunch of college students and we were doing some meetings, teaching people English and everything. And this young girl, maybe five two, a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet, just a little thing, she walks down the hallway in our hotel as we're meeting after these meetings and I look up and this very large Russian man grabs her and starts dragging her into his room. So I jumped up and I ran down the hallway as fast as I could and put my foot in the door right before he closed it, and actually had to be physical with this other human being and strike him to get him to let go of her. So she ran out of the room and then I ran out of the room. Okay. So that's a crazy one, right?

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, that is.

Mark Witas: So maybe a better story. And you can edit that one out because...

Japhet De Oliveira: This is it.

Mark Witas: Yeah. Maybe a better story is a young lady that I met at Pacific Union College when I was there, an immigrant from Jamaica, and she just reeked of potential but didn't have connections. And so as she was going through school, I realized her potential and saw it, but realized that she didn't quite know what to do with it. So I made a few phone calls and I said, "This one's a star. You really need to go after this one." And she actually got into a program because of the phone calls, and she is doing very, very well now professionally because of that.

Japhet De Oliveira: Fantastic.

Mark Witas: In our health system.

Japhet De Oliveira: Oh, fantastic.

Mark Witas: Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's great. That's great. Oh, beautiful. All right, where next then?

Mark Witas: Oh boy. Let's see. I said 62, 93.

Japhet De Oliveira: 93. All right. Paint us a picture of success.

Mark Witas: I keep going back to it. It's a full table.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. I mean, why not?

Mark Witas: There's no other... My bank account's like everybody. It's okay. I drive a used car. We can't afford anything in Glendale, so we're living in this a thousand square foot little two bedroom. It's pretty small and not great, but my wife and I just don't care. We want a full table. And that's...

Japhet De Oliveira: That's good.

Mark Witas: Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's good.

Mark Witas: That's success for is just walking into whatever is on the other side, new earth, heaven, whatever you want to describe it as, and seeing everybody and high-fiving and hugging and going for a run on the streets of gold and catching a fish in the river of life.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's a beautiful picture. All right. Where next after 93?

Mark Witas: 91, of course.

Japhet De Oliveira: Describe a time where you had to learn about forgiveness.

Mark Witas: I'm quick to forgive, except for once. I've only hated a person once in my life. When I mean hate, I mean I wished them dead. In fact, while I was a pastor, I would pray that God would just go ahead and kill them because they were a waste of humanity.

Japhet De Oliveira: Wow. Okay.

Mark Witas: This was my stepfather. My stepfather, my mom married him when I was 14. He was in prison for 18 years before that. He was supposed to be in 20 to life for,...he raped and murdered a Lutheran church worker that knocked on their door when he was, I think, 18 or 19 years old. My mom met him at a prison picnic, fell in love, he was 10 years younger than her, started writing letters to the parole board, "Hey, can he get out of jail early, please?" And they gave him that monopoly get out of jail free card. And he got out of jail, they got married and he was horribly, horribly abusive to me and my sister. Physically abusive...

Japhet De Oliveira: My goodness.

Mark Witas: And verbally abusive. Really, really made me feel pretty bad about myself in all ways, physically and mentally and socially and spiritually for what I had when I was that old, and I hated him. I got out of the house as fast as I could. I left at 17 and never came back. And he just got worse as the years went along. And yeah. He was a drug addict. He never worked. Because of my mom, I bought the house that they lived in because they weren't paying their taxes, they were going to get kicked out and I wanted to take care of my mom, but he wrecked the house. He wouldn't mow the lawn. All the neighbors in the neighborhood hated him. He was just a miserable human being. And so finally my mom had a brain tumor, and that was all a disaster. And so we took my mom from him because we found that he was neglecting her. And since I owned the house, I had to go through legal means, but I kicked him out of the house. For years, I feared for my life.

I would lock all of our doors in our house no matter where I lived because I knew he was... He was a very violent human being.,And so I thought he's going to come and kill me. And I found out that he died, found out that he died in a hotel room with a whole bunch of drugs and a prostitute. He overdosed and died right there in the room. And even after he was dead, I hated him. And I was preaching about forgiveness in church one week, and we get home and my wife says, "So you never forgave Don." And I'm like, why did I get married?

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, no. Prophetic word.

Mark Witas: And I said, "Yeah, but he was a..." Blank, blank, blank. And she said, "Yeah, but according to what you just preached..." So I started praying, how do I do this, God, because I hate this man. And over a period of months, my heart started to change and I started feeling really, really sorry for this guy because of how he grew up and what he went through. And my heart started to break for him. And so at the end of the day, I wrote a big long letter to him, "This is what you did to me. And that's not okay, but I want you to know that I don't hold any of this against you anymore and I forgive you. And I can say now that I actually love you, and if I do get to see you again, I will see you with a hug." And I wrote that all out. I sent it without a return address to my old address. Somebody in that house got that letter. That was my release. That was my forgiveness.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, that's a powerful moment. Transformative.

Mark Witas: Yeah. It wasn't easy.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah.

Mark Witas: Yeah. But I can truthfully say that now I have warmth in my heart and empathy.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's good.

Mark Witas: Yeah. I hurt for him.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, that's good. That's good.

Mark Witas: Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: Where do you want to go next after that? Yeah.

Mark Witas: Oh, 99. Of course 99.

Japhet De Oliveira: Oh, okay. Well, what is the most difficult truth you've ever told?

Mark Witas: Well, it's always difficult for me to reprimand somebody severely. And so I've had, in everywhere that I've worked, at one time or another, you have to let somebody go for something they've done. So sitting down with somebody and saying, "Listen, you've crossed a line here and we can't work together anymore." That's really hard because it's somebody's livelihood and that. So that's rough. I think anytime I have to confess a failure either to somebody that I love, whether it's my wife or a good friend, where I've done something that I just... And I haven't done anything horribly immoral or anything like that, but where you know you've really let somebody down and then confessing that to somebody because you just don't want to hurt somebody that you're in relationship with. I think that's a pretty difficult truth to say.

I have told people some convictions that I have that I really, really believe in that aren't popular, whether that be church or societally, that I really, really believe these truths, and I've confessed those to some people sometimes that were really disappointed in what they heard, but I just felt like it was the time to say something to them. So yeah, those kinds of things.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's really good, Mark. And those are all difficult indeed.

Mark Witas: Well, thanks for not asking me specifics.

Japhet De Oliveira: No, that's okay. That's okay. We have time for two more. Last two numbers. Where would you like to go?

Mark Witas: All right. Well, we'll end with a hundred, so let's do 86.

Japhet De Oliveira: 86.

Mark Witas: Agent 86.

Japhet De Oliveira: Agent 86. All right. Oh, who was influential in shaping you to be who you are now and why?

Mark Witas: Like I said, there are people that I've read. John Ortberg was somebody that I read a ton of. Brian Zond is somebody that's really helped form and shape my theological and political views. And then just probably all of my friendships, the people that are...

Japhet De Oliveira: The community that you belong to.

Mark Witas: The community that I belong to. And I've got a lot of young people in my life and they keep teaching me these new words and I'm always misusing them and they're always rolling their eyes. Right now I kind of surround myself with young people.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's great. That's great.

Mark Witas: And they're very influential on me.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, it's beautiful

Mark Witas: Keeping me up to date.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, no, I like it. Like it.

Mark Witas: All right. Hundred.

Japhet De Oliveira: Question hundred. Mark, if you wouldn't mind, tell us about one question you don't want to answer.

Mark Witas: I'm a pretty open book. I don't think there's something that you would ask me right now that I probably wouldn't be honest with you. You might not want to play it. Yeah, you feel free. You can ask me anything. But yeah. So Jesus is really intent on the idea that light needs to overcome darkness, and I believe pretty strongly that all of us have darkness in us and we don't like anybody to see what's in the dark. We want to hide it.

Japhet De Oliveira: That's true.

Mark Witas: And I believe very strongly that everything we keep in hiding festers and poisons us. And so I've made it a pretty big practice in my life to not have things that are in the dark. So my life's a pretty open book. What you see is what you get. And so yeah, you could pretty much ask me anything and I'll talk about it.

Japhet De Oliveira: Well, I think you've already shared as well some of the most difficult things that you've had to address in your life, and I think the process you're going through and the way that you take care of people in your team... I mean, it's been your entire life. If you haven't met Mark, you need to meet Mark and you need to sit down with him and get to know more of his stories because he has shaped so many people in his life.

Mark Witas: Well, I got to say the same for you, Jay. Every time I'm with you and we talk and we go a little deeper, I learn a little bit more, and you are a fascinating Brit, you are.

Japhet De Oliveira: We are blessed to know each other, brother. We are blessed.

Mark Witas: Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira: Well, Mark, it has been a privilege. Absolute privilege. Thank you for taking the time to share. It's been really great.

Mark Witas: Thanks for asking me. It's just so good to see you again.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, absolutely.

Mark Witas: We need to go out and get some more food, don't we?

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, we do. We do. We do. For sure. And hey, look, I want to encourage people to do the same thing that we did right now because we both believe in community. Sit with somebody, especially somebody who doesn't feel like they're at the table. Bring them to your table, make them welcomed, like Mark said, and I tell you, you will be transformed by it. We know and we are loved and we're better for it.

Mark Witas: Always best over a table with food on it.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah.

Mark Witas: By the way.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah.

Mark Witas: I ate a lot of meals with people and that's the way to get to know them, just like Jesus did.

Japhet De Oliveira: Yeah, that's right. Brilliant. Well, thank you so much. God bless you, and we'll connect again soon.

Mark Witas: Thank you brother.

Narrator: Thank you for joining us for the Story and Experience podcast. We invite you to read, watch, and submit your story and experience at adventisthealth.org slash story. The Story and Experience podcast was brought to you by Adventist Health through the Office of Culture.