The Word Café Podcast with Amax

S4 Ep. 259 How Adversity, Faith, And Community Turn Transitions Into Strength

• Amachree Isoboye Afanyaa • Season 4 • Episode 259

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What if the cliché about rolling stones is wrong—and motion can grow moss? We sit down with Mercy, a veteran, military nurse, coach, and unmistakable force of nature, to unpack how change, faith, and community can turn chaos into clarity. From acing the ASVAB to laying bricks in steel-toed boots, she went from nuclear-engineering hopes to civil engineering reality, proving that prestige doesn’t equal purpose and grit is a decision you make daily.

Mercy shares the mental model that keeps her steady: every event has two levers—what you can control and what you can’t. That simple rule, learned in childhood and sharpened in uniform, becomes a survival tool for boot camp, career pivots, and the “single wife” paradox of military spouse life. She opens up about managing information during deployments, protecting her husband’s focus while rebuilding order at home, and the art of expectation management when a parent returns. The takeaway is practical and tender: steward timing, protect connection, and act where your agency matters.

We also explore time as both transmission and revelation. Some experiences can only happen in their season; others make sense only in hindsight. Mercy’s approach blends Stoic clarity with active faith, echoing the regret minimization lens: make choices today that your future self will be proud to remember. She lays out a playbook for community as a strategy—finding a YMCA and a church before you even unpack—so isolation never gets a foothold. Parenting through absence, reintegration with care, and keeping discipline secondary to connection round out her family blueprint.

If you’re navigating a transition, wrestling with control, or rebuilding after a move, this conversation offers a map. Tap play for resilient mindset shifts, marriage and parenting strategies for military families, and a grounded philosophy you can apply anywhere. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review to help others find it.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello there. Welcome to the World Cafe Podcast. This podcast has been designed. We created content that centers on the power of words. Can we really do anything without speaking? Can we really do anything without the agency of words? Yes, that is what this podcast is all about. And I am your host, Amakri Iswe, your neighborhood word trader. I believe in the power of words, for it is the unit of creation. I trade in words to profit my world. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good everything. Wherever you are on the surface of the earth at this very instant. Yes, we're back. Did we ever leave? You know how we say it on the show. This is where we come to lean on one another's experience to forge a positive path. I call this my six space. Welcome, yes, to the World Cafe Live Show. How are you? What is it like with you at your end? Well, yes, the earth is amazing. This period, we are in this unique moment of existence. There's so many things are happening in a minute just like that. Before you before you say Jack Robinson, as we say it, and things begin to just all of that. Well, we're here again, yes, to to to to gist, to talk, to you know, Lena and one other. I have a special guest in the house today. Yes, I know for a while you've not seen one or two people on the show, but I have a guest in the house today. Her name is Mercy. Mercy O'Hiriacu. I hope I got it correctly. When she comes up, she's going to say something and all of that. Mercy's, she's how do I describe her? She's she's this bundle of energy, you know, she's full of joy. She don't worry, when she comes up, you see her. She's boisterous, you know, more or less. And uh, she's a military wife, she's a coach, she's a speaker. What else again? She's so many things in one person. Well, enough of my, you know, all of that. I'm gonna bring her on so that we'll see her and we're gonna pick it up from there. Where is she? Where is she? And there she is.

SPEAKER_02:

Here I am. Hello, coach Amakri. Thank you so much for having me on. And did I butcher your name?

SPEAKER_00:

No, it's okay. It is pronounced Amakri Amakri Amakri Amakri Amakri. Okay, a lot of people, couple of people see the Amakri. Yes, yes. Couple of people see the name and they they they they pronounce the CH like tree, but I didn't know it's creep, you know. Actually, when you go into the etymology of my name, it has a lot, but uh, I'm not the one on that hot seat today. It's mercy. Mercy, welcome to the show. How are you?

SPEAKER_02:

I'm doing great, I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversations today.

SPEAKER_00:

You're welcome, you're welcome. So let's get to meet this wonderful mercy. I I know I didn't pronounce your son properly. I want you to say it so that we're going to pick it up from there.

SPEAKER_02:

I was laughing too because I probably won't say properly either. Um, it's OH. Um, my husband always gives me flack for not knowing how to pronounce his his last name. And now my last name, it is an evil last name.

SPEAKER_03:

Um I grew up a Yoruba person and I tend to put that Yoruba accent on everything, so but Ohyak is how I pronounce it.

SPEAKER_00:

But it's okay, it's it's a ohyako. I think that's the right one. Ohyako. Let me bring a little bit of the the the the evil theme from this side. Good to good to see you, good to see you here on the show. So, who is this mercy? Let's get to meet her. Who is she? What who is she if somebody bumps into you like that? Who is mercy? Who is mercy? Let's get to it, mercy.

SPEAKER_02:

Mercy is just mercy. I am a unique individual who has just been shaped and fashioned in all kinds of gloriousness. I tell people, I am a rolling stone currently gathering moss wherever I am. And the thing about Rolling Stones is that we have a certain polish to us. I was born for transitions. My whole entire life has been a series of transitions, one way or another. And I think we all go through life transitions, but it's just um it's one of the critical markers of my life, and it's one of the reasons why my experience and the uh things I've been involved in in life is so diverse because I've had to um be resilient and adapt to wherever life you know puts me and where I find myself. So a Rolling Stone currently gathering moss in Jacksonville, Florida.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow, you know, you know, we we we know Rolling Stones not to gather moss. But you are gathering amazing, and and now when you talk about transition, when you say transition, you're talking about change here. The meaning of the word transition comes up in any conversation. What comes up to our i mean our mind, our consciousness is change. So, more or less, mercy is a ball of, should I say, changes, and she's always like navigating her way through these changes effortlessly, and uh that is one aspect that you know caught my attention about you, your personality and bringing you here on the show. Now, where are we going to start about this? Your transitions and your changes. Where do we start from? Maybe I look at it from you're a military wife. So let us begin from that point. How did you get to that point?

SPEAKER_02:

In the beginning was the word, and it was mercy.

SPEAKER_03:

Now you should and you know that shameless plug for your in the beginning video that was really amazing. Ah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

So, military spouse. I met my husband in church. Uh, we attended the same redeemed church in Virginia. A lot of people often think we met in the military because I am prior service as well. I was still in the service when we met, but we actually met in church. And my story of how I joined the military um goes back to high school. I completed my high school in the United States. Uh, my family migrated to the states um a long time ago. I was a teenager at the time, and uh completed high school here. In my senior year of high school, we had uh those recruiters, they would come to um kind of the middle class, lower economic status schools and pitch the opportunity to join the military as a way, you know, to better your life and you know, kind of get out of that environment. And they came to our school and made an offer to sign up to take a particular test called the ASVAP test. It's a battery exam for the armed forces services. And the goal of that test is to try to say, you know, what kind of job you would get and things like that. And in exchange for that, you would get a day off from school. And I was like, okay, I'll take the test just to get the day off from school. I had no intentions of joining the military. And then um I signed up for the test. I took the test, and I was I had the highest score in the school. And then the recruiters started every lunch, they would come at lunch and be like, join this, join that. You know, the army recruiter would try to get me, join this, join that. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, I'm not interested in military. I just wanted a day off. I got the day off. And I had this one recruiter, she was a Filipino lady, and so she would talk to me about her Philippine experience, you know, that third world country type of experience, you know, that was similar to my Nigerian experience of growing up. And she had a little bit of a connection with me. So during lunch, I would stop by her desk and you know, chat it up with her and then go to lunch. And as it were, one day we had that conversation, and then I went to sit down at lunch, and one of my friends at the table goes, I don't know why she's wasting her time trying to convince you to join the military because you could never make it through boot camp. And if you know my personality, that was not even enough.

SPEAKER_00:

That to move me. That triggered me.

SPEAKER_02:

But it was the trigger that I needed in that moment, even though I'm someone who usually is internally driven. I I'm not very competitive at all. But when she said that, it struck a chord in me. And I was like, What do you mean I can't make it through book? And I understood where she was coming from. I was like this tiny little thing, and um I thought I was going to be the world's first shortest supermodel. Like that just was the space I was in at the time, and so that's where she was coming from. She didn't really mean it as I couldn't survive it, but I internalized it that way. And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to join the military and I'm going to make it through boot camp. And that's how my journey to joining the military started. I was um, I graduated high school at 17, and so I needed my parents to sign for me to join because I was still considered underage. And the recruiter, yeah, and the recruiter who is a Filipino lady came to my house, ate jalof with my mom, and you know, in being relatable with this immigrant experience, was able to convince my mom, who at the time was going through a divorce for my dad, um, to have her first daughter, her 17-year-old daughter join the military. The army is of all of all branches. And so she signed the papers. And I couldn't go to boot camp until after I graduated, um, which was later on in the summer. So she was seeing me every day. I would attend um drills once a month. It was the army reserves, and in her mind, she just felt like that was the military until I had to leave for boot camp in the summer.

SPEAKER_03:

And she was like, Oh no, you can't go, you're going back to Nigeria. And everyone around us was also like, oh no, why would you send your daughter to boot camp? They're doing all of this to them, and you know, all of that. And I'm like, oh no, I'm going. This is even making it more real for me that I needed to go. So, and that's how I joined the the army.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh so what yeah, so what was it like? The journey and all of that, what was it like for you?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it was not as difficult as everyone kind of made it to be, but it's I think some of that was because of my background, um, growing up in Nigeria, experiencing, you know, a level of difficulty and hardship. I think that prepared me for that. Uh, boot camp was 13 weeks long. You got up at four o'clock, you went for all these long, you know, marches and all of the trainings and all of that, but it wasn't something that was super crushing. I had the nickname of private Kool-Aid because I was always smiling. I think in my mind, I knew it was a mind game to try to get you to break down, and I just wasn't going to let you know that happen for you know to me. And I'm like, it's just 13 weeks. There is an end in sight. I just have to endure this for 13 weeks. Okay, that's fine. And that helped a lot in kind of re-orienting, you know, what this experience was about.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, it was very intense physically, but and so you you you you you you spent practically 13 weeks away from home from your mom.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I did. And then after that, okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Now I go on, go on. Sorry, sorry.

SPEAKER_02:

No, I was just going to add that after the 13 weeks' initial training, I had to go for another training, an advanced initial training, to learn what my job would be, and that was another eight weeks.

SPEAKER_00:

So, what was your job? What was it like? What did you do with the military?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, my military story is two parts. When I say I was born for transitions, I really was. Um, this is the first part of the story, which was with the army, um, the army reserves, and my job there was a carpenter and a bricklayer with the army.

SPEAKER_01:

Whoa.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, yes.

SPEAKER_03:

When I took the TV too.

SPEAKER_02:

Listen, when I took the test, um, I scored really high, and the recruiter told me I would be uh a nuclear engineer. She says, Oh, it's a hot fill, a hot fillet, and we're looking for people to fill it, but we can't get people to score high enough on the battery test to be nuclear engineers. So I'm going to get you in as a nuclear engineer. And that was in alignment with kind of where I wanted to go in the future. So I was like, okay, sure. And we started the process, and I wasn't a US citizen then, and she thought she could give me a waiver to access top security clearances in the United States, and she couldn't get me a waiver. And then she says, Okay, no worries, I can't get you a waiver for that, but I have another job as an engineer, and you would get a sign-on bonus, and the school is not too long to where you would be back in time to start your first semester of college, and you would only miss a semester of college, and so I didn't ask what type of engineering that would be, and it was civil engineering, and it was carpenter and bricklayer.

SPEAKER_00:

So, how how did you manage that? Civil engineering. So, how did you manage that?

SPEAKER_03:

Um that was probably tougher than boot camp. I still have calluses in my hand from cement work and from splinters from picking up wood. And I think what I think there's a movie. I think it's like clueless or legally blonde.

SPEAKER_02:

And I had one of those moments when the my um my instructor told me to stop using lotion on my hands because they were too soft.

SPEAKER_03:

And I'm like, what do you mean stop using lotion on your hands?

SPEAKER_02:

Like these two things is not computing for who I am and my personality, but um ultimately, I mean, one of once again, you know, rolling with the changes and being adaptive in whatever environment you find yourself. Um, I've always had that strong sense of resilience and that strong sense of being adaptable. Once again, as I said, my life has been full of transitions and transitional moments. And they weren't literal transitional moments, they were like move from Nigeria to America. Even in Nigeria, the whole time we were there, we lived on the mainland, we lived on the island, we were always moving. For some weird reason, my family was just always in transition. So this was just another thing that I needed to overcome. And I told myself, okay, not only am I gonna do it, I'm gonna do it good. But then as soon as I get the chance, I'm quitting, not quitting because then I can't quit. I signed a contract, but I'm going to transition to another job or another position. And so I made it through the training. I went back to my unit. I did a couple of exercises. I was part of the um team that went to build this bridge to nowhere in Alaska as part of my exercises. So I I've just always had that outlook in life. Younger days, I didn't have a word for it. Back then, I didn't have the vocabulary or the self-awareness to really understand, you know, the things that were happening in the moment and how they were shaping my story or my life. But I just always had a sense of I can do this, and I can do this, I can do this well, and it needs to get done, and so I'm going to get it done. And that's what that was beautiful.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, I see you have this outlook to life, like uh bring it on kind of outlook, even no matter how mercy it is, because you're you're you're not mercy, you are mercy. If you understand what I mean by that, as a no matter what it is like, so you have this outlook now. Can you, from your spectrum, from your perspective, share with my audience what it is like when things come at you, like life throws all these covalls and what happened. How do you respond to it? How or how should you respond to it from your perspective?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, um, you start with your core, um, and that I I didn't grow up a Christian, but faith has given me a lot of I will say structure to who I am and better understanding how God created me. There, we've all been equipped with things about our personality that are necessary for us to adapt in whatever situation or whatever environments we find ourselves in. Um, I always say that inherent within every strength is a weakness, and so don't overlean on your strength. Understanding that sometimes your strength can be a weakness, you know. I am a very adaptable person, but I have to be careful not to be laser fair and not to accuece when I need to push in. There are times when I need to push and say, I'm not giving up on this. And there are times when I have to say, you know what, roll with the punches, move on to the next thing. It's understanding the moment that requires us to roll with the punches or move on to the next thing. And that requires a level of self-awareness, it requires you understanding your core of who you are. And so there was something that I had that I didn't have the vocabulary to describe what it was. And I read I came up on this book about um Marcus Aurelius and is this idea of stoicism, and the core of that um principle is that you control what is only in your realm to control. And he makes this illustration about every event having two handles or two levers, as it were. One of the levers you can control, and one of the levers is out of your control. And he makes an example about um a brother who offends you. And he's like, in that situation, the level you can't control is the offense. One, because it is gone, two, because it is in the realm of your brother. The level you can't control is how you respond to that event. When we were in Nigeria, my mother, she's a very industrious woman. She um she was a teacher in Nigeria, but over the summer, she would just find herself in so many different trades. One of the summers, she went to learn, um, she went to fashion designing school. Another summer she went to like a cosmetology school in Nigeria. And one of the summers, she decided she was going to get into trade. And she would travel to ABBA to go and buy Shuan bag and then go sell it in trade fair and Aswania and stuff, and that was her. And I was about 10 or 11, and my younger sister was about three years old, and she would go in the morning and return later in the day. And we would be outside playing all day, she'd leave instructions on things to do and all of that, and I'd be playing with the neighbors, and then of course it'd get late, and everyone would go to their, you know, different apartments or whatever. And our apartment was on the second floor and it overlooked like a hill. And an Okada, you know, we'd have to ride Okada to get into um our area of town, and the Okada would take, would bring people down and they would get off on the top of that hill. And I could see from my balcony who was getting off. And so after everyone's gone, because while I'm busy, I'm not thinking about my mother is not home. And then after everyone's gone to, you know, their different homes and going to have dinners, it'll dawn on me that, oh, my mom's still not back, and it's starting to get dark. And so I would sit on that balcony and start looking out for every okada that comes, is that my mom eventually the sun would go down, eventually it would get dark, and I can't see who's getting up on the okada. And so the light would come on, you know, and I'm like, is that her? Is that not her? I wait a few minutes, she doesn't come. And somewhere in there, in my mind, I would play the scenario about what if my mom doesn't come back home? Like my mom and I never had a conversation about if I don't come back home, you know, do X, Y, and Z, right? In her mind, she just knew she would always come back home. And but I would sit there and I'll say, What if my mom doesn't come back home? I'll say, Well, I know where she keeps her money. And so we would go to bed, we would wake up in the morning, I would take the money, I would get my sister on a bus, and we would go to my grandmother in Shogunle, and then we would be okay. And the moment I went through that process of things I could control, I would just forget about sitting on the balcony. And I would just go on inside and get my sister ready for bed and just continue to do things, and lo and behold, she would come. I had no language for that. I didn't understand what I was doing. I didn't understand the impact of going through that exercise. It's the same way in life. We have two levers to deal with whatever situation comes our way. The levers of what we can control and the levers of what we can't. The most important thing is that we're choosing the right levers. And when we choose the right levers, then we're able to see a way out. We're able to have a vision and we're able to have clarity to stay focused on what needs to happen in this moment.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, you were talking about levers, what you can control, what you cannot control. The minute you have an understanding of what you can control, then you more or less you are in control. Even if you know that the other bit of it, I'm not in control. Just knowing that I am not in control gives me a level of control, you know, because I know what I'm I have control over. And the truth is, a lot of us don't see life this way. We just look at it and it's like uh we we frown. It's like, why me kind of thing? And we we just have like we want everybody to pity us, you know, and all of that. You try to look for you, you know, that party that will pity you and all of that. But from what you're saying, it's like, no, get a hold of yourself, those things you can control. Hold those things you cannot control. Excuse me, you know that you cannot control them now, so that gives you a level of uh, should I say, knowing that gives puts you in control. Now, there's this thing about timing with you, and it's like you know when it's it's time to do something, and you know when it's not time to do something. I I know listening to you in one of our conversations uh as a family now, you you you you you you you took something on timing that blew my mind, and and and I wanted to share with my audience how do I how did I how did I frame that question? I know I sent it to you, and I want to frame it correctly. Should is life transmitted via time or time reveals life? How should I approach it? How should I embrace it?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, um life, and it is both. It is, you know, life is both transmitted via time and also revealed um through time. And when I say life, when we say life, in my mind, life is like chunking of experiences, you know, in the time dimension. So that's what life is, is all of our experiences in different time dimensions is what make up our life. And so the experiences themselves are transmitted, you know, via time. You know, the scripture even tells us that time and chance happens to them all, right? So in time, we have opportunity to experience things and and um experiences that are available to us in time, time transmits that to us. There are certain experiences that I cannot have um, you know, as a five-year-old that I'm having now because time, just natural timing has passed. But then the revealing part of time is really a retrospective action. Time reveals in retrospect. Time reveals when we're able to now go back or look back and reflect and say, oh, that's what was happening in time. The glimpse that we get now in the current experience is always limited because we do not have the view of everything tied together. And there is another aspect of time that is prospective, and that's where we say vision, right? Where some things are afforded for future time, but it is necessary that we make decisions that are congruent with what is appointed for future time, and that's that dimension where we have to press in to understand what is for the future and how do I implement it and start making decisions today that lays the foundation for that future. So it reveals retrospectively and also prospectively, but it is both transmitted, you know, life is both transmitted via time and revealed also through time. So that's how I look at that um through my life experiences and and uh the things I understand about life.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Looking at the definition you just gave now, you introspecting or retrospected, I beg your pardon, and prospected, like backwards and forwards. You know, a good number of us don't see it that way. We don't see it that way. You know, I was I was uh I saw a movie lately about Jeb Bezos, as in how he got into his business and all of that, and he he he went through it following what you just said now, but he put it on what he called the regret management framework, yes, like mentally projecting into the future. If I don't take this decision when I turn 80 and I look back, retrospect now, what will I say to myself? What will I really say to myself? But if I take this step, if I do this, you know, and like prospecting into the future, yes, I I make a little mistake here, and then make a little another mistake there, but ultimately I come to see that everything is tying up together because I took the step, taking the advantage of the time available to me. That's what I hear on what you have said, and uh I think it's one it's one thing that we should I say in this generation, our generation or the generation coming the uh I mean behind us as it were, need to embrace and see you know, it's an amazing perspective, did I must say? Thank you, thank you for this. Now, you are the military. I really want you to say something about the military uh like minds, and you talk to them. What is it all about?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, um, being a military spouse is not for the faint of heart, and I don't say that. I mean it's funny, but it's almost cliche, and I'm not really saying it in a cliche way, it is really true. Once again, when I look at my personal journey, my personal story, and one of the reasons I'm very passionate about um mentoring military spouses, and and really passionate about their space, I have the the Benefit of having served. I have the benefit of having been on the other side. And now I am a spouse to someone who is serving. And so I have a little bit better, clearer understanding of just some of the processes, the culture of the military, and all of that. So I didn't have that um kind of barrier or that challenge that I needed to overcome. It was still different from what I experienced because I was a carpenter and a bricklayer, then I was a um I transitioned to the Navy as a military nurse, and then I worked out of the hospital. And that was almost like civilian life. I had never been, I have never been stationed on a on a ship. I did go into deployment to Iraq and I worked out of a military fleet hospital. But I never I've never been on a ship. My husband is an engineer in the military and he's very shipbound. So I visited a ship, I did exercise on a ship, but I've never like gone on a deployment on a ship. So there were aspects that were still new to me. Um the most difficult aspect of, at least from a woman's perspective, for me, of being a military spouse have been something I recently kind of termed being a single wife. You are the head of your household. Being a military spouse and having your husband gone for nine months, like my husband went a year ago, and knowing that I am not the head of the household, but at the same time, I'm having to fulfill all of the responsibilities of the head of the household and having to transition when he comes back to knowing, okay, now dad is back home and helping the kids to transition. That's one of the hardest and the most difficult aspects of being a military spouse. Once again, that adjusting to the fact that he's gone and then readjusting to the fact that he's back, managing expectations that when he comes back, life still continues. Um, and understanding what will change, right? Um, I know the last he deployed, my my children are 13 and 9. So they're getting more into that age where they're aware we're blessed that most of his career happened before we had children, and then they were younger and they were able to manage some of that. This last deployment, I sat them down and said, yes, that's gonna be back home, but some things still won't change. Like, oh, we just kind of got into this mindset of yay, daddy's coming back home, everything's gonna be so much better. And I had to caution myself to manage expectations because when everything is not so much better, and some things still don't change, like son, you're still gonna have to take a flash out every day. I'm still gonna have to drop you off and pick you up from school because even though that is bad, right? Some things are still not gonna change, and and that's really um important to manage expectations because it's easy to assume that because he'll be back, everything is gonna change. And then when everything doesn't change, is or you still find yourself, still continue to carry certain things, then there may be that frustration. Another aspect of being a military spouse, especially when um they're deployed, is something I call information management. And I always tell my military spouses, um, I remember being on deployment and calling home to my mom. And while I was on the phone with her, I did not know that she heard a siren alert going off in the background. There was an alert that went off that there was a missile inbound to where we were, and we had to get off, you know, I had to get off the phone. I'm like, hey mom, I'll call you later. I hung up and I went to the bunker, you know, like we get into your mop gear and things. And after that, I wasn't able to go home for days. And her going crazy on the other end, haven't heard missile inbound and haven't heard from me from days. And that thought me a lesson about you know the importance of information that's passed from from me to her. One, another experience is information passed from her to me. So we had a um an incident that happened with our family. My husband had just left to go on deployment. It was the day after Thanksgiving, kind of like in this season where we are now.

SPEAKER_01:

And I woke up season, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, and actually, I think it was probably around six years ago. And I woke up in the morning hearing the sound of locust, the locusts start coming. I don't even know what locust sounds like. I have never heard locust in my life. And so I reached out to a friend and I'm like, hey, I heard the sound of locusts, the locusts are coming, but don't be alarmed was you know what I got. And um, and I'm like, let's pray, you know. I'm like trying to pray all this fire prayer of you know, locusts or whatever, but just couldn't flow because it was really such a strange word. My husband had left for um deployment that morning, and I went to work, took draft the kids off at daycare and stuff, and I picked them up, came back home, and our home had been robbed. Somebody broke into our house and robbed our house. And I was like, Oh my goodness, this is the locust that we're coming. And so I called the insurance company, I called the cops, I got you know, things, you know, got things situated, and I'm like, I can't tell my husband because if I tell him right now, he's going to want to come home, and it kind of doesn't work that way, and he will be very helpless knowing that I'm having to deal with this, and he's not home. So, um, and that also speaks to the importance of community. So I reached out to the community that I had, I reached out to community in church from church and and people that were around me to help me restore order. I called the insurance company and all of that. It wasn't until a couple weeks later that I told him, and I was like, this happened. Only reason I'm really telling you is because the insurance company needed me to provide a list of things that were missing, and I'm just not sure of some of your things that you took. That's hard, that's heavy, but that can drive someone crazy on the other end when they're feeling helpless and not being able to react to an information that you passed on to them for the purpose of just letting them know. And that's some of the difficulties and challenges of this place. But the most important thing is establishing community. Every time we have to move, I always have the things I have lined out before I even know where I'm gonna live, our house or whatever, I always find out where is the nearest YMCA. I do that for the kids, I do that so they can connect to, you know, the sport events, uh, sporting activities and things like that, so they get to quickly establish a sense of community. Where is the church we'll be attending? I already know the church we're going to attend before we get there. We're not gonna miss a Sunday and get comfortable and not before we know it is a whole year and we haven't attended church. You know, establish those opportunities to create community even before I get there, even before I know exactly where I am going to live. Because it can be very lonely, it can get very lonely when you're not connected to community, and that puts a strain on your marriage, it puts a strain on your home when you feel like your husband, who is supposed to be your guardian and protector, has abandoned you.

SPEAKER_00:

I hear you clearly, mercy. I hear you. You know the the the community life, I don't know how to describe it, honestly, as it in terms of value, it is it is immense, and somehow when the enemy, the enemy here, I'm talking about the the yes, the devil wants to like get at you. What he does is to like take community away from you or take you away from community, and from what you just said now, consciously, I look for it, I don't wait for it, I look for it in a positive sense, you know, like that church, that uh sporting facility, that school that is closer to home and all of that. And listening to you, who has experienced it firsthand, I can I can I mean not be in denial now. Community is super, and we need it all around us, you know, it's really super. Now, how how how do you deal with the children? Because obviously, from what you've described to to us here right now, daddy is when he's on deployment and all of that away, you have to deal with them homework and all of that. How do you carry that along with other responsibilities within the military spouse uh certain? Because I know you're a coach, and I believe you are a coach, not I know you are a coach, and you coach people, you train people. So, how do you juggle all of this? The grace of God, I like I I like I like that.

SPEAKER_03:

I like that it truly is, you know. I am what I am by the grace of God, and the grace was not in vain, that I worked the more by the grace of God, exactly. It truly is.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, and one of the things that have helped me, once again, I'll go back to that same idea of controlling what you can control and knowing to let go of what you can't control. Um, even with the kids, it's prioritizing. I I grew up without my dad. My dad um came to the United States um while my mom was pregnant with me and for schooling, and then ultimately he came on a scholarship um to study aeronautic engineering in St. Louis University. And I didn't see my dad or even he really hear his voice for the first time until I was seven. Um, because it's that long before he was able to get his papers and get things situated to where he could come back home. And then after that, he would um we would have to go to like this place in Festac, Ninetel, the Ninetel office to go, you know, make phone calls. To go and make phone calls. Yes, we didn't have like cell phones and things like that where you know you could just get on a phone and communicate.

SPEAKER_00:

That was now prepared prehe prehistoric era, not prehistoric era. Don't go there now.

SPEAKER_03:

It is pretty prehistoric.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm I'm dating myself here a little bit, but now the kids have, you know, my children have that opportunity. My husband has, you know, the opportunity to do the video chat and you know, the phone calls and the emails, we have more opportunity to stay connected, even when he is not here, so that the absence of their father in their lives is not missed. And so learning from my experience of not seeing my dad for the first time until I was seven, and then after that, he would only come home once a year, and then ultimately, before we were able to migrate to the US and complete all of that, I was already a teenager, which really put a strain on our relationship, it put a strain on their marriage, where you know they've both been growing apart for so long, right? And I think in his mind, he couldn't reconcile his idea of growing up with his family to now having a grown-up family. It's almost like he's stopped in this children, and their marriage suffered for that. And so before I got married, I would always say, I'm not going to marry someone in the military because I would never put my kids through, you know, being gone and things like that. And here I am married to someone in the military. And so I'm always conscious of God, it's funny. I'm always conscious of making sure that I'm always conscious of making sure that um the the relationship between my my children and my husband remain intact. Even when he comes back from deployment, I'm always cautioning him, like, listen, if you need to correct them, at least for a little bit, let me be the one to correct them. Because they will only see, oh, we were looking forward to dad. He came home, we had a day of fun, and then now, and because that was one of the things that my dad would do. He would come home and then for one week or two weeks out of the year and be like, this is wrong, this is wrong, you know, and then he'd leave. And I'm like, sir, I don't even really know you, right? And so I'm always like, be intentional about filling up, you know, this love tank and creating experiences, right? That they will remember you for the good experiences, not that every time you come home, you know, it's this military, you know, shouting person. And so the most important thing for me is bridging that relationship between them and their dad so that it doesn't fall into that crack, like you know, my relationship with my dad um fell into. And um when he's not around, um, I think one of the things that military kids excel at is this um sense of independence and this um need to grow up. And um, I have leveraged this as the life experience for them and to help them um be more responsible and more independent, you know, human beings.

SPEAKER_00:

So amazing. I want to say a very big thank you for for you know accepting to do this with me on the show and share some some of your vulnerable moments with us. Uh I mean it is of immense, immense value, honestly, and I'm grateful for that. Guys, we've been discussing with mercy, uh, life lessons with mercy. I know, I know you've gotten, if not one, if not one, something from her, from her. I mean, uh share with us on the show today. Uh, time is not a friend. Like we just started talking, but look at it's over 30 minutes. But before I let her go, I I want her to share with us uh where we can catch her. You know, just in case you want to connect with her, you want to reach out to her and all of that. Mercy, can you share with us where we can catch you if we want to?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, um, you can reach me mostly on Instagram at when mercy speaks, uh, is my handle on Instagram at when mercy speaks on or on LinkedIn, uh Mercy O'Hariak. And um, I look forward to um answering any questions or just connecting and chat chatting with anyone who would like to hear what mercy has to say when mercy speaks.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, when mercy speaks. I guess I'm going I'm I'm going to bring you back on the show and we're going to do when mercy speaks, and that that I'm going to allow you really speak like speak, you know, and uh get some stuff out there. You know, the truth is we need to hear more people speaking, like not negativity now, but sharing those positive ideas, positive moments with the world. You know, yes, this happened, that happened, but by his grace, this is where I am today, by his mercy, this is where I am today. So can you? So the world needs to hear more of this, you know. Guys, I wish I could keep her here for you know forever for her to just keep talking and sharing with us those wonderful moments. But you know how we do it here on the show? Uh uh, we always bring value to you. So they rest assured, mercy is going to come back, and God is going to show us mercy when she comes back. Honestly, she will.

SPEAKER_01:

All right.

SPEAKER_00:

One one last thing from you to my I mean for my audience. One last thing you want to say to my audience.

SPEAKER_02:

I I will say, you know, Jesus says that in this life we will have tribulation, and the challenges and events that will happen in lives are almost a guarantee. And sometimes we think perseverance is like a race, but it is just overcoming many obstacles, many, many obstacles to make big obstacles. And so if I if I would think of a phrase, I would say vulnerable flexibility, that in the days that are ahead, in the days that are coming. I mean, we we are all living in this Vukha world. We must all you know strive to have that vulnerable flexibility, the adaptability to transform, like the chameleon. The chameleon is able to change his color to his environment without really changing his color. It's like he changes his color to adapt to that particular situation, but its color remains intact. And that's what we have been called on to do in this next season as the world is changing, as the world is grappling with many different um issues that are coming up, that we as believers retain our true color, but also be able to navigate and to reflect different colors that mirrors or that allows us to thrive and survive in the environments that we find ourselves in by the by the grace and by the power of God. So that's that's my last word.

SPEAKER_00:

Beautiful, yes. We live in that time, just like you heard, but we have what it takes to surmount it. Navigate, give out, you know, our call, not losing it now, but giving it out, you know, and giving it out to that person, to that community, to that neighbor, and all of that, guys. I am super, super grateful. Mercy, thank you so much for this time. I I I I want to let you know that this means a lot to me, you know, as an individual listening to you, you know, and also I mean my audience listening to you. I want to say a very big thank you. Thank you so much, guys. Time is not a friend, even if time is here to help to regulate what we do, you know. But you know how we say it on the show. This is the space where we come to lean on one another's experience to forge a positive path till I come your way again. Bye for now.

SPEAKER_03:

Mercy, thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00:

Awesome time it has been with you on the World Cafe Podcast today. Thank you for being there. You can catch me up on my social media handles Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, all at Amakri Isobaye. Also, you can get copies of my books at Cocktail of Words, The Color of Words, my HRO Notebook, and Hawkers Focus on God on Amazon and Roven Height online bookstores. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel at the same address at Amakri Isobe. I love to hear from you and how this podcast has impacted you. You can leave me a message at my email address amakrigaribaldi at gmail.com. That is A-M-A-C-H R E G A R O I B A L D I. Yes, till I come your way again. Bye for now.