CHM182:From Homeless to Healed & Homeschooling, with Brittney Proctor

Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Christian Homeschool Mom's Podcast. I have a guest with me today who I am really looking forward to hearing about her story and all of the wonderful things she's going to share with us to encourage us as moms. Her name is Britney. Proctor and she is a powerful evangelist, a spoken word poet, and she's also a homeschool mom to an energetic, spirit filled kindergartener. She has over fifteen years of experience working with vulnerable populations and she's trained in trauma and formed care. She's deeply committed to helping other people to heal and grow. And so we are going to really get to know Brittany and the things that she is doing to help her community and beyond. And so I'm excited to have you on the show. Brittany, thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me. There's really blessed to be here. I want to let you know that everything from making your other videos that even you bringing me on, everything is so professional, everything is so god field, and so I really wanted to give you your flowers while I can and let everybody know that you are the real deal. And God had to hand on you. So I really appreciate you for having me. Oh my goodness, thank you so much, Brittany. I didn't know she was gonna say that. Thank you. I appreciate that so much. It always means a lot to me and keeps me going, keeps me in courage. So thank you for that. And that said, we want to know about you, So I'd love for you to just introduce yourself and your family and then share with us the things that make you happy in life. What does what makes Brittany happy? I am Brittany Proctor. I had a lovely, providing, caring husband, Anthony Proctor, and a five year old little boy. Y'all a small family, but God It's blessed us every step of the way. I am a co founder of a nonprofit. I am a spoken work point, so I'm a creative. I have a ca catchum for people. And above all, I love God. I'm afraid of God. I am a child of God, and I am an advocate for God. And so the thing that makes me happy I thought about this real long and heart, and I just want to say a good bowl of ice cream. I love it. Keeping and Ladimir, I love ice cream. Yeah, yeah, what's your favorite flavor? Vanilla is just you know, know paple. I like to do cookies and cream. I like the butter of pe kann. I like crazy flavors that include caramel, nuts, chocolate, anything like that. Okay, you and I are friends already because the prelians and cream and butter for kind are my favorite next to chocolate. I do like chocolate ice cream, but yeah, I love that. Okay. So all right, your journey into homeschool and the family you have today, you came from a place of struggle and trauma. If something happened. To you, so I want to know your story, if you wouldn't mind sharing your story with us, and how you got to where you are today. For sure. So my husband and mine we met in a homeless shelter. My husband was chronically homeless and battling addiction, and I just fell in hard times. And so I was a struggling artist. I was trying to pursue my poetry. I had it in my mind, and grain I were blocked in. I thought I was gonna be the next to Maya Angelo. Nobody could tell me different. The only problem with that brand is that I didn't have a plan, I didn't have any structure, I didn't have a lot of support. So everything I was doing was I put in my egg go on basket. When things failed, they felt hard. And so I found myself in a homely shelter and I was really devastated at that time. But on my dissent downward it was the slow deest sense, but I found Jesus, and once I reached the shelter, I was devastated in that my dreams were kind of crushed. But I also had this hope and I had this determination that I know I know God now, and I know I had that moment in him, and I believe that He can see me through this. So the homeless shelter had a chapel, and every time it had a service, I was in the chapel. Every time the chapel doors were opened, I was in the pews and just seeking God and just really needing to lean and to God. And so my husband was doing the same thing. He got up the shelter a little bit a few days before me, and then he told me eventually, I never I never saw him. I didn't know he existed because I was laser focused on finding what God had for me in this moment and in this season. But he told me that when when he saw me that God told him that I was his wife. And so and so I had the opportunity to do my poetry in the chapel and so Randa he came up to me. He was discongratulating and thanking me for my poetry, and I'm like, okay, cool's out a fan, you know. But he befriended me, and eventually he told me, I want to let you know that the Word told me you were my wife. And right there I was like, prompt the breakthrough. I don't know you. You know, that's fine. I don't know you. And the guy I served, I don't think he would do this, but no, I really believed him. No one had ever approached me in that way. No one came to me straight determined about marriage. So I took it to the Lord and prayer. I was like, Lord, this man is after me, and I don't know what to do. And God was just told me clearly. I heard it clearly and simply, and the Lord told me to let him into my heart, and so I did, and from that point we were laser focused on getting married and just following the footsteps of God. So my before starts and the homeless shelter, my new life again and a homeless chiltern. Wow, And from there God has allowed you to create a new home with your husband and your child. Tell us about your child, your kindergartener. Oh my goodness, Oh man, I didn't know. I'm getting emotional already. We just started. Baby. He is such a blessing to me, part of my descent downward. I don't want to just jump right into it so deeply, but my son is a blessing to me. Just living a life of sin and really deserving the penalty of death and not deserving anything, and that God so gracious and beautiful would give me not only a husband from a shelter for me a sound structure and home to bring a south into this world. Yes, And I just get to watch him because coming from a single parent home myself, just seeing how he interacts with his father, yeah, seeing how he had parents and he's your great mom dead and just being able to hear there is just the blessing for me. But he's the happy kid. He keeps us on our codes. He brilliant, smart, He loves God. Yeah, Oh my goodness, wow. And so he's just the blessing. Yeah yeah. And I love to hear that because it's like sometimes in our society we hear parents that don't acknowledge the gift that our children are to us, because we take for granted that we have kids. But then when we hear the gratitude in your voice, and for those parents who express their gratefulness for having a child and for watching that child grow in a in a two parent home, the where they're receiving love and support, Like just the miracle of having a family and having a child is something that we should be grateful for. And I'm just happy to see you so grateful. It encourages me and the rest of us like to remember our gifts are given to us by God, these little gifts, and even when they're not on their best behavior, there's still our gifts for God. And so I appreciate that you express your gratitude for having a child to raise. That's a blessing. And then you also have so your website that you created is called Unstuck and Free, and so I'm assuming this is integrated into your personal story of how you met your husband in a homeless shelter, and how now you are raising your family for the Lord. Can you tell us just a little bit about your project? For sure that my husband and I we created or founded a nonprofit called Unstuck and Free. Both of us were in the shelter and we were hearing often I'm stuck, gonna stuck, and we ourselves felt in that moment in time, just really stuck in our situation, stuck in some of the mindset, stuck in our past. And when we married each other and started to see the hand of Thy manifest in our lives, we then start feeling unstuck. And then when we started to allow God to order our steps, we started to feel free. In the christ where christy with the spirit of God, there is liberty, and we started to feel that liberty. And so we had to continue to grow within each other and learn to have to be married well. Once we got to that space where we knew we could walk on two feet, we knew it was time to go back and tell other people, hey, listen, this works. Believing in God works. God can make you unsucked out of your situation. God can make you free to explore those dreams that you once had, and so we go back to that same shelter where we met and we just speak to the people and we let it. No, there's proof in the concept. The word is real God it keeps his promises. And we want to be that report and advocate for you. And whether that means discipleship, mentorship, whether it means access to resources and partnerships, that's what we do. React as a liaison between those transitioning through homelessness and those people that want to help people that are coming out of homelessness. Then and really just showing and sharing our story. Wow, out of your story, you're now helping so many other people. And I love that you said you go back to the same place where you met each other and you're helping them, and so wow, that's like a story of restoration and redemption and everything. I just love that your heart, you and your husband's heart and passion for helping others. You didn't just get free, Now you're helping others get free and un stuff. Yeah yeah, well, okay, So you started homeschooling your son and is that recent? So since he was since about twenty twenty three, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to homeschool. There was a lot of factors that contributed to it, but I finally went ahead and said, Okay, we're gonna do this, and so for me, it looks so I created a structure for it. I gave the school and name, I gave it a motto and all the things like, this is our school, and this is what we're gonna this is what we're going to be doing. We're in this, We're in this together. And so we've been in it come schooling, and I just love being able to spend that time with my son. I love being able to witness and watch the way his mind works and how we learned. I love being able to share the Gospel with him and the foundations of being a Christian, and it just it literally baffles me. And I'm not just I'm not just feeling because I'm a mom. He's been around other adults and people are like, hey, he's special, he said apart, and I just I give all got got all the glory for that, but that homeschooling was the foundation that was laid. That was that I was able to just really tell him who our creator is and why we live this life right and. So I love that all. That's that's really sweet that you and your husband are just investing in your son in this way from the start, Like what is he five years old? Yeah? Yeah, the very beginning, and this is going to shape him. And I'm just wondering, how do you how do you feel like your your story, your history, your past and all and the struggles that you came out of, how do you feel that that shapes the way you homeschool your son? For sure? I did just believe that the experience is I went through, no one has to go through that there is you don't have to. And so I teach my son from a perspective of God has given us every tool everything pertaining to life, and God lie to keep us protected, to keep us safe, to keep us prosper, And so I just want to I just really hone in and make sure that he knows how to listen, because it's a part of my problem. I didn't know how to listen. I didn't know how to hear the voice of God. I didn't know how to lean into the still small war voice of the whole spirit. And if I can hold him and make sure that he can hear our voices first, and then let him know he's served a God that he's going to have to listen to as well. I believe that I can set him up to be not only an educated individual, not just a g good citizen in the United States where we reply ronso a citizen for the Kingdom of God. And so I just teach him from a perspective of bad things can be avoided and when they can't, we serve a God that is ready, You're willing to restore a wrecking salard. That's what I'm hearing, is like you're offering hope, so there's reconciliation, but you're showing your son how to listen. To the Holy Spirit. And like, even as adults, we're still learning how to do that. Every day we have to say, Okay, Lord, what are you saying to me today? Where is your voice in this situation? And for you to teach your son that at five years old is amazing because he's going to be set. You know, he's always going to have that in his spirit and he will know like this is what mom and dad have taught me. And I think it's just so much better for him at this early age to learn how to listen to the Lord. That's beautiful. As far as practical steps toward freedom, small practical steps, I think you mentioned that on your website, just some ways that parents can implement principles in their homeschool journey even when our resources are limited, if we don't have a lot of money for curriculum or a lot of time, because time is also a commodity that we can't get back once we lose it. So let's say we're working part time or full time and homeschooling. So how do we handle maybe the lack of time or the lack of resources, but still being able to work toward homeschooling that kind of freedom, Yeah. For sure. So homeschooling in it design is set up for just really impactful. It's really potent. If you think about public or traditional school, the teacher has to spread out her time between so many different students, so many different things. That one on one time that we have already have one child, several children, That one on one time that we get to give our children is really potent. And so a little goes along. And so whether you have only an hour day, two hour, whatever your time limit is, that time of that eye to eye contact. That time with specifically seeing your child, you knowing them and hearing them is impactful beyond what a traditional school can give. Also, you only have a limited amount of resources. It's time to get creative. And God, God is the most creative right and so we serve a God. We can access this creativity. And he said, if you're faithful with a little, I will give you more. Right and so we can't. We won't stay in faith though we don't have enough. Eventually, if we're faithful with what God gives us, he'll continue to increase us and shure us how to use it and give us wisdom and skill exactly. Yeah, yeah, that's such a good answer. He will, the Lord will continue to grow us and stretch our time, stretch our energy. Speaking of that, I was thinking of flexibility, creativity, that kind of thing. Do you have any maybe an example of a time when you've had to reach into your creativity zone and create something out of nothing, or just be a lot more flexible than normal, to make something work in your homework, to create a process or a project for your child, Just some kind of ways that you've you've been able to influence your homeschooling and teaching your son and being creative with it. Yeah, I think just I couldn't even pinpoint one example. It's just that's our homeschool experience. And that's just the makeup of it. From me having to not really want to pin down one particular curriculum any being really in big she's a thing. I'm just going to create everything myself and really quickly finding out how hard that is, but that was that was me at the beginning, when to create the document and create the projects and print everything all. Yeah, So I think it's just the makeup of that. You have to be creative, we have to be resourceful as well, and so. That's just the makeup of it. Yeah. Well, what what would you say that you guys are doing currently in your homeschool? Is it more would you call it eclectic kind of a little bit of everything and just sort of figuring it out, or do you have one particular program you like to use? Yeah, we would. We decided to do an online curriculum, which is so much easier for me now I don't have to just create everything and keep up with it everything, and I was determined to make that happen. But God, it's good. He gives us great for mercy, that's right. So he used an online curriculum, and then we outsourced in different ways. And so our our gold is leadership in serving our community. And so I got him into volunteering and serving the community really early, so we get to commit that it's to our our homeschooling and then also Bible study groups and things like that where he can get those other crassroom settings as well. And so that's what we are. It's more of a plectic mix and a lot of a lot of outsourcing for me because I realized I can't do it all. Right, right, But I love that you have, like your family has a mission to Like I believe what you just said is leadership is kind of one of your main goals for this year for your son, and that's a major And again I'm just overwhelmed. With like, like, wow, this is this. Is great that you're starting at five, at age five with leadership and all the other things you told me, and how you're helping him to learn how to to listen to the voice of the Lord and all this starting at such a young age. I can't even imagine how he's going to be. Such a great young man when you know years from now you're going to have like invested so much in him. So that is beautiful. Tell me about like the ser vis that you and your husband provide more about your work and what you do and how our listeners can connect with you. Yes, for sure. And so with homelessness, having the experience at firsthand, I know that it doesn't last forever. God is eventually going to get you where you need to go if you believe and if you stay on that path. Now, what happens after homelessness is just it's like what happens after any kind of trauma. There's like this post traumatic stress that you have to take on. And so our goal with Untuck and Free is to help people transition out of homelessness in a way that allows them to integrate back into normal society in a smoothest, seamless way. Make sure their confidence is restored, make sure their ability to gain employment, also reconnect with their family, just rebuilt. It's done in a way that they have a foundation of crime. You know that God is feeling them, and God in that they have a support system and a healthy community, and also that they have resources and partners that they connect with that they wouldn't only know how to access. Right. Wow, Wow, that's a lot. That's a lot. And and you guys are doing all this while raising a family, so that's amazing. And then you also have some resources. They think you have an Amazon store as well. But sure, we have an Amazon store STOREFRA, which is our social enterprise. It's the way that we can gain funding for our organization. And so our Amazon for storefront currently has branded materials from hats and shirts and we would love we can if everybody can patrialize it so that so that we can gain more funding to do more, to reach further and to get more. And so our Amazon storefront is Amazon dot com for flash Shops, Forward Slash, Unstuck and Free and take. A look, all right, and can we find all of that on your Unstuck and Free website as well? For sure everything that you need is on such and free that org. Okay, Unstuck and Free dot orable. But be sure to leave that in the show notes and to encourage everyone to take a look, take a visit and see what we can do to support what you're doing. And I love that you are doing this. I haven't heard too many stories like this, so just to know that you have been where others have been and now you're reaching back into their community and to their their culture, they're surrounding and helping them to overcome their adversity because you've been there and you understand how it feels. And so that that level of empathy and letting the Lord use you to be that voice and that hand. To help others, it is a blessing. So thank you for what you do, and thank you for being on the podcast today. Thank you so much for having me appreciate it a welcome