Living God's Design: Doctor Zack and Mrs. Taylor Morgan On Health And Wholeness (S1, E5)

Transcript

Speaker: Hi Zach and Taylor Morgan. Welcome to the Skills for Moms podcast. Hi it's great to be here. I'm Grace. We've been good friends for I think about nine years now and we're just so glad to have you on the podcast today. we're excited to be here. Thanks for inviting us. Yeah thank you. So just a little backstory. I think we first met at our church in Dallas. Our kids had like similar pacifiers and We're about the same age and we made the connection. I think Zach was in medical school. I was in PA school. And so it was, you know, just one of those God things. And then we've continued to walk life out as we've had child after child. They now have four children.

Speaker: What ranging what nine down to two, is that right? Nine to two. Yep. And then you guys have been married for 12 years now.

Speaker: you continue to bless people with your marriage. know we were impacted, through a marriage class, two marriage classes with you guys at, room spirit filled marriage, and then a blueprint class where we learned about just kind of living with our family on mission. guys were our facilitators.

Speaker: was a blast. I just loved hearing that. Yeah, that class has tremendously blessed our family. And it's been such a huge piece of the journey that we're talking about today, which is really cool. Yeah, I'd love like hear more about that. Just to give a little background, Zach, you're internal medicine physician at one of the big hospitals in Dallas. And then you also practice in lymphedema and then now also practice in functional medicine. Is that right?

Speaker: That's right. Yeah. And then, Taylor, you gloriously managing everything with homeschooling your four beautiful children and leading things through your community and your church, your kids only the most delicious and wholesome meals and just creating this like warm, wonderful environment that people, you're just a magnet for people to connect and feel like they belong with you, Taylor.

Speaker: Thank you so much, Grace. Yeah. So it's just been beautiful to see you guys do that both with your peers, you know, people our age, but also, you know, the generation below us. And then I feel like you also do such a great job bringing in the older generation too. And so I'm just glad to be connected with you guys.

Speaker: Thanks. Well, Zach, I just wanted to like kind of start by hearing a little bit more and you can chime in to Taylor, but just about your journey from, you know, here you are you've gone through rigorous training to get where you are, you were chief resident of your class and you still are training other, you know, residents as they're rising up and new doctors. And so just tell us a little bit more about that background and then kind of where you are today with medicine.

Speaker: Yeah, back when we first got married, I was in medical school and really our beliefs were in line with kind of the conventional current medical model to a pretty large extent. So to the point where Taylor was actually in a vaccine trial while she was pregnant with our first daughter.

Speaker: Kind of unthinkable to make that decision based on where we're at now. But, you know, that's where we're at. That's what we believed in. And that's what kind of the path that we were walking down.

Speaker: And really, I think a lot of the credit for the change and the shift that we've made and decade plus, goes to Taylor. She's kind of been the impetus for a lot of the changes and kind got us set on this other course. But it was really just through kind of asking questions. You know, we were young and married and trying to figure out, you know, what we wanted to be about.

Speaker: Taylor's parents had a background in health and wellness. And so that was kind of a value that she came into our marriage with, whereas my family was kind of You know, eat whatever comes on the grocery store shelves and don't ask too many questions. If it's if it's food and you feel full afterwards, you're good. Yeah. Whatever's on sale. But, you know, as a couple trying to find our footing and, you know, what we're going stake our ground on and what we're going to believe we just kind of started having to navigate some of that.

Speaker: And so naturally, i think we kind of just started looking into some health, healthier options and kind of trying to do the best that we knew how to do. And really, know, to sum up our journey, I think it's been just kind of this like two step process of know better, do better.

Speaker: And we'll ask a question and learn something and say, oh, wow, we didn't know. that we didn't know that, but now we do. And now we know how to do something differently. And then we get the hang of doing that. it's like, okay, well, what else do we not know? It's really just been kind of,

Speaker: I think the trajectory of where we were going and where we are is pretty starkly different. But we didn't make just like one sharp turn. It's just been a thousand small turns along the way.

Speaker: I think that's part of the grace that's been on that journey is that because we haven't totally upended something in our lives, it's been sustainable to make those changes because we're just changing one little thing at a time.

Speaker: And only after we're kind of comfortable with the last thing that we addressed. So kind of in a nutshell, that's the quick version of the story, but it's just been a series of choices and walking out those steps.

Speaker: Yeah. And I think like one of the things that I admire Zach about so deeply is his curiosity. And so, you know, like you said, he was in residency and, or sorry, he was in medical school and he has always been a great learner. And I got pregnant and the very first like kind of whisper that I feel like the Holy Spirit shared about like health with me was my grandfather was building a crib for my first baby. And I just heard the Holy Spirit say like, you should do some research on the paint.

Speaker: Because I had never bought paint anywhere besides like Home Depot before. So I started researching paint and I realized like, oh man, my daughter's probably going chew on this crib. And so I found like, an eco-friendly, like clean, non-toxic, company. And that was the very first, like one small step towards, holistic living. And, you know, simultaneously I signed up for a vaccine trial while I was pregnant for that baby. So, I still fully like believed in the conventional medical system.

Speaker: But I also was kind of hearing these whispers of like, what if you did something else? And Zach did like he was so successful through medical school.

Speaker: He ended up going to residency, had a great residency program. And along the journey, we were making these like small changes. Most of them were around like diet and, you know, exercise and more conventional, yeah, environmental toxins. And then we were...

Speaker: I was pregnant with my second child and then her first couple of months of life. I, for the first time in my entire life, started seeing information about vaccines. And my first reaction was like,

Speaker: oh my goodness, like how does anyone not believe the science? Like it's there, like trust your doctors, like what's the deal? Just do what you're supposed to do and protect your kids. And eventually started to like see information coming across my screen And the Holy Spirit just kind of very gently one day was like, why are you so offended?

Speaker: Why won't you just listen and see like what I want to show you? And so, you know, simultaneously there is something was convicting people.

Speaker: a wrong belief in my heart, which was that I was right and everyone else is wrong. Like that was something that like spiritually the Lord was dealing with. But it was this,

Speaker: this vehicle of like learning about this particular health topic, that it was like this deeply embedded, like kind of sacred cow for me. And so the Lord just really needed to like knock that biggest, the biggest thing over. And so I started researching and started reading you know, simultaneously while my husband was, was chief resident, you know, and so I had to come to him and say like, Hey, I know that your entire like educational system believes one way, but I really feel like we need to do some research. And I think that was probably one of the biggest, like,

Speaker: moments of beauty in our marriage also was that he had such a humble heart. and he had such a hunger for like, the word of the Lord over our life versus the, word of man. But his response was like, if it's true, we'll figure out, like, we'll figure out what the truth is. And if it's what we think, then, we can keep doing what we're doing. And if it's what we, if it's something new or something different, but it is true, then we just do whatever the truth is. Yeah.

Speaker: And so we started digging and we started researching. And I think like one of the, I think the biggest misconceptions around this topic is that people are uninformed and they're making like uninformed decisions for their kids. They're making decisions out of fear or, you know, because some mom blogger told them. Yeah. there's this time for every two months, you got to go in and you got do it. And I think that,

Speaker: So the more we did research, first of all, most of the research, and there's lots of citations I'm going to send you that you can put in the topic, I mean, in your show notes. But a lot of the information studies and cases from the CDC, from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Speaker: And at the end of the day, the line that like they were safe and effective did not line up with the research that we were reading. And so, that, and I don't, this isn't necessarily, this podcast isn't necessarily about like vaccines, but for us, it was just like the biggest piece where I felt like I could be in control and I could make good choices for my kids because I could like, I could do whatever the doctor told me. And I like, I could be the mom that like did it all right, you know?

Speaker: And the Lord was just really gently and kindly like dismantling that like pride and teaching me that like I actually needed to listen to his voice, not on just this topic, but on every single topic. And so was kind of a like confluence of Zach's experience and expertise and what the Lord was doing in my heart at the same time.

Speaker: And that was, i would say, we had been making a lot of little changes that was like the big like sacred cow just getting like knocked down. Yeah. And both of us at that point were like, okay, we want the truth in our family, in Zach's career, in our health.

Speaker: We want like the truth of the Lord over every single piece of our life. And, and then, you know, there was, there's so many more moments past that point, but that I think was like such a big turning point. And we just kind of decided like, we're, we can't be like one foot in one foot out. Like we, we actually, we want the Lord's word over our own human knowledge. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. I remember that moment for you, Taylor, you know, we both had kids that same age. And if I'm remembering correctly, it was kind of right in the middle of all the COVID, very close to the COVID times too, where there was just a lot of pressure to make decisions. And I've always just really appreciated your humility that you are resolute, Taylor, you know, if you're going to start doing some new diet change with your kids on something holistic you found, you will do it. But then if you find something else that's even better than what you were doing, you're okay to ditch what you were just doing, you know? And I think there, a lot of times pride gets in the way where it's like, well, I've been doing this, it must be right. But to, you know, have that humility to, okay, I thought I was walking in the way and now I'm going to need to change. So I think that's, That's such a powerful example and one that you guys have stuck to even in the time of COVID. Do you want to share a little bit more about that, Zach, with like your medical practice and that kind of thing?

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. at the hospital, know, they had a vaccine mandate and that was, something that we kind of saw coming. Yeah. but still when it, when it showed up, was like, Oh no, this is, this is real now.

Speaker: And, had just bought our first house. That was, you know, this, the winter of 21 and we had just bought our house and, uh, in the summer of 20 and, you know, it was six months into me having,

Speaker: like finally the paycheck that we had been working towards and we're trying to get caught up on loans and all this other stuff, you know? And so the, just the prospect of having that kind of all taken away soon as we had it in our hands was, was kind of daunting. Yeah. But I think it was also just like a really solidifying moment where, you know, I don't think,

Speaker: many Christians, especially in America and much of the Western world are really kind of faced with even the prospects of persecution. And I hesitate call it like persecution, but, you know, because there's definitely so much that that people across the world suffer for christ so much worse than what we were faced with but that was kind of the first time that we had ever bumped up against even an angling of that and it was just like this gut check of like okay well what's more important to us what are we going to stand for yeah and that was a really cool story just the submitting my

Speaker: religious exemption letter getting that approved too and super orchestrated by the Lord as well. cause we ended up, thanks to some references and letter you shared with us, we kind of, tweaked it to fit our situation, and had it on hand for probably a couple of weeks.

Speaker: but we just felt like we weren't supposed to submit it yet. Yeah. And finally, I think like a week or so before the deadline to either get the vaccine or submit an exemption, we finally submitted. And a couple of days later, some other friends from church sent us a news article that there was actually a case, a suitcase that was going against my employer for just kind of carte blanche denying the religious exemptions and violating people's religious freedoms.

Speaker: And so when news of that case came through, all the denials flipped overnight because the hospital couldn't want to fight that battle. And so mine came through without any issues. I never had to, you know, struggle talk to a lawyer or, you know, do some other stuff that we would have had to had we submitted as soon as, you know, the system opened for that. So, uh, it was really just blessed and, you know, felt reassured that, you know, no matter what was going to happen, the Lord was going to be with us in it.

Speaker: And it was something I think we'll remember and take forward for maybe the next time something like that comes our way or whatever else life holds for us. But yeah, that was kind of, it was a cool story. And it was neat the way that the Lord led us in his timing. Yeah. I didn't even realize that part about the timing issue and just,

Speaker: you know, sometimes we think we got to act right away, but sometimes that holding back, it's like, God knows what he's doing, you know, and even the timing with each of our kids, you know, and I heard someone talk once about just like praying, like, Lord, may I be like a conduit of your Holy Spirit and also just one who is living a regret-free life. You know, it's so easy to look back and be like, oh man, God, why didn't I know about this with my first kid? Or why didn't I know about this when, but it's like, that's all part of the story. And now you guys have

Speaker: a testimony and something to share with others, you know, that's real. That really happened, you know? you just can't make that up. Yeah. And one of, a core like mantra in our life has always been no better, do better. and so, you know, in all of the pieces of our journey, especially with our, our health and like wellness journey,

Speaker: Yeah, I think like the biggest two mistakes that you can make are like refusing to change because you're like, I guess, too prideful to admit that you were wrong for a long time. Or like, what was I? Let's see.

Speaker: Do better. because does the brain tu not being willing to change knowing that you are supposed to be changing and not doing it or just not caring and not constantly being in the pursuit of God's best for your life. And so I like the, one of the things that I want to impart to my kids, like top 10 values is like when you hear the voice of the Lord, don't harden your heart. Like he's, revealing something to you. He's like,

Speaker: kindly, it's his kindness that brings us to repentance. it's his kindness that, allows us to turn and go, you know, another way. And so when you learn something like have a fear of the Lord around it, like it's something that like the Holy Spirit's revealing. even if it's like a scientific article, like that looks like man's wisdom, but like,

Speaker: It's the Lord's kindness that's like teaching you how to pursue better, you know? And so like that has been one of the biggest tenants of like our journey is like if you learn something new, like let's go, like run with it, you know? And don't feel – ashamed that you were doing the wrong thing for 20 years, you know, it's because his timing is so kind. Yeah. and,

Speaker: you know, like I said, in our, our journey around vaccines, like there was so much like spiritual pride that was attached to that. And he just was waiting for my heart to be ready to, to change. it was so like multifaceted. And so, yeah, like no better, do better. Once once you know, just run in the direction of like freedom and, and, and what, yeah, what he has for that specific topic for you.

Speaker: Yeah. What would you say, Zach, for you with that core mantra for your family, the know better, do better, like besides the topic of vaccines, what does that look like maybe with your medical practice or kind of where you are just in current life?

Speaker: Yeah. So, you know, as we were making all these changes in our personal lives, the further we got on that journey, the more it kind of starkly contrasted with what I was doing professionally in the hospital to the point where it's, you know, kind of, there was some cognitive dissonance going on between like what I was telling patients and what I was doing personally. And I think that part of that just, you know,

Speaker: that needed to happen was just to break down that wall between those two lives and share with patients what was going on and what I truly believed. And there's a lot of caveats there because when someone shows up to the hospital, it's not the right, with a heart attack, it's not the right time to talk about So that they can survive to see the next sunrise and then you can start having conversations. And the other part of the hospital work is that, you know, the patients have to want it for themselves. You know, there's patients that we offer, you know, the medical treatments that we believe they need, and they don't even want those. Absolutely. And so to try and force, you know, the diet and exercise and like, this is why you shouldn't look at your screen after dark. And that's so bad. You know, like some, it's just too much for some people. And you're actually going to deter them long term from being open to any of those ideas by trying to shove it down their throat before they're ready for it or even ready to listen to it.

Speaker: And so part of it's been, you know, just trying to introduce those topics when patients are open and when they're willing to listen and me growing in boldness and sharing what I truly believe about certain aspects of medical care.

Speaker: But also just that was one of the big driving points for opening our functional medicine practice was that I wanted an outlet to be able to actually help people with what I felt was truly the best way to promote health and wellness in their lives. The best way to live out God's desire for health and wellness and thriving. You know, wellness is so much more than just the absence of disease. actually like a state of thriving.

Speaker: And I want to see people walking in that, particularly the church. You know, the more that the church is operating from a place of wholeness, and their physical bodies the more effective they're going to be as witnesses, the more effective they're going to be as brothers and sisters in other parts of the church body, the big C church.

Speaker: And so I really have a passion of raising the church up in their bodies physically so that they can be the hands and feet of Christ to the fullest extent that they were meant to. You hear about people that They have a heart for missions, but they don't know how to go the field because they have all these medicines they have to take with them or they're not physically fit enough to go to these places where the gospel needs to be preached. And I think that's a shame that that happens. And I want to do something about it. Another example or analogy I use, it's like, imagine if you were the son or daughter of Steve Jobs and you didn't know how to use an iPhone. Yeah.

Speaker: We have access to the creator that made us and knows better than anyone ever has or ever will how everything in our body works. The 1 billion chemical reactions per cell in our body that happen every minute.

Speaker: God knows how they all work and how they all balance and how they all interact with each other. And we have access to, to the spirit that speaks of that knowledge. And so we have no excuse to, to live in a lesser state of health when that's our father. Man, that's good. I mean, it reminds me too, of just sewing in good soil that, you know, just like you guys are good soil. You also need to be,

Speaker: sowing into other good soil and, you know, people who are hungry to change, you know, you have, there has to be just like say smoking cessation. They say, if someone's not interested, it's never going to work. Right. You know, like there's no amount of certain types of plans or apps or, you know, patches will cure that person. But if someone wants to change and then has the power of the Holy spirit as well, I mean, it's like the sky's the limit of what could happen. Yeah.

Speaker: I want to just read, if it's okay, y'all's culture statement. I feel like this is fine. So this is something that we both learned through Kristen Parker. She is a kind of family coach in the Dallas area. And we did a blueprint class with her where it's not just about creating your family's mission and vision, which sometimes can feel more aspirational, like who we want to be, but maybe it won't actually happen, but just a culture statement of who are we now? And then let's keep being that.

Speaker: And so I just love how the Morgans put this. I'll just read it real quick. The Morgan family lives intentionally. We seek to reflect, reflect God's original design in all we do.

Speaker: We walk in intimacy with the Lord and with each other. We desire God's best for our lives and love to learn, work hard and build together.

Speaker: I just feel like what you were just saying, Zach, and just God's original design, living in wholeness, not just spiritually, but, you know, like a wheel, you know, where it's like our physical health is a big part of our overall integrated person. And if someone is so strong spiritually, but then their body is not doing well, then that's going to really limit their other, you know, their social, their emotional, their spiritual, et cetera, financial. And so I love that you guys really do seek God's best in each sphere of your life and are open to changing. Like you said, Taylor something.

Speaker: Yeah. thanks for sharing that. Yeah. yeah, that, that culture statement, I love it. I'd say I'm proud of writing it, but it was really the Holy Spirit that wrote it through us. I take credit for it. But it's been really anchoring for our family, both when we look at things that we could potentially say yes to that even seem good on paper. And then we look at our culture statement. It's like, oh, no, that doesn't align. Like, let's say no to that.

Speaker: And so we can keep being true to ourselves. But there's also, you know, it's had this like prophetic quality in it too. Like we thought that like that last word, like we love to learn, work hard and build together. But then we've gone through seasons of life where activities and things are pulling us apart as a family. We're spending less time together. And we start feeling the effects of that. we're like, whoa, what is going on? This isn't, we don't like the way that this feels. And then we look back and it's like, oh no, like we thought we were just kind tagging on the end of the sentence there. But like that together piece is actually really core. And so it's been really neat to people

Speaker: don't know. We thought we just made some like pretty words and wrote them on a chalkboard, but, but it's actually been really anchoring for our family and really directing. Yeah. Yeah. I would say I've heard there's three camps. You can be like family and then you missions kind of, or you can be family as mission, which is kind of what it is when you have like a newborn and young children, like that's your, and then you can have family on a mission where you're together, but you're doing it together. I know your kids are still young and they're probably not like making Excel sheets for your new business, Zach, but like, what does that look like for you guys? Like you said, doing those things together and not just, Oh, this is Zach and his pursuits, like doing it together. Yeah. this has definitely been journey for me.

Speaker: And we can talk a little bit more extensively about this later topic. But, you know, Zach

Speaker: and I met the second day of college. And we started dating that January. It's the second semester of college. And kind of always knew that he wanted to go to medical school. And then he got in. I...

Speaker: I kind of signed on to that journey. followed him to medical school. was, you know, in a smaller town that didn't really have lot of like career aspirations for me, opportunities for my job specifically.

Speaker: but the Lord kind of kept me, through that journey. And obviously like his hand was on all of it, We came to Dallas and that job ended.

Speaker: was remote for a little while. That job ended. And the next thing I did was so outside of what I thought I like ever would do my time. I ended up working in ministry for a little while. And then when I was pregnant with my third The Holy Spirit really drew strongly said, okay, it's time to come home.

Speaker: And I did not really realize, like, the death process I was about to walk through. to like be stripped by, uh, like be stripped of, identities that were not him. and so I thought like, okay, I, I got a couple of years of that out of my system. Like now I feel really content at home. And, and then i had like major medical, like

Speaker: bomb dropped on like, yeah, is that back? And it was just like another two years of stripping and like bringing my heart to my like true identity even more. don't remember what the question was. Yeah. You guys working together and yeah. So working together. So when, so I was kind of in that, in that place of like feeling really unseen by the Lord that like created me to have passion in this area. And yet it, it wasn't coming to fruition. And he like, it was definitely, I felt like my flesh, like, oh man, I had, I've already died to that. I've already like, you know, like, so why, why am I not like seeing fruit now? Like, and then when Zach,

Speaker: started getting really interested in functional medicine, it was like this light bulb, like confluence of expertise and my passion. I had years ago gotten certified to be a birth doula and a postpartum doula. I was really passionate about that. And the Lord led me to that. And then I kept having kids and it didn't really turn into a career, but there was these moments where I would be at a birth and the Lord would be like, man, I am on this. You are supposed to be here. You are supposed to learn this. And And then I had to kind of let that be buried. And, and so it had just been like a long journey of like knowing what was in my heart, but not really knowing how it was going to like manifest and activate. And so when Zach started, working on his functional medicine stuff, the Lord really clearly was like, this is the confluence. Like this is where like your passion for this, whole families and whole like communities.

Speaker: is gonna collide with his actual expertise. And, Zach has a tremendous capacity to learn. And so I've, I've seen him over the last couple years. I mean, really our entire relationship, cause I've, I've seen him in a learning like capacity since, you know, we met in college, but like, he just has this like truly amazing capacity to learn like across the board. And, and people kind of say like,

Speaker: internal medicine is like inch deep and a mile wide, like, because he really, he knows enough about every piece of the human body, maybe except, you know, pediatrics is what he always says because new kids, or derm, but all of a sudden, like,

Speaker: I had this like passion for health and for whole family health from birth to, you know, childhood. And, and Zach is like now diving into this area and like really going deep in the functional medicine world. Like, it is so much deeper than what he was learning at the hospital and which is by design. That wasn't, it's not like an indictment of hospital system, but functional medicine is truly like, it goes so much deeper and it's so much more individual. And so, right. Like my, my passion is for the one it's, it's that like God

Speaker: has a design for you as a mom. Like he has a design, he has a word for you over like, you know, your breast, breastfeeding like troubles and like what you should do next and like what you should feed your kid next. And like, you know, whatever, all of it, he cares about all of it. And he's so loving and kind and like so specific for each family. And once Zach started like diving into functional medicine,

Speaker: We both got kind of like lit up by this idea that like functional medicine is that like it's, it's God's design and God's word over the one over like every single patient is designed so uniquely and so individually. And so whereas, you know, traditional medicine, you know, seven out of 10 patients are, you know, have success on this. So let's try that first see what happens. Whereas functional medicine, like you're getting before you even start the lab work.

Speaker: opens up the world of your own individual, like bio-individual identity. And then we go from there. And so I got to see Zach like really come alive in this like passion to connect with like the one in healthcare, whereas at the hospital it is impossible to do that. And it's, again, it's, that's by design, but so my, it just felt really beautiful that like the Lord has kind of brought my heart for family wholeness and, yeah, into and under Zach's, uh, expertise and like actual like knowledge base. and you know, I like, I'll just brag on my husband for a second.

Speaker: like there's nothing that he can't learn. It's one of my favorite things about him as a person. I've always, been so attracted to that and like grateful for that. he just like, he just knows how to learn. And so whether it's like, you know, sports medicine or like he can build a training schedule. He, uh,

Speaker: qualified for the Boston Marathon while he was in residency. Like he just has this amazing capacity. And so then when you look at functional medicine, functional medicine is incredibly broad and deep. Like anything could cause anything. And that's kind of the problem is that people come to functional medicine because anything can cause anything. And so they are kind of overwhelmed at like where to start. Yeah. And so the, the way that God designed Zach is so perfectly like married to what functional medicine is.

Speaker: and then, you know, a team, like my passion is to actually like reach people. And so we're kind of running together and I've, have a lot of you know, on paper, it's like the admin stuff. But it's really not like it's, it's, it's actual like partnership where I feel like we're finally in the lane where the Lord has designed our family.

Speaker: And so, yeah, it's been really, really beautiful. It's definitely the most fun season of our marriage because we love being together. Like we really do. We'd be together all the time. And our kids are really like being activated by this, like this idea that like our family can make a difference in our community. Yeah. Can actually like change other generations, other people's generations by like handing tools to other people that like actually can make a difference in their lives. And they're so, so proud of their dad that like,

Speaker: I mean, think they were proud of him when he was working exclusively in the hospital, but I think this is something that's ours, that the Lord has tasked our family with.

Speaker: And it's really cool to see them jump on board and our best little cheerleaders ever. They give away all our stickers. Yeah. They put our stickers on everything. Yeah.

Speaker: You've even gotten to take your oldest on a mission trip recently. Yeah. Yeah. This past summer we took our oldest, she was eight at the time. Big thunderstorm here.

Speaker: Sorry about that.

Speaker: Take her to a small town in Chihuahua, Mexico to work at an orphanage where we did three days of really pretty comprehensive medical care for especially for that area. We had a couple of different doctors doing kind of primary care stuff. We had a handful of dentists doing dental care. We had an ophthalmologist. We had some clinical psychiatrists. We had an OB-GYN doing women's health.

Speaker: And so we had a physical therapist doing some physical therapy, a dietician providing some dietary counseling. And then we also had some mental health and psychiatric nurse practitioner doing some trauma counseling and stuff with some of kids from the orphanage. that was like back little bit and talk about Matt. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to ask to tie it. It's like, you guys are doing so much, you know, so we'll include all this in the show notes. Mana wellness is the name of your functional medicine practice. Correct. Zach. Yes. People here that are listening today can connect with you guys, to do consultations from their home. Right. Basically like it's all virtual. Yeah. So anyone in the state of Texas, is that right?

Speaker: Yes. And then on the flip side, so you're doing that. That's y'all's family's business. And then you also are helping lead nonprofit medical arts team. Could you tell us more about that?

Speaker: Yeah, so it kind of started as just kind of trying to gather the medical professionals in our church at Upper Room just for community and support and kind of taking care of each other. And from that gathering, there has birthed a whole scope of things that we've discovered the Lord wants to do through us.

Speaker: And so the kind of missional statement of the medical arts team his – presence healing lives here near and far. And so some of that looks like we have a virtual care program where we offer primary care to patients in the church that don't have access to medical care otherwise, or don't have health insurance or things like that.

Speaker: And so we're taking care of people here. We take care of people near, we have a mobile medical clinic and we do outreaches with a homeless shelter south of downtown area that the church is in the Cedars, as well as we work with a refugee outreach that's on the North side of Dallas and, and serve and do primary medical care there as well. So we're serving the gospel and share the gospel while we're doing it. Yeah. It's it's a mobile medical tabernacle. It's kind of the idea of it where we bring prayer and presence along with the medical healing and with arts. Because if someone's, if we want to see people totally need to be healed body, mind and spirit.

Speaker: And so we need to make sure that their bodies are taken care of with good medical care. We need to make sure that their spirits are taken care of that they're coming to know the Lord and receive the healing that he has for them, the wholeness that he has for them. And also that their minds are free. And whether that's through art therapy or mental health or whatever it might be, but really working from all angles to try and bring whole and total restoration wherever we go.

Speaker: So here and near. And then the far is that we also do international missions. And so we have developing relationships right now. We're going to Israel and Mexico. And the goal is to be consistent. You know, we're not trying to pop in for a week and have a cool experience and take some good Instagram. photos and then jet and never go back We're really trying to build roots and relationships to see transformation in these communities. And so in this small town, Borjas, Mexico, we are in close contact with a couple that run. really sweet couple that runs an orphanage there.

Speaker: And so we are working to provide medical care both for the kids there and the community, but are also in the process of trying to build out a medical clinic that's also going to have a prayer room attached.

Speaker: Because again, it's that piece of the presence that comes with healing. And so, yeah, there's tons of plans for that medical clinic to add a birth center at some point, have mental health, and eventually the goal is to have someone from Matt staffing it year-round so that we can have continual presence in this place that really doesn't have a lot of other access to medical care.

Speaker: Wow. So anyway, that's, that's Matt, but Taylor and I went with our oldest daughter this past summer and we got to go and serve in the medical clinic and our daughter got to play with the kids and form some really sweet relationships. You know, she doesn't know it like a Spanish hardly, but yeah.

Speaker: sweet the just the the language of a smile and of love yeah any barriers that were there and talks about the kids that she she formed relationships with and and misses them and is eager to go back as soon as we have another family trip on the calendar and wants to bring her little sister to this time. she's advocating, the hardest for that too. But, it was sweet to see how transformational of an experience it was for her.

Speaker: you living in a big urban area, we see homeless, we see needy people. Yes. And we talk about that openly with them. But a lot of that's kind of tinged with this, you know, perspective of like these people are making choices and sometimes those choices have real life consequences that are unfortunate. But to really see, you know, children in some similar circumstances have no fault of their own. You know, I think it was really eye opening for her to be exposed to true injustice. that exists in this world that's kind of hard to find in one of the biggest, richest cities in the world otherwise.

Speaker: Yeah, and I think that her understanding of people in our community that are hurting, think that her understanding expanded a little bit, that these orphans will... If no one...

Speaker: brings healing. The kids that she met will grow up into adults that she sees in pain and that there's like, there's a full life cycle like, yeah, that there's a lot of complexity to that, but also that like, she can start today being the hands and feet of Jesus. Every person is, is hurting.

Speaker: Yeah. And Zach, whether it's monetarily or with support for people who are in the DFW Metroplex, what are some ways our audience could connect with medical arts team? Yeah, medicalartsteam.org is our website and anyone can sign up, you know, because it's not just medical professionals, but we also need people to come and pray and worship and help with logistics and stuff like that. So we have their signup sheets on the website for medical volunteers if you have any kind of medical background and want to serve in that capacity. But even if you don't, there's roles that we can assign you and have you fill in. If you're in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, then yeah, we'd love to have you come and join one of our local outreaches or get involved in one of our virtual care programs. but if you're anywhere in the world and you want to come on an international mission, you can apply and we'd be happy to consider that application and squeeze you into the team as long as there's room. So yeah, it would be absolutely huge to keep funding these missions that I've talked about. And there's lot more that we aspire to do in the future, but haven't quite gotten into action.

Speaker: Well, we will keep praying on that and definitely include that in the show notes. I know we're kind of Nearing to the end, I just wondered, Zach, if you could just walk our audience through someone who's looking for maybe a functional medicine consultation, they're going to reach out to you or someone like you, what could they expect as far as, you know, everyone's probably been to a general doctor at some point, but how could that look a little different, you know, if you gave broad overview?

Speaker: Yeah. There's a lot it can look like. Kind of like my field of internal medicine, functional medicine has a bunch of little niches as well.

Speaker: And there's definitely some specialization that happens within the functional medicine field. And so depending on who you're going to, you might kind of get into relatively specialized area of relatively specialized So think just doing good research beforehand to kind of know if there's a a focus that that practitioner or that group tends to to address more than other things but but too i think uh i i'd say just get started and see see what happens because i think one of the biggest barriers to the world of functional or integrative medicine or however you want call it is just this kind of uh choice paralysis yes yes

Speaker: this feeling of overwhelm. There are so many people out there talking about, do this and do this and no, don't do that. Do this other thing and wait, no, don't do it that way. Do it this way now.

Speaker: And it's, I think for many of the average people looking for something, it's overwhelming and they don't know where to start because they're constantly being told that what they thought was the right thing to do is no longer the right thing to do. Or they're getting overwhelmed because they're being told that every single thing that they're doing is wrong.

Speaker: And so I think both of those are kind of unfortunate things. And I think that for us practitioners in this space, i think one of our biggest jobs is to try and simplify and provide clear access to this world of alternative medicine. And so that's something I really focus on doing is trying to simplify things. And I have a clinical approach that I think does that well and really provides kind of an access point to start moving.

Speaker: putting in place the building blocks of true health without having to focus on every single little rabbit hole or weed that pops up along the way. Let's just focus on this to start with.

Speaker: work through this system And once we have that in place, then maybe we can move on the next thing, but this is where we start. And so I think just really trying to not get overwhelmed by the breadth of what you could be doing and to get started on doing something, I think is a piece of advice I would give most people.

Speaker: How would people reach, like, what would that process look like if someone was reaching out to you? Yeah. So I, I go through our consultation process and i explain this three bodyy system framework that i work through of addressing specifically the adrenals in the gi system and the detox system and the liver in that order. And there's a specific reason to do that.

Speaker: But again, I think it just kind of lays this framework and this foundation of, okay, now we've got enough imbalance in the body or enough balance in the body that we can start building from here to find total health and total healing in any other kind of niche or specialty area rabbit hole that we need to go chase down.

Speaker: But it's really about kind of creating that good foundation, that good starting point, that good baseline from which you can go pursue health that I think we have to start at.

Speaker: Yeah. So we do free consultation. And then once someone signs on to be a client, there's a process. You'll get labs ordered to lab like near that person in Texas. It's their drop ship kits actually. They get mailed the kits to their home. They collect in a home. They come with prepaid envelopes to mail the samples back to the lab.

Speaker: I get notified when the lab gets the results. We'll go through the results and come up with kind of some protocols and some lifestyle changes that we can start implementing to start making progress and restoring the balance that, that God designed these systems to have.

Speaker: And really it, For most patients, probably takes between six months and nine months at least to kind of get through just that first phase. And from there, you know, we can start looking at anything else that still needs to be addressed or still needs to be tweaked or worked on further. But yeah, just trying to get that foundation in place first.

Speaker: Yeah, that's all really helpful. And we will include that information in our show notes as well as tailor some of the resources you mentioned for maybe a mom who really resonated with kind of that vaccine journey that you mentioned, and just maybe resources where she can do her own homework and find the truth that she's looking for, you know, because it is a process to just go through information. And if you just Google something, you're not going to necessarily find articles you need to see, right?

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And there's a couple of resources and, you know, both of y'all being in the medical field, one of my favorite resources is physicians for informed consent. Yeah. So that if, if you have listeners who are also in the medical field, that is a great, a great resource because there's, it's just so data based. Yes. Yeah. They recently all include all that.

Speaker: include that in the show notes. They even came out with a book kind of compiling all of their research. You can get it on Amazon now, but it's just, again, it's all about informed consent, not necessarily being pro or for vaccines, right? Sorry for or against, but more of, Hey, each person with whatever medical decision they're facing vaccine or otherwise should get all the data and then be able to make a decision based on that.

Speaker: So thank you for that. And just thank you guys for your time. Taylor, we'd love to have both of you guys back and just hear more of kind of your own health journey that you alluded to earlier. But we've just enjoyed having you on our podcast today and are just so thankful to be connected with you guys and are excited to, yeah, keep seeing where God takes you all.

Speaker: Yeah. Thank you so much, Grace. Yeah. Well, you guys have a great night. Thanks. See you too. Bye.