INTRODUCTION:
Kim Sorrelle is the director of a humanitarian organization, popular speaker, and the author of two books. Her first book, Cry Until You Laugh, is about her and her husband’s battle with cancer after being diagnosed just four months a part. Her second book, Love Is, chronicles her year long quest to figure out the true meaning of love, a sometimes funny, sometimes scary, always enlightening journey that led to life-changing discoveries found mostly on the streets of Haiti.
INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):
· Stop Being Judgmental
· Read The Bible To Improve Yourself, Not Others
· Deep Insight Into Life In Haiti
· Deep Insight Into VooDoo – HooDoo – Witchcraft
· Catholic Shade
· Church Codependency
· Fucking Nuns!!!
· Physical Abuse Just Ain’t Right!!!
· Overcoming Government Hurdles
· My Personal Story Of Being A Victim Of Witchcraft
CONNECT WITH KIM:
Website & Books: https://www.KimSorrelle.com
YouTube: https://bit.ly/3vRFWXf
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/loveisbykim/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimsorrelle/?hl=en
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kim_Sorrelle
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3tEzK24
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ksorrelle/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livelove_outloud
KIM’S RECOMMENDATIONS:
· All You Need Is Love (The Beatles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7xMfIp-irg
CONNECT WITH DE’VANNON:
Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.com
YouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCM
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopix
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannon
Email: DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com
DE’VANNON’S RECOMMENDATIONS:
· Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)
o https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370
o TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs
· Upwork: https://www.upwork.com
· FreeUp: https://freeup.net
· Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org
· American Legion: https://www.legion.org
· Black Licorice (consult your doctor):
https://www.webmd.com/diet/black-licorice-health-benefits#1
· VooDoo Explained: https://bit.ly/36SBA83
· What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg
INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?:
· PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.
https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00]
You’re listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De’Vannon and I’ll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what’s really going on in your life.
There is nothing off the table and we’ve got a lot to talk about. So let’s dive right into this episode.
De’Vannon: Hey, Hey. Hey, all my lovely peoples out there. Thank you so much for tuning into the sex drugs and Jesus podcast. Again, one more week. I appreciate you very fucking much. Now, today I’m delighted to be talking to my sister, Kim, surreal, who is the author of love is, and also another book called cry and tell you why.
Now, this is our second interview. And in this episode, we’re continuing our [00:01:00] conversation about Hoodoo and voodoo and witchcraft. I’m going to give you my personal story of how I was a victim of a witchcraft, and then we’re throwing shade at judgmental, Christians in churches, because for some unknown reason, they don’t seem to get the point that the whole reason to read the Bible is to improve yourself.
Not other people take a listen to this episode.
Hi, is this the girl, how you doing today?
Kim: I’m doing great. How are you? My brother,
De’Vannon: I am marvelous and I am so goddamn. Happy to have you back with me today. I felt like it was divine Providence. It was meant to be and everything like that. The last time that we did an interview, when it was over, I felt like I just didn’t want to let you go. And I [00:02:00] feel like that God has bonded us and infused our souls together.
And I have a feeling that we’re going to be seeing a lot more of each other in the days to come.
Kim: I think exactly the same way. I am so happy about it. I have to say, because I feel like we are, we are meant to know each other. We are meant to be friends. We are meant to be in each other’s lives and I love.
De’Vannon: Absolutely. Absolutely. And so on the last show, we covered stuff like the, about you went, you, you, you and your husband went through with cancer, how it is being a widow and everything like that. Since the husband that we were speaking about as, as you put it in your book, love is, was the gifted with the was gifted with a ticket to have, and it was either love is or cry until you laugh.
One of those books that, that, that one liner was in there. And it stood out to me. And we talked about how you received your cancer medical diagnosis on a voicemail and talked about how I got my HIV diagnosed on a voicemail. [00:03:00] And that was a whole thing because doctors shouldn’t do that.
Kim: Ever ever, never, ever.
De’Vannon: And then we happily hopped down the rabbit hole and talked about the health benefits of black licorice for quite a while.
Kim: Yeah. So it was good. How we stay just in one direction, kept on just one topic the whole time.
De’Vannon: Right.
Kim: Yeah.
De’Vannon: So Kim’s arousal to the author. She’s an entrepreneur and speaker cancer survivor, and a lover of black licorice. As we were just talking about. Now, you got two books one’s called love is one’s called cry until you laugh. Your website is Kim surreal that calm, of course, that will be in the show notes as I always put it, but I would just spell it.
It’s K I M S O R R E L L e.com. So I want you for both of those books. Why didn’t you [00:04:00] title love is love is and why did you title cry until you laugh, cry until you laugh?
Kim: Well, Brian too, you laugh is the journey of being diagnosed with cancer. And four months later, my husband being diagnosed with cancer and then losing him six weeks later. And so I wrote for a bit over a year. And when, when you go through stuff like that, you cry and it’s good to cry. You know, it, you’re going to grieve it and grief can be healthy.
You know, you need to recognize it and breathe it. And so, but there has to be a moment. When you allow yourself to laugh again, when you don’t feel guilty thinking that you’re somehow dishonoring the one who was left or their life or wallowing in self-pity or self-doubt or whatever, then you can release that and laugh again.
You, you [00:05:00] have to be able to do that. So that is the cry until you laugh. And then love is, is because it’s a book about what love really is. And I used a 2000 year old poem. Love is patient love is kind, does not envy does not boast. They has 14 love ISS and love isn’t in it. So love is, was a pretty natural title for that.
De’Vannon: I love how you describe that, that.
Hebrew scripture, the 2000 Euro poem. I think That’s very beautiful,
Kim: what it is. Yeah.
De’Vannon: cause he’s just, he’s talking about an excerpt from the belief first Corinthians 12 or 13. I think it’s very scrutiny in the 13 and. And it’s, and it’s a law from a letter that the apostle Paul had written to the church at Corrine. And and she’s describing it as a poem. And so I think that that’s very cool to point [00:06:00] out because the Bible is, you know, a collection of writings and it can be looked at in a thousand different ways.
And so I think that that’s a, a beautiful perspective to have on it.
Kim: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think if you look at the Bible that way and you read that Bible, that way, that it’s a collection of poems and stories and life events, you know, just it’s, it’s just a beautiful book that has all these different elements put together written by different people during different times.
And and if you look at it that way, it’s it’s not so intimidating, right. It’s just a beautiful script.
De’Vannon: Well, I think that the Bible’s ever meant to be intimidating. You know, it’s a, it’s a collection of people’s thoughts and. And their wisdom and their mind for the set of knowledge that they had at the time. [00:07:00] And so I look at it from, okay, this is someone else’s life that I’m looking at. What can I learn from it?
You know, what can I, what what’s gonna serve me here. And I really wish more people would look at the Bible from like a self-improvement aspect, as opposed to, how can I go into this Bible and find out what’s wrong with everybody else?
Kim: Yeah, so true. So true. And there is so much to learn. I mean, there’s so much to learn every time I read something that I’ve read before I see something different in it. It’s, it’s so unique that way that it’s constantly giving. If you let it.
De’Vannon: Right. And so, and I want to issue that warning to people who are starting spiritual paths and spiritual journeys and stuff like that, to let the focus always be you it’s so easy to get caught up in self-righteousness and judging other people. When you get going, walking with God or being a Christian specifically, [00:08:00] I cannot say that I have had this experience with people I’ve interacted with, from other faiths the whole judging people thing.
That from my experience so far in my almost 40 years of logging this earth, that almost seems to be exclusively Christian, just, just from my take on it. Somebody who I no longer affiliate with he was telling me, he was, when I first met him, he was like agnostic. He didn’t believe in anything, whatever.
And he had some sort of come to Jesus moment and now he was going to somewhere. Cherish or some sort of religious group or whatever. And I asked him whenever somebody tells me that the first thing I asked them. Okay, well, what do you think about the LGBTQ plus community? Because I’m in that community.
And I need to know that I’m talking to somebody who thinks that there’s something wrong with me, because if that’s the case, we can no longer continue to associate, but I’m not going to abuse myself like that. And so and so then he got into the whole, well, you know, I’m just saying what the Bible says.
If, if, if the answer to that question is [00:09:00] anything other than no, you all a perfectly fine. That means you think something’s wrong with us. No matter how you try it. No matter how you try to wrap. Hey, you know, and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve asked people who try to come on. My show are people who in various ways, I meet them where they stand on this and they’ve got some sort of Vegas just thought of, well, it’s all sins bad.
No, no, no, no, no. There’s only two right answers to that question. You could be like neutral and just not give a fuck one way or the other. If you had the awakening to understand that you don’t actually have to have an opinion about everything, but that takes a different level of growth. And most people haven’t made it there yet.
Or the other one is just to be like, you know what? I don’t know. I, I read the Bible for me. I’m not concerned about other people and there’s nothing wrong with y’all. So before I dismissed him, I let him know. You know, when you read through the Bible, since you’re a new Christian, you ain’t been trying [00:10:00] this renewed even a year yet, and you have all these opinions about my lifestyle.
You know, I said, just remember that the book that you’re reading is an American, it.
did not come from from white conservative people, even though they’d been in charge of the interpretations of it. It’s not their book. And it does not an American book. It is from the middle east, and it was written in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic at, until you go back and read those original languages and learn to decipher them for yourself, then you are judging me off of someone else’s opinion on someone else’s book.
Yes.
Kim: But that is such a great way to put it. And that is absolutely so true. And so many things, so many things have been misinterpreted that bad being one of them. And I don’t understand why churches Call themselves church, right? Christianity is supposed to be about love and peace and joy. And the opposite of judging yes.
That it’s preached from the pulpit, from the pulpit. I have never [00:11:00] understood that. Why, why anybody would be judged a combatant first of all. But secondly, the way it’s interpreted as absolutely wrong God created you to be who you are. God created me to be who I am and the best thing we can do is let each other live.
The way that God created them to be the minute we start saying, no, if you are a part of that community, you’re destined to have for help, you know, that’s bad, it’s a sentence it’s wrong. Then you’re slapping God in the face. And you’re saying, God, what you created is wrong. How can you say that? How can you say that you believe in God, you believe in a higher power that created us all and loves us all, but made a big mistake.
And a lot of people’s lives, how the two just do not go together and there’s, it’s so misunderstood. It’s, it’s such a hard [00:12:00] thing for me to wrap my head around why anybody would ever want to condemn anything that God created and say that it’s bad or that it’s wrong, or that it’s sin when God created it.
It doesn’t make sense to me.
De’Vannon: The inner it didn’t never will make sense because it’s nonsense cool.
Kim: Right. Right. True.
De’Vannon: But the inner working thing, there is arrogance because, and it’s, and it’s, and it’s a, it is a very arrogant and high minded and condescending thing to go in, to text into to treat people that way. Because inherently what you’re saying is my life is so great and your life is so not. Let’s see, let’s see the devil has deceived them as they think they’re doing God’s work, but they’re not, but we’ve seen this in the Bible before many, many times like Paul, the apostle is the greatest example because and I think this is one of the bigger [00:13:00] reasons why God put the store in the Bible.
I remember the Bible is only a snapshot of what happened so much more happened than what’s in west recorded. These were just what God felt like should make the final. So fall before you turned it into Nepal is just like Republicans today. And all these conservative people who’ve have these high and mighty opinions on what other people should be doing.
And he just cannot have it. He’s insulted at the way they’re living. We can’t have none of this. And so he goes and gets the same. Hedron Sanhedrin is like the, the religious people who were the, the law of the land. So basically he’s going to get government approval to persecute people like Texans, persecuting, women who want to get abortions and the people who help them it’s the same damn thing.
And so when he’s doing it in the name of righteousness, just like the Republicans, they’re supposedly doing it in the name of rights and on his way to Damascus to go and persecute more people. So he can force them to live the way he believes they should live. According to his interpretation of scripture.
Jesus like, no [00:14:00] bitch, stop you doing too much.
Kim: I’ll blind defer a minute as a matter of fact, and really get your attention, right?
De’Vannon: right? So. So this has all been written before that. So my message and my ministry is not to try to talk to idiots like that who are to cause there is no K nothing, but God and knock sense into people like that as has been demonstrated. But what I can do is help people to stop receiving negative messages from people like that and then hurting themselves because of it because we, until we enlightened and we ascend to the point that we do not let what other people say affect us, we let other, what other people say affect us.
That requires growth and maturity and people are going to listen to other people, be the on social media, in pool pits, whatever kind of platform people give ear to people. And then people let what people say, change them until they grow enough to stop doing that. And so my job and my task is to[00:15:00] help the weakest among us, the people who feel the smallest among us to become independent spiritually, mentally.
And so.
Kim: Yeah, that’s a big task and it’s a beautiful one because there’s not many people doing what you’re doing and people need to hear. That, who they are as good and wonderful. And they’ve been beautifully and wonderfully made and to stop letting other people interfere with that.
De’Vannon: That’s a big task and I don’t feel overwhelmed by it because as the Hebrew Bible says, power belongs to God. And that no matter how much we may plant water, you know, only gone can give the. So I don’t have stress on me. Like how preachers do when they feel bad. If nobody receives the Lord in service on, on Sunday, they feel, they make a whole big deal of nobody stands up to receive Christ during the [00:16:00] benediction on Sunday, because they feel like it’s a personal blow to their ego, that their message couldn’t move one person to accept the Lord, but you don’t really know what changes happen in people.
You see that’s about the preacher’s ego. So I have enough sense. Thank God at this point in my 40 years to to just do what I do and sit back and see what God’s going to do with the pressure isn’t on me.
Kim: Right, right. Yeah. That’s good. And by the way, your 40 years are like somebody else’s 80 years, you know, you have lived and not only have you lived, but you live to tell about it, you know, that your story helps other people and the things that, you know, and the way, you know, the things that, you know, affect people and help so many people, like, I just can’t even imagine how many lives you’ve touched.
De’Vannon: Well meet there. I haven’t the foggiest, but I didn’t know. It be like more, more, more, more. [00:17:00] So let’s talk about Haiti. So in your book, love is you get into Haiti. You have an interesting. Kind of like love and hate emotional tango with Haiti’s like you, you love it, but you hate it. You say once you’ve been there, it has a way of pulling you back in the book you state, I’m going to read a little excerpt real quick.
It says flying over Haiti, like flying over Jurassic park. You see the lush mountains slowly rolling out until the gorgeous green Plains. And finally the Sandy friend of the turquoise CATA Cattabean, but you don’t see the carnivorous monsters waiting to devour, whoever there’s the land. What would tell me about the carnivorous monsters?
Kim: It’s tough. There it is. It is hard there. I it is like two steps forward, three steps back. Like anything that you, you try to do or anything you want to do. There are [00:18:00] roadblocks with every turn and and it’s not so much saying like something that I don’t like, you know, that, that I’m American, so I know better.
And I’ve, you just listened to me. Your life could be so much better. It’s not that it’s that that the government is really not for the people. And so it’s really against the people. There are people that make money on poverty, so they don’t want to see a change. They don’t want to see people elevate their lives.
People live a healthier, better life, eating everyday, having a place to lay their head at night education. You know, the simple things in life that we all take for granted that don’t exist for a whole lot of millions of people. It just in, in Haiti alone. And there are just these monsters that, that live to [00:19:00] devour anything good that is happening and step in the way of it.
So that progress can be made. It’s a tough place to work, a tough place to live.
De’Vannon: I think It’s interesting the way you worked, you know, tough stories like that. And the one about the Catholic non-health that I hope we have time to get to later into this book about love is because you basically took that scripture in first Corinthians 13 and broke it down and you took a, year of your life and you, and you tried it all out.
Love is patient love is kind and, you know, you know, one would think hearing that is going to be a nice, you know, flowery book, all about just good love and good Skittles and fucking gummy bears like that, you know, but, but actually shit got real, you know, intermittently throughout the read. And so so Haiti, so when people think about Haiti, [00:20:00] a lot of people think about voodoo. Witchcraft Hutu and all of that, a very ignorant ass family member of mine. When he kicked you in Haiti had their, it was a recent earthquake, gone bless them.
He said some stupid shit. And to which I shut him down immediately. As soon as he heard about the earthquake or whenever it was around him, he said, oh, well, let’s tell of all of that voodoo. They have down there as if to say it is the people of Haiti’s fault for receiving the earthquake. And I tell him after I flipped my, my imaginary blonde hair out of the way, you know, as you do what you, when you were about to open the library on a motherfucker.
And I was like okay, you haven’t been to Haiti, never. I know you haven’t taken the time to pray for them ever. How dare you say something so negative and so presumptuous about these people and you’re supposed to be this church going [00:21:00] person God-fearing and that’s the best you can do.
Kim: It’s a, it’s an ignorance. There’s no doubt about it. You know, really, as you’re saying that, I’m thinking, so does the same person if they’re sitting next to somebody in church and that person receives a cancer diagnosis, are they saying well, it’s because it’s because of the sin in your life. It’s because of that, you know, is that what they’re doing?
Because basically it’s the same, right? They’re condemning a whole nation, but it’s the same thing as saying that if anything bad happens to anybody it’s because, because of that, they brought it on themselves, is completely ignorant.
De’Vannon: Well, this is anything about those of us in the two S LGBTQ plus community. We get HIV. They go, well, that’s what you get for being gay, you know, but you know, the jokes is going to be on them because, you know, the Lord [00:22:00] said, you know, God said that that God is not mocked whatsoever, man. So that also will he read it?
He said, if you, if you give. Receive mercy. But if you dish out judgment without mercy, that he said, you’re going to get judgment without mercy. And so all of this being mean to people and stuff like that, it might make, make, make a person feel powerful on this plane of existence. But when you die, there is no currency.
Like you cannot buy your way, angels and demons. Don’t give a fuck about money or about titles or about buildings or about the things that we chase after in this earth. You know? And so the, the, the, we, we are a fool. If we put more stock into what we can gain in this earth, be it power or power over people, as opposed to being nice to people and showing love.
You know, there’s so many examples of that from the parable about the rich young ruler to the way the Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness and tried [00:23:00] to offer him all the kingdom of the world, you know, this is a vice of the devil to try to deceive us, you know, and it’s, it’s so like plain, but you know, the Lord doesn’t open someone’s eyes.
They’re not going to see it. So, so, so, so, so this ignorant.
family member, he knows enough about Haiti, even in passing to know that, that there is a strong concentration of like a voodoo and Hoodoo there. So in your book, you write that nearly every Haitian practices and believes in God, and there is cultural, voodoo and good reasons for the ongoing existence of the religion.
I want to read an article, a small article. This is. Reading tirade. I’m going to go on this interview because there’s Hoodoo, there’s a voodoo, there’s the, there’s a food Dawn, which I want to let you talk more about that. Cause, and then there’s like witchcraft, there, there are [00:24:00] differences. And I had to really look this up to find this out.
And even in the research of it, different websites, that slightly different things is almost feels like it’s something that if you weren’t like raised in it, you may not know exactly what the fuck it is you’re talking about or unless you knew someone really close. So I’m going to read this and I’m interested how this compares with your personal experience living in Haiti.
Now tell us how long, how much time total you think you’ve spent in Haiti.
Kim: Oh, gosh. Probably all together. It would be in the years. Cause that for years I spent a portion of every month and 80 and then other times in 80. So I dunno, but a lot of spent a lot of time.
De’Vannon: Okay, so, okay. So that was just bear with me for a second y’all and, you know, I love to read, so reading is fundamental as mama RuPaul would tell us. [00:25:00] Okay. And so in this I pulled, and this is going to go in the show notes. This is from a website called www dot difference between that net. And so All right here.
Here we go. So who to invite, who may sound the same, but the terms of related opposites, both who do and vote or widely practice and share a similar elements and roots in Africa, particularly west Africa seem to come up in my research. Both are also products of mixed beliefs that include pagan traditions, ancient worship, and elements of European.
However, the main difference between who doing the vote. It is that the ladder is actually an existing religion, practiced by people while the former is considered folk magic. Lulu as a religion is an organized institution with established practices like religious representatives or leaders, teachings, and religious services or rituals.
Who do as folk magic lacks, this foundation organization, Vudu invokes the power of the low loss in the African gods and [00:26:00] DDS. However, who do practitioners invoke the low loss by using Catholic saints? Voodoo is practiced by non Roman Catholics while hoodoos practitioners are often Roman Catholics who use both the African concept of gods and the religious saints of Catholicism who do practitioners are also followers of spiritualism.
The specific term ascribed to a voodoo practitioner is a food who songs well, who do practitioners are often referred to as a root doctors or healers? The Huda practitioner often sees who do as a sort of personal. That can help them or other people through their knowledge of herbs, minerals, animal parts, bodily fluids, and possessions.
The magic can be used based on one’s inclinations desires, interests, and habits who do, and its practitioners empower themselves by accessing the gods and other supernatural forces in order to bring improvement or declined to a person’s life. With this variety of knowledge and power, a practitioner [00:27:00] can help a person, all aspects of life, including love, love, evil, and restraining enemies.
Voodoo is the original religion while who is the result of religious persecution and suppression who do develop by adopting and blending some foreign beliefs and religion to hide. It’s our African roots African origins, which were considered pagan and unacceptable in the society, largely dominated by Christians, aside from being a religion.
Also a culture in a way of life who do often specialize only in magic powers and the benefits that the magic can bring, who can be practiced as a hobby and even an economic income or a charity act. There is also a difference in the places of influence of both voodoo and Hoodoo. Luda is popular and thrives in the former French colonies like Mississippi and Louisiana, while who is more popular in the Southern part of America.
Additionally, who do it, who do was brought to the new world by African slaves and who to arrive through Haiti, a [00:28:00] former French colony voodoo though pure and more ancient is often compared to Hoodoo. Voodoo encompasses a variety of fields and societies such as culture, philosophy, art and music, heritage, language, medicine, justice, spirituality, and power who do on the other hand is just a fraction of all of this.
And it’s also more focused on the power and spiritual side than anything else. What do you think.
Kim: Wow. I just learned a lot have to say, yeah it’s it’s such an interesting. ’cause I think, you know, earlier you were talking about Christianity and you’re talking about how people sending in pews, so love Jesus yet they can down other Christians or condemn people’s lives, condemn what God made people to be, you know, or, or, you know, just look for fault, look for fault.
Look, look for ways to judge. Right. And so there’s, but there’s [00:29:00] this good side of them that loves you. And and hopefully we’ll learn how to be better and better and better at, at being Jesus to other people and really understanding that. And so then here, you’re talking about Hoodoo and voodoo that have elements of that as well.
Right? Like there’s, there’s good. Or cultural there. It’s not all just animal sacrifice and zombies it’s there’s, there’s parts of it that are intertwined in culture and in the richness of of countries and origins. And I dunno, it kind of makes people who they are, but at the same time they can love Jesus in the midst of it.
De’Vannon: Did you know anyone who practice either of these parts?
Kim: Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Voodoo. Yeah. Right. I do. I, I have had both [00:30:00] positive and negative experiences with Buddha. The positive things that I’ve seen have more to do with culture have more to do with, with when you are raised in this culture of voodoo. There are so many things like on, like I’ve got this really good friend Dr.
Who is this incredible Haitian doctor who has explained a lot of it to me. And, and we walked by this tree one day and it’s, I don’t remember what they call the tree, but basically if two people are fighting against each other, you know, one believes they’re right. The other one believes they are right.
Then they both are supposed to go to this tree and, and state their, you know, how their rights states. Their message, whatever it happens to be. And that the roots of the tree will come around the feet of the one who’s wrong. And that for some will not get out of there will not be able to leave the tree.
So it’s, you [00:31:00] know, their depth basically. So people don’t want that. People believe that that will happen. But with this particular tree, this particular kind of tree, and they don’t want that. So they’re more apt to say, you know what? I was wrong, you know what I did make that story up. I don’t want to die, you know?
So, so they’re, they’re not going. Fight as much for their cause when they know that it’s not true and it might take them to the tree. Well, you know, there’s something to be said for that. Right. And so there’s, there’s a lot of that kind of thing that happens. And then at the same time one night I was sleeping outside, that’s in my book.
I was sleeping outside with the tarantula and the snakes and the Chupacabra is at the, whatever is lurking in 80. And heard the sound that will never get out of my head. And even though I didn’t see it, I knew exactly what it was. Buddha drums were going in the [00:32:00] distance. And then I heard this, I heard a dog cry, not how will not bark that screech not, but a dog cry.
And it was. Horrific. It was all a horrible sound to hear the dog you knew was in so much pain and so miserable. And I’ve never had heard that sound before. And what it was is they were getting a dog alive and that dog was crying. Well, I don’t care if you’re an animal activist or not, or if you kill flies or not, nobody should skin an animal alive ever.
And and for that to be part of a religious practice is pretty counterintuitive. When you should love all of what God has created [00:33:00] and that to take an animal and make them suffer that way was horrible to hear horrible, to know that it was even happening.
De’Vannon: Yeah, I I concur with how horrible that sounds. I wonder what was the purpose of the ritual? What were they trying to achieve?
Kim: I don’t know. I don’t really know. I know that that rituals like that are not that common in Haiti. It’s like, it’s sort of like religious extremists. So for the most part patients the, the part of Buddha that comes into the life is more the cultural Ludo, the different beliefs, the, you know, where we have walking under a ladder is bad luck or breaking a mirror is seven years of bad luck or whatever.
A black cat crossing your path. They have things like don’t pick up a child from behind, or the child will never grow. Don’t tell a mom what that baby’s [00:34:00] beautiful. Cause then the baby was going to grow up ugly or, you know, or the tree is gonna go around your feet, you know, whatever. So it’s more the cultural things that are the beliefs in Haiti most patients are not out in the middle of the night beating drums and skinning dogs alive.
And I think a lot of times when there are things like that, it has to do with. And people putting curses on other people. And that’s another thing that I witnessed in Haiti is, is whether there is truly a demonic curse on somebody or it is you believe that there’s a denim demonic curse on you. It is as real as real can be.
And I’ve known people who have died because there was a curse on them. And I’ll never that, you know, whether it was Satan doing work or it was just because in their mind they believe so strongly in this curse that they [00:35:00] knew they were going to die. So they did, I don’t know the answer to that for sure.
But but that kind of stuff happens as well. So, you know, the voodoo dolls, the whatever, right? I mean, you have something against somebody, you go to a a voodoo priest and put a hex on him and put a curse on them and. They’re for real it’s scary stuff, right? Not good.
De’Vannon: Very good.
Kim: No.
De’Vannon: So what was the you said you had positive and negative. What was the positive experience you had with. see.
Kim: Are, there are a lot of beliefs that bind people together. They have people watch out for other people that you know, how we can be influenced by, by things that were taught or things that we believe. And, but it can be it can either be positive or negative [00:36:00] and positive influence, you know, it, it can be like when you’re a kid and your dad says you do that to your sister, and I’m going to give you a weapon.
You don’t do it out of fear. Well, there’s, there’s, there are things like that. They happen that that they don’t hurt out of fear of because of, you know, cultural beliefs things that would have happened to them if they were to do something. So that’s not all bad. If it’s born out of something That we don’t understand, or maybe negative or maybe whatever, if with the ad result being a positive thing, it’s, you know, kind of hard to weigh it out in your mind and think, well then is it okay?
And I think that some of it is okay. Because I think then you grow to, and hopefully grow into a new understanding, but meanwhile or alerting [00:37:00] as you go, if that makes any sense whatsoever,
De’Vannon: Absolutely. So the negative aspect of it for you, was it what you described or did someone put a rude or some sort of judging on you?
Kim: I’ve never had the Appen. I can’t wait to hear your personal story with voodoo. I have to say I, a resident, you told me you had one, I’ve been anxious to hear about it from Europe. Lips. So, yeah. Yeah, but as far as I know, nobody’s ever put a curse on me,
De’Vannon: I think, I think it’s interesting how this has like, ties like the Catholic church and everything like that. So it’s not the first time in reading this article that I’ve heard that a voodoo can be used for good and that people who do it also believe in God, certain people have access, you know, like into the spiritual [00:38:00] realm in order to be able to receive a, shall I say this to affect change in the physical plane?
Communication with spirits. Now, whether that’s your clairvoyant people, your profits, your prophetess, this, you know, different sorts of people have different sorts of spiritual inclinations access to the other realm and stuff like that. And it comes out in different ways. Be it some sort of spiritual reading or some sort of, you know, for those of us like me, who dream, you know, in different things like that, the angelic handwriting people do where their hand moves on its own or under the guidance of the holy ghost or an angel, whatever you choose to believe and what it looks like scribble to everyone else.
But that person can read what it’s saying and it’s, and it’s, and it’s like the true, true fairs on adulterated. So it’s just for all the mystique that revolves around the Catholic church, You know, they don’t often, well, actually they never mentioned their potential [00:39:00] ties to voodoo, you know, you know, different things that I, but you know, when you, when I think about, you know, all the all the campus in the world, like the burn candles, all the time to all of these different things, then people and stuff like that.
I think that it’s true. You know, like with like the, like the, probably the ties there, I think where the people know it or not, because in the practices alluded to it and who do it in witchcraft, there were, they a lot of candle burning that happens. They shitload of candle burning that happens. And so. It could be that when somebody lights a candle to St.
Jude or whoever, you know, you know, you’re all Catholic and stuff would maybe do a little bit low due to.
Kim: know, that’s interesting. I’ve never really thought about that. I was raised Catholic and [00:40:00]actually have a deep what’s that I actually have a deep appreciation for the Catholic church. I think clumping everybody together can be hard. Right. And putting everybody in, in a clump and, and really whether you’re Catholic Baptist Lutheran, Jewish, Hindu, you’re an individual.
And it’s your individual walk with it. That makes the difference. And I know. Many many, many incredible Catholics and mother Teresa for one, not that I know where cause she’s passed on, but she was an incredible, wonderful woman who did incredible things. And so when we clump people together, I think we have to be a little bit careful just because there are wonderful people and there are [00:41:00] difficult people in, in everything.
De’Vannon: Yeah, I don’t, I don’t mind the people in the Catholic church. I’d I’d mind the institution that is the Catholic church. So like, I look at it as a way that can, that tends to damage people. I, to give a shit, if someone’s a Catholic or not, like, and it’s just like, it’s just like how I’m not trying to say.
Hard-headed hateful people. My, my, my ministry. So the people they heard, I’m not trying to change the Catholic church or argue with them. My ministry is to help undo the negative mental constructs that people leave the Catholic church with. And so, so when I say, I don’t care where the Catholic church, I mean, I don’t care for the Catholic church, not its parishioners and not as people, you know, they don’t know no better, you know, or, you know, they’re setting, they’re being abused by them.
Well, if some shit, sometimes literally if you an alter boy, [00:42:00]
Kim: Right.
De’Vannon: you know, then, you know, you know, and otherwise mental and emotional, you know, so, so yeah, I don’t have any problem with the people, but the, the institutions. So yeah. Let me clarify that. If anybody, if I ever say like, fuck this religion or that religion on my show, I just mean the religion itself.
The people who administer it, but not the attendees and stuff like that. You know, that’s, that’s a whole other different thing. And my main complaint against the Catholic church is how they insist upon having like a person. In between God and, and whoever the parishioner or the congregant, the church goer is I don’t believe in confessing sentence to a human.
I don’t believe in kissing the Pope’s ring. I don’t believe in setting anybody else up on that pedestal because that was the whole point and purpose of Jesus coming here to remove a man from the equation. And I feel like Catholicism puts man. [00:43:00] In the equation and that does doesn’t make sense to me. And I’ve preached spiritual independence. I want people to go to God for themselves when you need forgiveness, get it right now. Not once you make it.
to a fucking confessional booth. When you need, if you want to do community, you can give it to yourself at home. God is accessible to us. These as near as the air, we breathe, we have access to him around the clock, 24 7 setting, right up in our living room with us.
We do not need a church. We do not need people. Now, if you just feel like you need to have that great, wonderful, and many people will start out that way, but there is an overdependence on, on, on institution, religion and people that cripples people’s spiritual growth.
Kim: Oh, my gosh. I wish I had, well, this is being recorded. That’s a good thing. Cause I love the way you just put that. Thank you for that. Cause it’s, it’s so true that, you know, it’s the institutions that hurt us [00:44:00] and like what the Catholic church did with the altar boys is just a crime above crimes and continue.
And unfortunately, and, and is for any institution to allow things like that to continue is unfathomable. Like, Y I it’s, it’s really sad, so I totally get what you’re saying. And I totally agree with you. You’re right on going back to your 80 years of wisdom.
De’Vannon: Right. And so I don’t make allowances for organizations like that anymore. I used to be. When I tend to churches, I would see some shit to make me raise an eyebrow and I’d go, well, no, one’s perfect or not perfect, but no, I don’t. They preach too bold of a message. Be it Catholic churches, Lakewood church, like who I used to be a part of it before I got kicked out of there or wherever like you, like, you exist on the financial backings of the people who you heard, [00:45:00]know, and so hell to the, no, like these in congruency, you can not be fucking the shit out of all of these altar boys and the priest who gets caught and his ability.
You just move him to another Paris where he can fuck more Altuve boys. Like that, that tells me that the institution is rotten to its core, it’s corrupted and that the parishioners are. So they just believe they need to have it so much that they just keep going and supporting it anyway. But I believe any source of abuse must because.
There’s no way in hell. If I was married to a man, I would let him abuse my child and just be like, okay, well you’re pretty much good. So I’ll stay with,
Kim: Right, right. You’re 80% good. Just 20% bad. So therefore, right. Yeah. No, you’re you’re right. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
De’Vannon: that’s a whole other interview about why we allow ourselves to be subjugated. They’re subjected to religious abuse from churches and institutions, [00:46:00] because we feel like we need to stay there. I’m speaking now to not just people who stay in Catholic churches or other abusive religions, but people who are not straight, who attend churches that have a doctrine against their lifestyle.
I know gay people who do this. I’m like, they’re going to church. And they’re like, well, I’m just not going to page two. That sermon that’s telling me, I’m going to go to hell, but that’s having an impact on your subconscious mind and everything like that. It’s hurting your spirit. When somebody tells you something’s wrong with you, why would you support that church and still go there because your parents went there.
You’re afraid. If you stop going, you’re going to burn up and go to hell. You know what? Again, if somebody was abusing you verbally, you wouldn’t stay in a relationship with them. Why are you going to this church and letting them talk down? You like this.
Kim: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn’t make sense. But I think that a lot of people are raised in a family where we’re churches that important that, that if you don’t go on Sunday, something’s wrong. You [00:47:00] know, if you don’t go Sunday morning, Sunday night was the night, you know, whatever something’s wrong. And and your relationship with God should have nothing to do with what building you’re in.
De’Vannon: Preach it to a sitter,
Kim: Yeah.
De’Vannon: but since we’re talking about the church bullshit, I’m going to go ahead and talk about the Catholic non now is going to save this for last, but in your book, you wrote nuns are scary ruler on knuckles, kind of scary. The kind of scary that makes you sit up straight, turning all your homework and not talk during class three critical things to know in a non-classroom or chewing gum is like a checkout.
You, it gets cut. A messy desk is the devil’s playground. And if a sister, meaning a nun tells you to jump, you don’t ask how high without raising your hand first.
Kim: Yeah.
De’Vannon: And so. Girl I read through when I was reading that just emotions of fear, you know, prevailed, you know, came upon me and I’m looking at, okay, they’re instilling [00:48:00] fear into people in order to dominate them, even when you were in school as we halfway in.
But, but, but the Hebrew Bible says that God has not given us a spirit of fear. And so the same reason, you know, the same reason why I left the, the, like the alcoholism crystal method, like the whole anonymous drug movement is because I realized it was a fear based program. And that is in congruent with the word of God, because he told us not to be afraid.
And so when I read this, I’m like, okay, these people, these kids are in school. These nones are like fucking Hitler or Vladimir Putin, whichever, whichever dictator you prefer. And they’re like afraid that they’ll like move or breathe. That’s not good for anybody, especially not in those young developmental ages, but what do you think about this?
Who you are now looking back on this and would you let a kid that you would have be in the same situation?
Kim: Yeah. I mean, I think [00:49:00] back in the day it was considered respect maybe, but, but it’s not respect, you know, there is a fear it’s different. It was for me, my life experience completely different having a non stand in front of a classroom than having just a woman stand in front of a classroom. And and yeah, we were all afraid of the nuns.
I know that that’s such a generalization because I’m sure that many people have had great experiences with, of. Nuns. And so, you know, I don’t want to put it out there. The all nuns, I was scary and bad, but my personal experience is I was scared to death of sister, Mary Lewis. And everybody, everybody was like it was definitely a fear for her.
De’Vannon: And if you, and, and if you were to have a kid at that age, would you allow them to be in this sort of situation?
Kim: I would [00:50:00] not, I would not, no, I would not. I screwed my kids up enough. That would just events go on about even more so. Yeah. No, I don’t think it’s necessary. I think there are ways to learn English without it being fear-based
De’Vannon: I think it really hit you on the knuckles
Kim: They would not me because I was too afraid to ever get in trouble, so I never got hit on the knuckles, but yet yeah, they, they would, yes.
De’Vannon: physically abused the students.
Kim: There was capital or corporal punishment, whatever it’s called spanking spanking was definitely a a thing for sure. And with a paddle and fortunately I never went down that road either, because again, I was too afraid to do anything wrong to have that happen. So, but yeah, definitely physical, physical things definitely happened.
But you know it was just common back then, [00:51:00] you know, I, there was a even in the public schools, they used to spank kids, which how demeaning and demoralizing. Right. So fortunately that’s gone on, but but yeah, no, there was definitely a fear. You, you did what they told you to do for you.
De’Vannon: Yeah, they’d be, they’d be people in my school and growing up in the hood, you.
know, I would get beat at home with belts and stuff like that. You know, nobody should be hitting anybody period, period to the T at the end, it’s not justified.
Kim: Right. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. You know, I think it’s one thing when there’s a three-year-old, that’s just kind of being rebellious and doing what they’re not told to do to just kinda, you know, not spank them, but maybe just let them know whatever you need to do to let them know what they’re doing is wrong.
And that, you know, won’t be tolerated. [00:52:00] Like, you know, you have to be able to discipline your children, but yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s not good. I agree. Not good. Never in school. Never, never, never.
De’Vannon: Never, never, ever. And so let me circle back. So I had mentioned witchcraft, I’m gonna read a definition of witchcraft. So witchcraft is magic spelled with a K and not religious. Anyone can be a witch, but not all of them are Wiccan, dualism, polytheistic, and monotheistic, meaning you a worship. Many gods are just one God being a, which is not about religion.
It’s about the craft of magic. And so I feel like some, the Vudu who do witchcraft have some sort of intersectionality at some. But at the same time, they have their own unique characteristics. Now witchcraft seems to be the most extreme of them all because it’s not tied to like a belief in a higher power, which crowds is all about what [00:53:00] you can do.
And so what I think happened to me when I was a teenager, Was was, was, was more on the realm of witchcraft. So what happened was this guy, I was 15. I was the alter boy and not at a Catholic church. I was at a Pentecostal church and that was just the title. Cause I sat on the alter, probably the only alter born Pentecostal church history.
My pastor was just unique and I was her assistant and I was called the alter boy. And this guy was the choir director. He was like 21, 22 or something like that in that, in that age range. And so he had a fixation on me. You know, he approached me, we ended up like kissing and establishing a sort of relationship.
So yes, totally inappropriate. But I’m 15. I don’t know. All I know is this guy is hot and he’s paying me attention. So what do I need to do to get more of this attention? And so at some point he manages to obtain the. A windbreaker from me, which he [00:54:00] didn’t want to give back. And I later on realized why, because he was going to use it in his ceremony or his ritual.
And I started having us at first, I started smelling like this cologne that he would wear his, his spirit would come around me. It would manifest itself as is in the frame where the fist cologne people have said, this sort of thing happens, say when their grandmother or relative dies, sometimes I would just be setting down and they’ll just catch a whiff of a fragrance that they associate with them out of nowhere, seemingly.
Okay. I think that’s happened enough for most people to agree that that’s a thing. And so, but this person was still alive. And so, and I’m just sitting at my house. He’s never. around me that I’m smelling his cologne. Now I started having dreams about him every night. Not some nights every night. Every night and sometimes they’re good dreams.
Sometimes they’re terrible, chaotic nightmares. I felt my bed shaking and stuff [00:55:00] like that. Like extra says shit. We go on a trip to Mexico and he’s with the church and everything like that. And he’s trying to have sex with me and I’m like on the fence about it, it didn’t happen. He gets mad and he like totally changes in terms of this whole monster.
At this point I get like more confused than anything. We get back the whole thing. It’s a whole thing. The pastor, my pastor of the church, the head pastor, not his wife, but the pastor of the church of course preaches a sermon against homosexuality the first Sunday after this happens as they do.
And so. He also called us into his office and, you know, read us for filled and was telling us we can’t be doing, you know, this gay shit and everything like that. And so on and so forth. And so after this my dreams with him got even worse. Oh. And then he also had a female. I think she was female [00:56:00] fiance in California who moved to church that I didn’t know about during the months that he was dating me and courting me and stuff like that.
So I go to a counseling session with my female pastor who was also a prophetess high clairvoyant. She has like all the gifts and everything like that. And so she starts digging into what’s going on and she’s explaining to me like, you know, he’s burning candles and stuff like that. And I think he used the candle call that in tranquil, which I didn’t learn about this until years ago when I started to delve more into this, the in tranquil camp.
Since it goes and it finds a wandering spirit. That’s able to cross it between the worlds and it’s in an enlist, the services of this, of the spirit to go in vex, the person who is the object of your affection and the spirit will take all piece from them until that person comes and BS with you. And so I was miserable for about like six months after the whole Mexico incident.
Whenever I was awake, I smelled [00:57:00] his odor whenever, while I was asleep, I dreamt of him. I couldn’t escape him no matter where I went. And and my pastor was telling me, well, he’s got you under a spell and what he was trying to do. And he was successful at it. He wanted to do you want to have me all to himself?
And so he took my soul and he basically ran off with it. And then when we got into the argument in Mexico and we had a break, if I could get. It tore us apart, but since he had my soul and I was trying to get away from him, which she said, was it like it tore my soul in my heart felt like it felt like a burning in my chest.
Like if someone took an Exacto knife and just went all Edward Scissorhands slash on it, and it felt like a searing, like molten lava was like pouring out of like this chest cavity. It was like the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life. I still feel it. Like, if I think about it, I can still feel, it was just like searing.
The, my veins was telling me, I couldn’t understand how a person could have access to somebody else without that [00:58:00] person’s permission, you know, I’m 15, I’m sure she’s weighing, what can I explain to him? You know, with a 15 year old brain, you know, and stuff like that, I’m thinking the whole thing was my fault and everything like that.
If he’s like, no, you know, he out here, you know, the whole relationship wasn’t supposed to happen. So. The, the whole trying to possess me and everything. And so he wanted me all to himself and everything like that. And it took about it took six months of torture was so fucking miserable. Like my grades suffered everything.
I was just in hell. They innovate out. This was going into my 10th grade year. It was the summer that princess Diana died because he died and we were in Mexico. I remember that because it was on the news. And then one Sunday morning I was sitting at my kitchen table doing like homework, math problems or whatever.
And I felt like the weight and the burden of this whole [00:59:00] spell. He had me under lift off of me. It was like, it was like such a relief that I had to get up and like go for a walk, like a walk that I hadn’t been able to take in over six months. And my grandmother was just hanging out at the end of the driveway.
I just, I just walked down there and just looked at her and I just, I knew that everything had changed. And I don’t know if my evangelists, you know, my pastor’s wife who was my counselor, was somewhere at the church, praying for me, that was Sunday. And we weren’t at church of what she had told me that she would work to break the spell from off of me because she had that kind of power.
But she said that it would take time. And I was like, you know, I want it to be quick. You know why we can’t just do it now. And she was just explained to me, you know, some things take time, some stuff God does quickly. Some stuff takes time. It’s just the way it works. And so the deliverance that not come overnight or quickly, [01:00:00] like I wanted it to because I was miserable.
I just really wanted to just, I just couldn’t find happiness anywhere. And so, but from that Sunday morning on, I never smelled as fragrance. Again, I never had a dream about him again in this. The spell was broken. I was able to get my jacket back from him, eventually reluctantly argument, really? And when I did, I couldn’t wash his odor out of it, no matter how much I tried and ended up having to put in trash anyway.
And he was using that as I was, it was, it was explained to me by vandals Nelson to feel close to me. And I’m sure it strengthened his spell. He never allowed me into his house or anything like that. You know, that I was able to peek Intuit one time. I was with somebody who went to go over and visit him for like a moment.
And I could see like an alter candles thing going on, but I was never permitted in there. And so. [01:01:00]
Kim: Wow. Wow. I, you know it had to be. So much deeper than, you know, like a broken leg might dig six months to heal, you know, like an injury that gives you pain might take a while to heal, but this wasn’t just a part of your body. This was your soul. This was your whole being it. I can’t even imagine the feeling at of course your grades would suffer.
I would think your relationships with other people’s suffering friendships, you know, whatever. I would think anything that you did would suffer when, when it’s so all encompassing.
De’Vannon: Yeah. It was like a, just being in the middle of a tornado. Just couldn’t go anywhere. There’s no, there’s no escaping it. But you know, the God be the glory for his [01:02:00] mighty hand and his outstretched arm, because when he got ready, just like the children of Israel, they didn’t come out and they wanted to, they had to wait until the appointed day, the appointed time.
And when that time came, there was nothing that could, that could stop my delivery. Now this man, he was pure evil. He died a few years later. I thought it was cancer at the time, but because plus schools and shit broke out all over him and he was bent over on a cane a young fit, athletic, no body fat, you know, six pack, all of that, but he struggled up and died.
I think he was buried at the age of 24 and I found out, you know, that he had aids and he was running around trying to intentionally spread it to as many people as he could so he could kill them.
Kim: oh my wow. What a, what a legacy, goodness. Oh yeah. That. But sad. I feel bad for him. You know, it was evil, obviously what he was doing, but [01:03:00] what happens in a person’s life that makes you like that?
De’Vannon: Well for that?
and understand from what my evangelists, evangelists, Nelson Jesus, she was my, my pastor and I was her assistant, my spiritual counselor, the prophetess, the clairvoyant, when she was explaining to me with web, when people would come to her who have gotten the HIV, she said they either have a very angry.
Sometimes they have an angry reaction and they blame everyone else and they get really pissed off about it. You know, when I got HIV, I caved in and blamed myself and then I became recluse and withdrew from people. Some people go the opposite direction and they’re all like, you know, fuck everyone. I’m gonna take everyone down with me.
Damn it. You know? It evokes a response from people. And so when people are like, oh, you can just take the medication forward and fix it true. But you got to get over the mental health hurdle first that comes with having your body invaded with something that, you know, you can’t get rid of rid of
Kim: Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty [01:04:00] heavy. It’s pretty big stuff, right?
De’Vannon: it still to this day. And then everybody makes it over that mental health comes first, you know, that has to be addressed first, but we get to the medication. And so, so that’s what happened. I go into detail even further about that in my, in my memoir, which I just, I emailed you a copy of it. It’s finished.
Finally. I’d have sent you a copy just a few minutes ago.
Kim: Oh, thank you. Thank you.
De’Vannon: And and so and so, and so, yeah, so let’s, let’s talk, go back to Haiti for just a second. I wanted to know. Tell me about your rays of hope international, your nonprofit. I need you.
to, I need you to plug that.
Kim: Sure. Yeah, it’s a, it’s a partnering organization. So we work with people in their own country, but I have a passion, a vision and mission to do something, to help people in their own country. So they understand the culture, they understand the language, they understand the need and they [01:05:00] just need somebody to walk alongside, not telling them what to do, but seeing what support they need.
So sometimes it’s a business plan. Sometimes it’s you know, some startup funding, it can be equipment or supplies that they need a building they need build whatever happens to be, to get going, and then always with a plan for self-sustainability. So they’re not always chasing dollars and they’re able to continue the work that they feel that they’re led to do.
That’s right.
De’Vannon: I’m glad that you were able to find a way to be a permanent presence, you know, not just in Haiti, but in other countries too, and that you were able to overcome the governmental obstacles.
Kim: Right, right. I mean, and every country you have to do that. I mean, there’s governmental obstacles everywhere and some much tougher than others. And so you just kind of try to fly under the radar and get the work done. Cause [01:06:00] governments are hard to fight sometimes.
De’Vannon: True. True, true, true, true. I know what I want to say. I wanted to say something else about the witchcraft thing. So I wanted to be transparent about that story because sometimes people have strange things happen to them. They think they’re going crazy and difficult to go to like a mental health provider and be like, thinks of one has a food dog with my face on it.
And they’re fucking with me, you know? Cause you don’t know if you’re going to get admitted to the psychiatric, depending on who, who the mental health person is. And so, so then cause other people besides that guy does this, like I was at a store in new Orleans and you know, voodoo and witchcraft are big in new Orleans, you got booboo shops and shit.
And I was getting candles and stuff like that to protect myself. So you can burn like say white candles. You can use like white bars of soap, olive oil soap to, to shield yourself from spells and different things. Like. [01:07:00] And I was asking her like what she does for work, which is a question I do not ask people anymore because I realized what a shallow and superficial question it is.
And no one cares. They’re just going to judge you by your occupation. Or it’s just pointless banner. I ask people other questions when I meet them. But at this point I hadn’t evolved to that level. And I asked this girl, oh, what does she do for work? And she was like, oh, you know, you know, general destruction spells started to break people up and stuff like that.
She thought I was asking her like, what sort of witchcraft work that she do, because it’s referred to like that, you know, like what kind of work, you know, you’re going to work on somebody, you know, try to kill them, get them to lose a job or to make the move. And it’s called working on people or And so, so she just said it as casually as the sky is a blue, she just, he just runs around breaking up relationships and shit, because there’s, there’s certain like candles and stuff, destructions that are designed to break up, to control a dominate.
So you have you know, different aspects of it. And so it happens more regularly than you might think. You don’t have to be in Haiti or in west Africa [01:08:00] or new Orleans or none of that. You could be anywhere in this earth. This shit is common. And then the people who make these witchcraft products ship them globally.
So. So be careful who you run off with. I’m not saying run around afraid and peeping around the corners and everything like that, but you do need to know your friends and your associates and shit like that because people have practices that you might not think that they’re doing when you’re not around them.
And so, but if strange things started happening, it would manifest like, say confusion coming out of nowhere in your relationship. Maybe you’re great with your partner one day and one day you’re not, it could be that somebody don’t want you all to be together. Sometimes people, you might have confused and come up on your job and shit like that and stuff like that, you know, you know, so just to just, and how do you protect yourself?
Ultimately, you got to be close enough to God and be praying for discernment and to be so wrapped up in the [01:09:00] holy ghost and you know, really, really close to God to get deliverance from things like this. If you were not really close to God, then you are vulnerable to spiritual attack and that’s just the way it is.
And so. Because you’re dealing with spiritual forces here. And if you not strong spiritually in I know you can’t miss manifest your way out of this. You know, you have to have like an active force with that, that, that is sentience with a thinking, thinking for itself to, to, to yank you out of such clutches.
And so I’m just going to leave that at that, unless you want to say something on and forth with all I have to say.
Kim: Yeah, no, that’s a, that’s a lie. And, but I think though, if you believe, if you believe in God, God is obvious to me. I think God is obvious to most people, whether they want to recognize it or not. But if you believe in and good [01:10:00] spirits, then there’s, there’s also the, the opposite of that. And that’s real. And sometimes people choose to ignore that and and blame other things or whatever.
So I think acknowledging that that even exists and what you shared, like, I had no idea that it’s so prevalent in that it’s everywhere and that they’re stripping all over the world and that there are people that when you say, what is your work? And they answer my, my work has to break up couples, you know, that’s, that’s some pretty big stuff.
De’Vannon: Yep. I knew a lady, she got cancer because of a, some sort of witchcraft, somebody putting her food. Somebody puts something in her food and gave her a cancer. And so evangelists Nelson, when she was alive, was working with her and there was like spiritual baths and stuff.
that evangelists Nelson gave her.
And when she would take this bath, [01:11:00] this, I think it was like this brown. So some sort of shit was, was being pulled out of her system. That was the cancer coming out of her system. So you see, she had gone to all the doctors and everything like that, and they couldn’t fix this cancer, but as you see, it has spiritual foundations, you know, it was, it was a dark forces that had put that cancer in her.
It wasn’t natural, it was unnatural. And so it, so, but through spiritual means she was able to begin to get delivered from that. You see.
Kim: Yeah, right.
De’Vannon: Okay, so this is, this is the last thing we were talking about. So were you in Haiti during any of the earthquakes
Kim: I was in Haiti not during the big earthquakes, but for plenty of aftershocks. So I was in Haiti two weeks after the humongous earthquake that killed 200,000 people on January 12th, 2010.
De’Vannon: and she still remembers the date? [01:12:00] Exactly. I want to know. What did you, how did, what did you witness? What did you experience and what do you think the greatest strength is in Haitian people?
Kim: It was a really Really tough time in 80. So many people lost their homes. Everybody lost someone that they loved. People, lost limbs. You know, babies died, grandmas died. People were trapped under buildings for days. Some ended up dying some. Trapped for days and ended up living. There were tables that returned into surgery, tables, dining room tables, because doctors were coming to try to help.
And there wasn’t any place to do it and, and people didn’t have a place to go. And there’s the rain and the winds and the the sun, the hot sign and no protection from many of that. And and people were afraid to [01:13:00] sleep in. Afraid to sleep under a roof, right? Because they were just under a roof.
I caved in and certainly not on a second floor or a third floor, you know, when which there aren’t very many third floors in Haiti anyway. But but to sleep inside, there were people that for months and months and months after the earthquake would not slip inside, slept outside under a tarp, but the tarps started coming and the tide started coming and release, started coming and help started coming.
And these tent cities popped up everywhere. And within the tent city, there was leadership and the leadership would get together and, you know, what do they need for their tent city? And they would let it be known to whatever NGO was, supplying food or, or claim water or latrines or whatever. They, they would get together and figure out the needs and then figure out a solution.
And seeing that it was like these little [01:14:00] countries almost popping up everywhere that people that lived in the tent cities became family to each other and looked out for each other. And the people that rose up as leaders I didn’t see any that were in it for themselves. They were the last in line to get the jar of peanut butter.
You know, they weren’t the first in line saying, I need this. They were saying, I need this for my, my, my new family, my new community and the bonds of those. Still run deep. I have a good friend that lived in a tent city for months and his closest relationships are with people that lived in that same city with him.
So the resilience that it takes, the fortitude, the strength that it takes to suffer. So, I mean, you’re in grief, right? Your, your country has been destroyed. Your neighborhood’s been destroyed, crumbled buildings everywhere. [01:15:00] It was hard to drive through Port-au-Prince because. There was so much debris in the roads and there’s still debris.
When you go there this money, years later, there’s still a building that, that we’re going down the inventory down yet, or rubble that was a building that hasn’t been taken away yet. So you still see some of the effects of that are as quake and aftershocks. And then of course there was another one this past August and to live in that, to see it every day, to have that remembrance every day to lose people that you love to be in fear for your own life, to then have these aftershocks and get up in the morning and smile, laugh, work do parents get education, whatever that.
Takes a lot of guts. It would be so easy to just roll over and say, [01:16:00] forget it. This is too much. Most people in their lifetime, everything that happens in their lifetime all together is not as much as what these people suffered. And in the 60 seconds, that was the earthquake. So Haitian people are are resilient hardworking big family.
People love their family watch out for each other. The, the friendships become extended family and support each other root for each other. And, and I’ll be other out I’ve got, I get phone calls. Fairly regularly from a friend in Haiti, you know, or another friend in Haiti, that’ll say, oh, my word, I met this woman and her daughter wants to be a nurse.
And this woman, she lost her husband and she’s got three kids and she’s got no way to support them. And, but her daughter wants to be a nurse. And if [01:17:00] she can become a nurse, she’ll be able to support the whole family, but there’s no money to send her to nursing school, but she’s really smart. And she took the test and she could get in, but she needs the money to go to school.
Well, the money to go to school was I think $1,200, which sounds like a lot of money, but $1,200. Doesn’t buy it two credits. And I college in the United States let alone a nursing degree. Right. And so but that $1,200 that investment in that one life is going to change who knows countless lives, but for sure, her entire family and you don’t see that ever.
You don’t see people just looking out for each other, a stranger that this woman was a stranger to my friend, but knew what it would mean for this. So of course I raised the money and sent the money, what an incredible investment that is. And, and to know that I can trust my friend, that he’s [01:18:00]not just hearing some story, but this is for real.
And this one was a stranger five minutes ago. And that’s, that’s Haiti. I mean that that’s don’t you want to live with people like that, that they have your back that way, but it’s pretty incredible, right? Those that’s 80.
De’Vannon: I can tell from the glean in your eyes as your love struck with them.
Kim: I I’m, it’s true. It’s true. Some of my best friends live in Haiti and are just some of the most incredible people. I know,
De’Vannon: Okay. And with that, any any last words or closing word to half of the world?
Kim: you know, I, I would say that first of all, everyone should listen to your show every time it’s on. Because it’s amazing. And then when your memoir is published, [01:19:00] I can’t wait to read it when your memoir is published. Everyone should buy it because I know it’s full of incredible wisdom among the stories.
And and that there are, there is something. That can change where you are right now. You know, if you’re discontent, if you’re unhappy your life, isn’t going in the direction that it should. You know, whatever’s going on problems in a relationship, whatever you can change, that you don’t have to stay where you are.
And by growing closer to God, that’s certainly the most powerful way to make a change in your life, but also by respecting each other, respecting other people and not looking for fault and not judging or not condemning, but, but truly loving people will change your life dramatically, especially when you’re not doing it to get something in return, [01:20:00] but you’re loving because that’s what you should do.
De’Vannon: Love it is all right. Kim CRL, the author of cry until you laugh. And the book that we spend a lot of time talking about today, which is called love is Kim srl.com and all of her contact information. Social media will be in the show notes as it always is. Thank you so much for your beautiful spirit and your insight today.
My sister,
Kim: Well, thank you for your wisdom and what you taught me today. I appreciate it so much. I love you and my brother.
De’Vannon: I love you too, honey girl.
Thank you all so much for taking time to listen to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast. It really means everything to me. Look, if you love the show, you can find more information and resources at sex, drugs, and jesus.com or wherever you listen to your podcast. [01:21:00] Feel free to reach out to me directly at DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com and on Twitter and Facebook as well.
My name is De’Vannon and it’s been wonderful being your host today and just remember that everything is going to be all right.
