Interview with Kent Tarbutton, owner of Chetola Resort in Blowing Rock
This post has been made possible by our wonderful partner Frosty’s Choose and Cut
TRANSCRIPT:
Ben:
Hello, my name is Ben Cox, and I'm here with The Journey magazine and the website too, www.JourneyNC.com. We're here at the beautiful Chetola Resort in Blowing Rock. I'm with Kent Tarbutton, he's one of the owners here. And as you know if you're looking at this video or reading our magazine, you know The Journey is about people's spiritual journeys and it's about what it means to have a relationship with God through Jesus. And so I'm here with Kent and I'm going to let him just introduce yourself and tell us about how you came to faith in Christ and then just - we'll go from there.
Kent:
Okay.
Ben, it’s good to be here with you. Thanks for coming out.
Ben:
I’m just so thankful that you’ve agreed to let us do this.
Kent:
Oh gosh. This needs to be here.
You know, for everybody’s lives it’s a big journey, as you said. And like you... we talked before these cameras came on and we both were raised in Christian homes. So we knew about God. I knew about God growing up. And I was in a church growing up. But that doesn't really equate to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
And so I knew a lot about Him and was raised in a good home. And then somewhere along the way, that self doubt that often comes through teen years, where your ears are too big, or your hair doesn’t look right or whatever, your nose is too big or whatever... started to hit home and I lost my way there. And my self-esteem was so diminished. I had a lot of time with my mom who's a real heart-giving, loving mom. And my dad was just…
I didn't realize until I was much older that missing that part of my life, you know you hear about quality time, but it’s also just time. You know, we kind of acquaint how much we’re loved or maybe how much our value is by how much time somebody spends with you, and I didn’t have any time with my dad. He was always working. Day and night. Day and night.
So that started leading to some conflicts in my life. More self-esteem problems than anything else. I didn't realize I was lacking that. I think we would all probably agree as Christians that God leaves a hole in your heart on purpose - for Him to fill it. But I didn’t realize that’s what it was so I went searching for it all sorts of other ways. And at about 14 I ran away from home.
Ben:
And where was home?
Kent:
Norfolk, Virginia. Yeah, I was raised in Norfolk, a Navy town. Dad was in the Navy and came over there.
Ben:
At 14 you ran away from home?
Kent:
I ran away. Well, I’ll proceed a little bit.
Mom said I was a very funny, happily little kid until I hit about 12 or so and then things started going off track. And this inward search led to, really depression and a lack of self-belief and self-worth. But they couldn't repair it. Because parents are only meant to to a certain extent. God is there for part of the equation in raising a child.
And so, gosh, I guess at 14 I started smoking pot. Gosh, I did LSD. I did all kinds of things at a young age. That’s the generation we’re in. And it was no different than the generation today honestly. It may be worse today. The stuff is more addictive I believe today. But anyway…
And I traveled some, and came back through Nashville and other areas. I stayed in some halfway houses coming home. I stayed in one that was a christian-based ministry that tugged at my heart.
I guess I should have prefaced this run away by saying that God had entered my life a little bit before that runaway. In such a personal way that I knew He was real and I resisted. I would rather have done drugs and made it all disappear and go away. I was so unhappy with who I was and I didn't realize it was going to take His blood to clean my heart. So I ran from it. When I saw how real it was... There was a coffeehouse called Mustard Seed in Ocean View in Norfolk, Virginia. And that group with whom I had been attending and going to this coffeehouse went to a place called The Barn. Back then it was just a barn out in the middle of nowhere in Virginia Beach back then. And the guy ran a ministry called Broken Needles. He had been an ex-heroin addict and came to know the Lord and was teaching and preaching. And we just saw amazing miracles there to the point that I realized how real it was and it scared me. And if I were to tell you there was a difficult path to follow through the age of 64 it would be me.
It would. I mean, I just want to run my own course. You know this is my way and not God’s way. God had to show me many times, even as of three years ago, that His way is the way I have to follow. My way doesn’t work.
Ben:
Or as of last week.
Kent:
Well yeah. But, about three years ago, I remember just - I guess it was longer ago than that - but I remember sitting by a stream here and just pouring out my heart saying, “Alright God, I give up. It is Yours. And I once again have taken the lead and the reins and I'm off in the woods again. I’ve lost the trail. And You had to break me. Occasionally, my will is so that God just has to take me back and...
Or I guess I would tell you that the most powerful memories of my life are when I doubt God. And when I question His existence. When I question that He cares. When I question that He’s paying attention to all this around us. That He’ll let me go all the way there and then He’ll humble me by reminding me of all the miracles in life. Of all the trips, sleeping under that park bench in Memphis traveling on a bus back. You know, when you could have been killed or robbed or raped or whatever as a little kid in the park. Gosh, overdosing on drugs or whatever. You know there’s plenty of experience in my life where God now takes me back and says, “Look! Can’t you see this?”
I mean, I’m lost with Job.
Ben:
Well, let’s circle back to the barn.
Kent:
Okay.
Ben:
What was the name of the ministry of that?
Kent:
Broken Needles.
Ben:
Broken Needles? Oh!
Kent:
Broken Needles; because he was an ex-heroin addict. And he was a preacher.
Ben:
So, is this where you first had a radical encounter with Christ?
Kent:
Oh yes. Yeah, very much so.
Ben:
So talk, I mean, what happened? You were at a meeting and something happened with you?
Kent:
We were meeting and he would pray over people and speak in tongues and things that I had heard of but didn’t necessarily believe in being real until you’ve felt that power of the Holy Spirit come over you and wash over you. And it’s unmistakable. It’s something that you know is real. Much like me speaking now about how God brings miracles back into your life or saving grace reminds you that it is all real. But I'm not capable of comprehending all of it or making it all work in my head. That day standing there watching people being prayed over and they would pass out and be healed before your eyes. It made you want to go back to science, but you can’t go.
I can’t, you know, at the end of the day, I watched… My step-father... we talked before. I had a step-father, who was out of old Yugaslavia. And my brother, Greg is wiser than I am. Let’s just say…
Ben:
Is he older than you are?
Kent:
Yea, he’s older and wiser. Greg has probably read 10,000 books in his life and memorizes them somehow. We’ll be in a study and Greg will quote something from a book he read 3 or 4 years ago. And you’re like, “wow!” Greg is an apologist and loves the depth of that. And mine is more that God takes my mind, which maybe isn’t as deep as Greg’s in the philosophical sense, and just turns my heart in a way that shows me that I feel His presence and it’s real.
I watched him debate with my step-dad for about 5 years. Because Stan had been all over the world and was a seeker. And he had seen many religions around the world and as many of us do and fought desperately for the understanding of why a good God would let bad things happen. He had seen war and just horrible things in his life.
Ben:
Just like we were talking about before, man’s inhumanity to man.
Kent:
Yea.
World War II, he lived through. They killed a million people in the valley he grew up in.
So they would debate. I watched them debate that for five or six years.
And when Stan had bone cancer at the end of his life and it was getting pretty bad, and I just knew that he wasn’t going to know the Lord when he died. And I sat and wrote him a letter and just said, I think it’s somewhere in Romans, you could probably quote it, but it says, “If you seek Me earnestly with all your heart you will find Me.”
So, I just wrote to him and said, “I love you and you’ve been a great adventure in my life.”
My dad was my business life and taught me lots about business, about computer, and the hospitality industry and all kinds of stuff.
Ben:
Which is how you got into the hospitality industry…
Kent:
Through my Father’s influence.
But Stan was Indiana Jones. So he was the opposite of my dad. Oh gosh, I parachuted with him out of airplanes and climbed Kilimanjaro with him.
Ben:
And when did he come into your life?
Kent:
When I was about - well it was right before here so maybe I was pretty close to 38 somewhere in there. Late in life. Yea, my mom remarried at like 50 or 51 years old and had a wonderful 20-something years with him before he was taken home.
But the wonder of it is that he was taken home.
I wrote him that letter and just said, “Stan, I’ve heard you and Greg debate this all these years. I don’t know what to tell you other than you’re seeking him and it’s getting down to the wire buddy. And I'm going to be so sad to go to heaven and you not be there. You know that if you would just reach out one time and earnestly seek Him you would find Him.
And he told me when he came back. He was in the hospital and was checking out and the doctors told him, “You can’t check out.”
And you don’t tell Stan that. And he said, “can you cure me?”
And the doctor said, “no I can’t cure you, you’re dying.”
And he said, “well, why would I stay here?”
And he said, “because you’re dying.”
And he said, “well, I could die here looking at these white walls in this ugly hospital or I can go to Spain.” Raychell, my mom had always wanted to go to Barcelona. “I’m going to take her to Barcelona.”
So he did. He had an internal pack that they put all kinds of drugs in to give him pain relief, that it would be long-lasting. He said, “fill that sucker up, I’m going.”
So they flew to Barcelona. And when they came back he told me the story. He said, “it was late at night,” Or early morning actually. Mom sleeps in and Stan would be up at 5. “So I went walking through the city.
And I’ve been to Barcelona. Barcelona is a bustling hustling, busy metropolitan area. I’ve been to many churches in Barcelona because I was trying to kind of seek the church that he found himself in.
But he said he was wandering the church early in the morning and found this church unlocked and no one in it. Well it’s hard to believe. Only God could pull it off in Barcelona as busy as that town is and he said that he called out to God there. And he said he felt this overwhelming presence just that Spirit we were talking about just overwhelmed him and put him on his knees right there.
And he said, “I knew it was God.” And he talked a little bit about that and then he said, it’s kind of funny, then he said, “you know there’s one thing that kind of confuses me about this relationship with God.”
And I said, “well, what is that?”
And he said, “well, you know I’m dying. I’ve got a couple months to live maybe.” And he said, “I’m in a lot of pain.” And he said he told God, “Ok, You’ve given me this wonderful life and now You’ve given me the experience of You. Go ahead and take me.” He said, “And He didn't take me, I don’t get it.”
And I said, “Stan, I’ve got to tell you one thing I’ve learned about a relationship with God is that His plans are always better than mine. But it rarely lines up with my timing.”
It was neat to see him find that about 4 weeks before he died, maybe 5 weeks before he died. God decided… Well, he decided to open his heart to God, because God is always there.
Ben:
So God had 4 more weeks of purpose for him to be here.
Kent:
It was pretty neat. He was a good influence in my life. And I still miss him but it’s funny how people leave your life and go on whether in this lifetime or the next. The memories stay and his presence is still somewhat in my life but now instead of being sad it’s more, I know where he is. I know I’ll see him again. Now, I'll do something silly and think about him or my dad. You know even in business I'll do something or I’ll say something to one of our managers, “ you can expect what you inspect.” Well dad’s haunting me, I know it’s him. So now it brings a smile back to some of those memories to realize that’s where it is.
Ben:
Well, let’s talk about how, I'm sure it was part of your faith journey at this point. I’m sure you didn’t just pick up and move here and buy Chetolah on a whim. Talk a little bit about how that transpired because I know it’s family owned and operated in a sense, it’s not just Kent.
Kent:
No, it wouldn’t have happened. No, it’s not just Kent.
I was running 17 Econos and Comfort Inns and budget properties up and down the east coast from Bedford, Pennsylvania to Savannah, Georgia. That area.
I did budget properties before I came here. This opportunity came, sadly, many years later I got a divorce. And it was the saddest aspect of anything in my life. Other than lack of God in your life, that’s probably the most crushing thing.
Honestly, all your plans and dreams and thoughts, it all kind of goes up in smoke. And your direction is lost. I had a 13 year old daughter that stayed with me, well twelve in a half at that time, Morgan. Actually her name was Jessica Morgan, and she was Jessica back in that era. And it worried me having done all the psych degrees when we moved here and she said I want to change my name. And I went oh what does all this mean? You know. Uh Oh. She’s going through her teen years, she’s just left her home and going to come here and everything she knows, her mom’s gone, you know.
Ben:
Very formative years.
Kent:
It really worried me. And I said, “well what do you want it to be?”
And she said Morgan. Which is her middle name. And I went, “Oh ok, we can probably work that out. You know, we don’t even have to make any legal document changes.”
Anyway. So, I was struggling to find something to do before this because my dad was aging out. It was time to sell off a lot of his properties and stuff. I all of the sudden needed to get off the road because I can't do all that traveling and raise a daughter. And so I thought, ok I have to do something else. I have to look for some other opportunity.
So, when it came to that time, I could see things shutting down in that operation, knowing that I needed to raise this daughter. You can have many careers but you only get one time with the kids.
Anyway, I came up one… I have an uncle down in Charlotte named Clarence who was in the hospitality industry all his life.
As we drove into Boone, I looked - I don’t think I had ever been here. But as we came up the mountain he said, “hey, I have to drop off a contract. We’re just getting ready to sell a property and I need to drop off the listing agreement, you got a minute?”
And I said, “Oh, I’ve got time.”
We pulled in this gate at Chetolah and I went, “Oh my gosh, what is this? Wow! This is stunning. It’s a beautiful place.
Ben:
It is stunning.
Kent:
God has really created a pretty piece here.
Ben:
Yeah He has.
Kent:
I mean it’s surrounded by… You’ve got the little village of Blowing Rock on one side. You’ve got Tanger on the other side. And the whole back is a national forest. You know, it’s incredible. 3,600 acres right next door. It’s a unique blend of things.
Bent:
Very unique.
Kent:
So I came out on the lake and I’ll never forget it, he looked at me and said…
I said, “what is this?”
And he looked at me and said, “uh uh, this is not you.”
I’ll never forget him saying, no this is not you, you can’t do this.
And I went, “really?”
And he said, “this is not what you know. This is so far beyond. A resort like this is much much different. Condos that you build and sell and manage and rent and the hotel and all the activities and events and things like that. And I had no experience in any of that.
So I went out and had lunch with my cousins but they kept egging me. So, I asked him to send me the numbers on it and played with it and worked with him for a long time and then eventually went to my mom.
My mom had always said to me if you ever want to invest in something and you need some help getting started let me know and I’d be happy to do it with you. She had done it with my brother a couple times, but I had never, I guess once before I did that with her. We bought a bankrupt property with another partner and my mother in Virginia Beach that I saw and converted it to a Condo and later sold it off. And it worked alright. But this was a much bigger endeavor. Much more at risk.
When this came up she said, I would love to do this with you. I can help you with this. We can do this together. As long as I don’t have to work. That was the deal. I’m done working. You know, she had had a huge Real Estate career, my Mom. Built houses and spun them off. She’s a great designer. She’s a great Realtor. She’s very very bright. And very hard working.
So, she said I’d be happy to do this with you. And I was like, I don't know. So we worked and worked and worked at it. And finally I came back to her and said Mom. We were in Africa actually, where she lived at the time in Cape Town. And I said Mom I don’t think that this is something that ya’ll should do because it's too much of your portfolio to invest. I don’t have that much money, you know. I don’t have any money.
So to put yourself at this much risk in this endeavor is probably... yes the numbers work, blah blah blah. And we think we can make it work. But if I took off my son hat and put on my financial planner hat I would tell you not to do it. Because percentage wise and your age and risk and all that as things come in to play, it would not be a sensible investment.
So I came back from Africa and she said call me and she said, “we’ve decided that we want to do this and Stan said if it takes all I have then he can support me.”
And I was like, “really? That’s like, wow.” Because that’s really going out there. I don’t know that that’s that wise. And she said no, we’ve decided that you’ll be able to do this. You’ve got to guarantee us that you’ll be there 3 years at a minimum and maybe 5 years at a maximum.
And I said, “yeah, well I can do that.”
My Mom really poured over me with care. Her line to me when she first did that was… because I was saying, I was mentioning all these things about the details of the feasibility study I had written, and she hadn’t read it, and I had sent it to her, and they were already agreeing to come on the deal. And I said to her, “Mom, you haven’t really even looked this over.”
And she said, I’ll never forget it, because that was what I really needed as that teenager was what she gave me in my 40s or late 30s, and she said, “Honey, we’re not investing in it, we’re investing in you, and we’re sure of that.”
And I just cried. I did. I was just so touched by someone that would trust you and put you in that position. So, we did it. It about failed 3 times in the first couple years. I had not estimated all this was. I had no idea about how to really manage this and care for it.
Ben:
You were really out of your depth is what you’re saying?
Kent:
Way out of my depth.
And I joke now and tell people frequently when they marvel at Chetolah, that God doesn’t let you see the future because you might not go.
Because I would have been just terrified. And if I would have seen just how close I came to bankrupting this several times along the path, I would never have gone. And God needed to fill those holes in.
And He usually let me go all the way to the extreme before He jumped in. I think for two reasons. One so that I would absolutely know that it was Him and not myself or someone else. And the other is, I can’t quote it, but there’s a great quote I heard years ago, I can’t quite get it right, but it’s something like, You never test the abilities of God until you’ve gone as far as you can go because that’s what He gave you to do. And once you’ve gone all the way there, one you’ve used what He gave you, two He just wants you to know it’s Him.
And many times, the big potholes here that were in the road and that I didn’t see, and would have just wrecked it totally, He came and saved it and expressed that He’s there.
So this has been a marvelous experience and this place has been rejuvenating and powerful to be here. God is in this place, it’s really evident that He is here.
Ben:
So, having been through what you’ve been through, the lessons you learned the hard way, and I’m sure just God's sovereignty over your life when you look back is very clear to me listening to your story. I mean none of these things were by chance. God and His love towards you has been, as you have said several times, this had to be God.
So, now talk to me about the lessons you heard the hard way, how that’s applied last year at this time. Just to kind of reflect on where we are now. I want you to talk about how faith and how you’ve learned to rely on God has helped you in this past year in the hospitality industry and just the way maybe His grace has been evidenced to you.
Kent:
Ben, I will tell you twice in the last 10 years that has been evident.
Last time was in the recession, it wasn't much different. We lost about 35% occupancy in a year, year and a half. The town just shut down in that last recession and this was the same.
We were closed for three months for COVID, where the Governor and the County. Watauga County was the last county in North Carolina to pull the two week quarantine when you came in from another area, another county. This was the last place to go. So, it was hard.
And I think, what word comes to mind when I listened to you build that question was one word and that was fear. And that is probably why I went back to the prior recession in my mind as well, because fear was the overwhelming factor. And it still haunts.
Now, this area has been incredibly blessed, we were talking about that before we began, and protected in a very unique way and in a God way. Because the numbers just don’t work here. You know, it doesn’t make sense statistically, mathematically. When this the county had 140 cases, let’s say, of COVID in the whole county and 10 in the hospital, 12 in the hospital, whatever. And the county right next door, maybe 20 minutes away has 3500 + and we have the University and they don’t, bringing people in from all over. We have tourism. You know, when the gates opened back up here, it was kind of funny, we had problems getting people back to work.
It was quite amazing that rural America became a big attractor. Our joke in the hospitality industry was that if you have a B&B house on Airbnb and you're renting it out in the middle of Siberia and no one's been in it in 20 years, somebody's there this week, because it is renting. Because everybody wanted to get out of urban America and get to these safer, more distant locations, like this.
We saw such a flock of that come in here that was quite amazing and then the numbers came back so strong. I mean, we didn’t reach our budget last year but we came close and it was crazy.
Ben:
So did your employees, did a lot of them buy in and come back?
Kent:
They did. I told them, I’ve got a job now, I can’t promise you I will have a job later, because if ya’ll aren’t coming back I’m running ads because I’ve got to hire people. All the folks out of urban America are heading here and we can’t service them.
We actually had nights where we, you know, you’re supposed to run 50% still in your restaurant. We’d have nights where I would tell them to run less even though we really need to make the money again because we couldn’t service them well and surviving things poorly just ruins your reputation.
Ben:
So, my conjecture on that was something about, the phrase that popped into my mind sounds like you have, by the grace of God, have created a culture of care here, where people would say yeah I want to do that because I like working here.
Kent:
We had a lot of people coming back, Ben, that were making more during that time period and just didn’t want to be home, got tired of being home, got bored, liked being here, knew we needed it and came back. And it is definitely a culture of care.
I think why I am still working is two reasons, one is because it seems apparent to me that God wants me to be here right now. He does, I mean I’ve questioned it several times over the last couple years.
My wife told me hiking out on Moses Cone Trail a couple years ago… We would talk about retirement for maybe 2 minutes and then be done with it because it was like, we’re not really ready to do that. And what would we do. I’ve always got to be doing something.
so I went before God and I said, “alright, is it time? Do you still want me here?”
And the message was pretty clear back to me after a while. No it's not time yet. I don't know when that time has been, I've got no idea.
But the second reason is the people here. And it is neat to work in a fellowship if you would, not everybody here is a Chrsitian, but there are a lot of Chrsitians here. We meet every Wednesday online with all our managers, still Zooming, soon we’ll have our tent up and we’ll start meeting again because there’s so many of them to get together. We want to be safe.
But they, we end it with prayer. We started doing that - years ago when I started bringing god more into my business life, it took a long time for me to do that even though I was a pretty strong believer simply because I'll never be worthy to do so.
And I had a real hesitance in that. To stand up and pray and stuff, it was almost humiliating because I know what a failure my life is without God. And to say, you know, alright everybody, what are your prayer requests, and then no one would say anything and your kind of left holding the bag going like, alright well I got a list, Joe asked me last week about his mom and Bill’s uncle sick in the hospital, whatever. We only had a few.
And then it slowly started building. Sadly preachers, and you’ve been one, and people in business are scared to go before their business life and say, okay this is God’s. I’m a caretaker, so I’m supposed to represent Him. Well, it’s scary because you can’t represent Him. I do a lousy job. And preachers, we put you on pedestals that God never meant any of us to be on.
Ben:
That’s exactly right.
Kent:
But you know, we hold you accountable to that and you’ve got to be Jesus. And that scared me in my business life. Because I can’t be Jesus. And I fail everyday. And you don’t want to be called a hypocrite, but I am. Because I have to confess my guilt and ask God for forgiveness all the time. I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
So, it took me a long time to realize, yeah but you’re saying it’s His, so if you’re saying it’s His then you have to stand up for that, even when you fail. So, I started doing that, and praying after our Wednesday meetings. And all of the sudden people just started…
Gosh, Linda Gilleland who’s a friend and my insurance agent about 10 years ago gave me for my birthday or Christmas, I can’t remember. She gave me this beautiful velvet lined box. So I opened it up and it’s got a prayer bowl in it. It’s got a prayer message around the bowl and I thought, “Oh, that’s nice, but what would I do with that?”
So I put it in my gift box in the attic. You’ve got a gift box? You know the stuff that you’re going to re-give. Or things that you get from people that you’re going to see and their going to ask. So it sat in my gift box for like 3 years.
Because my daytimer is where I put my prayers. If you ask me to pray for you, hopefully I pray for you right then. And then I’ll put it in my daytimer because it’s gone tomorrow if I don’t put it in my daytimer. It comes and goes you know.
Ben:
I know the feeling.
Kent:
I can’t keep it all. So I keep it right there and I don’t need a prayer bowl. So I just left it there. And about 3 years in one day, I was walking through picking out something for a birthday and I went, “Oh, I know what I’m supposed to do with that.”
So, I brought it back to work. And there’s a coffee set up right off the lobby for guests. And I put it there with a little sign that says we pray each day, and we’d love to have your prayers, if you want to share your prayers with us and I quoted some scripture.
That has been so powerful that it just realigns my life.
When I'm having a bad week here, when I’m feeling self-pity or worry or fear, like we were talking about with COVID or whatever. And you pick up that prayer bowl request.
We get thousands of prayers that pass through here. And they are powerful. Somebody that doesn't know you, that would stop at a coffee pot in an empty lobby one morning and ask somebody else to lift them up in prayer. You get that little scribbly handwriting that you know is a little kid that says please bring my daddy back. You see, my mommy is dying of cancer. You know, oh man!
I had one last week that said, Grandpa died please bring Him back. I don’t think God’s going to do that one right now, but he’ll be waiting.
These things, one it brings us together as a community here. Antioch church had a, we had a guy that you know come in here with this wife, Becky and Scott Lycan, pastors, and they had been doing a church out of a Gazebo in Valle Crucis, right? That’s where they started their church out there. Then they came back and probably thought that they were going to retire but God said there’s no retirement. We’ve got a need here for these college students and certain families in this community.
So, it built very quickly. It went from their home, to the Gazebo, and then they came to us. And said, hey is there any chance we could do church here?
And we were like, uh we don’t know you, let’s talk.
Scott said to me one day, what do you do with those?
Well, we pray over them. We pray over them in our management meeting. My brother and I pray over them in here. My daughter and I. My mom and I. Whoever’s here. And he said, we’d love to have them. So each week, after we get done with them, we copy all of them and send them to the Antioch, and they pray over everyone of those in their church services.
I know that has an impact out there beyond what I can understand.
When COVID came and we had to shut completely down, we decided okay what do we do with this God? And He made it apparent that we needed to put a statement of faith on our website for our hospitality, and it’s just a little click there and you can go and it opens up and there’s a prayer bowl there. And it’s amazing, well our prayer bowl is open again, we’re open again, but I still get prayers off the internet now from all over, and it would move your heart to see how God moves in those things. It’s pretty neat. And I’ve enjoyed seeing our family grow that way.
Ben:
I’m going to surprise you here. I printed your statement of faith.
Kent:
Oh, you did? You found it.
Ben:
I did some research. I got this, there’s this thing called Google-ay. And I googled. And here’s what’s the…
I’ve never been to a, especially a resort like this where there’s a little button that says “Statement of Faith” And so I pressed it and here’s what it says:
Chetola - the old Cherokee name means “Haven of Rest,” and after years of seeing miracles and wonders, we have come to recognize God in this place. We acknowledge that the peace, beauty, and rejuvenation so many have found here are all gifts from Him, and so we seek to honor Jesus by fulfilling His command to love God and love each other.
We appreciate that you have every right to believe there is a God or there is not. We too share that right and express it in how we live and with what we are entrusted. Our actions are not meant to force our beliefs on others, and all faiths are welcome here. We simply want to encourage the recognition of the many glorious gifts which surround us here and for some to acknowledge the great Creator.
Our goal is to serve our guests with love and excellence regardless of their beliefs.
You are welcome to join us.
And this moves me to tears as you can see, and you as well.
Kent:
Yeah, a little bit.
Ben:
Because we know that this is, that you understand the purpose of you being here is to glorify God and to point people to Him, the one who created us and knows what we need infinitely better than we know ourselves.
So, what’s cool to me is to see that this is not just a job to you, that it’s part of God's purpose for you. And I thought about that scripture where Jesus says, whoever you do it to, as much as you've done unto the least you do it for Him.
Kent:
I just read that this week.
Ben:
So, how you care for your employees, how you understand that the love of God is the thing that makes all the difference. It’s really beautiful. And I appreciate you so much, sharing with us and I believe it’ll come across in the testimony how it’s all about Him.
It’s not about Kent. It’s not about Ben. It’s not abou…
It’s about, to Him be the glory. And that really comes across.
Thank you so much in sharing that. And thank you for being such a beacon of light here in our community.
Kent:
Oh, it’s been good to be here. It’s been a great.
I think I said earlier that Mom, she initially committed in here, she said give me a minimum of three years, a maximum of five years, I’d never believe I’ve been here 24 years this year. And I have no regrets of that.
The passage of time here has led me to all kinds of understanding of God around us.
Layton Ford, do you know Layton?
Ben:
I do.
Kent:
Okay, Layton Ford brings his group of pastors here every year from all over the world.
And he said about 2 or 3 years in, he said, it’s dawned on me that about half the time that they’re here I just need to let them wander through the woods and find God. They don’t need all the teaching. They just need some communion. And that’s what He has really used this place for, evidently.
Many things, I’m surely unaware of and won’t even know until I’m dead. But it’s really evident that rejuvenation has been a powerful word here. I’ve seen many of the folks come through here and just find God’s peace here. And find Him again just wandering alone here in these woods. It’s a powerful place to be.
Certainly for me.
Ben:
Thanks so much.
Kent:
My pleasure. Good to be with you. Thanks for coming out.
Ben:
God bless.
Kent:
Thank you Ben.