Rooted & Rising: Growth from the Greenhouse
Welcome to the Greenhouse! Join Denise each week as she has conversations with women who have experienced God’s power in their lives. We'll cover everything from relationships and parenting to running a business and building up our communities. We hope these stories inspire and enable you to make an impact in your world.
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Rooted & Rising: Growth from the Greenhouse
About Leaving For A Garage Sale & Coming Back Missionaries
What happens when two ordinary moms say yes to an extraordinary call? We open our lives to you—our blended family, our co-grandmother bond, the garage sale that turned into a launchpad, and the fragile moments in hospital hallways that redefined our courage. Shannon’s journey through Cushing’s disease and a grim brain diagnosis pushed us to pray when answers ran dry. Doctors set limits. We learned to ask for a sound mind, steady hearts, and the strength to keep loving people in front of us.
That yes led to Thailand and beyond—into villages marked by poverty, idol altars, and surprising hospitality. We talk about sharing faith without pretending life is tidy, and how honesty about illness made room for real connection. Donnie’s transformation from stunned spouse to cross-border rescuer shows what trust can do when fear is loud. Along the way, we discovered that mission is both a passport and a posture: cry out for direction, show up for people, and let God use small daily choices to create outsized impact.
Back home, the mission matured into training teams, nurturing community, and building a spiritual legacy that stretches across children, grandchildren, and new sons and daughters by marriage. We dig into the hard work of releasing offense, breaking unhealthy patterns, and choosing forgiveness that actually frees families. If you’ve ever wondered whether your yes matters, this story is for you: a reminder that God uses ordinary people, that comfort can make us sleepwalk, and that dependence can wake us up to purpose. If this speaks to you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review to help others find the show. What’s your next brave yes?
I am so glad you joined us again for Rooted Admising. I'm Denise Jackson. This is Shannon Tyson, and we have a really unique, wonderful connection. She is my daughter-in-law's mom, and I am uh her son-in-law's mother. And that has been really such a blessing to us because both of us are so full of faith and we build each other up. So we're more like sisters, but that's the true connection in our lives. So, Shannon, uh, welcome. I'm so happy you're here. Why don't you just tell uh our girlfriends out here a little bit about you?
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Well, I'm Shannon Tyson, and um, me and my husband have four kids. Um, we were married and remarried late in life. So we have two, he has a son and daughter. I have a son and daughter, they're the same age. And then, like, did they grew up together for a while? And they grew up together in Wimberley school districts, and um, like she said, my daughter is married to her son, and such a blessing that has been because so many times we've needed all of the grandparents to help take care of stuff. Um, my daughter got cancer, and they were fighting through that. And I mean, also, she's just been such a blessing to Cassie, and I'm so thankful for that. And to my grandkids, which have become her grandkids. Yes. Um, she's loved, she loves so well. Everybody that knows her knows how well she loves, and she's done such an amazing job of that.
SPEAKER_01:I feel the same way about you. You know, we've walked through some things together over the years. Um, I first met, uh, really got to know Shannon and Donnie. I think I've met them before, but I got to know them really well. The first instance was when Shannon said, Hey, we're selling everything in our home. Why don't you come and buy some stuff because we're going on the mission field? And I was like, so awestruck because like I really didn't know people who were on the mission field at all. I I've never, I don't think I'd ever met anybody that like went away to be on mission. And it was right, they'd already been a couple of times, but this was big. They were going to live there for a long time in Thailand. Yeah. So I went to their house, and this is a memory I hope Donnie won't object to, but uh, because Shannon really was the instigator of that. So because of the because you've got this diagnosis, right? Yeah. So, like, talk to us a little bit about that diagnosis and what made you decide to sell everything.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think we were on the mission field the first time, and I'm the first thing I want to say about it is we are not like trained missionaries, that it's just so amazing that I've really believed this. God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. And that I think has really lived out through us who have not been perfect people, and yet when I think the answer to that was just saying yes to God, and then when you say yes, what he can do out of us who had no experience. We had some training um through the church for going on the mission field like six months. But um, what God can do with that, and how I feel like God personally trained us through so many different things on the mission field. But the first time we were on the mission field, I ended up as when you say yes to God, you're gonna get a lot of attacks, but God is trustworthy and he does amazing things through them.
SPEAKER_01:And he's bigger than any of the attacks. We're gonna walk you up.
SPEAKER_00:We don't have to be afraid of them. Yes, we don't have to be afraid of them, just aware that they're coming and how to respond in the spirit and not in the flesh. But for us, I think there was a lot of different attacks, but one of them was on my health. So I think from the first year we were in Korea, um, I got a diagnosis of Cushing's disease, which only 10 people out of a million get, and most people don't live past five years. That's been probably 15, almost 20 years ago, though, now. And most people that know me wouldn't even know anything's wrong with me. Uh, up until this date, I've probably had 20 surgeries. You know, God never healed me all the way from Cushing's disease, but He's done miraculous healing in me several, several different occasions. And also, even today, not even knowing anything's wrong with me, so many people don't, and just so many times he's he's miraculously healed me too, and got us through and used that to really share our faith on the mission field. Because when she met me, we had come home for two years because I had a diagnosis, I had headaches the whole last year that I was entirely, and and I just came home and they said, you know, you're you've got radiation necrosis of your left triple lobe, and I went to the doctor.
SPEAKER_01:And necrosis, let me just say, that's bad, guys. It's it's your cells dying, and supposedly they're just gonna continue to die. That's the diagnosis that the world gives. And that, and even there were some side effects that we saw right around then. She was starting to get really confused. And when that diagnosis was made, and it really looked like she was having some of those results, we prayed and we spoke God's word, which says this that God hasn't given you a spirit of fear, but power and love and a sound mind. And we but we trusted and believed in that. And and you know, God He says He is looking across the whole earth for someone who will follow Him, who will believe what He says. And I'm telling you, you're you're getting a visit today with two women that we believe, we believe that He does what He says. And even if he had taken Shannon to heaven, it would have been fine, but he didn't because she has work to do, and that's what I felt in my spirit too, as we were praying back then. There's no way he's gonna do something because this woman's got more to do, and praise God, he heard our prayer.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and because I I went to the doctor 120 times that year when I came from Thailand, and every two months until the end, MD Anderson said there's nothing else we can do, it's it's not gonna get better, and then we prayed and it got better, and I mean it totally stopped. It stopped, yeah. And it just gets better, and everything healed up in my brain that had been the damage from that, and it didn't come back again.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, praise God. It's so good. He is so good. So back to they're they're deciding now that they're gonna go longer than six months. They're gonna go to Thailand for how long were you gonna go?
SPEAKER_00:Well, we we ended up staying in Thailand full time for three more years after that, and then we're going back and forth a lot, yeah. We did because I still had to come every six months to MD Anderson and get some tests done. And um, eventually we had to come home on the mission field because of all the health issues. They couldn't help me over there anymore. But and I was really sad because I wasn't feel like we were done, but um just trusting in God during that time and God's let us, and then he let us start to lead mission trips and start to train people about missions, and we're still such a huge impact.
SPEAKER_01:Like I, you know, I just feel like I I was so impacted by it, but I know that there were hundreds and hundreds of people that were so impacted by the stories you would tell, by putting us in the place that you were so that we could see people from other countries. First of all, how blessed we are as people who get to live in a country like the United States of America. I mean, we are so blessed. We we have we're pretty mouthy about it, but we don't really understand the huge blessing that we have unless you go live or spend time in other countries.
SPEAKER_00:My sister's in Thailand right now, and that's when she texted me this week. She was like, they are so poor here, and they don't know about Jesus, and they don't. They she said, I can't believe people still worship idols all over the world. And I was like, That's why we went, they do, and you know, they no one ever in another country ever refused to have us talk to them or to share Christ about them. I think they just felt like, and especially when they found out I was sick, because we would just say, Everything's not perfect in a miracle. We have problems too, and I'm sick, and yet Jesus sent me here to tell you about him because he loves you, he cares about you. And so I know that missions at home is important, you do a lot of that, and we we believe it starts at home.
SPEAKER_01:But he sends us out, he does, he's gonna send us out um wherever we just have to trust that. And in their case, he actually told them, You're gonna go to Thailand. So everything, their house and everything in their hostility except my husband's dear head. That's gonna take stored that that is funny, is that trophy you want to keep. But I have to tell y'all, the funniest thing is that I met Donnie that day when I went over to her house, and he's sitting in a rocking chair, and he said hi to me, but I just left thinking, oh man, that guy, his eyes were glazed who's like, What is going on in my life? Which really, I want to say, a godly woman who can find she's gonna make your life awesome, men, if you find a godly woman. Because he had no, I mean, he wasn't feeling like, oh, this is what we need to do. But let me tell you about this guy. They went to Thailand and he went into Myanmar and rescued people and health surgeries. They both did climb the mountain, went into scary places to rescue people that God had called them to go to and save. And and I'm not just talking about teaching them about Jesus, I'm talking about their very life in this earth uh because of them. They did so many miraculous things that God enabled them to do for him, that it just gives me chill bumps. It gives me Holy Spirit power when I think about what he can do when I'm when I think about their lives. And so, you know, but but I'm telling you, I don't think that they would have gone ahead with that if Shannon hadn't known really strongly in her spirit, this is what they should have done. And when she said it, she went for it.
SPEAKER_00:And so he came along. But you know what, though, like I felt it really strongly because we had just come home and then he got a job again, and everything started to get situated.
SPEAKER_01:Well, he was working at the school for a while, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and he had a stable job again, and it's hard to start at home. And then he said, when it was time to go on the trip, he said, I'm working, you just go on the mission trip and come back and tell me what you think. And I came back and I said, Yes. And then he was like, Okay, but I think he said later, he was thinking like longer term getting ready, and then all of a sudden our neighbors said it was a grinding. Our neighbor said, Well, we're having a garage sale. Do you want to have a garage sale? And I called him and said, Well, do you want to have a garage sale, Donnie? And he said, sure. And when he came home, everything was gone. Okay, so that's why he was looking at so shocked.
SPEAKER_01:These two also I've had such a gift of getting to watch them walk through that and then come home again. And God gave them another house. Yeah, and two have two houses. Well, they have two houses, and they're both so cute, and they're both paid for, right? Yeah. So right there next to Andre and Cassie, and you're such a gift to their lives, but oh my gosh, what a gift to be right there watching your grandchildren and just being able to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00:You know, it's so nice and so hard for people to afford anything. But living in community, if you really try and we were talking about this earlier, we have to really work at loving our daughters and our sons-in-laws, but they become a part of our family for the next however many years that you're alive, but really working at that takes work, but it's such a blessing because if we need help, they're gonna be there to help us, and maybe we help them also in return.
SPEAKER_01:And you're growing a whole food for us, don't you?
SPEAKER_00:So that's that's a blessing in of itself, too.
SPEAKER_01:You know, and and I think we uh one of the things that I thought think about is this is a child God gave me an extra child. So Cassie's an extra child for me, yeah. Andrew's an extra child for you, but I have like four children, and I have these four amazing son-in-laws and daughter-in-laws. Like they are not son-in-laws and daughter-in-laws, they are daughters and sons. They are so great. I feel like every time he brings more people into our lives, it's like our world expands a little more, a little more. Kind of like how he must feel with all of us, because it's like it's so big. You know, he's God, and so he can handle it. For me, it's just like, can you can you handle it? Can you be who he's called you to be so that you can love like he loves, and then you're gonna get the love in return. And I I feel like I have from Cassie, oh my gosh, that's glad has loved me hard and I've loved her back. And then on top of it, I got these bonus girls, uh, Cameron and Kegwin, uh, who Cassie already had when she married Andrew, and uh, y'all got Riley. Yeah. And oh, what a blessing that's been for all of our lives to just have those three girls.
SPEAKER_00:And you you love so well. It's so easy for you to love well, but it's not always easy to love everyone well, and especially as well as you do. Everybody's gifts are a little bit different. But I think that I was thinking about that today. Just his divine power gives us everything we need for life and godliness because I can't do it on my own power. I can't love well through all circumstances like like that, and neither can you, even though you seem to do it well.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no. I mean, some people can really and I'm really am frustrated with myself when that happens because I'm thinking, well, God put them in my life too. What's the purpose, you know? So, like I'm growing every day. I a lot. I'm not perfect, but I'm just telling you for my for my family, God continues to bless me through these people that He brought in as adopted sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_00:As I was thinking about, every year we try and do a spiritual inventory, and then the word we got year after year after year is legacy. And I mean, not just a legacy of what we leave behind, but a spiritual legacy. And then I look at my mom and dad, and they didn't come from a Christian home, but when they chose Christ, I mean, my family has probably 47 people now, and every one of them, except maybe maybe one, all of them have accepted Christ, and just the way we are able to live together and not have a lot of dysfunction, nobody's perfect family. And I mean, I desire that for our family and all my kids and grandkids. We have 15, I have 15 grandkids. I don't know. I have 16. 16, yes, and so just all of that, and our sons and daughter-in-laws for others for me too.
SPEAKER_01:And now great-grandchildren?
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:I love those. Uh, I have one great-grandchild. We have one on the way. God tells us that we're blessed to the third and fourth generation, but then he tells us uh that's why, like, girls, get in the word. You're gonna find some of the best things in that word. And this morning I was reading again that um curses can be sent to the third and fourth generation. So that's a good reason to be able to pull up those curses in in the generations right now in your life. Let go of those things that are holding you down that are not godly and not for his glory. But blessings for the righteous, when we're righteous in Jesus Christ, that's our righteousness. Um, goes to the thousand generations. Well, we're up to our fourth generation from us. What a blessing. It's amazing, but I can't even imagine a thousand generations. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:If you come from a home that's been broken, or if you come from a family that's been broken, or if you come from a family that's not from Christ, it can be changed by just your acceptance of trying to live right with God. Just letting him change you. Letting him change you. We can't change ourselves.
SPEAKER_01:No, but we can we can say, yes, Lord, change us. We want you to make us in, make us more into your image than the flesh that we live in in this world. And when we do, he takes us in it at our word and he begins to you know cut away those things, those offenses that we think we have to hold on to, and that anger that we think we need to hold on to. That feels like you can't let it go. I mean, it feels like it's gotten you so much, and you can't let it go. But when you turn and say, Lord, I don't want this in my life anymore, could you remove it? He goes to work and he just does. Like we we've talked about that years ago. We held on, I held on to stuff. Yeah, I was I was proud of it. I was proud of holding on to it, being mean, and and he's just softened my heart so much to realize that like the people that I was mad at, they didn't know. You know, there are a lot of things people don't know. And so that made me hurt for them. And then that you know, they had their own things in their own lives that they'd grown up with or faced, and I had never walked in those shoes before. Um, you know, there's so many reasons why somebody does something that offends you instead of looking at you. Uh, I'm encouraging you today to look to God and let him show you the heart of the person that's offended you and change your heart because that's what he wants to do. He wants to set us free to love him, he's on our side. So um we've talked about like y'all traveling, uh, but what can you talk tell me some incident that's just like stayed with you from your time in Thailand that was just so such a mining of God? Because it's hard in Thailand, right?
SPEAKER_00:This is hard and amazing because you're gonna see God at work. Sometimes when we live in America, this is what my husband always says, why he likes being on the mission field, because when we live in America, sometimes we can sleepwalk through our day. If you have a job, and if you have this, maybe you don't even call on God because we have the things we need. But when you don't have anything you need, you really cry out to God and you can really see your dependence on Him. And I think every day on the mission field, every single day, we had to cry out to God to give us direction and protection and lead us and guide us and safety and so many health and so many things. But we've tried and we should live like that here in America to do the same thing here. But it's very easy for us to just get in our routine and rely on our bank account or our somebody else or even the government, maybe, or other whatever way we get our help. And so I think just crying out to God, but when we do that and when we just choose Christ, whether we're perfect or not, in all of our problems and all of our sins, that's when God really can be glorified, I feel like. And on the mission field too, when we're not perfect and we just love other people and and let them see the real us. I don't I think things done in secret and kept in secret um are a devil's foothold. And so I think when we Denise is really good about being honest about things that where we failed and yet where God has been able to turn those things around and be used for his good. And he will, he promises everything can be used for his glory.
