Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Irma Barbee. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Irma, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
I didn’t know what the next 10 years were eventually going to mean to my family as our moving van drove away from our hometown of Visalia, CA to join the urban sprawl of Houston TX. We were coming over to join a church planting vision, what I call the “boat” that shipped us from there to here. In tug was our pre-teen son, a teenage daughter, and an about-to-be-an-adult son, who all insisted we were ruining their lives at the time. We left behind families, siblings on both my husband and my sides, my mom, and the only place that we’d all known as home until now. We landed in The Woodlands TX, in a three-bedroom apartment with an office space that served as bedroom number 4. Immediately we commenced to settle into jobs and join our pastors in securing a place for Sunday services. Over time, when the church didn’t form as we imagined, and the other families that had come to help all moved away, and the jobs didn’t pay as much as we’d like, the inevitable question came up. Are we moving back, too? Our families back home felt it made the most sense. Why would we stay here, away from family, struggling to make ends meet, and without our church family whom they knew we lived to serve? As much as our intellect said yes, our hearts and our hope for a different future than our old life could offer said no. We are staying. We found a small church to serve in, worked hard to progress in our jobs, and pressed through the hard seasons that are natural to raising families, especially in new surroundings and cultures, seemingly like a whole new world. In 2016, I met a woman that was serving incarcerated women and women who were in residential recovery centers in the Houston area. I thought I was joining the movement to fight human trafficking, a prevalent industry in this region unfortunately, but God had another plan. I had served women in recovery centers before. I recall feeling so small in a room full of women who had been through traumatic events leading up to their addictions. I was small compared to their experiences, yes, but the God that I was telling them about every week in that little room upstairs was big. He was big, and His love for them was big enough to cover all they’d been through. All the hard things that they did, and that were done to them. So, when presented again with the opportunity to serve women in those situations, any intimidation was calmed by those memories. We are not that different. We are the same. We took a different road, went left instead of right, or maybe just didn’t get caught, or pregnant, or abandoned. I said Yes to coming to observe a class, and from that moment forward my heart was intertwined with the heart and mission of WINGS Ministries. WINGS was a consistent work of love that came to tell women, right in the middle of their darkest hour, that there was hope, resources, principles that would help keep them outside these walls after they were released. There was light at the end of their tunnel. From that first encounter, I have never looked back. Today, I have the honor of serving women in recovery and/or incarceration, and an incredible team of volunteers, as WINGS’ CEO. Ten years after our boat landed in Houston TX, I can tell you that I am still small – so small compared to the love that goes behind the walls through our teams every week. So small behind the God who paved a path from CA to TX to bring us here. So small compared to the future He provided for my children. So small compared to the transformations I’ve had the honor of watching in the lives of women who probably feel as small as I do. Small isn’t enough of a reason to take the risk, stretch out your heart and arms, and get into the boat.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Volunteer ministry and community service has been my passion since I discovered that God was willing to use me to love people who were hurting, hungry, or lost. When I met someone in the Houston area who had been trained to serve women who were rescued from human trafficking, it led to an encounter with an organization that was going behind prison walls and addiction recovery centers to teach a faith-based job-readiness and life skills program to women who needed to know there was hope for something different. WINGS Ministries’ mission is to see women discover their true identity in Christ – how he lovingly created them from the beginning – and help them live full, independent lives when they are released. What makes WINGS unique is that the program goes into the facilities where they are housed, still in the process of serving their sentence or completing their recovery addiction of various kinds. Before they set foot back into the free world, all its challenges and pressures, WINGS has provided tools and resources to give them a fighting chance. When a women discovers this new life, her children and her community benefit, and that possibility and hope is what keeps us going back in to serve every week.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
There are two principles I would advise leaders to apply when it comes to managing a team and maintaining high morale.
The first is servant-leadership: a leader is a servant, and the higher up you go in leadership, the more levels of valuable people and teams you are serving. It’s important for a leader to show a willingness to pull up their sleeves and do the hard work, and that their passion for the work itself means they are committed to staying steady, focused and on mission.
The second is multiplication. True leaders don’t build followers, they build other leaders. There is no greater reward than to see someone discover their gifts, abilities, skills or passion and to offer them a place at the table where they can be shared. That passion and purpose will leak into your teams, building them up as they see they are valued, appreciated and seen.
I still have work to do in these two areas, but I hope and pray they will be my legacy when I move on and someone else has taken the reigns to lead this great organization.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your firm or practice?
WINGS Ministries has been supported by donations and partner support from the beginning. The organization’s founder took a leap of faith, and soon others began to catch the vision and support it even today, ten years after WINGS Ministries was launched. The principle behind financially supporting any organization that is working to make a difference in the community is simple: some are destined to sow the seeds, some are destined to water them, and one is destined to bring a harvest. Each of us has a part to play in the realm of ministry, community service, or the betterment of our world. To some it is to go in and meet the need firsthand, and for others, it’s to support from a distance those that are in the trenches doing the work.
Every life that is touched by WINGS is a result of financial support and investment of the community that supports it.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.wingstofreedom.net
- Instagram: @wingsministries_tx
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wingstofreedom
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wingstofreedom
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwOZx1A6BJntsdylkZSpqkg