You might not expect to find a Hawaiian-born CPA running one of Texas' foremost child advocacy organizations, but many twists and turns have led Michael Loo to his job as President and CEO of Upbring. Join host Pastor David Bahn as he welcomes Mr. Loo to the Engaging Truth microphone to talk about the Lutheran church's approach to child welfare.

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Good evening. We're so glad that you could join us on engaging truth. My name is David Bon. I'm a retired pastor from, uh, Cypress, Texas. And I have the pleasure today of interviewing Mike Lou. Is it Dr. Lou, uh, as the director of upbringing, is that, uh, your, your, uh, title?

No, I I'm actually not a doctor Uhhuh. I'd like to have had that title, but, uh, it's just Mike or Michael

Mike or Michael. Well, we're glad that you're with us tonight. Uh, tell us just a little bit about yourself and, um, before you're done, I know that there's quite a story about how you got to upbringing. Uh, you don't sound quite like a Texan, so give us that story, but tell us a little bit about yourself.

Uh, I'm trying sound like a Texan. You're good.

You're fixing the sound like I text him, right?

I'm fixing that's right. That's right. Um, first off, uh, I did wanna say it's very nice to meet you. It's very nice to meet all of you. Thank you for the invite. I really do appreciate, uh, the invite for today. And, uh, yes, my name is Michael Lou. Uh, originally I am for, from Hawaii and, uh, I was born and raised there. Uh, I went to school. I'm a, I'm actually a duck. Uh, I went to school at the university of Oregon and Eugene. Oh, okay. But otherwise I'm born and raised in Hawaii. Uh, the, the interesting thing to try to be fixed, to be a Texan, excuse me, is that I actually met married someone from Victoria, Texas, and we actually met in Hawaii. Uh, there's a whole story behind that, but, uh, I did marry someone from, uh, Victoria, Texas, which one of was one of the top three, uh, decisions I've ever made in my life.

And, uh, we have three children, uh, and, uh, they were all born in Hawaii, but they all have Texas first names for the most part. Uh, because we did not know we were moving to Texas at the time they were born and, uh, they all have Hawaiian middle names as well. Um, so, uh, that's the primary connection to me getting to Texas, uh, you know, she, she was interested in moving back to Texas for, I would say over 10 years. And, uh, one day I just came home and said, you know, I think I'm ready to go. And she suggested Austin, Texas. She had lived there for a while and she thought it would be the best match for all myself and the children. And that's how we ended up in Texas.

Okay. But getting to upbringing is another layer to this story. I understand.

Yes, sir. Is there, so , uh, my journey to upbringing, uh, was interesting as well. And, uh, I, I must say that as most of my opportunities from a professional viewpoint, uh, I think it was, uh, God given, uh, you know, to be honest with you, I, I had not heard of upbringing at the time. It was known as DS social services in the south. Yes. And, uh, when I first moved to Texas, I was actually commuting, I would say between Texas and Hawaii doing work, uh, it's not a commute I would recommend. Uh, but I did that for a couple of years. And then, uh, got back, took a little bit of break and, you know, I was trying to get my name out here in Austin. And my resume somehow went from someone in Hawaii to someone in Houston, to someone in Austin.

And then it landed at Lutheran social services of south. And, uh, apparently the afternoon it got here, you know, I, I got a call and said, you know, we, we looked at your background and, and we, we can get into that if you would like a little here mm-hmm , uh, and you know, we'd be interested in talking to you. And so I came in, uh, the next day I met with CEO and that's, that's how I got here. Uh, you know, when, when I took a look at Luther social services south, uh, you could tell they did a lot. They did a lot of, uh, they had good standing. Uh, they, they were pretty strong, but they also needed some changes. I thought. Uh, and that's, my specialty is, is, is change and restructuring and so forth. That's what I do professionally. That's how I got to upbringing.

Wow. So, uh, you said we could go into your background a little bit more. Uh, you, you mentioned that your background has to do with change and, and helping, uh, organizations change and restructure. You wanna say a little bit about that?

Yeah, sure. I appreciate that. So, uh, I, my background is, is more finance and, uh, I'm a CPA. My background, you know, I work for one of the large international county firms over for KPMG. If, if you've ever watched film golf course, you'll see KPMG on his hat. I have a

Story about a KPMG hat. Yes, I do. I'll I'll tell in a minute. Go

Ahead. Okay. Okay. So I, I work for KPMG for about seven years, and then I actually got recruited, uh, to be part of an executive team to take, uh, a large airline through a chapter of 11 bankruptcy process. Wow. So I was part of that for about, for about seven years. Uh, the number of years is gonna give away my age, summer. a number of years. Uh, but then I had, I had the, the opportunity and this turned out to be the blessing of the introduction for me to the nonprofit world. Uh, it, it, it was a very large real estate trust, uh, that had a private school system as its, uh, in its operation. And their mission was delivering education to left an entire segment of the population. And, uh, it was, it was very, very large, uh, but they had lost their way.

And, uh, the IRS came in and physically, uh, took the trustees out. Wow. So they started looking for people who with, uh, change background who could help them literally sort of rebuild, uh, the operations and the trust from, from start or from scratch. And, uh, so they started looking for people like me. So I, I worked there for nine years, uh, extremely blessed to be able to do that. Um, learned a lot and, uh, uh, fortunately help them get off of IRS probation. Uh, and they're doing bigger and better now. So, and then I jumped into that two year stint that I mentioned to you where the travel was going back and forth, uh, was to try to help a late stage startup, uh, solar technology company, get on the stock exchange or what these call go public. So I did that for a while, and then I ended up at upbringing. So that's my background. I, I, you know, I do change. I go in, I help re structure, you know, I help N uh, next level value, add creation and so forth. Uh, but that's what I do. That's,

That's awesome. Just real quick. My, my KPMG story is one of my friends was at a golf tournament and he had a KPMG hat and Phil Nicholson was, he was watching Phil and Phil didn't have his hat. And he walks up to this guy and he says, hi, how's my new best friend. And the guy goes well fine. He says, I need your hat. His hats had not arrived, uh, in time. And he's got to wear them by contract. And so they became best friends, at least for that moment. Well, anyway, that's, uh, neither here nor there tell us about upbringing. Uh, what is the mission of upbringing?

Yeah, the, the mission of upbringing is to break the generational cycle of child abuse. Uh, we we'd like to do that through empowering children and families and communities, but it's breaking the cycle. We often use the term breaking the cycle. And when we say that we're talking about breaking the cycle of child abuse and, uh, a more clearer aspect of how to describe that. In addition to serving children who have been severely traumatized every single day and in their most immediate state, we are hoping that we break the cycle of, uh, children becoming adults who, uh, will potentially abuse their children as well, because statistically 30% of the children will do that. So our, our mission is very holistic, which deals with current issues. And it also has a flavor of trying to change the projection of future patterns.

We're so thankful for you and, and what you've just talked about here. So can you say a little bit more about what it is you do, uh, to begin to break that cycle and help these, these children who have been abused and, and are perhaps in, in danger of further abuse and, and how you intersect with them and, and help them.

Yeah, sure. So, you know, what, what may help is to understand, uh, the breadth and nature of, uh, all of our ministries and, um, for those who may not know, uh, we are Texas statewide. Uh, you know, we run from the south down in, uh, the Rio Grande valley from, you know, McAllen and Harlingen. Uh, if you start going west, you know, we run up into Laredo, we run into El Paso, you go up a little north, you know, we're in the Lubbock Amarillo area and you start wrapping back down, we're, we're in the Dallas Fort worth Tyler area. And then, uh, you know, again, coming down through Austin and Houston, uh, you know, we're also in the Corpus area and the Victoria area. And I, I think you're kind of getting the picture of Santon as well. So, uh, uh, we're large, we're, you know, we're, we've got over 80 locations of so

Locations being, uh, facilities where children are, are cared for, kept, uh, housed.

Yes. What, uh, yeah. Yeah. So, uh, locations, meaning we either have office operations or potentially a standing building as well. So, you know, we're, we, we, our, our, our book of ministry, so to speak, uh, is about 90 million a year that's, you know, and we're, you can almost break that down by one third, one third, one third, one third is in foster care, as well as what we call intensive treatment facilities. So the physicality of those are either foster homes. We have foster offices in 14 different locations, uh, and we also have a treatment facility in, uh, the canyon lake area here that helps to treat very rarely intensely, uh, traumatize girls who cannot necessarily into a foster care setting. Yeah. So that's about one third. What we do, uh, the second third has to do with, uh, head start programs or education programs that we do, excuse me.

And, um, we have over 30 locations, uh, three Texas for that as well, children, and primarily from, uh, if I can get this correctly, I, I say zero. And that, that doesn't mean mm-hmm, , uh, it's not in any derogatory manner, but zero to five age is zero to five. And, uh, we are, we are spread across primarily the Fort worth area, little Southeast of Houston, uh, into the Victoria area, down in the Galveston area as well. Mm-hmm, , mm-hmm , uh, and then a third, uh, deals with undocumented minors, uh, uh, and those children that come across the border by themselves who are severely traumatized through the experience. And, uh, we help them through the trauma and get them through their next settings. So the common theme here is it's all about children. Uh, the common theme is that they've experienced some level of very, very high and intense level of trauma. Uh, and, uh, our, our objective is to, again, not just help them through the immediate circumstance, uh, but also try to help them become, uh, or get them while we have them, uh, on a, on a profile or a pattern where hopefully they will not, uh, become an adult who will abuse as well. Hmm.

So we are with Mike Lou with upbringing, and, uh, you mentioned you have foster care, head start programs and undocumented minors care for them. Um, the head start programs, are they typically in schools or are they standalone programs? How does that work?

Uh, they're both, it just sort of depends where we are, uh, with, with ISDs, uh, where we are part of their, uh, location. We also have some standalone, it just sort of depends on the community and the makeup of that. Um, so it's actually both, uh, we actually have one private school as well here in Austin that do that. It's an association with the church property. Uh, and so it, it just sort of depends on the need of the, of the surrounding community.

So, um, why would somebody come to, uh, to upbringing, uh, for, uh, running a, a head start program? What is it that you would bring that? Would they not look somewhere else?

Yeah, so good question. So, uh, one we're, we're very good at the early childhood education aspect and, uh, you know, education can be broken down into different stages primarily, right? There's, there's early childhood. Uh, then you're looking at middle school and then you're looking at high school or even post high. Uh, our concentration right now is in early childhood education. Uh, we're, we're just very good at what we do there. And some of that is because there's a tie in and integration with what we do, uh, in our other ministries. Again, our, our other ministries all deal with, uh, understanding specializing in how do you, uh, serve, uh, and treat and, uh, young children. Uh, and so, um, you know, we bring principles, we bring aspects, we bring understanding, we bring, uh, clinical approaches that apply across all of our programs. And we can actually supplement the head start programs from our other ministries with, uh, those type of services as well. So, uh, we not only, we not only try to meet the minimum requirements that head start assets, do we also try to bring other aspects from, uh, our other industry lines, uh, so that the children can benefit.

So you have a more robust program potentially than, than, uh, they might be able to do other, uh, on their own. Is that,

Is that what you're saying? We, we would like to believe so. Yes, we would like to believe so, and we believe, uh, we've done very well at that. Uh, we think headstart recognizes that, and, uh, we've been lucky to get, uh, more and more schools because of that. So

In other words, when, uh, you go to them or they come to you, it they're, they're already having a good sense of upbringings of abilities and you have a good reputation with them already. Is that what you're

Saying? Yes. Yeah. Yes. We, we believe so. And you know, all the credit for that goes to my team. Uh, you know, I, I will not take any credit for that. It goes to my team. Uh, you know, there's a very formalized process, obviously for head it's a federal program. Mm-hmm . And so you go through the process and so forth. Uh, but I, I do believe we are, we are, uh, we've developed and we are sustaining very good reputation, uh, for the programs that we have. So I, I, I think upbringing recognized that, yes,

Thank you for connecting with us on, uh, engaging truth evangelical life ministries. Elm is a group of volunteers in the Houston area who not only plan each of these broadcasts, but also produce them. Each broadcast is founded on God's words centered in the saving grace of Jesus Christ, your prayers and financial gifts help us send each broadcast through various delivery technologies to our country. And even throughout the world, please go to Elm houston.org and click on the donate button, or you can send your support to Elm PO box 5, 6, 8, Cypress, Texas, 77, 410. We appreciate every gift and promise to use your gift to send the good news of Jesus to the world. Again, that's Elm PO box six, a 5 6 8 PO box 5 6 8, Cypress, Texas 7 7 4 1 0 or Elm houston.org. Uh, after having said that, uh, Mike, uh, is, is there benefit to people going to the upbringing website? Could they gain some information there? And are you a entity that, uh, receives donations as well?

Yes, yes, we, we are, uh, yes, visit the website. Uh, you will find information on our mission. You will find information on our teams. Uh, you will find information on our programs, you'll find information, but our philosophies in context about how we approach. Uh, and yes, you can find a lot of information there. We do. We can't take donations through there as well. Um, and, uh, or if you're interested in speaking to someone, give us a call. There are phone numbers on there, direct and toll free. And, uh, by the way, uh, just to give you an idea of how we do things here, if you go to our website, you will also see an ability to donate with cryptocurrency right. Well, so, uh, we're not sure who else does that, but we first, uh, that has the ability to do that. So if you incredible currency, we will take it. That's

Innovative. that's great. That's great. Hey, uh, say a little bit more about foster care, because I know that maybe some people understand it or perhaps some people think they understand you don't and some might even just have what is foster care.

Uh, our job is to either to find some sort of permanent, uh, home for them, uh, either new or reunification or otherwise, and try to make sure that their wellbeing and their, uh, so called being whole status as much as possible, uh, is, is achieved by us. So we need to take care of them. We try to watch their different levels. And again, this is on top of anything the state requires, you know, but we try to watch their education levels, their skill set levels, their life, uh, life skill levels. Uh, if vocation comes into play their health levels and so on and so forth. So it's our job to take care of these children while there is a need, uh, that they need to be away from their families. And we wanna do that in the best way we can, uh, that when they do find more permanent standing for themselves, uh, that they are as whole as possible from a wellbeing perspective.

So that could be, they go back to their families. If the situation has changed there, or perhaps they are adopted, is that correct too?

It, it, they could go back to their families. They could, yes, they could be adopted sometimes. Uh, unfortunately they do stay in the system. Mm-hmm, , mm-hmm, , they call adults as well. Uh, but everyone in this industry works very hard to, uh, try to do the two form of things as best as possible,

Certainly. And by the way, I've known some PO, uh, foster, uh, parents who just do a, an credible job of providing the kind of care and home and, and, uh, situation for these, uh, children that, uh, are, are just, uh, uh, really, really, um, really heartwarming, really important. We have about three minutes left. I want to just give you an opportunity also to, uh, to share a little bit about, um, uh, the, is there any particular thing, one thing you do, I mean, you, you have also a number of children, I guess, in the, in the issues of, of, um, uh, being, you know, uh, I guess, um, the, the undocumented minors, is there a, is there like most important thing you do there, or is it just all basic care? And, you know, what's, what's that about? How does that work?

Yeah, no, our, you know, our goal, as you can imagine, we're, we're, we're, uh, we have oversight from both state and federal aspects, right? And, and, and as you can imagine, when you deal with that, there, there are a lot of standards have to abide by in charges. So in addition to meeting those every single day from a minimum viewpoint, uh, our value add is we are trying to add programming on top of all of that. Uh, so that again, the child can experience being a child as much as possible. It can be what we call be whole as much as possible. Uh, you know, and this is not just from a physical perspective. It's also, it's also from a spiritual perspective. Uh, you know, we, we have chapel every week and a lot of our locations, uh, we, we offer spiritual care coordinators, uh, you know, depending on their denomination, you know, we work with the children to find that spiritual side and, and Jesus and God's side as well, uh, as much as possible. So again, it's, it's, that's the, that's the value add that we have. And, um, we are trying to add as much innovation on top of that to be able to do that as well. So, uh, just like cryptocurrency,

So that's welcomed, uh, on the part of the people that are, that you're serving, that they are, they're happy for that as well, is that correct? So they you've kind of answered the question I wanted to be sure we got to, and that is where is Jesus in all of this? And I guess it's wherever you can bring him, uh, and intersect with these kids. We're talking, uh, with Michael Lou with upbringing today. And, uh, it's been a real pleasure to have you a part of this. What, what would be the one thing that you would want people to know or to take away from, from listening to this, uh,

Broadcast tonight?

What, what we would like to share is that, uh, we have the potential to have a really large impact to a lot of children who are in need. And we would like to do that in a way that is creating change for the child, uh, for the better we do that, where change is gonna get created for the system for the better. And, uh, we want to do that in a way that, uh, is very respectful and honors. Uh, the foundation that this organization, uh, was a step AB, which is the Lutheran faith and the Lutheran principles. Thank you so

Much for being with us, Michael Lou with upbringing. Thanks for joining us on engaging truth. Thank you for listening to this broadcast of engaging truth. Be sure to join us each week at this time, to help support our ministry, contact evangelical life ministries, post office box 5 68 site, Texas 77, 4 10, or visit our website Elm houston.org, or find us on Facebook evangelical ministries. You.