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Life is like a vapor.

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On October 9th, 1995, I dove into a wave,

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shattered four rot rays in my neck and I drowned.

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If you survive dying, it changes how you live.

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God opened my eyes to his heart for the poor,

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but I needed to see it firsthand.

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I flew over to Africa and for a month I stayed in a slum.

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I remember walking by a trash dump, a place

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where people surviving in extreme poverty

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were throwing their refuge.

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And as I walked by this dump, I saw three boys.

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They were incredibly decimated by poverty

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and then horror grip my being as I watched one

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of ’em reach down into the muck and begin to feed himself.

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And I knew that minute that I was gonna spend the rest

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of my life trying to forget what I saw

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or spend the rest of my life

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trying to do something about it.

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And that’s when God birthed the vision

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we call vapor ministries.

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When I came back to the US

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and we began to work on scaling the model,

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we knew at some point that we were going

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to execute on a business that would be a part

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of the broader ministry globally.

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So I went back to our then team or,

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or then, uh, what we called our

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insight group, a leadership team.

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And I said, let’s take one week. Let’s pray fast.

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We came back and sat at the table

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and one of my leaders stood up

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and said, Hey,

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I think we should look at the idea of a thrift store.

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Thrifting is cool.

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Someone’s marching us that’s been in storage.

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You never know what’s coming in the door,

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what condition it’s gonna be in.

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It’s either been in a building, it’s dusty, it’s dirty,

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but it’s valuable.

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David Johnson, he’s a unicorn.

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This guy that had rose the ranks of Walmart, he comes on

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as a manager at one of our individual stores.

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He got here and worked the floor.

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We don’t wanna be a boutique per se,

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but we do want to be boutique-ish.

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We don’t wanna just put stuff out on the shelf

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and shove it on there and hope somebody buys it.

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We wanna have forethought

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and think about it and make it clean. Like

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When you walk in the door, it just feels different.

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There is happy team members that’s ready to serve them.

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And so we’ve really worked hard to create

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that type of environment.

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He and his team are great at thrift.

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He’s passionate about it. Well, it’s

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More than a thrift store. Sometimes

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I think we should, should have our own show.

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Really,

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My average work week for the 32 years I was

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with Walmart is probably 70 hours.

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I was tired. I just began to pray.

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I was like, God, I’ve done all of all of this work,

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but I want whatever, whatever I do for the rest of the way.

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I was 54 years old.

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I want whatever I do to matter in eternity.

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Everybody Was kinda like,

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I cannot believe you’re giving up real estate.

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I’m like, yeah, I’m giving it up. Prayed about it.

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I was just like, and I don’t know what it is,

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but I think I’m on a call.

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I met a lady that was working out on the sales floor

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and I told her, I just moved here and I would want a job.

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And she’s like, we’re ironed.

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We have a truck driving position.

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Our heart was to serve him on the mission field,

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but we wanted to actually move internationally.

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Different doors began to close.

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A friend of mine suggested that I just find a local job

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where you can, you know, see

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what is next over maybe an extended period of time.

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And he suggested Vapor thrift store.

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That was seven years ago.

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One of the things that we struggled

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with was getting people to understand

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that our team members have needs to,

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So I was speaking at a corporate event

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and their senior leader

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and I were sitting down everything I was talking about.

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It was mission over there, mission over there,

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and our margin this and margin this.

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And finally he looked at me

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and he said, Micah, you’re missing it.

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We honestly realized that we weren’t taking really good

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care of those that were getting the work done for us.

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I’ve got this thing with this mission

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that I’m gonna be doing alone if I don’t do this

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different and I can’t carry the weight.

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So we had to reset.

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Culture is powerful and it’s ridiculously important.

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Our culture and our God calls us to care

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for the work and the worker.

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It’s not mutually exclusive.

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He’s a god of love,

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but he also is a God of accountability, right?

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Coming from an operator that just sees what has to be done,

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let’s deliver results.

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Taking people away from productivity in the moment

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to build toward a future that’s gonna matter is a challenge.

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The culture isn’t anything if there’s

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nobody fostering it, right?

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It’s our responsibility to connect them

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to something bigger.

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God is a God of second chances.

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So many of our team members are people who have been

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through some level of rehabilitation.

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They’re just looking for a

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Job. They might be going through

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something difficult in their

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life and they’re, they’re, they showed up to work today.

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That’s, that’s a holy moment.

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How are you doing spiritually?

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How are you doing personally?

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How are you doing professionally? And how can I serve you?

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So, hey, I wanna know about what’s going on in your

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life, and I really do care.

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Sabrina specifically, I had some stuff that was heavy.

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We walked into our 1 0 1 and she goes, can I pray?

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It’s more than just a workplace. It’s like a family.

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They call me a mama pair.

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I’m there for them so that if they, if they have questions,

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if they need help, uh, we have conversations.

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The tone that we have here at this store is people first,

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whether it’s a customer, the customer comes through

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and they’re like, man, I’ve got this going on in my life.

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I’ve seen some team members stop what they’re doing

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and they’ll be like, Hey, let’s pray about it.

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And they’ll stop and pray right at the register.

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I kinda started threading all

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of the values in my home life so that I could be a better,

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not only person, but a mother, wife, daughter,

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sister, friend.

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I don’t have family here, me and my wife,

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and we have a 8-year-old son.

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Vapor allows me to, if I need to be at my son’s concert

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or something, not just father and from afar,

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but um, hands on with my son.

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We’re not coworkers. We’re team members.

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The way I treat

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that team member who’s cleaning up the item

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and putting the price on it

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and putting it out on the floor, that’s a,

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that’s an opportunity for me to show God’s love to them.

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He allows me to be a small, small little part of that,

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A God that’s incredible as he is chooses to use.

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People like me,

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I think for so many people, it’s so unfortunate

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that we compartmentalize our work and our faith.

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You know, you might say secular

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or sacred, you might say professional or personal,

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And they have to be meshed together.

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It’s all holy. It’s all his. My work is my worship.

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The mission, the vision that we have to meet needs,

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feed souls, elevate God to, to help people

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that are trapped in global extreme poverty,

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to find hope in their life.

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When I went to Haiti for the first time,

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I thought I grew up poor.

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What we do matters. It matters in Haiti

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and in Africa,

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but it also matters

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to the people I come in contact with every day.

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When my life is done, when my work is done,

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that’s really all we’re gonna have.

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Like I left a business

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that I poured my life into for 32 years.

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What I treasure most is the people I know

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that he has me here for a reason.

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As far this moment for this season, embracing the fact

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that life truly is a vapor.

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If you live it well, you only need one life.