I am the Managing Director, Financial Advisor of my own practice, backed by a Fortune 500 company, where I and my teammates advise to over $400 million for individual investors.
My wife, Susan, and I have two adult children.
Our oldest child, Alicia, is married to a great guy, Chad, who owns his own law firm. They have four biological children ages 12, 9, 6, 3 and a foster baby age nearly 1 ½ years old. Alicia home schools her children and works every other weekend at a veterinary hospital. She often says she’d make more money if she could do to humans what she does to animals but when her “patients” wake up, they kiss her!
Our son, Luke, is married to a great woman, Kari, and they have two boys ages 1 and 4 years old.
When Luke was twenty-two years old, he was stricken with ALL-B Leukemia. It was a brutal forty-month chemo routine. Chad was in town going to Law school, Alicia (who took off work), Susan, and I divided the week to ensure Luke had a primary caregiver 24/7. Words cannot express my gratitude for how our family pulled together to care for him.
As a child of a deeply dysfunctional past, it was so beautiful and astonishing to see how God cultivated my family to operate out of sacrificial love.
Luke persevered, earning two Master’s degrees while taking chemo, and started his first pastorate in the last year of therapy. He has been pastoring now for ten years and is a gifted musician, Bible teacher and Preacher. He and his wife enjoy exploring the world, hiking to waterfalls, cooking and gardening together.
Susan and I recently celebrated 44 years of faithful marriage. After 22 years as a homemaker, she became an Ordained Minister from which she retired a couple of years ago. Like most couples, we’ve had times that were wonderfully fulfilling and periods of great stress.
The grandkids call me Poppi and my wife Mema. Mema thrives, relishes being a Mema. Our daughter’s family lives about two and half hours from our home and our son’s family about one and a half hours away. Susan is normally gone 3-5 nights a week to help one or both of adult kids with their kids, which I don’t mind because she is ministering to the households of our adult kids and their children and in a way that also makes me happy, giving all a childhood so different than the one I had.
When Alicia and Luke became mature enough, we shared parts of my childhood with them. We also took them to Princeton to see the Home. I celebrate the fact that they’ll never come close to understanding what I went through.
Susan and I also celebrate that our kids have chosen the faith of their parents and live it fully and genuinely.
I am grateful that since 2007, I have had the opportunity to speak for the cause of the orphan, the foster care child, the at-risk child on over 200 radio and TV shows in America, Europe and South America. I have also spoken in over 40 states in America, but also European nations, South American nations and in 2019 the government of China invited me to address a the first ever national Chinese social workers conference on helping children who are victims of child abuse. I was only 1 of 2 foreigners invited to speak and was also invited to speak a total of 13 times across China.
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R. B. Mitchell is an engaging speaker and writer known for his story of resilience. His work inspires others facing tough circumstances, offering hope and courage through his example.