Dale Partridge - The Story of Our Home

00:00:00.000 Welcome to our home. My name is Dale Partridge, and I'm here with my wife, Veronica.

00:00:08.300 Hey, guys.

00:00:09.400 Our hope is to help you cultivate a glorious Christian home. Now, this episode is titled

00:00:14.780 The Story of Our Home. Now, if you're new here, each episode that we do is broken into two parts.

00:00:21.340 Part one is available and free for everyone on every podcast platform. Part two is only

00:00:27.380 and exclusively available in the ReLearn app.

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00:01:12.180 So in part one of today's episode, we're going to be sharing the story of our home.

00:01:17.900 And in part two, we're going to be sharing the three greatest lessons that we've learned

00:01:23.040 in our home lessons about order hypocrisy and schedules so on that note let's open up with

00:01:30.560 part one and i'm going to have veronica open up because i'm going to we're going to just

00:01:35.420 essentially share our story around how our home and family came to be and so when you think of

00:01:42.800 our home babe uh let's start with our marriage how do we meet how do we meet oh man well if you

00:01:50.580 guys have been longtime listeners of the, of, I guess you're our old podcast. This is

00:01:54.960 a separate one, right? So of our old podcast, I used to podcast with Dale three, four years

00:02:00.940 ago. I'm in our very first episode. We actually shared that. So if you're a long time listener,

00:02:06.200 you'll already know, but if not, um, technically I met Dale when I was 14 and he was 18, 19.

00:02:17.460 he was dating my sister and i was just you know the tag along little sister um that would just

00:02:25.380 hang out with him whenever i could or my sister picked me up from school and go to the rock

00:02:30.340 climbing gym and dale would be there um so that's how we met i don't necessarily remember the day we

00:02:35.380 met i mean it was so long ago but um we do have pictures of us here and there somewhere of you

00:02:41.940 know us at my sister's party or things like that and i'm 14 and or us rock climbing as a kid you're

00:02:50.340 gonna make me sound like a like uh oh yeah so there was no interest at this time yeah i said

00:02:56.100 tag along little sister um yeah no there was no romantic interest at that time i was very much

00:03:02.660 just the tag along sister yeah and dale was dating my sister at the time and then i'm not a predator

00:03:09.540 and then um let's see fast forward when i was 19 i mean you and my sister had broken up you know

00:03:17.820 it wasn't ever anything like super serious but you guys had broken up and then when i was 19 we ran

00:03:23.860 into each other um again and um the first words dale said to me was wow veronica you're old and

00:03:32.420 hot now this is true this is true that's your pickup line gentlemen that's what you get to use 0.57

00:03:37.320 you want to find a wife and yeah we we had a uh i tried to convince veronica to go on a date with

00:03:43.080 me for several months and she would not um until i my persistence continued until he bugged me

00:03:50.600 enough where i was like i just need to say yes so he'd stop bugging me we went on a date and i

00:03:58.280 had victory and won her heart and slowly but surely we went through the steps of

00:04:03.400 of dating and within nine months we were engaged it wasn't that slow but yeah anyway uh yeah i mean

00:04:11.560 we're dating we started in february by november we were engaged and we were married the following

00:04:17.560 february yeah so this upcoming february what a month and a half from now we will be married for

00:04:24.200 14 years and together 15 years yep and so that's kind of the founding of the partridge home and we

00:04:33.080 went from there we had uh our children we have four children now ranging from about to be 10

00:04:43.000 and all the way down to six months old and so we had aria in 2014 we had um honor in 2016 valor

00:04:52.520 in 2017 and then we took a break to the long break and then we just had deacon yeah this

00:04:58.840 or i guess this is going to be coming out in january probably so we had him in 2023 yeah june

00:05:05.160 of 20 june july july july sorry we have another son whose birthday is in june and then deacon is

00:05:11.240 in july and so uh that's kind of the story of our children which we'll kind of reconnect here in a

00:05:17.960 second um one of the founding features of our marriage is i think veronica's marriage to me

00:05:25.720 um if you've heard of jonathan edwards wife's book she didn't write it it's actually someone

00:05:31.080 else writing it for her but it's called marriage to a difficult man it's probably similar to being

00:05:35.800 married to me and so you know we talked about this last night that you know while i was not

00:05:41.400 in ministry when we first got married it was you did understand that you were marrying someone

00:05:49.640 that is it was just very intense yeah you were not in ministry when i got married you were in

00:05:53.560 in business and the business world. Um, but I knew that marrying you was never going to

00:06:00.240 be a dull moment. I knew that marrying you meant that you're yeah, intense, I guess you

00:06:07.800 could say in a way, um, go, go, go. You always had some type of project, always something

00:06:12.800 that you were working on that you're passionate about. Um, so I knew going into it, that,

00:06:18.000 that there was always going to be something happening. Amen. So yes, when we got married,

00:06:21.560 I was already an entrepreneur. I had started several businesses already and we met at one

00:06:26.440 of the businesses. Well, we remet one of the businesses that I started, uh, the rock climbing

00:06:30.660 gym in Riverside, California. Yeah. I guess when we were, when we were first married,

00:06:34.720 you were 24, I was 20 by that time. And so I was like, you know, fresh out of my parents'

00:06:39.380 house. You'd moved out of your parents' house when you were like 17 or 18. So you'd already

00:06:43.460 been on your own and established on your own for a while. You had your own apartment and

00:06:47.660 own car and ran a business and i just kind of married into that um it wasn't necessarily like

00:06:53.580 i like we were starting from scratch you had already been established and i was coming under

00:07:00.300 your headship we were christian i i don't think i was regenerate i don't think i was born again at

00:07:05.980 the time we would call ourselves christians you were uh i was a christian i i became um the lord

00:07:13.820 saved me when i was 18 and so so not long before we started dating actually yeah and so i i was

00:07:20.540 uh thought i was a christian and that's a story for another episode but actually you can even read

00:07:27.580 my testimony if you wanted to i think if you go to relearn.org forward slash testimony or if you

00:07:31.580 just google dale partridge's testimony you'll be able to read my testimony there on our website

00:07:36.620 um but we did have uh at the time we got married um 2011 we started we got married 2010 2011 we

00:07:44.740 started a company called sevenly and that was a whirlwind of an experience because a lot of people

00:07:52.260 don't realize that historically before i was in ministry i've only been in ministry full-time

00:07:57.180 since 2017 but i was a businessman and you know i would say a well-known businessman i had a public

00:08:05.280 platform i had written several books uh that were published by harper collins um doing lots of

00:08:13.280 speaking events lots of speaking conferences uh you know our company was a multi-million

00:08:18.560 dollar company with you know almost 50 employees and was yeah require me to talk to investors and

00:08:26.640 deal with different realities that were going on in the company and we had a headquarters in orange

00:08:30.880 county and yeah we're in southern california at that time and you do you know day trips flying

00:08:36.000 up to san francisco be back by dinner yeah and so we we did a lot of that it was fast-paced but in

00:08:42.240 the business world fast-paced in the business world and a totally different world than we live

00:08:47.440 in now and so by god's grace we had a season that we were able to um make money we didn't we weren't

00:08:54.000 as great with our money back then but we were still able to didn't have children at that time

00:08:58.480 We were able to make the Lord by his grace, put us in a situation where we could go into ministry in a financially secure position, which is quite rare. And we recognize that, that we have, we were able to pay off our house, you know, several years ago, I don't know, we were able to, you know, have a small investment property.

00:09:26.380 um you know we weren't making millions and millions of dollars but we were making enough

00:09:30.760 money that allowed us to essentially have no debt um to be in a position where we could serve the

00:09:36.320 lord and money not really be a motivating factor um i think there's a i don't know who originally

00:09:41.740 said the quote but once you get to the top you realize you're there's nothing there and i think

00:09:46.220 that god allowed us to have that sense where we we made enough money we we experienced wealth we

00:09:52.480 we understood even a sense of fame and um notoriety around the business world

00:10:00.560 and once you get to the top you realize that there's nothing there and i think that was

00:10:04.780 really what catapulted us uh including the calling to ministry um into or i should say

00:10:12.380 out of the business world and into ministry and so that happened in 2016 there was more of a

00:10:19.220 conflict we were in another church in oregon we moved to oregon we had this beautiful home in

00:10:24.020 oregon yeah we lived there for seven years lived on a farm we had like didn't think we'd ever leave

00:10:28.820 yeah it was probably like the picture-esque like instagram life you know we had the seven acres

00:10:39.220 our best friends had the 20 acres next to us our other great friends lived in our back house on

00:10:44.680 property we had a film studio on our property we had a gym and a sauna and we had animals animals

00:10:51.800 and a garden beds and and you know privacy and overlooking the mountains and it was just a

00:10:57.640 wonderful situation it was very uh i guess what is it millennial modern day storybook yes modern

00:11:06.600 the modern day storybook of what a lot of people are chasing after and we're blessed to have that

00:11:11.400 that season we had that season and um we went into ministry 2017 uh after really just having a

00:11:20.640 continued um calling from the Lord but also recognition from people in our lives that I

00:11:29.340 was called to preach or called to teach I was feeling a draw to seminary I was studying more

00:11:37.500 and more involved in our church at the time and we went into ministry 2017 and then all of a sudden

00:11:44.460 uh maybe in 2018 i started to get sick 2019 for sure um and that was a season where

00:11:54.580 it started off with me it's so many different symptoms that you don't really know

00:12:02.200 probably i would think maybe start off with like the food stuff where you like have some gi issues

00:12:08.720 after you'd eat and your stomach would hurt or then you'd have like acid reflux i'd acid reflux

00:12:14.240 for a long time yeah so we had we had all these symptoms that that didn't seem to be correlated

00:12:19.660 with one another so you it's hard to determine a diagnosis when you can't put your thumb on what's

00:12:27.660 causing everything and i was having you know dizziness and you know air hunger and breathing

00:12:35.100 issues and pain in my liver and um you know sleeplessness and twitching muscle twitching

00:12:43.740 and all over just the map or body temperature regulation body temperature regulation and and

00:12:50.940 so um we finally i got to the point where i was very ill this is like a couple year journey several

00:12:58.220 year journey yeah we're going past the story like a couple weeks or months here this is

00:13:03.740 several year journey and we we made the decision to um relocate the cold was hard on me we found

00:13:11.660 out eventually that the central culprit for causing my immune system to falter and me being sick was

00:13:20.940 our our house had mold or or or i was in mold at some other time um but essentially my my mycotoxin

00:13:30.440 levels were off the chart so i had really high mycotoxin levels it could have been as simple

00:13:36.020 as like the washing machine had mold in it um basically my body doesn't detox well and so

00:13:43.980 you know while i was really sick and my son was sick um veronica was mostly fine you know our

00:13:51.820 other kids were were okay yeah we had weird little symptoms here and there but it was never like a

00:13:58.400 huge deal it was just like oh i don't know i guess valor can't have dairy because he has an upset

00:14:03.040 stomach or something which that that is true but there was just like little things like that and

00:14:07.420 then we didn't realize until after we moved out that these other random symptoms like i had this

00:14:12.600 like chronic sore throat had a sore throat all the time and I just you know attributed

00:14:17.160 it to having Lyme disease and just thinking that was just one of my symptoms and then

00:14:21.540 we moved out of the house and my sore throat went away and then now you know if I go into

00:14:26.080 a place that I know is moldy that's like one of the symptoms that'll start to creep up

00:14:30.460 is I'll start to get a sore throat again yeah and we didn't even know this stuff really

00:14:33.880 until after we had moved because we were essentially um we we didn't understand any

00:14:43.640 of this until so we don't really know the the the where it could have been my office it could have

00:14:51.080 been a place where i was living before we we think that i was having mold toxicity issues in the house

00:14:58.280 when we lived in california when we lived in california now that we looked back and so it's

00:15:03.680 really um and some people have no yeah we never got the actual home tested itself we just got you

00:15:10.960 tested your body yeah um while we were in texas yeah and it's the we could just see that you had

00:15:17.860 mycotoxins but then you know it wasn't just necessarily the house that was making you sick

00:15:21.780 it was in the summertime in central oregon where we used to live there's really bad forest fires

00:15:27.100 every year it's basically like fire season and the air outside is hazardous

00:15:31.660 and so that would you know prevent you from having clean air and your body was

00:15:37.660 just so sensitive at that time that you weren't able to heal because it was like

00:15:41.740 and then you know you'd be then the winter would come and you'd be so cold

00:15:45.280 and everything you would get inflamed because you're cold and so you wouldn't

00:15:48.100 be able to heal because of the cold and so we were trying to figure out ways that

00:15:51.520 we could stay there because we didn't want to necessarily leave Oregon we

00:15:56.800 loved we loved our community we loved our house um but it just kind of became evident that the

00:16:04.560 environment there was not conducive to your healing yeah um so i made the decision to move

00:16:11.200 to arizona and this is kind of a a backdrop for this whole podcast is that we essentially

00:16:19.120 lost our sense of home for a bit um and i would even say we're still trying to recalibrate that

00:16:27.760 now we know home is where your people are um but we moved into a fifth wheel and then we moved

00:16:34.780 into a rental no we moved into a fifth one we had to get rid of all of our stuff yeah that was a big

00:16:40.500 thing we did when you when you when you live on a property for five years you know that seven acres

00:16:45.200 and you have outbuildings on it and you know your house itself is pretty large on the larger side

00:16:50.160 and a garage and you accumulate stuff it's just it just happens and once we found out that it was

00:16:57.520 potentially mold we had we got rid of everything everything the only things you can keep is

00:17:02.560 basically steel like metal and glass and we didn't know what was

00:17:09.040 keepable or not keepable because i was so sick i was just like let's just get rid of everything

00:17:15.100 oh yeah he was so sick at that time he could barely make any decision

00:17:18.960 so we had to get rid of we just thought well you know what if mold is causing this

00:17:24.060 let's start our whole new life fresh and i mean this mean we got so that means when we moved we

00:17:31.160 couldn't just like pick a random house to move into because we didn't know if it was going to

00:17:34.220 have mold so that's why we lived in the fifth wheel yeah we lived in the fifth wheel and then

00:17:37.600 we had to get a new rental which we paid more for because it was brand new and you know new doesn't

00:17:43.280 necessarily mean mold free so you're constantly looking around and that's why we also didn't just

00:17:47.700 buy a house that was already existing because of the mold so there were so many factors that

00:17:53.480 you know we're still even making sense of it all um and we we've we've been in rentals uh until

00:18:02.340 recently we finally bought a little house um and you know lord willing we will build a house on some

00:18:08.600 land one day again in the future uh we we own some land that we'd like to build on um but we're

00:18:15.640 we're still in the middle of all those factors and so it's been a um a hard journey to home life for

00:18:26.060 us and we've we've really wanted to make a consistent place for home for our children

00:18:33.260 for our schedules for our um sense of consistency um to just stability yeah yeah to build a culture

00:18:43.100 and civilization in in our home for our children that gives them um structure and traditions and

00:18:53.900 and um vision and um so we we've been a bit in survival mode um making things work and i i'm

00:19:04.040 still now i'm significantly better yeah but i'm still sick um so i've yeah used dale still has

00:19:12.900 issues at some point every day every day something that comes up every day so it's still very much

00:19:19.940 our life is very much revolved around that yeah um like just how we operate in our house not

00:19:27.440 necessarily like we're it's us we're a slave to it but in a way we kind of are you know it's a

00:19:33.080 very weird lifestyle because i'll go you know if you're following us on social media on instagram

00:19:40.180 i've been recently posting that i've been skateboarding with the kids you know so i'll

00:19:42.880 have days where i can go and and skateboard with the kids at the skate park um or go play pickleball

00:19:48.960 and feel totally fine um but then sometimes you have to stop and come home early because you like

00:19:54.640 start struggling to breathe while you're doing those things or later that night or the next day

00:19:58.960 you have a really off day because you play pickleball too hard or skateboarding too hard or

00:20:03.760 something yeah you know um detoxing for some some effect from those activities so it's been truly

00:20:11.840 our kids have grown up in a home with a sick dad which is a very unexpected narrative for our home

00:20:22.480 we didn't expect that we've we've had people that have tried to say like oh you should hide

00:20:27.360 those things you should have those things you know to essentially appear to be it's a reality

00:20:34.720 though yeah it's a reality it's something we have to deal with every day and you should be able to

00:20:38.960 to be yourself in your own home.

00:20:41.640 Well, and I feel like our children have now had a chance

00:20:44.580 to see mom and dad suffer and it doesn't change our faith.

00:20:51.140 Our faith perseveres through suffering.

00:20:53.480 It's actually given them quite a bit of empathy, I think,

00:20:58.100 which is just a blessing.

00:21:01.420 Naturally, I can struggle with that sometimes.

00:21:04.520 And so it's been a blessing to see how the Lord has grown

00:21:08.160 our children in that so uh that's kind of the culture of our home currently we

00:21:15.860 have moved into a small track home inside of a small neighborhood and in a new town and

00:21:23.640 we you know are still painting walls and we're still buying new decor and you know we've had to

00:21:31.700 rebuy everything beds and couches and tables and plates and dishes and silverware and

00:21:38.740 clothing and you know wall art everything in between we have repurchased over the years and

00:21:46.480 we're trying to think even differently we're trying to think long term we're trying to buy

00:21:50.920 things that aren't cheap we're trying to buy things that last that provide a sense of

00:21:55.860 consistency and stability that we haven't had we're very careful about the health of our home

00:22:01.300 in terms of we we watch out for mold we watch out for you know toxins in our house we don't

00:22:12.340 permit certain chemicals our house is like a fragrance free home we don't use any fragrances

00:22:17.140 or anything like that we have a what's called a whole house fan which i think is one of the

00:22:22.260 greatest things it essentially is a fan that you turn on and it's like a giant i don't know like

00:22:30.340 Like a giant exhaust fan, you turn it on and you open up your, you open up your windows

00:22:36.400 and it sucks air in from outside.

00:22:38.080 So when you're cooking and there's smoke in the house or when there's, yeah, for example,

00:22:42.740 that's how sensitive Dale is, is that when I'm cooking, which I have to do every day,

00:22:48.300 like we, we cook, we have to eat, um, the, even the smells from cooking ground beef or

00:22:56.520 sauteing onions or whatever it is um can sometimes make him feel sick because of just how strong they

00:23:02.920 are um so he is a number one fan of the whole house fan yeah and we are we're trying to even

00:23:10.040 work through some of these things even at our church because you know people that like people

00:23:15.480 wear fragrances right it's just a normal part of life yeah colognes perfumes and perfumes and

00:23:19.560 hairsprays and and those things really affect me and if i'm preaching and i'm breathing in a lot

00:23:28.360 of these things it can make it difficult and there's actually i found out there's actually

00:23:32.600 dozens of fragrance free churches across the country most of them are liberal but um but

00:23:39.800 we just happen to have the chronically ill church we have a lot of people not just as like a lot of

00:23:43.800 people in our church are chronically ill yeah we do let's say at least half and so we're trying

00:23:49.320 to actually work through and figure out a way to communicate that without making people feel

00:23:53.720 uncomfortable around um hey like you know you don't can you can you not wear the uh pound of

00:24:02.600 aquanet um i know we don't wear aquanet anymore but um that's not even a cologne that's hairspray

00:24:10.120 i know but it's it's one of those things that is helpful for me and but at the same time you know

00:24:17.080 know we're always gonna have visitors and guests and yeah I mean we're in

00:24:20.620 ministry it's like we're gonna come across it so it's not like a I think

00:24:25.720 we're able to fully avoid but yeah if we can help it and we can try and keep

00:24:30.340 those exposures low we try to so we're here now in

00:24:35.560 Prescott Arizona and we are right on the heels of planting a new church and we

00:24:45.580 have shifted from the house church model to a traditional church after many, many years in the

00:24:51.280 home. Yeah, almost 10 years. And what a blessing it has been. And we have great families in our

00:24:56.960 congregation. And we have a great new building that we've been able to gather in and good elders

00:25:03.960 and good deacons and just a good community of Christians around us. And we're trying to build

00:25:10.260 home in light of community in light of relationships with others and um what would you say the the

00:25:17.780 state of our home is right now like in terms of what are you thinking about when you think about

00:25:22.420 our home and in light of what do you want it to be what do you think it is now what is it lacking

00:25:27.940 um and i'm putting veronica on the spot here but just i know i'm like oh

00:25:33.140 i'm not the greatest at being on the spot i like to have time to think about my responses um

00:25:40.260 going keep going yeah like what are you hoping our home culture becomes over the next year or two

00:25:49.620 i mean i think my main focus the last few years and just right now just because you have been so

00:25:56.100 sick and one of our sons has really struggled as well for a couple of years um is just

00:26:03.700 a place that's safe for you guys and in the fragrances and the you know things that I used

00:26:11.060 to wash our clothes and our dishes and all those things in and so there's that you know the practical

00:26:16.820 side but also just like a comfortable place for you guys a refuge a place for you guys to

00:26:24.980 be restored and feel comfortable because you go to the grocery store and I you know I have one of

00:26:33.460 my son's with me and 10 minutes in, he'll randomly just start

00:26:37.020 crying. I don't feel good. I don't feel good. And because

00:26:40.360 he's having a reaction to something in the grocery store.

00:26:43.120 And so I don't want you I don't want our home to be a place that

00:26:49.540 you guys are reacting to. So I think I put a lot of thought

00:26:54.380 into that. I also want it to be something that our kids look back

00:26:59.440 on when they're older and say that they just enjoyed being at home. Um, it wasn't a place

00:27:06.100 that they were always trying to escape or leave. Um, the first chance they get that

00:27:11.780 home was, uh, was a safe, comfortable place where they can be themselves. Um, and we're,

00:27:21.460 we can have conversations that, um, grow and edify one another and encourage one another

00:27:28.540 and um yeah yeah so we're you know we're thinking a home is obviously it's it's culture it's

00:27:35.840 emotions it's aesthetics it's um amplifying what is valuable to you and you know i'm i'm focusing

00:27:45.200 obviously on the gospel and building a culture of um christianity of vision of masculinity in our

00:27:53.900 boys of femininity and our daughter and trying to model to our children righteousness and

00:28:03.680 normalcy according to scripture. And so there's a lot of that that's going on as we create

00:28:09.280 this thing that we call home. And I believe our next episode will really divulge on the

00:28:15.800 theological implications of what is a home. We'll talk about what is a home more than just a

00:28:22.940 building and but I think we'll kind of wrap up here because I think that's a really good place

00:28:31.300 for us to to end is that you have a little bit of a backstory about our home and where we're at

00:28:36.820 and we're essentially going to take you on a journey on building a home and I think it's a

00:28:46.640 lifelong journey and we have not figured it out uh i would say i think we have a very healthy home

00:28:54.080 i think we are you know really good at i'm a pastor so i have the grace of catechizing our

00:29:01.360 kids and in the scriptures on a regular basis and those are very easy and normal for us and

00:29:07.120 but we are still on a journey and we want to bring you guys along yeah by no means are we saying we

00:29:13.400 everything figured out and by no means they were saying that there's one way to do it no everyone's

00:29:18.600 you know that's the beauty in god's creation of humanity is that we're all unique and different

00:29:24.040 and have different strengths and weaknesses and um he's designed each one of us differently and

00:29:32.200 everyone's home can still glorify god and honor the lord while operating in the unique gifts that

00:29:39.320 the lord has blessed you with yeah amen so thank you guys for joining us on this episode of welcome

00:29:44.760 home to listen to part two of this episode on the three greatest lessons that we learned

00:29:50.920 in our home you can sign up for the relearn app at relearn.org forward slash app until next time

00:29:59.240 and may the lord bless your home keep your children and leave you a legacy of righteousness

00:30:09.320 Thank you.

Dale Partridge - January 25, 2024

The Story of Our Home

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