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Hello everyone, this is Brent Billings coming to you at an unusual time for unfortunate reasons and we are so, so sorry to share that Josh Boss has passed away. We're sending out our regularly scheduled Bayma messenger email at the same time that this episode comes out, but we know that not all of our podcast listeners are connected in that way. And so I'm also basically just recording that email so that you are aware. So here's how that goes. You probably know Josh Bosse. He's one of the beloved co hosts of the Bama podcast. We've talked about him a lot in the last few years on the podcast. Because of his liver transplant at the Mayo Clinic in 2022, his subsequent recovery, we recently updated listeners who are caught up to our most recent episodes about his battle with lymphoma. That was episode 465, if you want to hear that. And so with unbelievably heavy hearts, we have to share that he passed away peacefully on Friday evening, November 28th. He ushered in Sabbath with his final breaths and Sabbath ushered him home. For those who know and have heard Josh's passion and love for the Sabbath, you will know how deeply moving this image is. When Sophia, Josh's wife, shared this perspective, shared the time of his death, it gripped us. And we're reminded of Josh's words in episode four, 405 that once you fall in love with Shabbat, once you see what's really there, you can find it wherever. You can find a way to get there, to connect with it, to practice it. The spirit makes all kinds of ways. So what a comfort it is for all of us missing him here, to know he has found the most beautiful connection with Shabbat in the arms of Jesus. We will miss Josh immensely. We already do. His words made a difference to many. His compassionate presence was even more powerful. So there are a few invitations we would like to extend to you as part of the wider Bama community. First, you can read more about Josh's journey and his most recent developments by visiting their CaringBridge site. Those posts go all the way back to the beginning leading up to his liver transplant. So you can, you can look back at all of that. You do have to sign up for an account on Caring Bridge, but it's, it's free to look at all of those posts once you have signed up. Next, if you would like to support Sophia And Ronan, their 18 month old son, as they put the pieces of their lives back together, a GoFundMe campaign has been created that goes directly to them. If you are a supporter of Josh through impact, we are also looking to find legal and appropriate ways to to set up a season of transition for their family financially. And finally, IMPACT Campus Ministries and the Behemoth Team want to invite you to join us in a season of mourning starting today. As this episode is released, we will be sitting Shiva for the next seven days. There will be no public facing communication from our organization after this email is sent, no newsletters, no answered emails and no podcast episode. Tomorrow morning, we are creating space for grieving, mourning and reflection, avoiding the urge to distract ourselves with productivity and fill the space with empty words that lack the gravity and honor of a life remembered. After our time of Shiva, we will extend a time of mourning for another 33 days. We will resume our communications and content releases, but our tone and our posture will be one of remembering and somber honoring of all that Josh meant to each of us. You may see staff write remembrance posts or share memories. We may not be at the top of our game around here and we're okay with that. We're in mourning and we're giving each other lots of grace. And that's what Josh would celebrate anyway. On Monday, January 12, 2026, we will leave our time of mourning as an organization. But this does not mean we are done grieving. It doesn't mean we have to go back to normal. The normal that used to contain Josh is no more. It simply means that we go back to our regularly scheduled efforts and build a life reflecting all that Josh left with us. So please join us as we remember Josh. Pray for our Bama and Impact teams, pray for Josh's students, and please pray for Josh's wife and young son, Sophia and Ronan. On the topic of the future that Josh was building as a campus minister, not only was Josh an integral part of the podcast helping plan and build Bama dreams for the future, he was building a flourishing ministry with online students. In our virtual campus ministry, Josh had a way of approaching spiritual formation and engagement that he called olam. Olam is the Hebrew word for eternity or the age to come. Josh loved teaching students how to tap into God's dream for the world, and he did so with such poetic passion, grace, and humility. Josh loved his students and pastored them with great care. Even before his most recent battle with cancer, we were already seeking an additional hire to help him grow this ministry. We've already identified some candidates who can help keep this student ministry going and minister to those students. Well, there are other places the team has identified needs requiring new hires for different tasks and jobs, both large and small. These dreams had Josh's fingerprints and boisterous heart all over them. That being said, most of our ability to pursue any of these ideas will be in the way that we fund this year's budget. Will we be playing catch up? Changing directions? Will we have some extra headroom to dream about? What lies ahead? And this is the season where you've probably seen mailers for year end giving from everyone, including us. Many of the letters mailed, emails sent, social media posts shared were scheduled well before the events of this past week. It feels insincere or just unsettling to make year end appeals in the midst of our grief. That we're doing the best we can to manage the balance of our work and our grief. And we want the work we are doing, the work we all, including Josh, love so deeply to carry on. So before we pause our inboxes and shutter our social media accounts and our podcast feed for the next week, this is a reminder that the gifts during this time of year are what help us balance budgets and plan for the future. And we've always been blessed every single year by the amazing generosity of you, our listeners. So if you would like to do so and help us hit our fundraising goals for 2025 by making a Year end gift to the Baymont team, we would be honored. And if you already have, thank you. You make all the podcast episodes meet and greets, study materials, Sabbath reminders, and this space to sit shiva together, sharing memories, stories and tears for our dear friend Josh possible. That's the end of the messenger email and I just want to add another element to that. As I have been going through the community that Josh has set up with his students, knowing the timeline of when he has been battling some of these things most recently, and knowing how difficult things have been for him, seeing the way that he cared for his students, the way he continued to guide them and bring them into spiritual spaces where they can encounter God is incredible. Nobody would have blamed him if he had ducked out of more of those things. But he cared so deeply for his students and so I am honored to be a part of helping continue that legacy of his ministry. So I have all the links in the show notes for this episode. If you want to check out Josh's journey on Caring Bridge, if you want to use the GoFundMe to support Sophia and Ronan, if you're wondering what Sitting Shiva is or looks like from a Jewish perspective, and if you want to understand more about what that looks like we have a link for that as well. And like we said, we won't be answering any emails or anything for the next week. And I don't know exactly what the podcast is going to look like after this. We have at least one more episode with Josh already recorded, so he continues to bless us in that way. So I don't know what the details of that will look like yet. We still have so much to figure out. But thank you for listening to this and thank you for mourning with us. Thank you for thank you for loving Josh with us. We'll talk to you again soon.