Carrie Saum - Storyteller

03/25/2026

20 years ago, I was hired to operate a medical non-profit that was funded by oil and gas royalty investment returns.

A branch of the non-prof would send offer letters to folks who owned property with known petroleum reservoirs, and purchase the oil and gas rights to their property. These purchases were privately funded by a handful of men who made themselves wealthy on lowball royalty deals that often targeted people who were in desperate financial shape.

One of the investors offered my non-profit a no-interest loan to purchase a small share in any royalty deals my non-profit could find and put together.

My organization did all of the legwork for these deals, and the Money Guy would get a 35% share. While he fronted the funds to purchase our nominal percentage share, he also expected my organization to pay him back in full. And quickly.

The reasoning behind this was simple: we would have more money to “help” people when the oil market spiked during wars, Acts of God, and devastating weather events.

I was young—26 years old when I accepted the position as the Chief Operating Officer for both the medical mission and petroleum royalty investment-based funding organization.

I was still deeply entrenched in the extreme conservative ideology and religion I was raised in. I spent many formative years living in Midland, TX—the heart of the domestic oil and gas industry. Nearly all of my friends’ parents worked for Chevron, Exxon, Aramco, Shell, etc., and lived in McMansions on cul de sacs tucked into massive subdivisions.

My own family lived in humble homes and near poverty while my father preached the gospel to our oil boom and busted town.

Oil and Jesus were the blood in all of our veins.

I had traveled and lived abroad extensively between the years I lived in Midland and operating the petroleum fueled medical mission. I had a different perspective that was slowly beginning to form.

Why were we so focused on extracting a finite resource to fuel our lives? Why were we exploiting weaker countries and people, and causing damage to this beautiful planet God gave us when we could invest in endless energy supply?

Why was the non-profit making a handful of men rich, while medical mission received only a sliver of the pie?

Why were we indebted to the Money Guy if we were doing a bulk of the royalty procurement work and the Money Guy said he was doing this out of the goodness of his heart?

Why were we preying on people in our own country who had fallen on difficult times?

Why wouldn’t we allow people who were in a difficult position to maintain at least a small percentage of interest in their own land?

I remember conversations that I had over lunch with my coworkers and the Money Guy, who fed us lunch each day and provided office space for us.

My questions were quickly dismissed with answers that focused on using the windfall of oil and gas profit to help the people who were hurt by disaster, or he would highlight the negative economic impacts of moving away from petroleum based energy. And plus, we were giving financially strapped royalty owners cash to help them get back on their feet.

As you might imagine, my questions and gentle push back were most unwelcome. But this started a deeper internal questioning of my own faith and politics.

I began to ask myself “How good is the good that I think I’m doing?”.

I didn’t like the answer I came up with.

I was 45 years old before I learned that the US Dollar is backed by petroleum—by our world dominance in the petroleum industry. Oil literally makes the world go round and props up the USD. It is what has made us THE world power that everyone is afraid to cross.

Trump is so foolish and corrupt that he is unintentionally bringing about the demise of the petrol-backed USD, and ushering in other world powers who have invested in renewable energy.

Our dollar collapse and resulting energy and economic collapses are inevitable. We could have been investing in new markets and energy technologies this entire time. We could have been building a stable, sustainable future.

We could have actually been great.

Instead we have opened the door wide for China and others to set the stage for how the world is fueled on the other side of this disaster.

08/14/2025

A couple of weeks ago, Ron Luce issued a public statement through the Roys Report about what was depicted in Shiny Happy People Season 2.

Luce is unrepentant, and passionately defends the actions of Teen Mania, his own conduct, and the innerancy of his teachings.

In his 1600 word statement to the Roys Report, Ron Luce blatantly lies about children returning home from Teen Mania alive and well.

The truth is multiple children died, and many more suffered severe injury and sickness.

He then went on to mischaracterize the cast and lie about what happened on that gated, guarded compound in rural East Texas.

Some members of the cast got together to respond to these gross misrepresentations and outright deceptions, and I’m linking it here.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Amzs7qoCw/?mibextid=wwXIfrt l

07/29/2025

If ever there was a moment to use this song, it’s now. ☠️☠️☠️

07/28/2025

I was an intern for Teen Mania when Columbine happened.

It was beyond tragic.

It also coincided with a large stadium event in Michigan called Day One.

One of the girls who was murdered, Rachel Scott, was signed up to go on a summer mission trip with Teen Mania.

Ron Luce immediately pivoted and Day One became about dying for Jesus, and going to the mission field in Rachel Scott’s place.

That set the tone for the next year of Aquire The Fire events—an emotional plea to go in Rachel Scott’s place, be the hands and feet of Jesus because she could not.

It made me sick then; exploiting a teenage girl’s tragic death and the fear of a nation to drive more kids to pay exorbitant fees to do street dramas for a few weeks in a foreign country, and hopefully sign them up for the Honor Academy.

It makes me enraged now. As a mother to a child who has been through an active shooter lockdown in school, this is fear mongering and predatory.

Ron Luce and Dave Hasz still exploit every child they can reach.

May they find justice on this side of heaven.

'A Teenage Holy War,' the second season of the Prime Video documentary series 'Shiny Happy People' looks at the Christian youth group Teen Mania Ministries.

07/08/2025

I’m so honored to be part of the cast of Shiny Happy People Season 2! I’ve waited a long time to share this with you and I couldn’t be prouder of my fellow castmates and the production crew . Be sure tune into Prime on July 23rd for the three part docuseries about Teen Mania Ministries. Can’t wait!

02/25/2025

One of my early food blogging icons, Elana Amsterdam, (of Elana's Pantry) passed away unexpectedly on February 8th.

While there has been no official cause of death disclosed, her final blog post—also written on February 8–gives us insight into the internal hell she lived in for years.

And among other things, it also gave us insight into her silent struggles with autoimmune disease disorders.

Elana’s gluten free chocolate chip cookie recipe was the first chocolate chip cookie my FPIES toddler ever ate.

Elana’s recipes inspired my own recipe development venture and launched me into a world that gave me a trusted online community when I would have otherwise been isolated.

That little blog community morphed into career professional writing for a season when I needed to express myself most.

And most recently, Elana helped me find a way to feed myself as I continue to heal from severe, chronic Lymes disease.

Elana’s light was bright but her pain was silent and acute. It’s sometimes impossible to hold a lantern aloft when pain is playing a silent symphony in concert with every rise and fall of one’s chest.

And so tonight, I hold the light for Elana, who’s suffering eclipsed her vibrant flame.

Tomorrow, I will raise that bright light for myself, for you, and for our community—

For the hope we hold in defiance of our fear of the unknown.

For the easing of suffering of what is.

For resisting the destruction of our homelands.

For the healing that is on the other side of our pain.

And most importantly—for the joy that remains with us always.

Love,
— C

03/24/2023

Awhile back, I started using the phrase “Act as if” to work through some challenges.

This isn’t about avoiding responsibility or accountability—there’s no magical thinking or shirking here. Quite the opposite, actually.

Internal reckoning is layered. The pain administered, the wounds received, both the inherited and chosen suffering—those aren’t the only layers.

There are lessons in sifting out the more subversive truths and transformations, even when Trauma Brain wants to convince us that all of it hurts and there is no redemption to be had.

It’s tempting to devalue, disparage, and allow shame to bloom within.

Reckoning *requires* gleaning the the good along with the bad. It requires taking responsibility and integrating those converging elements and transformations. It’s how we combat the shame.

This is your permission to reclaim the pieces of you that blossomed in the moments leading up to the pain. To reclaim those beautiful moments between the woundings, before the bitter endings. Those layers are still true, too.

Don’t let that pain rob you of the joy you experienced along the way.

🫶🏻C

06/12/2022

I still hold my breath
Sometimes
Watching you breathe
My eyes well up on their own
Any time you ask for
Something new

I touch the spot on my
Abdomen where your
Tiny fist grew
Stretching the skin
A permanent reminder
Communion
A body broken

My boy
I would shatter into stardust just
To watch you grow
Breathe
Climb and
Eat

Maybe one day
I will forget to whisper my
Gratitude that
You stayed.

✨✨✨

Happy Birthday, Echo. Thank you for choosing me to be your mama. I choose you right back, every day.

10/12/2021

During the last two years, I’ve made a certain kind of peace with my body.

It doesn’t look like the 16 year old cheerleader’s that was riddled with self-flagelating thoughts and disordered eating.

It no longer vaguely resembles the 20 something it once carried across multiple continents, swimming naked in the Mediterranean with a bunch of Aussie Olympians, or trekking up an active volcano in Guatemala.

No remnants remain of the 33 year old who punished it by depriving it of food under a false banner of health—balding scalp, wasting muscle, all so it could fit into a size 8 and social norms.

Now it bears the softness of early aging skin. Elasticity giving way to gravity. Fine lines deepening to irrefutable etchings, telling a thousand stories about the human it firmly holds.

Downy, shrunken breasts commemorate two well fed babies, a belly that stretched to hold them, and a permanently pocked chin that quivered every day from fear of losing them.

Stronger than it has ever been, it climbs and hikes and walks miles at a time and plays chase with those grownup babies in the yard. It swims in frigid pacific waters and cold current rivers. It’s arms smoothly sculpted and shoulders straight from deadlifting 75 pounds of 8 year old boy because it never knows exactly when gravity will win.

It’s pleasure is more intense and joy more pure—like sunbeams hidden and invisibly radiating beneath silky skin.

This aging body is a tribute to decades of experiences, triumphs, and barriers overcome. A constant reminder that even though it sometimes feels like it’s falling apart, it’s chest crushing underneath grief, it continues on. Loving deeply, standing firmly, persevering ecstatically, and moving on with gratitude when its heart knows it’s time to go.

10/05/2021

Hard relate.

09/13/2021

Tomorrow begins a new chapter.
✨
Earlier this spring, my children’s father and I chose to gently and respectfully end our 14 year marriage.
✨
The end of a hard-fought marriage is like the death of a comfortable, dependable companion.
✨
It is the unrequited finality of a dream never fully realized.
✨
It’s painful. Yes. For everyone. Nobody makes this choice lightly.
✨
And it has also been affirming and hopeful. We are discovering a new path forward.
✨
I also decided it was time to dig in deeper to my local network and business community.
✨
After a wild summer of adjusting, healing, helping, and dreaming, I accepted a job as a business navigator for one of Portland’s oldest neighborhoods.
✨
I’m thrilled to get back into the community, stretch my branding skills, acquire new tools, and most of all work to make things right for folx who have been pushed to the margins for centuries.
✨
If you are scared to leave the comfort of what you have because you cannot imagine a path forward, take heart.
✨
Sometimes you can’t see what’s next until you take the bravest blind step and walk through the door.
✨
So, here is your permission to lovingly and firmly disengage whatever you’ve tied yourself to out of fear of the unknown.
✨
To trust yourself to know what is best for you.
✨
It’s time to reimagine what’s possible.
✨
It’s time to dream a new dream, darling.

💜 Carrie