In today’s world, who would you consider the unsung heroes of your community? What characteristics do those people need to possess to be considered heroes, or role models for the rest of society? The whole basis for Tres Dias is to create those unsung heroes – those servant leaders who would rather live like Christ on the daily basis than to live a Babylonian life.
Unsung heroes like Mark French, NTTD #49, are living their lives in a godly manner on a daily basis and raising his children with a godly foundation as well.
“I am around a lot with these guys [his children]… I do bedtime readings and we draw together. We do legos together. There is [just] lot of [time] being present. I have decided that is really important just to be there and to listen,” said French.
When today’s new normal is violence in the schools, intolerance for Christianity and opinionated teachings in the school system, parental involvement is an absolute essential.
“We have been on Philippians 4-8, we have been going over it and soaking in it. One of us will read the passage and then I will just ask questions about it – what do you think, how does this work, how can you work it into your life…. We pray, we have worship and prayer times here. Whatever you do, it becomes what you do. At first it is weird, but give it 5 times and it’s ‘that’s just what we do around here’. So I have been doing worship with songs and I’ll just do a chord progression and have them take turns singing things to God. That has been cool. That’s not anything I did growing up,” said French.
French says that spending time with his children is one of his highest priorities next to spending time with God and sowing into his relationship with his wife. His fuel for promoting a Godly family stems from not only from the desire to have a spirit-led family, but also to discourage past wounds from his own father.
“My dad came from a different era. He would be 80, so his role in his mind was to make money so that the family had money. He would come home and put on his headphones and listen to music and when videos started happening he would buy a bunch of videos and watch a lot of TV. He spent most of his time at home by himself doing something unnecessary… Growing up I decided that I was not going to treat anyone the way that he was treating my mom and us,” said French.
French has described his walk with the Lord as progressive.
“I’ve had some issues in the past with my Dad, my upbringing [it was] not terrible compared to most people, probably about average, but not great. I had a lot of baggage from that, feeling a lot of insecurity, a lot of things that I wanted to forget about,” said Mark, “I have been struggling with depression and anxiety. I have been diagnosed probably about a year before I went to Tres Dias with depression. I had really struggled with alcohol only the last 5 years or so. Really it was the next progression of other things I was trying to numb the pain with all through the years. When I came to Tres Dias I had just had a car accident that I flipped and totaled my car [in] – I had been drinking. I went from there to a psych hospital for about a week and a half. I went to Tres Dias a week and a half after that. Tres Dias was wonderful. It wasn’t everything that God was doing in that time period, but it was a big piece.”
French received a word at his Tres Dias weekend that he knew was the exact reason why God placed him on his weekend. 
“I have always been someone who struggled with the idea of Grace. That it is just hard to receive, it’s hard to understand, it’s hard to comprehend. I don’t get it. I realized I was trying to comprehend grace…There was a comment at [Tres Dias] where someone just said, you don’t have to believe that you deserve grace to receive it. You don’t have to understand it to receive it. I felt like I [was there] to hear exactly that. It penetrated my heart. It was like nothing else even mattered. I [just] sat there; I don’t even know what happened after that for the next 10 minutes. God just wanted me to hear that right [then] that is how much He loves me.”
Since his Tres Dias weekend, Besty, his wife, has also gone through her Tres Dias weekend at KCTD #1. It gave them the opportunity to finally discuss Mark’s weekend after he had gone through North Texas earlier. French would say that the number one reason why He and Besty still have a loving marriage is because of the time that each has sowed into the relationship.
“Betsy and I together read together every night… We also pray together. She has a prayer book that she got from Tres Dias #1. We pray out of that [and] we have our own prayers”, said French, “It’s so crazy and surprising that everyone doesn’t do this, but we have a date. Once a week we have a date…. Sometimes we just a watch a movie, but most of the time, we are checking in with each other, we are engaged with each other.”
French continually takes a careful inventory of his life and examines his time spent with his family and God to never let work take priority.
“Every day we have [time] where we sit down, we just have couch time and check in with each other. We check in with each other every day, for about 10 or 15 minutes just to see how we are doing, that is a big deal [to us].”
It’s these simple practices that French reasons in the difference between a functioning family and a happy family.
“Since [the weekend], I will say that I am on medication for those things – anxiety and depression, but I have just had a much clearer understanding of God’s [plan]. He loves me and that I have a future rather than just carrying around – oh woe is me, my lot is terrible. Psalms 16, you have shown me my path and my lot is secure. I didn’t feel very secure in my path and my lot really stank and I didn’t like it. I just had to bear it, but I don’t just have to bear it.”
