Speaker 1 (00:03):
From Austin Stone Worship, this is Stories from the Austin Stone, in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, believers around the world are striving to be faithful to Jesus and love their neighbors. Alone Together is a series of stories about how the people of the Austin Stone are living faithfully in uncertain times.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Today, across Austin and around the world, doctors and nurses, restaurant owners and delivery drivers, singles and students, moms and dads, artists and accountants and more are loving God, their church, their city, and the nations in the midst of this season. We might be spending our days apart, but in Jesus, the church will always be united. These are stories of God's people alone together.

Casey Needham (00:50):
My name is Casey Needham. I'm a barber here in Austin. I went to barber school about five years ago and worked at a barbershop here in town is kind of where I started back in 2015 and built up a clientele within about a year. The fall of 2016, I started in a little suite on my own, continued to build where I was busting at the seams. So in July of 2018, I expanded again, brought on one other barber, so I had a double suite. But I kind of always had this dream, if you will, of having a storefront barbershop. Right across the street from the suite that we had been working in, there's a Jimmy John's and I eat at Jimmy John's probably two, three times a week. I noticed that there was a vacant suite right next to Jimmy John's.

Casey Needham (01:50):
I looked through the window and it was a perfect space, kind of what I had envisioned, this long rectangular area, and just prayed about it. I said, "God, if this is something that you want me to do and something that you have brought into my path." So I just prayed, "God, don't let me do something that you're not in. Don't let me do something that is not really an opportunity that you have for me." Man, the pieces just started to fall together. March of 2019 was when I found this space. I just kind of started talking to clients about it and that it was this idea and it was hypothetical at the moment. But man, it's a unique industry because, like I said, every person that sits in my chair ... I see my customers every three weeks or four weeks for I mean the past four years, so you develop friendships with these people.

Casey Needham (02:48):
We just had dialogue about it. One of my customers is a real estate lawyer. One of them is a realtor. One of them is a contractor. One of them is an architect. They all were like, "Hey man, if you need help with your drawings, let me know. If you need help with your lease contract, let me know." I mean people started coming out of everywhere. So I thought, "Okay. Well, man, God's really providing these avenues." So then fast forward to summer of last year, 2019, and I mean the plans were drawn. The agreement had been made. Even the contract was written up. I mean we had come to an agreement with the landlord. So then it came time for the financial piece.

Casey Needham (03:35):
I had my CPA involved. I had several clients who are finance managers for big companies in town and trying to prep me as well as they could to get this final piece, which is the financial assistance. So I had no debt. I'd been profitable since day one. I just thought, "Man, I'm a shoe-in." I went into the first bank who specialized in small business and working directly with the SBA and was really strung along for about four weeks, was told I met all the criteria, and then at the end of the four weeks was told, "We just can't do it." And just really felt defeated by that. So then I came upon another company here in Austin that works specifically with small businesses and getting small business funding.

Casey Needham (04:29):
She was the same thing, very positive upfront, took all my information and said, "You seem like a perfect candidate." But after about a week and a half to two-week period, she said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Needham, we're just not going to be able to do it." I was feeling really defeated and just saying, "God, the better part of a year we've been working on this and it feels like you've been laying the groundwork." Why is this financial piece, which is really the starting gun, I mean everybody's lined up and we're ready to do this thing and without the financial piece it just all crashes. So anyway, I was referred by my contractor to his banker. He's the president of a local bank here in town and he's like, "Man, if he can't help you, no one can."

Casey Needham (05:16):
So I go with this folder, this stack of papers. By this time I'm very well-prepared by everybody, considering the experience I've had thus far. I sat in front of this desk across from the president of this bank and the vice president and they told me right then and there. They said, "Man, we see that you have a great business, but on paper we just can't pull the trigger." He said, "We just can't do it." Man, I walked out of that meeting in tears. I got in my vehicle and I started crying. I just say, "God, I don't understand." It was kind of a three strikes and you're out moment. I actually texted the realtor and said, "It's not going to work." I texted the contractor, everybody involved and said, It's just not going to happen."

Casey Needham (06:11):
After that, within about a two-week period, God brought to mind this guy that had been sitting in my chair just a few weeks prior to me going through the banking episode. He just kind of offhandedly said, "If you ever need capital, let me know." I was like, "Oh okay. Thanks, man." I didn't understand what that meant. It was just, "Okay." I reached out to him. I sent him a text. Actually, in that bank parking lot I sent him a text and I said, "Hey, man, you made a comment to me a few weeks ago about needing capital. Can you just explain what you meant?" I explained what had happened and the situation I was in. So we met at Austin Beerworks and we started chatting. He said, "Well, basically I am a part of this small group of guys that we invest in small local business."

Casey Needham (07:05):
He said, "We've invested in several breweries and restaurants in Austin." He said, "But the way that we work is we kind of bridge the gap for you. We don't fund the whole thing, but we bridge a gap," he said. We talked about the need to get this thing going. He said, "Well, we can definitely bridge a gap, but we can't do the whole thing." So at this point there's a little bit of hope, but it's still not the full piece to complete the puzzle. About a week later, this guy was in my chair. We were talking just about the shop and what had happened. He said, "Well, I got money." I go, "What does that mean?" He goes, "Seriously, give me a call when you get a chance."

Casey Needham (07:53):
So I called this guy who's been a long-time customer and we went and met at Austin Beerworks. Apparently that's the place to meet. He said, "Man, I've been a customer of yours for several years now. My wife and I both, we have finance degrees. We kind of understand the struggle that you've been going through." He said, "Man, we're prepared to give you a third of what it's going to cost to do this." He said, "We've been looking to invest in a small business." He said, "I'm not just investing in you because I'm trying to make money." He said, "But I literally believe in what you're doing." He said, "I want to see you succeed, not just as an investor, but as a customer." So man, I mean literally from being in tears in the parking lot of that third and final bank to two weeks later, I had the missing piece that came from these two different customers, unbeknownst to each other.

Casey Needham (08:49):
These guys don't know each other, have no connection other than the fact that they're customers of mine. Because he and his wife were willing to put up a third, me and my wife were able to put up a third, and then this other group of guys who were going to bridge that gap made up the other third. I mean it literally went from this is not happening to it's happening. Going through that experience was rough. I mean I was angry. I was frustrated. I kind of felt like I was being toyed with, like dangling the carrot and I just couldn't reach it. But now looking back, I see that it wasn't just people pursuing me, but that was God bringing people into my life that had already been in my life.

Casey Needham (09:37):
But God did it in a way that would cause me now to look back and with 100% certainty see that I didn't force this thing into existence, that every avenue that I pursued was a dead end. I mean being told no once is hard enough. Being told no three times, it's kind of like a concrete thing. And then for these guys to have pursued me and that's the way it worked out. It was just God I mean really graciously handing it to me on a silver platter and saying, "Hey, man, I'm literally sending these people to you to open this door so that something's coming that you're unaware of. But you'll be able to look back and trust me in that moment because of the way that this has come together." I feel like being in the barbershop is kind of the information hub.

Casey Needham (10:35):
It really started to ramp up through the month of January. People talking about, "There's this virus and something's going around." It was this very distant thing. And then all of a sudden, it developed a name by the end of February, the coronavirus. And then as we started getting into the first stages of March, you started seeing it was all over the news. It felt like it was this distant thing that in a matter of three weeks was just rampant. And then of course, March 21st was our last day. That was a Saturday. And then actually the governor put all nonessential business on lockdown, the very next Tuesday. It was crazy how quickly it became a huge thing.

Casey Needham (11:27):
So I think it really kind of started, I would say, probably the second week of March, just kind of entertaining the idea that this is not something that's necessarily in the world somewhere, but it's here. Like I said, we were talking about it in the barbershop. I think just as it became more prevalent in the news, and I mean in the barbershop we talk about the same thing eight, 10, 12 times a day. So it was at the forefront of everyone's mind. Probably about the second week of March, rumors started that I mean we seriously might have to go on lockdown. But it was all at that time hypothetical. And then, like I said, I mean March 21st was our last day open and then it was a forced lockdown.

Casey Needham (12:21):
I feel like the second week of March is when we were kind of entertaining those thoughts. Within a two-week time period, we had drastically changed our day-to-day operations. I mean in a barbershop we're mandated by the state to use hospital-grade sanitizing practices and stuff like that anyway. But I mean we were having to keep people in their cars. They'd show up for their appointment and we would text them when we were ready for them to come in. We made sure it was less than 10 people in the shop. In between every customer we always sanitize our implements and our clippers and combs and scissors and stuff like that. But we were wiping down all the countertops, the chairs, the computers. So within a two-week time period, it went from a hypothetical thing to where we were actively changing our day-to-day processes and that was just like it felt like it happened overnight, wiping down door handles.

Casey Needham (13:22):
So the third week of March leading up to when we closed is when we actually started having customers calling and saying, "I don't feel comfortable coming in." They kind of slowly started dropping off. That's when I thought, "Even if I'm not forced to lockdown by the authorities above me, it may happen anyway because people don't feel comfortable coming to their appointment" So that's when it started to become reality. It really became convoluted to where I really didn't know what to think. On a person-by-person basis where this individual calls and says they don't feel comfortable coming in. I mean you could hear the fear in their voice and really just the uncertainty like, "I'm sitting here watching the news and I feel like I shouldn't come in, and so I'm not."

Casey Needham (14:17):
But you almost could see that it was an inward battle. And then for me, even though I wasn't mandated at that moment to close my business, there were several barbershops around the city, friends of mine that own other barbershops that I had consulted and they had closed about a week prior on their own accord. So I really started to have this internal conflict of am I doing something wrong by staying open? That final week it became apparent that more than likely a mandate was coming where we were going to have to be closed down for an indefinite period. I really started to struggle with, well, do I make the decision now, kind of a moral decision if you will, to close my business or do I wait until I'm forced to?

Casey Needham (15:13):
Because you also have to think, I don't want to jeopardize anybody, me and myself, my family, my customers, their families. I mean it's such a high-contact industry that I personally thought, "Man, I could be infecting a ton of people and not even know it." I usually am pretty in tune with my own convictions. I would say within about a two-week period I went from not really feeling convicted about staying open to feeling really convicted. That was when that weekend in March where I decided, "Hey guys, we're going to go ahead and close the doors on our own accord." And then it was literally the following Monday that Governor Abbott said, Shut it down." it was a real interesting two-week period.

Casey Needham (16:14):
Well, there's kind of two sides to that. I think from the business side where as a business owner you carry a lot of responsibility on your shoulders, employees, a space that you are responsible for paying rent on or you've got utilities, just all these expenses that you're responsible for. Me specifically, I mean I just opened this storefront in October. So we really haven't had a lot of time to build up funds to get us through a dark time or a slow time or whatever. Thankfully we do have some, but we just haven't had long. So from a business standpoint, I was really frustrated. I was like, "God, we just got open." I don't have these reserves put back. How am I going to, one, close my business if I'm mandated to, but especially on my own accord where as long as I'm following these CDC guidelines, I feel like I need to stay open to try to get as much income as I can for whoever is comfortable with coming in, I'll cut their hair.

Casey Needham (17:21):
So that was the business side of things and it was the frustration piece. And then I think on the personal side when I was opening this stuff up, I struggle with anxiety and stuff like that. Opening up the barbershop, I really had moments of fear and panic attacks and stuff like that and just wondering, "What am I doing? Do I have the ability to do this?" One of my clients who's a believer, he just randomly told me one day, he's a good buddy of mine too. He said, "You've been on my list of names of people that I'm praying for. I'm praying for peace for you." I just remember thinking, "Man, I couldn't have thought of a better thing to be praying for me about, specifically peace."

Casey Needham (18:12):
I can honestly say I don't understand the peace that I've had, but I've had it, I mean undeniable. Like I said, I'm prone to anxiety. So what makes sense to me is feeling out of control and having anxiety attacks, losing sleep. That all makes sense to me. But for some reason I had a peace. So the second part of that, the personal side of how I felt toward God and all this is while I felt the weight of the business responsibilities and the uncertainty of how that's going to be taken care of, on a personal level, man, I felt the peace of God in all of this and really speaking to me through me to clients as we were approaching a shutdown.

Casey Needham (19:00):
You've got all different types of personalities and belief systems and things and people that sit in the barber chair and just being able to share hope that even before we were shut down I was able to tell a number of my clients that I feel like in my own personal life, every time I've gone through a hardship, if you're looking for it, there's always beauty somewhere. There's always something. In the midst of death there's always something being born or something growing. Life is still there. So just kind of being able to share the gospel really leading up to this was really cool. I felt God's hand and His peace in that.

Casey Needham (19:46):
That's why I say it's kind of twofold. The business side, I was frustrated, "God, how am I going to make it?" And then on the personal side, I really felt God using me to kind of speak hope and life into my customers that were obviously kind of fearful. God has been so gracious, even more than that, in that these investors, they've told me on multiple occasions, "We're praying for you. We're for you, not against you. We're in this for the long run." This is before the virus ever existed. I mean from the beginning they said, "We're investing in you because we believe in you. We believe in what you're doing. We're not trying to make money off of you."

Casey Needham (20:33):
God didn't even let me get to the point of freaking out about the financial piece to be honest. There was some nervousness there. But these investors proactively they kind of saw the potential of what was to come and they proactively got together. Before we actually were forced to close down, I mean probably two or three weeks before, while cutting their hair they each told me that they had gotten together on their own and decided just to make sure that all the parties were comfortable. But they said, "We're in this for the long haul with Casey and we're not going to require payment from him if he's not allowed to be open."

Casey Needham (21:19):
That was handed to me before I was ever told I had to shut down. So that's another piece. I highly doubt that that type of grace would have been given with a financial institution. So the investor piece was laid to rest long before I was forced to close down. And then there were still nerves about how am I going to keep my employees? I still have to pay rent. There's all these other financial responsibilities that were on my shoulders and I was nervous about. But it was nervousness always accompanied by peace. Yes, there's been nights where I woke up and couldn't sleep. But in those moments usually is the sweetest time in prayer because in those moments I can only lean on God. You feel completely out of control and so you're like, "God, I'm out of control. So you got to be in control or this whole thing sinks."

Casey Needham (22:15):
I knew the way that this had all come about that somehow God was going to provide all the way through, not just up until this point, but He was going to see it all the way through. I reached out to the landlord, which my lawyer even told me. He said, "Man, you have no right to legally to withhold rent regardless of hardship." So I had that in the back of my mind. But I emailed the landlord and about a week later he got back with me and said, "We understand the difficult times and, man, we're going to abate rent for our tenants through June." So now I don't owe my investors while I'm not able to be open, but my landlord's not requiring rent of me for three months. Just all these pieces started to come together. I really started to find comfort in that.

Casey Needham (23:16):
And then I was considering laying off my employees because I wanted to do whatever was right by them. So I said, "Guys, if you are able to hold off for a second, I want to try to keep you employed if I can. Let's just hold off. This thing is so new. Let's just see what happens." After about a week after the lockdown, I was really considering, man, I may need to lay them off just so they can claim unemployment. About that time the Paycheck Protection Plan comes out. I know that's not everyone's story but, man, I'm just blown away by it. I mean the funds were in my bank and I was able to pay all of my guys their average full-time paycheck. They got their last paycheck the week after we closed. It was two days away from being the normal pay period anyway. So they literally had no downtime. They didn't miss a paycheck.

Casey Needham (24:32):
I'm blown away by it. They will continue. Because of the program, they'll continue to receive a paycheck through the month of May like nothing happened. God's been gracious to me, a person that struggles with anxiety and things of that nature, to say, "Man, I'm not even going to let you get to that place. I'm going to do all this preemptively." So it's been very humbling. It's totally reshaped the way that I see us going forward, both from a business standpoint but also personally with my family. Going forward, I think just to kind of maybe hold onto my business with a little bit looser of a grip and realizing that, man, I'm not in control of this to the full extent and that even when I'm literally not in control of it because I'm not allowed to be working, God is still keeping it afloat.

Casey Needham (25:45):
So that's in the business side of things. Going forward, I just feel like I'm going to be able to shrug off a lot of the normal business woes and difficulties because this abnormal situation that we're in doesn't take God by surprise. He's absolutely keeping the business afloat through it. So that's on the business side. On the personal side, it relates to everything, I mean just family difficulties and stress. I have all these fears and concerns, as you understand, having children, like wondering how their future's going to be shaped and how do I parent a child through difficult times. You just have all these worries about your marriage, your family, your kids, extended family. I just feel like this is really kind of started to shape the understanding of, man, in the worst of times God's providing and not just providing your needs, but on a holistic sense as far as he's providing the needs for His flock.

Casey Needham (26:56):
I can really in a phrase, I think, just loosen my grip. I think when you're prone to anxiety and depression for that matter, I think ... I know a lot of people are. That's probably one of the main things that's talked about in the barbershop. One of my clients is a therapist and he said, "You and I do the same thing. You just cut hair while you do it." But you hear this common thread of anxiety and depression and just fear of the unknown and uncertainty. A lot of what that comes from is having a grip on everything so tightly that you feel like that if you make the wrong decision or the wrong move that it's all going to fall apart. That's not the whole truth.

Casey Needham (27:48):
A lot of my anxiety comes from feeling out of control. Right now, undeniably we are out of control. I mean there's a very indefinite nature with all of this. That's probably the scariest piece. I know that it is working. I have customers day in and day out checking saying, "Hey, man. How are you? How's the family?" That's just kind of the nature of this industry. But I can loosen my grip and see that, man, I don't really keep this business or my family or myself afloat, that God does that and that He's going to continue to do that. That's comforting to really know beyond a shadow of a doubt that ultimately it doesn't fall on me at the end of the day to sink or swim.

Casey Needham (28:45):
So I think going forward, just losing loosening my grip is the only thing I can think of, loosening my grip on my business, on my family, on personal circumstances that come up, just saying, "God, I don't know how you know a lot of times that you're going to do it, but I know that you will in your timing, in your way." So looking forward with expectation of being able to look back with comfort because that's what I've been able to experience through this.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
Thank you for listening to this episode of Stories from the Austin Stone. Please help us spread the word about the podcast by rating and reviewing us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you found this episode, and by sharing this episode with your family and friends. If you have a story to share with us during this time, please visit austinstone.org/share. That's austinstone.org/ S-H-A-R-E. Finally, for up-to-date information on how the Austin Stone is responding to the new coronavirus, please visit austinstone.org/coronavirus.