Today we’d like to introduce you to Kenya and ShanTrail King.
Kenya and ShanTrail, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Our journey started over 21 years ago, while we were both serving in the United States Army and stationed in Germany. We married in December 1998. Generally, many say that marriage is challenging with its ups and downs. However, being a dual military couple and serving our country was even more challenging. Not to mention that we each had a child from previous relationships. We continued forward in service to our country, not noticing that we kind of placed family and our marriage on the back burner. It looked good for optics sake, but we really did not invest into our marriage like we should have.
Honestly, we did not know how to invest into our marriage. We just kind of existed in it. We were proud of serving our country, our marriage, and our family.
However, something seemed to be lacking. See, we came up in the military at a time where we were told, “If we (the Army) wanted you to have a family, we would have issued you one.” That translated to military missions come first and everything else was not that important. We were not setting aside the much-needed quality time that marriage requires for each other. However, after a combined twenty-seven years of service, our marriage survived! After I (Kenya) retired from the military, it was almost as if we had to get to know each other all over again. This time being on a more intimate level as we begin placing our marriage as a priority.
Fast forward. We were at an event in Destin, Florida. At that event, God gave me (ShanTrail) a vision of going back home and opening a business. I was a bit nervous about sharing this with my husband at first, so I just prayed. See how it works with us is God generally shows me (ShanTrail) a vision and usually within three days, my husband speaks it out of his mouth. Some may be thinking, wow, that is interesting. Well, this particular time, while on the return trip to Texas, my husband said, “you know what, baby, when we get back home, we should look at opening an actual business.” I said, “OMG, that is the vision that God just gave me on yesterday!” We knew by now that it was from God. When we returned back home, we got to work. In May of 2015, we started our first brick and mortar business. The name of it was Beauty is my Business Studios, located in Killeen, Texas. It was a business for our community. God told us to fund it and offer free groups for those in the area. It was a 1900 square foot space that was truly a blessing to our community. We started two groups, one to provide Veterans with information that would help them after getting out of the military.
The other group was entitled Sister 2 Sister, which was a group for all ladies. We could just come in and woosah, while discussing real issues that we as women dealt with. We even had monthly business mixers for business owners to learn, make connections, and to grow their businesses. All of this was free of charge to those in our community. The overall goal was to be able to give back to our community. We were not in business for profit, but to help others achieve their goals while strengthening our community at the same time. Things progressed as people began coming in with serious needs, such as their children who were suicidal and needing help. In addition, there was a need for a rental facility for special events. We did not charge much at all, but it was a blessing (so we were told) to the community. Many people begin sharing with us how they were amazed by all of the things that we were doing for our community and how we have such good hearts.
One day we were approached about having our own radio show. We were both thinking, nope! We procrastinated on it for about six months. As far as we were concerned, the answer was no! Let us just say that the radio station’s chief operating officer was very persistent. The year of 2016 became the birth of our radio show entitled Marriage Mondays with The Kings,’ on KRGN 98.5 FM. We thought, okay, we will do this for about six months and then we will be done with it. That was what we thought. November 2020 will make four years of the show’s broadcast on the radio. Look at God!
In 2017, God directed us both to go back to school and get our masters’ degrees. We were thinking, how is this even possible? We were both federal employees, with three children in the home, operating two businesses and now school? Well, like people say, where there is a will, there is away. We were both accepted into one of the best counseling programs in our area. After two and a half years, we both walked the stage. It was nothing but God that got us through and we did it! We both obtained our Master of Arts degrees in Marriage, Family, and Children Counseling, from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. It was such an amazing accomplishment to obtain in front of family and friends!
It was then brought to our attention that we needed to license our radio show and that we did. Shortly after doing that, people began booking us to come and speak at various events. Due to the Coronavirus, some have been virtual, but the in-person events have been nicely social distanced.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, our journey was not smooth at first. One of our obstacles was learning how to work together and be one in marriage. Once we started to work on that, our journey became easier. We had to learn how to recognize each other’s strengths and weaknesses in order to work together in business (which we call ministry). It seemed like the more that we did God’s will, the more that the enemy tried to derail us. One of the toughest times that we faced was our family being displaced due to a house fire. This was during the time when we had so much already on our plates. Oftentimes we wanted to give up, we shed tears and we prayed.
However, instead of looking at everything as a whole, we took things one day at a time. We would be remised not to mention the support that we received from our community. By us blessing the community in opening our business in 2015, it was like God allowed those blessings to come back to us in 2017 when we needed it the most. When we were at what we felt to be our lowest, not only was it our community but people from around the country who were there for us. This is what we mean in our motto by helping to build a stronger community. Our community (nationally) is definitely strong!
Marriage Mondays with The Kings – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Our business is Marriage Mondays with The Kings. Our mission is helping to build stronger marriages, which leads to stronger families and stronger communities. We try to encourage others in every way, by sharing many of the experiences that we have been through in our lives. This is actually what we are known for, encouraging and speaking life into others. Being that we live in a social media age, many show the “good times” of their marriage. However, no one is honest and speaks about the downs that you go through and the obstacles faced in marriage. All you hear is, marriage has its ups and downs. So, what does that look like?
Our passion is to see people live the best, blessed lives that God desires for them to live. Our delivery is Godly, but direct. However, not to be taken as offensive. It is to help us as a people to identify things that may require healing. This is in order for our marriages and families to be healed. We speak of taking the steps to do the true work that is needed to heal for real. This is something that many do not even want to think of attempting to do. However, it is necessary if we desire to break many of the generational curses on individuals, marriages, and families. You may be the change that your lineage needs and is waiting for.
What we are most proud of regarding our business is that we thought that we would be ministering to those locally. Well, we have expanded to an international platform in places that we have to go and Google just to know where the listeners are listening from.
What sets us apart from others is that we do not sugar coat anything regarding the topics that we speak on. We pray and speak! We allow God to direct us and we realize that we are not everyone’s cup of tea, but the truth needs to be told. For too many years, people have “sugar-coated” things in the church and the world. Well, not with us. We say that if we can talk about the things going on in the world, we can talk about what goes on in the church. We hope that people do not take offense but identify and change the narrative for the better. Many who hear us speak, share with us that what we share is very straight forward but very much needed. How are we as a people really going to change for the better if we are not willing to first identify what needs to be changed within us.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment of our career so far is seeing individuals, marriages and families changing for the better. When individuals respond to us and state that the messages that we bring is a blessing to them, their marriage, or family; that is a proud moment. Seeing individuals going to seek the counseling, that they so desperately needed in order to become a better person. Most of all, individuals are reporting of being in a better place in their lives due to deciding to change for the better. These may not sound like proud moments to many, but helping to affect change in others is a proud moment for us. It lets us know that God’s mission for our lives is being fulfilled.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.marriagemondayswiththekings.com
- Email: Marriagemondays@mykrgn.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/marriagemondayswiththekings/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/MarriageMondayswiththeKings
- Twitter: twitter.com/KenyaNShan
- Other: www.linkedin.com/in/marriage-mondays-with-the-kings-5312581b7/
Image Credit:
Michael Anthony’s Portraits
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