Pay Love Forward

In this episode, the second of our women’s issues series, congressional candidate Alani Bankhead and I sat down with Ashley and Talee to discuss the disappearance of Jamee Grossman, Ashley’s sister, and Talee’s mother.  Jamee went missing in 2012 and has not been seen since.  According to the nonstop local, Jamee was last seen at a party with her boyfriend Frank Hammontree who reported dropping her off at a gas station.  According to channel 8, there was no footage of this drop off ever taking place.   

This episode was recorded an hour after a vigil held for Shawna Hart.  Shawna was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, a man she had a restraining order against and had previously been incarcerated for assaulting Shawna with a deadly weapon.  Just like in Jamee’s disappearance, questions remain as to why this horrible crime was not prevented, and our city is going to have to answer those.  More than that, we are going to have to do better.  We are sick and tired of our women going missing. We are sick and tired of the abuses of power, of the corruption embedded in our systems that allows these crimes against women to continue to happen.  As a city, we are calling for change.  We can no longer accept the levels of domestic violence and sexual assault against women.

This is a call to our city, not to place blame or scapegoat, but rather to look this problem in the face, and hard questions while demanding we address them with everything we have, at every level.      

This is part one of a series focused on women’s issues. One in five women in the United States report experiencing sexual assault in their lifetime. One in three women experience some form of sexual violence. Many cases go unreported, with only about one in three assaults ever reaching law enforcement. Experts consistently say actual numbers are significantly higher due to underreporting. These traumas cannot be addressed if communities remain silent about them.

For episode one of this series, Dr. Matthew Leavenworth sits down with Lea Bossler. Leah is a wildland firefighter, white water rafter, political activist, big game hunter, and all-around bad ass. She is also a survivor of multiple sexual assaults across her life, including a near abduction while passing through Billings.

This episode contains discussion of sexual violence, trauma, and loss. Listener discretion is advised. If you or someone you know needs support, you can call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or dial 211 to connect with local resources. You can also reach the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE.

Lea, thank you for trusting us with your story. What you went through was “fucked up,” and it is time more people stood up and stumbled through talking about it.

This is Part Three of the series on Story as Nonviolent Resistance. It was recorded in an open Zoom meeting and live-streamed on Facebook.

Dr. Matthew Leavenworth is joined by Brian Miller, a Helena attorney and congressional candidate in Montana. Brian has spent the last fifteen years practicing law across the state, working in both state and federal courts. He is now running for Congress in Montana’s eastern district against Trump loyalist Troy Downing.

This series continues to develop as a consistent live platform connecting with Montanans about issues in the state, including Brian’s bid for Congress.

In this series, Matthew argues that an election is ultimately a war of stories. He makes the case that we can learn to fight with stories, and that meeting the demands of this moment requires understanding the narrative landscape and engaging it directly. If we do not, we will continue to lose, and the stakes are too high.

The conversation explores how authoritarian movements do not begin with force, but with distortion and division. They begin by taking over the stories we tell about ourselves and the world around us, eventually demanding that we forsake objective reality.

At its core, this episode centers on a question of identity: who we are as Americans, echoing earlier conversations with Penny Ronning about who we are as a moral people, and who we want to be moving forward.

The world needs better stories.
And Pay Love Forward intends to tell them.

The world needs better leaders,
And Brian Miller is one of them.

In this episode of the Pay Love Forward Podcast, Dr. Matthew Leavenworth sits down with Alani Bankhead, a third generation military veteran who served more than twenty years in the United States Air Force. Her career included counterintelligence investigations, human intelligence operations alongside special operations targeting terrorist networks, and service as the senior bodyguard to a top Pentagon official. She later led investigations into human trafficking and child exploitation and worked with law enforcement teams protecting vulnerable children and families. Now she is running for the United States Senate in Montana.

This conversation explores the experiences that shaped her life in service, the moments that tested her resolve, and the path that ultimately led her to enter the political arena. Matthew and Alani discuss military life, investigations into trafficking and exploitation, the responsibility of leadership, and the deeper motivations that drive someone to step forward and serve in public life.

The Pay Love Forward Podcast is part of a broader effort to strengthen compassionate communities through mentorship and civic engagement. In partnership with Resilient Stories, the podcast seeks to uncover the story within the story. The moments of struggle, conviction, and transformation that shape the people who lead our communities.

The world needs better stories.
And the world needs better leaders.

Alani Bankhead is one of them.

For Part Two of Story as Nonviolent Resistance, I sat down with Danielle Dahl, a doctoral candidate and the founder of Resilient Stories.  Resilient Stories is an organization dedicated to creating spaces for people to share lived experiences shaped by adversity, recovery, and resilience. Danielle works in my home town of Billings Montana, facilitating storytelling events, supporting community dialogue, and working to strengthen connectivity and healing through the power of story.

In this episode, we continue our conversation about story as a form of nonviolent resistance. We talk about how story, art, poetry, music, and compassionate listening can function as stabilizing forces in times of conflict and polarization. Authoritarian movements thrive on distortion, division, and spectacle. Story slows things down, restores humanity, and can be an antidote to outrage and tribalism. This series is intended to provide resources, techniques, and methods to resist the rise of authoritarianism and maintain what is most sacred, our sense of who we are as a moral people.The world needs better stories, and Pay LoveForward intends to tell them. 

Story as Nonviolent Resistance (Part One)

In this first lecture of a new series, Dr. Matthew Leavenworth explores how story shapes power, perception, and belonging, and why narrative has always been one of the most effective tools for resisting authoritarian systems.

Drawing from history, psychology, literature, and lived experience, Matthew examines how fear compresses human complexity into rigid binaries, while safety and connection make space for dignity, nuance, and moral imagination.

The talk traces how figures like George Orwell, Pablo Picasso, and Jesus of Nazareth used story, art, and parable to challenge dehumanizing systems without reproducing their logic. It also looks at how modern information ecosystems reward distortion, outrage, and simplification, and how communities can choose a different path.

Recorded in front of a live audience, this lecture invites listeners to see storytelling not as entertainment or branding, but as a civic, moral, and spiritual practice.

This episode lays the foundation for a broader series on how individuals and communities can tell truer, braver stories in an age of polarization, propaganda, and fear.

In this episode of the Pay Love Forward Podcast, Dr. Matthew Leavenworth sits down with Penny Ronning, a nationally recognized advocate whose life’s work has helped shape Montana’s response to human trafficking and sexual violence through survivor-centered policy, public safety, and moral leadership.

Rooted in Pay Love Forward’s mission to build compassionate communities for the at-risk and underserved, this conversation moves beyond credentials and into the deeper question Penny returns to again and again: who we are as a moral people. What began with notes and an outline quickly became nearly three hours of honest, grounded dialogue about story, voice, and responsibility.

Together, Penny and Matthew explore how story transforms, how truth can be carried without turning suffering into spectacle, and how a steady, courageous voice can heal the divide that fear and hate keep alive. This episode is not only about what Penny has done, but about the kind of people we are called to be when dignity, courage, and compassion become our measure.

In this episode, I sit down with my dear friend and longtime climbing partner, Alex Saunders. Over the years, Alex and I haveshared ropes and storms, long runouts and longer conversations. We’ve stood together on ledges halfway up the world, and we’ve stood beside each other as best men at our weddings. Our lives have been braided together by miles ofgranite and sandstone and years of trust.

We talk about big walls like The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley and the Northwest Regular on Half Dome, including our climb on Half Dome after the 2014 rockfall, when we became the first team to cross the new blank section with a lasso toss and help piece the route back together.

But the real story isn’t simply about climbing. It’s about what the mountains revealed, and what friendship had to carry.

At Pay Love Forward, we believe that telling the story within the story is a mechanism for healing. This conversation includes descriptions of trauma, addiction, and witnessing death.  These were moments that shaped us and who we havebecome.  When we tell them truthfully, they help us recognizeone another’s humanity, and they turn isolation into community.

This episode is about a friendship that refuses to let go and about the mountains that keep calling us back.

My name is Dr. Matthew Leavenworth, founder and director of Pay Love Forward.

This episode was recorded live during a Zoom meeting with small group leaders at Harvest Church on December 21, 2025.Over the past six months, pastor Alex Falder and I have been working with the small group leaders on how story shapes community while taking them through our certification in Mentoring, Coaching, and Leadership Development.   

For Alex and I, leadership means going first.  During the last session, Alex shared his testimony.  This is mine.  It is a personal account of where I came from and how I got here. I talked about growing up in and around the church, losing my way, my battle with mental health and addiction, and the long stretch ofdarkness that followed. I talked about the things that kept me tethered to my humanity when I might have otherwise drifted away.  I talked about my son’s battle with cancer and the traumatic brain injury I suffered at 37.  Ultimately, I talked about what finally allowed to surrender my life to Christ.

This testimony was clipped from a longer discussion.  Present were the Harvest small group leaders, my parents, and two people I care very deeply about, Coul Hill and Tammy Zemliska. 

Thank you for your support.  It meant more than you know.   

In this episode, I sat down with Russ Cleveland, who is running for the U.S. House of Representatives. And before long, his wife Kate joined us. What unfolded was not a political conversation, but a human one.

Russ and Kate shared how their story began, long before policy or campaigns, when two fourteen-year-olds met on twoboats off the coast of Washington and began a love story that would one day carry them through the unimaginable.

We traced Russ’s own journey: from an injury that ended his military career and a cross-country bike ride for childhood health, to cofounding Rocky Mountain Kids. And now, to returning to his Montana roots with a renewed sense of purpose, carrying forward the lessons forged in both love and loss.

We spoke about their daughter Madison, about her battle with leukemia, and about the devastation of the loss that has now become their purpose for fighting for those who are still fighting silent battles in hospital rooms across our country as our nation turns its back on them.

We talked about the research that saved my son Gentry’s life — research that is now being cut. We talked about how it feels to raise an immunocompromised child in a world where preventable illnesses like the measles and whooping cough are returning, and how families like ours are navigating dangers most people never have to think about.

There is a campaign behind this, and the stakes are incredibly high in a political climate that is becoming more divisive by the day. But beneath all of that, this is a conversation about how our children become our why — even in pain and loss.

This podcast is dedicated to four remarkable children: Cole, Madison, Ally, and my son, Gentry.

Your struggle was valiant, and your story will not be forgotten, even for those who are not with us now. We will carry you with us always.

I am personally asking you to share this episode. Russ and Kate’s story carries something we cannot afford to lose. We must return humanity and compassion to politics, and that happens when we lift up the human story before we debate the political one.

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🌐 www.payloveforward.net
🌐 www.resilientstories.com