Blurry Creatures - EP: 448 World Cup Dad: Bigfoot, a Demonic Attack, and a Soccer Miracle with Zach Duke

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

Rewind four years. Zach Duke looks in the mirror and does not like the man staring back. He is out of shape. He is chronically sick. He is a dad running on empty. So he prays a dangerous prayer. He asks God not to let him move from his chair until the fire comes back. What God says next makes no sense. Play soccer. Zach has never played. He posts his training every day to nobody. Then the internet finds him.Videos with tens of millions of views later, Zach earns a spot on a Team USA World Cup 6x6 roster at an age when most players retire. But this is not a sports story. It is the story of a missionary who has walked through 45 countries, survived a demonic attack, and learned that Jesus wants to be on the field with him. Nate and Luke sit down with the man known as World Cup Dad to talk transformation, the fear of man, and the God who uses the weak things to shame the strong. This Episode is Sponsored By: http://blurrygold.com/ — Get a FREE Gold & Silver Kit while supplies last!https://homechef.com/blurry — Get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box & free dessert for life!https://ruffgreens.com — Get a free Jumpstart Trial bag with discount code BLURRY at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And I saw a vision of a lion jumping to my chest, tearing out the claws, felt the physical weight leave. And I started jumping up around in a circle praising the Lord. We need to steward the garden at home before he gives us out. access to the fields abroad. Today we got World Cup dad, Zach Duke on the show to tell us this incredible journey. What does this have to do with giants, miracles, and what is God doing on the front lines of ministry? Miracles on the mission field to miracles on the soccer field.

Check it out. This story with Zach Duke's going to blow your mind. If you love what we do here, Blurry Creatures and you want more, there is more for you. Blurray creatures.com slash members. We've got more than a hundred back cataloged. Members-only episodes you can listen to. Also, you get ad-free episodes. You can listen to this episode right here, ad-free.

We'll see you over there. Let's get Zach on the show. The history of our earth is so different from what we can imagine. The Smithsonian that if they found out about a large skeleton somewhere was to go get it. I'm going to assume at least one person is right, because if one person's right to bust the paradigm, it all goes back to the fallen chair. And the problem with the modern day church, they have a very truncated view of the supernatural. This backdrop that's just pregnant with all kinds of meaning associated with this Mount Herman event.

And this guy defects from the kingdom. That's a big deal. Welcome back to blurry creatures. We'll get into this one. I don't even know where to start with this one because you've got, you could go anywhere with your story. Zach Duke. Always trust a man with two first names, Nathan Henry. John Wayne.

Or don't trust him. man to John Wayne, which is the Duke. Yeah, yes, exactly. Bruce Wayne. We got 80s in there with Zach Morris and then we got Duke going all the way back. Plus Nathan Henry is also two first names. I got a great Duke story. We can tell at the end maybe, but the Duke.

Welcome to the podcast. You've been to 45 countries, you said, a missionary work. And you started your soccer career at 34, which is incredible. And crazy. And I don't even know how to begin to ask you questions because you've got such a Rolodex. I mean, there's so many places here to go. We were talking pre-roll and you guys have lived on the same farm, your family since the Revolutionary War. There's like so many cool layers to your story. We got to start with Bigfoot then. That's where we start.

He's in Indiana. My wife's from Indiana. Shout out. You know there's sightings in Indiana, for sure. Oh yeah. He's there. So I'll tell you this. I may or may not have seen Bigfoot or heard Bigfoot. So in my, when I was in high school, me and my brother, my best friend, we live on a farm, like you said, and we were cleaning up after a party that we had with a lot of our friends, bonfire surrounded by the woods. I grew up in the woods. And as we're cleaning up, it's probably 1 a.m. about 50 yards away. And I grew up living in the woods, never saw a thing, heard the loudest scream that was non-human. It couldn't have been human. It was both deep and high at the same time. And the only thing I can compare it to is like a Native American that was

declaring war and you're about. to get bushwrecked. Yeah. And, and. Not a cat. Speaking of John. No, it was no animal. It was, it was no human.

And it struck the fear of God. Like, our hair stood up and we just ran. And to this day, we have no idea what it was. So maybe Bigfoot, definitely some type of blurry entity, creature, something. But as I've heard Bigfoot sounds on different episodes and podcasts, it sounded like that. Wow. Really? Yeah.

How close to your closest neighbors when you're growing up on this farm? Probably half mile, quarter mile. How were you? I was probably around 15, 16 at the time. Okay, so you're older. Yeah. Just having a field party, dude. Yeah, I mean, no paradigm for Bigfoot at the time, but it freaked us out.

And it wasn't someone playing a prank. I'm telling you, it wasn't inhuman sound. A lot of people will, like, share videos of that where they're, like, screaming off in a canyon. And they can hear it, you know, pretty far away. Yeah. Like, what is that thing? Yeah. It seems to alert everybody in the area. Why do you think he's screaming like that? He's mad at you? Did you not give him any? We didn't give him any smores. He's looking. Maybe he's looking for Lady Bigfoot. I mean, it was, we were just right, it was right on the tree line. He wanted some old Milwaukee's. He did. He wants some Paps blue ribbons. But yeah, I think at the time, I mean, story for another day, I thought about this a little bit, but there was definitely some sin in my life at the time. And so there could have been open access doors because that farm is set apart for the Lord. Totally.

Like we've seen thousands of people give their life to Christ on our farm due to my mom and my dad. Just incredible. But in that season of my life, I think there might have been an open door that allowed an entity like that to come in saying this is my space now. And so it's since been retained. But it was outside the boundaries of the farm, yeah? Yeah, it was right in the middle of my parents' woods. Yeah.

Yeah. We told the Duck Dynasty guys that you make a fire, Bigfoot comes around, you know. He likes to chill and hang out. Especially if you get a lady out there singing. That's right. With the Native American flute. But what are. The question is like, why do I think Bigfoot is?

I've heard all the different, you know, stories of different things. But I genuinely believe that he's 100% nefarious. And I've thought about this quite a bit too because even evil things can do good deeds. You think about different evil people over the history. They were kind to their family. They did, you know, kind and beneficial things to others, but they are nefarious through and through. Like, the Lord made things beautiful and non-stinky, as silly as that sounds. And when something always has...

A skunk is going to be beautiful. Yeah. Either way, but I just think that it's a, it is definitely not just a physical animal. Yeah. Can Bigfoot just be demonized like any other thing? Like it seems like, you know, to see... Yeah, Zach Duke, Bigfoot expert. What do we got here?

You've been studying this first century. Like we talked about yesterday, pigs can be demonized. Why couldn't a creature like that be demonized? That's a fair point. Definitely possible. The real answer is I have no idea. The weird part about the Bigfoot stuff is when he's like, the kids will go missing and then they're like hanging with a bear for four days in the woods.

And then they bring them back. It's like, I don't know. I don't know what to do with those. You're like, that's definitely not a bear. Not a bear. I mean, I definitely think they're real. Yeah. I mean, the things I've seen and experienced, the things I've heard.

It is not outside of the supernatural paradigm to rationally think this makes sense. And then like there's some creatures like the werewolf stuff, like never a good story. Never any. It's always fear, panic, terrifying, red eyes. A lot of people I don't think live to tell those tales. But the Squatch is different. And it's interesting. But I get it.

I mean, there is, a lot of people think it's kind of a demon creature. But, I don't know. It's, it's bizarre. But let's talk about your story, though. Let's get into it. Like, you're on the farm at 16. And then your parents, you say this is like a supernatural place in a way. Yeah.

People getting saved. You're having, obviously, a head start on your faith journey as a young kid. And then you start going around the world to do missions work. And then where does it go from 16? Yeah, I mean, just big credit to my mom and dad who didn't just grow up in church, but modeled a lifestyle of hearing and obeying Jesus. And I thought that was normal. So looking back, I'm just incredibly grateful for a mom and dad that want to see God's glory

cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. So much thanks to them. And so that was my mindset and heart that I grew up in. The underbelly of my story is the performanceism. God is this good enough. do you see me now? Did you see that mission trip I went on? Did you see that church I planted?

Are you proud of me now? And just no. So a big pivotal moment in my life was when I was on a mission staff and the church in Texas. And I literally felt physical demonic presence come into my room and put claws into my chest and start pulling me through the bed. Horrified, terrified, terrified. Like literally thinking I'm about to be dragged to hell. I felt like an imposter, a fraud, unredeemable, unlovable, unful, unforgivable.

I felt like I deserved what was happening to me. And with just a fraction of faith, if you can even call it that, I just had helped me, Jesus. And I saw a vision of a lion jumping to my chest, tearing out the claws, felt the physical weight leave. And I started jumping up around in a circle praising the Lord. Wow. And then the Holy Spirit spoke. He said, Zach, I never want you to try to be good again. And I thought, isn't this what this following Jesus is all about is like to please you to be good?

He's like, no, you need to trust in my goodness. That's the good news. And so even with my underbelly of trying to perform, trying to earn, trying to prove, Jesus just wrecked it and said, that's my job. I was the perfect one. I was the one that redeemed and caused you to be worthy and lovable. And so that changed the trajectory of my life. That was in 2012 when that happened.

And I felt a strong call in my life to, even with my small little seed, insignificant man that I am to do my part and bringing the name of Jesus to the nations. I wanted to see every people group, every hill, every valley, every country know that they were loved, that they had a king that came for them, and that he left nobody out of his grand plan, his beautiful dream. And so I just went on this pathway of working out this church in Texas to meeting this incredible group called Big Life, which had been doing work all over Southeast. East Asia, seeing tons of miracles, tons of God opening doors, healing, visions. But they looked at me and said, Zach, but we're being disobedient because we're not doing it here in the States.

We have given our lives to seeing the kingdom come in the world, but here we're just, we're playing it safe and we're being comfortable. And we're living the status quo. And so that's where the Lord just gave me this heart for. We need to steward the garden at home before he gives us access to the fields abroad. And today, we're not out there with the sluice box and gold detector, Luke. Well, they were in the 1840s. So we have the 49ers, right? That's right.

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Yeah, why do you, this is an interesting conversation. because I personally, you know, was a Waiwammer at one point, and ended up in Australia and ended up in Southeast Asia, and I've told the story on the show before. But saw God do miracles and healings and incredible things. But it always seems like there's this idea in the church. And I'll also explain this, but there's this idea that we've got to go out to the nations

and that most of the things that we do, missionary work happens in these foreign, foreign places, foreign countries. And to your point, you know, why do you think a lot of the church doesn't focus, or seems to maybe not to focus as much on what's happening at home? Yeah, it's a fantastic question. Yeah, because it's not, it's not sexy. You don't have to go, you know, to go to downtown Nashville where we're, you know,

and to serve the populations and the homeless here and preach. It's a lot cooler. And so I don't know how to say is to go to Dominican Republic. or go to Mexico or go serve the Lord in wherever, right, in Thailand or somewhere. But the nations. I think it's a really simple answer. And I totally get it. I totally get it.

But we are like we are trained to cross the seas before we cross the streets, which is a bit strange. It's backwards. Like we need to learn to cross the streets and live a lifestyle here before we think we can do over there what we're not doing here. But here's why I think we do it. One is the sense of adventure, which is beautiful. God put that in us. That's an incredible thing. The second thing is it's easier.

The reason it's easier is because you have nothing to lose there. There's no stakes. There's no relationship. You can leave when it's done. You have no reputation to lose. But right where you are, wherever, like every country I've gone in the world,

they said, Zach, you don't understand it's harder here. And they're all right. Because where you live is the reputation, the stakes, the fear of man, rejection, failure that you don't have to worry about when you go. Yeah, because you can leave. You can leave.

So it's great training grounds. because you can practice without fear. But when we come home, we need to learn to, we need to practice that. Yeah, the old mission trip to Mexico. Did we still a young life, man, in high school? We wouldn't build houses in Tijuana. It was actually transformational.

Yeah, I mean, it is helpful to like do those experiences. I mean, we made a joke about the nations and a minute ago because we have an inside joke with Alvarino and Montemale. When a girl breaks up with you when you're 19, she says, the Lord has the nations for me. So that's her excuse to break up with you. Really, it's just I don't like you very much, But she says the nation.

It feels like this comes from a place of wounding name. It does. I mean, everyone out there listening knows that there's a guy listening right now. She said that to me too. Yeah. But I think exactly interesting thing. There's a point is to, you know, it's like the grass is greener. It's like water the grass, water your grass.

You know, it's not greener. The grass is not always greener. The grass is greener where you water it. That's it. But the other paradigm that's fascinating about missions work is we've had a number of missionaries. Everyone from the Wild Bros. To Marcus Young. just atop of my mind, the miraculous, the crazy things also seem to happen not here in the West.

And I know this is a bit of a misnomer because we've had everyone from like even Craig Keener who basically wrote the volume on miracles saying it's not really the case. It's just it's perceived. It's perceived. But also we've had, you know, one of the best, and I remember who said this, Nate, but one of the best descriptions of when you're asking, why do things seem to happen? in other places. And I don't remember who we were talking to, Nate, but everybody. The answer was this, and I think it's very fascinating,

it was that the Lord likes to show up and show off, if you will, on the cutting edge of evangelism. Yeah. And what we're lacking a lot of times in the West is this pointed spear of evangelism. And so, you know, there's a story of these witch doctors, in Africa, and the story goes, it's fascinating.

The story goes, the guy who's a missionary says, they say, yeah, you can preach the gospel if you can, you'll run through this line of the tribesmen, and as you run through, they're gonna beat you. And then when you get to the end, when he gets to the end of this line, these two witch doctors levitate, and he just prays and he goes, God, I need you to show up.

And as he's praying this, they, the witch doctors fall, both break their legs. And he prays over them, and their legs get healed miraculously. Then everyone in the village gets converted. That's what he does. That's what he does. And so you have this crazy story.

And it's like, it's like when God's name is on the line. And I don't really know where I'm going with this, except that I just feel like the. That feels very athletic, too. It does feel athletic, you know. It feels like an athletic god. Yeah. It feels like American gladiators. Get to the end.

I'll share one point of that. I think there's several really good reasons and rationale why that happens. I'll tell you one that my Pakistani brother told me, former Taliban guy. Yeah. And we was talking to him and he said, you Americans, you're fat. I'm like, well, that's offensive.

And he's like, no, no, no. You consume and you consume and you consume, but you never give out. You're like the dead sea where you have all the inflows, but you have no outflows. Yeah. And so because we value knowledge over obedience here. And East and the persecuted nations,

scripture says that the signs follow the proclamation of the gospel. And they said, but we live in persecuted areas and we're still proclaiming the gospel. But here's the end goal of persecution. The end goal of persecution is to silence the witness. So in America, we've already agreed with the spirit of persecution

because we're not sharing the gospel. And that's why I think we're seeing far less here, not zero, but far less, is because we're allowing the professional Christians to do all the proclamation where the priesthood of all believers is left behind. That's not the case overseas. And where, where is,

is knowledge and relationship lost? Because you've got to have some knowledge. You do. Knowledge is important. It's a three-legged stool. So you need them in balance. If you have one, if the knowledge leg is lower than the obedience and sharing, it tips over. But that doesn't mean throw out knowledge and only do obedience. That means our obedience needs to be keeping up with our knowledge. So in the West, we really should start focusing on obeying what we already know rather than knowing more and obeying none of it. Well, even in like your encounter when you're, how old are you, 22, 20? When that happened? I was, yeah, 24. Okay. Yeah. Like, it seems to me like God is having, like, he's relationally showing up. I want a relationship with you. Yeah. I want you to do all these things.

That's right. Because I think we do hyper focus on morality and obedience, you know, in first world countries, do what's the right thing. I mean, that's the whole political propaganda is like, this moral code you have to live by. Yeah. And then it seems like, like God shows up in your life and says, I'm the one. You look to me, have a relationship with me, right? Like, because I'm, we're all messy. We're all broken. We're all going to make mistakes. But I think we try to live a perfect moral life to get to God. That's what I think the... And it doesn't cut it, does it? No. Like, it doesn't. Like, John 15 is the perfect tension of both, where Jesus says, apart from me, you can do nothing. And it talks about abiding, which is the

relationship intimacy, and then the fruit of abiding. is obedience. But if obedience is without abiding, the real simple truth of what's happening is you're trying to earn God's favor. It's legalism. It's legalism. Yeah. But as cheesy as this sounds, this helps me get it. I just created this fake word abidience, where you combine abiding obedience. Because in the Hebrew and Greek, they were one. Like, those thoughts

weren't separate. And so we need to have that deep relational intimacy with the Lord, which then leads to, oh, I would do anything for you. And that's what, that's the obedience. after is the obedience of the heart. Abiding. It sounds like something Michael Scott would do, combine some words. Yeah.

I'm so glad I can be compared to Michael Scott. What a compliment. But I do think a lot of the missionary stories, there's like missing information, which requires trust, which requires relationship. Yeah. You show up. You don't know what's going to happen. Yeah.

You know enough. And I think in the West is what you're saying to me, what I'm hearing is we have all this information and we don't know what to do. Yeah. Versus people who step out in faith have a little bit of faith. These people need the gospel. We don't know anything about them. risk and willingness.

How much did the woman at the well know? How much the demoniac know? And he said, Jesus, let me come with you. And Jesus said, no, you go to them and tell them all that I've done for you. Like they knew next to nothing, but they obeyed from their heart, everything that they knew. And I would say some people, like, my brain is more in the left-handed world. I like random. I like space for random stuff to happen.

Yeah, I know you do. But a lot of people don't. A lot of people like, Luke, like schedules and getting on the calendar. And that's why this is why this works. Yeah. Yeah, that is. That's why you're a great team. But it's like, but there's no, like, when the door's going to blow open and God's going to do something, right? You got to be, you got to like wait for that to happen. I'll tell my first story that explains this. This is, this is an amazing story. So there

was a 16-year-old kid from India who lived right on the border of Bangladesh. And at the time, we didn't have any work going on in Bangladesh. He had just given his life to Christ. And so he did what he thought was best. He got a bunch of Bibles in their language. And he grabbed a bag. and he was going to swim across the river at night to give them the Bibles, which is illegal. You can't do that. And so not a great strategy, not a great disciple-making strategy. And he goes and he gets caught.

And when he gets caught, he takes the bag and he chucks it into the river and he gets detained by the police for two days. And so he tries to go find the Bibles when he's done, can't find him, goes home, dejected, and defeated. Two weeks later, gets a knock on his door, and it's this young guy from Bangladesh. He's like, hey, I've been looking at,

looking everywhere for you for two weeks. You put your name in these Bibles and we want to know what it means. He's like, how did you find me? And he shared how we found him. But then here's what happened. So this Bangladeshi boy, Muslim, was on the banks of the river on the other side. And this bag floated over to them. The bag was soaking wet, as you would imagine in a river. But he opened it and all these books in this bag were completely dry. Wow. And he thought, this is a miracle. So he took it to his dad. And guess who his dad was? happened to be the chief of the Muslim villages in the area. Takes it takes it to his dad.

His dad reads the highlighted verses that this kid had done and says, I want to know more. And so that started, we now have hundreds and hundreds of churches in Bangladesh, started by one boy who had no knowledge, no strategy, but willingness to take a leap of faith to throw a bag in a river. You can't multiply that strategy. That's just someone that says, I'm willing to say yes, no matter the cost. That's not going to work with the elder board of the logistics. They won't.

They won't. You're like, hey, we just don't throw a bunch of bags in the river. I mean, there's a lot of paranormal stories like that where like earthquake will happen and then like this like this thing in a church is like untouched or everything burns down and its church doesn't burn down. I don't know. I've heard a lot of stories and seen a lot of things. Nobody questions who built the Mexican pyramids. When it comes getting great Mexican food, Luke, where do we turn? Well, I want to make it at home, Nate, especially like when you get to the end of the day and you're like, did you get anything out?

Is everything frozen? What do you got? What's for? dinner. It's the question at my house with my kids and my wife. And the easy answer to that's been Home Chef. You want some Mexican al-Alottes casidias? I do. They got them. Really? Yeah. My last order was that. It was steak strip Euros with Tiziki and hot honey crispy chicken, sesame garlic steak strips. I got all the thing. And it's super easy. This is the easy button, right? Between vacations and sports and activities and just trying to keep everyone fed and healthy.

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Homechef.com slash blurry must be an active. to receive free dessert. Get that free dessert, baby. When I was in Nepal in 2015, we went to the top of the monkey temple in Kathmandu, and which I believe is a big gateway for the enemy where man and entities have made agreements. And we just, yeah, it really was. We pray that God would knock it down. A month later was the big Nepal earthquake and the monkey temple fell down. Oh, man. So it was crazy. That is crazy. So I mean, is this shaping like, like your sort of courage to keep going, to try to do things, to push through and it's like, it's kind of exciting.

100%. That's a more exciting life to be living. Every time you say yes to God in a leap of faith, you see that he's trustworthy, and then he gives you something a little bit harder to say yes to that you couldn't, you didn't have faith for before. And so the leaps I have made to outsiders look random, but to me, it's my journey of my relationship with the Lord,

of seeing his goodness and his trustworthiness. Are you struggling at all in the midst of this? Are you kind of like, or you see the vision or you see kind of where you're going? Or are you just kind of having little bits of growth along the way? Because I think when you are a young Christian, you're very romanticized your faith. I'm going to be a big deal for the Lord. Billy Graham, baby. Yeah.

I'm the next. And it doesn't always go that way. No. you know, sometimes it's just sitting on the back of a bus, feeling defeated in the middle of somewhere, like, what am I doing here? Yeah. You know, I think the Lord makes it really simple for all of us is, he tells Peter at the end of John, it's like, well, what about John?

It's like, don't worry about John. Worry about what I have for you. And so each person listening, God has a, like the mission is the same, but the assignment is different. And no one on earth complete the assignment that God has given you, whether it's 30-fold, 60-fold, or a hundred-fold. It is yours uniquely that God has chosen you to do. So the best thing that any of us can do is just like learn to listen to the voice of God and be obedient to what he says without playing the game of comparisons.

And seeing that that is the highest thing that God has called us to do. Do you think there's a lot of, you know, when you tell your story about performative, I can't help think that's a human problem, but it feels like a lot like a man problem. Like, I think we all, in some measure, feel the pressure to perform and to, you know, whether it be in our vocation or as dads as, and even as sons, right? Like, there's this idea that we want to make our dads proud. Even if you had not a great dad growing up, there's this something inside of us that said, we got to live up to this measure or we've got to be better than our father was or not, some people not be our father, right? Totally. And it's really interesting because I think this people, whether you know it or not, like, I think a lot of men will fall into this as far as like, okay, it's, there's a standard that

is unreachable that we set for ourselves. And I really, when you said that, kind of spoke to me, it was like, there's, I think there's a lot of men that deal with this, like that it's, you never, never can be good enough or you're just trying to live up to make your dad proud or to make your family proud. And how do you, how do you break out of that? And people are listening and saying, like, I'm caught in that. I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to perform. I'm trying to be, trying to make God proud.

It was your words, right? Yeah. We all feel that. We all feel that. You know, yes, does God have good works for us to walk in? Absolutely. Does he want us to push ourselves to our limits? Absolutely.

However, if that's built on the wrong foundation, of earning, proving, rather than, I am absolutely nothing, and Jesus still came for me. I was his enemy, and he loved me. He has adopted me, called me a son or a daughter. If it's off of that foundation, we are going to, we're going to destroy our lives. We're going to burn out, we're going to wreck, we're going to make it about ourselves. But if we come back to that place, and I have to come back there every day, we're human. Like I, every time I get stressed and anxious, I have to go on a prayer walk and remind myself,

wait a minute, God loves me like crazy. He really purchased my life. I don't have to earn, but I get in that mode constantly. And so we have to rubber band back to remind ourselves the truth of who we are in him. Like he really is the resurrection in the life. We really can't trust him on the other side of this tangible physical material world that he's going to be there when we take our last breath. Yeah. And so the freest place we can be in doing the good works or are pushing ourselves to the limit is only when we know that we belong. Yeah. And we're beloved. It's kind of funny how the Western Christians think, too, is because we think, well, we're going in to help them and God helps everybody. Yeah. And I remember the first time I did

ministry at camp and one of the guys got it's like, you think this summer is about you ministering to like high school kids. But actually you're going to get, this is going to change your life more than it's going to change. That was exactly my experience of me in YWAM overseas. You're like, you kind of like white night yourself. and they're like, oh, we're going to help save these people and do these amazing things and serve them. And God's like, we're really not that impressive. No.

And we're not the Savior's going to these other nations. And if we do that, then I don't want to condemn and say you're wrong. I'm going to say maybe just rechange your perspective on what, what does God really calling you to do there? And first and foremost, whether at home or overseas or whatever profession you're in, yeah, is take time to listen and say, Jesus, I know you're already working here. how can I join you in what you're already doing? That's the humble approach to take is I'm not coming here to do the work.

You're already working. Yeah. How can I join you at that? We just had episode with the guy. It was in Burma, right? He was doing it. Marcus Young. Yeah, Marcus.

And he was kind of, he had this juxtaposition with these Baptist boys going into this. And they're the super spiritual jungle, you know, and they're like. Animistic people. Yeah. It's just like this. That's a tough. Yeah. Like guys who just don't listen to the radio.

with suit and ties and good old Baptist boys rolling into the jungle. And they're both on opposite ends of the spectrum. Super spiritual meets kind of fundamentalist and God's working on all of them at the same time. I think that's such a cool vision. Because it's like, whatever you are, wherever you are, you're going to learn something. Whether you're the teacher or you're the student,

we're all going to get our minds blown. And I think that's, I think we have, in the West, we have sort of this elitist perspective. Like we're better than everybody else. And God's like, nah. We're all a bunch of kids in the back seat. Now I'm driving. Get and get in.

Zach, what else? I mean, what other miraculous things have you seen on the mission field? Like, what other stories come to mind when you're talking about God's showing up? I mean, the Bible story is incredible. I was going to ask at the beginning. I was like, oh, we got a waterproof bag, you know, if he's going to go across the river. Yeah. And that's, in fact, the miracle, right?

Which is incredible. Yeah. I mean, there's so many stories, and they all circle back to Jesus really is the one true king. In every nation, every religion. And one thing, I remember asking a former Hindu, I said, how do Hindus who never hear the gospel, who are in the farthest remotest place, how do they have hope?

And he said, Zach, here's something I found to be true again and again and again. if people want truth more than they want their own ideal, they always find Jesus. It's just beautiful. And I've heard, like, here, there's a tribe in the Congo who I'm friends with, and their history of their people group is that Jesus appeared to them in the 1800s and shared the gospel.

And so when the first missionaries came, they said, we've been waiting for you to complete this because we met him, and we've been believing ever since. Wow. That's what he does. Yeah. Yeah. So one of my favorite, yeah, one of my favorite people I've ever met, his name's Topin. Topin lives in, I think it's called the Cinderbed Islands and the northeast of India.

Cannibalistic still, that region. And so far this motion boat, you have to take a boat to even get there. Topin was Hindu. His wife was Hindu and she became deathly ill and was dying. So they went to the Hindu witch doctors to try to do the spells didn't work. Took her to a mosque not too far away. That didn't work. And so they, they, they, they, they, laid her down to die. And then Christians that were part of our team came in. This would have been, I want to say, 2009, and they prayed over her instantly healed, instantly healed. But then as they started sharing the gospel, the antagonism and the entire tribe rose up against them and said, if you keep sharing about this Jesus, we're going to kill you. So Toppin was gone one day,

sharing the gospel in another village and catches word that his wife is in danger. And so he goes back, and this is just a little warning for listeners, goes back and finds his wife hanging in a tree dead. They murdered her. And so Toppin flees, he leaves and he's weeping and he's like, God, why? Why is this happening? And the Lord just spoke to him and said, Toppin, I'm never going to leave you. I'm never going to forsake you. And his response was, then I can't leave you either. Turns around, goes back to that village. the Lord protects him supernaturally for two years sharing the gospel. And all 22 people who conspired to kill his wife, even his own family, he got to baptize with his own parents. Wow, bro. Listen, we talk about conspiracy theories all the time on the show. You know, big tech,

big pharma, big fill in the blank. We don't really talk about big dog food. Did the giants have dogs? They much they had big dog food. Well, maybe that's the dire wolf, Nate. They did. A big dog food companies spend millions making sure that nobody asks what's in that dog food. You know, dogs across America are developing tumors, organ failure and dying younger than they should because of their food. They need some food that's alive and healthy for them, right? And that's why thousands of pet owners stopped waiting for someone else to fix it and started adding rough greens. Rough greens was created by Dr. Dennis Black. It's America's number one dog supplement packed with live probiotics, enzymes, amegroils, and over 20 vitamins and minerals, all natural.

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Get a free jumpstart trial bag today. You just cover the shipping. Go to Rough Greens.com and use discount code blurry. That's RUFFFF Greens.com discount code blurry. Rough Greens makes any dog food better. Honestly, there's nothing, even though we saw the miracle of the healing, there's nothing more miraculous than forgiving enemies when they killed your own family. Because what we're taught to hold grudges to have unforgiveness, well, that's too far gone. But these are the, and Tappen, he didn't go to the seminary. He didn't have all this knowledge. He's planted over 400 churches in this region in over almost two decades. This man walks closely with Jesus and he hears and obeys.

And so here's a really fun story. So this is closer to Mumbai. And again, this was a former Hindu family. They came to faith. They're sharing the gospel. Village, like classic pitchforks and fire saying, if you do this again, we're going to kill you. And they chase them and his family and his kids all the way to the edge of the jungle.

So they all get split up and go into different areas of the jungle and sleeping for for weeks at a time in the jungle. The father one night, it was dark in the jungle. He was trying to find a place to sleep, found a tree, found this rock that was a little bit more comfortable, lays his head down. When he wakes up in the morning, he realizes he was laying on a jungle. giant snake. That rock he thought was a rock was just a giant snake that was laying there. So the Lord protected him from that. But then he's walking through the jungle trying to find his family and a tiger walks by. And the tiger's about 20 feet in front of him, just stares at him

for about 30 minutes, just right there face to face looking at each other. Wow. And it walks away. So the tiger's going to come back in a moment. So they end up finding the entire family in the jungle and decide that they're going to try to escape out this other end. Well, when they get out, someone saw them and the village came and surrounded them. Right when that happened, the tiger came out of the jungle, came in front of the family, and laid down. And it stayed there until every last person left. And the moment the last person was out of sight, it stands up and goes back into the jungle.

You know, I mean chills, bro. Dude. It's insane. It's insane. You know, it's like Brad Pitton. What we have here is a Mexican standoff. It's funny. you say Rocky because speaking of 80s and the the Rocky movie of how Rocky made you know

Sylvester Sloan made Rocky and he's like I'm going to be Rocky in the movie and he pitches it it's coming out I just saw that today with that there's the trailer the movie how he made the movie yeah it's like Sylvester Stallone was coming rocky and it was turned down like uh yeah like dozens and dozens of times but this is a guy it just reminds you some people have this faith where like I'm going to go in like rocky I'm going to be like I'm not going to take no for an answer. Oh, I did it. And it's kind of like you. And I'm going to be 34 years old and I'm going to play soccer. I've never had before. Like you kind of have that missionary blood in you. Yeah. Like, yeah, maybe I can't play soccer, but I'm going to go into like enemy territory and I'm going to

dominate this place with the, with the love of God in me and through the work of Christ. But it's like, a lot of us don't have that rocky spirit in us. Yeah. Like we're going to make this happen. Anyway. And people may not know what we were talking about, Nate, because we haven't got into this in the episode. I'll jump in and share it. He's World Cup dad. Well, World Cup. I mean, yeah.

So, I mean, our listeners here, Zach, former Liberty Flame football player, let's go. Slot receiver. Change his side to go to the, to football, as the rest of the world knows it. I mean, you were basically you said you're an out of shape father. You pick up soccer for the first time at 34. You kind of viral. I mean, some of your videos were like 20, 30 million. views of, I mean, tell people how does this even happen? Because it's wild. I mean, the crazy

thing about what is happening with you is that there's this whole conversation right now. The World Cup's going on as we're recording this, right? This whole conversation about why the U.S. has failed, right? And it's like, well, we don't have the youth academies. We don't have these ways kids don't start playing young enough and all these different things. But you do the exact opposite. You're like, hey, come along on my journey. I'm a, you know, mid-30s dad. I'm going to pick up a soccer ball. and try to make, make it. And, dude, yeah, I don't even know where to begin. Dude, walk us into this.

Yeah, I mean, I genuinely, I want. Why? I want my life to only be explainable by the power of the Holy Spirit. Okay. And so there was this vision that kind of happened before all of this where I was walking around our high school track. And the Lord just showed me the stands full of people jeering at me saying, chanting, where's your God? Where's your God? Like mockingly.

And there's something inside of me that says, I want in my life people to see that God is exactly who he says he is. And Jesus is exactly who he says he is. And so long story short, how the genesis of World Cup Dad started. I was sick, chronically sick for six years, 2014 to 2020. Doctors didn't know what was wrong. Like I was stressed out. I was anxious, throwing up every morning, hugging toilets in Oman and Qatar and Kenya, asking God to take my life in absolute misery. Insomnia. Insomnia. panic attacks every night, cyclical hopelessness, despair, and depression, absolutely rock bottom. And in 2020, in the middle of a panic attack, the Lord just spoke and said, and I act like in the short little time we're here together, I've said several times that the Lord spoke. Most of the time he doesn't. Right. But these are the moments where he has. And he said, Zach, I'm here with you right now. You're not going to die. You're going to be okay. And I just lifted up my hands and started worshiping him because I just believed. And that was the last time I had that stomach problem. Last time I had a panic attack. After six years. After six years. When doctors tell me, you're going

to have to live like this. You'll never be able to play with your kids. You can't ever work out again because it makes you nauseous. So it was like chronic illness. My stomach was completely inflamed. When I went to the ER, they scoped it and like, yeah, it's just swollen completely. I couldn't drink water, eat rice without just being sick. It was a miserable existence. My wife didn't know how to help me. I went from this athletic, you know, leadership driven, confident dad to my life is terrible. I can't play with my kids. And I just have to accept this is my lot in life. And even if it was, God is still good, but it was painful that that was my existence.

And so I had gotten out of all of my habits, all of my disciplines, like just in the, just out in the garbage. And so here I am 34 years old. And the man I see in the mirror, I don't like what I'm seeing. I don't like the dad I've become. I don't like the father I've become. I don't like the man or son I've become. And I project myself 50 years out from now from now with nothing but regret. I know God has placed this in my heart with this standard.

And I have chosen to live comfortable and small accepting my lot in life. And so I just, I'm like, I need to come to Jesus moment. I go to a coffee shop in northern Virginia when I was with my in-laws and called Dopeo Bunny. Shout out if you guys ever go there. And I'm listening to this pot. for Christian men and dads. And it's called Lord of Creatures. Yeah, absolutely.

The tagline of this one is equipped to lead, hard to kill, easy to love. Every man can resonate with that. We want to be equipped to lead. We want to be easy to love. We want to be hard to kill. Just freaking warriors. And I wasn't that.

And there was a guest on the show saying, why have we have men accepted the dad bod? Why have we accepted the status quo? Why have we played it comfortable when God has called us to push ourselves to the nth degree trusting God? physically, relationally, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, that God is exactly who he says he is. So as I'm sitting there in that moment,

I just had to be honest with myself. I am not that man and it looks like I never will be. This was such a strong charge. I realized if I got up from that chair and left, I would never change. So I prayed a dangerous prayer. I prayed, I said, Jesus, do not let me move from this chair

until you bring the fire back in my heart. And thankfully I'm not still sitting there. He answered it pretty quickly. But I felt in that moment like I was struck by lightning and resolved began to bubble up inside of me. And so I get my journal out. I'm like, he's doing it. I don't know what he's doing, but he's doing it. I believe right now that he is working in my heart.

So I'm like, God, whatever you want me to do right now, I will do it. And he said, soccer. I'm like, God, whatever you want me to do, just tell me what to do and I will do it. I'm like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Wow. Not on my radar. I think I hear from the Lord. He said something crazy.

Didn't have an inkling to really want to play. and my God, what? And he reminded me, like, you know how things can flash really quickly through your heads? He reminded me in that moment when I played American football. That's when I had the best discipline, intimacy with the Lord, habits, time management. Like, okay, that makes sense. But soccer? He reminded me again, I was going to, I'll just say Southeast Asia, that next month

to be with one of the former FIFA directors of that region, who's using soccer to plant churches in underground areas. Wow. And Bhutan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Is that, uh... I'll tell you after the show, because he needs to be a non-ness for sure. You may, you may know him. Yeah, I think we do.

They continue. And so I'm like, okay, if this is for your name and for your glory with the lowest-hanging fruit to get access in every country for relationships for the gospel, I'm in. Wow. But remember, the podcast was about pushing yourself to the nth degree, to the literal limits and edge. Like, okay, how am I going to push myself in? soccer to the absolute edge. What's the crazy most impossible delusional goal I can think of?

And of course, the most crazy delusional goal is to make it to the World Cup in four years. This was 2022, the end of December. I have four years to bust my butt like a crazy man to see how far I can get. And so. Did you ask God? You're like, what's my goal? Exactly. Nobody should have. I had that Nintendo game. Goal. And it was one of the hardest games. I mean, this is wild, though. I mean, do you play soccer as a kid? I played in preschool and maybe kindergarten where I was still picking the grass

and sitting on my butt, but no. And everybody who's ever played, I played till eighth grade, right? And then I played what I would say is real football. Although I'm passionate about soccer, an American soccer especially. I mean, but the hardest thing with this is is the difference between being just a casual,

like play in the, like, the beer league on Saturdays and doing it competitively is like his foot skills. It's like actually having the technical ability. Being a guard and a kicker. Being a guard and a kicker in high school. Yeah. And playing Carpet League basketball. Yeah.

It's probably the toughest technical sport in the world. There was not an inkling in me that thought, I can do this. This will be easy. I had a very realistic mindset of I'm going to look like an idiot. I'm going to be humiliated. People want to make fun of me. And I need to do this because the fear of man needs to die. So you leave the copy shop.

What do you do? Do you go buy a soccer ball and go here we go? Well, the first thing I did was go home and tell my wife. And this will show you how amazing my wife is. She said, I'm all in, let's do this. Wow. I'm convinced I could have said, I want to become a hat maker. Yeah.

And she would have said yes, because she saw in my eyes that I was back. And she had been longing for that. She did. And so the first thing I did as I went to my in-laws basement, found this terrible. soccer ball and try to do simple toe taps, couldn't do it. Like, this is hard. This is the most basic thing and I can't even do it.

And so I'm 40 pounds heavier than I am right now. I'm like, okay, I need to burn the ships behind me. I need to make this public so I can have accountability. Never wanted to blow up an Instagram. What I did want to do is to publicly say, here's my goal, here's my journey. I'm not turning back. So for really five months, I posted my training every day with zero followers. And no one knew.

wasn't trying to make it go crazy. But as, this is a way to have accountability. It's the countability. I'm checking in every day. That's it. Yeah. And because I knew if I did that,

then it would make it harder for me to, to quit. If I didn't tell. But also that vision of like everyone jeering you was that's where you, you open yourself. That's, yeah. You open that door.

And there's been a lot of that, you know, and the truth is we can't, we can't take people's rose petals or their thorns. Both will kill you. Like we need, I had to stay consistent on what I knew the Lord told me to do. And so what I did was I made a habit tracking sheet.

Yeah. like, okay, I'm going to break this down into bite-sized micro goals. Here's the macro goal, World Cup. Micro goals is I'm going to, every day, did I get enough sleep? Did I weigh in? Did I do my devotional time with the Lord? Did I show up for my family today? Did I do my weight training? Did I do my soccer skills? Did I have any cheat meals? I'm just going to track it every day, not for perfection, but did I beat last week's percentage? How are you managing this like working as well? Yeah. So the time management and having a kid, having kids and all that. I mean, Yeah. So if I, if I do this and my family's worse off than I failed. Right. Because the whole point was to become a better man, father, husband. Yeah. And so I had to do this in a time management way that blessed my family so that they were flourishing. So I started, I would put my kids to bed at 7.30. I would make Kimmer's coffee the night before, put in the fridge, go to bed at eight, wake up at four, put the coffee I made on the stove on the burner for 20 minutes. And that was my secret. I took a 20 minute nap right when I woke up. The coffee would be nice and hot.

and then 4.20 to five is just time with Jesus. Took a 20 minutes. That's like special forces. It is. You could put yourself to sleep for 20 minutes to wait down with you. It was beautiful. Bro. And I would just have just time with the Lord, undistracted.

And then from 530 to 7.30 or 8, I would go and I would train. Do it every day. Then I would be back before my family would get off to school. And my wife and I, we started a school. So my wife's a principal of a private school we've started. And then from 9 to 5, I would have my regular work day. And I would lift over lunch. I would skip lunch.

That's crazy, bro. I did that day after day after day. And so here's the progression of what happened. And so many miracles along the way I won't get into. But I went from playing co-ed recreational, non-competitive soccer, absolutely terrible, terrified to do it. But I started to get better. Then I joined an amateur league and terrified to do that, but God used that, started scoring some goals.

What are you playing at this point? Stryker. Yeah. I tried to pick a position as difficult and technical as it is. and technical as it is, that I had to learn the least amount of skills. Midfield or a defender, you have to know a lot more skills. You could be fast. Yep, yep.

And thankfully, like, I, growing up in the athletic world, I'm very fast, I'm still very fast, even at 38, quick, smart, understand spacing as a receiver. Just like the disciple, John. Yeah, that's right. And so then I get it. In the back of your mind, are you thinking this is all for the gospel? Always. Always.

And you're like praying to the Lord for strength? Yeah. Natural Libre? Yeah. Praying for him to bless my body supernaturally. Well, the funny thing is like, natural Libre, we make little subtle jokes about it. But that's a true story. Yeah.

He wrestled and gave all the money to the orphans. That was a true story. It's a true story. That just made it all better. Yeah. If it could get any better, it just did. It did. So, I mean, you're playing, you know, he's wrestling for the Lord.

You're playing soccer for the Lord. Yeah. And that's your, that's like the biggest mission of all time. Bro, I mean, it's a long way to go from like, I'm signing up for like in where we live, Nashville co-ed league. Yeah. To, indoor soccer.

To professional. I would have chose defense because I like to contact, but that's just me. Yeah, me too. You're also a lot bigger than me too. I'm not as fast as I used to be. I was a fullback and everyone got mad because I was just kick it as hard as I could. It's like, kick it to me. No, I'm kicking it all the way into the goal from here.

I mean, so what happens with progression? Are you, I mean, like, what's going on in your, in your mind, in your, in your prayer life here because are you still saying God this is crazy like I'm still saying it's crazy not good at this. How old you? 30? No when this is happening. 34. Okay. Yeah. So what happens when you join in amateurs? This is like you're 35, your year into your training. So when I when I was 35 in 2024, I get a DM from a Brazilian football club and they're saying we want you to come down here and train with our pro club for a month. And like either this is fake. They want my kidney or they don't realize I

I suck. Do you have any social media presence of this time? Yes. So my first real went viral five months into... Come to Brazil. Yeah. That's a funny. That's a bad thing.

That's an inside joke. But anyway, yeah, come to Brazil. And so I respond to them and I tell them, guys, I'm really bad. That's not a good idea. And they respond back. We know you're bad. We want to help you. We want to invest in your story.

This is amazing. Like, hey, we got a deal. We understand where we're out. Are they paying you? They paid all expenses. Okay. So people say, like, you pay to play. No, they literally paid for me.

for my food, for my stay, my hotel, my travel, all my gear. They did all of it. Why? In exchange for the social media presence, right? No, I didn't even post anything about them. Interesting. They just wanted, they just wanted me to come. That's just like a little bit of a miracle then in some ways. It really was. And so I every step along the way, I've been terrified. And so much of courage isn't not being afraid. It's just trusting God in the midst of being scared out of your mind. What happens when you go viral? A lot of things happened. One, I had to fight a lot more of my internal battles of imposter syndrome, all the people that, I mean, anything that someone could say about me, they've said about me. So I had to face, okay, how do you

bless people and love people? I'm like, I'm not, I'm not going to fight people online. And so my goal with every person that commented, as I was able to, was can I bless them in such a way where they'll at least want Jesus more? Interesting. And it's crazy. A lot of times I would have people when they would say the nastiest things and I would DM them and say something kind and pray over them. They would say, actually, I'm just kidding. I want to be your fan now. That's happened so many times. And so offense is a choice.

I don't have to be offended. But it has absolutely forced me to surrender my reputation. The fear of man, rejection, failure, all the things I really care about. I want to control my reputation. You're like a modern Johnny Appleseed out there. I don't know. That's where your brain goes. I do know that story. Well, no, you're just dropping...

Your apple seeds everywhere. You're growing apple trees. Yeah. That's it. I mean... It's not a true story, by there. There was no John Appleseed that did that. Oh, man. I mean, I'm sorry to burst your bubble. So even... I was told he was real. In Brazil, this is like bringing some of like, okay, how's the kingdom working all of this? In Brazil, we got to share the gospel with our teammates, and one of the trainers and coaches we led to the Lord and just weeping at the club giving his life to Jesus.

And that's the most special part to me is the relationships along the way. So what was it when viral? I'm just like, because I don't know familiar. The very first one that went viral was just a training video. The very first one that went viral was just me training. Here's my goal to make it to the World Cup. Here's where I started. Here's my progression.

I see. I'm just really simple. And the progression videos and the before and after videos have been the best. Yeah. And then the hard part is how do you post what is genuine and authentic rather than what I no will go viral. Like procure, yes, you're playing the algorithm, right? Yes, yeah.

And there's a part to that. I mean, that's where the eyeballs are and that's why it's there. So you have to play the game a little bit, but how do you say genuine to the message that you're living even in that space? What's your perspective on like the things that God uses to move, you know, his message forward now that you kind of see this? Yeah, there's a story in the Old Testament, a guy named Shamgar. Shamgar had an ox goad in a field and Philistines would come around two by two and he took them out.

I think it was like 500 Philistines he took out. And to answer your questions, I'll say this. Shamgar used what he had, he started where he was and he did what he could. So in whatever we have, God wants to, what's in your hand? What are you stewarding that you can use right where you are? Not later, not a future if I just had this. No, God wants to use what you have in your hand. a Indian boy with a bag of Bibles. God used it. You know, so God wants to use us right now,

not tomorrow when we have different set of circumstances. A desire to wrestle. Oh, here we go. Get the Nacho Libro mascot. Well, no, I mean. So I want to know this. Where's your, so you go from co-ed to amateur? Where is your game at this point? Because I want to keep this ongoing to your story to where we are now. Where is your game at the point that you go to Brazil? Is that you just playing amateur soccer in Indiana? Yeah, just amateur at that point. And when I went to Brazil, I would say I was definitely not confident and yet enough in my skill. I was able to pass okay. I was able to move fine. At this point, I was fully athletic again, but couldn't shoot, couldn't do long balls, didn't know how to play defense, just not ready.

And so it really pushed me while I was there. By the end of my time in Brazil, my confidence went way up a lot. I was able to pass a lot better, shoot a lot better. But Then here's the moments that are really amazing. Right after that, I got asked to play for TST, which is one of the most well-known, is the most one-known seven-on-seven tournament in the world. It's aired on ESPN, Pat McAfee shows there, and I'm playing for the Indiana Hoosier's alumni team. Didn't even go to IU, so that was a blessing. You're a ringer.

You're a ringer then. No. No, but our team, we made it to the final four. And so these guys were on a whole other level at me at the time. I'm lucky to even be on the roster. But what's cool is Mark Cuban actually posted a picture of me holding up our Indiana signs we made it to the final four. Like never in a million years would I have a bingo card of me playing soccer in Indiana

Jersey and Mark Cuban's posting a picture of it. Are these visions like, are these the visions you saw originally, like coming true? So yes and no. What I saw from the beginning was that God, he never promised me I would succeed. I never thought God spoke this, therefore this will happen. What I did know is that what God was going to do would make me the husband and man I should be. But I absolutely believed that God was going to work miracles because I've seen him do it. I knew he was going to.

So the journey was important, not the destination. The journey and the process, who we become, not what we accomplish. You try to enjoy the journey. Yeah. And I'm learning to do that. And so after TST, this is the seasons that people really don't know about where there's three months of nothing. Like, all, God, the time's ticking, the World Cup's coming up. I need to make something happen.

The Lord kept telling me, no. If you try to force something, you'll take credit. Wait, fast, pray. And so three months of silence. And finally, I just training this. I'm just training every day. Like, even to this day, I have not missed a day besides rest days. Like, I have committed to the process.

And so in August of 24, I'm fasting, I'm praying. And the Lord says, call Reggie. Reggie was a friend of mine that was in Brazil. that I met there. His brother played in the World Cup, 4-Team USA, Marisa Doe, if you know that name. Yeah. His brother's Reggie do. He's no commentator. Yep, yeah. So Marisa, Mo is a good friend, and but his brother, Reggie's an even closer friend. And so I call Reggie, I don't know what I'm supposed to do? I'm stuck in my journey. The Lord said to call you. He goes, no way. I just started fasting today and I just asked God literally just now, what do you want me to do? And then

you called me? I'm like, this sounds great. He's like, why don't you come out to California where I live in Rancho Cucamonga area, East L.A. And we'll just pray and see what God wants us to do. Two days later, I'm there from Indiana. And he's like, you know what? I actually know the manager of the USA Pro Indoor team. He lives down the street. Let me hit him up and see if we can grab lunch.

That sounds like a great idea. So go to lunch, share my story. He's like, this is exactly what the youth in our country need to hear of these types of stories of grit, perseverance, and dreaming. Because of that, I want to put you on our USA team. that's playing against Mexico next month and I want to put you on the roster and I'm not going to debate

I'm just like deal for indoor for indoor and so I get out to the car with Reggie I'm like did that just happen? Because that never happens he goes that was Jesus that just happened so from that moment in the locker room at the USA game I had been sharing my testimony with people on the team some of them were former US men's national outdoor players and so the coach said all right before we go out who wants

to pray. They all point to me. And so I realized, okay, I'm never going to get time with these. I'm going to get time with these guys. I'm going to prophesy identity over each one of them. And so I just, I just pray as much love and life over each one of these guys. And it just wrecks them. Like so much so that they tell me that during the game and after the game. So I say all that to say this. I got invited to the pro combine for indoor that next month. I ended up getting drafted in the third round professionally for the empire strikers. So I was stunned. Like I just got drafted professionally, two and a half years of playing.

The coach comes up to me and he said, I saw you in the locker room that day with the USA team. He was there. And he said, I saw your leadership, how they immediately respected you and when you prayed over that team. And I want that in our team. So like I'm just going to be. This is 36? I was 36. And so just to be.

He didn't drafted 36 is wild by the way. Wild. Yeah. It's never happened at any level. And. Because you're old. I am old. For athletics, brother.

You're like the knuckleballer of Tim Wakefield, bro. Yeah. Man. I mean, what's the oldest soccer player just from perspective? There's a 59-year-old pro player in Japan who's just an animal. But he's the exception. He's an anomaly. I mean, Ronaldo at Watt 41 is really the limits.

I mean, Tim Ring played for our national team of 38. 38, 39. Yeah, he was visibly slower. I love our national team, but he was, you can tell he was older. What about, I know that's an outwire. What about like normal retirement age? 34. really it's like all sports professional sports like you're 1435 well I don't know

in your 30s I mean so I think ping pong for a long time lose different it's not like golf throw let's do some curling yeah I mean I started at the age people retire generally like it's just crazy and so it's just as hard on the body like well you it's a young man's game like indoors even harder because it's it's pretty much astro turf with a lot of cutting so just on your joints it's way hard on your your ankles and knees well like basketball back and forth soccer. But like Steph Curry will go a while because he's shooting threes and hanging in the out and, you know. But if you're inside, you're a center, you're getting beat the shreds every night. You're going to get some knocks. Yeah. So you get drafted. And I'm like,

and I'll say this too just to share more amazing Jesus stories. At the combine, we were there for three days. And I started having Bible studies with the guys at the hotel. And it was just so powerful. We ended up baptizing two of the guys came to Christ in the hot tub at the hotel, which was. beautiful. Then we started a Bible study on our team. We all lived together in the same resort that our owner owned. And so I got to see, I got to baptize and lead one of my teammates to Christ, started a house church on the team, took one of my teammates to the Solomon Islands, which can share that whole story in a minute. Oh, yeah, we got some giant stories there for sure. And so that then led my teammate I took to the Solomon's as Brazilian. And he's like, I want to connect you to our Brazilian

president of the six-fix World Cup because he he wants some insight in how to have better leadership locker room, which is really my expertise. I'm the locker room guy. I'm the GPA locker room guy. And so I call him up and long story short, he's like, I actually want you to play for Brazil. Can you do that? So funny story. He said you can. We allow a foreigner to play on the team in this federation, sign the contract for six months. I'm like, I'm playing in the World Cup. up for Brazil for the 6-5-6 in Germany. And then that president gets fired because he was doing some other things

I don't wanna get into. And then the CEO of the entire federation, I was talking to him, he said, yeah, you have to be Brazilian. I'm like, that makes so much more sense. Yeah, you know. But he told me that I didn't have to be, so I signed the contract.

So long story short, he then connects me to the USA coach and I hop on a Zoom with him. The USA president ends up being a believer, loves my story, has some other, teammates that knew me and then approved for me to be on that roster. So now as of literally last week, I'm on Team USA 6 v6 playing in the World Cup in Germany. Bro, it happened. It happened. So when is this when is the six v. six world cup? Because we're in the middle of like the traditional world cup right now, which is. So this will be August 28th, September 6th. Okay. And so

we'll be playing in Essen, Germany. So did I make it to the FIFA World Cup? No. Did I make it in a highly sanctioned 40 million people watch it on TV World Cup? Six Fees. God did it. It wasn't me. And people say, well, you're not good enough. Others aren't getting the chance. I actually agree with you. I agree with people that say that.

I think this isn't a story of my skill, how good I got. I think this is a story of God will use anybody who's willing to be a seed to die, uses the weak things of this life to shame the wise, to show that we actually can be that Joshua's and Caleb's and to go and slay the giants, literally and figuratively. so that we can say that this is our God. Yeah. Well, God's going to use a stone and a sling to take down an army.

You got it. And also, you know, I remember taking a sports psychology class. The dynamic in the clubhouse is a huge part of winning, right? So huge part. This is why a lot of teams won't sign players that are considered toxic. Grants of talent, right? Yeah. We're not putting that in our locker.

Yeah. I know my role. Yeah. You're bringing the Holy Spirit. out there on the field with you, you know? KYP, so you know your personnel. But I mean, there's this whole aspect. I think good coaches understand that it's part psychological, it's part spiritual, it's part

talent, skills. I mean, how are you managing like your desire to be a great soccer player with like God's mission and calling on your life? Yeah. You know, I think in the West we have really compartmentalized what ministry and mission looks like rather than realizing God calls us wherever we are to be. be a disciple maker, which is relational, which is how can I, whoever I'm with, how can I help them hear God's voice, obey God's voice in very simple, reproducible ways. So for me, it's the same,

whether I'm at the school that we started, whether I'm in the Solomon Islands, whether I'm on a soccer team, whether I'm at the grocery store, is whoever I'm with, I want to point them to Jesus and equip them with simple reproducible ways to replicate that in their surrounds, their ethos of people. And that, yeah, just real simple. So what's your favorite highlight? Break it down. I want to hear this. Like you go from a guy at 34, never played soccer to this happens on the field and you just stand there and go, did I just do that? I think what bewildered people the most more than me. I didn't think about it much at the time, but they came back and told me later, my very first professional practice with the empire strikers, I'm terrified. And we go out there and we're

were scrimmaging and they put me in for the first time. And I go in and I score a goal almost immediately. And everyone was like, what the heck? And so looking back, they're like, we didn't think much of you. Like we were like, why is this guy on the team? And then you came on and you immediately scored a goal. We're like, how did that happen? And so looking back, just the Lord's favor, even on moments like that were really, really special. Another huge moment was just the first time I wore the United States jersey playing against Mexico. Just being on the field. Just even being on the field was a twilight moment of, is this really happening?

I almost had to remind myself, I'm in the field, go play. Yeah. Because I felt out of the body experience, almost looking down. And it was surreal. How is this affected your family? They have, like, my wife's not here to testify, but she literally on Instagram yesterday, I testified a lot on how everything I've done behind the scenes has caused my family to flourish. And so it's caused me to have, as I changed my mind, my eating, my working out, I've had

better clarity of mind. So I've been able to show up more present with my family. And I've been able to, in this last four years, we've made a family mission statement core values that we do every Saturday. We go through one of our core values. our kids do what we model, not what we say. And so because of that, I've seen my kids step up, begin to practice more, read the word, praying.

And that's been the coolest part for me is they're doing what they see mom and dad doing, not saying. And so they're practicing hearing God's voice. Every decision, major decision we make as a family, we come together in the table. And I don't just say, hey, daddy's going to go do this. I say Malia, Natalie, Judah, Megan, my wife. let's take time to listen to the Lord and then whatever he speaks to us collectively

that's what we'll be Are your kids playing soccer? They're studs. They're going to be way better than me. That's so good. So like soccer's like the Catholic Church of sports. That's a good comparison. It's like everywhere.

What do you think soccer, what does it mean to you, the game? Because a lot of people write off things like this, especially Christians like, ah, we don't partake in things of the world. We're on this mission over here. It's an incredible tool and a terrible master. I think it's the lowest hanging fruit in the world for the gospel. It's the global language. You can build friendships faster than anything else with the game of soccer.

It's instant understanding, mutual respect with the game. But beyond that, I'm shocked how much I enjoy training it. Like, if I see a soccer ball, I have to go play with it. It brings the kid out of me, you know, just like the childlikeness. And so it's helped me to dream. and play again. And the Lord took me back in one of my hard traumatic moments of life. I won't get into what that was, but I don't know if anyone has gone through any type of deliverance stuff. They say, where was Jesus in that moment? So I imagined Jesus in that moment. And he was on this

vehicle, call me over to him saying, let's go play. And my, well, why do you want to play Jesus? He said, soccer. And so every time I go to train or play now, I see Jesus as my training partner as an act of worship, not just like there's a sport I have to do that's separate of faith. No, I'm doing this like Brother Lawrence, you know, where if you know that book of practicing his presence, everything we do if we give it to the Lord for his sake is an act of worship. We can clean as an act of worship. We can do our job as an act of worship. And so for me, it has just been filled with joy of, remember when I was sick for six years, I couldn't do a push up without getting sick. I get to push my body. I get to,

find out what extremes I have. That is a gift of God that for most of my life I took for granted. So my entire paradigm has changed. Jesus out there on the field with you, man. Wow. I just angels in the outfield. Angels, dude. Well, I think the disciples played some games. What games? Christopher Lloyd just flapping. Just imagine being the disciples going up against Jesus out there, be like, man, he's winning all the time. He doesn't miss. Yeah. That's crazy. What games do you think they're playing? You know what? I am sure they did because like if anyone has seen the chosen, and there's an episode of them playing games together. Jesus invented joy.

Jesus invented childlikeness. So I have no doubt whatever games they were playing, he was so present, so engaged, not saying, hey, this, we gotta be serious, we gotta go. And it's like, he's fully there enjoying the moment with the people he loves. And I think that is very easy to look over because we try to be so serious and somber,

which there's a time and a place. But there's also a time and a place for, Let's enjoy what God has given us. Let's enjoy the fruit of our labor. Let's enjoy the witness of God and one another. Yeah, I think there's a temptation to see that God doesn't care about those things. And he does. He does.

And you see that more now with your story, like kind of like something is, you know, pre-34, silly as soccer. Everyone hates this because we're not calling football, right? They do, yeah. Someone's upset right now. But then after the fact, you're like, you know, you know, I think it's easy for us to just get very fundamentalist and say, these are the only things that God cares about. He doesn't care about any of this other stuff. And I'm, when I become a Christian, I give up every single thing and almost like have this

like a life that isn't full of joy. Yeah. It's kind of a burden. Yeah. And I think the spirit of religion can come on a lot of us. And we don't, we don't see Jesus that would care about a soccer game. There's nothing more evil and soul sucking than the spirit. of religion and it's so subtle. I hate it. I hate it so much because it was a large part of my life. And it destroyed me. It destroyed peace and joy for my life in the name of something good. And but what I have will have come to find out both biblically and experientially Jesus cares about our basement prayers and our sealing prayers. He wants to deeping our basement prayers. What we say is insignificant and raise our sealing prayers, the ones that we say are impossible.

He cares about all of it because he cares about all of it. us. And so when I think about how do we go about this and not slip in to the spirit of religion, we have to see him as father and friend. I believe he's Savior. I believe he's Lord. Without that, you know, I'm toast. But I have come to find him as friend. And when everyone left me in a season in my life. I was sitting by the fireplace. And I just felt him come next to me and just getting chills thinking about this and saying, I won't leave you. And in that season, I knew him as Lord. I knew him as a savior. I knew him as the one. I had abandoned everything through. But in that season, I knew him as friend. And that changed my perspective dramatically. That's powerful, bro.

Dang. Dude. I wish this was live. I wish everyone was watching this right now. I will be at some point. Well, I just, it just feels. so relevant to this moment right now, like where we are and the games and everyone needs that message of hope right now. And what's what I think is really cool in hindsight, never would have known this looking forward is I'm legitimately just an average dad from the cornfields of Indiana. And so that gives me hope for every single person, like Second Chronicle, 16. Just a shepherd boy. Truly. Like there's nothing special about me and I don't want to pretend that there is.

She's a small town board. And I love that about me. I love that apart from him, we can do nothing. But Second Chronicle 169 says, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth. So just get that picture, just God's eyes going back and forth. And it says to give strong support to the heart that is fully committed to him. So we're talking about the God who breathes out stars and universes and galaxies and the

smallest of ants and atoms, the one who sees everything. And you're telling me this. of heaven's armies wants to give me the strong support of heaven if I give him my full yes. Yeah. And that answer is yes to every single person that would take him up on the invitation. That he wants to do dramatic and wonderful things in your specific assignment. If you just say you really are the treasure hidden in the field to abandon everything for, to give up the grain of sand of this life for the beaches of eternity.

He is worth that. It's so good, man. It's inspiring. It is. And I'm reminded that, like, as you've reviewed, the scriptures and read the scriptures that some of the most incredible things come out of God asking some of the most ridiculous it would see things like put a baby in a basket in a river. Put a fleece out, make it wet and everything around it dry and then make it dry

and everything around it wet. Walk around a wall and scream and shout. Dunk yourself seven times in the river to, you know, not six, not five, not once. I mean, it is, I think God is asking us for to believe. Yes. Right? Like, just believe. It's crazy as it sounds. You know, I can do this, right?

And I think sometimes we get caught up in our, in performative. Like, and I think maybe that's where the Pharisees missed it all. They had mastered the performative. Yeah. But in mastering the performative, they missed the Messiah as he stood in front of them. But that's like the hardest game there is. It's the hardest game. But it's also, as you said, it's the world's language.

I made me think I lived in an orphan. in Thailand for about a month way up north. And I remember there's about 10 orphans that lived there and we were on mission with YWM. And every day in front of the orphanage, the kids would play soccer with two rocks and a ball and it was next to a Buddhist monk temples. The monks would come out and play

and they all played soccer. It was the language of the world. You don't need much. You can need a couple rocks and something you can kick. They need to be a ball. It could be whatever. But this is, the encouragement I hear too is that like, God puts you where you are.

for the mission of the kingdom. So whether it's asking, God's asking you something crazy like to play soccer you've never done before, whether it's just you go into your job, your nine to five, the places that you are, back to the conversation about like watering the grass where you are,

is that that can be our, that can be the miraculous place that God uses you to for the kingdom. You know, it doesn't, it might be asking you some things that are ordinary. Yeah, that's it. Like God uses ordinary people because he's an extraordinary god.

100%. This is a least qualified. This is like a massive butterfly effect you've kind of created here. I mean, have you had, can you tell us some like wild stories of other people who've been inspired by your story, maybe like a pro player or someone walking up to you and be like, yeah, or just anybody that, what are some of the crazy stories that people have attached to your journey? It's been overwhelming.

Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of stories, I mean, thousands of stories of people, DM and me of. And it's gone so far beyond soccer. I had a guy that said, I was addicted to crack cocaine and I saw your story and I realized that there was still hope for me. So I gave my life to the Lord and I've been clean for six months. And now he, this person is leading men and children and helping them overcome and be empowered. Like just what? Like a soccer dad can inspire that. And countless soccer stories. there's been pros that came up to me that have said, don't get down if people try to degrade your journey

because what you have done is absolutely insane. And it's impacting millions of lives. He said, please, please keep going. You do not realize the impact that you're having. And the truth is, I don't. I don't realize the impact I'm having. It doesn't make sense to me. What happened in Solomon's?

Yeah. Yes. Well, I was going to real quick, I was going to say, I mean, that was the moment in Rudy when all the players like put their jerseys on, on the coach's desk. Like, he, he's taking my spot. You know, this kid just really wanted one moment, one chance just to play one, you know,

10 seconds of football. Yeah. And I think all of us felt like we would have quit somewhere along the way. Yeah. You could have quit a thousand times. And I wanted to. You did. I mean, in those moments, what was the difference?

Was it just? Yeah. A few differences. One was my wife. Every time I would get down, she's like, you better get your butt back up and go train. this is good for our family. So she's been the biggest advocate and prayer warrior from day one. And then the second thing was I made a commitment to myself and to the Lord about the person

I wanted to become. And so day after day, I'm like, I'm not good enough. I can't make that past yet. I can't get these skills I'm trying to get. But I've committed to this process regardless of if I succeed or fail. And so a mantra I have said to myself, and this has resonated with so many people too, if you don't quit, you win. that is success, just not quitting.

If you don't quit, you win. That's Galation 6-9-2. If you don't give up and do season, you will reap a harvest. And so just that, every time I wanted to quit, it's like if I just take one more step, if I just go one more day and just do that again and again. But yeah, I've been discouraged beyond belief. I've been sad and down and every emotion on the whole spectrum. But I just didn't quit.

Man, it's inspiring. I can understand why everyone's messaging you because I think sometimes we're all in that, you know, mindset at times where it's like it's dark. Yeah. There's no hope. And something absurd as a soccer, you know, I mean, to somebody, you know, the Western, we just don't, people just don't have that connection to the game like the world does. But we're getting there. Most people. Yeah.

We're getting there. But, I mean, it's just, it's just cool to like see it just spread out like that butterfly like I was talking. about to like other people can be like, well, I can have this kind of story in my own life. Yeah. I can be the comeback, the comeback kid, you know? Yeah. And that's in all of us to realize that we're capable of so much more if we're willing to take the risk.

And I think most people, they stop at the gate of fear of this could happen, that could happen. Or the day before breakthrough. Yeah, the day, literally one more pick of the axe, right? And then there's the diamond. Yeah. And if we can just not be afraid of rejection and failure and go for it anyways, take the risk. But we like to play safe.

Oh, man. And I just told myself, I would rather have the regret of pain and failure over the regret of not trying. And that's what got me over the hump of, I would rather look ridiculous and fail miserably than 50 years from now wonder what if. I cannot live with what if. I know. It's hard. I mean, some people have that thing in them. And for some reason, it takes somebody else to, like, doing it to then believe, oh, I can do this too.

I remember, you know, a couple years ago, a member messaged us and said, I didn't know that I liked your band. And I was, like, sitting there. And I remember that night, it was like, God reminded me, like, you put your heart in the world twice. You made music. Someone found it. Some random person found it. Then you made a podcast with your buddies. and someone found that too.

Like, what are the odds of throwing your heart out there twice and some random person finds both of your project? And it just reminded me of like... And hates them both. But it's like, I didn't even know. Didn't even know that, you know, there's the same guy involved in these two things. And I remember being in early days of playing music, probably one of the hardest things you can do.

Just getting along with five dudes was almost impossible, let alone going through your journey. and then one day it was like a win. One day it was another win. And then finally you get to the point where you're like, we were just a couple of college kids. Now we're across the country and there's 500 people singing. I remember there were a few moments when I look back and I go,

I was so grateful because we could have quit anywhere along that journey. Yeah, we didn't turn into like you two and sell out stadiums. But there was like a small group of people. They were losing their minds. And yeah, you didn't make it to FIFA World Cup. You didn't get to the top of the top. But you've got, you're in the stadium, you're hearing the roar of the crowd, and you're probably staying in there going.

World Cup 6x6 for U.S. is... I'm in all. I'm in all. Yeah. If you would have told me four years ago that, hey, Zach, in a month, you're going to be representing team USA in Germany at a 6B6 World Cup. I'd be like, get out of here. There's no way.

Yeah. There's no way. How do we get a Duke jersey? Yeah. As soon as they come out, absolutely. We need a phrase. Like, bend it like Beckham. What could it be for the Duke, you know?

Well, we'll think of a good one. Oh, think of a good one. I was on the Australian morning show and they literally said, bend it like Zach. I'm like, that doesn't sound good. Yeah, it doesn't say it. That doesn't sound good. Yeah. Duke like, isn't that like a sock when you duke somebody?

Deak. Deak? Duke. Duke like Duke. There we go. Speaking of Rudy. We're going to put that out of shirt. Rudy was also coming out party for John Favro and Vince Vaughn.

Did you know that? No. First credited film appearances for both those dudes. Also Indiana, too. He's in Rudy in Indiana. In Indiana. There's a lot of, I mean, talk about it first, dude. And Rudy is Sam Wives Gamji.

This is a full circle. Who's the greatest character of all time? Yeah. Love me some Sam. Other other than, let's be honest here. Val Kilmer as, as Doc Holliday and Tombstone. There's not a better character in my mind. I know we talked about Nick Cage beforehand.

That's more of, I mean, the actual treasure was a pretty good name. He's not my guy. The main star of the Goonies, you know. This is my wish, you know. And tell us about the Solomon Islands. Yeah. Yeah. I'll connect the dots with.

with World Cup Dad with these stories, because these have built my faith over the year. So the Solomon's was just last year and I took my friend Garrett, who played with me and my pro team there. And so I had known about Solomon Islands and the giant stories, I'm like, okay, I'm definitely asking people when I'm there.

No joke ever when I talked to there, like, oh yeah, the Giants are real. They all had stories. Every single one of them. Man. My favorite story, even though I, I mean, we were in the main city of Hanajara and so we didn't get out into the bush at all.

But my favorite story was my friend Edgar, who he's pretty much like, he's not second command of the whole country, but his best friend dad is the prime minister. So I'll just say that. He's kind of a big guy there. He's kind of a big deal. He's kind of a big deal. On one of the islands, there was all the big machinery in the middle of the jungle. I mean, huge excavators, huge bulldozers. And they took their keys, went home for the night.

That next morning, all of them were thrown off the cliff. the excavators all of like the eight huge machines were thrown off the cliff down the bottom of the river what and like there's there's zero other explanations and was there any like footprints around them or anything

I don't know I didn't ask I should have asked that that's a wild dude but do you do you have another explanation for that no no keys no one's there and they are all chucked off the cliff well that's how Bigfoot got its name because they were doing oh yeah construction in California

and they were throwing tires he was throwing tires all They leave their logging equipment and then it would all be like messed with and the footprints and people were like there's a bunch of me the story of the lore goes for bigfoot that they stopped Wow because they couldn't keep people that lumberjacks under contract they just they were spooked they wouldn't come back to work So this happened in salt uman islands yeah isn't it it's interesting though that most of the world when you share these stories like yeah of course it's like Afghanistan and giants yeah like there's a complete like in you get out of into the they all know they're all like yeah they're here this is this is just reality You know, and so they've had, there's dinosaur stories there, not part of the world, like Papua New Guinea, the Solomon's.

So, yeah, that's definitely a fun giant story. My friend I brought with me, he just couldn't believe. He's like, there's just no way there's giants. I'm like, ask them. They all know they're here. Yeah. And when you start to have an actual biblical, supernatural worldview, it's not hard to realize that this is absolutely true. Yeah.

It's not a hard jump to take. The Bible talks about giants. all throughout scripture. Any more whispers are like people seeing them or just evidence that they're there? There were people there that said they had saw them.

That's terrifying. Big? I mean, any idea? Oh, goodness. I don't want to make anything up on the spot. I don't remember if I asked their size or not. Oh, but this did remind me that when I was in Kokomo, of all places,

Cucamo, Indiana, shout out. We were walking around trying to find portals of the enemy so that we could go close them. That's a hold of, other fun story. And we asked one person, what is the most darkest, mysterious thing you've seen here? And this person goes, why are you asking me that? I said, well, because we want to bring the kingdom of God. I said, I was at that park that has been shut off down the road about 15 minutes.

And I saw a giant, about 20 feet tall behind a tree, move the tree around, look me dead in the eye, and I just ran. Sounds like an episode we did, dude. And I'm just like- Is that Indiana? It was Indiana. Yeah. I know the story you're talking about, different area. Okay. But validates that, hey, there's some stuff there. That's my own home state. And so we didn't have time, but I want to go back to that area and see what is there. Aruba, Jamaica. I want to take you.

Yeah, we interviewed a guy that had a giant encounter with his friends, his kid in Indiana. Kind of similar. Behind a tree. It was very interesting. I remember that story. Zach, what? I mean, so World Cup, 6 v.6 World Cup's coming up in Germany. And that is like basically the culmination of your goal.

What are you going to do? If you thought about what happens after this, I have. Yeah, I mean, it really is the culmination. Even if it ended of me getting drafted with that pro team would have been enough for me. Right. So this is just God just showing off. So after this, I do have a goal. I would like to sign for first division outdoor team somewhere.

That would be like MLS. MLS would be great. Like I have great relationship with the LA Galaxy. I've played on their three on three team. I know a lot of their executive. My favorite player of all time, play for LA Galaxy at one point. Beckham? No.

Zlatan? Zlatan. What a G? I do. He has my favorite of all the all time. He has my favorite goal of all time, that bicycle kick. He's just, there's not, there's nobody likes Lata. It was funny watching the World Cup.

This will be a quick aside. We'll get back to your story. But the closest thing I think I've seen to him is Erling. Yes. And the way he plays. But that's a huge soccer. That's a deep. Burman's going to be like no one knows they're talking about.

But my favorite player of all time. And the best thing about him is when he showed up, he took out a full page ad and in LA time said you're welcome and then he played for one year and then he left and he went to play for Mann-U or Milan was it Milan was a man you we went back to man you after Milan I think did he really did he finish there I feel like that's someone's going to fact check me but he went back and played top tier European soccer after playing one like destroying the MLS for one year in L.A there's no one like not no one he's the man he's he's been fantastic in the World Cup coverage Yeah. So after the World Cup, would love to play for First Division team. Once soccer's over, there's really two things that I want to tackle. One, and I've already started doing this, but it's just coaching men and fathers to get unstuck, you know, family life, fitness, getting their fire and dreams back and giving them practical roadmap how to do it. I've had so many people ask me to do it. And so I've finally begun to do that, even though that's never been like, hey, I

want to do that, but there's been such a demand. Like, okay, this could be a really incredible way to give back to have impact and to see families' lives transformed. And a lot of men really are begging for it. And so that's one area. Is that a curriculum or retreats, all the above, probably? Yeah, it'll be courses, coaching, masterminds of that sort. So I've already started it, have an amazing team behind it. And I mean, it's really what I've done the last 15 years in missions and leadership development now just getting to do it. holistically for the family. Like I'm very passionate about it. And then secondly, I want to help break the pay to play system and I've got a great way to do it. So you can't just go in and say,

well, we need to kill the pay to play system. It's already there. The infrastructure is there. You can't go slap the clubs on the face and say, stop it. It's there. So instead, how can you create a brand? I don't want to share too much online, but how can you create a brand that every purchase you make actually goes towards paying your club fees. And so creating the performance brand that I already have. I've already begun to launch it. Can you explain that to listeners, like pay to play? Yeah. So to play club soccer from a young age, when you get a chance to play pro, it's just exorbitantly expensive, between three to five grand a year. And so the filter for players in America isn't talent, it's money. Which is unfair,

which is why we're going to always be behind the other nations that have infrastructure for both people that can pay, but also infrastructure for people that can't. In the favelas and in the slums and in the hoods. We need to have it available for everybody. But we can't just say throw the system out. So we need to create a pathway where more people have access to the sport. And so that's what I want to do. And I think there's a way for mentoring in that.

There's a great avenue for the gospel and churches to. to get involved, municipalities to get involved, but then using a really high quality brand. I'll tell you what the brand is. So it's called Ion, which is the Greek word for everlasting life in the age to come. A.I.O.N. And so it's like in John 173,

and this is ion or ionos, that you know Jesus and God, whom he said. Man, that's awesome. I thought for a second you were gonna say, I had a vision of a hockey stick. And that's next. Probably the second world's biggest game. Tour cup dad coming next for golf. Speaking of like Barry's entry, I was thinking hockey's the same way.

It's so expensive to play hockey. So expensive. Yeah, I have my buddies that have kids in hockey. I'm like, that's a big game around the world too. It is. If you said that, we'd be like, man, you are on. You are on a Michigan. Stanley Cup dad.

I mean, next. That's true. Or you can start a, you can be a stand-up comedian, World Cup dad jokes. I would get fired so fast. World Cup dad jokes. I like that. Oh, I would stink at that. Or you could kind of come out with a punny book, you know, World Cup.

dad jokes. This has been really cool, man. I'm surprised you haven't used goal more. What's your goal? I did it once. That's just such low hanging for you. I know. It's really bad.

I mean, this is incredible. I'm very inspired. I think we've heard a lot of stories over our six years. And, you know, in a really not as courageous way, you know, like talking about Bigfoot was a little strange. Like, oh, we're going to use Bigfoot to like. As a gateway drug. You know.

Trojan horse, the gospel. The people, you know, places where people wouldn't listen to like a sermon or a church. And it's, to me, it's an absurd thing. You know, it's like, we laugh a lot, not because we don't believe in the stories, but because when you hear people say, I've encountered this creature, you laugh because it's like, it is absurd, yet I believe. Yeah. You know, like, and people go, oh, you guys are mocking your guests or whatever.

I'm like, no, no, no, I'm laughing because it's just, it's, it's so unlikely that this conversation would transcend into like some of the weirder places in the world, into churches, pastors, theologians. And you're like, that's something God could do, you know, take something as silly as this. And you've done it, dude, right here. I mean, you've literally brought this conversation back to Bigfoot. And so the only thing you're missing on my bingo card is to somehow incorporate Lord of the Rings. No, we already did. Sam Wise. Oh, we did. All right then. I'll incorporate it. This is amazing. You'll actually will not believe this. I'm having coffee yesterday at that, at Honest at the factory with my friend who so that's where you see everybody in Franklin.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My wife's the touring musician. So we saw a lot of friends there that we knew. But I'm sitting there with my friend Evan. And Evan, his grandpa grew up in Hobbiton before it was Hobbiton. No.

And so when one of the rings came out and they pull up Google Earth and he's like, yeah, if you scroll a little bit to the left there in Hobbiton, there'll be a lake. Yep, there it is. He literally grew up on the property that is now Hobbiton in the Shire. Dude. That's crazy. And we've made it. We can land the blurry plane. We've got all check of the bosses. Shout out to your wife who was the same wise in your life. She put you on, you know, carried you know. It's that moment. You cry in the Lord of the Rings. It's like,

I can't carry the ring, but I can carry you, you know. That's my wife. Yeah. That's my wife. And it's just incredible testimony and story. I mean, so inspiring. And I know you're not done yet. And I know you're going to be doing a lot of incredible things. And one of these days, you know, American football will no longer be called soccer because so many kids are going to want to play this game. And it's, it's incredible to... American football is not called soccer.

It's called football. But soccer will be called... What will be called? Football. And then we'll adopt. That's what I was trying to say. We'll adopt the American football, which is also, by the way, a pretty good emo ban from the other 2000s.

True. True. Yeah. Yeah, that's a deep cut right there is a deep cut. We appreciate you, man. Just want to encourage you, keep going. Thank you guys. And, you know, it's just, we're all on its journey, you know.

Some of us aren't called to play soccer, though. One of the hardest things you could possibly do. Yeah, tell everybody listening where they can find your social media account, because I think that's where a lot of stuff happens, but also where they can watch, you know, potentially watch the World Cup, or six-fee-six world cup. Yeah. So my main place I am is.

on Instagram. So just World Cup Dad. You can find me on there. Can you have you got that? I can't believe it. I also have World Cup mom that we've not used yet, but I've got it in case she ever wants to use it. I do. Hey, Honey Quit Touring. We're going to play soccer. Yeah. So World Cup dad and you can find me on there. And for the link to watch the World Cup, Saka.com, I believe, is the website, S-O-C-C-A. But if not, I can send you guys the link and put it in there as well the actual link. And the dates are where were you going to be playing? It's going to be an S in Germany, August 28th through September 6.

Okay. Yep. Man. We'll see what God does from there. Yeah, bro. That's amazing. I love it. Dude, this has been great.

Thanks, Zach. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Should I tell my Duke story?

Yeah. You should. All right. Here's my Duke story. So I'm the Duke. I think I'm sophomore in college. And I'm in this huge class at Cal Polye, San Luis Epispo. And, um,

there's this guy James Madonna who owns like the Madonna in and Sandler's in Brisbane. You have? Yeah. A funky hotel. Guys got a ton of money. Right across the street from the highway from the Firestone Brewery, also a great place to visit. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Dude, that ever had anyway? Yeah.

The tri-tip sandwich is incredible. So we're all a bunch of college kids. We don't understand anything. And he was telling the story and there was like a pin drop at the end of the story. He goes, you know, he goes, James Madonna, because this guy was like an ex-Navy seal. He was a really smart professor.

He's just a crazy guy. And he grew up with the beach boys. He just had awesome stories. And every time we went to class, like this is like a good class to go to because he's going to tell awesome stories. And he said, James Madonna wanted to do an old school cattle drive

from like California, Southern California to Lake New Mexico. Dang. And he just wanted, he wanted to do it. And he's like, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it with the Duke. You know? So he sits down with him.

And he draws, he's like, okay, you know, they work out all the details. And, you know, John Wayne shows up and they hash it out. And then, you know, he goes, all right. Reaches out, shakes his hand. And he goes, okay, I'll have my lawyers draft up the paperwork. And he goes, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't think you understand. I just shook your hand.

We're doing it. And he just, like, sat there with this draw. He's like, I'm never done a deal without signing the paperwork. But we're going. And nobody in the class said a word. And we just thought, man, that was some kind of story. Like, John Wayne shook your hand. It's going to happen.

And I don't know. Just kind of like as a young kid, you sort of made me think twice about who I am, how I live my life. And I think John. Word means something. Yeah. John Wayne was a good guy, good man. And obviously, you know, he was a human. He gets canceled too for some of the stuff he said.

but I think he tried to live out. I don't know. Just old school mentality. But the Duke, that was my story. The Duke, baby. And James Madonna, blown away. Duke is also what they call the NFL football. That's true.

It's called the Duke. Yeah. And also, John Wayne. John Wayne? It was Jackie Chan. And what was that movie with, in Shanghai Noon? That's right. It's a great movie.

John Wang was his name. Also, legendary Bigfoot squat in someone's freezer. I'm going with Chan Wang as Shanghai Noon. That's a good pull. It is a good pull, isn't it? Yeah. Thanks, Zach. We'll be watching, bro.

We'll be watching when the, uh, Sean Wade. And yeah, man, we'll be following you. Awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do after too. I think I think that pouring into fathers and men is just huge. Huge, man. Yeah. Awesome.

Appreciate you guys. Yeah, dude.