Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 266 | The Do Good Army, Redneck Disaster Recovery, and What You Can Do When Tragedy Strikes

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

Phil, Jase, and Al are joined by veterans Hank Barbe and Justin "Chappie" Roberts to discuss "Do Good," their YouTube series about acts of kindness and community in the wake of Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta. Phil offers a look at redneck disaster relief, and the guys talk about their experiences with natural disasters, what selfless love looks like, and how to overcome evil with good. -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Yeah, no facial profiling here today. So we got a couple of guests in the unashamed layer today. We want to welcome Justin as it is chappy, right? Are you chappy or are you Justin? Most people just call me chappy. Chappy, okay. I saw that because I watched the first episode, so we'll talk about that in a little bit. So we got chappy and we got Hank and Hank's got the bigger beard, which, actually, look, Hank's got, like, he's got like a little braid in his beard.

You know what? I didn't even realize. That's impressive. The extent of the beard. Well, it was a big full beard before Hurricane Laura. And then spending six weeks out there without running water or electricity, it just kind of got tied. And now it's a permanent thing.

Yeah. But that's kind of like the, you look, Hank, you're like like a Viking. You know what I was like? you see those old movies and stuff like when they would take it and cinch it up here and have put a big thing on top of your head combat ready now that you said it i'm going to start dressing like a viking i think you would i think you could you can you're already acts like it so my first thought was i know 100% that no one has ever tried to mug you has anyone ever tried to mug you hang no i told you that's exactly prediction true

So I wanted to start there because I watched the first episode, so I know a little bit about your backgrounds. But Hank, you went from a football coach to a rock star. You're going to have to tell me how that, how do you make that transition? Because dad went from a football player to a duck call maven. And, you know, that was an interesting story. But how do you go from football coach to a rock star?

When I was young, I was like hyper-competitive. If I went bowling with you, I was mad if you beat me by two pins. So I played football in high school. I played football in college. And then I went and joined the Army, went off on all these great adventures all over the world in the military, came home and got a job, but I was a special ed teacher. And I got a job as a special ed teacher and a football coach. And we actually took a team in North Carolina that had never won a playoff game to a state championship day.

We lost, but we were up 2814 at halftime, and we blocked two punts. They just stopped punting it. They'd be fourth down and one. They'd get two yards. Fourth and three, they'd get four yards. It was heartbreaking. And then they made us have a parade in that Sunday after that game because they were so proud of us and none of us wanted to even think about it.

Well, I'm going to tell you why you were successful because they were scared to death when you walked up and said, I'm now your football coach. I never had one so intimidating. But I had some issues with PTSD type stuff. And I was, you know, burying myself in work. And you played football. So you know that, like, that's a lot of time. And the coaches, it's more time for the coaches than it is for the kids.

And one day I hit a breaking point and I drove my truck into a telephone pole. Wow. and I hurt I broke my neck I collapsed one of my lungs broke my hip and I was hurt

so bad that the VA had someone living at my house to make sure that I was waking up in the morning and able to eat and clean myself up and she drug me out to this open mic

and I was watching all these young kids going up there and playing and I finally figured out that man if I write a song and I sing the song those guys are going to listen to what I'm saying for three and a half, four minutes, right?

And they're not going to interrupt me and tell me that it sounds dumb. If anything, they come up and say, oh, man, I could relate with that. I could relate with that. And next thing you know, I'm on a record label. Wow. And then next thing you know, I'm getting invited to play at the president's inauguration, you know. Yeah. It's just like you guys, you know, something happened that just changed your life and put you in a position that you could do more, you know. Wow. It mused became your pathway, right?

I mean, that kind of became your pathway to communicate. Oh, yeah, of course. And then when I actually met Chappi at one of the inaugural events in D.C. in 2017, Mm-hmm. 17. And he was given the invocation, and my band was the entertainment. Wow. And since then, we kind of, we've just become really good friends, you know.

and kind of finding that purpose and friendship, you know, that I guess I didn't have after the military. So Chappie, tell our audience kind of what you guys have done and a little bit about the series and kind of what led you to that. Yeah. Because I know the first two episodes I think have aired. I watched the first one, which was really good, by the way. Thanks. Very moving and powerful. So just tell our audience, kind of what you guys did.

what you're still doing. Well, it's, we got connected and actually started with the friendship, you know, because I know this, this might sound odd, but chaplains can come back and struggle with PTSD and depression too, you know, and we went through a lot while I was deployed, a lot of casualties, you know, 17 killed in action and 200 Purple Hearts out of an 800 man unit. And, you know, I put a film together while I was deployed. We released that film, No Greater Love, and then came back, and I just felt lost after releasing that film. And, well, I did the inaugural event, and that's where I became friends with Hank.

And we decided to do a morning call, just accountability and kind of check up to see how each other are doing. And it was from that call that we really became friends. And it was from that friendship. We started talking about, well, how can we use our different skills and talents to help people? because that's when we really felt like we were, you know, right. You know, he was a medic, I was a chaplain, and we felt like we were in sync when we were helping people. So I went down to Texas and we started talking about, well, how can we use our different

skills and talents to do good? And we're creative guys. And my wife suggested like, hey, just call it do good. Like, okay, we'll call it do good. And we decided to do a YouTube series and we just donate the monetization of views to the charities or individuals we cover. Well, it was the day after we came up with the idea for the series that we heard about Hurricane Laura headed to Lake Charles. So God's Tomlin.

And that's when we decided to launch it. So I came down and we started recording looking for the people who were making an impact and doing good. So saying you're from Lake Charles, right, Chappie? Originally Texas, Stephenville, Texas, but I married a Cajun girl. Okay. So that's how you wound up there. You too. Yeah, I'm an import.

you all remind me of a text in 2nd Timothy chapter 2 endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus no one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs he wants to please his commanding officer similarly if you compete in the games you know reflect on what I'm saying for the Lord will give you insight into all this. These two, they, they good soldiers of Christ, Jesus, pretty cool.

Yeah. And we were, I was drawn to the, to the title, doing good, because that's what, when a dad's, you know,

battle cries. I've heard him say that in my life, I would say 100,000 times. He'll say, why don't you just do good? Do good. Too good.

Do something good. Now, we're not trying to do great. That's other people. We just do good. also we copyrighted it uh and so you just paid you get it well you're going to pay these was a lot of money somebody's going to be knocking on your door yeah there's a lot of Bible verses that says that simple statement that's right i mean i would say they might have beat us to the punch

yeah yeah so tell me so obviously then your both of your background in military has shaped you for what you're doing now that's that's one of the things i got out of watching the first episode. I mean, what you guys went through, but also then kind of even telling some of the stories over there and then bringing that back and then the difficulty in coming back. How would you relate what you went through, you know, in your service in the military to now what you've seen, say, post hurricanes and what you've seen in these disaster areas in terms of some similarities? Well, I can tell you one thing that I noticed was that, you know, combat, that destruction is intentional, right?

But the destruction from that hurricane was worse than some of the... I was in Iraq in 2003. I was part of the invading force. We were... I was at Baghdad International Airport when it was still Saddam International Airport. Wow. Right? So I got to, I saw Baghdad right after the shock and all, you know, hundreds of thousands of

pounds of bombs. There is a city called Cameron that was just gone. there I mean 55 houses on that street there weren't even foundations to them. Wow. And but the thing that I noticed was that and it happened in Iraq too is that the people were, if someone was hungry they would find them and feed them. You know, if someone had food, it didn't matter if they were surgeons. We went to one place and there was a surgeon right next to an auto mechanic and they're serving

food to each other. You know, they were just part of that crew. that was the thing that I noticed the most was that the destruction from the hurricane. Yeah. And you know, and then you have it's fire versus water too, and they're both super destructive. Right. Yeah. What I saw in Afghanistan was that when times were at its worst and it was a tragedy or a disaster going on, heroes rose up.

And I think they almost always do. And when stuff comes at its worst, you know, people become their best. And that's what we saw here in Lake Charles. And so when we turned the cameras on, I had no question that heroes were going to stand up. We just had to go find them. And that's what we started doing is just looking for those people who were making incredible sacrifices and just to help and save others. And so these stories are going to inspire people. And that's kind of what we need right now. That's right. Something that renews your faith in humanity, especially during these times.

Well, you mentioned that because I jotted that down. You guys talked a lot about disunity, division, you know, sort of what we see in the country. And we talk about a lot on this podcast in terms of what we see in America. And yet what you saw in the response was just the opposite. You saw unity. You saw people being brought together. So talk a little bit about that because I thought that was a great theme of the first episode. You know, it's the same kind of stuff that I saw in Afghanistan, too.

Like the military is a very diverse group of people. You know, people all different kinds of faith, backgrounds, you know, religions, you know, able to come together and serve and be even willing to die for one another. And that's what we saw happening here in Lake Charles. You know, people were not worried about people's backgrounds, politics, religions. They just served one another, cared for one another. and reached out and tried to help each other. And it was beautiful. I remember there was a prayer meeting at the flagpole.

And we went to go see what was going on and then to take part. And there was a Catholic priest. There was a Jewish rabbi. There was, I guess, an imam. They really represented all of the faiths. And it wasn't a press event. That was what was impressive. to me.

Wow. It wasn't, hey, we're going to bring the cameras here to do this. No, it was the religious leader and the mayor

put this together just for the prayer, you know? And the only cameras that were there were, were us. And we just showed up because we knew about it.

They didn't ask us to come. Which is very powerful. All right, let's take a break. Tell our audience. So what do you guys kind of think? What are the future episodes going to look like?

Kind of, you know, give us a little bit of going forward what this is going to, Because it's 10 parts, right, for the series? Yeah. And you've released two. Yeah, for this season.

Right. Give us a little heads up on where we're going for folks that maybe have watched the first couple. So what kind of stories are you guys going to tell? Well, so it's going to be, it's kind of all over the place. It's looking at all the different aspects of a disaster. And so the first part was just an introduction, the first episode of who we are. the next two episodes are about the Cajun Navy.

And the next episode after that's going to be about animals. And what happens to our furry friends in the midst of a disaster and who's rescuing them. You know, who's stepping out to go and try to help them. And then it's going to cover food, you know, what's happening to, with the frequency and severity of these disasters increasing, you know, what's going on in the midst of that. How are we going to react to this type of stuff? You know, we're going to be having that conversation. Right.

There was an incredible thrift shop that became the center of a community. That actually, we got new clothes in the process. It's basically it's a variety of different things. So it's hard to kind of pinpoint, but I could go episode by episode. Well, one of the episodes that I'm excited about, obviously, because I'm a musician, is we came down to San Antonio right after the freeze. You know, the hurricane was bad. The second hurricane made it worse. But then all of a sudden, everything froze.

And it got so cold in San Antonio that the water, the city water froze. And an apartment complex burned to the ground because the firefighters couldn't put water on it because they didn't have access. to any water. Wow. I mean, it was it was hard, but one of the things was the VFW downtown in San Antonio is the second oldest one in the country and the oldest one in Texas. Yeah. But it had $250,000 worth of damage, water damage to it when the pipes burst. I called one of my friends who's a Tejano singer, but he's like a huge Tehano singer. He's got three Grammys, you know, big Tehano singer. And I said, hey man I have a rock band you have a Tejano band when in San Antonio you'll hear those on the same playlist right so I said let's play a show for him and he said sure and so we put on a concert down

on the Riverwalk in San Antonio and there are maybe a couple hundred people there but you know it's still social distance stuff just so that we could film it and try to direct some money to that VFW to help those guys yeah so it's the first 10 episodes are focused on Hurricane Laura and Delta in the aftermath. And then after that, we're transitioning to veteran and military stories. Awesome. But essentially, what we're going to be doing with Do Good is whenever there's a disaster or something's hitting hard, we mobilize and try to help and try to tell the most inspiring stories that we find. And give people a way to financially help. Tell our audience, one, how they can see it. And then also, once you watch, what can they do that then helps to be

able to raise money for what you guys are doing. So the best way to find us is go to on Facebook and look up Do Good Army and join us there because that's where we put most of our updates. And then on YouTube, you just have to search for do good. Yeah. And what we're doing is we're donating the monetization of views. That's the money that YouTube makes. And the money is going straight to our local Uniteway of Southwest Louisiana. Yeah. And then they redirect the funds to the individuals or charities that we're covering in that episode. And we're also going to be donating merchandise, so t-shirts, swag, cups, all that fun stuff. So you can look fashionable and do good. And so that's how we're doing this. But the thing that we saw that was a major problem was

a lot of these charities that were coming to give us aid were financially struggling. Because for the past year, they haven't been able to raise funds. Most of the people who were donating to them before it didn't have the money to give. So we knocked our heads together, and this is our way of trying to solve that problem. So that way, just by watching and sharing, you're still making a difference. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I think Hank said that in the first episode.

You watch and share, and then we'll make sure, you know, that we continue to raise the money. And that's pretty easy for us to do. This reminds me of Romans 13. That's got another scripture. Let no debt remain outstanding. except the continuing debt to love one another, which these guys are clearly into, for he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law. You say, how in the world could that happen?

The commandment do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet, and whatever other commandments there may be are summed up in this one rule. love your neighbor as yourself and listen to this love does no harm to its neighbor therefore love is the fulfillment of the law which you gentlemen have with what you are doing is a fulfillment of love God and love your neighbor as yourself the two greatest commands in the Bible so kudos to y'all I was going to say what's so inspiring about y'all I have a lot of military friends who struggle with PTSD and it's always hard because I'm friends with them. I'm trying to encourage them, you know, and I just don't know what to say or do a lot of times.

And so you're just there. But, you know, when I heard y'all's stories, I got this sense of you saw these dramatic things that, you know, really people shouldn't be seeing. And you deal with it because you love us and love our country and we're so thankful. for that. But then when you come back, it's like you find your lows, but y'all concluded rightfully, you know, we need a purpose. And to me, what's inspiring to me is you see that just in your two-minute opener, you saw this huge transformation process that took place that's now inspiring us. And I know, you know, fellow military comrades who are going through the same

thing. So I just wanted to say, you know, from the bottom of my heart, we appreciate y'all. Thanks, man. Thanks. Well, thanks for what you guys are doing and also sharing it with our unashamed audience. We have a large audience. We want to encourage folks to check these guys out. Check out do good because it's going to help them do more good in the future. And man, as guys from Louisiana, we're especially grateful that, you know, because our state was so hard hit that you started here.

I'm glad that God was right there to open that door for you. Some have said we have redneck leanings. I like it. Any last words for our audience? I do want to say Justin Roberts' movie, No Greater Love is on Amazon Prime. If you have Amazon Prime, you can watch it for free and get a good idea of what Justin's about. Yeah, and what led it to hear?

Chapie. You got to check out three beards. The band. The legend. Oh, that's his band. Yeah. Three beards. Three beers, not one, not two.

You get all three. Maybe we could work out where that could be our theme song. Yeah, three beards. But Al, you're going to have to grow. This is the beard I choose to have. So stay off on my bed. All right. That's perfect.

Thank you so much for spending a little time with us. We want to encourage folks to check this out. And hopefully God will continue to open doors for you guys to do good. Awesome. Appreciate you guys. Thanks for having us. It's good meeting you guys. Well, that was good.

Yeah, I mean, I was, you know, sometimes you get guest on. And so some of our Zach and some of his people had heard of these guys. And so I had not. And so when I looked up and watched that first episode, first had a trailer, I watched the trailer. And then I watched the first episode. And I was like, man, these are our kind of guys. I mean, one is, you know, obviously we love the military and, you know, appreciate people's service. But, as you said it on the thing, I, the fact.

fact that to come out of your own demons, so to speak, and I didn't know what they said on our episode was not on their show about, I mean, what Hankshire was amazing because I didn't know that he had attempted suicide, you know? Well, look, you get in that mode and you're doing something for a greater good, and then all of a sudden, it's all gone away and you're back. it's just hard to know what to do. And you already got to deal with the emotional trauma of everything you went through. And so for those guys to rise up, you know, out of the ashes, I mean, that is inspiring to me.

Yeah. I mean. I thought so, too. Wow. And, of course, you know, the fact that it's your saying, Dad, you know, is on the do good. I thought that just really fit. It is. It's the most off.

quoted person. Oh, you see it all the time. You know, it's ironic. It's Sunday. I mean, we didn't, I didn't even know this is going on. And then Sunday, you know, we have a group of people who basically work under the heading of one kingdom and they go do relief ministries. And they showed a video of in Lake Charles. And I thought the same thing. And there was an older African American woman who they just set up camp and helped that one. woman. And it was, as in tear jerking story. Oh, it was amazing. And that woman was awesome. Just her attitude. I mean, you just don't realize when you see a blip on the news. What's going on? Well, and let's take another break. But they describe it, Jay's in the, you know, in the video.

We did a video, our guys did about 10 minutes about the story Jason is talking about. And I didn't think about it at the time. But in the video, they just, describe that we had a, because we do relief work, you know, through our church. And so we had a group of people ready. They were going to go down to Lake Charles. You can't go for a couple of days till it's safe to go and then you go. So we had this group ready. Well, what we didn't realize is, you know, you don't know what a hurricane is going to do once it comes on. You're not sure where it's going to come on. Well, that thing, when it comes down the southwest part of Louisiana, they peel back. Well, guess what? The most powerful storm to hit us in 150 years. When it went over

right here, it was still over a high category one. 75 miles an hour. 75 to 90 miles an hour. So what happened was we had this whole group of people who were going to send down to Lake Charles. And then all of a sudden we got to clean up our own backyard because we got tree. How many tree on your property, dad? What did it look like?

It took three, three and a half four days to cut our way into our boat house, a couple of miles away. Yeah. Beginning in my yard and the trees were just quam, bam, hit and tearing down power line. And there were probably 10 or 15 trees within a mile stretch just to get back

to the main road. Then you couldn't go anywhere because the trees were there. So they were just right, you know, you're just driving along and you look up and there's a bull oak tree, just power lines underneath it just right across the road all the way.

So we have, our own equipment and they thanked us later the energy people because we at least got a trail that would hold a vehicle going out so and y'all didn't have power for what a week at least i mean you have a generator but i'm saying we have a generator and it was over a week out in this way it's ready to go 24-7 but all times i was a week and you know down in here you say we would not function very well without a generator it takes 15 or 20 seconds when everything goes south and the electricity is off in the middle of the night and you got a howl and 705 well that generator fires up and here we go we lost a third of our trees or they were damaged

you know at our long town house which is incredible because those trees have been there for 300 years yeah it says it withstood every other storm yeah but that that one storm a third of them gone so in this section it you say what what brings the rednecks all together at once a hurricane or a storm the other rednecks start gathering up and the equipment starts being broken out you know everybody between them you know especially us we've got enough equipment to do some serious tree cuttings you see what I'm saying yeah well I've gone on a few of those relief trips through the years you know more when I was younger but seeing it It was always life-changing.

You know, I was like, one of the few things I can do well is running chainsaw. So, I mean, I'd volunteer and go down there. But, you know, I learned something from those. We had a guy that used to head that up. Yelton was his last name. John Yelton. I remember one time we were in a bus. There's 40 or 50 of us.

And he would. We were going to New Iberia, Louisiana. I just remember he kept stopping. And, you know, I'm getting up, going to get my. my stuff, you know, here we go again. And we were just driving around. And I was sitting there thinking, well, we're spending all this time trying to figure out where we're supposed to go.

We should be down there cutting stuff. Well, right. I was like, just let me out because I was looking. The job was so massive to do. And I was getting kind of frustrated. And so I said something to him as I was getting off. And he's like, well, you got a member. I was doing that on purpose.

He said, I was letting them know hope has arrived. That's right. And, you know, it hit me that I thought, yeah, there's a psychological issue. I mean, a lot even that those military guys had to go through in their own life, you know, the psychological issue is just as important as cleaning the tree out of their yard. And he was right because people, they were feeding off our energy. in that we're not getting paid to do that. We've all volunteered because we love you and we value as a human being

and we're going to do something good here. You know, remember for the last five years in a row, the last five years, there's water that has come up flooded. We have 1,600 acres of land right now we own. about five acres, how in the last five years, stayed dry. And someone asked me,

they said, well, out of all the acreage you have, you know, what part of you own? I said the five acres that's a little higher than all the rest of it. So water's up to 20 yards of my house

for the last five years. We're used to floods, but it's, you know, we're prepared for them as best you can get. We go another route. We have to walk across to our house instead of drive and all that. You say, but you can get around it, so we're used to floods.

Well, we live in such a low state. We don't have any hills here. I mean, crawfish mounds by as high as you get. And the further you move south, the flatter it gets, you come up here. So we're always susceptible to any of these things. Jay's, I had the same reaction, because I was on that trip with you. That was Andrew, I think, was the storm. And, you know, I felt my thing was I felt like we were kind of showing off.

I mean, we went to the city hall and met the mayor. And I was thinking, why are we doing all this? But again, Yelton was a, he's a wise old veteran. He knew what we were there for as much as cutting some trees off and passing out some water was the idea to let these people know that there's people that care about you are going to show up to help you. And I think that more than anything. There were a couple of quotes that I didn't mention when the guys were on, but I wrote them down.

Hank said in the first episode, Do Good is about hope, this series. And then Chappie said, coming back from your lowest point is what this series is all about. And so I thought about that in relationship to people that are in some devastated area. I mean, the emotional toll in a situation like that is as bad as anything. Because you just got, there's no base of operate. Your house is gone. In some case, people lose their lives. I mean, it's a hard, tough thing.

And it would, you think about it, it takes some military guys who have been through war and some other things to really have an appreciation, you know, for what to do in a situation like that, which our guy happened to be that way too. Let's take another break. So, Jay's the film we did on the woman you mentioned, so what happened was we were, since we were delayed and getting to Lake Charles a while, just cleaning up our own area here with some of our crews,

we eventually got down there because, you know, we didn't even want to talk about North Louisiana, and it was bad for us, but compared to them at the brunt of it, You know, we were just kind of like, man, we're going to be okay. So we sent some crews down there. And so you always wonder, do you, in a situation like that, the task is so big. It almost feels overwhelming even to relieve people because it's like, where do we start? And do you just spread around a little money?

Because you get some money that starts to come in. Do we spread around a little to everybody or what do we try to do? So one of our guys that was kind of direct in this project decided, you know, we're one group. And we're not sure how much, you know, we raise some money. But what are we going to, how are we going to implement? at this to bless as many people as possible. And so they wound up just, they found this African-American woman who was, who was a great sister in Christ.

And her house was too small. FEMA couldn't get in where she was. They were in a lot of areas. They were helping people. So she kind of was in a left-out area. And so they said, you know what? Corey and some other people helped raise some money. And they said, we're just going to, we're going to go in here and we're going to totally fix

this woman's. house because it was just a disaster zone. I mean, just had all these holes in the ceiling. Waters pouring in from every time it rains. And her house was just basically destroyed. And so a crew went in there and the original guy came in. Then every weekend for two months, a crew would come from North Louisiana and they would work on this woman's house.

And they totally transformed it. And, you know, of course, what happened was the finished result was a place obviously that was way nicer than what she originally had, which was just a blessing for her. And so on the film, it shows when she comes in and sees it for the first time. And I don't know about you, Jay's, but that's what got me. What got me was, I thought, you know what, we're all about life change because we talk about the gospel change in lives. But, you know, there's a lot of different ways to change someone's life.

This woman's life was completely changed because some people had a heart to try to rebuild her home. I think what makes it different also. I mean, there's TV shows that capture that woman and help people, which we're all for. But it was like he said, this is nobody's fault. It's a storm. That's right. And tragedy strikes, and there's literally nothing you can do about it,

and you're just glad to be alive. And then you have people move in. I think about this Romans 12 when tragedy happens in this light. Because I don't think the intent was when a hurricane comes. You know, where's a hurricane verse? Because a lot of people are blaming God and saying, and, you know, why did this happen? But if you just read this section, you see how you should operate when that happens.

If this was like a made into a 10-point code of hurricane relief, I mean, just think about it in that context. It starts off, this is Romans 12, 9, says, love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good, which is they've made a whole, that's their mantra. on it clinging to what is good. Because every time a storm happens, the people who survive, some are helping others. But then there's always a crew of evil doers

taking advantage of the situation. Correct. Every time. So we hate what's evil. We cling to what's good. We devote ourselves to one another in brotherly love, and we honor one another above yourself.

Never be lacking in zeal. because you're always going to be struggle with depression and anxiety. But keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient and affliction, faithful in prayer, and share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality, whatever you have left, or if you come in, you bring your hospitality with you. Bless those who persecute you because people are angry. Some people are angry in these situations. And do not curse, which is hard to do with all that going on.

Rejoice with those who rejoice because in those moments, there's people that you thought were lost that are found, people who you thought were going to die who live. So there's joyous moments in there, but there's also moments with you mourn with those who mourn. live in harmony with one another, which is one of the stories they said, we tend to put down our backgrounds, our religious views, our political views in those moments, and we unite as human beings who are trying to care for each other. Live in harmony of one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceded, which is an issue about who you're going to help and where you're going to help

and which kind of people. You know, he's just giving you an image. of how to respond in life in general, but especially when tragedy starts, that it's 100% on the mark. And he goes on to say, if your enemy's hungry, feed him, he's thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on the head of those who mean them harm. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, because you think about it, I mean, something that's motivated by love,

and selflessness is always going to be so much, you know, better received than something just out of duty or what. I mean, you said, well, whose job is it to go in and help these people? I mean, that's a lot of people think that way. Instead of saying, you know what, let's just go help these people. And no, look, whether the color of your skin makes no difference in a disaster because both on those that receive, but also those that give. So the same things that divide us so much in regular conversations.

in a situation like that, nobody cares about that stuff. No. What difference does that make? I mean, and that's really the way we should just live all the time. I mean, we do it in our military, in our, you know, police force and firemen. I mean, their code of ethics, whenever that gets that line, obviously, it's a huge controversy. Sure. But most of the time, and I say most as in there's probably less than 1% of the time it doesn't happen.

I mean, firemen rushing into a house. they're not thinking what color the people are in the burning house. There's no, it's not even going through our head. That's why I said, if you can't live out Romans 12 in this situation, you're sure not going to live it out just in your everyday life. Nope. But we should be like this all the time, which, you know, we get ours from the Holy Spirit of God. But when I see other people doing these same principles, it's always good.

So there was a, let's take one last break. There was a situation here that happened during this same time frame of the storm that I thought's worthy of that. And this is, there's a guy in his family that work with mom and dad over at university. We call him Jersey Joe. And Jersey Joe is from New Jersey. Shocking. Yeah. Yeah.

Dad, I think you gave that name name, right? Are you the one that started calling him Jersey Joe? Well, Phil can't call anybody by his real name. No, Jersey Joe. And so Joe, you know, is some kind of program or something very successful. And he's lived his whole life in New Jersey, most of his life. And, you know, it's a lockdown state and it's been tough. And somehow he got, he started watching Duck Dynasty on Fox Nation.

And then that led him to the podcast. And so he and his family, we had been thinking about relocating to the south, you know, because it just, you know, north, different, you know, how people react. And so he winds up. He said, you know what? This is during the pandemic. He said, we're going to move to Monroe, Louisiana. We'll do our business from there.

And so he came down here. Two of his three kids, I think, are here with him. And one of them is a first responder. And they just relocated to Louisiana. And they started coming over there with y'all and helping out. Great guy. Great family. Great family.

So Joe was telling me, he said, you know, we get, he said, this is when we knew. He said, we'd been here one week. They'd visited us, told us they had moved to town, wanted to be a part of our church. We're excited about that. And so the hurricane hits. He said, we've been to Louisiana one week. And the hurricane comes through. And a big tree fell on their house that they just bought.

They've been in one week. In his office, which is, you know, where he does our work, that's the main, took the main run of it. So we're like, oh, wow, we get to Louisiana. Man, now we got a hurricane. He said, and the next day, 30 or 40 people with red one kingdom shirt show up. up at our house and start sawing down that tree and then helping our neighbor had some poverty down. And he said, we all looked at each other and we thought, this is why we came here. Because if we'd have been in New Jersey, there wouldn't have been anybody, you know,

showing up from, you know, trying to help us out. And so it, it was amazing that they had been here a week and immediately saw this is what selfless, you know, love looks like. And they got to experience it. And, of course, they're that way. I mean, they'll do anything. thing. Joe's just like, what can I do? So I thought it was a neat story at the time, but it also reminded me, Dad. I mean, the one thing that struck me, because you remember this hurricane hit last summer, and this was at the end of just, just terrible summer with the first it was protest,

then it was riots, and it was just, it just felt like every city in America was on fire, all the major ones. And I just remember thinking at the time when I saw this response to these hurricanes of people, especially in our state and some in our community. that it's really, it doesn't take much time to destroy something. That's correct. I mean, a short period of time, those storms came through. It only one day and all that damage, but it takes so much longer to build and rebuild, effort-wise.

Yep. And so I thought about that. That's so, you know, Jesus and John 10, when he was talking about the evil one, he said he came here to kill, steal, and destroy. And that's, that's easy. That's easy to be destructive. Yep. But he said, I came that you may have an abundant life, which is much harder to build.

And so I just, I don't know, that was kind of what I took from it this last summer when I just saw how you react to things, you know, that that's really the attitude you want to have. But it's hard, it's hard to build and to rebuild. Very much so. And it takes love to be able to do it. Well, and God is the ultimate builder. I love that Hebrews 3, 4 that says every house is very house is very. built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. He goes on to say that we are his house, which is, you know, from a spiritual perspective,

you realize that in the end, this is a volatile place, there's earthquakes, hurricanes, but it's only, it only matters because we're perishable. We're weak. Even if you avoid all these and live in a state where there's never a hurricane, well, you know, an ice storm may get you or mudslide or... It comes back down to that. And so, you know, God created us to be eternal in mind, but we go through this process where we understand who our maker is.

And I think that's what tragedy and struggle does. You realize your frailties and you realize the power of God. Love, love never fails. That's right. Well, you remember that Jesus even used disaster as an illustration for how you build your own house. Remember when he talked about it said, you know, you don't build it on shifting sand. You don't build a foundation on something that's not going to be solid. You want to build it on solid rock.

Those are principles of building, but he's saying in your own spiritual walk, you want to have something solid. If you don't have something solid, what have you got? I mean, imagine without faith, you know. and one of the things that we didn't talk about with the guys today, but it's in that first episode, is that all this happened during a pandemic where people are having to wear masks and all. I mean,

it wasn't like it was just, I mean, it would have been bad anyway, but at the same time, you're just like, well, how do we do this and still try not to get coronavirus? I mean,

it was hopelessness on top of hopelessness for a big swath of people. Well, plus I think it puts it in perspective, because you know, I mean, if someone is dying or, or drowning. I mean, you're not,

hang on, let me get my mask on. I mean, you know, it's like we're, there's other things that are threatening. And in that moment, you,

you kind of, you set aside, because I feel like a lot of people, they get hung up on the idea of preventing one thing. And there's tens of thousands of diseases and things that can happen to you, you know. Right.

So at some point, you realize where you're headed toward just the prevention of doing this is digging a hole in the ground and staying there and avoiding all people, which is what people, some people do. They go find them a mountain and they live there till they die of quotation, natural causes. I never figured that out, you know. It's like, what is natural causes? Right. Yeah, what does that mean?

Thunder, lightning, flood, earthquakes. So, I mean, but that's a great point, Joe. You think about it, what I got out of these guys, the idea that there's great risk always, and then there's great reward. And people that are willing to put themselves out there to help other people, no matter what the circumstance. He mentioned about the Cajun Navy. You know, those guys have swung into action every time.

And those are mostly from South Louisiana, but we got a bunch of them up here. The rednecks have joined the Cajun Navy. It's the same thing. Of course, like you said, there's a time for the big trucks with the big tires. When you got a flood going on, those guys are valuable. Very much so. Everybody else is getting swept off the road. If you're a redneck with a big jacked up truck, you're getting in, you know,

and getting some people out of it. And we saw that here as well. I mean, all these rescues and stuff like that. So a lot of the just natural way to live. All these people that were the power line energy people, they were from various states. They were coming from Kentucky and some from Florida. Yeah.

And, you know, they just had an army of trucks. Right. And when they got to the railroad, you know, mouth of Cypress Creek Road, when they came down in there, because they were all excited because they said, Good night. That's them old guys on TV and on the podcast. Yeah. Yeah.

So I'd go out in the yard, you know. That I'd have, you know, this cadre of them come down there. they had their bulldog there. So we're all taking pictures, you know, and then they would leave and another bunch would come down. So we added a little of that to the mix, which it helped it. Well, and I appreciated you and Mom. In the midst of all the trees down and the work they were doing. Your spirit in that was that, you know what, these guys have come from all over the country to help our community. That's right.

The least I can do is go out and take some pictures and meet these guys and appreciate them. And that's the spirit of the whole thing. And I think that's, I guess, a good way to wrap the podcast today is that, do good has good results. Yep. Everybody's better. People get help. You feel better about helping other people.

I mean, you know, so there's what, what, you said it all your life now. What is wrong with doing good? What's wrong with doing good? I like that. Amen. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube and be sure to click that little bell to

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