Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 555 | Jase Steps On A Snake and Pockets A Frog & Jep Reveals What He Has Been Doing In Ethiopia

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

Jase tells a funny story about a giant bullfrog jumping into his duck blind four feet off the ground. Phil discusses the peace of mind you will have when you know what kind of snake you just stepped on! Jase puts the frog in his pocket for later, and Jep Robertson is joined by Kevin Engel of https://AllGodsChildren.org to discuss their ministry in Ethiopia. And Al recalls a special memory of a young Jase firing a shotgun with a little more recoil than he was prepared for. Sign up to watch the Unashamed overtime show, only on BlazeTV: https://BlazeTV.com/Unashamed - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? All right, so we're back. Jay, so I'm still on the road. I see you've made it back home. Oh, I've been home for two or three days, Al. Now, I've been a bachelor. I've been living in the bachelor life. You're a bachelor?

Yeah, I figured. But you know what? Every once in a while, that's not a bad way to go. And then my wife came home last night, and you know what they say? Absence makes the heart grow fonder. So, hey, God designed it. And I am enjoying the process. I'm feeling pretty good today.

We went teal hunting. Well, you're at your 50s. Once you hit going, like me, going toward 80, it'll just be a little pat on the head and say, hi. That's how fun. That's depressing. I'm trying to stay positive and represent.

Quality, God, and marriages out there that are vibrant. You get a little older things change. Yeah, now that is true. That is true. So Zach's with us today. Hey, Zach, coming in from North Carolina. And I'm coming from the great state of Texas. I love Texas.

Texans. One thing about Texans, they love their state. I mean, they're proud of it. Yeah. Which kind of makes you proud to visit, you know. I've often said, if they ever, Because in their constitution, things get bad enough, like federally, they say in their constitution, we can just become our own nation. Because at one time they were, you know, they were the nation of Texas before they kind of joined the union.

So I'm like, I tell Texans all the time, if you ever do that, like, if we get bad enough, because you never know, take Louisiana with you. We'll come on board. We'll be Texiana. And we'll bring the food and the merriment. you know, we're good for that. And then, you know, we'll just kind of become our own nation. So if that ever happens, I'm on board. So all you Texans out there.

We have plenty of weaponry. God and guns. We got God and guns. We cling to them as the former president's here. Hateful to some, but to us, it's a way of life. Y'all see, the audits can see our ducks. That was your idea, Phil. You thought that was a fantastical story today.

I thought it needed to be, because we were sitting on one duck, and you see one, two, three, four, five ducks. There's a story. How did you go from one to five? Oh, Jace. The ducks lit wide on us about 200 yards, and they're just sitting there. I said, we can't get them to come up there around the decoys. We tried all morning. We called out of them, and they were just, you could see them, and they were literally just perched up standing on dry ground,

saying we're not coming over there. Jay says a particular skill set whereby he can creep through a thicket and get up on waterfowl, deer, or whatever. He can do it better than anybody I've seen. So we turned him loose and he disappeared in the brush

and he said, I'm going to try him at about 80 yards with his full-choked gun, I have. And we waited to hear the gunfire. Everything was quiet. The ducks were still sitting there. and it took him about 15 or 20 minutes to get set, and then the gunfire started erupting, and the results are on the end of that table.

It was a creep. It was a creep slowly. I got four out of five. I'm getting a little old. Four out of five. I thought I was going to get five, but I thought it was pretty good. Those ducks came from the Canadian prairies,

and they were doing fine until they run up on old jays now in the pot they go well after the last podcast beth who we just hired um she moved from dallas who's the one of our producers uh she called me said i hope i haven't offended your uncle and i'm like oh no what happened she said well after the show he hands moved the ducks and says here you take these home with you and she was like I don't know what to do. What do I do with this? I know she declined the offer, Phil,

but I'm here to make sure that you're not offended by her decline of the offer. She really had no clue what to do with a lanyard full of a thing full of ducks there. She didn't know what to do it. Well, I was thinking she might, I was providing her supper, wild ducks. I thought she'd jump all over. She was like, well, this may be hard for you to believe that some people in our culture, they don't they've never eaten a duck I guess that's boy

they don't know what they're missing well that's true I don't think I mean the bigger issue is the ducks weren't picked or anything I said you're just handing her the entire bird she just had no clue what to do I mean it's pretty much the same way if you if you handed somebody a chicken

you know just right out of the yard and said he'd go enjoy this supper most people wouldn't know what to do I mean we would because we've cleaned you know game our whole lives but most people, they don't know, they think it comes like it is in the grocery store. That's the best how God made it, you know, just, oh, I know. I told my wife, I said, look, you got to realize if this, like, something like a zombie apocalypse or whatever, these end of the world scenarios happen,

I said, you realize everybody within a 30 mile radius of where we're at, they're coming here. Because we can survive. So, I was going to tell what happened. I had something Saturday in the hunting world that has never happened to me before. I mean, I've been here a pretty good while. Never. So Saturday, we get in the blind like we have most days for a week. And, you know, because it's dangerous this time of year. I mean, when Phil told the story about me creeping,

usually I would say no when it's September and it's 90 degrees. But I'd already felt like I had a... a second lease on life this morning because when we walked to the blind this morning, because we're having to shuttle people in because we only have one amphibious rig and we can't haul everybody.

So me and old Gawin, we walked about, how far did it was it? Quarter mile. We walked a quarter mile through the mud. But Garvin stepped on a snake this morning. But I was the second man. Because we had a little bit of an argument about

who was going to be walk him first and he didn't that's the hired hands well he didn't he didn't want to I think the second man I told down many times get out there and get up on that duck line you know we're going to put the brush on you

he said well I see a cotton mouth up in there you send them young ones because they're expendable well but me and you agree that I would I would rather be the second man but Galwin thinks the second man is more in danger because he thinks the lead man would just spook him and the second man get bit so I said

okay I'll take that but I was thinking just the opposite so he stepped on a snake but he didn't know he stepped on the snake because I'm behind him but this thing just rolled up around my legs because I was right behind him but I knew it wasn't a cop mouth but still because it it was the size of you know think python but fish snake it was a fish snake looks terrible they look rough you know it's as better out as your arm rolling around my boot you know with his mouth open you're thinking you're fixing you're fixing a die. The trained eye would have said, well, harmless. But anyway, so the reason I'm telling you that is because then I thought, well, after I live through that, why not go try the creeping?

But Saturday, when I got the blind, you know, you're looking because the opening day, we had the waltz nest and different things, critters, you know, of various forms. And so I look down as soon as you getting the blind, and this blind is built up. So you feel, for some reason, safer than you should. I mean, it's probably, what, three or four feet off the water? Yep. And I see something to move.

Now, it's dark, but I have a light. I saw something moved by my boot. And I shined down, and it was a very large bullfrog sitting in the blind, facing where the hunters are. He was just sitting there. Of course, I was thinking, how did he get in here?

Because we were just there the day before. He wasn't in there. So then I went into frog catching mode. So I e's got my hand up, kept the last, and caught him. Phil saw it. Then we had to figure out, I'll put him in my pocket at first, but about five minutes into that. I was like, this is not going to work. But it was just, the rest was gravy after that.

We actually had a pretty good hunt. But I'm like, I'm taking this frog home, and I'm going to eat this frog. And Phil and Galwin said the same. thing they're like boy if you had seven or eight of them you know you'd have something but i said but i got one and so what i did feel was i cooked i cooked that frog and i savored every last morsel it was amazing top off a teal hunt with a bullfrog what else would you want out of life i cooked some some uh some home style french fries with it i had some green beans and I just had that one frog there and I just started because I cooked a whole frog.

Did you saute him on butter, a little butter? No, I chicken fried him. But he was so tender. It just was incredible. It's not every day you get a bullfrog for breakfast, supper. Yeah. Oh, it was. It was awesome.

So we had seven teal and one bullfrogh. So I have a picture. I'll show all the fans for the people who want to see it. Let's go. I had a doctorate. You've never caught a bullfrog in a duck blind before, right? That's got to be a first. No, I've called an alligator in a duck blind.

We've killed many snakes in there. We had a buzzard that tried to live in the blind. Remember that? That finally ended by burning the blind because a buzzard, you can remove the buzzer, but you never remove where he's been. It's rough. Oh. Do they smell bad?

Did the buzzards smell bad? The whole premise, it stunk. Yeah. It just smelled like the worst thing. Like dead. Like dead carcass. Oh, we tried to hunt there. So you're basically, you would shoot, gag, shoot, talk, gag.

Some would vomit. Yeah. I brought up the, uh, some kind of text. uh, chlorox, Clorox, kill the microbes. It's rough. But it's still stump.

Oh, yeah. You can't, I've never seen stink that can't be taken care of. Eradicated. There's nothing you could do. Yeah, it just, it eventually, no matter what you poured on it,

it just, it came back. You couldn't get rid of it. Yeah, it's hard for it. Yeah, to burn it. Yeah, it was quite, It's hard for people around the country, especially up north, to understand what it's like to try to, you know, hunt waterfowl when it's still hot. It's just like you described as there's so many factors working against you. We had a guest this morning.

And we let him shoot his first duck. We had one duck come in and he shot it. It took four to five minutes, but he finally pulled the trigger. And I said, well, you got one duck. and two decoys. You know, I'd have waited or moved the angle a little bit. But so then when this bunch lit wide that I was going to go stilk, he said, do you want me to go after him?

And I was like, no, we want you to survive because you don't realize this real estate here. We sent a man from Minnesota to walk 200 yards in that thicket. There's a pretty good chance you'll never see him again. Well, since he. Since he survived, we're going to have, he's with Jep today. And so we're going to have them on the podcast to tell a little bit about what they're doing. So we're going to take a break. Oh, he's going to be on the podcast?

Yeah, we're going to have him on the podcast. So we get to hear what he thinks about it. I knew that. I was acting like I didn't know. I thought I would do a good lead in for him because I want to hear an explanation why he didn't think of our decoys when he pulled the trigger. I love it. All right. Let's take a break.

All right. So we're welcoming to the podcast. Yep. I'm not real sure why you're here, but I'm sure you'll let me know. And we have... Thanks for that. Welcome. We have our man from Minnesota.

Yeah, we got to get your real name because now you have become known in the whispers of the duck layer as the decoy killer. Yes. Well, Kevin from Minnesota originally, now from Chicago, where we don't get a whole lot of... Ducks flying over, but yeah, it was delightful this morning. Yeah, you can maybe you can introduce this concept to Chicago because I heard there's a lot of guns there. So maybe they could get into hunting ducks. That would be way better than people. It would be.

Yeah. So are we going to go ahead and- Jay says the first time I've ever heard a duck hunt described as delightful. I love it, Kevin. You are raising the bar of Unashamed Nation. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. Hey, Kevin is 100% one shot, one keel.

I was impressed. Here you go. Oh, it was impressive. Now, it took a while. So what were you thinking during, what was the, how come it took so long? What he said was he said, I got three, you know, and I said, no, two of those were decoys. Oh. It's hard to tell.

You all have those fancy decoys that move in the water and create all this. So to sort out which ones are real, which ones are fake, it's tough for a newbie like me. And he just put you, kill them all. He asked before and he said, what if I shoot a deco? I'm like, ah, that's fine. And he, he did it. It's called in the duck world a ground swat. Ground swat.

Shooting the duck on the water. How much are decoys these days, Dad, do you know? Well, what did our man cost you? He, Minnesota, Kevin from Minnesota, walked in and saw me giving Phil some money for some diesel, which Phil was like, where's the rest of it? I was like, that's all I had. And I took him through that story about the widow lady, given all she had on her.

But so. I noticed you said what was on her. So you got more, right? Oh, I said, yeah, there's plenty. But I'm saying in that moment, I gave you all I had on me, which I thought would have caused. Gratefulness. Not.

Stain. But anyway, so we burned a thousand gallons of beef. There we go. At $5 a gallon, that's $5,000. And somebody says, here, let me help you out here. 400, all right? Not enough. Stark market is down this week, I guess.

Yeah, it's down. It's been down for about 10 months. Yeah, I know it. But you always take the 400 with gladness. So was then led to a discussion of what how did Phil say that? Because he said, no, when you shoot two decoys with one duck, what would you say? It cost us. Yeah, Phil said it cost us.

It cost us. A little bit of glue on the, you find the hole that the bird shot makes a hole in their head or a little bit below water level. They'll start sinking and they turn over it. So, but you can take a little glue and we can patch them up, you know. But I've seen many decoys shot in my duck hunting years. Well, you saw two this morning. Saw two this morning. Yep.

Is this getting awkward for you? It's all right. I'm happy to be the fall guy, but maybe the 10th or 12th time, I want to shoot a bunch of these real ducks. But, yeah. Now, you pull, look, I will say this. Most people, when they shoot a duck for the first time, they miss. That's right. And that did not happen in your case.

So that is something to be proud of. We were dead on. Yeah, dead on. We just usually wait, and nobody gave you an instruction for them to swim past the decoys, and then you can shoot. Because he had no chance of leaving. Because if he had jumped up, we had a shot. It's over.

We were giving you. Some duck hunters won't shoot them sitting on the water. They spook them, and they get up, shoot them flying. They think it's not sportsman like, but Phil came up with a good point. point that I believe in, and he concluded that a duck tastes the same whether it was shot flying or sitting. There's no difference. Well, we'll find out. This would have been a real helpful conversation to have this morning before. Well, welcome to our family. We say that every day. Kevin is finding out in the Robertson family, Kevin, you've heard the story about the people to just throw

people out of the boat, the kid, you know, and said, this is the way you learn how to swim. That's Basically what we do for everything. So whether it's hunting or whatever, you learn, you learn on the fly. Kevin, we're giving you a hard time, but my first duck hunt, nobody explained anything to me. They had me a board. I jumped up on the board. They said, shoot him. And I saw there was one flying in.

Now, they didn't let it sit on the water. But when I looked up, I said, well, there's a thousand just sitting here. Of course, they were all decoed. So I just started shooting everything. He was young. Well, I was young, but there was no explanation at all. So that's, you know, we're kind of giving you a hard time, but we all have to go through it. So go ahead.

Jay, I remember when you were, you were, I remember, I don't know if it's the first time you ever shot, but I remember we were up there in that Moss Lake Blime, and you shot a 12-gauge, and you were little. I mean, you were probably like five or six years old, and it kicked you so hard, you fell back over the bench. You remember that? I mean, like, you literally went. It was like something from a movie.

Like, you know, he kicked him so hard. He just went back into the back of the blind. I remember I was staring up at the sky and Phil said, what happened? And I said, did I get him? Once I pulled the trigger, that was the last thing. I saw. I'll never forget that for him a lot. So, so Jeff, so other than the hunt,

I welcome Kevin, by the way, to Unashamed Nation. But tell us a little bit about Kevin and how you guys met and what you guys do because y'all work together for all guys' children. Yes. So we actually met on a plane to Bogota, Columbia. And I hadn't met him, but I heard they hired him. And he's kind of my boss. And then I'm on the plane and he comes walking up and he's like, hey, Jeff, how's it going? And when I saw Kevin, I immediately thought, oh, crap, he's some kind of tax guy.

Did I pay my taxes? Like, I thought he was a, he looks like a tax collector to me. But then he was like, no. If I'm on a plane headed to Bocatolls, Columbia, I'm not, I wouldn't think, I would think, drug dealer or I wouldn't be thinking tax collector. I assume tax collector. I was like, oh, shoot, or some kind of. He wore like a black suit? What was it?

No, he was just really nice looking, you know, just way nice looking than me. And he knew my eyes. name and I was like oh crap we ran into something you just described like 40 people on the plane of course they look nice of you think you're having tax issues no I just was scared he scared me I pay my taxes I just thought maybe this time I didn't I don't know like so you do realize you do realize that you're famous and people know your name like there's a lot of No, I get it. But he was like extra friendly.

Like, we're friends. And I was like, oh, my gosh, what happened? But then I found out, I was like, oh, you're with all guys, chill. What's up, buddy? Somebody hollers my name out that I don't know every day. No, he didn't holler him. He walked up. I just, I don't make eye contact.

I just put my hand in there. I got it. I got it. It was different. But, yes, we met. So what exactly is all God's children if you had to explain it? We... It's out of the country or in the country or is it both?

Both. But they were an adoption agency for 30 years. Then we started getting into orphan care about six years ago. And so that's where we were going to Columbia for orphan care. I mean, what I'm doing in my real life right now, you're doing as a global mission, right? Is there a lot of aborting children going on where y'all are? And you can't help them because they take their own, they take their life.

Is it a lot of that, or at least the women are having the children, but evidently they're finding some, who's going to take care of them? Yeah, you know, back in the day, we did have a lot of orphanages. They were called Hannah's Hope at that time. But we found out it's a lot more complicated situation today. And so we've transitioned to be a more holistic orphan care ministry, not so much direct service, but more trying to prevent children from ending up in orphanages, and then also helping to care for those who are transitioning out. And also helping to change the policies of governments. So you line up, I guess, primarily women, maybe mothers that have children, but you line them up, you're what are saying,

These children need a mother and father, basically. Is that what you're all? You know, the orphan situation in the world is really, it's at a crisis point. I mean, there are numbers are hard to come by, but as many as 20 million children around the world who have lost both mother and father. What we think is, as many as eight million of those are living in institutions. And so that is a big number. I mean, think about that. It's probably one and a half times the whole population of the state of Louisiana.

That is a lot of children. And so the country that we've focused on, we're in 12 different countries around the world, but more recently we've had some fantastic headway in Ethiopia where there are over 600,000 children who are not in orphanages necessarily, but just living on the streets. I've been there. It's crazy. How young are we talking? How young are these kids living on the street? I mean, little bitty kids.

I mean, like you can see year olds come up and just grab onto your legs. How are they making it? They're not. I bet both of them don't. They don't, yeah. Exactly. Hang on, let's take a break. So you were saying that, Kevin, and we don't really, and we don't really,

realize that in America, because nobody talks about this. And dad makes a good point. You know, the rest of the world doesn't abort children like America does. Unfortunately, we're the leader in the world, or have been. Hopefully that'll change now. And so you just, you have these, you have these children and yet nobody there to take care of them. So tell us a little bit about what you guys try to do, like an Ethiopian in some of the places that you're working in. What are you doing to help these kids? Well, in Ethiopia, it's a challenge because they actually don't allow international adoptions. We work mostly in countries that do, and so we can connect them with families who want to adopt them.

But about five years ago, they made laws against any kind of international adoptions. So many adoption agencies left the country, but all God's children decided to stay. And so we figured out what can we do to resolve this issue, this problem with so many children, without parents, even though we can't adopt them out of the country. And so we've taken a couple different approaches. One is that we're trying to train the caregivers. Who do you think is one of the first ones to encounter kids who are living on the street? It's usually the police.

And so we've instituted trauma-informed care for the police. We recently had a training where police from all 11 districts in the capital city of Addis Ababa came together. They heard this training. They were so thrilled with it that we have another training coming up next month with over 300 police, government officials, other nonprofit organizations, all to learn about how do you engage with these children who have been so traumatized? Okay. That's tough. Well, it takes me back to, Dad, it makes me think about James one. You know, it says religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless as this, to look after orphans and widows.

their distress. And so, I mean, you think about it, I don't know that there's a better calling to try to do that, especially to engage where you can't. Normally, you'd go in and we immediately think adoption, but what if that's not an option? So what you guys are doing, Jeff and Kevin really is, I mean, pure and faultless religion, according to James. What kind of government does Ethiopia have? Is it a socialist government or pseudo-socialist, communist?

I'm not real sure. Dictatorship. I mean, I think it's kind of corrupt. I mean, in a lot of ways. I mean, you know. And yet we've had opportunities to build relationships with government officials. In fact, the minister of of women's and children's affairs has been in communication with us because they've seen what we've done these past five years, even though they don't allow international adoptions. And so we've, we've adopted, we've opened up a home called the House of Hope. So we team with Tim Tebow on that one yeah it's awesome how many girls are in that house there's 18 girls 18 girls yeah and we try to reunify them with like because a lot of them you know they were in a bad their parents were awful or

their mom whatever abused them and so we try to reunify them with like a grandparent an aunt and uncle you know to get them off the street and in a good home i got you that's a tough work there in Ethiopia the prime minister is the head of government executive power is exercise by the government. I was seeing if they vote. Do they have elections? If they got a prime minister, then they've got elections. Yep, by direct election.

Okay. Yeah. So it's kind of like the system, probably like Great Britain. Yeah, we found a good amount of cooperation and not only with the police, but with government officials. And so we hope, God willing, at some point, they might work out the system where we can adopt children internationally again and help to provide homes for those kids. But until that time, we are there not only providing training, but the other thing we're trying to do is identify

those kids who are most vulnerable to being orphaned. We don't want them adding to those 600,000 kids living on the street in Ethiopia. So it's like the, with our daughter that we acquired from Nicaragua, you know, she had already grown up. And, some of the members of the church had fostered her without, not officially, but just, you know, tried to help her and looked out for her. And, uh, but when she got to America, I mean, she had educated herself and gotten a scholarship to go to college here, which is amazing. And, uh, I was just like, well, we would like to have you in our family.

We would like you to be our daughter. And she was like, okay. Okay. So I'm saying even in these places where you can't necessarily, you know, officially adopt, like her, we didn't officially adopt her. But, I mean, at this stage, she's calling us mom and dad because we're probably five years into this now. But, you know, when you help, I'm just making the point when you're helping kids, you're helping kids. Yep. And, you know, Jay's what's so amazing about that is we just spent three days with her. in D.C.

And so, like, we were speaking at this church. And so, you know, Lisa and I are like, you know, our niece, Karina's here. And I'm introducing her to the crowd. Everybody's cheering. And, you know, she is our niece. And like you said, she's not officially anything, but she's part of our family, which is amazing. I mean, it really is just that if everybody does something, you know. Well, it's beautiful because, you know, we, we have something in common that we both were

adopted by, you know, the Lord. And in the first conversation, she brought that up. It was like, you know, we're all, we all have a father in God. And I was like, well, you know, somebody had shared that with her at some point and that really resonated. But, Jeff and I was talking the other day. And I, because it's, you know, a lot of the people out in the world who were for abortion, they, you know, they detach this, this fact that if a kid is born,

in tough conditions that it's almost like they're justifying it saying well you're doing them a favor because they're not going to be successful and they have no way to make it and I'm looking to this girl who you know come from the slums in Nicaragua no parents and I'm like she did pretty good I mean and so we believe you know that God creates all life and has a purpose but yep and I were talking about and you remember what you told me you told me it was a great illustration I've I've already used it twice because it's come up. You're welcome. I don't know where you got it.

Because we were talking about how people don't recognize that there's a baby, you know, the baby is a human, a person inside you. It's like they're justifying the taking of the life based on that. And Jep said, I mean, it's kind of like when you put a cake in the oven, if you were to take it out before it's ready, it's still a cake. I mean, even though it's not done. And I was like, you know, it's the most simple illustration I've ever heard. So, yeah, but it's not ready.

It's not ready yet. But it's going to be. I mean, you know, it's just the logic that people swallow. But I thought that was a real simple illustration. But it's really true that 100% of humanity would say, if you take the ingredients and you put it in the oven and you wait, a cake's coming out of that oven 100% of the time. This is one of the things I love about getting to know the Robertson family is that each one of you have found some type of cause that you're passionate about since the Duck Dynasty days and you're invested in that, whether it's proclaiming the gospel fill or taking in babies, Jace, or the pro-life cause, or caring for orphans in Jep's case.

and each one of you finds ways to support each other in that, even if you're given illustrations to help. And so it's... Love God and love your neighbor are the two greatest commands in the Bible. That's what covers it. But I think a lot of it is you just recognize... I mean, I believe God is the master at setting up encounters with people in circumstances. And so I believe, I mean, in my own way, I told you,

about that bullfrog. Most of the time, it was the first time my life that the bullfrog came to me. It was right where I sit. It wasn't down there on the other end. It was literally, I thought, well, thank you, Lord. I'm going to go home and eat this because evidently. But I feel that way like with, you know, we got a call in the middle of the night. I mean, as in after midnight over Karina.

I don't know if you ever heard that story, Al, but, you know, when somebody calls me past, Hang on, Jay's. If we did, let's take a break. When somebody calls me past midnight, it's either a wayward brother or sister who's drunk, or it's something God has sent our way. And, you know, it was the story started like, there's a Civil War in Nicaragua. That was the first of the story. There's a girl with nothing stranded in Costa Rica.

We, she has a visa. to get to the U.S. Well, you know, as far as this was going, you know, into all these details, it just felt like something big in my mind. I thought maybe the Lord is sending this girl to us. And even then, I was a little pessimistic about it, you know. But when she got there, a couple days into it, I was like, oh, yeah, this is it.

You see what I mean? It wasn't like we had an idea we're going to help, but it just recognized. Then we started looking for other operations. opportunities. I mean, that's kind of the way it works. You're like, man, there's kids out here who are masterpieces made by God. And like I said, she's helped us way more than we've helped her. I mean, she'd probably argue that. But just the grit and determination and to be grateful despite her circumstances of where she come from and not blaming anything or anybody. I mean,

it's just incredible. It's very inspiring. But Jay, you know, that continues to work because there's a lady that lives in Virginia that used to work with Zach. Their name is Pam. And she's an amazing Christian woman. She's a connector of people like you've never seen. And so she goes to this church that Lisa was speaking as a thousand women there. And of course, Karina came and was a part of it. And she'd never visited this church.

And she hadn't really found a church home since she's been up there because she just moved in. And so we introduced her to Pam. And so they get to talk and they realize she lives very close to Karina. And she said, well, Karina, I would love to just pick you up and bring you to this church if you'd like to come with me and check it out. And Karina was so excited. And I just thought, you know, it was just another step in God putting us in a position for her to meet somebody who can really look out for, you know, in a new place. Because she's new and she doesn't know anything. And she's just trying to kind of figure out her way around.

But Zach and you can speak to Pam. I mean, what better person to have in your life? life as a mentor spiritually, you know, to look out for you. Yeah. Yeah, Pam's a great woman. Yeah. It's interesting that it's the whole idea of what you guys are doing with, you know, all God's children. How many kids are in your care right now are that you're dealing with? We are not providing direct care to very many kids at this point. Mostly we are developing partnerships with agencies within the countries, providing the training for them and helping them to be facilitators of caring for these kids.

In Ethiopia, we have a little different model in that we are sponsoring kids. We're trying to identify those children who are most vulnerable, most likely to end up out on the streets. And we have over 700 children there who are sponsored by other people here in the U.S., kids who are mostly out of, they've lost one or more parents. They're coming from very poor subsistence level environments. Sometimes they're caregivers themselves. Maybe it's a grandparent or someone who's struggling through some other kind of disability.

And they can't even go to school. And so, Jeff and I, we've both sponsored some kids. Yeah, I sponsor six. And when I went to Ethiopia, we went and we, they gathered all up. They came from towns from all over for us to give them. the money. This dude, it's hard for me to tell this without, like, crying because it was, oh, it was the craziest thing. I didn't notice it at first. It was, it was, it was grandparents. And this girl was so sweet. The grandma kept kissing my hand. And she was like, oh, and she was,

she was telling me, thank you in Ethiopian, just kept saying it over and over. And I, and I was just like, thank you. You know, I was just kind of blown away. And I looked down at the grandpa's feet, his feet were backwards. Like, I don't know if that may. make sense. Like he could walk, but his feet pointed the wrong way. And I, and, and he also started grabbing my hand. And I asked the Ethiopian guy, I was like, where did they come from? He was like, oh, three miles away. That guy walked with those messed up feet. But they were so happy that their granddaughter had a chance. She was doing great in school and was doing amazing. And like her parents, she didn't have them. And it was just, it blew me away that like, how,

handicap this guy was, but so thankful. And the grandma was so thankful. And I was like, man, we're making a difference here. It was incredible. Wow. Yeah. And these children, go ahead, go ahead. I was just going to say, tell folks.

There's a time delay, so this happens here. Go ahead, Kevin. You go. Kevin, I was going to get you to tell folks how they can help if they want to assist you guys. Well, the children who are available to be sponsored in Ethiopia right now, I looked on the website last night. We have 111 children who are waiting for sponsors. And in fact, I went on the website with two of my granddaughters. I thought, this is a great way for me to teach my grandkids about how to care for the world. And I said, hey, why don't each of you look through these

pictures, read a little bit about these kids, and each of you choose out one child that we should sponsor. So my six-year-old granddaughter Peyton, she looked through and she wanted me to read about each of these profiles, and she chose the child who was from a very impoverished area, a six-year-old little girl, and she looked like she had been through a really hard time, was not wearing very nice clothes, and her head was shaved, and she assumed, well, her parents probably can't even afford to buy shampoo, so I want to sponsor this little girl. My four-year-old. My four-year-old old granddaughter, she looked at a picture and she said, I want to sponsor this girl because I like her pretty red shirt. So whatever the reason, whatever the motivation, it's a way to show them that there are other kids around the world who really depend.

They cannot go to school unless they have sponsors like us. So, yeah, on the All God's Children website, we have those kids listed and Unashamed Nation can go there. It would be fantastic if many of those 111 kids. We're sponsored and could start going to school and start having regular meals and don't end up on the streets. Yeah. There you go. I love it. Well, thank you guys for what you do.

And it's great. You said it perfectly, Kevin. Our family was dedicated to Christ and mission and ministry before the show ever came along. And this just gave us an opportunity to do even more of that, which is a great blessing. So it's great to meet you. I know when you come back, you'll bring some decoys with you. And look, and I'll tell you this, you know where the world's largest bullfrogs are? Where?

Ethiopia. They're there. No kidding. So look into that next time you're all there. I almost went down there just to check it out. But now it's a good excuse. If you could check it out for me while we're helping the kids now, let's keep our parties. But let's look into that.

Jeff, next time we're there. Yeah, let's work in a bullfuss. Do you not eat the lettuce? Let me tell you something. There's stomach bugs and there's Ethiopian stomach bugs. Don't eat lettuce. Well, I thought I was going to. Don't eat the lettuce.

Yeah, I won't eat the lettuce. I think you can probably eat the frogs. All right. Well, we're going to take a break. Thanks, guys. It's good to meet you, Kevin. Thank you. So we're back, and it's always good to see Jepico.

And I'm proud of the man that he's become and the work he's doing, which is pretty awesome. Jason, I wanted to pivot in. We don't have a bit. left on the podcast, but I want to get into Mark because we got some really, we kind of just cranked into the book. But, Dad, you had some interesting insight about timing of Mark, because Mark is recognized as the first gospel written, and Matthew and Luke took some of their wording from Mark. And so it's typically known as the first thing that was written in terms of the New Testament

or the Gospel. How did they figure that out? I read the same thing. I don't, I'm not exactly sure, but it's pretty wide accepted. I came across. I came across a few odd facts before Phil gives his, because I've already heard what Phil said it was interesting. But they say that Mark is the most translated book in the history of the world.

Now, just think about that. Really? We should have, we should have led with that. three podcasts ago. Here was the reason. Well, you just think, we're going to study a book. It's called Mark.

It's the most translated book into other languages in the history of the world. And here's why they think that's true. It's because, you know, Mark wasn't exactly writing to the Judaism audience. And they say,

the proof of that is that there were more Latin phrases in Mark than any other place. So they were kind of given the impression, you know, it was written to the Romans. And so when you, if you had to pick one gospel, and it's the shortest gospel, so if you had to pick one to try to get into a country in a different language, they just pick Mark. So that's why they say it's the most translated. I thought that was interesting. What you think? Yeah. I said that.

Plus, I was just going to get everybody's mind. Your old statement is the Old Testament, Jesus is coming. Yep. When you get to Mark, finally it says. Well, Jesus is here. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So that time frame, the weight. was 1,000 years.

You go back to Daniel when he said, the kingdom's going to come in the days of the fourth empire. You have the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, the Greeks, then the Romans, and here comes Jesus. Now, it's Daniel 7, or Daniel 2 and Daniel 7. But it was quite the wait. If you're waiting on Jesus to get there. Well, 400 years.

400 years, God didn't say a word. word, which is why I think they didn't give Jesus any credit, because I think the religious leaders thought God was done speaking. That is correct. I mean, I'm not blaming them. To us, we say, good night. It took a thousand years from the time. Or it's after Daniel, God said, I'm sending another, Jose, Joel, Amos Obadiah, Jonah,

Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zepenai, Hagai, Zachari, and Malachi. Malachi is moving the Begold post a little bit because here comes Elijah I'm going to send Elijah anybody what in the world is he talking about well that was John the Baptist in Luke 2 that said no he's going to be like Elijah powerful and all he's going to say is

because Daniel's already predicted it had come in the days of the Roman Empire the kingdom so here comes the kingdom of God and it's going to begin with a guy named Mark but it was quite, we look at it like, what in the world, waiting on something that's a thousand years off with God, it's nothing. That's why he said with God, a day, a day is like a thousand years.

Like a thousand years. So here comes Jesus and Marks. Dan, another interesting thing you described, when Daniel got that vision, you know, Israel was in captivity in Babylon. Yep. And so literally, I mean, they didn't think they were ever going to be able to go back and eventually they did. So you go back and you can read about it historically in Ezra and Nehemi when they actually went back. So, yeah, it was amazing that when they heard this, when this was, you know, first talked about,

Israel didn't even, it seemed to cease to exist, much less, you know, somehow we were going to look at a Messiah, you know, a thousand years down the road. Which, by the way, Deb, since I mentioned Nehemi, you know, our. podcast audience is pretty savvy. So one of our listeners, you know, you asked, is there any the pulpit is not in the Bible. But, but oh, contrary, one of our listeners, Nehemi 84, Ezra the scribe stood on a high wooden platform built for the occasion and read the law. So there is a pulpit in the Bible. Thank you, whoever sent that in. am I eight four Phil. Boy, he had to stretch to find it.

But he found it. But he found it. Get on a raised portion, are you, can't do any preaching? I just think you can preach the gospel of Jesus Christ without getting on the platform. Well, I think your point is still valid, Phil. But every once in a while, you find yourself where you might need to audibly get loud, so I don't find a problem with you going to a high point. How many pulpits did Jesus teach from while he was on the earth?

Well, when he was in the synagogue here, because I did some research on that, because I told you a couple podcasts ago, because I went to ancient Copernum, and one of the synagogues is still there. Now, it looks a little rough, and it's not, you know, if it rains, you're going to get wet. There was just a few pillars there. Yep.

But when I did the research there, and this is, I think you'll find it's fascinating. He went there because during the time, they would allow free speech. It was kind of like the social network of that day. You could get up and speak, no matter who you were. Which you're proving my point. Yeah, so he gives God out. Did he spend more time walking around out on the, of the dusty roads and under the trees and out in the dead.

Did he spend more time there teaching and preaching, or was it on the raised portion in the temple, the man-made temple? Where did he do most of his work from? I think my answer would be everywhere he went, he looked for opportunity. That's my point. But I'll also say this, since we're getting off the rails here. I think You don't have to have a pulpit

And to tell somebody That Jesus died for him Was buried and raised from the door How did Jesus handle it But listen to this thought Well he already seen him in the first two chapters He went He went in the city

He went to the synagogue And he went in homes Just in the first two chapters There you go So but Let me bring this up He also He got all these people

Lathered up because he was healing diseases. A lot of trouble coming from, if he spoke at the temple. Yeah, but then guess what he does? He then withdrew himself to a solitary place, which, by the way, was a common theme. But I had a moment when I read that. I thought, you know what? Jesus did this a lot.

And I thought about our own lives. We usually deem someone is doing good if they show up on Sundays. But actually, Jesus had more. occasions where he went off by himself to talk with God as he did meeting at large gatherings. So I think- Yes, the importance. I think we should make a point of that. That's my point. You should look in your life and say, you know what, am I spending more time, you know,

alone with God because you can't fake that. If you're out, it shows your humility and it shows your sincerity and your faith is really being shown there because if you went out to a solitary place and spent two hours talking to God, why would you do that if you didn't believe he was there?

Yeah. That'd be a thin line between being insane or a true believer. Yeah. Hang on Zach. Hang on Zach. Hang on Zat. We're out of time. We're over. So we want to pick this up and talk a little bit about,

pick this up and talk a little bit more about it in the overtime. So we'll see you. I thought we were just getting started here. No, we are getting started in overtime. See you there. 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

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