Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 95 | How Phil Robertson Met His Daughter

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

For the first time ever, Phil publicly reveals that he has a daughter. The story of how Phil came to know her is one of grace, love, redemption, and what it means to be a believer. Al, Jase, Willie, and Jep speak candidly about what it was like to find out about the sister they never knew they had. Jump to 28:15 to hear their stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Well, we want to thank everybody for listening. It created a problem. Our show is kind of taken off. That's why I wanted a name for the people who watch us. I call them Unashamed Nation, but that's just, there's not like you're thinking like a shame head or something. I don't know.

I was just thinking we need that. So we have some. It's a marketing guru. We have some guests. Like a name for our follower. Like we're unashamed. Everybody has a name. You know, ditto heads was Rush Limbaugh.

So what would be our name for our passionate listeners? Think on it. Get your people on it. The Philistines. Okay. That was actually pretty good. I like the old ways in the Bible. The Philites.

It's unashamed. The Philistines. This is why I forget. Willie does have clever ideas, although I'm not sure if I want to go. I tell you. It's kind of sticky to me. By the way, welcome to Willie and Jell. It was the first time we've had all four in the Unashamed podcast Command Central.

Jell was just driving by. But I was what I was going to say, so more people have been watching. Everybody's been in this panic mode, boredom mode, coronavirus. We've kind of here in our little world have kind of gotten back. It seems like we're a little back to normal. But a lot of requests started coming in. about can you do a video for this and you know will you talk to our church or so i started just to make a video like you know in these times you know we need to put our faith you know i mean i'm not making

light of it but i and then i thought that's not very personable so i told my sister and i was like you go through the emails if there's a youth group who has a request i'll do it line up a zoom meeting and they can we'll do Q&A so I did six last week in between the last time I mean from I think New Mexico was one Colorado North Carolina Maryland forgot where the other two were but it was fascinating because you're looking at Hollywood squares like but it's like way more of them I mean some of them the kids are driving you know I was telling him before they I think I'd hit a nerve and they'd pull over and just listen on the side of the road. So all I've done is the same principle we do on this podcast,

which is introduce the author of this book. Because I'm like, the words won't mean as much to you in the Bible if you don't know or have, you know, a intimate view or a closeness to the one who wrote it. I do the same illustration every time because they all have their cell phones. I was like, how many you got a cell phone? They all pick it up. And then I say, well, if someone sent you a message on there, like, meet me at McDonald's in an hour, and they weren't in your phone, how would you respond to it? And it's kind of funny, some of their responses, you know.

But most of them, it's a fearful thing. They're like, they're thinking, since I don't know this person, and they somehow got my phone, that's the last person I would go because they, the last place I'd go because it hurt me. So I use that as an example to mean because one of their questions is always what verses do you recommend for us to share with our friends or and I'm like share introduce Jesus and then we'll get to the verses. If you need verses to do that, okay. But you basically want to introduce Jesus because everything about him is good or cool or awesome. But they would have probably said yes if you had said meet me at Chick-fil-A. Yeah, I think the McDonald's is what would have frightened me. You know what's weird.

If you said Chick-fil-A, I'm all in. Okay, I don't know who you are, but sounds good. Look, you know, who doesn't want a good chicken sandwich? Here's what I like about the people who listen to the podcast. So I did that on our last podcast. I told about that illustration about the phone. So I noticed I don't get on social media very often, but the other night I was on there on Twitter for some odd reason.

And I had like seven messages from different people. that said, meet me at Johnny's. Meet me. It was different. Johnny's is a pizza place if you don't know. Yeah, that's not a country. It's not a person. But I thought, but somebody saw one person do it.

And so then like that became the thing, you know, meet me. Yeah, that was a different restaurant. So if you have a youth group or if you know of anyone that has a youth group or associated, email Jace. And I appreciate that. I'll give you a little devotional on Zoom calls. I'm not guaranteeing that. Anybody in America.

Anybody in America. If you know. Jay's just became America's youth minister. That's it. America's youth minister. He's back, baby. All that similar is going off now. It will start the process that may allow that to happen, but there are no guarantees.

Just remember there's a lot more of you than there is a Jace. I have this issue. All right, team Philistines. Get the word out. We've got to teach a youth. So tell us what y'all been doing. So what are you doing these days? I know Jeff's a Texican now.

Yes, in Austin. Work for all guys' children, which we talked about. I gave a phone call. I gave a pretty big sum of money to your charity. I appreciate that. And some others did. Some of our Philistines. Yeah, it went over super well.

Yes. Thank you, Philistines. I don't know if that's going to worry. We should go through an approval process. Try it for an episode. The Philistines are back. Phil's not saying a word about it. Dad's mute today.

It's the longest I've ever heard dad not say anything. I think the Philistines, he's thinking, I don't know about that. I'm just thinking, in fact, let's see, and I sired this person? Aren't you proud today? Word of the day is sire. You Philistines will understand that one. Speaking of sire, this used to be your bedroom. Did you sire some of your children here in our command center?

I'm pretty sure one. Did you live here? He lived here. I'm kind of weird about that right now. Just know that. I mean, this place has history. Willie turned in, was it you let him live here or was it yours? No, no, no, no.

I got this house first. Yeah, I purchased it from him. Oh. Oh, it was your house first? Yep. I never realized. I didn't know that. And now it's mom and dad's.

Well, look. Some kind of charity or something. It was gifted to them. I actually found a sense. silver ring in this yard. Really? Yeah. So did you ever...

That was that one fight that went bad. That's right. Maybe we should talk... Back to the pawn shop on that one. Maybe we should talk about that later. It was a woman's ring, so I didn't know. Did Jessica ever lose a ring? I think you sent me a picture.

It wasn't hers. Okay. Okay. He did check this. Which now, by the way, we've mentioned this on the podcast. So Jay says you and River into metal detecting or whatever, right or treasure hunting yes and it's perfect thing to do with all the virus stuff and actually last week i found two silver rings both with diamonds one of them is pretty small but one of them's

yeah really yes and now i have a friend so i was laughing so today jep is like i guess he's so into it so he's in mom's car and her middle thing has so much change in it that some of it's just glued to the middle of her bay in the car so jep's digging through there i don't know what he's looking for rare coins or silver so i was like i mean now he's doing the deep dive on mom's car that's i think that's a little beyond you know metal detecting well phil it becomes you know kind of kind of a habitual thing so like when i get changed from any place now i just make a quick run-through there are rare coins that you don't realize that are worth substantial amount of money and it's just kind of cool i like coins i actually pay my job

daughter's friends for their change in their car. I'm like, I'll give you $2 for all your change. For like $1.8. And I'll give you back your change. I may keep, you know, a little bit of it. Yeah, I do the same. I do the same thing. Even though, even the dullness of the coronavirus of nothing to do has not led me

to treasure honey. I have a quiet reach. I get changed sometimes when I pay for cash. I throw it. That's it. That's about as far as it. There are some other reasons, in my opinion. that you're probably not doing that.

It's actually pretty substantial manual labor. You know, sweating is involved. I mean, you know. There's a lot of digging. Walking around with a wand. Yeah. If that's your idea of exercise. Oh, it's hard.

You'll wake up. It does. You will be calling. This is like CrossFit Treasure. You'll be calling your PT after one day with me and Jeff. No, I've watched you. You've been all in my yard. I have.

It's not. It looks like an old man. on a leisurely stroll. You know, it's like, it's not, that's not, however you've got to justify in your mind. Exercise is not one of them, okay? You're into it, I get it. Willie pulling up one day, he's like, what are you doing?

I was like, there used to be an old house here. He's like, okay. I was it, I'm looking for treasure. Yeah, you didn't say I'm working out. But I was working out. I did find a really cool coaster in your yard from like 1950. It's like they used to give it if you bought. a house or whatever they'd give you a set of coasters that i found one's made of aluminum but it was

cool so if you want it you can have so now my yard looks like a little squirrels he's just little he digs up little holes everywhere he's a little mole he's a neighborhood mole that's what he's a human mole with a wand doing his crossfit so what do you've been up to well so you you just rebuilt camp chioka it looks awesome we did after 55 years it was time for a little update so yeah it looks awesome out there getting ready for summer camp. So we totally redid the gymnasium. We have air conditioning now, which will be awesome. Can you imagine?

So all of us just for our audience, like Camp Chioca, which I think we've mentioned Chioca before, because y'all didn't know. Because I gave the name. Jason, Dad didn't know Chiochok was Christian Youth Camp. They thought it was like an Indian folklore or something. And so we talked about the camp. And so all of us have been a part of camp. Even Dad, when he first became a Christian.

I don't know if you remember this, Dad, but you taught out there. Yeah, I did. at camp and so it's a long tradition and Corey Willie's wife's grandfather's the one who started it back in the 60s and now John Luke your son is running it so it's just a to me the neatest story that you got four generations Corey's parents met there I guess you and Corey and I met there when was the place built 1967 my word to your mother was when I taught a few courses at count Chayoka and then I think it's Chi Yoka or chiroka whatever and then i i talked like at wistak christian school i was the head of the physical

education department which was the parking lot times are hard a little little the revenue stream but really not caught up with it yet now it's a they have their own stadium and everything but in those days they were starting it like westbury road the only thing i ever said because i had taught in the public school some, you know, in between drinks. So I came out of this wild background, sinful background, and all of a sudden I'm converted to Jesus and I'm thrust into dealing with the sons and daughters of God. I'm dealing with their children. So, and I'm looking at.

I'm surprised you got that job. Well, well, you know, they went out on limb, said, how long was he repented? I mean, what do you say? So they're minor to me like I'm an. ex meth head and a murderer a repist. So, but they were keeping an eye on me

150 bucks a week, so I, you know, I wasn't burning the woods up. Oh, I think we, yeah, we just got the thing

and why they picked you $150 a week. Yeah, the only comment I ever made to Ms. Kay was she said, so how is it, you know, how is it teaching and everything

and going to the Camp Chayyoka? I said, they're the best kids I've ever run up on. I said, I said, whoever these people's parents are, these kids' parents are, I said, I'm saluting them. I said, these are the best kids I've ever been around them. I didn't know they had kids like this.

I mean, they were so disciplined, just well-behaved. They were well-murred, they were disciplined. They were just good little kids. And I was impressed. So as far as a learning tool, you repent and come out of the world and you end up talking to the children of the faithful. Well, it should have had an impact like that on it. And it did.

I mean, I was like, huh. Well, then y'all in the same vein, when I saw that, that made me say, you know what, this is real. I mean, think about the guy who's 28 years old before he ever repents, and he's not worried about school. All his school children ever saw was in the public school system. They were not too good. Hey, let's take a quick break. So Willie, so that was probably 10 years after camp started when Dad's talking about. So how many kids last year came to Camp Yoga?

I mean, in the old days, we'd have three or four hundred kids. But I mean, now how many kids that's like? I think it's a couple of thousand. A couple of thousand. Which is incredible. Like per session a week or whatever. Well, when you add them all up. Yeah.

You've got. Because they're doing a lot more sessions now, too, basically. And we've got people coming in from all around the country that come to camp, that come work for John Luke? By the way, speaking of good children, y'all were started out young. I saw you raised down here on the river bank, get older and older and older.

I remember when all of you, you know, started shaving, and whatever, checking the chicks out of y'all going out there. But I'm looking at all four of you now. You work with what group? What do they do? We raise money for orphans and do adoption. Orphans, widows, orphans. Pure and fault.

So Willie, what exactly do you do now? You're CEO, Dr. Amanda, but what do you do on the side? A bunch of things. Well, I'm on the board of Camp Chioka, so that was one of our efforts. But, yeah, we do stuff. Now I'm the evangelism director at my church. So bingo, bingo, two out of two.

So, Jace, here you step up. What exactly at the kingdom of God, son? Treasure Hunter. What role are you in? I don't really do a whole lot. I did six Zoom. meetings last week with some youth groups. Yeah.

That's fresh on my mind. You do the Unashamed podcast. And aren't you into like the song service pretty good? Yeah, Miss and I do the great singer. Do the worship. Yeah. So that's bingo, bingo, bingo. Well, we teach a class, Phil.

It's called, you'll like this. We got it from, well, I'm bringing up names now and I can't remember. I always forget his name. Perky? No, the guy, he's saying more worship songs than anyone on the planet. it help me will Alton Howard No

From Nashville The first time Yeah First time I met him Just think of a Worship song And he's He sung it

I went I met him at the Tebow event Bill Graham Chris Tomlin Thank you I mean we're actually friends

We probably were Before I just did that Yeah Sorry Chris They're so close He wrote a book You guy He wrote a book

With another fella And it was called Holy Roar Very good book We actually taught it in our class, but the name of our class at church is called Holy Roar. Which we call them. So we get to you, Al. That's three.

Three out of three, which I'm better about the whole bunch here. No, Al preaches. I mean, he's back. I'm a volunteer preacher. I'm a volunteer preacher, which has been fun. It is fun. He's a clean-shaven, man. To be a volunteer preacher.

It is, because I get to the parts of it I love, I get to do, and the parts of it I used to hate, I don't. other people do so volunteer preaching is way better than being paid preacher from from my perspective well you know every sense i've taught you know i teach classes and preach on white's fairy and i like that i don't get paid because i can't get fired either and you know it's kind of a gives you confidence they don't hire you they can't they can't fire you and they say what was all that all that about i was like get what you pay for it so you have a bill to and it's cute Phil was saying that's bingo bingo bingo bingo bingo bongo

Phil was saying something though I thought about if it would have been in the age of cell phones and all when he talked Can you imagine the kids if you just had a camera set up and get their facial expressions when they said We want to introduce you to your P.E. teacher for the year and here's Phil standing there I mean can you imagine what they thought like what in the world? Is this all about? I'd love to have seen that. I saw an old picture the other day, Dad, of you because the bowling alley used to be across the street from our church. So when we were having school there, bowling was one of the PE activities. Are you serious?

Yeah, there was a piece. That was a course? Yeah, it was a course. And so there was a picture of, somebody had a picture of me bowling, which I looked kind of like river to me. I was little, you know, I wasn't very big. And dad was just standing back there. There was arms crossed and like there were several people standing around and talking. And I hadn't thought about that era in a long time.

Did you teach, like, a bowling skill or do you just let them bowl? Or do you not remember? I taught them how to bowl. Really? You know, and how to. Did you ever go bowling with us of all the, when we went through the bowling? Remember when we went to the- Oh, Willie had the name.

Name on the ball, the farm. They didn't have a gym. I mean, and I was the head of physical education, which was my major at tech education. So. Did they have a, I mean, what were they using the bowling line? We played baseball. Baseball on the lower church bowling thing. Oh, yeah, and it burned down.

That's what I found out. Yeah, burned down. But that was there at that time, so it was just a way to, you know, with physical education time, what are we going to do? No gym. That would actually be cool. It was about taxing his treasure parking lot. I wish you had known about treasure, honey.

Boy, you could have got a good sweat out in the park. We set up a volleyball net. You know, we had the team doing that. Football, not so much, all pavement. So I was limited in what I could do. Bowling pretty good. I remember one of the things dad used to do because remember he's not at this point he's 28 29 years old he was still in really good shape and can still really zing the football so part of it was you showing off

your skills people would put things on the top of vehicles and dad would throw the ball and knock them off I mean that was like a whole session of that but amazingly now you fast forward 45 50 years whatever it's been where you fast forward the the little girls and the guys that I taught at Swatchfrey Road in the parking lot, the volleyball, and it, and the bowling, well, they're grown and have children. But I remember them as just eighth graders, ninth graders. And every once in a while, I want to walk up and I'll say, you know, I remember you when you were in the eighth grade, girl.

I said, now you have four kids? And I said, was that quick or what? She said, unbelievably quick. They bring it up all the time. They had a big time. All the, you know, Bill Smith's daughters that works at Whitesway Road and Carl Allison's daughter. I remember when they were seventh, eighth graders. And now I'm looking at them, you know, they have their own families and all that, you know.

We're all grandparents, dad. We're all grandparents now. Y'all've done pretty well, boys. I'll give you that. She's done pretty well. Four bingoes. Yep, for bingo. Four bingos.

Yeah, well, it is interesting that we all sort of have a. a ministry bent, and I guess we always have. You remember the time we put Jep there under house arrest, Al. You remember that? Yep. But I love Jep's there under house arrest. had an intervention. Intervention running with the wrong crowd. Jeff said, what took y'all's so long?

yeah i was surprised by that question i was like well that's a good attitude yeah you know yep said what took y'all so long to get down to right here i mean you know and actually it was you and zach both turned it around at the same time because they were they were cutting up together they were in college i guess or supposed to get college gotten off on the wrong path and willie you were working with the college minister at the time how long did we keep you under quarantine for about house arrest about three months yeah it was like the whole hunting season Yeah, I'll try. I just remember I gained like 40 pounds just eating, y'all's cooking.

But it was an awesome time because I remember we studied like every night, stayed the Bible. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've noticed when people make that transition, there is a process where you're kind of drying out in one phase, but then you're replacing, I think of that story in the Bible when it says unless you replace it, you know, when Jesus had healed the guy that was demon-possessed, he was like, seven times worse will come if you don't fill it up with something. But noticing that process is always, I mean, it's just weird how that has to happen. It's like stop all that, get a new motivation and a new direction.

And you use some good friends. Yeah, and good friends, your friends, everything starts changing so then you can function. Right. Because in the end, we're all weak. and it's hard to break any kind of happen. I wrote in one of my books. I'd spent 28 years under the influence

of Satan to be specific. The Apostle Paul said controlled, taken captive by Satan. I knew it'd take time to untangle all those lies and you can't untangle the lies of the devil

when you're running with the devil's children. I knew what I needed to do. So I entered, a self-imposed sort of holy witness protection program. We had already moved, and the boys from Junction City, the bunch I've been running with, they didn't know where I was living. I changed my phone number. I cut off communication with all of the people I had run with who had trained me to follow the evil one.

I stopped running around with my so-called best buddy, and I said, ground zero. I'm shutting it down. So in some ways, boys, it was kind of a self-induced evil quarantine from evil. I just got hard to reach all of a sudden. But you know, I think we all have different stories, but it's similar situations. Like with me, I mean, I looked at how you were in your former life, even though I was a little kid and it's all a little foggy.

I just came out of it with one sentence. I'm not doing that. And it really wasn't even a spiritual decision. I just said, I'm not doing that. But when I came to Jesus at 14, I just kind of tried to not do wrong, because in my mind, that was my main motivation. I'm not going to go down that road.

But there came a point where I was like, I can't coexist with my friends in that mode. And it took me a couple of years to realize. But we finally got to the point where I was like, I had to go through the same process, even though I wasn't doing what they were doing, it just kept escalating. The persecution, the arguments, the what are you doing here? And it just got to where it was kind of an evil situation. So, you know, fortunately for me, I shared why I wasn't going to do it, which was Jesus, which then planned. the seed for them for years to come to have a place to come back to, and most of them did.

You want a lot of them. You know, but that's why when we were going around talking about what we were doing, I've always looked at anybody that can understand Jesus enough to surrender to him, you know, to be baptized, they can then facilitate what happened. So I don't like it when religions tend to put sharing Jesus in a category that we're we're going to do, you know, once a year. Well, let's have an evangelistic rally, you know, and go share Jesus. I just always viewed that that's the only reason I can think of on why God allows this whole life to continue is to use us in a way. And everybody does different

things, even us, you know, for making a living. But that really is your platform for sharing Jesus. I mean, whether it's just a conversation in a hospital room and you're trying to help someone, or I've told you, I've been to, you know, functions where everybody was drunk, but me. But I would find ways to introduce Jesus because even though you're, you're just laying a foundation there that the light bulb may come on. But whenever it does, then they can say, okay, I've got to make some wholesale changes because I can't keep going to things like this and expect, you know, good things to happen. Let's take a quick break. And I've been telling you we have a story to tell you today, so we're going to tell you a story. So, Dad, since you brought up the interesting point about your former life, a couple of, I guess it's been about three months now, a few months back.

Jason and I got a letter basically at the same time. And we actually were sitting here when I was first reading it. And I'm reading this letter. Well, I was going to give the letter to Phil because it was, I had stopped at Duck Commander, I think, to get some dog food, which is weird. Did you remember who gave you the letter? Well, whoever was the reception, who you got out front there, whoever Willie's got out front there. The receptionist.

Yeah. She gave me the mail for you because some of your mail comes there. And so I was going to give it to you, but as you sometimes do when we do these podcasts, you leave quickly. And so I'm like, he got some mail at the church, also addressed to you, some's to me, some's to everybody here. So I'm reading, I got this letter out and I'm looking at it, and Jay's kind of just sitting here, and you had already, you were out the door.

Jay said, oh, I got that same letter. You had it in your Bible. So I'm just kind of just doing a quick glance at it. And, you know, it talked about DNA and, you know, blah, blah, and there was a DNA, some material in there. And so I immediately thought that it was like a lot of letters we get where people, now this DNA searches, so, you know, people are doing it everywhere. So you didn't get people that are like connected to our family somehow.

Like maybe they found a link where they're related to somebody, some Robertson from Virginia. So I just thought it was one of those. So I was just kind of, oh, yeah, somebody's related to. It may be hard for people to understand. But like when a lot of people that watch, you know, Duck Dinos and you become famous, you get a series of letters that start off something like this through DNA. I realize I'm your family member. And so you usually skip down to the bottom and it'll say if you could just,

send me the check for $10,000. Or a sign picture. I mean, sometimes. You know what I mean? And so you're like, okay. You know what I mean? Because they tell you why they need the $10,000. But you just kind of skip to the end you sell.

So you were kind of dismissing it. I was dismissing. Because you were like, well, the time doesn't really make sense. And I was just kind of halfway listening. So then I started reading a little more carefully. So just to tell you what the letter says. So basically, it was from a woman who said that by a DNA search, she thinks that dad might be her dad. Well, once we get into that, we'll start looking a little more deeply.

I'm like, oh, whoa, whoa, this isn't just, and you're like, well, yeah, I mean, that might be something to this. And so then I looked at the date of her birthday, and I thought about when dad became a Christian, because I'm kind of a family of story. And I thought, well, no, that's not, he was already Christian. Yeah, there was a little confusion that. But once we figured out... Well, you had to back up nine months. Because with Phil, it's always pre-Jesus. Because I'm like, that's the...

There was a clear dividing line for Dad. That's right. There was everything up until you became a Christian. From old man to new man. But really, look, isn't that what Christianity is all about? Because a lot of, like when I was with your old friends, we went on a... I think we were actually looking for Mayhawls one time in Arkansas. some of your old buddies were there.

I mean, this was not that long ago. But then they started talking about just things you did before, that pre-Jesus. And it was hard for me, even though I saw a glimpse of that, it was hard for me to even imagine because I was like, no, because I've seen the new man so long. So it is a difficult thing to. So Jason, I read it. I said, well, let me think about it. Let me look into this a little more deeply.

And so a few days went by. And then the more I read it, the more I thought, well, this is something we need to try to figure out. But so my mindset was I didn't want to tell mom and dad if it wasn't true because I didn't want to upset them. Like, because this is a life-changing situation if it's true. But at some point we kind of, because me and you were talking about it since we both were in on the discovery. Because we both concluded this is not one of these frivolous things we've got. Right. It looks like it may have some.

We had to pursue it. Right. So we call Zach, who's our cousin that works with our, you're producing our podcast and Dad's show. And we're trying to kind of come with a game plan. So we kind of tried to figure out a way that like one of us could do a DNA test, you know, because you were looking on the line and look, I recognized all the names of people I knew, Shores and Ivans and Ken folks.

People I grew up hearing Granny talk about. So I could see them all over there. And I was like, there's something connected here. That's when we started saying, well, there's, you know, there's something. here. But of course there was a missing line. It would have been your line and your siblings and all of us. None of us are mentioned. So I was like, how could we do a DNA test? So we were trying to figure things out. And finally, Zach and I were talking and Zach said, well, I'm just going to call her. What do you think about that? I said, well, yeah, just call her. Just tell her we got the letter,

you know, because I started thinking about it. I thought there's a 45-year-old woman out there that doesn't know who her dad is and she's looking and I thought even if it's not dad she needs to know it's not dad so so Zach called her he talked to her he called me and he was like you know I mean I don't know anymore in terms of whether it's actually true or not but I mean she's not out for anything she's not this this is a this is a she's a Christian you know and he gave me a little bit about her history and so I was like we got to talk we got to tell dad and mom we just got to go talk about this. And so I came out here to yours and mom's house.

And I told you and I showed you the letter. And of course, dad didn't remember anything, no specifics about it. It was interesting because mom remembered a lot more than you did, which the more I got thinking about that later, you were drunk the whole time and not in your right head, but mom wasn't. So like she remembered a lot of specifics. She was like, well, that could have been, you know. So there were like some little clues in there about stuff that, you know,

that were in the letter. And so finally, where I was hoping you would say, you went, you said, well, is there any way we can know for sure? And I said, yep, we can do a DNA test together. And she does it up there. You do it down here. We do it with the same company. And we can know whether it's a match or not. You said, well, let's do it because we need to know.

We need to know this. And so then it was a weird time for me because, like, we're all praying about it. And, of course, by this time, I told you guys. and we were going to do the test, and she was willing to do the test. And so, but it was weird because when you're praying about something like this, it's a truth that's already there. I mean, she was either dad's daughter and our sister or she wasn't. It was an either-or.

So what like you can pray for anything specific, we just got to pray for truth, you know, which I thought about it in a way. Isn't that what it's all about anyway? I mean, just praying for truth to be revealed. And so we took the test. She took the test, and it took two or three days. And we were actually down with Jeff in Austin. And, of course, Jeff is a nervous wreck.

I kind of am too. And mom is with us. And then we get the calls. That call me, and he's like, well, it's a 99.99% match. And you gave that information to me. And then I caught you. I'm like, yeah. And he didn't say, hey, dad, how is you doing?

I said, yeah. And he said, it's a match. I'm like, bring her on down. Bring her on down. It's a match. Bring her on down. Which is a classic. I learned a valuable lesson and they will meet this woman and that'll be pretty cool.

The audience will. We know that in all things, in all things, even sin, God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose. So our audience will meet my daughter. We've already met her. So it's a pretty cool explanation of redemption, reconciliation, love. It's as it turns out 45 years you have a daughter that you don't know about

and she has a father she doesn't know about 45 years it doesn't sound like very long but you say that's a while so finally after all those years we come together and I mean a part of me a part of me thought man because now that we know her I mean I when you told me it's a match

I was like well I love her because I thought she's my sister I actually read 1st Corinthians 13 after that because I just thought this is this is what I'm gonna be but then I thought man what a terrible deal for her she's gonna if she's not

familiar with Duck Dinish or whatever and it's gonna like and she's gonna see that and say there you go she's going on like are you kidding me out of all the people that couldn't have been okay hang on let's take a break and then i want to hear from everybody what you thought about it i mean i just thought that might be embarrassing you know what i mean just just i don't know so how was it so the first so obviously before she and her family came down and we met everybody um every we everybody talked to her on the phone you know initially and so what was your

what was just going around how was your first conversation with your sister you Never knew you had. Well, you know, and we had a little bit of a weird situation. I guess I was the only one that she actually met before because she had visited our church right before we got the mail. When they kind of thought it was. Well, right. And she was. She's looking at me saying, I think he's the one.

And you were preaching, actually. And I'm preaching. And I don't. I didn't see her. She got to remember a lot of people visit our church from, you know, all across the world. And so I met them, you know. And so, I mean, nothing really registered at that moment. But so when I got on the phone with her, we talked about that.

And I was like, oh, my goodness. Of course, she was like. Yeah, Jace was the only one that had met her. So she's like, you know, I was like, I came to your church, you know, I met you. Of course, I'm like, well, let me just hear right now. I am terrible. I meet so many people. Unfortunately, for her, Jace was the first one.

we might have actually made a connection out of all the ones to meet last out of it. I hate to tell you this because I'm your new brother, but a lot of my life is in a fog. I wake up on a continual basis. It's not real sure where I'm at or how I got here. And I'm doing holy things. Yeah, it's not from a bad life. But, you know, we talked and what I think I told Missy, I was like, you know, because I brought that up about when I said when the decision was made,

because to me, you know, family, I believe that God's in control. And, you know, when we're talking family, I believe that was God's idea, you know, getting from Act 17 about he put us in the exact places. And I fight with my family a lot, but I got their back. I love them. I mean, I'm there for them. So I'd already made that decision. But when I hung up the phone, but I told Missy,

said, but I really like her, which was a blessing, you know, because I just, I was ready to go either way. I mean, I want to love her no matter what, but I was like, I really like her, which is awesome, you know, and she was like, well, that's awesome, babe. Made it easier. So Jet was interesting because we were together in Austin, Mama's staying with you. And so Jeff was like, you know, because we were trying to figure it and we were trying to call her and I want to call her. I want to call her. I want to call her. And of course, the running joke in the family, or least especially with me and Willie, is that Jep's the little sister we never had when we speak to audiences. And so it totally ruined our joke now because we

have a little sister. Although my new joke, Jeff, just so you know, is Jep finally got another sister to talk to. So I can still, I think, save the joke. But so what was your, what was your, what was your, uh, you, you, y'all talked for like two hours. By the way, Miss K, over the entire 45 years, warned me or at least alerted me. She said, someone will come out of your past of that while riotous living, someone is coming out of your past. I said, you think?

She said, someone has come out of your past. She said, I think it would probably be a son. But in this case, she said, oh, I'm so glad it's a girl. I was one of the daughter. Well, and meanwhile, Fort Jep talks his parents. I mean, Ms. Kay was a, Absolutely awesome during the whole process.

And just as a teaser to our audience, so Phyllis, our sister and mom are going to be on the next episode, so you don't want to miss that. So, Jeff, well, let's take a break, Jeff, and then you'll tell us your story. I thought it was cool because, you know, Dad always gave me crap about having three girls first. Yeah. I was like, you had a girl. No, I think I told her on the phone. I was like, you know, I always wanted, I did, and growing up, a big sister to, like, you know, defend me. Yes.

From this guy's sticking my face in his underarm. Hey. Played basketball. You're living in the past, man. Yeah, I mean, it was super awesome. I was so excited. It was, like, to me, like a dream come true, you know. Well, and it was fun because we were together.

So we called her, mom and I called her from down from in Austin when we were down there with you. and I got to hear that first conversation with mom, and it was so neat because, you know, mom always has wanted a daughter, and we all know moms like, you know, the way she is. And so just to hear that first conversation and things she was saying, because, again, we had never talked to Phyllis. And so just to hear the grace and it was, look, let's be honest, if a lot of women, you know, get news that 45 years later that there's a child, they didn't know they had it. All right. It cannot go well. Betrayed, you know.

Right. Obviously. You know, that's right. He went against his wife. So a lot of times this news is not very well received. Well, and you think about what could have happened. I mean, look, because we didn't really highlight this, but I was just going down through the checklist in the beginning. I mean, she loves Jesus.

She's got an awesome husband and kids. She's done mission work around the world. She's talented, you know, hard work in what she does. And I'm like, are you kidding me? I mean, there was just something, by all those qualities being there, it made me realize fairly quickly, well, there's no ulterior motives. This is not a trick because none of that adds up with somebody, you know, trying to do something. It wasn't fitting.

And so I think that was just kind of why we're all really positive, you know, in the moment. because the transition was like, well, she's awesome. This, okay, you know. And I mean, Phil, as we've all talked about, especially me and you, with our demons against Phil when we were kids because they were too little. But that's all so long ago, you know, we've already kind of dealt with that, you know. And so I think there's something about being transparent. And Phil has.

I mean, he wrote a whole book. I mean, that book that he read from, I didn't know you were going to do that. I'm glad you did because you pretty much laid it out there in a very graphic way. I was terrible. And I think that's hard. I mean, people read that and they're like, oh, he wrote a book. It's hard to just lay it out there and say, you know what? I learned a little lesson way back when I was getting on my feet.

Individuals who have in fact repented don't mind talking about their past sins. But a lot of people who have, have not repented, they keep them tight. They won't be honest with others or themselves. You know, the repentant, they don't mind talking about their past lives because they know it's been taken care of by the blood of Jesus. I mean, to reference John 3. Unrepentant, you can't pry their sins out of them sometimes. Right after John 316, the most famous verse, he says a lot of people will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. We've always said, said, it's why all of our books have been pretty transparent about who we are, that it's probably

better if we just talk about things and say, this is what the grace of God does, as opposed to just kind of waiting for something to be unearthed on us, you know? Yeah. Because a lot of people, famous people, we didn't set out to be famous people, but we became famous people, but they live in fear that some past thing is going to come back, and then all of a sudden they're going to be seen as a terrible person. But if you just say, I was a terrible person, I mean, I did a lot of bad stuff. And so I'm not really surprised that there are elements that come from that. I mean, it seems to me that it's a lot better, you know, when you look at it. Yeah, a lot of people, they're more fearful of being exposed in what they did than actually

what they did. Or, you know, I mean, it's a, it's a huge. I mean, and I realize you can't worry about that. I mean, I've been with one woman and it started on our wedding night, but on the internet there's people you know make claims and i'm like no wasn't me i'm pretty sure you know one woman so i'm saying even if you worry about that people have tried to taint my character and i did it that part exactly right doesn't matter there's still people gonna you know and some people will believe that you know so if you're open and honest about your mistakes and you live out there then you'll have to go about worrying about it. And that's the way I think God's the way he operates.

It's not that he doesn't know what you did, but he appreciates you being transparent to him. That's why he says, confess your sins. Well, why? It wasn't because he didn't know you did them. But you're just owning up and putting it out there so we can move on. And God says, I'll forgive you. And that's what 1st John 1 and 2 is all about.

So we're out of time on the podcast, but we're going to continue discussion for a few more minutes. for those of you that are Blaze subscribers, BlazeTB.com slash Unashamed. We're going to, if you are a part of that, you get to listen to a little bit more because I want to get Willie's take on what he thought about it as well. So appreciate you guys being a part of the podcast. Phyllis is going to be on the next podcast and Mom as well. So we're going to talk about the first time we met.

So we're so glad you guys were with us today. You can subscribe on iTunes or Spotify or YouTube or Facebook. And be sure and rate us on iTunes so that other people, can know about the podcast.