Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 978 | Missy Exposes Dark Forces at Mia Moo Funday & the Emotion Behind a Big ‘Duck Dynasty’ Moment

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

Missy and Jase share behind-the-scenes stories of evil trying and failing to ruin the Mia Moo Funday, where they treat families in their charity to a weekend of fun, food, and Jesus. Mia’s journey leads Missy to reflect on a tender moment during “Duck Dynasty” filming, and Al witnessed another touching moment during that same episode between Phil and “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan. Zach is thankful for Unashamed Nation showing up for North Carolinians in a big way. In this episode: Hebrews 12, verses 1-2; Romans 15, verse 2 -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashame. Jase, I feel some life here today. I mean, we're just having, you and I have been, you know, kind of carrying the torch here. We hadn't had Zach. He's, you know, been doing his thing up at North Carolina. Dad's still down in his back. You guys keep praying for him, but he's having a procedure.

And by doing his thing, you mean I've been hauling five-gallon buckets of water in the, to flush the toilet with. We know you've been, we said, he says that, we can't even complain because Jason, I've been having to do the podcast without you and dad, because we know what you've been going through. So we got you're, where are you at today? Because you look like you're a little, a little darker than normal, but it looks kind of. The guitar behind me. Yes. And see the Jesus music guitar. I'm actually at Kingdom Studios, the kingdom story.

So Andy Irwin. Oh, that's one of the Irwin brothers. One of the Irwin guys. I said, you're going to be, well, you guys are coming up. tomorrow, Jason Missy. So we'll be, we're going to break ground tomorrow without you, Al. But we got. I am so, so excited to get a podcast off.

Thank you all for stepping up to the plate. I need it. So they let me use their studio. I said, I haven't recorded. I don't have internet in Black Mountain. So we came to Nashville. We're here. Andy was gracious enough to loan me the studio for today.

And then tomorrow will be at Annie F. Downs studio with Dallas and Amanda Jenkins. That'll be fun. I'm super excited about them. Yeah, we'll tell you while we're coming. Yes, something new and exciting. I want Missy to bring those cookies, though, when you come, because I haven't had good cookies in a long time.

There's a story behind these. Oh, we know. And by the way, we got Missy. I'm sorry, we didn't even get to Missy. Missy is on as well, because we've got a lot to talk about with Mia Moo. Zach, tell us, give us an update on what's going on in North Carolina. You tell us you've seen a lot of Unashamed Nation folks coming in to help. Oh, my goodness.

They have come in in droves. I mean, every day. coming with truckloads, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of supplies to hand out to people. Probably the coolest story. There's a bunch of cool stories, but that one lady had reached out, I guess about a year and a half, maybe two years ago, and she wanted to be baptized. And she was from North Carolina, but I was like, you need to find, like, a local church that can baptize you and disciple you and that you can join.

And see, so I don't even know where to look. So I helped her find a church in Lincolnton, I think it's Lincolnton, North Carolina. Anyways, called the pastor. See, yeah, I'll meet with her. So he meets with her. And she gets baptized and her husband and her two children. And they all become part of this church and just get super plugged in that the pastor called me six months later. I just want to give you an update on the woman you connected me with.

And they're like a huge part of our church now. well, I turn around on Friday, and they brought like 12 people up to serve our church with her. I was like, man, it's like full circle how they were coming to serve us, that church was. So it has been humbling. Yeah, they've showed up in droves. So Unashamed Nation, you are loved by me for sure. So thank you guys for helping out. You've been such an encouragement to everybody up in the mountains.

I feel like I need to do an impersonation I feel after hearing that. Are you ready? ready, here we go. Keep in mind whatever your name is, Dasher, that you technically can't join the church. The Lord added, hang on, Acts 247, and the Lord

added to the church daily those who are being saved. For crying out loud. I mean, give me a break, Dasher. I get it. I mean, let me tell you something about that one, Jays. every since he burst forth from my sister's loins. Oh, gosh.

Don't resurrect that. I've been vetting that one. I thought I'd clarify that. Because dad can't be here in honor. We had some best of Philism. Somebody said that yesterday about dad because he couldn't teach his class either. So Jersey Joe had to go solo in the class. And so I went over to kind of encourage Joe, you know, you can do this.

And he did great that someone said, you know what? I miss so much about Phil as his say. I said, well, you don't have to worry because we've all heard of our whole lives. These sayings will go on no matter what with them. They will. And to give you the backstory to where we're at this morning, we actually, Al and I were shocked that Zach was set up. We had no idea.

This is how organized we are. Who runs this out? I get a late night text last night saying, can you get Mia or Missy on the podcast? because we didn't want to go just too of us again. Because I was actually, I told Zach, I said, I was actually thinking about future implications of this moving forward now that it's down to me and out. Jay said no confidence when he and I.

We did actually pretty well, though, Jay's. I thought it was a good podcast. Tell us what you think, I understand. It's always better when we have more discussion. But, you know, I thought we held our own pretty well. I've missed it. I have missed it. But I was excited that Missy was joining us.

I was kind of rehearsed in my opener for our podcast tomorrow. and I was like, well, Missy's kind of a guest, but she's kind of like everybody's favorite guest. Like, when you come on? They love you. Oh, they love it. You keep me in check. And, right, and you make Jay's uncomfortable. We love it.

Which we all love. We love to see this. I'm having to pause before I say anything so that on the ride. Twice before you open your mouth. Is that the deal? I've tried to live my life on a certain movie quote that I think is inspiring when it says based on a true story. Oh, no, that is not what I.

That's not my perception of that. It was a joke. So let me set Missy up why she's here and why she brought all these wonderful looking cookies that I would be scared to actually eat. Well, because they're like faces. Can we get, okay, anyway. So Missy and I. That look is why I like have Missy.

If you're watching the podcast today, that look is why. Yeah. I've grown to. loved that little. We had our 10-year... We had our 10-year... Birthday. Birthday yesterday for the Mia Moo Foundation.

Oh, wait a minute. Oh, we're even... We got the props again, yeah. We are very excited about that. We are. I thought about you guys all weekend. I kept thinking... Because Jays had been talking about doing it,

and so I just kept thinking, man, today they're doing this. Tomorrow, they're doing that. You know, just kind of knowing how you guys... do it. So I've been super excited. Yeah, and we actually, other than last night, had no sleep. Well, I guess I got a little more. I mean, you got a little more than me. I slept really hard last night.

So, and we've evolved through this. And just to remind you what we do, our daughter, when she was like eight or nine years old, she was like, when am I going to tell my story? I mean, that's kind of the birth of this and just the fast forward version of that story. I was like, well, write it down and we'll see where it is. And she really felt that at an early age that she wanted at some point in her life to help people who were struggling with the same condition that she was and is. And so that charity kind of came out of that.

So I'm really- I want to ask you about this because I brought this up in a previous podcast, and Jace wasn't sure, and now I can't trust my own memory after I couldn't remember Corey being on the podcast last week, that the episode that we did with the whole family, it was Cole, we had the wrestlers and all that, and it was centered around me as this letter, wasn't it? I mean, didn't she read the letter?

Was that what this was? That was her speech that she started. She wrote herself when she was gone. So in 2013, she started speaking along when we would be asked to go to speaking engagements and to do that. She wanted to do it as well. So she wrote a speech and then A&E agreed,

after I told them we should do an episode around Mia. She was having a bone graft surgery in 2014. And they were very apprehensive. They did not want, which I appreciated. They did not want anyone making fun of Mia or cleft children. The whole deal was about laughter and fun, and they didn't really know how to incorporate, you know, the humor that we had on Duck Dynasty was something so serious.

And I was like, trust me, our fans are going to love this. We can do this. And of course we did. It was amazing. It's one of the top two episodes of the whole series. It's called Stand by Mia. And it was an hour special. It's ever been so cold.

It was my favorite. It was really fun and funny, humorous, and very meaningful. We pulled it off. Everybody pulled it off. Yeah, because it was touching. And I want to interpret some of what my lovely wife said there. Oh, you're interpreting that. She was a bulldog on that.

Because I remember her specifically saying, you can film this at a distance. We're going to do this and back off. And they really did. They had very little involvement in a lot of the story being told. Zach, I think it's the only time you were ever on Dynasty. Is that correct? Or were you on some other time? No, that was the only time.

It was painful. It was very, very unusually cold. It was in February. To film it, but all the material was so good. When the wrestler came out, the wrestler came out with the speedos on, and everything was purple, and he's just like, he's purple. Yeah. And then Hacksaw Jim Duggan showed up.

Oh, my goodness. We didn't know that. The cast didn't know that. I didn't know it. I didn't either. And we were the visuals of our response, our childhood hero, and he was a little saggy. You know, he wasn't quite like he was in our minds. He was still there.

But he was there. And then I think I've told this before, but when there was time for a picture with everybody, they couldn't find Dad and Hacksaw Jim Duggan. So I went up to the house and opened the door and Hacksaw Jim Duggan was down on his knees in front of the ottoman in front of dad. Dad was in his chair and he had his Bible open. He was sharing Jesus with Hatsaw Jim Duggan.

I thought, man, if I could, you know, I didn't take a picture of it because it was a personal moment. But if the picture in my mind, it was like my whole childhood all in that one moment. St. Livinger and we used to wrestle and do the moves with, here's dad sharing with Jim. Who is a believer already? But it's amazing. Yes. Well, so I was going to just say A&E did a great job.

And at the very end of the episode, which they had never done this before, so this was a huge honor. The end of the episode, they put up what was what they call a card, but it's just a screen that said, for more information about cleft lip and palate, go to meamoo.org. And when I found out they were going to do that, it was overwhelming. And I thought, we have a deadline. We have a deadline. And it's March of that year, 2014, to get our website up and going. Because that will be our biggest fundraiser.

And that's really what kicked off. And y'all didn't even have the set up. We knew they were going to do it. And we were rushing like crazy to get our 501C3 in order, all of the box. is checked and we pulled it off under Worldwide Foundation and, of course, with Johnny Howard, which is Corey's dad, with Randy Kirby, who is an elder at our church, they're on the board along with me and Jace. And so they help us make the decisions on who gets the funds and for what reason every single month. And it's 10 years. It's amazing because most charities, well,

all charities are formed out of some compassion for some reason and usually it's something personal. a tragedy within a family, which is what happened with us. We said we want to help other families like us. And so we started this foundation, this charity. Most charities have fizzled out by five years. That's usually the full length of a charity because it's a lot of work. And to celebrate 10 years, a 10-year birthday party that we had with hundreds of people the other night, all of these, we've probably had 30 of our cleft cuties, what we call them, children who've been helped right there in this picture. And so far, we have helped financially 179 families in 10 years with over $700,000,000, I think.

It deserves some more applause. Yeah, yes. I saw a, when I got back to Nashville at the Internet, I saw. I started doom scrolling on Instagram. But I did see on one of y'all's page, some of the girls at your house doing some worship. So it's kind of evolved, especially when Mia had this just transformation in her teenage years. And part of the growth process of being in Christ. And I went over that a couple of podcasts ago about, I did this illustration that I'd heard from a sermon about our spiritual growth.

how it kind of goes in, I guess, the paradigm of our physical growth. And, you know, when you're a baby, all you do is consume. I mean, it's just feed me, let me have my sleep. I make messes. Change my diaper. Yeah. And you, this is just the way this goes, you know. And then you've become a child and you're looking for certainty and security.

And then the teenage years, everything's a conflict and challenging, which is normal because teenagers are trying to find their own identity. And it's very critical for how that goes, you as a parent and the teenager. But ultimately, you know, you want to contribute, which is an adult, and sacrifice and show love and help others. And so Mia, you just saw that journey. And so now she's kind of our leader because she understands all these kids way, better than we ever could. And so it's been nice.

It's also the same concept as why camp counselors, which me as been involved as a counselor too, are so effective with kids because the closer you are to them at age, the more they tend to relate to you. And so not that the hearts you guys have had for is not powerful, but there's something about being in your 20s and connecting with kids who are teenagers, you know. Well, she, they all have the same thing in common. They've had multiple surgeries. They've all had speech problems.

They've all had just the problems with the issues of them, the way they look at themselves when they look in the mirror. You know, we who have nothing wrong with the structure of our face as teenagers look in the mirror and didn't like something. Can you imagine, you know, having everything off balance, off kilter, out of whack, going through surgeries all of the time, healing, swelling, stitches, all of that. You're, you never like the way you look as a child. Well, no, if that is it. It's always, you don't know the expectation because, you know, she would go through a certain period of time and look a certain way. And all of a sudden, it's a major surgery comes along. And then she was totally different.

So then you have to readap the whole thing all over again. So it's just a, I mean, it's like nothing else that a teenager especially would go through. Well, one of the things we did is maybe year four or five. We went from, we used to do the event where we would try to raise money the first night. We would try to raise money the first night, and then we would have a day for the families. But it was just like we were trying to pack too much. It's one of those things. If you're trying to do a bunch of things, you do nothing well.

And I really think we give Mia credit for that. We just turned the whole weekend into helping these families. And then Mia just started doing a newsletter and telling the stories. And that actually raised more money than any project that we had. We tried to do card games and auctions. We do zero fundraising right now. Right now we don't do anything except Mia puts out a newsletter at the end of every month. So if you want to see, if you want the newsletter, which is kind of a behind the scenes look at what Mia did for the month, which is always fascinating to people, where are, where is she in her stage of life and what she involved in?

So it's kind of just an inside look at her life. but then it's also we pick a child or two of who we've helped. Some are where are they now? Some that we helped a baby 10 years ago. Where are they now? So it's time to just an informative, fun way of looking at Mia Moo and Mia all at the same time and we'll have some highlighted products that we do sell ever so often on our website. But just Mia sending that out with updates of her life, people write checks and send them in.

or go online and donate. So if you want to sign up for the newsletter, go to miamu.org and just sign up and you'll get all of this for free. Just to, I mean, it does take money. We're asking, we'll ask, if you feel led to give at the end of the year, it is, I used to say 100%,

100% goes to the families. Yeah, I wanted to talk about that. That's kind of like, you never say always and never, but if we're not 100%, it's 99.9%. Because the way our charity is set up is our employees to the charity, Missy and I pay, which is our big donation. Right.

Because there is an extensive investigation into each child, which is really the bottleneck in helping people because we don't want scam artists and con people. There's a lot of fraud that comes in. Which destroys a lot of charities. You mentioned that. One of the reasons they don't last is because people take advantage. Well, they don't have Bonnie Jones, which is not. I call her bulldog Bonnie.

She's sweet, but she's feisty. Oh, you don't want to. She's our bulldog with a smile. It's like a dog when he's eating. You don't want to reach in there and try to take out something. So we have that process that Missy and I pay for. And I am convinced that 100% of the people when the money goes to a family, look, when I say an investigation, we're calling doctors. We're getting financial statements.

Get releases, signed releases from the families, everything. I actually brought this up. So actually when we do the weekend, the first night, we, Miss you and I have the volunteers at our house. Because look, they're fixed to work, their tails off. At 66 this year. At 66. And that's where you saw the worship, Zach. And we have a big meal at our house.

All the volunteers are there. And it's nothing really extensive other than them having a very good meal. We ate jumbulli. Gimber's jumbulli and white beans. Can't beat that. Missy. Got out to big guns. That's right.

Mia brought 15 of her friends from college 15. Wow. In three different vehicles. And that's why I stayed up so late that night because look, these, I'll call them kids with their college age. They love the Lord. They're very high character. And Mia's transformation in Christ has drawn them to her. and her to them.

And there, you know, let's change the world type of mindset. And that's why I couldn't go to bed. I mean, we sat around and talked all night about Jesus and all the projects they have going. And some of them were, there was a girl who was a kid from a missionary family, and she had been in a foreign country for 13 years of her life. Middle East foreign country. Yeah. It was actually Turkey.

And I was just giving her question after question. because all these biblical sites are there. And I was like, including Colise. Yeah, I brought it up. She's like, well, let's just go and I'll be your interpreter. And I was like, well, you know, I was a little nervous about it.

She thought, well, you'll be fine. You'll be fine. So I'm actually thinking about it. But it was a wonderful night, which I paid the price the next day because the Mia Mood Day is very long. It's from, and I told this during our, parent session of the Miyamu day, I told

them that I'm always making a case of making it a couple hours shorter because I mean, it's from 7.30 to 7.30. And it's just crickets every time I say that. Because the families love it. I mean, and it really is well done. Really? What would you

cut out? What two hours of that day would you say, you know what? We're just not going to do that. Valid point. And so the day... I love having Missy on the podcast. The Now, meanwhile, that Friday night, Miss Bonnie and other volunteers, they take the kids to go do something together fun. They go to Surge, which is like a multi-activity center. They feed them.

They play games with them. Absolutely. Yeah, creating something like that here. Is that the golf simulator? It's got simulators, arcade, bowling. Laser tag. See, that happened after I left. I leave and all the cool stuff comes out.

Oh, yeah. Drew Bree is the best thing. to have a state of Louisiana. I'm so glad he came to. And great food. They have great food. And so the Saturday starts off with the buses arriving out at camp, which we've all, there's a local camp that I believe. And Chioka. Yeah, Camp Chioka. We've talked about before. My parents met there. And my favorite, I wrote an article for Mia's newsletter because she just asked me, write a little article about your favorite part of the Mia Moo day. Fun day, yeah. Yeah, fun day. And I, it kind of,

I was like, how do I pick one part? And actually, I picked that. Because when they arrive on those buses, we have the 60... Whatever. Yeah, 60-some-odd volunteers. It is, it is, think of a college football game and your team won in the last second.

Zach, you don't have to worry about this. Just imagine. Just imagine this might happen. When they get off those, I mean, there are bells, whistles. Do you like a double line, like a ton of? They have to come through a welcome tunnel. And they. Everyone is cheering and clap.

We have bazookas and clappers and pom-poms and whistles and everything is going off. We're just the whole time that 65 on one bus and 66 on the other, so however many that is, they're all getting out. It takes a little bit. Takes a while, especially the brand new families who have never come before. It's like they're deer in the headlights. They don't know what to do. They don't know where to go.

And usually emotional, yeah. Balling. The moms are, like what is happening? We've never had this kind of welcome for anything like that in our life. Well, because you got to remember what we're doing and how this has evolved is we've realized that they need to connect to each other. We're providing that on this weekend. And there's a big problem with these families as they feel alone. I mean, this is a rough struggle because they're going to have surgeries throughout the

process of their child. And after. And after. And then you throw in the emotional components when they are teenagers. And so really we've catered everything we do to realize in where they are in the different stages of the process. And so here's this family who's just gone through hell on earth, for a lack of a better phrase, with all these surgeries and unknown and misinformation. And it's just putting their lives to the test. They're all in. debt. I mean, because it's overwhelming the cost of all the things that they're doing. They're all seeing doctors or somebody in the medical profession every few weeks of their entire life. And so, and they feel there's a loneliness that comes with that. They get off that bus,

and all of a sudden, they're like, we're not alone. And the kids have, have a little different perspective. They're like, these are my people. Where have y'all been on my life? These people are cheering and then you have mea who's gone through the process and she's one of the older ones there they're like she seems happy and so that so then we moved to the the daily events and our probably most special time and we have like this year we had a speech therapist in the medical community volunteered her time to be there and to be a part of the event so they had a session well it's mea's surgeon and from dallas it's his speech therapist so we know her well and she gave up her entire weekend to come down and give, who knows,

thousands of dollars worth of free time to these families that, well, we saw, we saw the session that we had that she had with some of the families. Again, another family, it just released a burden off of them, things that they have been told by other doctors and other people in the profession that she said it just did not sit right with me in my gut, that this is what was right for my child.

And so Monica, in her expertise, who is a speech therapist, is saying, your children don't need as much as you think they need. They're going to figure it out. They can't physically pull off the correct language and the correct speech because their bones aren't in the right place. Their cartilage isn't in the right place. Their teeth aren't in the right place. So be patient with them. Let them be a kid. When you get all the structures worked out, they'll figure it out.

And I'm like, you're a speech therapist. You're like talking yourself out of a job. And she said, I want what's best for these kids. And so this is what's best for them. No one goes to kindergarten with a diaper on. No one's going to graduate high school and not know how to speak. They're going to look at their other classmates, teammates, their parents, their siblings, and figure it out. You don't have to go to class every single day of the week or month or year for speech.

It makes them feel like they're not normal. they already know they're not normal. You don't have to remind them all of the time. So there were so many things this year that we tried to amp up a little bit to help these families because each year that we have this event is another year that we've also lived through it. And we've learned things about our own child and about the profession that she is having to be involved in. And it just helps us relate, be relatable to all these other parents. And get them the resources that they need.

Yeah. So, and one of the most special times we have, and it's very difficult for especially the new families, is Missy and I have about a 90-minute. It keeps getting longer and longer. A 90-minute campfire session. And, of course, we're asked the parents to give up their kids. There was one new family that kept their kid because it's very difficult. They're never away from their kid because their kid has problems, you know. But I was telling Missy. I was like, next year, they'll realize, okay, it's okay. And so what is said there, we kind of leave there. But it's a way for everybody to connect.

We put them in the sections of their age bracket because it's amazing how they connect to each other just in the course of that 90-minute discussion. And all it is revolving around is them sharing their story. But it's so crazy that everybody realize, oh, we pretty much have all the same story and we're going through the same thing. But as it goes to the teenage years, they're learning that, oh, this is what's coming next. Here's the downfalls of that and here's the hope in that. And it was so crazy because Missy and I also are trying to connect the principles that being in Jesus offers. and because a lot of the kids we help,

they may not be, you know, Christian people or, but we're like, look, the greatest answer to this struggle is Jesus Christ. But we're doing that in a way that's not confrontational or judgmental. We're just kind of like, this is our story. And obviously a lot of people have that same thought that are there. But it was so crazy. So the worst kid we had as far as physical problems,

who is actually a teenager. They were over there, and I think they had been there one before, but this time several. It was before we had it out at camp. Okay, so that was the first time they were there. And, you know, I don't know, I gave a little speech about something because I singled their kid out

because he has multiple problems and not just the cranial facial when he's had brain surgery, but he also has autism. And if you just bumped into him, you would think, and not really connect with him, you'd think, well, he's, something's wrong with him.

You know, and you know how our world is. They can be mean. They tend to just immediately think he's not a functional human being. But there's something about this kid, the bright light that he has, that is really contagious. You know, I took him fishing, even though I've never tried so hard to catch a fish in my life. But in that section, we actually didn't catch one until later. But it's just something about him that he has every reason in the world to quit. but he just doesn't.

And he actually, you know, has a full-time job that we learn at a pharmacy store. And a car dealership. Yeah. And his grandma shared that. But I'm telling you, because we were kind of all just having our session. And I won't go into the details of what she said, but it was a sermon. And she was obviously a believer in the Lord. And she talked about that boy.

I mean, chills went all over my body and just about how God has worked through their process. and here's this kid, it's 19. And all these families are looking at their kid and their problems, but they knew that kid, he's got a ton of problem. And hearing that grandma talk, I mean, it was just inspirational and transform. I mean, it would transform your view of this and just how you think. And she kind of did it in the name of the Lord, how he's been there. And it was very, it was my favorite moment of the weekend.

So we did that and then it just we do various activities throughout the day. We have a lot of fun. Our goal is to take their minds off of their problems. So even though we have that sharing session with the parents, the kids don't know about it. They just know that we're going to talk. We're having a meeting. And they're doing crafts and they're bouncing in bouncy houses and swinging and playing ping pong. And that's why it's so important to have so many of those volunteers because they just play.

They just play with them. play basketball and do card games and we do all these dances and look oh the energizers are so fun everybody loves that well i mean but it will put you to the test as an older individual there were moments so fun that's why me and i would love to be a part of that uh watching that yeah i would i would be a good videographer of most of we could document it for you though so and it's filled with breakfast lunch and supper that are all fantastic and i mean i'm telling you telling you, we go all out. We hired Gimber this year to put it on.

We had, what was it? It's our cousin, John. It's the best food that you can put out there. And at lunch, and I want to thank Chick-fil-A, yes. They really rally behind this, and I don't know how much stuff they brought, but it was a lot. And so I wanted to give them a shout out because the kids love that. But I told Missy, this is like Chick-fil-A on steroids because it wasn't just Chick-fil-A, I mean, Gimber. It's the whole spread.

Yeah. And you got the Jamalai. And you have the cow. They brought the baby cow out. Oh, they loved that. I love what you guys are doing. It really is just a beautiful picture of who God is. Because I love what you said earlier about how they respond.

Really, your ministry is introducing them to community. Yes. And I think that's really what we talk about in this podcast a lot of time of the kingdom of heaven being here. What that's about is being present and not being isolated, not being alone, being in community, which is what God is. He's an eternal, like, relationship of Father, Son, Son, Spirit. But, Missy, you had said something that began before the podcast began, that I always, it's anytime something great, like good happens in the kingdom of heaven,

anytime heaven invades Earth, it doesn't just like, it's not like the doors just open up and everything goes perfect. I would love to hear kind of some of the spiritual warfare because I think that's, you mentioned that. I'd love to hear. Yeah, I kind of have a. list in my mind because I've come to a point in my life where I try not to get stressed out about all that stuff because my faith is so strong that if it's supposed to happen, God is going

to make a way. I'm not going to get rattled. I'm not going to get upset. But boy, there are some things that make you think twice like, oh, I don't really know if this is going to work, you know, this year. Maybe God's plan is for this not to happen. But these families are traveling in, sometimes Thursday night. Most of them are getting up Friday morning and loading up their cars, their kids. Some of these people have seven. Some of these people have 10 kids. They're really sacrificing to get to West Monroe, Louisiana. Oh, from several states. Indiana, Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee. And so we are working not just all year, but mainly this last week of the logistics of, you know, the gift bags that we order things to go. They have to be filled. And Anna comes over and

helps Bonnie in our garage and making all of that, you know, go, which stuff goes with each bag because we want to personalize it for each child of each family it just gets down to the details and our your other cousin Lulu the original Lulu Leslie she has donated her time every year and she will not let us ever pay her back for the the decoror she decorates the stage when they get off the bus for all of the pictures that we have she decorates the gym she decorates every table with the theme that we're having and she could not be here this year they weren't going to be somewhere out of town she and her husband. So she gave this job to the girl that has assisted her every year. No problem. She's got this, you know, and I, again, I'm not worried about it at all. Until Friday evening, I sent Lynn, who used to work for Kay, she's kind of working for us now.

I sent her out there with a bunch of stuff for camp. I said, give this to her, to Audrey. She said, she called me at 4.30 and said, Audrey's not here. She has the stomach bug. I said, it's 4.30 on Friday night. Nothing's been done? Absolutely, nothing has been done. Well, I've got 65 people going to be at my house in 30 minutes for a dinner that we are giving them an honor of helping us.

And I thought, what's happening here? So we got in touch with the Lulu. Lulu said, Kenny and I are on our way back tonight. I will be out there at 6 a.m. in the morning. And she was. Wow. By the time I pulled up at 737, because I looked at my clock, thought, please, Lord, it was all done. You would have never thought anything was wrong.

That was the first thing that happened. The next day, we all got there. Everything is going fantastic. And Rick, the head of our volunteers, comes to me and says, what's wrong with Mia? Of course, I'm like, what? What do you mean? And she said, he said, she's in the sound booth and she's crying. but this is not normal.

She's our leader. Like what, she can't be crying over, not getting a microphone on. Like, what, what? So I beeline it to the sound booth and someone had lowered the gate that protects the sound booth from the gym, the flying balls and everything. Someone had lowered that gate and a ball had come in,

knocked her personal computer onto the floor, knocked Camp's huge computer onto the floor and cracked both of them. And I was like, Mia, this is, we're okay. We can figure this out. And she and her moment just boo-hoo and crying, you don't understand, Mom. I have finals.

I have two finals on Monday. I need this computer as soon as we finish Mia Mu Fund tonight. I cannot live my life without this computer and I need it tonight. And I said, still, there's no reason to freak out. We can figure it out. that's not what she wanted to hear.

She looked at me and she said, give me a minute to cry, mom. This is really important. And then I'll be okay. I was like, okay, I just stood there for a second. Let her cry it out. You know, I said, okay, are you ready? She's like, yep, she wiped her face.

She's a lot like me. And then the first person you call was Papal Field to fix that. Yeah, right. She wiped her face and she was ready to go announce the rotations, which is at one o'clock. She's like, do I look like I've been crying? I said, actually, you look amazing. Yeah.

And I said, now, will you let me just handle this? And she said, yes, I'm going to announce the next round of entertainment. So what I did was I had to take a second, figure out what to do. And Jenna, who is our showrunner for Duck Family Treasure, is a volunteer. And her husband is a tech guy. So I came and got Jenna who was talking with a family. I was like, I'm so sorry. I need you for a second.

She and William took that computer and for the rest of the day handled. it. By the time we got finished with Mia Moofunday, Mia had a brand new computer with all of her stuff transferred. Everything worked. It was perfectly fine. No one else besides the Unashamed Nation right now, and Mia and William and Jenna knows that that happened. I didn't know what happened to. She just told it. I actually told Jayce, I said, Jenna and William came to our rescue again, and he said, what are you talking about? I said, I'll tell you later. So here's later. The last thing that happened was about 1 o'clock, 1.15, right after that happened, I ignored a phone call from my mom because I thought she'll find me. She's out here. I was talking to a family that rang again. Okay, mom, what you need? Did you not know? A pipe burst in their house while they were at Mamu Funday and flooded their entire house.

Oh, no. We saw the pictures. It was, I mean, worse than you think. It's like the ceilings caved in. It's all ruined. But what my dad thought was, well, there were some people out there who are probably, problem fixers. And so instead of calling someone else not at Miyamu Funday, he called one of the main people from Miyamu Funday who left and went and helped my parents turn off the water, figure out what to do. And, you know, and so I thought, even just with distraction, that is, this is a huge problem for my aging elderly parents. This is a huge problem. But for it to happen at one o'clock in the middle of Miamu Funday, that is nothing but evil. Yeah.

That happened. And so God took that, all of that, and through all of the problems that we could have said, you know what, that's it. Let's just, I got to, I have to leave. That's what Satan wanted me to do. I have to leave and go handle this with my parents. I didn't freak out. Other people, rose up, went there, and still are doing that this morning.

So all I kept thinking was, nice try. let's try not going to work these families are too important so we only have one segment left so I want to give you the what happened to its fulfillment so we go through the rest of the day and Mia had this idea of doing this color run

at the end of the day because the theme was endurance and it was based on Hebrews 12 1 and 2 and we all had shirts that were white shirts and she had a plan With our theme on it for the year. And so the color run, we had done that in a Duck Dynasty episode. Yeah, I remember it.

Wow. Yeah, I hated it. One of the guys wound up in the hospital. Oh, yeah. And we had people who, a lot of people who didn't believe in Christ, throwing the dust during the day. Yeah, someone opened it up to the public. I thought it would be a great idea to invite the world to come throw powder on us.

And I hated it. We were removing it from our ears for years. You're breathing in, right? Are you breathing the powder in? Well, yeah, you are. You couldn't have it. And so I didn't like it. Not with the way these people were throwing it.

You couldn't help but breathe it in. I didn't like this idea. It's horrible. But we did it. And there was like stages. They had signs up of like difficulty and pain. Perseverance. And when you get to the end of the color run,

they had this sign that said freedom. It was really good. It was awesome. But I was thinking color run. We have little kids. They have a lot of difficulties. I was thinking 100 yards. Now, it was uphill.

We went to the gate and back. Up hill. I don't know how far that is, but I'm going to tell you, I took off running like everybody else and halfway through it. I thought, what kind of clever way can I do right now to stop? Because I literally think my calves are going to explode. So I started taking selfie pictures of the race because I thought,

yeah, I want to document this. But I really just needed a minute. Back to mine and Zach's videography. That's how he does. See, now you join me and now. And so we all get lit up with the colors. And then we come back and we had a little celebration of the happy birthday. And so the next day, what we do is we do a volunteer service.

We call it a poolside service at their hotel because we've run out the hotel for all the families because it takes a whole. It takes two. Oh, does it take two this day? And so then I do a little store. speech about Jesus. It's Sunday. Mia leads worship. Mia leads worship and one of her friends Lydia led, and you led worship.

But it's real, it's like they didn't even have mics. They just saying, I had our mic because it is, we filled that pool side up. And it's a great story about the hotel manager who the first year that we did this actually came to Jesus. And she was just making sure we were not doing anything that we hadn't agreed upon. He's like, sure, y'all can have a service out of here. But she came to Jesus, and she was there yesterday, which was awesome, hugging, and just, I mean, we're brothers and sisters over that. I mentioned yesterday when I was preaching that y'all were doing the service yesterday.

So I wanted to give just a couple snippets of my sermon because, you know, at the end of the day, our podcast here is a Bible study. And this really hit me like a ton of bricks. You know, my opening line, which was a quick icebreaker. And I didn't speak, what, 10 minutes, 15, 20. And my opening line, which I thought was really funny, which not many people laughed because I think, you got to remember. You're trying to be funny.

You know, the other way you're funny is if you're trying not to be funny. Because you're talking about a tough crowd. You got to remember, they just spent, what's that, 12 hours yesterday. They're exhausted. We're all exhausted. They are completely exhausted. So, and this actually happened when I woke up the next morning. And look, I didn't get any sleep because when I got home, LSU was playing Ole Miss.

For any of you that saw that game, me and those people that Mia brought, which weren't really LSU fans until the end of the night, because I was going crazy. It was overtime win. I texted you out of the game. I wasn't sure you'd be awake, but I thought surely you had to watch that game. I woke up the next morning and I was like, what is wrong with my nose? I blew my nose. and I kid you not. You know how you got to inspect because you're thinking, I feel weird.

I inspected what just came out of my nose, and you know what it was, Al? It was a rainbow. It was literally a rainbow. And then I cough. And I was looking and I was like, I'm coughing up rainbows. It was kind of weird, disturbing. Did you eat unicorns? Yeah, awesome.

Well, it was all the dust from the color. Oh, the pictures of the families and the kids covered and all that. It's amazing. They had so much fun. Sorry. That was my cold ovens. But I wanted to read these two passages because, look, I think it hit her group like a ton of bricks. Because think about endurance.

And if you look up the definition of endurance, and you think more with these kids go through. I mean, my daughter. And their families. And their family. But I was just going to use me as an example. She's 21 years old. She's gone through 16 surgeries, multiple other things along the way. Never gone six weeks without seeing a doctor in some capacity.

You're talking about endurance. And I looked up the definition of endurance, and it says the factor power, the factor power of enduring an unpleasant or a difficult process or situation without giving up. And I thought, you know whose idea it was to make the theme endurance? Wasn't any of us, it was me as. Somewhere she had read that definition.

And so when you read Hebrews 12, one and two. And here I am on a Sunday morning. It's Volunteer Jesus Day, and most of the families were there. It says, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured. There's our word, the cross. And so I did this deal about a lot of times when tragedy happens or bad things happen

or there's evil in the world, everybody's like, where's God in this? And it's like, look at Jesus. He sent Jesus here to endure this life, this difficulty. And I want to read Romans 15 real quick because it also packed a punch. And this is Romans 15, verse 2. It says, each of us should please his neighbor for his good, which is what we were doing to build him up and establish in this community. For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written,

the insults of those who insults you have fallen on me, which really resonates with those kids because Clef-Pallet kids get insults their entire childhood. Jesus received insults, and he was the greatest human that are. ever lived. So it connects them to them. For everything that was written in the past, and now he's talking about scriptures of the Old Testament, listen to what this says. Teach us so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. You know, the Bible's about Jesus, but we read the Bible and you say there's two other things that come out of that, endurance and encouragement. The Bible's about those two things.

Then it says, may the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus. So that was the sermon. Then Missy and Mia and Lydia led us in that song, The Blessing by Carrie Jo. And it's kind of emotional there. And then that's it. Sounds like an awesome. We have little treats, though. I wanted to share.

Can I share these? with you. We were blessed by a bakery on the volunteer dinner. Somewhere from Texas, I'll have to get the Unashamed Nation the name of the bakery. But picture cookies. I think they did a really good job. So, Jace, here's Willie.

Yeah, Willie looks. Willie's face looks about twice the size of the... Yeah, he looks too. I think they did the formation. And then, Psy, I thought it was fantastic. That's great. And then they actually had... We're losing your mic, Ben.

One for me. I don't think I've ever had a cookie with my face on it. That's what you don't even arrive, Missy. All you've done. I finally arrived. This is it right here. This is the moment. But you see what happened.

People were like, well, I can't, I mean, I just can't eat this. Yeah. Well, here's the funny one. Here's the funny one. Is that Dan? I don't know. No, that's Phil. This is Phil.

He doesn't have a gray beard. Yeah. He has a younger. He has a fatter face. Yeah, it's a younger. Is this Phil? Okay. So then this is Phil.

feel and then they just really went the extra mile with just some of our themes that we've had for the last couple of years and then I love this one. There's a story behind every smile. That's totally true. I'm going to get the information. So we'll put it up.

Maddie can put up for sure. They went over and beyond and fed all the volunteers these and some of them took them home with souvenirs, you know, so it was really extra mile and special. It just really started the weekend off like this is really personalization and that's a we want to do with all these family. We want to make them feel very special. They're all together

in a community, but each individual child and parent are, they're going through so many things besides a cleft. They're having their own life struggles. And so we want to just be there every year for them and encourage them. So again, go to miamu.org if you like to donate. You can even earmark it, Funday, if you want to just donate to the fun day. But we pay for a lot of these parents for their kids medical procedures is what we do. We don't give them money. It goes directly to the doctors and the hospitals. Awesome.

Well, thank you again, Missy, for coming on and telling us about it. Zach's good to have you back in the house. We'll see you next time. 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 get notified about new episodes. And for even more content that you won't get anywhere else,

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