EP: 462 Werewolves, a White Pony, and a 100 Year Promise with Marcus Young

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And should we take him now or should we wait? And I'm freaking out. Is it like some kind of creepy language or is it? I heard it in English, she knows. Geez. What happens when a bunch of Baptist boys go to Burma and find werewolves? And the story's got everything. We've got white ponies that lead directly to a missionary in a well, werewolves running through houses, and two missionary hunters that hunt them down. Lots of stories, so the missionaries get blurry. Today we got a hundred year story, but family decided to take the gospel in one of the weirdest places on earth. If you like what we're doing here at Blurry Creatures, you can go even deeper. You can enjoy the journey even more. Check out BlurryCreatures.com/members. Our membership supports what we do here at the show. It's how you can get ad-free episodes, extra members only episodes, and you can join a vibrant community of like-minded thinkers that are looking for the truth and are looking to go deeper in their faith and into the weird. Thank you for supporting this podcast. Check it out. The history of our earth is so different from what we can imagine. Enjoy the journey. The Smithsonian, and if they found out about large skeletons somewhere, was to go get it, I'm going to assume at least one person is right because if one person's right it busts the paradigm. It all goes back to the fallen chair, and the problem with the modern day church, they have a very truncated view of the supernatural. Just backdrop, it's just pregnant with all kinds of meaning associated with this Mount Herman event. And this guy, Defects from the Kingdom, that's a big deal. Grant Pemberton helped make this happen, and Brandon Weaver, who does all the production behind a lot of our events. Thank you for introducing us to Marcus Young. He films around the world often, and he sends us these stories of like, you know, you got to interview this guy, he's got some crazy stories about hunting werewolves or whatever. And we always sort of laugh a little bit, but over the years we've learned that a lot of these missionaries and people around the world doing God's work, have these encounters, have these stories, and don't necessarily have a platform or microphone to share them. And they help kind of tell the tale of the spiritual warfare and the things you guys are up against when you're out doing, God's working, and you've been four generations in your family in Burma, near there, and have some wild stories to tell. So thank you for coming on the podcast, and we can get started with your story and sort of the blurry things that have happened along the way, trying to bring the gospel and bibles and, you know, the word of God into remote parts of the world and dealing with just horrific evil. And you're the founder of Infire and Herodin's Fire. It's a nonprofit that rescues children out of trafficking or cotton war, extreme poverty. You grew up in the Philippines. Yeah. You were a wild hammer. We talked about this pre-roll, which is awesome because I was a wild hammer as well. And your family, I mean, one of the most remarkable missionary lines in modern history, fourth generation, great grandfather, William Marcus Young walked into the Burma in China, borderlands, the turn of the 20th century, and met the Lahu people, a tribe that was waiting. And this is just an incredible, incredible legacy and story. Of course, we talked about Don Richardson's classic "Turning in their Hearts", a book about your family, about one of the great mass turns of people to Christ in modern history. And Don Richardson was a famous messiologist. And so he, his first book that was really popular was "Peace Telled", but he's trying to capture this idea that the gospel is already written in cultures. And so then he went out and he started to study it around the world and he grabbed a couple of stories from my family's history that kind of reflect how the gospel is already there. And it's funny as it was required reading the "YWM" and so I had read this along with a book by the founder of "YWM Loan in Cunningham", which is a really cool, complete circle for this. But yeah, where did your story start? I mean, it starts four generations back. So what, do you want to start with the story? Do you want to tell the. Yeah. So, I mean, when I start telling the stories, we could be here forever, but that's what we want to do here. Yeah. So my great-granddad, he, he went out to Burma, which is now Myanmar, so a lot of people know it as Myanmar, 18, 87, 18, 90, somewhere in that timeframe, depends on like the old notes that I look at and I couldn't quite pin it exactly. But he prayed. He just said, "Lord, help me to win thousands and thousands of souls to you." He was an intercessor of Angelist. And he cried out for like 16 some years, lost his first wife during that time. He came back to the U.S. actually and because he had tuberculosis, went to Colorado. He died on the way back. He met my great-granddad, I mean, my, sorry, my great-grandma, Dell on the boat. And that was like a six-month boat trip back in those days. So. Okay. Um. You're those. Well, that was weird. This guy does not like me. His teeth fell out. Sorry. Oh, it did be. We lost. We lost an incisor there. Oh, my goodness. And as well. So. Okay. Yeah. Sometimes a set just responds to the. The crazy. The crazy. Okay. Well, we'll get to you. But. Yeah. So, he, you know, he ended up 1900 Christmas Day, there's my grandma in Yangon and then they travel up into this really remote area. No missionaries up in the area. Well, he met your grandmother on the boat over to Asia. Yeah. Because you have a six months, you know, you're just kind of locked in. That's wild. You're like. There's got to be some single ladies out here on this boat. Right. Yeah, that's. So, they go up in this remote area. He moves into this house of a former tent maker missionary, actually, who had been brutally murdered. And that's where he does a lot of his prayer. So, he cleans it all up. So, it's kind of in the blood of the martyrs. He's praying this prayer. Wow. Lord, Lord, help me. 1000s and 1000s of souls for you. So, one day, he's out in the marketplace of giant doom and he's preaching. He's got his white Bible up. Well, it's, you know, pages are open. And so, it all looks white, even the black cover. He's wearing white suit. He's a white skin dude. You know, everybody else is brown skin. And he's preaching out of the Ten Commandments. And as he's preaching, there's a law who, which is one of the tribes, a law who holy man, shows up with his disciples. And he starts hearing these stories. And from the Bible, and he's like, this is our prophecies. Like, they actually had ballots. So, they had these songs, like, these, like, love songs and these songs that trace back, like, almost 300 years, as far back as my great uncle could trace them, that talk about, like, a white man with a white book, the white son that would come. It's actually crazy. You have, like, Genesis story, you have, you have the flood, you have even book of revelation stuff. In a law who culture. And there are, are they, in Myanmar or are they in China? There are the others. Both sides. So, they're in both sides. Yeah. You've got them in Laos, Thailand. Angle regions. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, it's in that region. This is where the law who are. So, like, man, this is a fulfillment of what we've been waiting for. And so. Do they tell you how they got that information? We couldn't trace it back any further than that. There's just oral songs. You know, to 300 years is a long ways to trace back as it is. I mean, think about the history of re-nation. Right. Yeah. So, we always wonder, like, how some of these ancient cultures will have, like, a flood story or things like that, you know? Yeah. Absolutely. The revelation is kind of wild. Yeah. And Genesis story. Yeah. That's one of the crazy things is, like, in, you know, in some of these tribes, like, it goes forwards and backwards. And you're like, was there a possible that shut up at one point, you know, like, was there somebody here in the gospel? Like, you just wonder. And then did they get it? Because these tribes all had these, like, spirit bracelets where their history is basically said, they've moved away from following the true God and they got in bondage to the spirits. Weird. So, I think it was symbolic. Like, go ahead. You know, I said, there's a lot, so there's a lot of holy man comes and hears your grandfather preaching and says, you are the prophecy. Yeah. There was a people movement that happened. So, like, you got to understand, like in the 1920s, a thousand people in a church was like a mega church. A mega church. Yeah. So, when my granddad was seeing a thousand to two thousand people a year, come into the kingdom. him, and he's reporting back to the good ol' Baptist guys saying, "Hey, I've got this revival going on." They didn't believe him. They couldn't put their, you know, wrap their heads around the fact that that many people could be stepping into the kingdom at a time. It was a big deal. And so he was pretty overwhelmed because his kids were still babies, and he had a couple of the tribal groups working with him. He was like, he pioneered an area of about 100,000 square miles, supposedly, is what they said, you know, just like a huge, huge space. You're one of my favorite things we talked about on the show over the years is when Derek Olson came on and talked about the giant tooth he found. He came out of the mouth of an ancient giant. And supposedly they had two rows of teeth. You imagine the teeth grinding in those dental problems. Yeah, they'd probably grind in their teeth at night. You got two rows to do with. Yeah, all these dental issues, what are they going to do? For us, it only have one row of teeth, and still deal with clenching in our teeth at night and grinding our teeth. Remy is the best possible solution. We should be taking care of our bodies, so that's why we want to get out of our sleep, drink enough water. 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Yeah, people to come and show up and then they had these, some people had dreams and visions of Jesus and we hear that in modern times too. So I don't think that they're, it's impossible to say that a group of people could be waiting for the gospel. When you show up, they're not hostile, they're almost welcoming. And sometimes it's hostile. Sometimes it's the opposite. Yeah. So it was mixed with the Wahoo, but mostly friendly. Yeah. But then, you know, that was in 1904. So like the same time as Zoot Street revival. Yeah. So I kind of think, you know, in these times there were like divine sparks kind of blowing around the world. Yeah. And this was just one of the sparks that landed out in some remote place. And then in 1908, we have another story that is with the Watt tribe and they were headhunders and they were fearsome. So everybody's terrified of these people. They were warrior tribe. It's like they believe that the firstborn is dedicated to war. And kind of like in Israel, the firstborn is dedicated to God. They dedicated their firstborn to war. And so that tribe, they had a line of prophets. And those, those prophets, they were, they were this kind of odd mix because they would say like, stop getting stone drunk, stop stealing your name as wife, stop, stop headhunting, prepare your hearts for the coming of the true God. So that's like a John the Baptist kind of thing, right? Yeah. Prepare in the way. But then they have the stories about this last final prophet. He has 12 disciples and out of his 12 disciples, he has three who are in his inner circle. And, and then he's like Moses because when the Chinese military would come in and fight the tribes, he would go out rally the tribes together and he had a staff. And if you kept the staff up, they would win. So he literally had two of his disciples that would be propping up his arms. And as long as the staff was up in the air, then they would be winning these battles. So as this weird mix, and you're like, how did that happen? You know, like, how did they, like, where did he learn to do this, right? And how does it mirror the Bible? Like, it's just a shadowing. Yeah, it's just crazy. What do you think? I mean, this is what Don Richardson built like a whole, his whole like framework on is that, is that God is preparing eternity or sets attorney in the hearts of people. Yeah. And it kind of preloads them for the gospel. But you, I mean, you're family encountered this. I just, how do you think that works? Or what do you think's happening? Right? Because this is always the thing, right? Marcus, where people go, well, you know, what happens if so and so tribe never hears the gospel, right? What happens to them with their, with their salvation or their eternity? I think we're all still in the image of God. Yeah. Even when we're broken. So what happens is, as cultures will naturally reflect both. Like, because we're broken, right? So we're going to flex the good and we're going to reflect the bad. So like, when you think about Abraham going up to sacrifice his son, yeah, child sacrifice was prevalent in those days. So it was a common thing to sacrifice your first born. That wasn't weird. That was normal. So what God was doing is he was taking something really dark in that culture and instead of being terrified by it, he stepped into it and he redeemed it and he revealed Jesus through it. Yeah. And so like the law have this, this saying that's written in their primers for their kids. Oh, how beautiful is the sight of the fork stick? And that's, so you'd have these fork sticks that they, when they'd head hunt, they'd stick the head and the fork stick, fork stick, and the blood would run down onto the grain offerings and give them good harvest. And so right, even in that dark story, there's still a story of, hey, we need blood for redemption. You know, we need to put something on a fork stick to deliver us. So it's, it's crazy because it's dark, but God is not, like, he's not scared of the dark, right? He can still penetrate. There's still a place in the culture that's still crying out for God. And then they go, I know this, how this works. And you say, well, the redemptive part of this is that Jesus was on the fork stick on the cross. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And his blood came down and redeemed. What? Us, which is like really fascinating that they have, and it makes sense though, because we have these powers and personalities. And of course, there's a counterfeiting or twisting truth is what the enemy operates. Yeah. Well, it seems like around the world people are open to the gospel through their worldview, more so than a Westerner, because you have to kind of explain to a Westerner like, well, back in the day, there was sacrifice. And that's why we need the sacrifice of Christ. You don't have to explain all this spiritual knowledge. And then the average Westerners like, okay, you know, but I think in some of these cultures where they are have given themselves over to the gods, there is sacrifice, there is blood offerings, there is a power of darkness, they kind of go, yeah, I feel ensnared by this. I don't feel liberated by these things. Yeah, where we're in, yeah, two different dimensions of spiritual darkness. Yeah. Because we've got the dimension in a place like the US. Yeah. That's full of the spiritual powers. Yeah. We just don't recognize it. We don't have the eyes to see it as much. Yeah. And then when you step into like a tribe, and it's, you know, these are areas that have been like dedicated to dark powers for hundreds of years sometimes, thousands of years sometimes. So it can be intensely dark when you walk into these. You know, like when you think about like the US, we were still founded on a lot of good, godly principles that kind of like create a buffer zone. So even though there's a lot of spiritual darkness in our country, there's still a buffer zone. Some of these spaces have just been dedicated darkness for centuries. And it does make a difference. So this principality that's just been is entrenched. Yeah. And these spiritual things. And what is the knowledge of this area start to kind come back and the church is aware of it? Because it seems like there's these decades where you're just kind of out there by yourself. And there's not a lot of communication. And yeah. And who knows what's going on? You know, now we're so connected in the world. We can dial up a star link and send for help, you know? Yeah. Well, I don't know if we want to jump there or not because we didn't really get into like the crazy white pony. So I want to hear this because like you're so if we go back to it, your grandfather's preaching. Yeah. There's a prophecy that exists in the law who people and it and they recognize your grandfather as being that person that's bringing the word of the true God, right? And then thousands of people, which is a ton for night, turn of the century, 1900 started coming to Christ. But he of course, as we just talked about, there's a principality and there's darkness there. So talk about some of the things that happened to your great great grandfather. There's the white pony story. I know that there's stories about them being surrounded with by an arm by armed arm mob. There's these miracle stories that will take us downstream to some of the other wild things that happen in the family. So yeah, let's let's start because we were talking about Jopu who was this this profit. Yeah, and and so he actually with his disciples He he gathers them one day and he says listen I'm gonna bless this white pony and my granddad used to call it a donkey So if I get confused it's just like the way I learned the story because they're just little mountain ponies and He said I'm gonna bless this pony and if you follow it, it's gonna lead you to the true God So they had the traditions that said you could take a copper cooking pot Is thick as your wrist and you could cook in it cooking until you were all the way through and you couldn't find the true God And you could take a bundle of walking sticks and kid walk and walk and walk until you were all down a little stubs And you still couldn't find the true God But that one day the true God was gonna be revealed so my meditation on that was it's simply like hey Outside of God breaking in you can't do it you can try and try on your own But it really takes a break in of God into a space for a people to encounter the Lord and so These disciples are like well, we know your true profit. What do we do when the traditions tell us we can't find God But they went ahead and said we'll we'll follow the pony so they packed their gear. They've got these little bags and machetes and And they load this pony up with gifts and Because they actually the prophet actually said there's there's a white man who's come into the area who knows this true God And you're gonna you're gonna meet this true God through him and so he's just followed the pony So the blessed the ponies slaps it on the rear takes off in the jungles the follow it all day never stops the grace And night it stops at a nice campsite they pull the pull the saddlebags off and you know It's grazing and they you know set up camp in the morning when they're ready to go they put the saddleback on it and Donkey takes back off into the jungles and these are like big trees and there's bandit gangs and it's slow moving and so days become weeks and They're they're starting eventually to get nervous. They're like We've been following this pony for a long time. There's no God. What are we gonna do? You know and in the Asian cultures it faces really important, right? You don't want to lose face And so they're saying we're gonna do we we come home. We haven't found God. We're gonna look at fools We're gonna lose their status And they're topping over this rise and they've actually they started in Yangon crack Which is this it means not water buffalo It's a tall mountain in China and they've traveled over into Burma and to Myanmar at this point And they're on this rise and they see this little city in the distance and There's a split in the trail and so One one trails going down into the or out back into the jungle another one's going down to the city and They're like okay, we've got to get some supplies. You know, we're hungry We've got to take we've got to take care of business and another guys like talking about business We actually should sell some stuff turn this into a business trip come back with some money in her bags And I like look at her fools, you know So they're having this argument and as they're arguing about what to do the pony goes up this kind of more remote trail and they're like Let's just ditch the pony. Let's go down to the city So they ditched the pony and start heading down to the city and as a story goes this pony chases off after him and starts to try to push him up this other trail And they're like this is so strange. What do we do with this? So finally, we're like, uh, let's go ahead and just give it a couple miles, but if nothing happens, we're going to the city So they fall this pony a couple more miles and it stops they're looking around They see a couple like looks like abandoned, you know, like buildings with grass fatch and so on But it's next to hole in the ground. So they go look down in the hole and my great-granddad is down in this hole digging a well And they're like, can you tell us about the true God? He's like, who are you guys? Luke, what do you think the most famous bed of all time is? Well, there was one in Beshan. There was a biblical bed Oh, wow. That's right 13 feet by six feet. Even made it into the Bible. That's a famous bed But it's made of iron doesn't seem to be the most comfortable thing. Maybe not the best thing for your back No, it's not great for your back. You need something a little bit more soft Listen, I the older we get the more important our mattresses You just don't sleep on a Brooklyn bedding mattress. You experience it I sleep on this bed every night personally and it is one of the best mattresses I've ever had Wake up feeling refreshed. I don't never have any back issues and I'm a sleep connoisseur Just like going down all these rabbit holes. This is a great mattress, and I personally love it You know when I lay down on my Sedona from Brooklyn bedding. It's the same thing. You have the Sedona as well Yes, no Brooklyn bedding is one of the few mattresses It's endorsed by the American Chiropractic Association and I'm telling you it's got copper infused foam and you feel great when you sleep on it It's a right temperature. I don't explain it Get in the right temperature is difficult when you sleep. 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Okay, so he's already overwhelmed with this people movement That's going on with the law who and they're begging him to come back And they one of the prophecies they had from their prophet was you're gonna sit with this guy and you're gonna eat white rice for seven days Because you know they they didn't mill the rice. So it was all like healthy brown rice Yeah, but the white dude my great-granddad. He's milling his rice. He's eating white rice Yeah, to them that was bizarre, you know So again, there's these symbols of white. We're just really crazy, but they ate white rice firm with him for seven days And they begged him to come back and he's like I can't and my kids are still young. I can't come back to you. I'm really sorry I can't come back to you, but He said you can send people to me and I'll try to disciple them along with the law who okay, so There's some crazy elements to the story. Okay, so one of the crazies is I Went over to Northern Thailand started working with this wild tribe through my uncle Bill who was a famous CIA operative back in the day Like walled Disney about part of his life story. So he was one of my early mentors Wow, not the first choice for a young missionary Yeah, it was really awkward He's like I'm gonna build a scoop that's food And I've had these weird threads through my my whole life You know, I just actually met with a guy yesterday who did a lot of stuff with the government and we talked about like How we would trade information is I would always try to find information that helped both sides Hmm because I'm like I can't compromise So there's a lot of times I just kept my mouth shut because I knew things from like because I'm working in this Wah drug cartel. Okay, and there's times I know stuff going on both sides I remember when my most guilty moments and I know this is a total spin-off Yeah, but it's my my uncle Bill handed me a assassination letter and asked me to deliver it because he was gonna take a guy out up in Burma and and I was like I can't do this. So I'm like hey, I know this Other guy over here. He'd probably do it for you He was a pastor and he did it and I always felt really guilty I was like that I actually you know like got somebody else involved with it because I you know It was missionaries and politics go hand-in-hand. I mean most of the guys that come on our show like the Troy Brewer is saying like He had you have to get to know those guys and like if you want to go to Mexico for example you have to know People in higher places to get in and out with the cartels. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and there is this sort of code of ethics It sort of works on the outside of they all know it and like these you have to appease the cartels to get access And they're not gonna kill you if you sure now I fought the cartels. Yeah, not with guns, but I've gone up against them and got my butt kicked You know, and so what I've learned over time is like they're human beings that need to cycled. Sure Just like everybody else and so you learn it's like Daniel with Nebuchadnezzar You learn how to walk with these people and be a prophetic voice in their space Because if you can move them an inch, it's impacting a lot of people. Yeah, and so you it's you're respecting another form of government Because these guys are government in their areas. So explain to me a little power. You have I'm a little confused because visual and I can't put together you have a Your ground fought a great grandmother is digging a hole a well. Yeah. Yeah Where's the well hole and then it's in Jantan, which is a city where my granddad and my dad were both born Okay, it was it was actually used to be a was city So like the was cities were like these massive walled cities Because of all though, so he's there and these people traveled from They traveled from the China side. Okay. Yeah, and they followed a white and they followed white ponies through the jungle The pony shows like it looks in the hole, right? It was it was like probably three Plus weeks, we don't know the exact time so the pony looks turning pony looks in the hole when there's your grandfather stops at the hole Like it doesn't stop the whole journey unless they pull this out of bags. That's where time for camp, right? And so it stops at the hole. And well the foundation is pretty cool when you think about it. 12 disciples falling white pony. So for the sake of crazy visuals, like a tribe off further away in the bushes gets this idea prophecy that we're gonna follow this down. This prophetic guy, this Moses John the Baptist did out of a line of prophets. He's the last of a line of prophets. And he's actually like, it's coming close to my time to die is what he told him. He prophesied his day of death. It was pretty, they died with it. Yeah. - Wow. - So they stay with him and learn or do they go back? - Seven days, okay. So now I'm kind of circling back to piece of my story which is, I've been out there for five years. - At this time. - Yeah, in Northern Thailand working with this tribe. These old dudes send this delegation to us in Thailand. They say, we wanna tell you what your great-granddad promised us. When we came to the well, he, because we begged him. They said, we begged him to come and he said, I'm really sorry, I can't, but I make you a promise. If I can't come to you, my sons will come to you. And if my sons can't come to you, my grandsons will come to you. And if my grandsons cannot come to you, then my great-grandsons will come to you. - Shoot. And I had grown up hearing the story over and over and over but I never heard that promise. And I was out there five years and almost I'm hearing this and it just rocked my world. 'Cause I realized like my great-granddad spoke down into his generations and here I am, you know? - Wow, dude. - It just, and that's 1890. - 1890-ish. - 1890-ish when he first, so it was 1908 when the wash show up. - And then you're there. - We showed up 1994, January 15, 1994. So. - In between those, Marcus is your grand, what happens to your grandfather and your dad? Generationally, just so we can lay it out. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want a circle back. - So my great-granddad was the first and then his two sons. He had one son who died. Some people think he was poisoned, attacked. First marriage, he had a daughter who stayed back in the States. So my granddad and my great-uncle figure up wild men. Uncle Harold had a couple of sons. My granddad had two sons, one of the sons, and it'd be in like a 200 plus IQ Berkeley math teacher after growing up in the jungle. - Wow. - It was a crazy guy. - Jungle genius. - Yeah, and my dad kind of hung out of the missionary thing as well as Marcus Vincent, my granddad. So he was an evangelist, worked with a lot of the tribes, and his book, like Seven Language, is flintly. He did a lot of translation work as well. So he did the orthographies for the law, for the law who did the New Testament for the law. I did the Old Testament for the law. He did. - You did. - Yeah, well I managed the project, right? It was a group of us. So which was run by a drug cartel guy initially. You know, that gave me death threats. And all sorts of stuff, that was a whole lot of it. - He was running the translation project. - Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. - Wow. - And then we heard how that works. - It's, you know, I learned a lot about spiritual warfare and doing Bible translation projects. You'll hear from a lot of people how crazy it is, but this was super crazy. - So there's at least one son that generation that carried you. - Generationally every, yeah, so in the natural generation, cycle and four. Like so if you've looked at like a book generations, the fourth turning is a real popular one, that a lot of people probably read. That predicted like the whole season we're in right now with 2020 and everything was all predicted off of generational patterns. And so you can look at in the Bible, Abraham Isaac Jacob Joseph. There's these four generations. The niceties go down to the third and fourth generation. And I'm sure people have talked about how epigenetics, how those work in four generation type, third and fourth generation patterns specifically. So naturally you have four generations. You move into fifth generation. Like, you know, what is it? Boas, Obed, Jesse, David, and then you move in a Solomon and there's a breakthrough kind of moment that happens the fifth generation is supposed to be kind of your breakthrough or you kind of reset. - I'm sorry. - There's something shifts, I remember. - You're kind of the fourth. So yeah. - So what did they do when they get to this well? And they're looking down, going, it's true. - Here we are. - So they stick around them? - They stuck around for seven days, like they were supposed to and then they went back. And so it started a relationship with the law and there were a lot of law people. My family had a real desire to work with the law more and my granddad would go up into these regions. Like, there was a guy named Jot Deh who was another prophet, he prophesied this whole mountain range would become Christian but he was worshiped himself as God. A lot of people like one of his miracles was he drank like 10 gallons of whiskey and this one setting and didn't die. Just like. - It was a miracle. - Yes, exactly. I wouldn't try to do the giant to do it, but that was about it. - Yeah. - There you go. So, but he prophesied this whole mountain range behind him would become Christian. My granddad came through a year later and evangelized through the whole space. And so. - Do these prophets come to the Lord? Like the one that prophesied the white pony, does he? - The white pony, he was a follower of Jesus. However, it was a Cornelius kind of guy who didn't ever get, 'cause he died before he ever met the church per se. But I gotta imagine a guy like that's got a chance, you know? - Yeah. - Yeah. - So I can't. 'Cause he's hearing you're getting words from the Lord, obviously. - Yeah. (upbeat music) - Luke long before Lake Michigan was Lake Michigan. They say it was an ancient giant port. They were coming here looking for precious metals. They were looking for gold, copper. Those things that just last the test of time. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about gold code today. And if you wanna get some precious metals, we know the place to go. - Yeah, the world can seem chaotic, Nate. Like we've got markets and wars and all these things that affect our currency. But the tried and true has always been precious metals. In Goldcoze, a precious metals company that has helped thousands of everyday people move a portion of their life savings into physical gold and silver. We did it. We got silver. And times are blurry out there, things are getting crazy. Gold and silver can help buffer your wealth against unseen volatility. That word is volatility. Goldcoze is over 8,000 five-star reviews in one Money.com's best customer service award because they focus heavily on education. - And right now they'll send out a free gold and silver kit right to your door to help you map out your options. Even better, if you're a qualified account, you could receive up to 10% back and free silver just for getting started. So don't wait for the next system to collapse. Take ownership of your stewardship and visit blurrygold.com. That's blurrygold.com. Where the gold at? Goldco, baby. (upbeat music) - It reminds me of all the stories in the Bible where you have people going, "Your God is the true God." They're kind of slowly coming to, you know what I mean? Like, you know, you have highlighted in the story of, you know, like, this guy's done nothing wrong. Like he has a sense that Jesus is, who he says he is, but he's not necessarily a convert, but he's aware of the truth and he's moving, he's around it kind of. - What makes somebody a follower of God or a follower of Jesus is, you know, especially when they're like out in a remote jungle. - Sure. - Like how do you define that? I'm cautious to define that too much, but I wanna keep my hands off of it. - Sure. - So to speak, because I think that's, I gotta trust that to the kindness and goodness of God. And if he's working through a prophet and has a relation, I mean, well, think about all these guys all testament, they were looking forward to Jesus, but they didn't have much of a clue. - Sure. - Like, you know, people got glimpses. - Yeah. - But we know it at a whole different level. Does that mean that we got accepted and they did not know? - No. - Well, you're saying in the beginning, like Jesus, God is breaking in, you know, and I think in these pagan cultures, it's the opposite. You have to like do things to ascend to the God, and then the story of the gospel as God comes down and breaks into our world. And so, our awareness of that is on a sliding scale of how much we understand. - Go ahead. - No, no, good. I do want to, I want to jump to a modern day story on the white poem. 'Cause it's, so we came here a summer of 2005. We were attending a little church and grassland area, and I'd been there for two weeks. Okay, so I didn't know much, showed up in the church service, and they said, hey, we've got these political dignitaries coming in today, worship like normal. I'm like, well, I don't know what normal is for you guys, so whatever. So I'm sitting in the back with my wife. - Actually, you got your wave in your flag, yeah. - Yeah. - So actually they had the soaking service before, and I had ecclesiastics open. It's like they just play this kind of like soft music in the background, and you meditate being the presence of God. And I was meditating on the scripture that said, that which has been will be, and that which will be, has already been, but God seeks out these things which run on ahead. This word, we're a scripture, right there. Meditating on it, and I have this question based on it. Don't ask me how I got there, but it was like, what happens if a family line follows its mandate generationally? is there an increase in divine coincidences? That was my question. Strange question, right? So meditating on this, asking God, worship goes on, then they introduce these people. And one of them was Congressman Joseph Pitts. And this was back, like I said, two or five. So he gets up to preach and he starts talking about, immediately, he says, there's people in this congregation who are descendants of the Mayflower. Now, I've been asking, got about four generations, but on my dad's mom's side, we trace back to the Mayflower. So I'm like, oh, maybe God's got to like a little bit bigger picture than I do about how he's working generationally. So I'm like, that could be a coincidence. And then he starts talking about, and this guy's 25 years, my senior, easily grown up as an MK missionary kid in the Philippine Islands, planning the old Japanese workaves going to faith academy, all the stuff I did as a kid. I'm thinking, the guy's telling my story. This is crazy, you know? Okay, that's another coincidence, you know, too. And then he starts talking about Columbia and the drug cartels there. And that's a whole other story that won't get into. But at the time, I'm like, well, you know, I'm working, I worked a lot in the drug cartel space. So maybe there's a connection there. But then he starts talking about Myanmar Burma. And he's talking about people I know, though he's not mentioning their names, even mentions of the water, I wish you most people didn't even know who the wall are. And so at this point, my mind's getting blown, right? I'm like, okay, this is, this is too bizarre. He really is telling my story. So he's been talking for a while. The pastor gets up and says, Hey, we're really glad you were here. Congressman Pitts, would you mind telling a couple lines about Adamine Judson, who was the first Protestant missionary we sent from America was Adamine Judson sent to Burma, okay? So that was our first missionary that was sent out of our country, the other Protestant missionary. So he gives two sentences on Judson, and he starts to tell me the story of my great granddad. Wow. And at this point, I'm freaking out. My wife and I are both crying. So I didn't know many people. But I walked up to one of the guys, David Fitzpatrick, who was pastoring. And I'm blubbering. And I'm like, this guy just told me my life story. What should I do? Right? He's like, I got to get you up there. So the senior pastor is saying, sit down. He's like, no, it's okay. And you know, he introduces me as a great grandson of William Marcus Young. And I finished telling the white pony story because he just launched in this white pony story. So I tell the story opens up this door for us in DC. But attached to that, the day before David Fitzpatrick, this guy talked to, he had just, there was a gal in the church who on the way to his house, excuse me, hadn't her, her, I think it was 11 year old son made up the story about 12 guys who followed the white pony and searched at the true God. And she shows up at David's, his, his house. And he starts telling her the white pony story. And he's like, she's like, Zadok here just told that story, just made it up on the way here. And then the next day at church, this happens, that guy, by the way, is now serving in Myanmar like hardcore served the kid. Yeah. So I can tell you stories. It's just like the layers are crazy. Yeah. It's like echo, echo, echo. But that story is what got my attention about generational stuff. Yeah. Because I'm like, oh, this is not really about me. This is about something God wants the church to understand. Like, and so that impacted how we even do rescue. Because I started saying, okay, I have to think generously. Like I have to think about leaders who are going to really give everything they got to that next generation and think from a different angle. Like, so it, it rocked me a big time. I think we forget that God's always kind of pursuing people. Yeah. It's not just in the Old Testament where weird stuff happens. Yeah. Yeah. It's been, you know, since the dawn of time, God is using, and funny things to get people to like a white pony of all things. Yeah. And, and the crazy thing is, you know, like, I've been up to Young Oncrook. I've talked to the old dudes. Yeah. Yeah. I was at the church where that happened. And a lot of people remember that day. And they didn't have a clue as to everything that was happening because there were all these stories within the stories. You know, so. Yeah. It's, it's pretty interesting. The power of the story and how it can keep, you know, echoing. That's what the Bible does. It has these echoes all the way through. You know, you get to Jesus and he's full of echoes. Yeah. Well, this, this white pony kind of kicks off for this 100 years of you guys, you know, dealing with principalities, powers and some people, locals are interested. And obviously you have the headhunters who aren't. What are some of the, sort of the encounters you guys are having pushing back? What are the some of the wild miracles? Yeah. Like the, like another rifle story. Yeah. Okay. Because yeah, because obviously you're going into enemy territory, right? This principalities not giving up. Yeah. Territory without a fight. So, yeah. So I want to just preface it again. My, my great granddad was a man of prayer. I mean, he prayed a lot. And so I really think like a big reason I'm here today is because there were prayers that were prayed. You know, like, I told you the story, right? I found out that he prophesied about his, his generations. And, and so I'm like, okay, you know, this, this isn't a whole lot about me. It is about me, but it's about a whole lot more. And, and this is a crazy thing to talk about generations. The they believe that I'm the embodiment of my great granddad and my granddad. So like, like a while people. Yeah. And a lot. They all, like, like when, when, you know, so when Abraham pays the tithe to Mukhisdek, right? What's his very blurry story? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mukhisdek just shows that he's going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but in his loins, Levi is paying that tithe, right? There, there's, there's a generational representation that's real to those people in a way that we just are disconnected from. And so I, I literally had people who believe that so much. They fought over me. Like, like, like there were, there were like drug cartel slash church people who fought over me as a person, which was really annoying because they thought that that generational blessing was so important, because they saw the embodiment of it in ways that just was so hard for it to connect my brain. What's interesting about this, this conversation is you kind of return to generations as the oftentimes on the show, we've talked about generational curses, something that's open the Bible and how these curses going to go down to the third and fourth, but it's not often we flip the coin and say, and you brought up epigenetics and those things and say some blessings also. Yeah. And you're sitting here, you're sitting here in our studio as someone who is, is a part of this fourth generational blessing. Genesis 18, 19. So God says, I've chosen Abraham because he will disciple, he will train up his entire household, his generations as the Hebrew, so that they can walk out, follow my righteous and justice, but the key thing that he says there is so that actually I can fulfill what I promised him. And so God was looking for somebody he gets so into that would create a generational pattern. So you think about like epigenetics, is it possible that one of the reasons Jewish people are so brilliant is because they have for generations discipled, they've had this structure of discipling over and over and over for generations and it came such a strong pattern that it set something in motion. I think there's a lot of possibility there that that actually was a pattern that got set in place. That shifted the DNA. Yeah, there is a father like son. I mean, it's the basic saying that we all grow up hearing it, but I think that you know, go to certain countries like Japan, for example, and you're just blown away like, there's a generational understanding of you don't just do whatever you want to do, you know, and you leave as a westerner, just your life has changed because you experience like, this is burned into the people and it's been that way for ages, you know, their father, their father's father, and just that culture of honor, we are a culture of honor. Who started this honor thing? So, you know, 100 years in between we start off with these people show up and then, you know, I don't think the story is just and that was that and everything was easy and rosy and the gospel spread and I'm sure there was a lot of resistance. There was a dog fight. Well, so this baptismal service you want to get to. So, you know, my great granddad being a good Baptist, you know, you had to dunk people. And so he has, yeah, these pictures, we're not sprinkling anyone. I can't remember what it was. It was like, how many people he baptized in like, you know, 30 minutes or so, at least a thousand or so. I mean, it was like some crazy number, but he's a legend. Yeah, so during one of these baptismal services in, in a river, there was a guy who starts stirring up trouble, like stirring up a mob and it got violent enough that my great-granddad, I think at that point his sons were a little older and so I think it was Harold who was with them, but he's like, listen, we're going to have to go to the nearest town and get some help because that papers from the government that allowed them to do the work that they did. Now, this was Wild West, so there were times like there was stories about like there was a pony load of silver at one point that was offered for the heads of the white men. So everybody and their brother were out there trying to win the lottery. So there's a lot of different kind of stories, but in this particular case, they have. permission so they went to this nearest town and remember how I was talking about how you had these big tall walls and these big gates kind of like think about old biblical times so big city gates so when they come into this this this city the mob is behind them and and it's chasing after them and it takes 30 to 40 people was shutting up in these gates and the mob shuts the gates behind them and so they're trapped they go to the governor's house give them their papers and the government the governor looks at the papers and tears them to and throws them on the ground and basically just signals for people to do what they want to do so they get surrounded by this mob and they start stoning them you know anything they can get stick stones they're just stoning them and that's when my great-granddad courting the story kneels down begins to pray and they say this cloud descends down on them and as this cloud descends all the sticks and stones start to just curve out so people are like oh my goodness what's going on but the governor gets really mad so he pulls his rifleman out and he lines them all up and he's like ready aim fire now pull the triggers but nothing's happening and so all the guys yes they have them unload and they reload and try again so when these guys probably a little smart in the average he points his gun up and boom you know it goes off reloads points down a couple points that then nothing's happening so as a story goes she's about this time he he walks my great-granddad gets up walks over to the big city gates opens them all by himself it took 30 or 40 men to open yeah it's like a Samson thing so he opens the gates and everybody's just you know at that point jaws drop in they're terrified and all the men walked out and that is crazy yeah how many people do you think they were there in them in that whole situation yeah I mean the city could have like is they're small it's probably you know 1500 to 2500 I'm big ones might have been 5000 yeah and then you've got that mob so maybe another you know 200 some people yeah something like that who knows what's the fallout do we hit does Ernie fall up to that like where do people like well I mean there's a lot of people yeah come to work through those kinds of I don't know that particular situation but I mean you've got to be rocked when you see people getting baptized and then you you see a story like that I mean like how can you not have your way yeah I mean there's stories from my granddad about like when people were hunting him yeah this one guy hunting them for a long time because you know the price on his head so the guy would the guy would camp out and get ready to ambush him and these you you'll hear these stories everywhere on the world right but they come in ambush and there's these guys and white with flimmy swords that just pop up and every time he was just the guy would freak out my granddad didn't even know that was going on so like a couple years down the road this guy who finally writes him and this is a famous bandit and he's he's like listen I have no idea he's got on your side but every time I set up a really good ambush I come in and you've got all these men like I give up can I join your team you know what's going on and so yeah and my granddad didn't have a clue the whole time that this was happening so I think I like that part because that's real right like most of us just don't have a clue yeah all this dynamic is happening back behind the scenes and it really is and that's not an uncommon story on the Amazon we talked to a missionary that went up the Amazon and they had to like shoot the shoots through a pirate infested place and the pirates pull up and gots us go the front of your boat and read your Bible yeah and they pull up and they pull off and the village next day yeah yeah basically say who were all those guys the machine guns who were lining the line your boat and he's like it's just me in the cap and reading my Bible and he's like no there's yeah there's these automatic weapons if I we let's always up to you alone and I think I wonder sometimes when you read those stories like Gideon's army you know you're like yeah there's a there's a small pocket of humans but what else is surrounding the camp that the the enemy sees right and lots of missionary stories with these particularly it seems like when you're in a more hostile place those stories are more common yeah versus I don't know I mean maybe there's stories people walking through I think Central Park or yeah I think yeah absolutely but I think it's it's like when you are willing to take a step out in faith sure because those you know my grandad as well was he was a courageous guy like you don't travel in some of those places without being brave yeah now just because your brave doesn't mean you don't get scared to like Michael Bill that was one of the braveest guys I know he used to like rescue people in in like a laus behind enemy lines that like down fighter planes and so on but he'd still you know he you know when I'd go visit him sometimes and he was worried that there was some sniper out there trying to take him out you know like he's he's still dealt with anxiety and panic attacks it's like just because your brave guy doesn't mean you don't deal with stress yeah you know some brave people are stupid too you probably that point honestly you probably resigned that your life in some ways that like hey this might cost me everything yeah you know even that that isn't unbelievable I would you Valor and bravery used to be like you know doesn't my life what is my life worth at this point sounds like yeah it possible right yeah I think you know as you see God showing up more and more you begin to trust him in a deeper way obviously he's like okay these some of these promises are coming true and the people are are starting to respond and the initial calling is being confirmed over and over yeah so eventually you kind of all right God's gonna show up somewhere in here and so you know you have these kinds of stories where I mean that's one of those legendary stories where people are probably talking about it after the fact like dude I was down there and cloud came down guns jammed and yeah clouds were there but it sounds very like they're legends in that area you know like they're definitely legends at that point that's one one thing I had to deal with a lot is like the family had so much history in that area like coming into it as a young outsider it was it was like you were you had an elevated status but I was a young guy in my 20s and you're supposed to be an old guy you know hang out with elders so it was an odd thing and the governments in the area did not want anybody with any kind of potential influence yeah so I had to be really careful about how you feel the pressure of trying to live up to like a high bar like absolutely yeah like I I wrestled with that a lot like in the you know hidden in the shadow of great men yeah and so it was a big like part of my journey of trying to say okay who am I what is my assignment and that's one of the things that over time brought me into this whole space of working with kids at risk yeah got exposed to the war government with forced to script kids and so like if you had two kids in your house they can script one and if you had three and more they could script to wow and so I mean I like to put it kind of an like an American kind of suburban true image like if if the military was coming through your neighborhood and conscripting your kids like that means draft them into the army right just yeah like they go in the military yeah like think about six seventy eight-year-old kid yeah being drafted in the military for kids and he's like a seven-year-old like a draft and we yeah yeah I mean we we were kind of around and they the whole like when they were blown whistle I'm Joseph Coney and he was doing that and yeah you know yeah yeah and so we kind of that was our generation learned about yeah soldiers that way but I would say they're going back to like your grandfather and kind of the perception I mean I think some of us read the Bible when we read the story of Moses and we think Moses was just this great holy man who did everything right yeah and he was a he had he had anger problems you know what I mean he was he was he had daddy issues deeply flawed yeah but I think a lot of men who do gods will are going through days where they're like kicking rocks and they're pissed and they don't know what they're doing and they don't know why they're there or look at Joseph I mean Joseph is you know he he was a human trafficking victim at 17 right yeah but then when he gets in power what does he start to do during during the the famine is he starts to enslave all of Egypt right like he takes the farm land the cows everything you know like he sets up a system that eventually comes back to bite the Israelites because they become the ones enslaved and so he's doing it domain he's like we'll take that yeah yeah so it's like Joseph is like one of these amazing people like I super respect the guy yeah but on another level he's reacting to the pain that he went through in life we're all like that you know like we're not walking through this thing perfect by any means I love how God just continues to redeem and refine yeah and it's salvation is instant yeah but sanctification takes yeah a lifetime and so yeah as your your grandfather's moving back into you know his ministry what what else is coming after him what else is surrounding like his work and trying to take him down well okay so you don't understand when I'm telling you these stories too I grew up a good Baptist kid and so did Nathan so yeah yeah and and Southern Baptist okay you guys were going to hell in the world I you know we were a guard general associate regular Baptist churches yeah so like you were too quick to baptize people it's it's funny just so stupid that we really yeah you weren't you weren't conservative enough you know what I mean my rebellious acts as a kid growing up was I listen to John MacArthur you know I know what a rebel what a rebel Marcus so yeah it's like because we thought you know he was a little liberal so but I listened to him because he at least talked about the gifts of the spirit. We're kind of scared of the Holy Spirit. So we're a very cessationist, but we came from this family that experienced all this miraculous. So it was just really crazy, like how did that work? Yeah. So my dad would tell stories about around their mission compound, you could hear the demonic like laughing and screaming, like they were in dark places that they were opening up. So when they were living in Sipson Benai area in Yunnan, China, and this is one of the crazy stories that fits kind of this space that we're in now is they encountered these creatures, which they called werewolves. You know, that was what they turned them. And so the first time this happened, and that's pretty early on in their journey. But I said, my granddad, he's probably, I would guess in his late 20s, early 30s, at that point, and so they had this creature that ran through the house. The women were there, the men were gone. And they freaked out, they didn't know what to do. So they all kind of hold up until my great uncle Harold got back. And when Harold got back, he started searching around the house, and the kitchen is separated from the rest of the house 'cause of the heat in those days. And so he walks over by the kitchen and he sees this creature sitting on this log. And it's just sitting there, and it's swaying back, and forth, back and forth. And they describe what kind of like about four and a half, five foot tall, and all covered with fur, a little red eyes and claws. And so he walks up to it and he says, you leave. You know, you don't belong here, get out of here. And it doesn't respond, it just keeps swaying back and forth, back and forth. So, and I heard this story from my dad when I was about 16 years old. And you gotta understand, like, 16, your brain's warping, right? 'Cause you're like, okay, I've heard the white pony starve, but he never told me that story till, you know. So I'm like, do I believe you're not, as he's, you know, telling me the story, you're trying to pull my leg. My dad wasn't that kind of a guy. So, he goes on to tell me he's like, so my great uncle Harold, he's like, listen, if you don't leave, I'm gonna get my gun and I'm gonna shoot you. So the creature just keeps swaying back and forth, back and forth. Doesn't respond. So he goes, gets this 10 barrel, or 10 gauge shotgun, two double barrel. And he aims it up the creature and he's like, leave now, or I'm gonna pull the triggers to keep swaying back and forth and forth. Jeez. Spooky moment, right? So he, he pulls both barrels. Like, 'cause these guys were hunters, right? And the jungle, like, he's got it loaded with buckshot. Both barrels blows a hole through the creature. Keep swaying back and forth, back and forth. And then it lets out this unhuman scream and it runs off the jungle. And there's like this river of blood. So my, my granddad was a better tracker of the two. So he waited for my granddad got back and they tracked this for a mile and a half. And this was like a trail of blood. And then it just disappeared nothing. So they came back and they were talking to some of the law who, men who hung out with them, like, what was that? You know, what's going on here? And they're like, well, there's these people who work with the shamans, especially the warriors in the body change. And they gotta go back to the spot they body changed to die. So that's why, yeah. So my family started calling werewolves. That's what they, you know, they said they werewolves. So they built their house on this big old circular ancient tomb because it was like a basement spot. They found an old sword in it that Michael Harold used to use. So he, he started going out and hunting these things. But the first they said, listen, the first thing that happened is they said, the first place you cited this warwolf, it'll come back. And so you need to be prepared. So Harold put his bedroll out in the living room because that's where it ran through. And in the middle of night, one of these things jumped him, had this big tussle with it, got his pistol out, shot at it, missed, and it ran off. So that's, you know, it was like for him, it was war after that. - Marks as wild, dude, I mean. - It was a 15 werewolves. - Yeah. So again, 16 year old kid, when I first heard us, like, can this be real, you know? And actually, you know, like I said, I grew up in a strict house, so we didn't have TV. So as babysitting, Nick Store, I lived in the Philippines of my childhood years, and then my teen years was back in the States. So as babysitting Nick Store, I'm watching TV. And I was watching one of those wild and weird kind of shows. And one of the things that popped up was this picture of two Burmese werewolves. Like, you know, next day kind of thing blew my mind. And so I was like, maybe this was real. And I pride on my uncle Bill. He was actually uncle Bill by Asian standards, but he's one of the sons of my uncle, a great uncle Harold. So, and we became good friends in his 60s. He got disowned by my son, the family, for a long time. And I kind of rebuilt a relationship with him, just 'cause he was a wild man. He was like an Indiana Jones kind of guy. And I just slept around a lot in his early days. And so my great, my granddad was really peeved at him. Like, just like, you know what? Well, first time I told granddad Vincent, I said I was hanging out with Bill. Like, he turned red in the face, and there was this vein. (laughing) - Yeah. But anyways, I pride it out of Bill. And he's like, yeah, it's real, you know, 'cause he was really reluctant to admit that was happening. - And what I've got in my nose too, there's just to remind folks listening, is that your granical Harold, right? Is it Uncle Harold? - Yeah. - He lived like more as a lahu than an American, really. - These guys grew up in the tribe. Yeah, my dad grew up in the tribe, you know. - And then his son Gordon was actually granted great hunter status by a lahu tribe. - Yeah, yeah. - And helped find the Chiang Mai Zoo, just as sort of this. - Yeah, yeah. - Saying these are like, this to me sounds like when we talk about people that have encounters with like big foot or something in the forest, you're like, these are master hunters that are granted master hunter status by the tribe, we're saying this and it's not a bear. - Harold had a private collection of animals that he turned into a zoo and donated it to the Thai government. Like, these guys were really gifted hunters. They knew their stuff. So yeah, and when you think about it, like, these guys aren't trained in spiritual warfare. Like they didn't know, like my granddad was a man of prayer, but these, you know, his boys grew up in the wild west. Like, up space full of bandits and all sorts of crazy. And so, like, they're facing werewolves. They're like, let's kill 'em, you know. Like, I probably wouldn't have done that. I would have, you know, gone in different direction, but for then that was spiritual warfare 101. - How often do you think they encountered these? - A lot, for a lot of years, so he started hunting them and he found places they would hang out. They would climb up the trees and slide down and you'd hear the sliding noises. So he, one time he brought some friends out to see it and he didn't come back out. So they went down a search form and he was, like, dogpiled by a bunch of these and they pulled them off and saved his life, yeah. So, eventually they stopped. And the reason why I was told they stopped is because they were worried that they would start impacting their children. So if they started to have kids, they're like, "Hey, we can't keep fighting these things anymore." So they kind of backed off from it. - The great werewolves of the early-- - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - In the century. - Well, I mean, there was-- - It's wild. - My granddad had a match box full of werewolf hair that I really wanted and my aunt through all that stuff. I was in this garage, I was so upset. I want to, like, the proof in it. - Maybe it's not good to keep that stuff, I don't know. - Did it have anything to do with the ancient tomb that their house is on top of, perhaps? - Those stories were all there before they ever showed up. Like, you know, but it is interesting that they use this old sword from the tomb. - Yeah, it's like a-- - Yeah, it sounds like a move. - It's like it, it glows when the werewolves get close. You know, it's, do you think that they're like a demonic, do you think they were like a shapeshifting creature or do you think they were actually like a-- 'Cause we hear stories that seem to be in both camps. - I think they-- - Like a creature. - Because of the way they died and someone, I think they shapeshifted. - Okay. - So it's like the typical werewolf story that you shift by. I think they were a former shapeshifting. - It reminds me of, like, what we heard from John Dover. So we had a Navajo Ranger on the show. - Yeah, very similar, yeah. - Yeah, about the coyote, right? So there's a coyote that's cruising around that looks real unnatural and it's shot. - Yeah. - And then there's a man that shows up in the tribal or the reservation hospital with the same wounding and the dying from being shot in the same way. So they were like, this was a skin walker shapeshifting. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Coyote thing. - Well, we had an episode recently about in Ohio, family that had these things run around his house. - Sure. - His parents saw it and his dad didn't want to talk about it. And there's footprints and these things attacking chickens. - I don't know, the shapeshifting stuff is bizarro, but it's harder to have conversations about it and have any idea of where the limitations are and how do you even put this in a box if they think and do whatever it wants than, but this natives seem to understand like you don't leave traces of DNA around, because they could take it and shift into all kinds of things. So I mean, they seem to have an understanding of these things that. [BLANK_AUDIO] Yeah, it's just outside of our space. Like, well, you were saying you had a potential encounter when you were a kid. - Yes. - And I did as well. - Let's talk about that. Yeah, I saw a wear creature in the doorway in the herbs of Sacramento. - Yeah, and I didn't believe for decades because I just thought kids see weird stuff. We, you know, 80s were a lot of weird movies in the 80s. I was unlike your family. It was a Southern Baptist, but we watched a couple of those, there was a wearable movie called Silver Bullet that was Stephen King movie. So that was terrifying. My older brother or someone was watching it. So I kind of assumed I just managed to see this thing and I, but then I started hearing people tell their wearable stories and I'm like, wait a minute. So you had, and they do show up in the weirdest places. - Yeah. So I have no, like, what is this? - Good description for like how this happened. But I can say, and this is something that happens a lot for missionary kids. - Is this there or here? - This wasn't the Philippines. - Okay. - So, but I grew up with a lot of demonic torment. - I could imagine. - And I suspect some of it could very well be from my family's history. And partially you just get targeted. And like the enemy knew like the generational call over my life in a way I didn't. And so I think that was part of it. And my parents did not have a grid for how a Christian kid 'cause I met Jesus at three. I mean, I remember the day. I was so full of God's joy running around in this camp, just like happiest could be, you know, 'cause like I'm just crying out, I'm saved. You know, I just remember the joy of that moment at three years old. So they couldn't, they couldn't connect the dots that a kid who loved Jesus could also have demonic issues. So I hit heads with them really strong about that. And they made it real clear that this is not a conversation. So I'll just, you know, they just, like this is not a conversation, this is not happening. And so I kind of had to fin for myself for all those years growing up. And it's one of the things that gave me a heart for kids because I care about kids who have to fin for themselves. That built that into me in a deep way 'cause I had a lot of tough nine encounters from as far back as I can remember. But second grade was a rough year for us. We lived in a house that just, we had robberds that would show up on occasion that would be tapping on our windows and things like that and taking a crap outside. And just things like as a kid, you know, my mom's walking through the house ringing bells and trying to keep them off. And you remember that stuff, you know, as a kid. It's just like freaky. And then when they take your bike or things like that, too, that makes you really hacked off. - Yeah. - So, but I was talking about the zoo. I was an animal freak. And I haunted anything that moved. And bugs, insects, everything. And I had this book, Zoo Animals, that I was really attached to. And there was this dark presence that would come in to my room at night and it would turn the pages of this book. - Cheers. - And I tried really hard. - Have you heard it or you just- - I'd see it. - You'd see the pages. - I'd see it and I'd watch it. - Wow. - The pages turned. So, you know, I tried really hard not to be awake at night. And- - You're like, "Listen, that's my Nat Geo subscription." You get out of here. (laughing) - It's like, yeah, I mean, it's, you think about it. Like the enemy comes and it hits you right at the place that is like the core passion you had. And so- - Interesting. - One night my cat was in the room and it was keeping me awake. So I grabbed it and tossed it over in my sister's room, ran back and jumped in my bed. And when I did that, these two werewolf creatures popped up. - Do you wonder your bed? - No, they just like materialized. - Like material like they walked into my room or whatever. I just saw 'em and I'm like, "I'm terrified." You know? So I didn't know what a werewolf creature was. - Sure. - Like I didn't have a grid for it. But like after the descriptions and then seeing it, and TV I'm like, "That's what it was." You know, so I saw these. - What do they look like? - Well, it was like, it was like those furry creatures with red eyes and long claws. I mean, it was like a dog face. - It was like a kind of a hybrid of like a human dog. - Hybrid, yeah, it wasn't like a big muddle. It was a lot flatter. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It was like a puddle. - Yeah, so they talked to each other. - They did. - And then one said, "Should we take him now or should we wait?" - God, dude. - And I'm freaking out. - Is it like some kind of creepy language or is it? - I heard it in English, she knows, you know. So. - Good event to go. - And then, yeah, I mean, that's what I remember, you know, like you're in a spiritual moment. You don't quite know exactly what's happening. But I just shut my eyes and curled up in a ball and started to pray. Cause I'm like, "What else can you do?" Like I'm, you know, so the other one, it was a long, at least to me, it was a long pause. It could have been like, you know, 10 seconds. But it felt like a minute, you know, longer. And the other one says, "Well, we'll wait." And I kept praying 'til I fell asleep. I woke up in the morning and I'm like, what was that all about? And I just like, you know what? If these guys are after me, I must be important. There must be a purpose for my life. And that, it really is something shifted in me at that point. And even though I continue to face spiritual battles, like I remember at 16, not back in Colorado. And I can remember, there was like a two week period, for example, more of my bed would shake. Just all night, like, you know, on and off. And you're like, am I going insane? It was terrifying, you know? So that's one reason I stepped into a more spiritual journey because I'm like, I don't have a choice. - That's always here. - Yeah, like I've got to deal with this. And so I'm like, I've got to figure out how to walk out this spiritual battle that I'm in. Otherwise, I'm going to die, you know? So it was, it, but it was a turning point. And that's one thing I, you know, we, I don't advise us to go to the enemies camp to get all our information. - Right. - Like Gideon had to, when he, you know, had that time where God's like going to the enemy camp. And here's these guys talking about the dream. And, but God can speak to us from the enemies camp. Like he can still give us revelation from there. And that's again, talking about the dark side. We gotta be really careful when we're pulling from the dark side. - Yeah. - But God can, I would say the best way to say it is if, especially as you get good at it, if you know God's voice, you can still listen to him there. - Yeah. - But you don't want to listen to the voice of the enemy. Like the voice of the enemy is saying, we're going to take you. We're going to torture you. We're going to kill you. The voice of God is like, no, I have a purpose and a plan for your life. And these guys don't like it. - Yeah. - Right. So we've got to, we've got to learn how to hear the voice of God on the dark side. - Yeah. - Not listen to the dark side. - So these are your 16 then. So like how do you then go from these supernatural experiences you're in the Philippines, you come home. - Yeah. - And in the 90s, you end up back in Myanmar. - Yeah. - And working, helping kids, child, soldier. I mean, how does that happen and what happens when you get back to the place of your forefather's really, right? I mean. - Yeah, so, okay. So now I'm processing the best way to tell the story. So like, one of my connection points back in that world was Michael Bill. There was a couple other multi-generational missions families that I got connected to kind of just skipping the divine stories about it. But that, so we kind of landed in a space where there were a lot of old timers who kind of took us under the wing and helped us get going. And my uncle Bill gave me contacts, some of his ex-operatives that were Wah. And when I got off the bus from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, I got met by this delegation of Wah that were trying to launch the Old Testament Bible translation project. - So these are like CIA informants, right? More or less. - Yeah. - And previously. - Previously. - Previously. - Yeah, previously. - On a previous episode. - Yeah, yeah. - And, and former drug cartel guys and pastors. It was this weird mix. - I know they want to do the Old Testament. - Yeah. And so, you know, initially I just said, no way I'm not a Bible translator. I'm a church planner, you know, not interested. And then as I kept getting more exposed, I'm like, okay, this project is such a mess and we need a good Bible. So, I finally kind of hesitantly stepped into it and then I found out that the head of this project was a major drug cartel guy who had assassinated 13 people that first year. - Why is your part of it, you think? - Part of the status, like when you don't have any books in your language, like having, you know, having your hand in something like that, like the war government fought over it, the church has fought over it, you know, you've got hundreds of dialects among the boss. So, China has an idea, Myanmar has one idea, Thailand has another. So, everybody's fighting about who owns the project and how it looks and how it works and what the orthography looks like. And there's a lot of politics, which is politics is often a form of spiritual powers that are at work. - Yeah. - You know, like the power behind the power kind of thing. It's constantly there. - And so you start translating this? - Yeah, so I get into it, find out, you know, the guy who translated was a, he was, the first draft that was done was done by a drunk. So, he was the only English speaker. So, it's just messy. And I didn't even know, at that point, they were, at that point, that there were dialects. So, as I'm trying to learn why, I'm learning from these translators and they're all correcting me. I thought I was going insane for months and I finally realized there were dialects. It's like you're wrong and then it's actually they say I know you're like what is wrong with me? You know so Eventually had to pull this translation project away from this guy under death threats and He's studying your life. Yeah, he's threatening me because I'm pulling the project from him And so he's like, you know, I'm gonna take you out if you do that So You know this guy was a thorn on my side for a long time and There are people in the missions community who were like saying markets you got understand this guy If he tried to leave the cartel would get taken out We're just there's some truth to that But he's an elder and a big tie church. He's a big tither And he's killing people. I'm like you can't be an elder when you're killing people You know like like I'll be the guy's friend because he's as a friend or sinners of sinners You know like I'll respect him as a political leader because he was that But but I'm like he's not an elder in the church. You know, I can't respect him on that level So but there was a lot of tension even the missions community how you work with these kind of people And I'm just in my early 20s trying to figure this out. So four years to the day because I was crying out four years of the day He was walking out of a hotel. I think it was his daughter's wedding and there was a cop that drove by on a tuk-tuk You know those three like oh, yeah pulled his 357 out and shot him twice through the head killed him instantly And the timing it was crazy because it's four years of the day that we showed up in Thailand the guy was dead and immediately when he died my best War friend that I was working with stepped into the chair of the board position and became my enemy like it was such an immediate transformation Like he stepped into that seat of power and shifted completely It blew my mind. What's happening there? I my belief is like he stepped into a seat of power without God putting him in that seat of power And it's in the politics the the spiritual the spiritual stuff that was that goes on in those spaces And and this is the thing I think a lot of the church doesn't recognize like You don't take power Unless God's giving it to you like powers a dangerous thing because there's always a spiritual power behind the power Paul saw that really clear sure he's he's like was sometimes he talks about political leaders sometimes he talks about the power behind him Sometimes he talks about him both of the same breath but There's it's like we We in the west think that powers are not like operating in the same way, but They're constantly operating and so like if you're just stepping into a government seat or church seat Any kind of seat without God positioning you there You're susceptible to those powers controlling you and that happens over and over in the church That we we think we're free of the powers in the church. Yeah, that's a big mistake Like the the powers are operating in the church consistently. Yes Yeah, I think that the darkness most wants to operate in the irony of that right? Yeah So that was an eye opener for me when when it was such a dramatic shift as like oh my goodness And you're still trying to translate the old testament really we're just trying to get this board of God out Yeah, and and actually it took us 12 years and the the when we were Distributing the the Bible up in and watch territory several guys in the church one was a Taiwanese spy informant waddu who wrote a lot of articles for Chinese and Thai papers And but in the church he he confessed to me one day we were just driving in a car and he cut a joke and then he said Hey, Marcus. I'm a really bad person. He said there were two policemen and came to my house And they made me so mad these Thai policemen. He said it took a big rock and bash their heads in I'm an evil evil guy can God forgive me. I mean, these are the kind of guys I'm working with right in the church to like it was crazy So with any moments your family wanted to give up like over these this long story of where you just felt all the time I mean you're you're like like the The warfare kind of stuff we dealt with was so thick Like you you could feel it and people would get around us and they'd freak out like what's wrong with you I'm like there's nothing wrong with me. I'm just you know, I'm just doing my job You know, but they didn't understand the kind of resistance that we had to deal with consistently did you ever get close to like Obviously if one of one of these men get killed like in any of your family were Almost didn't make it in terms of the like real threats. Yeah, like We got to take them out, you know, obviously sometimes the darkness wins and that's the hardest part about it Well, like when we were distributing the Bible right like these guys call The the war government said we were we were distributing Anti-government propaganda and all 30 of our leaders got thrown a slave labor camp That was the size of our mission at that point So like all of our people got thrown a slave labor camp. Yeah, and and it was crazy. That was That was a time when they were actually being guarded by child soldiers. Mm-hmm So So some are on one of the guys I worked with for a long long time still a friend He He was up there. He was and he was he was chair in the gospel But he was being guarded by child soldiers and the child soldiers would ask him at night They would come to the cell and they say how do we escape this place? Mm-hmm So here's your guards in there asking how do we escape? You know, it's crazy And and so he would try to say well be like a Joseph or be like a Daniel like learn how to serve in your spot But We watched Everybody get set free from that place, but it was a long process, right? So Man, I've watched a lot of people suffer. You know, we've you know, I think for me like I've just cried out and said god The same protection you gave my family. I need to walk in that and so a lot of a lot of times I feel like I've just been in this like It's almost like a clueless Like I'll find out later that it was really a bad spot. Yeah, or Or well, you know like there was a time we were there was a lot of fighting going on on the border where we were And everybody was moving out of our neighborhood There was one cop that stayed in us and I had bags packed and I was ready to roll But we never felt at risk You know, we we just felt this bubble piece So most of the time that's been kind of my experience is just this bubble piece like if I'm on the right spot I'm in the right spot and There's times I had a wrestle a lot like I remember one time I was making a trip and I found out that the guy arranging my entire trip Was the head of insane prison which and said insane prison is this prison in Burma. That's like known As one of the worst prisons in the world lots of torture and death and stuff And here's the guy who ran the prison who set up my entire trip in Burma. He's the warden and yeah And now he's now he's he's you know He's living in Thailand running this this tourist company and as and so when I started learning he had all these crazy connections I I went to some of my network and had him checked out and found out that he was this bad dude And like well, why aren't you arresting him is they're like well, we're just watching them and that's what these guys do a lot They just watch these people and collect information on them instead of taking them out But when I'm sitting on the airplane and the newspaper says we just open up sanctions on Burma and I'm gonna fly in there And I've got little kids. I'm like Am I gonna come back? Yeah, you know and it's not so much a fear for me at that point It's a fear about my kids growing up as orphans. Yeah, you know, how do you feel when you You know, I think grown up in the church. We would read these stories where it's like God's people walk through the Red Sea and then the next minute They're complaining You know what I mean are there they see a miracle you know, we see werewolves jumping out of the trees or blowing them away and then the next day You know, we're dealing with just like boring human problems like who stole the bicycle? You know, where's the bike at or or how come who didn't pay the bill or why don't we have any food today? And you go from this like yeah supernatural experience to like boring mundane life and back and forth is that what does that do to you does that help you read the So for any yeah, exactly. Yeah, you feel like you're like torture didn't like wait. I can't I mean it makes sense of reality right now You know, yeah, and so we as westerners put it all in one box of it's myth never happened. Yeah, I think I think part of it is you've You've got to fight to let the presence of God be alive in you when you're doing a boring email or dealing with the bank Or walk him with your kids. I mean you've got to make The spiritual world real all the time that doesn't mean you need to see a demon behind a rebush because I would drive me nuts sure But you've you've got to you've got to figure out how to bring The presence of God into your reality like you can't survive without that The to me and be in these kind of spiritual battles at the same time and yeah Like how do you like but how do we bring it? Okay Like one of my thoughts of like because people are like well, how do you do all this stuff you've done? You know, and I'm like well, I showed up Like there's really literally a lot of people who are better at the things I do than me But they don't show up. Yeah, and I do yeah, so Like if if we are stuck in suburbia And mundane Then we need to be shown up in different kind of places Yeah, we've got to figure out how to make this thing real Like why are we playing church? Like you know, I I throughout this idea that you know Grant the other day. I'm like, so why don't we just like Like plan like do a 10-year run with the church and say it at year 10, we're just gonna shut down the entire church for a year. And tell everybody in the church, you gotta be preparing on year 10, you're going on mission. You're gonna either start into the church plant, or you're gonna go do a ministry, but you are not here on year 10, church is shutting down, and we're going for it. Because we get so like, set into location, and we just-- - Yeah, it's shown up and doing church, right? - Yeah, and that's not good for any of us. - That's wild, I mean, it's crazy that sounds radical, that's sort of with the condition of the West now, right? - In some ways. - And God scattered the church often, because the gospel is most powerful where it has to be translated into something new. So like, for example, like I've had a couple opportunities this past year where I've been working with guys in Cambodian Philippines who are taking out pedophile rings. And so one of the things I've been doing is I've been pulling in the love your enemy message and saying you've gotta pray for the perpetrator. You can't just take these guys out. They're redeemable, which is tough, right? 'Cause the most evil kind of people you can think of in our heads, right? It's people who sexually abuse kids. And we've seen some awful stuff. - Yeah, you can take care of that with 30 cents. - Yeah. - You know, I mean, Testman's written by a guy who did that, you know, a lot of it. - Yeah. - Because I mean, I don't mind my joke. There's just like, feel like most people that have a righteous sense of justice would say, like, you know, around is real cheap. And we can end these people that are realistically abusing children. - Yeah, and it's practical and makes sense. But I don't think that's what the Bible is wanting us to do. What the Bible is saying is like, there's a future where the lion lays down with the lamb, where the child plays in the adders din. And so this is the new Eden that the church is supposed to represent. We're on one level, we're invitational. And we're inviting the perpetrator in. And this is the Garden of Eden work, right? We're cultivating a place where there's fruit and abundance for everybody. Grace enough for everybody, love enough for, and the other side, we're guarding that garden, we're protecting, we're guarding that child. So I have to guard the child and I have to invite the perpetrator into Jesus. And I have to do both. I'm like, how the world do I do that? You know, God helped me. But that's where, now we're in attention between two really difficult sides. And now I'm have to meet God in that. And that's where I thrive. That's where I encounter God. So we're talking about, how do we bring this in the Hoham mundane? - Yeah. - If we're not willing to live in the tension, we're not gonna counter God in a spiritual way, 'cause we're not gonna have that thriving. As long as we're solving all of our problems, which is what we try to do in the West, right? And that's one of the reasons you guys are having these conversations, right? You're like, well, we're not gonna necessarily solve all this. We're actually gonna enter the tension a little bit and wrestle through it and like God encounter us. So now I'm saying, now here's a radical way to do it. What about the perpetrator and the child? How do I invite both of these people in my church to be safe, right? - Yeah, that's radical. - Well, I think, you know, you see all these, yeah, that's like a, like Jesus has the harshest words for people who've seemed to have given themselves over to that principality completely. Whereas there's thieves and there are-- - Tax collector. - Tax, you know, there's the dark of the dark, there's the sort of depraved human being, but I don't think they were unredeemable and even the men see from the cross. - Yeah, the men and the two. - Yeah, like there's a victim almost and then there was like these group of people were a different type of person. So at some point, there's justice for the bad people. They get what they want, there are evil tribes, there are times when it's like eradicate these groups, you know, and I don't know who the judge and the jury is of that, but you seem to be operating in sort of the space of like, I can only handle today, God, whatever I can do today. And you don't have a plan, so to speak, that God couldn't change or bring someone in or kind of going on gut instinct, it seems, softer, you know, but that's just from that side looking in. - Yeah, well, so like one of the patterns that I've learned to work out of is this thing with the three powers. - Yeah. - And so you can see where we're clear in Matthew chapter four. - Okay. - So we call it Jesus temptation, but it's actually the testing of Jesus, it's, he receives a word from God, this is my beloved son and who I'm well pleased, right? And when he receives a word, anytime we have like a word from God, that's a real core word to our purpose, it gets tested. And so it moves into the test. And in the test, the enemy comes to him, you guys know the story, right? Everybody knows the story. The first test is about the bread, the second one's about, he brought up on a temple peak. And the third one is he's brought on this high mountain, each one is a mountain going higher. And the high mountain is like bow down, I'll give you the kingdoms. So it's the bread, the temple and the crown. It's economics, socio-religion, politics. - These are the three powers. - Three powers. There's Maslow's hierarchy, are you from everything Maslow? - Yeah, yeah. - Basic needs, sociological needs, self-actualization. So you can think about Solomon. Solomon, the kings weren't supposed to do, multiply in your gold and silver, multiply in your wives, right? Multiply in your chariots, your military, right? So it's all through the story of the Bible, it's all through history, it's just there. It's like we're talking about how God's in every culture, this is one of the things you're gonna find. These are the cultural pieces, by the way. These are the cultural building blocks. So Jesus faces these cultural building blocks that are the powers. And he answers them with scriptures and there's a lot of amazing pieces that all kind of filter in with that. But our modern language is money-sex power. So the world recognizes it. Like the world talks about money-sex power. We all know that these are things, right? And that these are the things that drive societies and drive culture. These are not evil powers in my opinion, but they are powers that send death in the devil, which are the evil powers use. And so one of my first experiences with this, where it kind of just warped my mind and blew my mind is I was two or five in Thailand and I had a dream that the Pope died of pneumonia. So I wake up, I felt like I had pneumonia. I'm in a felt awful. So I'm like, this is really bizarre. So I found a computer, got online, started searching news feeds. And I saw, popping up, Pope goes into hospital with pneumonia. So I'm like, okay, God, where are you trying to tell me? And I felt like he said, when the Pope dies, you're gonna see, because he said he represents political and religious power. He said, when the Pope dies, you're gonna see something shift. You're gonna see a breakthrough. So I'm like, okay, that sounds cool. Kind of going with life, I'm traveling miserable for a couple of weeks as I'm traveling. Start feeling better, check the news, and see that they say it was a false alarm. Pope's fine. Da-da-da, a month later, the guy's struggling again, goes in the hospital, comes back out and dies a few days later, short version of the story. And at the day he dies, we had a problem going up in Wastate, 'cause we had done a Daniel chapter one kind of model where I said, okay, Nebuchadnezzar is conquering all these lands. He needs people to help him. He needs administrators. So what does he do? He goes to this chief unit. He says, find me the young men, train them in the reading, writing the caldience because he needed administrators. So we start going to these cartel guys and saying, listen, let us educate your kids, give them to us from the military. We'll educate them. And so that was our deal with the tribes, right? And so as they said, yes, we built a school, we're ready to go, and then the Chinese government blocked it, 'cause they're close to the wall, and they're like, no, we don't want this church, these church people messing with this. So we were like in a stalemate for months, didn't know what to do. And so when the Pope dies, this Chinese government official dies, same day, and everything shifted. - Wow. - That was one of my first pops. I was like, oh my goodness. This is like real, yeah. So did I have anything to do with it? - No. - But I saw it at work, you know? And there's other times where like one of my first experiences with it was, okay, come back to the state, so I thought I was on sabbatical. A guy wanted to interview me about the stuff going on with the child's orders. I said, no, he kept bugging me. I said, okay, he's preaching to this conference. Interviews me for five minutes. They raised $300,000. We needed that money, okay? That was our project money. It all got caught in church politics. They wouldn't release the money. And it was really frustrating. And so I'm praying, navigating in that whole space. So I'm hanging out in like a night watch, all my prayer kind of thing. And there's this young Jewish guy walks up [BLANK_AUDIO] and says, "Hey, would you mind if I set a few things to you? "I feel like God's saying some stuff." I said, "Sure." And he starts talking to me about the political and religious powers. And immediately for me, it was like a download. I started hearing, I'm like, "Okay, I'm done hearing you now." Like God's talking. But I bumped into him a few days later, and we were in a bookstore, and he started pointing out all the ministries, like the CD, this book, that kind of thing. And it was, he was like, it was this ministry, it was this, you know, freaked me out, 'cause it was so clear. And that was when I was like, okay, the same political spirit that's operating in the water state, and these governments is operating in these holy spirit, anointed charismatic churches, high-level leaders, and blew my mind. That it was, you know, like it's global, and it's operating. And so that's where I really started to step back and say, okay, wait a minute. So, economics, right, the bread, forced trafficking, forced labor, right, social religion, forced sex, politics, forced soldering. So even the human trafficking falls right into those buckets. So those are the, you know, when I started, we aware of that, everything we've built has been like to teach our leaders how to operate in those spheres, and function of those spheres in a transformative way, so that, that's what Jesus does in Matthew 5.6 and 7. He basically is that a blueprint to say, okay, here's how you do a city on a hill, right? Here's how you become light and darkness. So it's the path to face the powers. - I think you're seeing like how humans are sort of the fuel source of all these different. When things go bad and when human trafficking isn't just a one-time exchange that it's actually like happening on a broader, bigger level. And I think we can't help, but not like, people go missing in like state and national parks. That was what got me thinking about some of these topics more seriously, like, oh yeah, it's fun to talk about werewolves. Wait, they're taking people? Or whatever, you know what I mean? Like if you're a kid and you hear these, it's like it's spooky stories and it's ghost stories, and then all of a sudden it's like practical, physical, and it's a problem, right? And so we talk about like the blurry creatures taken people, whether that's, I mean there's people who say human trafficking happens in UFOs and like ancient principalities that things that we don't understand, and you're like, well I can understand that in this context, or human on human crime, but we're saying like there's principalities doing these crimes too. So there's a whole group of people that are very skeptical of all of it. And I think it takes the body of Christ to kind of blow the whistle on a lot of these things and then do something about it. And so Luke and I will probably get into the show, Phil called to a lot of guys come on the show. Troy Brewer showed us pictures of his whole staff getting brutally murdered in the middle of the streets in some of these places where they're rescuing these kids. And I'm like, and look at us in America, talking about these things, having a podcast, and you feel convicted to be like, these, you guys are the ones putting the boots on the ground and we're just having conversations about it. So, which is good because I think the part of what, to an ace point I want to do is to get people to be aware of the world. The world is much bigger than your nine to five and hit Starbucks in the front end and whatever. And there's like, there's people and things going on that are horrific, but also within the darkness, as you just talked about these three powers, there are people, organizations, teams that are going to the edge of the unknown and pulling people out. God is working. I mean, just processing as like, yeah. You're talking about like the violence stuff, yeah. Like, we've got a pro soccer team called El Chlor in Mexico and we've got like all these theater programs that work in cartel areas. But when we opened up in Honduras, we opened up an MS-13 area. And I think the first year, we opened up there about 25% of our kids and staff were all killed in the cartel. So it's all the world, you know, the stuff you run into. And when you're saying unimaginable, evil is unimaginable. Like, it's as hard for me to believe as some of these supernatural stories, like, like, there's a little girl. She's now like about nine years old. That was a rescue in the Philippines, sweetheart, but still struggles with a lot of trauma. Because when she was a baby, she was, she was kept on a cage on a tricycle and brought around in neighborhoods and just for sex by men. And she, you know, we got her when she was 18 months old. So I can't imagine, you know, I can't, I cannot imagine the depravity of human beings that do things like that, but it's happening all over the world. So if you want to argue, you know, could people be that evil? You know, because for most of us, we think they couldn't be. But yet they can be. And then you compare that with an, you know, a story of war, a wolf. And are these other kind of evil entities? What's the difference? Like, you know, if we're going to discard the one side, we can't, we can't, this one's staring us in the, all of us in the face, right? Sure. And, and, but we're still like, most of the can't handle even that kind of story. And like, I've, I've been where I've interviewed kids and listened to enough stuff. Like, it, it does something to you. Like, it's traumatizing just to our souls to hear that. So we're talking about in some ways, like when we move into the supernatural space, it's, especially for us from the West, it's like, it's foreign territory. And it's, it's, it's hard for a lot of us to, to navigate that. But we move into these inhuman uses of people. It's also should be foreign territory to us. Yeah, I think we, these are human struggles. But we, I think we've made a, the case on the show that also angelic struggles that these principal, these powers had the same temptations to want to dominate, what politically want to dominate spiritually. And, and, and control humans through the basics as well. They use the three powers as tools to constantly control us. And, and human beings are like empowering the powers by how we choose to live. But then those powers are at the same time controlling us. And Jesus triumphed over the powers. Sure. And so we, as God's people, are supposed to be using those powers, bending them into the shape of the cross. And using them for kingdom purposes. So, but when you talk about kids, then the thing is like that same little girl, like I've encountered God through that little girl multiple times. And so I think that's another place where the church, especially in the charismatic realm, we'll, we'll think, oh, let's, you know, let's go have a holy spirit kind of moment. Or, but you can really encounter God through the poor. Like Jesus said, when you do it, and at least these, you've done it under me, you haven't even just done it to me, you've done it to my father. And, and that's, that's an invitation for us to experience God in a supernatural way through others. And serving. Yeah. And because it, again, it, like I can tell you, some of the most powerful encounters I've ever had in my life have been through, like I remember one young girl, she's, she's now grown up. But when she was 17, we had, we rescued her when she was like 11 or 12. A Chinese dude had bought her from her OPM addicted mom for 10 bucks. And we went and negotiated with him, got her. And she got the guts to share her story on one day. And, and I just remember her after sharing her story, breaking down my arms and crying. And something happened in me. When she was crying in my arms, that was like a connective God's heart in a way that was so amazing and stuck with me for so long. And I've, so to me, it's, it's like one of the gifts that God is offering the church as for us to step into these kind of places and touch these kinds of people. Like if we, it, like God offers us the poor. He's, like the poor will always be with you. But God also says, I'm with the poor, right? This is a place I pay attention to. This is a place I'm hanging out. So if we want spiritual encounter, it's a good place to actually show up. Well, what is, we've talked a little bit about some of the things that, like Enfire is doing and I don't know, you guys have like 30,000 children. You serve 200 plus communities or Southeast Asia and Latin America. What do you guys, what do you guys do on the ground now? Because I, it's very interesting the way that it progressed for you. Obviously, I have this crazy lineage of missionaries. You end up in Southeast Asia and you sort of translate in the Old Testament. That project. and it evolves into something completely different. - Yeah, so when I got the first, you know, first iteration was I got exposed to this year of child soldiers. I was actually trying to church plant and I sent a guy up with an old video camera and said, find me the hardest, darkest, most visible spot you can. And that's where we'll start. And he brought back footage of child soldiers. I didn't know what a child soldier was. So this was like 98. So this was before invisible children, right? And so we were kind of cutting edge on it. And when I saw that footage, I started asking, who are these kids, where are they there? And the Holy Spirit said to me really clearly, it wasn't like audible, but I just like was clear for me. He's like, the enemy of your soul has been raising up an army under the nose of the church. And the church doesn't even see it. And I saw these cycles of violence. How a kid grows up in violence, they raise their kids in violence and it just goes. But he said, I have desired them as my army of love. And when he said that to me, I just broke. It was like a neomyel moment where he hears the gates of Jerusalem are broken down. And he just wept for three days. I wept for three days. And I knew I had an assignment. I actually had a blueprint on how to do it. I did it for eight years and felt like a failure. I felt like I got my butt kicked every day. And then we started getting the breakthroughs. I told you the powers and principality stories. Those were some of the breakthroughs. It was like, when it shifted, it shifted. But there was all these times, it just hit your head up against the wall. And feeling like you're-- I think we rescued our first child soldier. He was a deserter in 2001. He's working with children at risk to this day. That's amazing. Yeah, but that was one kid, right? And you're trying to get lots. And then when you get them all, you're like, what did I do with all these kids that traumatize? I have no idea what to do. So it was just one of those things where it kind of fell into it over time, started learning the space, developed a message on loving enemies through that whole journey, which has been really powerful to help us have access, authority to walk in these kinds of spaces. Because if you can't love these people, they know it. They're not going to invite you into the world. So if you've got to walk with a rebel leader, you've got to know how to walk with them. You can't just be their enemy. You've got to be their friend and teach them how to follow the uses. So you build these relationships. And through those relationships, we've learned how to start to bridge into these spaces. So we've done a lot in the conflict areas, including our soccer programs in Latin America. They specialize in landing in cartel areas. So in Mexico, one of my favorite spots, which I won't name the exact location, but it's drug or tell area. And when we opened up the program, the kids would all come and they lay their weapons on the field before they play. That's so cool that we were just penetrating that kind of a space, right? What's your top story about somebody who, in that space, who converted somebody who was like a warlord that found Christ? A cartel leader? Yeah, yeah, okay. So I don't think we think that's possible. We think that evil just is going to be evil forever and never true. Yeah. So my early days are like learning on Love Your Enemy stuff. So we have this big project in Wastate, Myanmar. We have like 200 acres of green tea, 60,000 pine trees. We planted it. It was all planned to serve these kids that we were helping. And so as a 10-year project, probably worth a million half bucks at the time. A lot of money for us. And a guy came in to our plantation with his thousands of troops and camped there. He was sent in there because the Burmese military was planted a punch through. And so he was sent to kind of block. But he camped in our property, took it over. And I had had this kind of god moment where Brandon Sanderson, you guys ever read any like fantasy stuff? Brandon Sanderson's this Mormon author. But he has this book called The Way of Kings. And it's this guy on this journey who keeps trying to help people. And he's a failure every single time. But he's learning this ancient code of ethics, which is protect those who can't protect themselves. So I'm reading this book. And every time I'd read that, I just felt really strange. Like, what's wrong with me? Kind of thing. And I once I realized that the Holy Spirit was trying to get my attention. Because I'm trying to check out. Just like you're checking out. You read a fantasy book. And I read stuff like that. Because sometimes I want to check out. Because I'm like, I've got too much reality in my head. And so then I get this message from this guy. And he's like, listen, we're going to take your kids. We had 200 some child soldiers who would rescue at that point. And I've got your land. I'm going to take your kids. I've got all these troops, these thousands of people I provide for their wife, their children. You can just give me a couple hundred kids now. And I just got that word from God, those who can't protect themselves. Plus I got this crazy word from a guy in the middle of church. He's this deep southern accent. And he calls me in the middle of church. And I'm trying to pencil it. And he's talking to me about all this stuff in Philippines, which was amazing and happened many years later. But I'm like, can you just give me something about Myanmar? Because I'm in trouble here. What do I do? And finding it's like, well, about 2 a.m. I was here in the same from God where he's like, I must protect those who are trapped in the traps of trafficking. And I must protect them. And it was that same kind of protect them kind of thing. And so when this guy's telling me, I'm going to take these kids. I'm like, I got to do something. And this guy was a bad dude. I'd met him before I'd been in his house, one of his houses. And he'd showed me his child's soldiers. He's really proud of them all. Like all the kids he'd help have a better life. Because like, you know, they're going to be worthless if they're just live and poverty. But if they come die for the country, that's, you know, nationalistic, right? It's a good thing. So, but literally when he moved into the area, he would bring people in his house, one and die them, and then bring him out in the marketplace if he didn't like him and shit him through the head. So he'd assassinated like, you know, over like close to 100 people the first year he was in. He just cleaned people out. So like I told my people, if you have to go meet with them, you bring witnesses from the government, like protect yourselves, right? So this is a bad dude. And he's the guy camped out. So I know he's a bad dude and threatening. So I'm like, what do I do? I'm like, you told me to protect these kids. So I believe you give them a place to sleep, basically. You're talking with the kids? No, the guy that coming in. Well, this is like, he's camped out on our land. So he just took it over. He took it over. He took it over. It wasn't like, yeah, with all his troops. He did not say in our guests, but it wasn't invitations. He wasn't invitations. He was like, yeah, no, he, yeah. He took it over. They eventually built like a missile barracks on the mountain where our trees were. Like he took it over. So, so God's telling me to protect these kids. I'm like, how do I do this? I'm freaking out, right? So I'm reading my Bible. God talked to me, talked to me, right? And I'm in Matthew 5 and it's talking about lovin' you enemies. And God's like, okay, love your enemy. Well, how do I do it? So it's pray for your enemy. So I'm like, well, what if I designed a three sentence prayer that would look at this guy like he was a follower of Jesus? Like what would he look like if he was a follower of Jesus? So I don't know if you remember back in the day, this day's me a little bit, but they had Facebook causes. I created like a cause. Like I had a thousand people praying for this guy and we are getting churches to put up a big picture of them. So like, you know, icons in the church. So I'm like, let's do icons of our enemies in the church where we walk in and we pray for this guy. So, and so about a year or so in, I was really shocked 'cause I thought God was gonna change this guy's heart but he started changing my heart. I'm like, oh, I didn't expect that, but I actually needed it. So that was the first surprise. But now I'm gonna tell you the part of the story that happened. So, so his second command, a guy named, named Brong, is he was, he was the guy who did all the dirty work. Like eventually a year and a half in, 'cause this is a long story, right? But a year and a half in, they came and they took about a hundred of our kids out of the home. Now, most of those kids because they were educated, ended up landing in like programming jobs. They had like a nursing training, different things like that, you know? But, and a bunch of them actually, the ones that blew my mind was like, two of them ended up a professional ping pong trainers because our kids played competitive sports, professional soccer, volleyball. So what I learned from that is like, just giving kids skills protected them, right? Like even just basic skills made them valuable and so they weren't expendable anymore. So, but this guy was the guy that did all the dirty work, took the kids, stole our lands, et cetera. And his wife ended up for trafing drugs in Thailand. So she's a woman's prison, joins the Bible study, gets gloriously saved, meets Jesus, leaves on early good behavior, goes back up in the was state, finds her husband, I sue this, this really bad dude has been moved out 'cause they shuffled people all the time 'cause they don't trust them, you know what I mean? So a new guy, Ja Tezin and Ja Tezin, or not Ja Tezin, was it, I bow, I think it was I bow and he's known for burning churches and Bibles. Like, he had burnt some of our churches down, just and he burnt 10,000 Bibles. Like, he was another bad guy, right? - He was a bad guy. - Jesus, Jesus. - Jesus, okay, so this guy hates Jesus. Now, Rome is working for him instead. So when his wife shows up and she says, "Hey, I'm home, I met Jesus." He's like, "Woman, you're welcome home, but don't talk to me about Jesus." like you know who I work for. Don't talk to me about Jesus. So, you know, a little time goes on and this guy gets really sick. Like, kidney failure, high blood pressure, he's dying, sent him to die and his wife is like, "Hey, I know these people, this little children's home down the way, that, you know, like they know Jesus, you should go get prayer." He's like, "No way, I'm not going to get prayer. Visually, he's too sick to argue one night. So, she brings him, she brings him over, and our guy there, a leader, recognizes him, knows he's the guy that created all this trouble for us. So, he's like, "Butty, I'm not going to pray for you until you say you're sorry. Like, you need to repent." So, he gets the guy down on the ground and he mumbles out, you know, I'm sorry, and he prays for him and nothing happens. They've blown him back in the car. But the next morning, he wakes up completely healed. And so, they're so excited they get in the rest of you, come pick our guys up and they go meet with this main military guy who hates Jesus and they tell them the story, and he's red in the face, he's mad, but he's like, "I need you." So, yeah, you can follow Jesus, just don't bother me about it. So, that's the, you know, first layer that happens, this guy gets saved, starts church planning in the military, opens the space for us. Another guy gets, it replaces the top guy. And, and when he comes in, he comes in with all these soldiers, we just, we just opened up a church and we didn't know what he was going to do. But he basically, they brought in a television team and they announced the entire wastate that we were followers of Jesus and we were blessed to keep working that area. So, I've just watched, you know, like these iterations and I could tell you more bad and good iterations that have happened. But right now, I would just say, there's a school up there that is, it's the only school where you're allowed to share the gospel or the only area really allowed to share the gospel with 1000 kids here the gospel every day. It's all staffed by former child soldiers and kids we work with, you know, that, you know, even the churches, like the key leaders in the churches, a lot of them are former child soldiers. So, it's pretty cool. And I don't have much to do with it. Just, just so you know, how do you balance? That's incredible. I mean, obviously like when we hear these stories, my first thought is like, if you're so close to the enemies, people are going to say you're with the enemy. Oh, sure. So, how do you balance that? How do you balance that? Could you give me some wisdom on that? Yeah, like what do you do? Because people will say, oh, yeah, like we talk about these paranormal subsets. Oh, Larry's part of the the occult darkness because they talk about it. It's like, well, we're trying to expose it. And when you try to expose it and rescue people, they're going to say you're with them. That's right. Yeah, and I have to start with that a lot like you're with them or you're not I guess part of is is like, hey, is it what's a smarter way to go about being healthy? Is it preventative work? Like, are you going in there and and being doing prevention? Or are you letting the next war start? You know, like if we don't go in there and stop this now, there's another war that happens. There's another. And so it's it's better that we go in there. It's we we have to actually figure out how to walk with these people and turn them. Like like if we were to go in and rest all the neighborhoods in the Philippines or or Mexico or anywhere else in the world because it's all over that abusing children, we don't have enough space in our prisons. Right. So we've we've got to get in and walk with these people. Like to me, this is where a guy like Daniel or Joseph Scheisen, it's not like they're walking with good people. They're walking with like Daniel walked with a lot of evil kings. Yeah. But he was a godly man. Infiltrated. Yeah. And he carried a real word of God to those churches. And so Jesus was like, hey, I'm going to hang out with sinners. Like he wasn't, you know, like the people that got him upset, what you talked about was the religious community. Right. The religious leaders who were keeping people from his presence, he went after those people. He tore into them. But you know, that, you know, so it wasn't like Jesus was a calm guy. But he usually was tearing into the church. That was that was like the guy said he's after a leadership in the church. The burden sometimes is some and he says, sometimes I'm going to be your only friend because no one's going to like you. The church people are going to like you and the evil people are. Yeah. There's no way the church is going to like us for a lot of stuff we do. We threaten them. Sure. And that's just the reality. And to me, churches, the way that I best handle church was to do the same thing to say, okay, church is another tribal group that I got to work with. There are a bunch of headhunters too. And I just have to treat them the same way. That's interesting, right? Yeah. I think the ancients, you know, knew that as well. And I think, yeah. I mean, that's obviously like a big part of the story of Christ is between these two firms. But the fern of religious, you know, fundamentalism and the fern of just fleshly living and corruption. Well, then on that metaphor, yeah. And then my other question, one of my is you talk about generations of sowing into people, your great grandfather, your grandfather, your dad, what about the children that are coming through these systems who've then decided to reinvest in what saved them? What are some stories of are you creating your own, their own, you know, families with their own story of investing back into their people? Well, I think I kind of touched on that a little bit, like, you know, because when you've been out 30 years, you can start to see the layers of fruit. Sure. And believe me, there's been enough mess in places like that that at the end of the day, one thing that counts was, did you plant good seed? Because it's got to go as far as a persecution, it's got to go through all sorts of crazy. But it then the day if you plant a good seed, it's going to live. It's going to come back up. And I watch stuff completely get crushed, and I watch stuff come back up again and thrive. And so, for example, the Mexico soccer programs, we 20% of our kids a year get baptized. And these are reaching out to some pretty gnarly spaces. Six, six out of 10 kids will end up serving in the church or a local community, like be community leaders or church leaders. That's strong fruit. So, like, is there, you know, is there impact? So, maybe a good way to think about it is looking at the Old Testament. We mentioned Daniel was a human trafficking, David, sorry, Joseph was a human trafficking victim at 17. Esther was an orphan, brought into the King's brothel, right? David was a child soldier, actually, when he faced Goliath, when he faced a giant. Most scholars say, you know, early teenage years, Moses was a banded baby, grew up in his enemy's house, Daniel and his friends displaced by war, probably, probably castrated, which meant they were unclean, probably lost most of their family members to war. Like, these are all kids at risk. Jesus was one of those kids at risk too, like, in and up, fleeing to Egypt, right, had had the whole genocide thing. His mom could have been stunned to death. There were all these issues, right, that he had to deal with. Yeah. These are some of our greatest leaders. It's crazy. So, when you study great leaders in history, one of the threads that's really interesting is a lot of more orphans. So, you have a certain percentage of these kids hit Uber resilience, like a lot of them get crushed, but someone will hit Uber resilience, and they'll actually be our greatest leader. So, if you want to, like, develop that next generation of leaders, it actually should be in this space. What do you, that's wild. What do you think your, that's great, great grandfather would say about more things right now, four generations later? Well, since he's got a different perspective than he did on planet Earth, because I'm sure, like, with any of us, like generation is generation, like, if one of my kids step in and start to do stuff, they're going to do it different than I do, right? And I'll probably hate half the stuff they do and be super proud of him at the same time. Isn't that about being the older generation? Yeah, yeah. What do you guys do? Yeah, yeah. So, that's kind of my, my opinion is like, he would probably give me some strong words about a few things, and at the same time, he'd be, Uber proud of me. I think it'd be both. Yeah. It's hard. It's like, it's funny to me that this kind of, I grew up in a Baptist background and then all the Baptist guys ran the Christian school I was in. So, I was always biting heads with the Baptists. But I understood him a little bit. You know, it's like, it takes a little bit of that fundamental view to be like, we're getting on a boat, we're going there, we're going to bring the gospel. Whereas, a different type of Christian probably wouldn't do something like that. It's funny how God meets us all where we are, relationally. It says, oh, you're kind of a stubborn guy. We're going to use you this way. Oh, you're not, you know, you're, and I think that we tend to think we got to arrive and we have to know what we're doing, but sometimes it's just like, well, this is the beginning of the journey, right? It's important when you're on wisdom, but man, God, God lets us make stupid mistakes. Like, he doesn't protect us from that stuff. Like, you know, so he's not, he's walking with us, he's not abandoning us, but he lets us walk in a stupid a lot. And that's good. If I were God, I would do it differently. Like, I would protect me from all the stupid I do, but he doesn't need perfect smart people at all. He just needs people who say yes. So I think that qualifies all of us really quickly. Yeah. So yeah, people are listening. right now, if they, and again, there's made move by the story, what would you, what would you say they could do, what they could do this week in their own lives as you've talked about just getting outside the church and serving and what would be your charge to folks listening that they're like, they're inspired. And maybe they're like, I can't go to Burma, you know, but yeah, well, I mean, take a little steps, right? But like, so one of the things I would say about like, if you're trying to jump into the human trafficking space, you got, you, you do want to learn, right? So you can start to educate yourself. You can get around good organizations and people who are doing it and start to expose yourself because just jumping out there, you could get yourself killed in a hurry or create problems. And that's the kind of stupid that we want to protect ourselves from. But I think that there's, you know, there's good questions to ask like, okay, who do I know right now that's a perpetrator? Like somebody who's, most of us know somebody's on the edge somewhere, like, and start saying, okay, how do I pray for this person? Like how, how do I, how do I see what God thinks about that person? If they were following him, like most of us need an enemy. Like Jesus had an enemy. He had Judas, he had a betrayer. Like he had, he had enemies at the church. Those are all necessary for his message. And so instead of like looking at the resistance as something that's getting in our way, try to say, where's the resistance in your life? Who are the resistors? Who are the hecklers? Who are the people that actually maybe God wants to grow grace in your life through those people or give you a different kingdom lens? So asking a question of like, who are the people that are really hate right now or really fine annoying or something like that might be a good place to start. Because if you can start there, what it does is it starts to form your heart into the right place so that when you start to encounter the opportunity, you're ready for it. And so I think that's, that's an easy step that the whole church can do. It's funny because like we all kind of come to, we get, we hear a story, we're kind of like crotty kid. We're all excited. Teach me, Mr. Miyagi, how to do this, you know, crane kick. And he's like, first we must learn paint the fence, you know? And then I think the same way is like, first we need to learn some humility before you jump out there and try and tackle the cartels and save the children. Because we all want to start there. Yeah. I want God to show up. And I want to save some kids. And it's like, first learn, sand the deck, you know, like so that you can like get there eventually. But if, you know, if you love your enemy, yeah, it's a, it's actually a sign that the Holy Spirit is with you can do that by yourself. I know. And so if you want to be equipped, it's a good way to start getting equipped to go out and go after the bad dudes. Yeah. If you're like, no, not that, anything but that, you know, exactly. But it's not what we're called to do, right? It's interesting how pride can work on both sides of it, you know, doing good things out of a prideful heart, doing horrible things out of prideful. You know, it's like, you see it in the church so often that it makes people want to leave. They don't want to be a part of organized religion, or they say, because of the pride, right? And then you see the other side of it. You see the dark of the dark. I mean, you see a little dealing with werewolves and the bushes of darkness, you know? And then we're just dealing with like, you know, the grifter pastors or people who take advantage, you know, of the church and they do it all with a smile and a tie, you know? And then you have people, you know, stealing children in the middle of the night. And there's just and there's a darkness. Yeah. And that gap between, okay, what battle you want to fight? Yeah. Yeah. And then we as, you know, we got all like, that was the thing about invisible children. It was so heartbreaking. Is it all these people watch the film? Got it got like, I want to do something. And there was like a wave of, yeah. And they did, and the water had nowhere to go because it was like the practicality of like, okay, we have to, we can't just march into. Yeah. This kind of Coney Land. Yeah. And just take the children back. I watched the whole thing, man. What did you say? Well, I was like, some of the questions were like, how long is this going to last? Yeah. Because these guys don't, you know, they're not in it. They don't understand what it takes. Yeah. And so are they really going to like be able to like, run the track and, you know, and all unraveled? And I think part of it too is like, again, when you're going after that kind of stuff, you're plowing into spiritual power. Sure. And if you're not equipped for that. Yeah. If you're not equipped for that, you get taken out. It should up. Yeah. Which is why again, I say doing something like learning how to love your enemy. It, it's totally opposite for how, for how the enemy operates. Yeah. Like the enemy of our souls. And so those kinds of things actually really train you to be able to move in those spaces. That's radical, isn't it? I mean, it's so radical. Well, what you're saying is like, to me, I'm the, just what you're saying is that my, my grandfather started something that I'm still doing today. And when I watch a 32nd video on how to get involved with, you know, the invisible children movement, it's like, I want this to happen now. And you're like, dude, this has been going on for a hundred years over here. You got to get involved. And, you know, it's like someone, I remember reading thing about someone planted a Sequoia seed that's not going to become a tree for 500 years. Someone thought of you 500 years ago when this was. And sometimes we look at, we're just so selfish in how we want to see the fruit of the thing we planted. But, it might not even, you know, but you can reduce it our lifetime. You can also think about it like this. It's like, because some people are going to say, okay, well, that's Marcus. And he had this, you know, multi-generational history and everything. But I'm like, yeah, but my great granddad didn't have that. He didn't. And he went for it. And he spoke down to his generations. And so why don't you start speaking down into your generations? Or why don't you, you know, why don't you be a guy like, like Jonathan who, who followed three power out, he, he did three covenants. And the first one was things when after Goliath was killed, right? The second one was he covened the truth with, you know, he had to, he had to expose the painful truth that his dad was a killer and was willing to kill him. And the third one was he's like, David, you're going to be king. There's a political one. And I'm going to be second to you. So my right to be king, my right to be on top of the mountain. I'm going to lay that all down into a life of a kid, a young man, and, and I'm going to coven it with him. Like if we're willing to take that same route of coveniting into other people behind us, we will, we will shift the world. Yeah. Like none of us are stuck. If we're willing to walk that path, it just costs, just costs. And we're all in a, in a, in a place, we can all, you know, rescue somebody wherever we are. And it doesn't mean that, you know, some people are going to be the Batman of, of the spiritual kingdom where they're going to be doing something that, and then there's other guys that are just going to be funding. Abraham was the father of faith. What did he accomplish? She's a rich dude. He about killed a son. That was like a high moment in his life. I mean, you know, yeah, yeah. It's, you know, because he got a revelation across then. But like he became a father of faith. How? Like what, what, how did he deserve that? You know what I'm saying? It's like, but he's stirred a steered one kid. So like obedience to the purpose is super important. Does that purpose need to be really big? No, no, it is, you know, like that's what I'm saying in God's hands. Yeah, in multiple. Yeah. And I feel like with that, with Luke and I have been talking a lot of the last like year and a half of like people have these stories. And how do we steward maybe a community of people who are like, I work nine to five, but maybe we together in the blurry verse, the community we built here, we can help support some of the, the stories that come through our show. So we'd love to kind of, I don't know, unofficially announced that like that's where we're at. There's so many people who sponsor blurry creatures. And we'd love to continue to funnel that through blurry creatures and help some of the guys like you out there that have had these incredible stories of not just talking about the blurry stuff, but doing it, doing it. Yeah. So we're, we're kind of putting together some, some things behind the scenes to kind of direct this crazy blurry community that is just excited. They're always like throwing their own parties and having meetups. Oh, really, that's amazing. Yeah, and they're always like Luke Nate come to this. We're doing a party in Ohio. We're like, I wish we could come to all these, but we just can't, you know, we're just trying to. You got to multiply yourself, see? Yeah, that would be the way we get things done. I mean, but so yeah, point everybody listening where they can see the things you guys are working on. And there's I know, you know, in fire, you've got saved by soccer with the love by love your enemy series and guide and all that work when they find all this stuff. Yeah. Well, so our website is a good place to go. We do have a lot of love your enemy material. Some's free. There's a book on Amazon, but you can find it all there. So it's worldwide web. I end-fire.org. You can find information on us there. And a lot of what we do is kind of a few layers down. You can get into our blogs and kind of find out some of it. But again, we're we're cautious about everything that that we say. So, just like lead with the werewolves. We work in the, yeah. We're in the nooks and crannies and kind of stay off the grid a bit on a lot of it. But yeah, it's it's there as a way to connect with us like the the little girl star I was telling you about were in the process of moving a whole home of kids. She's one of them to different locations. So there's there's a great video. that tells a little bit of her story and some of the other kids that's on her site, things like that, so if people wanna jump in and get involved, there's ways to do it. - And your great grandfather, his name is Marcus. - Yeah, William Marcus, then my grand-dad does Marcus offenses, so that's my name's sake, yeah. - It's cool, 'cause I think we joked for the show of like famous Marxists, but. - Yeah, the Mount Rushmore Marxists. - Family's making that name famous. That's really a cool story, and it's cool. You get to see like the, you know, the four-part movie, you know, through all these patriarchs of all these guys, you know, it's just, it's cool to be on that end versus like, I don't know what I'm doing out here, starting something, you know, starting things is harder than getting to see something, inheriting a story, inheriting a ministry, inheriting a movement, you know, you get a little more. - Yeah, it's both what, like we talk about, it's good, and it's hard, 'cause you're also like feeling like you're hiding the shadows, tell you figure out what you're doing, so, but it is. - Pressure, a little more pressure. - The generational blessing is real and a gift, but I think anything God gives us like that, it's always for the sake of others, so, which is probably how the blurry community should function, is like if you've been given a stewardship of something, not just the message, but the fact that so many of your followers probably have, even if they don't feel like they have a lot, they have a lot more than most of the world still, and so one thing that motivates me consistently is like, I have more than everybody else, like compared to most of the world, I'm responsible at some level. If I don't stay responsible, then I lose the tension, right? Like every time I sit in my back porch, and I'm really grateful, I have my back porch, I have to remember that there's kids who are hungry today, and if I don't feel that tension, at some level, it's not necessarily guilt, but just the tension of, I've got to care, 'cause guilt doesn't really help most of us, but if I don't live in that tension, again, I don't learn how to thrive, and I disconnect myself from the value of human life, which is how society begins to unravel. So, getting the community connected to the value of human life and holding that tension is really, really valuable. - The reciprocal that is trafficking, right? - Yeah. - The lowest of devalue in a human life is to traffic it. - Every kid is like, every person in the sense doesn't have a flashback, so their mom's saying, "There's a kid trying to be happy to eat that." - You know, the kid's an athlete, finish the piece. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. - We just, we're an 80's, we're an 80's show here, so. - But that's guilt, and there's a difference between feeling guilty, and instead caring about other people, and letting that care stay in our awareness, no matter what we want. - And I think our listeners were at that age in your forest, we kind of realized you can't save the world, but you can save, you know. - You can make a difference. - Right here, yeah, you kind of have that youthful, we can, you know. But I think that it's not about giving up on that, it's about honing in on it, focusing, and realize you're a part of a bigger picture. - Guys inviting us to be a city on a hill. That doesn't mean we change the world, but we can be a really good demonstration of the light of Jesus. - Let's do it. We'll stay tuned, blurry listeners out there. Thanks for, you know, just coming on, 'cause we're gonna partner and we're gonna help however we can, small, just sometimes just awareness, podcasts, conversation, sharing this with people, but also like funneling resources, and there's a lot of talented people in this community, and they hit us up every day, almost to the point where we don't know what to do, 'cause it's like, - Come help, I don't know what we can do here. - Yeah, yeah. But it's cool, there's just a lot of energy, a good energy, and people who understand the principalities, the powers, they see the fourth dimensional, affecting the three-dimensional, they see how humans are afflicted, and but also they believe the stories of like, Paul's supernatural conversion from, you know, being somebody who was trafficking and killing people. - And who was it enemy? - Yeah, and who was it enemy? - It was a faith, yeah. - Came around full circle, so we can, I think our listeners can understand all the stories that you've presented today, and thanks for being vulnerable, and I know that sometimes sharing the truth can be detrimental, 'cause you get the emails, and you get the blowback, and you get all the like, oh, he's the werewolf guy now, and it's like, well, I saw one, so, I have not yet. And there's ancient, I mean, the werewolf stories? - Yeah, yeah. - Dude, there's so many of them. And it's not as weird as you think, so. Thanks for being honest and open though. - Thanks Marcus, yeah. - Absolutely, great to be with you. - Let's go. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)