Bringing Help and Hope to Those Who are Hurting. This is the opening statement that greats you when you open the website for Masters of Disaster. When Darin Kroger swapped IT work for chainsaws, power generators, and volunteers, he knew he was swapping comfort for chaos.
Today's show reflects what happens when you begin to surrender your heart and talents to the nudging of the Holy Spirit. Darin had what most of us would think of as a "good life". By his own admission, it was a good life. But, he continued to recognize an itch that wasn't being scratched. An itch for something more. Something that he really had no clue of what it looked like, other than it kept begging his attention. This itch was in the arena of disaster relief.
Darin always enjoyed following weather, and in particular, stormy weather. The kind of weather that can change a person's life in a matter of hours or even seconds. Tornados, floods, fires, and hurricanes are among the more common disrupting storms. We get to watch them on our tv, but then we set back in our recliner and relieve our guilt by saying a prayer. Not to diminesh the importance of prayer, but GOD WANTS MORE! He wants our hearts to be filled with compassion to serve the needs of others and then our hands to carry it out.
Darin along with his volunteers began to operate the non-profit, Masters of Disaster several years ago and now it is a full time disaster relief resource. Darin desires to serve those that are in what is likely going to be one of their greatest times of need. The storm his and life as we know it is destroyed. Survival resources and actions are first on the list, then comforts and even wants can begin to fill in the void. Darin watches groups of volunteers spring into action to restore the essentials and as a resort, restore hope in broken people.
For more information about Masters of Disaster, contact them at:
http://MOD-USA.org
http://rocksolidfamilies.org
#Rocksolidfamilies,#familytherapy,#marriagecounseling,#parenting,#faithbasedcounseling,#counseling,#Strongdads,#coaching,#lifecoach,#lifecoaching,#marriagecoaching,#marriageandfamily,#control,#security,#respect,#affection,#love,#purpose,#faith,#mastersofdisaster,#storms,#disasterrelief,#tornados,#hurricanes,#floods
Bringing Help and Hope to Those Who are Hurting. This is the opening statement that greats you when you open the website for Masters of Disaster. When Darin Kroger swapped IT work for chainsaws, power generators, and volunteers, he knew he was swapping comfort for chaos.
Today's show reflects what happens when you begin to surrender your heart and talents to the nudging of the Holy Spirit. Darin had what most of us would think of as a "good life". By his own admission, it was a good life. But, he continued to recognize an itch that wasn't being scratched. An itch for something more. Something that he really had no clue of what it looked like, other than it kept begging his attention. This itch was in the arena of disaster relief.
Darin always enjoyed following weather, and in particular, stormy weather. The kind of weather that can change a person's life in a matter of hours or even seconds. Tornados, floods, fires, and hurricanes are among the more common disrupting storms. We get to watch them on our tv, but then we set back in our recliner and relieve our guilt by saying a prayer. Not to diminesh the importance of prayer, but GOD WANTS MORE! He wants our hearts to be filled with compassion to serve the needs of others and then our hands to carry it out.
Darin along with his volunteers began to operate the non-profit, Masters of Disaster several years ago and now it is a full time disaster relief resource. Darin desires to serve those that are in what is likely going to be one of their greatest times of need. The storm his and life as we know it is destroyed. Survival resources and actions are first on the list, then comforts and even wants can begin to fill in the void. Darin watches groups of volunteers spring into action to restore the essentials and as a resort, restore hope in broken people.
For more information about Masters of Disaster, contact them at:
http://MOD-USA.org
http://rocksolidfamilies.org
#Rocksolidfamilies,#familytherapy,#marriagecounseling,#parenting,#faithbasedcounseling,#counseling,#Strongdads,#coaching,#lifecoach,#lifecoaching,#marriagecoaching,#marriageandfamily,#control,#security,#respect,#affection,#love,#purpose,#faith,#mastersofdisaster,#storms,#disasterrelief,#tornados,#hurricanes,#floods
strong dads wants to thank quality auto mart and service for being a proud sponsor of the strong dads podcast, started in 1985 and going strong for all these years. Recently, quality Auto Mart has transitioned from owners of Mark and Nancy Repke to longtime employee Fred and Lorene Venus. For all your automotive needs and golf cart needs, check out Quality Auto Mart located across from Indian Lakes on Highway 46 outside of Batesville, indiana. Strong Dads wants to thank 4 Speed on 50 for sponsoring today's show. If you like classic cars, great food and a taste of Americana, you have to visit 4 Speed on 50's Diner Located on Route 50 in Lawrenceburg, indiana. Stop in today for a meal and an experience you won't soon forget at 4 Speed on 50's Diner. Welcome to Strong Dads. Hey, this is Merrell Hutchinson, being joined by my man, kyle Crawford, and the master of disaster. How do you like being referred to?
Speaker 3:as that. You know what that's fine Me and Carl Weathers, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:The master of disaster, Darren Kroger. Darren, it's been a while, but you were on Strong Dads one other time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's been several years right after we kind of got started with our Masters of Disaster Impact Group within Crossroads Church and, yeah, things have changed since then.
Speaker 2:Well, and just so you know normally our strong dads here, since we've kind of gone out into the field, we go out, but the problem with Darren is you never know when Darren's going out in the field. We were going to record a couple of weeks ago and all of a sudden Mother Nature God decided he was going to throw a few storms and you were not to be found. No, no, no.
Speaker 3:I was all over the place for actually, for the last few weeks have been chasing severe weather impacts across Indiana, ohio and Kentucky. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's that time of year, Although, you know, when I was a kid I used to always think spring is when tornadoes happened, and it seems now tornadoes seem to happen year-round.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, a couple of years ago there was a big tornado system that went through western Kentucky, mayfield, kentucky, and through like land between the lakes and all of that. I mean it was a long path tornado and that happened the week before Christmas. Yeah, yeah, that's not supposed to happen. And we had another one this past year that impacted Clarksville, tennessee, near Fort Campbell. Yeah, that was the second week of December.
Speaker 1:So they happen all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 3:There is no tornado season anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all the time?
Speaker 3:yeah, there, there is. No, there is no tornado season anymore. Yeah, the majority of them, at least. What's been recorded and tracked happen in june and july around here but is that always been the way? Because I always remember march, april, may, yeah that, that that has been um, as tornadoes have continued to occur and we're and people are recording those events and when they happen and where they happen and the severity of them. It has moved into that June July timeframe for the highest number of impacts here in the Midwest?
Speaker 2:Yeah, greatest likelihood. Yeah, all right. So we're here meeting with you and Masters of Disaster is really getting some feet under it and starting to do its thing. But first, before we get too much into that, tell us a little bit about Darren Kroger. Some of you might go back and listen to that. It's probably like episode 20 or something. I wasn't there.
Speaker 1:On that one I'm excited yeah you're in it now.
Speaker 2:Tell us a little bit about Darren Kroger, and then we'll get into Masters of Disasters and go from there. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So born and raised in southeastern Indiana. My mom and dad were both school teachers in the Aurora school system and been married to my high school sweetheart, Beth.
Speaker 2:It'll be 40 years in June of this year. That can't be true. June the 16th, you're younger than me.
Speaker 3:Very good, I remember, I know the date and I know how many, and we've been together for 42 years and married for 40 of those years. We have two grown children, nick and Ashley, both married. Nick and Casey have two granddaughters, layla and Eliza, who have me wrapped around their little finger. I mean, just what do you want Pop-Pop to do for you?
Speaker 2:I'll do whatever you need me to do.
Speaker 3:And then our daughter, Ashley, is married to Scott and they live in Lawrenceburg. Nick and Casey and the girls live in Delhi. So that's kind of our life, so that's kind of our life.
Speaker 3:Beth works for a. She's a transaction coordinator for a EXP real estate broker in northern Kentucky and loves her job, loves what she does, and she gets to work from home and I work out of a backpack most of the time, so I'm traveling all over the place. Originally spent 30-ish years in the technology field doing data stuff, networking stuff, it support things and found a passion for those impacted by severe weather by tornado, hurricane, earthquake and finding ways to go and help them, and so some of my project planning and logistics background, even in the IT world, played well into getting people and resources together to go help those who are hurting. And that's been over a decade ago and haven't really looked back. It's been an amazing ride, a God story through all of it, and here we are.
Speaker 2:Well, before we get into some of the work of Masses of Disaster, I do want to hover around some of that transition because you know you're in the technology world. You know you're in the technology world. I knew of you then but we kind of came in toward the end of that when I started to re-know you again through our church. I don't know what kind of money you made, but I think you made decent money.
Speaker 3:I think you had a decent lifestyle.
Speaker 2:I think you called the shots and all of a sudden I'm seeing you getting all this interest in being a tornado chaser, a storm chaser, and I know that I bring that up because you left stability. Oh yeah, you left stability, which is unstable. It is, which is what storms do, and uncomfortable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I want to speak to that because I know there's a lot of guys kyle you and I just did a show on change yeah, and there's uh, I mean there's guys that are in uncomfortable places in life, even though on paper they should be comfortable. Yeah, what?
Speaker 3:what prompted all that? Well, you know it's. It's really interesting. We just, um, our, our volunteers, along with the community of Sailor Park, on April 3rd celebrated the 50th anniversary of the 1974 tornado outbreak that hit Sailor Park, hanover, indiana, went up through Xenia, ohio. That whole storm system was over 145 tornadoes, there were 330 plus fatalities, and all that it impacted seven different states.
Speaker 3:And I remember where I was in 1974 with my mom and dad at our house down on on highway 56, between aurora and rising sun, watching this tornado come up the river and jump the river multiple times. And I look back like I'm pretty sure that's the point in my life where it's like, okay, severe weather is awesome in the worst ways, um, it is incredible, it is. I mean, there's no way to explain what happens other than you know this is, this is god at work. And in the we talk about god and mother nature. Mother nature is the nasty stuff. Right, god is god, is, you know, the ultimate creator, um, but but seeing that stuff and going, okay, I can't really wrap my head around it. As a 1974, I would have been eight years old, you know, and now everybody knows my age um and it was one of those moments where I I mean I know where I was.
Speaker 3:I mean mentally, I can flash back to that day. I remember getting in the crawl space underneath our house down on Highway 56. I remember being at my aunt and uncle's house in their garage. As things progressed over the course of the evening, I remember listening to the radio of all things a little AM-FM radio probably AM radio.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that view.
Speaker 3:Absolutely for all the weather updates. Um, you know, and that was that never left me. That stayed with me and stayed kind of in the back of my head. I remember my mom and dad taking us down to hanover because my cousin was a student at hanover when that happened. I remember going down there and seeing all the trees uprooted. I remember the power plant down there, all of those power towers being torn apart and twisted around like looking like an old erector set. So that stuck with me, did the technology thing because that was easy for me. For some reason my brain worked well with technology and programming and networking and that type of stuff and it just became kind of the thing. I worked for a number of organizations that did IT work and technology work. So I was a break-fix guy for a while. I was an engineer for one network engineer for a while, ended up running some teams there and then all in the city, the city those of us from southeastern Indiana.
Speaker 3:That would be Cincinnati to those of you listening outside of the area and did well and progressed through that to the point where a little rural telephone cooperative was doing network stuff and high-speed internet and was looking for somebody to kind of grow their team. Sei Communications out in Dillsboro hired me. I worked with them for a number of years and then had a couple of guys that we decided that hey, let's go try this on our own and had some really interested investors who backed us and did a technology company in Lawrenceburg and Dearborn County and was very successful, went off on my own out of that and had another several years of really successful technology work with great customers around southeastern Indiana and northern Kentucky and western Ohio. And it was great. And I remember the turning point.
Speaker 3:I remember being at that point we were attending Bright Christian Church. I could take you probably to the pew, to the bench and show you where I was sitting filling out a prayer card because we were going to Florida on vacation and there had been a tornado outbreak that had hit Mississippi, alabama, georgia, tennessee and we were driving down. Beth and I were going to drive down. I was going to take us right through Birmingham and we I remember watching the the TV the news that morning saying that birmingham had been really hard hit and alabama had been really hard hit lots of fatalities, lots of damage and we were off on vacation.
Speaker 3:I remember riding the car like we're going on vacation and beth going, we need to go help somebody, we need to go get engaged, we need to go get involved. I'm like, no, I'm going on vacation, I've been working, my took us off, I want to go enjoy the beach and some, some, some sun and r and r. So um, and I and I remember, like finishing that and having only way I can explain it is god tapped me on the shoulder and go um, really, is that, what? Is that what you're gonna do? And I'm like, what does that mean?
Speaker 3:Is that what you're going to do and I'm like what does that mean? I remember I still have the card, because I scratched that out and I wrote down. Okay, I guess I'm going to go to Alabama and figure out how I can help tornado victims.
Speaker 1:That was it.
Speaker 3:I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't know how I was going to do it. I had no idea, Just knew that my wife had made comments to influence me. God had tapped me on the shoulder and said this is what I want you to do. And I'm like okay, I try not to argue with my wife. I try not to argue with God.
Speaker 2:Have you ever been successful on either?
Speaker 3:No, no, I mean I can delay things, but usually both of them went out at the end. So we came home and I started to make some phone calls. I'm like who do I know that has any knowledge of anything or how I could get connected and Larry Boyd who passed away here not too long ago, his son Jason and I, you know jason, jason, good friends and um I knew that larry was working for an insurance company that did disaster response so they would go in after after an event and help their their clients out and and start writing them checks for damage and being able to hire contractors and do repairs and things like that.
Speaker 3:And I remember having a long conversation with Larry like, hey, this is what I think I want to do. Am I crazy, what do you think? And him giving me like the top 10 things I should do and the top 10 things I shouldn't do, and within within four or five days, making phone calls. And within four or five days making phone calls, we had a place to go, we had a group to connect with, we had a community that we were going to serve and we left the rest up to God. And the church came behind us and multiple people helped support us financially and just handed us money, wrote us checks, gave us Bibles to take down, asked about what supplies we could take. We loaded up a pickup truck I had never intended to take my camper on vacation with me and I said, hey, we're going to take the camper, we're going to go down, we're going to find a place to stay, we're going to stay there for four or five days and then we're going to go on down to're headed to destin.
Speaker 3:We're gonna go down to destin and hang out for the rest of that at that vacation time. We never made it to florida. We we connected with with an organization in birmingham, alabama. That just was amazing. That amazing people that put us to work got connected and that was really the beginning of what Masters of Disaster has become today.
Speaker 3:And when I got back from that trip came back knew there was additional work that needed to be done, because the seven days that we were there, I mean, it was a drop in the pond of what needed to be done.
Speaker 3:And so we came back and engaged men's group at church and said, hey, we're going to take another trip down. We took five or six guys down, we helped roof a church that had been impacted in another little town, met some friends down there that we now call family, and came home from all of that and God just started working like, hey, there's, there's something else out there for you. I made you to do something, and what you're doing right now, although it's super comfortable and you're really good at it and, to your point, making a really good living at it, um, I have something else for you. Um, and it took a while to kind of work through that. And then there was this would have been in 2012,.
Speaker 3:Almost a year after that there was a tornado that came through Holton, indiana, on the west side of Versailles, again engaged the men's group from Bright. We went out and worked there for a few weekends and got connected to a pastor at holton christian church, bob bob mcquery, and they were looking for somebody to help them work through the the long-term recovery process after that impact. And one thing led to another. I remember taking a truckload worth of donations that at the time, united Community Bank had put together in one of the classrooms at East Central Elementary School, went and picked up in my Suburban in another truck with my son nick.
Speaker 3:We drove out to holton, delivered all these donations and I remember coming back thinking to myself okay, um, this is what I want to do. I want to help people. How do I make any money at it? Yeah, how do I stop doing what I'm doing to do this and and support my family and my wife and our house and everything you do? Um, and the start of that was, four hours later, a phone call from from that same pastor, bob, who said hey, we're looking for someone to be the construction manager. We have some funding from Eli Lilly, we can pay you. It's not a full-time gig, but what do you think? And I remember being just totally dumbfounded.
Speaker 2:That was four hours later, four hours later After I verbalized that.
Speaker 3:I think I verbalized it in the truck, talking to myself and God answering that with hey. I think this is a way to dip your toe in the pool of what you want to do and get you connected to this world of disaster response and recovery work, and so really took them on as a um and still doing technology stuff. So I do technology things in and amongst going out to Holton and helping tear down houses and rebuild houses and help coordinate volunteers and yeah, it was. It was a crazy time and I just knew the more I did it, I felt myself pulled more and more into that disaster world than the technology world. It's like, hey, it's time for a change.
Speaker 1:I got a question on that, so I mean not knocking anybody that does IT but IT is a little bit more of like a cleaner environment in some regard, right. And the idea you were saying before, you know kind of like you know, your, your, your workplace is with a backpack right and getting your hands dirty. What was that transition like? Or is that something you've always been? You know kind of you'd like to get your hands dirty, but obviously your, your career didn't take you in that path well, um to to a point.
Speaker 3:I like to get my hands dirty.
Speaker 3:To a point um, it's one of those things like we, we grew up on uh, although my mom and dad were both educators, both teachers we grew up on um kind of a mini farm down in ohio county and so I, I knew how to do things. Where my, my dad and I were always, there was always something that was broken, that needed to be fixed. Um, we were always putting in a garden, we were always doing things. We're hunting and fishing, so outdoor stuff, like I, I, I didn't shy away from from the dirt and the work. Um, in the technology field it was like you know, hey, in the summertime I'm able to work like in a server room that's 55 degrees. I love that, yeah, okay. Um, and in the wintertime I'm also inside, I'm not getting rained on, I'm not getting snowed on, all those things. Um, it was, it was one of those things where I've always liked the outdoors, and it was how do you turn a cruise ship? Is how I liken it to the change that occurred in me.
Speaker 3:It was not like I didn't just jerk the wheel to the left and go 90 degrees to the left. God was working on me, just a little bit at a time okay, I'm not asking you to to like, take a chainsaw to a tree and cut it down. I'm asking you to start clipping away at the branches yeah and that and that cut's going to come later.
Speaker 3:And and I remember the point where I talked to my wife, to beth said, hey, I want to sell the technology company, let's get out of that business, and I'm going to find a way to do full-time disaster work. I didn't even think of it as ministry at that point Just full-time disaster work, just helping people. And then, as luck would have it, took my first mission trip to Haiti and was charged by Mark and Julie Gulley on our last night there. So you had this experience in Haiti, which was amazing, a total eye-opener for me. I used to be that guy that said, hey, we don't need to leave the country, there's plenty of work to be done here. Why do I need to fly across the ocean to go help other people? Right, and my world got turned upside down. I mean, I saw what a third-world country looked like, experienced that firsthand the sights, the sounds, the smells.
Speaker 3:Thank you, you don't know about the smells until your boot's on the ground and you're doing the stuff and Julie and Mark, in the last night, as we gathered to debrief, asked okay, you've had this experience, what are you going to do with it? I'm going to challenge you guys to pray for the next 30 days about what you're going to do with this experience days about what you're going to do with this experience. And when our plane landed in Miami and my phone had been off for nine days, plane lands in Miami turn my phone back on and I start getting text messages and it was an organization that I had worked with in Holton helping rebuild houses. They were looking for a disaster response specialist and said we want you to come work for us.
Speaker 2:Sounds like things got answered pretty quickly.
Speaker 3:I hadn't prayed for 24 hours much less 30 days and again speechless, like okay, I don't know what to say, I don't know how to react. Got home, got unpacked and made the phone call and the rest is history. I've been a disaster response specialist for over a decade, Professional. I say professional because I've been paid to do that this whole time, certainly not the level as being my own boss, my own business owner, and that was an adjustment. But I will say this in those decisions again, degree at a time, degree at a time, beth was totally supportive. I remember her saying if God is going to ask us to do this, we have to trust that he's going to take care of us in it, and he has.
Speaker 3:Every time there's been a change, anytime there's been, what people would say is that crazy decision. God has taken care of us and we have been taken care of financially, health, putting all the right people in places and parts and pieces in front of us, and it's just been an amazing. I'm not going to say it's been without bumps, just been. It's been an amazing. I'm not gonna say it's been without bumps, but it's been an. It's been an amazing journey and I can't imagine being anywhere.
Speaker 2:That I am right now, yeah, man, I I appreciate the whole story because I just think, uh, you know, what I gather out of that is you have to be willing to listen to the spirit, and so you get knocked on all the time. Probably, we probably all get knocked on quite a bit with the spirit saying, hey, how about this? And we just hit the mute button. Yeah right, but at some point in time, you know, are you being prompted and are you responding?
Speaker 3:yeah, and I don't know. I mean, I like right, you know, sometimes I think guys go out searching like today I want something new and different.
Speaker 2:It's like well, that's of you, yeah, you know, but the idea that you just said, I don't. I really don't know how any of this is going to work, but so much, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no idea how it's all gonna work, no idea.
Speaker 3:Just it's like, okay, let's go give this a shot. I mean mean, what's the worst thing that can happen? I'm back in the technology world again in some way shape or form.
Speaker 2:Paying the bills Right Right.
Speaker 3:But not making impact. And you know what initially started out as just impact for me, then then became like kingdom impact. How do we serve people and build the kingdom at the same time? And that took a while. That took a while on my journey as well.
Speaker 3:It wasn't one of those like, hey, god, I'm totally connected, I'm totally hearing you, I got your directions, I'm reading the playbook, I know what's happening, this is what you want me to do. It was a lot of trial and error and again just getting to that point of being around communities of people that were faith-filled, that helped build into me, and being around churches that are also faith-filled, and in those seasons of being at a couple of different churches, just men's groups and ministries, that were like, okay, all these things are starting to click for me in my brain and all of a sudden they all lined up yeah I was like, okay, this, this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but man, that was there were.
Speaker 2:There were a lot of nope yeah, not yet I want you out here.
Speaker 3:I want you. I'll get you this close. Yeah, because I still want to be able to control my own thing and do what I want to do. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Um and that just that was, um, that was uncomfortable, yeah, got to the point where I'm like okay, I can't, I can't fight him anymore. Yeah, can't fight him anymore, and and and it's. It was just worldly prideful me um wanting my way I want to do things. Do my things my way, um, and way I want to do things, do my things my way, um, and once I surrendered that stuff it was just so much easier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, darren, talk, talk a little bit about. Uh, so obviously you kind of gave it back the backstory of everything where where kind of the, the genesis of all this?
Speaker 1:came from right where kind of kind of filling the gap from present day to where you just kind of started, like where, where's master disaster, where you at kind of started Like where's Master of Disaster, where are you at today, people working with you, for you? I know you talked about, you know, with churches, part of the church. Talk a little bit about kind of where we're at today with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so kind of. We was birthed out of a need. We had started coming to Crossroads Church on the west side and there had been a flooding event that had occurred in norwood near crossroads main location their original location I refer to it as the mothership and there had been a flooding event there that occurred, with just some torrential rains over a 48 hour period. A lot of homes that were impacted from sewage that had come as storm drains, stormwater drains, runoff drains, were all filled, backed up into the storm sewers. A lot of people had sewage damage and flooding in their homes, and this is five minutes from the Crossroads Oakley site. One of their teaching pastors, a week after all that was listening to 700 ww and hearing the names of all the organizations and churches that had pitched in to help clean up that event, and there was one name that was very obviously absent and it was crossroads, and so that that pastor chuck mango, came, came back and said, hey, there's an outage here, this is our backyard, these are our people, and I know that there were Crossroads people that jumped in to help their neighbors. But there wasn't an organized response from the church. So there was a need, there was a desire to fill that need. There was a need, there was a desire to fill that need, and so there were people here around me that knew, here at Crossroads, westside, that knew of my background, and said, hey, we would love for you to try to start something. Can you help us? Coincidentally enough and I don't believe in coincidence, but another God thing is came on staff at Crossroads as the reach out director for the Westside location and was able to, at the same time, grow this thing that didn't even have a name yet. Just this can we do some type of disaster response that was seven years ago in March, type of disaster response that was seven years ago in March?
Speaker 3:Crossroads had had still does another long-term disaster partner out of Franklin, tennessee, hope Force International. But that relationship looked originally like there was a disaster. Hope Force would decide to go and ask Crossroads for support. Crossroads would write a check, done very transactional. The desire was to make that more transformational and more relational. Can we get our people to come alongside their people? Hope force, people learn from them, get out in the field and and do be the hands and feet of jesus to people who are hurting? Um, and so that's where things kind of started. We uh I remember myself and one other guy going to after we'd taken some training to learn, kind of how hope force did it.
Speaker 3:Um, going to houston, texas, after hurricane harvey and um in 2017 and spending nine days alongside Hope Force Like, okay, what does this look like If we were going to build this? Is this a model that can be replicated? Or do we take bits and pieces from all the experiences I've had and put them together into one and, at the end of the day, that's kind of where we are? Seven years later, we came up with the name Masters of Disaster. There were five of us that went to a training in State College, pennsylvania, with Hope Force and on our way home, it's like we want to do this thing, but we've got to come up with a name, and somebody I don't know if it was me, I don't even remember somebody threw out Masters of Disaster and it was like that's it, we're in, that's it.
Speaker 3:We're doing it and we all kind of chuckled like, okay, that's a good starting point. And then we even threw around the okay. So you know that ACDC Thunderstruck has to be our theme song, right.
Speaker 3:So I mean that's kind of where all that started. Kind of where all that started. And we came back and all of a sudden we had people who were super interested about what we were trying to start. How could they get involved? We started holding volunteer training sessions in conjunction with Hope Force and so we were. That looked like for the first several years of Hope Force deploying, us deploying alongside them, whether it was local or across the country, and us being basically just alongside them Red T-shirts for Masters of Disaster, blue T-shirts for Hope Force International, and it was great to see blue shirts and red shirts working alongside each other and we train alongside them so that our operating procedures are very similar to theirs, so that when our volunteers co-mingle there's not like, oh, we do it this way and we do it this way, and it's like we both do it, kind of in a very similar fashion.
Speaker 3:So volunteers, it was easy to kind of get engaged and get involved. Then the tornadoes hit Dayton in 2019, Memorial.
Speaker 1:Day. All that yeah, I worked that yeah.
Speaker 3:There are a lot of people that worked. That that was. I remember waking up that morning having text messages on my phone from people at Crossroads like hey, do you know this happened. We need to get engaged. I'm like nope, it happened in the middle of the night while I was asleep and I'm grabbing my bag and my boots and let's go when do I need to be. And that turned into a basically here we want Masters of Disaster to run this and Hope Force is going to come alongside Masters of Disaster because this is our backyard.
Speaker 3:I had masters of disaster because this is our backyard and then that led to kind of we had hundreds, hundreds of volunteers in Dayton those first couple of months Doing everything from roof tarping to debris cleanup to removing trees and limbs and doing that kind of stuff, and people just got bitten by the bug and loved it. Since then we've run our ranks to over 325 volunteers that are trained. We have other volunteers that engage from time to time when we need just spontaneous volunteers that don't necessarily need to be trained in disaster work, like just debris cleanup kind of stuff. But it has been a great evolution up to the point of this past year.
Speaker 3:Almost a year ago we became our own 501c3 nonprofit organization, so we are separate from the church, uh, which gives us some flexibility, and crossroads has been a huge blessing in. We're a mission partner now up there, so they support us financially so that they helped birth us and help us start as a nonprofit, got us connected with an amazing Christian-based consulting agency called Elemental Group that helped guide us through starting as a nonprofit. How do we write bylaws? What do we need? How do we build a budget? What do we want to do? How do we replicate ourselves? How is this sustainable? All those things, and so we're not quite a year old on our own, but it's been awesome.
Speaker 2:It's been crazy. Got a question for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Okay. So one of the things that well, I know why you, why God recruited you to do the work you do, because you have a logical brain and you're able to see that picture and basically build sequences from beginning to end that would be like mind boggling to me. I'd be like where do I begin Right? Would be like mind-boggling to me. I'd be like where do I begin? Yeah, right, and so when I see these disasters, one of my first questions and when I was at holton, indiana and when I pulled up there, my first question was where do you begin right? So when you arrive in a hurricane, tornado, whatever the disaster is like, how do you even know? Like, because it would be different if it was in your backyard and you knew all your resources, but you're going 300 miles away somewhere you don't really know anyone. What do you do?
Speaker 3:I will be very blunt with you. The first thing and this took a while to get myself in the habit of this is prayer. Where am I going? God? Put me in the right place at the right time with the right people. Put the right people in my face. Make the phone ring when I call somebody, have the phone be answered and put the right people in that path in front of me, because you can get into a situation where you're overwhelmed, you don't know where to start.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because you can get into a situation where you're overwhelmed, you don't know where to start, and it's really kind of built into a methodology of so prayer, start making phone calls. What's the area? Who's the emergency management director? Do we have a relationship already with them? Locally we do, and outside of the tri-state, we're probably going to potentially meet them for the first time on a phone call. Hey, this is who I am, this is the group that I'm part of, this is what we do. How can we help you? And then, kind of working through that, some are like, hey, we're good, some are, I don't they don't even know where to start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they're, so they're saying yes to whatever help they can get.
Speaker 3:And then we are, we're, we're putting eyes on everything, and there's a handful of us that that go in early. There's nothing better than boots on the ground and eyes on the situation, because you just, you just can't do it from hundreds of miles away looking at, at emails and internet stories, and, and, and the news channels. You just don't. You don't get the real story. So, putting boots on the ground, putting eyes on things, having conversations, and we are always looking for the most underserved.
Speaker 3:Is there an area that's been impacted, that is experiencing some type of poverty? Is there an area where it's? I mean, we're not looking to go into, no offense to anybody in any help we're not necessarily looking to go to a neighborhood that's affluent.
Speaker 2:Or that has a lot of resources available, like I can see. You know they may already have great fire departments or great resources available, and so you know, not that you don't check on them, but hey, you check, you guys are good, okay, yeah, let's go see who's not good.
Speaker 3:And in the early days you end up helping whoever gets put in front of you, right, and then you really kind of work through the process of who's impacted that has little to no resources, little to no support. They don't have family and friends nearby, they don't necessarily have a connection to a local church, they don't, they just don't. They're by themselves and they're either underinsured or uninsured. And you know, the mind boggling thing to me in all of this has been that people are uninsured yeah, and I'm not here to judge anybody and why they make those decisions. Some of them don't have the ability to put food on the table and pay for insurance.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and that's just the reality of it.
Speaker 3:So we're looking to wade into those areas where people are already hurting, and then this adds another layer on top of it. And people are just they're losing hope, they need help, they need somebody to come in and bring them some fresh breath of air. And people are just they're they're losing hope, they they need help, they need somebody to come in and bring them some some fresh breath of air and hope, to get them back to some sense of normalcy so they don't feel alone. Um, and some some pathway that they can see and understand of how they're going to get from where they are to somewhere close to where they were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, you got one minute. Okay, and then we're going to wrap this up. Okay, where's Masters of Disaster five years from now?
Speaker 3:Man, I'll tell you what I was laughing with someone at lunch today about our Powerball plan. Oh, If someone were to come to us and say, hey, I'll give you a million dollars, what would you do with it? Hire people, buy some equipment, find a space to house all that and exponentially help more people.
Speaker 3:And I think the five-year plan is that Growing us to? Hey, we're connected to multiple churches and multiple organizations because we are not just connected to Crossroads, they're a mission partner of ours, but we're connected to multiple churches and multiple organizations because we are not just connected to Crossroads, they're a mission partner of ours, right, but we're looking for other mission partners. We're looking for other churches that we can bring what we do. We'll train your people, we'll turn them into volunteers, we can report back to you All those things and they're going to go on a mission trip with us to a disaster field and figure out what their next chapter may look like, yeah, good stuff.
Speaker 2:But, darren, I want to thank you for your time. I mean, I love the story of the transaction, or transition into totally. You know, you saw a tornado when you were eight and it stuck to you, but you never knew that it would come back and take root 50 years later. Yeah, literally yeah. So that whole idea, maybe make a final statement about what you could give to a guy out there who's going back and forth with decisions on what they're doing with their time in life. What would you say? What would you advise them to do? Be still, they're doing with their time in life. What would you say?
Speaker 3:what would you advise them to do um, be still. You know, um, the the anxious anxiety about what am I supposed to be doing and where am I supposed to be going can be paralyzing. Um, I I have experienced that. I don't know if you guys have it in your career, but you know it's. It's if you can, if you get to yourself to a point where you can be still and listen to what God has for you and then act on it, and that's easy to say those words just roll off my tongue Like that's super easy to say and it took me decades to do, you know.
Speaker 3:And so if you're that person, I stop negotiating. You're that person, I I stop negotiating. Number one, and and just say yes, because I'm telling you, if god, if god, is giving you any idea of what he wants you to do, um, it's going to be better than what you can do on your own yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:So there and uh, as we, you know, wrap this up. Uh, how can any of our guys out there maybe want to get involved with Master of Disaster? What does that look like?
Speaker 3:The easiest way to do that is go to our website, and that is mod-usaorg so M. As in Mike O, as in Oscar D, as in dog and dashusaorg O, as in Oscar D, as in dog and dashusaorg, you can, on the main page, you can figure out ways to see what we're doing, what we've done, where we're going, ways to get involved, sign up for training and if you want to support us financially so you can help fuel the mission that we find ourselves always on, you can donate there, awesome.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, we're going to wrap it up, and so we want to thank all you guys for continuing to listen, to share these shows. We say all the time you know this show may have hit you or may not, but you may have thought of somebody that needs to hear this show. Share it, share it. You know, this is all about trying to get the message out and just to see how God's working in people's's lives, so we want to thank all of you guys for out there listening. Uh, we got our sponsors. We need to thank our sponsors. Let's thank uh quality automart, uh, four speed on 50 and casey outdoor solution. So, uh, yeah, sign us off.
Speaker 1:We're good, darren. Thanks so much, man. This is cool. Oh, thank you, it's been a lot of fun. I I'm in my own middle school. This is crazy, yeah. So, yeah, I appreciate you sharing your story and, yeah, appreciate all you guys, go out there and be some strong dads. You.