Rededicate 250 | Ep. 04: Ben & Paul Bergquam

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Jonathan Shuttlesworth Podcast. To stay connected, go to revivaltoday.com. And now here is Evangelist Jonathan. Who's this? Jump in. Sit down.

SPEAKER_03 0:19

You were on this morning?

unknown 0:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Hurry up. How'd it go? Yeah, great. It was uh I was wearing a Patreon mobile hat all day. This is what I wear most of the time.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

That'll clear the street.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Yeah. Right, but the ice all over the country.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

That's fantastic. Look at you, huh? That's great. I bet the line shortens at Starbucks when you walk in. Yeah. That's for you. That's for you. That's a blessing for you. There you go. Oh, that's a late. That's for you. I can't believe people came to this thing to network. I I've gotten several cards. Really? It's always like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Yeah. I well, the problem is I have stacks of them at home. And I'm like, oh, how do you keep track of it all? I don't.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

Tell me how you got into broadcasting.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Man. It's one of the best. Started when it goes back for you. We're ready for you at Starbucks recognition because usually that's how it ends. I know. No, it actually started when I was young. Are we on? Are we just? We're on. We're we're on right now, too. Jeez, we're just I thought we were just talking. No, that's how unprofessional we are. No, I love it. You can't tell. It's authentic. So I started, uh, you know, God called me early in my life. My my dad, who's actually here with us right now, he was uh they were missionaries in Africa and really pastors, uh, West Africa, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Niger. My sister was born in Jaust, Nigeria.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

They were missionaries to Niger.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

They're like real missionaries. Oh, like legit. Not the Nigerians are walking the park, but Niger. Yeah, no, no joke. It's high difficulty.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah, it's up there. I mean, it's a commitment. And so they actually we came back on furlough and you were there too. Yeah, when I was a kid. Yeah. How old? Five. We came back when I was five, so I can't still. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, it's one of those things when you hear people talk about oppression or or uh poverty in America. I'm like, you guys, come on. You don't even know what you're talking about. No, you don't. If you haven't been to a third world country and seen how people have to live and what they take, what what we take for granted, you know, it's it's one of the it was a great foundation. And then we moved back to America. It was supposed to be three weeks, ended up being 30 years in California. My dad became a pastor out there in uh Central Valley. We were in the Sierra Nevada, it's outside of Fresno. So it was Tell me about his church. Oakview Baptist, Southern Baptist, and then he ended up retiring as a conservative uh Presbyterian in Sanger, California. So I know where Sanger is.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

That's one of the only places I've preached in California.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Really? Yep, that's right. We we sold our house in Sanger. We moved to Arkansas about five years ago. So where were you in Arkansas?

SPEAKER_03 2:45

You know how to give me your spirit.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Oh, good pick. I know it's awesome. It's awesome. So, but but all of that, pre preacher's kid, going the right way. God's call on my life when I was 10, 11 years old. He he's he put a vision on my heart. I was gonna be leading his armies. Where were you when you got the vision? In California. But I mean, like like church service, bedroom. Yeah, yeah, no, church service. Uh, and then and then in school, it was this kind of ongoing vision, and it was one of those things I ran away from for a long time. And got into drugs and alcohol, got turned my life around after college.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

You got into the kind of drugs that if I was gonna get into drugs, I would because I I don't understand like heroin because it makes you tired. Yeah, I'm already tired. Yeah, it was crack, I understand.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

When I got into it, I had mono for years. Yes, and it was like, wake me up, get me, you know, something like talking my language. And then it was and then it was just the devil just started taking me down. And at one point I was either, and I was married at the time, and I had a young daughter and my wife, a daughter on the way. Uh, my wife, we were 10 years uh married. We just celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary. And you're saying now you celebrated your 21st. 21st just last year. She stayed with me through all of it. Through all of it. She's a keeper, she's amazing. Not like these other preachers rather just looked off at the drop of a hat. She's amazing. I mean, we the lowest of lows. I was either gonna end up in prison, prison or dead. Crack's bed. And she didn't know. Nobody has like a casual crack bed. I was living a double life, nobody knew. And I just, and and it was, you know, it's it was one of those things that just get worse and worse and worse. And I'm like, I kept praying, God, take this away from me, but don't let my wife find out. This was a prayer over and over and over. And the night I came clean to her, I heard the Lord say, You kept praying that she wouldn't know when she's the only one that needs to, you're set free. And there's a verse in Peter's husbands, honor your wives, lest your prayers be injured. That's pretty powerful. And it was that night 10 years ago in October, and I was set free and set back on this journey. And that was where you said how many years ago? 10 years in October. So it's been nine years. That's amazing. Yeah, you made a major turnaround quick. Yeah, and it was just not long. Literally, it was overnight. And and God within a week, God put me back on this trajectory. Yeah, uh, we started doing Facebook Live videos. Uh, it's we it started with a uh in California at Walmart showing how the the ridiculousness of the the plastic bag bands, and I showed how you could get around it by going to the produce section, and it was this stupid little video that kind of unlocked this door, and it was like, oh wow, this resonates with people. And then I started confronting politicians in California going up against the biggest. You are brilliant. You seen it?

unknown 5:17

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

We actually played some at Tech the News quite often.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

But yeah, yeah, yeah. And so and then I went up against Antifa, and it was one of those things where it's like, okay, God set me free. I was either going to be in prison or dead. Now I have life again. Yeah. Whoa. Let's go. Let's go. And so it was Antifa, and I got stitches in Berkeley and and attacked over and over and over. What somebody hits you from behind? Yeah, yeah. Sticks over the head.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

I knew one of those guys wouldn't have done it face up. Yeah, no, no, they're cowards. They're only typing. They have the bone density of a 91-year-old woman that you'd have laid them out.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Yeah, yeah. But that was that was the the call on my life was like, all right, if if uh if I'm gonna be attacked simply for wearing a MAGA hat right in our country, what are my daughters gonna grow up into? Right. So, and and I actually prayed about it when I went home because I, you know, I ended up getting 13 stitches. My six-year-old had to see what what I look like, and and I'm like, all right, God, is this worth it? And and it was really clear if you don't do it as the leader of your household, as a husband uh and and the father of your household, who's gonna do it? It's gonna be your daughters that have to do it. And so then it was all right, we're we're doing it. And it went from there to go in, no one was covering the border. I met angel moms, and I'm like, how are American citizens being murdered by illegals? Right, nobody knows about it, the mainstream media is lying to them. And so I just started reporting. So getting back to the beginning of your question, I was never trained as a journalist. I got my undergrad degree in kinesiology, XY Science, so fitness, I got my MBA, and then God just called me back into this. And so I filled the void. I I saw where no one's talking about this thing that's really important. It was originally God, family, and country exposing the godless woke churches out there in California where we live. Oh, you were doing that? Oh, yeah, oh yeah. I mean, where they're you know, we were out fighting for Prop 8 against uh, you know, gay marriage and the rest of it. And and I saw that encroachment. Really, that's why we're here. It's the church has been compromised for so long. Yes, that was my focus. And then God said, Well, if we don't have borders, we don't have a country. Correct. And that was where the pivot shifted to the border. Ten years later, you know, we're we're set we're doing our sixth uh season of Law and Border on Real America's Voice News. I met Rob Sig in a bathroom at CPAC. We bumped into each other, we prayed with each other. A week later, his uh one of the former producers at the network, Mark Leonard, said, Hey, we need a border guy. And and Rob said, or excuse me, vice versa. Rob said, We need a border guy. Uh Mark said, Hey, check this guy out. He's like, Hey, he that's the guy prayed with at CPAC. Get him on the phone. And so literally, it was three weeks later. I was working for rural American voice, that's seven years ago, and it's just been God's God's hand in every step of the journey.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

So Rob does ambush prayers a lot. He won't even like ask you, can I pray with you? Just like starts praying midsect. I feel kind of violated. Like I've never consented to this prayer.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

We love you, Rob. But and but it's yeah, it's been it's been an amazing journey working on a first book right now called Step Into Fear. Yes. About the fear that used to help hold me in bondage that's held me in the crack addiction to the fear we've been in shootouts in the jungle down in Panama, where God's just, you know, every step of the way, it's either the thing that holds you that back or the thing that launches you. And so uh that's just shootouts in Panama. Yeah, all kinds of that was just recently, yeah? Uh about four years ago, during Biden. Yeah, during Biden. So it was just wild, man. But and I look at this, you know, going down there. My dad's here now. We flew in. We're actually on vacation right now, if you can't tell. Your dad's here? Yeah, he's here. Uh, Paul, have anyone seen my dad? If you look out, hey, medical. David, can you go find my dad? I know. Blue shirt. All right, he's looking for him. But so we're on vacation. We go down to Florida every year to celebrate my daughter's birthday.

SPEAKER_03 8:46

Where do you like in Florida?

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Panhandle. I like all over, but uh, we're we live in Arkansas, so closest direct is Panhandle.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

So we go down there outside of Panama City, and uh, so we got, you know, we had this planned. We're we're we're not coming to the or we're we're going to that. And then Rob calls me up, it's like, hey, can you be there for the rededication? I'm like, you have to be here this day to to stand there with Chris Tomlin singing your name is the highest in the city that that sh reshaped the world because of the founding fathers 250 years ago saying we're gonna make a nation, uh one nation under God, the first nation under God in in this uh in the in world's history. And to see to be able to have that opportunity as a guy who's seen all over the world, who's been pulled out of the pit of addiction, uh, and to see that hope, and then to see the battles that we deal with, uh these crazies in the streets that really they're just empty and they need the Lord. And and unfortunately, oh here's my dad. Unfortunately, you know, that's just they've we we've been compromised. And so it's just it's what a powerful day. What an incredibly powerful day.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

You seem like you've had like a pretty dramatic encounter with God since the addiction. Oh yeah, or like when you got it. Tell me that tell me what happened.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

You know you want to you want a chair, Dad? No, they got it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's cool. We're here to no no no, you stay, you stay, you stay. Okay, okay. Yeah, this is my dad, Paul. It was and we gotta get you a mic, Dad. Where's your mic? I'll I'll share my mic. But it was uh it's it's been it's been a journey on it, you know. God's God's hand in all of it from the beginning. I mean, even early on, you know, the to to to deny God is the the most idiotic thing that you can do in in this universe that everything points to God.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Now, doctrine, where you stand on that, obviously that's a journey for everyone. You have to encounter Christ, you have to encounter God personally. But when I saw in my journey, uh give back to my life, to have the chains broke in that moment, and then to go through we went through two years of no income, and it was and I so imagine this. So I just come out of addiction, three years of a double life that she doesn't know about. Within three weeks, God had had had redeemed our marriage, had had had brought her back to me. I could have lost her forever. And then uh a couple months later, I say, Babe, I'm I'm quitting my job. I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I know God's calling me to do this, and we have to trust him. Nine months we we had went for two years with no income. The first nine months it was you know her just saying, You gotta get a job, you gotta get a job, you gotta do something, we gotta make money. And every single month along the way, God provided, and in ways that you just supernatural can't say it was all supernatural, and so to be standing here, I mean it's just story after story after story of encounter that I've I've witnessed. I've experienced personally.

SPEAKER_03 11:37

You you can tell it's not you can tell it's real. Your wife didn't make the trip, did she? No, she's still I would I would love I love you, Billy. My wife my wife's here. I would love for my wife to meet your wife. She stuck with you through yeah crack addiction. I leave a couple plates in the sack, my wife's threatening to leave. It's insane. I wish I was joking. Yeah, your son said that you were a missionary to Niger, which you don't hear that too much. That's that's a country not too many preachers go into. Tell me about how that opened up.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

It had well, he goes back to my bro, an older brother who just kept praying for me and working with me. I was raised Lutheran, but just went away from the church in high school and was going to university.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

So you ran the evangelical game, you've been Lutheran, Baptist, and Presbyterian.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

It's like I have well, a few others. I was saved in the Nazarene church.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

So you ran this back. Good job. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

So, anyway, the short of the story is I uh my older brother uh who's since passed away, but he um just kept praying for me. Pablo used to call me, say, hey, what can you come to church with me tonight, Sunday night? I'm kind of busy, kind of you know, okay, okay. And that's when I really came into conviction. I knew if I died, I was going to hell. I just knew it. I was I was lost, and I was blind. And so a few things happened uh within the next few months, and um I just came to the end of myself. I looked good outside, but inside I was a mess, and so um I just I went back to that pastor back in 1970, yeah, up in Bellevue, Washington. Went to his office. I know where that is, yeah. Outside of Seattle, it's like the nice part of Seattle, it's east of Seattle on the other side of Lake Washington, yeah. And yeah, my dad worked for Boeing, so anyway, um I just surrendered my life to Christ that day. And when I walked out of there, I knew something major had changed in my life, and so I ended up back in Escondido down Southern California and started going to a church, Emmanuel Faith. And anyway, Bill, they had a missions conference every year for um a week, and so Bill Bright's founder of Campus Christ for Christ, he was there and he did a call. Anybody that might be interested in going, you know, in uh into missions, come forward, the Atelies Mission Organizations. I SIM was one of them that was there, and Sudan Interior Mission is what it used to be. And they well, how'd you how'd you like to go to the uh Niger Republic and work on a construction crew? I said, That sounds great. That's wild. Sometimes it's good to not know everything. It is, it's much better, actually. So I was there for six months in a construction team, built a hangar out at the airport. They have a hangar there, they have the airport in Miami, uh, Bible school buildings. We built those, and uh, and then right at the end, I ended up going down to pick up some vehicles with another guy, and I got malaria, and so which is very bad. Well, you get in three stages. First, you think you're gonna die, then you know you're gonna die because everything is bad, and then and then you're afraid you might not die. So he's then he's telling the truth. So I was praying, I was praying. I said, Okay, God, I'll lit come over here with these mosquitoes, love me. So I said, Uh, I need a a wife who's a uh nurse, she can keep help keep me alive. So I ended up the next summer in Cincinnati, and we took inner city kids to uh into northern Kentucky at a really uh rustic camp, really wild inner city kids. But she was a camp nurse. My wife was a camp nurse, so I stayed there for a year. We got married and then ended up back in Africa in Burkina Faso in a very remote village, southeast corner of Ramik Bruni uh Burkina Faso. And um it was it's been it's been known as the snake capital of West Africa.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

Oh, you gotta be joking.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

My mom snakes my wife, yeah. My wife does not like snakes, they got these little minute vipers, and they they they call them it bit in the language local language. That's it. It bit, and that's it.

SPEAKER_03 15:46

You were a real missionary, and you don't meet a lot of guys like you anymore. Uh that did like act, you know, you didn't paint a house in the Dominican Republic for two weeks. Well, we did. We were in last summer, we were in Dominican Republic.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Yeah, but after you did your time. Yeah, yeah. No, I loved it over there.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

Of course you did, because you're you're cold.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Yeah, so we were working among the Fulani and the You did you did, man. You you've written no book.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Uh well, yes, he's written a book. On your ones, not on this part.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

Why not? Uh just why not just do just do this. Do like a 20-episode podcast where you tell all your stories and then just have it transcribed and made it. That's how I wrote my book. I could transcribe it. You you can't leave. I drove across the Sahara to heaven. You can't take all these stories with you to heaven. Please do that.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

Uh, we'll see. We'll see. I'm working on it.

SPEAKER_03 16:35

I know you're humble, but people need to read the read the stories.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

Yeah, it's it was quite a story.

SPEAKER_03 16:41

People don't go to those places anymore.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Yeah, there's some over there. I'll tell you. I got some missionary friends that were over there.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

They're there, they're there now.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

There, yeah. Well, I don't know about Burkina Faso or Niger, but you know those places. They're closed. Yeah, they've been kind of crazy. You worked about the Salani. I've never heard of it. Yeah, yeah. I learned the I worked two years on the language, and then geez, I came back and went to Dallas Seminary for two years, studied Hebrew because they hadn't have an old testament. So I was gonna do that. So we went back.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

You're gonna make you had such a work on the burden form, you were gonna make them an old testament.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Wyckliff Bible translators, yeah. Went through that, did three semesters.

SPEAKER_03 17:18

No, it's just now come on, lose the humility. You've done you're a great guy. Step by step, and your son's doing great.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

He's doing well. God, God's good. God is good, his wife's been and his mother's been good too. His wife's great. She man, I wonder. I went for my wife's delay.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Yeah, I leave the trash overflowing one night, and the cops have to come over.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

She's here. I'm gonna show you a picture. I know they can't see it on the air, just so you see. They're there, my wife's their family were refugees from Laos, and they came across 30 years ago or 40 years ago now. But this is uh, so we have three girls, Chloe, Olivia, and Lily. And sorry about the scratches on the screen.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

Got you, you should see my phone.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

But it is, it's like just you know, God's hand in all of it. That is powerful. Yeah, and she's she what's a crazy story, she wasn't a Christian when I met her, and my dad always said, Don't be unequally yoked. And I met this girl. First thought I had was how beautiful our kids would be. I was 19 at the time, and I thought, boy, that's a weird thought to have about this. Our first date was camping. We went to Pismo Beach, drove across there, and I'm driving. I'm thinking, I'm gonna marry this girl. First date, I just gotta figure out how to convince her. And my and back in my mind is yeah, but you can't be unequally yoked. But I'm like, I see more light shining out of her than I see in in most Christians. Yeah, so she didn't know the Lord, but the Lord knew her, and I knew God's had his hand on her from that. Yes, so, anyways, it's been uh it's been awesome.

SPEAKER_03 18:41

You can work on the Christian part, you can't work on the happy part. It's better to get somebody that's happy and lead them to Christ. Because if you meet somebody that's met Christ and they're still miserable, what can you do? What hope do you have? So that's where are you based out of now? Arkansas?

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Arkansas now. Where are you based out of? Uh Clovis, California. I'm I'm a farmer. What a great family. Yeah, you're not a farmer.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Farming souls. I do like to farm. We're working on actually, so I do the show Lawn Border. We're working on a family road trip show across America. We homeschool the girls now. Life's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

We were gonna homeschool. My wife's uh from Puerto Rico, but after two years, my daughter just knew how to do cockfighting and uh hotwire a car. So we had to yank her out and put her in school.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Hey, hey, hey, I told my wife when we first did this, I said, I don't care what you teach them, as long as they're not being teached taught in public schools. You start with a prayer and a pledge, you can teach them anything else. So that would have been fine. I wouldn't even care. I would not have cared. But so we're working on that though.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

That's the next I don't know about the stolen, stealing cars.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

No, that's wrong. That's a sin in anybody's book, even Lutheran, even in Brazil, Burkina Faso, even in Brazil. Even that's round the point. Yeah, but so that's where you get your bonus. Your dad was a lunatic for Christ going out in the closed countries. Yeah, no doubt. A real missionary.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

No doubt, no doubt.

SPEAKER_03 20:00

That's all I wanted to be. That was the foundation. You you were, you did it.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Yeah, I'm still we still we just took, yeah. We take a team, we've taken teams to Thailand. I'm on a with an organization called Frontier Laborers for Christ. And we Thailand's starting to open up a little bit. Thailand's open pretty much, but not um Burma, Myanmar. No, or Laos. So we're in that. I know about that from Rambo 4. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Yeah, yeah. My wife's from Laos, so that escaped communism again. Yeah, all of that.

SPEAKER_03 20:31

So we're and they're killing the uh the Karen Christians there. I know about that.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Yeah, burning villages and stuff. But we got what's called the barefoot doctors. They're not barefoot and they're not doctors, but other than that, the name's perfect.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

Sounds like a lawsuit without your neither thing you played.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

They're great, though. They're actually from Burma from most of them from remote villages up in the mountains where they have no medical training or anything. So they come to they come to uh Chengmai, Thailand for two months for three years of January, February, uh for for three years. January, February, January, February, January, February. And we do a year of Bible training or not a week, a week of Bible training during that for them as well. Feels like a year, yeah. No, it's they're really open and very respectful, and they're great to work with. So I was over there in uh February and March. Of this year. Yeah. You're still going a little bit. No, that counts. When I get rid of the diarrhea, right? As soon as that's gone, I'm all right. I'm ready to go. Tell me about it. It's one of the worst things there is.

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Uh you're not gonna get this on, you're not gonna hear diarrhea on TV edit, folks. That's right. Tell you that right there.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Hey, it's authentic. It's authentic. That's uh that's what people want. They want authenticity. Yeah, that's enough.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Thanks for coming on. It's an absolute honor. Whether you want me to or not, I'm gonna stay in touch with you. I really like your you and your family. You've done a great work for the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

It's just the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

God's still working. Yeah. Praise the Lord. I got a grandson. God's really working with him. Shout out to Hunter. How old are you? Shout out 19. Yeah. What what kind of vein does he feel called in? Um, he wants to be a marine biologist. I've been taking it. A George Costanza. Yeah. Well, but you know, he's doing uh he's working at a church this summer with a youth pastor, and so we'll see what happens. God's got his hand on Hunter, so of course.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

He'll bless your whole family.

unknown 22:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

Well, thanks for coming on. I'm I'm glad I got to meet you. Thanks for letting me call you up. I wanted to hear about a real missionary.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

A real missionary. God bless you guys. What a beautiful day, and we send it out in Jesus' name.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

Yes, God bless you.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

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