Robert Fenchak Testimony

A handshake, a blackout, and an ER visit—that’s where Robert’s turning point began. What unfolded next is a story that doesn’t flinch: childhood in a strict home, a move to Page, AZ that spiraled into fights and a juvenile arrest, a marriage that buckled under addiction and unhealed pain, and a son caught in the crossfire of two households trying to do right and getting it wrong. We walk right into the mess—co-parenting missteps, rehab, relapse, regret—and then we stay long enough to show the repair: apologies made, cigarettes surrendered, secrets dragged into the light, and trust rebuilt one choice at a time.

You’ll hear how a 2015 mental breakdown pushed Robert into the Bible, not the bottle—Rhema coursework at the kitchen table, Charis Bible College across the city and in the mountains, and a gradual, durable healing without medication. You’ll meet Mandy, the woman he dated for five years before marriage, choosing friendship and purity as the foundation. And you’ll step into the daily work of fostering and adoption: five kids, mission trips, open-heart surgery recoveries, and the kind of love that looks like carpools, boundaries, and prayers over math homework. This is what faith looks like when it pays bills, returns calls, and keeps showing up.

We don’t sanitize the past. We name it so we can redeem it. A stepdad admits a destructive choice in the name of connection. A son lays down bitterness and learns to forgive. A father confesses anger and models amends. Together we outline a future—The Carefree Home of Hope—a larger space to welcome siblings, heal trauma, and turn belief into structure and safety. If you’ve ever wondered whether courageous conversations can change a family, consider this your sign to start one.

Subscribe, share this with someone who needs hope, and tell us: what courageous conversation are you ready to have today?

Chapters

• 0:16 First Video, Big Family Reveal
• 2:08 Purpose Of The Show And Format
• 5:28 Robert’s Early Life And Church Roots
• 11:36 Sports, Escapes, And Home Tension
• 24:20 Page, AZ: Bullying, Fights, And Risks
• 32:40 Juvenile Arrest And Wake-Up Call
• 40:56 Marriage To Andrea And Family Fractures
• 54:32 Addiction, Rehab, And Costly Choices
• 1:09:59 Co-Parenting, Boundaries, And Regret
• 1:22:32 Grace, Modeling Change, And Integrity
• 1:37:36 Forgiveness, Healing, And Honesty
• 1:52:40 Meeting Mandy And Choosing Purity
• 2:08:00 Fostering And Adoption As Calling
• 2:25:20 Missions, Church, And Family Impact
• 2:36:48 Breakdown To Bible College Breakthrough

Transcript

SPEAKER_05: 0:16

All right, everybody. Welcome to the Speak Life A Z podcast, testimony of Jesus and everyday people. I'm your host, Eddie, and always with me is my son Rowdy.

SPEAKER_10: 0:24

Hey man.

SPEAKER_05: 0:25

How you doing, buddy?

SPEAKER_10: 0:26

I am a ball of nerves. I wonder why. Could it be our guest today? Could it be the camera that's recording?

SPEAKER_05: 0:35

Yeah, just so you guys know, this is our first video that we're doing, man. And uh Jesus! So God is doing things, man, with our with our ministry here, man. So we're excited, but uh what a great episode to have a video, man.

SPEAKER_10: 0:48

Yeah, it's gonna be really interesting.

SPEAKER_05: 0:50

Why is that?

SPEAKER_10: 0:51

Because uh the person that we got today is my real father, Robert. How are you doing? I'm good.

SPEAKER_05: 0:57

What's going on, buddy? Thank you. It's an honor and a pleasure to be here. Yeah, likewise, man. Um, like I told you before we started, man, um it is an honor for us. Um man, we've done probably 40 something of these, and it never loses its excitement and and just the thrill of sitting down with one of God's kids and capturing their story, man. Um, we all have a story to tell. Um whether they think you don't or not, we all do. So to be able to sit down and capture that, man, is just it's it's an honor and a privilege, brother. Especially with the the dynamics of that we have here is gonna be amazing.

SPEAKER_10: 1:32

Yeah, that's where it's a little uh it's a little interesting, just the fact that I'm over here in my mind going, your dad and your father. I'm like trying to figure out names. It's just a lot, man.

SPEAKER_05: 1:44

Well, for us, we've we've always had friends, uh, people that we just met, pastors and stuff like that. On this is the first time that we've actually had family. Family. Outside about being him interviewing each other, you know what I mean? This is the first time that we've had family come on the show. So it's yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:59

Have you told them how we're family?

SPEAKER_05: 2:02

Um, no, I don't really know that we'll get to that. Okay.

SPEAKER_10: 2:08

Let me just uh let me just pray. Yeah, please do it. Let's pray real quick. Uh Jesus, man, God, I thank you. Thank you, Lord. This is really an honor just to sit down with my father, your son Robert, thank you, Lord, and hear his story, God. Thank you, God. Um, I just pray for just uh the Holy Spirit, I pray for an anointing God to just use his words. I pray, God, that you speak through him so that people that are going to listen to this, God, they can get touched by this testimony. Yeah, they can hear you moving through his life, God, and know that if, man, you can do that with Robert, then you can do that with me. Um, so I just pray, Holy Spirit, that you just come and have your way in this podcast and thank you, God, for clarity. Um, thank you for a safe place. Um, that uh we can just get real, we can get honest, um, be authentic and genuine and share our stories, God. Um, so I just pray you have your way in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Uh so uh have you ever listened to one of the podcasts before?

SPEAKER_09: 3:13

I am sorry, I haven't.

SPEAKER_10: 3:15

We're gonna need you to repent. Our pastor came on and I asked her that. She's like, I'm gonna need to repent. Now everybody says they have it. Y'all need to repent. Um so basically, man, when when God gave this to us, uh, it's just Speak Life A Z podcast, the testimony of Jesus and everyday people. It don't matter if you're a car guy working on cars or myself, man, maintenance, facilities, or yourself, like you were in working in Cox, or if you're a pastor, we are all everyday people. We've all got a story. Um, there's just a couple different parts that we really want to capture today of your story. Um, we want to know who Robert is, where he grew up, how it was like growing up, uh brothers and sisters, mom and dad, um, church, God in the home, what your childhood was like growing up, uh, school, how was school for you? Sports, um, any kind of hobbies and stuff. Me and dad working in recovery, we know that a lot of the uh the hurts, the habits and the hangups that are in our life um that cause us to do stuff later on in life, a lot of those hurts and stuff happen from when we're younger in life. Um so if you want to get into some of that stuff, man, we'd love to hear it. Um but I think the main part of this podcast is we want to hear how God got you. Yeah, um, because the way that the Lord showed up in your life is different than the way the Lord showed up in my life. Yeah, yeah. They're all individual stories, man. It's a it's an individual, it's a trying.

SPEAKER_05: 4:47

It's unique to Robert, it's unique to Rowdy. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 4:49

Um, so we want to get how God got you, and then uh how your life changed after that. What what what changes did God have you start doing? How did your life transform? Um, and then at the very end, because you're still breathing, God still got a plan for you. There's still more ahead for you. There's more ministry, there's more fam, there's more. Um so we want to know what you're hoping and believing for in the future. Um, because Mark chapter 9, verse 23 says, Anything is possible for them that believe. Uh, so we want we want to get what you're believing for so that we can come into agreement with you and pray for you, as well as our listeners. They love to pray for the guests that we have.

SPEAKER_05: 5:26

Yeah, yeah, amen. Yeah, so what was it like growing up, Robert?

SPEAKER_08: 5:30

Man, okay, let's get into this. Um, so my dad was in the Air Force, stationed in England where I was born, on the Air Force base. And you were born in England? Born in England. I've got dual citizenship. Yeah, yeah. I'm a bloke. Um I'm a bloke. I spent three years there and then we moved here. I've never been back. I just have all the paperwork. Yeah, yeah. And um, so we moved back here. Um uh Air Force. Um grew up my parents, they they got me involved in the church. Yeah. Little Episcopalian church down at 19th Avenue in Thunderbird. That's in Phoenix. If if you're listening from somewhere else.

SPEAKER_05: 6:12

So when you guys came back from England, you moved to Phoenix? Yep, yeah, right back to Phoenix.

SPEAKER_08: 6:16

He was in uh at Luke Air Force Base, that's where he retired at uh in 76.

SPEAKER_05: 6:21

Are your parents from Arizona?

SPEAKER_08: 6:23

No, no, no. My dad was from Chicago, my mom from Mississippi. Oh they just happened to meet. Oh, this is where my wife comes in really handy. She knows you know, she remembers. Yeah, I don't remember so much. Um they met somewhere and started and had got married and had kids. Nice. And I have a sister, Kim Kim, who's my sister. Um, so we moved here, Episcopalian church. Um they that we went there. I really I I love church. I love the the you know the robes, I loved everything about it. Um I got I was confirmed, and then all of a sudden my parents said, Okay, that's it. We we took you to being confirmed, you know the church, you know what's going on.

SPEAKER_10: 7:09

Um confirmed. And so does that is that kind of like uh the Catholics do when this the sprinkling and the baptizing it's like you can shake and that I couldn't tell you.

SPEAKER_08: 7:19

It's been a long time. Yeah, it's been a long time. So um they gave me a choice, you know. We're we're staying home to watch football, you can keep going to church, you know where it is, or you can stay and watch football. I'm like, yeah, football sounds good. Okay. Oh yeah, you were a kid. Right, right. But Jesus was I I I I latched on. Yeah, I knew he was there, but I and uh the Bible, I just love the Bible. But uh okay, so that's how he that was my how my relationship began with him. Okay, okay. As a kid, as a kid, oh sure, sure. But it didn't, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then the rest of the stuff.

SPEAKER_05: 8:03

Well when you're a kid and you're left with a choice, right? Umfortunately, you're probably not gonna pick going to church because football and everything else is a lot fun.

SPEAKER_08: 8:11

Other than going to Sunday, I had school and sleeping. Yeah. So um let's see, I lost my train of thought. Okay, so yeah, yeah, Episcopalian church, and then uh we moved to Page, Arizona.

SPEAKER_04: 8:26

How old were you?

SPEAKER_08: 8:27

I was 76. I mean my mom moved up there like a year before my dad moved up there because we bought the house. Yeah. You know, a lot of moving parts. Okay. So I was a teenager, maybe?

SPEAKER_10: 8:40

Uh younger now. 13, 76. You're born 63, so Well, so hold on. Before we get into Paige, okay, uh, while you're down in Phoenix at 19th Avenue, school. How how is school for you as a as a young kid?

SPEAKER_08: 9:00

School's okay. Uh my favorite subjects were uh PE and recess. Right? Okay. I know those kind of kids. Yeah. So love sports. Okay. Down in Phoenix, I played every single sport I could think of, if it was baseball and everything. Oh, yeah. But that was mostly get out of the house. Yeah. My parents had kids, yeah, but they didn't want kids. Okay. All right. All right. Yeah. How's that? If you see this, mom and dad. We love you, grandma. Love you, grandpa. You know it's true. Yeah, yeah. So I did everything I could to see.

SPEAKER_05: 9:35

They did like little league and pop warner and stuff like that. Big time. Pop Warner.

SPEAKER_08: 9:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We went and did so well in Pop Warner. I was a linebacker with that. We went over to California. I played their big time team. Got crushed. California football is a little different. A little different. A little bit a little different. And um water, buddy. Ocean water. Yeah, I guess so. Exactly. Put something in the water. Um sports is good. Sports, played it all, played hockey in the streets, and you know, it gets hot down here. So no matter what, I mean, I I grew up, you know, how you see the the Gen Xers like to get on there saying that we drank from garden hoses and the parents didn't let you back in the house until the street light came on. Boom. Now that was me. I don't know. I'm a boomer according to the scale, but all that Gen X stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:34

Street football. Street football.

SPEAKER_05: 10:36

Yeah, that was the best, dude. That was the best.

SPEAKER_00: 10:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_10: 10:39

I got stories about that.

SPEAKER_05: 10:42

You always knew where your friends were because that's where all the bikes were in the yard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:45

You're like, oh, they're all over Roberts' house. Let's go.

SPEAKER_05: 10:48

Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's funny. Um brings back memories, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_08: 10:53

Oh boy. Good memories. Good. Yeah. Good memories. Because it takes you takes you away from the house. If you want to get serious and you talk about how I grew up, yeah. I could the house uh wasn't a great place to be.

SPEAKER_05: 11:08

Yeah. So that's the last place you wanted to be.

SPEAKER_08: 11:11

It was. It was.

SPEAKER_05: 11:12

I can remember summer times, man. It was like you were outside from the crack of dawn. Yeah. Summertime. As soon as you got up, you were outside. And you weren't coming home until mom was yelling out the door. Right. Well, you better get back home before the street light came on. And it was fun. It was. Even in Arizona, a hundred and I don't remember it being that hot back then, but you know what I mean? Because we were young. Yeah, we just ran running the streets, dude, having a good old time. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 11:36

Okay, so I have to because you just said something about the house and Grant and how it was in the home. Yeah. Because I don't know. I mean, I only know my experiences from when we'd go visit. I I would like for you to how was it in the home? Was it was it fighting or anger, or was it just attention?

SPEAKER_08: 11:59

It was it it was uh well no attention. It was uh dad the authoritarian ready to rip the belt off if you stepped out of line and the mom playing guilt. Guilt, guilt, guilt, wait till your father comes home, wait till oh, I can't believe you did that. Okay. I don't know. I do all this stuff for you, and you're gonna do that. Just yeah, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 12:25

I remember those days. Okay, yeah. I wonder, I wonder if the dynamic of that that the fathers at the time felt like they had to uphold to that because moms were telling their kids, just wait till your dad gets home. Right. And then dad gets home, and mom's like, You're gonna do something. And dad's like, dang, man. Yeah, I gotta go beat this kid because he's mom's all mad. You know what I mean? I wonder if that was the dynamic. Because my I remember my mom did the same thing. Yeah, you just wait till your father gets home. Right. And we were so terrified when dad got home that oh my god, you know what I mean? Those are the longest times.

SPEAKER_10: 12:58

Oh, it's just waiting. Yeah, they're waiting to get the beating. But I remember the times where my dad probably went through that.

SPEAKER_08: 13:05

So I don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_05: 13:08

But I'm I but I always curious if my dad came home and was like, I just want to take a shower and relax. Right. I don't want to deal with this. Deal with this, yeah. But the backup mom, because back then mom and dads backed each other up. That dad had to get his belt.

SPEAKER_08: 13:22

I could see that because even even now, they my parents were a good team. Yeah, like they were they're together and that's all they wanted.

SPEAKER_10: 13:30

It's just together and them and they did it from my memories and going on visits in the lake and stuff, they enjoyed each other.

SPEAKER_08: 13:38

Yes, they did. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_10: 13:40

But when we went there, it was like we got in the way almost.

SPEAKER_08: 13:43

Big time. Yeah. Big time. Yeah, I you could I could feel it. Yeah. Yeah, I could feel it. And you just couldn't wait to go like we we went up to Lake Powell and borrowed the house, but this was kind of later on, we're skipping ahead. But you just couldn't wait, but you had to play the game. So, hey, I need to uh love you. Yeah, where are the keys? Where can we yeah, can we go now? So which which probably wasn't I I every kid and as a as a boy as a young as a young boy, could you feel that? I could.

SPEAKER_05: 14:16

Yeah. I could. So you so you just kind of you kind of knew that just yeah, it hurt. It hurt. I feel like I'm in the way here.

SPEAKER_08: 14:22

Oh, big time. Wow. I grew up that way. And they love my s they like they love my sister more than me. Oh, they're so even even now I'm because of my cr my my love of Christ and how I carry myself with Christ. They I'm a black sheep in my family big time. I haven't walked into my parents' house in two years. Wow.

SPEAKER_10: 14:41

And you think that's because of Jesus? I don't know.

SPEAKER_08: 14:44

I don't know.

SPEAKER_10: 14:45

Because I you guys gave me a card just recently when I went over to your house and I opened it, and it was a Jesus card.

SPEAKER_08: 14:52

Yeah, for my folks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 14:54

So they they're like, it was a Jesus and burst on it.

SPEAKER_08: 14:56

I'm like, wow. Some people know how to play the part though. Right. Okay. They know how to play the part. They they they took care of me by cutting a check or handing me some money. Okay. That was their parenting. Yeah. Okay. And when you're a teenager, you know, money's always good. Thank you. It just turns into sex, drug, and rock and roll. Yeah. And that's uh I got to do that.

SPEAKER_05: 15:21

Did I ask you how that made you feel?

SPEAKER_08: 15:24

Um boy, that's a good question. When you're that young, you just I I don't know. I just knew that's where the sports came. That's where I was trying to get out of here. That was your alley. I filled every second of my day away from the house. Because if I had to go back to the city, would they come to support that? He did he my dad would drive me to practice and then he'd come back and pick me up. So yes, that kind of support. Would I stay and watch? Would they go to go to games? No. Just come no.

SPEAKER_05: 15:57

My parents didn't either. My mom didn't. My dad didn't though. Yeah. My mom would come to my games, but my dad never did. Yeah. And I played pop corner for probably four or five years as a straight dude and not one game, bro.

SPEAKER_08: 16:08

See, my my mom um both parents went to my first wedding that didn't work out. But then my mom didn't even come to my second wedding. Then 21 years later, here we are.

SPEAKER_05: 16:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_08: 16:21

So yeah. Yeah, it's just weird how things work out.

SPEAKER_05: 16:26

So you guys moved to Page, you're like 13? Yeah. 13? Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 16:29

Moved to Page. Brand new city. Page, Arizona, Lake. Yeah. Man. Okay. Little white boy from Phoenix. Page is half Navajo. Yeah, hey. And half white that I don't know. I'm four feet nothing. I started high school at four feet eleven. That's how tall I was.

SPEAKER_10: 16:51

Shorty. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 16:52

Oh, big time shorty. And the Navajo's blood tan, dark skinned. Yeah. Navajo girls are just girls have always been a I always like you know how Paul says there's always a thorn. And some people think it's a pussy eye. Pussy, the eye, or it's this or that. Yes. I think my pussy eye is just women. Yeah. They they they like me and I like them too.

SPEAKER_05: 17:25

That's a lot for men. Yeah. It is. Most men struggle with it. Yeah, yeah. It's real.

SPEAKER_08: 17:29

And it's just huge. 21 years, Mandy. I've never, I'm faithful. Come on.

SPEAKER_05: 17:35

The fact that you admit that's your thorn in your side, it says a lot, brother. Because most men will not admit that. Yeah. That's that amen. They keep that's a hidden. If we're honest in in church today, I can guarantee you 99% of the men struggle with physical integrity. Yes, sir. And I can guarantee you 10% are honest about it.

SPEAKER_10: 17:53

Honest about it and admit the problem and have talked about it with their wife. The other 80% try to hide it.

SPEAKER_05: 17:58

Yep. Right. Or act like, oh, you're just so horrible. You know what I mean? And then go do it themselves. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_08: 18:03

So well Mandy, when we're out, because we're always doing something. I mean, she's she sees it. Yeah. She she witnesses it. So it's like, but she's so she's so locked in, and she knows me, yeah, and where I've been and what I've done. That she she just like it doesn't bother her. It doesn't bother.

SPEAKER_10: 18:22

She knows that you're coming home with her and you're gonna sleep in with her the night. Yeah, big time. That's a woman that's comfortable in her skin. Her skin. Amen. Amen. And uh love you, Mandy. Yeah, we do. Love you. We do. Thanks for how good you treat him. Yeah. Wait, stay up.

SPEAKER_00: 18:41

I'll be home. Um so Paige.

SPEAKER_08: 18:44

Okay, Paige. Yeah, so little guy shows up, bullied, picked on, lunch money. Um uh Navajos didn't like me because I liked the Navajo girls right away. That's oh, they just they're just white my girls still beautiful. Yeah, they're beautiful. And found out that's not what you do. Yeah. And um new guy. Oh fighting with them. Oh, yeah. Uh probably five, five. And they're big dudes. Yeah, yeah. Navajos are big dudes. Yeah, they like to drink. Yeah, yeah. And they like to find the drink. Well, we I was I was eighth grade. Yeah. I don't think anyone was drinking yet. Okay. They could have been. I was helping. And that's why I started, probably.

SPEAKER_00: 19:32

You might learn a lot. You might learn a lot today about that.

SPEAKER_08: 19:35

Oh my god, help us. It's incompassional. Right. This is good.

SPEAKER_02: 19:42

Thank you, Lord.

SPEAKER_08: 19:43

So, yeah, yeah. So, a lot of trouble. Uh Monty persons. Yeah. We both know him. Yeah. He was one of them. Uncle Monty. He was tall. I was four foot nothing. We went at it.

SPEAKER_10: 19:57

It's so crazy that you just brought up Monty. Because I gotta bring I gotta share this with you. Um you're talking about how crisis made us the black sheep in the family.

SPEAKER_08: 20:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 20:06

What uh drugs, addiction made me the black sheep in the family from all of them. And it was almost to where I none of them wanted anything to do with me. Sure. You know, because they knew I was coming high or I was gonna be getting high or something. Yesterday, uh Aunt Pam reached out to me and she's uh, you ready to put your Jesus shoes on tomorrow? I'm like, I don't take them off. I break I'm shattered with the preparation of peace every day. You know, and she starts a laughing face and she sends back, My nephew Colby is in uh Dignity Health, East Mesa on Elliot, and it does not look good for him. I don't think he's saved. Can you go in there and minister and tell him about Jesus? And I'm like, man, the very people that wanted nothing to do with me and didn't want me around because of the drugs and alcohol. When I surrender my life to Jesus and I and I and I say yes to God and I just do what the Lord's asking me to do and stay faithful in it through my social media and through the different posts and stuff, Aunt Pam knows, and she's like, Okay, we need this, we need to send our Jesus warrior in to go see Kobe to get his soul, man. Rowdy, can you go get him? And in staff meeting today, the care pastor Les. Pastor Les, we're going in tomorrow at 10 a.m. Go in there, we're gonna anoint him and pray for him and just love on him, man. I'm like, wow. The same family that wanted nothing to do with me is now like, can you please go and yeah, life change, redemption, redemption, yeah, redemption. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 21:40

Oh, that's crazy. Because yeah, family, family. When I when the divorce happened, that family was a family I had never had before, and all of a sudden here comes the divorce. Boof oh yeah, gone. Yeah, gone. Pam. No, no, Pam for the most part, because of Monty, she was peripheral, hung around, you know, talking about the family, in the way the Hewits did family.

SPEAKER_10: 22:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 22:10

Well, do you want to you want to name names? Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 22:13

Okay, okay. Well, so it's just anybody who who doesn't know, and our listeners on the podcast, and um my father was married to my mom, and around I think six or eight, I was, they got the divorce. Um, and it was a few, it was probably five or six years where it was just me and you and Jade. Yeah, and um it came to a point where I went to India when I was 12 and I got back, and the option for mom was there, and when I went to mom's, he was there. Yeah, and so that's kind of just for our listeners, a little backstory. Yeah, so this is uh my father who's married to my mom, who now my dad who's married to my mom. So just a little different. And we're divorced. We'll get to that. I'm divorced with her. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:03

So you know, Winnie Mormons. Amen. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05: 23:09

Okay Paige. Page Monty.

SPEAKER_08: 23:11

Yep, Monty. He was one of the guys that fought at kind of introduction of him and everything. We ended up being a great friend and everything. But um, yeah, so it was it was boom, it started. High school and page. High school and page. You know, honestly, I'm lucky it was there instead of a Phoenix or a big city or something. Because the trouble you could have got in. Wow. The trouble I did get in.

SPEAKER_10: 23:38

But it could have been a lot worse. Yeah, it could have been a lot worse.

SPEAKER_11: 23:41

So whoa.

SPEAKER_08: 23:43

Yeah, exactly. So I turned drug, alcohol, boom, stealing, um, um, got in some trouble with the law in high school as a juvenile. Okay. Oh, sure. Okay, sure. Um ever arrested? Yeah, yeah. They took yeah, yeah. Uh uh accessory to murder and robbery. Wow.

SPEAKER_10: 24:03

Oh, this is the safeway thing.

SPEAKER_08: 24:05

Um, no. This was the bowling alley thing. Oh, wow. I don't know if you ever knew about that one. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_10: 24:13

So accessory to murder, I don't think I did. Okay. Wow.

unknown: 24:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 24:17

Oh, you want to hear that story? Please, please. Oh, okay. Okay. So me and two of my buddies. Tommy, huh? Don't tease us. Details. Tommy Hayes and Brian Roundtree and myself. If we're throwing this. Brian, man. Oh, yeah. Wow, Brian. He was the best man at my wedding. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then this guy, Frank Ponciano. Okay, he was like 22. Okay, so he was older.

SPEAKER_10: 24:45

Older.

SPEAKER_08: 24:45

He had the car, and here's the three of us hanging around with him being 14 years old. So that's kind of I've always wondered about that. Frank, why are you hanging out with 14-year-olds, dude? Yeah. But in my like recollections or anything, nothing weird or was no pervert.

SPEAKER_10: 25:03

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_08: 25:05

So bowling alley one night, a uh uh Navajo comes walking. Well, an Indian gentleman comes walking out the door, just wasted. And um we just said, hey, we should go roll him. You know, and Frank just oh he goes down, I grab the wallet, we run. Frank stays there, winds up beating him and killing him. Oh man. Um I I run home, the next thing you know, a couple hours later with the police. Oh I had the wallet. I stuck it up in the closet. My dad opens the door, I'm fake sleeping. And he's like, Do you have that wallet? What do you what do you mean? Yeah, it's like, oh, I got chills. Oh yeah. Oh my god. Come on, get it. We're going to the police station. So we go down to the police station. Here's the wallet. Yeah. Two years probation. The other guys got one year probation because they just did the uh the robbery. They knew the robbery happened.

SPEAKER_05: 26:08

They were just part of it, accessories. They didn't take anything. They didn't take anything, but the fact that I pulled it off the body. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 26:17

So well, hello, Robert. Well, hello. Mr.

SPEAKER_00: 26:21

Meet you, I see where I can.

SPEAKER_10: 26:22

I see where I get my little dangerous side from. My mom and my dad. Oh my. There wasn't no hope for me. Jesus had a plan, bud. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Yes, he did.

SPEAKER_08: 26:38

So uh, yep, that was my boom. I cleaned up, I straightened up. I never wanted to have a from that incident. You're like, I I ain't living this life. I still I still continue partying, still did all that. I just did smart. Yeah. Okay. I knew I had to be in the morning to punch in. I knew I had to play the game. Play the game. Play the game. Um two years probation. They got me a lawyer. Um, they were pretty, yeah, they were like, what's you know, they weren't happy.

SPEAKER_05: 27:09

Yeah. Um They didn't go like ballistic or nothing or try to make you ground you forever.

SPEAKER_08: 27:15

Oh, I'm sure they did. I you know, I don't know. I just remember that what and I mean I kept going to school. They didn't. They just I'm sure I went to school and back. And if wrestling, like wrestling, you know, wrestling started up, I'm like, hey, I'm gonna do wrestling. Is that okay? Is that what you were wrestling?

SPEAKER_10: 27:33

That's what you're yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 27:35

Well, wrestling, I f uh baseball, uh football, you know, just like I gotta I gotta ask, did you ever get one of those cool letterman jackets? Oh my gosh, you want that story? Sure. Oh my god. I didn't get the letterman jacket. In any of the cool sports, in any of the cool sports, but I'm walking around the high school after school because I don't want to go home, and I see a door and it's chess club. Come on. Come on, chess club. Come on. Geez, so I go in and sit down, spend an hour. Before you know it, I'm on varsity fourth board.

SPEAKER_10: 28:11

Come on, he's smoking people, bro. He's smoking.

SPEAKER_08: 28:15

So I go to tournaments, I play enough, boom. I let her in high school in chess.

SPEAKER_10: 28:20

Hey, at least he got a cool jacket.

SPEAKER_08: 28:23

I got a letter.

SPEAKER_05: 28:24

Yes. I got one. I was the manager of the baseball team. Manager. I was the manager of the baseball team. That's cool, bro. I was the one that kept stats and somebody's gotta do it. Yes. Because I loved baseball, I just wasn't that good at it.

SPEAKER_08: 28:40

Did you get the jacket to go with it? No. I didn't. Yeah. It was too expensive. My parents didn't want to throw down the money. You got a letter, but no jacket. I got the letter still.

SPEAKER_05: 28:50

I was the only one of three brothers that got something like that. And I told my parents, I'm getting me one, Matt. Come on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 28:56

I'm gonna go up to Page High School and buy you an extra large jacket and put that letter on for you, man. And then we're gonna wear it over to England. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 29:05

No, we were getting in too much trouble. Okay. Kim was Kim was dating guys, and we can't.

SPEAKER_10: 29:12

How was your relationship with your sister?

SPEAKER_08: 29:15

Terrible.

SPEAKER_10: 29:15

Oh. Terrible.

SPEAKER_08: 29:16

She beat me up. She beat me up. She was beating me up in Phoenix. Okay. Your older sister? Older sister, two years, yeah. And she just like it. But see, in Phoenix, nobody could beat me up but her. Yeah. Okay. So she watched out for me and pounded any of the guys who tried to mess with me and protected me. But then after protecting me, she beat me up, beat me up. Stay out of fight so I don't have to do that anymore. Yeah.

unknown: 29:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 29:45

And Kim's a fighter. She is. She really is. She's mean. I love you. We love you. Yeah, absolutely. So that yeah, my sister, and we're we're estranged at best. I mean, she doesn't, honestly, she doesn't even like like you know, you know how how superficial Facebook is, and you just like post something or something. You know, you just like expect a like from your sister. Yeah. Yeah. But that's so superficial.

SPEAKER_05: 30:17

I'm in the same boat. I got three older brothers and I don't really associate with them at all. And it's it's the best. But this is the thing.

SPEAKER_10: 30:23

They're watching. They're watching. Yeah, amen. They are watching.

SPEAKER_08: 30:27

Right. You know what? She's you're right. And what I have going today, the rest of my family can't even fathom what I'm doing with the adoptions and foster care. Where God's brought you. Amen. Yeah. Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 30:42

Be honest with you, most people can't fathom that, brother. That's a hard one. Yeah. You guys are unique in that area, dude. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 30:47

But when God I I know what I'm supposed to do. Yeah. What a blessing that is.

SPEAKER_05: 30:52

It's definitely a calling, brother. It's definitely a calling. Amen. You know what I mean? Amen. I could not do that. Yeah. I could not. Right. I know that.

SPEAKER_10: 30:59

That lady who a lot of people say that. That lady who you met at the front desk, Kayla, she just got they just got their first kid. Just they just uh fostering their first kid. Fostering first kid, Kai, and they're struggling. Because the foster parents and the attachment. That's hard.

SPEAKER_08: 31:18

It is really difficult. It can be. Yeah, we've been through 10, 10, 10, 10 years. Ten so far. Wow. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely a call in brother. Yeah, yeah. Amen. So Paige Arizona, high school, nice little troublemaker. Yeah. My sister dropped out in junior year. I got through. You finished high school. I finished high school. You know, that's kind of an addict or whatever. Uh I parted my ass off. Yeah. But I was able to get the paper, you know, to whatever you did.

SPEAKER_10: 31:53

Did you walk across the stage and get your whole thing and do the thing? Oh, the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03: 31:57

Okay, cool. Yeah, you know, through the hat after. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 32:00

I well, you know, I dropped out, but I told him I want to go back and walk. Yeah. So I went and at 21 I walked and did the hat thing. Isn't that funny? Those little moments. Those little things. You just want to have them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 32:13

That's it. That's how I felt about my AA. I always wanted an AA. It took me 25 years to get my AA. What's an AA? Associates. Associates. Yeah, yeah. And I was in technical electronic management. Yeah, yeah. But still. Nice. I got it. Five years. Oh. So okay, Paige graduated.

SPEAKER_10: 32:39

Church. So during not much church. No, no church. Just to chase women.

SPEAKER_08: 32:45

There were a few church girls that were going to church.

SPEAKER_10: 32:48

And yep, I went to church to what about you and like ever opening a Bible? Just cuz, like in your room?

SPEAKER_08: 32:57

Or only when my grandma was around. When my grandma Nana. Oh remember, she gave me her Bible. Um I didn't see her a lot. If yeah, my family consisted of my mom, my dad, my sister, and Nana. She was my dad's mom. Um, and that was it. I never knew any of my other grandmas. My mom just completely shut them out.

SPEAKER_10: 33:26

Yeah, we didn't.

SPEAKER_08: 33:27

Yeah. So my family, that why that's why the Hewitt family was just like, oh my God. Look at all these people. Look at all these people. Look at this reunion. Yeah. It's a gathering. Right. It's it's different. And it's yeah, and to lose it.

SPEAKER_01: 33:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 33:44

Yeah, that was hard. That was a hard one. So page. Page. Yeah, baseball. Baseball. Football. Yeah, yeah. Um the letter and chess. Graduated. Graduated. And then came down to for uh D Ray Institute of Technology for um after I graduated, my my folks paid for the school in my apartment, but I had to feed myself and you know, concert tickets or going out, you know, you know, vanity.

SPEAKER_10: 34:19

They'll take care of the main stuff, but you want the little fringe, you gotta take care of it.

SPEAKER_09: 34:24

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 34:25

So they so grandma and grandpa provided.

SPEAKER_08: 34:28

They they cut the check.

SPEAKER_10: 34:29

The needs. Oh, there it is. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_08: 34:32

And thank you. I love you. I love you. I don't with what they had from Mona. And that's all I can say. Being a father, yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 34:44

That's I actually say those very words in my testimony. Yeah. I travel around to different celebrate recoveries and different churches, and I stand up there on the stage, and I say, standing here today, I can say that my father Robert did the best he could with what he had and what he knew how to do.

SPEAKER_08: 35:02

Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 35:03

It's a beautiful reality when you get to that point in life where you realize no matter what you think your parents did, how bad you think they were, you get to a point where you realize they did the best they could. They really did. You know what I mean? Even with my parents, my parents weren't the best. You know what I mean? But at some point I realized my dad probably did the best he could by what his dad taught him.

SPEAKER_10: 35:23

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_05: 35:24

What society shows you only know what you know. And he just was doing the best he could with what he had. Right. Was it the best? Probably not, but he did his best, you know what I mean? And I acknowledge that. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_10: 35:35

That's why it's so important to raise your family in the house of God. Oh boy. To get them in the house at young ages so they can be exposed to it.

SPEAKER_08: 35:45

And it takes too. It does. It takes the godly man and woman together so the children can see the love, see the playfulness, see the hugs every night, and the fights. Yeah. How properly fight? You're gonna fight. Yeah, you're gonna fight with your wife.

SPEAKER_10: 36:04

But are you gonna communicate like an older person that's mature and can use your words, or are you gonna rage out and throw stuff? Right, exactly. Exactly. Relax, bud. I'm not talking about burger warning. Uh-oh. Addiction gets a little crazy, bud. Addiction gets crazy, man. I've seen TVs. Okay. I was a rager, bud. I was a rager, dude.

SPEAKER_05: 36:33

I'd get mad and snap.

SPEAKER_02: 36:35

Just gone. But God took that away from me. Hey, man.

SPEAKER_08: 36:40

I was blessed. I either walked away or I was happy. I'm a happy, happy drunk. I'm a happy whatever I'm on. It's a good trip. It's a good whatever.

SPEAKER_05: 36:50

I'm always it took it took Andrea telling me you're just like your father. Boom. And I was like, That changed him.

SPEAKER_10: 36:58

He's like, no, I ain't. Yeah. He started to look at me. I was like, dang. Amazing what the truth can do. Oh yeah. Amazing.

SPEAKER_05: 37:06

It changed me forever, dude. Yeah. I stopped throwing, I stopped yelling, I stopped screaming, I started communicating.

SPEAKER_10: 37:10

He really did.

SPEAKER_05: 37:11

He started to use his words. He started setting the kids down and talking to them instead of just flying off the handle. Because I I I threw something at Cade one time and hit him right here. And she was like, You're just like your dad. You know what I mean? And I realized, wow, I almost blinded it. I should have been much further. I could have took an eye out, dude. You know what I mean? I was like, you gotta stop doing that, dude. Right. You know what I mean? But yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 37:32

Well, it just it I I remember they would have fights, and then he would he would realize and catch himself and then go into the room to Cade and be like, Hey, I'm so sorry. Yeah, I shouldn't have said that to you, I shouldn't have talked to you like that, um, and apologize. After the fact. After the fact, but then the cool thing is, is down the road, Cade and he would Cade would blow up because Cade had this anger. Oh, yeah, but then he would go away and he would come back. Dad, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have talked like that, I shouldn't have said that. Right. But the only reason he was doing that because he saw him model it.

SPEAKER_08: 38:10

Right. Yeah. You know what? That was some stuff that we me we missed. Yeah. We missed. We we we could have there's a lot that we could have done differently.

SPEAKER_10: 38:21

Differently, yeah. No doubt. But it's totally it's I I look at it now and what we did and how how I grew up and what we went through, and I realize the importance of two, a mom and a dad, and then communication.

SPEAKER_07: 38:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 38:37

And and even now with our with our fan and the mom, it communication is so important. Yeah, oh yeah, you have to talk.

SPEAKER_01: 38:47

Right.

SPEAKER_10: 38:48

If you don't talk, the other people don't know where you're at, what you're feeling like, what you're thinking. Right.

SPEAKER_08: 38:55

What when you're blind with anger, you can't talk. Yeah, you can't you react and you shout and you yell or throw something.

SPEAKER_05: 39:04

Yeah, you just what's the saying? Hurt people, hurt people, hurt people.

SPEAKER_10: 39:09

That's why I love CR and celebrate recovery. I've got so many tools and working through my inventory, and I'm I'm now with my sponsor putting together an amends. So remember, I was talking about with you, I gotta do an amends with you, an amends with him, and amends with mom. I'm like, ah, this is crazy, but yeah, it's good. Yeah, wow. This is just conversations that I need to have before you go to be with Jesus. Crazy so that while courageous conversations, so I'm good. Because my my my recovery and me working the steps, it's not for you, it's for me. So I can be healed, so I can be whole.

unknown: 39:43

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 39:43

Around here at LifeLink, we have the our culture is sometimes you have to have courageous conversations. Courageous conversations. Conversations that you don't want to have, but are necessary to have for yourself and for the person that you're having that conversation with. Because if there's conflict and there's no conversation, there's no way to resolve it. And bitterness has a place to take root. Bitterness takes root, anger becomes a place, and it just becomes a whole mess. You know what I mean? So greatest conversations are very important to have. Yeah, they are.

SPEAKER_08: 40:11

You know, you said so I don't know where you want to go. Oh you're good. Can I because you glossed over with uh with me and with India and then you went with him. And so much. I mean, uh so much we went through. Yeah. I mean y you weren't easy. I I okay. I'm gonna just put this like like like like I I your mom was gone. Yeah. I had you and Jade. Yeah. I had a mortgage, I had bills, I had a job, I had a on call, remember the truck. Okay. Um and then next thing I know, four policemen are in my house at midnight. Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_10: 40:58

That was the comment I was threatening to shoot the teacher. Yeah, 420. Yeah, yeah. Whatever.

SPEAKER_08: 41:02

Yep, yep. Or the the first grade, the the slide.

SPEAKER_10: 41:07

Burning starting the fire down. I was a bad kid, bud. I love to get in trouble. You weren't you weren't a bad kid. Just did made some bad choices.

SPEAKER_08: 41:19

And I didn't, I wasn't with with everything I had going on, I didn't know how and even close to how to deal with you, and I was on my own to do it. Or, or I had you know, we went to church. I boom, Wednesday night years there. I w I w I was gonna pound into Termin, you and Jade. And then, but then I take you over to Eddie's hands for every other weekend.

SPEAKER_05: 41:50

Oh. Okay.

SPEAKER_08: 41:51

Oh, so it was every every other weekend, or was it every weekend?

SPEAKER_05: 41:54

Uh I think it might have been every other weekend. Every other weekend, I think.

SPEAKER_10: 41:58

And is this when I came back from India?

SPEAKER_05: 42:02

I think this was like before. I think before India, yeah. Okay. Because we were already in the picture. Because we were see, we 98. You went to India and when.

SPEAKER_10: 42:12

Yeah, around 98, 97, yeah. 96.

SPEAKER_05: 42:16

Oh, you went to India after that. Oh, was it?

SPEAKER_10: 42:19

It was 99 or 2000.

SPEAKER_05: 42:20

I remember going to you to the pizza place when you guys were getting ready to go on your trip.

SPEAKER_10: 42:24

I wasn't 16. Yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_05: 42:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 42:27

I was 13 or 14. Yeah, you were. I was younger. I was younger. Yeah. Yeah. So it was it was 98. PCC.

SPEAKER_08: 42:34

Okay, yeah. So and then yeah, yeah. So I didn't know what I was doing. I had all that going on. Plus, no, I'm not trying to make excuses. Please. Oh, no, no. Put me in my place if I I deserve it. Yeah. But at the same time. Yeah, yeah. At the same time, I had my I love beer. Yeah. I'll tell you. Um and girls, I you know, I remember them. When you're not a man, I remember them. I remember them. Um so it was yeah. I mean, having all the balls.

SPEAKER_10: 43:11

And how old were you at this time? Were you in your twenties?

SPEAKER_08: 43:15

Well, 92 we got divorced. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Yes, 92, because I married in 84.

SPEAKER_10: 43:21

Oh, so 92. So I was eight when you got divorced. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_08: 43:25

So Jade was four. Okay. And then it really came down. You must have l you must have gone to live with him like 13 years. That's what I want to say.

SPEAKER_10: 43:34

About it was about five years I was with you and Jade.

SPEAKER_08: 43:37

Because what was that court? What was that court thing where the judge asked me? I'm like, Judge. Keep him, keep him.

SPEAKER_10: 43:43

And my mom's like, no, give him to me.

SPEAKER_08: 43:45

Yeah. Well, they came over to the house.

SPEAKER_10: 43:47

That's where they arrested me. That's where that was the shooting at Shadow Mountain High School where I threatened the teacher because he poured water on me. And then we're at lunch talking about Columbine and Hitler and everything. And um, yeah. Okay. But I go to bed, I wake up to the cops. Okay. I wake up. And I now, so what that did to me. And they took you. They took me. Oh, okay. And I'm pissed at you. I'm like, how the heck can my dad give me to the cops? And now and I'm in jail for a week, and then I then the next time I see you, you're literally telling the judge, keep him.

SPEAKER_08: 44:26

I don't know what to do with that. I know. I know.

SPEAKER_10: 44:29

But for me, yeah, that that messed me up. Painful. I was like, I can imagine unwanted, you know, and yeah, just all that stuff.

SPEAKER_08: 44:39

And I had Jade to look out for. Yeah. And you were a horrible example for her.

SPEAKER_10: 44:45

She she was the the snitch. She used to catch me smoking and doing everything I can.

SPEAKER_05: 44:52

Can I just say as a man, looking at your position at that time, how hard that must have been. Did you weight of everything is on you? The bills, the mortgage, the kids, getting into school. I mean, everything is on you, dude. You know what I mean? And to have to and he he'll even admit that he was not a good kid. He admitted in his testimony. You know what I mean? But to have to deal with that and the weight of that pressure of man, I gotta go to work. How do I who's gonna get the kids to make sure the kids are good? I mean, it just you can see the dynamic of it of how that just can be overwhelming. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_10: 45:28

Yeah, and or a single father that literally came from a mom and a dad who had kids that they really didn't want. So it was like, where's his training? Where's his tools? Where's his how so he knows how to raise kids?

SPEAKER_05: 45:43

He's learning on the fly, brother.

SPEAKER_08: 45:45

Yeah, I mean well, I did, I because I did I went to court so I could keep you in Jade. Yeah. Oh wow. That was I definitely wanted to make sure. Because she was just not in the place. Yeah. Couldn't go with her. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 45:58

But see, I remember going with her, but then she gave us up to you. There was a thing. I had a broken arm, and I went to live in an apartment across the street from a man wells, but then I was there two weeks with Jade. And then she gives me a Jade two weeks later, and then Jade. And then it was like mom was gone.

unknown: 46:17

Right.

SPEAKER_09: 46:18

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 46:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 46:20

But let's back up because when you graduate in high school, it's about the time you met Andrea. Yeah, we're nice. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_08: 46:26

Um Devry, no, back up uh the night I graduated high school. Yeah. She was there. That's where you met her? Yeah. They were dating and they were there, and she asked, she actually asked Pam um who who who that is. Oh wow. And she said that's Bob. So she came over and she meant Bob Miller, this this other guy.

SPEAKER_03: 47:02

Somehow I can't drink.

SPEAKER_10: 47:08

I'm trying to get her on here.

SPEAKER_03: 47:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 47:10

Oh, I think she was teaching crazy.

SPEAKER_08: 47:14

Invite me back out.

SPEAKER_05: 47:15

People, you know what's funny? You know what's funny? It was two days ago I had a dream about this, right? Oh, it was so Rowdy was like trying to set the tables up, but he was doing everything to make sure that we never sat down. I was freaking out.

SPEAKER_10: 47:30

And you were dreaming.

SPEAKER_05: 47:35

Like, Rowdy, stop it. We're doing this. Set everything up like the way I told you. Get the tables and all this other stuff. And he's just like, he's like, stop it. You're afraid, aren't you? There's a lot of emotions today. And I'm not gonna lie, at the end of the dream, you're like standing next to me, and I thought you were on your knees. And I'm like, Are you on your knees? And you lift up your leg and like your ankles were attached to your knees. And he was like, no. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00: 48:03

And I woke up and I was like, that was weird. I was like, that was weird.

SPEAKER_08: 48:08

Well, if it helps you at all, like I I was up at 2 a.m. and I couldn't get back to sleep. So I was like, whoa.

SPEAKER_10: 48:15

Amen. But anyways, the Bob Miller. Mama. Bob Miller.

SPEAKER_08: 48:20

Yep. And she ended up meeting me.

SPEAKER_10: 48:22

Is it at a party? Uh it was dance. Okay. Yeah. Graduation dance.

SPEAKER_08: 48:27

Yeah. And um, yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 48:29

In Page?

SPEAKER_08: 48:31

I I think it was in Page.

SPEAKER_05: 48:32

Yeah, because I think they drove up there because Monty was going to see Pam and Rodney.

SPEAKER_10: 48:36

See, but you wrestled. Okay. And you used to go down a flag and wrestle. Isn't that square?

SPEAKER_05: 48:42

Did you play baseball?

SPEAKER_08: 48:45

Because she's in Flag. Oh, I used to go down there and visit her in Flag because she went to Co Cocanino. Okay. Oh, she was like a year behind me or something, too. But she oh, okay. They came up for the graduation night for because Monty was in my class. Yeah. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05: 49:01

And Pam Pam and Mommy, Monty were dating. Right.

SPEAKER_08: 49:04

Yeah. So she must have came with them to Oh, the sisters. Yeah. Oh, gotcha. There you go. I'm going up to see Monty.

SPEAKER_05: 49:11

Pam couldn't go unless she took Andrea. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_08: 49:15

What a blessing. Oh my God. Oh my gosh. I I forgot her name. Christine. Christine. Christine. Oh my gosh. Love you. What a huge impact. Talk about a woman of God. Wonderful. She if anyone brought me back to the beginning of walking with Christ again, it was her. Oh yeah. So your mom, your your mom, by meeting her and finding Christine, if anything, you know, that she she was such a good, good Christian woman. And she started, she she percolated and she made sure, man, if I if I was in Flagstaff, we're going to church. I'm like, okay, yeah, we're let's go.

SPEAKER_05: 49:59

And um, I remember going to the house when the first me and Andrew first started dating and going up there to see her and waking up in the morning. She was at her reading her Bible, bro. Reading her Bible. Reading her Bible before bed, and she was in her chair reading her Bible. Reading her Bible. Amen. And I remember seeing that thinking, I want that. Yeah. I want that. You know what I mean? Amen. So she had that impact on me too, brother. Yeah. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_10: 50:20

Grandma used to feed homeless Navajos drunk in her kitchen, man. We would come home and there'd be Indians in the kitchen in the mobile trailer, and she'd be feeding them. And we'd be all worried, like, what the Oh, it's just up and paying.

SPEAKER_08: 50:33

She's like, I'm good.

SPEAKER_10: 50:34

They're just hungry. They're eating. Like, man. If that ain't Jesus, man.

SPEAKER_08: 50:40

And how about putting up with Roy?

SPEAKER_10: 50:44

She knew how to put her foot down at that old man. Love you, grandpa. Love you. Yeah, yeah, Roy.

SPEAKER_05: 50:49

Damn it.

SPEAKER_10: 50:52

Trigger warning. Trigger warning. Uh oh. Uh oh. He comes drunk and check. Just make me all me.

SPEAKER_05: 51:09

Okay. I remember telling Andrew one time, I'm not comfortable right now. Your dad is lit. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, I'm afraid we're gonna have to do something. He'd get on and get fired. And Lexi would go on there, Grandpa! Get in your room! Oh yeah, she put him in his place. Time for you to go to bed. Let the adults handle it from here. So boy.

SPEAKER_08: 51:34

So you meet Andrea? Yep. Seven years, we moved to California for a little for eight-month stint. That's when she's pregnant with me. With you. Thousand oaks. Umaks. Man, such a nice area.

SPEAKER_10: 51:49

It was really because I got to spend three years in California ministry. And I was in Calabasas and Thousand Oaks and all of selling chocolate. I'm like, man, these people used to hand hundreds to me. My God. Yeah. That's money area over there now, man.

SPEAKER_08: 52:05

I just couldn't. I was an Arizona boy. I could never just I knew I wasn't saying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 52:11

I knew I wasn't saying. So you knew you were coming back. I was coming back. Okay. You went there for work or something? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 52:16

When I graduated from Devry, you applied for certain positions, and I applied for one over in Thousand Oaks and got it. Oh wow. So I went worked on satellite dishes when they were eight feet satellite dishes. Yeah, yeah. I worked on all the components for those for like nine, ten months until I'm like, I gotta get back to I gotta get back to Arizona. I'm I'm good, but California, it is beautiful. Yeah. But I just maybe if I visited the ocean more or something while I was over there, but I just never, you know, I j I saw Jaws in 1975. This is real.

SPEAKER_10: 52:54

That's why we never went to the ocean when I was a kid. It was only Lake Pow. There's no sharks. There's big sharks in the ocean that can eat you. Yes. It's like what? It's true, though. It is. Dude, the ocean's alive, man. When I went to Hawaii, there were these black things called vana. And they're these little black circles that got these black spikes on them, like this long. And they just float on the bottom of the ocean. Man, I'm like, look at all of them. Don't put your hand, don't put your hands, your feet, because those things go right through you. You gotta pee on yourself. Which island? Uh Maui and Kona. Maui. Okay. I did two summers in a row. The first one was uh with uh the man I was with the ministry in California, Lance and his family. Kona, the big island. Um, and then the following summer it was the teen challenge uh with Billy and Maui. Yeah, just blessing. It's only it's only Jesus. Yeah, amen. Walking with Jesus has introduced me to people in relationships that I can travel and go do things with people. Yeah, that without God and without the relate, without my relationship with him, I would not know these people. Right, man. And so it's just really cool what God does.

SPEAKER_08: 54:07

Absolutely. I was able to take uh Mandy to uh Kauai. Oh, yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_10: 54:13

Just just oh, that's goodness, that's actually Hawaii. The people on Kona, the people in Maui say next time you come, you gotta go to Kawaii. The beaches, the ocean, the island, that's that's how Hawaii used to be. Used to be. Yeah. Now it's the big island stuff, it's all main, it's all industrialized. Yeah, tourists. Kawaii's where to go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 54:36

So you guys come back from California?

SPEAKER_08: 54:38

Come back from California. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 54:40

Um, where'd you move to?

SPEAKER_08: 54:42

We moved to 31st Street in Greenway in the square. In the square. Yes, bro. I didn't even know. You know, the right off of Greenway, it's apartments. Oh, yeah, could you guys did your time? Yeah. I didn't even know it was the square when we moved in there. It's just what I could afford. Yeah. So we spent six months there while we looked for a house. Yeah. And then we found the house on Michelle. 51 grand. Oh, wow. You know, wow. Over 30 years. You know, that was when you could buy a house, when you could save money.

SPEAKER_10: 55:17

It's a little different now.

SPEAKER_08: 55:18

Big time. Yeah. Big time. So uh yeah, moved into a house.

SPEAKER_05: 55:22

And I hear a lot of stories of the Michelle House.

SPEAKER_08: 55:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 55:26

Do. Um between her and him, they tell a lot of stories about the Michelle House.

SPEAKER_08: 55:30

Yeah. It was a good little time. It really was.

SPEAKER_05: 55:33

Um you guys used to go to PCC. Yeah. Phoenix Community Church.

SPEAKER_08: 55:38

She actually found it with Christine and started going.

SPEAKER_10: 55:43

Yeah, she would dress us up and take walk us. Wow.

SPEAKER_08: 55:45

Yep. Yeah. And I started, okay, well, if that's where you're going, I'll I'll go. Yeah. Let's go.

SPEAKER_10: 55:50

But it didn't start like that because it was just mom and me and Jade. Yes. But then it was like you doing football or Sundays, and but then you started to come. I started coming.

SPEAKER_08: 55:59

Yeah, I mean, that's where my family's going, and I should go. Yeah. Come on. I should yeah, participate. Because you always want to, you know, you don't you don't want to do what your parents did. Yeah. You know? Yep. Are you right? Yeah. If you ever, I'm sure you've said that to yourself, I ever get married and have kids.

SPEAKER_10: 56:18

Oh yeah. I'm gonna do that. I know what not to do. Amen, brother. That's right. I know what not to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 56:24

So I think I think between your guys' relationship and mine and Andrew's relationship, he's terrified.

SPEAKER_10: 56:30

That's why I'm 40 and still single. Oh God. It's one of the things. God's got a beautiful queen for him. Yes.

SPEAKER_08: 56:39

Even with all the all the craziness, and we're so screwed up. Yeah. Just you just gotta jump in and go. Yes. It's it's don't know what you're missing, buddy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 56:50

Even in the chaos, it's still beautiful, brother. Right. It really is, man. Right. Nice having a teammate. Yeah. You gotta have a team. A helper helper. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 56:58

Yeah. So move back. Um two kids. Yep. Um wasn't happy. She wasn't happy. I was ready for the uh white picket fence. She wanted Guns N' Roses concerts. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 57:16

Well, so this what I can kind of remember is because of how he grew up. He grew up kind of on the wild side. Doing doing stuff that he wanted to do. Mama grew up with grandma.

SPEAKER_01: 57:30

On the church side.

SPEAKER_10: 57:31

And being good and doing what you're supposed to do. So when she meets him and he's living a little crazy, she starts getting introduced to a little bit of crazy. She's oh, I like this, man. This is cool. Good point. So he's wanting to good and let's do family.

SPEAKER_09: 57:51

And she's wait, wait, wait, this is this is fun.

SPEAKER_08: 57:54

Bingo. So that's it. That's absolutely. I'm sorry to glaze over it like that. You know, we all have our stuff story to tell. You're absolutely right. Yeah. Absolutely right. And neither one of us uh neither one of us uh were living godly lifestyles. We might be taking you guys to church, but neither one of us were Yeah, during the week. I don't remember seeing it. Yeah. And um sooner or later, you when you're not when you're not united, it's gonna it's gonna break break things up. And boy, it sure did. Yeah. So um 92, yeah, married in 84, divorced in ninety-two, um two children.

SPEAKER_10: 58:41

How did that mess with you? How did a divorce mess with you? Because you saw grandma and grandpa and how they stayed and we're still are still married today. Still married today. So how did you what did that do to you as a man?

SPEAKER_08: 58:53

Four or four or five times I took her back. Four or five times.

SPEAKER_10: 58:57

Wanting to make it work. Work, work.

SPEAKER_08: 58:59

We've got kids. Oh, come on. We even though even though I know you know what was going on.

SPEAKER_10: 59:08

And uh keep bringing that back and keep giving it another shot. That's uh that's honorable. Yeah, but you were trying.

SPEAKER_08: 59:18

I went honorable. I mean, I was I'm sure I had a girl on the side. Okay. You know, when you're when you're when I'm in a bucket truck driving around. And yeah, I'm sure I had a girl on the side, so um honorable.

SPEAKER_10: 59:36

So there was never really commit a commitment there between you two. Maybe it started out like that. It started out. Okay. But somewhere along the line of just addiction. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05: 59:47

Lifestyle took over took over. Yep.

SPEAKER_08: 59:49

Yep. Her uh she stayed. Ugh. I don't even know. Do you wanna do you wanna do it?

SPEAKER_00: 59:55

I'm good with whatever you want to share, brother. It's up to you. It's your story.

SPEAKER_08: 59:58

When I went to California. California, she stayed here. And I married, no, we weren't married. We weren't married. She stayed here. And she actually dated one of my best friends in the whole world. And that just ripped me apart. And I came back and I'm like, you we're getting married. You're gonna do this kind of stuff. We're getting married. We had a Vegas wedding, blah, blah, blah. So we but it didn't fix the problem. The band-aid. I thought here, a wedding ring will fix all this. No, not even close. So then she came over to California with me. Now we're married. Now you're coming. Okay. Rowdy gets gets named. Did we say that yet? We haven't. We need to go over that. 1984 Olympics. Rowdy Gaines just wins the gold medal in swimming. Um, what is it? The 100-meter? Yeah. 100 meter freestyle.

SPEAKER_10: 1:00:55

He won seven gold medals. Oh, he was a swimmer. So at least he got picked a champion. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_08: 1:01:02

We're not picking a bronze. Amen. Amen. A golden child. Yep. So I look at her and I'm like, Rowdy. If we're Nate, because we're and you know, she gets the girl, I get the guy. And I'm like, if it's a boy, it's Rowdy. And she was like, What? I'm like, yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 1:01:20

And she's like, Oh, so you guys didn't go to a doctor and have them do an image and it's a boy or it's a girl. No. You didn't do that.

SPEAKER_08: 1:01:27

You were waiting until the kid was this was 84. Did they have that? I don't know if they did or not. Wow.

SPEAKER_10: 1:01:33

So you just are like, we'll see what we get.

SPEAKER_08: 1:01:35

Yeah. Oh well when Jade came out. I'm in the room and I'm like, I'm like, you know, I've changed your diaper a thousand times. And out comes Jade, and she's like, what is it? What is it? And I'm like, I don't know. I think it's a girl. I was waiting for twigs and baby to show up. And it never showed up.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:03

So okay. Alright, man. You know what's funny? Was Kate was born?

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:08

His berries were swollen. And I didn't know that they come out swollen. I'm like, look at them. Huge bunches, like they're swollen.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:18

Little mama dad staying there.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:23

My bull me. That's my boy. I'm proud of that boy. That's good stuff. Extra funny.

SPEAKER_08: 1:02:35

Oh my gosh. So California, we moved back. About the time, four years, you were four years old. Okay. And the wandering, you know, Guns and Roses concert started creeping in. Boom. She got pregnant. So got pregnant. She stopped everything, calmed down. I'm like, oh, okay. She doesn't need to get pregnant to get all that stuff out of her and everything. And had Jade. Boom. Jade gets out. Right as soon as Jade gets out of the diapers. Boom. She's something about no more, no more baby in a diaper. She's like, okay, okay. And this time I couldn't. I couldn't. I had two kids to raise. I couldn't do it. I couldn't run the whole ship with without a first mate.

SPEAKER_10: 1:03:28

And God knows what else.

SPEAKER_08: 1:03:31

God knows what else. Yeah. So but by that's a lot. By that time, I think I'd cleaned myself up to give it a good shot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 1:03:39

Because I remember I remember you and her working through stuff and and a time when like she came back, but then there was where you were drinking, and I remember a thing in the bathroom in the back room, and then it was like, oh, he's going to rehab, and we stayed in the home, and you went to rehab, and then you came back. Oh god. But then it was like she was gone. It was just a lot, man. Yeah, it was crazy.

SPEAKER_08: 1:04:03

The rehab story. I put myself into rehab from Crystal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 1:04:07

Oh my God. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:04:09

Because across the street, you know, Mike. I won't make it. We don't have to use names on this one in case. Yeah. And there was, she was, she was so gone, as far as I was concerned, the only way I could spend time was with her was to go across the street and do partake. Partake. Then we can all at least we're together. Can't beat them, join them. Can't beat them, join them. Yeah. So I was joining them. Yeah. And you know, after I don't know, two, three, four weeks, it got New Year's Eve. You and Jade come up. We had been all the blue tarps. All the you guys can can we have some cereal or something. You wanted breakfast. Yeah. And we had been just all night. Yeah. And I looked and I'm just like, oh my gosh. Okay. One of us has to be smart here. And I asked the buddies, Warren, Jeff, they all took me. I need to check myself in, blah, blah, blah. It's been a week in and came out and said, You can go. You are free to go now and do whatever you want. Have the life you want. But I got this. And never never touched it again. Isn't it funny how I mean you guys are addicts? But Crystal, have you ever like just like your nose or sniffed or something? You're like, oh my gosh. I haven't done it. 30 years ago. Yeah. And I just got like Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:05:42

I guess smells. Smells. Yeah, smell, and I'm like, oh.

SPEAKER_10: 1:05:47

He was he was a smoker. A smoker. Oh when you were sniffing it. Sniffing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I was slamming it. Ugh.

SPEAKER_08: 1:05:57

Yeah. Oh.

SPEAKER_10: 1:05:58

It took me for a ride, bud. Oh. Yeah. I wanted to die.

SPEAKER_08: 1:06:01

See, I never wanted needles. Yeah. I never wanted. See, I was just I was just I I smart.

SPEAKER_10: 1:06:09

Well, it's not you wanted you wanted your wife.

SPEAKER_08: 1:06:11

Well, you're not.

SPEAKER_10: 1:06:12

You wanted to be with your wife and have a family, and it was like, dude, if I have to do that in order to be with her, okay.

SPEAKER_08: 1:06:18

Right. Right. And then I for yeah, and then for your guys' sake, when you guys wanted breakfast. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 1:06:23

I'm like, I had no idea that was the because I remember. Yeah. I remember having the conversation with Jade and I'm hungry. And her telling me, don't go over there. We're not allowed to go over there. I'm going over there. I'm hungry.

SPEAKER_08: 1:06:34

You saved the home. You saved me. Yeah. Just coming over. I mean, it's not something I could sit you down on the couch and thank you for. Yeah. But I had to, I checked myself in and got cleaned up. And yeah. Yeah, that was that was that needed to be done big time. Yeah. So I couldn't do it without I couldn't do it by myself. So I I needed I needed a reason. I needed yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you guys were it. Yeah. Crazy. I hadn't thought about that in a long time.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:04

And I don't want to make Andrea sound.

SPEAKER_08: 1:07:09

Gosh, I wish she was here. I had to do it. I know all the stories already behind you. It only got worse, Dad. Oh man. Okay. I can't even imagine. Yeah. Oh, God, God, thank you that she's still alive. Yeah. And they made it through. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_10: 1:07:25

And gotten he's in recovery and there were because she's wonderful. Yeah, she is.

SPEAKER_08: 1:07:29

She's a wonderful person. It just didn't.

SPEAKER_05: 1:07:32

I think there was, I think what we didn't understand and what you may not have understand is in her family there's this chemical imbalance. Depression, things like that that take place within her family. Oh, all the daughters. That when you add drugs into the situation, it's it's a whole different dynamic, brother. It really is. Yeah, I've witnessed it firsthand through her sisters and her, and it's just when you add chemical depression and things like that. Uh uh Plus with trauma.

SPEAKER_10: 1:08:01

Yeah, and postpartum, and then you had you know, then you add chemicals to it, man.

SPEAKER_05: 1:08:06

It's just it's it creates just chaos, brother. Right. I mean, right I didn't know that at the time, but I see it now, and we've had conversations about it, and it's I can imagine back in your time that that was still an element of uh that family. They just were maybe not aware of it, you know what I mean. But then you throw chemicals on a person who's already in balance genetically, right?

SPEAKER_08: 1:08:28

And you throw chemicals on it, it just creates There was no ADHD, there was no peanut allergy, there was no there was none of this garbage back in the 84.

SPEAKER_05: 1:08:39

But it was still a reality though. They just didn't know how a name for it, you know what I mean. But just dealing with her sisters now, with Pam and uh Becky and herself and seeing depression in her myself, right?

SPEAKER_10: 1:08:52

Where and then their kids, you can barely you can see it in the family.

SPEAKER_05: 1:08:56

There's there was times, Bob, she could barely get out of bed from depression, brother. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:09:00

Now, even now.

SPEAKER_05: 1:09:01

It's been a while, it's been a while. It's been a while, Circle K has helped her a lot. Yeah, yeah. But it just helps when you have a reason to get out of bed. It sure does. Yes. But to see that and to know and to see the chemical side of it too, being a part of all that, you know what I mean? It's I could see how that time in your life was probably chaotic because of that. You know what I mean? So I don't that doesn't bother me, brother.

SPEAKER_08: 1:09:22

You know what? God bless you for her having you to I mean you stuck with her.

SPEAKER_05: 1:09:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:09:28

You went through it. I couldn't even imagine but you did what I couldn't do.

SPEAKER_05: 1:09:34

The dynamic that you were talking about earlier with her family, I had the same thing because my family was outside of my immediate family, my brothers and my mom, I didn't really know my cousins and stuff like that, like my brothers did. Because I was the youngest of four boys, them being five, six, eight years older than me, I didn't have the same experience they did. They would get to go to cousins' houses and stuff like that. I didn't have that. So to me, it was just my family. Right. And then to meet her family and see this big family and how they get together, yes, and they do Christmas together, they do Thanksgiving together. I was like, Yeah, right. Good times, man. And I loved it. I loved that whole dynamic and the aspect of it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:13

Love, but I but I also got to witness the you screwed up, you're cut out kind of dynamic as well.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:20

You know what I mean? Yeah, and so, but to see that same dynamic. I mean, in reality, bro, our experiences are very similar, very similar. The growing up, the dynamics, the experience with her and her family are just they're identical, brother. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's amazing. It is really amazing. But I love her family still. I love her sisters. Yeah, um, I just don't go out of my way to try to appease them.

SPEAKER_10: 1:10:43

Yeah, it's not it's not like we we don't we're not we don't have get togethers and to be honest with you when when Christine passed away, it stopped.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:49

It stopped. Yep. Nobody carried the torch. Yep, it just stopped. Okay, yeah. Now it was I got my own family, we're doing our own thing. Right. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_10: 1:10:57

But then they're then those kids it stopped coming. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_08: 1:11:00

So it just Oh, I bet there's all sorts of kids. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:11:03

I think the last time we got together as a family for her side was when grandma passed away. Right. And that was the last time that we really I think we tried, I think we tried one time at uh uh Debbie's house. Yeah, and we did it once, and it was just too much for Debbie. And it just became the next year it was, hey, we're doing our own little thing. Yeah, you guys do you know, so now it's just now we do it at our house. Yeah, we do our thing. Yeah, so now it's time for us to take our kids and create those memories that way. Yeah, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_08: 1:11:33

I was so blessed to be able to be. I was in the third year in Colorado for at Karish Bible College, but Pam had called me to let me know. I actually had COVID at that time. She called that that Christine was on her deathbed and I was able to pray for her before she left. And I was such a special moment.

SPEAKER_05: 1:11:53

I was so thankful that Pamela was like, that woman there, bro, was God, that's a special woman, dude. Yeah, oh yeah. Because I can remember when me and Andrea first met and me calling the house from prison. Never met her in person, never just doing phone calls. And Christine got on the phone and was like, What's your intentions with my daughter? Wow. And I'm like, Well, ma'am, right now we're just trying to get to know each other, but you know, if things work out, I hope you know there's a future here. Yeah. She's like, All right. You know what I mean? I was like, I don't know if I ever got that top.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:25

You know what I mean? But I'm like, Wow, I'm like, you know, I'm calling from prison, right?

SPEAKER_08: 1:12:31

You know what I mean? Oh, you were calling from prison.

SPEAKER_10: 1:12:33

Oh, grandma's like, what do you want with my daughter?

SPEAKER_05: 1:12:37

And and and I can remember the first time going to her house, the woman was just so welcoming. She never treated me like I was a criminal, like I was a convict, like I was a drug addict. Right. To her, I was just a guy dating her daughter, and then she treated me in such a way that not a lot of people in my life had treated me at that time. And it just became very special to me, man. Amen. And I am so thankful that probably the last year of her life, man.

SPEAKER_08: 1:13:08

You're able to see her and talk to her a little bit. We used to go pick her up and take her to church.

SPEAKER_10: 1:13:13

Oh man, she loved it. She loved it. She loved it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:13:17

I got pictures on Facebook of her sitting in the pews with me and just seeing that little old lady just and she loved the little church we were going to. She loved it. And it's funny because that time in our life was hell for him. It was hell for us. But that moment was all for her. Yeah. I truly believe it was. Because the church we were going to was close to where she lived. It was a nice small little church. Pastor Bill loved her. Always come over and say hi to her. She would just beam, you know what I mean? But to have that time with her, that nobody else in her family got that time with her, dude. Yeah. I did. Because you wanted that time. Because we made it.

SPEAKER_10: 1:13:50

We went over to her apartment and picked her up and took the time and loaded up the wheelchair and brought we made time.

SPEAKER_05: 1:13:56

Because at that time in her life it was not easy. Yeah, it was not. Because getting her around involved in a wheelchair, picking her up, helping her get in the car. It was a lot of work, bro. Sure. But Andrea made a very we're going to get my mom. Nice. We're taking her to church. She needs this. She needs to be. You kept the connection. Yeah. I lost that connection. And it was yeah, it was worth it, bro. Yeah. I don't care how challenging it was or how whatever it was to see her there and to see her smiling and praising God was just the most beautiful thing, dude. Amen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 1:14:27

We'll see her again. Yeah. Oh, yes. We'll see her at Jesus' feet.

SPEAKER_05: 1:14:34

But we would have similar experiences, brother. Just know that that your experiences are not unique with this family or Andrea. And we're coming out the other end. Come on, guys. Yeah. Together.

SPEAKER_10: 1:14:43

Stronger. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_08: 1:14:46

Man.

SPEAKER_10: 1:14:47

Boy, how one woman just That's why I'm keeping them away. I know there's a good one for me. Yes. What my pastor said is, you're not ready to get them married. You're not ready. You've got. And when she told me that a couple years ago, it was like, whoa. And now here today, I'm like, yeah, I'm not.

unknown: 1:15:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:15:08

Go look up Miles Monroe, Seven Things a Man Needs Before He Takes a Wife, brother. Maybe you have a couple of them. Like five away. But I got good stuff ahead, man. Amen.

SPEAKER_08: 1:15:22

Well, all this is just going to bring. Yeah. She could be sitting here today, or she could sit you with a board. You just have Eddie Canton. You're going to meet her, and the board shows up, and you're going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_10: 1:15:36

I know. That's exactly it. I'm going to see, and I'm just going to whoa.

SPEAKER_09: 1:15:41

Yeah. That's it. She's going to see it too. It's going to happen on a mission trip. Amen.

SPEAKER_10: 1:15:47

You know why a mission trip? Because she loves Jesus. She's willing to go. She loves to serve. She loves to serve. She's willing to go to a third world country to serve. Right. That yeah. A mission trip weeds out a bunch of the fluff.

SPEAKER_11: 1:16:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:01

Yeah, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_10: 1:16:02

People who are in the church that ain't really in the church. Right. You know what I mean? I want a girl who's doing something.

SPEAKER_09: 1:16:07

Yeah. Amen.

SPEAKER_10: 1:16:08

I want to look over and be like, wow, look at what she's doing. Hey, me and you together, we could do something. Do something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:16:17

So you guys have your your little kind of this chaotic moment. You're heading to divorce.

SPEAKER_08: 1:16:22

Divorce. Yep. Divorce court. And uh got the boom. She went her way and I went my way. Um there I was, two two kids. Yes. And I think I spent 12 years as a single dad. Um yep, we went through. You you took Rowdy halfway through in the middle of that. Because I was a lot, I was a lot. I had to watch out for Jade. Yeah. That was my I and go figure.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:51

She can I tell you something that I think you need to know?

SPEAKER_05: 1:16:53

Yes. So when the kids used to come over to our house, we lived with my mom. And I can remember Andrea, and I'm not I'm not bad mouth my wife, so nobody think I'm bad mouth my wife. I'm just being honest here. She had some anger and some resentment towards you, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_10: 1:17:08

And the kids would come over and she start with your dad, and I'd be like, Yeah, it there it wasn't always good stuff about you. No, I'm not sure. And I would tell her not in front of the kids.

SPEAKER_08: 1:17:19

Yeah. See, and that's why I would never in front of you guys, I would never bad mouth her. Yeah, I don't remember you doing that. Because I know she was badmouthing me.

SPEAKER_05: 1:17:28

But I made her see that in the end you're gonna look like the bad person. Because your kids are gonna go back and they're gonna see and they're like, Dad's not like this. So I made sure that she would not badmouth you in front of those kids because I remember that. I didn't want her to look bad. I didn't want her to be the the bad person in the situation. And to talk bad about you to them would end up making her look that way. Right. And so it never really took place. I mean, there was times that she probably did that I didn't catch it, but if I was around like that. Well, thank you for that. Thank you. Because they didn't need to hear that. They didn't need to hear that. Well, see, and for me coming into your guys' situation, because it was your guys' situation that I came into. Right.

SPEAKER_10: 1:18:09

Wow, that's yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:18:12

And I knew what I was coming into. Yeah, right. I knew I was coming into a situation, you know what I mean? And so I didn't want to be I didn't want to be that guy who was trying to take your kids from you or trying to be something, you know what I mean? I wanted to be a supportive kind of third will in the family dynamic. Right. Wow. You know, someone to kind of keep the chaos and tension between you and her neutralized in front of them, but also be a voice to them of reason of hey, you know, sure, you know. And so the the times that we were a family together, because that's how I saw it at the time, is we were being a family together and being invited to your house for things for Christmas, yeah, to celebrate to celebrate Christmas as a family with you guys. With us, yeah. Being a part of that dynamic to me was like that's freaking awesome, too. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah. Because my intention was always to be okay with you, to be friends with you, to be let's do this together. It's gonna take all three of us to raise these kids, you know what I mean? And we were and we did, we did, you know what I mean? And so it was and playing golf and the things that we did, I mean, it was it was the beginning was really awesome. We tried to do it the best we could, you know what I mean. And we did do the best that we could. Drugs came in and things went sideways, you know what I mean? But I want you to know that my intention was never to come in and create conflict or division amongst the dynamic that I was coming into because I was coming into it. You guys were already in it, I was coming in, you know what I mean? And I tried to I tried my best to just kind of blend in and be part of the dynamic, you know what I mean? Right. Um But yeah, the drugs did come in and take a place and Just go crazy. You know what I mean? Um but I wanted you to know that I never intended to come in and try to take your kids from you or be anything other than a part of the di the dynamic. You know what I mean? So I just wanted you to know that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:20:14

That's really probably was the fact that and Mandy saw it when Mandy I don't know, but I always felt like when I got them back from you guys, I had to deprogram them.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:20:29

I had to go, I don't know what they saw, I don't know what they were doing. But now I'm home and they're I'm doing the best I can with church, and they're gonna get the mac and cheese for dinner, and they're gonna have a bedtime and say a prayer, yeah. Say prayers, and I'm gonna give them this and they're gonna do this. Don't know where they well.

SPEAKER_05: 1:20:49

See, the beauty of the beauty of our side of that is is we had the we only had them for the weekend. Yeah. So to us, yeah, that's gonna be the best time that they ever it was. It was fun. We didn't all fun stuff, because that because we only had them for that short time. So the short time that we had, we wanted it to be the best for them. Right. Never really thinking that they had to go back home. Yeah. And whatever the time. You know what I mean? Because the reality is we didn't know what home life was really like because we weren't in the home. Right. All we knew is man, we got them for two days, let's make it the best two days that we could. Let's go golfing, let's go have fun, let's go to golf land, let's go on drives and see scenic things and go to the lake. You know what I mean? Yeah. So for us, and and I have this friend that I work with, and him and his girl are split up, and she has their kid. He gets her every once in a while. He does the same thing, and I'm trying to get him to understand. You gotta understand that when she goes back home, she's got to go back to reality of day to day, because now I see what happened in the dynamic of what we had going on, and how us doing that probably didn't help you at all if I'm being real. You know what I mean? Yeah, all we knew all we knew is we had them for two days, and we're just gonna be the make it count.

SPEAKER_10: 1:22:07

We wanted to that's why I didn't want to go back. That's why I wanted to stay. Of course. Why would you? Why would you want to because I had to go back to you, and it was like I had to do all the stuff and get in line and school. Yeah. But then I went with them, and it was like, Yeah, let's go.

SPEAKER_05: 1:22:24

Yeah, yeah. Because there was there was home. Your dad had to be the disciplinary, and he had to make sure you got to school. He had to be all these different things that we didn't have to be because we just had you for the weekend. Yeah, you know what I mean? And and and God bless your mom, she just knew that she had time to make up. That's really what it just wanted to make the time that she got with you guys the the best it could be. Not realizing that she had to send them back to reality, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_10: 1:22:51

And well, but it it what really messed me is that because when I went with them, then it became a makeup thing all the time. Yeah, right. Yeah, and there it was it was right. I needed a parent. Right, right.

SPEAKER_08: 1:23:05

Well, next thing I knew, you were like out of school. You went with them, and uh literally within the month, you you were out of school. And I'm like, oh my god. You dropped out. Well, what can I do? Well, yeah, okay. I so well, whatever. Yeah. Here we are. Well, well, here's here we are.

SPEAKER_05: 1:23:28

I'm 25, 26 years old at this time. Never had kids of my own. I'm 13, 14. He's coming to live with us. 15. And I'm to me, I'm like, I really don't know kids. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'm smoking weed.

SPEAKER_08: 1:23:45

I'm up to here with them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:23:46

And you're but I'm smoking weed. You're right. And I went out back. I go out back and I see a weed pipe that's not mine, and I'm like, oh.

SPEAKER_09: 1:23:57

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:23:58

Oh, oh that's how it started. Here's my chance to make this connection with this kid. Oh my goodness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:24:05

Oh, I see. Okay. You know what I mean? We're gonna be good.

SPEAKER_05: 1:24:08

Because I'm learning, I'm I I'm not his dad, but I want to have this connection with him because he's my wife's son, and I want to make sure that he me and him are okay. Wow.

SPEAKER_10: 1:24:17

So it's like, hey, uh when I would go over, I'd be like, it's like, hey, uh but we were hiding it from mom.

SPEAKER_05: 1:24:23

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_11: 1:24:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_10: 1:24:24

We were not letting mom know because mom would be picked up.

SPEAKER_05: 1:24:26

Because we were living we were living in Paradise Lane. Yeah. Paradise Lane, okay. And we would sneak out in the back laundry room and me and him would smoke. Yeah. You know what I mean? That was our. If you're listening, never do that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:37

Don't do that. That is not okay. Bad choice.

SPEAKER_05: 1:24:43

Yes. It was just a choice I made at the time, even though it was a very bad one.

SPEAKER_10: 1:24:46

Yeah, but it's good, God redeems. Live and learn. Live and learn, yes.

SPEAKER_05: 1:24:50

But that is what started a whole cycle. Just a bad situation, bro. Yeah. Yeah. Because now me and him are no it blew away the father-son dynamic, and it made we're buddies. Right. Friends. You know what?

SPEAKER_08: 1:25:05

We're from friends for years. He not not uh let's back up five years. I don't know, but for years he's been asking me, like, you know what? Remember that time in your backyard by the swing set? You were smoking. Hey, we'll do it. Yeah, yeah. You want to do one with me?

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:24

I'm like, no, not on this lifetime would I ever smoke. Did I ask you? You have to smoke.

SPEAKER_10: 1:25:36

Sin makes you stupid. And I would like to. Thanks for not saying yes. Of course not. Thank you. God.

SPEAKER_08: 1:25:43

Of course you're not. A father and a son. Would you smoke with Cade? Oh my goodness. Okay. Addiction. Okay. Addiction, man. Okay. No judgment. No judgment.

SPEAKER_05: 1:25:56

I just not until he was an adult.

SPEAKER_08: 1:25:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_05: 1:25:58

Once he became an adult and it was making it.

SPEAKER_10: 1:26:01

He's already smoking. You want to smoke with me? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_10: 1:26:05

So you gotta there's a lot here, people.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:11

I'm not defending myself. I'm just explaining my situation. Right. To me, pot was never a bad thing. Okay. It was never something that it wasn't meth.

SPEAKER_10: 1:26:21

It wasn't freaking heroin.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:23

Yeah. It wasn't alcohol. I don't know many people that did the things that we did on meth, smoking weed. Just like a lot of people like to go home and have a beer. I used to like to go home and have a joint. Okay. It was my beer. I didn't like alcohol, but I like to smoke a joint. Right. And so I never really saw an issue with it. When my kids were kids, I'm like, no.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:47

Right.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:48

No. If you do something away from the house, I can't I can't do anything about that because I'm not with you, but here, no. But once they turned 18, it was like, I'm smoking. You're an adult. If you want to smoke, again, bad decision. Don't make it. Don't make it. He's 40. I know what not to do.

SPEAKER_08: 1:27:10

If I did, I couldn't do it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:27:11

See, see, but you today I still regret doing it with him, doing it with Cade. I could see that.

SPEAKER_10: 1:27:19

Well, now, no, they don't we don't smoke.

SPEAKER_05: 1:27:21

I'm pop free. He's pop-free.

SPEAKER_10: 1:27:24

Cade pop yeah, we're pop-free. I don't drink.

SPEAKER_05: 1:27:27

I don't smoke pot, I don't smoke cigarettes, I don't chew. Not watching porn. Let everything everything. I'm trying to live holy. Amen. My God is holy, and he says, because he is holy, we should be holy. Yes. I'm trying to live this way. Right. Unfortunately, the groundwork that I laid already for your son, my son, my daughter has already been paved, and I'm reaping the consequences of that. Yeah. We all do. It's difficult. We all do, yeah. I regret it.

SPEAKER_10: 1:27:53

But the cool thing is, is him making the change showed me that it really is possible. Showed my showed my sister that, wow, dad, you really are changing your life.

SPEAKER_09: 1:28:06

Right.

SPEAKER_10: 1:28:06

So it's showing mom, even though she's not saying it's it's showing her too. So God's moving. Oh, sure. You know.

SPEAKER_05: 1:28:13

The one thing I know about people, especially people very close to you, when you're professing Jesus, you better be living it. Otherwise, you need to live Jesus. Because if you because I I would I've been walking with God for probably maybe 20 years now. Yeah. And the reality is probably the first 19 was still riddled with bad choices and sin. Me trying to find my way. You know what I mean? And I finally got to a point where I want more Jesus. Amen. The drugs were no longer enough. Alcohol was no longer. Cigarettes were no longer enough. Yeah. Because I got tired of seeing me trying to minister to my family and then turning around and doing something, and then seeing that and being like, they don't go together. So if I really want to minister to my family, and I really want my family to know that Jesus is real, I have to give them real.

SPEAKER_08: 1:29:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:29:16

So they are literally watching me right now be transformed into the image of Christ by laying down everything that the world had grips on me with. Cigarettes, tobacco, weed, and if anything else, they've seen you do it.

SPEAKER_08: 1:29:31

I've seen it in his words. They've seen you clean it up.

SPEAKER_05: 1:29:34

And so now when I minister to them, I'm like, you see what God is doing in my life right now. You see the evidence of life change. Yeah, right. Because the evidence of Jesus is life life change, transformation.

SPEAKER_10: 1:29:46

Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 1:29:46

You know what I mean? And now I'm literally have this opportunity where they're seeing it. Right. You know what I mean? It's not just me preaching at them, it's me walking what I'm talking and laying things down and not picking them back up. Amen. And to see them being like, wow, dad, I'm proud of you. Yeah, I'm so good. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_10: 1:30:03

It's like it's changed how he's eating. I mean, it's just so much that it's like, wow. And it's like you said, it happened when he turned 50. Really did, bro. The cigarettes and the it just all but anyways, back to the dynamic with him.

SPEAKER_05: 1:30:19

That's that's how that took place. Yeah. It's by me making that bad decision to connect with him through that. Yeah. And that just made the choices he was making okay.

SPEAKER_10: 1:30:28

You think that's what he was reprogram trying to reprogram?

SPEAKER_05: 1:30:32

No, he was reprogramming the fun that you were having, and now you're coming back to a strict home where we've got discipline and responsibility. 12, 13.

SPEAKER_10: 1:30:43

He was smoking way before he got to us, bro. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I would smoke at the bus stop on Indian Ben.

SPEAKER_08: 1:30:50

Because see, I never I never saw it. No, I had to hit it from it. Okay. Because I I you know I've done it before. I just never but when you have a 30-year 30-year career in the cable business and drive bucket trucks and do outages and stuff, all it takes is one rear end and you're peeing in a cup. Oh. So that will keep you from smoking dope. So that that might, you know, and and like I said at the beginning, you know, bear, let's just like you said, a couple of cold ones, just to calm my nerves. I it's an excuse. And I still use it today. And I it it's there's freedom ahead for you.

SPEAKER_10: 1:31:31

Can I tell you something?

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:32

There's freedom ahead for you. Can I for you something else? Yeah. So when we moved to Paradise Lane and started going to Phoenix Community Church with you guys because they wanted Andrea wanted to be closer to the kids. Right. That was my first church experience.

SPEAKER_08: 1:31:43

Changed his life. Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:44

And Pastor Dennis was my first pastor. Dennis. And I gotta be honest with you. When we went over, I came over to your house on a Sunday after church, and Dennis was over there. Dennis are cracking me. And I walk in, you guys watching football, and there's my pastor with a beer in his hand. And I'm like, Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_10: 1:32:07

That messed him up.

SPEAKER_05: 1:32:08

I'm like, what the hell is this? Really? Yeah. Okay. Because I never I get it now. Pastors are just men, they're just they're people. Yeah I mean, but at that moment of being a baby Christian, I was a baby Christian. You put him on a pedestal. I was still, yeah. I was still drinking milk. Yeah. And here was this man who was supposed to be ministering to me, being the example of Jesus in my life with a beer in his hand. Yeah, right. Very interesting. It messed me up. Yeah. I'm like, I I can remember even asking him, I'm like, what the hell is that, dude?

SPEAKER_08: 1:32:40

Now see, he I bet you he didn't even because he'd heard the stories. Yeah. He heard me tell, I'm like, Dennis, you know, Eddie and Ann and my kids are going over there and they're doing all this. And then so I bet when you and you walk through the door and he had a beard, it's like, that's the least of your worries, right? You know, that's I'm sure.

SPEAKER_05: 1:33:00

But I see at the moment it messed me up. I don't hold that against him at all. Yeah, no. Love you, Dennis. Mood way past that. Love you, Cindy. He's doing great. Yeah, he's doing great. But as baby Christian, seeing that, man, I was like, Yeah, what the hell is this? Sure.

SPEAKER_10: 1:33:14

Why is it one? It's why I love my pastor now, Pastor Dave. Um, he just he talks about leadership and how what leadership means, and how the high the more leadership that you get, the more influence you get. It's literally denying yourself more and less of the things that you want. Yeah. Because in order to have a bigger influence, you have to tell yourself no.

SPEAKER_08: 1:33:39

You have to have that.

SPEAKER_10: 1:33:41

You've got to have that self-control. You've got to, the Bible says in Romans 12, if at all possible, do what is right in front of the eyes of everyone.

SPEAKER_05: 1:33:48

Yes. Amen. Could you imagine being a pastor of a thousand-person church? And you're, I mean, these people are looking to you for you're their leader, you're their shepherd. Yeah. And could you imagine being that guy in a grocery store and having a bad day? Just having a bad day. And in that moment, you're just like at somebody.

SPEAKER_07: 1:34:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:34:09

Right.

SPEAKER_05: 1:34:10

And you look over, and there's one of your people from your church, and they just saw you at your worst moment. I mean, the day was hard. You're going through some things. Your wife is going through some some chemo and all these different things. And they will judge you for that one moment.

SPEAKER_08: 1:34:26

Yeah. And all these positives are not nothing.

SPEAKER_05: 1:34:29

Just boom. Yeah. They're all gone because of that one. But that's why as as especially men of God. And leaders. And leaders of the community of believers, we have to be very careful.

SPEAKER_08: 1:34:42

Very vigilant.

SPEAKER_05: 1:34:43

Yeah. We have to be very, very careful. Higher humanity. Higher standard. Who's standing behind you that you can't see? Right. And if you so much as just say something wrong, sure. You just ruin this person who's looking to you to lead them, to help them find the truth. And in a moment of weakness, you had one bad moment. Right. And that one bad moment will forever scar that person. Yeah. Until they find truth in Jesus and they realize my pastor's just a man. Just a man. Amen. Yep. It took me a long time to get there, but I got there. Yeah. And I'm I'm past, but I still remember that very clearly. I remember that messing with Jesus. That pastor with a beard just kind of was like, but it also taught me a lesson. Be on guard. Be on guard. Yeah. Because you never know who's watching. You never who's not going to walk through the door. Right. You know what I mean? And that's one of the reasons I gave up cigarettes because I was driving down the road, smoking a cigarette, and someone from church pulled up to me. And it was like, Oh, I felt so like busted. Busted. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_08: 1:35:50

And what were you 40-year-old man feeling busted?

SPEAKER_05: 1:35:52

Yeah. But in that moment, but in that moment, it's like, uh-huh. You know, you don't, you you had the cigarette real quick. I'm like, I can't do this now.

SPEAKER_10: 1:36:02

I don't want to live like this.

SPEAKER_05: 1:36:03

I don't want to live like that. I want to live in a way that if you pull up next to me, hi, how you doing? Yeah. Jesus all over me. You know what I mean? Right. Amen. And that's why. It's because of that moment. And it was wasn't nobody special from church. It was just somebody from church. Somebody from church. But I never let nobody from church see me smoke. Right. I was trying to hide my sin. You know what I mean? Sin? Yeah. Cigarettes. You're only as sick as your secrets. But feeling caught like that was like, no, I'm not doing this. Doing this. You know what I mean? And that moment gave me the strength to go to somebody, like, hey man, I'm struggling with my cigarettes and I need some help. Yeah. And going to my pastor and throwing my pastor.

SPEAKER_10: 1:36:43

Yeah, man camped two years ago. We go in and where he's praying with the other pastor and getting ready to speak. I'm sick of these. Right on his chest. He's like, threw him at my poster. Okay.

SPEAKER_05: 1:36:55

Dude, it was crazy.

SPEAKER_10: 1:36:56

So You haven't had a cigarette since then.

SPEAKER_05: 1:37:00

No. Yeah. So I'm walking through the chairs and I'm praying for the men at the man camp. And I hear God say, take those cigarettes to your pastor. And I'm like, no, God. No. I'm praying. Didn't I tell you to take those cigarettes to your pastor? And I'm like, oh God, I like them. Yeah, right. And I keep praying. Now I go, now I gotta leave because I'm thinking just because I'm in the room, that's where God's talking to me. So I leave and I go and I'm out walking around and God's like, did I not tell you to take those cigarettes to your pastor? And now I'm crying. Yep. Because that's where I found you. It was something I enjoyed. Yeah. And God was asking me to give it up. And this is crazy. People don't understand we will weep over sin that God is asking us to give up because we enjoy it. And I'm literally crying because no God, I enjoy these. And I don't want to give them up. But he would not stop.

SPEAKER_08: 1:37:56

You're preaching. He would preach. He would not stop.

SPEAKER_05: 1:38:00

He kept telling me, Did I, son, did I not tell you to take those to your pastor? And so I went in there just bawling. Crying? Because I knew. I knew that those were gone. And I went in there and he's like, Eddie, what's going on? Because nobody's ever seen me cry. And I'm bawling. And he's like, Eddie, what's going on? And I throw them at him. And I'm like, God would not let me leave me alone.

SPEAKER_00: 1:38:21

He told me to bring these to you and throw them at him.

SPEAKER_05: 1:38:23

You know what I mean? And uh I'm like, pray for me, Pastor. You know what I mean? And he's like, Eddie, first of all, I need to explain to you that this is gonna be a hard journey, buddy. That this is just the beginning, you know what I mean? But this is gonna be a hard journey. And he put his hands on me and he started praying for me. Yeah.

unknown: 1:38:37

Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 1:38:38

Yeah. And if I'm honest, for like the next month I was off and on with the cigarettes, but it got to a point where God was not leaving me alone. Yeah. And I literally just one day woke up and I said, I'm done. Yeah. And it's been like two years now. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. But now I don't have to worry about. I used to have people come up and hug me and be like, You smell like cigarettes. Yeah, you smell like cigarettes, dude.

SPEAKER_02: 1:39:02

And now I can make hugs and they're like, You smell good, buddy. You know what I mean? Amen.

SPEAKER_01: 1:39:07

And it's like, oh, thank you, God. Yeah. Thank you, God. People want your hugs. He's the best hugger.

SPEAKER_10: 1:39:13

He goes around here on Sundays and hugs men, dude, to where they're just like, they break. And sometime when he does a show up, he's like, Where's your dad, man? I need a hug.

SPEAKER_05: 1:39:23

And to be honest with you, when he came to live with us, man, that was a hard time, brother. Because I seen things that I didn't know what the hell was going on, to be honest with you. Yeah. He started getting around some people and they were popping into the house.

SPEAKER_10: 1:39:40

Yeah, MVP. Mexican Brown Pride, man. They were committing crimes and robbing the liquor stores, and then we'd go to their house and we'd all line the front room and roll up ounces of blunts and smoke. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_08: 1:39:54

You've taken a long road. I mean, wasn't it just it was just five years ago? 2019.

SPEAKER_10: 1:40:00

Little piece of it back and almost killed him. Yeah, I wanted to die. I was over there.

SPEAKER_08: 1:40:06

Yeah, so let's not relive. Yeah, I'm good now. 2019, I'm free. I don't want to take over your podcast, but do you have any other little pieces that are annoying you from the past that you want to throw at me? Oh that something that's your go-to?

SPEAKER_10: 1:40:22

I know the the court with take him take him that I g I gave the cops arrested. Um anything else about it. I mean, mainly just the the discipline. But even then, man, you were just it was the anger. It was my anger. Yeah, frustrating.

SPEAKER_08: 1:40:41

There would be times I'd get you. I remember I'd back you up on the couch and just be going. Why do you just stop? And it's just Don't embarrass me!

SPEAKER_10: 1:40:52

Yeah, but yeah. Sitting here today, there's I know so what I'm gonna do is I'm working with my sponsor and I'm putting together an amends list and what that'll look like and how I have no idea. But in a future conversation, in a future meeting, I'll just come over. Well, maybe we'll have a lunch or a dinner somewhere, we'll go out, and I'll just kind of get some of your time and just run through some of the stuff that whatever my sponsor feels like through my inventory. Oh, I see that I need to work through it. Okay. Um, and then I'll just work through that with you, which is what he's saying. Just have that before anything happens, okay, so that I can be good.

SPEAKER_08: 1:41:29

Yeah, well, you okay, I'm I'm you're good. Yeah, you're good.

SPEAKER_10: 1:41:35

You did this, you did this with me years ago. You when you gave me the truck and I came back from California, you're like, Go, man, go take this world for Jesus, son. I love you. I'm so proud. You go. And I remember you saying, and it was like, yeah. And then addiction and messing up. It's sin. It is what it is. You know what I mean? Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:41:57

So but, anyways, this is about you. Yeah. So now divorces happen. Rowdy's kind of living with us. Rowdy's. So it's kind of just you and Jade now. You guys are still going to church. Yep. You're very involved at Phoenix Community Church. Yep.

SPEAKER_08: 1:42:13

And um Jade started going off. Jade started going sideways. She uh me and Mandy have to put her into a boarding school and uh for her to finish high school.

SPEAKER_05: 1:42:24

Were you and Mandy already together at that time?

SPEAKER_10: 1:42:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:42:26

We were, yes.

SPEAKER_10: 1:42:27

I went we went down to we went down to Mexico everybody together. Oh, you went with me. That's the city. We pulled into the oh it was crazy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:42:35

Oh, you want to hear that story? I know that story.

SPEAKER_10: 1:42:38

That was crazy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:42:39

Yeah, she I know I messed him up. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_10: 1:42:41

We pulled into a bathroom, dude, and we're PMP. He's like, you gotta go to the bathroom. I'm like, no, he's uh no, you gotta go. Has she ever had a conversation with you about that place?

SPEAKER_05: 1:42:50

Okay, she's yeah, we're good. I know that place messed her up pretty good. Yeah. Well, Mexico or Mexico, Mexico or Iowa, that whole place in general. She knew she There's literally a documentary about that place. Yeah, how bad it was. Oh wow. Yeah, like don't talk.

SPEAKER_08: 1:43:09

No, she hasn't said she she said it helped.

SPEAKER_05: 1:43:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:43:12

Clear her up, clean her up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:43:15

Yeah. No, there's trauma there, buddy. Trauma? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'll ask her. Yeah. Write that down. Okay. I'm just giving you a heads up, man. I just don't know if she's ever talked to you about that or not, but that might be a conversation that might need to happen with your daughter. Yeah, I will.

SPEAKER_08: 1:43:32

I'd be really, really healing. I see Kendon every night. Yeah. Oh, really? She comes. I see Jade every night to pick her up. We pick her up from school, so we're Amen.

SPEAKER_10: 1:43:41

Yeah, she's Is Kendon going to MVCA? Yes.

SPEAKER_08: 1:43:44

Oh, good. Yeah, it's my granddaughter. Yeah. My six 17-year-old granddaughter. Yeah, you got an adult kid now. Well, a couple of a few of them. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:43:54

So let's get into how Mandy came about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:43:57

Mandy at PCC. Yeah. Church. She was, I'm 15 years older than her. I was a youth leader. She was in the youth.

SPEAKER_10: 1:44:04

When we started talking-ish, you know, she was uh She says it just so I'm like churches and ministry can get weird and that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_08: 1:44:19

Well, she was 18. 16 or 17, we were like, oh hey, what's up? But I'm busy. Yeah. I got life and got kids and everything. So when she turned 18, we I think maybe took a took uh I was a youth leader. She was in the youth. So maybe our first no, she was 21 when the young 21.

SPEAKER_10: 1:44:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:44:47

Well, she was kind of a youth ministry leader, kind of too, right? Kind of, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:44:51

Yeah, she got like kind of worked together in the ministry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:44:53

Yeah, yeah. So, but I never laid a hand on her. Never touched her. I had other girls, I was bringing other girls through the church and sitting there. She's in the front row over here, and I'm sitting here next to Redhead and blonde and prune head. Right, right. But uh Skittles. You know, God Skittles God has his plan. He does, He's got his way to the plan.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45:17

He sure does. I just saw the Rainbow Skittles. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:45:23

So, yeah, 21. Um, I 21, we start like actually dating or seeing each other. Yeah. Um we're married 26. Yeah, you know, five years, and I tell you this before God, it was the one thing I did right in my life. I did not consummate the marriage until twenty until we got married. And we dated for five years. Amen. So coming from a player, yeah, that was something I did right.

SPEAKER_10: 1:45:55

That's why he always tells me, he said, You gotta, if you get in a relationship, it can't be on sex. No. It's got you gotta be best friends with her, you've got to know her, you gotta know the goods and the bads and be willing to take it all and deal with it. Right. Because if you're in it for the sex, there's gonna come a day where the sex ain't there. And if you don't like that girl, you ain't got nothing in common. Bingo, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_08: 1:46:16

Bingo. There it is. And we got to know each other, everything. Um, I asked for her dad's hand in marriage, he said no. I remember that. Anyways, sorry. He came to the wedding, he he loved me. He passed away a couple years ago.

SPEAKER_05: 1:46:34

I think we came to the wedding too, didn't we? Man, I don't know. I think so. Because I remember Jade. I was in Mandy's wedding. Red dress. I was in the wedding. You were in the wedding. That's right. That's right. That's why we were there.

SPEAKER_08: 1:46:45

That's right. That's right. Oh, that's right, because she wanted to leave with you guys.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46:50

I'm like, no, not uh nope.

SPEAKER_05: 1:46:52

She came to me bawling about something. I don't remember what it was, but yeah, I'm like, I can't do that, girl. Yeah, I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:46:58

My wedding night, she's giving me because she wanted to go with you guys. So I don't know where you're we can have more fun over there. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure.

SPEAKER_06: 1:47:09

But hey, whatever. Whatever.

SPEAKER_05: 1:47:11

I admit I probably did not make life easy on you, Bob. I admit that, buddy. I apologize, man. I thought I was supposed to get the healing. Sounds like you're getting it, dude. I you know No, I know, I know my part was not the best it could have been, buddy. You know what I mean? I admit that, man. We've gone through life together. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_08: 1:47:29

I mean, we have gone through life together.

SPEAKER_05: 1:47:31

We bumped heads and we fought and we um had difference of opinions on raising kids and parenting. You know, yeah, it's it's been a roll of the wife hasn't made it easy, no.

SPEAKER_10: 1:47:42

So I gotta share this story because this changed my life, and it showed me kind of his heart. Um, I don't know if you remember when I was starting high school. One thing that we did together for fun is golf. And with him or with me?

SPEAKER_08: 1:48:04

Us. I golfed, okay. And with Dennis. And we would we would golf.

SPEAKER_10: 1:48:08

Oh, sure. And I remember liking golf. And I remember going out, I wanted to go out for the high school team at North Canyon for golf. Um, I remember coming to you and asking you for new golf clubs because I didn't want to play with wooden ones. Because all the other kids had the metal ones. And I remember you telling me that I don't have money for it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:48:32

You can either choose new school clothes or you're missing the part is I went to your dad ahead of that and told your dad, I encourage you to do this. Well, you didn't uh and I asked him if he would go in halves, if he I would get the irons, if he would get the clubs. And we came into an agreement that we would, and then somewhere along the line it became he didn't have the money, you either had to pick school clothes or the clubs.

SPEAKER_10: 1:48:55

Yeah, I got I got the school clothes, and I remember going to school, and then I came home one day and there was this new set of clubs in the in the front room. I was like, what is this? And he said, I want you to go try out for that club golf team, man. And ever since then, dude, it was like, oh in reality, in reality, I was pissed at you.

SPEAKER_05: 1:49:17

I was good. I was sure. I was because in my opinion, we came to an agreement as men, and you kind of went behind my back and made him choose, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_08: 1:49:28

Oh, and uh God, I w I wish I would remember this. It's not water under the bridge, yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 1:49:33

But just know at that moment I'm just like I wanted to share share this because it was basically from this point on where I knew that I was gonna be with this guy. Yeah. I I knew I just knew it. Amen. Yeah, I just knew it. And I knew that I was in good hands, too.

SPEAKER_01: 1:49:52

Good. Yeah, good.

SPEAKER_10: 1:49:54

Even though some of the stuff we did, it was crazy, and only God could have got us through it.

SPEAKER_08: 1:50:02

Maybe that's why. Maybe that's why I that's part of the story. It's part of the story, yeah. That's maybe that's why I didn't get you the clubs because you guys this is a God thing right here.

SPEAKER_05: 1:50:13

It is.

SPEAKER_08: 1:50:13

Yeah, you just don't know how God works. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_10: 1:50:17

I've still got those clubs. Arnold Palmer. Arnold Palmer, baby.

SPEAKER_03: 1:50:22

I bet you don't have the clubs. That's a few sizes away.

SPEAKER_08: 1:50:31

Yeah, there were times, there were tough times. Yeah, there were. There were there were steak nights, and there were there were hamburgers.

SPEAKER_10: 1:50:38

Yeah, oh dude. Yeah, there were some rough nights. Yeah, so a single father taking care of kids, yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:50:43

And she needed and you school supplies, she needed clothes, she needed yeah, and there wasn't a lot of help coming from I didn't even know. Sometimes I didn't even know where she was or a phone number or anything. But anyways, okay. So Mandy, yep, married five years. Nope, boom. We got married. Um, Jade went into the program. She got out, she graduated. Um, gosh, you went in the army. Yeah, she went into the army.

SPEAKER_10: 1:51:12

Yeah, I remember going in the army and and I got out of training, and we went to your house, and that's where we had a big party. There was a big party at your house. My house, yes, in the backyard. Yeah, it was so cool. I was in my army get up, and there was a bunch of family and friends there.

SPEAKER_11: 1:51:26

Yep, yeah.

unknown: 1:51:27

I don't remember that.

SPEAKER_08: 1:51:30

I must have been you come? I must have been I don't know. I think you were there. I might have been there.

SPEAKER_10: 1:51:38

Maybe you dropped me off. I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:51:41

Yeah. Um, yeah, that was that was that was very cool. South Carolina watching you guys, watching you drill. I remember watching you work out every day, getting ready for rocking, getting ready. Getting ready, bam, bam, bam.

SPEAKER_10: 1:51:55

Man, you know, I was the number one soldier in AIT. Oh, I was the number one soldier, dad. I lost it because of formation, graduation weekend. I went off to formation with earrings in my ears. I walked by 350 of my classmates, and nobody said, dude, take those earrings out of your ears.

SPEAKER_05: 1:52:12

They probably were happy you were gonna get caught.

SPEAKER_10: 1:52:16

Everybody just looking out for themselves, man.

SPEAKER_08: 1:52:19

Welcome to the world.

SPEAKER_05: 1:52:20

Yeah, I remember him going to your house and happened to run every morning or run to the recruiter's office. Yep. You know what I mean? Yeah, every morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was pretty proud of him. I'm like, you're doing it, dude. Yeah, he is. Plus, yeah, the message we just came out of. Oh my god, I was like, How are you doing this, dude? And he's staying clean.

SPEAKER_09: 1:52:38

Yeah, bro. Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 1:52:40

That was that was a horrible part on our side of the day.

SPEAKER_10: 1:52:42

In their lives, it was crazy. I just was just like, I gotta get the heck away out of here. That's why I came to you. But then you're like, you gotta do something. You got military.

SPEAKER_05: 1:52:54

Me and him were full on into our addiction right before that. Oh, it was bad. Yeah, it was not good. It was it sent Andrea into a whole nother part of her addiction. Yeah, just it got way out of control.

SPEAKER_08: 1:53:09

Just out of curiosity, who was the who would pull, who would be the worst uh like the worsted addict, but who pulled you pulled her? Did she try more often to clean up, or did you try more often and she pulled it back?

SPEAKER_05: 1:53:29

So for us, for us when in this particular moment, uh, she was good. She was just smoking weed. Me and him were doing cocaine. But it turned into and she didn't like doing cocaine. Yeah, she never really enjoyed it. But I can I very much remember one night she left and didn't come home till wee hours of the morning and started doing dishes. And I remember laughing and looking at Ryan, and I'm like, dude, your mom's like on a good one, bro. Yeah, she's in there doing the dishes. And we at the time we didn't realize, but she had gone out and got some masks while we were doing cocaine because she didn't like cocaine. Yeah, so she went and got some, and that was about the time that I'm like, this is out of control, bro. You gotta do something, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_10: 1:54:16

Oh, with me. Yeah, that's what you can't, yeah. Because our the coke and everything, I was like, okay, I gotta leave. And so he left to go to your house.

SPEAKER_08: 1:54:23

You were the bad influence?

SPEAKER_10: 1:54:25

Well, I just always had dope.

SPEAKER_05: 1:54:26

Oh, you had the connection, always had the drugs.

SPEAKER_10: 1:54:28

Oh, yeah, I was the guy. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05: 1:54:30

He was he was still connected to the Mexican moppia and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_10: 1:54:33

Once I went to your house, yeah, he acted like me and started getting dope.

SPEAKER_05: 1:54:37

Yeah, once he left, I had Pablo's number and it was like just one.

SPEAKER_10: 1:54:41

You know what I mean? It was on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 1:54:43

But well, thank you for never bringing that crap to my house.

SPEAKER_10: 1:54:46

Well, I respected your house after, yeah, there I wouldn't do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:54:51

But there was a time it got bad that I tried to leave. I knew things were getting out of control, and I tried to leave. And uh came to a point where cops were gonna get involved. I remember even calling the cops and being like, hey, can I take my kids and leave? And you know what I mean? Not in Arizona. And not in Arizona, because I'm not we weren't married, so I'm not didn't have no paternal rights. And that that literally got me to a point where, like, well, I'm not just leaving my kids, kind of like you. Yep. So can't beat them, join them.

SPEAKER_10: 1:55:21

That's what happened. And then he got into the meth.

SPEAKER_05: 1:55:24

Up on the meth I went. And it was crazy. That's something. Yeah. Oh, and to be honest with you, from that moment, it took me six months before I was on my way back to prison.

SPEAKER_10: 1:55:32

Gone. That quick.

unknown: 1:55:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_05: 1:55:34

That quick. Yeah. Because Goon Cocaine I was good, but the minute I took meth.

SPEAKER_10: 1:55:38

He quit his job so he can make more money robbing copper.

SPEAKER_05: 1:55:41

Yeah. I started stealing and robbing everything. I remember the copper days. I started robbing and stealing everything I could, man.

SPEAKER_08: 1:55:47

I remember you you wrecked your Jeep one time. I had to go into the prison. Anne was in prison. I had to tell her that you had just wrecked it. You were in charge of the kids.

SPEAKER_10: 1:55:59

That's why I was in prison. He was in prison. Yeah. She was in jail. I was in charge of the kids. I had a prostitute and a crack dealer living with us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09: 1:56:09

Oh.

unknown: 1:56:10

Oh.

SPEAKER_09: 1:56:11

Great choice.

SPEAKER_05: 1:56:12

That's what we try to get people to understand is if you could literally sit down and really hear our story. Me, him, his mom, and that whole dynamic of just what it was and where we're at now, it will blow your friggin' mind. It's like only God. Only God. You know what I mean? Only God. Amen. Because people don't understand we were doing drugs with our son. We were getting high with our kid. And I mean he was an adult at the time, but still we were, it was this dynamic of a family dysfunction of addicts that would yeah, it was crazy, bro.

SPEAKER_08: 1:56:46

It's crazy. It was crazy. Yeah, it's evil, demonic.

SPEAKER_05: 1:56:49

Yeah. And to be honest with you, I'm thankful, Bob, that I did not destroy your kids. Because the life that I lived at that time and for the longest time was it.

SPEAKER_10: 1:57:03

Yeah. Yeah. And nowadays nowadays we an O D. Looking back, I really questioned I look back, I really questioned, what the hell were you doing sending them to us?

SPEAKER_05: 1:57:14

Looking back now at the time, I'm like, why would you do that? I mean, at the time I understand, but looking back, I'm like, that was a bad decision.

SPEAKER_08: 1:57:21

I didn't know what that was. Yeah, see if I would have known that bad. Yeah. But then I didn't.

SPEAKER_10: 1:57:26

But it wasn't that bad when you were sending me at first. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_05: 1:57:29

It was just the weed and the little because we were clean, Cade was on his way. It was working, you know what I mean? Almost pregnant. Yeah. You put Andrew and me together in a bad situation, and it's all bad, but not anymore. And it's really not anymore. But it's really a blessing of God that we're still together after what we've been through. For real. Yeah. You guys got a great national wild.

SPEAKER_08: 1:57:50

How many years? God, 26, 27. God bless you. God bless you.

SPEAKER_05: 1:57:56

Yeah, 20, 28 years.

SPEAKER_10: 1:57:58

96, you guys became pen pals, though.

SPEAKER_05: 1:58:01

That's pretty much when the relationship started. Yeah, 96. 96. So we're 2024 coming up. October will be 28 years that we started. Man. And wow. Yeah. You rest its history. Yeah. Amen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:58:15

God, what a future you got.

SPEAKER_11: 1:58:16

The devil used so many different points. 28 years. Oh my god. Wow. Yeah. Holy crap.

SPEAKER_10: 1:58:25

Yeah, wait till you hear mom's testimony. Yeah. I would love to. I know. I it's so hard to get her to talk.

SPEAKER_05: 1:58:30

And I just want you to know that before we started, I texted her, I said, I'm a little nervous about getting Bob's testimony. And she straight up, she said, it's going to be interesting, but they've both come so far. Amen. So just so you know, she's really she acknowledges the the how you guys have changed and how much you both have grown. You know what I mean? I want you to know that. Yeah. That she's not over there. She's not Bob bashing you. No. She sees the change and and and realizes that. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_08: 1:58:59

There was only one time that she ever just devastated me, and I couldn't I couldn't even imagine. Oh no. I I could make me say it. You're going to tease us. No. No, you're good. We're not here to make anybody. Speak live. Speak like so. Okay, married. And um Jade and Rowdy and um kind of put them in the boom. They're in the army and they're on their way. You know, and then it whatever. Yeah. It ended however it ended. But we helped them get on their way. And um that's when we knew who foster. Her mom said, 'Cause we I g we can't have kids naturally. She's high risk and I'm I've had two surgery done. So her mom says, Why don't you foster? Boom. And we just that's a great idea. Wow. It's a way to help. It's biblical. Influence. We're here to help make a change. Orphans and widows. Orphans and widows, buddy. Right here, man. Live by that. Live by that. And um, yeah, we got we got three kids. Um, they were they were when we got them, they were uh three, two, and one. No, one, one, there, three, they're three of them one year apart.

SPEAKER_10: 2:00:31

Dylan, Valerie, and Sally. Destiny, uh Levi. Levi, Valerie, and Sally.

SPEAKER_05: 2:00:36

And they were all brothers and sisters, right?

SPEAKER_08: 2:00:38

They're all brothers to sister.

SPEAKER_05: 2:00:39

They're from the same mom, different dads. Three different dads. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:00:44

And um, so Wow.

SPEAKER_10: 2:00:46

So you start fostering and you get three little ones. Bam.

SPEAKER_08: 2:00:49

We are in it to win it. Wow. And we start learning the system. We understand what's happening, we just boom, I'm a dad again. Um, I'm working full-time, doing, doing all that. Um, and it we just start, and then once we got in the groove with them, we just knew this is like we got to get a bigger house. So we and two.

SPEAKER_09: 2:01:12

Oh, you had those three over there? Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:01:14

Oh in 2008, 2009? 2008. The nosedive, yeah, the houses. Boom. Yeah. Got a house up there half off. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm like while you still got the other one. I'm like, yeah, half off. Right. We rented that out for a while. But I'm no, I'm no landlord. I didn't like being a landlord. So we got rid of that one. Um, so yeah, so fostering kids, we have five adopted children. Come on. Um, Levi, Valerie, Sally, Dylan, who just turned 11, and Destiny. Already?

SPEAKER_10: 2:01:51

Yeah, little man's 11, bro. He's almost a teenager.

SPEAKER_08: 2:01:54

Destiny who just turned nine. Yes. And we have a foster baby who is Can I say your name? Yeah, Miley. It just seemed like a couple years ago.

SPEAKER_05: 2:02:06

Destiny was a baby. Oh, yeah. She's nine? She's nine, bro. Wow. Time flies. Time flies. Time flies.

SPEAKER_08: 2:02:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:02:14

So I remember pictures of her in her little helmet. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's nine. She's nine, bro. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:02:22

She's my little heart baby. She had open heart surgery, 21 days in the NICU. Beating tubes and beating. Oh, yeah. Tubes all over the place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 2:02:31

And she's a soldier. She's so happy. Yeah. She just loves people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:02:38

Um, and we got Miley, we number six. And what about these other four?

SPEAKER_10: 2:02:43

You said you fostered 10. Yeah, some of them come and go.

SPEAKER_08: 2:02:48

Oh wow. One of them was a reservation baby. We had for like three months. And if it's a uh if it's got uh Native American in Indian blood, it it gets it gets pulled and taken to the reservation. Someone on the reservation will um raise it. And then the other three we had for a year or two, and then they went back to mom. Okay. Um one of them was Anthony Destiny's brother. I remember Anthony. Yes. Okay. And he went back to grandma. Grandma wanted to raise him, which is fine. Yeah. He was I we didn't, you know, you you just don't get along with all of them. Yeah. And him and uh Garrison was another one that I didn't get along with very well. Just whatever. Yeah, it is what it is. And the Lord said, Okay, no problem. We got another one. Yeah, try this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 2:03:41

We've got we got I got a couple here that when I showed up here, they were I heard that they were fostering uh Brian and Emily. They've fostered over 40. Oh and it was teenagers for years, and then it was then it went into the little ones. It's like, wow, man, we can't do teenagers. It's a lot. And you get them from all walks a lot, and all the hurt and the trauma. Right. It's like they're pre-programmed. Yeah, yeah. They need more healing than anything else. Yeah. That's why it's good to get them young. Get them young, man, so you can implement it.

SPEAKER_06: 2:04:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_05: 2:04:17

I love that church people are doing that. They need to mean because you get these kids who go through a lot, and you get them here in a church, and they get to see love, acceptance, and forgiveness, and they they learn and they get some healing, man. You know what I mean? Because I know a lot of the foster system is not good. Where there's people out there that are some badly abusive people. We've had for the picture.

SPEAKER_10: 2:04:40

Yeah, we've had people that come on here tell us that they were fostering through the state and they've been abused and used. It's just like terrible.

SPEAKER_05: 2:04:55

God sees you.

SPEAKER_08: 2:04:56

They're all MAGA.

SPEAKER_05: 2:04:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 2:05:05

I knew that I was gonna get in here one more than another. Gotta sneak it in.

SPEAKER_08: 2:05:10

Um, yeah. So, and that's that's what we do. It's it's our uh I know we're supposed to. Um, we've talked about having a big home, yeah, and have multiple kids come in. Like a sunshine acres? Sun exactly. Oh my god. And have you know Sandy, have have different people come in, work shifts, live there, whatever. And uh we just we just can't put it together in our head, especially right now. Yeah, the way okay, I won't get political, but if you haven't noticed, the world's upside down. Yeah, it sure is.

SPEAKER_05: 2:05:47

So Jesus. The economy is horrible. Horrible crazy.

SPEAKER_08: 2:05:51

So we you know, we're just believing in God that somebody if comes through with a big house or a big paycheck or a big wallet, yeah, or it wants to leave somebody who's doing this.

SPEAKER_05: 2:06:06

Or the economy tanks again and you can get something to half up. Half off. Come on, because it's coming. It is coming. Oh, yeah. That's coming big time. Yeah, especially if those other two get in there. Oh my god. Oh Jesus, Lord help us. Dude, I saw this thing the other day, and it tricked me out that it was uh the guy that was doing it. I didn't think he was that way. But it literally the cost of living has gone up twelve thousand dollars. Yes, but nobody's gotten a raise. Right. So if you're we're already tight, you're probably not doing very well.

SPEAKER_08: 2:06:38

Everybody's credit cards.

SPEAKER_05: 2:06:39

Yeah, they're using their credit cards.

SPEAKER_10: 2:06:40

Or they've moved in together.

SPEAKER_05: 2:06:42

Right.

SPEAKER_10: 2:06:42

A lot of people move in. Well, the new thing is these next gen homes where mom and dad are in that room over there, and the parents with the kids are over in the big one, and uh grandma and grandpa babysit. Yeah, it's sad.

SPEAKER_08: 2:06:52

Yeah, the American dream. Oh, that's gone. Squashing it. How am I supposed to own a home? You're not. And that's the plan. Yeah, let's go back. Yeah, I could go uh I could go two hours.

SPEAKER_05: 2:07:02

This is not the two-minute America, but the FBI is watching us. You know, speaking of two-minute America, crazy, bro.

SPEAKER_08: 2:07:09

The day Trump got the verdict for uh being uh uh 34 felonies, and and they they they put all 34 felonies on him, I stopped it. Really? If they can indict a sitting pres uh an ex-president with 34 felonies, they'll throw me under the jail. Oh yeah. So I'm done. I've stopped.

SPEAKER_05: 2:07:31

They'll fabricate stuff, bud.

SPEAKER_08: 2:07:32

I've got too much at stake with my kids.

SPEAKER_05: 2:07:35

My my history with the criminal system, I can tell you straight up, the criminal system is crooked. Oh yeah. It's not about facts, right? It's not about truth, it's about who can tell a better believable story with the evidence that is available. Right. That's it. Because nobody because nobody has a hundred percent evidence of anything. Right. All it is is well, these are what we have. I'm gonna tell you a story. This guy's gonna tell you a story. Which story do you believe more of? Right. It's not about these are the facts, these are evidence, you make up your mind. Right. It's I'm gonna put a plot to it with the pieces I have, and you decide if mine's right or pain story.

SPEAKER_08: 2:08:12

Yeah. Okay, let's reel it back in. Sure. I keep going. No, this is what I do. I love you, dude. This is what I do. You know, you know, I'm a precinct committee man and a state delegate for the GOP. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 2:08:26

So I You're actually making moves.

SPEAKER_08: 2:08:28

You're trying to make stuff right what I'm doing right now. Besides raising kids, I am neck deep in it.

SPEAKER_05: 2:08:33

So we have two guys at our church. One actually ran for Congress. Uh Congress. One actually ran for the Arizona House of Representatives for Gilbert. Nice. Yeah. So church people are starting to get involved with it and we need them. 40 million Christians did not vote last time. You know this last Arizona election.

SPEAKER_02: 2:08:52

Just the last one like last week? You're here in just for the Arizona ones? July 30th.

SPEAKER_05: 2:08:56

Yeah, like 60% Christians vote. Christians. Christians, 60% of Christians vote.

unknown: 2:09:03

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_05: 2:09:04

But you're you're the ones that are complaining.

SPEAKER_10: 2:09:06

Complaining about the if we're not voting.

SPEAKER_08: 2:09:10

Right. You know what I mean? Yes. I do know what you mean. But when's the last time you guys said you ask your brother or I do for my brother and sister.

SPEAKER_10: 2:09:19

You guys gotta vote. I mean, we all do. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:09:22

Yeah, we all have to have a voice.

SPEAKER_10: 2:09:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:09:24

Um, okay. So bringing it in, fostering kids. Fostering kids. Fostering kids. I love them. It's what I'm supposed to do.

SPEAKER_10: 2:09:31

When did you start doing that?

SPEAKER_08: 2:09:33

Um as soon as you and like Jade. Who went into the army first? I did, right? You did. Yeah. And then Jade went, yeah, watched her graduate or boot camp, whatever. Yeah, boom. Then we came back to the city.

SPEAKER_05: 2:09:48

Yeah, bro. She went airborne. Yeah. Gangsta. That's cool. She loved to run. She is she is a beast, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I used to love going to her soccer games.

SPEAKER_08: 2:09:58

She wants to be a cop. We should really push that. And she's she's letting I wonder if she'll ever see this. She probably will. So just pray for.

SPEAKER_02: 2:10:08

I'll just say that's bad choice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:10:11

That's exactly freedom in Jesus' name. Jesus. Yeah. Um, and um, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:10:17

So what what what apostrophids? I'm sorry. You were posturing kids. I still am.

SPEAKER_10: 2:10:22

You're raising them over there in the shell. You get the three, 2008, you get the new home. Come over here.

SPEAKER_08: 2:10:28

And the anthem.

SPEAKER_05: 2:10:29

So somewhere, somewhere along the line. Yes. I want you to I want you to talk about uh we haven't really heard uh your Jesus encounter yet. Jesus Encounter. Okay. We know that you're going to Phoenix Community Church, you're working in the youth, somewhere along the line.

SPEAKER_10: 2:10:46

Walk through us a couple of moments of your life where Jesus showed up and showed off.

SPEAKER_05: 2:10:50

Because we talked earlier, yours was more of a process. Yeah, very basically a particular moment.

SPEAKER_08: 2:10:54

In 2015, I had a breakdown. This is what I was getting at.

SPEAKER_05: 2:10:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:10:59

Yep. I had a breakdown and December 15th. December 14th. Um in 2015 I had a breakdown. Um I went and shook a guy's hand who worked with me at uh Cox at church, and it went everything went black. And the next thing I know, I was in the emergency room. And um I thought, and um come to find out I had I had had a breakdown, a mental breakdown. I couldn't leave the house, I couldn't see people.

SPEAKER_10: 2:11:31

I remember that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:11:32

So two and a half years I spent after that uh taking their pills, you know, lithium, prozac, you know, Adderall to wake up, this to go down, oh my god. Oh it was a it was a sheet and a half of what I was taking that they tried on me to to to change whatever. And um I did their therapy and everything, two and a half years, and then for whatever reason, I realized I was a Christian and I've got Jesus. What am I doing with these people and with these drugs?

SPEAKER_03: 2:12:12

Doctors, yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:12:13

So I boom, I got everything, I did everything that um what's that? Rhema, Rhema Bible College. I did everything they had, correspondence.

SPEAKER_10: 2:12:23

Oh, the correspondence classes, I remember you doing those, yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:12:26

From my kitchen table, everything they had, and I was looking for the next one. And boom, Andrew Womack came up in the first Google search, and they had a Karis Bible college, they had a uh hybrid class here, so I did first year from my kitchen table. The first time I was able to m leave my house by myself and go out was the first day of class. I drove across the city to uh gosh, Cooper and I don't even know where I'm at. Cooper and the 202. The South. Yeah. Yep, yep. And that was my first time to get away from Mandy, the kids. Wow.

SPEAKER_10: 2:13:06

And driving all the way over an hour over here, yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:13:09

Yep. And so I finished second year, and then third year, you have to go there. Woodland Park, Colorado.

SPEAKER_10: 2:13:17

Well that was hard for Mandy.

SPEAKER_08: 2:13:19

He uh well, that was my first. I did a mission trip for Keras second year. First plane trip I took was to North Carolina by myself with uh and this is all God just getting me ready. Yeah, just and then third year Woodland Park, Colorado, uh in the mountains to do nine months to do third year constitutional studies. Come on, and that's where the GOP, that's where the mega, yeah, America. America. I'm bleed red, white, and blue. Yeah, that's just that that's the hill I will die on. Okay. And I did we did it. You know, she came over, visited me three or four times. I came home for the holidays, yeah. Um and we got through it. Yeah, and I came home and I could now I'm now I'm traveling, taking kids to therapy, I'm gonna talk to people. I'm just I'm better.

SPEAKER_05: 2:14:11

And no medication.

SPEAKER_08: 2:14:12

No medication. Wow, yeah, no, wow, bro. Yes, yes, and they they disabled me, Cox disabled me for I thought it was gonna be a psych because of the way I was. And they Social Security, I did all the things, and they says, No, you're not a psych. So I went to the pain doctor after five four surgeries, two in this and my lower back. He says, Yeah, oh yeah, you you shouldn't be working or doing anything. Boom. So so they physically disabled me. Wow, and that's where I am now. Thank you, God. So they cut me a check every month.

SPEAKER_05: 2:14:46

So literally getting into God's word, the correspondence.

SPEAKER_08: 2:14:50

Took me out of it all. Wow, bro. That's where I got deep with Jesus and haven't looked back. Wow. Now I will tell you, I'm not the kind of guy that will walk into a grocery store and say, Do you know Jesus? Okay, I'm not that guy. I I'm I'm working MAGA. I'm working these people who I go to meetings, G O P 200 people in the room sitting there meeting some guy.

SPEAKER_05: 2:15:15

Maybe the Ukraine at the Kerry Lake rally, man. Bingo.

SPEAKER_08: 2:15:18

Yeah, bingo, all those people.

SPEAKER_05: 2:15:20

That's what I just say for him. That was a very proud moment for him.

SPEAKER_08: 2:15:23

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_09: 2:15:24

That was cool. Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 2:15:25

That was cool.

SPEAKER_10: 2:15:26

He was like, dude, we're making moves, bro. Making moves. Dude, look at my dad, bro. Is that the rally brand?

SPEAKER_08: 2:15:33

Yeah. Yeah. I went, I did all the meetings. Come on, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:15:38

And um, man, we all have a different calling. Exactly. Just because yours doesn't look like his. Mine definitely don't look like his. Right. You know what I mean? Right. We all have one. Just walk in your lane. I don't need it. I don't need a flock. I behalf of a flock. You got a family. Yes.

SPEAKER_08: 2:15:56

So I I don't need a church. I don't need the the headaches and the the how many people came this way. You gotta be crazy to want to be in ministry, dude.

SPEAKER_10: 2:16:05

You seriously gotta be little screws loose. So, and that's it.

SPEAKER_08: 2:16:09

Or you can tag these people. There, there are, believe it or not, Christians who are, you know, conservative that aren't Christians, which blows me away. And there's actually Christians who are voting Harris. Yeah. Yikes. What is wrong with these people? They don't know.

SPEAKER_05: 2:16:28

Well they don't we have to understand that that's just not just because they label themselves Christian doesn't make Christian Christ followers. Right. That's different. And a lot of people take that just because I said the prayer. Yeah. I'm a Christian.

SPEAKER_08: 2:16:50

Yeah. There's a poll. 70% of America says they're Christian. Yeah. Give me a prayer. 70%?

SPEAKER_05: 2:16:56

70% say they're Christian. I've had to apologize to people for people who claim to be Christian. And I've had to apologize to people and be like, hey, I'm sorry that person who claimed to represent my God talked to you like that and said those things to you because my God does not think that way about you. My God loves you. Yeah. And um yeah, I'll die on that hill. Yeah. You know what I mean? Amen. If you're using the name of God and you're bashing somebody, you are not using the name of my God. Right. Because God loves people. What God you're claiming God loves people. God does love people. You may be using the title that I'm using, but you are definitely not talking about the same God I'm talking about. Right.

SPEAKER_08: 2:17:35

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05: 2:17:36

My God says to love your enemies, praise for those who persecute you. Right. It says to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Not the person who thinks like you, not the person who votes like you, not the person who has the same sexual preference as you, not the same person who whatever. Okay. It means your neighbor. Right. Everybody. And the enemy. It means the gay guy next to you. Yep. It means the Middle Eastern dude next to you that barely speaks English.

SPEAKER_10: 2:18:00

Dude sticking the needle out front of the circle case on. Yeah. All of them. We gotta love these people.

SPEAKER_05: 2:18:07

Well, amen. I found my message recently. So that my message is to the world, and it's that right there, dude. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_08: 2:18:13

The love of God. Love of God. Love of God. Amen. Yeah. Amen.

SPEAKER_10: 2:18:17

So 2015 correspondence. Uh, you do what, three years of that? Three years, four years. Because you did all of Rhema, and then you went into three years of Keris. Keris.

SPEAKER_08: 2:18:28

Graduated from Keris. I'm I'm official. Done with Keris. I volunteer every like the school years getting ready. My first day again is you go down on Saturdays again and go down there. It's great. It's great. I gotta you gotta give back. You gotta give back.

SPEAKER_10: 2:18:43

You're not sir. I tell everybody in recovery, man. Step 12, principle eight. Uh I'm an example both by my words and my example.

SPEAKER_08: 2:18:51

Amen. Yep. Amen. So it it helps you as much as it helps them. And when a guy who's been to third year and has been there and been on the mountain in these little first years, who are all excited, like you went and all that kind of stuff to be able to give your testimony and how much you gotta go and you're you know, and supporting Andrew, of course. And um yeah, it's just good stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 2:19:17

I got a few of his books. He's good.

SPEAKER_08: 2:19:21

Yeah, he is down home, man. I'm sitting there before school, the doors to the college open at 6 30. Bam, I'm there as soon as you can hear him, the timer unlocked. Bam, I'm in there reading my Bible on the couch and everything. Well, how are you doing this morning? I'm like, Andrew, what is up? Like, Brenda, how are you?

SPEAKER_09: 2:19:41

He's just walking through, shaking hands, talking to people, just a person. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:19:48

What about him getting his bachelor's in theology? Unbelievable. Crazy, huh?

SPEAKER_08: 2:19:53

Crazy good. It is. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_05: 2:19:56

Yeah, it is crazy.

SPEAKER_08: 2:19:57

Yeah, that's a lot of work for.

SPEAKER_11: 2:20:00

It's a lot of work. Every week.

SPEAKER_08: 2:20:03

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11: 2:20:04

It was a lot of problems.

SPEAKER_08: 2:20:05

What what are you going to turn it into? What's God going to turn it into?

SPEAKER_11: 2:20:09

Oh Pastor Rowdy?

SPEAKER_10: 2:20:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:20:11

Pastor Rowdy.

SPEAKER_10: 2:20:13

That's in the recovery ministry, man. Recovery, that's right. Recovery. I had to go through those steps and I had to get that piece of paper because for some reason, specifically in ministry, unless you have that paper, some doors just will not open for you. Isn't that something? It's so weird.

SPEAKER_05: 2:20:35

But when you have that paper and you're approved, the doors open. Even in ministry. I used to think it was weird, but you know what it shows? It shows commitment. Yeah. It shows dedication. Yeah. It shows hard work. Yeah. It shows someone who's willing to put in the work because ministry takes work. Sure does. A lot of it. I don't know why people think that these pastors are just on vacation all the time. It puts in work. You know what I mean? And so when you go through four, that's four years that you've said, hey, I'm dedicating myself to these four years. I'm going to put in the work. I'm going to do the test. I'm going to do all this stuff. You're showing commitment. You're showing dedication. You're showing hard work. I can see why that people say, look at that and be like, that's an accomplished man.

SPEAKER_08: 2:21:14

Yeah. Yeah. What do you do? Are you pastoring?

SPEAKER_05: 2:21:17

He's got two classes, man. He's getting away from my bachelor's. First one in his family with one. Right. There you go. I'm not a pastor, but I definitely probably's scared of it.

SPEAKER_10: 2:21:31

I don't like boasting about myself. He's a man of influence.

SPEAKER_05: 2:21:33

So don't take it like I'm boasting about myself. But I am I am a man that is has influence among men. Yes. Bingo. And I bingo. Does that scare me? Of course it does. I'm I'm a man. I'm gonna eventually I'm gonna let you down. You know what I mean? But it's just, I don't know. I God, I'm I'm all in. Whatever God has, I don't really care. You know what I mean? Uh do what you're gonna do. Yeah. Yeah. It's already started. I do so we had this, we had this, we had this pastor, right? Uh Pastor Chris. I love you, Pastor Chris. Peterson or Bob? Peterson. Okay. But he literally, I think he told Rowdy, sound Rowdy about this, but he had a dream or something. And he said, I see, I see you get to heaven, and God has a scroll. And he opens a scroll. And it's just a list of all these yeses that you said yes to in ministry. Yes, God will do that. Yes, God I'll do that. Yes, God I'll do that. Yes, God'll do that, yes, God I'll do that. And that forever changed me. Because you have to have boundaries. You can't just be a yes man and work yourself to death. But when opportunities approach themselves and you prayfully consider and say, hey God, is this a yes moment for me? And you give that yes, it leads to another yes, and it leads to another. And eventually you'll find yourself in a position where you may not be comfortable in, but God definitely found you faithful to be there. And so if my yeses keep leading to something that I'm not comfortable with, praise God. I'll fulfill that role to the greatest of my ability. Yeah. With God as my leader. You know what I mean? Yes. Um is it coming? Possibly. Yeah. I don't know. You know what I mean? You're still around for a reason. Come on, man.

SPEAKER_08: 2:23:12

Everything you've been through.

SPEAKER_05: 2:23:13

So my hardest class in Bible college was uh preparing the messages.

unknown: 2:23:18

I got a P.

SPEAKER_08: 2:23:20

I got a P2. How do we do that with this thing running?

SPEAKER_10: 2:23:28

Normally I can get up and go, but I got people watching.

SPEAKER_05: 2:23:33

Hermaletics. Hermalics was a process of outlining a script or a sermon. Sure. Took me three months,$400 and something dollars to pass this class. Extensions. Because I kept getting extension, extensions, extension, because I just I couldn't wrap my I couldn't get my mind in a box. And so it took me forever. And I was telling a pastor, I'm like, I understand why you guys need this because you guys preach on Sunday, but I don't ever see myself preaching on a Sunday. She said, Don't count yourself out. Right. You never know what God's gonna do.

SPEAKER_00: 2:24:04

And I was like, I appreciate that, but anybody in their right mind is never gonna let me preach on a Sunday. If they did, I question their sanity.

SPEAKER_08: 2:24:14

Even if it's to fill in. Even if it's to fill in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:24:17

I mean my time may come when I'm older and more mature. I'm still not a mature individual.

SPEAKER_08: 2:24:23

You'll be ready when God says you're ready. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:24:26

But me and I love jail ministry. And in there, I don't need an outline. I'm just going there like God be God. I'm I like to be Holy Spirit led. God, here I am. I'm showing up. You show up because I'm just going. You know what I mean? And if you don't show up, then they're just getting me and they don't want me. You know what I mean? And I love that aspect of jail ministry is you can just show up and God shows up. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_08: 2:24:47

Well, and you can speak to it. Yeah. I mean, you know.

SPEAKER_05: 2:24:50

Why the 20, 25 years of drug addiction? Why the 11 years in prison? You you allowed these things to happen in my life for a reason. You allowed everything to happen for a reason. And he says, You're going back into the jails. And I'm like, no, I'm not. He's like, Yeah, you are. Oh wow. Because you can be relatable that they can relate to. And so when I went back in, it worked that way. Them dudes, it was crazy. Me and Roddy literally had 30 inmates face down on the ground. God, there would be some times where everybody humbling themselves before God. Whoa. Because God told us to go in there and show these men what it looks like to humble yourself before God. And me and Roddy, before these 30 inmates, got on our face on the ground. And just thank you, Lord. Praise you, God. And in the middle of that, God told me, get up. So I got up, told Roddy, get up. Every man in that room was face down on the ground, and we just went around and laid hands on him and praying for him.

SPEAKER_01: 2:25:43

That's what I that's me.

SPEAKER_05: 2:25:46

You know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:25:47

Everybody. Different recovery. Yeah. We've all got something, man.

SPEAKER_10: 2:25:51

God's calling you to do something.

SPEAKER_05: 2:25:53

Boster kids. Pause that. Pause that.

SPEAKER_10: 2:25:56

No, if you need to use the restroom, go ahead. Really? Oh, yeah, you're good. Yeah, right here. We'll fill in. Right there.

SPEAKER_11: 2:26:01

Yeah, you're totally good. Okay. Yeah. You'll just edit the sound. Jesus! They understand.

SPEAKER_10: 2:26:06

This is real, man. We're two and a half hours in this man of the mask gotta go to the bathroom. Right in there over there. Totally good. Uh that's good, bro. This has been crazy, man. It's been good. This has been really good.

SPEAKER_05: 2:26:19

It's been really good, man.

SPEAKER_10: 2:26:21

I I I feel uh wow. I don't know why I was so nervous. I don't know why I was such a mess today, man. You know why? Because I didn't know. I think I didn't know how it was gonna go. I didn't know what was gonna be shared. I think, but for me, man, this is encouraging.

SPEAKER_05: 2:26:40

You know what the best thing is, bro? Is that I see now that we're all older, we're all wiser, we're all kind of moved beyond the things that we've been through as a dynamic, the three of us and the you know, the family situation. Yeah, the trauma and stuff. And we've kind of all kind of moved past that a little bit and we're all come out the other side, yeah, you know, in love with God, in love with our families, you know, just want to serve the Lord. And for me, that's been the best thing that I've got out of this. Is that He turned out okay, you turned out okay, I turned out okay, our kids are okay, you know what I mean? So that's been the best thing for me, brothers, to know that at the end of all this, we're all okay.

SPEAKER_10: 2:27:18

You just can't give up.

SPEAKER_05: 2:27:19

No, man.

SPEAKER_10: 2:27:20

You just can't quit.

SPEAKER_05: 2:27:21

You gotta keep keep going. And if I'm being honest, I don't understand why I did not talk to your dad for the longest time. Now that I'm talking to him, I'm like, dang, dude. Yeah, probably missed out on some good conversations. Really good, man. Yeah, I'm gonna make sure I tell him that when he comes back. But yeah, it's been really good, brother. I'm excited, man.

SPEAKER_10: 2:27:41

That's I'm excited for what's ahead.

SPEAKER_05: 2:27:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really good stuff. And I love that him and Mandy had found their lane and their ministry in the world, brother. Those kids need good people like that, dude.

SPEAKER_10: 2:27:52

And they're they're winners, man. Levi is literally an aviation, the number one student in Arizona going over to Chicago to train and work on airplanes. Come on. Valerie's like has her own business, printing and vinyl and shirts, and doing all that cricket stuff, bro. Sally's like in the animals and gonna go to do a veterinarian and stuff. I'm like, so they've all loved Jesus, they all go on mission trips, they all have this thing in life that they're gonna be doing. So it's like, man, they really have brought these kids in and given them to God and uh modeled and exampled what it is to live a life with Jesus. And now these kids are getting ready to go and take the world for Jesus. Come on. They just got back from a mission trip. Yeah, we're we were just talking about how uh you taking these kids in has changed their life. They're they're literally have opportunities and are going places that they never would have gone if they didn't come to you. I mean, the the aviation and Levi and then Valerie and her creativity and the clothes and making all the stuff and Sally with the animals. I'm like, man.

SPEAKER_02: 2:29:01

I make clothes. I make clothes. Yeah, you do clothes. I know a guy.

SPEAKER_10: 2:29:05

I know a guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:29:08

We were talking like we were talking about your gone, brother. Yeah, and uh I owe you an apology, dude. Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_10: 2:29:14

Well, if he gets to go, I get to go.

SPEAKER_05: 2:29:15

Go ahead. Because I I let some things in our past kind of keep me from you. And I'm sorry for that, man. I'm so glad that we got to sit down and have this conversation. Because what I got out of this conversation is that through everything that we've been through uh as the dynamic of this family, yeah, uh, because I still consider this the dynamic of the family, sure, is that you're okay, he's okay, I'm okay. Right. Through everything that we've been through, we all got to this point where we're all good. Yes, you know what I mean? We're all loving Jesus, we're all serving the Lord, doing the best we can with our families, you know what I mean? Nothing was perfect. No, by far, man, by far. But we're good, but we're good today. You know what I mean? And I was telling him, I'm like, I can't believe I didn't I distance myself from your dad. I probably missed out on some good conversations. Some good, you know, hailing moments of conversations just because I was bitter and and angry or whatever I was, you know what I mean? Right. And so I just I apologize for that.

SPEAKER_08: 2:30:16

Well, it's a weird situation, you have to admit. I mean, it's not like when you're married to a woman and now she's your wife, I I I'm not gonna spend a lot of time with you. You know? Not not that I'm gonna be.

SPEAKER_05: 2:30:33

But I think in my mind, for the kids' sake, we would have. You know what I mean? That's why I keep thinking that at least that's how I came into this dynamic, was thinking we're all here for the kids, we're gonna be in each other's lives, you know what I mean? Right. But I just think I just who I am now in Christ. I see that I was foolish in the things that I did and distancing myself from you because I didn't agree with the things you did or whatever. That was just stupid. Yeah, it was childish and immature of me, and I apologize for that. Right. Because this probably could happen a lot sooner. Sure. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? In God's perfect timing.

SPEAKER_08: 2:31:09

And I'm sure I'm sure the kids, I mean, you you got the kids' point of view, yeah. And which I'm sure they I'm sure. It wasn't always the best stuff. No, of course not. And then you got Ann's point of view, which was not all the best stuff, and I'm just just trying to just keep it, keep the boat moving in a direction for crying out loud. And I was never perfect, it was just a bunch of unperfect people trying to figure out life. And uh yeah, I don't hold anything, I don't hold anything anymore with Ann. I'm happy she's happy. Yeah, and I'm happy you you got the kids and she's got you, and you guys are finding Christ. Oh, it's just uh everything turned out.

SPEAKER_05: 2:31:59

It did.

SPEAKER_08: 2:32:00

It took a long time to get there.

SPEAKER_05: 2:32:01

And that's what I took, that's what I told him when you were gone. I was like, this is what I'm taking away from this, is that we're all okay.

SPEAKER_10: 2:32:05

We're all okay. We all made it out the other side, man.

SPEAKER_05: 2:32:09

That's it. And I think for him, yeah, I told him the reason he was so nervous this morning was the unexpected unknown of what was going to take place. Yeah. That can create anxiety and that's for the bot. Yeah, you're up at 2 a.m. and you can go back to sleep. But now that we've had this conversation, it's like, wow, man, this was actually really good. Really good conversation. Encouraging. You know what I mean? Healing.

SPEAKER_08: 2:32:30

Um did I cover all your categories? Oh, we have one left. Except the last one.

SPEAKER_05: 2:32:35

We have one left. You're still young, man. Yes. You still got a lot of life. Yeah. What are you hoping for? What do you believe in God for? We know that you're you're involved in in the politics aspects. Do you do you see a potential run for office, maybe? Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_08: 2:32:53

Too dirty, too ugly politics is horrible. Yeah. But I don't wish.

SPEAKER_10: 2:32:58

You are too ugly and too dirty in politics. Yes. What do you mean? Yes.

SPEAKER_05: 2:33:05

He doesn't have the face for politics.

SPEAKER_00: 2:33:11

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05: 2:33:12

But uh, you know, what what do you what are you hoping for? What do you believe in God for? We want God for a couple areas. You want one for yourself personally, okay, and two for your family. Family.

SPEAKER_10: 2:33:22

And ministry. And and ministry. Yeah. Ministry. What do you believe in God to do? Well, I we've heard a little about the the home. Yeah. That's coming. That would be awesome.

SPEAKER_08: 2:33:30

That's that would be really our huge. I mean, I I just turned 61. Yeah. So it's not like I've got a lot of time left to another 25 years. 25 years. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I don't want to be anybody's burden, that's for sure. So yeah, I would that would be the the ultimate goal to like, you know, how people legacy. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Like Jordan left his legacy. Can't touch it. Can't touch it. I would love to have something that unless you're a millennial, then they don't understand.

SPEAKER_05: 2:34:01

Oh my god. Millennium. LeBron James. LeBron. LeBron James. Stop.

SPEAKER_10: 2:34:09

Now we're going into sports. Let's go.

SPEAKER_03: 2:34:12

I can do this for hours.

SPEAKER_08: 2:34:14

Yeah, yeah, you could. Yeah, you could. But no, LeBron James isn't. He might be top five. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:34:21

You have to give him just his MJ Kobe. For his era, he's he's he's the top guy. He's big time. Yeah. He's big time. Yeah. Um overall, he might be third or fourth.

SPEAKER_08: 2:34:32

Third or fourth. Yeah. I agree. I agree.

SPEAKER_10: 2:34:34

Um yourself, family, ministry.

SPEAKER_08: 2:34:38

Yeah, myself. Um just continue with the kids. Uh huge. I don't see any big, huge uh I'm not gonna be a preacher. I'm not gonna have a church. You're not gonna write a book. I could write a book. I know.

SPEAKER_10: 2:34:52

I know you told me I've been thinking about that since we were literally when we were I saw you in your room and I saw that bookshelf. Yeah, and I saw all those books.

SPEAKER_08: 2:35:01

Yeah, Mandy says she could really turn take what I write too and turn it into a good book. She says, Why not?

SPEAKER_09: 2:35:09

Do you know what? Why not? You've got time stories.

SPEAKER_10: 2:35:12

Yeah. Who would want people want to read that stuff?

SPEAKER_09: 2:35:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10: 2:35:16

Yeah. There's people out there that are want to hear it.

SPEAKER_08: 2:35:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:35:20

Talk about a legacy. Come on. What better way than to have a book? Multiple books. That's that lasts forever, buddy. Come on.

SPEAKER_08: 2:35:27

Most of mine have most of mine are are lurid.

SPEAKER_03: 2:35:35

He was a bad boy.

SPEAKER_00: 2:35:37

Is that a good touch of God? Touch of God. Kill him God. Kill him God. Hey, we all had our Yeah, we sure did.

SPEAKER_02: 2:35:46

We all had our damn balls. Oh, thank you, Jesus.

SPEAKER_08: 2:35:49

No, I no. That's good. That's good. I will take that under. We've talked about it, me and me. I just need to start and scratch it out and spend 30 minutes a day.

SPEAKER_10: 2:36:01

Outlining it. What you doing, God? Well, nowadays it's not even this. Hit record on your phone. Talk.

SPEAKER_11: 2:36:07

Talk. Talk to tech.

SPEAKER_07: 2:36:09

Don't even know what yeah. You got teenager kids, they can help you with that.

SPEAKER_08: 2:36:16

Yeah, Dylan. Yeah. Amen. He's better at the phone than I am. Yeah. Good grief. Um, yep, the home. That would be just unbelievable to be able to just help. Do you have a name for it? Uh, we had the carefree home of hope.

SPEAKER_10: 2:36:31

Care? Wow. Wow. Yeah. I'm literally going to preach at the home of hope in the Casa Grand on August 28th.

SPEAKER_08: 2:36:38

Nice. Wow. Nice. I mean, that's what we that's what we love it.

SPEAKER_10: 2:36:42

Carefree Home of Hope. Right there off the Carefree Highway. I like it.

SPEAKER_08: 2:36:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:36:47

Got a ring.

SPEAKER_10: 2:36:47

You've got to have a name. There's got to be a name on it.

SPEAKER_05: 2:36:50

Right.

SPEAKER_10: 2:36:50

You know what I mean? You've got to be able to see it because if you can't see it, it ain't never gonna be anymore. Once you can see it, you start working your way to it.

SPEAKER_08: 2:36:58

To it. That's it. That's it. Sound like Tony Robbins over there.

SPEAKER_10: 2:37:03

I'm going all around the world, Dad. Yeah. Jesus!

SPEAKER_08: 2:37:10

And uh yeah, just just healthy. Okay. Stay healthy. Stay, I've I've like you were talking about watch what you eat, you know. Um, I think right now it it's more important ever that we get healthy and get in shape because of what's coming. Yes. We we have we need to survive what's coming. There may be a fight at our door.

SPEAKER_10: 2:37:33

Yeah, there may be a fight at our door. That's coming at our door. Yep.

SPEAKER_05: 2:37:35

It's already here. Maybe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 2:37:38

Lock and load.

SPEAKER_05: 2:37:38

You're already here. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you think the 15 million? 15 million illegal aliens were there. Yeah. You think those people are here for work?

SPEAKER_08: 2:37:48

Yeah, I thought we weren't going to talk about this. You want it? You want to go, I'll go.

SPEAKER_10: 2:37:52

All those people in the pictures that were crossing from Mexico were all 18 to 35 men. Military age, buddy.

SPEAKER_05: 2:37:58

Military. Military age. There was a hotel in New York that had that's taken all these immigrants in, and one of the guys that worked there said there was a crate dropped off that he was told not to look in it. He opened it up. You know what was in there? Guns. Assault rifles, grenades, things like that. Why are you dropping off weapons at a hotel that are holding migrants? Yeah. It's crazy. For the war, for the attack. Just like they did with the uh the riots. They were dropping pallets of bricks off.

unknown: 2:38:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_10: 2:38:24

So everybody could throw them.

SPEAKER_05: 2:38:25

Remember those bricks? Yeah, what are you? Remember where'd those come from?

SPEAKER_08: 2:38:27

We're not stupid people. We know what you're doing. You know what I mean? Okay. You, me, and you aren't stupid. Yeah. But okay, how about the other half of America who's going to vote for Harris? Ostriches. Those people, huh?

SPEAKER_11: 2:38:40

Ostriches.

SPEAKER_05: 2:38:41

Their head's in the sand.

SPEAKER_10: 2:38:43

Yeah. They're just going about their life.

SPEAKER_05: 2:38:45

Oh. See, the real the reality of it is if if you admit what you see and you say what you see, it becomes reality and you have to do something about it. Amen. If you just put your head in the sand and you act like it's not happening, then when it happens, you go, Oh, I didn't know it happened.

SPEAKER_08: 2:39:03

Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 2:39:04

But when you say that it is, now you're responsible to do something about it. And nobody wants to be that responsible.

SPEAKER_08: 2:39:10

I'm going to be that responsible. So am I? I'm doing everything I can. I know all my neighbors. Yeah. That's good. I know the other thing. Really good. I know the neighbors that are voting the other way. I mean, this has never been a more important vote. Yeah. Yeah. That's coming up.

SPEAKER_05: 2:39:26

If you've seen the other ticket, man, that's they're nuts. They're nuts. They're nuts.

SPEAKER_08: 2:39:30

You know what they've done? They so they gave us Biden real quick and then we'll move on. They gave us Biden, three and a half years, stumbling, bumbling Biden, just to put us on, what is this idiot doing?

SPEAKER_05: 2:39:39

He was just the face of Obama.

SPEAKER_08: 2:39:41

Bingo, bingo. And then they moved in Kamala, the the communist and Waltz. He actually he actually loves it. So pre-planned.

SPEAKER_05: 2:39:56

They said today this is the most socialist ticket. that the Democratic Party has ever put up. Never put up. Yep. Like these are not just like Democrats. These are like far wing left extremists that are they hate America.

SPEAKER_08: 2:40:12

They hate America.

SPEAKER_05: 2:40:13

Yeah. Yeah. And it's not that they hate America. They just okay. We're going to get political for a minute, so let us say we gotta give a warning. Trigger warning. If you remember in like the early 80s they came out with a book called The New World Order. Yep. That book detailed their plan. Yeah. And that plan was not going to happen overnight. It was going to take 30 years to do. Right. We're there, people.

SPEAKER_08: 2:40:42

It started in the 20s. We're there. It started in the 20s, yes. Through the school system.

SPEAKER_05: 2:40:46

If you look at what they're doing with the with immigrants, these people are getting thousands and thousands of dollars. DBT is crazy. In that book it stated one, they had to tear down the family dynamic. Yep. No longer husband, wife, kids. Nope. They were going to push homosexuality, all that other stuff. Although we're there. We're there. LG another part was is that the soul the the the echo the uh socioeconomic no the uh the financial welfare system had to crash. Yep. Okay. Okay. As much money as they're giving these immigrants we're running out of money. Yep. Yep. The welfare system is going to crash. And when all these things be I forget what the other ones were uh the the way the education system they had to attack the education system look where we're at now with the core and all this other stuff you know what I mean uh the food system because now you can't China owns most of our farmland now seeds everything that we get comes from everything we get comes from out of out of out of country okay so when all this takes place and all this gets to a point you know what happens the government has to step in and say hey we have to take over we have to help them I got to come in and help them and provide we're going to be the saviors the saviors we're going to be the saviors all you have to do you guys just need to depend on us and give away your rights give away your rights because stay at home yeah walk down martial law we'll pick it scary out here we'll give provide your food for you we're going to provide health care for you but we're going to decide what healthcare you get because you need to die because you're getting old we don't want you no more you know what I mean so yeah it's it's there we are there we're there I mean are we going to fight for it we're going to fight for gotta hope so people are we gonna fight for it we have got to Red Dawn you have to vote the chair is against the wall yeah I saw that one we're we're there man if people can't see that then they're they're stupid I mean don't call people stupid dad first of all I'm not a pastor I'm not a gun and if you're being stupid I call a spade a spade bud amen hey let's get this figured out too this has been a long time coming father father yeah okay yeah good yeah because sometimes it gets a little yeah it gets a little crazy yeah from the beginning I've always told him you only got one father yeah that's you yeah okay because he's like what do I call you what I call you I'm like no you only got one father for a while it was Pops yeah pops for a few it was pops for a while because that's what I called my stepdad yeah and I thought it sounded cool so I'm like calling pops man I'll take father but I'm not that father yeah I have a heavenly father and I have an earthly father just so you know I never tried to take your your father no never I made it very clear I'm not your father that's your father yeah I'll be your pops I'll be your whatever but yeah it's all good yeah let's pray man are we done no I want to hear about oh oh I'm sorry did he do ministry he did himself a little bit of a book he did the family the homes the home oh yeah the homes okay this one's on you buddy you pray for him this is your oh jesh your bloodline dog bloodline yeah let's see your hand finishing this up god I thank you so much Lord thank you God thank you for this opportunity Jesus thank you for what you did today God thank you Lord Lord I praise you for what you're gonna do God I thank you for getting us through because it's only you Lord I bless your son Robert thank you Lord Lord I bless his life I bless his hands God I pray that you move through him with clarity I pray you speak to him God in such a way that he knows that he knows that he knows that it's you give him the outline Lord I see these books use your son God let this be a way for financing the kingdom for financing the ministry thank you for a bestseller God Lord I thank you that this is actually an obedience that's gonna lead to your dreams oh God I thank you that you put the dreams in his heart so I thank you for Mandy thank you for her helping thank you for her serving thank you for her loving thank you for the kids God and how they're gonna go into the world and change the world for your glory God I just bless my father and I thank you for his example thank you Lord that even when he didn't know what he was doing God he was faithful to what you were asking him to do thank you for the discipline that I saw God thank you for the discipline that I got I just thank you Lord I pray that this testimony touches your people I pray God that other people who are going to listen to this will have these same conversations with their parents with their dads with their moms.

SPEAKER_08: 2:46:00

Thank you Lord man I can feel right now you're listening to this God wants you to make amends thank you Lord God wants you healed and whole only it's gonna happen is through a courageous conversation so God I just pray that you use this testimony and divide it up like only you can bring souls into the kingdom through this testimony God thank you Lord I pray you bless it and use it in Jesus' name amen let me let me let me hang on Jesus thank you so much for this opportunity and thank you for these men doing what they're doing in your name and in your cause and you are flourishing this and you are just creating something here that is just uh just awesome to say the least I mean what what a format what a platform to be able to come to and heal and and and close wounds or open those wounds and close them at the same time.

SPEAKER_10: 2:47:08

Thank you guys you've just set something up here that is just so so so needed in today yeah that just continue to let them know and continue to let them bring in the people thank you who need that healing yeah and that honesty Jesus in your precious name yeah I was gonna ask you to pray for the ministry but you did yeah that was the Holy Spirit man's God man uh I sure hope you guys enjoyed this podcast this time man this was fun first one on video let's go um if you could please whatever uh platform you are listening to us on whether it's uh the podcast or YouTube please like uh the channel subscribe to it so you get all the new videos and upcoming podcasts that we release um if you could please go in and leave a comment uh even one word it helps us so much in the algorithms of all the stuff that they do um but please share this man if you guys want to come on and share your testimony uh you can reach us through social media at speak life az um we'd love to have you on um but until this man we're gonna uh keep speaking life god bless you jesus loves you