From addiction to impact, and how saying ‘yes’ changed Pat Bradley’s life and millions more.

What if a single “yes” could reroute your life and bring hope to millions?

In this episode, we sit down with Pat Bradley, founder of Crisis Aid International, to trace his unlikely journey from alcoholism and divorce to a global mission feeding the hungry and rescuing girls from trafficking. 

What began as a broken heart and a yellow post-it note became feeding centers across Africa, trauma-informed safe homes in the U.S., and a model for faith-driven, sustainable aid.

Pat shares the night a famine headline sent him halfway around the world with nothing but conviction and the moment a spontaneous rescue in a red-light district grew into a full anti-trafficking network. Along the way, he opens up about failure, reconciliation, and the faith that fuels impossible steps.

If you’ve ever felt unqualified, uncertain, or overwhelmed by injustice, this conversation offers a new roadmap: start small, act on compassion, and let provision meet you in motion.

Because sometimes, redemption begins where comfort ends and your yes might just lead to the purpose you are searching for.

Chapters

• 0:00 A Life Changed In One Moment
• 1:04 Divorce, Rock Bottom, And Sobriety
• 5:15 A Surprising Church Encounter
• 9:17 Saying Yes And A Second Marriage
• 11:38 “Go To Ethiopia” And Obedience
• 14:35 Building A Feeding Center On Faith
• 18:06 Led To A Red Light District
• 22:05 The Girl In White And A Rescue
• 26:10 From Rescue To Anti‑Trafficking Strategy
• 29:08 Designing Trauma‑Informed Safe Homes
• 31:20 Rethinking Aid: From Relief To Opportunity
• 36:05 Calling, Action, And Ordinary Obedience
• 40:05 Does God Waste Our Story
• 43:18 Holding Hope Amid Injustice
• 47:16 Afghanistan: Protection And Provision
• 53:25 A Charge To Live Fully And Go
• 56:15 Books, Advice, And Where To Find Pat
• 58:30 Closing And Listener Invitation

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

What if one single moment could change everything in your life? In today's episode, we sit down Pat Bradley, a man who went from being a broken alcoholic whose marriage fell apart to founding Crisis Aid International, a nonprofit that's brought hope to millions around the world. You see, Pat's story isn't just about recovery from alcoholism. It's about how faith, courage, and one life-changing decision can rewrite your story to. In this episode, you're gonna learn how to find purpose even in your greatest pain, how to step boldly into your calling, even when you can't see the path ahead. Pat also shares some of the wildest stories you'll ever hear. From standing in war zones to trusting God in the most dangerous places on earth. If you have ever felt like you've gone too far to turn back or too broken to be used, please allow this episode to be your reminder that redemption is real and your breakthrough might just be one moment away. Pat Bradley, welcome to the Once Are Dare podcast. I'm so honored to have you on here.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08

It's an honor to be on here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10

You have such an incredible story. I've from my perspective and reading your book, reading your work, it just shows of how much of a difference one life can make. But you weren't always involved in what you're doing, you weren't always saving lives. And what was your pivotal point or what happened prior to you getting involved in helping so many people?

SPEAKER_00: 1:34

Well, um, the story begins with um our marriage. Let's start with that, my first marriage. And uh I was an alcoholic. I would just get to the point. I was an alcoholic, a functioning alcoholic. Uh I held down my job, and uh, but I drank too much. And so my wife, after six years, six and a half years of being married, we had two young children, three and five years old. Um, she decided to divorce me. And that literally made my world crash. So up until that point, you know, I was all about partying and having a good time and and uh just enjoying life as the way I saw fit, but not the way she saw fit. And uh so my world came crashing down. And so the uh she actually she called me at work and and she said, You need to come home now. And I said, I don't want to come home now, I'm going out with my friends. And she said, No, you need to come home right now. And I just something in me thought, hmm, I better go home. And so I went home and I walk in the front door, and there she's standing here with two black plastic trash bags and a piece of paper in her hand, and uh all my worldly possessions were in those trash bags, and the paper was a uh court order telling me I had to vacate in 30 minutes or I'd be thrown in jail. So I pleaded and tried. She wouldn't, you know, she wouldn't change her mind. So um that night is the last night I drank. And the next morning I woke up in my mom and dad's bed basement. I can't tell you today how I got there. I have virtually no recomm you know recollection. And so um that led me to um seek help. Like, what do what can I do? And I tried to call her and beg her and plead with her, and she wouldn't even talk to me. Um and so somewhere I remember hearing that you know Alcoholics Anonymous is a program, and she told she told me you need to go into a treatment center. I said, Well, I can't go into a treatment center. I got a job, and I can't be gone for 30 days. And uh anyway, long story short, she um hung up on me again, and so I decided to seek out Alcoholics Anonymous, and I went to my first meeting the next night, and I had learned from that first meeting that she said, if you come 90, 90 meetings in 90 days, it's equal to the kind of uh therapy or whatever you get from uh being in a treatment center. So I thought, okay, I can do this, and I did it. And on day 91, I called her up and then I said, Hey, guess what? I completed 90 days and she hung up on me again. So the divorce went through, and shortly after the divorce, um, I took a new job. And so back then, when I was during my drinking days, I got am I saying your name right? It's bad guy.

SPEAKER_01: 4:19

Yeah, yeah, you got it.

SPEAKER_00: 4:21

Um, like we had to borrow money to feed my kids every week. Like I wasn't making much money. Um, and so um we were poor. We just were poor. I don't know what else to say. So anyway, I took this new job, and I it was a new company, a startup, and I mean, I God blessed me, but I didn't know it was God at the time. I thought it was me, and um I started making, you know, within six months more money than I had ever dreamed possible. And, you know, I thought I was happy, I bought a new car, I bought a condominium, everything was going great. But, you know, late at night there was that ache in my heart knowing my wife and my kids. And uh in my mind, I said I hated my wife for divorcing me and how she ruined my life. But in all sincerity, in my heart, I still loved her with everything in me. And um, and so my children, after about a year and a half, they start talking about this Tuesday school. And I'm thinking, this sounds really weird. What is Tuesday school? What's Tuesday school? Yeah, and so um I was born and grew up in a Catholic church until I was old enough to um not go on my own. And so that was my background. No, um, so I decided I'm gonna go check on what Tuesday school is, and so I couldn't make it on a Tuesday, but I thought, okay, I'm gonna go on a Sunday. So I had the kids, I called my ex-wife and I said, Hey, I'm gonna bring the kids to the church, and then you can take them from there, but I want to come and sit in the service and see what's going on. And she said, Well, okay. I said, but I'd like to sit with you. And so what I was planning on doing was um I was convinced this was a cult. And um so I met my wife on the church steps, uh, and that that was that was an experience. It was hot, I was covered in sweat. It was we pulled into this parking lot, and it was like a mile-long back like traffic jam to get into the parking lot to go into the church. I had never seen anything like this. And I'm going, this is a cult. This is a cult. Look at all these people. And so we walked in and walked into the church, and there were thousand thousands of people, but there were TV cameras, and but and I'm as soon as I saw the cameras, this is a cult, this is a cult, I'm gonna get my kids back. I can so I'm making mental notes of what I'm seeing. Um, but that day something crazy happened, and um I heard the voice of God speak to me during that service, and he said, How many times must I call you? And I heard that three times. And when I heard that, I was like in this, like this fog, and it was right after the worship service, and so it was and I'm not describing it very clearly, but it was just so bizarre. And when I think back on it, it still is bizarre. But um, so I'll just tell you how it went. This guy gets up at the end of worship, starts speaking real loud, whatever's what how I how I knew this, I don't know. I knew it was a message in tongues, and so that you know that was weird, and I thought, oh, confirmation, more more ammunition for getting the kids. But when he got done, and the pastor got up and explained what happened, and he gave this interpretation, and that's when I heard God speak to me. How many times must I call you? And he said it three times. And then after the third time, like this fog went away, and I literally found myself sobbing uncontrollably. I could not stop. And then my brain started, I'm going, You have lost your mind. What is wrong with you? And people like looking at me, and my ex-wife is who's sitting next to me, is like trying to scoot away and look at me like I'm insane. I'm thinking I'm insane. I didn't know what happened. Um, and I didn't uh and so they gave an altar call. You know, I'm like, Do you want to give your life to Christ, to Jesus? And I wanted to, but I didn't go because I was too embarrassed, because I was crying so hard that I couldn't stop. But I was also afraid I might see somebody that knows me, and I don't want them to see me reacting this way. So um Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:32

So you came there to investigate.

unknown: 8:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 8:35

I came there to say, Oh, this is a cult. I'm gonna prove that my wife is involved in some weird stuff so that I can have you know custody of the kids or whatnot. And then you come there and you have this encounter.

SPEAKER_00: 8:46

Uh yes. Wow. I had this encounter. So we left, and uh and so um trying to think, so it was a friendly party. Parking lot said goodbye to kids, said goodbye to my ex-wife, and so uh later that day I started feeling like very bad about not going forward. That like now they we call it the conviction of the Holy Spirit. I mean, I know exactly what that was, and it that was Sunday, and then Monday it continued and and it got stronger and stronger, and then Tuesday even got stronger. They had a service on Tuesday nights, like I mentioned earlier, Tuesday, Tuesday school. And so I told my for some reason, I don't know why, I called my wife and I said, Are you taking the kids to the church tonight? She said, Yeah, I go, Well, I'm gonna come too. I go, can we sit together? And she said, Well, I guess she still was keeping me at 100 yards away. And uh, so I went and they gave an altar call, and I mean I ran down to that altar, and uh and I, you know, I just I knelt down and I gave my life to Jesus. And that night got everything changed for me for the best, but I had no idea what was coming. Um after the service was over, I went, there was a bookstore, and so I went in the bookstore and there was this book called God Smuggler. It was on like an end aisle, and it did um title kind of caught my attention. So I bought it, and I didn't have a Bible, and I went home and I started reading it. I mean, I couldn't put that book down, and I quit like three or four in the morning, and then the next went to work, and then the next day, uh the next night I finished it, and I just prayed a simple prayer. I said, God, if you can ever use me to help people that are being persecuted like this, I'm just making myself available. And uh that's how it all started. And then um, so my wife and I were having starting to talk a little bit more and a little bit more, and then I in my business I went to the company she worked for. I was in marketing advertising, and uh her boss wanted to have a meeting with me about a campaign, and so I'm standing in a lobby, and uh receptionist said, Oh, her assistant will come get you. And so I'm standing looking out the windows, and I heard this door open. I turned around. There's my ex-wife standing there. Now I'm I'm at that point, I'm not hating her, but I wasn't liking her a lot. Right. I took a look at her and she has this auburn hair. I'm like, oh my god, she's gorgeous. You know, I'm seeing her, I'm like, wow, she's beautiful. And so we walked to her boss's office, had a little chat, and then she walked me out, and uh we had even a nicer conversation, and then we agreed to meet for a coffee, and we met for coffee and um started seeing each other very carefully. I mean, I'm kind of kind of like, if we're gonna do it, let's do it, let's jump in and figure it out as we're going. And she's a little bit more cautious. And uh, but six months later we got remarried for the second time.

SPEAKER_01: 11:35

Wow, that's so beautiful. Yeah, yeah. In your book, um, Born to Rescue, you write about a life-changing moment in East Africa. I'm curious to how you got there and what that moment was.

SPEAKER_00: 11:49

So, how we got to East Africa was um, again, this is gonna sound crazy, but I'm sitting in my office in the ad agency at lunch, and I'm come across the internet headline that said 14 million Ethiopians at risk of death by starvation. And this no sooner than I read it, I knew that God just said go. And I didn't know anybody, um, I didn't know anybody that knew anybody in in Ethiopia. I contacted a friend who'd made some connections and uh he ended up getting back to me with a phone number, which I put it on a yellow post-it note, and 30 days later I go to Ethiopia with the yellow post-it note and a phone number, not knowing what was going to come out of this. I just knew God said go, and based on what had happened in uh Sudan and Afghanistan, um, I just knew God would show us. And so we spent the next six days driving around the countryside and uh looking at therapeutic feeding centers and seeing firsthand visually the starvation, literally people literally dying of starvation, men, women, children. And it was horrible. Um but it was one of those moments to where we pulled up after six days, pulled in this village that they knew we were coming, and there was 250 mothers sitting on the side of this hill, and they um the elders came out and talked to us, and they said, you know, you see all those children up there, and each mother had at least one child, and they were obviously they were severely malnourished. I had never really experienced any of this until this trip about severe malnutrition and you know, like kids that look like skeletons or people, is when I say that term, that's what I'm referring to. Um but I knew we needed to build what was called a therapeutic feeding center in order to treat them properly, and so and I also knew it would cost$100,000 to do that, plus you have to staff one. And we didn't, you know, I just they asked me, they begged me, would you please do something? And I said, Okay, I'm coming back. We'll we're gonna build a therapeutic feeding center and do what we can to help these children. And so they were thankful. And um the next day I left and flew home. And as I'm flying home, I'm thinking to myself, what is wrong with me? We had our mailing list, it was like 40 people, and it was mainly friends and relatives who were you know tired of getting my mail and giving me money.

SPEAKER_01: 14:15

Right, same people, right? That you're kind of like, hey, here I am.

SPEAKER_00: 14:19

Yeah, I'm like, how can I ask them again? And then I knew we had$350 in our bank account. And I came back and I told my wife who wasn't thrilled. She's like, What did you tell them? What is wrong with you? Don't you know we only got this much and we can't? And I called my board together and I said, Okay, guys, this is you know, this is what I'm thinking, this is what I think God told us. And uh, four of my board members were on, two of them weren't. Um, they said, You know, you're gonna kill these kids, you don't know what you're doing, and we've never done this before, and where's the money gonna come from? And where are you gonna find people? And I'm like, I don't know. God said, Do it. He showed me them. How could I not do something? I said, We're doing this, and so um, over the next six weeks, a hundred thousand dollars came in. Wow, I to this day my wife and I still can't tell you how that happened. But people start hearing and money started coming in from people we never even knew existed, and so we went over there, uh, got got everything set up and built, but we needed help, we needed workers, and um again, we were ready to go, but no one to work. And so that afternoon, this was in a very remote part of the country, and there was no cell service, there never was cell service, but my guide, my translator, friend, the East African guy, um, has a cell phone to start ringing. And I looked at him and he looked at me and I go, Well, answer it. And he answered it, and he's like, he's I mean, he's African, and I teased with him, I said, You turned white on that phone call. What happened? And and he said, he puts a hand over me, he goes, This is my office. He said, There's two a doctor and two nurses, two pediatric nurses, a pediatrician. They just showed up, they were supposed to go spend three months working with another organization that just were told they were not needed and they're getting ready to go home unless we can we use them. I go, Yeah, we can use them. And so the next day we had our medical staff free of charge. And what the beauty of it was was that this doctor and these nurses have spent over 20 years working at therapeutic feeding centers in third world countries. So they have all the experience we ever could possibly dream and hope for just landed right in my lap. And all I did was show up with a little yellow post-it.

SPEAKER_01: 16:38

Wow, that I'm just thinking over what you just said. That is so incredible. I mean, going there to begin with without having no plan. And you, you know, coming from a place of marketing and business, you know that's not really the way that things should be done, right? And and then making this elaborate promise to these people that are desperate for help. And you're like, I'll figure out a way. Like, what was going through your mind at that time? Like, how do you just jump with the leap of faith and then just like, okay, we'll just do it?

SPEAKER_00: 17:14

Um, I don't know. I just it's kind of I guess I'm wired that way. God has wired me to be that way. Um you know, it's just like if we're trying to figure out what God wants us to do and we have to have everything planned out and we make all of our plans and stuff, what I've learned is that you kind of remove God from the equation because you just put what you think in there. And so, yeah, you we can make plans, but I when I do it even to this day, they're very loose. They're very loose. It's like, okay, we're here, we know we want to get here in the next year. I think these are the steps. Let's begin walking to see where it ends up. And God always, a hundred percent of the time, comes through so much more than I had ever dreamed possible. It's like one example we were went into the can I tell you this story? Yeah. Okay, we went into, I was standing in this same country, and it was a Saturday afternoon, and we're standing in a corner. I was talking to a guy that had a ministry work to street kids, homeless kids living on the street. And I'm standing there and we're talking, and then I hear this voice say to me, Ask him about prostitution. And I thought, this is strange. I'm not asking him about prostitution. He's like he's like a pastor, and he's helped. I just ignored it, and then like it happened again a couple minutes later. And so again, the experience I had in Sudan and Afghanistan, and then this country, I knew that I knew that God was saying something. So I stopped him. I go, Can you tell me about prostitution? And uh excuse me? I'm telling you about my ministry. I know I love your ministry, but I gotta ask you this. And so he tells me about this red light district. And uh I said, Okay, I said, Can you take us down or I'd like to see this? And he um gave me another weird look, but he said, sure, we can go down. He goes, When do you want to go? I go, I want to go at night. I'm gonna see it at night when it's really, you know, doing its thing. And um he said, Okay, so went back to my hotel and called my wife and she said, Well, what are you doing tonight? And I said, Well, we're gonna go hang out with the prostitutes.

SPEAKER_01: 19:20

And she goes, She's like, Yeah, that sounds like a plan.

SPEAKER_00: 19:24

Exactly. She's like, that's a really interesting thing to tell me when you're on the other side of the world. But she knew at that point that the last few years of of some of the crazy stories and stuff, she was like, Okay. And so we went there and um and I just walked through there. I just didn't expect anything, I had no plans. And so we start this started this conversation um with these with these girls. There's five of them, and they told us, like, and I don't mean this to be racist in any way, shape, or form, but they said, you know, you're the first white people that ever come down here. I mean, there are thousands of girls. They live in these little tin sheds that are like six feet by eight feet, enough room for a bed and a table, no running water, no s no open sew, it's stunk. It was uh it was it was hell on earth. It was like you can't imagine anything so bad. I've seen horrible things in many countries, but this topped it all.

SPEAKER_02: 20:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 20:19

And so we were getting a big crowd around um because you know, who are the strangers? What do they want? And they're talking to these girls, and and and I said, Hey, can we go in and talk in one of your rooms so we can kind of get out of here and they go, sure, we can go in this room. And so as we were walking in, I looked over my shoulder and I saw this one young girl walking down, and she just had this white outfit on, which was kind of strange. Um, but she was walking down, and I just told asked our translator, I said, Ask her if she wants to come in with us. And she she went back and asked her, and and um she said, sure. So she came in. I assumed she knew the other five, but she did not, they didn't know each other. And so we're sitting in there, we're talking, we're gonna listen to their stories, and um, you know, then he asked, Why are you here? And I'm like, Um, I'm not sure why I'm here, but I know this much. God has a much better plan for your life than what you're living through. Are you interested in hear about this? They go, sure, what do you tell us about it? And I'm like, Well, you know, I talked about how much God loved them, and it breaks his heart to see what they're living through, and we understand, but we didn't understand, I didn't mean to say it that way, that we can't understand what you're going through, but we think we may be able to do something to help. And then in my mind, I'm going, What are you doing? What are you doing? You're walking into it again.

SPEAKER_01: 21:32

Yeah, making promises again.

SPEAKER_00: 21:34

Yeah, making promises. And so um we we uh and but all the while this one young girl was sitting on the edge, kind of a little away from them. And uh so, you know, I said, Do you want, you know, give your life to Christ? Because, you know, something could happen to you night. So we talked about salvation and what it meant and stuff. And so they all agreed and they all prayed and gave their life to Jesus. But when we were done, the second we were done, I felt so laser focused on the one girl, just the one girl. And so I was talking to her, and it was so long ago now, it was in 2006. It was in 2006 of December. I didn't know what it was about her, but I just felt like God has a special plan for your life, and I don't know what it is, but you need to, you know, seek God for what's what He has for you. And we just talk, then I heard this crazy thing say, baptize her. I'm like, there's no water. I've never baptized a soul, I don't even know what you say to baptize somebody, and so I just kind of got quiet, and um, then I heard it again, like baptize her now. So I had a friend with me, and I looked at him like this is what I feel like God said. And he goes, Okay, let's do it. So I told the girls, I said, Somebody get a pot of water, we need to baptize her. They all kind of looked at me kind of weird, and they were like, who is this guy? We are weird, we get it. But so we got the water and we went out in the alley, and uh again it got crowded. Um, and I had her bend over at the waist, and I'm like, okay, let's start pouring water on. I don't remember what I said other than that. I said something, I guess I prayed something appropriate. I hope I did. But I said, and I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And then I like you can stand up, and then water is dripping down her hair onto her face, onto her clothes, and everything got quiet. And I looked at her and she had a smile that like lit up this whole alleyway. There was such a physical transformation in this young girl, and everybody there saw it, and nobody said a word. It was one of those God moments, like I'm getting goosebumps right now, thinking about that moment and what what happened to her and what everyone saw. And so after about a couple of seconds, I looked at her and I go, Would you like to leave here tonight? And she looked at me, she said, Yes. And I said, Is it safe? Is it can you leave with us tonight? She said, My owner is not here tonight, so yes, I can come tonight.

SPEAKER_02: 24:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 24:11

Okay, run back, get all your stuff, and come get get, you know, come back, we'll wait for you. And now I'm starting to think, like, what are we gonna do with her? Like, okay, here we go again. I don't open my mouth. But it's like, you know, and my friend, like, what are you doing with her? And then the guy at the head of the street man came up to me, like, what are you gonna do with her? What's your plan? I go, I don't have a plan, but I know this much. We can't leave her here. God, God brought us here. This was a divine. We can't leave her here. And so she came back about 10 minutes later, and she had like this Walmart-sized shopping bag with all her worldly possessions. That's all she owned. And as we're walking out, I'm trying to think, what are we gonna do? I have no plans, no ideas. Um, so I so I start asking her, I was like, Oh, tell me, how old are you? She was 16, she had no living family that she knew of, and she'd been there five years. But the thing that really broke my heart is she said, the thought of ever leaving there had never occurred to me. And I thought, you're 16 years old, you have no family, and in your mind, this is where you will spend the rest of your life in this horrific red light district being raped multiple times every night, seven days a week. Wow. And I was like, we can't we we'll figure this out. And so we put her in an office, let her sleep on the floor for a night or two, and then we found an apartment. But what that began unplanned, that began our work in what we you know in sex trafficking work. And back then the word sex trafficking did not exist. No one ever heard that term. I had never heard this term, and so that girl, her her agreeing to come out has led us into this um uh work in rescuing victims of sex trafficking, and now we've moved into the prevention side. We've got 23, 22 full-time staff in America that work on nothing but sex trafficking and sex trafficking um prevention. Uh we have a lot of work in that country. So, to date, since then, we've helped over 9,700 girls get out and be rescued from being victims of trafficking. And then when we do that, we don't just like dump them somewhere. It's like they come into our program and we train them, we educate them so that they can go out and live and be a success.

SPEAKER_01: 26:31

Yeah, and you have homes in the states as well, is that correct?

SPEAKER_00: 26:34

Yes, we do. We have one in Grand Rapids and it'll house 20 girls. Uh, we just opened it a year ago, and I mean, this is a beautiful, beautiful home. The pastor of the church that we're partnering with, um, and when we were done, he looked at me and the price tag was like 8.5 million. And he looked at me and goes, This is what I get for letting my rich congregation members design this home. But it is a it is a premier home. It was it's been so well thought out, you know, triggered. Like you got two wings, and the wings are staggered, so there's not one long hallway, so they're staggered. Because a lot of times the girls working in a in a hotel, they s see this long hallway and it just triggers things in them. And so there's like there's no dark corners in any anywhere. There's not a dark corner. When you go down a stairwell, automatic lights kick on, so there's not even a second of darkness. So just you know, all these years we've learned a lot of things of how to employ it to get the best success.

SPEAKER_01: 27:34

And wow, so everything was intentionally designed in the place.

SPEAKER_00: 27:39

Yes, very much so. Yeah, for the girls and you know, for the victims.

SPEAKER_01: 27:44

Wow, that is so incredible. I mean, there's so many different pillars that you do besides you're feeding the hungry, you're rescuing uh, you know, people that are involved in sex trafficking, having homes for them. Do you also do some preventative care as well?

SPEAKER_00: 28:02

Um yes, we do. In fact, we um so we kind of shifted our model back in 2017, I think. Um there was uh we were at one of our food distribution sites, and I'm turning around, I mean there's hundreds of people there. And so up until that time, our our struggle was keeping keeping children alive, and there were so many, we didn't we didn't have enough, so we did the best we could with what we had for as many as we could. But I turned around and this father hands me this not like shoves this child into my arms. And I mean I had never seen a child this bad. She was four years old, weighed less than I think weighed less than it's in a book how much she weighed, like six pounds. Um and you took one look at her and it's like she's hours from dying. She's not, you know, there's um yeah, so anyway, just trying to think about how that felt. She uh we got her to a hospital and she died the next day. And it just like it was one of those things where we've seen that happen before, but this one was special because A, she was the worst we ever seen. But B, when the father put her in my arms, felt good, the desperation in his eyes was palatable. So it just so palatable, and and it it we couldn't speak, but you could understand his heart. And what I learned was he had lost his wife a year before to something, uh, some kind of infection that was easily treatable with uh an antibiotic. And he had lost two other children to starvation uh several months about three months before this day that he handed this daughter to me. And this was his last child, and there she was ready to die. And the desperation was palatable, and I'll never forget what that what that looked like. And so the next day, when we Found out she passed away, I turned around to my country director and I said, you know what? I said, we have to learn to ask better questions. I heard Tony Robbins say that one time. I thought it was such a brilliant statement. And so it was like, what are we gonna? We've been struggling to keep children alive. But what can we do different to start to prevent them from getting into this? And it all went back to that father. And what God showed us was this man was a hard worker. He tried to hire himself out for day labor. His clothes literally were so old and dirty, they were literally falling apart on him, but that's all he had. And he did his darn but he did his best. He didn't, he didn't have the thing is that there's no opportunities for people. So it's like we don't want to, we can't go over, you know, teach them how to do things because you gotta be culturally sensitive and just a lot of reasons. There's there's a good way to do it and there's a wrong way to do it. And so what God showed us was that it's not just demonstrating to them how to grow better coffee trees, but it's to show them the opportunity better coffee trees will present to them. And that was the foreign concept to them. Opportunity. I say it this way, if opportunity hit them on the head, they wouldn't know it. And you know, you the saying is you know, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime, but they they wouldn't have known what a fish was, they wouldn't have known what to do with the fishing, but you couldn't have teach them taught them how to fish because that just was not in the context of their culture.

SPEAKER_01: 31:34

Yeah, it's kind of like you don't know what you don't know, right? And right.

SPEAKER_00: 31:38

So we can make all of these platitudes and and sayings, and they all sound good until you get on the field and you get in front of somebody like that, or you get in front of a community of people like that, and it's like you know, the the the answers are not what we think they are, they're not the easy answers. But what we saw was you can teach them, you can train them, but you've got to show them how to what an opportunity is and how to exploit an opportunity. And so that we shifted all of our programming starting there into moving into that direction. And it took us a couple years to do it, but now we've created four or five hundred jobs in that country. Uh at times from some of our programs, we may have as many as five to seven hundred people, local people working for us on a part-time basis to help us with our agriculture or what other things. So we brought that thinking, what it did is it helped us to learn how to design our programs that teaches them to what to do with an opportunity and then help provide the opportunity for them because there's nothing there for them. There is nothing. It had to be created, but you have to create it in a way that you understand that it fits their culture because you're not changing the culture, you're never going to change the culture. So it has to fit their culture and then done in a way that they feel like they are accomplishing it themselves, not that we're doing it for you and to you. And so that's what's how we can change.

SPEAKER_01: 33:08

Oh, that's incredible. What would you say to someone, maybe a person listening right now, that just feels so unqualified to make a difference? And you often said about yourself that you're just an ordinary guy who answered a call.

SPEAKER_00: 33:23

Yeah. I uh I am. I've got no honest, I have no special skills or talents.

SPEAKER_01: 33:30

That is like, look, I'm not special, okay? I am not.

SPEAKER_00: 33:34

I'm just an ordinary person. I truly am. I'm no different than anybody else. The only thing I will say I did that most people haven't done is um I just said yes to God and I got out of the pew. You know, Svetka, when I talk at churches, people come up to me frequently, and um, and I don't speak very often, but people always come to me, you know, I'm just waiting to hear God's will. I'm waiting for God to turn light green. I'm like, you know what? God's waiting for you. You don't, you Jesus said, whatever you do in Matthew, he said, whatever you do for the least of these, you do it for me. Now, to me, the key word in all of that is whatever, whatever you do, whatever you do, you're doing it for me. Because you're doing it to the least of these. So the freedom we have in Christ is so unimaginable to most Christians because we think we got to fit in God's perfect will. Well, God's like, you know, your perfect will is like my perfect will is to get you out of the P and get you moving so I can guide you. And God will guide you. But you know, all it takes is a willing heart. But the one thing I want other, you know, like Christians and non-Christians to understand is that being a Christian is is probably the greatest adventure on the planet. There's I don't think there's, I don't believe there's anything they can even compare to being a Christian lived the way God wants us to live it, not the way we choose to live it, sitting in church waiting to hear as well. No, that's not an adventure, that's boredom. You're bored as a Christian, which is terrible. We shouldn't be bored as Christians. We should be living a life that's ad a life of adventure. So, what's an adventure to me is going to be different than maybe the guy sitting next to me or someone else. They define their own life on what adventure looks like to them, and then just let God take it and just start moving. But the thing is, like what I'm I love what I do. I mean, this life, I dream this life of, I remember sitting in a church service back in the 80s, it shows you my age, um, about this guy who owned a business and he used his business to fund his missions. And I remember sitting in that church, I remember just like it was last night, sitting in there and thinking, okay, that's what I want to do with my life, and this is what I think I want it to look like. As he's talking, I'm building this dream. And as I sit here in front of you today, I'm living that dream today. And I'm not saying that God gave me that dream. I'm just saying that was a dream I came up with. Now I do I believe God gave that to me? Yes, I do. But it wasn't one of these, you know, oh, God told me this. No, it was like, this is what I this, I think I want to do this. And God, I'm I'm literally doing it today. But honestly, I don't have any more talents than anyone else. The only thing I did was say yes, Lord, and got out of the church pew and said, now what? So then people go, Well, what do you do then? What's that what's the next step? What's the logical next step? Well, I don't know what's on your heart. Well, I you know what I see, these homeless people. Oh, great, well, go do something for a homeless person. Just see one, go do something nice for them, see what happens. You know, just to get people moving out of their church Ps.

SPEAKER_01: 36:47

Yeah, I think that is such a huge point because there's a lot of people that I know, like you said, that are waiting to get this huge revelation of that one big thing they're supposed to do with their life, right? And they call it a calling. Okay. Um one of my favorite quotes, and I say this in the podcast quite often, is um by Maya Angela, who said, Your legacy is every life you touch.

unknown: 37:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 37:14

I love that. So it's it's not about doing this one ginormous big event that is gonna be the pinnacle of your life, that is your legacy, that is this is what you're born for. Yes, sure, we have different talents and abilities, and everyone's wired a little bit differently from each other. We're, you know, think differently. At the end of the day, what I believe is that we can impact the people around us, you know. Just this morning I got news of my friend who lost her husband. And it's like, how can you be there for her in this moment, right? So that is that is one opportunity that says, hey, the here's an opportunity to impact a life today, right? Exactly. Um and so I'd love for you to speak to that person who's just feels stuck because they're really complicating it.

SPEAKER_00: 38:06

Um okay. So um I'm thinking that so so many times, so much of the time we spend, like we just talked about, like trying to discern God's will from my life. Oh, what's my calling? Do I have a calling? Yes, everybody who's a Christian has got a calling on their life because that's why we're Christians. We became Christians because God was calling us to Him, He was the one drawing us to Him. And so, you know what I would say again is going back to you have no idea how much freedom there is in serving God. God is such a, He, oh gosh, that's a hard question that you asked me. Um I would just say it like this. You know, get your butt out of the church pew and just see what God has for you. Just take the next step, take the next step. Don't quit trying to figure things out. You will never figure this out. All you will do is end up frustrating yourself. And you know what? You have been given one life. Don't waste it, don't waste half of it, don't waste 10% of it. Trying to figure out the calling of God on my life. When the Bible makes it very clear, there's 2,700 or so verses that deal with poverty and injustice. Pick one of those verses, build your life around it, and you'll be in the center of God's will. That's all it takes. The Bible has everything we need to know. But going back to what Jesus said, whatever you do for the least of these, you're doing it for me. That's all we need to know. Now go figure out what you want to do for the least of these. What does that mean to you? You, like you mentioned, you had a friend that just lost a husband. Go be with that person. Go sit and don't say a word. Just sit with them, be present with them. Um, you know, I have a neighbor that's got cancer and he can't do his yard work, so I go do his yard work for him. You know, there's always something we can do to start. And but but you know, at the end of the day, God's for the most part waiting for us to take the steps. And he's not gonna push us out of a church pew. He's gonna make, he wants us to take the initiative to trust him enough to get up and go stand in a pew and go, okay. Um I'm presenting myself to you, God, use me however you want. It's think of it like this: you you sign, okay, God, I'm gonna sign this contract with you. I sign my name on it, and I hand it back to him, but the page is blank. God, you fill in the rest. That's another way to look at it, maybe.

SPEAKER_01: 40:52

Yeah, that's beautiful. Um, looking back to you started off with just, you know, in alcoholism, being despaired, down and out, not really having a lot of hope for your future. And having that encounter with God has changed so much, and you just stepped out and did what you felt prompted to do at the time. Do you think God wastes any part of our story?

unknown: 41:24

No.

SPEAKER_00: 41:25

Not at all. I mean, at my lowest, like if I didn't have my parents' basement to go to, I would be, I would have been living under a bridge and I wouldn't be sitting here today. That's where I came from. And God has used that to, yeah, no, I mean it's it's our whole life. God, nothing surprises God. And you know, I don't understand some things, it's like, why did I have to go through that, Lord? You before I would, the Bible says before He formed us and knew us before we were ever born. You knew I was gonna go through all this. You knew I was gonna put my wife through hell. Why would you allow this? Those things I don't understand, but what I do know is God does use that, and that's what helps build us and and and makes us who we are today. It's like, so some of those things that I, you know, as I look back, you know, 2020, hindsight's 2020, I look back on that, and it's like, those were horrible times, but you know what? It also gave me the stick to it-ness of not quitting, not giving up, you know, and and that has served me, served me well over my entire life. Had I not been through that, I don't know if I would have had that attitude. And if I didn't have that attitude, it wouldn't have served me well in what I do today because everything we've ever started, we've never had the money, and we look at it and go, my God, this is impossible. We can't do this. But then we're like, no, wait a minute. Let's pull back and go, okay, we can't do it, but let's figure out how we're gonna do it anyway. And so all of that, that you know, how I am today, that all came from back in in my broken days of God taking that, using it, and repurposing some of those experiences. Um and it's also helped me to have a heart for people that were just beyond help because I've always thought I was beyond help. Even in my drinking days, I just thought, you know, my in my sober times, I would think my life is you know ruined, I'm on nothing, and you know, didn't have good thoughts about myself whatsoever. But God takes all of that, He doesn't waste any of it. And what do you think?

SPEAKER_01: 43:31

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 43:32

I was gonna say people think they have to get over all of that. And it's like, you know, if you just ask God to forgive you your sins, he forgives and he forgets. And it's the hardest thing for us is to forget our past or what we've done. But God will use those things.

SPEAKER_01: 43:50

And and what do you think about yourself now?

SPEAKER_00: 43:56

Um I think I'm just getting started in life sometimes in some respects. Um I think that you know, I still struggle sometimes. It's like, why would God I'm a little, I mean, I just can be transparent. There are days where I think, why would God ever use me? You know, and I pull back and look at everything that's going on in all of our programs. And I mean, we got almost 300 people that work full-time for us now, and it started with a two-pound bag of rice, and it's like, but I still at times have those thoughts. They're nowhere near like it used to be. But um I just try to um I don't think look at myself, honestly. I just see the needs and what needs to be done and um and just do it. And just do it. Yeah, I don't want to waste time trying to figure myself out because I'll never get anywhere.

SPEAKER_01: 44:50

Yeah, and as a founder of Crisis Aid International, you are helping the helpless. You also have entered some of the most extreme high-risk no-go zones around the world. You've seen things that probably most of our I haven't seen and most of the listeners most likely haven't seen. My question to you is how do you not get frustrated at God? How do you not get disappointed or quit seeing so much injustice in the world?

SPEAKER_00: 45:25

How do you deal with that, I guess, is what I'm trying to Well, the way I see it actually is that um when I see these things, I see it like God has given me an opportunity to do something in the midst of this horrible situation. So I thank God for letting me be part of a solution that he has for these people. Um so I've I learned early on, like like my very first trip to Sudan, it when I came back, I could not talk for two weeks because of the things that we heard and the experiences and things I saw, and never seen anything compared. And I'd been some bad places in the world up to that point, but that was a turning point. I mean, I could not, I came home, I didn't talk to my wife, my children, my staff, my employees at the agency. People thought I lost my mind, but looking back on it, was I was just processing everything I'd learned and saw and experienced, and used that to um, you know, to not allow it to overwhelm me, but to charge me and to energize me to start to do something and and you know, to start to believe God. It's like, God, you sent me somewhere. It's like, you know, I heard God speak to me the last day in South Sudan, and um as we were leaving this group of people, and they were going to they were in a horrible situation, and they were the survivors of the village, got attacked the night before. These were about 70 men, women, and children. And they they were like we were right on the edge of the Sahara Desert, it was like 120, 125 degrees, super hot. We were hundreds of miles from food, water, shelter, and then we we literally just came upon these people. And um, it was the end of our trip, and it was our last day, and we had to go back that afternoon. And I remember, you know, we had nothing. If we had water cans, there was no water. If we had food, there was no way for no way for the cook them, they cooked them. They literally had the clothes on their back, and some of them didn't even have the clothes on their back anymore because of the when they were escaping the the bush, the the African bush, you know, ripped a lot of the clothes off. And it was just a horrible situation, and and uh they were going to die. And you know, I sit here and goes with that goes all the way back to the year 2000. There was no way that they could survive. There was on, there's just nothing, we had nothing, they were they were too far from anything. And so, but I remember looking back over my shoulder as we were pulling away, and I heard the voice of God say to me, doing nothing is no longer an option. And I just thought, okay, and up to that point that um I had been spending my vacation time smuggling Bibles and into restricted countries and stuff, but I knew instantly what God was saying. He's like gonna change the focus of what I was doing with my quote vacation time, which was uh to provide food, water, and shelter that people didn't have any. And so that was the beginning of it, and so we just went wherever God we felt like God led us. So worked in Sudan for 10 years, Afghanistan for 12 years, um, we did work in North Korea and many other countries. But our focus now is in East African America.

SPEAKER_01: 48:47

And so when you were there when you were in some of these dangerous situations, did you just felt or just trusted that God was gonna protect you or you were doing and what you were doing? I mean, there must have been moments where you felt like, oh crap, like this is this is bad.

unknown: 49:04

No.

SPEAKER_00: 49:07

There are quite a few of those moments, frankly.

SPEAKER_01: 49:10

Like, what did I just get myself into, right? Like, uh Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00: 49:14

Can I tell you a quick story?

SPEAKER_01: 49:16

Yes, go for it.

SPEAKER_00: 49:17

We were standing and this was our first time into Afghanistan, it was eight weeks after 9-11. Oh no, it was 10 weeks after 9-11. And uh long story short, it's this the this the full story is in the box is in the book, but uh so we went there to do a distribution, food distribution, and and um wherever God showed us. So, long story short, we are in the city, my friend and I, he's from South Africa, and we're standing in this alleyway. We were there three days trying to find food and trucks and stuff. We couldn't, nobody would talk to us or anything. And it was a bizarre scene. Every male, no matter how old they were, little kids to old men, everybody had guns. It was so bizarre. But we um we had a translator, so we met a guy who told us about this spot, and so, or this person, so we're standing in this alley, we're meeting with the commander of the Afghan army who controls the entire border with Pakistan, and so like our planes are still bombing them, you know, in the mountains, and I'm an American and my friend's from South Africa, and we're standing in this alley waiting to go meet this guy to see if he could help us. And it was one of those moments like where God took the grace off of us, and instantaneously I looked around and I see these guys standing. I mean, these are like the Taliban guys that we were seeing on TV, and they had their guns and and everything, and it's the two of us, and and it's like I freaked out, and my friend freaked out, and we got in this big argument in front of these guys, and they're looking at us like we're insane. And it was like the grace came off of us, and then I realized the danger that we really were in. It's like we probably aren't coming home from this. What was wrong with us? Why were we so stupid? Who do we think we are? And then the gate opens and the guy comes out and said, The commander will see you now. And then we both looked at each other and we're like, Let's go. So we went in there and we sat down, and he was sitting in a chair, and there were three of us, my friend, myself, and the translator. And we were circled around his his butt with his bodyguards, and then one thing I noticed was that the fingers were on the trigger, and it was like, This is not good, this is very bad. And I said to my friend, I'm like, What are we gonna say? You go, Well, you do the talk. I'm like, I don't know, you do the talk. We're arguing back and forth in front of this man, trying to keep you know, very soft spot. I'm like, You jerk, why the hell did you put me in here? Um you're gonna get killed, you're an American. I'm like, we're saying, and the guy just stops, he goes, Okay. And to our translator, he goes, Well, he wants to know what you want. And I was like, Okay, if I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die far for God. And so I said, God put it on heart to come here, God put it on heart of people in America to give us money to come here because he sees your suffering, he sees your widows dying, he sees your children starving. God loves you so much, he sent us here to help you. And I remember thinking, if I die, I die. Nobody's ever gonna know it, I'll never find our body. So what's the big deal? And so um, he looks at us, and I mean it was very tense. You could read body language, very tense. And he sits back in his chair and he relaxes like this and crosses his hand, and he looked at us and he said, I honor you for the reason you're here. I know that your God sent us, sent you to help us. Wow, when he said I honor you, I knew exactly what that meant. When an Afghan puts you in their honor or honors you, if anything would happen to us, he was duty bound to revenge us. So if somebody would kill us, he was duty bound to kill whoever killed us. And so, long story short, that two days later we ended up delivering food to a village very far away, way up in the mountains, to people that were starving. He had no food for several weeks. Uh, but this guy said, I'm gonna help you. He goes, What do you want? I said, We need to buy food. And and he said, Okay, I can help you with this. Do you have money to pay for it? We said, sure. I said, but we're not giving it to you. We'll pay them, we'll pay the merchants. He goes, that's fine, I don't want your money. He goes, I'm not here to rob you. You're here to help. We're going to help you help our people. He goes, I'm going to give you my personal bodyguard, the leader who is my father-in-law. His team is going to be your bodyguard until you leave to go back home. And then whenever you come back, they can be your bodyguards. And so God just opened a door up, just a miraculous door, and gave us incredible favor. And we fed those people, and for 12 years we were feeding people in Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_01: 54:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 54:02

But that was one time, honestly, that I think I would that I didn't think we would come back home from that trip. And nobody knew where we were.

SPEAKER_01: 54:10

So wow. That's incredible. And your wife didn't know where you are, your kids don't know where you are.

SPEAKER_00: 54:15

You're just like they knew we were going to Afghanistan and they were not happy. I mean, uh, they were not happy at all with me.

SPEAKER_01: 54:23

Um, because they're aware of the risks, right?

SPEAKER_00: 54:27

Yeah, yeah, they did.

unknown: 54:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 54:29

Um, that's incredible. I mean, I I Pat, I could sit here and talk to you all day, but I just want to also honor your time. Um, is there anything else you'd like to add uh prior to us wrapping up the podcast?

SPEAKER_00: 54:41

Yeah, I would like to say this. Um, as passionate as I am about crisis aid, I don't know if I said this earlier or not, but I'm equally as passionate. Sometimes I think I'm even more passionate to see Christians live the full life that God wants them to live. It's not, it's it's not like it's his, God desires us to live a full life. And he's made plans for us to do that before we were ever born. But it takes our cooperation. We have to cooperate with God. And the way we cooperate with God is say, yes, Lord, whatever. Now, many of us have things in our heart, you know, like I mentioned earlier, some people homeless, some child, you know, with orphans or water or evangelism or whatever, we have things in our heart. But we put things on top of that that we put there, and then we blame God for not talking to us. When God just saying, All you have to do is say yes. And I have the best life that you could ever. The life I have planned for you is so much better than you can comprehend right now. But if you don't come out of that church pew and say yes, you won't experience this life. And the world needs us right now. The world needs Christians to become Christians and do what God called us to do, which is whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me. It's that simple.

SPEAKER_01: 56:06

That's beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that. Well, I usually ask um three questions at the end of the podcast. One is, what's the bravest thing you've ever done? Which I think you just covered with the Gan story. Um and then what are three pivotal books that you read? It could have been any time, it doesn't have to be a recent read that were just transformative for your life.

SPEAKER_00: 56:30

Without a doubt, the first book was God Smuggler by brother Andrew. Um had I not read that book, I didn't even have a Bible that night. Um I read that book before I ever bought a Bible. Had I not read that book, I promise you, I would not be doing what I do today because I would have never thought about it. I would have, I was marketing, advertising, successful, and it was getting even more so, and I could have gone down that road and been a real happy Christian. But that book literally changed my life, the direction of my life. Um and then the Bible is one, um, naturally. Um, and then there was a book I read, and this goes back to the year 2000. I know we're about we're out of time. Um, it's called Seizing Your Divine Moments by Erwin McManus. And I think it's published now under a different title. But I was at a point in my life where I was trying to determine do I want to do this or do I not want to do this? I felt like God was leading me in this direction and um this to do something, but I wasn't sure. And uh pastor friend gave me that book, and after I read that book, I'm like, okay, this is I know that I know that I know God said go do what you want to do, and I'll be with you. And so that book really, really impacted my life.

SPEAKER_01: 57:44

And my next question is what's the best advice that someone gave you?

SPEAKER_00: 57:47

You can love your wife, but make sure she's your best friend also. I didn't do that on my first marriage, and today I today my wife is my best friend. And we are truly partners in every aspect of our life, including our our work with Crisis Aid, our ministry work.

SPEAKER_01: 58:04

That's beautiful. Well, um, for those who are listening, Pat Bradley has a book out called Born for Rescue. Um, also, he leads Crisis Aid International. Uh, Pat, where is the best place where people can find you? Crisisaid.org. That's it. Well, Pat, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your story, for your courage, and for inspiring all of us today.

SPEAKER_00: 58:27

It was a true privilege. Thank you for giving it to me.

SPEAKER_01: 58:30

Thank you for listening to the Ones Who Here podcasts. It is an honor to share these encouraging stories with you. If you enjoy the show, I would love for you to tell your friends, leave us a reviewer rating, and subscribe to wherever you listen to podcasts because this helps others discover the show. You can find me on my website, specopop.com.