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Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Tina and Ann met as journalists covering a capital murder trial, 15 years ago. Tina has been a tv and radio personality and has three children. Ann has a master's in counseling and has worked in the jail system, was a director of a battered woman's shelter/rape crisis center, worked as an assistant director at a school for children with autism, worked with abused kids and is currently raising her three children who have autism. She also is autistic and was told would not graduate high school, but as you can see, she has accomplished so much more. The duo share their stories of overcoming and interview people who are making it, despite what has happened. This is more than just two moms sharing their lives. This is two women who have overcome some of life's hardest obstacles. Join us every Wednesday as we go through life's journey together. There is purpose in the pain and hope in the journey.
Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Hope on the Border part 2: I Love the Me I See in You with Gil Gillenwater
We follow a wrong turn that became a mission and explore how dignity-based service transforms both givers and receivers. Gil shows how housing, education, and reciprocity can turn charity into equity, and why true joy is found when we serve.
• enlightened self-interest and why service elevates the giver
• rent-to-own housing tied to education and community service
• girls’ scholarships and mentorship reducing dropout and pregnancy
• reciprocity models that replace pity with dignity
• volunteers becoming guardian warriors and bridge builders
• policy ideas beyond walls, from vetted work programs to pathways
• interdependence, brain science of giving, and a new border symbol
• practical ways to sponsor, volunteer, and support safely
If this episode moved you, please share it. Support Rancho Fleas if you are able. And keep asking yourself the question: what can I do from where I stand to make sure fewer lives are treated as if they matter less?
Welcome back to Real Talk with Tina and Ann. Last week we talked about the border work, the poverty, the heartbreak, and the unbelievable resilience Gil witnessed in the children and families he serves. But this week we're talking about something even more powerful. What happens to us when we choose to show up for someone else? There is a moment in this conversation where Gil says, I love the me, I see in you. Because something happens when we stand beside another human being in that s in their suffering. We don't just help them. We meet the best parts of ourselves. In part two, we explore why compassion transforms the giver as much as the receiver, how helping others mirrors our deepest values, the surprising joy that rises out of service, why Gil believes we become fully human when we step towards suffering rather than turning away. And how love, when shared, changes the landscape inside us. Gil talks about the kids on the border, but he also talks about us, our responsibility, our courage, our capacity for kindness, and our ability to love beyond comfort. And as he speaks, you can almost feel something unlocking inside your own heart. This episode is not just about charity, it is about identity, it is about purpose, it is about the way loving others reveals who we were meant to be. So if you have ever wondered whether your small actions matter, if you have ever questioned whether one person can really make a difference, if you have ever felt that tug to do something bigger than yourself, part two is your reminder. Join us as we continue the conversation with Gil Gillenwater, a man who teaches us that helping others is not just an act of love, but a mirror that shows us the most beautiful version of ourselves. This is part two. Your your book is that there's just so much trauma there that you just talked about. It but there's also hope. And one of the things that I just love about your program is that it's about solution, real, measurable, replicable solutions.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:In 1987, you and your brother again, um, Troy, left Scottsdale for a Thanksgiving road trip, and you took a wrong turn and you ended up in Agua Prieta. Explain what you saw when you first arrived, when you're you're first finding out about how these people are living.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Well, thank you, because that we intended to go to No Gallas. I had traveled in Mexico, I knew the poverty down there. Uh, to some degree, I knew about it. I hadn't delved into it. We did to my brother's a funny guy. He told him I missed the turn. We ended up in Aguapiena and said, this is an important thing. Spirit or God, or whatever you want to call it, reveals itself to those with a higher purpose. I believe that. I'm not a religious guy at all, but I have seen it over and over and over. And it wasn't a mistake that I ended up on a dirt road inside of Aguapriana and saw my Spanish is terrible, but I could make out orphanatario. And here's a 23-year-old girl taking care of eight children, cooking tamales over a burning tire, no indoor plumbing, uh, no heat. And I had I had been at the Sun's game, you know, two nights before in a Coliseum in Phoenix. I'm going, how can how can this be going on on the same planet? And it was so close to a four-hour drive from my home. And uh, and then and there I said, you know, I I have an innate sense of just social justice. This just isn't right. It's just not right. And so um my brother and I went back and we got uh and I I I made a vow at that point. We'll I'll do this as long as it's fun. I've got a mantra, and that is, he who dies having had the most fun wins. I I think that's what life is about. So we went to Phelps Dodge and we got them to open the haunted hospital in Jerome, and we had a Halloween party that beat all Halloween parties. We raised$15,000 and went down and funded indoor plumbing. And what what struck me then was you can make such a huge difference in people's lives with relatively small amounts of money.$15,000, all of a sudden, these kids can take a shower. They can they can eat food cooked in an oven, not over a burning tire. It's not a lot of money, but it makes a tremendous difference.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they had no electricity, no, no, no running water.
SPEAKER_00:God bless her. You know, I'm gonna be a good one. She's an attractive gal, and I thought, you know, she's not worried about what party, what bar she's gonna go to next. She has devoted her life to collecting these abandoned little souls and seeing that they had food at night and seeing they were safe. It was remarkable. Uh it made what I do look like nothing. I mean, that's commitment there. That's a 24-7 job she had.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, but you saw a need and you acted on it. You went from just dropping food and clothes off to an entire foundation. So talk about seeing a need and knowing that you are the one to make a difference and putting your heart into action.
SPEAKER_00:Well, because that's what you did. Because there are two real kinds of poverty. The easy one is the the kids with not enough to eat, no roof overhead. But the the other one that's just as debilitating in my mind is that poverty of purpose, poverty of meaning. So, what I saw when I would come down, we would bring clothes and we'd hand the clothes out and stuff. But the the groups, the volunteer groups, kept getting larger and larger and larger. And I'm thinking, well, what's going on? Well, they're obviously getting something out of this. So what we did then with this two-prong approach, and this we came up with this idea of enlightened self-interest. It's it's in your best interest. It's paradoxical. The the more you give, the more you receive. You know, I've heard these statements before, but when you're in service work, I'm just I could go give you example after example after example how there is a divine guidance. When you're in service to others, your life opens up. Uh, one of the things that I say, and it's kind of crude, and I don't mean to be crude, but don't volunteer. So you've got a wonderful group of people, it's a vetting process. People who volunteer, who have a larger vision of the world and their responsibility to it, they're fun to hang out with. And we've traveled all over the world together and we've got difference together. And the most important thing to me, Ann, is when I'm laying on my deathbed, I can say, you know what? I'm leaving this place a little better than I found it.
SPEAKER_01:A lot better, I would say. And you'd have traveled all over the world. You even uh were took a vow from the Dalai Lama to remove suffering. And you you took that seriously and that enlightened self-interest that you talk about. You you teach volunteers that the surest way to abundance is through service. And you are honest that humans are greedy, you can call them what you want, like you just did, but they're greedy, and but we need to harness that and use it differently. Yes. How has that philosophy changed both the people that you serve and the volunteers who show up?
SPEAKER_00:Well, let me give a real quick example. Um, when I first started this, I'd I'd get my friends, I'd say, hey, we found this place down there and they don't have anything, and we're gonna get going, we're gonna go volunteer. Volunteer is such a weak word. I don't even like it, I don't believe in altruism, number one. I volunteer, we're gonna go volunteer. Uh it's been portrayed as a sacrifice. I always think of a group of guys sitting around watching a football game, drinking beer, and the game's over, and one says, Well, what do you want to do now? The guy says, Well, I got an idea. Let's go sacrifice. Who's gonna do that? Nobody. So, what I did, I said, Okay, let's let's change this. We're not volunteers, we're guardian warriors. Okay. I'd love to got on our Harley Davidson's, and I got to go around and say, We're gonna do a ride down to Mexico, we're Guardian Warriors, here's your badge, we're gonna kick ass on poverty. All of a sudden, everybody and their brother wanted to come. And we had huge, huge Harley rides down. And I would always pick the alpha. There's always one big alpha male typically, and I'd get him, and his name was Chuck. And it's Chuck, come here. And I gave him a gift, and I said, This they were always around Christmas time. I said, You see that little girl there? I want you to go give her that person. All right, so he'd go over there and he'd get down on knee looking at the little girl, and he'd come back to me and he'd be crying. I get choked up, think about it. He said, Gail, she was my little girl. We I we can't leave her here. We we've got to do something. I said, I know, I know, Chuck, and we will, and we will. And his life was forever changed. This big macho tough guy saw his own daughter in that little girl. And so my contention is why I want to get everybody down there. Mine's a little bit different approach. Mine is not love thy neighbor as thyself. That's two-party, that's a two-party system. I don't believe in that. Mine is I love the me I see in you. When we can get people to believe, I love the me I see in you, because this last weekend when I was handing out those foods, I saw myself. I saw myself and every human. They have the same wants, they have the same dreams, they look at the same moon. We're all in this together. And the most selfish thing I can do is make sure your journey is easier. And uh, and that's worked. And I think once we can do that, once we can turn that greed from um not enough to go around lack into an abundance, there's more than enough. Here's some of mine, because whenever I do that, I get more back. When we get that chance, flipping consciousness, when it's in our own best interest, that's when things are gonna change. If we continue to present it as a sacrifice, you know, six thousand years of sermons haven't done any good.
SPEAKER_01:And you don't believe in welfare?
SPEAKER_00:You say welfare. Welfare is debilitating.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you well, yeah, I was just gonna say that it robs people of dignity and you believe in reciprocal giving.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And what I love about this so much, both sides contribute, both sides are empowered. And I have always said that if we could take the Bible and, you know, unravel the Bible and just put it out there, um, that's what it would look like. What you're talking about. Yeah. I really believe that that was how the Bible intended this and what we and how we are supposed to live. Can you walk us through how the worthy neighbors rent-to-owned housing model works for a typical family?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Well, again, um, the the border problem is not a problem on the border, and it's not a problem with uh with a border patrol. The problem is the host country. That's the problem. And if we let people come through the border, we're taking the pressure off of what needs to change. This country needs to change. Mexico needs to change. Venezuela needs to change. So what we do is create situations where people can live with dignity. And we did that with our vecinos dinos sinfranteras subdivision. That means worthy neighbors without borders. It's two and a half acres, 42 duplex style homes. I get wonderful volunteers. Ron Crater, JBZ architects, land planner, did this wonderful land plan where the houses are in horseshoe shape. So you have to look at your neighbor. You can't run and hide in your garage like I do here and have a neighbor uh to my left who I haven't met and been here for nine years. You have to look at your neighbor. We're we're common, we're common-minded people. And um, so to do that, we had to raise$26,000 per home. And then we built a 10,000 square foot uh childcare center and a 5,000 square foot learning center. But we had a thousand applications, over a thousand applications for every single home. And that was the hardest. They'd been vetted, they'd been through like six interviews by the time Jim Armstrong and I got to them. We took four families with these adorable children, and you had to pick one. Oh, it just ripped your mind.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Had to do that 42 times. And um, inherent in qualifying for a home, your children are eligible for a$33,000 a year uh private school bilingual school scholarship. So a lot like with the Zagaste family, there's three kids. That's$9,000. That's more than the family's income that they would get in scholarships. Well, and I'm here to tell you. One of his daughters is now a doctor, practicing doctor. The other one is um an attorney in Insenata, and the third, the young man, believe it or not, works for Rolls-Royce in Berlin, Germany. These are kids that were born in the shack because education. They got education. They are gonna raise their children educated. It's just boom, it just goes on from there. So that's why our the education and housing to me kind of go hand in hand. But these people, they're proud of their homes. Uh, Rea Zagassi says, you know what, Gil, I found my American dream right here in Mexico because it's a beautiful home and they've their C C and Rs. He can't paint it purple, he can't put a uh a nail salon on the third floor, and they fought all that stuff for a long time. But then they realize their value is there. Out of 42 homes, we have transferred deeds to 33. So 33 families now own their own homes. We've transferred about a million and a half in equity. They have become firm members of the Mexican middle class. It's just wonderful. And it should be replicated all down the border. It should be.
SPEAKER_01:This is a model program that really it should be the program. It should be the program. Because when you think about it, I mean, they uh contributed to their own self, really. And and they just had to, it was uh interest-free housing, correct?
SPEAKER_00:And they had to you bring up a really good point though, Anne. It's not welfare, just what you said. They had to make payments, but they were principal-only payments. They had to do 200 hours of community service work every year. Most important thing, the parents, if they didn't have a high school scholarship, had to go get a GED equivalent. And lastly, if their kid dropped out of school before he got or she got their high school diploma, they were in default on their lease and could be evicted. That's how important education. Now, would we have evicted any? Probably not, but they don't know that. I want them to know that they need to keep those kids in school.
SPEAKER_01:But what you asked them, they all did. And see, it's that's how badly they really want to contribute to their own success. They don't want handouts. So I found that very um important. And you are very clear that it is harder for girls, and more than half drop out of high school, and teenage pregnancy rates are high. You call some of them throwaways because that's how they're treated. And you build a high school scholarship and empowerment program for them. Can you talk about that?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, we have a group of really, really wonderful women up in uh in Scottsdale and in Tucson, and it's called Bright Futures. And to us, it was just uh inexcusable that 50% of the the girls in Awa Prieta drop out their first year. And once they do that, then they get pregnant, and it's literally game over, and it they it is a throwaway life. That life is not one that you would want to lead. These women have come together. It the most interesting thing to me, and it's 99% of it, is just showing that young girl somebody cares. And as a gringo or a gringa, we don't realize how much power we carry. But but the fact that you've got all these people paying attention to you, we get them uh laptops so that they can do we bring um successful Mexican ladies uh down to give them talks about how they can succeed in business. We bring in uh health experts for sex education so they don't get pregnant when they're 13 and 14. And they really concentrate. All of a sudden, these young ladies that that didn't even have a chance of getting through high school, freshman year of high school, are going to university, getting university degrees, and having rich and fulfilling life. I got a I got a postcard from one of our gals uh from Italy. They're traveling, she, you know, she's just got a nice life. It's it's it's incredible.
SPEAKER_01:You share a start a stat from the World Bank for every year a child stays in school, their earning capacity increases by about 10%.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And through your program, which you've already talked about, but you are you sponsored more than 3,700 scholarships and built the education centers that you just talked about. And you also create infant brain development programs that reach children from 40 days old through university. I'm like, what? Are you kidding me? I mean, you that is so impressive. And you now have two and a half generations of kids going to school and contributing back to their community. I mean, you are saying if you give people real opportunity, most of them will choose to stay and build where they are.
SPEAKER_00:Um I'd like to just quickly tell you about our food distributions. Uh, we did one this week and we hand out we we we put together a hundred bags and hand out a hundred bags of food. The people line up at 3 a.m. Oh my god they're one bag of food at 10 a.m. It's one bag of food. And for our volunteers to see the the lengths that people will go to get one bag of food is is incredible. But I remember going out there and looking, and you'd see this long lines of people, and their their heads are bowed down and they're shuffling to get their bag of food, and you hand it in and they look up, oh gracias senor. But you know what, Ann, deep inside, they don't like you. They resent you because you have it to give and they don't. I learned this lesson from a Tata Hamada Indian in the bottom of the Barranco de Cobra, Copper Canyon. I was in Phoenix in a sporting goods store and I saw this knife, and I had this friend named Felipe. He runs those hundred-mile races in tire sole sandals. I said, you know, Felipe could really use a knife like this down there in those jungles. So next trip, I found him and I gave it to him. Felipe, look what I got for you. And I showed him how to do the blades, and somebody called me off. And I went over and I came back about five minutes later. And the log we were sitting on was there, and there was the knife. He was gone. Felipe was gone. Well, hell, he forgot his knife. So I grabbed it. Felipe, I go running after him. And then a guy grabbed me. His name is Gregorio de Carmen. He's a university educated Tarahamar Indian. And he says, Oh, Gil, I don't know how to tell you this, but uh, in our culture, you did a really bad thing. Oh. What? I gave the guy a gift. And he goes, Exactly. And you didn't tell him you were going to give him a gift, and he had nothing to give you back. And you created this uneven, you're the benevolent giver, and he's the lowly receiver, this uneven exchange of energy that cannot do anybody any good. And you know, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. And wow, you know, he's right. And then I realized you can't have givers without receivers. They're as much a part of that transaction as anybody. All you need to do is make it reciprocal. You need to tell, hey, Felipe, I'm coming on Thursday and I'm bringing you a gift. So he has time to make it even.
SPEAKER_01:See, this is a dignity-based model that you're talking about. They have to collect 20 pieces of discarded plastic to receive a bag of food in a warm blanket. And you have collected more than 20 million pieces of plastic.
SPEAKER_00:We've cleaned up the whole city.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, and distributed 64,000 bags of food and provided about 2.6 million meals. I mean, you have built over 1,200 homes and created more than$11 million in home equity, raised and invested more than$19 million into the border economy, built three orphanages, three education centers, three child care centers, three volunteer centers, and you call this charity wrapped in dignity. I would think that this creates a community like no other. If everyone was so invested and worked so closely, you even created a dog program to help the overpopulation. You know, people would be so proud where they live. And I just want to say that how much I love this program. Talk about a person's dignity and why that makes them thrive where they are.
SPEAKER_00:Um, on those food distributions, they were downtrodden and everything. I thought, well, but what can I, what can I have them do? They can't lay brick. A 90-year-old grandmother can't lay brick or a child. I looked around, and the the national flower in Awa Prieta is the discarded plastic bag. So who can't pick up 20 bags? So I said, you have to put it on the ticket. You have to have a minimum of 20 bags. And I didn't know whether I'd come out the next morning for the distribution and they say, Well, the heck with you, Gringo, you pick up your own trash. I didn't know what it was going to be. What I found was they were standing up with these big Mira Senor, Mira mi bolsa. Look, sir, look at my bag. I got 200 pieces of plastic. We all want to contribute. We all want to be. You know what a luxury it is to be on the giving end of these transactions? We always think it's the givers everything. And that but these people never get to be in a point of contribution. And we have created a place where they can. And they, and I'm telling you, there were 2,000 people whose posture improved. They had their dignity, they had their, they earned it, and they were proud to give it to me, and they were proud to take the bag of food and go. It was a very little thing. Uh I mean, the recycled proceeds off the plastic came to two scholarships or something. It's not even that. I don't care if we threw it all back out in the street. It was the fact that they felt they made a contribution and they earned the food. And that's a function of the human experience. We all know when we receive something that we did we don't deserve or we didn't earn, we know that. We all want to protect our dignity. And by designing your programs with reciprocal giving, we can do that for everybody.
SPEAKER_01:You point out that the estimated$55 billion to complete the border wall could instead fund almost 30,000 communities, millions of years of high school and university semesters in Mexico. And when you look at the comparison between the cost of building the wall and funding education or communities, what do you, and I know that this isn't political, but what do you want decision makers to know?
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I don't know that it has to be one or the other. They just completed a 42-mile stretch of the wall down uh just west of Nogalis at a at a cost of$30.4 million per mile. That's what you're funding as a taxpayer. That's what I'm funding.$30.4 million per mile and a million per mile per year in upkeep. I mean, that's a huge, huge investment. Do we need walls? Well, you know, we didn't invent them. There are currently 70, over 70 walls throughout the world addressing immigration. We didn't invent that game. And there is a time when you do need a wall. I'm just a little bit suspect now with all the technology and drones and things like that, that we need to build something that looks like a seventh-century solution to a 21st century problem, a wall. Can you imagine waking up every morning? I tell my volunteers this, and the first thing you see is a 30-foot wall that essentially says, stay the hell out. We don't want you. You're not as good as we are. What would that do to your psyche? And then I tell them, and then you drive down the road and you see a group of Americans building a house for a less fortunate family, and you say, Well, you know, maybe all those Americans aren't so bad after all. So we we we change consciousness on both sides of the border. Um I think in answer to your question, uh, if I I would I would think there would be a way to do it technologically where we didn't have the ISO or the big ugly wall. But um I don't know. We cannot have people come through at will. We just can't. So maybe a wall is a short solution. I I I wish I could look ahead 50 years and see uh how how far that got us.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was just wondering your thoughts on that because you're so wise about all of this. Uh you also, you know, we talked about your volunteers a little while ago. And your volunteers, I mean, they have helped build all of these things. And you have about a thousand volunteers a year. And you say that they have built a bridge, not a wall. I loved that. What happens inside these volunteers is life-changing, like you talked about. And I think that one of the things that they see is something that you can't really see, and that's freedom and opportunity. And I think that that gives such a different perspective when you see that people on the other side, what they're lacking really is the freedom and the opportunity. Yes. And what that does for them when they have that.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Well, you bring up such a good point there, and and you know, I always tell them, you know what the difference is between you and the guy living over in that shack? And they think and they think. Luck! L-U-C-K, you were born in the US. He wasn't. That's it. And um that's that's the only difference between the situations. And what we don't realize in the United States, I mean, I don't care how hard you work in Mexico if you don't have an education uh and you don't have opportunity, there's no purchase. You're never gonna get anywhere. In America, we the land of opportunity, we have educational opportunities. And if you look at those two words, Ann, and I'm I I like words, freedom and opportunity, they're virtually synonymous. If you really think about it, they are. You can't have freedom without opportunity, you can't have opportunity without freedom. They mean the same thing. And we as Americans, I have I think take that for granted. That is such a gift that we have access to social uh mobility. Uh, the harder we work, typically, the better we do here. Those things aren't true in most of the world.
SPEAKER_01:I think about that 10-year-old girl that gave her coat to a child when she realized that their family of eight was living in a shack smaller than her bedroom. You know, that's something that she is never going to forget. And this is what happens when we do what our heart tells us to do. And we just give and care and see and want to give opportunity where they don't have it.
SPEAKER_00:Especially children. You know, I sometimes I think when people get older, they develop an empathic blindness. I mean, they can have their big life and they can know this one's going on, but it's just they're blind to it. It doesn't matter. Children, on the other hand, have an innate sense of social justice. I can't tell you the number of times they come up. Well, that's well, Mr. Gillenwater, that's not fair. No, it isn't. It really isn't. And you need to figure out things to make it more fair. So um, that's part of this. I don't even want to call it a job, a lifestyle, I suppose. Um, that is it's just for me, it's like I get to be Santa Claus all the time. I'm who wouldn't want to do this stuff? It is I I I come home and I'm just I want to burst. I'm so excited to see this little this weekend. These guys came from Utah and they built two houses, and we got to give the keys, and these little families go through these houses. And ah, I'm telling you, I don't know any greater. That's my heroine. I don't know any greater joy on planet earth than than those experiences.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I um used to work in the jail system and with the women, and they at Christmas time would turn in the list of their kids, and we would go, we would go to Toys for Tots, fill up our cars of toys that were left over because people, nobody was going to use all the toys that were donated to Toys for Tots. If people don't know it, there they do donate them to other places. So what we did was we went and we filled up our cars and we had our addresses of the women in the jail that wanted us to provide Christmas for these kids. And we went from house to house to house to kids that, you know, didn't really have very much at all. And it was really just the most amazing experience. It's something that I still think about today, and that was years ago when we did that. That's but you know, yeah, I mean, it's something it touches a different part of you.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Your shared humanity. You you recognize yourself and those children. But for the well, there's a saying, but for the grace of God, there go I. I mean, it's it's a fact. You know, could I tell a real quick story uh on one of the things I learned in the Himalayas? Uh, there's a uh Choki Nima Rinpoche, uh uh highly learned Lama. You know, I sat down, had an audience with him. I think there were like five of us. And um, as we're sitting down, and this this was what we were talking, I couldn't understand this idea of um uh d dependency. Nothing exists independently, everything is interdependent on everything else. And I just couldn't make sense of that. And so we so we're sitting down and he goes, Would you grab that um and he's pointing like that? And I think he can't think of the n of the word because he's uh Tibetan. And I said, Chair? And he goes, Oh, is that what it is? I said, Well, yeah, it's a chair. And he said, Well, how interesting. He says, Could you please tell me what part of that is a chair? Is it the four legs? Is it the seat? Is it the back? And I said, No, no, no, no, no, no. It's the accumulation of those things uh makes a chair. And so the chair exists independently by itself over there as an accumulation of those things. And I said, Well, yeah, and I picked it up and shook it. I said, This is a chair, and I put it down, and he says, and it exists independently from its own side. Yes. He says, Well, let me ask you a quick question. Would that chair be here today if there wasn't a tree that made the wood of the chair? No. So the chair is the chair and the tree. And so I knew I was kind of screwed at that point. And he goes, So would the chair exist today if the woodcutter didn't cut down the tree? So the chair is the wood and the woodcutter, and the woodcutter's mother and the son that and it goes on forever. The person who planted the seed for the tree. Yeah. We don't, we don't, we're not separate. We don't exist independently, we exist in relationship to everybody else. That's why we have the knot of eternity, the endless knot as our logo, because everything I do affects everything you do affects me. And once we get that in truly believe it, then it becomes super apparent that the most selfish thing I can do for myself is to take care of you. Because in doing so, I'm taking care of me.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my gosh, this is so beautiful. I wish people understood what you are saying. I just don't know why people don't get it.
SPEAKER_00:I don't need to read the book Hope on the Border.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, they do need to read the book Hope on the Border, because I did see and understood more than I mean, I do I did think a lot of the things that you already have in this book. Um, because I all I believe it myself. You put it so brilliantly. You even took somebody that believed in all of these things and you put a different perspective in me with it. It was a deeper perspective. And the pictures from Jose's foot all the way to um, you know, the the people that were trying to cross the border and the people in their shacks and the successes that, you know, the family of the people that they're all uh have their arms around each other and they're living. They're living, you know, and the one that became a doctor, and then the one that became a lawyer, and then the one that uh is working in Germany, and like you said, I mean, these were just such, it's just it gave me a visual for all that we say so many times.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thank you, Ann. That's quite a compliment, and I do appreciate it. It's an accumulation of 40 years of being down there on the border and seeing the worst that uh uh the human spirit has to offer as well as the best. Seeing what works, what doesn't work, and uh so it it's uh and a lot of help. It's a lot of volunteers, a lot of uh donors, a lot of people have their hands, you know.
SPEAKER_01:I I I want to um wrap soon, but I want to talk about something really beautiful. You call the borderlands a third nation, not the US and not Mexico, but a place of its own. And everywhere you went in Mexico, you saw the shrines which I'm probably gonna say this wrong, La Virgin de Guadalupe, maybe um, Mexico's patron goddess. And you felt how important that this was for people who were suffering. So you wanted to create your own spiritual symbol for this third nation and for Rancho Files. So please tell us about this and what she represents.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, well, so much of um so much of Mexico as art, I love it. It comes from the Aztec and the Mayan and the bright colors. And and you're right, this is a third nation. I mean, it's uh this thin, like 10-mile strip of border. It's not really Mexico, it's not really the U.S. It's uh we speak Spanglish down there. It's this our amalgam of all these different beliefs, and then you've got the drug culture. So you've got the La Verde de la Guadalupe from the Catholicism and the Santa Muerte, which is the rising one, the the the saint of death, um, because of all the problems of Mexico, and uh it's all mixed together. And I just thought, you know, in the in the U.S. we've got the Statue of Liberty, and Mexico's got the the um Virgin de Guadalupe. So I thought, well, we need a we need a um a statue, we need a symbol. And so we put together this wonderful bronze, and as you saw, the the symbology is phenomenal. Uh the fl the Mexican and American flags are both upside down, which is the international um symbol for trouble. We're in trouble. I believe we are in trouble on the border, um, and and all the different things that to relate to human nature, why we act the way we do. But the big one is on the back, and I call it the climb of consciousness. And it shows coming from the reptile world up to where it's survival of the fittest, and you'll see people stepping on people's heads to get higher and pulling people down so they can get up higher. And and then it as it goes along up this big climb. You see, some have wandered off thinking they can do it on their own. We're social animals. You can't, they die, and it keeps going, keeps going. And then all of a sudden, you see somebody reaching down to pull somebody up, to help somebody up and push somebody up. And then on the top is there's a man in meditation because my firm belief that when we quiet our minds, and I'm not a Buddhist, but when we quiet our minds, we create space for Christ consciousness, Buddha nature, whatever you want to call it, to come in and fill our lives with that type of wisdom. And I've just seen I've seen it over and over and over. I like meditation. I I don't I also like service work because you know, and think about this. You're following somebody and they're carrying a big stack of books and you're behind them and a paper falls out. What's your first reaction? It's to pick it up. Right now, you might stop and go, oh, wait a minute, I don't know that person. Should I should? Your first reaction is to help. We are charitable beings. Right. And I want you to think about something. You're driving in traffic, and some guy comes. Right in front of you, and you son of a gun. You ever notice that anger, anger forces us to love ourselves? How can he do that to me, to me? And we get this real strong ego. Fact of the matter is, the guy's late for work has nothing to do with you. Or you could see him trying to get in and you signal him in, and he looks at you, and there's that moment of recognition. And see, how do you physically feel when you help somebody? And your mind is open. And then my contention, it's that those moments that again, Christ consciousness, Buddha nature, cosmic consciousness, we realize we're all in this together. It knocks off this big rough edges between me and you. We're doing the best we can. And it's my interest to help you on your journey and vice versa. And it's so I really believe that service, it has not only, I mean, an actual physiologic cause to make us better people, not just la la and and and and crazy talk, love thy neighbor, blah, blah, blah. These are actual physical things that take place and we rewire our mind. They've already proven that when you're in service to others, the left side of your frontal cortex in relation to your right gets larger. And the larger it is, the happier we are. And the more we serve, the more our baseline happiness rises.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So service physically makes us happier people.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I believe that. Yeah. I mean, I get so much more out of it when I'm helping somebody else than when they're helping, I'm getting help. It's just a different feeling completely. And I really enjoyed reading about the sculpture. And who, who, I think his name was John, maybe? Did he?
SPEAKER_00:Soderbergh, and unfortunately passed away a couple of years ago, but he was a big, robust guy, Harley writer, big beard. So he was always, we've got a red suit. He was always the lead, the Santa on the lead Harley. The only problem was he smoked, and we'd have to constantly say, put the cigarette out. Santa doesn't smoke.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my gosh, that's awesome. That's so awesome. And then I think your niece sculpt um drew the initial sculpture.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, Catherine Gwill, she's she's fabulous. She's working on a piece for me right now. She's a wonderful graphic uh designer. Neil Fox did the graphic design on the book, and he's just he's excellent. I think he did a wonderful job.
SPEAKER_01:And and you do make it clear that it's not an idol to be worshipped, but it's a symbol.
SPEAKER_00:Right. It's just a symbol of different emotions and different things that we that we deal with as human beings and how we can maybe deal with them a little bit differently um now that we've evolved. We don't need to be scared to death that the lion's gonna eat us anymore.
SPEAKER_01:So speaking of death out there, um, why was it important to create the missing migrant museum? And you you kind of touched on it a little bit earlier, and you also do the searches and the DNA matching. Could you talk about all of that?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Um When I find a set of human remains, I I found a Bible next to a set of human remains. It was opened up to that section in O Lord, why have you forsaken me? I think of these people from the jungles, and I I sit down right next to the remains, the bones, and I look around and I think this was the last this was the last view this person had on this his short experience. And um, I don't know. There's just something so powerful about that situation. Um, he's trying to get a better life, he's trying to get a life like I had, or she. And I just feel that somehow we need to be in a position we can notify next of kin, things like that, of what's going on. I do think that a majority of Americans have no idea, and that's why I built that museum, because I get a thousand volunteers a year, and we have the before dinner, you know, you're gonna have to listen to the migrant museum talk. And so many of them have no earthly idea of the amount uh and magnitude of suffering that's happening right there on our border. And and I always end it with there are solutions. There's a solution uh to all of this stuff. One is we had the Braseros program back in 1942 when we were going to World War II. We went down and brought five million Mexicans up to pick our lettuce. We vetted them, we made sure they weren't criminals, we um we taxed them so it wasn't a drain on our system, and we paid them and we let them go home at Christmas. Where's the mystery at America? We need migrants right now reaching out. So that's a solution. People say, well, we got there's 20 million illegals, uh uh 23 million, I think count is now in America. Well, here's give them a path to citizenship, vet them. Number one, just make sure they're not criminals. If they're criminals, they're out of here. There's no two ways about it. And then Ann, have them sign a document. Says, you know what, I'm guilty. I came in illegally, but it doesn't go on their record, or but they at least admit it. And I think that's important to a certain segment of America, and then fine them ten thousand dollars payable over 10 years. Okay, that comes to$200 billion, and they would do it. They just paid$10,000 to get smuggled across the border. Give them 10 years working here, give them a path to citizenship that financially benefits America. And uh, I mean, so there are solutions.
SPEAKER_01:I've never heard that before. That's brilliant.
SPEAKER_00:It's brilliant. Well, the problem is the the the and I I don't want to get into politics. It appears to me that they're fighting to keep their power base has their decisions have nothing to do with solving the problem. That's the way it appears. Because the the problem can be solved.
SPEAKER_01:Well, why don't you just run for president?
SPEAKER_00:You couldn't pay me to have that job. I got my hands old here, Ann.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But you um I I I think a lot of people would vote for that though. Uh 50%, you have a 50% success rate in matching migrant remains with surviving family members.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And I mean, what a mix. I mean, to be able to give that to the family and give them some closure, but it would be so heartbreaking at the same time.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, well, unfortunately, there's close to, I think, two or three thousand sets of human remains in Tucson at the coroner's office because the United States won't fund um if if there's still flesh on the body, you can do the 23andme um DA for about a couple hundred dollars. So, Ann, if you were if you were in Guatemala and your brother left and you hadn't heard from him, you would you would call the embassy, they'd come out and they'd swab you. And it goes on an international database. Okay. You know, five years from now and come across a body. We test the body and boom, you got a hit. So that's out there. What unfortunately, once the body degenerates to bones, you have to go to a nuclear DNA test, which was discovered by the Argentinians during the disappearing. They're$1,100 apiece. So we have 2,000 sets of human remains in Tucson just for that little sector that are just going to sit there until somebody comes up with the money to test them. The tests are available, it's just a function of funding.
SPEAKER_01:See, this is stuff that I said at the very beginning. You're going to hear things that you've never even thought about. I mean, these are we just never, but these are people.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And and this was just so sad. You have a very strong internal code for Rancho Feliz, and you vowed in 1987 that you would never get a penny, and that the organization is volunteer run, and every project must be financially self-sufficient, and no new program launches until funding is in place, which is again brilliant. You are not politically or religiously affiliated, which you have said numerous times on this show. Uh, you also make fundraising really creative, and you kind of touched on that a little bit, but you know, runs across America, cycling events, tours, all raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to support your work. For people listening who feel moved and want to do something, what is some practical ways that people can get involved?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'll tell you, and this is an easy question for me to answer. Education is marvelous. Sponsor a child. Sponsor a child. You'll get a full bio on that kid. You'll know what his grades are. Most of our sponsors have followed these children through kindergarten all the way up into university. How much hundred doll gets a quality bilingual education for these kids. Okay. Um, we also have our those high school scholarships, they're only$300 a year. And that's a that's a year that somebody can do that. We we don't have the staff or crew to follow up communication between the child that receives a$300. So that one you just give to the the organization and you know that somebody's getting a scholarship for it. The other one, since it is a bigger investment, we like to connect the the people with the child. Now, some people say, You look, Gil, it's awesome. I want to do it, but I don't want to get involved. I don't want to get emotionally involved. And that's fine too, because the kids getting educated. You want to make a difference in this world, you know. Donate to a child's education. The other thing is come down and volunteer. We have open house weekends. It's ranchofelice.com. You can come down, you can bring your family. Um, it's perfectly safe. I've had 28,000 volunteers over 40 years and not one incident of violence. I couldn't do that here in Phoenix. So that's another way you could get involved. So there's there's several ways.
SPEAKER_01:You know, one of the first things I thought of was, I wonder if there is violence. And you just answered that question.
SPEAKER_00:No, that's a big concern because the the the media would have, you believe, and violence is a problem in Mexico. The violence, most of the violence that we've ever seen has been um bad guy on bad guy. They don't bother, they don't bother tourists because they don't want the the U.S. military breathing down their necks. So we have been very, very fortunate. They've always treated us with the utmost of respect. We've never had an issue. Um and so quite proud of that.
SPEAKER_01:And there's no trouble getting out in and out of the border.
SPEAKER_00:No. No. In fact, you know, so many people in in Agua Prieta, Rancho Felice has funded a scholarship for a niece. Rancho Felice gave food to his aunt. I mean, we're we're so intertwined and intertangled with that community. Everybody has heard of Rancho Felice, and we get treated with a certain deference that uh really makes it safer for the volunteers.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Well, that's awesome. Uh so if anybody wants to do that, or give a uh tax deductible donation, uh there's many, many ways that you can contribute. You can go to uh ranchofelice.com and or slash donate and email information at info at ranchofelice.com or call 602-538-9192. And we're gonna close here, but um, Gil, as we close, I want to return to something that you wrote. We do not exist independently, we only exist in relation to one another. We are threads in the fabric of life. Every action we take affects the whole. You have talked about that. You see that on the border every single day, and a$14 wage that keeps family in a shack, an American drug demand that funds cartel bullets, and a student who gets a scholarship and becomes a doctor serving her community, and a 10-year-old girl who gives away her jacket because she can't unsee what she has seen. If you could look at every listener in the eye and leave them with one thought about how to live differently after hearing all of this, what would you say?
SPEAKER_00:I would say serve. Serve. And there's so many different ways you can do that. You can do it with your family, you can do it with your neighbor, you can do it with the guy at the store. But your true joy, our true joy as human beings, is found in service to other. It's a joy that's much more lasting, again, than a good meal or a new car. It's a joy that we can lay on our deathbeds and say, I'm leaving this place a little better than I found it.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. To everyone listening, we talk a lot on this podcast about turning pain into purpose. And what Gil in Rancho Feliz shows us is that purpose is not always glamorous. Sometimes it's mixing cement. Sometimes it's picking up plastic in exchange for a bag of rice. But to me, that is glamorous. Sometimes it's sponsoring a student you may never meet. Sometimes it's letting your own heart be broken, opened by a story of a man left for dead in the desert and deciding to live your life in a way that honors him. The border is not a line, it's a place. And the people on both sides are us. Thank you, Gil, for the work that you do and for sharing these stories. And thank you, everybody, for listening. If this episode moved you, please share it. Support Rancho Fleas if you are able. And by his book, Hope on the Border. So I want to say to you, Gil, thank you for your work, what you do, and for sharing these stories. And thank you all for listening. If this episode moved you, please share it. Support Rancho Fleas if you are able. And keep asking yourself the question: what can I do from where I stand to make sure fewer lives are treated as if they matter less? And as always, there is purpose in the pain and hope in the journey. And we will see you next time.
