Passed out in a Nightclub to Missionary for Jesus

Samuel grew up around church, but faith never felt real. By his late teens, he was battling depression, chasing identity through boxing, money, fitness, and partying… yet nothing filled the void.

Then lockdown hit.

Alone, broke, and at rock bottom, everything changed when he read a letter his mum had written years earlier. That moment led him to ask one question:

“Jesus… what’s the deal?”

Days later, on a beach with strangers, Samuel encountered God—and his life flipped overnight.

From depression to purpose.
 From confusion to calling.
 From a nightclub floor… to preaching the gospel within a year.

In this episode, Samuel shares:

•  How Jesus pulled him out of his lowest moment 
•  The moment everything “clicked” on a beach 
•  His journey into global missions with YWAM 
•  Preaching in South America and trekking Bibles into the Amazon 
•  The reality check of returning home and living out faith in everyday life 
•  Why we are all missionaries—no matter where we are 

This is a story of radical transformation, surrender, and discovering that your purpose isn’t found in what you do… but in who you’re living for.

“Love God. Love people. That’s the mission.”

Key Highlights

• [00:01:54] The "Xbox Christian" childhood and losing interest in faith.
• [00:05:40] Finding identity in boxing and the trap of "arrogance."
• [00:09:50] Hitting rock bottom in 2020 and the letter that changed everything.
• [00:24:49] Adventures in the Amazon: Distributing Bibles to indigenous communities.
• [00:39:55] Full Circle: Launching a personal training business as a new form of ministry.
• [00:54:19] Seeing revival and curiosity in the younger generation.

Connect with Samuel: Follow his journey and comedy content on Instagram: @BigSamTheBibleMan

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Transcript

Transcript

00:00:01 Speaker 1

your number one job, the most important commandment that Jesus says is, love God and love people.

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So at the baseline, that's the call of all of us, which makes us all missionaries.

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And I was preaching that message in South America.

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And then when I got back to the UK midway through last year, God really, I say, he made me check myself before I wrecked myself and basically said, okay, you've been preaching this message, but now like, you know, you've got to find a minimum wage job just to get by.

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So do you really believe it?

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And I was like, okay, Lord, I see what we're doing here.

00:00:33 Speaker 2

You're listening to the Jesus Studio Podcast.

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Hi Sam, welcome to the Jesus Studio Podcast.

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Thank you for being here.

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We can't wait to hear your story.

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It sounds like an adventure.

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So if you could just introduce yourself and go for it.

00:00:49 Speaker 1

Thanks so much for having me, guys.

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Hi, everyone watching on YouTube or at home or wherever this is.

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My name is Samuel.

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I'm 25 years old and about five years ago, Jesus met me where I was at and completely changed my life.

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And I guess I'm here to tell you guys a little bit about how that happened and what it looked like.

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And yeah, let's have a fun chat.

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Great, we'll go for it.

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Tell us your story, Sam.

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We'll start from the beginning wherever you want to start.

00:01:19 Speaker 1

Sure, yeah, sound good as well.

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I guess I'll start like right from the beginning, like childhood.

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Yeah, so I was born into a Christian family with two wonderful parents.

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Love you mum, love you dad.

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And my younger brother Luke.

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Love you too, bro.

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And so I was raised going to church every Sunday, going to youth groups, et cetera.

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But faith didn't really have any reality in my life beyond going to church, hearing some Bible stories, and then just getting back home to go play on the Xbox again.

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Like, when can we get out here?

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You know how it is.

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I always said that I believed in God as a kid, but what that looked like as a reality in my life, it actually had no real reality.

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So when I got to about maybe 11, 12 years old secondary school, I stopped going to church when it kind of became my choice because I was like, I would rather play football on the weekends with my friends.

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And then, yeah, that takes me to around secondary school years.

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I always claimed to believe in God still.

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If people ask me, I'll be like, oh yeah, I'm A Christian because my parents are Christian.

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So that de facto makes me a Christian, But that had no reality in my life.

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As a teenager in school, I actually became very depressed, got very down and really, really struggled for meaning and identity and just was in a pretty low place mentally.

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was still your typical teenage kid, joking around with friends and stuff.

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And then this was kind of a pan all throughout school.

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Really struggled with my mental health, really struggled with identity, really struggled with finding any security.

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Claimed to believe in God, but it had no reality in my life.

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So that's kind of secondary school years up until the age of about 6th form, where that basically continues and gets way worse.

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I was really, really in a bad place.

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in sixth form because the college that I was meant to go to closed down two weeks before I was meant to go there.

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So I had to find a place on two weeks notice to go do college and I ended up going somewhere where I had no friends, where I didn't know anyone from the get-go.

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People there were really nice and got to know them great, but I really struggled because all of my friends went to one place

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And then I ended up having to go somewhere completely different where I knew no one and then seeing them all together age 16 to 18, I really, really got to a low point and was not doing well.

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Still claim to have a faith at this point, but the reality was looking back now, it just had zero reality in my life at all.

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Getting to the end of sixth form at age 18, started seeking identity, seeking validation, like in all of these different ways because I just didn't

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understand why we were here.

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I didn't really grasp the meaning of life of like, what am I even doing here?

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What's the point?

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Zero faith in, you know, humanity and everything.

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And I tried to kind of find identity and validation in all of these other different ways.

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When I was 18, started going to nightclubs, partying, drinking alcohol, et cetera.

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Started going to parties, et cetera, like all of that stuff.

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What else was I doing at age 18?

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Lifting weights, going to the gym.

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seeking validation and identity through that, whether it was trying to, make money, like looking for career options, thinking what do I actually want to do.

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But it's like there was this eternal sized hole in my heart, which just couldn't be filled by any of these things because it was all temporary.

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At about the age of 18, I started boxing, went into a boxing gym for the first time.

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And I thought that I finally found my thing.

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I was like, yes, this is what gives me identity.

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I'm going to train and be a world champion and do the best.

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And then I had the way that I started was doing one of those charity fights where they give you like 6 weeks of training for free.

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And then and then put you with like with an opponent.

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And I was about 18 at the time.

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I was a super shy 18 year old kid.

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I struggled with my weight a lot when I was a kid as well.

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and was in pretty bad shape.

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I got into this kind of mini boxing camp, lost a bunch of weight as an 18 year old.

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And then on fight night, I fought a guy who was 29 years old and I was 18.

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He was a big kind of buff bodybuilder guy and I beat him.

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in front of all my mates in this kind of like white collar boxing event.

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And no one thought I could, even my mates after, they were like, man, we thought that guy was going to smoke you.

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And then I went from shy, introverted teenager to really out there, arrogant 18 year old, because I'm like, yeah, I'm the freaking man guys.

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Like I just carried on with boxing, really, really tried to take it seriously.

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And then got a job as a car salesman.

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in Brighton where I was kind of living close to at the time.

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And I thought, like I'm on top of the world now.

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Like I've found all of these things.

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I'm training to be an amateur level boxer.

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I've got this career where I can make really, really good money.

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Everyone's looking at me like with all the weight that I lost, like I was in much better shape now.

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But there was still something missing.

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Like I knew all of this stuff was temporary.

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The car sales job as a 19-year-old kid, I was not ready for a role like that at the time.

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And I felt like I was always forcing a persona, like just putting out, just being like, hey, smile, let me sell you a car because I want money, you know?

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And doing a role like that at the time, I really, really wasn't ready for it.

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And it actually really dragged down my mental health at the time because

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I had this idea of what life would be, training at this boxing gym, really pursuing that, making a bunch of money, and it wasn't happening.

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And I was like, shoot, this is affecting my identity because right now my identity is built on these things.

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And I got to like the lowest of the low.

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Really, really sad, really, really in a bad place.

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And then I started thinking to myself, you know what?

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I've succeeded with stuff before.

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I've proven to myself that because I've got this arrogant mind because I've just had one win in a charity boxing match.

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I'm like, yeah, I can do anything.

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I've proven it to myself before.

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Like, I'm going to pursue personal training.

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I'm going to go become a personal trainer.

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So I quit my car sales job and then I move over to pursuing personal training because I was like, wow, I've lost a load of weight myself.

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And now let me make a career of helping other people to do the same.

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This comes full circle later.

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Like we'll talk about this in a bit.

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So signed up to do my personal training courses, which was an online course, quit my job in car sales, and then COVID comes around, right?

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It's early 2020.

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At this point, I'm still doing all of the stupid things, you know, going out, partying with my friends, getting drunk regularly.

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I remember New Year's Eve of 2019 going into 2020 was like one of the most drunk that I'd ever been in my life.

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Like I ended up just passing out in a nightclub in Brighton.

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And that's how I started the year of 2020.

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But the year of 2020 was when everything really changed for me.

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Because that's the year that I came to know Jesus for myself.

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Going on a little bit further, we're in lockdown now.

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And I just left my job, so I didn't have an income.

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I wasn't on furlough because I'd quit right before COVID came around.

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And I was like, oh shoot, I don't have any money.

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And my personal trainer courses were on hold, which I just kind of pursued back then.

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And then obviously there was no boxing anymore either.

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Boxing gym was closed.

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So I'm just in my house, in my room, alone all the time.

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24-7, basically.

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And at this point, I was rock bottom mentally.

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I was so sad.

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I was so depressed.

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I was so down.

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I just lost all faith in humanity.

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I was angry at the world of like, why are they keeping us locked in our house?

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Like all this stuff, you know?

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And I was just done.

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I was like, man, you know, I was reality.

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I was confronted with the reality of like, man, if this is what life is, like, do I even want to live it?

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Like I was asking myself those questions as a

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just a 20 year old kid.

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I'd just turned 20.

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And I got a real, real like rock bottom, rock bottom mentally.

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I was so, down.

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And then in my bedroom one night, this was probably kind of when we were first coming out of the lockdowns in 2020 and you could kind of hang out with people again and all of that stuff.

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I stumbled across a letter

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that my mum had written for me when I was like 16 and I'm 20 at this point.

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And I just kind of be like, oh, thanks, mum, whatever, stick it in the drawer and whatever.

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But I started reading it and it's all about, it quotes Jeremiah 2911, like, for I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans not to harm you, but to give you hope and a future.

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And at that time, I was like, wow, you know, if there is this God that I've said that I've believed in all my life and I still claim to believe in, like,

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and he has plans and a purpose to give me hope and a future, then I need to live life his way because I've tried to live life my own way and it's led me to being the most depressed that I've ever been and wondering if I even, if life is even worth living, you know?

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So yeah, that's where I was at.

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And this letter continuing, it said, I believe God has a plan to use you to speak to nations in the future.

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I believe he's got a calling of your life, like for missions.

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And I was like, okay, whatever.

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I don't know about all of that, but we'll see.

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Like, who is this God guy who I've claimed to know for like forever, but just never had any real reality of my life.

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So the next day, we're still in lockdown.

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I remember going to chat to my mum and saying like, hey mum, like, Jesus, what's the deal?

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Like, I know we've been talking about this like for ages and

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what actually is the deal?

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And her face just lights up.

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She's so excited because I can tell she's been praying for this for years.

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And she saw me, both my parents saw me kind of go down a bad path mentally.

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And it got to the point where I'm like, okay, you know, let me be confronted with the reality of what are we actually here for.

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And we talked a little bit.

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And then my mum shows me a video, a YouTube video,

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by a guy named Ben Adams who runs Wooden Spoon Ministry now.

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And it was a video that he shot at age 18 of his testimony of coming to faith in Jesus.

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And he was basically just saying a lot of things that I related to at the time.

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He shares his story about having an encounter with God, like hearing the parable of the lost sheep.

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And I related to so many of the things of where he was at before meeting Jesus and then going

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and then where Jesus is taken to him now.

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And I was just fascinated.

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And I was like, man, like I thought Christianity was just for older people.

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Cause like a church in church as a kid, it was just me and my younger brother were the only kids there all the time.

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Like seeing an 18 year old kid talk about faith in Jesus.

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I was like, man, you know, what is this?

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And he tagged his Instagram and I reached out to him and I was like, hey bro, I saw your YouTube video about Jesus.

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Can we talk?

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Like I'm looking to find relationship with Jesus.

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And then we chatted a little bit.

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We hung out on the beach.

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I met Ben and a bunch of other really close friends that day as well and just heard testimonies of so many young people about where Jesus met them at and where he had taken them to and how Jesus had just transformed their lives and like how relationship with him just completely changed everything.

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And I actually

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gave my life to Jesus on that day at the beach, because it was like everything clicked, I was trying to find identity in all of these things, whether it was boxing, whether it was making money, whether it was through going to the gym, whether it was through, partying and drinking, et cetera, like finding purpose and meaning in all of these things.

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But then the reality of like, no, you're not created for glorifying yourself.

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You're created

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to glorify your creator, like you're created for relationship with him and to glorify him for eternity.

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That's your original design, you know?

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And it's just like everything clicked and everything just made sense.

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You know, I was like, what?

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This is transformative.

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And I was so excited.

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And I was like, I finally understand the purpose of why we're actually put on this world.

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And suddenly, like the depression that I was dealing with at the time just turned into joy and excitement.

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of this newfound relationship with Christ.

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And I'm like, wow, I actually get to live in relationship with my creator who paid a price so that I can have right standing with the Father.

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Like, this is amazing.

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And I was excited.

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So through that process, Ben and I became good friends.

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And then we actually went on to do an internship together at a church called Chankenbury.

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Love all you guys there, if you're watching this.

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But we went on to be interns together and that's how we really, really became good friends, like doing life together on the internship.

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And this comes from me watching one of his YouTube videos and coming to faith.

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And then that was, that initial year was really, really key in my own personal discipleship, just finding out like, okay, what does it actually look like to live in relationship with God?

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You know, what is the gospel?

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You know, why did Jesus have to die on a cross for our sins?

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What does that actually mean?

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Like, okay, you know,

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we're now washed clean by his blood because he paid a price for our sin that we could never pay ourselves, right?

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And just starting to learn these core foundational truths.

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And I then specialize in youth ministry on this internship, which I love.

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I'm such a youth pastor in personality, you know, because you just get to have fun and then point the youth towards Jesus.

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You know, it's the same as friendships now.

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It's like, have fun with your friends and point them towards Jesus.

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And that's kind of how I saw youth ministry.

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And then getting towards the end of my church internship, I was getting ready to speak in front of youth church for the first ever time.

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And then it was kind of towards the end of 2020, I was kind of thinking to myself, like while I was writing my first sermon, and I was like, oh man, you know, the way that I went into 2020, I was passed out drunk in a nightclub in Brighton.

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just out of my mind, depressed, didn't know the meaning of life, just questioning if I even wanted to be here, right?

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And the way that I'm ending 2020 is I now love Jesus.

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Jesus has set me free from depression, from sadness, from meaninglessness.

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And I'm now getting ready to preach a sermon in front of a youth church for the first time.

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And that happened in one year.

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And I was just like, man, if you'd have told me at the start of 2020 that would be my life by the end of the year, I would not have believed you.

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And then it got me thinking like, wow, if that's how I went into 2020 compared to leaving 2020, what's it going to look like, you know, going into the 2020s and then leaving the 2020s when we get to the 2030s?

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Like if he can do that in one year, what can God do in 10 years, you know, with a surrendered life of just like taking your life, taking your own agenda.

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and your own desires and just throwing them at Jesus with reckless abandonment and just being like, Lord, I'm just here for the ride.

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I'm here to follow.

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I'm here to fix my eyes on you.

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You've run the race.

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Well, I've run the race with my eyes fixed on you, the author and perfecter of my faith.

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And that's what I'm here to do.

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Like, let's do this.

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And we're now halfway through those 2020s and a heck of a lot has happened.

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You know, all glory to God.

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I couldn't have believed it in my wildest dreams.

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So that right there kind of sums up my first initial year of following Jesus, where he met me where I was at.

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He put my true identity over me and made me recognize, okay, we're actually created not to glorify ourselves, but to glorify the one who created us and live in relationship with him for eternity.

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And relationship with God doesn't start when you get to heaven.

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It starts right now, you know, in your daily life.

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And that was completely transformative.

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And then finishing up my internship, I was kind of thinking, you know, what's next?

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Where do we go from here?

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Like the only Christian life I've known was getting saved and then one week later working for a church.

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So what now?

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And then a mentor who was very close to me at the time, I'd asked him about YWAM, Youth of the Mission, because when I was a kid going to kids ministry and youth ministry, we had people from the local YWAM base come to like

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hang out with us and run sessions.

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And I knew that it was this Christian organization that sends people around the world to tell them about Jesus.

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And I knew there were hundreds of bases all over the world.

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So I thought, hey, maybe I can do that.

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And I chatted to my mentor at the time, Jared.

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And I asked him, I was like, hey man, I've heard about this YWAM thing.

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What do you, do you know much about it?

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Can you recommend anywhere?

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And he said, oh man, like,

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I know some people who have gone to the Kona, Hawaii base to do DTS there.

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Like, that's one that I know is pretty solid.

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You should check that out.

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And I was like, okay, all right, let's do this.

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I went home after hanging out with him and then just Googled while I'm Kona.

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And I was like, oh, six months, you know, three months of lecture phase being lectured on topics about like being poured into with your relationship with God.

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And then they send you to a country on outreach to share that with the world.

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I'm like, that sounds cool.

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So I just applied for it there and then.

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And it was one of those things of like, okay, Lord, if this is meant to be, will you open the door?

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I'm going to take a step and just put something underneath my foot, please.

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So I applied for it and got accepted.

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So I was like, oh, wow.

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In January of 2022, I'm going to be going to Hawaii to take part in a discipleship training school with YWAM.

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This is crazy.

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Like, what the heck?

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I wasn't even a Christian a year ago.

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So that takes me to the start of my missions life, going to Kona, Hawaii with Youth with a Mission.

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And my three months there were, oh man, it was one of my favorite seasons of my life.

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Obviously living in Hawaii is amazing and I could have never imagined getting the chance to do that ever.

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But you know, thank you Jesus.

00:20:12 Speaker 1

And just getting poured into

00:20:14 Speaker 1

with your relationship with God.

00:20:16 Speaker 1

You had speakers come in and talk on topics like hearing God's voice.

00:20:20 Speaker 1

And that really took me deeper into, wow, there are so many ways that God can speak to us.

00:20:24 Speaker 1

He can speak to us through his word, through scripture, through his still small voice in our quiet times, through creation, through other people.

00:20:33 Speaker 1

You know, there are so many ways that God can speak to you.

00:20:36 Speaker 1

and really gave me a heart for discipling the next generation of like the Paul and Timothy model of raising up disciples and then sending them out.

00:20:46 Speaker 1

And yeah, then after a three month lecture phase in Hawaii, I get put together with a team to go on outreach to Colombia in South America.

00:20:57 Speaker 1

So we're all fired up.

00:20:58 Speaker 1

We're like, oh yes, guys, let's go.

00:21:00 Speaker 1

You know, we're ready to bring the gospel to the nations.

00:21:03 Speaker 1

Here we go.

00:21:03 Speaker 1

We're going to South America.

00:21:04 Speaker 1

I'd always wanted to go to South America as well.

00:21:07 Speaker 1

My Spanish was non-existent at the point, at that point.

00:21:10 Speaker 1

It's a little better now, but don't test me on it.

00:21:13 Speaker 1

And then boom, we're in Colombia.

00:21:16 Speaker 1

And I'm like, man, wow, how did we get here?

00:21:19 Speaker 1

I'm surrounded by a great team.

00:21:21 Speaker 1

Love the Colombia team so much.

00:21:23 Speaker 1

And we're just doing ministry in the nations.

00:21:27 Speaker 1

kind of talking to people about Jesus.

00:21:29 Speaker 1

And my whole thing at the time was, okay, I might not be the most knowledgeable theologian in the world.

00:21:38 Speaker 1

I might not be, you know, the best pastor in the world or the best mentor in the world.

00:21:43 Speaker 1

But what I do have is a story to share with the people of this nation of where I was, where Jesus met me, and where he's taken me to.

00:21:53 Speaker 1

Like I was

00:21:55 Speaker 1

alone, depressed, sad.

00:21:57 Speaker 1

Jesus met me in my pain and ministered truth to me.

00:22:00 Speaker 1

And then through turning away from my old life, repenting of my sin and recognizing Jesus as my Lord and Savior and choosing to follow Him, He has now taken me to understanding why we're really here, what my true purpose really is, and that I can actually have a relationship with God through

00:22:19 Speaker 1

through being made righteous by the blood of his son.

00:22:22 Speaker 1

And I'm like, this is the best news ever.

00:22:23 Speaker 1

I really understood why this is called the good news.

00:22:27 Speaker 1

And that is what I felt like I had to give to the people of Colombia on my outreach.

00:22:31 Speaker 1

So my friend Israel, who is a key part of my story, we'll talk about him a little bit more in the future, is on my Colombia team.

00:22:39 Speaker 1

And he comes from like a Mexican background.

00:22:44 Speaker 1

and spoke Spanish.

00:22:45 Speaker 1

So he was translating, we were talking to people and he was kind of pulling double duty, ministering to people and translating for us.

00:22:52 Speaker 1

We got talking to this one guy, I remember, his name was Rafael and he was from Colombia and we got chatting to him and he'd been involved in gangs.

00:23:03 Speaker 1

And he had a faith, he believed in God, but just believed that God couldn't love him because of the things that he'd been through and the things that he'd done.

00:23:11 Speaker 1

So just getting the

00:23:13 Speaker 1

talk to him and be like, hey bro, you're not made righteous through anything that you can do yourself because we've all messed up.

00:23:19 Speaker 1

I've messed up.

00:23:20 Speaker 1

I've been there myself.

00:23:20 Speaker 1

I've done things that I regret.

00:23:22 Speaker 1

But that's why Jesus did what he did.

00:23:24 Speaker 1

He died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin that you could never pay yourself so that you can be restored to relationship with him and be seen as righteous by the Father and just ministering the true heart of forgiveness.

00:23:38 Speaker 1

of God through faith in Jesus.

00:23:41 Speaker 1

The guy just starts crying.

00:23:42 Speaker 1

He comes to church on the Sunday.

00:23:44 Speaker 1

And that was kind of a running theme through our time in the cities of Colombia, just like these people having this perception of, oh, God can't love me because I've done this, or God can't love me because I haven't been to church that much.

00:23:57 Speaker 1

And it's like, no, that's, you're missing the point.

00:24:00 Speaker 1

It's like trying to clean yourself up before you go to Jesus is like trying to

00:24:03 Speaker 1

clean yourself before you get in the shower.

00:24:05 Speaker 1

That's who makes you righteous.

00:24:06 Speaker 1

That's what makes you whole.

00:24:08 Speaker 1

That's what gives you this new identity.

00:24:10 Speaker 1

So that's the message is of like being restored to your original design to walk in relationship with God through your faith in Jesus and turning away from that past life.

00:24:19 Speaker 1

It's like it's no longer I who live.

00:24:21 Speaker 1

It's Christ who lives in me.

00:24:23 Speaker 1

Christ in me, the hope of glory.

00:24:25 Speaker 1

You know, there's so many songs that have been written about that, but it's so true.

00:24:28 Speaker 1

You know, he's there to give you a brand new identity and a brand new righteous identity

00:24:32 Speaker 1

through the price that he's paid for you on the cross.

00:24:36 Speaker 1

And just seeing the power of the simple gospel minister to these people, like in a country like Colombia, it just gave me a heart for missions and seeing the name of Jesus be made famous.

00:24:49 Speaker 1

Continuing on the Colombia outreach, we had the chance to actually go to the Amazon rainforest for two weeks and trek Bibles into the jungle, into the indigenous kind of communities.

00:25:00 Speaker 1

And there's this charity, this amazing charity, who's kind of under the YWAM banner called End Bible Poverty Now.

00:25:07 Speaker 1

And they essentially have missionaries working around the clock, translating the Bible into all languages in the world, even the indigenous ones.

00:25:14 Speaker 1

And for the countries that don't have like written languages, they've got SD cards with audio Bibles on them.

00:25:23 Speaker 1

So we got to work with them on the outskirts of the Amazon rainforest and trek Bibles into the jungle.

00:25:30 Speaker 1

And also just have discipleship meetings with people there.

00:25:35 Speaker 1

Fun thing that you guys need to know for anyone watching this, there are churches in the Amazon rainforest, right?

00:25:40 Speaker 1

There are people who believe the gospel in the depths of the jungle.

00:25:43 Speaker 1

And there are pastors who are running churches in the Amazon rainforest.

00:25:46 Speaker 1

And we got to work with some of them, distribute Bibles.

00:25:49 Speaker 1

There was this guy who had believed the gospel years ago, but had never seen a Bible in his life because he lives in the jungle.

00:25:54 Speaker 1

And we got to give him one for the first time.

00:25:56 Speaker 1

It's like,

00:25:57 Speaker 1

getting to go out there into places like that and see what Jesus is doing, even in the depths of the jungle, in the Amazon rainforest.

00:26:04 Speaker 1

I'm like, God, you're not just moving in the West.

00:26:07 Speaker 1

You're not just moving in, you know, civilization.

00:26:09 Speaker 1

Like literally these, in the depths of the jungle, Jesus is still meeting people and encountering people and changing lives and getting to partner with what God was doing in that ministry was just such a privilege.

00:26:20 Speaker 1

And I remember sleeping in a hammock in the Amazon rainforest next to my friend Israel, who was laying next to me in the hammock next to me.

00:26:29 Speaker 1

And we were just laying there in this hammock hearing the monkeys, like in the distance.

00:26:35 Speaker 1

And I'm like, hey, Izzy.

00:26:37 Speaker 1

And he turns to me and he's like, what, bro?

00:26:39 Speaker 1

And I'm like, bro, you know what's crazy?

00:26:41 Speaker 1

A year ago, I wasn't even a Christian.

00:26:43 Speaker 1

And now we're in the frigging jungle, like telling people about Jesus.

00:26:47 Speaker 1

And then we just started laughing.

00:26:49 Speaker 1

We're just like, what the heck, God?

00:26:50 Speaker 1

Like, this is 2 years.

00:26:53 Speaker 1

This is 2 years into following Jesus and I'm now in the Amazon rainforest.

00:26:56 Speaker 1

Like, what's going on?

00:27:00 Speaker 1

Yeah, it was just the craziest thing.

00:27:03 Speaker 1

So yeah, that outreach in Colombia was amazing.

00:27:05 Speaker 1

Saw God move in such big ways.

00:27:08 Speaker 1

Got to do it with an amazing team from all different nations.

00:27:11 Speaker 1

Team Colombia, if you're watching this, I love all of you guys to bits.

00:27:13 Speaker 1

We need to catch up soon.

00:27:16 Speaker 1

And yeah, and during this time,

00:27:19 Speaker 1

I was praying about, okay, what's next, Lord?

00:27:21 Speaker 1

You know, I'm getting to the end of my six month discipleship training school.

00:27:25 Speaker 1

What's next?

00:27:26 Speaker 1

You know, where do we go from here?

00:27:28 Speaker 1

And I had a dream of me the following January back in Hawaii on the staff team welcoming the next group of students.

00:27:39 Speaker 1

And I was like, wow, Lord, if that's ever like a direction, then that feels like one.

00:27:44 Speaker 1

And then prayed into the possibility of actually going back to be a part of the volunteer staff team to lead a team the following year.

00:27:53 Speaker 1

And felt like that was a clear direction from the Lord.

00:27:56 Speaker 1

So I was like, okay, Lord, I don't have the money to do this.

00:27:59 Speaker 1

I don't have the visas.

00:28:00 Speaker 1

I don't have any of the logical things to be able to go and do this for another year.

00:28:05 Speaker 1

But Lord, if it's your will, like let me just take this step and will you, put something under my feet if this is the direction that I'm meant to move in, And just little by little, the provision happened through the generous partnership of a lot of donors.

00:28:20 Speaker 1

I was able to actually go and lead a team the following year, staff the lecture phase, be a start of a part of facilitating that and pouring into others through what had been poured into me the year before.

00:28:32 Speaker 1

And then the following year, I got to lead another team to South America, to Paraguay this time.

00:28:38 Speaker 1

And man, Paraguay has a real place in my heart because a lot of people don't know much about the nation of Paraguay, but I love it so, much.

00:28:46 Speaker 1

It was one of the most fun seasons of my life, getting to go to a place like Paraguay.

00:28:52 Speaker 1

It was a little different

00:28:53 Speaker 1

to our Colombia team, because in Colombia we spent most of the time in one city and one location with a kind of an excursion to the Amazon rainforest.

00:29:02 Speaker 1

But in Paraguay, we traveled like 2 weeks, one location, two weeks to another location, partnering with different churches across the country.

00:29:10 Speaker 1

big part of our focus was like, okay guys, we don't want to be the missionaries who just show up, preach a message and then leave.

00:29:17 Speaker 1

A big part of what we want to do here is equip the body of Christ in these local areas of Paraguay and help them to continue on the work that we've, that has been kind of planted and just being like, yo, there's nothing special about us coming here from other countries, from the West.

00:29:35 Speaker 1

We're all missionaries, regardless of where we are, whether your mission field is a third world country, like ministering the gospel in the nations, whether your mission field is where you work at the office or anything, whether your mission field is a school, our call doesn't change, you know, it's to love God and to love people wherever you are and be a witness for the goodness of Jesus wherever you are.

00:29:56 Speaker 1

So by that definition, we're all missionaries and just preaching that message to the people

00:30:03 Speaker 1

where they were at and saying, guys, there's nothing special about us, but you guys are the ones who are going to be here after we leave.

00:30:09 Speaker 1

So like, let's come alongside you and support and make a difference so that you guys can continue it from here.

00:30:17 Speaker 1

And yeah, Paraguay was an amazing time.

00:30:19 Speaker 1

We got to go into some indigenous villages as well, similar to the ones that we were with in the Amazon the previous year.

00:30:28 Speaker 1

Oh man, let me tell you guys a story about God's provision, right?

00:30:32 Speaker 1

So I mentioned Israel, my friend Izzy, before in this podcast, my Mexican-American brother.

00:30:38 Speaker 1

Love you, bro, if you're watching this.

00:30:40 Speaker 1

And he was on my Colombia team the previous year and didn't come back to staff.

00:30:45 Speaker 1

He felt a call to go home for a little while.

00:30:48 Speaker 1

And me and my co-leader Fiona were about to take our team to this village in Paraguay.

00:30:56 Speaker 1

We were based in the capital city.

00:30:58 Speaker 1

So the way that it worked is the capital city was our home base.

00:31:01 Speaker 1

and then the YWAM base there would send us to different villages across Paraguay and then we'd come back there, debrief and go on to the next one.

00:31:09 Speaker 1

We were about to go to this community like the next day and our translator had to pull out.

00:31:16 Speaker 1

So we were like, oh shoot, we're meant to go and work with this church for the next, you know, two weeks.

00:31:22 Speaker 1

We don't have a translator.

00:31:24 Speaker 1

And I kind of thought to myself like, man, let me just call, let me just call Izzy, let me just call Israel and kind of joke but not joke at the same time.

00:31:32 Speaker 1

And I'm like, hey brother.

00:31:34 Speaker 1

I send him a voice note to start with.

00:31:35 Speaker 1

I'm like, hey bro, you know, it's been a while.

00:31:37 Speaker 1

Hope you're doing good.

00:31:39 Speaker 1

You did a lot of translating for us last year on our Colombia team.

00:31:42 Speaker 1

This is our situation.

00:31:43 Speaker 1

So hey, if you want to come and join it again and do some more, then yeah, bro, like book a flight to Paraguay and then come meet us.

00:31:52 Speaker 1

And then he calls me

00:31:55 Speaker 1

about an hour later and says, hey bro, I don't know how serious you were, but last night I was just praying for an opportunity to get back into missions and I told the Lord that I would take the next one that he gave to me.

00:32:10 Speaker 1

And I'm like, wait, you serious?

00:32:12 Speaker 1

No way.

00:32:13 Speaker 1

So the guy quits his job, books a flight to Paraguay, flies out to basically join on with our team for the rest of outreach.

00:32:21 Speaker 1

So this is my friend who I was on the year

00:32:23 Speaker 1

team to Colombia previously, flies out to join my Paraguay team, which I'm now leading and be a translator for our team and just becomes a part of the team and a part of the family.

00:32:33 Speaker 1

And just, yeah, the Lord provides in the most miraculous ways, whether it's, you know, a translator to speak the language of the people that you're going to minister to, whether it's, you know, friends and community around you in all of these crazy ways.

00:32:48 Speaker 1

I've seen the Lord's provision firsthand.

00:32:50 Speaker 1

So

00:32:51 Speaker 1

Yeah, that was the Paraguay team.

00:32:53 Speaker 1

I could talk forever about those guys.

00:32:55 Speaker 1

Like so many cool things happened.

00:32:59 Speaker 1

Yeah, even doing stuff like Mercy Ministry, just building water fountains in indigenous communities, setting up water pumps and then using that to preach the message of like, yeah, guys, we're doing this because, you know, we love you and because Jesus calls us to love our neighbor.

00:33:15 Speaker 1

So we're able to serve you guys in this way because, you know, Jesus first served us.

00:33:19 Speaker 1

And it's all with the heart of pointing people back towards Christ.

00:33:23 Speaker 1

as Hebrews 12 says, he's like the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross.

00:33:30 Speaker 1

So yeah, that was Paraguay.

00:33:33 Speaker 1

Oh man, I've talked for a while guys.

00:33:37 Speaker 1

Where we at?

00:33:39 Speaker 3

And Paraguay, I think we're just finishing up there.

00:33:41 Speaker 3

How did you get out of Paraguay?

00:33:43 Speaker 3

When did you leave and what did you do next?

00:33:45 Speaker 1

Yeah, good question.

00:33:48 Speaker 1

So finishing up with the Paraguay Outreach, amazing three months, amazing team.

00:33:53 Speaker 1

Saw the Lord move in so many powerful ways.

00:33:56 Speaker 1

I then got to come home for a little while and just pray about what's next.

00:34:02 Speaker 1

And I felt the Lord direct me to take part in a Bible school in South Africa.

00:34:08 Speaker 1

It was still with YWAM, still with Youth of the Mission, and it was a three-month school called a Discipleship Bible School.

00:34:15 Speaker 1

And

00:34:16 Speaker 1

The previous two years had complete, no, three years, three years from getting saved to Paraguay.

00:34:21 Speaker 1

The previous three years had just completely changed my relationship with God and showed me what relationship with God looked like.

00:34:28 Speaker 1

My Bible school in South Africa in January of 2024, just a three month school, that is what changed my relationship with scripture and showed me how, you know, scripture and God's written word all fits together as one big overarching story.

00:34:43 Speaker 1

And we're now a part of that today, you know?

00:34:46 Speaker 1

Even though it wasn't written to us, because it was written to the church, the early church, it was written to the people of God at the time, it was written for us to get wisdom today and to deepen our relationship with God through scripture.

00:34:59 Speaker 1

So I did that three-month school there, completely changed my relationship with scripture, seeing the Bible all together as one big story, and then how that kind of fits into today.

00:35:12 Speaker 1

I then get back to the UK.

00:35:15 Speaker 1

I think getting home to the UK midway through last year now, it was a real kind of reversed culture shock at first.

00:35:26 Speaker 1

And for a good while, I felt like an outsider in my own country because I'd just been through all of these crazy experiences.

00:35:33 Speaker 1

I'd, you know, seen some stuff, you know, there's an ugly side to being in missions as well.

00:35:37 Speaker 1

You see some stuff living in countries like that, which, you know, is scary.

00:35:41 Speaker 1

about the realities of the world.

00:35:44 Speaker 1

And I really, for a while, struggled to find my place back home, being like, oh, Lord, I've preached about everyone having a different mission field for the longest time, but my mission field has always been the nations like this.

00:35:59 Speaker 1

And now it is different in that way.

00:36:01 Speaker 1

So what does this look like now?

00:36:04 Speaker 1

And

00:36:05 Speaker 1

Yeah, I felt the Lord just kind of take me back to square one and just being like, hold on, relax.

00:36:11 Speaker 1

You're a human being, not a human doing, right?

00:36:14 Speaker 1

You're not defined by your works.

00:36:17 Speaker 1

You're defined by your faith and your relationship with me and that's where your works flow from.

00:36:22 Speaker 1

So I was like, okay, Lord, I see the point.

00:36:24 Speaker 1

You know, I need to repent of some things.

00:36:27 Speaker 1

Like if I ever made ministry an idol in any way, Lord, I'm sorry because you need to be the main focus.

00:36:33 Speaker 1

Everything needs to flow from

00:36:35 Speaker 1

intimate relationship with you and keeping the main thing the main thing.

00:36:38 Speaker 1

So through that, God bless me with a great community around me.

00:36:44 Speaker 1

Get to catch up with Ben, Wooden Spoon Ben, who, you know, throughout my whole time in YWAM, he was always my guy on the phone in England.

00:36:51 Speaker 1

We FaceTimed all the time.

00:36:52 Speaker 1

Whenever I was back for a little while, he was, yeah, he was there.

00:36:56 Speaker 1

So we've had a real close brotherhood for the whole time.

00:36:59 Speaker 1

And now I'm back.

00:37:00 Speaker 1

I was like, okay, now we just get to hang out in person again.

00:37:03 Speaker 1

So

00:37:05 Speaker 1

Putting close people around you who sharpen you in your faith is such a big thing and he's been that guy for me.

00:37:12 Speaker 1

I think you guys are going to do a podcast with him soon enough.

00:37:15 Speaker 1

He'll get to share the story from his point of view.

00:37:18 Speaker 1

But yeah, we check in with each other all the time being like, okay, bro, we still walk in with our eyes fixed on Jesus, keeping each other accountable to the standards that we hold ourselves to and how we live our lives now, keeping Jesus at the center of everything and like, you know,

00:37:32 Speaker 1

believing the gospel, making disciples, and keeping his commandments.

00:37:36 Speaker 1

It's that great commission of going to all the earth and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you to.

00:37:49 Speaker 1

From my perspective, that kind of defines my relationship with people like Ben and my close boys around me, and just being like, okay, we're all here.

00:37:58 Speaker 1

to keep each other accountable, to point each other towards Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, because he's the perfect example.

00:38:06 Speaker 1

So as friends around you, pointing people back towards Christ as the perfect example was so transformative.

00:38:14 Speaker 1

And being home, being in a position where I needed to seek that out and invest in relationships back home,

00:38:24 Speaker 1

Because when you're in the mission field, you bond through being in these crazy scenarios.

00:38:30 Speaker 1

And yeah.

00:38:31 Speaker 1

But I think it's been real transformative, like taking a step back and after all that craziness of the first three years of my following Jesus, just getting taken back to square one of like, what's the main thing?

00:38:44 Speaker 1

The main thing is love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as you love yourself.

00:38:50 Speaker 1

And recognizing that I'm not owed anything, right?

00:38:53 Speaker 1

God

00:38:54 Speaker 1

didn't owe me the cross.

00:38:56 Speaker 1

Like he didn't owe me my time in YWAM.

00:38:59 Speaker 1

He doesn't owe me a fancy job in the future.

00:39:02 Speaker 1

He doesn't owe me like my own family.

00:39:05 Speaker 1

Like he doesn't even owe me the use of my arms and legs or the breath in my lungs, right?

00:39:10 Speaker 1

I'm so blessed beyond my wildest dreams that I've just got so much to be grateful for.

00:39:18 Speaker 1

So it's like, Lord, when it comes to my future and when it comes to being back home after all that, I'm like,

00:39:24 Speaker 1

I submit my future to you and just will you use it for your glory again, whatever that looks like.

00:39:30 Speaker 1

And it took me a bit of a struggle to get to that point.

00:39:33 Speaker 1

But in that way, I feel like I grew more coming back home than I actually grew out there in the nations.

00:39:38 Speaker 1

Because wherever you are in whatever season, God's going to address the things that he needs to address and grow you in the areas that he needs to grow you.

00:39:46 Speaker 1

And yeah, from getting to that place of just, okay, you're taking me back to Lord, just submitting my own agenda to you.

00:39:52 Speaker 1

and just seeking your guidance and your wisdom.

00:39:55 Speaker 1

And from that place kinds of brings us back to the full circle moment of personal training, right?

00:40:02 Speaker 1

Because when I originally quit car sales, like back in 2020, it was to pursue personal training.

00:40:09 Speaker 1

I paid for the courses and everything, but they got put on hold.

00:40:11 Speaker 1

And it was just that little nudge.

00:40:14 Speaker 1

And it was actually Ben who brought that up as an idea in the 1st place.

00:40:18 Speaker 1

He was like, hey, bro, you remember you were going to be a personal trainer ages ago.

00:40:22 Speaker 1

Why don't you do that?

00:40:23 Speaker 1

And I was like, oh, you know what?

00:40:25 Speaker 1

I think I've still got access to the courses, So I logged back into my e-learning platform and all of the courses are all still there, like fully paid for and everything.

00:40:34 Speaker 1

So that's what I've been doing for the past year is working on those courses that I paid for five years ago, getting qualified in personal training.

00:40:42 Speaker 1

And now I'm just about to launch my own personal training business, which, you know, it's complete redirection from what I was doing before, but it's a new way

00:40:51 Speaker 1

to love God and to love the people in front of you by, just seeing their knees and guiding them in the direction that they need to go.

00:41:01 Speaker 1

Whether that's towards the Lord, whether that's towards a fitness goal, like it's just that model of, you know, loving the people in front of you in the way that they need and, you know, being relational.

00:41:13 Speaker 1

So that's what kind of inspired me to go back into personal training and get that over the line.

00:41:19 Speaker 1

So yeah.

00:41:21 Speaker 1

That's what life looks like now.

00:41:23 Speaker 1

Also, just launched an Instagram page.

00:41:26 Speaker 1

It's called Big Sam the Bible Man.

00:41:28 Speaker 1

We have some fun on there, make some comedy content, do some Bible studies and stuff.

00:41:32 Speaker 1

So yeah, getting into the social media world as well.

00:41:36 Speaker 1

And yeah, getting to do stuff like this.

00:41:39 Speaker 1

And even as I'm talking, right, it's when I say all of this stuff about all the craziness of what God has done, like through my life in the past five years,

00:41:49 Speaker 1

I recognize it all and I'm like, wow, if it was purely up to me to do all of that stuff, it would have crashed and burned.

00:41:55 Speaker 1

All the glory, all the honor and all the praise belongs to Jesus because there is no way I could have done that outreach in my own strength.

00:42:03 Speaker 1

There's no way I could have gone to the Amazon in my own strength.

00:42:05 Speaker 1

There is no way that I could have, you know, led a team to Paraguay in my own strength.

00:42:10 Speaker 1

I was like immediately, Lord, my leadership needs to be submitted to you because your strength is an opportunity.

00:42:17 Speaker 1

No.

00:42:19 Speaker 1

My leadership needs to be submitted to you, Lord, because my weakness in my own human strength is an opportunity for your strength to be made perfect.

00:42:31 Speaker 1

Like he says to Gideon, like he says to Paul, you know, we see that all the time.

00:42:35 Speaker 1

God taking willing people and who submit their own lives to him, submit their own leadership to him and using them to just massively impact the spheres that he's called them to.

00:42:48 Speaker 1

And that's kind of my hard posture now is like, Lord, I just submit things to you.

00:42:54 Speaker 1

Like I submit my own agenda to you.

00:42:56 Speaker 1

Will you make your strength perfect in my weakness as a human?

00:43:01 Speaker 1

And, you know, to be a good leader, may I be a good follower 1st and submit my leadership to you.

00:43:07 Speaker 1

So I guess that's kind of my hard posture now in whatever I do, whether it's personal training, whether it's social media, whether it's, you know, back to the mission field internationally in the future.

00:43:17 Speaker 1

It's Lord, here I am.

00:43:20 Speaker 1

I'm going to take a step.

00:43:21 Speaker 1

Will you put something underneath my foot again?

00:43:24 Speaker 1

And will you make your strength perfect in my weakness and let it all be for your glory?

00:43:28 Speaker 1

Let me love the people in front of me.

00:43:30 Speaker 1

Let me love you with all my heart, mind, soul and strength and keep the main thing the main thing and let everything flow from the place of your own intimate relationship with Jesus.

00:43:39 Speaker 1

You know, it's like you can't just be poured into a little bit and then pour it out.

00:43:43 Speaker 1

You need to be constantly receiving and it just be an overflow

00:43:47 Speaker 1

from your life.

00:43:48 Speaker 1

So may my life just be an overflow, Lord God.

00:43:51 Speaker 1

It's all got to come from you.

00:43:52 Speaker 1

It can't come from me, you know?

00:43:54 Speaker 1

So I guess that kind of sums up my heart posture now in this kind of new chapter, being back home, stepping into this new career, stepping into business, getting involved in the social media world, doing something like this today.

00:44:07 Speaker 1

Never done anything like this before.

00:44:09 Speaker 1

It's good fun.

00:44:11 Speaker 1

And yeah, loving God, loving people, keeping the main thing the main thing.

00:44:15 Speaker 1

That's

00:44:16 Speaker 1

That's my heart posture right now, It's brilliant.

00:44:20 Speaker 3

I'd love to take us back, if we can, as to when you gave your life to Jesus on the beach.

00:44:24 Speaker 3

I'd just love to see the scene a little bit, because that was with Ben, right?

00:44:27 Speaker 3

And loads of what you said, a few other of your friends.

00:44:29 Speaker 3

Yeah, So I'd love just to hear a bit more about how that happened, because you obviously were just like stunned and like, hang on a minute, I need to give my life to Jesus on the beach right now.

00:44:37 Speaker 1

Yeah, 100%.

00:44:38 Speaker 1

Oh man, I probably skipped over that a little bit quick, but

00:44:42 Speaker 1

Yeah, so meeting Ben, he's gonna laugh so hard if he's watching this.

00:44:49 Speaker 1

But yeah, we started talking through Instagram when I was seeking relationship with God and saw his YouTube video of his testimony.

00:44:57 Speaker 1

And we talked a little bit in the Instagram DMs and he invited me to the beach to hang out with him and his other Christian friends.

00:45:05 Speaker 1

And I think at the time,

00:45:08 Speaker 1

What was it?

00:45:09 Speaker 1

I was driving there just being like, I'm about to hang out with all of these people who I've never met before.

00:45:16 Speaker 1

This kind of feels like my last ditch.

00:45:17 Speaker 1

Like I'd tried all of these things to kind of find identity and find purpose.

00:45:22 Speaker 1

So if God isn't that, then I'm done.

00:45:24 Speaker 1

It kind of felt like my last, like my last resort.

00:45:28 Speaker 1

And that kind of scared me as I was driving over there.

00:45:31 Speaker 1

But then meeting Ben, meeting some other friends on the beach as well.

00:45:35 Speaker 1

chatting to all of these people, hearing testimonies of people around my age, being like, yeah, I was really depressed and then Jesus met me and completely transformed my life.

00:45:44 Speaker 1

And now I get to do life walking in relationship with him and that's what I'm created for.

00:45:48 Speaker 1

Like hearing that from other people, it just kind of put the pieces together of like, wow, you know, I've been seeking purpose and identity and all of these different things.

00:45:57 Speaker 1

I was never designed for myself.

00:45:58 Speaker 1

I was designed to reflect the glory of my Creator.

00:46:01 Speaker 1

And that's, it was just like the cog start turning in your brain kind of moment.

00:46:05 Speaker 1

And then the head knowledge lined up with the heart knowledge of just like, wow, if I'm created to live life for, live my life for God's glory, then I'm in.

00:46:17 Speaker 1

Like, let's do this.

00:46:17 Speaker 1

Yes, Lord, I want to live for you.

00:46:19 Speaker 1

So that's kind of how everything kind of came together and how I ended up actually giving my life to Jesus on the beach that day.

00:46:27 Speaker 3

Did you just say like, Ben, can I want to do this?

00:46:29 Speaker 3

Can we do it together?

00:46:30 Speaker 3

Or you just did it on your own, in your own quiet time?

00:46:32 Speaker 3

Or how did you do that?

00:46:34 Speaker 1

Yeah.

00:46:34 Speaker 3

Was that a big thing or like.

00:46:36 Speaker 1

Yeah, so it was just right there.

00:46:38 Speaker 1

We just prayed a prayer together, led me in a, it was actually my friend Andy who led me in a prayer of salvation.

00:46:45 Speaker 1

He was right there.

00:46:45 Speaker 1

He's currently the youth pastor at Changtonbury now.

00:46:47 Speaker 1

So yeah, Andy led me in a prayer of salvation, gave my life to Jesus that day.

00:46:55 Speaker 1

And that's kind of where everything started.

00:46:57 Speaker 1

I was very kind of clueless.

00:46:59 Speaker 1

I didn't really know 100% what I was getting myself into, but I was like, yeah, I know there's this guy called Jesus who I want to live my life following.

00:47:08 Speaker 3

Yeah, massive impact from there, obviously, as we've heard.

00:47:11 Speaker 2

I just want to talk about like our mission and our ministry, because that is such a profound thing you've really been talking about.

00:47:18 Speaker 2

Because when we started this,

00:47:21 Speaker 2

and this clothing brand and everything.

00:47:22 Speaker 2

Someone said to me, this is your ministry, Gem.

00:47:24 Speaker 2

And I was like, ministry?

00:47:26 Speaker 2

You're joking.

00:47:27 Speaker 2

I'm just doing it.

00:47:28 Speaker 2

I didn't even think about it being that.

00:47:31 Speaker 2

But we all have a mission.

00:47:33 Speaker 2

We all have a ministry.

00:47:34 Speaker 2

Whether that ministry is working in a shop and being kind and loving to people, you know, when they come to the till, that is, you know, that could be your ministry.

00:47:44 Speaker 2

And I think people need to understand we're all missionaries and missionaries has

00:47:50 Speaker 2

a picture of going around the world, which is great if you have the capacity or you have the means to do that.

00:47:58 Speaker 2

But some women or men are at home with their children and they can feel like, what is my calling?

00:48:05 Speaker 2

But that is their calling.

00:48:07 Speaker 2

And I think that's really important to highlight because people, we have purpose in every country and nobody needs Jesus as much

00:48:17 Speaker 2

as the next, we all need Jesus the same.

00:48:20 Speaker 2

The granny that lives down our road needs him the same as the person in the jungle.

00:48:24 Speaker 2

So we've got to be aware that we're all missionaries.

00:48:26 Speaker 2

And I love that you said that because that's really important for people to hear.

00:48:31 Speaker 2

And there's people in England that we are living so comfortably that they need Jesus just as much as the poorest person in the world.

00:48:38 Speaker 2

And you know, and I'm

00:48:40 Speaker 2

I love that you said that.

00:48:42 Speaker 2

I don't know whether this is a question or you've got anything to add, but I just think that's really important to highlight that in your testimony.

00:48:48 Speaker 1

Oh, for sure.

00:48:48 Speaker 1

Yeah, it was that thing of like, I was in those nations like Colombia, like Paraguay, preaching to the congregations of these local churches in these, you know, either indigenous villages or cities in South America saying, guys, like there's nothing special about us.

00:49:04 Speaker 1

We're all missionaries wherever we're at.

00:49:06 Speaker 1

Your call doesn't change, whether you're a missionary in the nations or a mother at home taking care of her children.

00:49:14 Speaker 1

It's a case of your number one job, the most important commandment that Jesus says is love God and love people.

00:49:24 Speaker 1

So at the baseline, that's the call of all of us, which makes us all missionaries.

00:49:29 Speaker 1

And I was preaching that message in South America.

00:49:31 Speaker 1

And then when I got back to the UK midway through last year,

00:49:34 Speaker 1

God really, I say he made me check myself before I wrecked myself and basically said, okay, you've been preaching this message, but now like, you've got to find a minimum wage job just to get by.

00:49:45 Speaker 1

So do you really believe it?

00:49:46 Speaker 1

And I was like, okay, Lord, I see what we're doing here.

00:49:49 Speaker 1

Let's address this.

00:49:50 Speaker 1

Let's grow, you know.

00:49:51 Speaker 1

And then in ways like that, I felt like in certain areas of my life like that, God has grown me more since being home than he did actually out in the mission field.

00:50:01 Speaker 1

just by saying, okay, you can preach all of this stuff, but what does it really look like when it's your turn and in your life?

00:50:07 Speaker 1

So, I've had the privilege of getting to do both.

00:50:11 Speaker 1

And when I talk about, when I said at the very start, like, oh man, I started 2020, passed out in a nightclub, and I ended 2020 ready to preach my first sermon at a local church.

00:50:27 Speaker 1

And I was like, I wonder what the end of the 2020s are going to look like.

00:50:31 Speaker 1

We're now halfway through those 2020s.

00:50:33 Speaker 1

And it has been crazy beyond my wildest dreams.

00:50:36 Speaker 1

Like God has taken me to the depths of the jungle.

00:50:39 Speaker 1

He's taken me to the business world back home.

00:50:42 Speaker 1

Right now he's taken me to this wonderful podcast studio.

00:50:45 Speaker 1

And it's just, it all comes from that heart posture of just taking your own agenda, taking your own desires,

00:50:53 Speaker 1

taking your own life and just throwing it at Jesus with reckless abandonment and just seeing where he leads you and then having the faith and the courage and the willingness to just take initiative and step into what you believe he's calling you into, whether that's the business world, whether that's the international mission field, whether that's family, whether that's like you see your mission field as taking care of your family, which I have so much respect for.

00:51:20 Speaker 1

It's unbelievable.

00:51:22 Speaker 1

Whatever that looks like, our call is to love God and love people wherever we're at.

00:51:26 Speaker 1

So by that definition, we're all missionaries.

00:51:29 Speaker 3

Yeah.

00:51:30 Speaker 3

You also mentioned about Jared, your mentor.

00:51:33 Speaker 3

And that kind of leads me onto a bit of a question I'm asking lots of people at the moment.

00:51:36 Speaker 3

I'm just interested, especially of your age group.

00:51:38 Speaker 3

Do you feel like there is a bit of a revival happening amongst your age group?

00:51:42 Speaker 3

And

00:51:43 Speaker 3

It's interesting you've got a mentor and stuff.

00:51:45 Speaker 3

Is that like a model or something that you're doing in your life and you're mentoring other people?

00:51:49 Speaker 1

Okay, yeah.

00:51:50 Speaker 1

So Jared was actually my mentor on my internship.

00:51:53 Speaker 1

He was like my designated mentor for that year.

00:51:56 Speaker 3

Oh, okay.

00:51:56 Speaker 3

Is that a Changtonbury?

00:51:58 Speaker 1

A Changtonbury, yeah.

00:51:58 Speaker 1

I haven't seen him in ages.

00:52:00 Speaker 1

He's a great guy.

00:52:02 Speaker 1

But I've had different mentors throughout different seasons of my life.

00:52:05 Speaker 1

So Jared mentored me on my internship when I got to my discipleship training school with YWAM.

00:52:13 Speaker 1

I was mentored by a guy named Zach, who is like my older brother.

00:52:16 Speaker 1

He's very similar to my personality, big American guy, wrestler.

00:52:21 Speaker 1

And so he was my mentor during that season.

00:52:24 Speaker 1

The following year, when I was staffing the next school, Zach was also my mentor again, as the one over me.

00:52:32 Speaker 1

And then I was mentoring a guy named Henock, who was on my Paraguay team.

00:52:38 Speaker 1

And so it was the kind, it was the Paul Timothy model of, okay, now I've got someone mentoring me over the top of me to keep me accountable.

00:52:46 Speaker 1

And I'm also like pouring into this guy who I'm responsible for and in a position of leadership over in this outreach leader setting.

00:52:56 Speaker 1

So yeah, it's that thing, isn't it, of

00:53:00 Speaker 1

finding people around you who point you towards Christ and then doing that for other people as well in the way that you had Paul who was discipling Timothy, Timothy who was discipling all of these other people and that kind of structure of disciples continuing to make disciples who continue to make disciples.

00:53:16 Speaker 1

But yeah, I think it's such a powerful model having friends around you.

00:53:22 Speaker 1

I'm very blessed to have close brothers like Ben around me, like my friends Jerry, Kenneth,

00:53:27 Speaker 1

back home at church.

00:53:30 Speaker 1

And having people like that around you where you love each other, you have permission to speak into each other's lives and hold each other, call each other higher even when you fall short, but you know you're not doing it out of a place of condemnation, you're doing it out of a place of love, of I love you enough that I need to tell you this to call you higher and point you back towards Christ.

00:53:51 Speaker 1

Just like the Old Testament prophets did, their heart was never to condemn.

00:53:55 Speaker 1

It was always to call the people of God higher, to come back to where they were always meant to be and how they were always designed to live in relationship with him.

00:54:06 Speaker 1

So yeah, I think having people around you, iron sharpening iron, like one man sharpens another, it's so important to just have people around you who stoke your fire, who sharpen you, and you do the same for them.

00:54:19 Speaker 3

And are you seeing a movement of young people coming to Jesus?

00:54:21 Speaker 1

Yeah, man.

00:54:23 Speaker 1

I've heard some amazing stories of younger people coming to Jesus recently.

00:54:26 Speaker 1

My friend H from Brighton comes from a Hindu background and he had an encounter with Jesus where he started having dreams of Jesus.

00:54:35 Speaker 1

He basically prayed a prayer in his head, not even out loud, saying, God, if you're real, reveal yourself to me.

00:54:42 Speaker 1

And then he started getting Christian TikToks coming up on his feed.

00:54:46 Speaker 1

He came into the church for the first time, encountered Jesus, believed the gospel and gave his life to Christ.

00:54:52 Speaker 1

So that's just one example that I think of.

00:54:55 Speaker 1

We're seeing more and more people just come to visit church for the first time.

00:54:58 Speaker 1

Also through amazing things like Alpha, there's such a curiosity amongst the young generation now.

00:55:03 Speaker 1

And where curiosity is there, that's such an opportunity for truth to step in and be like, oh, you're curious about truth?

00:55:12 Speaker 1

Here's truth.

00:55:12 Speaker 1

It's the gospel.

00:55:13 Speaker 1

It's Jesus, you know, let me tell you about him.

00:55:17 Speaker 1

And even in stuff like jiu-jitsu, myself and Ben, we're both jiu-jitsu athletes, blue belts at elements martial arts.

00:55:26 Speaker 1

But through that relationality, through building relationships with our training partners, we've actually been able to have some great conversations about faith.

00:55:34 Speaker 1

And a few of the boys from jiu-jitsu have come along to church just out of curiosity.

00:55:38 Speaker 1

And, you know, we pray for them.

00:55:39 Speaker 1

We love them.

00:55:40 Speaker 1

They're all really close friends of us.

00:55:42 Speaker 1

And just praying that, you know, God meets them where they're at.

00:55:45 Speaker 1

And I think that's one thing that young people today really respect is when we as believers show that we actually care about them and give them the time of day first of being like, look, we can talk about all the faith stuff, but first of all, I'm going to love you because Christ loves you and you're made in the image of God, whether you know it or not.

00:56:06 Speaker 1

And once they see that you actually care about them and want to invest in relationship, they're so much more open to hearing what you have to say.

00:56:12 Speaker 1

And that's how

00:56:13 Speaker 1

the gospel can really be preached effectively.

00:56:16 Speaker 1

It's like if I do all of these things, but I have not love, then it's meaningless.

00:56:20 Speaker 1

It's worth it.

00:56:21 Speaker 1

It's worthless.

00:56:22 Speaker 1

So yeah, I think it's investing the relationships in front of you with the people who are right there.

00:56:28 Speaker 1

And when they see how you walk out your life, you can point them towards Christ who you run the race with your eyes fixed on.

00:56:35 Speaker 1

Like Hebrews 12 says.

00:56:38 Speaker 3

So if you could pray, if you wouldn't mind just closing with a prayer, like if you could just pray for...

00:56:42 Speaker 1

Yeah, Father God, I just thank you so much for all the people who are watching this at home, Lord God.

00:56:48 Speaker 1

Just thank you that every single one of them is designed to reflect your image and designed with a plan and a purpose for their lives to reflect your glory.

00:56:58 Speaker 1

I thank you just for the unique giftings and talents that you've given all of them.

00:57:04 Speaker 1

And yeah, Lord, we just

00:57:06 Speaker 1

We just ask that your will be done in all of our lives, Lord God.

00:57:09 Speaker 1

May we use our lives to glorify you.

00:57:11 Speaker 1

May we point those around us towards Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before you, endured the cross so that we can have life and life to the full, Lord God.

00:57:22 Speaker 1

I just thank you for that.

00:57:23 Speaker 1

Thank you for that beautiful reality and the beautiful truth of the gospel.

00:57:27 Speaker 1

Thank you for the honour that we have to be able to walk in relationship with you and the honour of being made righteous through our faith in you, Lord God.

00:57:34 Speaker 1

So we just thank you so much for that.

00:57:37 Speaker 1

And I just pray for everyone watching this at home, Lord God, may we all be missionaries in whatever fields you've called us into, whether that's the workplace, whether that's the nations, whether that's family, whether that's school, Lord God, wherever we're all at, may you just guide us by your Holy Spirit to love you, Lord, with all our hearts and to love our neighbours as we love ourselves.

00:57:57 Speaker 1

And yeah, Lord, we just give all glory to you and give you all the praise, all the honour and all the thanks in Jesus' name.

00:58:04 Speaker 2

Thanks for listening to the Jesus Studio Podcast.

00:58:07 Speaker 2

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00:58:09 Speaker 2

The testimonials and stories shared reflect the personal experiences and unique journeys of our guests.

00:58:14 Speaker 2

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