Justin Gerhardt- Host of Holy Ghost Stories

In this episode of Good News Gossip, we sit down with Justin Gerhardt, the creator and host of Holy Ghost Stories — a podcast that breathes new life into ancient Scripture through powerful, immersive storytelling. Justin shares how the idea for Holy Ghost Stories was born, why storytelling is such a powerful way to experience the Bible, and how God continues to move through His Word today. If you’ve ever struggled to connect with the Bible or longed to see it in a new light, this conversation will inspire and challenge you to rediscover the wonder of God’s story.

Listen to The Holy Ghost Stories here: 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/holy-ghost-stories/id1545806818

Transcript

Speaker View & Screen Share 0:20

​Hey, good news, gossipers. Welcome to today's episode. Where on the Good News Gossip? We're joined by Justin Gerhardt. He's the creative mind and voice behind the Holy Ghost stories. Justin is on a mission to bring the Bible to life in a way you've never experienced before. Through telling cinematic storytelling that captures the beauty, drama, and depth of God's word. We are so excited to talk to him about how he is using his gifts to help people encounter the scripture in a whole new way. Let's welcome Justin Gerhardt.

Audio Only - All Participants 1:02

To start were you raised up as a Christian or when did you come to know the Lord? Okay, so, my parents, both of them grew up going to church, but not so much being Jesus followers, you know, and we I was, I was born in Houston. We lived right in the middle of the city. It would've been inner, like bonafide inner city Houston at the time and is now this like fully gentrified. Beautifully restored neighborhood now where all the homes cost ridiculous amounts. It was not like that when we lived there. Yeah. We all lived in the homes because they were old and because no one had done anything to them and we could afford to be there. So, so anyway, that's, that's where I, so I was at home with my mom. My dad was at work, I'm an infant, and these two people came and knocked on the door asking if my mom wanted to do a Bible study. And turns out some neighborhood kid had been over and asked to borrow the phone earlier that day. She had no idea. She figured he was calling his parents, he was calling the number on this flyer that he had found for free bible studies. He called the number, set up an appointment. And left the house completely forgetting of course, that he had done anything like, oh my gosh, what it meant. So these two people show up this really nice older couple and are like, Hey, someone called to set up a Bible study. And my mom's well, I didn't. And they're like, oh, well, can we come in anyway? And I think she was so starved for human, like adult contacts in those early, you know, days of having this two week old infant at the house. It was her first child. And you know, it's kind of isolating. I wasn't much of a conversationalist at the time. And so they come in and she sits down with them and two hours later she. Wants to follow Jesus and goes with the woman, goes with the man to the church building down the road to go get baptized. Wow. Leaves me at the house with this random woman. I don't know why. I don't know why I couldn't come or what. But anyway it made sense to her at the time she left me with a stranger at the house. She went to follow Jesus straight into the baptistry. And when my dad got home from work that day, he was like, so, how was your day? And she's well, and and a couple weeks later he was baptized. And, and so I grew up in a, in a Christian House, but only barely I guess. So, so that was the climate that I, that I grew up in. It was the air that I breathed. We were super involved in church as kids. I've got two younger siblings, but, it wasn't until I was I was about 13 when it all became very personal and real to me. And I made the decision to sort of, you know, actively follow Jesus myself. And then as is the case, I think with many of us, it was a long process after that point of beginning to understand what I had committed to, what that would look like. And and I would say, I don't know, it, it was, it was like if that first moment when I was 13 was like a, like a light switch. There was also this like lights coming on process that was more of sliding up the dimmer that happened over the course of the next, you know, 20 years. Hopefully it is still Conti continue to happen to some extent. But yeah, so I was, I was 13 years old. I was in a Wednesday night Bible class, and Jack Soto, this volunteer teacher, just broke down the gospel in a way that I really, you know, God just put it deep into me that night. And and I haven't, I haven't looked back since the biggest journey I think that I've taken since that night. That's still ongoing, but I'm not where I used to be is for me, and I think this, maybe we're all taking all these journeys, right? But our capital B, capital J like biggest journey might be different for each of us. You know, the thing that God's really got to get ahold of us regarding. For me, it's been learning to really grasp and understand. The love that God has for me in spite of what he knows about me. Right. That's been a, that's been a long and good process. But that journey that Peter, for instance, takes where his first interaction with the, you know, the, the, the son of God in this miraculous catch of fish is he's face down in the flopping, you know, catch and asked, begging Jesus to go away from him because he's a sinful man. And then book ended with that last scene in the Gospel of John, where Jesus has been crucified, buried, and resurrected Peter and the guys have gone fishing and Peter's all dejected, but then there's Jesus making breakfast on the beach and orchestrates the same miraculous catch sort of reenacting their meat. Cute. You know, and Wow. Peter realizing in his sinful, a sinful state, you know, famously has just. Betrayed the Lord or denied him. And in that sinful state, fully aware of his sin and fully aware of the proximity of Jesus, doesn't beg him to go away, but instead jumps in the water and swims toward him to minimize the gap. That, that journey is the, I think, the big journey that God has had me on over the years. Wow. That's beautiful. Mm-hmm. And that's one of my favorite things about what you do, is you really dive into these stories and it just paints such a, paints a picture for her. I tell everybody about your podcast and I mean that Oh good. You really do. I really do. I'm like, you gotta listen to the podcast charity's Felicia, I know about it. You can stop, you know, trying to, she's even trying to evangelize you these days. I'm so I'm so glad you're your walk with Christ and leading up to creating this podcast, what actually, you know, sparked this idea, I love bible stories and I love stories just in general. I've always loved stories. I've always been, you know, super into them. And when I started preaching so I preached for 20 years. As soon as I like, that's what I did is when I got out of college, I went to seminary, started preaching, did 20 years of that until God called me to start what became Holy Ghost stories. So spent a lot of time preaching and you're doing a lot of things when you're like in, in ministry, you know, as a senior pastor, you've got these like leadership parts and you've got these, you know, staff, sort of leadership parts and church leadership. And then you've got pastoral ministry, you know, spiritual counseling and, and then you've got the preaching and teaching. And of all those things, I, I loved everything God had me doing, but I always loved preaching the most. And of all the things that I would find myself preaching, I always loved preaching biblical narrative the most. So it was my favorite of the favorite parts of my job. And, I just like, so I always, I always loved that. I always loved leaning into those stories. They always fascinated me. And then also when I had kids you know, I, you find yourself sort of crowned any, anytime you, you know, anybody who has kids, you're sort of suddenly crowned king or queen storyteller, you know, you just don't, you don't get an option. There's, there's no option, no, it's bedtime. And they're looking at you as if you are the bard. You know, like surely you, you are going to draw from some wealth of tails at your disposal and you're gonna, you know, enchant me to sleep. It's just sort of a, an assumption on the part of a beautifully innocent child. And for me, I was like, oh, well, okay, I, you know, twist my arm. And so I would tell these stories to our girls. Starting when they were little and I quickly, I was always more interested. We loved reading books to them and, and all that. And and my wife was always good at like, when we weren't reading books and just telling stories. My wife has always been incredible at telling the kids stories from her life. Like her childhood. They would always dial up a story based on whatever they were feeling or whatever at the moment. Mom, tell me a story from when you were eight and you were scared, or mom, tell me a story when you were eight and a half and you lost something. Or you know, it's just whatever they were going through at that moment, they knew that they could. And, and that was, that's always been Jennifer's gift. She would always tell these wonderful, true stories from her past. I don't have that kind of memory with, with my past. It's not like it's a blank, but I just don't have that, like recall. I was always the one they would come to if they wanted something fake, you know, mom, tell us something real, dad, just make something up. So I was always happy to make something up. So I would often get bedtime story duty, make up a story. But very quickly I learned that I could not invent enough characters and worlds and plot lines and all of that together to keep up with this insatiable. It's every single night they have to go to bed. And so every single night I have to. So I figured out real quick oh, what I need to do is. Create like a serialized story, like a chapters like where, where we're in the same world with the same characters. I don't have to invent all that. We just do a new sort of chapter of the story every night. And so the first one that I did, and we've done many over the years, but the first one that I did was my, my daughter's names are London and Eve. London and Eve were spending the summer at a dude ranch in Wyoming or Montana somewhere. And they were a little older than they were, you know, in real life in these stories. They were there for the summer and they interacted with this cast of characters. There was the surly, but you know, like soft inside cowboy Dan. There was the sort of motherly figure that was a, that was a, a woman who was at the ranch who, who took care of them. There was Cowboy Dan's. Niece a cowgirl Kate who came to visit, and Kate was like a firecracker one year older than them and got them into all kinds of trouble. And each of'em had a horse and they knew the horse's name and what the horse looked like and all this. So we're doing these stories, they're super into them. And you know, we're doing sort of one chapter a night and we do this for three months and I'm having a blast and they're having a blast. But eventually you run out of plot lines. And unless we're gonna have like aliens land and abduct the girls at this ranch, like we're sort of out of, we've done cow wrestlers, we've fixed fence, we've helped a cow give birth to a baby calf. You know, like we've done all this. And so it's now it's time to bring a, an end to this story. So we do that. There's a final goodbye chapter one night and they, they say a tearful farewell to Cowboy Dan and they leave the ranch and the, and the, that, that story's over. And there were a couple things. One, I noticed as we went through that story that the girls were sort of slowly but surely living into like in real life, living into the dude ranch versions of themselves. Because in the stories they were like a little older, right? Than they were in real life. And they were a little braver than they were in real life at the time. And they were a little, a lot better at conflict management between the, the themselves and they were more forgiving and whatever. Like I would, you know, these stories were descriptive and that they were about them, but they were aspirational, gently aspirational, you know? And I would notice them doing things in real life that were the kinds of things they would've done in the stories. And they were sort of living into those story selves. And then, like a couple months after we'd finished the series, I had an idea and I was like, oh, this would be fun. So I, I got some pink. Notebook paper and wrote them each a letter from cowgirl Kate, like a, an update, you know, and I made it, you know, super like all the handwriting was super frilly and dotted the i's with hearts and sprayed perfume on the letters and stuff. And she was like, Hey girl, you know, it's been a minute, just thought you'd wanna know about your horse and like cowboy dance, fine. He's mean as usual. And and she's going on and on, you know, like she includes a picture of Eve's horse that I, you know, printed off the internet, you know, some horse that matched the description. Then a picture that I'd found online of this little girl on a horse next to this older man like cowboy on a horse looking into the sunset, the two of them. And from the side back profile it really looked like London. And so, you know, Kate included this photograph and she's I took this while you wasn't looking and you know, I just thought it was so nice and whatever. And so I send these letters through the mail. The girls opened them up. And, you know, they're, they're super pumped. It's so, it's fun, whatever. Well, they put these letters up on the wall in their bedroom and they hang there for a little while and a couple months goes by and, you know, I don't know, three, four months, London and I are sitting in her bedroom doing something, talking about something. She looks up at the wall and she sees this letter from Kate. London looks up at the, at this lead, or she looks back down at me and she goes, dad, did we go to the dude ranch? And that was such a it was obvious to me then of course, that she just, that memory had become realtor to her. She didn't even know, she couldn't sort like whether they had been or not. And I tell that story just to say that was a big before and after moment for me in terms of my awareness of the power. Stories, right? Like I'd seen it shaping them over time and then saw the way that this story had embedded itself in her memory and almost become a part of her consciousness and memory and, and she was having trouble, like sorting it from fiction. Okay. All of that to say, over the years I've become so convinced that Yahweh is doing something very intentional and, and just magical with story. There's a reason when we pick up the Bible that out of all the forms of literature that there are in there, poetry and prophecy and epistle and you know, the, all the, all the wisdom literature and the apocalyptic stuff. And if you make a pie chart of all the different kinds of literature in the Bible, the, the second biggest piece will be, will be prophecy. And it's 19%. So 19% of everything in scripture is prophecy. The, the first biggest piece is 42%, so twice as much as the next one. And that's story. So God gives us this collection of inspired writings and the largest piece of it by far is story. What he's doing more often than anything else is telling us stories. And I think the reason is that stories do something really powerful in us and he's interested in the way that stories enter our conscience and, and like consciousness, the way that the dude ranch stories did with my daughters. And he, I think he likes the fact that when you sit with one of these stories, it almost becomes an actual memory of your own. Because what he's up to with these stories is he's, he's inviting us into his core memories. That's, that's all that you're doing when you're reading the narrative parts of the Bible. It is a God who wants to be known, who knows you, but he's got he, he's cheating, you know? It's, it's easy for him to know you. It's hard for you to know him. Mm-hmm. You are tiny. Your brain is tiny. Your perspective is limited. You, you know, like you have all these prejudices or preconceptions or misunderstandings, and he's famously invisible and more quiet than we would like and whatever. But he's told us like, I want you to love me. Well, how do you love somebody? Well, you get to know them. How do you get to know a God who is so. All of those things that I just said, and it's like he knows the challenge and he's passing us this scrapbook, this photo album full of his dearest or most haunting memories. And he's saying, let me tell you about a time that made me cry, or let me tell you about a time that I still smile when I think about it. Like he, it's, it's, it's like a grandparent who is inviting you to know them, and the best way to get to know them is by telling you stories. And so here he is telling us story after story and inviting us to sit alongside him in those memories as they sort of come alive in the telling. And as we watch. Jeff, the interacting with Yahweh, it becomes like we are interacting with him, and that's so valuable. Valuable because Yahweh is more complicated than you can understand based on your own limited interaction. You have to borrow someone else's eyes. And so all of scripture is the, the gift of this stereoscopic sight where you now have the eyes of Geha, you know, have the eyes of Hannah, you know, have the eyes of Saul and Abigail like, and, and the God that they interacted with is now the God that suddenly in this like living memory you are interacting with and you leave those moments if you've entered them correctly. You leave these moments feeling as though. Do you actually spent time with the God of the universe and you feel that way because you did, because the, he says he's the word. So that's it. Exactly. And he says, this word is living and active. Right? And, and all of his words are narrative. Scripture certainly is no exception. So I, I just have become really passionate about that. And so Holy Ghost stories began sort of as an answer to that. I found it really interesting as a preacher that my job in preaching, when I preached to these, these stories from scripture, my job was so often editorializing and commenting and applying all of the things by the way that are noticeably absent in the text itself. You notice that it's just strange like this, there's a story. Yeah. And you get done with the story and you're like, wow. So what does that mean to, you know, you're like asking the text almost so what does that mean to, and it's no, we're onto the next story now. And you're like, wait, is it okay that David did that? Who am I supposed to be like here, like Tamar and Judah? What does that even mean for me on Monday? And the text is just now moving on. It's, it's just, there's so much interesting like chutzpah in that, like this, just this bravado from the Holy Spirit, this confidence like, oh no, the story will do what it needs to do. A hundred percent. Right. I agree. And that's so inter, that was so interesting to me as a preacher. I don't think I was doing a bad job. It was my job to comment on these stories or whatever. And you see preachers doing that in scripture, Stephen and, and Paul in the New Testament, quoting Old Testament stories and commenting on them. So it, it wasn't out of bounds, but it was just really interesting to me how much of scripture just was storytelling as if these divinely inhabited stories were powerful on their own to do things in the hearts of those who heard them. And so I thought, man, what would it be like if we just leaned into the. Storytelling aspect of these stories and just let that be it. I wonder if God could do something with them in spite of us not coming to the rescue with our application, you know, banner. Right. And, and so that's, that's what became Holy Ghost stories, sort of this thing that's driven by this, I think truth that a story doesn't mind being taught and a story doesn't mind being preached, but I think a story really wants to be told. Right. And the way that you tell it is, I mean, it really comes through to, as a listener, that you're wanting to put. Just like your daughters thought that they were actually at the ranch. It is just like that. You can put yourself, it's like you're there. And when I tell people about your podcast, I'm like, just imagine. It's, it's equivalent to like the chosen. You know, of like podcasts, if that makes sense, because in the chosen, you're, you're, oh yeah, you're moved and I'm bawling and I, I like feel the emotions and it's definitely goosebumps. It's literally, I think the chosen did help me, like you literally see how like these are just Jesus's friends, you know, like you get it oh yeah, the disciples. But you see it and you're like, these are like people that love Jesus. These were like me and Felicia. And so it definitely, yes feels real and yeah, same with the same. You can, you can relate to it because sometimes I feel like the Bible does feel kind of, forgive me for saying it like this, but kind of cold and like distant. If you are just reading it in, you know, like church sometimes you're just like, oh, these are. You definitely know what I mean. Need to be like in my like, at not my opinion, the Bible says like everyone does need to read the Bible for their self. But I definitely feel like listening to the Bible is like almost the same thing as reading it. I can't say that for sure, but I feel like it is. Well, and for, for hundreds and hundreds of years, that was how people experienced the text. Because everyone didn't have one. They didn't have one. Yeah. And they couldn't read anyway. And so Oh, right, right. So like literacy was way down low. And so even in the New Testament you've got like this instruction in, in, in some of these passages where Paul's I want you to take this letter and I want you to read it here, and I want you to get the letter from there. And I want you to read it like, and, and I want you to read, it was not them like making a cup of coffee and like light a candle and having their quiet time. It was in the gathered assembly of the church. The letter would, someone would stand up and read Paul's letter and that's how you heard like first Corinthians, right? It was a letter that was read in the hearing of everyone. And that was primarily how the text of the Bible was experienced by people for most of history. And so that's not to say what a, you know, that it's not just an extraordinary gift for us to have written copies of the Bible and being able to interact with them that way. Praise God for that. And let's go. Yeah. But also man, shame on us forever implying if we ever have that listening to the Bible. Is some lesser version of interacting with the holy text. I agree. Because sometimes you know, I'm not, if I listen to it, I'll be like, maybe I should be reading it. But we're, I'm really not a reader, but I love the Bible, so Yeah. I, that's why, that's why we're on a podcast. Like I agree. You're not over there writing a book. Yeah, I get it. It's nice to have the Bible app when, when they can, you know, you can play the chapter. That's, that's my preferred way of Right. And compare'em to different translations. Mm-hmm. Yep. But that is an incredible way that the podcast got started. That that is, and I love the fact that you do have a backstory. It wasn't like, oh, I'm gonna tell the stories. It's oh, like I can see the difference that this is making and I can make a difference in so many people's lives. Mm-hmm. And so thank you for that. And, just thank you for doing what you do and serving the Lord like you do, for sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it really sounds like you need to create children's storybook with the dude drench. Seriously. Yeah. That was, that was really creative, for sure. Yeah. God bless you and gave you those talents. So you said, my kids, my kids were a captive audience, let's be honest. You know, they didn't have, they didn't have anything else to choose from. So, yeah. But it was interesting, like starting Holy Ghost stories was a, was a big shift for me because in order to begin it, I, I just felt like God was pulling me in this direction, but didn't know what direction that was. Like, it just wasn't as hardly as clear as, oh, I'm gonna start a podcast and it's gonna be a Bible storytelling podcast. That was not at all in my mind. I just knew that I was feeling compelled to share. The truth of scripture in new ways, find fresh ways of bringing people into encounters with God and his word. And I didn't know what that would look like or what it would involve or anything, but I, I felt this real compulsion to make space to figure it out. And so, and my wife, bless her, was on board with this. We had two middle school children, middle school aged children at the time, and we had just built a house in Austin, Texas and loved it and had a great job that paid well at a church that I loved and that loved me and us and we had people there and all that. But we just left and I quit and in order to figure out what this was that God was asking me to do we were like, I think. It doesn't feel like the kind of thing that I can do while I'm, while I'm doing, you know, the work of a pastor. And so, so I resigned from, from that job and we knew that and there wasn't like a job that I was taking, like no one was coming to me asking me to, to do any of this. And so there was zero, there were exactly$0 attached to it. And, but I, I had this real component. I felt like this was gonna require full-time investment of my time. And so it was like, okay, this is gonna be a 100% pay cut. My wife wasn't, wasn't working a lot at the time. And we were like, well, we just built this house. We could move out of it and it would probably do well on Airbnb. We could sell our cars. We could, but where are we gonna live? And that was like, I don't know, there's some really. Small parts of Oklahoma that maybe we could afford, you know, because so we're like looking around and those are way too expensive. And so it was like, where could we go? And then it was like, you know where it is? Not like the whole United States of America feels expensive. What about like Southeast Asia? What about Malaysia? And so we were like, let's look and see, and sure enough, like you get an Airbnb monthly discount, we could really do life cheaply. And so that became the plan. We couldn't stay in Malaysia for for years, but we could stay as long as we could, you know, be there on a passport stamp most countries in the world, or three months, sometimes you get up to six and then we could just move somewhere else and be there for that long and just sort of go slowly from place to place and be living in affordable existence. Also kind of be on a grand family adventure. What about that? Yeah. And so that became what we did. Malaysia never opened up, none of Asia did.'cause COVID was happening at the time, but the, the place that did, the only place that did open up, by the time we'd like, we'd announced it to the church. I told everybody I was quitting. Everybody was like, oh, what are you going to do? I'm like, I have no idea. And, and then it was time to pull the trigger on somewhere to live. We'd already put the place up on Airbnb, our house, and it was already sort of booking out. We had to get out and the only place that was open was England. And England's not super affordable, but it was at the time because demand was so low because of COVID. Yeah. Yeah. And so we got a place in England. We just moved and lived there for five months and then did what I described. We slowly moved around. We were in South Africa and in Ireland and in Croatia and Egypt and Greece, and we were just sort of slowly going from place to place that seemed interesting to us and where we could find something affordable. And we did that for a year and a half as a family and to live. Wow, that is amazing. A third of what it cost us to live in Austin. Like a, a lot of people were like, Justin quit his job and like their families like traveling the world. Did the Gerhardts win the lottery? Does Justin play the lottery? You know, like I think it was a lot of confusion, but it wasn't that we'd just gotten rich. It was that we'd just gotten poor. But decided to be really creative about how to handle that. That is amazing. That is amazing. God. God was so good in that situation. He was. He really was. He really was. So I launched those first three episodes from, from a little town on the south coast of, of England. Oh my goodness. And I bet your daughter London. Love that. Yeah, she did. She got to go see her namesake. Yeah. Yep. We're headed back there, here in a, in a few weeks with her. It's like the last trip before she leaves the house. So, yeah. Where you were somewhere when I first emailed you. Where you in Ireland? Yep. I was in Ireland or we were just about to leave. We did a, so we've been doing for the last two and a half years we've been doing these Holy Ghost stories live shows. That's like an in-person experience of what you hear in the podcast. So myself, a bunch of musicians, it'll be live musical accompaniment while I tell one of these stories. It might be like an electric guitar and keys, it might be an acoustic guitar. A lot of times it's like solo cello or something like that, like musical accompaniment during the story. And then we sort of break the story into pieces and then weave songs through those pieces of the story songs and reflections and stuff. And everything kind of talks to everything else. And it's it's just like a 90 minute sort of. Live experience. That's a joy. Sometimes they're small with three of us up on stage. Sometimes it's larger. We've done we did a show in Midland a while back with a bunch of people from the Midland Symphony Orchestra. And so the, they take different shapes, but we did, we were, when we first talked Felicia, we were on our way to do our second tour of shows in Ireland. So we, we spent Oh, cool. That is really, really, really neat. Definitely something I would watch for sure. I was just gonna say I, I started from the beginning of your podcast, so, and I haven't even caught up, so I'm like in the, I'm like going back and forth between catching up from the beginning and to like listening to present episodes. So it's really cool to see. But when I was just catching up, you had just worked with this really awesome composer and I forgot his name, but Kendall Ster. Uhhuh, yeah. That made, that was like worth the investment. Oh, good. I know you talked about that. It, it, which one did you, which one did you listen to? Was it the Witch of Endor that you listened to? Yes. Okay. Yes. I think that was it. And when, when that came on, I was like, oh, I'm so glad you did that because, and then the, you doing that your live shows. I just love that because I, I do, I feel like, you know, God uses music in a way that it just is your soul's expression or you know, his, the Holy Spirit's expression. And I just, I love that. Yeah, that's so true. And you know, I thought, I felt like at first, you know, like holy history is, there just wasn't any question in my mind from the beginning that it was gonna be. Like, have a musical score? Yeah.'cause I just, I love music. I think music is so evocative and, and I'm like, oh, how could we not? But I kind of saw it as something that, that yes, I felt like was really effective, but also I kind of felt like it was, it was my idea. I liked, it was something that I liked or whatever. But then, man, I keep finding these passages in scripture. And there are two in particular that I'm thinking of one with Saul and one with it's either Elijah or Elijah where there is music like musical accompaniment that is explicitly brought in to play behind and in, in some cases, like enable prophecy. It's and I was like, oh, like Saul. Anointed King by Samuel, and he's on his way home. And Samuel's you're gonna meet up with these musicians, don't, you know, don't pass'em by. So Saul stops and the musicians start playing this music, and now Saul starts prophesying like he never has this spirit of God comes over him. And then and then Elijah or Eisha is like in this situation and he's asked for a word and, and he's get me some musicians. And so the musicians come and they start playing and then he's able to, to offer this word of prophecy. So it's, it's both of those, I was like, oh, that's Holy Ghost stories. Wow. I didn't make that up. That seems to be, like you said, Felicia, like it is this language of the soul that I think tills the soil of our hearts and allows God's word to be planted even more deeply. Well that the science back behind that I love how like research is like catching up to what the Bible already says. I'm like, we knew this. Always read the Bible. You would've known a long time ago. But one, well the Bible might not explain it, but it does kind of like what you were talking about, but like how music in different musics affect us, like our bodies. You know, you can sit there and do something that's vulgar. All kinds of horrible things that, you know, the Lord would never want us to be listening to and even the music behind it and the way that like they can do the little sand thing where it makes different shapes and stuff. Yeah. Well then you can do the one where holy music and it's just, I can't remember all the songs behind it, but there's science that backs that. You know? It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I saw a video the other day where it was basically a, a Christian concert and, you know, the caption was this is what, this is just practicing for what heaven's gonna be like and just worshiping Amen. Worshiping God is with music is, I, I just feel like it's so pure. And there is definitely scriptures where it says, you need to worship, you need to sing. You can even dance for worship. There's several things you can do mm-hmm. Besides living your life to worship him, but also other things. Worship for sure. Absolutely. But yeah. So, okay. So you get the podcast started all of that leading up to the, so you're in England when you launched the first three episodes? Yep. All right. When you launched. How nervous were you? Were you nervous at all? Yeah, I was because you know, the, the stakes were relatively high at that point. Yeah. We'd, I'd quit my job and you know, told everybody, Hey, you can sign up for this email and I'll just kind of like update you on what's coming. And I had been letting everybody know this is what I'm doing now. And there's always a lot of risk involved in following the Lord. Right. Amen. And sometimes that, you know, in the, in all the ways that matter, that risk is, is never a problem. Right. It, it never, it's never realized you're always safe when you're with him. You're safest when you're risking your life for God. Mm-hmm. Right. You. But there are other ways in which that risk, like lesser things that don't matter as much, but feel like they matter a lot where that risk might actually pan out to Yep. You lost that. You know, so there was no guarantee with this that I don't know of, of much other than I was pretty sure he was asking me to do something like this. This was a good thought. Like when I started Holy Ghost, I was like, I don't know if this is what he's got in mind, but it seems like the kind of thing that is that, like in that vein. And so we had done all this stuff. We'd moved away from all of our people and friends in our church and I'd quit my job and, you know, we'd put our house up and sold our cars and all that stuff. And so yes, my heart was beating. When I hit publish, in fact, I we have a photograph that my wife grabbed, like selfie style of all four of us, two of us and our, and our girls gathered around my computer when I like hit, publish on the first, you know, batch of episodes. And my heart. So yes, like my, my pulse was elevated for sure, but and, and it didn't. I, I guess like things, it went well and I'm super grateful for that. But there were, I, I don't want to give the impression that it had to in order for him to be faithful, you know what I mean? I think if it hadn't, if I would've hit publish and nobody ever listened, he would've been faithful. And if I had thought, oh, I think God told me to do this podcast and that a, a crazy ton of people are gonna listen to it, I think I, you know, that would've just been me misunderstanding. Mm-hmm. His promise.'cause he's always faithful to his promises and, and when it looks like he isn't, I should maybe check my understanding. So anyway, so all the, all those disclaimers offered I was, I was nervous when I hit publish and it, we are in a different time zone, right. So we'd done this launch thing like before the, like this q and a on, on Instagram live or something to celebrate, you know, the launch that was coming. We hadn't put anything out yet, but we were answering questions about it. And, and, but in order to do that at a time when anybody in the United States was awake. We had to do it, we did it like 2:00 AM I think in England. And so we were out in the, in the back, like on the back patio of this Airbnb that we had. And we were like, how are we gonna light it? Well, I guess it's, you know, we could make a vibe and do a campfire, but we're in the middle of this like little town. And so I bought this thing on Amazon that was kind of a fire, like I thought it was one thing and it wasn't. Everything in the UK and out outside the US is not what you expect it to be. So anyway, it'd come. I bought logs that I thought were logs and it turns out they were just compacted sawdust and I couldn't get'em to light. And it was just a whole thing. We're out there at two o'clock in the morning, it was January, we were freezing. We finally got a little bit of fire going and we did this live, but like a bunch of people came on.'cause like I had the benefit of having done this ridiculous thing. And so anybody who knew us was curious as to. You know, probably like watching a car crash, you know, like, how's this gonna work out? But like people had shown up for that, that was encouraging. And then the day that it launched, it was like, it, it was overnight for me, right? So by the time anybody in the US woke up and heard all of this stuff for the first time, I was asleep. And so when I woke up that morning I was just so overjoyed to find a bunch of messages from folks who were loving it, who'd listened to all three episodes that day. There were like 70 reviews on Apple podcasts, which I couldn't believe. I'm like, wow. My mom probably made false accounts for four of these, but she couldn't have done all 70. And so it was a big sigh of relief, I think for all of us, frankly, at that point. I mean, my wife and, and our kids, to whatever extent they were aware just a, a relieved like, oh, okay. I think this could be something. Because it was, I knew it was something that I was really interested in and the kind of thing that I wished existed, but, you know, is it just you, you don't know until, until you find out. So it's been a joy since then to see how much this has resonated with, with people all over the world. And, and I'm just Oh, yeah. So delighted that it's blessed them. Yeah. And like you said, God is always gonna keep his promises and you just following through with that, you know, that. Spiritual guidance that he was giving you, like drawing you towards doing this? Definitely. Get and get that, not that you need the validation, but the feedback that you got probably made you feel, feel more confident in what God was telling. Well, I'd like to point out how you know, you don't get where you're at without, like you said, taking risk and stuff. Like you quit your job. There's so many things that you did, y'all were up at 2:00 AM doing, like y'all sacrificed. Y'all didn't just Lord. Help me have a awesome podcast. You know what I'm saying? And that is what people need to understand, like that it takes work to get the things that God wants for you. You still have to put in the work. Mm-hmm. And I just wanna point out like you did and it's awesome. That's I mean, you earned it, but also, you know, you would never be able to do it without the Lord, but you also put work behind it. Yeah. And that's a, that's something we as Christians, you know, and ourselves, you know, we're over here trying to, trying to make it, you know, we put our money into it. Thankfully the church has put the main part of the money in. Yeah. But yeah, we're just sort all we have. You're so right. Sorry, I don't know if you, you need to say something I didn't have No, no, no, go ahead. Okay. We went around, we made flyers and we were going around talking to people, telling'em, you know, what we do, what we're about, what we wanna get to, and they said, one guy said, what are you gonna do, fly someone in? I said, oh, well, not yet, but that would be a great goal, you know? But anyways, yeah, I don't know. Absolutely. I'm, I'm just a chatter, you know, you, you have a wife, you how women are, but I just, I just, that came to mind. No, yeah, that's it. I think you're, you're, it's wisely and well said that he, he's always gonna do, be the one who does the work. He's always gonna bring the increase if there's increase to be brought. Right. He's, nothing grows without him. But, you know, I mean, speaking of that metaphor, I mean, Paul is very clear, right? He says, I planted a Paul is watered, God brought the increase right in First Corinthians and. And, and it's all of the, of what you're saying, right? Like it was God who was always gonna bring the increase, but also he was asking Paul to show up and plant. He was asking Paul to show up in water. He's, he's always got things for us to do, and they're, they're silly and small compared to what he's doing. You know, like I think of right, Moses parting the Red Sea, come on. We all know Moses didn't do it. God could, God did not need Moses to do anything to be a part of that, but it doesn't happen until Moses does his part, which in that case is just like lifting the staff, lifting the staff. And I feel like he's like, he's like a, a 2-year-old who like helped with make the brownies and he is did I be good? You know? Yeah. And that's great. And that's always how we are. Even when it's a big thing like, oh, I, you know, I did this or I, I sacrificed that. All of our good deeds are filthy rags. Right? But not to him. Right. Not, not, not in his eyes. He, I think he thinks it's beautiful when we, when we show up and and he makes, he turns our little lunch into a enough to feed 5,000. Right. He seriously does that there sounds like charge events that we've prayed over the food. We're like, there's no way everyone's gonna be hungry and family events. I'm 10 of 11 children. Whoa. Yeah. So I love, I loved having a big family and I wanna have a big family myself, but yeah, we'd always be praying over the food and I at. Any of our family events.'cause now I have 36 pushing like 38 nieces, nephews.'cause two of my sisters are pregnant. Wow. Yeah. But anyways, like the Lord really does do that still like Lord bless his food and help it stretch it every time. There's just no way if he would've made a plate and been like, oh here you go. It wouldn't have worked that way. Wow. Anyways, yeah, God is good. He is still doing stuff. And another thing I wanted to add in,'cause our sermon yesterday, it was on waiting on the Lord. And a lot of people have a misconception of a waiting ring. You just wait. But no, you have expectancy. You're expecting him, you're asking him what you need to do, and you're acting on it. It was so good. The message was so good. My dad's the pastor. I was like, I feel like my dad is preaching to me'cause he knows what's going on in my life right now. And, but I knew that's how everybody feels. If you're, if you don't feel that way, the Holy Spirit was not moving in the church. But yeah, I went home yesterday like, Lord, I know you literally had him reach that message just for me. But no, for sure. Like expectancy. You didn't just quit your job thinking, I hope this works. You expected, okay. The Lord's telling me, I expect him to come we're gonna, I'm gonna do everything I can, but I have full hope and I expect for a good outcome from the Lord. Yeah. Because he's our heavenly father and he will make our life better than we could ever imagine. So. Mm-hmm. That's right. That's right. That preach. Well that being said, has there ever been, a time where you were like, I don't know how I can continue this. Have you ever gotten to a point where it would just financially or your equipment is breaking down or whatever, you know? Yeah. Man, I, I would say yes, there have been, there have been versions of that for sure. It is a very I, I don't know, just as a, as a financial model for life I don't know that I can wholeheartedly recommend it, just in terms of the, the life of an artist or the life of, you know, whatever it is. I, I am, I don't, I don't even know. But it is unorthodox. It is unpredictable. And you have to like, it is a workout in the model. I feel like I'm, I'm going to Paul's gym and he is my personal trainer and the whole workout plan is designed to get me to look like him and into that I know how to be a base and I know how to abound kind of reality. Right? Paul is so open-handed and he's living this life that is a lot of, it's very high, low, you know, like it's a, it's a lot of ups and a lot of downs and sometimes he's got way more than enough and sometimes he just barely has enough. That certainly has been the case for us over the last four and a half years. Like the life, like sometimes I think, man, I used to wake up. On the first of every month, just knowing that somebody had organized a direct deposit into my bank account just magically, it just showed up there every single month. And it was the same amount every month. And I was never like, and it was like, and it's like, everybody's yeah, but that's welcome to having a job. And it's oh, no, no, no. That's how your job works. That used to be how my job worked. Now I have a different reality, you know, and now it's like this, this kingdom sharing model where you know, what's the Holy Ghost race business model, pour tons of work and energy and expertise and time into this product that I think is, is of extreme value, and then just give it away. And it's yeah, but where, like I asked for the business model and it's mm-hmm. Yeah, you're caught up. Yeah, that is, that's the one. And yeah, it's oh, but you're gonna run ads. And in our case we're like, no, actually we're not. I think that would, it just doesn't feel right. Like with the vibe, whatever. I, I don't know. No. It's oh, so how's this gonna work? And I'm like, I don't know. You know, like it's the kingdom of God, right? It, it's all of our stuff is all of our stuff. And I mean, our dad's got the kettle on a Thousand Hills, and he's told us that when somebody around you has a need, you know that. And, and again, Paul is a model. He looks at those churches and at times he'll go make tents to make it work. And at times he'll look at them and be like, I'm showing up for you in this way. Doing what you can't do. You show up for me and do what I can't do. Right. And so, it's been a beautiful journey of interdependency, I think that's a version of what I've experienced the rest of my life, but certainly is amped up and amplified to where I am fully dependent on the generosity of the people I'm serving. Mm-hmm. And and all of what Hafi Studios is doing, you know, is just done trusting that the economics of the Kingdom of God work differently than the economics. Mm-hmm. The United States of America or Silicon Valley or whatever. And so far, praise the Lord. That's been true. It's always true in theory. We struggle obviously sometimes to make. What's true in theory, true in practice as followers of Jesus. But so far that's been the case. But there have been, there was a, there was a time you know, to your correct, to your question, there was a time, when was it, it was either last year or the year before where, yeah, it was probably last year. I, I like, or the year before. I don't know. Anyway, ev everything bleeds together, but it was probably both is the answer. I, the, as the year came to a close, I hadn't, I just, we weren't done fundraising for the coming year, and as soon as the leaves outside started changing, like my like I felt sick. There was this feeling in the pit of my stomach that was just like, it's coming and there's nothing. It got to the point where I was having trouble falling asleep, which has never been an issue for me. And it was just any quiet downtime, that's what would come into my mind. And you know, I mean, it was, it was, it was genuine anxiety about finances and and I was just like, I don't, I don't know if this is gonna work. What, what a ridiculous thing I have decided to do. You know, and and I think the, the answer it wa it wasn't fixed slowly, but it was just more, what, what did it take? More trust in him? Just more trust in him and just more like being honest with him about how I felt more. And I'm still working on this in those moments. Let's pray instead of distract, you know, to get to get through it. Right. And and then part of it, to be honest was, was like that showing up element that you guys talked about. Like we, I realized that some of the anxiety about the financial piece of this was affecting me in this really strange, counterproductive way where I was like, oh, I don't want to think about it. And so that's not gonna, that's not gonna work. You know, it just makes it worse if I'm like, right, I don't wanna think about fundraising'cause I don't like fundraising and I never will, but but you can't just ignore it till it goes away because. Right. It will not go away. Yeah. You got groceries to buy and Yeah. You gotta make a living. You do. Yep. So, yep. So it's been only because of the Lord's faithfulness and because of the generosity of so many people around the world who are giving regularly to make Holy Ghost stories possible and, and the happiest status. People know this other podcast that we've put out essays for our studios, and all of what we're doing is just done simply by virtue of the fact that there are, there are Christians who believe that that kingdom storytelling matters. And mm-hmm. And, and I believe that with my bones, like I've devoted my whole life to it. And I'm happy in the end to risk not just myself, but my family in some ways to put all of that on the altar of this call, because in the end, what, what is it that, that could be better than climbing into Yahweh's lap and listening to him share a memory with us. Like what a, what an intimate experience. And, and we all are like, yeah, I know I need to love God, but how do I love God? This is the way, this is the way. He's given us a path. He's invited us into moments with him. Very intimate, very like vulnerable moments. These moments. And if we're willing to take time and, and use what God has given some of us in the body in terms of storytelling ability and then what he's given others in the body, which is like the ability to go make money and Right. Save$20 of it a month to send to the person who's trying to tell the story is like it works out. And what we're able to, to accomplish is, you know, so far. People have spent 21 million minutes listening to Holy Ghost stories. Wow. That's 39 years now that people, that human beings have just sat in the presence of Yahweh and beheld him. I'll, I'll risk it all for that. And you'll be rewarded for it too. So, and, and what a devotion you're teaching your children. I mean, goodness, they're learning a lot from their dad. And I thought about your wife.'cause I'm like, you know, you gotta have a good wife. It's backing you up to Yeah, let's go travel around. Oh yeah. You start doing this. Yeah. Everything's gonna be fun. I'm gonna trust you and your whatever plan you have with the Lord, you got it. Yeah. Was she like that? Yeah, she's incredible. Oh, she's incredible. Yes. That's how she was like in the beginning, that episode that you talked about, Felicia with the Witch of Endor. You know, that was the first time that I worked with Kendall. And I just cold called him because I'd become aware of his music. And I just loved what he was doing. And, and I originally reached out to him to license a couple of songs of his, like instrumental cello to use in an episode of the podcast. But we ended up, he replied, he listened to the podcast through the link that I sent him. I was super pumped that he got back to me because, you know, he was out like doing, you know, I don't like performing at the Grammys and like doing Oprah's tour and playing I don't know, scoring trailers for Netflix and winning Boston Music Awards and all this stuff. And. I'm like, Hey, so I do this Bible podcast if you wanna check it out, you know? Anyway, so he got back to me. He had listened. He loved it. Turned out he was a follower of Jesus and was really, had really been looking for ways to marry his work with his faith more actively. We hit it off so well on that call that by the time we hung up, we dreamed together about not just licensing a couple of his existing pieces, but what if we worked together on an entire episode and you did a custom original score for the whole episode. We were both pumped up. Had a great time, hung up and I told him like, let me know what that would cost. So he sends the email three days later and it's$10,000. And again, we're living in England. I have$0 coming in. There is no like budget for the, for the podcast. We're, you know. We're like, how late, how much rice do we need this week at the grocery store? Really? Do we, do we really need that second bag? Because you know, every, every Penny matters. And so it's but, but he said, you know, I, I really wanna make this work if that I, I understand, you know, there's not a big budget. And I'm like, oh, there's, there's no budget. There's not a budget. But he's I, I just wanna, I really wanna make this work. So I talked to Jennifer, my wife, and she's so what are you gonna say? And I'm like, well, he said he wanted to make it work. I don't think I could come back with anything less than$5,000 and it just be not insulting, you know? And she's okay, so do that and see what, see what he says. And I'm like, yeah,$5,000 is still so many dollars. Like it's 5,000 of them all together at once. And she's she said, we had, we had sold one car. She's we still have a car in Texas we haven't sold. And I'm like, what? It's the only thing we have, you know? And she's well, listen, we're serious about this or we're not. And so I emailed him back. I was like, how about five? And he's let's do it. And so we sold our car and we paid for music and we told a Bible story and oh my goodness. Did you tell this story on the, on that episode? No, I don't think I did. Okay. Wow. It felt kind of personal, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I didn't know at the time, like exactly how it worked out, you know? If that was gonna be the last episode of Folk History ever. Yeah. That is awesome. That's incredible. That is walking by Faith and living by faith 100%. Oh, yeah. There's no way you're doing it thinking, oh, I don't have faith that this is gonna turn out. Like, why? You know, you clearly had faith that it was so, yeah. Praise God. Love it. Yeah. So, oh my gosh, I had a question. Oh. Okay. So you, you mentioned Fire Studios or Fire studios, Hayes Fire, hay Fire Studios. Uhhuh Fire say that again, I'm sorry. Haze Fire Studios Haze Fire. Okay. So how did that come to be? Are you, were you, you were just like an independent person? And then was introduced somehow. So yeah, so it was just me at the beginning and I started a Patreon about two thirds of the way through the first season and invited folks to support the podcast through that. And and the response was really encouraging to that. But over the course of the next while I, you know, we'd worked, I had worked together with Kendall and it had been so good. And then we had worked together for a live show in the fall of 2022. And so that relationship was just really blossoming and we loved, we discovered, we just loved partnering to make things together. And so I had pitched him this idea. I was like, what if I, I really want to tell the story of the Exodus, like long form over the course of an entire season. Would you be game. To write an original score for the whole season, you know, that way we could like, have these musical themes and light motifs that we develop over the course of the season and it's all cohesive. And, you know, he got excited about that. He's oh, I'm, I'm super up for it. He's I can't do it for the same, it's just a lot of work. You know, like one episode full of ghost stories, like 30 minutes, that's 30 minutes. And, and the score is not what it is in a film. Mm-hmm. Where in a 90 minute film you might have 40 minutes of music. Right. It's not wall to wall, but it is wall to wall and Holy Ghost stories, so. Mm-hmm. So this season, if he did a, an entire 10 episodes was gonna be the same as whatever, like six feature films, like worth of score as a mammoth project. And it was gonna be expensive. And, and so I was like, okay, Patreon is not gonna cut it for this alone. I'm gonna need to go seek some, some more significant, like one-time funding from some sources. And, and it, it was just a realization that it order to, and, and again, the business model is I'm not selling anything here, so we need to be able to receive donations and have them be tax deductible and just all that stuff. So we're gonna need to go the nonprofit route, incorporate as a 5 0 1 C3 and so that's how H five studios was born. It was in the lead up to season four as I was raising the funds to create that Exodus series. Okay, so you're, you were the head of that, the HR studio? Mm-hmm. Okay, okay. I was thinking it was just someone you found that, but that is Oh, okay. Yeah, no, yeah. So we, we created that. And so currently there's, there's basically four of us who who are employed by Hay fire to part-time, to full-time. And then we work with a bunch of like contractors, you know, for like musicians for live shows and, and that kind of stuff. Interesting. So you're taking notes because as a, as a little baby podcast we're, we're learning you know, all the things on how we can just get more, more engagement, which, you know, we just do it, like you said, just free. It's, it's. Something we're just doing to serve the Lord and we're, we're just stay at home wives and well not just stay at home wives, you know? Yeah. If that, that's a, that's a whole thing. But yeah, we just want, we want to, what we feel really called is the, the bi, the story of the woman at the well, which I'm sure you've covered. If I'm, I'm pretty sure I've listened to this. No, I have no, I have not, I've not done anything in the New Testament. Okay. Well, the, the woman at the well was kind of our founding bible story because just the way that Jesus just knows her, just, you know, he knows us and she is captivated by this and is okay, this is the Messiah, and she goes and just tells everybody. In that town. And that's what I felt we needed to do is take that initiative and go and tell everybody, you know, everybody, everybody's gossiping nowadays. But we wanted it to be good gossip. Right. Like where we're, we're telling stories of people's lives, but it's all the good things. Yeah. Ours is all like testimonies. So man, we just, we haven't, we need to like have a few more episodes that we're not skipping weeks. So we told people like, if you wanna write in your testimony, we'd love to read it sometime if you don't wanna show up or whatever. Mm-hmm. And so we just finally started getting people sending in their testimonies. Yeah. I'm like mid reading someone's testimony, it's like late last night and I got up and did animal chores and came over here and I haven't finished it, but like you said, there's something, Jesus's stories, they all have a purpose and they have so much meaning, but, so there's something to be said about people saying. Today, what did Jesus do in your life? How has he been there for you? What have you been through? And how like Jesus is the only way, especially for this girl, the one that I just read, starting at three days old, like only been fed. It's just crazy what she's been through already. And I'm excited to read how anyways, all I have to say, like our culture, we wanna change the culture to talking about good things, positive things. Kinda like you said. This is so something that you wanted to have you wish you could have had the Holy Ghost Yeah. To listen to. That's kind of where we're at. We're like, we want to be entertained and encouraged and not have to feel guilty when we're done watching or listening to something. Like we want to just promote a culture to keep doing that. Have people like you, like us and other people like singers and like anything just yeah, culture all together. Like we had a guest on a few weeks ago who was a det transitioned. Man. Yeah. A man. Played in women's sports and realized that was not the life Jesus intended for him. And he started to live in his truth. And yeah, just different, he's been a Christian for 45 days and we call him on TikTok and he is so on fire. And I just love it'cause he is just being like vulnerable. He's getting on TikTok and he's I just read this story and I don't understand it. And then everyone helps him like understand it better and he gets on lies and he is reading it and it is just so beautiful to watch. And man, that testimony, like he talked about how like at 16 years old, him and his parents made fun of Christians. Like they were just like, oh, that's so funny. Like, how dumb were they? Mm-hmm. And then he lived as a woman for years and years and years. And met the Lord and has a girlfriend for the last two months. Yep. And it's just, it's so beautiful to just see God's stories because God isn't working in everyone's life. It's a child, you know, you know that. I'm pretty sure the choir, but for sure. Yeah, it's true. It's true. And I love that. You know, I, I get to spend all this time telling these incredible stories that we have in this collection, and knowing the entire time that he is the God who's still writing stories. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Amen. Well, I am so grateful that you answered our email that we got to sit down and talk it. Hopefully it won't be the last time. I still feel like there we could have another, you know, part two, but happy to. Yeah. I feel like we, how we been on? Yeah. Almost hour and a half, so, yeah. Yeah, I just really appreciate your time and everything you're doing. And we're, we're a podcast that's not running ads either, so, but we're, we're definitely going to see, I didn't know that. And I, I just guess I didn't notice it. I don't know how, but that's awesome. And so, like the way that you make money is from the, what's it called? The IS donation, yeah, yeah, the donations to Hay Fire Studios. Yep. Okay. And then, okay. And that's like your, that's how you make money, period. That's right. For, that's it. Okay. That is, or tell our listeners to amazing support Hay Fire Studios for sure. Because that is something that encourages me and, and I'm, I'm supportive of the Lord's work and what you're doing. Oh. Oh, sorry. Hold on. Oh, I don't know if that's me or you. Can you hear me though? We can hear you. It just okay. There's like a plus sign on my screen. Yeah. I see the same thing. What if we go there? How's that? Well, let's go ahead and shout out Hays Fire Studios. Yes. Let's support God's work. You know, people pay ties to the church. Let's think about offerings and giving to all good causes like the Lord calls us to do. And know that everything that you give is, you're gonna get back. Support the really lord's not that that's the point. But 100% I've seen it from the second that me and my husband paid tos, just the increase. It's just the Lord is just so good. And yeah, I just wanna add that in. But yeah, thank you again for coming your time. And is there anything you wanna add? Say to the listeners? Anyone listening? Oh, let's see. No, yeah, I just would be delighted for any of y'all's listeners to check out the podcast. So just search Holy Ghost stories and we're rolling along in season seven right now. Today, like you said we, we dropped a brand new episode. They come out every couple of weeks during the season. Today's episode is Jeff, the, the infamous vow and the price his daughter had to pay and, and all that jazz. It's I don't know if, if folks will agree with my take on it. How's that for a little teaser? So I already, I'm only maybe eight minutes in. I'm gonna finish it today, but when I was listening, I was like, this is, I I just love the commentary on it where you're like, this is maybe what he said. And it's, it's, oh, so good. So good. I love you. Love your enthusiasm. She's not even faking though. Well, it's been a delight to talk to you guys. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much, and God bless you. Yes, have day. Bless you guys. Bye. See you.