3 Doves Podcast
3 Doves Podcast
Ep 15 - Take Refuge - Dolphin Trainer Erin Morrison - Living the uncomfortable life.
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On this episode of the 3 Doves Podcast, Erin Morrison shares how growing up in Oak Park, Illinois with a strong church background led to early questions about faith that eventually became her own. She talks about choosing curiosity over rebellion, learning to trust God in uncomfortable places, and how seasons of risk, travel, and surrender shaped her calling. From Africa to college life out of her car, to living on a sailboat in the Florida Keys, Erin shares how God is her Refuge and that He redirected her from a dream of dolphin training into ministry, missions, and a deeper life of dependence on Him.
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Welcome everybody to the Three Doves Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Pulowski. And on today's podcast, Aaron Morrison shares how God used curiosity, discomfort, and radical trust to lead her from questions about faith into a life of surrender, mission, and purpose. Well, I'm sitting here with Aaron Morrison. And Aaron, welcome to the Three Dose Podcast.
SPEAKER_02Thanks. It's awesome to be here.
SPEAKER_04Oh, great to have you. Tell us a little bit from the beginning, your background. Where were you born? Where did you grow up?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was born and raised my whole life in Oak Park, Illinois. So it's the first suburb right outside of Chicago. And I was so grateful to grow up there.
SPEAKER_04How old were you when you were born? Okay, listen. I thought this would be good just to kind of have a little fun there. Okay. I've been waiting to say something like that on one of these podcasts because I've been kind of real reserved, but today I just felt a little bit. Let's have some fun. You gotta. So, anyways, you were zero, right? Yeah. Okay. So you grew up in um you said Oak. Oak Park. Oak Park, yeah. I believe I visited there one time. Oak Park. Yep, I have. On a uh was working with a ministry called Transformation Prayer, and he had a church there that we stopped at, and I believe that's where it was located. It's a nice area. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I tell my parents all the time they're still there. And I'm like, you can't leave there because I don't want to move back, but I love going back. And I'm just so grateful for all the opportunities living in Oak Park provided me.
SPEAKER_04So um a little bit about your background so that people understand who you are and where you came from. Uh tell us a little bit about when you grew up there. Tell me, did you go to church? What did that look like?
SPEAKER_02Yep. I uh was born and raised going to church, going to Iwana on Wednesday nights. Um during Advent season, my parents had us memorize Luke 2, 1 through 20 and Matthew 2, 1 through 12. We'd recite it every day leading up to Christmas. Um, so I would say faith was very much in my life. Um and I I think that Sunday school actually does a lot of things okay and a lot of things that they could improve on. And I think one of the biggest things was they never prepped me, knowing that at some point I was under my parents' faith, and I was gonna have to decide what I believed and kind of separate from my parents' faith to take it on as my own. And that actually happened at a young age for me. When I started in like fourth grade, I started questioning everything that I got young, yeah. I had brought up doing. I just like I'm just a questioner and a prover and an investigator, maybe. Like I have that kind of science-y love. And so I would just ask these questions, but I didn't feel like I had my own space to do it. Until my parents sent me to summer camp. I started asking all these questions. How do I know the Bible's true? Why don't we see miracles today? Because I hadn't been exposed to that in my upbringing. I'd been told all of these things in the Bible, but I'm like, why isn't water being turned to wine today? Yeah. And so um, that was really this safe space. So from like fourth grade to sixth grade, I just like questioned and like got to a space where I'm like, I don't know if I want this. And um, middle school just left in this rocky place, like, I don't know if I want this. And I just didn't have the questions answered well. The questions I was being or the answers I was given was like, well, because that's what the Bible says. I'm like, well, how do we know the Bible's true? A lot of questions I like are really healthy to ask. I just didn't know it was healthy. So then high school, I get involved in a youth group separate from my parents' church, and that gave me my own space. And we went to this um youth camp in Jekyll Island, Georgia, 20-hour bus ride from Chicago. All of these high schoolers all meet in this one place for a week, and we just play games on the beach, sermon, breakfast, and dinner. And I had this amazing youth leader, and I sat with her for five hours and asked her every question. And she gave me this beautiful place of um faith and concrete answers, and she showed that there is proof that miracles are still happening today. There is proof that Jesus actually walked around and there was archaeological evidence and everything. But um, she also said this really magical thing to me. She said, But I'm okay not knowing absolutely everything because that's where faith comes in. And it gave me this place of like, yeah, okay. And that was the night in going into my junior year of high school, I said I took my faith on as my own.
SPEAKER_04Wow. So that journey started in fourth grade.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04The questioning all the way into your junior year after even getting those answers, you then said, I'm in.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I'm all in.
SPEAKER_02So when I was six, I gave my life to Christ, but I don't know what that really meant. I was all in with my life in Christ in junior year. And I look back and kind of my starting point was at junior year of high school.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then it was all in from there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. If if you were like talking to someone, uh you're, you know, if you were looking back, talking to a junior or something, what kind of advice would you give them in that, you know, growing up in a family of faith, um, trying to figure out the Bible, everything around that, the questions. What kind of advice would you give them on that?
SPEAKER_02Um, that's a good question. I think to choose curiosity rather than rebellion. I think I I just wanted to push away from my parents to have my own space. I don't think, and my parents wanted to equip me with resources. They wanted to say, um, like, oh, can do you want to talk to so-and-so? Like they were trying to equip me, and I wasn't open to that. I didn't choose curiosity in those moments. I wanted to push them completely away and figure it out on my own. And fortunately, the Lord provided with me opportunities to still search that.
SPEAKER_04Um, but I think But we're talking fourth grade here. You started to do this. Yeah. Fifth grade, sixth grade. I get when they're in the sixth grade, but you started younger. And so, you know, you're telling me God was stirring in you at a young age to question a lot about what you were being told.
SPEAKER_02And I tell new believers that all the time. We're like, I'm discipling a couple friends right now who are super new. Um, and when we walk through scripture together, I'm like, hey, outside of the core foundation of the gospel, there's a lot of space here to talk and question and debate. And like, I think I grew up in Sunday school where it was black and white and there was no space to question. And also, we never talked about two sides to the picture. We only talked about the good and the God. We never talked about that. There's all these powers of evil going against, and so that so many of my questions came from like, well, how is God all good and all these things? Because I never heard of this power dynamic that's going on between the enemy and Christ. And I think just giving space now, that's always my encouragement of like, don't take a sermon that you hear point blank. Like, it's okay, like those questions are okay to have, and it's okay to sit in that discomfort. Because I think that's where Christ really meets you to reveal more about his nature to you and to draw on that relationship.
SPEAKER_04Talk to me about that discomfort.
SPEAKER_02Um, what's that like?
SPEAKER_04The sit in discomfort.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think Christ says a lot of challenging things in scripture. And so I think if we don't read our Bibles in this place of like, oh, that was really hard to read. I'm not sure we're reading our Bibles correctly. Like, I remember the first time I read in Matthew, where Jesus is like, oh, it's easy to love easy people, even pagans do that, but you're gonna stand out for loving your enemies. And I was like, oof. I know I sat in a lot of discomfort there because I was like, I'm not sure I can look back at one difficult person and having treated them with love.
SPEAKER_04I'm gonna venture to say that even our listeners would say, we have some very difficult people around us. And our my natural tendency would be like, I just don't want to be hanging with them. You know what I mean? Because they're just difficult.
SPEAKER_02Which is our flesh.
SPEAKER_04Right. But God is saying, No, I put you there so that you can be love and and and the light of what God's called you, you know, called us to be.
SPEAKER_00Totally.
SPEAKER_04It's that's a di that's a that's a very, very insightful, Aaron, um, you know, observation of that, you know, of what Jesus said, because that's what we I forget that sometimes. And I'm sure I think we all do.
SPEAKER_02I 100%. We're forgetful, and God's the faithful one. He is to remind us.
SPEAKER_04He is. He is faithful, absolute faithful. Um so tell me more about that. So you're in this, we're talking about this place of discomfort.
SPEAKER_02Yes and no. So here is really I really faced discomfort. So my when I was six years old, I decided I was gonna be a dolphin trainer.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02So my whole life, I focused every decision around what was gonna make me become a dolphin trainer.
SPEAKER_04And let me just say something. I'm gonna interrupt you here because this is a great moment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I can see you doing this, by the way. You have such energy, and I know folks can't see this, they can hear it. Yeah. But you have such energy when you're speaking that I can see you up there going, no, look at this trick, everybody. And you know, I can see that. And this is I think this is how God wired you. Totally. Right, but we're still there. But I'm I want to point that out that you'll hear it in her voice.
SPEAKER_03Hey, three dogs podcast listeners. My name is Justin Hannakin, and I've been a guest on episodes three and four of this podcast. I'm here to share with you today about a tangible way that we can live out our honest faith through real story 60 Live Transformed. I'm part of a group called the Million Movement, and we have a goal to see one million total sponsor by the year 2050. I had the opportunity to travel to Ethiopia in 2009 to meet my sponsor, Shop Listen for the Hungary, and my life has never been the same since. Could you take a minute and visit www.themillion movement.com to read more about our vision, and then if you're able to sponsor shop, you'll find a way to do so right at that link. Shoot me a DM on Instagram at the dot million.movement, because I want to send you a free gift to help you on your sponsorship journey. Again, that's www.themillionmovement.com. And now back to this week's episode.
SPEAKER_02It got to a point where dolphins were number one. And I was okay with that before I had that time encounter with the Lord in my uh junior year. And so I would eat, breathe, sleep dolphins. I had every rooster's book on dolphins, walls covered in my room, dolphins, every dolphin-stuffed animal from the zoo.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I Did you have the Miami Dolphins? That's important for some.
SPEAKER_02Well, I grew up in Chicago.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so you didn't have Miami Dolphins.
SPEAKER_02If I had to pick a football team when I was in Chicago, I would have picked up the dolphins.
SPEAKER_04But um the Bears.
SPEAKER_02But um, you know, there was a local zoo 15 minutes from where I lived, and I was there all the time. So then my real first discomfort, I would say, even before, because once I junior year hit, I was like, Lord, I'm all in. I wasn't instantly opening my Bible and being uncomfortable discomforted, I guess is the word. Discomforted with what Jesus was saying. But the first time I really was feeling this discomfort was figuring out that now dolphins probably couldn't have been number one because I there was really Christ is supposed to be number one. And I vividly remember, maybe not my senior year, of like, okay, God, I'm all in with you, but I still think dolphins are number one. And he's so gracious. I have friends that have told me similar stories in their life of like they were on their way to be a professional athlete, and then they tear their ACL, and then that's how they find the Lord. Like just things like that, where like the Lord's doing something to get their attention. And I was just so grateful that the Lord's way of dealing with my discomfort and the Lord's way of getting my attention was he sent me to Africa for six weeks. So I go in between high school and college, I go to Rwandan, Zimbabwe. And I it was the first time I traveled outside the country and I traveled by myself. And I remember getting to the airport in Rwanda, and someone was supposed to pick me up as a friend of a friend, a long story, super cool. And um, I and my very rookie first time just sent him my time of arrival, didn't send him flight in for whatever. Well, flight was three hours delayed. I get my bags, walk outside to the airport, expecting to see my name on some sheet or whatever. No one's there. Wi-Fi's not working, it's before the time where I can just push off airplane mode and be able to contact someone for less than $100 or whatever. So I remember calling out to God right there, quickly panicking, being like, God, I'm out of ideas right now, and I need you to do something right now. It's probably the first time I really prayed to God. I don't know, at least with fervency. 30 seconds later, this lady walks up to me. Are you Aaron? I was like, Yes. And she goes, I've been looking all over for you. Ben sent me, I'm her secretary. Like, I've been here for an hour and a half or two hours waiting for you. Like, come with me. I just remember being like, This is really cool. Yeah. I call out to God, he just shows up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's what the entire trip was for me. And I remember being so convicted in that in that time on that trip where I was like, God, I never need to touch a dolphin in my life. I'm like, whatever you want me to do, I'm all yours. If this is how you're showing up for me, how dare I not make you number one?
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02And I just didn't realize it then, but look, have looked back over and over and over again on that trip and how gracious he was to that dropkick me there and let that be what transformed my heart. And it's funny that you ask about discomfort because then I started chasing after discomfort.
SPEAKER_04Tell me about that. Yeah, what does that look like?
SPEAKER_02I started realizing that unless I put myself in a situation where I'm in Rwanda by myself at 18 years old without a way to communicate, I'm not fervently dependent on God the way I am when I'm sitting in my comfortable house in America with a fridge full of food. Like there's not that discomfort. And so it takes away that dependency on the Lord. And so what's really interesting is I took that energy of being obsessed with dolphins and I it became, excuse me, being obsessed with God. And I became obsessed with knowing him and knowing his voice. And ultimately what I realized is that I needed to find ways to put myself in uncomfortable situations and live in that discomfort and enjoy that discomfort because that's how I would watch God show up the most.
SPEAKER_04But but Aaron, wait a minute now. Okay, just wait a second. I'm gonna play advocate with you, okay? Okay. So you're gonna put yourself in uncomfortable situations. Make sure we define that clearly to our listeners because that doesn't mean you're putting yourself in an unsafe place, is it?
SPEAKER_02Okay, so that's a great question. And I have a perfect analogy for you on this. Okay, so I'll give an example, and the analogy comes from that example.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02So one example I have is every year I go on a Jesus adventure. And so that's where I it started with where I would just check out from the world and I would go and I'd be completely dependent on God for whatever he wanted to do. So my second Jesus adventure, I found cheap flights to Belize, and I felt like the Lord was inviting me to get these flights and just show up with a backpack and a hammock in Belize. So I'm in Belize, I end up backpacking around like a whole week with an off-grid map, just being dependent on the Lord.
SPEAKER_04That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02And while I was on this trip in Belize and watching the Lord show up, just like he did when I was in Rwanda in Zimbabwe, he gave me this analogy, and it was these three rings: this green ring, this yellow ring, and this red ring. This green ring is this inner circle, and I believe it's where a lot of American Christians live. And it's a place where they know the Lord, they love the Lord, but they do, they love Him from their comfort, from their safety. Wow. And so it's where they'll go to church, they'll do all the spiritual disciplines, but they have this like very clear line or surf or in circle, kind of a boundary where it feels too discomforting to be like, oh God, I can't ever do that. I can't do what you're asking me to do. But God's asking them to do it. So it's not outside of his will, but it's just too uncomfortable for them. I could never change my career. I could never sell this item that I love more than anything. I could never, whatever that thing is that God's working on in their heart.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02Okay, then we have this yellow ring I'm gonna come back to.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02But then we have this red ring, and this is where I believe is your unsafe that you just asked. Okay. Where it's outside of God's will. It's saying, I'm gonna jump off a cliff because I know God's gonna save me. Well, no, God gave us free will. He's not like he's not asking us to test him in that. And so anything that's just outside of God's will that you're just gonna do to test God or something, I believe is in this red zone. However, I think a lot of American Christians only see the green or the red, and they don't see that there's this yellow circle. And this yellow circle is what I call the Goldilocks zone.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02And it's the place where you're in complete dependability on the Lord, and you're completely out of your comfort zone.
SPEAKER_04I like that because the earth is in what they call a Goldilocks zone with light. Have you ever seen that in science? They have uh the sun and the light, the visible light. Yeah. We're right in the perfect position around the sun for that natural UV and all the spectrum to hit the earth.
SPEAKER_02I've never put that together before.
SPEAKER_04I didn't until you said that, and it hit me. And it's it's a beautiful thing. We're right in the middle of life in the Goldilocks zone that you just said.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're spot on.
SPEAKER_04No, he is. He's spot on. We're just we're just doing a podcast and he's just here. Yeah. Leading us.
SPEAKER_02But I no, I think that was a great connection. It is, isn't it? He's good. I think that's the biggest clarity between discomfort and un dissafety or unsafety. Is that are you in the Goldilocks zone or are you in that red zone where God hasn't asked you to do something?
SPEAKER_04Well, what people aren't seeing also is you're a single lady, a single woman out there at 19, 20, whatever it was, the age, running around the world in unsafe zones, we would consider, but yet abiding in the yellow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You're in the green, you're in the yellow. And I'm like, take that, stranger, danger.
SPEAKER_04Put that on a on a billboard, right? Yeah. On the back of a bumper sticker, right? Yeah. Put that verse. Wow, that's incredible. Tell me about some of the places that you visited there. What did God do in that discomfort zone or the Goldilocks zone, as we call it now? What was he doing in you?
SPEAKER_02Hmm. Um, I think he was doing a lot of things. I think ultimately every time was an opportunity to learn more about who he was and then who I was in him. And I just found that he would like ask me to do something, and I had the opportunity to step out on faith and move to the yellow zone or stay in the green zone. And whenever I would choose the Goldilocks zone, the Lord would meet me there, show his faithfulness, and then all it would make me want to do is have him ask me something bigger, like go out, like whatever would stretch my faith even more. Um, because our faith um is just constantly meant to be stretched, stretched to grow closer to him. And so he just starts out small and then he'll just keep asking, and then he keeps showing up and being faithful, and it's just this perpetual desire. And so I come back from Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and I go straight into college in an American college, Kent State University in Northeast Ohio, and I had the worst reverse culture shock. I was ready to drop out of school and move to Kenya. I was ready, like, and I just realized that I was just in this place where I was back in this comfort. And I had the most amazing advisor who said, You, we don't send sophomores abroad, but you got to go abroad next year. Get out of here. And I was so grateful for that advice because it put me, and she I wasn't even a Christian school, she wasn't a believer, but what she didn't realize she was doing was putting me back in a place where I was dependent on him again because I'm back in foreign places, not speaking languages and whatever.
SPEAKER_04And let me tell you something. God uses people who aren't in faith yet, who don't know him yet. Look through the whole scripture, right, Aaron? Like there's so many times he used Pharaoh, he used many multiple people through the scriptures, and I can go on. I'm not gonna take up the time, but imagine that, you know, and we forget that as believers, that God is working even in those that we think are unworkable.
SPEAKER_02Totally. Yep. And we don't know what seeds he's planting in those moments either. It's so cool.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So you were there at Kent State?
SPEAKER_02You get the go abroad. I mean, now I'm like, wow, my faith was nothing when I was in Rwanda in the Baba. Like it just felt like it just kept exponentially, kept watching him show up, testimony after testimony. Get back, senior year of I well, I I graduated a year early. So it was my last year. Technically, it was my third year of college, but last year. First semester, get back, exact same situation. Back in comfort, can't handle it. So I called my parents one day and I say, I'm gonna live out of my car next semester.
SPEAKER_04And they were like You're gonna live in your car?
SPEAKER_02They were like, No, you're not. And I was like, Well, you gotta hear me out because remember, my parents love the Lord. They're um so excited that I'm now back into discovering my faith and stuff.
SPEAKER_04Sure.
SPEAKER_02So I give them a reason they can't fight me on it. I said, Yeah, I want to be more dependent on the Lord, and I can't be dependent on him when I'm in college in America. It's too comfortable. So I'm gonna live out of my car so I can be more dependent on him. And it was like crickets on the phone because they they knew they couldn't argue with me on that. And I wasn't even like making an argument for argument. That was truly my reason.
SPEAKER_04I'm trying to stay out of your story as much as possible. But Aaron, every time you talk, you're sucking me in, because that's that's that's a gift that you have, by the way. You're sucking me into the life of your story. It's amazing to hear that. So I'm thinking from my perspective as a parent with my daughter, who's 23 right now, currently and married. I couldn't imagine her going, hey dad, um, you know what? I'm not gonna get a place. I'm not gonna live here at home. I'm gonna live in my car and be uncomfortable in this place so that I can serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_02My husband and I are currently expecting our first, and I look back now and I'm like, I can't my parents let me do what they let me do. Right. I'm shocked.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But um, and so not only What a milestone, by the way.
SPEAKER_04That's a milestone, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it is. It's huge. It's a blessing. So, granted, remember, I'm in northeast Ohio, second semester, which starts in January.
SPEAKER_04Which is cold.
SPEAKER_02Freezing, and um goes till May. And I but I had it all figured out, and I'm also in a 2005 or six Chevy cobalt. So, not this massive I mean, but it looked, I was fine by me, slept in the back truck and I had a back scene, and college was the time to do it because I had the rec center to shower, I had a meal plan.
SPEAKER_04How did you stay warm? I'm I'm from Michigan, Aaron.
SPEAKER_02I grew up in the poor prepared, actually. I had my dad's thermal sleeping bag, I had the like blankets they wrap around you after marathons, like the emergency blankets. I had hot water bottle heaters, hand warmest, foot warmest. I didn't need any of it except the sleeping bag and like warm clothes. It was great.
SPEAKER_04This is incredible. Yeah. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02So, uh, but again, I was just depending. I mean, I had police knocking on my door thinking I was homeless, offering me like food. I had full means to live in an apartment. But I was just like, no, it's too comfortable and too easy. Like it felt too safe.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02I loved it. I I mean, it was like the best semester of my college career because of that. Because every day I was just dependent on the Lord, asking him to keep me safe, asking him to keep me warm, asking him, just being grateful for the opportunity to have that, but also to not be in that position. Because some people, that is their only option or position. Like just so many different things where I mean, like we said earlier, we're forgetful. And so if I'm not doing that, then I'm forgetting to talk to God about it, to be reliant on him, to thank him for those things, to ask him for the little things. Like I should be asking him for help, whether I'm in a house or I'm in it in a car. Yeah, but I just forget. I think we all forget. And so that was really setting this precedence for this, like, oh, I need to keep doing this. And so that eventually um moved me to the keys. And this was really cool. Surrender my dolphin career to the Lord. And in his graciousness, so I'm in college this whole time looking to change my major about 25 different times. So I'm like, Lord, what do you want me to do? All I've known for the last 15 years was become a dolphin trainer and I'm studying biology. Like, I'm like, what do you want me to do? He was silent, no answer. So I this time then just kept pursuing dolphin career until he showed me something else. But this time, instead of his closed fist saying, This is what I'm gonna do, it was this open hands being like, Lord, you're not showing me anything, so I'm gonna keep moving this way, but I'm so okay if you take it. I'm so okay if you ask me to do something else. Well, in his graciousness, I never understood the Lord's grace like this until this happened. He let me go be a dolphin trainer down in the Florida Keys after I graduated high school or graduated college, excuse me. And the most amazing thing was it was just this four-month internship. But they were so so normally interns with dolphins, you scrub buckets 40 hours a week. The last week you touch a dolphin once or twice.
SPEAKER_04Really? Okay.
SPEAKER_02This facility did specifically what I wanted to do, it was dolphin-assisted therapy. They worked with veterans with PTSD, women's from abuse shelter, children with every kind of physical and emotional and mental disorder, and um used dolphins to to work as therapy for that.
SPEAKER_04Well, that's incredible.
SPEAKER_02Well, they were so short staffed. I was working dolphins the first week of my internship there. I swam with dolphins more times than I could count. I got to train dolphins. You get the got the very sacred dolphin training whistle, which is what is just the biggest deal in the dolphin world. Okay. Things you never get in internships. Wow. And I was just, I mean, fish prep started at 5 a.m. I was up at 3 a.m. because I couldn't go back to sleep. I was so excited to go to work. And it was just, I couldn't believe that I had surrendered this to the Lord and He gave it back to him. I was never expecting him to give it back to me. All of college, I was fervently looking for him to tell me what else he wanted me to do. He never did it. And so that brought me to the keys. I I at this point I'm still in nomad life. So I thought I'm moving to the keys and I'm moving out after this time with the dolphins.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Well, weekend the Lord made it clear he wanted me to stay. Okay. And so it was just wild because A, this place was so short staffed that even though I wasn't full-time there after that time, I could still go back and volunteer whenever I wanted. I was like, I'm on call dolphin train. And like, who gets to do that? It was like the most amazing thing.
SPEAKER_04That is amazing, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And um, so then I find out that it's a thing to live on boats down there. And I was like, oh, I'm all in, but I know zero about this. So um the Lord provides me the most amazing living situation. Lit housing's the biggest issue down in the keys, really hard to find, gotta work four jobs to even try and make rent down there. And the Lord had provided me this amazing opportunity where I was able to live on this RV in exchange for um for rent. And so, or in exchange for, yeah, threat. And um I just knew, I said, Lord, whenever you want me to give this up, I need you to make it clear. And so in July of 2020, the Lord made it clear. He's like, You need to surrender this living situation. I said, Okay, I'm all in. So I was like, it'd be cool to live on a boat, but I don't know what that looks like. Two weeks later, a friend calls me up and says, Hey, a mutual friend of ours has a boat and get rid of it. You should give him a call. Give him a call. I said, I don't even know what I'm supposed to ask you, except you have a boat and I want a boat. He's like, Great, come look at it. I go and look at this 25-foot boat that has no floor, rotted bulkheads, I mean nothing. Mast down, boom, knot attached, all these things. And I'm like, this is great. And he said these magic words. So I prayed to the Lord um a couple weeks earlier. I said, Lord, if I'm gonna live on a boat, I need you to put people in my life there and show me how to live on a boat because I know nothing about it.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02My friend said these magic words. He said, I'll show you everything you need to be able to get this boat in the water and I'll help you fix it up. And I think this is the price range you can do it for, and it's exactly in my budget. Wow. Awesome. Wow. So I move on to this boat, living on a sailboat now, anchored offshore, and I'm kayaking back and forth to land every day.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02Talk about being reliant on the Lord because you're kayaking in sunshine, but you're also kayaking in 30 knot winds when a hurricane's coming.
SPEAKER_04Whoa.
SPEAKER_02And I mean, there were just so many times.
SPEAKER_0430 knot. I think you meant when a hurricane comes, I Oh, 80 knot, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Keep going, right? It's the most I had ever kayed was in 60 knots, 60 or 70, which is at least tropical storm weather. We might be cat one.
SPEAKER_04Well, let me let me stop you in the story real quick because I know it's it's a powerful story you get into. And and folks hang with us, okay? Ready to feel unstoppable? Hit chill coal plunge in Cape Coral. Now with two locations on Del Prado and Tequita. Cold plunge, recovery, and total reset all in one place. Boost your energy, crush inflammation, and get back to your best. We'll get to chill in Cape Coral. Take the plunge today. Their phone number is 239-204-5778. That's 239-204-5778. Okay, because this is getting setting up, but you've been through hurricane on that boat, right? You you were like coming off there to shore during a hurricane when they were pushing through?
SPEAKER_02Um, yeah. So when I first got the boat, I actually was really blessed. I'd never, I think 30 or 40 knots was the most I had experienced. I wasn't on a boat. Or my first hurricane was when Hurricane Ian came through.
SPEAKER_00Powerful.
SPEAKER_02Um and in the keys, it only got to category one. It picked up when it went.
SPEAKER_04And then it went up and it came right to where we were sitting, you know, in the Fort Myers, Cape Coral, all that area in the that coastline. It I mean, all the way up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And uh still 30 knot winds. 40. That's pretty hot.
SPEAKER_02When Ian came through, I was still on a kayak. So it was I had already been on the boat a year or two at that point, but was still kayaking. My dog actually at that point, I had a dog, and um she didn't want to go to the bathroom on the boat at that point.
SPEAKER_04You're telling me you had to kayak your dog?
SPEAKER_0160. That was 60 to 70 knots. That was a short kayak and it was a wild ride. She looked at me and was like, Mom, what are we doing?
SPEAKER_04Did you say 60 to 7 knot wins and you took the dog on shore in a kayak?
SPEAKER_01She wasn't even going to the bathroom.
SPEAKER_04Somebody asked you a question. Was it going behind you so it pushed you onto shore?
SPEAKER_01Well, so we had to go both ways.
SPEAKER_02So the first way, I can't even imagine what the banging into it. The second ride, we were cruising back. I didn't even paddle.
SPEAKER_04Wow. It was great. That's incredible.
SPEAKER_02But like, I mean, I sunk the boat in the first six weeks we had it, had to bail it out with a five-gallon bucket. I mean, there were so many.
SPEAKER_04But you sunk your sailboat.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04It went underwater. Yeah. How how deep was the water there?
SPEAKER_02So that was the blessing. Okay. Because it was only like seven or eight feet of water. So it was fully submerged, but it wasn't come immersed to the point we had to use float bags to get it up.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so so this it didn't have a long, they call it uh what, a an a keel?
SPEAKER_02So this boat had a keel, but it was called a swing keel. So it could go as low as shallow as four feet or as deep as six or seven feet.
SPEAKER_00So probably right.
SPEAKER_02And so the keel was all the way up when I was anchored here. Okay. Um, able to plug all the different through holes that brought water in and then just got a five-gallon bucket. Bailed it out.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so that was but that was a month into having the boat. Boat drug free. I had FWC in my house a couple times because the boat drug free three times in the first six weeks. I mean, it was wild. But go on, it was that place that I knew I always longed to be. Yeah. Where I was so completely dependent on the Lord, fervently praying, fervently. I mean, and so this is a side story, but another way I had chosen, um, I don't even think I had chosen discomfort here. It was on a different Jesus adventure. I felt like the Lord had asked me to give up different things for 40 days. So one of the things was my car. So I gave up my car for 40 days. Well, two days before I was about to give up my car, it just died. And I was like, oh, this is great. I don't need a car anyway. I'm about to give it up. Well, in my mind, my car was gonna just I was gonna get a new car after these 40 days. Well, the Lord had other plans, and I spent nine months without a car. So one of these times the boat broke free and I only had a bike. I didn't have an anchor, so I'm biking with an anchor, like at night trying to get to my. I mean, it was wild. And I wipe out. And I just hit this like ground, I mean, literal ground bottom of like, God, I don't want to do it. Like, it's not always like, oh yeah, it was great. Like, no, that was hard. I went to God and I was like, I'm done. Like, I'm something has to give. Like, and I just remember calling my parents crying and just being like, I just want to come back and live with you guys. I mean, I had never thought that before. But it was one of those, like, no, this is hard. Like, this is not easy, like, and I think that is just important to note that even though the the Goldilocks zone is always worth it, it doesn't mean it's easy. It doesn't mean like living in my car was awesome. Like it was, there weren't as many, like, oh, this is really hard. And some Goldilocks moments will, I think, be maybe easier, even though they are so rewarding. But a lot of them are just hard. And I think that is good to highlight that the boat, I tell people it's the highest highs and lowest lows every single day. Like, it is so hard for one reason or another, whether it's the boat dragging, or I mean, there's just you look at something and it breaks, like, because it's in salt water.
SPEAKER_04And so there is just- How do you relate that to your walk with Christ?
SPEAKER_02I just think that there's it's the exact same in a way, because it's like back to what we said in the very beginning that Jesus said really hard things. It's not easy to forgive those who have hurt you and to love your enemies and to, you know, give in this radical generosity Christ calls us to give, this sacrificial generosity. None of that's easy, but it's worth it. I think that's what we have to keep going back to is like, yeah, none of this was easy, but it was worth it. Like, that's what I kept going back to was like, I know I wouldn't want anything different. Like, I know in that moment everything felt like it would have been fixed if I just quit everything and moved back in with my parents. And I knew that was just my like emotions being like, this is so hard. But it's like I ultimately knew that wasn't what I wanted. Just like when Christ asks us to do those hard things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's not, it's not that it's like, oh, I'm I just want to walk away from Christ then. It's like, no, like we it's hard, but we still want it.
SPEAKER_04Like we still want I I don't exactly know how I'm trying to say it, but just like It's a knowing is the way you're just saying it's like you know that he has called you into this. You said yes because you heard. This has been the common theme I'm finding out through our podcast. People heard the voice of God calling them in. And they said yes. And they agreed. And they went with it because he's a loving father. And I think that's what I'm hearing you trying to pull out and of that place is that you know he loves you tremendously, and that's why you're willing to go, I'm in.
SPEAKER_02I think that's the most perfect point you could have said because I think that's where it all starts. Because if you don't have the foundation of knowing your identity in Christ and knowing how loved you are, then none of like none of this is possible. And this by the this I mean walking in that Goldilocks zone. Like, why? And even following his commandments. Like we're only able to forgive with this radical forgiveness because we first know how forgiven we are, or we're able to give with this radical generosity because we first have understood this radical generosity Jesus gave to us. And so I think what you just said about that loving is like so true. Like if we don't grasp the Father's love for us and that depth of our identity in him, then it's like, yeah, none of the rest of this is like even able to be comprehended. So that was a really good thought.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. That well, it it came from your story. I mean, it's your story. We just pulled it up. Yeah. You know, God's just working through it. Um, tell me more about now that you're got the sailboat, the the the waters out of it. I'm just having this picture of you with this little Aaron. I see with this little tin cup just trying to get this water out of this big huge boat because you got so much energy. I wish, you know, that's what I pick up from the Lord on you is just so much life. It's just He's equipped you with so much life in what He's pulling you into because your mission and what you're into today and the way you got there and what you named this boat is all Him. I mean, when I heard your story before, I was like wow. You know, like that's our God. That's how He works. So let's jump into that in the last segment here and tell us about that a little bit more. You got the boat, you got the little tin cup, you've been back and forth. He's training you through all these experiences because there's something more coming out of it.
SPEAKER_02Totally. So I'm gonna give kind of a couple different kind of connector pieces so we can just kind of fast-forward.
SPEAKER_04Go right ahead.
SPEAKER_02So I get the boat, the Lord asks me, or I asked the Lord, I said, You give to me this boat, what do you want to do with it? He was kind of quiet for a minute. But there's these kind of two parallel stories happening at the same time. Okay, boat stories happening, but the Lord also was like, I want you to start camps overseas. I've been studying Swahili, so East Africa made sense. Um, I'm gonna cut a three-hour testimony short. Six months later, I find myself in Kenya and get connected with this.
SPEAKER_04Okay, Aaron, you can't just throw things out like this. You're like, and I was studying Swahili. Like, I had no idea you're studying Swahili. What does Swahili sound like? Can you speak Swahili? You're like, hey, by the way, I was just you know doing Swahili, and well, next thing you're gonna be like, now I'm speaking Hebrew and now speaking Greek. I'm like, what is going on here, bro?
SPEAKER_01I'm trying to get us- You're very educated. I'm trying to get us fast-forward. No, it's good though.
SPEAKER_04So tell me about the Swahili. No, this is why we have that.
SPEAKER_01So I so that's a very quick side story I'm thinking. You speak Swahili? Kiro Gotu.
SPEAKER_04Well, I don't even know what you just said, but it sounded like Swahili to me.
SPEAKER_02Just a little. You can speak Swahili too. That's the coolest thing. Because you've seen Lion King, right? Yes. So what's the little lion's name?
SPEAKER_04Uh Simba.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so that means lion in Ki Swahili. And then what's the the um song that Timon and Pumba are known for?
SPEAKER_04Uh Akuna Matata.
SPEAKER_02Which literally means no worries in Swahili. Okay, I'm there. Hakuna means there are, no, and then matata is a little, it should be matazo, but they didn't see it. They Disney Disney's it. And so it's um hakuna matata, but it literally means no worries. Rafiki's the monkey means friend, he's the friend in there. The whole opening song, Swahili. So you know more Swahili than you thought you'd.
SPEAKER_04Okay, well, I guess we do now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay, go on.
SPEAKER_02So very competitive sibling. Older sibling spoke a bunch of languages. I spoke Latin. I woke up one day and said, I'm gonna learn Swahili. And I started learning it my senior year of high school, took it in college, used it in Rwanda, and then didn't use it much after that. But I know that the Lord doesn't let anything go to waste. So I was like, okay, if he's asking me to go to camps overseas, I know the Swahili East Africa makes sense.
SPEAKER_04And this connects in.
SPEAKER_02Totally does. Yeah. So I um go and meet these um women, started a shelter for girls, want to do summer camps. So I start going to Kenya to do these summer camps. Okay, so then I'm on a mission trip on a sailboat. We're sailing to the Bahamas to do relief, and that's when the Lord shows me the second vision of I want you to also do camps on the boat. So it's like camps in Kenya camps on the boat. So now I'm like, okay, well, these things are already happening in Kenya. I'm on a 25-foot sailboat. Lord, I'll use whatever you gave me, but we were doing these overnights, and we could pretty much do an overnight with like four girls, and that was our capacity on this boat. So, whatever you want to do, Lord, I'm all in. So um What are you doing on these overnights?
SPEAKER_04What's that look like?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so we were all about, so my background's biology, dolphins. So I'm just all about connecting God's creation um to who God is and letting people grow in their relationship with Christ because of that.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's that's beautiful. And that's good.
SPEAKER_02Like just love making devotions out of the creatures of the sea, and just there's just so many cool, like mangroves, the trees that are all around here. You see the full gospel message in this one tree, which is amazing. There's this yellow leaf, it's a sacrificial leaf. They put all their salt in that one leaf, the leaf dies, the rest of the tree grows on. And there's just so much there you can just run with. And so, um, so at this point, these camps are happening. So I'm like, Lord, do we do a nonprofit? What do we do? Like, so cool testimony of how ends of the earth showed up in I was working as a maintenance. Snorkelboat, they show up with a shirt that says pray serve repeating an anchor on it. I thought it was a sailing ministry, so I'm like, tell me all about this. They're trying to explain what ends is. It's kind of making sense, kind of not show up to their worship night. They're like, We're running a ride in Alaska. I'm like, great, I wanted a bike in Alaska. I was just asking the Lord about it. So I sign up for the Alaska ride and meet Justin Hanakin, who's like the coolest dude in the world. And he's in my bike leader group. He invites me to join Ends of the Earth as instead of cycling as camping. So he's like, come and bring your camps under what we're already doing here. I was like, that is the answer to prayer and the blessing. So then through ends ends, I meet this amazing couple named Brian and Brenda Nass, who are like, if you could think of like the most servant-hearted people you know, Brian and Brenda would like blow them out of proportion. Like they just exist to serve and love others and like always do the like dirty grunt work without with the biggest smile on their face. They're just a joy. Well, I become like best friends by them. They're actually, they tell everyone I'm their their biological daughter because they have no biological kids together.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_02And so, and I'm equally half Brian and half Brenda. And so they're like, You're our daughter. And so, long story short, I'm like, they're each of these tests, each of these stories could be a three-hour testimony in and of itself. I'm just trying to like fast-forward best to get it.
SPEAKER_04And you know, Aaron, we can always come back in another podcast and and talk about some of these stories.
SPEAKER_02Perfect.
SPEAKER_04It's perfect. Yeah, that is absolutely said it.
SPEAKER_02So Brian and Brenda are here in this vision of these camps and everything. And they come up to me and they're like, so we're thinking about our we're selling our house, we're thinking about buying you a boat that you can use for ministry. What do you think about that?
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02I mean, my jaw dropped. And honestly, I was more stoked to just be knowing that they're stuck with me indefinitely than anything else. Like, I was just like, we get to do ministry together. This is awesome.
SPEAKER_04That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02And so again, how the Lord works is a month later we have a boat, which is wild. Like he just can move like his time, he's rarely early, but never late. And this was one of the times he felt a boat that doesn't sink. A boat that doesn't sink. I mean, this is like double the size, it's fancy as can be. Like you turn the key and you're ready to go to the Bahamas. Like, and I mean, we put a ton of work into it, but every boat is a project. And so this boat was just a blessing. And it's so funny because we all just think of it as God's boat. They don't think of it as their boat. I don't think of it as my boat. It's like someone asked me I'm the owner, I'm like, nope. It's like, it's God's boat. And um, it was just really cool because this, so now I'm finally ready to answer your question. That was all of the jump part. So we get this boat, and it was cool. I was actually talking with Justin at one point, and I was explaining this trip that I had had about a few months before this boat came into the picture, and I was telling him, I was like, it just really felt like this trip was like a place of refuge. And without even this boat even coming into the picture yet, he was like, I think that's the name of your next boat. And then what was really cool was we ended up naming it refuge out of Psalm 46.1. The Lord is the my refuge in Fort Jerusalem, ever-present help in times of trouble. And what Justin didn't even realize when he was saying that is the boat's 46 feet long, coming from Psalm 46. You're like, that's just how the Lord works.
SPEAKER_04Come on, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_02So now we're in a place to, um, I have the spiritual covering being under ends now and under New International as a whole. They're this amazing um sending organization that just values and cares for its people so well.
SPEAKER_00That's great.
SPEAKER_02And now there's this boat the Lord provided, and we're ready to do ministry with, like, all in on. And now we don't even have to do overnights. We can do week-long camp programs because we have the the vessel for it. And so still going to Kenya, like all of these things, it's just so cool.
SPEAKER_04What a good word you use there. Vessel.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04This is a good long pause here. You're thinking about it.
SPEAKER_02I mean, you're just spot on with it.
SPEAKER_04All along the way, you were being worked on, upgraded in you to be the vessel in charge of the vessel to do the work. That's pretty amazing, Aaron.
SPEAKER_02That was very well said. I might re-quote you on that if I have your permission.
SPEAKER_04You absolutely do. You could do that. This is all Lord. It's all from him.
SPEAKER_02I think I'd always use the word equipping, but that's exactly it was like being a vessel of like just being prepared. And what I've come to learn now is I thought when I when refuge came into the picture, where it was like, okay, the equipping's done. And that was so naive and immature of me to just recognize that you're never done being equipping or being f filled as a vessel because he's just preparing you for the next place to pour out.
SPEAKER_04And so or pull into port.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Exactly.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, so it's the Lord's boat. And so we go to him and say, What do you want to do with it? And um whatever he tells us to do, we go and do.
SPEAKER_04That's pretty amazing. So on this boat, this uh refuge boat, which I love the name by the way, and I love f uh Psalm 46, 1, right? Yeah. And um on there, you're you're equipping teenagers. What kind of things are you doing? I heard you before you were doing, you know, the sea. Do you still do that on the new boat, or is there a new program? Is there something that God has changed or stirred in that differently? Or are you still on the same task of, hey, let's look at the ocean, let's look at nature, let's look at creation, and then you put it around that. What type of people is God bringing into your path that you have the ability to uh speak into?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so the original vision was to have at-risk and troubled youth on the boat, particularly because that's who we're working with in Kenya. So I really wanted to mirror and partner those ultimately to then have this pen pal program the girls could write back and forth to each other. Well, we got the boat in September with the plans to start these camps the following summer, and everything fell into place, and then everything crumbled. And it was just, I just went to the Lord and said exactly what I just told you. I said, Lord, it's your boat. We can do whatever you want with it. I just need to know what you want to do with it. And within 24 hours, we were in the Boy Scout program, and so it had so many hidden blessings we weren't prepared for. And so instead of doing six weeks with troubled youth, we ended up doing 10 or 11 weeks that first summer. Last year we did 13 with the Boy Scouts. And what's really cool is um, so they they come already as a group and knowing each other and stuff. Um, but there is a badge they can earn called the Duty to God badge. And in some ways I don't love it because it's very much check the box. But in other ways I love it because it's a great kind of conversation starter to gauge the spiritual temperature of who's on board that week.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And are they even interested in it? Are they doing devotions, but they're just doing them because their adults told them to? Like, and I had acquired from my pastor a whole box of these seafarer Bibles. And it was basically just a Bible, but it had an anchor and a knot on it. So it was fanatical.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I was like, whoever comes on the boat is getting a Bible. Well, that means that I have had just about every demographic, every religion, I've had atheists on board, just all of these people. And it was like a non-negotiable, not that they non-negotiable for them, but in my mind, like I could never let whatever I found out about them in the week deter me from being hesitant to give them the Bible. Every single person wrote them a shout-out in the cover of the book, gave it to them, spoke life into them, and then gave them, telling them this is the compass in my life. And and it, I mean, teenage years is the most, I mean, you're looking for this pivotal um time in their life where every, they're all trying to figure out what their compass is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so I get to say, this is the compass in my life. You are at this stage in your life where you get to figure out what your compass is. And I really hope that you spend time digging into this. And so um we still do those devotions with the sea creatures, but it just kind of depends on the week. Every week's different. So sometimes we do those, sometimes we do what this crew's brought on board. But I'd say the one thing that never changes is they're all getting a Bible at the end of the week. And honestly, it's really challenging for me because when I get a difficult crew on board, I already know before they come on board that they're getting a Bible. And so I get to, it really convicts me because I'm like, if I'm a jerk here during the week, and then I know I'm giving them a Bible, how hypocritical am I gonna come off? Or am I gonna be a light this week and they're gonna be like, yeah, I want what Captain Aaron had, and I'm gonna run after this too and let it be my compass. And so I've been very convicted many times with some challenging humans, but just choosing of like, no, this is what we're called to do, is be the light, salt and light.
SPEAKER_04Aaron, amazing, amazing story from where you came from being in a place of saying, I want discomfort, I want to be challenged, I want to live God in the place you want me to be, and be a vessel onto honor, not dishonor. Thank you for being on the Three Doves Podcast, Aaron. You are an inspiration and a uh true lighthouse for those seeking refuge in Christ.
SPEAKER_02Can I say just one quick final thing to that?
SPEAKER_04Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02Um is that's such a kind word with saying the inspiration, but my biggest fear is I get so many people who come up to me and say, um, oh, I could never have the faith you have. And I think that's if I could leave Three Doe's podcast with one like encouragement to others, is that every person can live in that Goldilocks zone, can be dependent and reliant on the Lord. And it doesn't take this special faith, it doesn't take this anything, it just takes this hunger of like, am I gonna choose to be all in and running in this? And so I would love to leave your listeners with that last piece of like what prayer can you offer to the Lord of like, Lord, I'm all in, and here my hands are open, like I just want to be more dependent on you. And so thanks so much for having me, Jason. It was such a blessing to just get to come and share just bits and pieces of how God's worked.
SPEAKER_04Well said. Well said. Thank you again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thanks, Jason.
SPEAKER_04You know, folks, Aaron's story is such a reminder that God often meets us outside of comfort. Not to harm us, but to grow us, direct us, even redirect us, and draw us closer to Him. What looked like uncertainty became the very place where faith got real. Purpose became clear, and trust happened to deepen. Thanks for joining us on the Three Does Podcast. And if this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who needs to hear and remember God is still writing stories worth telling.