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What If Someone Needs You · Rideshare Revival with Wally Bates

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: What if someone needs you? Hey everybody, it's Wally Bates.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Ride Share Revival. I picked up a
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: gentleman named Bondo in Oxford for a ride to Middletown
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: the other day. It's a little bit of a ride,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: plenty of time to talk, and we did, about everything
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: in the world. Somewhere along the way, Bondo started telling
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: me his story, and man, it wasn't what I expected.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: He was incarcerated when he was 13 years old in
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: a maximum federal penitentiary. He told me he got caught
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: up in a situation involving a gang, and there were
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: gang tattoos, and there were assumptions about his involvement. Whatever
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the circumstances were, at 13 years old, Bondo found himself
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: locked up as an adult in maximum security. And he
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: spent five years there, 13. I couldn't get past it.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Those are the years when most kids are figuring out school, sports, girls, friends.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Bondo was figuring out how to survive incarceration. But that
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: was then, so I want to know about now. And
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: we talked about his life today, where he'd been, where
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: he was going, and eventually, as usually happens in my car,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: we get around to God. And I asked him, so
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: tell me, how do all those experiences affect your faith?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: He told me he believed in God. He believed in Jesus.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I think he said something. He supported Jesus. So I
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: asked the next question. Do you go to church? His
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: answer was one of the heard plenty of times. I
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: don't need to go to church to worship God. And
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: you know what? I agree with him. You're right. You don't.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: You can worship God anywhere. You don't need a building.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: to talk to God. You don't need church service for
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: God to hear you. But then I told him something else.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Maybe you don't need to go to church, but what
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: if somebody in that church might need you? It kind
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: of changed his perspective and it changed the conversation. Because
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Mondale has something most people sitting in pews don't have.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: He's got a story. A 13-year-old kid sent to maximum
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: security prison. Five years, gang involvement, choices, consequences, and now faith.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I told him there might be a kid somewhere who's
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: 13 years old right now headed down the same road,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and Bondo could walk into a room and say something
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: that that kid never could because Bondo, he's been there.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: And when I mentioned prison ministry, Maybe some of what
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: he lived through wasn't something he needed to hide from.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Maybe God could use it. Maybe those years could become
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: part of someone else's rescue story. Bondo seemed generally interested
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: in that. We finally reached Middletown. I asked if I
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: could pray for him, and we did pray. For his life,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: for his future, for his faith, and for God to
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: use his story. And when I finished, I could tell
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: it touched him. He was moved. And I remind them
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: again that sometimes we think church is only about what
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: we get from it. The sermon, the music, the encouragement, fellowship,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: of course. But man, that's only half of it. Maybe
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the question isn't always, what do I need from church?
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: But sometimes the better question is, who in church might
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: need me? Rideshare Revival. There's hope at every turn. These
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: are my prayers from the road. If you would like prayer,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I'd love to pray for you. Send me over the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: line to ridesharerevival at gmail.com.