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Backyard Benny with Drew Williams - 181 · Marriage Life and More and Bible Study

• 0:03
  Drew Williams: I wanted to go into this world I had never been before and to go on a journey that I didn't have access to, and that desire never stopped.
• 0:11
  Drew Williams: So, whenever it came to ministry, and even in my personal relationship with Jesus and looking at the Word, I always love looking at everything as a story, because that is the world we live in is a grand story that God knows the beginning and the end of, and he's orchestrated all these incredible details to accomplish this beautiful thing that we call life.
• 0:35
  Drew Williams: And there's such amazing power in stories.
• 0:41
  Daniel Moore: Today we have special guest Drew Williams with an exclusive interview, and we'll be back with this week's episode of Connecting the Gap right after this.
• 1:32
  Daniel Moore: And a word from our sponsor.
• 1:33
  Daniel Moore: They say that it is darkest right before the dawn.
• 1:43
  Daniel Moore: So remember, no matter what battle you are facing, what war is raging, the dawn is coming.
• 1:46
  Daniel Moore: Prepare for battle, prepare for victory.
• 1:54
  Daniel Moore: Be sure to visit our sponsor's website at wearewarriorsapparelcom.
• 1:56
  Daniel Moore: Welcome to Connecting the Gap.
• 1:58
  Daniel Moore: I'm Daniel Moore, your host.
• 1:59
  Daniel Moore: Thank you for joining us this week.
• 2:01
  Daniel Moore: If you're not familiar with our show, check out our website, wwwconnectingthegapnet.
• 2:07
  Daniel Moore: For our platforms, youtube and Rumble links, and we are on the Christian podcasting app Edify as well.
• 2:12
  Daniel Moore: You can also visit us on social at facebookcom, forward slash ctgaponline.
• 2:16
  Daniel Moore: If you're a fan of our show, please subscribe and feel free to leave a comment on our platforms and give us a thumbs up or a five-star review on Apple Podcast.
• 2:24
  Daniel Moore: We'd eternally be grateful for you to do that for us.
• 2:33
  Daniel Moore: Well, as we've been going over this last couple of months here, we've been doing a lot of interviews with different people, and this week is no exception.
• 2:37
  Daniel Moore: I've got Drew Williams here.
• 2:38
  Daniel Moore: We'll get to him here in just a little bit.
• 2:40
  Daniel Moore: Do you want to give you a little heads up on next week?
• 2:42
  Daniel Moore: We're going to start into a brand new series next week here on Connecting the Gap, and it's going to be about a 12-part series on feeling unqualified.
• 2:50
  Daniel Moore: So many of us walk that path and walk that walk where we just feel like we're less than we're not enough.
• 2:56
  Daniel Moore: We just feel like we can't do what God's called us to do, because we just don't have the confidence within ourselves to understand that God can use us just the way that we are if we just allow him to do so.
• 3:07
  Daniel Moore: So we're going to take a walk for several weeks through that study.
• 3:11
  Daniel Moore: Hopefully you guys will be blessed by that.
• 3:13
  Daniel Moore: That'll be coming up here starting next week here on Connecting the Gap.
• 3:17
  Daniel Moore: Well, this week I've got an author here, drew Williams, and we're going to be talking about a book that he wrote and we're also going to be talking about where he works.
• 3:27
  Daniel Moore: He works for a non-profit and we're going to get into that here with Drew Williams on this week's episode here on Connecting the Gap.
• 3:33
  Daniel Moore: What if I forget to feed him?
• 3:34
  Daniel Moore: What if I lose his leash?
• 3:43
  Daniel Moore: What if I forget to feed him?
• 3:45
  Daniel Moore: What if I lose his leash?
• 3:47
  Daniel Moore: What if I bring him to a baseball game and a purple pigeon poops in his popcorn?
• 3:52
  Daniel Moore: He battled for his breath, but the bubbles in his belly were getting bigger and bigger.
• 3:58
  Daniel Moore: Then, with one last look at, benny Noah ran home.
• 4:03
  Daniel Moore: Does that sound familiar, drew?
• 4:06
  Drew Williams: You know, I think I heard a walking cartoon read that in a school assembly just a couple of weeks ago.
• 4:11
  Daniel Moore: Did you?
• 4:12
  Drew Williams: It's crazy how that just that must be the algorithms that are hearing that and bringing it back.
• 4:15
  Drew Williams: Yeah.
• 4:16
  Daniel Moore: And I'm going to share a blooper.
• 4:17
  Daniel Moore: We was recording this here a while ago for about 15 minutes and I realized the record button wasn't on.
• 4:23
  Drew Williams: We get a second take.
• 4:24
  Daniel Moore: That's right, it's like we've definitely heard this line before now.
• 4:28
  Daniel Moore: I just told Drew I'm like I'm so glad it's you here today because that's the first time I've ever not hit the record button Any chance to get to spend an extra 15 minutes with you, daniel.
• 4:38
  Drew Williams: I'm up for it.
• 4:38
  Drew Williams: I'm enjoying it Well.
• 4:40
  Daniel Moore: I appreciate that.
• 4:41
  Daniel Moore: That makes me proud, because you've got to sit here, whether you like it or not.
• 4:45
  Daniel Moore: There you go.
• 4:48
  Daniel Moore: Oh goodness, yeah, we're going now, so we're going to get this thing recorded.
• 4:51
  Daniel Moore: So, yeah, we've got Drew here this week and welcome Drew to the podcast and thank you for joining us this week.
• 4:58
  Drew Williams: Absolutely.
• 4:59
  Drew Williams: It really is a pleasure to be here.
• 5:01
  Drew Williams: I have to remember that nodding my head and smiling does not get seen by our viewers.
• 5:06
  Drew Williams: So if you hear me in silence, it's because I'm just looking into Daniel's dreamy eyes.
• 5:09
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, and you know, like when we podcast, all of us guys are always using our flailing our arms around and shaking our heads and all this stuff.
• 5:17
  Daniel Moore: You know all the animation going on in the background.
• 5:20
  Daniel Moore: That would be quite comical if we had that on video.
• 5:22
  Daniel Moore: Thank goodness you did, thank goodness we don't.
• 5:31
  Daniel Moore: That would probably just destroy the whole concept and people probably run away from us if they had to watch all that.
• 5:33
  Daniel Moore: Uh.
• 5:33
  Daniel Moore: So, but yeah, we'll go ahead and we'll we'll try this for round two drew.
• 5:36
  Daniel Moore: Uh, let's go ahead and start here with uh just talking about your family.
• 5:40
  Daniel Moore: As I know, you're married, you've got some pets and you've got a child, so just give us a little bit about your, your history and and a little bit about your family here.
• 5:48
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:49
  Drew Williams: So I have a beautiful, incredibly out of my league wife named Jada, and we've been married for seven years.
• 5:54
  Drew Williams: We have a three-year-old son, luke, who, if you've seen the cartoon Curious George, I just want you to picture that monkey with the giant head and the tiny body who gets into situations he never should have been in the first place.
• 6:05
  Drew Williams: You've met my son that is Luke, so and it just so happens that they enjoy the cartoon.
• 6:10
  Drew Williams: He enjoys the cartoon as well, so it works out there.
• 6:12
  Drew Williams: But, yeah, I have been around ministry for a good long, while.
• 6:18
  Drew Williams: I started as a full-time children's pastor Whenever I had just turned 19, I might've still been 18.
• 6:24
  Drew Williams: Whenever I did that, I was a children's pastor here in Southwest Missouri, at the church where Daniel and I met, the church that I grew up in, the church that I gave my life to the Lord.
• 6:33
  Drew Williams: I was there for a little over three years before moving to Orlando, florida, where I was a children's pastor there, and Jada and I it was before we had Luke and we had the chance to really see what it was like to be married with no training wheels, no handlebars, and it was just us against the world, man.
• 6:51
  Drew Williams: It was incredible, though, if you ever had the opportunity to move away from your hometown, especially whenever you're first married, you get to really learn hey, this is someone that I can trust, this is someone I can depend on and it strengthened the bond, the foundation of our marriage, and I'm so thankful for that year that we had in Florida.
• 7:11
  Drew Williams: Not to mention, it's Orlando, there's SeaWorld, there's Universal.
• 7:16
  Drew Williams: There's not Daytona Beach we didn't go there Too many parties but New Smyrna Beach.
• 7:20
  Drew Williams: If you're ever in the Orlando area, new Smyrna Beach, you'll see dolphins, you will see sharks, so you know, watch your toesies, but it's a good place to be.
• 7:36
  Drew Williams: From Orlando, we moved to Southwest Georgia, to one of the best churches I've ever had the opportunity to encounter is the Church of the Groves in Leesburg, georgia.
• 7:40
  Drew Williams: The pastors welcomed us with open arms.
• 7:43
  Drew Williams: The people did.
• 7:43
  Drew Williams: We had some incredible ministry there.
• 7:45
  Drew Williams: It's where we hunkered down for COVID.
• 7:49
  Drew Williams: Whenever COVID came around, about a year and a half into us being there, our church rallied around us and we rallied around the kingdom.
• 7:56
  Drew Williams: We did some ministry that God was able to work in us, stretched us in creative ways.
• 8:01
  Drew Williams: While I was there, I had the opportunity to become acquainted with One Hope because of COVID, one of our digital programs.
• 8:07
  Drew Williams: I really, really enjoyed and had the chance to become connected with the relationship managers and the team that was creating that content.
• 8:15
  Drew Williams: They saw the digital content that we were making as a church, specifically our children's ministry, and the relationship built.
• 8:21
  Drew Williams: One thing led to another and over the course of about another two to three years had the opportunity God made the opportunity for me to serve as a writer full-time at One Hope and I've been doing that for almost two years now.
• 8:34
  Drew Williams: And with that new opportunity we had the chance to move back home to the great metropolis of Southwest.
• 8:38
  Daniel Moore: Missouri.
• 8:39
  Daniel Moore: That's awesome, From the tribe of Gad just moving all over the place.
• 8:50
  Drew Williams: Honestly.
• 8:50
  Drew Williams: Honestly, we have bought and sold more houses as a couple who's been married for seven years than most couples who are dead.
• 8:53
  Drew Williams: Honestly, we've had the chance to do quite a bit.
• 8:56
  Daniel Moore: You've probably outdone my wife and I.
• 8:58
  Daniel Moore: We've been married almost over 20 years now, so you're on a roll.
• 9:03
  Drew Williams: I think we counted it up the other day and we've sold four, bought five in all of the moves.
• 9:08
  Daniel Moore: Yeah Well, we're glad you're back home.
• 9:11
  Daniel Moore: Glad to be back I do remember, as Drew mentioned, we kind of watched Drew grow up.
• 9:18
  Daniel Moore: He was in a youth group that my wife and I were sponsors of and then he was in a young adult life group that we started at that same church, off and on until he was moving on with his life.
• 9:30
  Daniel Moore: But I do remember when you guys moved away because you know, you and Jada both held a special place in our heart and we hated to see you go.
• 9:38
  Daniel Moore: But we knew that God had big plans for you.
• 9:40
  Daniel Moore: But we were super stoked when we found out you were coming back.
• 9:49
  Drew Williams: Well, you hold a special place in our heart because I proposed to Jada in the ministry that you were leading the college and career ministry.
• 9:52
  Drew Williams: I forgot about that.
• 9:52
  Drew Williams: Yeah, I proposed to her right there on the spot.
• 9:55
  Drew Williams: You sure did.
• 9:55
  Drew Williams: Yeah.
• 9:56
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 9:57
  Daniel Moore: It's funny how that all comes full circle Right there in the downstairs fellowship hall of Abundant Life Assembly of God.
• 10:06
  Daniel Moore: That's right.
• 10:06
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, that's pretty awesome, uh, but I, I know your parents and everybody was always happy to see you guys come back.
• 10:10
  Daniel Moore: And, uh, you know our, our daughter, um, she's moved away at this point to North Carolina and we're in Missouri, and so it it is tough when your children move real far away.
• 10:21
  Daniel Moore: But, as you said, though, I think, uh, with think, with the lessons you guys learned, being able to be on your own, you know, when you first got married, it definitely it'll make or break you as a couple.
• 10:32
  Daniel Moore: It made me and it broke, Jada let me tell you Well, at least you both came back together.
• 10:36
  Daniel Moore: That's the important part.
• 10:38
  Drew Williams: You can tell how connected Jada is to the Holy Spirit and to the love and forgiveness of God by the fact that we are still together.
• 10:44
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, and women are good at that.
• 10:45
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, that's for sure.
• 10:46
  Daniel Moore: For sure, yeah, and I know you've got some dogs.
• 10:49
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, tell us about those.
• 10:59
  Drew Williams: Yeah, so always been a huge dog person.
• 11:00
  Drew Williams: I adopted the dog.
• 11:01
  Drew Williams: That has been a part of my life for a very, very long time, whenever Daniel and I first met, whenever I was about 15, and his name is Odie.
• 11:05
  Drew Williams: He has a Chihuahua schnauzer.
• 11:07
  Drew Williams: He has the attitude of you know, if you go to a restaurant there's not very many of them anymore that still have a smoking area and there's those grizzled folks that are at the end who you don't really want to talk to them, but if you're a waiter you have to take their order.
• 11:20
  Drew Williams: That's the energy Odie puts off where you're afraid you're going to get bit, but you also kind of want to hear his stories.
• 11:25
  Drew Williams: That's Odie, that's my Chihuahua, odie, and we have two German Shepherds who are almost two years old.
• 11:31
  Drew Williams: They're twins.
• 11:32
  Drew Williams: They came from the same litter, hattie and Koda.
• 11:34
  Drew Williams: One is 130 pounds and one is a little less, and they are bundles of energy and the most expensive security system that I could think of.
• 11:43
  Drew Williams: Having Terrible investment opportunity.
• 11:46
  Daniel Moore: Full-time job.
• 11:47
  Daniel Moore: They really are Keeping the dogs fed and watered, and we've got three dogs in our house ourselves.
• 11:52
  Daniel Moore: So we totally understand.
• 11:53
  Daniel Moore: For sure it's about like feeding kids.
• 11:55
  Daniel Moore: I mean, it's not really much different, to be quite honest.
• 11:58
  Drew Williams: No one has to have their food.
• 12:00
  Drew Williams: A certain way, One can't eat in front of the other one.
• 12:02
  Drew Williams: I think it's easier to feed my three-year-old than it is my dogs.
• 12:05
  Daniel Moore: I'm not even joking, you're probably right.
• 12:07
  Daniel Moore: So yeah, so you mentioned your place, that you work, and we do want to talk about that because, like I said before, when we weren't recording, I had never heard of One Hope and as I got on the website and started looking through everything, I was very impressed with the ministry that they seem to have, and I know that you're proud to be working for them.
• 12:30
  Daniel Moore: Won't you explain a little bit about One Hope and what they do, what their ministry consists of?
• 12:36
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:37
  Drew Williams: So One Hope.
• 12:39
  Drew Williams: The best way you can describe who we are and what we do is by our mission, which is the little tagline after If you see one hope, you see God's word.
• 12:47
  Drew Williams: Every child and everything that we do, every program and product that we create is founded in that mission, is bringing God's word in mediums and translations and, through new innovations that have never been thought of before, bringing the truth of God's word to every child, every young person on the planet.
• 13:13
  Drew Williams: It started back in 1987 by our founder, bob Hoskins, and the very first product that One Hope made, back before we were even One Hope, was the Book of Hope.
• 13:23
  Drew Williams: That was the name of the ministry, was Book of Hope.
• 13:25
  Drew Williams: And it started in El Salvador in 1987, where the government was actually requesting educational materials.
• 13:31
  Drew Williams: So they were asking for what we had, which was what we called the Libra De Vida, which was the Book of Hope.
• 13:39
  Drew Williams: And, of course, one Hope was like yes, we would love to distribute our product in your public schools.
• 13:45
  Drew Williams: And what it was?
• 13:46
  Drew Williams: Because children, if you hand a child a full-size Bible, they're going to struggle.
• 13:51
  Drew Williams: Right, it's too much, it's too complex for an adult to sit down and just jump into if they're an unbeliever.
• 13:57
  Drew Williams: So what it did?
• 13:59
  Drew Williams: The first book of Hope is it broke down the full metanarrative into seven stories.
• 14:05
  Drew Williams: The first book of hope is it broke down the full meta narrative into seven stories and, using direct and paraphrase scripture, it creates a user journey that presents the gospel in a thickness that is appropriate to the audience that's encountering it and everything we do since then, what started with the book of hope and what's grown into digital programs and platforms and whatever else is on the horizon on our way to truly reaching God's Word to every child is doing the same thing.
• 14:29
  Drew Williams: It's just bringing the truth of the gospel to as many people as we can.
• 14:32
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, and I know your vision statement.
• 14:34
  Daniel Moore: I've looked at it on the website and you guys have basically a 10-year vision statement goal to reach up to 2 billion children and kind of explain what's your process of how you guys are trying to accomplish that goal.
• 14:49
  Drew Williams: Yeah, great question.
• 14:50
  Drew Williams: So I'm going to even add a little bit more context there.
• 14:53
  Drew Williams: That will be within 10 years our goal is to reach.
• 14:56
  Drew Williams: Technically, that will be our 4 billionth, because just a couple of months ago we celebrated reaching our 2 billionth child since we started in 1987.
• 15:05
  Drew Williams: It was very, very cool.
• 15:06
  Drew Williams: It was a live stream event.
• 15:08
  Drew Williams: They were back in El Salvador where their very first Book of Hope was distributed and it was at this tiny church with no air conditioning.
• 15:14
  Drew Williams: Once you've been on a distribution trip with One Hope where you've actually handed the books to the kids, you understand what that atmosphere feels like and there's just so much excitement and so much sweat.
• 15:24
  Drew Williams: It's so intense.
• 15:25
  Drew Williams: But Bob Hoskins, our founder, counted down to the final child and his name.
• 15:31
  Drew Williams: If I remember correctly, his name was Marcos and he got to be our two billionth child.
• 15:35
  Drew Williams: So from there where we're reaching towards, to do in, let's see that would be to do in 10 years what took us over 20.
• 15:46
  Drew Williams: How are we going to do that?
• 15:47
  Drew Williams: Well, it's exploring new ministry mediums, whether that be in the digital space, whether that be through new print innovations.
• 15:55
  Drew Williams: There's all kinds of different things that we do, but essentially what we are, the way that we're able to not just hold onto our products tightly and honestly, the reason that that you I love the way that you said that you said you'd never heard of us, but whenever you saw what we did, it's kind of crazy.
• 16:09
  Drew Williams: Like how can something of this scope go by unnoticed?
• 16:12
  Drew Williams: Our president, rob Hoskins, the son of the founder, who is running our organization now he says One Hope is the largest organization you've never heard of.
• 16:21
  Drew Williams: That's what he tells everybody and it's really, really true, because our goal is not one hope every child.
• 16:29
  Drew Williams: Our goal is God's word every child.
• 16:30
  Drew Williams: So you may not always see one hope or we may not make ourselves on the front page of everything that we do, and that's because that's not our goal.
• 16:37
  Drew Williams: Our goal is bringing God's word to people.
• 16:39
  Drew Williams: So we partner with organizations like Life Church, a church group who you may know, who created the YouVersion platform.
• 16:46
  Drew Williams: We partner with them in many ways.
• 16:48
  Drew Williams: We have durable networks all throughout the world.
• 16:50
  Drew Williams: Our organization is broken up into distinct regions, so we have vice presidents who handle different regions.
• 16:56
  Drew Williams: We receive heartfelt needs from the field of what are some practical needs that you guys are feeling, and then we build scripture engagement programs around those heartfelt needs so that we can do what Jesus did.
• 17:08
  Drew Williams: We can meet them where they are, help them to thrive in the life that God has given them on earth and then bring truth to help them thrive in the life that's coming right.
• 17:17
  Drew Williams: So, for instance and I'm going to ramble on here a little bit, a little more than we did in our first take so in Cambodia there was a huge need for hygiene, for hygiene education.
• 17:29
  Drew Williams: Things like germology, just general hygiene practices, are not common knowledge in Cambodia and the field.
• 17:41
  Drew Williams: The representatives from Cambodia have approached us and said hey, we know our kids need the gospel, but they're not living long enough for it to affect their lives because of the things that they're encountering with this physical issue.
• 17:53
  Drew Williams: So we built a program called World Without Sickness, and what World Without Sickness is is it's a full program that involves a leader guide, also known as a facilitator's guide, and then it has a student book a leader guide, also known as a facilitator's guide, and then it has a student book.
• 18:08
  Drew Williams: And the way it works is it can be made in a one-touch model so that you can give a kid randomly in a village in Cambodia the student book that has an attached toothbrush and they can read through the book and have a full user experience themselves.
• 18:18
  Drew Williams: Or they can be a part of a program that is hosted by a facilitator who's connected to One Hope through our regional representatives, and they walk through and they learn how to take care of their body and they learn what cleanliness is.
• 18:30
  Drew Williams: And then, as they're walking through that, they also see man.
• 18:33
  Drew Williams: My world that God created for me used to be clean.
• 18:37
  Drew Williams: It used to be perfect.
• 18:39
  Drew Williams: And what does sin do?
• 18:39
  Drew Williams: It came and dirtied it.
• 18:40
  Drew Williams: And what does sin do?
• 18:41
  Drew Williams: It came and dirtied me, and I'm dirty too, just because I live, not because I'm a bad person, but because I live in this dirty world.
• 18:49
  Drew Williams: It's outside of my control, but what can I do?
• 18:57
  Drew Williams: I can go to the one who cleans me, and there's only one who can do that.
• 18:59
  Drew Williams: So as they learn how to take care of themselves and through hygiene practices, they also learn how Jesus is there to be the cleanser of their heart and to bring them back to the design that God had for them in the first place.
• 19:08
  Drew Williams: And that's just a model of what it looks like to build a One Hope product.
• 19:11
  Drew Williams: It's to receive those heartfelt needs from the field.
• 19:13
  Drew Williams: We determine measurable outcomes that the program can achieve so that after we're done we can know did we actually do a good job?
• 19:20
  Drew Williams: There's a whole nother story that, if we end up having time, I'd love to talk about that of how we became an outcomes-based ministry, but that's a little nugget of what it looks like to build a One Hope program.
• 19:33
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, I think it's awesome that when you go out to reach people, you kind of have to reach them where they are, and I think the concept that you guys have there I can see how that would work.
• 19:44
  Daniel Moore: Because you know, you're right, a lot of people, if they are a non-believer, don't understand the truth of Christianity and that kind of thing.
• 19:53
  Daniel Moore: And you throw them a King James Bible or something like that, you know they're going to sit there and start looking through that and they're going to be like, oh my goodness, what in the world?
• 20:00
  Daniel Moore: You know they're not going to have quite as much of an understanding.
• 20:03
  Daniel Moore: There's some discipleship and that kind of thing that needs to come into play there.
• 20:07
  Daniel Moore: But if you kind of I don't want to, I don't use this in a derogative way but if you dumb it down to where they can have a concept and get on their level, and then they can, kind of you can come in and have a, give them the concept of the gospel and everything kind of on their level, I can see how that would transform kids very well and I really like that concept of that.
• 20:30
  Daniel Moore: Now I know that you do work with YouVersion a lot and, as I was stating earlier to you, when you first started working for One Hope, I misunderstood all of that because I thought you worked for Life Church and all that kind of thing, until I've kind of realized here what you do with One Hope.
• 20:48
  Drew Williams: I'm glad you know, because I'm still figuring it out.
• 20:51
  Daniel Moore: I'll explain it to you later.
• 20:52
  Drew Williams: Oh, awesome, good to know If you can write that up for me.
• 20:55
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, your job description.
• 20:56
  Daniel Moore: I appreciate that.
• 20:57
  Daniel Moore: Explain to me and our audience that's listening out here how do you guys actually work with ViewVersion?
• 21:04
  Daniel Moore: What's your part of that?
• 21:05
  Drew Williams: Yeah.
• 21:05
  Drew Williams: So in any partnership, it's important to know what you bring to the table so you're not trying to do something you weren't designed to do.
• 21:12
  Drew Williams: So who is One Hope?
• 21:13
  Drew Williams: We are a scripture engagement ministry.
• 21:16
  Drew Williams: What our niche is, what God has enabled us to become efficient at, is building programs that speak on a level of the audience, to build a presentation of the gospel truth in a way that they can relate with and that is going to have the capacity to transform their life.
• 21:32
  Drew Williams: What we do not claim to be is a gospel distribution organization.
• 21:38
  Drew Williams: There is a distinction between an evangelistic ministry and a scripture engagement ministry.
• 21:43
  Drew Williams: We are not always the ones taking our products and programs out into the world, so we have to have partners who are already in those places where those seeds of the gospel can take root, where there is already trust, there's already relationship, there's already foundations of ministry transportation, whatever you want to label that as.
• 22:06
  Drew Williams: So an example of that would be YouVersion.
• 22:08
  Drew Williams: So I'm going to look at the Kids Bible Experience and our first time we tackled a different idea, but just because the Kids Bible Experience is actually what brought me to One Hope and it is another one of our programs that is made in partnership with YouVersion.
• 22:22
  Drew Williams: So what Kids Bible Experience is is it's a daily updated scripture engagement video that pops up, and if you open your YouVersion app right now and you scroll down to the very bottom of your home screen, you will actually see the Kids Bible Experience there.
• 22:37
  Drew Williams: So the relationship there between One Hope and YouVersion is YouVersion is the platform that holds our product.
• 22:43
  Drew Williams: We create the user experience, we create the actual copy content.
• 22:51
  Drew Williams: We partner with churches who make the video content based on the theological input and the review processes that are facilitated by One Hope and through that kind of like you know, that cyclical relationship, we were able to create this daily updated video resource that helps preteens engage with God's word in two minutes or less, building a habit of scripture engagement.
• 23:14
  Drew Williams: Because there was a study called the Global Youth Culture Report and we learned that the number one key indicator of spiritual life in a child is daily engagement with God's word.
• 23:23
  Drew Williams: So we got that the number one key indicator of spiritual life in a child is daily engagement with God's word.
• 23:25
  Drew Williams: So we got the need from the field the Global Youth Culture Report.
• 23:29
  Drew Williams: We found a partner who we had already worked with before, who's in the space that youth are in so that they can engage with something on a daily basis in the technological space, in the mobile space.
• 23:40
  Drew Williams: And we said, okay, how can we build a bridge between our two camps so that we can bring as many kids to the gospel as possible?
• 23:47
  Drew Williams: So that's what we did.
• 23:48
  Daniel Moore: That's awesome.
• 23:48
  Daniel Moore: So, other than trying to get to work on time because you work remotely, what do you do during the day while you're working?
• 23:57
  Daniel Moore: What's some of the things that you would do to support this platform and put your material on there?
• 24:02
  Drew Williams: Yeah.
• 24:02
  Drew Williams: So if I had mail delivered to me, I don't know if I would choose Zoomland or Google Suite, but one of those two is where I live.
• 24:10
  Drew Williams: Honestly, I think my technical legal address should probably be my email, because we're a global organization.
• 24:19
  Drew Williams: God's Word Every Child not God's Word Every North American Child, every English Speaking Child, but truly God's Word in the entire world.
• 24:25
  Drew Williams: We have partners that are all over and, like I said, they bring those needs to the table.
• 24:31
  Drew Williams: So what it looks like is I come in as the writer in various different stages in a product.
• 24:36
  Drew Williams: So if we're building a product or a program most generally, where I step in, it's whenever we have our initial design session.
• 24:43
  Drew Williams: We have a design session.
• 24:44
  Drew Williams: After we have established the heartfelt needs of a region, they tell us hey, this is how we're feeling, these are the things that our kids in our region are seeing, hearing, feeling and believing are true, and they have this much you know, xyz.
• 24:59
  Drew Williams: They have this much exposure to the gospel.
• 25:01
  Drew Williams: They give us as much cultural context as possible.
• 25:04
  Drew Williams: They have a field representative in that design session and we start thinking through what has worked for us in the past with regions that are similar to this.
• 25:11
  Drew Williams: What are the resources that are going to be available to that region once this product has been developed?
• 25:16
  Drew Williams: What are the different cultural nuances that should sway the way that we present the gospel?
• 25:23
  Drew Williams: Because the gospel presentation is going to be different for every region.
• 25:25
  Drew Williams: The message never changes, but the way that you say it does.
• 25:29
  Drew Williams: The same way that Jesus never presented the gospel in the same way to different regions, he knew that those people had different understandings, different nuances, so he conveyed it differently.
• 25:39
  Drew Williams: We try to follow the same model that Jesus did.
• 25:41
  Drew Williams: I think he might be the expert here.
• 25:42
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, very possible, that's a good person to follow the same model that Jesus did.
• 25:44
  Daniel Moore: I think he might be the expert here.
• 25:44
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, very possible.
• 25:44
  Daniel Moore: That's a good person to follow, right?
• 25:46
  Daniel Moore: A good example.
• 25:48
  Drew Williams: So I'll jump in during those design sessions and from there, once we have a general idea which this is definitely expediting the process, let me tell you I wish that it worked this fast.
• 25:56
  Drew Williams: But once we have a general idea of what we're trying to build, we have a crew and that's our terminology.
• 26:05
  Drew Williams: It came from the idea of a construction crew, because everyone in a construction crew has their different pieces of expertise they bring to the building process.
• 26:09
  Drew Williams: We have a crew that we build around a product.
• 26:11
  Drew Williams: There will be the theologian who's attached to ensure that we are stewarding God's word well, and I know heresy is being committed.
• 26:18
  Drew Williams: I do my best not to do that, but you know everyone fails.
• 26:21
  Drew Williams: We have a educational specialist who will ensure that the material that we're creating is at a reading level that it is has even down to the amount of words that are on a page.
• 26:33
  Drew Williams: For individuals who have learning disabilities, they advocate on behalf of the least of these in terms of the user.
• 26:40
  Drew Williams: We have a content guide that just checks on the general pulse of the tone of the content.
• 26:45
  Drew Williams: You have the writer, like myself, who takes content that is developed in the outline created by the crew and then creates a tone, creates a voice, creates a persona that's communicating that gospel truth that will eventually end up going to the end user.
• 26:58
  Drew Williams: And then it goes into the actual product design phase, which I have a voice in sometimes, which I love, but that's not what God designed me to do.
• 27:06
  Drew Williams: God made me to tell stories.
• 27:08
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, so I've read on your website that there's 148 different languages.
• 27:14
  Daniel Moore: So is all of your materials that you do, are all of those, translated into all those different languages, or you have some that you don't do that too, or is it pretty much?
• 27:25
  Drew Williams: It's a great question.
• 27:26
  Drew Williams: So our translation process is very interesting because not every product that we make is going to be applicable for every region.
• 27:34
  Drew Williams: So us putting the resources into translating everything that we make into every language that we have translators for which finding those translators, is often very difficult, especially whenever you get into what we call the final third of the world.
• 27:48
  Drew Williams: Like I said earlier, we break up the world into regions and we have regional vice presidents.
• 27:52
  Drew Williams: One of our vice presidents is the president over the final third and that's regions where there might be 50 people in this subsect of this region that speak one language but they need the gospel too.
• 28:04
  Drew Williams: And finding a translator who we always hope is Christian but doesn't always end up being that way, that's not very easy.
• 28:10
  Drew Williams: But once we figure out in our gambit of products that we've either already designed or the ones that we're going to design, we work with those people in the field to help bring us connection to, hopefully, Christian translators if not translators who are going to do a good job with our products.
• 28:30
  Daniel Moore: Does that?
• 28:30
  Daniel Moore: 148 languages pretty much cover the whole world.
• 28:33
  Daniel Moore: Is there certain places that you guys aren't in yet?
• 28:36
  Drew Williams: Yeah, so there are places in the world that access is very difficult, and even naming those places is something that I can't do, but some of the products and programs that I'm a part of this is where the digital space becomes so incredible, because distributing gospel-centric scripture engagement resources in sensitive regions in the world is all but impossible without putting people at risk but, running Google ad campaigns, running digital programs that are able to reach people on their mobile device, that they are scrolling through whenever they're on their way to a mosque, any any like those those kinds of programs can happen.
• 29:20
  Drew Williams: So that's where a lot of those those very nuanced translations are happening, at least in the regions where they have access to digital resources.
• 29:28
  Drew Williams: That's how we're trying to tackle that obstacle.
• 29:30
  Drew Williams: Now, do you get to take trips with your job?
• 29:32
  Drew Williams: I do every once in a while, so every two years.
• 29:34
  Drew Williams: It's one of the perks of working for One Hope.
• 29:37
  Drew Williams: As a full-time employee, you get to go on a distribution trip.
• 29:43
  Drew Williams: I just recently came back from Guyana in South America.
• 29:44
  Drew Williams: I signed up for it not knowing where Guyana was, and I honestly thought it was in Africa.
• 29:48
  Drew Williams: This is a little spoiler alert for everyone.
• 29:50
  Drew Williams: Geography is not wonderful, but I did.
• 29:53
  Drew Williams: It's very oh man, beautiful place, daniel, the country of Guyana is the only country in South America where English is the national language and we got to do a really, really great work there, distributing books of hope.
• 30:06
  Drew Williams: We did essentially the equivalent of kids crusades and we didn't have to have a translator because English was the national language.
• 30:14
  Drew Williams: Had a kid come up to me and we were just getting to know the kids when we were there, and one of them.
• 30:20
  Drew Williams: I asked him what's your favorite snack?
• 30:22
  Drew Williams: And he said it's.
• 30:22
  Drew Williams: It's iguana.
• 30:23
  Drew Williams: And I was.
• 30:24
  Drew Williams: I told him well, that's, that's awesome.
• 30:26
  Drew Williams: I I'd love to eat an iguana.
• 30:27
  Drew Williams: Does it?
• 30:28
  Drew Williams: Does it taste like alligator?
• 30:29
  Drew Williams: Have you had alligator?
• 30:30
  Drew Williams: And he looked at me dead pan face, no, smile, nothing.
• 30:33
  Drew Williams: This eight year old looks me in the eye and says no, iguana tastes like an iguana.
• 30:44
  Drew Williams: And I said well, you're not wrong.
• 30:44
  Drew Williams: And his big sister's like no, he's American.
• 30:46
  Drew Williams: He doesn't understand.
• 30:46
  Drew Williams: But yeah, I do get the chance to travel.
• 30:47
  Drew Williams: I'm going to be going to Bogota, columbia, here in just a few months.
• 30:50
  Daniel Moore: Yeah Well, at least he didn't say that it tastes like chicken, because everything tastes like chicken.
• 30:54
  Drew Williams: It's true, it's true, and with our offices being based in South Florida, I might have the chance to try a snag an iguana and see if that kid in Guyana was right.
• 31:02
  Daniel Moore: Yeah.
• 31:03
  Drew Williams: Never know, till you try it Never know.
• 31:05
  Daniel Moore: That's right.
• 31:06
  Daniel Moore: So you guys do printed materials, film, storytelling, digital.
• 31:13
  Daniel Moore: What does each of those?
• 31:15
  Daniel Moore: I know you've talked about the digital a little bit, which would be like phone apps and online that kind of thing, Landing pages yeah, so as far as the film and the rest of those, how are those all separated?
• 31:27
  Drew Williams: Yeah, so we have.
• 31:29
  Drew Williams: That's a great question.
• 31:30
  Drew Williams: So we have our production crew and they develop film resources that are either made in-house by our filmmaking crew or we will partner with other organizations, such as Jesus Film, to create resources using or to follow the same model that I was describing earlier with YouVersion.
• 31:50
  Drew Williams: We're not going to act like we are a first and I'm not going to diminish what we do, but we are not a Disney, right?
• 31:57
  Drew Williams: That is not who we are.
• 31:58
  Drew Williams: We don't have that capacity, we don't have those resources.
• 32:00
  Drew Williams: But the folks at Jesus Film can make just as high a quality of a film product as any other studio out there, and they do it with mission and meaning.
• 32:10
  Drew Williams: So whenever we are looking at the program, we're just having to decide okay, would it be best, would it fit our audience best, if we use an in-region production company to create this film?
• 32:23
  Drew Williams: Recently I worked on a film program that was called the Rose Film.
• 32:26
  Drew Williams: The Rose Film was an animated short film that was 65 minutes long and it was made for older children in Latin America following the path of this female motorcycle rider named Rose, and she was dealing with the heartfelt needs of the region abandonment of parents, trying to find her purpose and rather than us saying, hey, we're going to facilitate the animation of this, we were able to partner with an animator who works in that field more often rather than trying to become animators ourselves.
• 32:56
  Drew Williams: So we tackle the scripture engagement.
• 32:59
  Drew Williams: If it fits our skill set and our expertise, we'll create the actual film products.
• 33:05
  Drew Williams: A really great example of that is the branch of what we do, called Lumo.
• 33:09
  Drew Williams: Lumo is, if you look on YouTube, lumo has a really robust following and it is a verbatim visualization of each gospel in the Bible.
• 33:24
  Drew Williams: So it was filmed in the Middle East and we had the Middle Eastern equivalent of who our George Clooney is.
• 33:31
  Drew Williams: He was our Jesus.
• 33:32
  Drew Williams: We got him.
• 33:33
  Drew Williams: We got Middle Eastern George Clooney and we filmed what it would look like if these gospel stories were happening, because they did, and it's really, really beautiful.
• 33:45
  Drew Williams: And we don't do what the Chosen does, and although we do partner with the Chosen, we're creating follow-up resources alongside the Chosen.
• 33:51
  Drew Williams: What we did was we wanted them to see if I could close my eyes and picture exactly what I'm reading.
• 33:59
  Drew Williams: What would that look like?
• 34:00
  Drew Williams: That's what Lumo tried to do, and there's so many other different resources we've made too.
• 34:03
  Drew Williams: Is that stuff available online.
• 34:06
  Drew Williams: Lumo is absolutely, absolutely, and I didn't mention this before but what our mission is with the majority of our programs 99.9, it comes to the end user completely free, and so every Book of Hope is non-purchasable.
• 34:21
  Drew Williams: Even whenever I was on my distribution trip to Guyana, a gentleman tried to come up to me and offered me 100 Guyana dollars, which is like 50 cents.
• 34:28
  Drew Williams: But he tried to offer me money for my book and I was like no, for the love of all things, holy, take my book, but no, we sell absolutely nothing.
• 34:36
  Drew Williams: So if you wanted to and there's YouVersion Bible plans that follow Lumo content All of those are available online.
• 34:44
  Drew Williams: If you look up the Lumo project, then you can see those and you can listen to the gospel being read to you in French, in Portuguese, in Tagalog, in all of these different languages across the world, because those are translated too.
• 34:57
  Daniel Moore: That's awesome.
• 34:58
  Daniel Moore: So I see you guys do team trips as well, and that's where people from the outside can come in and join you correct.
• 35:05
  Drew Williams: That's correct and that's what I'll be doing whenever I'm in Bogota in October is I will be leading a team from a church.
• 35:12
  Drew Williams: I'm not sure yet if it's going to be a group of teenagers, so if so, please pray for me in October.
• 35:17
  Drew Williams: But it might be adults, it might be teenagers, but we bring them to the regions where our durable networks are and they get to see the facilitation of our programs.
• 35:27
  Drew Williams: They get to experience what is it like to bring God's Word to every child.
• 35:31
  Daniel Moore: So, basically, like a missions trip.
• 35:33
  Daniel Moore: Very similar.
• 35:33
  Daniel Moore: Yes, yes, and then there's probably cost for that.
• 35:36
  Daniel Moore: Can you find out about that on your website?
• 35:37
  Daniel Moore: Yes, all the details.
• 35:37
  Daniel Moore: Absolutely yes, all the details.
• 35:39
  Drew Williams: Absolutely so.
• 35:39
  Drew Williams: If you look up teams, if you go to the teams portion of our of our website, then you can be able to see what are the regions that you have access to and you can.
• 35:51
  Drew Williams: You can put up, put your information there and then our, our teams trips coordinators will be able to reach back out to you and and see what, what, what can happen.
• 35:57
  Daniel Moore: Okay, that's awesome.
• 35:59
  Daniel Moore: You also have an online store there, so if anybody's interested in buying t-shirts and I think there was bags or several different items, as I was kind of scanning through the store definitely go check that out.
• 36:09
  Drew Williams: That obviously helps support the ministry Of course, and there's one of the only products we make that we do sell is on there and they sell it by the book there.
• 36:17
  Drew Williams: It's available in bookstores all over.
• 36:19
  Drew Williams: But if you have a teenager who needs a Bible and you want them to have one that's not burgundy leather bound King James version, nothing against that if that's your thing.
• 36:29
  Drew Williams: But if you want them to have a Bible that was made by them for them, with their peers in the room while it was being developed.
• 36:36
  Drew Williams: The Telos Bible is a Bible that we created alongside a ton of different partners.
• 36:41
  Drew Williams: Our North American Youth Ministry resourcing program that we have.
• 36:46
  Drew Williams: That has a whole team around it.
• 36:48
  Drew Williams: In One Hope itself called FEED, we partnered with our own partner, kind of, to create this resource and it's an incredible Bible and it's not like the Book of Hope where we selected different, different stories.
• 37:00
  Drew Williams: It is a full on Bible.
• 37:02
  Drew Williams: I believe that it's.
• 37:03
  Drew Williams: I believe it's an NLT Bible and it has different snippets that tackle gender identity.
• 37:08
  Drew Williams: It has snippets that tackle mental health.
• 37:11
  Drew Williams: What does the Bible tell me whenever I look in the mirror and I don't recognize the person that I'm seeing?
• 37:16
  Drew Williams: It explains what the meta narrative of scripture is, how the different hyperlinks within the gospels and the Old Testament connect, and why does that matter to me and my faith and my relationship with Jesus?
• 37:27
  Drew Williams: Telos means the ultimate direction or aim.
• 37:30
  Drew Williams: So what we hope to do is that the Telos Bible, the surrounding content around the scriptures themselves, works like a compass to help guide them through those complex but incredibly impactful scriptural truths and that definitely sounds like a very valuable resource for sure.
• 37:46
  Daniel Moore: Right, definitely need to check that out.
• 37:48
  Daniel Moore: So that's on the online store.
• 37:49
  Daniel Moore: So one hope here as we get ready to shift gears here in a minute.
• 37:54
  Daniel Moore: Basically, from what I'm seeing, there's 270 children and youth reached every minute.
• 37:59
  Daniel Moore: I mean that's just absolutely amazing.
• 38:01
  Daniel Moore: 44 countries, it looks like, are pretty well reached and covered by the ministry as well.
• 38:07
  Daniel Moore: 316 programs that's enough to keep anybody busy 317,.
• 38:12
  Drew Williams: Just started a new one today.
• 38:13
  Drew Williams: Started a new one today.
• 38:14
  Daniel Moore: Here we go 316 and growing 148 languages.
• 38:19
  Daniel Moore: It's amazing, it looks like, with what this ministry does, and so I advise anybody out there that's listening, if you're interested in checking this ministry, out their website's onehopenet.
• 38:28
  Daniel Moore: And they've also got social media.
• 38:31
  Daniel Moore: They have YouTube.
• 38:31
  Daniel Moore: You go to youtubecom forward slash at onehopeministry.
• 38:35
  Daniel Moore: On Facebook, they're facebookcom forward slash onehopeministry.
• 38:40
  Daniel Moore: And on good old X xcom forward slash One Hope.
• 38:44
  Daniel Moore: And then you got Instagramcom forward slash One Hope Ministry.
• 38:48
  Drew Williams: So and do One Hope Ministry, or she will find a very, very nice wine company, but it is not us.
• 38:54
  Drew Williams: That is not us.
• 38:55
  Drew Williams: One Hope Ministry on the Instagram.
• 38:57
  Drew Williams: That's not the sideline.
• 38:59
  Drew Williams: Huh, we have tagged ourselves in there and God love the intern that put that in.
• 39:04
  Drew Williams: They did not put One Oak Ministry in the wine company message and said, hey, so love what you guys are doing.
• 39:10
  Drew Williams: You might want to edit this, yeah.
• 39:13
  Daniel Moore: Well, at least somebody caught it, it's true, that's awesome.
• 39:17
  Daniel Moore: Well, go ahead.
• 39:19
  Daniel Moore: Everybody out there listening please go check that out.
• 39:21
  Daniel Moore: It's a phenomenal ministry.
• 39:23
  Daniel Moore: There's also a donation link there.
• 39:25
  Daniel Moore: As they are a nonprofit, they're definitely needing financial help.
• 39:30
  Daniel Moore: So if any of you guys feel led, if the Lord's leading you to want to sponsor some kind of a nonprofit where you can pour into kids' lives, pour into youth around the world, this is a good place, a good opportunity to do so.
• 39:43
  Daniel Moore: So go to onehopenet and all those links are there.
• 39:46
  Drew Williams: And I will say, with that we have been able because we've been a ministry for so long we've been able to look at the analytics and determine, based on the amount of revenue that we've received from generous donors and the amount of times that we've been able to hand a child a product, or the amount of times that someone's engaged with their digital resources, times that we've been able to hand a child a product, or the amount of times that someone's engaged with their digital resources, every dollar reaches three young people.
• 40:05
  Drew Williams: So that and that that that takes it.
• 40:07
  Drew Williams: That means that doesn't just mean the delivery, that means the creation of the content.
• 40:10
  Drew Williams: We are a nonprofit organization, so this isn't going to go fill the pockets of a bunch of different people.
• 40:15
  Drew Williams: And then we we, we, you know contract out everything that we do.
• 40:19
  Drew Williams: We, we love what we do and we make sacrifices to do what we do, and it can only happen through the generosity of other people.
• 40:27
  Drew Williams: So if God does lead you in that, just know that your generosity is being well-stewarded.
• 40:35
  Daniel Moore: It's a good investment and in today's inflation society, $1 each and three kids sounds great to me.
• 40:41
  Drew Williams: I wish we can inflate with the economy.
• 40:44
  Drew Williams: I wish we could say $1 reaches like 16, but nope, can't even buy McFlurry for a dollar these days.
• 40:50
  Drew Williams: Oh, no, it's horrible, not a fifth of one.
• 40:53
  Daniel Moore: That's right.
• 40:53
  Daniel Moore: We're going to take a break here for a moment.
• 40:56
  Daniel Moore: We have Drew Williams here with us this week.
• 40:58
  Daniel Moore: He's the author of Backyard Benny.
• 41:00
  Daniel Moore: We're going to take a break.
• 41:01
  Daniel Moore: We'll be back right after this.
• 41:19
  One Hope Promo: For more than 35 years we've been traveling across the globe, trekking to remote villages, bustling cities, communities near and far, delivering hope and freedom through God's Word, through local churches around the world.
• 41:37
  One Hope Promo: One Hope has reached more than 2 billion children and youth with a gospel message.
• 41:42
  One Hope Promo: One Hope has reached more than 2 billion children and youth with a gospel message.
• 41:47
  One Hope Promo: We equip others to effectively minister to young people in their communities.
• 41:50
  One Hope Promo: From the printed word to digital platforms, one Hope shares scripture programs in a relevant way to engage the next generation with truth from God's Word.
• 42:00
  One Hope Promo: Every child should know that they have a purpose and are loved by their Creator.
• 42:06
  One Hope Promo: Together we can continue to go the distance and share the good news with the next generation.
• 42:43
  Daniel Moore: The Secret side of me.
• 42:44
  Daniel Moore: Okay, we're going to switch gears here and you wrote a book.
• 43:12
  Daniel Moore: That's what I hear, that's what we've been told, and the name of this book is Backyard Benny.
• 43:19
  Daniel Moore: And what made you want to become an author?
• 43:34
  Drew Williams: the way to eight-year-old, very large headed Drew and I was in second grade.
• 43:36
  Drew Williams: My second grade teacher gave the class a prompt to write a book.
• 43:38
  Drew Williams: What none of us knew was that all of our books were going to be entered into.
• 43:43
  Drew Williams: What's funny enough, the college I ended up attending whenever I was I went to university was entering into a young author's contest and I I won the contest and my book called the young stable boy and what what that looked like was.
• 43:59
  Drew Williams: I wanted to tell a story about a boy who could go on an adventure and who could, who could make something of himself and become something that he.
• 44:06
  Drew Williams: He wasn't on his own Right and and look, this is, of course, looking back.
• 44:11
  Drew Williams: Eight year old drew wasn't having these, you know, int.
• 44:11
  Drew Williams: Of course, looking back, eight-year-old Drew wasn't having these introspective thoughts, but I wanted to go into this world I had never been before and to go on a journey that I didn't have access to, and that desire never stopped so whenever it came to ministry and even in my personal relationship with Jesus.
• 44:28
  Drew Williams: And looking at the word, I always love looking at everything as a story, because that is the world we live in is a grand story that God understands.
• 44:38
  Drew Williams: God knows the beginning and the end of, and he's orchestrated all these incredible details to accomplish this beautiful thing that we call life.
• 44:46
  Drew Williams: And there's such an amazing power in stories.
• 44:50
  Drew Williams: So as that continued to develop, it manifested itself into the way that I preach.
• 44:57
  Drew Williams: I'm quite the storytelling preacher and I often tell my stories too fast and including way too many details.
• 45:03
  Drew Williams: But those are just notes from my wife.
• 45:06
  Drew Williams: But I love telling stories and as I continue to engage with children in almost 10 years of children's ministry, I realized the value that stories have on kids as well.
• 45:16
  Drew Williams: I know that some parents may disagree with me out there, but movies tell just as good of stories as books in way less time oftentimes.
• 45:25
  Drew Williams: Of course, books are incredible.
• 45:27
  Drew Williams: As someone who makes them, I value books, but the reason that your kid loves movies is because they are searching for someone who they want to know feels the same way they do, someone who has experienced the joy or the pain or the excitement or the fear that they have felt in their tiny little life so far.
• 45:51
  Drew Williams: That's the power of stories is.
• 45:52
  Drew Williams: It connects us and through the experience that we had, even if they don't look the same, there's a reason why I cry every time I hear Samwise Gamgee say I can't carry it for you, mr Frodo, but I can carry you.
• 46:04
  Drew Williams: I am not a hobbit.
• 46:06
  Drew Williams: I have never been on a volcano, but I know what it's like to bear the pain of my friends whenever they're not strong enough to hold themselves up.
• 46:13
  Drew Williams: That's what storytelling does, and I've always asked God to help me to think of ways that kids can be able to, in the grand scheme, connect to the Word through that storytelling mindset.
• 46:28
  Drew Williams: Connecting to the Word by helping them see things that they recognize, seeing people who are experiencing the same joy, pain, excitement, laughter, whatever those things are in their, whatever they're engaging with.
• 46:42
  Daniel Moore: So Backyard Benny is a story about a dog.
• 46:45
  Daniel Moore: How did you come up with the Backyard Benny idea?
• 46:48
  Daniel Moore: Is there actually a story behind that, or is this just an imagination thing that you came up with?
• 46:53
  Daniel Moore: Or what's the story there?
• 46:55
  Drew Williams: Yeah, so Backyard Benny was a real dog.
• 46:57
  Drew Williams: Backyard Benny was the dog that I adopted whenever we moved to Georgia, whenever we moved from our condo in calling it a condo man man, that sounds elevated.
• 47:08
  Drew Williams: It was a 600 square foot apartment, moving from our apartment in Orlando to an actual place with a yard in Southwest Georgia.
• 47:17
  Drew Williams: I was so excited to get a big dog, so I went to the animal shelter and I looked for a dog, looked for a dog, and I couldn't find the one that I really felt like was speaking to me.
• 47:26
  Drew Williams: And I went to leave and I heard the worst sound you've ever heard in your life, just like a cooing pigeon.
• 47:33
  Drew Williams: But the pigeon has been bit by a radioactive spider.
• 47:37
  Drew Williams: It just.
• 47:37
  Drew Williams: It was so weird and I turn around and there is this brindle, massive headed dog with a tongue that hung down to his chest, that was perched up on the fence and he was staring at me and it was game over man.
• 47:51
  Drew Williams: It was game over.
• 47:52
  Drew Williams: That's my boy.
• 47:53
  Drew Williams: I knew he was my boy and he knew I was his human.
• 47:56
  Drew Williams: So went to the trainer and they pulled him aside.
• 48:00
  Drew Williams: Uh, backstory was they he had been rescued from a dog fighting ring.
• 48:03
  Drew Williams: Uh, at six months old he had been, he had been through it and uh, so there was some food aggression there, there was things that the reasons why he was having to be on his own, but Benny loved me and I loved Benny.
• 48:16
  Drew Williams: He brought so much joy and frustration and he was a symbol of the new beginning that we had whenever we moved to Georgia, the one that we desperately needed, and it was really beautiful what God was able to do through Benny.
• 48:32
  Drew Williams: So, uh, whenever, whenever Benny passed away, whenever, whenever, um, benny passed on, I wanted kids to know the joy that it felt, or that that that to know the joy that came with having Benny in your life.
• 48:45
  Drew Williams: Having a Benny, having someone who represents what does it look like to have a new beginning?
• 48:49
  Drew Williams: Who represents what does it look like to have a new beginning?
• 48:51
  Drew Williams: What does it look like to step into this big, scary new place but having a friend who's there with you, and this one just happens to love nachos?
• 49:02
  Daniel Moore: and fajitas.
• 49:02
  Daniel Moore: That's the best kind of dog to have right there.
• 49:04
  Daniel Moore: Not whenever you're the one eating the nachos and fajitas.
• 49:09
  Drew Williams: You've got to share, I guess, don't you?
• 49:10
  Daniel Moore: It's true it can be a bad thing.
• 49:13
  Daniel Moore: I like my tacos, nachos and fajitas.
• 49:14
  Daniel Moore: I don't share that very well, right.
• 49:16
  Daniel Moore: One thing I did notice with this book that I thought was kind of cool.
• 49:20
  Daniel Moore: It took me a second to realize what was going on, but it looks like the child can actually color.
• 49:28
  Daniel Moore: Yes, Some of the all the animation that's in the book there's no, there's parts of it that's colored in and parts of it are just sketched Correct.
• 49:37
  Daniel Moore: So I thought that was really a cool idea.
• 49:40
  Daniel Moore: So it kind of makes the book interactive to an extent.
• 49:42
  Drew Williams: Yeah, if you look on the cover, it even it says brought to life by Megan Vanderberg, our incredible illustrator.
• 49:51
  Drew Williams: Another one hoper who's in South Africa, cape Town, south Africa, just outside of it says brought to life by Megan Vandenberg and you.
• 49:55
  Drew Williams: That way, every kid who has a copy of Backyard Benny they have, they have a sense of, of ownership.
• 50:01
  Drew Williams: They're like no, this is, this is my story.
• 50:02
  Drew Williams: I brought, I'm bringing it to life with my crayons and my markers and my and my pencils.
• 50:12
  Daniel Moore: Yeah.
• 50:12
  Drew Williams: And that's very creative.
• 50:13
  Drew Williams: I really liked that idea.
• 50:14
  Drew Williams: How did that idea come about?
• 50:15
  Drew Williams: I've never seen a book put together like that before.
• 50:16
  Drew Williams: It came about by listening to Luke throwing a fit about not being able to color in his own book, and even thinking back to whenever I was a kid.
• 50:21
  Drew Williams: What's the number one rule that your parents give you whenever you get a new book from the library or whenever your grandma puts a book in your stocking?
• 50:29
  Drew Williams: If you had that kind of grandma, what's the number one rule is do not color in this book.
• 50:34
  Drew Williams: The reason that I'm, even as an adult, gun shy about underlining scriptures in my Bible is because you don't write in books and I wanted to let a kid be able to really let set their imagination free by breaking those barriers.
• 50:48
  Drew Williams: So even whenever you look at the first page, there's a message from Benny to the reader, the very first thing the reader gets to see, and it looks like Google Translate and this was our illustrator's idea of setting it up like this, but it has like woof bark, bark, bark, woof, bark.
• 51:02
  Drew Williams: And then Benny gives permission to the reader to illustrate it or to illustrate their own story.
• 51:07
  Drew Williams: He says in Benny's voice attention, tiny humans, I need your help.
• 51:11
  Drew Williams: Fill in the empty spaces of my story with your favorite colors.
• 51:14
  Drew Williams: I would do it myself, but I don't have thumbs.
• 51:16
  Drew Williams: You're going to do a pawesome job.
• 51:18
  Drew Williams: See you soon, benny.
• 51:19
  Daniel Moore: That's awesome, so right off the bat, they know no, this story is mine.
• 51:23
  Drew Williams: And I get to be a part of it.
• 51:25
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, I think kids would love that.
• 51:27
  Daniel Moore: I mean, I agree with you, when I grew up it was the same way.
• 51:30
  Daniel Moore: You always that's a no-no Right Writing in the books and that kind of thing, and so I think that's very creative and a good idea there.
• 51:39
  Daniel Moore: What exactly is the story that you're trying to portray here with this book of Benny?
• 51:45
  Drew Williams: Yeah, yeah, great question.
• 51:46
  Drew Williams: So one of the perks of working for One Hope is you get to be constantly be surrounded by people smarter than you, and something I've learned by all these amazing individuals I get to work with is that the greatest stories are based in emotions and life experiences that have already been felt by people.
• 52:06
  Drew Williams: So for this product, I wanted to create a story that kids didn't have to reach for to understand, but felt like was speaking their emotional language.
• 52:16
  Drew Williams: So what I did was I did my own empathy mapping.
• 52:20
  Drew Williams: I called every parent I could find from every region of the world I've ever had any kind of interaction with, and this includes overseas.
• 52:28
  Drew Williams: It included mostly kids here in North America, from every economical class, every race, every area, every demographic.
• 52:38
  Drew Williams: The goal was to understand what are kids in this reading level?
• 52:43
  Drew Williams: Which Backyard Benny was written at a mid to upper level, second grade reading level, what are kids in this age range seeing, hearing, feeling and believing are true?
• 52:52
  Drew Williams: And I asked parents I asked over 75 parents these questions and built this database of information of what these kids are seeing, hearing, feeling and believing are true.
• 53:01
  Drew Williams: And knowing my Benny, who I knew I wanted to introduce kids to, and seeing those plot points.
• 53:09
  Drew Williams: I saw those as I really.
• 53:11
  Drew Williams: I saw that whole empathy map as a map of this, this big open space.
• 53:15
  Drew Williams: And the goal to create the story was finding a way that I could connect what I knew about Benny and what I knew about the way that I tell stories to each of those points in the empathy mapping those truths that kids were telling us or that their parents were.
• 53:31
  Drew Williams: So the story was built around the points in the empathy mapping those truths that kids were telling us or that their parents were.
• 53:34
  Drew Williams: So the story was built around the points in the empathy mapping where we realized that kids are terrified of new experiences because they don't want to fail.
• 53:41
  Drew Williams: Specifically, kids who have came out of the COVID era are very, very afraid to enter new spaces because they're very comfortable with where they are.
• 53:49
  Drew Williams: They've grown up at home.
• 53:51
  Drew Williams: So that's not how I grew up.
• 53:52
  Drew Williams: I grew up in the backseat of a Ford F-150, not knowing anything about where I was going, just knowing that I loved when the air conditioning worked.
• 54:00
  Drew Williams: But that's not how kids operate.
• 54:05
  Drew Williams: That's not how they work now.
• 54:06
  Drew Williams: They love home and they're terrified of new places.
• 54:09
  Drew Williams: So the whole story of Backyard Benny is four kids moved to a new places.
• 54:12
  Drew Williams: So the whole story of Backyard Benny is four kids move to a new neighborhood.
• 54:13
  Drew Williams: Their names are Izzy, rain, noah and Dion, and they all have different situations that they're in.
• 54:21
  Drew Williams: They all have different family dynamics.
• 54:23
  Drew Williams: Some of them are only being raised by a single parent, some of them are being raised by a mother and a father, one of them are being raised by their grandparents and one of them have 11 brothers and sisters, so that that again, kids from all different situations can feel like they have someone in the story they're relating with.
• 54:38
  Drew Williams: The goal whenever we were doing the character design was to make them as diverse as possible, not for the sake of diversity, but because we wanted it to be a good representation of all the kids who could potentially engage with the story, and this came everything from the way that their bodies were shaped, the way that they styled themselves, even down to their abilities, so that Rain, one of the characters in the story, actually has a hearing aid for kids who engage with reading and kids with hearing loss are more likely to be readers rather than movie watchers, so we wanted them to be able to have that person in the story they related with as well, but the story follows the kids as they move to this new neighborhood and as they're in this new place.
• 55:16
  Drew Williams: The setting is called City Town.
• 55:17
  Drew Williams: It's a place that's too big to be a town and too small to be a city, so they call it City Town and that's world building.
• 55:23
  Drew Williams: That's not included in the book, but we just always thought that was fun and just.
• 55:29
  Drew Williams: The general plot of the book is that their backyard gets trashed and they figure out that it is this stray dog named Benny who has trashed the neighborhood and they build this beautiful friendship around finding a new home for Benny and ultimately they realize that one of them are going to have to take Benny home, but only one of them, only one of the characters in the story actually has the ability to because of all these different variables, but he is terrified of failure.
• 55:55
  Drew Williams: Another point in the empathy mapping Kids do not want to fail.
• 55:59
  Drew Williams: There's a reason that kids don't try new things, and it's not because they don't want to feel the joy of trying new things.
• 56:04
  Drew Williams: It's because they don't want to be embarrassed.
• 56:06
  Drew Williams: We live in an attention economy.
• 56:07
  Drew Williams: We live where things can go viral whenever you fail, and kids know that because they watch it on YouTube constantly.
• 56:13
  Drew Williams: So it's figuring out this way that this kid can overcome his fear of failure.
• 56:18
  Drew Williams: So whenever he meets with his grandpa and he's fleshing all of this out, the grandpa the one point in the book and I apologize for going super long on this question, but the one point in the book where there is a scriptural truth that I really wanted to resonate is whenever the grandpa of the kid who's dealing with his fear of failure, he says tomorrow isn't until tomorrow.
• 56:37
  Drew Williams: Focus on what's in front of you.
• 56:39
  Drew Williams: That's a truth straight from Jesus.
• 56:41
  Drew Williams: That's one I have to repeat to myself every time.
• 56:43
  Drew Williams: I'm like oh God, what am I supposed to?
• 56:47
  Drew Williams: What is this going to look like in a week?
• 56:48
  Drew Williams: God said I never designed you to worry about the future.
• 56:51
  Drew Williams: I created you to worship me in the present and to trust me with everything else.
• 56:55
  Drew Williams: And that's the general plot.
• 56:58
  Drew Williams: And then I'm not going to tell you how the story ends.
• 57:00
  Daniel Moore: You have to find it.
• 57:01
  Daniel Moore: We don't want to spoil that I will say that when I read this and then my wife read it after I did, we was like that's so Drew.
• 57:12
  Drew Williams: Oh no, Because it was written at a second grade reading level.
• 57:17
  Daniel Moore: You know, with watching you grow up and everything and knowing your personality and the way that your creative mind that you had and everything this does, it just really resonates.
• 57:29
  Daniel Moore: I think this is really a niche for you and we really enjoyed reading the book.
• 57:34
  Daniel Moore: And one of the questions I did have was you do intentionally weave the Bible truths in there and I could see in different places.
• 57:42
  Daniel Moore: You know we're trying to teach some things that the kids would learn as they read that and so the actual age group that you have written this for, what would that?
• 57:52
  Daniel Moore: I know you said second grade, leveling up Second grade reading level is the reading level.
• 57:58
  Drew Williams: So what I would recommend this to is parents with kids between the ages of five and nine is really the sweet spot.
• 58:04
  Drew Williams: A five-year-old may not be able to read the end of the book in its entirety, although upper-end five-year-olds have been able to um, from the feedback that we've got from parents.
• 58:13
  Drew Williams: But it's an incredible book for parents to read to five-year-olds because it's able to keep their attention.
• 58:18
  Drew Williams: It's only 34 pages, um, and, and that is about your average size.
• 58:22
  Drew Williams: That's smaller than your average Dr Seuss book, if that gives you any kind of context to to word count and into to page count.
• 58:28
  Drew Williams: It also includes the same number of words on page as your average Dr Seuss book as well.
• 58:33
  Drew Williams: That was kind of the, the the North star whenever it came to some some creative decisions there.
• 58:37
  Drew Williams: So, yeah, the, the intended audience is your five to nine year old child.
• 58:43
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, and then, as, are you intending on continuing this story, cause my wife and I felt like you kind of left it open to be a series or something.
• 58:51
  Daniel Moore: Absolutely, is that the goal?
• 58:53
  Drew Williams: Yeah.
• 58:53
  Drew Williams: So if you look at our Instagram, it's not Backyard Benny book.
• 58:56
  Drew Williams: It's Backyard Benny books.
• 58:58
  Drew Williams: It's because this is the first book in a series.
• 59:01
  Drew Williams: The goal will be creating our next addition to the Backyard Benny storyline and it will hoping to be hoping for it to be released in the Christmas season of 2025.
• 59:13
  Drew Williams: Okay, so where can people purchase this book?
• 59:16
  Drew Williams: They can buy it on Amazon.
• 59:18
  Drew Williams: That is our essentially our exclusive form of distribution right now, unless you follow any of our social medias and you see us at in-person events here in the Southwest Missouri area and in a couple other spaces here and there, and it is available on counters in some of our local bookstores here in our niche little area of Southwest Missouri.
• 59:37
  Drew Williams: Amazon, if you search Backyard Benny, it'll be the first one that pops up, okay.
• 59:42
  Daniel Moore: And then, are you available for meet and greets or that kind of thing and like maybe in the local area, or what are your thoughts on that?
• 59:50
  Drew Williams: Yeah, I love, love, love visiting schools.
• 59:52
  Drew Williams: I have a full presentation that I talk about storytelling, the importance of storytelling.
• 59:56
  Drew Williams: It's actually titled why Writing Isn't Dumb is the name of the presentation.
• 1:00:01
  Drew Williams: Teachers love it whenever they see the word dumb on the screen.
• 1:00:03
  Drew Williams: But so I have a presentation that I love doing at school.
• 1:00:07
  Drew Williams: So if you are in the field of education, I would love to visit your school and talk to your kids about what it looked like to create the world of Benny and how they have a story to tell too.
• 1:00:16
  Drew Williams: And I certainly also do author signings at different little pop-up events here and there, open to anything that brings joy to a kid.
• 1:00:25
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, because I've been noticing here recently, with summer school going on right now, you had been to a few schools and met with some student bodies and that kind of thing, and so it looked great time.
• 1:00:37
  Drew Williams: We had our official Backyard Benny book launch at an elementary school actually.
• 1:00:41
  Drew Williams: Wow, yeah, that's awesome.
• 1:00:44
  Daniel Moore: Well, how can people reach you?
• 1:00:45
  Daniel Moore: Is there a way that they can reach out if they want to contact you, or Sure?
• 1:00:49
  Drew Williams: absolutely so.
• 1:00:50
  Drew Williams: If you wanted to reach out about anything regarding Backyard Benny, or if you had questions about getting connected to One Hope or whatever you have, or if you just need someone to pray with you, if you are having a crappy day and you just need a human cartoon to tell you that Jesus loves you and everything's going to be okay, even if it sucks.
• 1:01:06
  Drew Williams: Right now, you can find me on Instagram.
• 1:01:09
  Drew Williams: My username is literally itsdrewwilliams, so when people ask me what's your Instagram, I can say itsdrewwilliams.
• 1:01:16
  Drew Williams: Very clever, I know and then I'm on Facebook as well and a good email that if you wanted all the links to for One Hope, who you're associated with.
• 1:01:36
  Daniel Moore: You can visit them online at onehopenet.
• 1:01:37
  Daniel Moore: And then, of course, their YouTube channel is youtubecom forward slash at One Hope Ministry.
• 1:01:41
  Daniel Moore: Facebook is facebookcom forward slash One Hope Ministry.
• 1:01:46
  Daniel Moore: And then on X it's xcom forward slash One Hope, and Instagram is instagramcom forward slash one hope ministry.
• 1:01:55
  Daniel Moore: So please go check all of that out, the phenomenal ministry that they have there with everything that they're trying to accomplish.
• 1:02:01
  Daniel Moore: You know, the children are our future, the generations that are coming up.
• 1:02:05
  Daniel Moore: They're going to be leading our country someday and the countries they live in.
• 1:02:09
  Daniel Moore: Because you guys are global.
• 1:02:10
  Daniel Moore: There's going to be a huge need for good Christian leadership in the future, especially the way that this world's going, Barring Jesus coming back and taking us home.
• 1:02:21
  Daniel Moore: A lot of these kids are going to grow up and have to be a part of society.
• 1:02:24
  Daniel Moore: So I think what you guys are doing with your ministry is just phenomenal and I'm super stoked with the fact that you get to be a huge part of that.
• 1:02:32
  Daniel Moore: I think it's just pretty cool that you're able to do that and I think it's right up your alley.
• 1:02:36
  Daniel Moore: I just I really think that you found your niche with all of this and I enjoyed your book.
• 1:02:42
  Daniel Moore: Please go check that out as well All of your listeners out there.
• 1:02:45
  Daniel Moore: It's an excellent book.
• 1:02:46
  Daniel Moore: It's very affordable on Amazon, so if you're a Prime member, you can get free shipping.
• 1:02:51
  Daniel Moore: So there you go.
• 1:02:54
  Drew Williams: Go check that out.
• 1:02:55
  Drew Williams: The only negative review I get on Backyard Benny is why is it so cheap?
• 1:02:58
  Drew Williams: It's $7.99.
• 1:02:59
  Drew Williams: And we tried to set it just below industry standard, not because we were trying to undercut anyone, but because we believe that Benny's story is meant for every kid, regardless of how much extra income your parents have yeah, well, that's being ministry minded, that's that speaks volumes terrible businessman, oh yeah speaks volumes.
• 1:03:16
  Daniel Moore: It for sure does well drew.
• 1:03:17
  Daniel Moore: I appreciate you sitting in here with me today.
• 1:03:20
  Daniel Moore: This has been awesome.
• 1:03:21
  Daniel Moore: I've really enjoyed this.
• 1:03:22
  Drew Williams: Yeah, man, I've loved this it's been fun absolutely any chance to get to see uh jose the chihuahua, but also you love you too yeah, I.
• 1:03:29
  Daniel Moore: I have to to fight Jose for attention all the time, so you know I'm used to it.
• 1:03:34
  Drew Williams: Oh man, I can't wait to hear what your marriage series about fighting for your wife's attention from Munchawawa, from Munchawawa, yeah.
• 1:03:41
  Daniel Moore: That might be a good title for it.
• 1:03:42
  Daniel Moore: Actually, that might get some views.
• 1:03:44
  Drew Williams: There you go.
• 1:03:46
  Daniel Moore: But yeah, well, sometime we'll have to sit down and do this again.
• 1:03:49
  Daniel Moore: Sometime we'll have to sit down and do this again, absolutely.
• 1:03:51
  Daniel Moore: And of course, you've got more books coming out and all that kind of thing.
• 1:03:53
  Daniel Moore: We'll definitely discuss more in the future.
• 1:03:55
  Daniel Moore: So, appreciate you being here, glad to do it.
• 1:03:58
  Daniel Moore: Well, that's going to end this week's episode.
• 1:04:00
  Daniel Moore: I'm Daniel Moore, the host.
• 1:04:02
  Daniel Moore: Thank you so much for listening.
• 1:04:03
  Daniel Moore: This show really wouldn't be possible without you.
• 1:04:05
  Daniel Moore: If you're a fan of the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts and subscribe to us on your favorite platform.
• 1:04:14
  Daniel Moore: The links are below in the show notes.
• 1:04:15
  Daniel Moore: Well, that's all for this week, and we believe that God's Word never fails us.
• 1:04:17
  Daniel Moore: God's Word has stood the test of time and, through Jesus' death on the cross, he has connected the gap.
• 1:04:23
  Daniel Moore: You've been listening to Connecting the Gap Podcast.
• 1:04:25
  Daniel Moore: In this world, there are many disconnects that cause chaos in our lives.
• 1:04:43
  Daniel Moore: This podcast is birthed from the desire to share hope and restoration of the power of the gospel by God.
• 1:04:47
  Daniel Moore: Bless you.
• 1:04:47
  Daniel Moore: Video version of it on YouTube and Rumble.
• 1:04:49
  Daniel Moore: We are also on the Christian podcasting app Edify.
• 1:04:52
  Daniel Moore: You can subscribe to our podcast on many of the available podcasting platforms, including Apple Podcast, spotify, amazon Music, iheart Radio, tunein Radio and more.
• 1:05:02
  Daniel Moore: We are also available on your Alexa-enabled devices.
• 1:05:05
  Daniel Moore: If you would like to contact our ministry for any reason, visit our contact page and send us a message.
• 1:05:10
  Daniel Moore: We hope you are blessed by this ministry.
• 1:05:12
  Daniel Moore: This is a production of Connecting the Gap Ministries.