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Transcript

From Witchcraft to the Word · The Rhett Palmer Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: He is the great I am.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: His first friend was Abraham.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Surely said Abraham.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: I am that I am.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Are you ready for a cup of friendship?
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I am.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my dear friend is in here right now.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: He is a biblical scholar.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: He is Michael Bagby, known to his children as Poppy.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Poppy's in here today.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love that when I hear you, I just heard you over the phone talking to one of your children.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, what a great name of honor.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm Uncle Rhett to some people here on the earth.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I got that lesson late in life.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: My brother didn't even know for sure that he had a child, let alone two children from two different girls.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now each with two children the same age, and two all these people who, you know, I'm left without my brother, and uh I'm uh I'm Uncle Rhett.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in our culture in Hawaii, uh uncle is a term that's given to a friend of the family that you trust like a like an uncle.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it implies um uh responsibility and um uh instruction and care and trustworthiness.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so if you call I have a lot of uh kids of my friends call me uncle.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if you come to our Rio Coco Cafe on Utilla, uh the staff, which are all in their twenties, uh refer to me as Uncle Mike.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just because that's kind of our culture.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: I call you rabbi.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yo, rabbi.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not your uncle, though.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're not you're a little too young to be my uncle.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're a little older than me.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: What, two years maybe, maybe a year?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think it just it depends on if we're talking about chronological age or or uh maturity.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maturity, I think you're you're capable of being my great grandfather.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I doubt that.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well you come off very uh you can you know anyway, we'll just not get into that today.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want to ask you.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: I want to ask you how do you like this coffee?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm enjoying this coffee.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, this is one of our cup of friendship blends that we're gonna have uh available, and I just wanted to sample this morning.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: You did ask for coffee, remember?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I did.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: So what do you think about this one?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm enjoying it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm enjoying it, and you brought it in your thermos.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I made it uh just uh right before I walked out the door.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's a blend of coffee from Timor from uh Ethiopia and from Mexico.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I would try this as a new one.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, we tried a number of blends last week for our cup of friendship coffee.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then he's a coffee snob, folks.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we should have named the show Coffee Snob.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, I'm not.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm uh I didn't even drink Aficionado.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Before I went to uh Nick to Honduras in 1984, I didn't even drink coffee.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I was Really?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was it was I found it.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I was in the Navy.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, uh Navy coffee is uh is uh you need lots of cream and sugar, milk and sugar to make it.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's worse than 12-step coffee.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I found myself living in this refugee community with uh a family Truman and Myrna Cunningham, and Myrna was serving me rice and beans and boiled bananas, sometimes three times a day with occasional mystery meat.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um but she always had a cup of or a pot of coffee on the table.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: And one day I realized, because I'm searching for flavors, right?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: Rice and beans and boiled bananas.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And a boiled banana something new, please.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: It tastes like you're eating a candle.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I was putting hot sauce on my boiled bananas.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: I was trying anything, you know.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then I just realized there's a pot of coffee that she's making, and that's my fourth flavor option.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I poured a cup, she put a lot of sugar in it, and I went, wow, well, this is actually not bad.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was uh a few weeks later, I was in Tegusa Galpa and I went to a supermarket there, and I see the export quality Honduras coffee.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: Oh.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I bought inferior or superior?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: Superior, yeah.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: The uh Honduras is one of the leading uh coffee exporters in the world right now.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the coffee, uh the the regions that uh where their coffee is grown is mountainous with lots of rain.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: This is perfect uh coffee culture cultivation spots.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: So um I started drinking it and I realized, wow, this is actually a delicious drink.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I started drinking it black because I really wanted to taste the coffee.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: And if it's if coffee is high grown at high altitude, above 4,000 feet in the tropics, it has a longer growing season.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Meaning there's more fats and proteins that actually develop in the seeds because it's cooler at night.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: So you have a uh a longer season that actually develops the seed, which is the coffee bean.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh coffee that's grown above that altitude is classified SHG.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: You'll see that on those burlap bags that we get.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean strictly high grown.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh it's a classification that's a denser bean.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: Literally, you can take your hands.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: I have a friend in Nicaragua, his farm, uh uh Salva Negra is about twenty-seven, twenty eight hundred feet.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: And uh uh if you continue up the road and you get to the Vitahoven farm where we have uh spent a lot of time, they're uh at 5,000 feet elevation.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: You take coffee from uh Salva Negra, uh scoop in your hand, and from the Vitahoven farm, and the Vitahoven farm is noticeably heavier.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's a much denser coffee.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so when you come to roast, you now you got a lot more to work with to get more flavor uh out of the coffee.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: So what we're drinking is high altitude coffee, it's all hand-picked.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Meaning uh if you go see a coffee bush or a coffee tree, you'll see green uh berries and you'll see yellow berries and you'll see red berries.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: The red ones are the mature fruit.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's a fruit with pulp, and when it's red, it's very sweet.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so what we do is we only pick the red ones.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then we'll come back three weeks later and make another pass through the field, and those that were yellow will be red when we pick those.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: Those that were green are now yellow, and we go through about four times a year through the fields and hand pick, meaning now we have coffee seeds that are inside a fruit that is very sweet.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: And that you can, while you're picking, you can pop these uh little cherries in your mouth and spit out the seeds, and it's very tasty and it's loaded with antioxidants.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Is that uh what I read years ago is that they went somewhere and they found the natives were were eating these things off of these plants and they were getting a buzz.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: They were giving them energy.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I guess that's when somebody decided to roast them and and then make a drink out of it to make it easier.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the the the myth is a goat herder named Khalid in Ethiopia in the seventh century was uh wondering why his goats were eating these red berries off of this bush, and then they started dancing around.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so he investigated, and eventually he took the seeds and uh put them on a hot skillet and got them uh to where they cracked a little bit.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: Put them on a hot skillet.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: To cook them, to roast them.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: He figured he was gonna try uh who knows how this all happened.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Who would think, okay, let's you know, now in the book of Ruth, uh Boaz is serving a roasted grain beverage to Ruth.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Ah and You're thinking maybe that was coffee.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there's some speculation, and this is really the first introduction of coffee in the ancient world.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: But Ethiopia and the Arabian Peninsula became the place where coffee was cultivated and it became imported into Europe.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, uh in the Turkish siege of Vienna in 16, I think, eighty-seven, uh, the Polish uh army came down and uh with the Austrian and Hungary's uh army, they drove the Turks out of the city of Vienna.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but they left behind over 500 bags of green coffee.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: And there was one of the officers in the Hungarian army, I think, that had been posted in Constantinople and he knew how to roast coffee.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: And suddenly Vienna became the center of coffee culture in Europe, and that spread to uh other uh cities in Europe, and Louis the Fourteenth actually sent some of his uh two of his officers down to the Arabian Peninsula and they stole a couple of coffee plants uh because they were very well controlled.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: They knew it was uh a proprietary business.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: He brought them back and uh he built some h glass houses in Versailles and he cultivated coffee.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: And eventually he uh some of these plants were sent to Haiti, uh which was a colony of France in the 1700s.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I served there as a missionary a couple times.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: And um eventually uh the coffee spread throughout Central America.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of uh coffee that you find in Honduras, Nicaragua, Salvador, and Guatemala are uh Cafe Arabica Bourbon from the royal family name, Bourbon.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: Very interesting history of this trade.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what the number one commodity traded in the world, of course, is oil.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know what the number two comated uh we're drinking right here.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I never knew that.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's a convivial drink, mean uh which means social.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the that fellow had that book a few years ago.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: He traveled through here, uh, he had a number one New York Times selling business, three cups of tea that over in the mid in the Mideast, you become a friend after the third cup.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, that we have named the show, after you teaching me about this, uh uh uh cup of friendship.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it is the friendship drink.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I told you about my experience with our Arab bus driver uh during our study tours.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: He and I became friends uh sitting under the trees at a biblical site while the group was uh, you know, touring the site, and he and I would drink coffee.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: And and he said one day, you know, we've become friends.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: This is the friendship drink, coffee.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really really stuck with me.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's really true.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's uh it's amazing and uh it's a good thing.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, we should name the segment uh well we we should stay on the coffee thing.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get it all done in one day and we'll place it on the podcast, and then people can go to it as in a library.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because you have an extensive uh history now in this one.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know when you were away doing your missionary trip this year down we go down to South America somewhere, right?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: We go to the island of Utilla off the north coast of Honduras, where we have a coffee store.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now you were going to build a church, but you felt impressed by the Lord saying, People may not enter the doorway of a church, but they will come into a coffee shop.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we we lived in La Ceba, which is the city uh right uh 18 miles uh from Utilla on the mainland, and there's very high uh 8,000 foot mountains behind La Seiba.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: La Saba was the closest city to our school project, which was out on the Rio Coco, uh, which is the border between Honduras and Nicaragua.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: It was a two and a half hour flight in our um little airplane.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: But Saba was the nearest city that we could actually change money and make a phone call and uh buy groceries at the time.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: Honduras, that part of Honduras is very much cut off.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, as this show grows and we get 10 million followers in the future, it might be nice for you to have a segment where you tell your story because you were a fighter pilot.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's very interesting how you were converted to Jesus, had some miraculous encounters, and then you end up marrying a Hawaii a girl, a beautiful girl from Hawaii and having four children, I think it is right.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then becoming a missionary, you spent your whole life as a missionary.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, here you are, this intellectual guy.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to be really smart if you're a fighter pilot.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: You also went to school in Europe studying history.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, so you you know, uh because the Bible says not many wise, not many uh maybe not the word intellectual, but not many noble come to know the Lord because people rely on their intellect, and the Bible does say the mind of man is enmity with the spirit of Christ.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So when a smart guy like you gets converted, it's uh it's it's it is unusual.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: You realize that.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's chosen the poor of this world to be rich and true.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: I know a lot of guys are a lot smarter than me that are followers Jesus read.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you can get out and circulate a little bit, okay?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm not uh anything special.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but it's rare that he I don't know, it's amazing, it amazes me how he breaks through to some people, you know.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And why he doesn't to others?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, uh I once had a kid that worked for me and he said he kept praying, but nothing happened to him.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I go, I I did I was into Eastern religions until I was 29 and I did not believe in Jesus at all.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was foolishness.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden uh I didn't like the characters on TV that yelled over the TV line.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like people yelling at me.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh then all of a sudden I bumped into three o'clock in the morning, Pat Robertson.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is Pat Robertson with the 700 Club, and I believe there's a guy out there that needs to be saved.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, but anyway, he uh so I started watching that and Ben Kinshlow, and these were gentlemen that spoke nicely and conversationally like we are, and that made the difference of the Christian magazine.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Never saw anything like it.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they started talking about the Holy Spirit, and I did a jingle for the American Lung Association, and the CEO sitting there at a table one day, we're at a restaurant, and he goes, Hey son, uh, in front of everybody.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know about Jesus?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, oh my God, I wanted to crawl into the table.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was embarrassed.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was embarrassed by the name of Jesus because, oh no, it's another Jesus freak.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, anyway.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I ended up it all led to this one morning where I got up and I said, Okay, I mean, all these people can't be wrong.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was even in Hollywood at the ABC commissary and some former homosexual actors telling me how he was converted to Jesus and blah, blah, blah.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Oh, really?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And some guy over in the other, he might have been cameraman or something.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's over in the other room.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Amen, brother.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, oh God, everywhere to go, these people are everywhere, you know.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, little bit by little bit, it broke me down.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I got up one day and just said, Hey, uh, I'm gonna take a chance and believe in you that you died on the cross and rose from the dead.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, here so, and and nothing happened.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then I said, uh, okay.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he must have been after me, because then I said, Hey, uh, okay, uh uh, all right, I'm a fool to live without you.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you gave me breath, you gave me life.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, I believe you you died on the cross for my sins, rose from the dead, and here's the secret.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I now surrender the rest of my life to you.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the heavens opened up.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell you what, the Spirit of God came into me, and and I was like, the first thing I said was, Oh, this is why people do drugs.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I said, drugs are the counterfeit.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is the real McCoy.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I sat down in a rocking chair and I went, This is what the black folks are talking about.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I always thought joy and happiness were synonyms.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, This is joy.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is joy.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I said, You're real, you're real.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember everyone went for a walk in the park a little after that that morning, and uh, even the birds wouldn't fly away from me.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: They could sense this supernatural.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Even the birds wouldn't fly away from me.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, but what I mean is they sense the peace.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'd never experienced such a supernatural peace in all my life.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the beginning.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, you didn't have anything to do with the pieces of bread in your hand, right?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, I didn't have any bread in my hand.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was the peace of the Lord.
• 15:34
  unknown: Yeah.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so that that changed my life.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: But uh anyway, I don't know how we got off on this, but uh, we're talking about coffee.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: And of course we're stream of consciousness this morning.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the thing is, um, you know, a cup of friendship.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's so apropos.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's get back to where we were in La Saba.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: And right offshore from La Saba is this island called Utilla.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so for us, flying our airplane out to Utilla on Sunday afternoon and uh jumping in the water because the water is uh it's part of the second largest barrier reef in the world.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh what color is it?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's a like aqua blue.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: Deep blue.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's just and it's uh there's cliffs, you know, underwater cliffs.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, and people come from all over the world to utilla for scuba diving and freediving.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so in the mid-80s, uh 90s, when we were uh flying out there, uh it seemed very logical that we would start a church that would really reach out to these travelers because a lot of Europeans, a lot of Australians, Argentinians, uh Canadians, English, Scottish, uh Irish, Israelis, a lot of Israelis come to this island.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: So uh we thought about that.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: We actually got one of our pastors from our church, Hope Chapel in Maui, to come out and uh work with us, and we agreed it was a good thing to do, but that was in uh ninety-six, and the next year we took three of our Mosquito Indian guys to Israel for a study tour because nobody from that culture had ever been to the Bible lands.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: And we became friends with our teacher, uh Dr.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: Randy Smith, and Randy invited us to come back and work with him.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we moved back to Israel in uh 99 and spent four or f four months that time.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: We came back the next uh year.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think we were there for almost two and a half, three months, and uh came back anyway.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: It started working with we totally forgot about Utilla.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: And we uh at that time the war ended in Nicaragua.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the refugees all went back home.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: The new Minister of Education coerced us to cross the river and become the public school uh in those communities on the Nicaraguan side of the river.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it was shortly after that that we met some friends that were missionaries, young life missionaries, and they invited us up to their camp, which was in the mountains above Matagalpa.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: 5,000 feet cool in the summertime, and I noticed they were growing coffee, and that's uh they were using the coffee that they were selling uh to fund kids coming to the camp.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that sort of sparked an idea if we could sell some of this coffee into the uh US, uh we could make some money to pay our teachers.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: So in 2004, we started Rio Cocoa Beans and started importing coffee from Nicaragua.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: And we had a friend uh in uh Raleigh, Larry Larson of Larry's uh Beans, Larry's Coffee and Larry helped us uh for a couple of years roasting our coffee and and storing and helping us import, and then we bought our own roaster in 2008.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: Started roasting here in Vero Beach.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: But all this was a step-by-step progression.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: We never didn't have any ideas of what we were doing or what we were going to do.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: And we returned to Utilla in 2008 to visit our friends, which we hadn't been there in ten years, and it was very clear the Lord said, it's not a church you're gonna start, it's a coffee store.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: More people will come to a a cafe than a church.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: So we s came uh And you don't jump on people either.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: You build the relationship through coffee.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're given a chance, then you can tell them about your faith.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, it uh that it's the friendship drink, Red.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh you can serve people a good cup of coffee, a good plate of food, and you know, be their friend.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, eating uh having a meal with somebody in biblical culture is you're friends.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're making a statement, we're friends.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh in uh when God uh brought the uh Israelites to Mount Sinai and he gave them the law, and then in chapter 24 we see uh Aaron and Moses are sprinkling the seventy elders with uh a blood of a sacrifice, and then God invites them up on the mountain where they have a covenant meal with him.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: Now, often this g gets overlooked, but this was so significant because God was inviting them to have a meal.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: And they go up on the mountain and they try to describe what they saw, but it's in uh in it's very difficult to even imagine what the experience was, but they ate and drank with God.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: He was saying, I now have a relationship of friendship with you.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: I never heard this one.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is uh Exodus uh 24.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: This is so significant because this predates Moses?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: This is Moses when the law was being given on Mount Sinai.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: He brings them out from Egypt, crosses the Red Sea after the ten plagues, and the last one being the angel of death passing over the land, right?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so the fifty days later, they come to Mount Sinai, and there's uh, you know, they're following a cloud of uh a cloud with flame.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: And there's It's a claud of what?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's a flame of flame, pillar of flame.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: They're following that, and they come to the mountain, and then God starts speaking and gives them the Ten Commandments, and Moses goes up on the mountain.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: And but anyway, but hidden in this, tucked away in chapter 24, is this whole scene of God inviting the elders up for a covenant meal.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: But they couldn't see him because he said to Moses, You can't look at me only.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this is what I'm trying to imagine.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: What did they see?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what did they see?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: But they saw something and they had a meal with him.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so you think it was Jesus, because before Abraham was I am, he said.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think uh we can have lots of examples of a pre incarnate Jesus showing up in the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: But the point I think God was trying to make is our relationship is different now.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: You're my people, I am your God.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's a relationship of Love and friendship.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: However, it was shortly after that that the people were afraid of the noise and the thunder and the presence of God, and they said to Moses, Look, why don't you go talk to him?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: We're afraid.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: And just talk to him and tell us what we should do.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I think at this point was when religion was started.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: They forsook a personal relationship with God.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, Moses, just tell us what to do and we'll do it.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Which of course they didn't.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: But I think God was trying to make a point, and it was missed at the time.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: But Jesus was accused by the Pharisees and the religious authorities of hanging out with drunks, prostitutes, with the sinners.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: And even having meals with them, the Bible says, okay?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Even having meals with them.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: So in biblical culture, Jesus is having meals with these sinners.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: And in the course of those meals, obviously things were said, and much aloha, as we would say, coming from Hawaii, much love was given, and many questions were asked, and the result was the scene that you uh have when Jesus and his disciples are at the home of the Pharisee Simon, and this woman comes in and she's crying and she she takes this oil and break puts it on Jesus' feet, and she's washing his feet with her hair.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that perfume would be worth tens of thousands of dollars in Israel.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: And Simon says, you know, he's saying, you know, what are you doing here?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is an unclean woman.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: And Simon, and Jesus says, Well, Simon, uh, okay, if I uh if I loaned uh a guy ten thousand dollars and I owned uh uh loaned another guy uh$1,000, and then when the debts were due and I forgave them both, which one would love me more?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: So he who is forgiven much loves much.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: And Simon said, probably the one that owed you more money.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus said, Well, Simon, I came into your house, nobody washed my feet.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh oh but this nobody gave me a kiss, uh but this woman has can't stop from kissing and washing my feet.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he then turns to the woman, I uh he says, I say to you, your sins are many, but now they're forgiven.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, Simon the Pharisee is going, Who but God can forgive sins, right?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's an incredible moment, but it's all centered around a meal.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's uh it is breaking bread is very sacred.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: I watched a video last night on YouTube and it said this depicted Jesus sitting with this young lady, and she goes, Oh, well, you know, I mean, how come you like me?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm such a failure at life and I've done this and I've sinned, made these mistakes.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that doesn't matter.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: I said, uh, I love you.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: I said, and I love you just as much when you're sinning as when you're not sinning.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Wow, I mean, do you think that's true that once he's made a decision, uh, once you are converted and you're born again, and you'll know that when that happens.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know it, then it hasn't happened.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: When it does happen, you'll know it.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so, do you think that's true that after that we are it's kind of like a son.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: You have four children.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: If your son committed murder, would you go see him in prison?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Would you still love him?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Would you love him any less?
• 25:27
  unknown: No.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: I would just be praying for him even harder because uh he stepped so far out of outside of God's boundaries.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you being flesh and blood can love your son that much, how much more can God love us?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think God will allow himself to be outdone by flesh and blood?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, of course not.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: So do you so I it's amazing.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: The depth of this forgiveness thing is is simply amazing.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: The thing that's scary is as you grow older in the Lord, you see people who the switch has not been made.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: The light is not on.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And will they and and and some are just given over to licentiousness, they're given over to evil, they have no idea that they're being controlled by a darker force.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, but re realize that those uh people who are most unlikely, once they see the light, once the scales fall off, they often become the most um energetic and vociferous witnesses to Christ.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I have a uh a sticker on the back of my phone.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's for our coal brew.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually a photograph of the camera here.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually a photograph of uh me uh from my Navy days that I gave to my graphic artist Kaylin, Kaylee, and I said, Can you take this picture and take the bottle of tequila out of my hand?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a picture of me.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: I was in Fallon, Nevada.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: We were uh practicing uh bombing, and uh it was a hot day, and we had gone to the officers club after uh two flights, and um we got a little rowdy in the officers club, and I realized the saloon doors going into the club, those louvered saloon doors were defective because when my palms hit them as I came in, they sort of crumbled.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: And the manager said, You guys have to leave.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: We said, We're thirsty.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: We're not leaving.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: You yeah, you gotta leave.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: And we said, Well, you know, we were in Mexico last week.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: We got plenty of bottles of tequila back at the barracks, so POQ.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a picture of me sitting and my flight suit's kind of pulled down and tied around my waist.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm just wearing my t-shirt, and somebody took my name patch off, and they just put it here, and I'm holding the bottle of tequila, and I'm in deep meditation.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not passed out, I'm just thinking, okay.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: And someone took the picture.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: So my friend Kaylee said, So what was going on there?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I told her the story, and I said, You know, when it's hot, you get thirsty.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so she writes in the design on my shirt, when it's hot, you get thirsty.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: She did a great job.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: But Rhett, the reason that I have this on my phone, the reason that I have this is so I can remember from where I came.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, because at this point in my life, I was not thinking much about God.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: You were not converted.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: I was not thinking much about God.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: There were people, uh, a couple guys in my squadron that were Christians, and I was watching them.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um there were guys in my air wing that I would uh be sitting at the bar at the officers club on Friday or Saturday and would get in conversations with these guys, and I knew there was something really different about them.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know quite what it was.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: But uh once I got out of the Navy, I moved to Vale, Colorado and became uh a professional skier, meaning I skied in the daytime and worked at a hotel at night and uh did that for you were a ski instructor?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: No, a ski instructor doesn't really get to ski because they're standing around teaching skiing.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: We just wanted to ski.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: My friend Joe Tanner and I, um, Joe was one of my friends that I went to flight school with, and he uh uh flew A7s, and then he was uh instructing in Pensacola.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, Joe was being recruited by the Blue Angels at the time, but we both were coming to a place in our naval career where if we took our next set of orders, uh, we were gonna be in for over 10 years, and at that point you may as well stay in for 20.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: So Joe called me up and he was in Pensacola, and I'm in Whidby Island, Washington.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Hey, uh, what are you gonna do?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna stay in or get out?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, I don't know, Joe.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm kind of enjoying this flying and I think I could do this.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: And he said the magic words to me, let's go ski this winter.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: I said, What do you mean?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Come on, let's get out of the Navy and go ski, and then we can ski for a year, and then we get job with the uh jobs with the airlines.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden I saw the vision.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so both of us uh the next day put in our letters of resignation from active duty.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we both got out of the Navy in the fall.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: It was in October for me, uh, into September for Joe, and uh he came up to Whidby Island.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: We drove my van to Vale, which I had some friends from college that lived there.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: We bought our ski passes, found a place to live, drove on to Florida so Joe could get back to Pensacola and get his.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: probably about the next six weeks.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: And we started, because I think of our work ethic, we started to think we should be getting, we need a job, you know.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so Joe Joe said, Joe actually said, um, we're standing in line at the gondola.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I think I want to get a job working in uh on the gondola.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: Joe's an engineer.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Joe, I want you to notice something.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: You see those guys working the gondola?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Yeah.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: Do you see where they're standing?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: Do you see where we're standing?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: We're in line to get on the gondola to go skiing.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: They're working the gondola.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: They're not gonna go ski today.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: We are.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: You don't want to work on the gondola.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: We end up getting job as jobs as banquet waiters at the Mark Hotel, so we're working at night.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, at night.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it worked out for both of us.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh when I went to Hawaii uh two and a half years later, um, and I meant to just be there for a month.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I got a job at a hotel, and I told Joe to take care of my dog, my Volkswagen van, and my Bose speakers and my wine collection, which he agreed to do.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: But a few months later he got a call from one of his buddies uh that he was flying with in the A7 Squadron, and the guy worked for NASA down in Houston.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Joe, we need need a pilot for our operations uh division.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: You want to come and apply?
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: And Joe did, and he got the job and he moved all of my stuff along with his wife Martha and all of his stuff to Houston.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: And Joe eventually was flying all the airplanes that NASA has.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: And in his last job, he was training the astronauts how to land the shuttle.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: It was in a G4 they had with they'd climb up to 30,000 feet and turn the thrust reversers on, and that's how the shuttle uh the aerodynamics of the shuttle.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: And they eventually asked him, um, well, Joe, why don't you just apply and become an astronaut?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're doing ever the job we're all doing.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: So Joe did, and and he went on four missions.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: He did?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, an astronaut?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he replaced the lenses on the Hubble telescope, and he uh he he set up and built two of the solar arrays on the uh International Space Station.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: And uh coincidentally, uh next month, May 16th, Joe is going to be uh inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Will it be here in Florida or be in at the Cape, yeah.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's a big it's a big event.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be here for it?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he called me up.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: I was in Utility and he uh he insisted that I come.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: And he told me I was gonna have to wear a suit, so I had to go, I've had to go buy a suit.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm gonna be walking around uh that uh in those that three-day event with a little tag on my uh jacket that says, Ask me about the gap in Joe's resume.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because he's got a three-year gap that no astronaut uh has because they're because they're all PhDs or test pilots or something, you know.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: And and Joe spent uh three years uh testing, sliding coefficients on various forms of water, usually frozen water.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: So uh all that to say, uh he became a Christian when he moved to uh Houston through some extraordinary.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: No, at the same time, it was amazing.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: At the same time, we both became followers of Jesus apart from each other.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: And Joe has been a very uh powerful witness.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what brought you to the Lord?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Here you are, this intellectual fighter pilot.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you've got to be a smart guy.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says the mind of man is enmity with the Spirit of Christ.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: What converted you?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, when I moved to Maui, this was in uh 19 uh eighty one.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: It was uh the fall, it was off season for us in Vale.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: The friend that I worked with at the Mark Hotel, uh our beverage controller, uh Bob Costello, had bought a lease on an ice cream parlor in Lahaina, and he asked me to come and help him open the store.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: An ice cream parlor.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so September I went to Maui.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now, um that previous year I'd met a girl that was on our ski team at the Mark Hotel named uh Bonnie, and she was from Honolulu, and Bonnie and I became very close friends.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: She was a great skier, she was a beautiful girl.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: Bonnie was a little bit weird though, because she could read your poem and she chanted a lot.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: And when I asked her what that was all about, she told me, Well, I I'm a warlock.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, What's a warlock?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, Well, I'm a good witch.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: She was into sorcery.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: But Bonnie was beautiful and she could ski the bumps like nobody else.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you didn't know about the uh spirits of light and darkness at this point.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I sort of knew about them, but the uh the overwhelming aspect of her physical appearance and her skiing ability was at the top of my list.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: We became very close friends, okay?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: So Bonnie moved that summer to go back to uh Honolulu to finish her last year at the University of Hawaii.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: So when my friend Bob said, Come and help me open this ice cream business in Lahaina, ah, okay.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: My girlfriend is in Honolulu, okay.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: My Bonnie lies over the mountain.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: Plus, at that time I had cousins, uh Keen and Shelley Souser, that lived on Maui.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they'd lived there for 12 years.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: Keene was a marijuana farmer.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's how he made his living.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: Back there.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Illegally.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, illegally.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so whenever I was in Pearl Harbor uh in transit with my either the Kitty Hawk or the Enterprise, my ships going out to the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean, I would always jump on a plane and fly over to Hanna and spend a couple of days with my cousins.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: They were they were my family.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm pretty excited.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_02: Go to Maui.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: My cousins are there, they've got their marijuana farm.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: My girlfriend's there.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: We got good ice cream, okay?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: Three good reasons to go.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Marijuana ice cream and the girl.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: So when I got to Lahaina, uh I called uh uh Keene up, and they had moved from Hana, which is out on the jungle side of the east side of the island where their property is, and they were living in Quihay on the South Shore.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, So what's up?
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh how are you guys how come you guys have moved?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, Well, there's been some good changes in our life.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Great.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, when are we going to go to the plantation?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: And my cousin, she laughed and she said, Well, we're Christians now.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Christians?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: Does that mean we're not going to be smoking anymore?
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: She laughed and said, Come and have dinner with us.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: So that Saturday night, uh, next Saturday, I went and uh went, drove to Key Hay.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the football game was on, the next door neighbor came over, a guy named Craig.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: We watched the game, we had a few beers, we had dinner.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they said, Well, come to church with us tomorrow, because they had become part of a church there that had started just the year before, Hope Chapel.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, You know, I don't go to church.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: They said, Okay, well, come back uh next Saturday, it's your day off, right?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Yeah, come back and have dinner with us again.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I came back the next Saturday.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: They invited me to church.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: I thought, well, I'm gonna have to go one time to just be polite.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_02: So Sunday morning I drive back to uh Keyhead and they're meeting in a s old school cafeteria.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a church building.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone's dressed very casually, shorts, t-shirts.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I walk in, there's a couple people playing guitars.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: They seem to really be enjoying it, which that seemed unusual.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: I've gone to I went to church when I was in high school.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't seem like people were enjoying it that much.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then to my surprise, the my and uh my cousin's next door neighbor, Craig, who had I'd spent some time with the week before, got up and gave the message.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: He was the pastor of the church.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: Come on.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I was I thought to myself, he seemed like such a normal guy.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Craig said something that day that I'd never heard before read.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Having a personal relationship with Jesus is the most important thing you can have in this life.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: I was astounded.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'd never really thought about that.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh to me, it was always about the rules, you know?
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, being as opposed to relationships.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: Being good, you know?
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I was at that point in my life, I wasn't about the rules.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: I was about doing what I wanted to do and what I thought was best, even if it meant breaking the rules.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought about that.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it was about maybe two weeks later that Bonnie came over from Honolulu to visit.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: We worked all day at the ice cream parlor, What's the Scoop in Lahaina in the Pioneer End.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: What's the Scoop?
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Pioneer Inn was burned down in the fire that we had a couple years ago, so it's no longer there.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: But uh so uh we worked all day.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: We walked uh back to my apartment at the Maui Islander, which is also gone.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's was destroyed in the fire.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Bonnie, I need to ask you something.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, where do you get your spiritual power?
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, how do you know how how to read people's palms?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is the warlock.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: You were dating.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: And uh she said, Well, a spirit gives it to me.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, is it like a good spirit or is it a uh an evil spirit?
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, Well, I don't know, but he gives me power.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I thought about that.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: And we're sitting there on my bed.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: We had a busy day at the uh what's the scoop, and uh we're kind of just winding down, and I said, Well, Bonnie, if it's a evil spirit, you really should let it go.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, No, he gives me power.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: I thought about that for a few moments.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Well, Bonnie, if it's really if it is an evil spirit, it's not good.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: You need to let it go.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, No.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I got pretty forceful.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Bonnie, you need to let it go.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now, red, as we're sitting there and we're closer than you and I, because we're sitting on my bed, we had no nothing to drink, nothing to smoke, so we're totally straight.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: And when I said it to her the third time, she looked at me with sort of this glazed look, and then she her gaze shifted kind of over my head, and as she's kind of staring over my head without moving her mouth or her jaw, a voice came out of her that said in a very gravelly tone, I will never leave this body.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I looked at her, I said, What?
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: And this voice came out of her again and said, I've become very accustomed to this body.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now, her lips weren't moving, her jaw wasn't moving, and she was still like gazing above your head.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, unconsciously gazing above my head.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so I said, I thought, okay, I've never seen anything like this except wait, wait, wait.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's a movie.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: The Exorcist, the Exorcist.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'd seen it a few years before.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, the priest, the priest.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, the priest, the priest that used the name of Jesus.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: I said, You spirit in the name of Jesus, leave her.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: And she jumped.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I went, You spirit in the name of Jesus, get out of her.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: And she still just like like a statue staring over my head.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: And this voice came out of her again.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: No! I said a third time, in the name of Jesus, you spirit, be gone.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: And suddenly she tilted her head down and she looked at me eye to eye with consciousness.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, I thought, wow, she was just kind of playing with me here.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Bonnie, why'd you say those things?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: She said, What did I say?
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Well, you said this and then you said this, and and then you yelled at me.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: She said, I don't remember saying those things.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: I said, But you did.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: Has this ever happened to you before?
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: She said, I think so.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Does that bother you?
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: She said, No.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Brett, right, I gotta tell you, it bothered me.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so that night I'm laying in bed and I'm kind of scooted over.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're both in the same bed.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you're scooting away from her.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm over on the edge, okay?
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: What am I like sleeping with this warlock?
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: What's this all about?
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I realized laying there that night that I had seen into the spiritual world.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: And uh as a pilot, I'm trained to trust what I can smell, taste, feel, hear, and uh feel and uh see.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_02: But this was something now that was different.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: This was extra-dimensional.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I I realized there's a spiritual world and I'm a part of, and I just witnessed a manifestation of this spiritual world.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: This voice came out of my girlfriend, and she was just not moving and just totally and almost comatose.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: And um I saw there was good and I saw there was evil, and I realized laying there, wow, am I I'm straddling the fence.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: I got my feet in the good.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Side and the bad side here.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: Had you already met your pre had your friend become a preacher at this point or not yet?
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'd been and I've had a few conversations with my cousins.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I gone to church when I was in high school and a kid.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: My parents took us to church.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: It was the right thing to do.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: But it never clicked, Red.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: It never clicked.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: But laying there that night, I realized my place had to be on the good side.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's where I had to be there.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: And but the second thing I realized was there's something very special about the name of Jesus because that spirit jumped when I used the name.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I laying there, I determined that I was going to find out who this character Jesus was.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, in our culture, we hear about Jesus all the time.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: We see pictures of him on the cross, but it never really, I never connected the dots with anything.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, at the time I had a f some friends that I worked with, a Jewish guy, and I said, Well, later, I said, Who do you guys say Jesus is?
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he was a confused rabbi.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: A Muslim friend.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_02: We consider him to be a great prophet.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: And on Maori, there's a lot of New Age religion.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: And one of my friends told me, Well, Jesus was the first guy who recognized his Christ consciousness, which we all have.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: So if we eat the right foods, if we do good things, and in his little cults, it was Create Good Karma.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: He said, and they were wearing purple and uh blue clothing all the time.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: He said, we too can become God.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: But he didn't seem very godly to me in his behavior.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: But I really wanted to find out who this guy Jesus was.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: And right next door to me was the Lahaina Library.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's also got burned down in the fire.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I went to the library, and I, as a history major studying European history, I was told that the Bible was pretty much stories told around a campfire.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: It was just literature and good stories with very little historical backing.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I knew that I was going to get a lot of my information from the Bible, so I had to determine can I trust the source?
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I started investigating a lot of historians that I read at university.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: And to my surprise, writ, I found there was a consensus that actually the Bible is a very good historical document.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: It has good manuscript evidence, good archaeological evidence, and it's got contradictions.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: There's no contradictions within the document.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: So now I knew I could trust it.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what did Jesus say about himself?
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because there are people that say Jesus never claimed that he was God.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: But there's a number of instances where Jesus is talking with the origin religious authorities, and when he said when they said, Yeah, we're children of Abraham, and Jesus says, Yeah, I knew Abraham.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_02: How do you, a man uh less than 30 years old, know Abraham?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, Before Abraham was born, I am.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Before Abraham, I am.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: I am.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: And he used the name that when Moses said, I am what I am.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: When Moses asked uh that burning bush, who shall I say is sending me to free those Hebrew slaves?
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: The burning bush says, You tell them, I am who I am, is sending you.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: This is Yahweh.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: This is what the word Yahweh means.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: I am always, evermore, will always be.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: Beginning and the end.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_02: Alpha and Omega.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: So they picked up stones to throw him.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um He looked at the paralytic that the four guys brought in on the stretcher and he said, Your sins are forgiven.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: And the Pharisees are thinking, Who but God can forgive sins?
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus said, Why are you thinking that?
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: Which is easier to say, get up and walk, or your sins are forgiven.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: I want to show you that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins, and he turns to the paralytic guy and says, Get up and walk.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he does.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: And the guy gets up and walks.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there's So these religious guys, I suppose the spiritual guys are like dumbfounded.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so there's a number of instances.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's not doing stuff according to his laws and he's healing on the Sabbath.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on here?
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then in the conversation recorded in the book of John, uh, he's uh tell us plainly, are you the Messiah?
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_02: Are you the one?
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: And he says, I told you, but you don't believe me.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh because you're not listening.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: The Father and I are one.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: And they picked up stones to throw him, to kill him.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: He said, So why are you going to kill me?
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because of the good deeds that I've done, the miracles?
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: No, because you, a mere man, are claiming to be God.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_02: So there is no doubt that Jesus' audience, contemporary audience, thought that he was claiming to be God in the flesh.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: So, Brett, what do you do with that?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_02: Imagine a couple years ago when you and I met at Mr.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: Manatee's that day that you were wanting to interview me for the book of the.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_02: I was uh I was sat down, I say, Oh, Brett, nice to meet you.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Michael Bagby.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: I am God.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: What would you think?
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be a very short interview and get out of here.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_02: So the the first thought you might have is this guy is crazy.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: And once you probably talk to me a little bit, you've probably realized maybe he just took one hit too many.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's getting over it.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the second uh logical uh uh conclusion would be he's a deceiver.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: He's just telling people he's God, but he really isn't.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus had to know, though, that people are going to be shocked when he said this.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean he's God.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: But he's already demonstrated it through multiple miracles and signs, you know.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: But the third conclusion that you come to is he is who he says he is.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: So when you come to Jesus and consider him and ask the question, who is Jesus?
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's really only three logical answers.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_02: Either he's a lunatic, a madman, he's a liar, liar, or he is Lord of this universe.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_02: And this is the truth and the life.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh years ago I read a number of Josh McDowell's books, uh, Evidence that demands a verdict.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I think somewhere in one of his uh books, he came with the Lord, liar, or lunatic conclusion.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_02: Which is one or the other.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: Which is step.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: And this is the question that every human has to answer.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: Who is Jesus?
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so I started asking the question.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that's when I started talking to the ceiling.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_02: Literally, I would be, okay, I want some answers.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you're the same with me.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the ceiling?
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: Wherever you are, I want some answers.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: And this is what I always encourage people that I meet that I have these kinds of conversations with.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: I go, I know this is all new stuff to you.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: What I'm telling you, you've probably never heard this, maybe you've never considered who Jesus is, but start asking the question.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_02: Just ask the question.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because God is going to give you the answers.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's obligated, you know, say, okay, if you're real, reveal yourself.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_02: Just ask the question.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it took me probably about six, seven weeks of asking the question, having more conversations with my cousin and it is written, you will find me if you seek me, when you seek me with all your heart.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: The thing I realize, Rhett, is there is it's a process.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: For most of us, it's a process becoming a follower of Jesus.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's um You know, I I view everybody on a spiritual line that starts from minus seven to plus seven.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: Minus seven's a Satan worshipper.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: Plus seven is Aura Bagby, my wife.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_02: She's a high level of spirituality.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: We're all on that line somewhere.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so my assignment is whoever I meet, they're somewhere on the line.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: They might be a minus two.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: They might have gone to church a couple times, but they really have not understood who Jesus is.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, my assignment is to move them one notch closer.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: Serve them a good coffee, show them some courtesy, show them some respect.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily close the deal, but just plant some seed.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh just nudge them.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's nudging.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because think of your own process.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: Think of my pro it's just a process where people nudge us, the Holy Spirit's nudging us, because God is always reaching out, He's pursuing us.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_02: This is the thing that's different from world religions where we're trying to find our way to God.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: The Bible says very clearly that God is looking for us.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: The miracle of the guy that's at the by the pool and uh he's crippled.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_02: And every time the water is stirred, he tries to get into the pool because they think that an angel is there and there's healing properties.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be one of the first ones to get in.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: And suddenly Jesus shows up and he says, Do you want to be healed?
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_02: Now imagine we're the guy.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: We're not looking for Jesus.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus is looking for us.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's a great lesson of that uh of that uh occurrence.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus came looking for the guy.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus is looking for me.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_02: He was looking for me, he was looking for you.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_02: And he was bringing all these people in our path and these events to get our attention.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: It does say that he said, I chose you, you did not choose me.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then you accept it.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_02: So in my process, I had lots of conversations, I was asking the question, and I felt God was starting to answer.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: And um it was one day after work, I was at Waikouli uh Park, which is just north of Lahaina, and I would go there after work uh to just jump in the water and swim and sit and watch the sunset.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I was just sitting there and I just like suddenly read it all became clear.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I just said, I made this statement, simple statement.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Okay, Jesus, I believe you are who you say you are, so now I'm going to follow you.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_02: Now as soon as I said those words, I realized that something had changed.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't hear the hallelujah chorus, the clouds didn't part, I didn't see the angels, but I knew something had changed.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well it was time for me to meet some of my friends for sunset, so I went back to my apartment at the Maui Islander.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: I pulled out the bong.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_02: And guess what?
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't get high.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: Something, that weed, which was good the day before, suddenly there was no THC or something.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_02: I smoked a couple bongs, I didn't get high.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: Something had changed.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_02: And it was about a month later that a couple uh one of my Navy buddies uh called me up, and uh as we were talking on the phone, he kept using this word that when I was in the Navy we used all the time.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's a good uh, it's a verb, it's an adverb, it's an adjective, it's an expletive, it's the F-word.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's a word that's appropriate for every occasion.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it felt uncomfortable.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: I realized I had not used the F-word in a month.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: You've been reading my book?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing that happened there with the F-word.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, two weeks into it, I'm going, wow, I'm not swearing anymore.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I will admit that I have gone back to swearing sometimes.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_02: The thing is, when my kids started turning teenagers, those those words came back.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: So his holiness was So I realized that something had changed.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: And um it was about three months after that that I went back to Maui, or excuse me, back to Vale because it was uh March.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, I went in September to Lahaina, so it's March, and I cannot imagine missing ski season.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I went for the last six weeks of ski season.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_02: I got my job back at the hotel, I got my ski pass, but the mountain did not own me any more rent.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: I just realized the thrill had gone.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: The thrill is gone.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: The thrill is gone.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was living with Joe and Martha at the time, and uh and Joe and I were uh doing some side jobs uh on a construction site.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_02: Here we are, two Navy pilots, and we're cleaning up a construction site, you know, uh, and we're talking about what w what are we going to do with our lives?
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I decided I wanted to go back and visit my cousins in June of uh, this was 82, and uh Joe had a ticket that he gave me, and I flew back to Maui and meant to spend a couple weeks, but someone offered me a job at a hotel, and that's when I uh called Joe and I said, Take care of my dog, my van, my wine collection, and my Bose 901 speakers.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I stayed on Maui.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_02: And a few months later, Joe moved to Houston.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_02: He got the job there, and our lives changed.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's an incredible for me.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_02: I look back on it, and the moment where Joe suggested that we go skiing was a moment that put me on a track to get me to where I am now.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_02: So uh and now I'm a coffee merchant, coffee roaster, uh missionary.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh running a school project uh that we've done for 37 years.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: Coffee shops paid for your missionary trips with your family.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's just amazing the adventure that God has had for us.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to encourage uh any of you, God has a very specific adventure for your life.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Ephesians chapter 2 says, We are his workmanship, created new in Christ Jesus, so we could do the things he planned for us long ago.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_02: I want to encourage you, be faithful in the small things.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because Proverbs 16, 3 says, Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps somebody's listening and you might lead them in a little 30 50-second prayer, short prayer, on how to come to know Jesus, if they might repeat the words that you say, and it might give them entree into the uh kingdom of God.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, how about we do this?
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_02: How about we say, ask the question?
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_02: For those of you that are listening that are not part of the kingdom of God, and you've you've maybe you've been to church, uh, maybe uh you've heard about Jesus, uh ask the question.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_02: Ask the question.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you?
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: And reveal yourself to me.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_02: And Lord, if you would, just uh answer the question, please.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: Just uh reach their heart, let them come to know you.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this the name of our show is Cup of Friendship.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um, if you'd like to try some of our specialty coffees, go to Cup of Friendship and uh check us out.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we appreciate your support.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but uh we're certainly not here for a filthy looker.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're here because we care about people and want to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ before we leave this earth and maybe leave some of these stories behind, uh like Jay Vernon McGee.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I just ran to somebody yesterday, by the way, who said he got a preacher.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's an Anglican priest, he got saved listening to Jay Vernon McGee.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: Can you believe it?
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_00: The guy's long dead, like 40 years gone.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is Jay Vernon McGee.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_00: Great teacher.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he's a character.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you by you and I both walked into an auditorium separate by 10,000 miles.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: You walk in and he's sitting there.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: I walk into it up in Ward of Life Camp and he's sitting there, and we both you and I have similar experiences.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: A brother from another mother.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, folks, uh, it's uh a cup of friendship, and we will see you next time.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_02: That was good.