Speaker 1: I can say your name, right, I think you can,
Speaker 1: Travis Hunt.
Speaker 2: It's out there. There was freedom in that well, there's
Speaker 2: some freedom and there's some you know, some sadness.
Speaker 1: Interesting, I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 2: There is a sadness. I've had to die to what
Speaker 2: I wanted.
Speaker 1: Wow, you know that that's the one thing we should
Speaker 1: start were I'm at you, and then we'll see that
Speaker 1: something you've been doing for a very long time has
Speaker 1: drastically changed in the three years that I've known you.
Speaker 1: We're actually we have we have some friends in the
Speaker 1: room today, which is rare but cool, and guys. I
Speaker 1: wanted these guys to hear your story along with everyone
Speaker 1: on the podcast. But I'll take us back to a
Speaker 1: when's the fair July? Yes, July July August, three years ago,
Speaker 1: this coming July, and we're playing a concert. I am
Speaker 1: on fire for the Lord and on my way out
Speaker 1: of music, but no one knows that at the time,
Speaker 1: but my band is. They They just laugh at me.
Speaker 1: They see me doing these Bible studies and reading the
Speaker 1: Bible and and engaging with people, engaging with people talking
Speaker 1: about Bible things. And we end up at this fair
Speaker 1: Chemist Valley fairs. What is it called? Nope, No, Roseburg,
Speaker 1: the Douglas County Fair, Douglas County Fair in Roseburg, Oregon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and with Granger Smith as a headliner.
Speaker 1: Yes, we were headlining. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful place. And you
Speaker 1: know the hillsides and green green evergreens and and and
Speaker 1: hardwoods and rivers running through right right behind where the
Speaker 1: fair was. And my guitar player Todd comes on in
Speaker 1: that afternoon, Hey, Granger, something you might like out here
Speaker 1: in the fair? Like what he goes, There's a booth
Speaker 1: out here that says what does they say, Heaven or Hell? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it says Heaven or Hell. You know, to question booth.
Speaker 1: They call it two Question booth. You might want to
Speaker 1: go check it out. And I was like, yes, I do, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I jump up. That sounds that sounds amazing. I would
Speaker 1: love to go talk to these guys. So on my
Speaker 1: way there, I'm walking to this booths in the middle
Speaker 1: of the afternoon and this beautiful fair, and I had
Speaker 1: been doing so much work with atheist it like the
Speaker 1: previous day. I think I was talking all day with
Speaker 1: an atheist and and I thought, I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be an atheist today for this booth. We'll test them
Speaker 1: out a little bit now. Whether or not this is
Speaker 1: a good thing or not, it's I don't know, probably
Speaker 1: not a good thing. You guys, don't judge them. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't judge me for it. This was the wise decision
Speaker 1: that I had. I was working with the tools I
Speaker 1: had at the time. So I go to this booth
Speaker 1: and they're like, you know, hello, sir, how can we
Speaker 1: help you? And I was like, I just don't know.
Speaker 1: What are you guys? What are you selling? Like, well, actually,
Speaker 1: we're not selling anything. We're just here to answer a
Speaker 1: simple question. You know, are you going to heaven or Hell?
Speaker 1: And I was like, neither exist, so I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm going to either one. And they're like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: respect your opinion. Can we ask you a few questions?
Speaker 1: And I was like is it religious garbage? And they're like,
Speaker 1: let me show you some let me let me, let
Speaker 1: me ask you a few questions and we could we
Speaker 1: can get to your point and find out, you know,
Speaker 1: where you're standing. This went on, you know, I'm just
Speaker 1: throwing out everything. They were very gracious and very wise,
Speaker 1: and uh, they had a heart for me. They loved me.
Speaker 1: You know. It was a beautiful thing. And this went
Speaker 1: on for In my mind it's thirty minutes, but it
Speaker 1: was probably more like fifteen, you know. And then this
Speaker 1: girl walks up. I remember she was. She had short
Speaker 1: hair and it was spray painted pink and she was
Speaker 1: wearing all black. Other than that, I just wanted to talk.
Speaker 1: There's something about her and I just thought, oh, like
Speaker 1: the game's over now. Yeah, well, she needs to talk.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, I'm sorry, guys, let me
Speaker 1: let me, let me bring her in here. And they
Speaker 1: were like, we're not finished with you. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: was like, seriously, guys, like you need to talk to her.
Speaker 1: I think she really wants to talk. And Farren, who
Speaker 1: I now know is your son who's now a dear brother,
Speaker 1: love him to death. He was like, I'm not finished
Speaker 1: with you yet, you guys, can you handle her. We're
Speaker 1: going outside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna step outside of the booth, which means
Speaker 2: something else in your previous life stepping outside.
Speaker 1: This is a good thing to step outside. And I
Speaker 1: went around the side of the booth and I was like, brother,
Speaker 1: I'm a Christian. He goes, I don't believe you one bit,
Speaker 1: and I said, don't really. He goes, tell me the gospel,
Speaker 1: and so we started walking through the Book of Romans,
Speaker 1: you know, right, and he goes, oh, so you are okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you're believing. What in the world are you doing? And
Speaker 1: I was like, it might have been this might have
Speaker 1: been unwise. I just I came over here and I've
Speaker 1: been talking to this atheist in the last few days
Speaker 1: and you guys did great. Let me go introduce myself.
Speaker 1: One of the guys, he was brand new to the booth.
Speaker 1: I think it was his first year. He was a
Speaker 1: little upset and rightly so he was like, what were
Speaker 1: you trying to do? And I was like, oh, you're right.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I was out of line. And but
Speaker 1: then Farron and I connected and he goes, hey, let's
Speaker 1: let's take a walk. So we walked through the fair
Speaker 1: and we went and looked at the stage and the
Speaker 1: guys were kind of sound checking, and we our conversations
Speaker 1: were getting deeper and deeper, and I told Farren, probably
Speaker 1: the first person outside of my family, and I said, see,
Speaker 1: oh this is going away. I'm leaving this yeah, And
Speaker 1: he wasn't like what He goes, the Lord does that thing.
Speaker 1: You know, the Lord. The Lord does such things, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's seen a couple of them, or the Lord
Speaker 2: just radically changed people like that.
Speaker 1: And he said, you know, you should meet my dad
Speaker 1: one day. I think you'd really like my dad. And
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, you know, maybe I wasn't. I
Speaker 1: was not expecting you or anywhere in the vicinity. And
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I would like that, and he goes, okay.
Speaker 1: We exchanged numbers, and I said, let's let's get together
Speaker 1: to night. Let's have dinner and we'll have you guys backstage,
Speaker 1: and and he said, yeah, I have a friend that's
Speaker 1: coming tonight and he's he's not saved, and but he
Speaker 1: really loved you. And I said, well, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna preach the gospel from the States tonight. And he goes,
Speaker 1: that would be that would be really encouraging, that'd be fantastic.
Speaker 1: And so I get back on the bus and then
Speaker 1: he texted me. He says, hey, Dad's here, you want
Speaker 1: to come meet him.
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, so you had like just minutes
Speaker 2: away from him, and turned around and came back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was short. It was a short time. I
Speaker 1: go down and and there you are, and you brought
Speaker 1: someone with you about Chris, Yeah, that's right. And I
Speaker 1: met you and I just thought, I like this guy.
Speaker 1: You to me, you brought you brought a navy seal
Speaker 1: aspect to a believer when sometimes people think of Christians
Speaker 1: is mild. And we misuse the word meek all the time.
Speaker 1: We completely misuse it as we we use meek as weak.
Speaker 1: But here you are, and you're just locked on you know,
Speaker 1: your eyes around me. You're probably going let me see
Speaker 1: if this guy's a believer. First of all, you want
Speaker 1: to know what I was thinking. Yeah, yeah, okay, So
Speaker 1: my son had told me you were a believer. I
Speaker 1: have seen God do so many insane things. I was praying, Lord,
Speaker 1: what is this about? Who is this? What do you want?
Speaker 2: That was seriously, I'm like, okay, we got somebody who's
Speaker 2: famous in front of me, engaged.
Speaker 1: What are you doing? What do you want? That's seriously
Speaker 1: what was going through my mind.
Speaker 2: So as I was listening, we're engaging, I was trying
Speaker 2: to assess, Lord, you got your hand on this guy.
Speaker 2: I just need to know why I'm here. So that's
Speaker 2: what I was praying about. Why am I here? Why
Speaker 2: is this conversation happening. So that's what was going through
Speaker 2: my mind.
Speaker 1: Well, everything that's going in my mind is I'm talking
Speaker 1: to you and you're telling me. And at the time,
Speaker 1: kind of going back to the beginning of this conversation,
Speaker 1: the world, your name doesn't exist in the world at
Speaker 1: this point outside of your own church. Really, your your
Speaker 1: name doesn't exist on purpose because you you're international missionary.
Speaker 1: I don't even like to say that because that gives
Speaker 1: people this this wrong wrong the idea, this wrong view.
Speaker 1: So we'll get to that. But you're you're a guy
Speaker 1: that travels for very specific reasons and does pretty significant things,
Speaker 1: and you don't go for flippiant reasons. It's all. It's
Speaker 1: always very calculated, and everything in my spirit was just saying,
Speaker 1: go go with them. Yeah, I heard that.
Speaker 2: I was pretty surprised at your response.
Speaker 1: So I said, can I get your number? Uh? Somehow
Speaker 1: we exchange numbers, and I said something, you remember it
Speaker 1: better than I at all. I remember what I say.
Speaker 2: You said, consider me a coin in your pocket, spend.
Speaker 1: Me wherever you will.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and then you remember what I said. No,
Speaker 2: And I think someone was with me, but I can't
Speaker 2: remember who. It was, but I remember saying, don't say
Speaker 2: that to me. Those are my words. I remember, don't
Speaker 2: say that. You know, actually, do not say those things
Speaker 2: to me, because now you know what I mean. Because
Speaker 2: when somebody says that and they really mean it, I
Speaker 2: know there is a great work ahead and it's far
Speaker 2: beyond anything we've ever imagined. Yeah, and so yeah, you're like, no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm serious, I'm serious. Use me if the Lord has
Speaker 2: a place, use me anywhere you see fit. Consider me
Speaker 2: a coin in your pocket.
Speaker 1: I remember asking there in that night, I said, is
Speaker 1: your dad serious about that? I mean, is he one
Speaker 1: of these guys that like says things to talk? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And he goes, I've never known him to say anything
Speaker 1: that actually didn't happen. He's like, Okay, he's that kind
Speaker 1: of guy. Later, a few weeks go by, Farren and
Speaker 1: I connected again through the loss of a son. We
Speaker 1: both have in common loss of a son. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if he realized it at the time. I certainly
Speaker 1: didn't realize it with him. But we connected later and
Speaker 1: you know, talked for hours on the phone over several times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and got closer and closer throne than I did. But
Speaker 1: I didn't know what was coming with you. Neither did I.
Speaker 1: It was only a few months. Yeah, it's not very long. Hey, Granger,
Speaker 1: it's Travis.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, that's surreal for me. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: call Granger Smith. I mean, that's just so you know,
Speaker 2: that's just a little unusual.
Speaker 1: So I call you. Yeah, Hey, Granger, And what am
Speaker 1: I about to say? I have not spoken about in
Speaker 1: public at all. You and I spoke before we recorded.
Speaker 1: We think that this is probably open information now.
Speaker 2: I think that at this point because of what's happened
Speaker 2: through social media and actually what happened in our trip
Speaker 2: to the country. I don't know if you're going to
Speaker 2: name it, but the trip to the country we went in,
Speaker 2: I realized at this point I'm no longer hidden, and
Speaker 2: so what I have to do now needs be done publicly,
Speaker 2: and someone else has to do the work I was
Speaker 2: doing because you can't.
Speaker 1: You can't have a.
Speaker 2: Social media or an electronic footprint and do what we
Speaker 2: were doing.
Speaker 1: You can't.
Speaker 2: And it's getting harder and harder with AI anyway, So
Speaker 2: at this point, yeah, I think we're probably okay. I
Speaker 2: think we should keep some of the details quite.
Speaker 1: I'll go like minimal details.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we can talk about the idea of it
Speaker 2: and what happened.
Speaker 1: So what happened. A lot of people that have been
Speaker 1: following me for a long time might remember this time
Speaker 1: when I kind of went dark and said I'm going
Speaker 1: some places and you know you won't hear from me. Well,
Speaker 1: that goes back to this phone conversation, which at the
Speaker 1: time you were either t or another name that we
Speaker 1: used as a nickname, which we don't want to use here,
Speaker 1: which we won't. I won't use that name, but but
Speaker 1: travel was not a name. Really, I didn't call you
Speaker 1: Travis for at least a year into our relationship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not because it was necessarily bad and right place it
Speaker 1: was a good It was a habit. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to say by having you were gs. Yes, yes, And
Speaker 1: so he says T at the time says to me,
Speaker 1: we're talking on on on on closed you know, encrypted
Speaker 1: and messaging. We're not we never talk on regular phone lines.
Speaker 1: He goes, can you record an album? I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've done that. I've done it. Yeah, I've done it
Speaker 1: for years, And you go, can you record an album
Speaker 1: outside of the studio? Yeah? Sure, he was, can you
Speaker 1: do it anywhere in the world. Yeah, sure can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, I actually have the equipment in my backpack
Speaker 1: almost at all times because I have a radio show.
Speaker 1: I carry it right, you know, Okay, have an idea.
Speaker 1: In fact, you we might have continued to another time.
Speaker 1: You might have said, I'll get back to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But either way, what happened was you realize that there
Speaker 1: was a need in your ministry. From the multiple facets
Speaker 1: of your ministry that you were doing with your team,
Speaker 1: you realize there was a there was a gap in
Speaker 1: worship music for certain cultures around the world, with certain languages,
Speaker 1: but didn't have it. Yeah, the great, the.
Speaker 2: Great need is and it has been missed by Western
Speaker 2: missionaries for so long.
Speaker 1: Is that a lot?
Speaker 2: And you see this when you travel in the Third World.
Speaker 2: A lot of the churches are singing our songs translated
Speaker 2: into their language. It's our hymns, it's.
Speaker 1: Our worship songs, our choruses. There are are words the way.
Speaker 2: We say things, and they're not their heart language, they're
Speaker 2: not their style. There's just no connection. But they think
Speaker 2: that's Christianity, and so we must. We want to say
Speaker 2: these good things about God, so we must use these
Speaker 2: words and sing these songs. These are spiritual songs.
Speaker 1: And in fact we're European, we're Western. I mean, the.
Speaker 2: Messianic or Jewish worship songs are nothing like our songs
Speaker 2: because they have a completely different heart, language and the
Speaker 2: way they the music that they that they enjoy. And
Speaker 2: so the problem was that I personally, and I know
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people that feel this way, feel
Speaker 2: like the people should be able to sing songs to
Speaker 2: God the way they sing, imagine that that the worship
Speaker 2: would be something that they would be doing with their
Speaker 2: family and their friends, and that there's a lot of
Speaker 2: amazing songwriters out there who have just no connection to anybody,
Speaker 2: and how do we get their music to their people?
Speaker 2: So when they're singing and the songs are bursting out
Speaker 2: of their mouth and they're gatherings, it's their songs. Yeah,
Speaker 2: a new song, you know, Revelation says a new.
Speaker 1: Song Revelation five. And you you recognized that there were
Speaker 1: certain language groups that didn't have it, and certain churches
Speaker 1: that had none, none of their own music to sing
Speaker 1: and write zero. That is a major gap that the
Speaker 1: Lord put on your heart to fill. And somehow that
Speaker 1: coin was in your pocket from me. Yeah, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I got to I got someone who knows how to
Speaker 1: make music. Yeah. So the first plan was to go
Speaker 1: somewhere else. I think it was somewhere in Europe, and
Speaker 1: we were going to go do this in Europe, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, I've still got a tour schedule,
Speaker 1: i still still have a job at the time doing music.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, oh yeah, wow, okay, Lord,
Speaker 1: maybe you have prepared me all these years for this,
Speaker 1: like for you know, I thought making music was for me,
Speaker 1: for exalting myself and getting people like me. Maybe it
Speaker 1: never was about me at all. Maybe it was just
Speaker 1: my recording skills. Yeah, it's just the computer and learning
Speaker 1: how to set up a microphone. And then that changed.
Speaker 1: That actually fell through, and I thought, oh that's a bummer,
Speaker 1: you know, it fell through, and then it so we
Speaker 1: went a little deeper. It came up here, if Europe
Speaker 1: doesn't work, we'll go a little deeper. It was actually
Speaker 1: into the Middle Eastern area, into the sandbox. Yeah, let's go.
Speaker 1: Let's go into the sandbox and do this. You're ready
Speaker 1: And I'm like, yes, I'm ready, got tickets. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: maybe this, maybe this will fall through. Sure, you know,
Speaker 1: I've got a couple of microphones, cables, computer.
Speaker 2: And let's let's remember you and I have never done
Speaker 2: anything together, never, And so you're believing that this guy
Speaker 2: with this idea isn't just a nutcase, but he's going
Speaker 2: to follow through a little bit.
Speaker 1: So you're thinking same thing with me.
Speaker 2: I was like, I can't believe he's going to do this.
Speaker 2: It looks like he might do this. This is great
Speaker 2: and if not, we'll record him with our phones.
Speaker 1: But you know, yeah, so I get to uh said
Speaker 1: country land. You picked me up with with one of
Speaker 1: the guys that we worked with, and late night at
Speaker 1: the airport, we came into the you know, really a
Speaker 1: safe house. We could say that, you know, it was
Speaker 1: stayed in a missionary safe house. And I had been
Speaker 1: to the Middle East before, to Kuwait and Iraq. Right,
Speaker 1: but this but but once again, that was like the
Speaker 1: Lord was preparing me. I'd been in Iraq three times, right,
Speaker 1: Why did I do that? Oh? The Lord was getting
Speaker 1: me in a rhythm for something. All these little things
Speaker 1: started adding up. I was having dreams about the Middle East,
Speaker 1: I mean, like wildly vivid, the kind of dreams that
Speaker 1: we talked about this yesterday, the kind of dreams that
Speaker 1: your brain didn't generate, right, right. You know, there are
Speaker 1: dreams the Lord very rarely in your life. Does it
Speaker 1: happen some people more than others. But there are times
Speaker 1: when you wake up in a cold sweat with chills,
Speaker 1: your down, your your entire body, and you go, what
Speaker 1: just happened in my dream? Yeah, those kind of dreams
Speaker 1: about what we were about to do. So we get there,
Speaker 1: We get to the safe house and woke up the
Speaker 1: next morning early, and we walked to a coffee place, uh,
Speaker 1: and got a turkey croissant. Because there is, by the way,
Speaker 1: that is important.
Speaker 2: If you do travel with me, you must go to
Speaker 2: a coffee place.
Speaker 1: Coffee very important. Tray, yes, very important. Uh. So we go,
Speaker 1: we kind of get and it was a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: You know. We go to this coffee house and and
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, we we will pray. They're saying this
Speaker 1: low you know, we will pray, but we're gonna say
Speaker 1: the King, and we're gonna keep our eyes open. We're
Speaker 1: not gonna bow our heads and see your hats on.
Speaker 1: We leave your hats on. We're holding our croissant. Sandwiches,
Speaker 1: looking at each other, going, isn't the king good? Isn't
Speaker 1: the king good? Yes to the King, to the king,
Speaker 1: you know that was those That's that's a beautiful prayer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you think about what that means, that's a prayer
Speaker 1: that that was said many times in the Book of
Speaker 1: Acts and during that era in the early Church under persecution.
Speaker 1: Keep your eyes open, your head up, fill your heart
Speaker 1: with rejoicing for the Lord, and he sees, and he sees. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we we we start. We ended up recording five
Speaker 1: different languages, five songs, so twenty five songs.
Speaker 2: Right, but just posted actually, but I don't want to
Speaker 2: give the website.
Speaker 1: And we'll still do that. But meanwhile, you and the
Speaker 1: rest of the team are working on your own things. Right,
Speaker 1: So you said, okay, Granger, you're good. Okay, we're out,
Speaker 1: you know, well.
Speaker 2: Way a second, wait a second that you're yeah. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you're going to give the details. But
Speaker 2: he makes his own studio by flipping sofas on edge
Speaker 2: and shoving these pads on top of the making a
Speaker 2: little microphone areas. And I remember walking in thinking this,
Speaker 2: I took pictures of it. I'm like this is funky,
Speaker 2: but you got the sound you were looking for, and
Speaker 2: we had because of the concrete walls, right, it was
Speaker 2: just the echo was a problem and street noise and
Speaker 2: you're hot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was so hot. I don't think there's any
Speaker 1: air conditioning in that room. No, we had to turn
Speaker 1: off recording so loud.
Speaker 2: It was just sweating and and oh yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 2: remember that.
Speaker 1: And I go at one point, I go upstairs and
Speaker 1: you guys are teaching pastors. You're teaching them to read
Speaker 1: and and to teach the Bible accurately. And you guys
Speaker 1: are kind of sitting in your chairs and you're going, Nope,
Speaker 1: that's not what the Bible says. No, And they you know,
Speaker 1: these guys, and they're from all over the Middle East
Speaker 1: and India area regions, multiple regions, and they're like, go
Speaker 1: back to it again, go back And I'm like, whoa,
Speaker 1: this is cool. They go back down and continue recording.
Speaker 1: So I I have a translator, thank goodness. A couple
Speaker 1: of these guys, a couple of these musicians cannot speak
Speaker 1: any English at all, right, and but we're wanting to
Speaker 1: make sure that what they're singing is good. Yeah, biblical, biblical,
Speaker 1: So We're constantly going back checking lyrics, making sure these
Speaker 1: these things add up, and a couple of times we're like,
Speaker 1: well let's not say it that way. How do you
Speaker 1: say this? And then translate back. But the musicians were amazing.
Speaker 1: The singing was beautiful. I learned quickly that the you know,
Speaker 1: my style would be let's do it and go back
Speaker 1: and fix mistakes. But we would do it and they
Speaker 1: would go I'd say, let's go back and tell them
Speaker 1: we're going to listen for mistakes. Tell them. He says,
Speaker 1: he didn't make a mistake. So it was. It was
Speaker 1: such such a beautiful thing. There was there was I
Speaker 1: remember there was a moment though when I don't know
Speaker 1: if you remember this or not, but one of our
Speaker 1: singer songwriters was singing and he had to take a
Speaker 1: break and he wasn't sure if he can come back
Speaker 1: and finish the project. It was just he was overcome
Speaker 1: with grief as he was singing these songs. He was
Speaker 1: overcome with them motion and and heaviness, and he went outside.
Speaker 1: He was just kind of standing on the balcony and
Speaker 1: the translator comes back. I goes, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know if we're gonna get him. He's he's he's pretty broken,
Speaker 1: he's a broken place. And I said, you might ask
Speaker 1: what's going on? And he said, this is a pretty
Speaker 1: heavy story here. He lost his son. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I said, well, will you please go tell him that
Speaker 1: I've also lost a son. He goes you have? I said, yes,
Speaker 1: will you tell him? He goes back out, but it
Speaker 1: tells him looks back at me. I stood up. We
Speaker 1: have no words in common, right, I just put my hand,
Speaker 1: you know, right around the back of his shoulder and neck,
Speaker 1: and I just looked at him, just eye to eye,
Speaker 1: and our eyes were just glazed over. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: there was no words, just yeah. And he put his
Speaker 1: hand on me, and suddenly we were brothers united in
Speaker 1: something that was deeper than we could ever imagine. And
Speaker 1: he came back in when we finished the song. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: it's incredible even talking about this, because I haven't got
Speaker 1: to talk about these things. Constantly interrupted, constantly by the
Speaker 1: loud speakers outside calling for prayer, the the Islamic call
Speaker 1: for prayer. Yes, we got to stop now, got to stop.
Speaker 1: Just blaring call for prayer constantly woke us up in
Speaker 1: the morning. And it was a good time to get
Speaker 1: four am. He's calling, you know, and and not only
Speaker 1: one loud speaker, but they're kind of all the different
Speaker 1: little moll and it just became part of our rhythm
Speaker 1: where it's just it was like i'll say it this way,
Speaker 1: and I don't, I should say it this way. It
Speaker 1: was like the enemy was always always right around the corner,
Speaker 1: you know, just going I'm watching you. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: it felt like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's the worship of God went on, and
Speaker 2: it has been posted in the places that are safe,
Speaker 2: and the national churches and the indigenous churches are using
Speaker 2: it and they are singing it. And we've even had
Speaker 2: seminars where we bring in worship leaders and teach them
Speaker 2: their own songs. Yes, because they've never heard these songs,
Speaker 2: but they're their songs and their songwriters. And so that
Speaker 2: has occurred. And I have videos of small groups which, yeah,
Speaker 2: singing these worship songs in small secret Christian groups that
Speaker 2: this guy wrote and that was recorded and they got
Speaker 2: off of YouTube. And that's I'll talk a little bit
Speaker 2: about the YouTube thing if I can.
Speaker 1: I mean, we were, you know, security better than not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were gonna put them. We were going to
Speaker 2: give them to them through secret electronic means. And after
Speaker 2: a while, the the people who make the decisions all
Speaker 2: to say that the inside people in these countries said,
Speaker 2: you can't can't do that anymore. If you show up
Speaker 2: with these and there is no other place on planet
Speaker 2: Earth you can get them, they will already know you're
Speaker 2: a Christian, so they said, and this is where we're
Speaker 2: at now. The best thing you can do is post
Speaker 2: them for the whole world. And then if you have
Speaker 2: them on your device, you could say I just found
Speaker 2: this place. I found this and I downloaded this. No,
Speaker 2: I didn't have a secret meeting with a secret believer
Speaker 2: from a secret country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got it off the internet. This is right here. Look,
Speaker 1: i'll show you this place. Now.
Speaker 2: They may still be beaten, but they're less likely to
Speaker 2: be tortured to find out who their contacts are.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, one time I was in Tennessee in an
Speaker 1: uber and I asked the guy where he's from. He's
Speaker 1: from one of those countries. I ask him what language
Speaker 1: he speaks. He's from. He speaks one of those five languages.
Speaker 1: And I said, oh, you're you're Muslim. He said yes,
Speaker 1: And I said, hi, I have some music I would
Speaker 1: love to play for you pulled up you know yeah,
Speaker 1: and started playing it. And instantly, first of all, you're thinking,
Speaker 1: how could you possibly know my language? Yeah, my language
Speaker 1: press playing he's what you know? My culture? And then
Speaker 1: and I said do you know what it's saying? And
Speaker 1: he goes, yes, yes, I know. What is that? I
Speaker 1: was like, here, I'll get your number, man, I'll give
Speaker 1: you this right now. Yeah. It was like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is beautiful. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. So then from
Speaker 1: there we made a jump into a country. I don't
Speaker 1: know if we want to say we don't have to.
Speaker 1: I don't know that we should say. But it's still
Speaker 1: in the region. It's a very hot region. We went
Speaker 1: to a country where you are not supposed to go
Speaker 1: and we went there. Yes, and we thought we were
Speaker 1: being sneaky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had a plan and it was a great
Speaker 2: plan and it should work, and we had a lot
Speaker 2: of professionals involved so that it was a legitimate reason
Speaker 2: for being there, and we were just kind of doing exploration.
Speaker 2: You know, is this something that can fly? Is can
Speaker 2: we start a small business kind of a thing that
Speaker 2: is legitimate and then employ underground believers, feed them and
Speaker 2: then teach them at the same time. So that's kind
Speaker 2: of the plan. Can we do this we show up
Speaker 2: at That's when I realized I was uncovered. At point
Speaker 2: in time when we arrived, they were really interested in you.
Speaker 2: You were the main contact when we arrived. But then
Speaker 2: at one point, at a table about twice as long
Speaker 2: as this or three times as long as this, we
Speaker 2: were sitting down and eating something and drinking something else something.
Speaker 2: We got very sick on, Yeah, very sick.
Speaker 1: And they typed in my home town.
Speaker 2: And the second picture of my hometown on their Google
Speaker 2: photos was me at the pulpit preaching.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just kind of shrunk back, and suddenly I didn't
Speaker 2: want to talk anymore because now this looks really bad,
Speaker 2: really really bad, and it got.
Speaker 1: It got I felt sketchy.
Speaker 2: I think that we were wise and that we didn't engage,
Speaker 2: But we had some strange interrogations that occurred after that. Yes,
Speaker 2: you specifically, because I got quieter and quieter, but they
Speaker 2: kept saying, what exactly do you do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the guys, what do you do? You
Speaker 1: know you would see him in a movie and be
Speaker 1: he's just that guy. Guy's a scary guy man, mob boss,
Speaker 1: kind of guy. And we had been saying he was
Speaker 1: a guy that drove around with machine gun back this truck.
Speaker 1: But anyways, yeah, which we later learned, don't don't ride
Speaker 1: in the truck with the machine gun right in the
Speaker 1: other truck truck.
Speaker 2: We learned, don't ride in the truck that's in front of.
Speaker 1: The machine gun. So they knew that you and the
Speaker 1: other guy that was with us were investors, business investors,
Speaker 1: and all that was correct. What I was, that was
Speaker 1: all correct. The amount that you were. We didn't have
Speaker 1: to say that. And then you talked a lot about
Speaker 1: ranching and chicken farming, and but you also just knew.
Speaker 2: A lot of information about a lot of way too
Speaker 2: much information about everything.
Speaker 1: This mob boss guy at one point at dinner goes,
Speaker 1: tell me again, what is it you do just like that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And me and the other guy, well two other guys
Speaker 1: were yeah. Red flags went up, Oh man, this is
Speaker 1: not this is not this dinner is not going. Well.
Speaker 1: That's when we all knew, without saying it, that this
Speaker 1: was bad, that we can't come. We can't return to
Speaker 1: this country like we thought we might not in the
Speaker 1: plan we had. Uh, we go back and at the hotel.
Speaker 1: The American flag which is flying there is now flying
Speaker 1: upside down, right, it's like pictures of it. That was
Speaker 1: not settling. We thought behind the multiple barriers for explosives,
Speaker 1: so we have to go through multi get into the
Speaker 1: hotel lobby. Yeah. Yeah, and it wasn't No one makes
Speaker 1: a mistake to fly the American flag upside down. No,
Speaker 1: it's intentional. It was a message.
Speaker 2: Oh well, you know, as a message because you actually
Speaker 2: mentioned it to the concierge and it didn't get fixed.
Speaker 1: Yes, I did. For all those people I listening right now,
Speaker 1: I actually said, hey, this might not be a big
Speaker 1: deal to you, but that's my flag out there and
Speaker 1: it's upside down, and just just wanted to bring it up.
Speaker 1: Oh it is, yes, yes, yes, we will tell, We
Speaker 1: will tell. Yeah till management So sorry about that. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: nothing happened. Yeah, and then again didn't get changed. We
Speaker 1: we got out of there. We didn't know we got
Speaker 1: back to the airport, we didn't know if we would
Speaker 1: actually make it back into the the host country. But
Speaker 1: we did. I mean we were. It was good out.
Speaker 1: It was Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've had a few close calls in my life and
Speaker 2: all that. Oh, nothing was openly done. I had I
Speaker 2: was not comfortable, spiritually, not comfortable prepared for anything. When
Speaker 2: we were in the hotels, we didn't talk about and
Speaker 2: then we decided this before we went in. There was
Speaker 2: no conversation about our faith, about the Bible. We didn't
Speaker 2: open a Bible literature. We are surveilled the entire time.
Speaker 1: There's someone listening. Yeah, you just you just It was just.
Speaker 1: There wasn't any code words, We didn't do anything. We
Speaker 1: were just what we were.
Speaker 2: Because they were watching continuously. But I was pretty happy
Speaker 2: when we left.
Speaker 1: I was very happy. It looks like I'm going home.
Speaker 1: I had a Louis Lamore Old Cowboy book reading. You know.
Speaker 1: That's as far as exposure as I wanted to get.
Speaker 1: My phone had like no pictures, just very boring pictures
Speaker 1: of my dog and things like that. We were fully
Speaker 1: prepared that we were going to get some kind of interrogation.
Speaker 1: But we got out of there and then we learned
Speaker 1: a lot from that trip, a lot. I learned a
Speaker 1: lot too, And that's the first trip we took together.
Speaker 1: It was crazy, was that the first trip. That was
Speaker 1: our first trip together. Man, when we got close. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you want to get a hold of me for
Speaker 1: any reason. Go to cameo dot com slash granger Smith.
Speaker 1: It's a great way to get someone a gift that
Speaker 1: you don't know what to get. It's a video message
Speaker 1: from me. Basically, you message me and say, hey, can
Speaker 1: you tell my brother happy birthday? Can you tell my
Speaker 1: wife happy inniversary? Or can you give me a word
Speaker 1: of encouragement or maybe even a prayer? Go to cameo
Speaker 1: dot com slash granger Smith. Fill that out and it
Speaker 1: comes right to my phone. I read what you want
Speaker 1: me to say. I could add libit. I take my phone,
Speaker 1: put it on selfie mode, shoot a quick video saying hey, Bob,
Speaker 1: Cindy wanted me to tell you a happy anniversary, and
Speaker 1: you know whatever you woman to say, and then I'll
Speaker 1: send you that video message and then you give it
Speaker 1: to Cindy's It's a great little tool. Using this for
Speaker 1: a long time. Cameo dot com slash granger Smith. Have
Speaker 1: you heard about ee Fest yet? I need to tell you.
Speaker 1: It's May ninth and tenth at the EEE Farm. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have a truck show, We're gonna have a mud bog,
Speaker 1: lots of good food, lots of people from YE Nation
Speaker 1: will be there, and I'm even gonna do some kind
Speaker 1: of live podcast. Uh don't know how that's gonna look yet,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna do a live audience, live podcast, answer questions,
Speaker 1: gonna have Amber there, most of my team and my
Speaker 1: brothers will all be there, and you know, we'll be
Speaker 1: at the EEE Farm, so you get to come. It's
Speaker 1: open to the public completely and you get to come
Speaker 1: and hang out with us at the EEE Farm. I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be so much fun. And here's the surprise.
Speaker 1: Saturday night, May the tenth, I'm actually playing a concert,
Speaker 1: my full band, all the crew. It's it will be
Speaker 1: the only concert we do the entire year. So you
Speaker 1: don't want to miss this. I mean, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be If you're part of EU Nation or you want
Speaker 1: to be part of EU Nation, you got to check
Speaker 1: this out. You go to ee E fest dot com
Speaker 1: for all your info. I'm looking at it right now.
Speaker 1: If you're wondering the price for the full weekend, it's
Speaker 1: seventy nine bucks for a ticket. If you just want
Speaker 1: to go to one day, like a single pass on
Speaker 1: Friday is thirty nine bucks, and a single pass on
Speaker 1: Saturday is only fifty nine bucks, So if you want
Speaker 1: to go to this concert fifty nine bucks, kids are
Speaker 1: cheaper than that. And then there's all kind of like
Speaker 1: vip packages ways to get your truck in there. We
Speaker 1: could sit on your tailgate of your own truck. It's
Speaker 1: going to be a really, really good time. I'm so
Speaker 1: excited about this once again. Ye Fest coming May ninth
Speaker 1: and tenth. Go to ee dot com or eeefest dot
Speaker 1: com for more details. We have since traveled to many
Speaker 1: countries after that, some we can't mention again, but we
Speaker 1: have done done some crazy work together. Israel twice. We've
Speaker 1: done that twice. Well before we jump onto Israel, let's
Speaker 1: stay in that country. We have and you have been
Speaker 1: a part of this in a big way. Brother.
Speaker 2: We have rescue believers in that country who were being
Speaker 2: hunted to be executed. Multiple families are currently spread around
Speaker 2: the world in safe locations because we have helped them
Speaker 2: to find a way out, and some of their stories
Speaker 2: are super hair raising. But that same country we were not,
Speaker 2: we weren't able to go in, and I'm still in
Speaker 2: contact with leaders in that country and we're still helping them,
Speaker 2: and I can't really tell you the projects because it
Speaker 2: would reveal the leader. But some of the key leaders
Speaker 2: have been uncovered, especially at the fall of another country
Speaker 2: which you could probably figure it out. There was a
Speaker 2: removal of American military, but I'm not going to say
Speaker 2: that name. They helped them, So that country we were
Speaker 2: in was helping this other country.
Speaker 1: Which was in worse shape. Everyone knows what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: and yeah, they do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's not as easy to search my AI
Speaker 2: if we don't use the names. So anyways, they they
Speaker 2: got uncovered and had to flee for their own lives.
Speaker 2: So it just sort of dominoed out. And even currently
Speaker 2: your translator, it's currently in that place where all the
Speaker 2: mosques were. He's there right.
Speaker 1: Now and.
Speaker 2: Working hard for the Lord in an amazing way. But
Speaker 2: I would just say, would you pray for him. He's
Speaker 2: he's got a very legitimate reason and we've applied for
Speaker 2: asylum in the US. But it's not a good environment
Speaker 2: right now, you know, with all of the illegal stuff
Speaker 2: that's going on the immigration and all the response. But
Speaker 2: he he's a real he's got a real shot if
Speaker 2: somebody will actually look at his his paperwork.
Speaker 1: So remember to pray for him. Yeah, yeah, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the guy that was the translator that we're not said.
Speaker 1: The guy lost his son and we had you know,
Speaker 1: we got really close to the translator and I and
Speaker 1: he's a great brother and he is he's heavily persecuted
Speaker 1: in that country because you cannot return. Even within the
Speaker 1: Middle East, those countries are prejudiced against each other, and
Speaker 1: that's what's going on. He's from another country. They don't
Speaker 1: like that other country. Racism. We don't know much about racism.
Speaker 1: Do you want to know racism?
Speaker 2: Go to the Middle East and watch the way they
Speaker 2: treat each other Sunni's and shes and you know, this
Speaker 2: clan and that clan and this sect and they there
Speaker 2: is racism, enormous racism. And then ask, okay, I'm really
Speaker 2: going to go out on a limb, ask the Arabs
Speaker 2: how they feel about the Africans, and you're like, wow,
Speaker 2: there is real racism that occurs.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So there are countries in between that we won't mention,
Speaker 1: but we have done different things there. But but then Israel,
Speaker 1: we could we can openly talk about Israel because I've
Speaker 1: actually filmed that and put that on social media. Another
Speaker 1: glaring aspect of racism is right there in that country.
Speaker 1: Oh man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's real there's real ethnic hatred.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So we've taken two trips together, two of them
Speaker 1: both of them were last year. You took a trip
Speaker 1: which I have FOMO about without me recently. But there
Speaker 1: are multi layered reasons while we have done those those
Speaker 1: trips to Israel, and one of the reasons that it's
Speaker 1: it's a place we could return to is because of
Speaker 1: the turmoil the war. Yeah, there is a softening in
Speaker 1: the country of hearts that are more willing to listen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some amazing stuff that happened. So, having been
Speaker 2: you know, to Israel a few times prior to our
Speaker 2: first trip together, we've tried to do you know, I
Speaker 2: actually I don't know how much we can talk about
Speaker 2: because some of what we would like to talk about
Speaker 2: may not be acceptable to the count to that country
Speaker 2: the conversation. So we have been shared the gospel absolutely
Speaker 2: with people. But I have just been amazed at the
Speaker 2: softening that occurred. I have one specific incident which I
Speaker 2: think I can say, which totally blew me away. And
Speaker 2: if I don't give any dates, probably no one will
Speaker 2: get in trouble. So we're there and because of the war,
Speaker 2: everybody's fear of death. Psalm ninety twelve teach us a
Speaker 2: number of our days that we may gain a heart
Speaker 2: of wisdom. Right, And in Ecclesiastes seven it says, I'd
Speaker 2: rather go to the house of morning than in the
Speaker 2: house of feasting, for that is the end of all man,
Speaker 2: and the living will take it to heart.
Speaker 1: So death is what creates a softening in your heart.
Speaker 2: It should can create a softening in your heart towards Okay,
Speaker 2: what happens next, Yes, it's that breaking point that we
Speaker 2: were talking about. That moment we're like, wow, I'm at
Speaker 2: the bottom, like literally I could die tomorrow and so unbelievable.
Speaker 2: So we're walking up to the jaffagain. It's my favorite story.
Speaker 2: It may be for the next twenty years, because I've
Speaker 2: tried so hard to share the Gospel with Jewish people.
Speaker 1: And they're hard like rock, you know, and like just
Speaker 1: that if you had enough. Well, it's Israel, it's Christian Disneyland.
Speaker 2: So they're sick of every type of Christian, every strange
Speaker 2: and odd Christian showing up and doing strange and odd
Speaker 2: things in their backyard. And they're just sick of it.
Speaker 2: But we're there and there's nobody. There isn't a single
Speaker 2: other anybody. We opened up so many sites. They're like, hey,
Speaker 2: could we see this amazing, like when nobody's been here
Speaker 2: for months? Yeah, can we We had to bribe one
Speaker 2: priest with it.
Speaker 1: What was it? A peach? Oranges? An orange? Yeah, from Jericha. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like this is the best orange in the world. It's
Speaker 1: a Jericho orange.
Speaker 2: And he finally came back and he almost didn't open it,
Speaker 2: but he did open the caves of Bethlehem for us.
Speaker 1: But anyways, I digress. So I'm we're at the.
Speaker 2: Jaffa Gate and we're leaving and we have these little pins,
Speaker 2: these little leather pins that we had made. They just
Speaker 2: have their very simple non Christian. It's got the Star
Speaker 2: of David with a heart in them. It's a little
Speaker 2: lapel pin and they're really classy. And so we have
Speaker 2: these and we're giving them out and praying for people.
Speaker 1: Can we pray for you?
Speaker 2: They want us to pray for them. They are open
Speaker 2: to the Christians praying for them. They're open to a
Speaker 2: couple of things, but that's one of them. But so
Speaker 2: we're standing off. You were there, right, We're standing off
Speaker 2: at the Java gate and there's like twenty military people
Speaker 2: at the Java Gate and there's a civilian outfront going
Speaker 2: blah blah.
Speaker 1: We're talking away and we're just looking at this.
Speaker 2: Now there's a lot of military and Jerusalem. This is
Speaker 2: when rockets were going over and there was a lot
Speaker 2: of activity and there was terrorist attacks in the city,
Speaker 2: knife explosions. Last trip, there was explosions when I was there.
Speaker 2: They blew up four buses right where we were. But anyways,
Speaker 2: so there's military movement and we come later on to
Speaker 2: find out that there is a guard change occurring in Jerusalem,
Speaker 2: and so these are twenty or twenty five officers who
Speaker 2: were overseeing the new recruits who are now gonna take
Speaker 2: Jerusalem proper and guard it. And they're shifting out for
Speaker 2: the war and God and so they're getting orientation.
Speaker 1: So we didn't know any of.
Speaker 2: This, and I didn't know they were officers, you know,
Speaker 2: I just here they are all standing there and we
Speaker 2: have these pins, and everybody had been so open to
Speaker 2: let us pray for him, and so we're just kind
Speaker 2: of standing at a distance.
Speaker 1: I remember, we're all kind of huddled and we are
Speaker 1: we are we stand out.
Speaker 2: We are clearly not them, and nobody else is there
Speaker 2: but us. And they're standing out there and this woman
Speaker 2: comes back and turns out she's the commanding officer. And
Speaker 2: she comes back and she.
Speaker 1: Says, why are you here? Good English? Why are you here?
Speaker 2: And we're like, we tell her, well, we want to
Speaker 2: pray and let you guys know that the you may
Speaker 2: feel like the whole world's against you, but the Christians
Speaker 2: are not. We love you, we're praying for you, we
Speaker 2: want to encourage you.
Speaker 1: We're praying for.
Speaker 2: Your safety and for peace for this land. And she's like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's wonderful. Do you want to talk to my officers?
Speaker 2: And I said, this is one of those out on
Speaker 2: a limb. I said, well, the only thing I really
Speaker 2: want to talk to your officers about is Jesus. Now
Speaker 2: that is not the good plan, but that's just a
Speaker 2: totally supernatural event.
Speaker 1: I remember. She kind of turns her head sideways and
Speaker 1: looks at me and she goes, you want to tell
Speaker 1: my officers about Jesus. And I'm thinking that's the end
Speaker 1: of that. I said yeah. She goes, come come, and
Speaker 1: so here we come.
Speaker 2: We're literally going to go stand at the Jaffa gate
Speaker 2: in Jerusalem to twenty officers, and she's just given me
Speaker 2: permission to tell them about Jesus. She brings him around
Speaker 2: and she kind of does a little miniature introduction and
Speaker 2: the civilian. Turns out, the civilian did not like it.
Speaker 2: She was some sort of an administrator.
Speaker 1: Was very I'll tell that story after. Yeah, okay, that
Speaker 1: was my issue. Very unhappy with the event.
Speaker 2: So we go around and I remember the basics of
Speaker 2: what I shared. It was from Isaiah. I said, I
Speaker 2: want you to know, first of all, we love you,
Speaker 2: we're praying for you.
Speaker 1: And we believe your Bible. We believe your Bible. You
Speaker 1: don't believe your Bible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I started quoting Isaiah fifty three and I said,
Speaker 2: who else died for your sins and rose from the dead?
Speaker 1: Who?
Speaker 2: And I just began going through the prophecies of Isaiah,
Speaker 2: which is the irrefutable proof that Jesus is the Messiah.
Speaker 2: I mean all the way down to the fact that
Speaker 2: we can prove that the oldest copy that we have
Speaker 2: is hundreds of years before Jesus arrives, It wasn't changed,
Speaker 2: and Jesus is the Messiah.
Speaker 1: It's still on display. It's amazing. Yeah. So all that
Speaker 1: to say that, So I told him.
Speaker 2: That I believe your Bible and it's tall true, and
Speaker 2: I believe all the prophets. And I remember as I
Speaker 2: was gospeling some woman, I didn't turn because I didn't
Speaker 2: want to point her out because I heard a female
Speaker 2: voice from this side. And as I was preaching from
Speaker 2: Isaiah fifty three and then Javagate to twenty of officers
Speaker 2: of the idf unbelievable story, I remember hers.
Speaker 1: I remember her. I heard this under her breath. Yes,
Speaker 1: shoe ahmasiuk. And then I said, that's right, yeshoe ahamashiak,
Speaker 1: which is Hebrew for Jesus the Messiah. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: And then things start to get a little fall apart
Speaker 2: up this point, and we give them, give them.
Speaker 1: Uh. I can't tell you what.
Speaker 2: We give them pins and other things because I think
Speaker 2: the other things are illegal.
Speaker 1: So we give them pins and we pray for them,
Speaker 1: and then we leave. But now you can tell the
Speaker 1: rest of okay. So when you said I want to
Speaker 1: tell them about Jesus, and she was like, you know,
Speaker 1: turned her head. She said, yes, there was another lady
Speaker 1: the civilian. There was like some kind of administrator and
Speaker 1: some kind of superior in this situation. She was sort
Speaker 1: of running. She was more like the government of the street.
Speaker 1: And she was like, you cannot tell you no religion
Speaker 1: could be talked about, and you started. I turned to
Speaker 1: her and I was like, so where are you from?
Speaker 1: That's right. You totally engaged her. And she was like
Speaker 1: kind of looking around, and she was like, I am
Speaker 1: from the North. And I was like, tell me about what.
Speaker 1: I just came from the North. So I'm from Texas.
Speaker 1: You know, we have these very just don't look at
Speaker 1: that looking around, like looking around my face, and you know,
Speaker 1: I was thinking, hurry up, Travis, telling the god. I
Speaker 1: remember that. That's right. You shielded me so I could
Speaker 1: have that window. And you were just finished and she
Speaker 1: could say, hey, s you cannot say these things. You
Speaker 1: cannot say these and you're like, oh, yes, ma'am, we
Speaker 1: won't say anything else. There's another moment on that trip. No,
Speaker 1: it was the second trip we took to Israel that
Speaker 1: there was there's a thousand stories. Is this the cucumbers?
Speaker 1: It's not the cucumbers. That's an incredible story too. Maybe
Speaker 1: we should tell that also, well, you and I could
Speaker 1: have a podcast every day of the week and for
Speaker 1: a year and probably still not have enough content or
Speaker 1: still cover too much content. But there was there was
Speaker 1: a moment maybe you're not even thinking of. We found
Speaker 1: up in the north. There were churches there and they
Speaker 1: were almost all bad. So it's fair to say bad
Speaker 1: meaning I was not sure that their pastors were saved
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. So we go to visit one of these churches.
Speaker 1: We're looking. We're hunting for our believers that are leaders.
Speaker 1: That's what you could say that right in a nutshell,
Speaker 1: we're hunting for We're looking. We're looking for young men.
Speaker 1: We want to help them. We want we want someone
Speaker 1: that could be that we could pull aside and say, hey,
Speaker 1: we could provide training, We want to support you and
Speaker 1: your church. We didn't find us, which is unfortunate. So
Speaker 1: we had to go to the ground level, which is fine,
Speaker 1: but that's what yea.
Speaker 2: So couldn't find any leaders in that position, but we
Speaker 2: did find believers, that's.
Speaker 1: Right, So we had to start at the believer level.
Speaker 1: But regardless, we are at one of these church leaders
Speaker 1: will call him a pastor with a very loose term
Speaker 1: as a very loose term. We're at his house with
Speaker 1: several of his co leaders. I don't dare want to
Speaker 1: say elder in this scenario, but they are in the
Speaker 1: Christian side of the faith. They're not Jewish, they're not Muslim,
Speaker 1: They're they're proclaiming that they're Christians. They have a regular church,
Speaker 1: they have a church service, and we go there and
Speaker 1: they are We're having every house we'd go into, we
Speaker 1: would usually have some kind of coffee, like Arabic coffee.
Speaker 1: Were these people Arabic or were they they're Arabic. They're Arabic, Yes,
Speaker 1: so they would have Arabic coffee, and so if you
Speaker 1: cook cookies and sweets things like that. We're sitting around,
Speaker 1: it's hot, you know, the windows are open, and these
Speaker 1: guys are just telling us how awesome they are, Yes,
Speaker 1: how awesome the church is.
Speaker 3: They're going to plant multiple sites to get multiple countries.
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah, were so good, you know, just we
Speaker 3: have so many conversions, and you know, all the blow
Speaker 3: we're going to build a bigger building.
Speaker 1: And we had been a long day, you know, we
Speaker 1: had walked a lot, our feet were tired. We're hearing
Speaker 1: this guy tell these Americans, how awesome his church was.
Speaker 1: Maybe so we could give them money or something, which
Speaker 1: we weren't there to do that anyway with these guys,
Speaker 1: but but maybe they think Westerners and you're silent, you're
Speaker 1: not saying a thing. And I'm like, Travis is either
Speaker 1: about to fall asleep, literally sitting in his chair taking
Speaker 1: I was praying. I really wanted a word from the Lord. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I but then I thought, most likely he's up
Speaker 1: to something. And he's praying not not about you know,
Speaker 1: not necessarily for this man. But but Travis is more
Speaker 1: more so praying for a word in the money. You
Speaker 1: want to say, why why are we here? God? You
Speaker 1: know that, what are we here for? And then you go,
Speaker 1: can I can I say something? Can I excuse me? Guys?
Speaker 1: Can I say something? And by the way, we have
Speaker 1: a translator. They're speaking in Arabic, but they actually they
Speaker 1: also knew English, and there's a translator, and and Travis says,
Speaker 1: they were like, yes, yes, yes, speak speak. He said,
Speaker 1: will you translate this? And they're like, we could speak
Speaker 1: English very well, sir, And you go, I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about can you translate it into English? Can you trans
Speaker 1: into Arabic? And they're like, what's this guy talking about?
Speaker 2: And that was mainly because I didn't think the person
Speaker 2: that you're about to refer to English.
Speaker 1: Were right about that. So I'm like on the edge
Speaker 1: of my seat, like what Because I know Travis maan,
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's about to be funny whatever. This is
Speaker 1: gonna be good.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I've like, I've been in a lot of countries at
Speaker 1: this one, like a lot of really sketchy situations with you.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, well, this is gonna be good. He
Speaker 1: has the floor you want to? I think you should
Speaker 1: tell the story what happened next? No, no, I like
Speaker 1: your storytelling, he said. Travis says, do you know who
Speaker 1: Jesus says is the greatest to his disciples? And they're
Speaker 1: like and I'm thinking, oh, it's good because they're talking
Speaker 1: about how great they are. Yeah, they're battling with who's
Speaker 1: the best in the room. And Travis says, the one
Speaker 1: who serves? Is that what you said? What are the
Speaker 1: one who serves? And he goes, who in this room
Speaker 1: do you think is the greatest? Right? All right? A sudden,
Speaker 1: the sweet little old woman carrying a tray.
Speaker 2: Feeding all of us refreshments. The entire time, all these
Speaker 2: important people are sitting on these couches drinking their stuff.
Speaker 2: She just making sure everything's okay for everyone here.
Speaker 1: And when that gets translated back in Arabic, who do
Speaker 1: you think is the greatest here? She stops, puts her
Speaker 1: head DOWNE Travis looks right at her. Thank you for
Speaker 1: loving us, for serving us. She started weeping. She was broken.
Speaker 1: She broke and weeped. We come to find out it
Speaker 1: was her. She had been on her knees every day
Speaker 1: for these men, for the church, for the community, for
Speaker 1: the families. It was her. She held the church together.
Speaker 1: She was holding it together. It was by her prayers.
Speaker 1: She was the one that was that was that was
Speaker 1: broken and had a delight for the Lord. And yet
Speaker 1: she was the one you called it out perfectly. That
Speaker 1: was pretty amazing. They were her voice, her weeping. She
Speaker 1: spoke no English, and I a moment for me. The
Speaker 1: rest of them looked like they had just swallowed a slug. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's true, and then they quickly were like, we got
Speaker 1: to kind of it's time to go.
Speaker 2: I got some important ministry to do. But I was
Speaker 2: able to pray with her, yes, which was really special.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and we come to find out they, you know,
Speaker 2: that culture, they didn't care about her. No, culture doesn't
Speaker 2: really elevate women.
Speaker 1: It was beautiful. Uh, we mentioned it. We got to
Speaker 1: say the cucumber story. You said, okay, yeah, just so
Speaker 1: let me tell you just the background. You know it.
Speaker 2: But for everybody who's listening, the background to the Gaza
Speaker 2: Lebanon Iran crisis. And at one point Israel was fighting
Speaker 2: on seven fronts, which is pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: Just think about that.
Speaker 2: And what's happened is there's no tourism, and everybody in
Speaker 2: Israel lives off a tourism, everybody in some ways tied
Speaker 2: to tourism, and so their economy has been utterly crushed.
Speaker 2: I would probably relate it to the Great Depression of
Speaker 2: the US.
Speaker 1: It's that bad.
Speaker 2: Nobody you don't hear about it. Nobody's talking about it.
Speaker 2: But when you have no income for the country, everybody suffers,
Speaker 2: and including the people who are in the West Bank,
Speaker 2: the Palestinians, if you will, A lot of them, A
Speaker 2: number of them, was it one hundred thousand or some
Speaker 2: really a large number have work visas and so this
Speaker 2: person gets a work visa in the family, they end
Speaker 2: up coming over to work in Israel proper.
Speaker 1: They make a good wage.
Speaker 2: They bring it back and they support three or four
Speaker 2: or five families one worker, because you make so much
Speaker 2: better money in Israel proper. Yes, they were all when
Speaker 2: the war started, all visas were dropped. You couldn't so
Speaker 2: nobody could leave the West Bank to work. Everybody lost
Speaker 2: their job, so there's no income. I gotta be careful.
Speaker 2: I don't want to make the Palestinian authority hate my guts,
Speaker 2: but I'll just say that the Israeli government is giving
Speaker 2: a stipend, it's a survival stipend to their people. Nobody's
Speaker 2: doing well, but they're living. They have food, that's probably.
Speaker 1: They have food.
Speaker 2: They have electricity. The other side not so much zero
Speaker 2: in fact, And so the people inside the West Bank
Speaker 2: terrible starvation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's horrible. They're starving. We saw it.
Speaker 2: And they're literally could take a rock and throw it
Speaker 2: over the guard station and hit dirt that if they
Speaker 2: were there, they'd have enough to eat.
Speaker 1: It is so bad.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So we're in that area and we're just praying
Speaker 2: with people, and that's about all I'm gonna talk about,
Speaker 2: praying with people and loving on people. And we're with
Speaker 2: this woman who is living with her mom and raising
Speaker 2: her son. No men, we saw that a lot, no
Speaker 2: men involved in the families. Just women surviving in groups,
Speaker 2: groups of women surviving in huddles. And we're praying for her.
Speaker 2: And I just say, you know, I'm just trying to
Speaker 2: assess is it as bad as I think it is?
Speaker 1: Because you know, they they're.
Speaker 2: Very stoic, very stoic, don't want to show, don't want
Speaker 2: to be ashamed.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're offering us food. You know, well water.
Speaker 1: I think you drank some of that one. That's probably
Speaker 1: why you got sick.
Speaker 2: But anyways, they're offering us that, and we're sitting and
Speaker 2: talking and praying and hearing their stories. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I think I said, do you have enough
Speaker 2: to eat? And she's looking at me, you remember she's
Speaker 2: looking and she goes just barely wiggles her head because
Speaker 2: she doesn't want to say we're hungry.
Speaker 1: It's shameful.
Speaker 2: She just kind of wiggles her head slightly. I said,
Speaker 2: do you mind if I look? Now, that is very American.
Speaker 2: Nobody in accept a European, but especially in American.
Speaker 1: It's going to be.
Speaker 2: As uncaring as that, but I did it for a
Speaker 2: reason and it had great benefit.
Speaker 1: But she can't say no. They're in their culture. She
Speaker 1: can't say no.
Speaker 2: So I want to go look because I'm hearing the
Speaker 2: suffering is really bad, and I haven't actually seen their kitchens.
Speaker 2: So we end up going into the I end up
Speaker 2: going into the kitchen and I think you came with
Speaker 2: the camera.
Speaker 1: I was with you, you were running the camera. I'm like,
Speaker 1: let's look, which I don't think it ever made anything
Speaker 1: we put out, but.
Speaker 2: It was, yeah, because it would. We can't uncover her.
Speaker 2: So we opened up the cupboards and there's seasonings, just seasonings,
Speaker 2: you know, spices, that's it. We opened the refrigerator and
Speaker 2: you want to tell them what we saw?
Speaker 1: Just cucumbers that they had grown in their front yard.
Speaker 2: Nothing but cucumbers. There wasn't another item in the fridge
Speaker 2: but cucumbers. And I asked, and that's all they've been
Speaker 2: eating for months. Months, They've been living on cucumbers and
Speaker 2: spices for months.
Speaker 1: That was their food. Oh my goodness. I was so broken.
Speaker 1: And then we've met a family that same day, little
Speaker 1: children about this about the age of Maverick and in
Speaker 1: fact one was the age of Maverick. And we asked them.
Speaker 1: It was a father and a mother, and we asked him,
Speaker 1: when's the last time you had meet When was the
Speaker 1: last time you had meat? And they said, you said
Speaker 1: a day, a week, week. You're kind of going to listen.
Speaker 1: They're going no, no, shaking their head. And it got
Speaker 1: to like seven eight months, no meat in eight months,
Speaker 1: and we had beef jerky in our bags. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: right here here, here's some beef jerky. Heave gave them,
Speaker 1: you know, several things, and and and you said, I
Speaker 1: want you to gather around your table tonight with this meat.
Speaker 1: Tell them what you said. That was another moment. It
Speaker 1: was another Travis moment.
Speaker 2: I just wanted them to thank God for it. And I, yeah,
Speaker 2: you remember it better than I do.
Speaker 1: I think you said something like, gather on the table
Speaker 1: and you tell your children, Oh, Jesus provided Jesus provided
Speaker 1: meat for you gather.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you gather around your table and you feed the
Speaker 2: people at your table, and you use this meat, and
Speaker 2: you say, you tell your children. You look at your
Speaker 2: children and you tell them Jesus gave us this meat.
Speaker 1: And if and if you have any leftover, bring your
Speaker 1: neighbors in here and give them the rest of it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well I and I said make me a promise, will
Speaker 2: you do that? And he said I will.
Speaker 1: He said I will, and I know he did because
Speaker 1: the way he looked at it, I will. I was
Speaker 1: a little afraid not to. Oh will. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: That was a beautiful moment. There was so many moments
Speaker 1: in Israel. We've been talking an hour. We could probably
Speaker 1: talk six hours. Has it been an hour?
Speaker 2: Yes, you love that, But we haven't even touched on
Speaker 2: anything yet.
Speaker 1: Well, we need we just it's evident we need to
Speaker 1: do this again. But I want everyone to know about
Speaker 1: looking up for him, so that in the let's see,
Speaker 1: if I could say this the right way, in the
Speaker 1: time that you realized you were uncovered and that you're
Speaker 1: you couldn't hide as as the covert the guy that
Speaker 1: you were before. So we went the other direction. You
Speaker 1: went the other direction and said, you know what, let's
Speaker 1: be public. I have a lot of devotions I've written
Speaker 1: and I continue. You continue to write them, and I'll
Speaker 1: just speak them on my phone and put them on
Speaker 1: social media and it.
Speaker 2: I never had a Facebook account, I've never had Instagram,
Speaker 2: I've never had a social media account.
Speaker 1: Ever rightly, so, yeah, ever, but but people heard truth
Speaker 1: and they were hungry for it, and they and your
Speaker 1: account grew and grew and drew it until I reached out.
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, you know, this is growing at
Speaker 1: a level that's likeficant unusual unusual, And you're like, we
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2: Do you remember when Ever had to teach me how
Speaker 2: to make a reel? I'm like, man, this is terrible,
Speaker 2: I really it cuts me off. And then you're like,
Speaker 2: you know you don't have so I would go live.
Speaker 2: I'd always go live because I wanted to post something
Speaker 2: more than ninety seconds, and so everything was live. Every
Speaker 2: one of them was live. You're like, you don't have
Speaker 2: to do live every time. You could just make a
Speaker 2: post and that can be like sixty minutes.
Speaker 1: What. Yeah, I don't have to go live. So go
Speaker 1: follow looking up for the number four him, him, looking
Speaker 1: up number four him, and you will see Travis. Who's
Speaker 1: I could say his name now, and you'll give a
Speaker 1: lot of devotions. You'll answer questions we do.
Speaker 2: A Thursday night live Bible answer.
Speaker 1: Yes, and you also will give updates on Occasionally, where
Speaker 1: you're going, or at least that you're going to be somewhere,
Speaker 1: depends on you, and you'll have praier re quest for that.
Speaker 1: What you can do is just go follow and if
Speaker 1: you follow Travis, you will at least see him, and
Speaker 1: you'll hear the Bible. You'll hear the Bible. You'll see
Speaker 1: it a beautiful ranch. And yes, you do get some.
Speaker 2: Updates on something is happening, very significant. Please be in prayer.
Speaker 2: Those updates do come out to everybody, but you don't
Speaker 2: know where or when or who or why, because how
Speaker 2: in the world could you do it? And so yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's a it's really its attention and it's a sadness.
Speaker 2: But but I'll say this, and you said this early
Speaker 2: on when we talked about the whole oh man, just
Speaker 2: give it to him.
Speaker 1: God touches people's hearts. So I don't. I don't.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll like to tell you about this. You probably
Speaker 2: don't know this, but the second trip, you know, we
Speaker 2: there was some stuff that was done in Israel. Yeah,
Speaker 2: somebody based on Jost of the instagrams. I didn't even
Speaker 2: know it because they sent it to a different organization.
Speaker 2: Somehow they connected me to a different organization. They sent
Speaker 2: a very large gift. I didn't even know it because
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't have anything to do with those.
Speaker 1: That you can't it would be corrupting to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: But we by faith were going in to take care
Speaker 2: of some things, to help some people, some people we love,
Speaker 2: some Christians, to bless them. And it was a significant amount.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know it until this is really funny,
Speaker 2: until like seven months later, I get a direct message
Speaker 2: from this guy.
Speaker 1: I don't know this guy.
Speaker 2: It's just some guy, all right, And he's like, did
Speaker 2: you ever get my gift?
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know, when did you send it?
Speaker 1: What was it? You know?
Speaker 2: So this is now I look really flaky or like
Speaker 2: he doesn't even have a clue, right because it was
Speaker 2: a significant amount.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, I don't We're just send it conversations.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe how did you get there? And
Speaker 1: he told me and.
Speaker 2: So and then he direct messaged me it was for
Speaker 2: this much, and I fell out of my chair. I'm like, uh,
Speaker 2: I'll go look I got I don't know. I still
Speaker 2: told him I don't know.
Speaker 1: I go look I don't know.
Speaker 2: And I contacted the people who were our accountants and said,
Speaker 2: did this something like this come in And they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but it was anonymous, it's got no name attached.
Speaker 1: It comes from nowhere. I'm like, oh, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: So all that I want to want to say was
Speaker 2: there was no plea for money. There was there was nothing.
Speaker 2: There was a guy who was watching this, and he
Speaker 2: was he was watching the he's watching the instavotions. He said,
Speaker 2: that's real. The Lord, Yeah, that's real. He didn't send it,
Speaker 2: by the way, he didn't send it to the social media,
Speaker 2: didn't send it to looking up for him. He sent
Speaker 2: it a different route.
Speaker 1: And I was just stunned.
Speaker 2: And it was one of those It was one of
Speaker 2: those things like you had said, little take care of this, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the little take care of this.
Speaker 1: Just don't worry about it. Just don't even worry about it.
Speaker 1: Just be faithful. Put the word out there. And let
Speaker 1: me just say, and I'll say this as vague as
Speaker 1: I can, people didn't only eat cucumbers for a little
Speaker 1: bit of time after that. Yeah, because of that, because
Speaker 1: that guy made I'm sure there was more than cucumbers. Yes,
Speaker 1: there was more than going around it. We made that trip.
Speaker 2: It was fantastic and I and it was just because
Speaker 2: of this little social media thing that I'm looking up
Speaker 2: for him. Yeah, just between me and you, I know,
Speaker 2: we've got to wrap this up because you got to
Speaker 2: somehow make this fit into a podcast.
Speaker 1: I am not for social media.
Speaker 2: In fact, my kids all had a problem when I
Speaker 2: started social media. I had a problem when I started.
Speaker 2: I felt like I was unclean.
Speaker 1: But I don't think people by now after this hour,
Speaker 1: are not thinking anything less of you for doing that.
Speaker 1: I was thinking I was. But my kids they all
Speaker 1: sat me down. They literally had those we need talk, Dad,
Speaker 1: we need talk.
Speaker 2: You have Facebook, and I just want to know, are
Speaker 2: you what's going on? And how did you come to
Speaker 2: that conclusion and and just it's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
Speaker 1: And I hope they're listening. Your sons that I have
Speaker 1: traveled separately in different countries apart from each other and
Speaker 1: different states of the US. That's true. Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: those love those brothers so much. I love you, man,
Speaker 1: thank you. I love you. Fact. I mean, you're here
Speaker 1: for crazy circumstances which we don't have to get in.
Speaker 1: But you're here at my house, and I I just
Speaker 1: appreciate you and love you. And I'm still that coin
Speaker 1: in your pocket, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm still that oh yeah, yeah, you got a
Speaker 2: little string on you so I can put you in
Speaker 2: and then you and use you again.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, Well, thank you man, appreciate you. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate all
Speaker 1: of you. Guys. You could help me out by rating
Speaker 1: this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to
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Speaker 1: Yigi