#199 Tim Tebow - Fighting For Our Children

Tim Tebow is a former NFL quarterback, Heisman Trophy winner, and two-time BCS National Champion with the Florida Gators. A first-round draft pick by the Denver Broncos in 2010, he led the team to a playoff victory in 2011. A New York Times bestselling author and outspoken Christian, Tebow founded the Tim Tebow Foundation to combat human trafficking, support orphans, and provide medical care for children worldwide. Today, he inspires millions through his philanthropy, motivational speaking, and books like Shaken and Mission Possible. He is a leading advocate for the Renewed Hope Act which is a bipartisan bill that aims to enhance Homeland Security Investigations' capabilities by hiring and training over 200 analysts and investigators, authorizing expert consultants, and establishing advanced victim identification training to combat child sexual exploitation and rescue over 50,000 unidentified victims. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://www.roka.com - USE CODE SRS https://www.americanfinancing.net/srs NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org https://www.betterhelp.com/srs This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/srs and get on your way to being your best self. https://www.bubsnaturals.com/shawn https://www.fastgrowingtrees.com - USE CODE SRS https://www.shawnlikesgold.com https://www.drinkhoist.com - USE CODE SRS https://www.hometitlelock.com - USE CODE SRS Go to https://hometitlelock.com/SRS and use promo code SRS to get a FREE title history report so you can find out if you’re already a victim AND 14 days of protection for FREE! And make sure to check out the Million Dollar TripleLock protection details when you get there! Exclusions apply. For details visit https://hometitlelock.com/warranty https://www.moinkbox.com/srs https://www.preparewithshawn.com htps://www.paladinpower.com/srs https://www.patriotmobile.com/srs https://www.ziprecruiter.com/srs Tim Tebow Links: Website - https://timtebow.com/media Tik Tok - https://www.tiktok.com/@timtebow_15 IG - https://www.instagram.com/timtebow FB - https://www.facebook.com/TimTebow X - https://x.com/TimTebow Tim Tebow Foundation - https://timtebowfoundation.org The Renewed Hope Act - https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/5015/text/isTell your Congressman to pass The Renewed Hope Act - https://timtebowfoundation.org/advocacy Books by Tim Tebow - As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases (paid links): Mission Possible: A Daily Devotional: 365 Days of Inspiration for Pursuing Your God-Given Purpose Mission Possible: Go Create a Life That Counts Bronco and Friends: A Party to Remember Bronco and Friends: Mission Possible Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 0:34Shawn Ryan?

  Tim Tebow, welcome to the show, man.

• 0:36Speaker 02

  Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. And I also want to say thank you so much for your service.

• 0:41Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, thank you for saying that.

• 0:42Speaker 02

  I genuinely, really mean it. I know sometimes those that have served here at different places could take it as, "Oh, it's just a catchphrase we're supposed to say." I hope you know how much it means to me and so many people. Truly, from the bottom of heart, we're grateful.

• 1:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that means a lot. Thank you. And thank you for everything you're doing. We're going to dive into it. But I just want to say it's an honor to have you sitting here. And very surreal. And my whole team is just ecstatic that this is happening. And we've got a lot of good stuff we're going to dive into.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  Can't wait. Thank you for having me.

• 1:20Shawn Ryan?

  It's my pleasure. Like I said, it's an honor. But yeah, so I want to do a life story on you. And then with the focus being towards the end, with everything that you have going on right now at the Tim Tebow Foundation and all the good stuff that you're pumping into the world. It's just, it's amazing, man. I mean, my parents volunteer for the organization. They do the prom.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  Night to shine? Come on, I love it.

• 1:45Shawn Ryan?

  They've done it for a couple of years now.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  Let's go, where at?

• 1:48Shawn Ryan?

  Down in Florida.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  Awesome.

• 1:51Shawn Ryan?

  On the West Coast.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  Tell them thank you so much.

• 1:53Shawn Ryan?

  I will, I will. They're ecstatic.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 1:56Shawn Ryan?

  But everybody starts off with an intro here.

• 2:02Shawn Ryan?

  So here we go. Tim Tebow, born to missionary parents in the Philippines. Your faith has identified you since childhood. Two-time national champion football player and Heisman Trophy winner is a quarterback at the University of Florida. John 3:16 on your eye black led to over 93 million Google searches for the verse during your second BCS championship game and 91 million searches after your NFL playoff victory. What does that verse mean to you?

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Wow, we're getting deep from the start. I like it.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  That verse means to me, it's if you're gonna sum up the love of the gospel, which I really believe when we talk about the gospel, that it is the greatest love story rescue mission of all time, is that there's a God that loves us so much that he sent his son to put on flesh to live a life we couldn't live, but choose to die a death that we deserve to die as a ransom for us, as the propitiation, meaning the payment that satisfies. And that payment was his life.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  And when we look at John 3:16, "For God so loved the world he gave," because he loved us so much with this love that honestly, it's hard to even fathom. But when we talk about that love, in the Greek, they have four types of love, but the most admirable form of love, that love, is agape love. And the best definition of agape love is to choose the best interests of another person and act on their behalf. And Jesus chose our best interests and he acted on our behalf and he went to the cross.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Not just for us, but instead of us. And he loved us so much that he gave his one and only son that whosoever would believe in him would not perish, but have everlasting life. Man, I know we put it on bumper stickers and eye blacks and signs and games and everything, but we can't lose the essence of the, in the heart of what that means. That there's a God that created all of this and spoke it into existence like this. And yet that God with all knowledge and all power would say, I love you so much that I'm gonna give what's so precious for me and my son.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna give him in exchange for you because I love you that much. So when you think about John 3:16, it's, um, there's no greater love.

• 4:47Shawn Ryan?

  That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Thank you. First round NFL draft pick who led the Denver Broncos to a playoff victory. Five times New York Times bestselling author, a broadcaster, a former professional baseball player, a philanthropist who's turned every platform into a pulpit for serving others. The founder of the Tim Tebow Foundation, a global force fighting the most vulnerable, fighting for the most vulnerable, bringing faith.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  There's a big difference.

• 5:19Shawn Ryan?

  Sorry about that.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Not at all. Actually, can I tell you a funny story about that?

• 5:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  I've never told this before, but several years ago, we were having a night to shine in Vatican City and in Rome. And, um, uh, the Pope, um, uh, invited us over to, um, say hello and talk a little bit about night to shine. And so, um, we're showing him videos of night to shine and serving all of the kings and queens at night to shine. And so, uh, my wife's showing him some of the videos and then I'm sharing. And then, um, one of our awesome, um, uh, team leads for ministry, um, she is just a rock star. And so then he starts asking her a question and she responds, "It is just our greatest

• 6:10Speaker 02

  joy and we love getting the chance to fight people with special needs." And his interpreter is like, Should, do you want me to, and she's like, no, no, I mean, fight for people with special needs. Fight for, and so you can see his interpreter is like, wait, do you really want me to tell the boat? That you fight people with special needs? It's awesome. We just cried laughing so long after that.

• 6:33Shawn Ryan?

  I'm glad I'm not the only one that's messed this up.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  There is a big difference. I love it.

• 6:40Shawn Ryan?

  Bringing faith, hope, and love to over 100 million children around the world. A warrior in the fight against human trafficking, championing the renewed hope act to rescue tens of thousands of unidentified children from the horrors of sexual exploitation. You're a husband to Demi Lee, soon to be a father. Congratulations. And most importantly, you are an unapologetic evangelist of Jesus Christ.

• 7:08Shawn Ryan?

  So before we, we get into the interview,

• 7:13Shawn Ryan?

  I would just be honored to pray with you.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:15Shawn Ryan?

  So if you could lead that, that would be amazing.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  Love to. Let's pray. Good and gracious heavenly father, we love you so much. We love you because you first loved us. We love you because you gave your all and you gave your best for us and we're just so undeserving and unworthy. And I am so undeserving and so unworthy and just failed you so many times and yet you still love us and you still want to be in relationship with us and you forgive us and you reconcile us and you bring us into your family. And we can't even fully comprehend your love for us, but we just say thank you so much and we're so humbled. And we also ask that that love that you have bestowed on us would also be a love that we would bring to the world,

• 8:03Speaker 02

  that we would share with the world, that we would choose the world's best interests and act on their behalf. That when we would see the world, we wouldn't see people through the differences, but we would see them for what we have in common. And what we have in common most is that when you went to the cross, it counted for all of us. And I thank you for this time together. Thank you for Sean and.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  And the impact that he is making, I thank you for the platform that he has and the stories that he tells and the heart that he has. I ask that you would put a wall of protection around him, around his body, or his mind, his future, and that he would continue to influence people to love, to good deeds, to ministry, to things that are gonna last. Thank you for his service for our country, that his service for the most vulnerable, to protect and defend and secure, and we're just so grateful. And we know that there's no greater love than those that would lay down their life for a friend. And so, we thank you for him, we thank you for his team, we ask you to bless him and put a wall of

• 9:06Speaker 02

  protection around him. And once again, we say thank you for who you are and what you've done. We love you, in Jesus's name, amen.

• 9:14Shawn Ryan?

  Amen. I would just like to add one thing. Just please use this platform to amplify everything that Tim and his team are bringing to the world. And there's a lot of unfortunate kids that are going through horrific times right now, and I hope that they at least get a glimpse of this, to know that there is hope in the world for them, and that people are fighting for them. Jesus's name, amen.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  Amen. Thank you, brother.

• 9:42Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you. That felt amazing. So, couple more things before we get into it. Everybody gets a gift. Vigilance League gummy bears.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Come on.

• 9:56Shawn Ryan?

  Legal in all 50 states, there's no funny stuff in there. It's just candy that's horrible for you. They might be illegal here pretty soon with RFK.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  I knew that you gave gifts, and so we have something for you.

• 10:08Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for this, I appreciate it. And your packaging is awesome.

• 10:13Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  That's our logo, and it stands for faith, hope, and love. The cross, the heartbeat, and the heart. It stands for faith, hope, and love.

• 10:24Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  And that's a part of our mission statement. There's some other swag in there. And it's a part of our mission statement, to bring faith, hope, and love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need.

• 10:35Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, I love these. Thank you so much.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Of course, man.

• 10:38Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you so much.

• 10:45Shawn Ryan?

  And then the last thing before we get into the meat of this. So I have a Patreon account. It's a subscription account. We've turned it into quite the community. And they've been here with me since the beginning. And when I started this in my attic and then we moved here. And now we're moving into a new studio that's a lot bigger than this. And it's all because of these guys. And so one of the things I do is I offer them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. And so this is from Robert Banta.

• 11:18Shawn Ryan?

  What would you say to kids today who face significant challenges as Christians in today's school system that pushes ideals that do not align with Christianity?

• 11:29Speaker 02

  That's a good question. It's a deep question.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  I would encourage them and challenge them to not just, don't think about it showing up as an opposition. Show up thinking as a ministry. This is also their mission field. One of the things my dad always encouraged me when I was young, and I know I ignored it many times, was nobody is too young for God to use them. And for those young boys and girls that are going to school, this is an opportunity for them to stand up for their classmates, to love their classmates. Those that are being bullied, invite them to sit at their table. Those that are hurting, show them how much you care about them.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  You don't have to wait one day till you grow up and you go on a mission trip or you do all these other things like this is a chance for you. School can be an amazing place. It can also be a hard place. School can be a place of learning and discipleship and growing and a renewing of your mind, but it can also be a place where people experience a lot of hardship, being left out and being bullied and being treated as less than. And this is so many of their opportunities to say, no, no, you're not less than. Hey, come hang with me. Come stand with me. I'm going to be your friend. I'm going to stand with you. I'm going to stand for you. And maybe you have chances to share their faith verbally, but they always have chances to share their faith with their kindness and their love and their compassion and the hope that they bring every day.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  So instead of looking at it as, "Hey, man, this is an opposition." No, this is an opportunity. There's a big difference. This is an opportunity for me to win over classmates, to love them, to care for them, even teachers, faculty. If it's a place that says, "Why do you believe in that? Why do you do this?" Well, then I get to show you, not just with my words, but I get to show you with my actions. And one of the quotes that I love is, "Every day we share the gospel, but every now and then we use words." And I would encourage these boys and girls that they're not too young for God to use you. We look at Scripture and we see God using young people all of the time. And sometimes they feel like they had a lot, and sometimes they feel like they had a little. But God doesn't need us to have a lot or have a little.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  He just needs us to say, "Hey, this is what you've let me borrow for a little bit. Hey, God, would you just use it? I want to be used. I want to show up. Here you go. Please use it. Take my loaves and my fish and multiply it."

• 14:00Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, that is amazing. That is amazing. And so that brings us to, I mean, you've just got an amazing life story. And you know, you were born in 1987 in the Philippines. And I believe your parents were on a missionary operation there.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah.

• 14:21Shawn Ryan?

  And so, can you go into some of the, what is the missionary operation?

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Well, my dad started BTA, Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association, and to be able to share the gospel with every man, woman, boy, and girl in the country of the Philippines. And because of Dad's faithfulness, millions of people have heard the gospel and over 30 million people have indicated that they have put their faith in Jesus because of Him and His amazing ministry. And we lived there for five years. And I was so privileged to be born there in a country that I love so much and is so near and dear to my heart. But when my parents decided to move there, God called them there.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  And actually, my dad was driving from a conference. I believe it was in Alabama. My mom was in Jacksonville, Florida, and my dad's driving with my oldest sister, Christy, in the car. And he knew that God called him at that moment while he was driving. He just knew. And he, you know, trying to make excuses, but then he knew God called him again in the car while he's driving. And he's, okay, I gotta surrender. He said, okay, God, I'll go, I'll go. And, and he got home and he saw my mom and he said to my mom, God called me to the Philippines. And she said, I know, because he called me too. Wow. They were separated, not like separated in their marriage, just separated because of the conference.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  And then they start talking about, hey, well, when did you feel that, that in your heart? And when you feel that nudge? And as they're talking about it, they were looking, they're like, we think he called us at the exact same time. Wow. And so they decided, so he goes to his board and he's like, hey, God called me to the Philippines. Okay, let's go, we gotta go raise money and we gotta go to send you guys off. And what are you thinking, you know, six months or a year from now, you're gonna leave? And he said, no, God called me, we have to go. And so they literally packed everything up and within days left and took four kids to the Philippines. And just such an example of, it's one of the reasons why my parents are just some of

• 16:34Speaker 02

  my biggest heroes, because their willingness to say yes when God calls, they've said yes. And, and so we are in the Philippines and living and my dad is, before I was born, and my dad is in a very remote island, Philippines is, is made up of thousands of islands. And he's in a remote island and he's getting ready to preach and he just starts weeping uncontrollably for all of the, God puts on his heart, all the babies that are being aborted around the world, but specifically in America. And he, as he's just weeping, God puts it on his heart to have another baby and to name that baby Timothy, which means honoring God.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  And so he finished his preaching and goes home and he says, hey,

• 17:25Speaker 02

  To my mom, um, God put it on my heart that we need to have another baby. And she's like, they already had four. And my mom's like, well, God didn't put it on my heart. So I don't. But she said, she decided she's gonna start praying about it. And not long, she started praying about it. Not long after that, God put it on her heart, too, that they need to have another baby and at least try. Not long after that, she became pregnant.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  Ally here with cash when you need it. You know, for the taxi that saved you, the guy who helped you move. Wait, are you supposed to tip at the car wash? Don't be in. Ally's 75,000, fee-free ATMs mean you always have cash when you need it. Ally Bank member, FDIC.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  At least they thought she was pregnant. But then some of the doctors were saying that it's not even a baby. It might be a mass of fetal tissue. It might be a tumor. And so actually, Sean, my first nickname was Timmy the Tumor. So try getting rid of that one from four old siblings. But they said, hey, with all of these issues, and there were so many issues that she was having, they said, you need to have an abortion because she had amoeba dysentery. She had the placenta wasn't properly attached.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  She even went into a coma in a certain time of the pregnancy. And they said, you need to have an abortion. It'll cost you your life. It'll cost you your baby's life. And, um, and she, with, you know, her faith and my dad and all the people praying for him, she had the courage to say, no, we're gonna trust God. Wow. And, um, and I'm so grateful that she did. And months later, the doctor that was helping my mom deliver me was a doctor that had done, helped thousands of women. And, um, when I was finally born and he handed me to my mom, he said,

• 19:42Speaker 02

  I have no idea how your baby boy survived. It's the greatest miracle I've ever seen. I don't know how he got the nutrients. I don't know how he's alive. The placenta was only has a tiny bit that's attached. All of these issues, I just don't know how he survived. And, um, and I was malnourished. And so my family continued to, um, send out prayer requests to people around the world. And so many people, um, were praying for me. When I was a baby and, um, I was malnourished, but I tried to make up for it quickly. And, um, and just so grateful that, um, I could, um, be here even sitting with you today. Because my mom trusted God and gave me a chance and, and my parents' faithfulness

• 20:25Speaker 02

  and all the people that, that prayed for me. Um, cause I do believe prayer is powerful. And yesterday we were just in DC celebrating the national day of prayer. And, um, you know, there was over 70,000 groups around America that were praying together yesterday, like there is power in prayer. And, um, just so grateful that God answered that prayer to give me a chance.

• 20:50Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 20:55Shawn Ryan?

  I have a question, but I'm gonna let the interview develop a little bit more. I wanna know how God talks to you, but, but first,

• 21:04Shawn Ryan?

  do you remember any of the missionary stuff?

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 21:07Shawn Ryan?

  The Philippines?

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, not as much from when I was, when we were living there. Cause we moved back when I was about five.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  So I don't remember as I, a little bit of it, glimpses of it. But then we went back so many times, cause we moved back to the States, to the west side of Jacksonville, Florida. But my dad would be gone about half of the year over there. Um, and so many times I got to go with him and siblings and we would get to go, uh, back. And, uh, we would spend a lot of summers going back with him, um, to be able to do mission work with him. So I remember more of that than I do from when I was young.

• 21:45Shawn Ryan?

  How do you, was it dangerous at all?

• 21:49Speaker 02

  My parents would try to keep the kids in some of the areas that were safer. But my parents went through a lot of areas that were dangerous. They were, my dad in certain of the countries that he went into to share the gospel, got put in jail. My dad got told to leave so many times. My dad, multiple times, they told him, hey, if you stand up and share the gospel, we're gonna kill you. Are you serious? And he would stand up and he would tell them, but I just want to tell you how much God loves you. And he would share his heart. And one time specifically that I can remember, a man showed up and he was in the back

• 22:33Speaker 02

  of the audience and he showed up with a machete. And as he starts making his way forward and my dad, just something in his heart pricking him, telling him to start talking about forgiveness. And he does. And this man's making his way closer and closer. And he finally gets and stands right in front of my dad. And he just says, I was sent here to kill you, but I heard you talking about forgiveness and I just want to ask if you would forgive me. And just so grateful for my parents' faith. And not just the faith like, oh, Sunday in church, but the faith in the hard moments

• 23:14Speaker 02

  and to say yes to God, because I got to see that so many times. I got to see my dad say to my mom when we had such little money, hey, it's okay. Give the rest away. I got to see that multiple times in my life. And my mom gave the rest away. And both times, people came over that evening for dinner and said, we don't know why we're supposed to do this. We just knew we were supposed to give you, bring dinner to you guys. And it's just like a God wink moment, as my wife loves to say, of like, you know, God saw that faithfulness. So, so many times, I got to see that. And, you know, one of the things that, that I think when I even start to regurgitate

• 23:58Speaker 02

  some of these stories, and there's so many more, I got to see so much of that and still... See God's faithfulness and His handwork in my parents' life and in the life of so much of the ministry, and still so many times I just fall short and screw up from it. And you know, it's something that I know I've been convicted about so many times because I've seen God at work and I've seen God do incredible things, and it's so easy for me to lose sight of that and to veer off of the path and off of the track. And then I see so many other lives that haven't had the same parents like me and haven't

• 24:42Speaker 02

  been able to see that, and yet I see their faith and it's so strong. I think, man, you know, God's had to remind me so many times because my faith has been so weak, my trust has been so weak, and I've seen it. And then I see so many lives that have come through such harder situations and their faith is so strong and it's something that's so convicting to me.

• 25:05Shawn Ryan?

  To hear you say that you veer off the path, I mean, from what I know about you, that you've never veered off the path. How do you, I mean, how do you veer off the path?

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Well, with my actions, with my words, with my thoughts. Make a long story short, there's many times when I first got a platform that God had given me, so I shouldn't even say my platform, the platform God's let me steward for a little bit. People would say, hey, Timmy, I want you to know you're our son's role model, you're our daughter's role model. I would start to think, no, not if you knew me on my worst day, I wouldn't be their role model. Not if you knew my worst thoughts, my worst words, my worst actions.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  But God had to work in me with that because,

• 26:03Speaker 02

  actually, it's just with a band yesterday called Casting Crowns. And they're a Christian band that's been around for a long time. And they had a song, they still have the song called Voice of Truth. And it'll say, "The voice of truth tells me a different story. The voice of truth says, 'Do not be afraid.' The voice of truth says, 'This is for my glory. Out of all the voices calling out to me, I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth.'" And there are so many times that I would hear the voice of shame and guilt and doubt, and you're not enough, and you can't, and you know, you have this platform. But if they really knew, you know, your worst actions, your worst thoughts, your worst days, your worst moments. And, and the feeling of you're not enough, you're not equipped, all of this.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  And I would have to listen to that song and get in God's Word because He would remind me, no, that's the voice of the enemy. But what does God say? You see, the enemy calls you by your sin. God calls you by your name. The enemy calls you a mistake. God calls you a masterpiece. The enemy says that you should be afraid, and God says, "I didn't give you a spirit of fear." The enemy says you're alone, but God says, "I will never leave you and forsake you." And so that's why it's so important to have a renewing of your mind in God's Word, in Scripture, in prayer, and with other people around you. Because when we get isolated, when we get alone, all of those voices from the enemy start to leak in, and they start to creep, and they start to say, and they start to point out all of those flaws.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  But then you have to get back to Scripture because God's saying, "No, no, no, no, no. You're missing the mark because you're missing the point. Yes, you have scars and you have flaws, but you're not defined by your scars. You're defined by mine." That's the gospel, that's the cross. We couldn't do anything about it, but yet his scars are what define us now as believers. That's what we're defined as. And so when we're going through this journey, we start to look at all of our flaws and all of this. It's like, wait a second, but God still used flawed, fallen people. We look at scripture, that's who he uses. And it's just, I'm so grateful because then I'm like, oh, yes, it's encouraging because I'm not disqualified.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  But it's so important that those voices aren't the voices that lead us, that we would have a renewing of our mind in scripture with the promise of the gospel, the hope of the gospel, that we would be able to live in that of what God has done. And yes, I'm a screw up, but he's not, and he's the Savior. And now I'm a child of God, I'm a son of the King, the King of the world, whoever, who will forever reign. That's my identity now. And one of the things that I sometimes love to challenge, especially young people, is hey, when you pull out your ID and you look at it, my ID would say Timothy Richard Tebow, Jacksonville, Florida. It would have my birth date and it would have all of these things on it.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  But my spiritual ID, that's not what it says. It says, "Son of the King, King of the world who will forever reign." And guess what? On my spiritual ID, there's no expiration date. And it doesn't say, my spiritual ID doesn't say Florida, it says heaven. Because we're citizens of heaven because of what Jesus has done, and we have to remember that. Because when we, when we fall, when we have pride and ego and mistakes and selfishness and all of this, then it's so important to, yes, to adjust and change course, but then also remember, that's not what defines me, that's not my identity. That is no longer who I am or whose I am.

• 29:49Shawn Ryan?

  When is the first time, so you guys were going back and forth from Jacksonville, Florida to the Philippines? And I'm curious, who are you, who are you guys targeting? How do you know who to talk to? How do you know how to even broach the subject? Especially in a country where it's not welcome?

• 30:11Speaker 02

  Well, the special thing about the Philippines is they're, they were so receptive to the gospel. They're so hungry for it. And, um, but I think the first answer to that would be, for my parents, it would be, it's where God called you. Just where did God called you? And you say yes to that. And it doesn't always have to be a logical thing. It's a spiritual thing. Did God called you to go there? And one of the things that my dad would always tell me, and I'm so grateful for it, he would say, Timmy, if, if you just want to go because you have compassion, which is a great thing, or you have empathy, which is a really good thing, or you have a heart

• 30:56Speaker 02

  for the people, that's very special. But if you go and you're gonna get knocked down, you're gonna get a bloody nose. He'd say, but if you get a bloody nose and you don't know you're called there, then you will start looking for every reason to go back. And you'll start trying to find out all the logical reasons, well, we need to go do this. But if God calls you and you get a bloody nose, because you will, you know, this is still exactly where I'm supposed to be. And that was what I also got to see in my parents, was knowing this is where God wanted them. And the assurance and the confidence you can live in when you really believe you are

• 31:39Speaker 02

  standing in, um, part of the reason why God created you was for this moment, for this place, was for these people to stand and to be able to share and love this. This is where God has called you. And so I think that's, that would be a... Part of the first answer to that question. And then it's now, how strategically can we love and we share and can we do all of that? And that was a process my parents went through of figuring that out. And they did it in so many different ways, whether that was in basketball games, because people love basketball there and they'd come to the games. Or it was in film showings, they would show a film and the whole villages would show up and dad would share the gospel. Or schools, marketplaces, prisons, hospitals, all the above. But it was a process my parents went on for a long time.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  And man, it was fun as a, as part of it, but also an outsider, just being able to watch and to, to see the confidence they had because they knew it's where God wanted them.

• 32:37Shawn Ryan?

  Are these, are these people, do they have any knowledge of the Bible, the New Testament?

• 32:45Speaker 02

  In the Philippines?

• 32:46Shawn Ryan?

  Christ?

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 32:47Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, the people that you're talking to?

• 32:50Speaker 02

  Well, the people that might, specifically growing up on Mission Field?

• 32:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yes.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Some, so the Philippines is made up of just over 7,200 islands. So the main islands, yes, they will, they, there will be churches, they will know. But some of the remote islands, I have personally been to quite a few remote islands where they have said to us, in their words, "You're the first visitors we've ever had." And they had never heard of the name of Jesus. They had never heard of the gospel. So in a country where the people are so incredibly amazing and loving and they will, I, I mean this literally, they will give you the shirt off their back. They love visitors. Still, the older ones, especially when I was young, they would still say, "Hey, Joe", for the G.I. Joes that came in World War II.

• 33:39Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  Like, it's so cool, especially when I was young, the older ones. Now that's, you know, it's getting less and less as time's getting further away. So there was, they loved visitors, they loved Americans. But there was such a separation between what the people in the bigger cities were experiencing versus the remote islands. And, and I've gotten a chance to go to many remote islands and many of them was where my life has really changed. But getting to share the good news of the gospel with people that have never heard it.

• 34:10Shawn Ryan?

  How do you, how do you, how do you, how do you start that conversation? I mean, if you're talking to somebody who, who believes in something else and they've never heard of this, they've never heard of Christ, they've never heard of the Bible, they've never heard of any of it. I mean, where, where do you start?

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Start by talking about who God is and what God has done and in creation and all of this, and how much God loves us, and always lead with love, because God is love. And then to be able to talk about love and how much God loves you and how much God loves every person I'm talking to, and, and really paint that picture. And that's why we're here, because we want to tell you how much God loves you. And then after I paint that picture, then it's to say, but we have a problem. And that problem is sin. You see, sin separates us from God. Because God is a holy, just God. But it doesn't end with the problem. God created a solution to our problem. That solution to our problem was His Son, Jesus.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  And it go through the life of Jesus and the, the, the life and the death, and the burial, and the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus Christ, and the story of Jesus, not just the story, but the gift of, of Jesus to all of us, that He's offering us a free gift of eternal life. And that would be a, a big part of how we would walk people through, and then invite them, um, if they believe in what Jesus has done and accounted for them, to say yes to it.

• 35:41Shawn Ryan?

  I guess, that all makes a lot of sense. How, how, how do you, I mean, how does the initial, do you build a relationship with them first? And then you start talking about it? Or do you start it right off the bat?

• 35:53Speaker 02

  Some parts of the minute, some parts of the ministry, yeah, you start a relationship. And some parts of the ministry, you're trying to get to as many places as you possibly can. So, um, to be able to share with as many people, so you try to bring big groups together, but for the sake of getting to as many, um... You don't always get to build as deep a relationship as you want, but we always try to have follow up, to have pastors come and follow up, to share and disciple and build churches. And many times those churches are house churches, not churches that we think of, just people that are gathering together because ultimately, that's what the church is, the ecclesia, the church. It wasn't like, oh, on Sunday, there's this building we go to and has a steeple.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  No, it was bodies of believers coming together to sharpen each other, to be in the presence of the Lord and with each other and do life in ministry and everything together as a body of believers. That's more of the church than, hey, we just show up and there's this, we just sing and then someone shares and then we go have lunch and we leave. Like, and so, yes, we do have a lot of follow up. And we always try to, but it's also many times just getting to the heart of it. Hey, this is why we're here. And I say, hey, why would you come all this way? Why would you leave America? Why would you leave Florida? Why would you come here? Ah, man, we want you to know the greatest thing we've ever found.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  And so many times, my dad, I watched him in so many places around the world, marketplaces especially, flea markets, villages. Because so many people around the world, different places, they show up to marketplaces to trade. And they, you know, pesos for good, for rice, whatever they do, build, you know, go sell, and so they exchange, right? And so it's a place of trade. And so many times I got to watch my dad walk into villages, marketplaces, and he'd find maybe something to stand on or just on his tippy toes. And he would say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, everyone! I want to tell you about the greatest trade in the history of the world.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  And every time that I can remember, everyone stopped because they want to find out, what's the greatest trade in the history of the world? Like, it gets people's attention.

• 38:11Speaker 02

  And he had gone and said, "The greatest trade in the history of the world is that the God of this universe wants to trade you of your sin, all of your wrong, and give you righteousness."

• 38:24Speaker 02

  He wants to take your sin and give you righteousness. That's the gospel.

• 38:29Speaker 02

  He takes your sin and he gives you righteousness. He makes you right with his dad. The greatest trade in the history of the world. And I was just, I just love being able to watch my dad do that. And still, sometimes I love getting to talk about the greatest trade.

• 38:50Shawn Ryan?

  And they're, they're immediately receptive?

• 38:53Speaker 02

  Um, not everywhere, not everywhere. Sometimes they're, uh, certain places, they're very not receptive. Some places, they, I've seen them run him off. I've seen them argue. But also, I've seen, um, people that you would have never thought respond, uh, respond weeping. So no, it's not always receptive. And I could tell you that many countries where, uh, it was the exact opposite of receptive.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  But you could even see, uh, in some of those times, how God would start to work in the hard places and the people that were even resistant to it.

• 39:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, we've already, we've already talked a lot about,

• 39:35Shawn Ryan?

  God spoke to your, your parents about going to the Philippines at the exact same time. God spoke to him about having another child, which was you, not doing an abortion, having faith. When is the first time that you felt God speak to you?

• 39:53Speaker 02

  It's a good question. Um,

• 39:56Speaker 02

  I grew up, um, just with, just the best parents and four older siblings that were amazing. And we grew up going to church all the time, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Did a couple of Bible studies in between. And over and over again, my parents, especially my dad, would say, "Hey, you heard the pastor talking about Jesus and that free gift. Do you want to say yes to Jesus today?" And over and over, I'd say, "No, Dad, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm, I'm good." Go to my parents' room and it's, "Hey, you know, you heard the sermon today or you heard me preach. What do you think? Do you want to say?" I'd say, "No, Dad, I'm good." Until one night, I was lying in my bed.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  Late in the evening and I knew that I knew that I knew that I was a sinner that desperately needed a Savior.

• 40:49Shawn Ryan?

  How old were you?

• 40:50Speaker 02

  I was six years old.

• 40:51Shawn Ryan?

  Six years old?

• 40:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I um was terrified. And I couldn't sleep and I got up in the morning and I ran to go see my mom and I said, Mom, we gotta ask Jesus. I gotta ask Jesus to come into my heart. And she said, Okay, let me go get your father. And I said, No, Mom, we don't have time. And I was kind of intense, too. And and she said, Okay, she said, Okay, okay. And on the west side of Jacksonville, Florida, we got on our knees on a blue couch. And I asked Jesus to come into my heart and he did. And he forgave me of my sin.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  And one of the things that my parents did that was so special is they wanted us to remember that moment, how special it was. So even a family that didn't have a lot of money and was always strapped to do a lot of things. My mom set up a trip for us to go to Orlando and go to Epcot to celebrate my spiritual birthday. And my family always made a bigger deal of our spiritual birthday than they did our earthly birthday. And my mom still every year will call me, tell me it's your spiritual birthday.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  You know, it's so.

• 42:20Shawn Ryan?

  That's really cool. I'd not heard of that.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:28Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, you're you're always led. And I mean, the 316 stuff, the pushback that you receive, the mockery of your faith, all the way up to what you're doing today with all these different things, combating sex trafficking, standing up for the vulnerable. I mean, how how does he, how do you know? How does he speak to you? How do you know where to go? How do you? How did you know that he wanted you to combat sex trafficking and sex exploitation? And do the stuff with the vulnerable kids and the proms?

• 43:03Speaker 02

  Good question.

• 43:04Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, where does this come from? And how does he speak to you?

• 43:07Speaker 02

  Well, I had first answer by saying, maybe I'm not a very good Christian, but God's never audibly spoke to me.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  And I do believe that he does for some people. But never with me. But I feel like in how God usually speaks to me or people is in God's word, is time and prayer. And it's also through a lot of people, wise counsel. It's so important to us that our later, our second core value for our foundation, our family, myself, all of us is that we value and seek wise counsel. Because, man, God uses people to speak into you. But then I would also say of the, one of the ways I like to talk about is the pricking of your heart, like this nudging of your heart.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  And then when I accepted Christ as a boy, you know, still learning and figuring out so much of what that means. But really, the first time I would say I felt called to something specifically was when I was 15 and I met a boy in the jungles of the Philippines who was born with his feet on backwards. And because of that, he was treated and viewed as less than, insignificant, throwaway. And many viewed him as cursed because they believed that he had special needs. His feet were on backwards, he's less than, the gods have cursed him. And so he was treated as an outcast, as less than. And, man, I just fell in love with that boy. I knew that he wasn't an outcast. He wasn't cursed.

• 44:45Speaker 02

  But I also knew, and it's hard to even say like, this is all just, you're trying to figure out, what does that even mean? But almost if I could put it into a sentence, which I couldn't, then it was the thought of.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, Timmy, you might know he's not cursed. But what are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do? You might have this thought or this feeling, but what are you gonna do? I've shown you how much I love him. I demonstrated my love for you and for him on the cross. But how much will you love him?

• 45:28Speaker 00

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• 45:57Speaker 02

  And I don't know if I could even fully articulate that. And I even came back to the States and I shared that testimony with some people and you're trying to articulate. All I knew is somehow God was challenging me and convicting me to fight for those that couldn't fight for themselves. To stand up and speak for those that didn't have a voice. To not just feel something or think something, but do something. And I didn't know, I was like, God, but what do you want me to do? I don't know what to do. And, but it was that on my heart and God started to let it grow and grow and grow. And then we kept going back and forth to the Philippines throughout all my summer and even into college.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  And so when I'm in college, we're starting to, you know, then you didn't have NIL or you didn't have the opportunity to have a foundation. So we tried to use the rules, ways to make impact and difference. But then the first thing I did when I graduated from Florida is start the Tim Dua Foundation. In all honesty, I know this doesn't sound good, but not knowing exactly what that meant, I just knew we were called to fight for people that couldn't fight for themselves. And so I wrote the mission statement and it was the only really place early on of clarity, was the mission statement. I don't know why God let me have peace on that, but I did. And I remember I was right here in Nashville when I was writing it because I was training for the NFL draft over at D1. And I wrote the mission statement,

• 47:25Speaker 02

  "To bring faith, hope, and love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need, to sum it up, to fight for people that couldn't fight for themselves." And so it started with orphan care and special needs care. And then very quickly, we got into starting to plan for our first hospital and to support strong families. And so it was just this uncertainty of how, but this belief in why, if that makes sense. I don't know strategically what this means. I just know that we are called to fight for people that can't fight for themselves. Now, we call that the MVP, the most vulnerable people.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  And I would also say that God's challenged me a lot in my life of really in a sense saying, "Timmy, you care and cared so much about winning." And I loved, I love winning. I hated losing even more and insanely competitive. I love the drive. I love the challenge. I love the chase. I want to win. I really do in everything that I do. I really love the pursuit of trying to be my best. And every now and then you get to be the best. And when you're the best in something, you win a championship or maybe sometimes you would win an MVP as most valuable player. But then along the way, God started to break my heart saying,

• 48:50Speaker 02

  "You care so much about championships or MVPs, but I have a more important MVP for you to chase. It's not the most valuable player. It's the most vulnerable people. But which one will you care about more?"

• 49:11Speaker 02

  And I really believe in my life, there has been many days I've missed the mark. Because I've, I've, I could have said the right thing, but I knew deep down in my heart, "Man, I want to win. Man, I want to make that team. Man, I want to do this. Man." And it's not that all of those things are wrong, but when you're putting them in the place of what God has called you to, and you're putting them, what is it, it's so high, it becomes ego, it becomes pride, and you're putting it on an altar. And you're making it the priority. When it's fine if it's a goal, just not your biggest priority. Just not in the place of where God and what He's called you to should sit. And too many days of my life, I've known I've missed the mark, even though I've known

• 49:55Speaker 02

  that in my heart and in my head, and I probably would have gave you a good answer, but I knew I put that here.

• 50:02Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  I knew I put it too high. Well, maybe not always when I was doing it, but many times convicted afterwards. "Oh, man, I would have said the right thing, but you know what? This last season, that definitely took the place of God. That was, my identity was there. My focus was there. Who and whose I was was there, not in my relationship with Christ."

• 50:30Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, you know, just looking back, do you think that... It, it sounds to me like you think that maybe that was wrong to use that drive to become, to, to, to win championships and all that stuff.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  No, I don't.

• 50:47Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think that, I guess, hear me out. It, it sounds to me like you think I was selfish back then. I prioritized the wrong things. But do you think there's, it's possible that God wanted you to prioritize that, to build your name up so that you could become the man that you are today?

• 51:07Speaker 02

  No, well, I think there's a lot to that. I think that God works all things together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Even disappointments, frustrations, selfishness, ego. Somehow we have sort of a God that works all things together for good. Those who love Him are called according to His purpose. So I believe that God can, can do all sorts of stuff with that. But it's not that chasing those things is wrong. Please don't... Hear that. It's not that they're wrong. I do think, I think it's a good thing. I should, I think believers should compete to win. I really do. Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all of your might. Like, do it as unto the Lord. Like, no, I don't think God's saying, hey, be last. In service he is, but not in sports or in life or in all this stuff. No, no, he's, what I'm saying is,

• 51:52Speaker 02

  if I said it was, you know, my faith, you know, family, loving people, all of this and football, you know, people say that faith, family, football. Too many times it would have actually, if you really weighed my heart, it would have been football, faith, family. That's what I'm saying. I let the priorities get out of whack too many times. And it's not competing or winning is wrong. I don't think that whatsoever. I believe that as believers, we should strive to win. We should be good and we should try to use all of that to honor the Lord with it and love people and help people and make a difference in people's lives. It's just,

• 52:31Speaker 02

  we can't let that striving

• 52:35Speaker 02

  be in the place where Jesus should be. And I think I let that happen too many times.

• 52:42Shawn Ryan?

  So it was tough to navigate the ego?

• 52:45Speaker 02

  Yes, and drive.

• 52:47Shawn Ryan?

  And so when you, back to how, how God speaks to you, or, or the tugs on your heart, your God.

• 52:59Shawn Ryan?

  MVPs, you want to help the most vulnerable. You have that. There's a lot of vulnerable people out there in a lot of different ways. And so, how do you know which direction?

• 53:11Speaker 02

  Really good question. A lot of times I would try to figure that out. A lot of time in prayer, discernment, wise counsel. But one of the ways that we would talk about it is that, that we try to gain clarity is what has God pricked your heart for? And what has God opened your eyes to? And if so, he's probably saying, go meet that need. So he pricked my heart and opened my eyes to meet Sherwin in the Philippines, the boy with his feet on backwards. And I believe he was saying it, I'm letting you see him and I'm letting you feel for him because I want you to care for him.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  And then along the way, it was more orphans and special needs and thrown aways. And then a couple of years later from that, it was, it led into the fight against trafficking and exploitation. Because my dad was in an underground pastors conference in a country where faith isn't really allowed. And so he's meeting with these pastors underground so they don't get arrested and they can go back to their communities and minister. And in that underground location, men came in with four little girls and started to auction off these four little girls to all of the men that are in this place. And one of the reasons why my dad's one of my greatest heroes and role models, he just can't look the other way. And he didn't have a seven step plan of what to do.

• 54:33Speaker 02

  He didn't have a plan of action, his strategic thought. He just was, no, no. Those girls are priceless to God. I gotta do whatever I can. He took out all the money in his wallet, which was $1,250 for the rest of his trip and to get home. And he purchased the freedom of those four girls. And he called me afterwards and I said, hey dad, how's the trip going? How you doing? And he said, I'm doing okay. And I was like, what are you up to? And he said, um, I just purchased the freedom of four girls. I'm like, what are you talking about dad? He goes on to tell me the story and I just knew in that conversation and I don't know, Sean, it's hard to explain.

• 55:14Speaker 02

  I just knew this is also part of what we were called to do, being at TTF. And not long after, I got to fly to that location. You show up and you're thinking all these thoughts like, oh, this is like Taken and Liam Neeson and this is cartels and it's, you know, crime families and all of this. And by that time, we even had more kids. And by that time, when I got there, you realize most of these children were sold by their family. One of the first girls that I got to meet, she didn't make enough money one day. And so when she got home, her mom, in such a place of desperation, took her and boiled out her eye. And.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  Boiled out her eye? Boiled out her eye.

• 56:07Speaker 02

  And I just knew, God let me see. God let me see for a reason. God let me feel for a reason. Not so that I can just create awareness or not so I can just tell a story. Because He's saying, I let you see. I let you feel. I let you be here because I want you to do something about it. Because I want you to stand up and fight for her. Because she doesn't have a voice. And all of these other boys and girls, they don't have a voice and no one's standing for them. Will you? And, um, and that was the start of it for us. And man, when we got into it, we had just no idea what we were doing. I mean, no idea.

• 56:52Speaker 02

  Just trying to learn and figure it out. And I also want to mention one thing about that story with my dad before we move on is, who is my dad sitting with? A group of pastors. Do you know how many of those pastors, Sean said, "Hey, Mr. Tebow, let me go find him dinner." "Mr. Tebow, let me go find him a night's stay." "Mr. Tebow, let me go figure out food for tomorrow." Or all of this stuff, not one of them. Why? Because they all had really good excuses. Like, well, Mr. Tebow, you know, those people that you're giving out money to, they're gonna go do something else bad with it. And yes, Sean is probably true, but go say it to those four girls.

• 57:36Speaker 02

  And I'm not saying that my dad had a perfect strategy in all of this. But man, he just knew the true infinite worth and value of those boys and girls. And he was willing to do whatever he could for them. And so many times, we look and we try to weigh and judge in all of this. And sometimes God's saying, "I want you to step in and I want you to be a warrior for them. I want you to fight for them. Don't you just talk on the peripheral or, you know, share? No, I want you to get in the fight for them." And I was also so convicted when my dad told me, when I asked about what the pastors did and he told me, because I started to think, how many times in my life?

• 58:21Speaker 02

  Have I just made really good excuses? Because we can, it's easy. Well, you know, we're doing this and one day I'm gonna do that. One day we're gonna figure it out and I'm gonna go on a mission trip and I'm gonna do these things. And we spend so much time making really good excuses. And I don't even think, we always realize we're making good excuses. But so many times I look back and I say, no, that's, to me, that's a really good excuse. It's a really good excuse. And honestly, we can fool ourselves and we can fool others. But I would challenge us and I've challenged myself a lot. Are you really just saying, oh, you're tired, you have to do this, you have to do this,

• 59:03Speaker 02

  or I gotta provide here, or I gotta do this, but I gotta go train, but I gotta go do this? Or are you really just making a good excuse to avoid saying yes to something God's calling you to?

• 59:15Shawn Ryan?

  How did your dad, I mean, how does he find himself in a, in a situation, in a, in a, in a community that is selling children?

• 59:24Speaker 02

  Well, because he's bringing all the pastors from the local area. And many of these pastors in this country had been thrown in prison for being pastors, for being Christians. Many had been persecuted, some worse. And, and so it's in an area where they thought they could meet. And, and, and so they're looking for places to, you know, these men were looking for places to sell. And I honestly would even take it farther. I believe that it was a, that God used that time for my dad and some of those other pastors that have been very influential

• 1:00:09Speaker 02

  to me as a, as a special moment. Sometimes we say ordained moments or stuff and, I don't know, but just a moment where it was going to open his eyes so that he would open mine.

• 1:00:22Shawn Ryan?

  Do you, the reason I'm asking about how God speaks to you is,

• 1:00:30Shawn Ryan?

  This is a new journey for me. I'm about two years into it. And so I'm learning to lean into my gut because I think that's where he speaks to me. And so I want to ask, you know, I mean, what is it a gut feeling? Do you, I mean, and how, how quick do you act on it? I mean, is it instantaneous? Does it, do you grow confidence with it over time?

• 1:00:52Speaker 02

  Sean, it's such a good question and I wish there was a perfect answer I could give, but I'm also looking for that myself. And I work with so many friends, mentors and pastors of trying to discern and figure that out. And I spend time in prayer, in God's Word and with wise counsel. And I'll always go back to those three because they're, that is in Scripture. We need to spend time with Him. We spend time in prayer. We need to spend time with wise counsel. All are so vital to, to life in wisdom, knowledge and understanding. But I would also add to that, um, that when we, when you, when you say your gut, or I say, you know, God pricks my heart and opens my eyes.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  We need to take that back to God's Word. Does it match up? Is my gut or my heart matching with God's Word? And if it's matching with God's Word and there's something I can do about it, I always want to lean towards, yes, we do it. If we can make a difference in humanity or for a hurting person. And also why it's so important to go back to God's Word? Because if it matches up with God's Word and meaning something like the fight against trafficking or exploitation, or the valuing of humanity in special needs or orphan care, like all of those things we have been told in Scripture. Defend the weak and the fatherless. Stand up for the orphan and the widow.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  Just over and over and over again. So, yes, we've already been told to do that. Like, that's already a yes. It's a, it's already, so when they're saying, hey, should I get into this? Well, maybe it's not my long-term calling, but yeah, if we're doing it and I can make a difference, yeah, do it. And I also encourage, because so many people ask me, Timmy, how do I know my purpose? And I'll first say, I don't know. I'm not God and I don't understand the Bible perfectly. I'm just a sinner saved by grace. It's kind of trying to figure it out along the way. But man, if your eyes have been open to a problem, if your heart has been pricked or your gut is saying something and you know it is in Scripture, it matches Scripture, and you can do something about it. Yeah.

• 1:03:06Speaker 02

  Let's start, let's err on the side of doing something.

• 1:03:08Shawn Ryan?

  How do you know if it aligns with Scripture?

• 1:03:11Speaker 02

  I think that's where it's so important to get into God's Word and to know what God's Word says. It's the, it's the love letter manual for our lives. And sometimes we look at it as a, like a chore. And I tell you, so many times I've looked at it chore. Oh, man, I know I gotta get in God's Word and like I have to do this versus I get to do this versus, man, I get to get in God's love letter. And yes, it is, there are some areas that are so complicated and trying to go back to the original language and understanding Old Testament, New Testament and, and, but it's something that is so real and alive. And man, when you get into it and, and you study with friends and fellowship in it, I

• 1:03:56Speaker 02

  also believe God does something with it and in you with it. And so it's important to know, when I say go back to Scripture and like referring to the story with dad and like, God, my dad knew that because he already knew Scripture. He knew that every one of those girls are fearfully and wonderfully made, that they are one of one, created in love, by love and for love, on purpose and for a purpose. And that ain't the purpose. And so he already knows, I, I gotta stand up for them. Like, and ultimately, that's not necessarily, I'd say, you know, he's calling all the times. Dad's biggest calling is he's an evangelist, right?

• 1:04:39Speaker 02

  But he knew in that moment, I'm here, I can do something about it. I have to do something about it. And I love that about him so much.

• 1:04:47Shawn Ryan?

  Do you ever feel, do you ever feel like your life isn't limbo, where you're looking for a new direction and then you're called?

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  I felt many times I was figuring out God's plan. I think there's so much time in sports as trying to figure it out.

• 1:05:08Shawn Ryan?

  And so we're talking about a direction like, like,

• 1:05:14Shawn Ryan?

  like the proms, or combating sex trafficking, or the numerous other things you've done. How much time?

• 1:05:23Shawn Ryan?

  What am I trying to ask here? I'm trying to ask, how much time?

• 1:05:28Speaker 02

  I can take some of those one by one.

• 1:05:30Shawn Ryan?

  What's that?

• 1:05:30Speaker 02

  I can take some of them one by one, because they're all different stories of how we got into them.

• 1:05:34Shawn Ryan?

  How much time do you spend contemplating your God? To move into a certain direction? Now, something like the, like purchasing the girls, like, I wasn't in that situation, but I could imagine that that's, that's an immediate action. You don't have time to think or ponder on it.

• 1:05:52Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:05:52Shawn Ryan?

  Is this really what you want me to do?

• 1:05:53Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:05:54Shawn Ryan?

  And so what I'm talking about, like, the, a bigger picture, of moving into the direction of any of the things that I just named.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:02Shawn Ryan?

  How much time will you spend thinking, is this really what you want me to do?

• 1:06:06Speaker 02

  Oh, oh, some of them, a lot. And sometimes it is, like, sometimes maybe too much. Sometimes maybe I've known, but I'm trying to deliberate and figure out and discern and do all this. And sometimes maybe I just hang on it too much rather than trust. And I'm trying to ask God for clarity, and it's like, I gave you clarity. Go do it. And so I feel like I've made that mistake a lot, um, as well. But there's been some times, so for the example of Night to Shine, we were getting ready to celebrate our fifth year anniversary as a foundation. And our president at the time came to me and he said, hey, there's these two churches that we know of that have, um, something called like a Jesus prom, where they celebrate individuals with special needs.

• 1:06:50Speaker 02

  And at that time, we already served individuals with special needs in multiple countries around the world in different ways. And he said, so, since we have such a heart for them, we serve them. What if we, as a five-year anniversary, what if we did something, instead of just like having a banquet or something, what if we did something to celebrate them, and how special would that be? And I said, I love it. He said, awesome. Where do you want to have it? Do you want to have it like in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, New York? Do you want to have it in, you know, Guatemala, Brazil, Philippines? Like, where should we have it, are the places we serve? And I said, um, Just my first God or heart response was, I think we need to have it everywhere. And he says, what do you mean?

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  And I said, I don't know. I just know that every boy and girl, man or woman with special needs has been treated as less than. They're not. We need all of them to know their true worth and value and their families to know their true worth and value. And I think we need to have it everywhere. And he's like, bro, what are you talking about? No, that's what I'm talking about. And I don't think he was very happy with me at the time. It's just one of those moments. And then we went back and we talked to our team. We talked to our board and I just felt compelled. No, we need, we need to try to have this everywhere. And so our team and board started to talk about what that would look like.

• 1:08:19Speaker 02

  And we thought, well, what's the greatest way to do this? Partner with the church. It's an army that's mostly un-mobilized around the world. And so we're, okay, we came up with the 72-page manual for the first year of all the ways we were going to do it. And then try to fund it and partner with churches to put it on. Because we also want what's hopefully the best night of every king and queen's life to be at a church so they would come back on Sunday and be loved. So they would know they're part of a family, that this isn't a one-time thing. This is an everyday thing. You are loved this way every day of your life. This is not a one night. And I tell them that every single year, that they are told over and over and over again.

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  We do this because this is how the God of this universe sees you every day of your life as a king or a queen. And so we were just praying that first year, please, we hope churches would partner with us. And that first year, we had just over 40 churches partner with us in 26 states and three countries. And we were like, yes, yes, like, God, you're so big. Thank you so much. This is awesome. We're just so grateful and humbled. And we flew to the, so that night, the first year, we're like, okay, we're going to go to one in North Carolina. And then because South Carolina is close, we're going to fly to South Carolina and so we can get to two. So we flew to North Carolina for the first one. And just as we got there, there's some of the kings and queens walking down the red carpet.

• 1:09:42Speaker 02

  And I told some of the team, I said, wait, back here, I just want to watch it from about 30, 40 yards away. And I started to watch the first couple of kings and queens go down the aisle.

• 1:09:55Speaker 02

  And to watch them be celebrated in their glow and watch their parents watch them. And I thought, man, this is special. And then when we went to South Carolina for that one, as we're walking in the arena where it was held, one of the moms runs up to me and she grabs, I mean grabs me. She pulls me to the side and it's mama bear force, right? And she's holding me, squeezing my hands and then squeezing my shirt. And she's just, you could tell she wants to get this out so bad. And she said, hey, my daughter, my daughter, she will never have kids. She will never get married. But tonight, she felt like a princess.

• 1:10:38Speaker 02

  And I just, I don't need to hear anything else. And then we got back more of the testimonies from, from the first year and hearing from people in, in some of the places that we serve, you know, driving for hours and some of them walking for hours. And, and we thought, man, maybe this is, maybe this is something God wants us to do. And that next year, we decided we're gonna, we're gonna do this until God tells us no. And so that next year, we did it again and had 201 locations. Wow. And then the next year, 375 and, and then on and on and on. And, and then even through COVID, we were able to do it through shine ons and adjust a little bit,

• 1:11:23Speaker 02

  but still have it. And then now this last year, we had over 820 locations in 64 nations and all 50 states. Eight hundred and how many? Over 820 locations around the world. And I think maybe 186 something thousand volunteers celebrating well over 100,000 kings and queens. And, and we got to be a part of some of those in Vietnam and, and my wife was in South Africa. And then we were in Thailand and we're getting to see them. And, you know, now I've been able to. Experience night to shine, and I don't know, maybe over 20 countries now.

• 1:12:07Speaker 02

  And I can't speak most of the languages. I can barely speak English. But it, Sean, it doesn't change. It doesn't change based on the country. Yes, culturally, we change because we want to be culturally relevant and appropriate. But the feel of the night doesn't change. Because it's not about English, or Spanish, or French, or Tagalog, or whatever language. It's a different language. It's a language on God's love, His worth, and His value for humanity. And that's why when we're in Thailand, and Vietnam, and all of these countries, or we're right here, the feel of the night is one of, hopefully, of agape love.

• 1:12:48Speaker 02

  One of my pastors, Pastor Joby Martin in Jacksonville, Florida, you know, one of the kindest compliments he gave our team is, he said, "It smells like Jesus." Oh, man. And, um, and it's our favorite night of the year. And honestly, through that, God has opened more doors, um, through that than anything else that I've ever experienced. We have had, um, heads of states, prime ministers, that have had family members, daughters, cousins, relatives that have attended. We have had, um, the daughters of, uh, of crime families attend.

• 1:13:33Speaker 02

  And, um, just testimony, because so much of them, they, where does some of their family go? They want to be loved. They love, some of them love their daughters and families and they, you know, like, and, um, just crazy testimonies that we've been able to experience. Families that have been walking or carrying their kids for 20 hours to get there. Like, and here in, in America specifically, we, we don't always know.

• 1:14:05Speaker 02

  I really understand the honor and shame culture. But I know you've traveled and been in places and we've been able to see a lot of countries around the world. Most countries are an honor shame culture around the world. There's a lot of them. And so many times, they believe that this boy or girl brings shame to their family. So many, so many, I could tell you story after story of story of kids that have been chained up, kept in the basement because they brought shame to their family. Kids that were told, their, their community told them, you need to drown your child. Or you need to suffocate your child. Your child is not worth living. Your child brings shame to your family. And so when you're dealing with an honor and shame cultures where they have been told over and over again,

• 1:14:47Speaker 02

  there's many countries that we serve in that they will say, if you say, how many kids do you have, Sean? They will say, I have three and then I have one disabled. They won't even put them in the same category. They won't count them. But what we have seen when the biggest night in their community, the biggest celebration, is held for what some of you call the throwaway or the less than, or the ones that brought shame, but now they're bringing honor to your family. They're the head of the table. They're on the red carpet, which signifies VIP, very important people. Like, that's who they are and we celebrate them. It's not just, yes, it is for them. We would do it just for them, but it's also in the community. It's also in their families.

• 1:15:29Speaker 02

  It's also to be able to share with the family, this is how we see your boy or girl. This is how we see your family member because this is how we believe God sees your family member. And it has opened so many doors all over the world in serving the most vulnerable. And they say, man, if you, if you love that boy or girl, would you want to come do this ministry? Would you, you want to fight this way in our country with our people? Because it's just, it's helped us earn so much trust in so many places. And I could tell you story after story after testimony after testimony. And another one of my favorites is actually in a roundabout way through Night to Shine is also how I met my wife as well.

• 1:16:09Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, I mean, that's just. I love the strategic angle, you know, you create that, that amazing, memorable, good experience inside of a church with the, with the hope that they come back to the church.

• 1:16:25Speaker 02

  And you connect the church and that community. And it's one of the easiest ways that we have found for churches to invite people to be a part of it. And they can invite and volunteer, "Hey, do you want to come to this celebration, a prom night feel? And you want to cheer on the red carpet? Do you want to be a buddy?" And they have this amazing night and they fall in love. And then when you leave, it's like, dang, I fell in love with that young man. I fell in love with that young girl. I loved them so much. Now, how can I walk by them on Monday?

• 1:16:53Speaker 02

  How can I view them less than on Tuesday? And it, it, it's just something about when you experience that, I, I, the next day, wait a second, I can't just act like I didn't experience that. And God does something in our heart, softens our heart and softens our eyes to, to say, man, I, God's love isn't just for me. It's for everyone. It's for all of them. And I got to see it. And I got to experience it. And I really believe, um, individuals with special needs, um, one of the biggest ways they impact our communities is that, man,

• 1:17:31Speaker 02

  they are such joy bringers. And they bring such joy. And I wish and pray so many times I could have the joy of so many of the kings and queens that we get to serve.

• 1:17:45Shawn Ryan?

  I love that. Tim, we'll take a quick break. When we come back, I want to get into how you met your wife.

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  Okay, let's do it.

• 1:18:07Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Tim, we're back from the break and we're getting ready to dive into how you met your wife. But we were having a little conversation downstairs and one of the guys on your team asked how God speaks to me. And while I'm still trying to figure that out, but, um,

• 1:18:24Shawn Ryan?

  So I'm asking you this stuff for my own knowledge and, and, and I just, I'm, I'm really interested in this. I had a, I had an experience about two years ago, uh, that really brought me to faith. And, um, I, I grew up Catholic, lost it, and then, and then had this very profound experience in Sedona. And, uh, where God basically had slapped me in the face three times, right in a row, and got my attention. And, and so that's, that's kinda why I was asking you, and, and now, you know, I always wanna do things to better the world.

• 1:19:03Shawn Ryan?

  And whether that's exposing corruption, or, or diving into certain subjects, or bringing light to certain things. And, and, and sometimes I'll find myself, I'll like dive into these subjects and it gets real dark. And then I'll pull myself out and, and I'll, I'll start to think, alright, I've, I have

• 1:19:25Shawn Ryan?

  brought this in front of a lot of eyes and, and, and to the people that can really make things happen. And then I kinda search for the next thing, like, God, what do you want me to do next? And I'll spend this time at limbo and I, I don't like limbo. Like, I'm like, let, give it to me. And, um, and he, like, feed me, come on, let's go. And, and I, I think that's through my own fault because I, I have to have, I'm, I'm getting better. So I get a gut feeling and, and I'm, I'm learning, I think that's how God speaks to me, is through my gut. And I can't even imagine all the external influences that you deal with.

• 1:20:09Shawn Ryan?

  I deal with a lot of them too, and, and I'm always like, is this really like for a good reason? Or is this just me being selfish? And, and so I'm sure that the signs are there, I'm just not the best at picking them up, uh, right off the bat. But I'm learning more and more to lean into my gut. And the gentleman downstairs who I was just talking to, you know, he had asked, how, how does he speak to you? And it's through my gut, but if he, I feel like if he really wants me to do something, he puts it in front of me.

• 1:20:48Shawn Ryan?

  Three or four times, right in a row. And so the latest thing was, and I'm gonna be a little vague here, because I don't wanna, I don't want the word to get out to where I'm going, but a really good friend, his name's DJ Shipley, and he's a former development group guy, teaches tactics. And he was talking to me about somebody that he's affiliated with, who is basically going under investigation for war crimes against Islamists.

• 1:21:30Shawn Ryan?

  And this is, this is one of the countries who's, who's, there's a lot of this going on, all over Europe. And, and, and, and wanted me to potentially interview this guy, and I'm like, well, you know, I don't know, it's really expensive to go there, I gotta bring my whole team, da-da-da-da-da. And he's, he's like, well, he's really good friends with you, with our mutual friend, so-and-so. And I'm like, alright, let me, let me think about it, I gotta think, this is a big strategy thing, I gotta think about, I don't even know if it would be good for this guy to come on and, and expose what's going on in, in this particular country.

• 1:22:14Shawn Ryan?

  I'm boarding the plane while I'm talking to him. I hang up the phone, I get my seat, and the mutual friend that he said could give me more context on this, has the seat next to me in the plane.

• 1:22:27Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:22:28Shawn Ryan?

  And I'm, I see him, and I'm, I'm like, I'll just call him Joel. I'm like, Joel, like, I was, I literally just hung up the phone with DJ about, your guys' mutual friend. And he wants me to go interview him, can you give me some more context? And so, the plane was delayed a little bit. We're sitting on the tarmac and while we're having this discussion, my producer Jeremy sends me the Instagram profile of the exact same guy. And he goes, "This looks like a really interesting interview." Not even knowing, not even knowing the context of why this guy got brought to my attention.

• 1:23:09Shawn Ryan?

  But I mean, it was three things, bam bam bam, in about 10 to 15 minutes, I get hit three times with, "You need to interview this guy, Sean." And so, to me, to me, I don't know how that lines up with scripture. I'm not there yet. I get really confused, uh, reading the Bible and I don't always understand what I'm reading.

• 1:23:31Speaker 02

  So do I.

• 1:23:32Shawn Ryan?

  But to me, that is some type of divine intervention that is saying, "Sean, I want you to go interview this guy. I want you there. This needs to be brought to the light." And so now, now we're strategizing on, on how exactly we're gonna do this, who we're gonna connect him with that, that, that can make a difference over there. Turns out that just a couple of weeks ago, another really good friend of mine that has a lot of powerful friends in, in different parts of the world, connected me about not the exact same subject, but the fact that, that... I, I don't wanna give any more information, because I don't... But, but that's, that's, that's, that's how he does it to me.

• 1:24:17Shawn Ryan?

  And, and, and so that's why I was asking, like, how, how long do you spend dissecting all these different avenues and, and how do you know which way God is telling you to go? And, and, and so anyways, for me, that's, that's how it happens.

• 1:24:35Speaker 02

  So then what, what would you do with it? What, is there any process you try to take it through, like, "Hey, I got a team of mentors and wise counsel I bring it to," or is there any, it's just, "Hey, when it hits my gut three times, I go with it?"

• 1:24:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. And it, it's a little like synchronicities that I see. Like, I'll, I'll bring another example up. We, we were going, uh, I, I went to Romania and I interviewed this guy, Colleen Georgescu. And, um...

• 1:25:05Shawn Ryan?

  He was leading the elections and they just yanked his name and and and they yanked his name because they they basically they say that he's a puppet for Russia and Romania has the the the biggest NATO base ever to be built in Europe. It's it would be a major offensive base for for NATO to strike Russia. Very strategic location. And I'm like, man, like, I don't know if I should be doing this. Like, I don't know everything about this. This isn't I love geopolitics, but I just I don't know if I'm doing this for the right reasons. And there's a quote that somebody told me, and this quote popped in my head

• 1:25:48Shawn Ryan?

  on the airport on the way there. Like, even on the way there, I'm like, I'm not, is this really what I'm supposed to do? Or am I making a deal with the devil here? And I had said to myself, I said, the truth is like a lion, set it free and it will defend itself. I tweeted that out. About 10 seconds later, this woman walks around the corner in the airport, and she has this huge glittery, like, sequins lion head on her shirt. And I was like, that's the confirmation that I needed. And so I felt good about the interview. And and I just feel like he speaks to me in now a lot of people, you know, like I said,

• 1:26:33Shawn Ryan?

  I'm fairly new to this. A lot of people might say, oh, well, that could be, that could be Satan also tricking you. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but I had a strong gut feeling and and so I went with it. And another thing that that literally just happened was I went to

• 1:26:56Shawn Ryan?

  I went to Boca Raton to get the, you know, the MRI cancer screening, the full body scan. Cancer is probably my biggest fear of all time. Like I've seen people suffering from brain cancer and I it's like every other day, you know, you hear somebody, "Oh, so-and-so got cancer. Oh, so-and-so got diagnosed. So-and-so died." And I see, you know, what people that have that go through on their journey to death. And I'm like, "Man, I would really love to just drop dead and just go peacefully and not have to battle that." And me and my wife have been taking our health very seriously and so we're getting proactive about it.

• 1:27:39Shawn Ryan?

  We went down and did this cancer screening and I don't do well with anticipation of waiting for test results. And it takes about a week. We go do this scan. We did it together. And we're both really worried about it. We have a three-year-old and a one-year-old. And all these thoughts are going like, "What if, what if one of us gets diagnosed? What, how do we treat the other? How do we treat them in front of the kids? How do we explain this to the kids that, you know?" And especially a three-year-old. And what's it gonna be like if I do get diagnosed and then Katie's raising them herself? And they don't even really have a profound memory of their dad.

• 1:28:20Shawn Ryan?

  Anyways, we get done with the cancer scan and my, my number, how I came to Christ, a big part of that story is the number 444, which I looked up. That got slapped to me three times in about five minutes. Looked at my dash. It was 444 on the, at the time. There was 444 miles left to empty. And there was, it was four hours and 44 minutes after I had a meeting with somebody who I thought was an IT meeting and he was telling me, "Sean, there's guardian angels watching over you." So it was 444 three times, I guess about 10 seconds. And we get done with this cancer screening.

• 1:29:02Shawn Ryan?

  And I pull out my phone and it's 444. And so I, Katie got done and I said, "Hey..."

• 1:29:11Shawn Ryan?

  We're gonna be fine. I said, I looked at my, my phone right after we got done with the screening and it was 4:44. And then I pulled up, it was like right then, I pulled up, I don't know, X or YouTube or whatever, one of the social platforms and it had 4:44 across the board. It was like 444 likes, 444 shares, 444 comments or something like that. And so there it happened again. And I told, I showed my wife, I'm like, look at this. And then we were staying at her parents' house and they lost power and the Keurig machine

• 1:29:52Shawn Ryan?

  was not at the right time, you know, it was on whatever when the power kicked back on. And right before I went to bed, I made, I made, I, I made a, a cup of tea or something and I used the Keurig and I looked at the Keurig and it said 4:44 and I just, I was like, he's got us, like, we're fine. We're gonna, nothing's gonna pop up on the screen. I just had the gut feeling and sure as shit, test results come in and we're a hundred percent cancer-free. And so that's

• 1:30:35Shawn Ryan?

  in a nutshell, in a very quick, uh, explanation, that is how I communicate with, with God.

• 1:30:43Speaker 02

  Thank you for sharing that with me. I so appreciate hearing, you know, your heart and perspective of what you've been through and the signs that you feel like of how God's speaking to you. Can I ask you a question on that?

• 1:30:59Shawn Ryan?

  Absolutely.

• 1:31:00Speaker 02

  If, um, you, you mentioned, this is how I knew that God's got me. And you knew, yeah, the gut feeling is not gonna come up. Do you think God's got you any less if something did pop up on the screening?

• 1:31:15Shawn Ryan?

  No, I don't.

• 1:31:19Shawn Ryan?

  I don't think that, but I think that is...

• 1:31:24Speaker 02

  More of a sign of confidence in this specific...

• 1:31:27Shawn Ryan?

  I think that was, even if I did have it, like, I felt like...

• 1:31:33Shawn Ryan?

  Like, to me, I felt like, "I'm not finished with you yet. I'm gonna still use you as a conduit." Because that's how I think of myself, is I'm just... You said it earlier, you know, with the platform that God gave you. And, and, and, ever since this is, and this show's inception, even though I wasn't on the walk with Christ at the very beginning, like, I still had very good intentions. And, and they were selfless. And, I wasn't making any money doing that. I was paying money to, to, to bring light to other veterans, to uplift their business and their struggles,

• 1:32:15Shawn Ryan?

  and to bring hope to veterans, you know, really all throughout the world. Like, I know, like, how bad it gets. I tried to commit suicide. I was addicted to drugs. I was an alcoholic. I, I understand the transition from

• 1:32:34Shawn Ryan?

  fighting wars to trying to fit in with society and build something completely new. And that was really all I wanted to do. That's why this whole thing started, was I wanted to do that. And then, I'm losing track of where I was going with this. But, but, but then, is, is, is my journey to Christ. When that happened to me in Sedona,

• 1:32:55Shawn Ryan?

  it just, it really fueled it. And, and, so this is where I'm going. I mean, you had said that the platform that God gave you. That's how I view my show, is I'm, I'm just a conduit

• 1:33:09Shawn Ryan?

  to information of whatever God wants to reveal.

• 1:33:12Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 1:33:13Shawn Ryan?

  And, and...

• 1:33:15Speaker 02

  Can I just throw out one, one thought of just listening to you and your, your heart of, and I could be totally out of line with it, but I'm listening to your heart and from the start of, hey, you're saying, "I'm a truth teller and I want to tell the truth and I'll tell people's stories because I want to help them along the way." And then you, you meet the King and through all of these things and God's doing this work in you. And I, I don't know, it's hard for me not to think, well, you're, you're telling these stories of truth and it's leading you all the way to the truth. And, and now you're still a truth teller. You just get to tell the truth as well.

• 1:33:58Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:58Speaker 02

  And now it's a whole framing. I just, I love that because I think sometimes, you know, God creates us in a certain way and we use that, you know, the way we think so, but then he's like, "Hey, I want you to use that this way." And it's not that he necessarily doesn't, I think he gives you those drives for a reason, just to steer it the right way. And I, I just love it. I think it's so cool. I couldn't help but I was just starting thinking of as a truth teller, trying, you're, "Hey, I want to tell these stories. I want the people to know the truth. I want to uncover it. I want them to see." And there is a lot of our world that needs to see. They need to see certain things. They need to be aware. There is evils that we

• 1:34:42Speaker 02

  got to fight back again. There is good things that aren't getting promoted, aren't getting the praises or recognition. And ultimately, you, you get to share and you do it and, and, you know, God's taking on a journey and you're getting to show that journey to the world of that story of figuring out the truth. And so it's just cool. I love hearing it because it's just, it's an encouragement to me.

• 1:35:06Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you. Thank you. I love doing it too. I mean, it's like I've made mistakes. I'll continue to make mistakes, but, but everything I do is within, with my best intentions. And I just, I just, there's just so much struggle in the world. And if, if you are given the gift of a platform and, I mean, it's just your duty to, to...

• 1:35:34Shawn Ryan?

  Steward that in the, in the right ways. And I really, it weighs heavy on me to do that.

• 1:35:44Speaker 02

  Well, thank you for carrying that, the burden of it. Cause it's, it's so important. One of our core values is that we embrace the joy and the burden of the calling. And it's not enough just to do the joy. And sometimes that's more fun times, but there's also a burden with it. But I actually believe we have a burden because of the kindness of God. That he would let our lives and our choices and the impact that comes from that, that we would care enough about it, that we would be burdened for something, that you would be burdened to tell these stories, that, that we would be burdened enough to care for the MVP, to do whatever and leverage everything

• 1:36:27Speaker 02

  so that they could experience freedom and faith, hope and love. Like burden, while it comes across as a negative connotation, I don't view it that way. It's heavy and it's hard, but it's worth it. It's worth, and if you didn't have a burden,

• 1:36:48Speaker 02

  why would we do it? And I actually really believe, and this is a journey for me over the probably, of course, the last three years, that, man, we're so burdened for something or someone that, why? Cause we care, cause there's a, something deep in our heart that has moved us, that stirred us to that, that we believe we can move the needle, make an impact, change a life. And we are so burdened to do so. And so I just encourage you that when you say you're burdened,

• 1:37:19Speaker 02

  I think you can also view a burden as a blessing. It's a blessing that God would give me a burden to tell these stories, to try to tell the truth, to try to shine the light. Like I'm burdened to do so because of the kindness of God. He would give me this platform or let me borrow this platform. And then you mentioned stewardship on that. And stewardship is a fascinating concept that gets thrown out all the time. But in the Greek, it goes back to the Greek word oikonomia, which just means a, you know, a house manager. Cause it's not my home, I'm just taking care of it till the owner comes back. And that's, in my opinion, how we should try to use our lives, our platforms, our bodies, our energy, our mindset. It's not even mine. God just let me borrow it for a little bit.

• 1:38:03Speaker 02

  But when the honor comes back, is everything in order?

• 1:38:07Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I love that. And also, I mean, if you didn't have a huge heart, then you wouldn't have a burden.

• 1:38:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:38:15Shawn Ryan?

  And, and so that, when somebody's burdened by something, or troubled by something, or,

• 1:38:23Shawn Ryan?

  it's because there's a heart.

• 1:38:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:38:26Shawn Ryan?

  And a big heart. And then to act on it, I mean, it's,

• 1:38:32Shawn Ryan?

  it's a uncomfortable gift.

• 1:38:34Speaker 02

  Yes, it is. That's such a good way to say that. And, um, I'll get fired up about this because sometimes it, it, um, be honest, sometimes it really bothers me when people will talk about it in such negative ways, or say, no, I don't want to be burdened by that. Or I'll have some people, um, like I'll be in certain groups and someone in that group might ask me, if it's a small group, they'll say, hey, can you tell me about some of the, the fight against trafficking exploitation? Can you tell me some stories or some of the, and you'll start to tell, and then you'll have other people that, and this, this isn't rare, this happens quite often. They'll say, no, no, don't tell me, because it reminds me of my kids. Don't, don't, don't tell me, because I don't want to know that. Don't

• 1:39:16Speaker 02

  tell me, because I don't want to hear that. And, uh, one time, I was with a, a small group at a fundraiser on a golf course, and I was asked by one of the guys, and the other guy, a couple of other guys said, no, no, don't tell me. Very, very successful, powerful, could help a lot of people. And, um, and I, I was so burdened by them saying, no, don't, I don't want it, no. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to have those thoughts, because it'll remind me of my kids. And I probably shouldn't have responded this way, but out of a little bit of maybe temper irritation, I responded and I said, if the boys and girls that are going through this evil could hear you right now, what hope do you think they would have?

• 1:40:01Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:40:02Speaker 02

  And maybe it was disrespectful.

• 1:40:04Shawn Ryan?

  What did they say to that?

• 1:40:08Speaker 02

  Nothing for a few minutes.

• 1:40:11Speaker 02

  It was just, and it maybe was a disrespectful, and I maybe could have coded it nicer, but it was like...

• 1:40:19Speaker 02

  Yes, there are burdens and there is evil. But if we don't stand up and do anything, who's gonna do it?

• 1:40:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:27Speaker 02

  You just, you think it's somebody else's responsibility?

• 1:40:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:30Speaker 02

  Um, I mean, this is, this is, you know, literally going back to Kitty Janavisi and I think it's nineteen sixty-three or sixty-one or something like that. And it's the, the story that led to the bystander effect where Kitty Janavisi is walking home late at night and, and she gets attacked and stabbed, um, like four times or something like that. And the lights turn on from the apartment complex where she's walking into and the attacker runs away and, and hides behind a car and, um, and she gets up and stumbles into the, the hallway of apartment complex. And she sees, uh, he sees no one goes to aid. And so he comes all the way back and attacks her again, I think stabs her maybe eight more times. I think steals forty-nine dollars.

• 1:41:14Speaker 02

  Um, I believe he also rapes her and is supposedly over thirty people, um, saw some of this or some, most of it. And it's even reported that one of the guys in the hallway opened the door and looked out, but nobody came to her aid. Nobody came to her aid. And so anyways, uh, make a longer story short, she died on the way to the hospital and it was a big story and everybody's writing and talking about it. And they started studying this case and it was where the bystander effect came from, that the more people are present, the less likely someone is to do something because they all feel like it's somebody else's job. And this is also the start of where the nine-one-one call came from, was from this night in New York City of Kitty Janavisi losing her life.

• 1:41:59Speaker 02

  And there's some controversy of how many people actually saw, how many people didn't see. But the point is there are a lot of people that saw that knew something bad was happening, but they all thought somebody else is gonna call, gonna go, gonna do. And.

• 1:42:13Speaker 02

  We just, as a, um, as people in society, as believers in church and ministry and, and just life, we can't think somebody else is gonna go.

• 1:42:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:23Speaker 02

  It's, it's not somebody else's job, it's my job. And we talk about that with our team all the time. You can't think this is somebody, this is our job. Like regardless of what somebody else does, it's our job. So when we, our, our, the definition we use for calling is an urgent and divine invitation to accept responsibility for a particular task. If God is calling you, it doesn't matter what anybody else does. Will you believe it's divine and that it's urgent? And will you accept responsibility regardless of what anybody else says? Yes, we wanna rally people to the fight. Hundred percent of our, i- is our, part of our goal. We gotta do that. But regardless of anybody else does it, will you do it if you know you're called? And, and I think there's, you know, part of the bystander effect, which is so real for

• 1:43:09Speaker 02

  all of us, at least I know me. Well, is anybody else doing it? No, but what does that matter? Is it right? And will I do it?

• 1:43:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yep. I'm a hundred percent with you. I mean, I, I think that the reason, when you're talking about, cause I've dove into this topic a lot on this show with, with small outfits, with big outfits, with, I was just telling you about Ryan Montgomery, whom I'm gonna bring up again later in the show, but, you know, I, I think that there, when people, when you're talking about educating people on the topic of sex exploitation and sex trafficking, I don't think it's that they don't wanna hear it because it reminds them of their kids. I think it is, they don't wanna hear it because then that becomes a responsibility to act that gets in the way of their own selfish desires. And that's just how I think of it.

• 1:44:03Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, how could you not wanna know about this stuff? Just to, you have kids and it makes you think of them? Wouldn't you wanna know what's out there to be able to protect your kids from that kind of an evil? I mean,

• 1:44:14Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:44:15Shawn Ryan?

  I sure as hell do.

• 1:44:16Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:44:16Shawn Ryan?

  And, but I think that especially with, I'm sure with some of the circles that, that, you have access to and that maybe you run in or whatever, I mean.

• 1:44:29Shawn Ryan?

  Greed is a powerful, it's powerful, man. Yes, it is. And it gets in the way, you know, if, for somebody to achieve and to keep going toward egregious, towards greed. I mean, if you throw, if you throw a blocker in like that, it's not even a blocker, but they look at it as a blocker. It's, I don't have time to deal with this. It's a disruption in their life, absolutely. It's a disruption in their own comfort and, and to achieve their own selfish desires. And they don't want to take the time. And comfort is a whole nother conversation. But this stuff, man, that just, yeah, that gets to me.

• 1:45:12Shawn Ryan?

  When, especially when it's somebody that could actually really make a difference, whether it's, whether it's, you know, through service or, or, or, or financing or exposure. I mean, I told you at the beginning about Ryan and, and what he, what I saw him, when I found that reel on Instagram of him

• 1:45:33Shawn Ryan?

  basically hacking into pedophilia websites and getting the user base and trying to get that to, to one of the federal agencies to act on it. And nobody, nobody was paying attention to him. And my biggest platform is YouTube, which is owned by Google. They don't like talking about this stuff. And, and it was a big discussion with my team. And I was like, I don't give a shit what happens. Like, this guy is grinding, he's trying to do good. Nobody's paying attention. And we're going to put this in front of millions and millions of people. Because, and if it gets taken away because we did something good, I don't care.

• 1:46:16Shawn Ryan?

  Like that, I feel called to this. This is what I'm gonna do. People need to hear about this. They need to know what's going on. It scares the hell out of pedophiles, what we did. It educated parents. It brought hope. And, and it, it, it.

• 1:46:34Shawn Ryan?

  Shined a light on Ryan so that so that people that do wanna help that are making a difference like you. I mean, we brought him up to through that show and I didn't bring him up. I mean, God brought him up, but it it enabled him to to operate at his fullest potential.

• 1:46:54Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:46:55Shawn Ryan?

  And and he's doing, he has gone on to do amazing things, completely selfless and and I feel like that's my, I feel like that's my place in the world right now is to is to find people like that.

• 1:47:11Speaker 02

  Tell stories and.

• 1:47:12Shawn Ryan?

  And and expose it for good.

• 1:47:14Speaker 02

  Well, you have a a platform that has a chance to um expose, to share, to build someone up um. And it's what a blessing that is.

• 1:47:26Shawn Ryan?

  I love doing it. Nothing makes me feel better than to than to help people, you know, so but um. Man, I would.

• 1:47:37Shawn Ryan?

  I would love to talk to you about spiritual warfare too.

• 1:47:40Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:47:41Shawn Ryan?

  Do you, I mean. That's.

• 1:47:44Speaker 02

  Okay, here we go.

• 1:47:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that's that's what really brought me to Christ is is I had this internal battle where I was. You know, I was talking about a lot of the the the the gender surgeries that are going on in kids that are eight and and and kids that are um taken out of their homes by the state and and and different states throughout our own country and and that stuff just like really weighed on my heart. I'm not I'm not against those people. I mean, I I interviewed this guy Chris Beck, who was the first transgender Navy SEAL and everybody hated him in the community and and he's since transitioned back and is a warrior for Christ now, but I

• 1:48:29Shawn Ryan?

  I reached out to him because I was like, I wanna I wanna talk to you about how this happens and I wanna understand it and and I want kids and kids up to adults to be able to to listen to your story on how that happened to you, what that did to you. And at least they at least they have a conversation that they can reference to like this is what I'm about to go through. And and I mean, it's but.

• 1:49:03Shawn Ryan?

  But I felt like I was the only one, I wasn't, but I felt like I was the only one that was like really taking this all in and in in it it it felt like through social media and in in legacy media and all the that nobody cared about these topics and I'm like it got to the point where I was like Sean, why do you even care? Why do you give a shit? Like, maybe you're the, maybe you're the one that's wrong here and and trying to fight this and in in expose some of the stuff that's going on that it's not being displayed through social media and legacy media and I've I've

• 1:49:44Shawn Ryan?

  to be honest with you, man, it felt like I was like surrendering my heart to the devil and Cause you knew that you needed to talk about it. Yeah, but I I had, I knew that I did, but I I I it was, I felt so alone that I I thought maybe I'm the one that's wrong here and this happened to me in Sedona and I had a major breakdown and I walked through this gate and this guy like

• 1:50:15Shawn Ryan?

  I'm a former SEAL, former CIA guy, I pay a lot of attention to security and stuff like that and a lot of the guys that worked that gate at that specific resort knew my show and we would talk and high five them and all this stuff and we were there for a week. I walked through there see this guy that I've never seen before in my life and he's trying to talk to me, he's like, hey, I'm a Vietnam vet and I'm like dude, I just surrendered my heart to Satan. I don't want to talk. Like, I just want to go to my room and my wife turned to him and and was talking to him and he looked at me and he read my mind from front to back, legitimately read my mind and the first words out of his mouth were

• 1:50:57Shawn Ryan?

  all this stuff with the transgender stuff and the kids and he goes, that's not your fight, man. And then he started talking about China because there was, I'm really spun up on just a lot of the stuff that's going on in there and and after that, my mind, he freaked me out. I was like, how are you in my head right now? How do you know what my thoughts are? I've been here for a week. I've never seen you. I pay a lot of attention to this stuff. I know every other guy that works the gate here except you. I go to my room.

• 1:51:32Shawn Ryan?

  And I had an experience with what I believe to be my guardian angel. I'm really breezing through this because I want to get back to you. And then at the beginning of that trip, my best friend here in Franklin died. And he was also a SEAL and he was a guy that, he was a guy, a very successful businessman that I could relate to and that I knew he wasn't going to ask me for favors and we could just sit down and talk and I don't want anything from him. He doesn't want anything from me. He died on a hunting trip with his son, had a heart attack. In my opinion, great way to go. Um,

• 1:52:15Shawn Ryan?

  and his daughter, who I'd never spoken to, Taylor Cirillo, texted me that night and basically told me that this is all, again, within 10, 15 minutes. She says, hey, Sean, I've never spoken to her. She didn't have my number. She must have got it from her dad's phone. And she said, I walked into my dad's gun room last night. And for the, and he spoke to me and said that I need to reach out to you and that you were his best friend and that he could relate to you in ways that nobody else could relate to him. And he, and he wanted you to know that he loves you just the way that

• 1:52:59Shawn Ryan?

  you are. And that was like the icing on the cake for me. I was like, okay, like I was, I had done psychedelics to treat PTSD and then some other, some other traumatic brain injury and stuff like that. And that had kind of sent me on this road where I was like, oh, it's the universe. It's this, it's that. It's, I don't know what it is, but I just know there's something. And then that night, it was like, this is God. That was, that old man who I'd never seen before, he was speaking through him and he read my mind from front to back. And it freaked me out. And, um, and so I think,

• 1:53:40Shawn Ryan?

  like, when I think of spiritual warfare, I've described this before, I think it is a never-ending battle between good and evil. And the way I kind of envision it is, if you look at them, a two-color

• 1:53:58Shawn Ryan?

  It's black and white. But let's say that the, it's, it's, it's, it's like a fluid in there. And you just see like, the black sometimes starts to overtake the white. You spin it around and then the white starts to over. I feel like it's this never-ending battle within our, within our hearts and then within the world. And then it's just always going back and forth, back and forth. And it's just this fluid and eventually, one will completely overtake the other.

• 1:54:31Speaker 02

  I, um, thank you for sharing all that with me. Um, that's a lot to take in and digest and I'm sure it's, it was so much for you. Um, my first thought is that because of the hope that we have in Jesus, it's not, not a never-ending battle. It is a battle that will end. And it's a battle, we already know who won. That because of the cross, we already know that we've won because he won for us. But one of the things that I think the enemy wants to do is, um, what we know his tactic. It is to steal, kill and destroy, right?

• 1:55:15Speaker 02

  He's the father of lies and now he's doing it, stealing, killing and destroying. Um, and, um,

• 1:55:24Speaker 02

  but yet even in the midst of that, we get to have this hope. And, but what does that even mean, right? When we say we have this hope, this hope that we know is an anchor for our soul, firm and secure. This hope that we have in Jesus, that, um, that we have this, this hope that brings us, um, joy and fulfillment, that we have this hope in all of it. Well, and when, I think some of the best definitions or the best definition that I've heard of, the biblical form of hope, not the hope we use in flipping a coin and hoping it lands on heads. You know, not the, I hope Florida beats Georgia next year, not that type of hope, but the biblical form of hope. I believe one of the best definitions is to look forward with confidence. Expectation and anticipation.

• 1:56:09Speaker 02

  To look forward with confidence. Why? Because we've already won, because God won for us. Anticipation, why? Because we know God's still at work, that He's working in us and through us, even in our flaws and failures, God's still working. He's using screw-ups to impact the world, but then also expectation. And one of my favorite things to think about of expectation is heaven. Because we know our best days are ahead of us, because heaven is ahead of us. So we get to look forward with confidence, expectation, anticipation, and we get to,

• 1:56:52Speaker 02

  we know that we have won, but what the enemy wants to do is he wants to diminish that. And he wants to say, is it really? One's question is a counterfeit, counterfeit everything that God said. Is it, did you really win? Is it, do you really want to believe? Do you really want to give your life for Him? Do you really want to serve people? Or you just want to feel good about yourself? Or, you know, you need this, you need this. And so I believe a lot of the spiritual warfare is about the renewing of our mind. Which voice are we going to listen to? We're going to listen to the voice of the enemy that's putting all of these thoughts with the goal to kill, steal, and destroy. Or are we going to listen to God's voice and the voice of truth,

• 1:57:33Speaker 02

  of what He's done, what He's doing, and what He's going to do ultimately, how we win? And I really feel like it's a battle of the mind and a battle of the heart. And it goes together, because our heart, if we don't stay soft to things, our heart hardens. Our heart gets less and less tender to the things of God and the things of good, and the compassion for other people. Because compassion is not a comfortable thing. And we talked about comfort for just a second. Compassion actually goes back to the Greek word "spokniso mai", which means to be moved from your most inward parts. It is not comfortable, it is a painful thing. Eight times, I believe it's used 12 times in the New Testament. Eight times to refer to Jesus, this word "spokniso mai", to be moved from your most inward parts.

• 1:58:16Speaker 02

  But so many times after, it says that Jesus had compassion, moved from His most inward parts, and He met their needs. He healed them. He cared for them. Like, and I think that's so important for us to understand because it's not comfortable. It can even be painful to have compassion, but compassion isn't a distance thing. It's not an empathy or sympathy. Compassion is very up close and personal, but when our heart gets hardened, we are less compassionate. We are less caring. We're less thoughtful, all of these things. And it ties hand in hand, I believe, with our head and our thoughts of, you know, it's why we're told so much in scripture to consider one another as more important than yourself. Not that they are more important. Consider them

• 1:58:58Speaker 02

  as more important, right? So our thoughts are on other people. Our thoughts are on ourselves. But the enemy wants to say, no, no, no, Sean, you just think about you. Think about what's best for your show. You don't need to tell that story. You don't need to tell hard stories, right? And it's gonna lie to you about all of these things. And so we could dive into that really deep in a lot of things, but I feel like it is about this keeping our hearts soft, keeping our mind clear, or maybe a better way to say it, not clear, but focus on the truth. Focus on the words of scripture. Focus on the truth so that we're not listening to the lie. And I tell you, I really believe that I've had those thoughts that I know that aren't from God, and I didn't get rid of them quickly. I didn't go back to God's word. I

• 1:59:43Speaker 02

  didn't go back to scripture. I didn't go back to truth. I didn't, at certain times, have the people around me where I could say, hey, we gotta flush this out. We gotta talk. I need wise counsel. I need mentors in this. And I really believe that's a, is a really big part of fighting it, is getting in God's word, putting on the armor of God, knowing what His word says, and through that, the renewing of our mind, so that we're not listening to the wrong voices, listening to the lies of the enemy, because we know what His goal is. It's been clear for a long time. And He is sly, and He is cunning, and He is a father of lies. And we have to be able to know the truth, so that we can also know when the lie shows up.

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• 2:01:10Shawn Ryan?

  What is his goal? You said, "We all know, we all know what his goal is."

• 2:01:16Speaker 02

  It's to kill, steal, and destroy. His goal for humanity is to kill, steal, and destroy. And I love it because Scripture tells us his goal is to kill, steal, and destroy. But Jesus came to give life and life abundantly. You have it right there. It's, it's right here. The enemy's goal, the devil's goal, and King Jesus's goal is to give life and life abundantly. And when we, we look at that, I, I think that's true in a lot of senses. True in the purpose and meaning and significance of life, but also life abundantly in heaven, life in eternity. There's so much to that. But ultimately, this is the balance of which voice are we going to listen to? We know the enemy's, his goal from Scripture.

• 2:02:01Speaker 02

  We know our God's heart for humanity and what He did for humanity and what His goal is. It is so that we would have life and have life abundantly, that we would have peace, and not just peace, but His peace. He said, "Peace I give to you, my peace I give to you." How do we have that peace? Well, the promises of God, the truth of Scripture, a relationship with Christ, and... So that's not diving into as much of spiritual warfare, but it's how do we counteract it? How do we fight that? How do we fir- the first stand against that is by knowing the truth. Cause if not, if we don't know the truth and we're not renewing our mind in knowing God's Word, well, how do we even know the truth? How do we know the difference between the truth and the lie? Right?

• 2:02:43Speaker 02

  And that's why it's so important in God's Word, in time of prayer and wise counsel. I know I've said it multiple times, but I just believe it's so important. So I would even go back to the wise counsel part with, um, in Proverbs, it's a book about wisdom. And, um, so many times in Proverbs, I believe it's almost 30 times in Proverbs. Solomon is pleading with his sons and all of us, but I also believe he's pleading with his sons to be Musar-driven. Musar is a Hebrew word, my favorite Hebrew words, because it means instruction, discipline, correction, or teaching. And he's saying, be Musar-driven. Seek these things, be open to these things. Instruction, discipline, correction, teaching. But when we first hear that, like, we flinch. We don't want it.

• 2:03:28Speaker 02

  I don't want instruction. I definitely don't want discipline, like correction. No, who wants that? And teaching, like, yeah, it sounds a little bit better, but we don't, we don't crave those things. We don't want it. But he's pleading, one of the wisest men of all time, is saying, please be Musar-driven. Seek these things. Have wise counsel, wise people around you. Seek it. Be a lifelong learner. Be in God's Word. Be listening to people. So, because it's so easy, any of us, at any time, start listening to the wrong voices and you let a lie creep in and it starts to fester and you don't get rid of it. And it starts to go from here to here, starts to harden your heart. And now all of a sudden, I'm, I'm, I'm going down a path that I thought I would never go down. And I'm having thoughts I thought I would never have.

• 2:04:12Speaker 02

  And I just think that is so important. And then we see, like, Solomon's son takes over the kingdom and his first big decision, he chooses to listen to his friends over the elders.

• 2:04:26Speaker 02

  And destroys the kingdom. Cause instead of listening to wise counsel, to elders, to getting advice and wisdom, he's, he's listening to the, you know, not that your friends can also be wise counsel, but you know, he's choosing his friends over godly wisdom. And he makes a terrible decision. And I just couldn't help but think of that as we're talking about it. That, and how do we fight this? I believe those are some of the steps. Some of the steps that I haven't always, you know, done well. And I'm, you know, part of that I'm preaching to myself on.

• 2:04:58Shawn Ryan?

  How much of the world do you think is a lie? How much of what we all think that we know for a fact is a lie?

• 2:05:08Speaker 02

  I don't even know how to answer that. Can you ask me in a different way?

• 2:05:18Speaker 02

  Well, I could.

• 2:05:19Shawn Ryan?

  There's just so much cover up going on and so much deception. And I mean, when you look at pandemics and

• 2:05:31Shawn Ryan?

  gender ideology and what's acceptable and what isn't and

• 2:05:39Shawn Ryan?

  policies that are made and, and just all the lies that are going, that we already know about, that are going on, not just in our country, but throughout the world. I mean, I've, I've come to the point where I think that when we die, we will realize everything that we think we know is some type of a lie and/or deception. And, and, and, and that's another thing that brought me to Christ was it is the, I was at a point in my life where the little that I did know about.

• 2:06:22Shawn Ryan?

  The word of God seemed to be,

• 2:06:26Shawn Ryan?

  it was the only thing left that I could relate to. And the way I process that is that, and you've, you, it is, it is the truth. It is the only truth. Everything that you think you know has potential to be a lie, except for that.

• 2:06:45Speaker 02

  Well, truth by definition is exclusive. So when people will even say, well, my truth and your truth, well, they're really probably should say it's my opinion and your opinion. But there's only one truth. And in a situation, there's only one truth of what happened. And when we talk about the truth, in the way, in the life, we're talking, it's exclusive by definition. I think we have to understand it. But you know, when, when you ask that question, my heart went to,

• 2:07:17Speaker 02

  I do believe that there are so many lies that are being told to us, especially to the next generation. And I look at that 12% of our daily thoughts are spent in some form of comparison. Like, it's crazy. When I first heard that stat, I thought, what? 12% of our daily thoughts? What, so what are we saying by that? What we're saying is 12% of my day is thinking, I need to be more like him. I need to look like her. I need to act like that. Because we're telling the next generation, who you are isn't enough. You need to change so you're more valuable. Instead of saying, no, no, you're so valuable to God. Look what he did for you. Right?

• 2:08:01Speaker 02

  And, and, and we, we just tweak it so much that there's a little bit of truth in there, but a lot of lies. And that's, you know, the greatest form of lies has a tiny bit of truth in it, but it's masqueraded with a whole lot of lies. And then you look at with young people,

• 2:08:21Speaker 02

  the loneliness epidemic. I mean, it's off the charts. Here and around the world, you look at the suicide rate and you look at especially for young girls and the, the rate at which they're considering suicide. It's off of the charts. And you, you have to say it's because we're

• 2:08:40Speaker 02

  We're telling them so many of the wrong things, but they're also flooded with so many voices. And you, you get your phone and you look at it and they're on this all the time and they think, "I'm surrounded by a community and fellowship," but it's not. They're looking at other people's fake best days. And they're comparing it with their own worst days. And they're saying, "Okay, because of this, I need to change, I need to adapt, I need to look like her, I need to have the surgery, I need to have this change, I need to make that team, or I'm not worth it, I'm not this, I'm not that," you know? And all of that, instead of saying, "No, no, no, when God made you, he made you one of one. In love, by love and for love, on purpose, for a purpose, fearfully and wonderfully made." And we say that in, you know, so many people in church, you know, "fearfully and wonderfully made." What does that even mean?

• 2:09:25Speaker 02

  Fearfully in context and culture, it just means awesome. And wonderfully means unique and set apart. And I have been so blessed to see some of the different wonders of the world and, um, natural wonders, ancient wonders. And I feel like we're, they're coming up with more wonders, just so they can sell more stuff. But you see some of the wonders of the world and you get there and sometimes you're like, "Dang, this is really cool, like, it is really wonderful to see this." And sometimes you're like, "Dang, this is just really overrated." But man, I, I feel like a few times I've been able to see a, a wonder of the world. And I've been so encouraged, because I thought, "Man, as cool as this is and as wonderful as this is, it doesn't compare to how wonderful God created every man, woman, boy and girl."

• 2:10:09Speaker 02

  So when he says, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made, we are more one of one, unique and set apart, more wonderful than any of the wonders of the world." But yet, we say all the time, "Oh my gosh, could you just imagine seeing that? Could you go to this place and see this beauty and see this thing?" And they are awesome! That part of God's creation is awesome! It just pales in comparison to you and to me and every member of society. So, we, we think those things are so, so beautiful. And they are, they just don't compare to God's greatest creation, which is you and me. And I, I, um... Share a story to explain that.

• 2:10:47Speaker 02

  Last year, or I don't know, near this time, we were in The Hague for an operation there in the fight against live streaming abuse. The where? The Hague, just outside of Amsterdam. Okay. And so the day before it started, me and my wife got in early and then my wife really wanted to go see the Anne Frank Museum and then we are gonna go to the Rake Museum. So we go see the Anne Frank Museum and it was super impactful and very heavy and deep. And we leave and we go to the Rake Museum, which is a museum of just masterpiece art. Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, all of these just incredible portraits.

• 2:11:29Speaker 02

  And hundreds of people, if not thousands of people, were in there that day. And we're in there and we're looking at all this art and incredible art and, you know, it's beautiful. And I gotta be honest, like, I'm a homeschool lefty dyslexic kid from Jacksonville, Florida. Like, art doesn't mean as much to me as maybe it should, or it does to my wife. Like, she really loves it. And so we're going through and we're looking at all of this, you know, beautiful art. And she just definitely appreciates it more than me. And my whole time, I'm thinking about some other things and I'm trying to appreciate it, but spend time with my wife. And we get to one of the portraits and I think it's, if I remember correctly, I believe it's a Rembrandt. And I believe it's also called The Standard Bear.

• 2:12:10Speaker 02

  And it's a, it's this beautiful portrait that I think they just purchased a few years ago for $191.3 million, if I remember correctly. And we're looking at it and there's all these people that are looking at it. And everyone's taking pictures and video of it. And, you know, just, you could hear the oohing and aah, oh, it's so beautiful, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I'm standing kind of beside it and I'm looking at it, but then I'm looking at all these people and I get so sad.

• 2:12:40Speaker 02

  So convicted and so sad and burdened watching it. Cause I'm watching all of these people film and video this. And they're looking at that portrait as so much more valuable than they are. And I just was so sad remembering what we're gonna do tomorrow and the next few days. And all of these lives that are literally being purchased to be abused and raped. And I'm thinking, no, we're looking at this and what they're going through. And we're saying, this is the masterpiece? And I'm not trying to knock art. I'm just trying to say that pales in comparison to every one of you. And I wish I could have told them, hey, take your phone, flip it to selfie.

• 2:13:22Speaker 02

  And you'll see something more wonderful than that portrait will ever, ever, ever be. And that's part of the lie that we're, we're, we're, we're trying to uncover in, in, in ourselves and people. Is we think, wow, this is so beautiful because it's, you know, all this money. It's beautiful because it's called a masterpiece. No, no, no, you are more wonderful, more fearfully made than that masterpiece of a painting will ever be. There's no comparison, but we put this value on societal things and, and temporal things. And, um, and we just think they're everything when they're not. And I think that's another one of the biggest lies that we have to fight.

• 2:14:06Speaker 02

  Because it is something that challenges us every day. But if I have that, then I'll be more valuable. If I have that, I'll feel more valuable. No, no, no, that's not gonna fill you. That hole that you're chasing is only a place that God can fill.

• 2:14:24Shawn Ryan?

  Well, that's a heavy thought to have in a art museum.

• 2:14:29Speaker 02

  And my wife's probably like, why do you always gotta take stuff to be so serious? Just can't you just enjoy some portraits and paintings? I'm sure she probably gets annoyed with me with some of that.

• 2:14:41Shawn Ryan?

  How, let's, let's, so originally, we were gonna start with, how did you meet your wife with this segment? So how, how did you meet your wife?

• 2:14:49Speaker 02

  So, as Night to Shine was expanding, we had our first Night to Shine in South Africa. And that's where my wife is from, South Africa. And she had a little sister with severe special needs. And so I heard her share a testimony about her sister. And so I told the team, hey, invite her and her family to be a part of, of Night to Shine. As, you know, can we welcome and celebrate them? And, and ultimately through that, she, her sister was too sick to be able to attend. But through that, she had heard about it. And then we, we, we sent the invitation, but she couldn't make it. And, and they responded.

• 2:15:34Speaker 02

  And I just, even in response, I thought, man, she's so special. And I responded again, saying, but if there's any way we can serve y'all. And partially because we really wanted to, but I gotta be, I had ulterior motives. I was like, she just seems so incredible. And, and she responded and we went back and forth on email for a little bit. And she said, I would love to learn more about what y'all are doing. And may, maybe we can set up a phone call. So after a bunch of emails back and forth, we set up a phone call. And it was supposed to just be, I literally think of the emails, like, well, five minute phone call to hear more about, you know, the, in supporting people with special needs. And so I said, of course, and we set up the phone call.

• 2:16:17Speaker 02

  And that phone call, instead of being five minutes, was two hours, 24 minutes and six seconds.

• 2:16:23Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:16:24Speaker 02

  And, uh, sounds weird, but I gotta tell you, on that call,

• 2:16:31Speaker 02

  I, I had a good feeling I was gonna marry this girl I'd never met.

• 2:16:34Shawn Ryan?

  Beautiful.

• 2:16:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Because.

• 2:16:39Speaker 02

  Even on that phone call, we both knew we have almost nothing in common. Like, her first language is Afrikaans, I can barely speak English. She, all of her favorite artists or movies I've never heard of. All of her favorite songs, I, like, I have no idea. She had never seen a baseball, basketball, or football game in her life. She had never seen my favorite movie, Braveheart. Like, there's nothing in common. But we had everything in purpose. And we had a heart for people with special needs, and her sister with special needs. And we had a heart for fighting against the evil of trafficking exploitation.

• 2:17:21Speaker 02

  And she was carjacked at gunpoint by armed men, and who knows what they wanted to do to her. So she had a feeling, like, she would say, probably responsibility to try to step into that fight after that happened. And so, those type of things were what connected us, of something on such a deeper level. And I was playing baseball at the time, and it was just, I don't know, it felt so clear. I was like, man, I want someone that I, you know, come home and I'm like, hey, I went one for three with a walk, like, who cares? You know? Like, what does that matter? One day, is that where we're gonna, the special?

• 2:18:02Speaker 02

  And it's, no, all the deeper things, the meaningful things, the challenging of our heart, the who we want to be, the pursuit of God in our life, the trying to take screw-ups and tests and turn it into testimonies. And all of the, that's like where we connected. And so, she was Miss South Africa and then Miss Universe at the time, and I was also like... I never got to meet her in person. So she was getting ready to go on a seven week, uh, seven country tour and all of this. And I was like, man, like she's gonna go in all these countries and we haven't gone on a date.

• 2:18:43Speaker 02

  And I was like, you know, some like freaking Prince of Wales is gonna like, you know, meet her and it's gonna like, you know, woo her and I'm not gonna have a chance. And I was like, oh, we gotta find a way to go on a date before she goes on this. So we ended up finding a way to go on our first date and. Where'd you go? It was over. It was just a, uh, we were playing baseball and it was in Erie, Pennsylvania. And we had a few of our, our friends that were with us and could be a part of it. Cause we had never met in person and so, uh, but the day before she literally on the phone, she goes, hey, by the way, something's gonna have to really go wrong for this not to work out. Like we, we knew, like we had really good assumptions. I don't wanna say knew, but we really believed that we were probably gonna get married.

• 2:19:27Speaker 02

  And then we went on the first date and we never stopped talking. How'd you propose? Um, I proposed, um, at my parents farm, the place we moved back. We moved back from, um, from the Philippines and, uh, I just, I wanted to do it so different and special. And so how can you have a special surprise? You base it all in lies. And that's what I did. And I had everyone in on it and I wanted it to be so special. So we, we had been gone in South Africa for Christmas and then doing football commentary stuff. So I, and I was in South Africa to ask her family for a hand and we got back and I had to do that before I did. I just really wanted to do it that way.

• 2:20:11Speaker 02

  And so we were at our house for celebrating Christmas, even though it was in January and our families together. And I gave her a ring for Christmas, just to throw her off so she wouldn't think that the ring was coming. And so we, we set up all these lies and my whole family was in on it. Her family was in on it and I, I told, um,

• 2:20:32Speaker 02

  I told her that we, you know, for every Christmas celebration, we have a big dinner. I'm a parent's house, total lie. We don't. But, cause she knew, she had always told me, hey, when you propose, I would, I would, you know, love to be dressed up, but the only thing is I really want is I want my nails done. And so my sister took her out, cause they were a big dinner, so they're like just naturally bringing up nails and did all their nails and dressed up. And, and then to throw her off the scent even more, I had one of our friends that has a car dealership to let me borrow a brand new truck, cause I told her I was gonna give the truck to my dad for Christmas. Cause if she's thinking, hey dad, Timmy's giving this truck to his dad for Christmas, definitely not proposing.

• 2:21:11Shawn Ryan?

  Oh wow, you really thought this one out.

• 2:21:13Speaker 02

  So we, uh, so we, so we, we, we get in that, that truck and we, we drive it to my parents' house. And what she didn't know was all of my family was already in the house. And she didn't know her family had secretly flew, flown in from South Africa. But before we walk into the house, I said, hey, you can walk out to the pond. That was very meaningful to me is where I just prayed many times, is where I decided, so tried to figure out where I was gonna go play college football, is where we buried our dogs. It was just where it's a meaningful place. And I had an arch built there and I had flowers all around it. And I had a bench made for us there and, and flowers on the way out.

• 2:21:56Speaker 02

  So we're walking out to it and, and about halfway there, she knew what was about to happen. And so we get there and I get on my knees and, and I proposed to her. But I was just trying to find other ways for it to be special. And one of the things, she just loves her family, wants them to be a part of it. Well, she didn't know that in the hay bales that were all around, I had microphones that were planted in there. And so her family could hear the whole conversation. I guess it could have gone bad and my family could hear. And so I proposed to her and then I get my phone and I turn on our favorite song, which is by an artist called Matthew Mole from South Africa. And it's called The Wedding Song. It's her favorite song, so it quickly became my favorite song. And we're dancing to it from my phone.

• 2:22:42Speaker 02

  But then, uh, as we're dancing, I had turned her and then Matthew Mole had flown in from South Africa and was walking out and so then turned her and Matthew Mole is playing her, her favorite song.

• 2:22:54Shawn Ryan?

  No way.

• 2:22:54Speaker 02

  She's like, oh my gosh. And then we, we keep dancing to it and I turned her again, but I had a sign and so her, um, she didn't know her family was there and then all four of her parents, cause they got divorced when she was like one and they remarried. So all four of them are amazing and they're all in her life. So then she turned around and there was her four parents. And she's thinking they're in South Africa and they're there. And so she's crying and they're all celebrating and then, uh, we're all hugging. And then when her back was turned again, I had several of her best friends that had flown in. She turned around. There's some of her best friends.

• 2:23:25Shawn Ryan?

  Oh man.

• 2:23:26Speaker 02

  Freaking out and there's my family and then, uh, and, and then so we just had an awesome celebration and, um, and, and then she, it's so funny. So then my, my dad's there and she's like, uh, so wait, is, is that truck really for your dad? And I was like, no, it was just to throw you off the scent. So it goes up to my dad and she's like, she's like, Mr. Teal, I'm so sorry that you're not getting a new truck, but you are getting a new daughter. And my dad's like, it's so much better. It was just, it is just such a, such a special.

• 2:23:57Shawn Ryan?

  Well done. Well done. That is beautiful.

• 2:24:05Shawn Ryan?

  Tim, I, yeah, I really appreciate, I, I really appreciate the fact that you aren't, you don't seem to be defined by any one moment in your life. And I mean, you're a world-class athlete, NFL player, baseball player, college superstar, Heisman winner. I mean, but you're not here to talk about that and, and at least I don't think you are. And, and I just, I really appreciate that. I mean, you're so accomplished in so many different areas, but.

• 2:24:42Shawn Ryan?

  My impression is that that doesn't define who you are. That's something that you did. And then you move on. And so I'm not going to cover your athletic career.

• 2:24:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:53Shawn Ryan?

  But what I would like to cover, I brought up, I brought up numbers and 444, you know, for me.

• 2:25:02Shawn Ryan?

  316. I could dig into my notes, but I'm not going to. I'm not a big football guy, but 316 is painted on your, your eye black. And how many things added up to 316 during that game?

• 2:25:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, the playoff game. Uh, well, if I can back it up for just a second, give a little context, when I, when I wore it for the national championship, honestly, I, I, I just put it under my eyes and I didn't really think about it. I was just so focused on trying to win the championship. And after the game, I, um, we finish and we win and two days after the game, I'm sitting in Ballyhoo Restaurant in Gainesville, Florida, with my mom and my dad and Coach Meyer. And we're having dinner and I even think I was eating a piece of grouper at the time. Cause I just, that moment and Coach Meyer gets a call. And he's, he answers it and it's Steve McClain, our PR guy. And he's, he's, Coach Meyer is always so intense. He's like, uh huh, what?

• 2:26:04Speaker 02

  What do you mean? And you know this? Really? Okay, bye. And I said, what, who's that? What's all it about? He said, this is Steve McClain, our PR guy. I said, what did he say? He said, Timmy, I just got the numbers back from the game. And he said during the game, 94 million people Googled John 316. And I remember sitting there and just being so overwhelmed. I guess on one hand, I was like, how the heck did 94 million people not know John 316? But the other one is I was just thinking, man, what a big God we serve. Like, uh, when I first started putting eye blacks in the beginning of the year, I just, I thought ma- maybe some with binoculars might see one and it wasn't a, a big step of courage or faith. It was tiny.

• 2:26:46Speaker 02

  Tiny. It's nothing. It's just putting a little eye black. Cause I saw some of my teammates, you know, writing their area code or their mom's name on their eye black. And I thought maybe, you know, someone might be encouraged. And I even thought about putting God bless under my eyes, but I was like, ah, might be too cheesy. So I did Philippians 413 and then I switched to John 316 and, and. And then I was just sitting there overwhelmed by what a big God we serve like wow he and then I think it was the next day or something another Sports Illustrated come out and you know the focal point is John 3 16 and you're like oh my goodness like God you're such a big God well that game that national championship game was on January 8

• 2:27:25Speaker 02

  of 2009 and exactly three years later to the day that I wore it we were playing I was playing for the Denver Broncos and we were playing the Pittsburgh Steelers in the in the NFL playoffs and it was on January 8 of 2012 exactly three years later I had no idea I honestly I I really feel like there was so much of me that was just selfish in that moment and not all in the worst way but some of it of just man I wanted to prove the doubters wrong I wanted to show them we could do this I wanted to to make a statement I wanted to win for my team and the fans my family and all of this and again that's all wrong but there was a piece of it that was just selfish for me and I had no idea it was three years later from the day

• 2:28:08Speaker 02

  and we play this game and and we win in overtime I still think it's the fastest overtime in NFL history and we win surreal moment and it's just like it's unbelievable and the crowd stays for well over an hour after the game going crazy and going to the locker room and I I changed and I gotta go talk to the media and I don't really want to and right before I walk in this big room packed full of media there's all these curtains out front and I'm standing in front and Patrick our PR guy there steps in front of me he said Timmy do you realize what happened and I'm like yeah we just beat the Steelers we're going to play the Patriots he's like yeah I know what happened dude like why why'd you ask me such a silly question then

• 2:28:47Speaker 02

  he goes no do you know what happened and I'm like I thought I did Patrick what happened because you could just see this different demeanor and he said Timmy no you don't know what happened Timmy, it's exactly three years from the night that you wore John 3:16 under your eyes. And I'm like, oh, wow, that's awesome. That's so cool. And he said, no, no, no, you don't realize it. Timmy, during the game, you threw for 316 yards. And I'm like, what? And he said, Timmy, during the game, your yards per rush were 3.16. Your yards per completion were 31.6.

• 2:29:31Speaker 02

  The ratings for the night were 31.6 and the time of possession was 31.6. And during the night, over 90 million people have Googled John 3:16. It's the number one trending thing all over. And I think he even mentioned something about, there were so many people tweeting about it that like Twitter even froze or something like that. At least that was what I was told when I was standing in that hallway. And I don't think I had the reaction that a lot of people think I did. Because I went from a high and a celebration and a joy to a conviction and a disappointment. Why?

• 2:30:11Speaker 02

  Because when he was telling me that, I knew that God was convicting me, saying, Timmy, you thought tonight was about a game. You thought it was about all of these things. It's never just about a game. I didn't die for a game. And I was so convicted, still grateful that God would use something, but convicted, man, my eyes were on the wrong thing. My heart was in the wrong place. I knew you. I knew what you'd done. But I still, my heart was here and my eyes were here. I knew the truth. I just wasn't focused on it. I was having all of these selfish ambitions and goals. And it was also this reminder, but I can even use, I can even use it when your heart's not right. I can even use you.

• 2:30:56Speaker 02

  I can use something that you did three years ago and started three and a half years ago, and you didn't even know that I was doing something. Because I honestly thought after three years, when the first time, I just thought, man, well, that's cool. But you also think, that's cool, God, but it's done. And he's like, no, you have no idea what I'm doing. You have no idea. And I was just so convicted. I didn't even want to walk into the media, not that I really wanted to anyways, but... And then I go in there and I'm answering questions and... So many of them, they want to ask me about it because it's buzzing. You can hear them even talking, but some of them kind of asked me to the side. They're like, all of these, you know, numbers adding to three, one, six, three, one, six, three, one, six. And a few of them to the side, they're like, oh, that's a big coincidence. Like, they don't even want to ask in the microphone, you know?

• 2:31:40Speaker 02

  And, uh, and they're like, wow, what a, what a big coincidence, something like that to me. Coincidence? Yeah. That's what they call it? A few of them on like the side because they don't even ask it. And I said, uh, well, we could believe it's a really big coincidence. Or we could believe that we serve a really big God. And, um, just one of those moments for me. And I think God used it for a lot of people, but I also think he was trying to teach me something too. And, um,

• 2:32:13Speaker 02

  that one, we have no idea what he's doing. But even when we know the truth, how easy our eyes and our heart can leave it. And, um, it was very humbling for me. And, uh, even going back and celebrating with my family and friends, and we had so many that were in town. It was a celebration with also a conviction, if that makes sense at the same time. And, um, and God's done so much of that. Even when I've told the story a few times on some different shows, it's, you know, it's gone viral on that. And people, uh, one of the first things that people mentioned when I'm in South Africa with my wife, John three, 16. And, uh, you know, it's just so humbling that, um, that could just be a part of it.

• 2:32:57Speaker 02

  But there's a piece of me that feels unequipped and

• 2:33:06Speaker 02

  like unworthy that God would do some of that with it and, um,

• 2:33:18Speaker 02

  I would say that the more I've been out processed that, the more I could say, "Man, I'm so grateful and celebrate it." But I never want to get to that place again where I think, "God, you did something, but you're done." Because we have no idea what he's doing and how he's using it. And I just, I don't want to put God in a box. And I feel like so many times I've had, like, "And we have no idea what he's doing." And do you know all the things that had to happen at the end of that game for all of that to change? I mean, the fastest overtime in NFL history, one play, 80 yards in the exact amount of time. And if one of those things go off, all of them go off.

• 2:34:00Speaker 02

  Like, and yet, just, it's what our God does, just more than we could ask, think, or imagine. And definitely because we don't deserve it.

• 2:34:15Shawn Ryan?

  I wonder how many people were on the fence and then saw that happen and realized it was real, that he is real. Lot of people.

• 2:34:29Speaker 02

  Hope so.

• 2:34:31Shawn Ryan?

  Pretty amazing.

• 2:34:33Speaker 02

  You know, I tell something else that's cool about the 316 is, so several years ago, Camille goes, we're sitting in our office when she joined the team. And I said, "Camille, what breaks your heart the most?" And she said, she wrote down the number 20,000. And I said, "20,000, what, what does that mean?" And she said, "It's the boys and girls that law enforcement can see their rape and abuse images, but they have yet to be identified. And they're all sitting in the ICSA database, which is at Interpol.

• 2:35:14Speaker 02

  And it's the database that, from 68 countries, house all this material. And we believe there's about that many. And we talk, and we know we have to do something. And she's just a force for it. So we convene a meeting in Lyon, France with all of the, so many of the major players in this space to find out what is the ground truth for this, right? What is the number? And it wasn't 20,000.

• 2:35:43Speaker 02

  It was closer to 57,000 boys and girls that law enforcement can see their rape and abuse images, but have yet to identify them. And so, we come up with a plan and through with partnerships and especially with HSI and C3, and they're just the tip of the spear when it comes to this, and partnerships with countries all over the world. And that leads to Operation Renewed Hope 1, led by C3, but with a lot of countries and, you know, and Interpol and NICM and Europol and so many, and Google, and so many people that were part of this. And so, that operation to identify these boys and girls takes place and it finishes.

• 2:36:26Speaker 02

  And one of the, the men that are leading it, that's just a warrior for kids and good, calls me when it finishes. He said, "I don't think you'll believe this, but you want to know how many of the official number that have been identified at the end of this operation? 316." And, and he, he almost couldn't tell me. He was so blown away when he was telling me that and we were, um, and I, I don't know if that's a God-awake moment or it's, but, um, it was a, a special moment. And then I want to share something I've never shared before.

• 2:37:11Speaker 02

  Can you ask Kevin to bring my phone up? If he has it. I'll need my phone to share something that I've never shared before, but I think this would be a Perfect. A cool time.

• 2:37:24Speaker 02

  Wow. No, no. I'm sorry, Kevin, I should have had my phone.

• 2:37:33Speaker 02

  So, so then, Operation Renewed Hope 1 was really groundbreaking in this space and,

• 2:37:42Speaker 02

  It just changed so much of the game. And so, all the partners led by C3, Cyber Crime Center in DC and HSI, you know, we gotta replicate this again. And it's a really cool model of all these countries coming together to be able to identify as many and then to go rescue them. And so then we have Operation Renewed Hope 2. And when that finishes, we're actually in, a lot of our team and law enforcement partners are in Romania, doing a special training there and in a whole lot of areas against this. And we're at dinner after that's finishing and we're in this Romanian-type tavern and with all these law enforcement that are just heroes.

• 2:38:27Speaker 02

  I mean, just been battling the worst evils, right? And we're sitting with all of them. And so one of, who's come to become a friend of mine, he's been dealing with this a long time, faced a lot of evil in the world, gone through a lot because of it. And he's sitting across from me and he's like, "Man, I gotta tell you, when, you know, I saw the John 3:16 story, and I, when I realized that it was 3:16 after Renewed Hope, I was blown away. I couldn't, it's just, almost I couldn't handle it." And he said, "So now Operation Renewed Hope 2 just finished and we identified 417." And we're sitting in Romania.

• 2:39:12Speaker 02

  And he said, "So what does 417 mean?" And I said, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what that, I don't know what that means." And he said, "Well, look it up, like, go to the Bible. What is it?" And I'm like, "Which 417 do I go to?" You know? And he's like, "Just pick one." And so, and there's like 25 people sitting there and we're all sitting there. I don't know. And so I go, um, let's go 1 Corinthians. I don't know. And he goes, "Okay, tell me what 1 Corinthians 4:17 is." And again, I just say this in all humility of maybe a God thing, but it also broke my heart. And so he goes, "Okay, read 1 Corinthians 4:17."

• 2:39:57Speaker 02

  And I didn't know 1 Corinthians 4:17. And so the whole table gets quiet and I read it and this is what it says.

• 2:40:10Speaker 02

  For this reason, I have sent you Timothy, who is my love and faithful child of the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways, which are in Christ Jesus, just as I teach everyone in every church. And he goes, "You have got to be something else kidding me." And I was like, "What? I didn't know that." And so it was just a moment where it can't, it has nothing to do with me, but it's maybe, maybe one of those moments where it's just a Godwink moment.

• 2:40:42Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:40:42Speaker 02

  And still to this day, this officer will put a lot of texts and stuff as 316 slash 417.

• 2:40:53Speaker 02

  I've never shared that, that story before.

• 2:40:55Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, maybe a Godwink moment?

• 2:40:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:40:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I don't think there's any maybe about it. I mean, there are no coincidences. That's incredible. Wow.

• 2:41:12Shawn Ryan?

  I love this conversation, man. So getting into, getting into what you're doing now. I mean, you are really kicking a lot of rocks over and doing a lot of good things. And so what are, what are some of the things? What are some of the things that you're encountering?

• 2:41:35Speaker 02

  Well, I think our biggest heart as a ministry, as a foundation, as a team, as a, like, we call ourselves a family, is trying to go to dark places to bring light, trying to go to places of crisis, chaos, and conflict, and bring light to go to the hurting. We know that our God is near to the brokenhearted. That's what Scripture says.

• 2:42:03Speaker 02

  Don't know exactly what that means, but I know if God's near to the brokenhearted, man, I want to be too. I want to be too. I want to be near and with the hurting so that we could share faith, hope, and love. We could protect them. We could defend them. We could stand up for them. And in this fight for the MVP, in this fight against trafficking and exploitation, it's, in my opinion, one of the greatest evils in the world, or maybe a better way to say it, one of the worst evils in the world.

• 2:42:41Speaker 02

  But specifically, our heart is to get to as many and leverage anything and everything we can so that they can get out of this evil. And as I mentioned earlier, you think so much is done by all these groups and gangs. And yes, that does take place in a lot of areas. But man, it's overwhelming when you think how much is done by families, by friends, by those in the trusted circle. And especially when we talk about the fight against child exploitation and child sexual abuse. It's off the charts of what is being done in the families. And do you know what's the...

• 2:43:25Speaker 02

  I don't know if I want to say most disappointing, but maybe one of the most heartbreaking is do you know the number one offender? Biological fathers.

• 2:43:36Speaker 02

  And it would... It's not going to make your day, but I brought a...

• 2:43:44Speaker 02

  a map to

• 2:43:47Speaker 02

  share with you.

• 2:43:50Speaker 02

  Is this map?

• 2:43:54Speaker 02

  Every red dot on that... So first of all, that is a DOJ law enforcement map. It's called the Red Dot Map. And every...

• 2:44:07Speaker 02

  This is over the last 30 days and every red dot on that map is at least one unique IP address of individuals downloading, sharing, distributing child abuse and rape images under the age of 12. And there's over 111,000 of them, just in the US, over the last 30 days. Wow. And I just, I wanted to bring that because I think it brings to life so much of the evil that we're trying to face. And people will say, well, that's just over there and

• 2:44:49Speaker 02

  it's in those countries and it's all of those places. And it's not. Sean, it's right here in our backyard. It is right here. And out of everyone, and some people will say, okay, well, they're just downloading and sharing it and distributing it. But they're not. 55 to 85% are also hands-on offenders. And your average offender has 13 victims in their lifetime. 13 victims. Every one of those red dots is there's a boy or girl that is suffering on the other end of what they're sharing, downloading, or distributing. And I just, I want to share that with you because I know that your heart breaks for them. And

• 2:45:30Speaker 02

  I think that map brings to life the evil that we're trying to fight. And why, you know, one of our hearts is to get the Renewed Hope Act passed through Congress, because it takes the law enforcement officers, right now, and victim identification officers at C-3, and they're amazing. Some of my favorite people in the world. But there's seven of them, right now, at C-3. There's how many? Seven. Seven people to... Yes. And also, ICACs are working on that. We love ICAC, and we need to enhance their funding because they desperately need it. Internet Crimes Against Children, and they're awesome, 62 locations around the country. But primarily, the ones that are also working on this are at C-3. And we want to get the Renewed Hope Act passed because

• 2:46:11Speaker 02

  it would take it from seven to 200. And now we have a much greater chance if we have All of those officers that are trained and equipped to be fighting against this evil. And again, that's the last thirty days. And that's not getting into live streaming or extortion or um or grooming or so many of the other issues we're fighting. That is just in peer-to-peer networks of them sharing and distributing child rape images under the age of twelve.

• 2:46:38Shawn Ryan?

  This is twelve and under.

• 2:46:41Speaker 02

  Twelve and under.

• 2:46:43Shawn Ryan?

  Hundred and eleven thousand, four hundred and twenty-three unique IP addresses.

• 2:46:49Speaker 02

  And and some people will say, well, that's just, you know, they're just downloading it and they're just sharing it. And no, it's not just that easy. You have to go in, you have to down download it just, you know, appear to appear. And then you have to be able to download all of these images and then you're sharing them. It's not like this just happens by accident. It's not like, oh, I just looked at a bad picture. And it's not like this is a a photo of a of a baby in a in a bathtub. No, so many of these are brutal, brutal abuse of children. And um and when we go back to those fifty thousand boys and girls that are unknown in the ICSI database that we're talking about before,

• 2:47:31Speaker 02

  out of those fifty-seven thousand, over three thousand of them were infants or toddlers.

• 2:47:37Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 2:47:39Speaker 02

  And so if you say what's on on our heart, um, and these are boys and girls that can't fight for themselves. They can't defend themselves. And yet, so many of us, myself, for so long, did nothing to defend or stand up for them. And it is our heart that we would rally an army and maybe we would even declare a national emergency to fight this evil of this is happening in our backyard. And out of all those that have been rescued from or out of all those that have been, you know, safeguarded and rescued from renewed hope one, two, and three, more than half of those boys and girls have been right here in the US. So we think it's over there, it's over there, it's over there.

• 2:48:23Speaker 02

  No, yes, it it is happening in other places, but it is happening in our country, right here, in our neighborhoods, in our backyards, in our families.

• 2:48:33Speaker 02

  And then we get into the fight against live streaming. And do you know the number one payer of livestream rape of boys and girls around the world?

• 2:48:40Shawn Ryan?

  US.

• 2:48:41Speaker 02

  US. Not close. And in peer to peer sharing, we're third. China, Russia, America.

• 2:48:49Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 2:48:51Speaker 02

  Sorry, I do get fired up about it.

• 2:48:52Shawn Ryan?

  I do too, man. It's, um.

• 2:48:57Shawn Ryan?

  How are you combating this?

• 2:48:58Speaker 02

  Well, we're trying to do it in every area and every way possible. Whether that's with partnerships and nonprofits and law enforcement and rallying and task forces and legislation and lobbying, you know, trying to get them to enhance the, um, the, the, the army per se in fighting this. And that's really what the Renewed Hope Act is for. But it's also getting the Renewed Hope operations more and more and more. And, um, and we're having more and more every day. But it's also, you know, creating awareness and I hate to use awareness. Could people say it all the time? And I don't want awareness for awareness sake. I want people to be aware so we act to do something. I think we really have to change laws and legislation. And I believe there's a lot of people in Congress in DC that want to change it. But we have to get it done. We have to protect these boys and girls.

• 2:49:42Speaker 02

  And I know we have to, we have to figure out budgets and balances and all these important things. But what does it matter if we figure out a budget, but our boys and girls in our backyard are being raped and abused? Like, let's make the main thing, the main thing. This should be a main thing.

• 2:49:58Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 2:49:59Speaker 02

  Like, this has to be a main thing. It's.

• 2:50:03Shawn Ryan?

  But this is.

• 2:50:06Shawn Ryan?

  The last 30 days, 111,423 unique IP addresses. I mean. How many kids does that amount to?

• 2:50:17Speaker 02

  It, it's hard to know. And by the way, this is only one database and there are multiple databases. So it's not like this is all of them. But it's hard to know every life on the, on the back end. But that's why we try to find as many studies and stats and databases to find it. But the clearest one we can go to is if you look at this over 111,000. And then you know that 55 to 85% of these are hands on offenders. And your average offender has 13. Now you add that up. 13 offenders in their life. How many boys and girls is that? So every time we take one of those offenders and we take them off the streets, how? How many boys and girls did we protect? How many boys and girls do we safeguard? One of the, and, um.

• 2:50:59Shawn Ryan?

  It's like, that's like.

• 2:51:01Speaker 02

  It's a lot. Over 1.5 million. It's a lot. And in one of the operations, one of the doors that got knocked down and men that got taken away actually led to 30 other children that he had been abusing. And I want to say this, and I think it's important. The number one offender type is biological fathers. But by far, it is being done by middle A's Caucasian men.

• 2:51:44Speaker 02

  Many, over half of them, college graduates. Many of them are educated, good jobs. This isn't just who we're thinking about. Like, they're, you know, technical savvy. And I think that it is time that we call them out. Like, that we can't stand by and stand back. Like, we have to stand up and say, not only are we not doing our job as men, it's actually the opposite. Instead of being defenders and protectors of our families, we're hurting and abusing. We were in the office last week and we were talking with someone that's amazing in this space. And we're going through a case to try to learn from this and do some more stuff.

• 2:52:29Speaker 02

  And the guy that has already been put away and convicted of his crime was abusing an 18-month-old, his 18-month-old and his nine-month-old. And I was sitting there and just horror, right? But then we're looking at what he was doing it on. And he was doing it on a Florida Gator blanket. And I was thinking, man, it's probably someone that was rooting for the Gators. Probably someone that maybe is a fan or likes the Gators, likes when I played. But no, this, how personal this is, maybe it's someone that's in the stadium watching us play. Right? Like, this isn't far off or far across around the world, because we always think, and even sometimes

• 2:53:14Speaker 02

  members of Congress will say to us, but, you know, we gotta, you know, worry about our backyard. No, we're talking about our backyard. This is our backyard. This is right here. Like, um, I could tell you so many stories of our backyard in Jacksonville, or in Florida, or around our country of, um, there's an operation, um, uh, last year, um, that, um, a task force, you know, multidisciplinary task force came together in Jacksonville that were luring men, that wanted to sleep with, I believe it was eight and 13-year-olds, and lured them. And, you know, 27 men showed up and got arrested because they had the goal of sleeping with an eight-year-old or a 13-year-old. And

• 2:53:57Speaker 02

  the, so many of them work in places with kids. They, um, one of them was a former professional athlete. Couple of them were tied to law enforcement or part of law enforcement. Like, this isn't just like over there, it's here, it's our backyard. And we have to stand up for these boys and girls. And we gotta change laws, legislation, we gotta build a bigger army, we gotta be able to create awareness, know what families can do, protect your kids. Also, in the same time, when your kids go onto the internet, they have to know that they're getting lured, groomed, um, stalked by people with intent to do evil. And people with a goal to do good have to work better. I was telling you earlier when we were downstairs, when, um, you know, there's a dark, um, uh,

• 2:54:41Speaker 02

  dark website that was taken down. And before it was, um, one of the last messages that was sent out was a message you had thought would have been coming from a pulpit. Hey, I just want you all to know that I believe in you, stay strong, stay vigilant, stay alert. We can get through this together, we can do this. And it was a place where so many men were joining it so that they could view the rape of boys and girls, be a part of this terrible evil. And yet, they're working together many times better than people with a goal to do good. Why? Is because so many times

• 2:55:16Speaker 02

  We're more worried about the credit than we are about the mission. And what does the credit matter? Who cares about the credit? It doesn't matter. Like, we don't care anybody. Take it. We just want these kids to be out of harm's way.

• 2:55:33Shawn Ryan?

  Why? Why does there seem to be so much pushback on this particular subject?

• 2:55:44Speaker 02

  Well, I think there's quite a few things to that. I feel like, because it's very complicated. I feel like it's complicated to be able to understand and discern the problem that there's peer-to-peer networks, but then there's live streaming, but then there's grooming, but then there's extortion, but then there's also trafficking and they get merged to all look like, you know, it's the same thing. So people will just sort of be like, oh, it's trafficking. Well, no, it's not the same. There are differences. There's overlap between sexual abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. There is some that happen in all three, but there is also some that is just exploitation, some that is sexual abuse, and some that is trafficking. But it's such a complicated nuance, something that honestly, I'm still trying to learn

• 2:56:26Speaker 02

  every day to just learn and understand as much of it as possible so we can know how to best strategize. And we put so many, you know, try to find so many wise people and our team is full of people that are smarter than me and trying to learn and understand that we can understand the problem so we could try to have solutions. But I think one of it is we just don't fully understand all of the issues. And we just think it's over there, or, you know, or we just think it's border. And there are issues at the border. There's no doubt there is trafficking there. But one of the things that we have to understand is it's not just there on the border, it's not just overseas, it is here in our backyards. And we could go into that, but I think that's one of the bigger issues.

• 2:57:09Speaker 02

  It's nuanced, it's hard to understand, it's hard to grasp, it's hard to figure out. Then you try to understand the why, and then, and that's difficult. And I just think in other areas, maybe it's like, okay, you know, selling drugs, this is it. You know, and there's just little lanes that are maybe a little bit less nuanced. And this is very complicated. And it is, and honestly, there's just...

• 2:57:37Speaker 02

  There's even differencing of opinions on it. There's difference of approaches to it. But I feel like that's why we just have to get so many of the right players in the room, set out on a course and fight together, not against each other, on the same team, and create strategies to defend our boys and girls here.

• 2:57:56Shawn Ryan?

  You know, earlier you had mentioned that you bring this subject up and they don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear it because it reminds them of their kids or whatever other bullshit excuse they have. What? I think it's important to,

• 2:58:11Shawn Ryan?

  for lack of a better term, put some of this on display for people to hear. And you'd mentioned a specific satanic cult that... I'll let you finish it.

• 2:58:24Speaker 02

  The story I was telling you earlier?

• 2:58:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was just of a, um...

• 2:58:31Speaker 02

  That was a story of a friend of ours that fights in this space, maybe three, four weeks ago, was telling us, and this is a story from Texas. And it was a 13-year-old girl that was being raped while someone would stand there and read the Bible to her. And then they would rotate and someone else would come in, read the Bible, while she would be going through this horrible evil. And part of the reason that it was believed that they were doing this is so that the worst moment of her life would be associated with God's Word. And, um...

• 2:59:11Speaker 02

  That's a lot of evil.

• 2:59:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:15Speaker 02

  But you might know like what these type of conversations and stuff are sharing to? I, um...

• 2:59:25Shawn Ryan?

  You want to read some?

• 2:59:33Speaker 02

  Okay to share those.

• 2:59:39Speaker 02

  I can. You want me to?

• 2:59:42Shawn Ryan?

  This forum is entitled Force Baby and has fifty members slash contributors. The specific forum has been active for nearly two years.

• 2:59:54Shawn Ryan?

  Fender one, what are you into? Fender two, mainly five to nine, but anything goes. Fender three, I'm sixty and a very violent man. No isn't an option. Fender four, hello all, how are my fellow friends today? Fender two, I have twenty TB.

• 3:00:18Speaker 02

  Terabytes.

• 3:00:19Shawn Ryan?

  Twenty, oh my gosh. I have twenty terabytes of baby video new for twenty twenty-three vids available. DM me and I will give you a good price. Fender three, do you have any baby videos? I have a problem. I want it all the time and love new stuff. Fender two, yes, DM me. I have a great supply and can help guide you how to do it. Fender three, yes, me too. DM me and I could show you how to abuse your own kids and get away with it. It's the life of a true.

• 3:00:56Shawn Ryan?

  Fender four. Oh, man, I'm not even gonna read this. I love their. I have a daughter. I would love.

• 3:01:09Shawn Ryan?

  And it goes on.

• 3:01:13Speaker 02

  I, um.

• 3:01:18Shawn Ryan?

  This is what we're facing.

• 3:01:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:01:23Speaker 02

  It's what we're facing in our backyard.

• 3:01:29Speaker 02

  There's a lot of things that are hurtful and disturbing about it. One of the things that we're seeing grow bit by bit is offenders that are saying, instead of finding their next victim, some of them are saying, let's just grow our next victim.

• 3:01:47Speaker 02

  Meaning, have a child and grow them.

• 3:02:13Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think there's more motivation besides

• 3:02:18Shawn Ryan?

  sexuality, or whatever you want to call it, having sex with kids?

• 3:02:25Speaker 02

  Well, I would say, we get to work with some experts and some expert psychologists that we think are some of the best in the world. And some of what we have been able to learn from them is that some of these offenders,

• 3:02:41Speaker 02

  yes, that's part of it, but part of it is they actually enjoy the pain that's being

• 3:02:49Speaker 02

  displayed and shown.

• 3:02:54Speaker 02

  One story, I hate to even say it, but it was by one of the top psychologists that he shared with us. This one offender went to a playground and he watched all of the boys and girls. And he picked a certain one. And so when the psychologist, after he gets called us talking to him, he said, why did you pick that one? Why when you... What's the reason why you did it? Why did you select that?

• 3:03:29Speaker 02

  Person. Is it height? Is it weight? Is it size? Is it color? Is it background? And he was like, "No, no, no, no, no."

• 3:03:39Shawn Ryan?

  Close.

• 3:03:40Speaker 02

  He said, "No, I waited and I watched and I tried to find the happiest kid so that I could steal her soul." And I just, I hate even sharing that, but there unfortunately are people that have the goal of hurting people so badly that that would be their intent. That's also why I believe God has created some of us to put us here so that we could stand in the gap between them, between that boy or girl, so that they would know that some people love them enough, more importantly, that Heavenly Father loves them enough

• 3:04:26Speaker 02

  that has already stood in the gap for them.

• 3:04:31Shawn Ryan?

  And I'm gonna share something that's terrifying as well. And it is my friend Ryan, who I've been telling you about. He is working, working this thing against this satanic cult. And they are exploiting kids through graphic content of they'll have, they'll have a young girl do something and then they'll exploit her. And it's not for money or anything like that. They've started off, they would have these girls, after they, after they got the, the videos or the photos or whatever it is, they wanted them to carve S L U T into their skin with a razor.

• 3:05:13Shawn Ryan?

  And then that developed into, now, this happened to a 14-year-old girl. We're gonna have you swallow razor blades. And all the way up to having them commit suicide, which they've been successful and this cult continues to grow. And, and Ryan's combating it. But, I mean, it's just, I I don't like to talk about this, but I think it's important for, especially for parents to hear this. Like, this is what's out there. And, you know, one thing that really sticks out in my memory about my interview with Ryan is he said, "When you give your kid a phone..."

• 3:05:58Shawn Ryan?

  You're not giving your kid access to the world.

• 3:06:01Speaker 02

  You're giving access for the world to your kid.

• 3:06:03Shawn Ryan?

  Giving the world access to your kid. And, you know, as time has gone by, like, the more I hear about this, the more that sticks in my head with with the cult that I'm just telling you about.

• 3:06:18Shawn Ryan?

  You know, Tim, it's just, I mean, you're doing big things and you're making a tremendous impact. But what I want to ask you is, you know, what, what can, what can parents do to protect their kids?

• 3:06:33Speaker 02

  First, I would say, be careful about what they go on and what they look at. And so I give a little background to that. So one thing we haven't touched on is, it ties to this, is the sextortion. And how many places around the world are trying, that literally have organized groups that are trying to sextort boys and girls, even boys more than girls right now. There have been over thirty right here in the States that have committed suicide from it. And they're trying to become a best friend, trying to act like they're a young girl. And they're getting boys to send them a photo, and then they're trying to take everything from them. And that ultimately is leading to so many suicides.

• 3:07:17Speaker 02

  And last year, and I believe it was 2024, Meta took down sixty-three thousand

• 3:07:26Speaker 02

  accounts from, I believe mostly in Nigeria, of accounts that were just trying to sextort people here. Like, if you think, oh, it's one or two people, it's not. It's at a mass number. So when you hand the phone to your kid, know that the world and people with bad intentions are trying to lure them into something. Whether that's to groom them, to sextort them, to try to lure them into something. Unfortunately, I hate to be always a person trying to talk gloomy, I'm not trying to be doom and gloom. I'm trying to say that we can have hope even in the midst of it because of Jesus, but we gotta protect them. We have to protect them so that they are in a safe place. And it's also where we, we work with so many different companies and technology that are trying to find all ways to,

• 3:08:11Speaker 02

  to fight the trafficking and exploitation and the sextortion and all of them. Because just like there's this All this social and technology being used for bad, we have to also fight it for good. And there is a lot of great companies that are trying to create products to fight it for good. Whether that's on phones, whether that's on devices, whether that's to keep kids safe. And so there are a lot of people that are fighting back against this and they're trying to step up and stand up the right technologies, the right teams, the right companies. But we have to know that it is even a battle. Now, if you just say, here's the phone, go do what you want. No, that it's... So I'll give you an example. We're having several years, I think it's four or five years ago now, we're having a

• 3:08:55Speaker 02

  meeting at the offices and one of like the best trackers of finding missing people is sharing stuff. And he's saying, this is how many, this is how so many of the boys and girls are getting lured in. And it's, they're so good at their phrases and their sentences and they use the same ones and they copy paste to all of these kids, right? They work the same phrases and they build relationships. And so he's going over some of these phrases. And one of our team members goes home and she has two daughters. And she said, y'all ever seen some of these phrases? And they go, yeah, I got some today. The exact same words said the same way, same phrases. Like, this is absolutely a, it's real and terrifying.

• 3:09:40Speaker 02

  And if you just think, oh, well, it's people with the, you know, with good intentions or it's just the internet, no. There are people that are using that with a goal to do evil and they want to be able to, to get access, to get in, to build a relationship for, for something that is not a good reason. And I just, I don't want to be doom and gloom, but I just want to tell parents, please be the protector that you're called to be. And sometimes maybe if that means that you're the bad guy and you don't give them the same access, but would you please look into some of the, the more improving devices to help keep kids safe, keep kids safe, to get them on safer platforms?

• 3:10:21Speaker 02

  And I do feel like, I don't feel like this, I really believe that it is a terrible evil that we have to fight back against. And that has to be as a whole.

• 3:10:31Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I'm just gonna make it even more apparent. I mean, we caught a guy in five seconds. When I interviewed Ryan, I had him on here and he was talking about this. And this was, this was like my first interview on the subject. And I said, "You're a hacker. Get your laptop out." He said, "I don't care what forum you get into, what social media platform, I want to see how long this takes." He said, "Okay." And I said, "Screen record it so we can prove it." So he gets on, gets in the chatroom, comes up with the name. He tells me, he goes, "All right, I made the name Ashley13NewJersey."

• 3:11:09Shawn Ryan?

  Right after that, he goes, "Up, got a forty something year old man, wanted to have sex with a thirteen year old girl, wants to meet her at Walmart." I'll roll the clip right now, just so everybody sees how fast this is happening. And he says it's on Xbox, Playstation, Instagram, everywhere. Anywhere that you are online, this is happening. Ryan, do you think you could demonstrate right here, right now, how fast these sexual predators will show up in a chatroom?

• 3:11:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:11:38Shawn Ryan?

  Fire your computer up. Let's do it.

• 3:11:40Speaker 04

  All right, I'm recording, so now I'm just gonna say, "Hi, who wants to chat?"

• 3:11:49Speaker 04

  And I named myself AshleyFemaleNewJersey, thirteenFemaleNewJersey. Let's see how many private messages come in.

• 3:11:58Speaker 04

  Two already, three.

• 3:12:02Shawn Ryan?

  It's been like ten seconds.

• 3:12:04Speaker 04

  Yep. "Hey, wanna fool around? Hey, how old are you?" Let me just copy that and send that to everybody, because we got other messages coming in.

• 3:12:17Shawn Ryan?

  What chatroom are you in?

• 3:12:19Speaker 04

  Just a teen chat. "Hey, wanna cuddle a bit?" I didn't, I mean, I'm taking, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt right now that, uh, that they didn't read the... Oh, he's forty-seven.

• 3:12:29Shawn Ryan?

  Forty-seven years old in a teen chatroom, you got him in what, five seconds? He's already messaging in?

• 3:12:37Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, there's a ton. I can't even keep up with them here, because every time I click one, there's more on the list.

• 3:12:45Speaker 04

  He says, I said, "Are you okay with my age?" He says, "Yes, age 13, like my profile says." I got two more messages, so now we're at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

• 3:13:04Speaker 04

  "I'm 19." Let's ignore the 19-year-old, even though it's disgusting.

• 3:13:09Shawn Ryan?

  It hasn't even been 60 seconds yet.

• 3:13:14Speaker 04

  Okay, there's another guy. Here's the other guy. This guy's 15. Ignore him. That is a real teenager in a teen chat. The 47-year-old says, he said, "Age." I said, "13, like my profile says." He said, "Name?" Ashley.

• 3:13:36Speaker 04

  And then another guy just messaged.

• 3:13:41Speaker 04

  "How old are you?" Okay, this person's a child, too. So, out of all of these, there's one guy here who is 47 years old, less than a minute, who wants to talk to a child in a teen chat. And I only said, "Hi," in the chatroom, nothing else.

• 3:13:56Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit, dude. Tim, we're wrapping up the interview. You got a flight to catch. And so I want to ask you, what can people do to help what you're doing?

• 3:14:06Speaker 02

  Well, I think pray. Talk with their families, protect their kids, protect their neighbors' kids, or look out for each other. Be a protector. I believe that's one of the greatest forms of love. It's 1 Corinthians 13:7, "Love always protects, always believes, always hopes, always endures." And as a community, we need to protect, protect one another. We need to protect the most vulnerable. Everyone has a different skill set, resource, ability. Use it. Use it for good. Step up. That doesn't mean you have to stand with us, but stand for good. Stand for the most vulnerable. If there's some specific ways they want to be involved with us, I think one of them could just be,

• 3:14:50Speaker 02

  call your local congressman or woman and say, hey, pass the Renewed Hope Act and protect our children. Go get it done. You can go to our website, timtoefoundation.org, and there'll be links on there to figure out right ways that you can connect with your local congressman and step up and stand up and not just make your voice heard, because that said a lot, but make it heard to the right people to know that there is an army of people right here in the States that are going to fight back against those that want to hurt and abuse our kids. And, you know, we have a daughter on the way. So we haven't shared the name of our little girl yet. But her middle name is actually named, inspired by and named after one of the youngest girls

• 3:15:32Speaker 02

  we've ever been able to bring out of this evil and care for. And she was rescued at 25 days old. And she's just captured my wife's heart and my heart. And so our little girl's middle name is named after her.

• 3:15:49Shawn Ryan?

  25 days old?

• 3:15:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:15:54Shawn Ryan?

  Well, it's beautiful that you did that, man. Your daughter's going to be a special person.

• 3:16:02Speaker 02

  All of these kids are so special, made in God's image. And so many times, we treat them

• 3:16:21Speaker 02

  as if they're trash, when they're really God's treasure.

• 3:16:28Speaker 02

  And...

• 3:16:33Speaker 02

  And if all of this, if we could take all of these lives that have gone through such torture, but they can know how treasured they are by God, that would be everything. They would know and experience that, go from torture to treasure, and wouldn't that be everything? Yeah. I hope one day she wouldn't just say, "Hey, um, my dad's a good dad, but my dad's a protector. My dad wants to stand in the gap between people with a goal to hurt me, and he's gonna stand in the way, so he won't let him get to me."

• 3:17:16Speaker 02

  And I know I'd be very flawed and fallen in that goal, but I hope that's something she would say one day. But I can tell you, our Heavenly Father, He stood in the gap for us. He stood in the way when the enemy says, "No, they're mine." He said, "No, no, no, no. I'm gonna take their place. I'm the ransom. That's me. I'll take the penalty." That's what love looks like and as a community. We, as a family, as a nation, we have to stand in the gap. Not only do we have to protect, but man, we're also causing so much of this pain here in the States and around the world. Do you know the country I was born in that I love very much, in the Philippines?

• 3:17:59Speaker 02

  Do you know how many times we have seen the airports be flooded with Americans flying into you? How many of them? You look and you say, "Man, what are they going to do?" And do you know the number one buyer of children in the Philippines paying for their rape and abuse? Middle-aged Caucasian men right here. So not only have to stand up against them, but we have to stand up against the pain that they're causing here in the States and around the world. This is our problem. It is our calling, and we can't look away. Like, we can't just have the bystander effect, think someone else is gonna do it. Because it's our fault, and it's only growing. All of these issues of live streaming, of CSAM, child sexual abuse material, sextortion, grooming, runaways, all of it. It is growing.

• 3:18:43Speaker 02

  We aren't winning. Like, we're losing every day until enough people stand on the line to say, "Together..."

• 3:18:54Speaker 02

  We're gonna fight this. We're gonna call it out. We're gonna stand on the line. They're worth it. They were worth it to King Jesus to die for. They're worth it for us to fight for.

• 3:19:05Shawn Ryan?

  Well said. Well said.

• 3:19:08Shawn Ryan?

  Well, Tim, thank you for being here. I'd love to, I'd love to end this in another prayer.

• 3:19:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:19:14Shawn Ryan?

  You wanna lead it?

• 3:19:15Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:19:16Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect.

• 3:19:17Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 3:19:22Speaker 02

  Good and gracious heavenly Father, we just love you so much. We thank you that you first loved us. We thank you, your love for every person, that you didn't just tell us about it, but you demonstrated it with your life for every person.

• 3:19:41Speaker 02

  We pray that, that we would demonstrate that love for people. Just like you stood in the gap for us, that we would stand in the gap for humanity. We thank you for your love for them, that you created them in your image.

• 3:19:59Speaker 02

  With infinite value and worth, we pray that we would see that true worth, that infinite value and worth, that worth that you are willing to go to the cross for. We pray that we would see that in them and we would act on their behalf and we would be protectors. We wouldn't be bystanders. We wouldn't stand at the back or stand to the side, but we'd stand in the gap. We pray that, that you do something so special in our nation for the next generation in protecting them and loving them and having a

• 3:20:30Speaker 02

  a real identity of who they are and whose they are, that they would know that they are fearfully and wonderfully made, that they would know and be firm and secure in the hope that you have given them of your promises. That they wouldn't just think, I need to change, I need to conform, I need to be different, I need to compare. No, but they would be filled with you, with your love, with the Holy Spirit. We thank you for the cross because it's the only thing that changes everything about everything. And we pray that so many people that are starving for hope right now, that they would find the one true hope in the cross. We know that you are near to the brokenhearted, and we pray we would be that too, that we would stand with them and for them.

• 3:21:12Speaker 02

  We pray that you do something so special in our nation. We thank you for letting us be a part of that. As flawed and fallen as we are, you still allow us to be a part of your team on your mission. We pray that you would let us get to many lives that are hurting, so they could experience true faith, hope, and love that only comes through you. Thank you that you love us, and you don't leave us or forsake us. We give all these things to you, in Jesus's name, amen.

• 3:21:45Shawn Ryan?

  And I would just ask that that you please lead the army that Tim and his team needs to effectively combat this on the scale that it needs to be combated. Just bring your protection down over them. Amen.

• 3:22:01Speaker 02

  Amen. Thank you.

• 3:22:03Shawn Ryan?

  Tim?

• 3:22:04Speaker 02

  Appreciate you.

• 3:22:05Shawn Ryan?

  It was an honor.

• 3:22:06Speaker 02

  It was. Thank you. It's an honor for me. Thank you. Thanks for what you're doing. Thanks for shining a light.

• 3:22:11Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 3:22:11Speaker 02

  You gave us the chance to share.

• 3:22:13Shawn Ryan?

  God bless, buddy.