← The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript85 lines
- [00:01]
Jenny
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. Actually, I'm kind of nervous about this because I have a podcast extraordinaire on today, Paul Hastings from the Compelled podcast. Just came out with a new book called Compelled Ordinary People Extraordinary. God, Paul, welcome.
- [00:17]
Paul Hastings
Thanks, Jenny. I appreciate it.
- [00:19]
Jenny
We go way back, like, years and years and years back through the homeschool world, and we just have a lot of connections and we've been at different conferences and conventions together. And you have the most engaging, like, bubbly is probably like, not a good word.
- [00:33]
Paul Hastings
It feels girly.
- [00:34]
Jenny
So I don't want to say bubbly. It's like this engaging, high energy, really interactive personality. So sometimes I've been at places and they'll be like, Paul's going to be the emcee for this event. I'm like, well, of course Paula should be the MC for this event. So can you just give a little bit of your background of, like, this personality? Like you're, you're up in front of people. And then you ended up with this podcast where you tell people stories.
- [00:56]
Paul Hastings
Where.
- [00:57]
Jenny
What's the background?
- [00:58]
Paul Hastings
Yeah, so the quick story. So I live in Texas with my wife and four kids. Our kids are ages 8, 6, 4, 2. They are the ones with all the energy and bubbly energy. I'm the one who's like the one like, oh, I'm dying. My knees are killing me. Oh, yeah. But fun story. So my mom immigrated from Thailand when she was 18 years old and she was a high school dropout. She dropped out of high school in Thailand, came to America, dropped out of high school here as well. My dad was a hillbilly from Arkansas, and he had a 10th grade education, and he too dropped out of high school. And so these two meet each other, they get married, and then they decide to homeschool their kids. Which seems like a recipe for disaster, but it was also a recipe for just this incredible life growing up in this multicultural, hillbilly Thai household. I mean, everything, you know, you didn't know if you were going to be eating opossum for dinner or you might be eating, you know, Thai noodles for dinner. Who knew what was going to happen, you know? And okay, we never ate the pasta, but we did eat many very weird and strange things. And yeah, so it was a great life growing up. My grandparents lived next door, and my grandpa had fought in World War II. And so. And he was a very cool grandpa. Like, I know a lot. I knew a lot of other kids at that time. You know, their grandpas were really reticent to tell any stories because it had been shocking and they called it shell shock, what we called PTSD today. But my grandpa was very different than that. And he had been in the thick of the war. He had been on the front lines for three months in Germany. He had actually been wounded, almost died. Just crazy stuff. And so he was just full of all these stories which, you know, now in retrospect, I realize that all the stories he was telling me, he was like D rating. He was making them like rated G. Right? Like, these are definitely like PG13 or R rated stories. But he was, you know, tuning them down for a little old, you know, nine year old me to hear and consume. And, oh, I just had this love of storytelling. And so I really credit my grandpa for being a huge part of who I am today. But yeah, that's me in a nutshell. My wife and I, we homeschool our kids and we live here in Austin, Texas. Wow.
- [03:00]
Jenny
Grew up next to your grandpa. And that is really interesting. I actually this morning, earlier this morning, talked to this man named Jack Carr, and he writes these thriller novels that are military history type books. And then he has like this Netflix series that, like Chris Pratt is the actor in that are based off of his books. It's pretty incredible. So his newest book that's coming out is called Cry Havoc. And he was talking about how, like, right in that book, like the grandpa's from, you know, the father from World War II or the Grandpa, like they're not, they're not passing on their things, like they're not talking about it. So that is a really unique situation that your grandpa did share all of those stories with you. Have your parents talked much about their decision to homeschool? Like, what was their impetus Here they are neither. You said neither one has a high school diploma.
- [03:46]
Paul Hastings
Yeah, you're right. Yeah. So both, both of them are high school dropouts. They, they never got their degrees from high school. Now they both did eventually go to college. So I should, you know, add that to the story there. But yeah, on paper though, they would look like, you know, the last person in the world that should, you know, be homeschooling their kids. And my dad actually heard him. He talked about this many years later, so long ago. There was no research at all talking about, you know, the statistics about homeschoolers because there just was no, no idea how homeschoolers would turn out. It was a brand new thing. Actually. Some parts of Texas were actually persecuting homeschoolers, taking the parents and placing them in jail. We actually lived in the county or next door to the county where that was happening. Arlington isd right there, smack dab in the DFW area. And so, you know, I'm like a, you know, a five year old kid, four year old kid. My, my brother was eight years old. And at that time in life, we were not allowed to go play outside during daytime hours. Like we, we could only play outside after like 3 o' clock when all of our neighbor kids were at home. And then we could come home, we could come outside, right. But otherwise we had to stay inside so no one would ask, well, you know, why are the kids outdoors? Why aren't the kids in school? Call cps, Something weird's going on, you know. And so that was our life growing up. We had other friends of ours who actually did little drills about like, okay, if CPS or the truant officer knocks on the door at like 10am, you go and you walk real quietly into the closet, you close the door and you sit down on the floor and you don't say anything. Now my family, we never had those kind of, you know, practices probably again because my grandpa was from World War II and you know, he was just gonna. Yeah, who, who knows? Who knows, right? But, yeah, so my parents though, they made that decision and they didn't know what the educational outcomes of us kids would be. But my, my dad later told me, he said, you know, Paul, I believe so much that was so important for us to really instill in you a belief in who the Lord Jesus Christ is. I believed it was more important for you to be a Christian and be stupid than to be smart and go to hell. And so that was just kind of the decision they made. Now eventually, as time did go on, you know, there's all these stats out there, they're about homeschoolers today. My older brother ended up becoming a professor. He got his PhD from Berkeley University. He's a PhD. He teaches public school kids now to college. My sister got her associate's degree, I think like three months after graduating from homeschooling. So she got her associates at like, you know, age 18 or whatever. And then I also managed to get my degree, but it took me eight years instead of four years. But that's a talent, you know, that. We won't talk about that.
- [06:08]
Jenny
But yeah, the statistics are phenomenal. Like these kids are doing fine academically, so it really is just a win, win, win. But what a brave thing for your parents to be. Some of the forerunners in that and doing it, like when, you know, hardly anyone was. And in some places it was illegal. So that's incredible. What a story. And now you're homeschooling your kids with Sarah. You got the four wonderful kids, eight, six, four, and two. And you have a remarkable podcast, a podcast that is based on stories. And we're gonna put a clip in here a little bit later so people can actually listen to it. It's like a seven minute clip. We're gonna splice it in. But when you and I have talked about it in the past, we talked about podcasting and you talk about, like, how much effort in time and I don't remember the exact numbers, but you've said in the past, like, of how much editing. And you know, you're gonna hear the sound of the birds and you're gonna hear all of these sound effects that are like, it's not in your face, but it, it blows. Adds to the story. And it's so well done. So can you give us a little bit of the background of becoming a podcaster and choosing to do it in this way? It's very time consuming, but it is really powerful.
- [07:17]
Paul Hastings
Yeah, great question. So interesting. So after I graduated from homeschooling, so I was homeschooled K through 12 all the way through. Ended up doing college, but college took me forever. But I eventually did finish that, but I had a career in politics, so I was working full time while I was going to college also. And I was working in the political arena just in Texas. Did that for about eight years. Got really burned out. It was just a really. It just became all consuming for me. And so my wife and I, we'd only been married probably for two years, three years at that point, maybe two years. At that point, we just began praying, Lord, are there other things that, you know, I, Paul Hastings, should do besides the political career? And we went on a family vacation. We went to the Ark Encounter and like the Creation Museum up in Kentucky and just had a great time, just surrounded by creative people. We went to a Christian film festival all at the same time. And again, my wife and I were just praying at this whole time, like, what should we do? What should we do? What should we do? And somewhere on the, on the trip, we just had this thought, like, you know what? Maybe, maybe we should tell Christian testimonies. Because, like, I had always been intrigued by people's stories. Like, I mentioned my grandpa, right? He was always telling these stories to me about his time in the war, but also about the Great Depression and Growing up, you know, without any food and things, and it just stuck out in my mind. He was so vivid. And. And then as a kid growing up, I would fall asleep at church. Just always every single sermon, fall asleep. As a teenager, fall asleep. When I was dating my wife, fall asleep at her church. Very embarrassing, by the way. Right? But, you know, you're trying to make a great impression, and you're just falling asleep in this sermon. And I was trying to, like, stay really engaged. I'd be writing notes, and I'd fall asleep, like, halfway through writing notes. But the crazy thing that I realized, like, about, you know, several years into this, I just realized every single time the pastor began to tell a story, somehow, even though I would be, like, you know, 75% asleep, my subconscious brain would clue in that a story is being told. And then I would wake up. I would wake up to listen to the story. And it could be a story from something already in the Bible that I already knew, the story. Like the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It could be about, you know, Daniel and the lion's den. It could be David and Goliath. It could also be a story about his lawnmower and why it wasn't working that Sunday and some kind of weird sermon illustration. It could be anything. It could be any story. I would wake up, I would listen to the story with a rapt attention, and then about 20 seconds after the story was over, I would be asleep again. And so somehow my brain was hardwired for stories. So, of course, you know, as my wife and I were thinking through, like, what should I do as a career? What could we do as a family to support ourselves? I just realized, you know, I love stories. I have experience telling stories through film and stuff that I've done for political clients. And so we thought, well, we'll just tell some Christian testimonies. And originally, we were going to do a YouTube channel, but ended up deciding, you know, let's just do a podcast. Podcast. Let's see what goes with there. And so we made our first podcast episode. I had the audacity or the gall to call up a buddy of mine and say, hey, man, will you volunteer, be my volunteer editor on this podcast? I just, you know, it'll be great for your portfolio, you know, and my buddy's like, sure. How long will it take? I'm like, oh, it'll be like, two hours max. Two hours an episode. And so he says, sure, I'll do that, you know, and so, of course, when we. When we create our very first episode, like, I had no idea what I was doing. Terrible interviewer like, Jenny, you are so. You are 10 times better than I was. You're a hundred times better than I was on day. It was. You're just. It was terrible. But we created this first story, and it was a great story. Not because of me, the interview. It was a great story because of the storyteller, the lady who was telling her testimony of how the Lord had totally transformed her life. And at that point, I just realized I was hooked. And so my buddy and I, we began crafting, like, getting better at it. So we would add sound effects and music and narration. And so the. The. The podcast that you hear today, that is kind of the culmination of several thousands of hours of training that we've now had as podcasters. That's what we do now.
- [11:07]
Jenny
So it takes longer than two hours an episode to edit it, does it?
- [11:10]
Paul Hastings
Probably. It probably takes us around 80 hours to create a single episode. That's probably what it is. Yeah.
- [11:15]
Steve Richardson
Wow.
- [11:15]
Jenny
80 hours an episode. That is remarkable. I do remember the first time we started talking about that, and I thought, what a gift. What a gift to have those stories out into the world.
- [11:25]
Paul Hastings
Mm.
- [11:25]
Jenny
They are powerful stories. So you have the compel podcast. People can go there and just listen to all of these different stories. Then you came out with a compelled book based off of your podcast, where you put seven different stories in the book so people can check that out. It's called compelled. You even talk about how, when you were a kid, you really liked Christian biographies. Can you talk about that?
- [11:43]
Paul Hastings
Yeah. So again, that was kind of the same thing about, like, falling asleep in church, but then you would hear a story, you would wake up. So for me, as a kid, I could really resonate and learn, you know, principles from the Bible by listening to a Bible story or reading a Bible story. Right. But then if someone started teaching from Second Corinthians or Colossians, if I would just kind of zone out, I've just kind of gloss over my head, right? And I've gotten better about that as an adult. I'm 35 now, so I've got to be better at that now. But one of the things as a kid, though, I was really attracted to was Christian biographies. So I remember having these little. Little square little books. Like, every other page was a picture, but then on the other side was, like, text. And so I'd read, like, the biography of David Livingston about how he went to Africa and how he was like, you know, exploring the jungles and gets attacked by a lion. But he's also sharing the gospel with people who'd never even heard the name of Jesus. And oh, it's just so inspiring. Then I'd read the story of Hudson Taylor and how he goes from England, he goes to China like this, you know, never before place, before seen places, and just these explorers. And then I read the story about like Louis Palau and like how his testimony ended up becoming an evangelist in South America, like the Billy Graham of South America. I just love these testimonies and they just resonated so well. And again, that was kind of the idea of the podcast like, or the book. Hey, if we could find people right now that are still alive, right? So like these other guys I just mentioned, Lewis Palau, he's dead. David Livingston, dead. Hudson Taylor, dead. But believe it or not, God is writing stories all across the globe all the time. And there are people with those same types of stories that are living right now and we can document with their voice. Here is the cool story of what God did, and I saw it happen with my own eyes. And so we document that. We grab it. So we'll sit down, we'll do like a five up to a five hour interview. Normally it's like a two to five hour long interview. We will ask a lot of questions, but normally we're just letting the person share their story from beginning to end. And then I'll go back into the editing bay with my editors, we'll sit down, we will then condense that into the best 45 minutes that we can come up with. We'll add professional narration. We will add sound effects that are tasteful but yet not over over detracting. Hopefully we'll add a little subtle music if the scene calls for it. But ultimately we are portraying that Jesus Christ is the superstar of the story. Not the guest, not the person tell the story, not us. It's Jesus, he's the story, he's the superhero.
- [14:03]
Jenny
You know, it's a remarkable thing about podcasting, Paul, that you can do so much with it that is individualized, you know, or, or I think it's such an interesting medium because you can do that like you can have take a five hours and, and boil it down to 45 minutes, or some people get on for 10 minutes by themselves and just put it out there. And so I love that there's that variety and that podcasting can be in so many ways what you want it to be. And so now you use the word editors. So obviously there's more than your original volunteer editor.
- [14:38]
Paul Hastings
Sure. Yes, yes, yes. So, yeah, let me clarify. Like, once we realized that this was way more work than what either of us had signed up for, we began raising donations and now we have, like, we have got a great team. We do pay the volunteer. He's no longer a volunteer. He gets paid. And we've got a small group of guys. They're all contractors. I'm the only full time person on the team, but we've got maybe three or four guys that all work part time on the team. They're very gifted and talented at what they do. And then my wife is our associate producer. She's not here on the call. She should be, but she's actually caring for our kids right now. Doing all the things that I cannot do, but that she is so good at. But she also helps us too.
- [15:14]
Jenny
Wow. So you say these are the kind of stories that are still being written today. Millions of them all over the globe. Ginny here with 1000 hours outside. If you're like me, you know that the best gifts aren't the ones that end up on a shelf. They're the ones that get muddy, sun soaked and full of memories. That's why I am so excited to tell you about our friends at Womb Bikes and a family focused company that truly gets what childhood should feel like. Womb makes the lightest, smartest, safest bikes on the market. Designed specifically for kids. From their very first balance bike all the way to those confident neighborhood cruisers. Every detail is built for little riders, from easy reach brakes to perfectly balanced frames. So kids don't just learn to ride, they learn to love the ride. And this holiday season, you can give a gift that leads to a thousand hours of joy, confidence and connection. Outside. Head to womb.com and use the code outside.10 for 10% off new bikes and accessories. But hurry. It is only good until November 15th. That's womb w.com and use code outside. 10 for 10% off by November 15th. This year, don't just give a bike. Give them a reason to ride and a lifetime of adventure. As the air turns crisp and the holidays draw near, comfort becomes the best gift of all. And for me, Quince delivers comfort that lasts. They have it all. 50 Mongolian cashmere sweaters made for everyday wear. Denim that never goes out of style. Silk tops and skirts that add polish and down outerwear built to take on the season. Perfect for gifting or, let's be honest, upgrading your own wardrobe before those holiday photos. Honestly, Quince's Italian wool coats are at the top of my list because the cut feels designer. The quality rivals high end brands but the price is about half because Quince works directly with ethical top tier factories and skips the middlemen. So you get luxury quality without the luxury markup. For me this season my go to has been my Quince cashmere because it is soft, classic and somehow it goes with everything. Oh, and my all black quince puffer jacket is always at the ready for those chilly mornings. So step into the holidays with layers made to feel good, look polished and last from Quince perfect for gifting or keeping for yourself. Go to quince.com outside for free shipping and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com outside free shipping 365 day returns. Quince.com outside this show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hi friends, it's Ginny from 1000 Hours Outside. You know, as the days get shorter and the evenings creep in earlier, it's easy to start feeling a little disconnected. The light fades, the schedule fills up, and sometimes we realize it's been months since we've really checked in with someone we care about. Maybe there's a friend you've been meaning to text, or a family member you haven't called in too long. And this season, BetterHelp is encouraging all of us to reach out because we're healthier when we're connected and no one should have to go through hard seasons alone. And if you've been thinking about therapy, maybe that's another kind of reaching out. It can feel a little intimidating at first, but just like sending that message or grabbing coffee with an old friend, most people find themselves thinking, why didn't I do this sooner? BetterHelp makes it easy to start with over 30, 000 licensed therapists and over 5 million people served. They'll match you with someone who fits your needs. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch anytime. So as the days get darker, let's choose connection. Whether it's a friend, a loved one, or a therapist. This month, don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, better help makes it easier to take that first step. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com 1000hours that's betterhelp hp.com 1000hours how do you find your people?
- [18:48]
Paul Hastings
Great question. You Normally it's listeners will reach out to us. So I'll give you one example. When we first. When we first started the show, we just found people that we personally already knew. So, for example, I had a friend of mine that was. He was. He. Let me think of the right way to say this. He was a casual drug user. And so one day he was caught. He had like a hundred counts of LSD in the back of his truck, which each possession of an, like, lsd, each hit is like a federal felony or something. Like, it was very significant. And he was a casual drug user, but he had a bunch of LSD in the back of his truck. And he was actually. He had bought it with some friends and he was going to distribute it to his friends. So he was going to be charged as a drug dealer. This was basically going to be the end of his life. Right? And again, he's kind of a casual drug user. So he wasn't like, you know, importing stuff from. From, like, Mexico, but this is going to be the end of his life. And yet, incredibly, the police officers did not find the lsd. They only found his marijuana, which is a much, much, much, much, much lower penalty, right? So he ends up getting like six months in jail or something. And he was even allowed, like, leave jail. He had to go to the jail for the weekends, but he actually leave during the weekdays to go and work his job and stuff. And anyway, in the process of this, he ends up becoming a Christian. And then he eventually became my pastor. So that's kind of the surprise right there. Right. And so it was a guy like this. He's our pastor, and I had no idea he had spent time for jail and could have. Could have faced serious prison time, you know, in a previous life of his. And yet this is an incredible story because, like, you would just meet this guy, interact with this guy. You had no clue of going to him for biblical counseling, admiring the way that he raises up his boys. And just an incredible story. So that's actually episode number two on our podcast. So that's how we started. We started with just people that we knew. But eventually, as time went on, you know, our listeners would reach out to us. Just last, a couple weeks ago, a guy came up to us, and one of our listeners had referred him to us. So he came to us. We were at a conference, he came up to us and he just told us this crazy story. He was a missionary in Mozambique. He was crossing. He was swimming across a river one time to share the gospel with a tribe on the other side. Of the riverbank, and a 17 foot crocodile attacked him in the middle of the river, grabbed his legs, pulled him underwater, and began doing death rolls with him. And he was going to die. And I won't tell you what happens next. You gotta wait. You gotta wait for that podcast episode to come out. But those are the types of stories that we find. Or now those stories now find us, which is a real blessing.
- [21:13]
Jenny
Yeah, I would imagine you could have never. I guess that's the hope, right? It's like, well, eventually, hopefully people start coming to us. But, you know, at the beginning you're probably thinking, I got to go out and find people and find this person. And then once it takes off, then people are constantly reaching out because like you said, there are millions of these all over the globe. Do you have to do a lot of research?
- [21:31]
Paul Hastings
We do. We do. So sometimes, you know, we're doing research about, like, the story. Is it a true story? Do we need to, like, you know, does it pass the sniff test? We're also thinking about the theology that the guests might present. I've got some certain theological convictions, and so I'm not going to bring just anybody who claims to be a Christian onto our show. I'm going to think about, like, what church they go to, and then I'm also thinking about, you know, is the story compelling? What's going to be very interesting about it, what makes it unique and special. We have a guest that just recently agreed to do an interview with us. He is one of the last living. He's one of the last four living moonwalkers. So everybody, you know, there's only 12 guys who walked on the moon. Eight of them are dead. There's only four of them left alive. And one of these guys that's still alive has an amazing Christian testimony. He's 89 years old and he just emailed us like, I think a week ago saying that he would let us do an interview with him, hopefully before he dies. So we'll pray that.
- [22:24]
Jenny
I did have that. I, I had an interview with a holocaust survivor and I, I did sort of think the same thing. I was like, there are hardly any left. And just hope, hope, hope that, you know, that they're doing well by the time that interview comes along. Are you at the point where it's hard to even keep up with the demand?
- [22:43]
Paul Hastings
Yeah, yeah. Or you mean in terms of the number of potential stories that we could do? Absolutely. We keep a spreadsheet. We've probably got about 600 names on our spreadsheet. We Organize them by region in the country. We do all of the interviews in person, face to face, but that's expensive. So we normally just do one regional recording a year. So last year we were in Austin, Texas. The year before that we were in Louisiana. Before that we were in California. So we normally just gonna go to different states, and we just record people that are locally right there in that particular region. So we've always got a list of people that we're always thinking through. We do about 20 interviews a year because that's. That's a. It just takes a lot of time to create the stories.
- [23:20]
Jenny
Yeah. Have you made any lifelong friends?
- [23:23]
Paul Hastings
You know, I have, actually. That's a. That's a really great point. There's a couple of folks that we've interviewed that I've stayed in touch with since then. Just normal, regular folks. One guy was a. He was a Hindu mystic for many years before becoming a Christian, and he and I have stayed in touch for ever since, actually. And so I've stayed in his home. We've. We've ate food together. We've slept in his, you know, house before. Really great guy. I've got other friends that I've, you know, met through the podcasting work that we do, and y' all text them frequently. Probably not a week goes by without texting one of the guys that we've interviewed. So it's really fun. Yeah.
- [23:56]
Jenny
What a thing. It just expands your world so much. It's interesting when you talked about your grandpa and he would tell you the stories about World War II, he would tell you stories about the Depression. So you grew up in this environment where people talk to you about hard stories and really difficult topics. I would imagine that a lot of people would have a really hard time sitting across a table or sitting in chairs across from a person while they tell really hard stories. I mean, the ones that are in the book, obviously, and then there's way more on the podcast itself, but these are really heavy.
- [24:30]
Paul Hastings
Yeah, they're very heavy stories.
- [24:32]
Jenny
I mean, the first one. And we're going to talk about a couple of these in a minute, and then, like I said, we'll throw a clip in. But the first one is like my. One of my biggest fears, so I'm curious how that's been for you.
- [24:43]
Paul Hastings
Yeah.
- [24:43]
Jenny
Sitting in those spaces, is there a lot of quiet? Is there a lot of tears? Do you ever feel awkward?
- [24:49]
Paul Hastings
Yeah, Great question. So when we first started the podcast, I would feel awkward. I would feel very awkward about, you know, we would be talking and Then I would, there'd be silence and I would just feel the need to fill that silence. As time has gone on, though, I've realized like when, when that silence begins, especially when you're talking about a highly emotionally charged topic, that's the cue for me to shut up and just be quiet. Don't say anything, because what's about to come out of the person's mouth is something they're really thinking about or dwelling on the example that you're mentioning there. The first story in the book, it's about Hannah Overton. And she was a mother that was falsely accused of murdering her foster child who she was in the process of adopting. And so this little five year old boy was already calling her and her husband mommy and daddy. And they were, they were functionally his mom and dad. And one day he tragically dies basically in the course of like 24 hours, falls very sick, dies. Child protective services then comes into the scene and accuses her of murdering this boy. A two year legal trial ensues and she is eventually convicted by a jury. And there's this, this crazy story that's. We don't really delve too deeply into the book, but actually she was, she was accused and then the prosecuting attorneys essentially hid the evidence of her innocence. Like there was actual evidence. For real. There was a vomit bag. Yeah, a bag of vomit which proved her evidence. And the prosecuting attorneys knew of this bag and they hid it. And she didn't even know that the bag still existed. She'd said, you know, she said, there's the bag that proves it and it gone missing. It had gone missing. Right. And so of course the attorneys are saying it doesn't exist, but it actually did exist because the, the prosecuting attorneys were hiding the bag. And so she is accused and convicted by a jury of peers. And there are only two decisions that the jury had two choices, which was either to execute her, to sentence her to death or to sentence her to life in prison without parole. And that's the choice that they made. So they sentenced her to life in prison without chance of parole ever. She was like, I think 35 at the time when she was sent to prison. Maybe, maybe she was like, maybe she's like 32 and she goes to prison. She's got like four other kids that were ages actually. They were like my kids ages. She even had a baby that she was in the process of nursing. Just such a hard, heart wrenching story. And she's telling us this story, right? And the beauty of it Is she eventually was exonerated, Right. The. The bag of evidence was discovered. She was exonerated, she was released, and she actually did have another baby later on. But. But in the moment when the story is happening to her in her real life, she's reliving this as she's retelling it to us. And yes, there were tears. My wife and I, we are crying and weeping alongside her as she tells us this story. Because this is like a. I don't want to call it sacred. It's not. It's not sacred. But it is a moment that God has written very similar to, like, Joseph's story, right? What God. What. What man intended for evil, God ended up using for incredible glorious good. While Hannah was in prison, she ended up starting these Bible studies. Several thousand of women have now been saved by her ministry that was started in prison. Just an incredible testimony.
- [28:00]
Jenny
Yeah. And to have that conversation, is she someone that you already knew?
- [28:03]
Paul Hastings
She was not. She was a friend of the show. Someone else knew the show, and some. They invited us to interview her. And so that happened. So what a blessing.
- [28:12]
Jenny
I mean, that is one of my biggest fears is to be falsely accused of something and then sent to prison. You know, when you hear people that do that, because you get one life. And she was there for over seven years.
- [28:24]
Paul Hastings
Yeah, seven years.
- [28:25]
Jenny
And her kids, you just think about the trauma of that, right? Like, the husband could come once a week, but her kids could only come once a month, and they could only interact with her with bulletproof glass in between them.
- [28:37]
Paul Hastings
Right.
- [28:38]
Jenny
Think about the depth of despair that you would have as a mother about how incredibly gut wrenching that would be to only be able to see your children. And like you said, the youngest was like, seven months. So she'd been nursing, and then all of a sudden, the mom. The mom's not there. She said, when you write this in the Compelled book, you know, mama isn't ever coming back. She could never have even imagined that she would be found guilty. She didn't do it. You know, the boy had some health problems and things, and there was this evidence, and she was like, I could never have even imagined. So all of a sudden, you know, you think you're gonna go home, and then they say, guilty, and instead of going home, off you go to prison. Like, that's your last day. And so she was there for over seven years. Obviously, she's honoring God while she's there. And she mourned for the years she lost, but now she's dedicated to helping women in prison. The turning point in the story, though, is that she writes a letter to the prosecuting attorney.
- [29:33]
Paul Hastings
Yeah, that. That's actually a really profound point. So she's in prison for. For a long time. She struggles like, why am I in prison? Why am I here? Why am I here? And there was these, you know, different moments when she realized, like, maybe the Lord's placed me here because I'm uniquely qualified to share the gospel with other inmates who otherwise they would never listen to a prison volunteer, but they would listen to another fellow prisoner, especially me, because I didn't do it. I'm here. I actually did not kill somebody. Unlike everybody else in here, I actually did not did the crime. I did not do the crime. But these ladies would listen to her. But then the moment that you're speaking of, one day she has this massive conviction from the Lord, like, she needs to forgive. Has she extended forgiveness? Because she can look at all these other ladies in prison that have become so bitter and angry, and she realizes, because they have unforgiveness in their hearts. And she's asking herself, well, am I going to become one of these ladies someday? Because she was still very upset with the people, the prosecutors.
- [30:30]
Jenny
Well, of course.
- [30:31]
Paul Hastings
Of course, of course. And so she. She feels a conviction from the Lord that she's supposed to write a letter of forgiveness to the second chair prosecutor. So it wasn't. The lead prosecutor was the second chair prosecutor. And she ends up writing this letter. And I won't give away the whole story, but that is a very. A huge emotional turning point for her as she realizes, like, hey, I do not know why this person did this. I do not know why they decided I've got to be the scapegoat. I do not know why. But what I do know is that the Lord is calling me to respond with forgiveness the same way that Jesus responded with forgiveness towards the world when we crucified him. And that's what she chose to do.
- [31:15]
Jenny
Wow. Yeah. What a powerful, powerful story. So that's one of the ones in the book and an example of one that's on the podcast. So we're gonna. Right now we're gonna be filling in this clip so that you can kind of get a taste of it. What is 80 hours of editing for one episode look like and sound like. And this is a story. It's a son of these missionaries, although I guess you would consider him to be a missionary as well, because he came along. And so the. The clip is going to go live and everybody can listen to that. Right Now.
- [31:46]
Steve Richardson
And we rounded the last bend in the river after paddling from sunup. The sun was now setting. And silhouetted against that setting tropical sun was a throng of 400 Saui warriors waiting to welcome us. The word had gotten out. So just 400 warriors, just men with their headdresses. Some of them were holding long drums. They were holding spears, bows and arrows ready for anything. The warriors from several Sami villages that normally squabbled and fought with each other were united by this specter of an outside pale looking creature arriving. Dad reached over in the canoe as it slid to a stop in the mud at the feet of this throng of warriors. Mom and dad basically said to each other, it's too late now. Were committed. He picked me up out of Mom's arms, not knowing that in the Saui culture, for an outsider to come with no weapons in his hands and carrying a baby was a reassuring sign that the person was coming at peace and had no ulterior motives. And carried me up. Mom followed. And the crowd just converged around us. They didn't see any women or children. They were all hiding in the jungle. And then they realized this was going to be okay. And they started to dance. And Dad, I remember dad describing it as if we were at the eye of a human hurricane as several hundred warriors just swept around us, dancing and chanting and celebrating the arrival of these outsiders. And gradually swept us up to the little notch pole that led into, which was about 6ft off the surface of the swampy soil. And then the women started to materialize out of the jungle as it darkened. And the children, because they realized everything was. And they joined in the dancing. And this throng danced around our house for almost three days and three nights without stopping.
- [33:47]
Paul Hastings
Oh, wow.
- [33:48]
Steve Richardson
That's how history changing, you can imagine this event was for them as a society.
- [33:57]
Paul Hastings
As history changing as their family's arrival was. For the Sahwi people, it was also life changing for the Richardsons. As they settled into their new home amongst the tribe. They slowly began to learn more about these people who were still a mystery to the outside world. This knowledge would be vital not just for their own survival in the jungle, but also as they looked for ways to communicate and connect with their new neighbors.
- [34:23]
Steve Richardson
So the Sami people were hunter gatherers, semi nomadic, living in a purely jungle setting about 30 miles from the coast, the south coast of the island of New Guinea. But the rivers would rise and fall with the tides, five or six feet a day at least, because everything was so flat there. It's Like a massive delta. And they were isolated. I mean, there were other small tribes and languages. So the closest language would have been Aoyu, and that was about as close as Dutch is to English, which is quite close. Wow. The others were radically different. I just couldn't understand anything they were saying. And the Sami men didn't wear anything except, you know, decorative items like an armband or a headdress. So no grass skirt, no necklace, no grass skirts. The women wore grass skirts and not much by way of, you know, decorative items and all that. No shoes, all that. And, you know, their feet, the skin would be quite thick because walking through swamps and hon logs and bugs and their whole lives, you know, you think of people in some of these, what you might consider primitive settings as being large and muscular. And, you know, you've got kind of a movie prototype, maybe stereotype in people's. A lot of people's minds. Tarzan encountering this village of tall savages or whatever. But really the reality, and I think this is more true than not in most parts of the world, is these people were generally malnourished. They had lots of parasites. There wasn't as much food there in the jungle as you might think. You know, they had fish in the river. If they worked hard. They could catch shrimp by putting some bark in there that had some poison in it, kind of paralyzing some of the shrimp and catching them with a bit of a kind of a fabric fence as the tide went out. There were snakes. There were some exotic things like cassowary. Birds are like ostriches, except they live in the jungle. Wild pigs would be the main source of protein that they had, but you could do that mostly by moonlight. And it was a culture that you'd call an animistic, living in fear of evil spirits and trying to placate the spirits. They would build villages temporarily. They wouldn't repair their houses. They would just relocate to a nearby tributary or somewhere else to be closer to whatever they could harvest there. And then they would kind of do a circle through part of the Sahee territory. Each village would do a circle so that they would stay proximate to more reachable pigs and fruit and so forth. And by the time they made the whole circle, wherever they had been a few years earlier would have been replenished. But to survive at all, they survived in small groups. A lot of the men got killed in battles, so polygamy was the norm. And the older men, you know, kind of the chiefs or the elders, would generally have more wives. This became a Bone of contention. Young men wanted wives, too, but the old men had taken them. And, you know, a father would promise his daughter in marriage to one of his friends, you know, of an older generation, in return for whatever. And so there was just so many reasons why people had a hard time getting along. So it was man against man, clan against clan. In each village, there were multiple clans. They had names. They were named after different birds. And then there was village against village. And then it was the Sami tribe against the other four tribes, some of which were quite a bit bigger. But they started fighting with each other. They couldn't stand being close to each other because of all these grievances from who knows how many generations passed. So four villages moved in around us because they wanted to be near us. So Suddenly there's like 800 people living around us because the average Saui village was 150 to 200 people. And battles broke out. Our front yard was the only cleared area that they had to fight in. So in the first two months, my mom counted like 14 major battles in our front yard. People were getting killed. Arrows were flying over our house. So that kind of paints the picture a little bit.
- [38:45]
Paul Hastings
Even while surrounded by all of this generational conflict, God's favor was on the Richardsons, as they themselves were exuberantly welcomed by the Sami. The modern tools and skills they had brought with them were seen as magical by the tribe and opened numerous doors. And along with that came some rather unique moments.
- [39:05]
Steve Richardson
The Sami had welcomed us with open arms and celebration. They had heard rumors from other tribes about these. They called them tuans, these people who had incredible magic powers. They could disappear into a box that had wings on it and just disappear. And then after a period of time, that box with wings might reappear, and they would get out of it, and who knows where they'd been. And they had all these tools that could make work so much easier. The Sami literally used stone axes. And by the time those stone axes arrived in the Sami domain From the mountains 100 miles away, you can imagine how dull those stones were. And trying to make a canoe with a stone axe would take weeks and weeks and weeks of effort to make a small one. So they loved having us around. And dad got their help building our house a little more stable and sophisticated fashion and then got into learning their language, and they were thrilled with that. There's a funny story. Dad would point at a canoe, and they'd give him a word, ririg. Then he'd point at a woman, and they'd Say ririg. And he thought, same word. And then he pointed at a house and they would say, riri. And he thought, is this a language with only one word? And then he realized after a while, they kept giving him the word for finger. Because they didn't have a custom of pointing at things. And they thought he was constantly wanting what the word is for finger. They would use their lips.
- [40:37]
Paul Hastings
Their lips? Yeah.
- [40:38]
Steve Richardson
And they would kind of like we would do in a kind of a puckered lip, kissing, you know, sending a kiss as how they would point at something. It's like giving it a kiss or pointing their chin in that direction. So anyway, they loved having us around. The whole idea of matches starting a fire with this little thing and fish hooks where you could put some worms on it and just sit there and do nothing for a while. And the fish ends up getting caught. Knives to cut the meat with. You don't have to use a piece of bamboo anymore. So they loved my parents and they respected them.
- [41:19]
Paul Hastings
And people were gathered just because of you guys.
- [41:22]
Steve Richardson
They were there to be close to. Yeah, the foreigners, the magic people. The magic people with all the powers and the fascination. There's a bit of an anthropologist in everybody. And they noticed after a while because literally growing up, our family would be eating at our kitchen table there in that little house. And there would often be a crowd of six or eight, 10 people watching us eat, just standing there at the window. And we had some fly screen on the window. We didn't have any louvers or glass or anything. It was just screen. And they'd be pressing their noses against the screen. And you'd have to replace the screen after a while because of all the damage being done studying us and how we ate. And what are these things they're putting in their mouths that have some food on them. They noticed after a while that generally there was a picture of whatever that food was on the can and there'd be some kind of a green vegetable. And sure enough, my mom would open up the can and out would come a green vegetable. And then there was a can that had an animal on it that looked a little bit like a pig, kind of an oversized pig. I mean, we knew it was a cow, but they wouldn't have had a category for that. And sure enough, some meat would come out. And then, to their horror, my mom opened up a little can that had a picture of a human baby on it and poured out a sauce. And we started eating that. And the word got around in the village. These people are. Cannibals too.
- [42:46]
Jenny
Okay, so can you talk about this one? So Steve Richardson, he's the one you interviewed?
- [42:52]
Paul Hastings
Yeah, yeah.
- [42:53]
Jenny
And he's telling his parents story.
- [42:55]
Paul Hastings
Yes. So both of his parents had passed away by the time I got around to interviewing him. So they were not available to tell the story. But he was there, right there. You hear him tell the story and just this crazy thing. I mean, talk about the ultimate, you know, 1,000 hours outside experience. Right? So he's, he's literally growing up in the jungle outside. You know, he's probably has like 10,000 hours outside a year, you know, what, whatever it is. And he's eating the jungle grubs and beetles and all these things and. But yeah, what a cool story. And he, he today, he's actually, I believe he's the president of Pioneers usa, which is a massive missions agency that sends missionaries all across the globe now. So. Yeah, cool story.
- [43:34]
Jenny
Well, it's interesting. Just a couple of, a little bit of details. Like, so there. It's just such a. Obviously such a different way to grow up. So he grows up as this missionary kid in New guinea and he's surrounded by these tribes of cannibals and headhunters who had never been exposed to the outside world. One of the things that he talked about was that there's sometimes these like warring tribes, like right in his front yard, you know, these different warring tribes. But was interesting, Paul. They lived in tribes of about 150 to 200 people. And that's it. Dunbar's number.
- [44:04]
Paul Hastings
It is. It is, yeah, exactly. I mean, that's why you, why you realize like. Yeah, I think Dunbar's number really is true actually, because that's just what kind of happens organically, actually. It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah.
- [44:15]
Jenny
And like that, that's how they, there's people that are still living like that. And it's like the perfect number for community and for having this tribe. So the, there is a remarkable story though, about them just showing up. You know, they just show up and, and how are they welcomed? And one of the things that Steve said was that when they showed up with like these new skills and new tools, that these tribes, men and women, almost thought it was like magic.
- [44:41]
Paul Hastings
Yeah, for sure. I mean they, they really truly thought that the family were magicians. Like imagine, you know, like us like 21st century America and like a flying saucer, you know, lands in the sky and aliens who can teleport and do all this kind of crazy. I mean, in their eyes. I mean it's like, yeah, this huge chunk of white metal. And they'd never seen metal before. Huge chunk of white metal, you know, can come and land and people can get in the chunk of metal and then they can leave again and they fly in the sky and then they come back and there might be a totally different person inside the chunk of metal. Like, what's happening? You know, and they'd never seen a person with white, white skin before either. That was crazy also. And, you know, fish hooks, like, that was mind blowing. And guns was mind blowing. And medicine, modern medicine, like, what kind of witchcraft is this? You know? And, yeah, just. Just a crazy, crazy, amazing story there, which, again, we won't give it away for your, all your listeners, because they can go and listen to the podcast episode right now if they want to. But it's just this amazing story of how, you know, this tribe is just so stunned to see, you know, people from the outside world. But at the same time, this tribe is very lost in their own sinful practices of, you know, head hunting, killing each other, anger, extreme hatred, cannibalizing each other also, like, literally eating their enemies. And yet the gospel of Jesus Christ from a totally different culture, from, like, the Middle east comes and breaks through to this tribe of cannibals and utterly, utterly changes their lives. Something really cool that Steve observed later on is that, you know, Steve returned, I believe, 10 years ago. He returned back to the village with his dad, his brothers as well. I think his mom had already passed away, but I've seen video clips of this. They come back to the village and there are old people in the village which had never existed for, like, I don't know, several hundred years. Like, no one lived beyond, like, 40. Like, that was. That was basically, you lived about 40 and then you were killed in a battle because you were too slow at that point. But when he shows up, there's old people with gray hair. They'd never seen gray hair in the village, in the community. Like, no old people lived in this village, and yet now they do because the transformative work of Jesus Christ to end all the war factions that were going on.
- [46:40]
Jenny
Yeah, so interesting. It's like this one family inserts themselves in the situation and it changes so much. So it's interesting, Paul. It's like you've got these stories, like you have this one guy and he was in the Pentagon when the plane hit on 911 and was 15 yards away from where the plane hits the Pentagon. And he survives. And you've got these different stories that are like, remarkable. Like, you know, to be sentenced to prison and falsely accused to life in prison and to lose close to a decade of your life. You know, these are huge stories, and you see God's hand in them and missionaries that go to the cannibal tribe and just show up in a boat, you know, here we are. But then you also include stories of people that, like this man, his name is Jeff Parker, where he just is derailing his own life, basically. So, like, that's something that most people could relate with, right? Like, that's really relatable. Like, I just make these small decisions day by day. I use the company credit card when I shouldn't have, and these sort of small deceptions grow into this big situation. So I think that that's incredible that you have such that wide variety of stories. Do you feel like it's kind of like a 50, 50 thing? Like, you've got the ones where it's like the missionaries and then the. You know, this is just kind of your average guy who made a bunch of bad decisions and ended up in a. In a hard spot. Like, do you try and balance that out?
- [48:06]
Paul Hastings
Yeah, good question. We. We do try to balance it out, within reason, within the podcast and the book as well, because what we want to make sure is that people don't walk away with this fantastical view of Christianity, but also that they know, rather, it's a relatable view of Christianity. So sometimes they, yes, there are these crazy stories which I think exemplify the power of God. But then we also have these stories of just kind of more or less ordinary folks. Again, like Hannah, when she went into prison, she was an ordinary mom. She was a homeschool mom of, like, five kids. Wasn't, like, super, you know, special or anything. Didn't go to seminary. Wasn't like a past, nothing. Like, she was just a regular, ordinary mom, just like you, your listeners thrust into this crazy, unbelievable circumstance. And I think when people read that story, they can realize, like, hey, that could be me. Like, let's. Let's pray that never becomes me. But same story with the one you're alluding to about Jeff Parker, right? He's spending the company credit card when he should not, making a decision that many of us could be confronted with that same choice. And yet Jeff continues to make the wrong decision. And every time he's doing it, he's suppressing the Holy Spirit's conviction each and every time. And before he knows it, boom. Within a few years, he's racked up. I think it was a six figures in credit card debt. I'm sorry, six figures in money that he had stolen from the company. And no one knows about it. No one knows. And he has to now make this decision. If I'm truly going to follow Christ, am I going to confess this sin, Confess it to my best friend who owns the company that hey, bro, I've actually stolen from you a hundred thou, over $100,000 worth of money. I've been stealing from you for years. Am I going to confess that or not? And I hope you know, none of our, you know, your listeners right now have made that same issue. But we all have. We all have things that we need to confess. We all have decision points that will be very, very difficult for us to make. And yet it is clear if we are going to follow Christ, there's a clear yes or a clear no path that we need to follow. And so these stories hopefully would encourage your listeners, encourage the readers that, hey, there is a clear calling in our lives.
- [50:10]
Jenny
Yeah, and you use the phrase self delusion. And so you could see that even if yours is not necessarily using the company credit card for gambling or something like that, that we probably all have things in our life that we are self deluding. I don't even know if that's word where we're diluting ourselves to, you know, to a degree. And when you do that, you start to see that that snowballs and you see the ramifications. I thought it was interesting. You know, in all of them you've got scripture that you share and you know, it's like, here's this is a really modern situation, right, Paul? It's like, you know, in the Bible, no one had a credit card and no one could use their company's credit card to, to go get money because you ran out of money at the casino and you want to gamble more. So it seems like such a current problem. But then you relate it to Zacchaeus.
- [50:53]
Paul Hastings
Yeah. Wow. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Zacchaeus was a guy who'd been stealing money from the people. And he goes to the Lord and says, whatever I have stolen, I will return fourfold. And behold, half of what I own, I give to the poor as well. Just unbelievable. Right? And so, you know, and I also think about, you know, on the flip side, on the flip side, we can think about today, you know, we may have people that husband, you know, their husbands or, you know, them themselves are in really tough company situations. But you think about a guy from the Bible like Daniel. Daniel is like the top employee for a. A heathen empire. Right. Like, the Babylonian empire was doing bad stuff. Like, they weren't just like. But Daniel's, like, the second charge in command. And I don't think he was, like, commanding the armies. And he's not in charge of, like, strategic decisions about, oh, we're gonna, you know, rape, pillage, and plunder this. I don't think he's doing that. I think he's probably doing more administrative stuff. But the Lord tell the Bible tells us that Daniel is very good at what he did for three different administrations for Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and for Darius. Right. Three different administrations. And he's just doing a faithful, very good job. In fact, he's so good at it that Darius ends up promoting him to the very top job in the whole, you know, Persian empire. And that's why this other two. The other two governors become very upset and, you know, have Darius pass this law and everything. But, yeah, I think it's an extraordinary example, again, I think of Joseph also. And again, Joseph's just this ordinary dude. His brothers didn't gang up on him, and he's sold into slavery, and yet God uses Joseph to save the entire nation of Israel from starvation. Incredible. Right? But again, Joseph was just an ordinary kid who's just being faithful.
- [52:25]
Jenny
Yeah. And you can parallel so many of these biblical stories. Like, that's like you said, it's very similar to this, Hannah. It's like falsely accused, separated from family for a very long period of time, and yet there's able to be this forgiveness at the end of it, and also to see the hand of God and the. And the power of God. I think it's interesting how you brought up with Zacchaeus, Paul, you're like, okay, he paid back fourfold, and then half of everything I have I'm going to give to the poor. And you see that with each of the stories in Compelled. And I'm not sure if this is common for the whole podcast, but in the Compelled book, in each of the circumstances, there is a ministry that comes out of their story. So for Hannah, it's called. And I don't know if I'm going to pronounce it right, but Sindeo Ministries, dedicated to helping women in prison.
- [53:14]
Paul Hastings
Yeah.
- [53:14]
Jenny
There's the Peace Child legacy from this story with the Richardsons and their ministry. So each situation has that. Like the Double Life guy, Jeff Parker, he has a book called Double or he has a company called Double Edged Notes, and he distributes free Bibles to countries that are close to the gospel. So have you. And Zacchaeus did the same thing, right? Like he had a response, you know, it's like, well, probably if he were alive today he would have a website like about giving half that you have to the poor. That's like what the hobby lobby people do, right? Like there are people that do stuff like that. So have you found that? I actually think that's a really hope filled thing, Paul, that these, you know, in some situations, like, I mean they're horrific, these hard, horrific situations. Birth in immense thing. Whether that's a book, it's a movement, it's a website, it's a non profit. Do you find that that's fairly common in the podcast interviews as well?
- [54:14]
Paul Hastings
You know, I've never really thought about it too much. Jenny, that's a very perceptive question you've asked me. Now. I've never given it too much thought, but I'll get, I'll offer a couple thoughts as I think about this one. One, I don't think God calls every single person who's been through a horrible hard circumstance like, oh, therefore you must now start. You know, it's all on your shoulders. I don't believe that. But at the same time, the Bible does tell us, you know, to whom much has been given, much will be required. And if the Lord has done something amazing in your life, you're not supposed to. In fact, the gospels tell us this. You're not supposed to hide your light on, you know, under, you know, a light kept underneath a bushel is not going to be seen. And yet we are supposed to be the light of the world. So if God has done something incredible in your life, don't hide it, you don't need to be ashamed of it. You know, it can be very shameful. Like for instance, I think of Carol Everett. She's the story of the lady who owned three different abortion clinics and she was responsible for about 30,000 abortions. And yet that's something that's very traumatic, right? That, you know, now that she's a believer, she's like, oh man, that responsibility that's on her hands, that's on her hands, that she profited and made money from that. And yet at the same time she recognizes, hey, the Lord has forgiven me through the blood of his son Jesus, he has forgiven me. And now much is required for me. Much is required for me. And so she's dedicated her life now to protecting the lives of the unborn. And so I think for anyone that's listening or Reading the book, I would just encourage them, like, hey, first off, don't you. Don't. You don't have to live with this complex. Like, oh, if I'm not doing something crazy big and huge, oh, therefore I'm failing God. But at the same time, you must be open to that. Be open to sharing your story. Don't be ashamed of it. When they have testimony night at your church, don't be afraid. Just have a candid conversation with your husband and your kids and say, okay, this is what I've done. I'm going to share it tonight and then be praying about it and then go up and share your story. There's nothing wrong. The Lord changes everybody. The Bible is full of people just like that. Tamar Rahab, you know, anybody? Everybody you can think of. Even the apostle Paul, right? He once killed Christians and took them off this prison for being Christians. And yet the Lord uses him to write half of the New Testament. Just incredible.
- [56:22]
Jenny
Do you use the word compelled? Like, it's interesting, each one of these people, they weren't forced into creating a nonprofit or trying to help in these different ways. And neither was Zacchaeus, right? Like, he wasn't forced to pay back fourfold or to give half of what he has to the poor. And in the same with Joseph, and, you know, he wasn't forced to forgive. In some ways, I would use that word compelled. They were compelled in their responses to take their pain and to do something new and different with it and to impact people out of the circumstances that they were in. When you called it compelled, are you using it like compelled to the Gospel?
- [57:05]
Paul Hastings
Yeah. Yeah, good question. So actually, when we use the word compelled, we actually take that right out of the Bible. I'm going to quote from the Bible right here. So second Corinthians 5, 14, and 15. It says, for the love of Christ compels us. And then it says why? It's because we have reached this conclusion that one died for all, and therefore all died, and he died for all. And then now he says, why? So that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised. And so, as a Christian, all of us should live a life that is compelled. The love of Christ compels us. And it says the reason because of that is because Christ died for us. We should no longer live for ourselves. We should actually live for the one who died, for he made us. He died for us. And that should drive everything that we do in our lives. And so, you know, I don't want to be cliche and always use the word compel in every single statement, but I'm making, you know, compelled this, compelled that. But that really is the theme of our, of our entire podcast. Every single person on our show, they have a story that now they're. This their life story explains why they are compelled to live the way that they do. And it's because Christ has done something radical for them.
- [58:27]
Jenny
Yeah. And they've gone on to do these different radical things. I thought that was really remarkable that there's follow up from all of it. It's like they took these hardships. I mean, this Brian, who's the sole survivor from the outer ring of this crash site, and he gets such severe burns and he's thinking like, this is where my life ends. You know, he. He writes a book about it and he ends up getting elected to Texas state senate. So it is such a beautiful reminder of what God can do. The beauty out of ashes and the impact that you can make despite incredible hardships and despite poor decisions, lengthy lists of poor decisions. And, you know, and then like all the way back to your pastor, you know, who has this story and, you know, he ends up becoming a pastor. So what a thing. What a thing.
- [59:14]
Paul Hastings
It's.
- [59:14]
Jenny
It's an incredible thing that you do. And I just love the, you know, being in the podcast world together because like I said at the beginning, like, podcasts can be so different. But I think there's something powerful about having someone's voice in your ear. I think there's something powerful about having something that you can listen to that it's fine for your kids to listen along to and for them to learn and grow. And I'm sure certain ones have, you know, probably content that maybe might not be as appropriate for, like, younger kids, but, you know, especially as your kids are getting older, like when you were talking about reading Christian biographies and things like that, it's like as you get older, these stories can be really impactful, I think, both in the short term and in the long term because they, they become a part of you. So it is an honor, it's an honor to know you and Sarah and to get a chance to talk about the podcast and about the book that came out. They're both called Compelled. It's the Compelled podcast and the book is called Compelled, Ordinary People, Extraordinary God. You can find more@compelled podcast.com and I'll put all the links in the show notes. We always end our show with the same question. The question is, what's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside.
- [60:16]
Paul Hastings
Oh my goodness. Two memories come to mind. One, as a kid, I used to sit outside, you know, once. Once it was after 3 o' clock and we could leave the house, you know, because we were homeschooled. I would sit outside on my bottom and I would kill ants, like fire ants, just like in the dirt. I just love it. It was like a, I don't know, an ego trip or something. Just thinking, oh, I'm so strong, so powerful. I'd count how many ants I could kill, like 10 minutes. And then one other memory is I would go to summer camp every summer and we had this game called Counselor Hunt. So it's in the wild woods of Texas. There'd be 80 acres and like 20 counselors would run into this 80 acre forest. And then like a hundred kids run after them about 20 minutes later looking for the counselors. And yeah, in retrospect, maybe it was a really bad idea, but that's what we did. That's what we did. It's called Counselor Hunt. And so we would go hunting for these counselors and you could find them and tag them and you got points for a cabin. And so eventually, as I got older, then I began, I became the counselor that would then like hide in the forest. And you're laying in there and ticks are getting on you and biting and sucking your blood and you're holding real still. Anyway, great memories. I'm not sure why that popped in my brain, but very painful but very memorable loss at the same time.
- [61:16]
Jenny
But I kind of like it. Like, here's what it reminds me of. Like, okay, you're exhausted. You got all these kids at camp, you know, and they're like, here's the game we're going to play. I'm going to go run and hide in 80 acres and you have to find me. So maybe you get like 12 minutes of reprieve, you know, like, I could see a mom doing that. Hey, kids, you know we're going to play mom hunt. I'm going to go hide in the house, you know, and try and come find me. You get like six minutes off or something like that. I love it. Except for the ticks. That's an issue. Do you know there are no fire ants in Michigan?
- [61:44]
Paul Hastings
I know that, I know that. Yeah. It's pretty wild, isn't it?
- [61:47]
Jenny
Yeah, I mean, it's remarkable. We had our first experience with fire ants. It was like, I don't know, seven or eight years ago in Florida and wow, do those things itch, you know, like, you step on it and then they're all over your foot. You're like, what? What in the world? You don't even know if, like, you don't live in a. In a different place. You're like, I didn't even know there was such thing as fire ants. So anyway, just a random thing. I. Michigan gets cold, but we do have no fire ants. So there we go.
- [62:15]
Paul Hastings
That's right.
- [62:15]
Jenny
Paul is great to see you and huge congrats. Please tell Sarah I said the same thing. Thank you so much for spending your time with us.
- [62:21]
Paul Hastings
Thanks, Jenny. Appreciate it.