Questions & Answers with a Hero

Apologia Studios

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Well, my name's John Barrows. I don't know how many of you know me or anything.

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There's a lot of people I haven't ever met here before. There's some here that have been down to the clinic with me and that serve down there in Orlando.

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I've been going to the Orlando Women's Center for 16 years.

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I've been there full time for the last, I'll be starting my 10th year in a couple of weeks.

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I used to be there the first few years. It wasn't popular to do this. You weren't going to rooms filled up with people like you and 16 years ago and people wanting to get out and do this type of ministry.

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So, I was alone most of the time the first three years and I thank

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God for that. I want to encourage you guys that if you get days where you feel like you're the only one there and you probably are going to be the only one there, don't yell, where's the church?

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Enjoy that time because he's there with you in a special way. It might not seem like it, but he really truly is.

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I learned more about Jesus and about God in those three years than I could have ever possibly doing anything else and in any other way.

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And he will bless you in the most possible. Of course we want help and of course we want people there.

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And I want people to be supporting you and helping you wherever you are, but don't shy away from those days.

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They really are good days and can be some of the best days of ministry ever really.

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In fact, honestly, at our clinic, especially in the afternoon or a lot of people can come early in the morning and then they have to go about their business of the day.

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And I like it when there's just a couple of us there because people are much more open to coming and speaking to you than if all of us were there.

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But if there's just a couple of us there, they'll come and talk to you. And my whole,

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I have a little tiny wall, pony wall that separates the property there. And my goal every morning is

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I ask the Lord to fill somebody sitting on that wall next to me being able to speak to them.

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And that's the goal there. But I forgot where I was.

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I got to tell you, I had a stroke in April and so I might zip in and out here in a few places and I'll forget where I was, but just bear with me.

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But the only thing I can do as far as this goes, you all are ministering in completely different places, completely different situations, completely different everything.

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So all I can speak to in all honesty is where I minister at.

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And if you can pull something out of that that can help you, I'd be very happy.

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But I also know, you know, I've been to the one in Bristol where Amanda's been and I've served there.

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That's a difficult place. I've been to Phoenix and been to some of that nonsense.

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I've tromped through cactuses outside of Phoenix with Raleigh Haggard and John Speed trying to talk to people at one there.

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So I understand that everybody has a different thing, but there's basic things

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I think that we all have to have to do. So I'm just going to run down what it's like at our clinic and what we do at that time.

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It usually opens at 9 o 'clock every morning. I try to be there between 7 .30 and 8 o 'clock because for one reason is, and I think probably all of you that do this ministry can probably attest to this, that a lot of people come early.

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And they come early a lot of the time because they don't want to do it. And they think if they can hurry up and get it done, they'll be done.

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And if you can talk to them, you know, it's gold. It's solid gold. So many of them choose life, actually.

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I have a wonderful place where I send them to. It's called

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Choices Pregnancy Center. It's a lady's doctor's office with a real lady doctor there.

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We have real lady RNs. They're all, all the ones there are godly women.

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I watch on Facebook people upset with the pregnancy centers that they're sending people to, and I can certainly,

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I would hate to have to deal with that. But the way I know that ours is good is because so many of the volunteers from the ones

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I send them to come and help me on the sidewalk. So I know exactly what they're saying. I know exactly what they're doing.

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I know their exact view of it all. So, again, I'm probably blessed more than people in that area.

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But I have a wonderful place to get people started at.

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They get a free ultrasound, of course, and then they get a free financial help.

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The state of Florida, they get them on Medicaid if they need that.

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They do it all immediately right there. And then, of course, they get them to start on physical help as well.

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The biggest thing that helps with mine is that my pastors at my church will back up every single thing

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I tell a lady. If I tell a lady I'll pay three months of her back rent, or, you know, all the things that it could be.

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They will back me 100 percent, whatever I say. Usually, the people that say that they're in all this dire need really aren't.

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I mean, it's very rare that we even really have to help anybody, but they've blown this so much up into their minds that they think we at least have that covered.

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We try to have absolutely everything covered. Our church actually has a fund for people in our church to help pay to adopt babies, actually.

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I mean, our church has actual prayer groups for to fight abortion.

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They, oh, oh, thank God. There is a God. I've been dying.

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Oh, thank you. Thank you. See, Don was supposed to do this, but that's

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Don, you know. See, you shouldn't have prayed for me to feel better.

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Now you're going to now you're going to pay. Oh, OK. I didn't realize that. But but so anyway, the church is absolutely valuable.

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And I know a lot of people always say they say, how do I get my church won't do anything.

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My church won't this, my church won't. I always say, please, the thing that changed ours.

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The one that changed that changes a church is when you bring a girl that has chosen life that really does need help and you bring her into the church and you disciple her.

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And as she's going through her pregnancies, she's getting bigger and bigger. And the ladies in the church just start mothering on her.

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You know what I mean? And then and then when that baby's born, you make sure every single person in that church holds that baby and smells.

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There's no smell like that in the world. Right. And and it changes people.

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And when they see somebody come to Christ and they see this baby growing and they see this baby now growing up in the church and going through the nursery and going going through all that stuff, it it it becomes as normal as anything else in your church.

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It really does. So I always just say, you know, bring them your fruit.

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Now, maybe you're in one that's really bad. I don't know. I don't have an answer for anything other than that.

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I really I really don't. But then throughout the day at the church, the way it works is we have a brochure.

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The the living waters in the womb tract. That's the one

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I use. I only use that. And I and we've had so many girls that take those and go in.

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I mean, it's not like every week or anything, but over the years, there's been many that have gone in there.

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And on the back, they have that little square thing where you can do your phone. I mean, you young people know how to do that.

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But anyway, it pops up the 180 video and they're sitting in there. They all have their headphones on and nobody knows what they're doing.

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And they'll actually watch that video sitting in the lobby of the abortion clinic. And many have come out and chosen life watching that video.

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So it shows a little bit of development about the baby and all that in the in the brochure itself.

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Plus, it has a little short gospel message in it as well.

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And then I give them our place makes these like cards about that big.

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The pregnancy center says what they can do for them on it and has a map on the back and directions.

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And then I give them my card. And over there, if they if a lady shows up with with my card, they know that they met me and they'll then put them to the front of the list of everything that's going on there at choices and then they'll be seen there.

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And immediately. So no appointment necessary, no anything. So we try to cover all that.

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And then around about 10 o 'clock, depending on what it is after they're all in there,

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I I'm fortunate enough to be close enough to the building. I'm 20 about 25 feet from the front door and I preach a sermon there every day.

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And it lasts about 45 minutes and it covers pretty much everything you can imagine.

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And that is when 90 some percent of the people that have chosen life, when they choose life, it's when either that or right afterwards, they get very convicted.

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God, God convicts people, people harden their hearts, even the ones that go through with it. They're convicted,

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I mean, heavily. But they but the thing I learned was there's no you know, you can show up with all the little cool little sayings like,

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I don't know, that people will come and yell at these people and they'll say abortion, one wounded, one dead or something.

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I've never seen any of that stuff turn anybody's heart, but I see God's Word turn their heart.

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And I always try to get people, I get people like street preachers will call me or text me and they'll say, hey,

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I'm coming down to serve with you on Thursday. I say, why? It's well, because I want to.

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I want to say we don't need you, you know, and because we don't want people down there that are arrogant, number one.

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I'm not saying all street preachers are, but I always tell people, you know, you're welcome if if you can show up here and you can and you're prepared to preach a site specific message like what it has to do with what's going on here.

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You know, not everywhere else, you know, the fire coming down from the mountains and all this kind of stuff.

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And but a site specific message as to what abortion is, what

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God thinks of it, why you need to repent and turn from this and the care that He will give you if you trust

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Him, how He's never let one girl down in all the years I've ever been there, not one that has put their trust in Him.

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If you're not willing to preach that kind of sermon, please don't come because you'll just be a hindrance, actually, more than anything.

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And so that's what we try to do. But usually that's when the people choose life.

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But the other advantage that we have there than a lot of places like you probably go to is ours lasts all day long.

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They get them in there at nine o 'clock. They give them nine o 'clock appointments. They all have the same appointment time. So you get twenty five, thirty people showing up at nine o 'clock and then they sit in there sometimes till six o 'clock at night before the abortionist even gets there.

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So you've got all that time, you know, to share the Word with and they come out.

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They need some, you know, cigarettes have saved more babies than anything on Earth. Our clinic,

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I'm sorry. There's, you know, that's the truth. They come out and you get a chance to talk to them.

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And as the day wears on, God's Word is like banging around in their head, in their heart.

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And they'll come out with questions and they'll come out and talk and fights will erupt between the guy and the girl.

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And, you know, you'll have all this kind of stuff going. It's very tiring doing this because it is.

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It's, you know, I'm there from seven thirty or eight in the morning till four thirty in the afternoon every day.

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And it's like it's just never ending. It's just every day you go back to the same people, just different faces, same excuses, same craziness, the same, all of it.

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But but that time is an advantage. That time is that's why we don't get all excited.

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Like when they come, we're not you got it, you know, and you don't have that tension of like, oh, that baby's going to be dead in 20 minutes or something.

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We try to talk to them like we would talk to our our next door neighbor or something, like not being all hyped up, not being all pumped up because we know we have time and we know that God's word is going to work.

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And I'll tell you, over the over the years I've been there, I'm going to I'm going to tell you this with the. I can't stress enough.

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I tell people people think I'm something. I am absolutely nothing.

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I am absolutely when I tell you this, I mean it from it's not a false humility.

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It's anything I know who I am. I know what I am. I'm actually the most obnoxious, stinking guy you've probably ever met.

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Don agrees. But but I have been able to see the

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Lord in this time, in this nine years. I've been able to see him turn the hearts of over twenty five hundred girls that have that have chosen life.

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And that's not counting the turnaways that you don't know about until, you know, they just leave and you wonder just vanish out into thin air somewhere.

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And you don't know. But I could never take credit for one of those.

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I don't have that kind of power to turn a heart. Do any of you? Can you take that black heart or some of those people going in there?

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I see God do it like that in an instant of time. The most hateful, angry, mid -sentence cussing you out.

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Just bam. And it's like, wow. You know,

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I don't have that power. It does not belong to me. I don't. And neither do you. But his word, he promises in Romans 1 16.

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He says that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. And why would we want to use anything but his power?

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Right. I mean, why? What can we possibly manufacture that's more powerful than that?

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Now, when I say the gospel, I don't mean that just a gospel presentation like like you would typically say, but you weave it, you weave the gospel through what's happening there in front of you.

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And each individual person, you can learn a lot about people by reading the stickers on the back of their cars, by what they're wearing and all these things.

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You try to use it to, number one, get to know them and then to enter into them, you know, enter into their life somehow.

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And you try to weave that gospel through all of that.

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And it's not easy. I mean, it's and you're not always going to be right.

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I mean, when you people can fool you, I mean, you're not going to.

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But I've seen God do the most absolutely amazing things.

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What? Tell us the story. Okay. You didn't know this was being directed.

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This is a Don Martin production. But I will tell you a story.

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Okay, I told it already earlier today to these guys. I told them one from a month ago. And this will show you how much power

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I've got. Right, the turn of heart. I even told Knucklehead over there yesterday. Michael, but I told you

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I was obnoxious. But I one day I was out there preaching and I had

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Joe and Yoli from my church were there. And I was I was just preaching.

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I was on the sidewalk preaching. I hear a car pull up behind me on the street. I hear some guys start screaming and hollering in Spanish.

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And I don't pay attention. I don't stop. I don't quit. I don't do anything. I just stay focused.

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And and so Yoli says, John, I think you need to come and talk to this one.

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And I said, okay. So I stopped preaching and I went out in the street.

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There's this guy with tears pouring down his face. He's on his phone and he was a he was a transportation driver for a medical medical transportation taking some patient to a doctor.

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And he's crying and the guy sitting in the back seat and he's trying to figure out why someone preaching out here.

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Why is this guy crying? You know, what's all going on? And then he starts telling Yoli the story and the passenger finally realized, hey, this is going to be a while he got out and walked the rest of the way to his thing.

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But he was happy, you know, because for this guy. But he gets his wife on FaceTime and then he's showing me and he's just rambling in Spanish, fast

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Spanish. I mean, there's no way I could ever. And and here's his wife and she's crying.

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And here's this little baby she's holding about this big. And then it turns out she's they were a turn away about 14 months earlier.

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And we didn't know. I mean, I had no idea, you know, about this.

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And because when they just vanished like that, you don't ever know.

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And a lot of you guys, if you're not if you're in a place where you're far away from them and you don't able to really one on one with people, just know that people are leaving, that you will never even know

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Joe's life, I guarantee you. But but so they're talking and and he's all thankful.

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He gets out of his car and he hugs me and all this stuff. And then I thought, I got to go back, you know, go back to preach.

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So he he gets back in his car and I'm walking back to preach. And I something hit me and I said, wait a minute.

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I said, Yoli, she said, what? I said, stop that guy. And so she hollered and he stopped and she goes, why

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I said, Yoli, he speaks Spanish. And she said,

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I said, ask him how in the heck he knew what I was preaching.

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And he heard it in his own language, him and his wife. Now, I mean, how is that?

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Do I have that power? I don't have that power, man. I don't have any power. I am

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I'm the most broken guy you would ever imagine. I liken myself to the guy in Mark Chapter five when

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Jesus went to look for an evangelist to the Gentiles. It says he had to go across the lake.

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So he goes across the lake and he goes to find his first evangelist Gentiles.

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He goes to a cemetery and he finds a guy with a thousand demons in him. Right. And and so he cleans that guy up.

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And and then that guy, as you can imagine, I'll shorten the story up a lot.

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But as you can imagine, that guy is now clean. He's healed. Jesus.

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They want him to leave because all the pigs got killed. And so he he's getting in the boat to leave.

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And that guy wants to get in the boat. And Jesus says, you know, you stay here.

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You tell the people the wonderful things that God has done. And and then the next time

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Jesus comes to that area, it's called the Decapolis. You guys can look all this up. The Decapolis was an area where there were 10 city states and all the ruling empires had their own cities there in this area.

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And part of dealing with Rome and Israel and all that. And when

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Jesus came back there the next time, all the people came out to him. And the first thing

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Jesus did there then was heal a deaf guy, remember, to signifying that he's bringing the gospel now to the

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Gentiles and to the masses. And anyway, that's what I look at myself. I'm just a broken guy, sinner beyond belief.

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You know, I'm still, you know, you really wouldn't like me if you knew me, but I'm just a regular guy.

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I don't have any of that power. I haven't been to seminary. I haven't done any of that stuff. But God called me there and he will equip whoever he calls.

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And when you go, he's going to equip you. He's going to give you everything you need.

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And he's going to do things that you will never ever in a million years believe.

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But that's one example. There's thousands of them. But the whole point is that I don't know how

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I got off on this. This is true. I was trying to go in order of how to how to do this kind of ministry.

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But again, I don't know. I don't understand like the area where you're at.

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I know some things that you don't want to have. You don't want to have people that are that they're fighting you on the sidewalk.

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I mean, that is that's like the biggest no, no, ever. And you don't want to waste your time with them at all.

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You just carry on, do what you're going to do. And God's going to he'll sort it all out because, you know,

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I've been through all that as well. But it's honestly, you know, I tell people that I show up and watch him show off because I can't do any of this stuff.

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I'm not saying it's easy. It's kind of miserable, really. I mean, it's you're out there in Florida. I don't know where it's like where you live, but, you know, summer over there.

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It's nine o 'clock in the morning. It can be ninety five with ninety five percent humidity. And you get out of your car and it's dripping off your elbows already.

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But it's, you know, it can. But the joy that when you get to see him move, there's nothing worth you know, there's nothing there's nothing like that.

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A boy, he protects you in a special way. He he does everything.

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He really, truly becomes your all in all when you put yourself in that position. And there's nothing on earth worth that.

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I mean, I mean, nothing is is comes even close to that.

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I kind of got to regroup here and figure out where I'm going. But how much time do

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I have? Anybody know? No. So I have ten more minutes.

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How about if I do this then? Yeah. Why don't why don't I see if any of you guys and maybe we could all maybe one of you have an answer to somebody else's question about where you guys are are serving at.

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Anybody have a question? Yes, sir. Yeah, I just had a question about if something that, you know,

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I think all of us, you know, have seen is maybe some like that. Oh, I have to tell you, you know, at the beginning.

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Yeah. But here's the thing. If you can possibly do it, get somebody in your church.

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Don't you have an old cripple guy in your church or something that can adopt that's on disability or retired that can adopt that abortion clinic and that he can be there every minute they're open.

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He's getting paid anyway or it's on retirement. He's got. Right. He's he can do it.

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What else are you going to do? Watch Andy Griffith all day long. But you get them to go down there once you own that place.

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Things happen. I mean, I have the police. I couldn't believe it either.

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But last week I'm out there preaching and I hear this. I didn't hear it, actually, because I get in this like zone and I have to have people watch so that nobody comes and attacks me.

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Well, you know, they'll run up and I'll know that somebody's coming. And because I get in this weird place when

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I'm preaching and and I, I didn't hear the car pull up.

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I didn't even hear the people yelling. And then all of a sudden I hear John turn around and it's the police.

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And I turn around and I look at him and I go, what's up? What did I do? And he goes, no, no, no.

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You don't get it, John. Preach louder, John. Preach longer.

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So I don't have those problems. But I really believe it's because I own the place. You know what

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I mean? It's because they're not coming out there. In fact, when somebody calls the police on me, which is every day there because they don't they don't think

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I have a right to be there. They don't, you know, all this stuff. The police just tell him he has every right to be there.

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It's just John. If you don't want to hear him, go sit inside or go sit in your car. And but every once in a while they'll make a claim and they'll come out and then they basically end up giving them a civics lesson.

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But the thing is, own the place.

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Own it. That's not that's not the devil's land. It's really not. He's he's a he doesn't belong there.

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They don't belong in that place. That's God's. And you got to look at it that way.

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That's your place. Those people are. Yes, sir. So what do you think about bringing your kids there? You know, four year old, two year old.

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Well, it's winter in Alaska right now. So they're in the car usually, but we're in Alaska. Well, winter in Alaska.

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Do they have a DCF up there? What's that? Department of Children and Families.

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Winter in Alaska. Sitting in the car. No, I I I don't like kids where I'm at.

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It's not because of what they like exposure and all that. But ours is such a weird thing.

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We have these two driveways and then the clinics right here. And people hit that driveway at 40 miles an hour coming in there and boom.

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And and if there's a kid when they're coming around, there's a kid stand there, adult, anybody, they're going to be dead.

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But but if you can get them in a safe place and all that. Yeah. Heck, yeah.

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I know many families in Florida where I live that have done that. And like the visual, like the effectiveness, is it safe?

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Yeah. OK. People going in. Mom's coming in and seeing babies. Yeah, I don't know if that works.

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But our senior said in the first baby's I'm over here, it's not safe. Don't plan on being safe.

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No, it's not safe. Yes. So if we do have all the opposition, we do.

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There's volunteers. Yeah. I'm pretty sure they're paid. There's probably five or six to nine at any given time.

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And as soon as we get there, they call them. Yeah. So what do you do? Recommend just not engaging them at all?

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What I always try to do when they've done that at ours, they don't last long because number one, they're not going to get paid by them.

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And number two, they're not there the same reason we are right there.

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They're not looking as a spiritual thing between us and God. And, you know, the battle that's before us.

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But I've had them there. They've they've turned on the sprinklers and they've done all that. And but I always try like the workers when they'll like go get the girl's heads and put their heads over their ears and I'll walk them up the driveway and all that.

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Usually what I always say is, young lady, come and talk to me about what they don't want you to hear.

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And it really gets people inquisitive and like what? And a lot of it usually it ended up working against them.

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Yeah. You got to try and use them as your thing. You know, I know one thing, one big deal.

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I'm sure somebody would ask it. I mean, what do you do when someone says you're judging us? Right.

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Do you ever hear that? Well, here here's what I tell them.

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I say, I'm not judging you. My judgment wouldn't mean anything, even if I did.

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I'm here to warn you about his judgment and try to protect you from it. But you, in fact, are the actual judge and you have just condemned your baby to death.

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You've just judged your baby not worthy of life. And nobody has has a comeback for that.

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None of them. They don't have a. I think we're. Oh, yes, ma 'am. Oh, Oklahoma City.

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And you're my hero. Oh, dear.

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For you. I follow you. And I would like to ask you, since I have to be there,

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I will be there tomorrow and I'll speak briefly at the Capitol Tuesday and then

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I'll be back there Wednesday. Could you please come to my gate, sir? When is this tomorrow?

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Yes, tomorrow. Well, let me check with the schedule and see what they want me to do. But yeah, sure.

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I'm going to call him and I'm going to talk to him. Or I'm going to come to Florida. Come on down.

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To learn more, you know. She just came down. She just moved down next to you from Austin. She's down there now at our clinic.

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Yeah. I think that's it for time, right, guys. Is that it? Yeah, I think we're done.

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But if there's any other questions, I don't want you to miss any other classes. But if you want to come back in with more questions, come back in.

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Got to give you a way to escape. Thank you, guys.