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JULIE PROCTOR | To Reach the Least of These (Ep. 744)

April 17, 2025 1h 3m Full transcript available
JULIE PROCTOR | To Reach the Least of These (Ep. 744)
0:00 / 1h 3m
In this episode, Kyle Thompson sits down with Julie Proctor, co-founder of Manos de Fe, to discuss the critical work being done to help impoverished families in Panama. They dive deep into the challenges faced by young girls who have been trafficked and the transformative programs that empower them to reclaim their lives and futures.
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1:18 This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
1:22 I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:24 Let's get into it.
1:25 All right, guys, we've got a special guest on the podcast today.
1:27 Her name is Julie Proctor.
1:28 So she is one of the founders of Manos de Fei.
1:31 I believe I said that, right?
1:32 My Spanish isn't fantastic, but I just want to read something specifically from their website
1:36 to give you an idea what they do.
1:38 The mission of Manos de Fei is to share the love of Christ while helping impoverished
1:42 families in Chiriqui Panama achieve self-sufficiency and hope for a brighter future.
1:47 Manos de Fei empowers hundreds of people to live healthier, productive, and more faith-filled
1:51 lives through various programs, including family outreach, education, and orphan transition.
1:56 We also work to build sustainability and provide job training through our adjacent farm, vocational
2:01 training, and educational opportunities.
2:02 And so I became aware of Julie and Gary, her husband, because Joby Martin of Church 1122,
2:08 obviously, you guys, you know him here in this audience, he said, "Hey, you've got to talk
2:11 to these people."
2:12 I'm like, "Okay, cool.
2:13 Why?"
2:14 Because just because a friend says, "Hey, you should talk to these people."
2:16 It's not an automatic yes.
2:17 I mean, I get 20, 25 pitches for people to come on the show for everyone that I end up
2:21 bringing on.
2:22 And he's just like, "Look, you want to talk about pushing back darkness?
2:25 These are people that are pushing back darkness on the front lines every single day."
2:30 And so I was like, "All right, sold."
2:32 And so I started digging in to kind of what they did.
2:33 But it was interesting, the beginning part of this conversation, first 20 minutes or so.
2:37 I'm just talking to Julie about what it was like being there from the very beginning,
2:41 because she was at Beech Church, which is the church that planted and launched Church
2:46 of 1122.
2:47 She was at Beech Church before Joby was, right?
2:50 So then Joby comes in as a youth pastor, and then he's doing his own service.
2:54 And then that becomes 1122, the church.
2:57 So she was there from before the beginning and then at the beginning.
3:01 And now her husband, Gary, is an elder there at Church of 1122.
3:06 And so we got to talk about that process, like how did he become an elder?
3:09 What was it like kind of seeing the transition of the church from this fledgling thing basically
3:12 to this thing that's like a rocket ship and is saturated kind of this thing that's...
3:17 Is this normal?
3:18 And I just really, really enjoyed kind of a behind the scenes look on all the 1122 stuff.
3:23 But then we transitioned into the stuff that they're doing in Panama.
3:26 And I mean, it's kind of rough, guys.
3:28 I mean, they're getting these girls who have been trafficked for a large chunk of their
3:33 life and getting them out and trying to get them back on their feet.
3:36 A lot of these women have children because of the trafficking situation.
3:40 There's not a lot of godly role models, especially male godly role models that are there in this
3:45 environment.
3:46 But we really dig into, okay, what are you all doing on the ground?
3:49 Because again, I mean, I talk about this in the show.
3:51 I'm not naturally that compassionate and I just, you know, there's impoverished people
3:57 all over the planet, right?
3:59 And so why should we care about impoverished people in Panama more than the ones in Bangladesh
4:04 or in, you know, Sudan or in, you know, some parts of America or different things like that.
4:10 And so I really enjoyed her being able to talk about that.
4:12 And then I just got her to kind of explain like, what are some of the worst parts about
4:16 what y'all are doing?
4:17 Because it's not just, you know, the giving websites and the videos you send and all that.
4:22 Like there's actually the real tangible work of, okay, you had this calling that you felt
4:25 like God was pointing you in a particular direction into a particular country to a particular
4:29 people group in that area.
4:31 So now what, what does it, what does it mean to actually do that work?
4:35 And what does it mean to do that on a day in and day out basis?
4:37 So the thing with Julie is you're not going to be in this conversation, you're not going
4:43 to be overwhelmed by our personality because she's just one of those like she's like the
4:47 opposite of me.
4:48 She's very calming, but she is a frontline warrior.
4:54 And so there's the idea that you get in your mind of what a frontline warrior looks like
4:58 or should look like or should act like.
5:01 And she's not going to, you know, check a lot of those boxes, but she's actually doing
5:05 the dang thing, there are guys that like to posture on social media.
5:08 And there are guys that like to, you know, peacock when they're in public.
5:11 And then there are people that just get after it, her and her husband Gary, they're just
5:14 get after her people.
5:15 So they put their yes down.
5:17 They said, yes, Lord, now what?
5:20 And so, you know, there's a lot that we can learn from people like Julie Proctor.
5:24 And so I'm just thrilled that we had this conversation today with better than I, you
5:27 know, could have even expected.
5:28 So I'm not going to keep her from you guys any longer.
5:31 So without further ado, let's get into it.
5:34 Julie Proctor, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
5:37 Hi.
5:38 Thank you.
5:39 Thank you for having me.
5:40 I appreciate a seat at your table.
5:42 Well, hey, I got to tell you, I was a little surprised, well, I'm always a little bit surprised
5:46 whenever I have a lady listener say, Hey, I actually listened to your show.
5:49 But then it also makes me a little nervous because, you know, I never think of the lady
5:53 listeners when I'm creating the content.
5:55 But I love that we do have lady listeners.
5:57 So when he told me off air that you listen to the show, I was like, Oh, what did I say?
6:00 So what is it?
6:01 Why in the world would you listen to me?
6:02 I'm a lunatic.
6:03 I love listening to the male perspective.
6:06 I raise boys.
6:07 I work with young girls who have issues with boys.
6:10 So I kind of just like to hear the man's side of it and to see kind of how they come
6:16 across well, how they interpret the scriptures and then how they apply it to them lives.
6:22 And it makes it easier for me to teach it to, you know, people in my life.
6:25 So I enjoy.
6:26 Okay.
6:27 Yeah.
6:28 Excellent.
6:29 My wife, you know, we have, we have nothing but boys, even our dogs have been boys.
6:32 And so she's just like, I am just surrounded by all this testosterone.
6:35 I remember I got, you know, blood tests years ago.
6:38 And you know, if you go to one of those testosterone clinics, it doesn't matter what your testosterone
6:42 is at.
6:43 They're going to say you need to be on testosterone of some kind.
6:45 And she heard the doctors say that I needed to be on testosterone and she just looked
6:49 at me like there's no way.
6:51 There's simply no way that we can have even a little bit more of testosterone in your house.
6:56 So guys, pray for my wife, pray for everybody that has to deal with that level of crazy.
6:59 But the thing, the way that you and I got connected is because you and your husband Gary
7:04 are big time church of 11 22ers.
7:07 And so I've got to be careful with the language you go to church with Joby.
7:10 You don't go to Joby's church.
7:11 We got to be very specific about that.
7:13 But tell me how that all got going.
7:15 How did y'all get involved with 11 22?
7:18 We are some of the old timers.
7:20 We were from the original church that Joby was the youth pastor at, which is beach church.
7:26 Yeah.
7:27 Since we launched, we were part of the launch and have been going to church 11 22 since
7:33 it first started.
7:34 And now we've grown into my husband becoming one of the elders at church of 11 22.
7:41 So he is always working with pastor Joby and with the rest of the elders and keeping our
7:46 church in line and on track.
7:48 Okay.
7:49 Well, Julie, I got lots of questions there because Joby is like impossible to keep on
7:52 track.
7:53 That's why he has like 17 assistants.
7:55 But let's go back to beach church, because I've been to Jacksonville several times doing
7:58 stuff with Joby there.
7:59 And so I've driven by beach church and obviously Joby has a lot of great things to say about
8:03 beach church and about the pastor there and things like that.
8:06 But let's go back to that time to where you've got this church service that was starting
8:11 at 11 22 and the service kind of overgrew, if you will.
8:15 And then it's like, Hey, we're going to plant, but we're not going to plant like in some
8:18 faraway land.
8:19 We're going to plant a few miles inland from the beach or whatever.
8:23 And so just take us through those early days, because of course, when you talk to Joby about
8:27 it, Joby just says, Hey, I thought I was going to be youth minister for forever.
8:30 I was going to be the youth minister guy and never wanted to launch a church.
8:33 I definitely didn't want a multi site church with hundreds of employees and, you know,
8:37 all this.
8:38 I didn't know, like I was never in the plans.
8:40 So take us to those fledgling stages where we don't know that this is going to turn into
8:45 a thing.
8:46 We just know we're moving to a new building.
8:48 Yes.
8:49 Well, interestingly enough, when it was first started, Joby was preaching to a population
8:57 that they found was the most unchurched population group, a young adult group.
9:03 So we know when you do your stats, the group of people that you just don't see coming back
9:07 to church, you go when you're younger and then you go when you're older.
9:10 But what about that 20s crowd?
9:12 So they had Pastor Joby, who's really great with the youth start preaching the service
9:16 and the service just grew exponentially where it was standing room only, elbowing in and
9:22 was becoming a church in and of itself.
9:26 And just people would say, I'm going to 11 22, you know, and that's the time, you know,
9:31 that his church service started and it kind of worked into its own being.
9:36 And Joby, as you know, just has such a way of preaching the gospel and teaching it in
9:41 a way that you can apply it and you you are excited to actually explain the sermon to
9:46 someone else who wasn't actually wasn't able to go that Sunday or to your colleagues at
9:50 work.
9:51 And it just, you know, as he launched into his own his own church that or our church, you
9:57 can't say his church, but our church, I know I do get, yeah, we all do that.
10:02 But it's just it was really cool to watch it grow because I saw it from I was there before
10:08 Joby even came to see and Joby come to see and Joby just get this following of people
10:13 that just weren't that, you know, thirsty and hungry for the word that they just wanted
10:17 to, to hear it in a way that applied to their lives.
10:20 And sometimes some pastors can't, they just have a hard time, you know, doing that with
10:24 that generation and that crowd and you just, it worked.
10:28 Well, you talked about Julie, thirsty and hungry for the word, but if you were to get
10:34 a book and there, I've been books written out there about this is how you grow an enormous
10:37 church and become a super rich mega pastor, like that that here's, here's basically what
10:41 you do.
10:42 You don't do that by going verse by verse through books of the Bible, like you don't
10:45 do that through expository preaching.
10:47 You do that by telling people affirmations that they should tell themselves in the mirror,
10:52 like they are good enough, you know, God is for you.
10:54 So do whatever the heck you want because, you know, God's going to bless you no matter
10:57 what.
10:58 Oh, also by the way, if you donate to this ministry, it's going to come back to you tin
11:01 fold and all that kind of stuff.
11:02 And so we're starting to get out into, you know, the, the, the crazy towns of different
11:06 theological stuff.
11:07 But I don't really buy the all shucks approach of Joby Martin.
11:11 I know he's listening to this right now, but this all like, Oh, I'm just a country boy
11:14 from Dylan, South Carolina.
11:15 I don't really know.
11:16 I just kind of preach about no, no, no, the dude might be a genius, right?
11:20 And I don't really want to give him any more compliments beyond that because, you know,
11:23 he's already got a big ego, but it's like, I don't really buy the, oh, you know, my pockets
11:27 are out.
11:28 I got my hat in my hand and I just don't really know.
11:30 I think he knows that there's power in the word and regardless of what the pressures from
11:34 outside culture and from kind of the health, self-help site guys is doing, he's just going
11:40 to go back to the word of God.
11:42 And so I guess you tell me because I only became aware of him and like, I don't know,
11:45 2022 or something like that.
11:47 And I went back to like 2016 and listened to the sermons and I was like, okay, he's kind
11:50 of in the same way, but has he kind of had the same style, Julie, of like, no matter what,
11:57 no matter what story I tell or no matter what, you know, anecdote, I'm trying to give to
12:00 somebody.
12:01 We've got to go back to the word and we've just got to go verse by verse.
12:05 From day one, he has always had that style and he, he will not falter from the truth.
12:11 He will not deviate from the word, but, but he does it with, with comedy and he does it
12:16 with application and he does it with in a way that it makes sense because a lot of times
12:22 you listen to pastors and just, you can't figure out how it can, how it can apply to
12:28 your particular life and your situation and, and he does and he produces the same thing.
12:32 He'll tell you over and over it.
12:33 You know, it's the same message just presented in a different way.
12:37 But it's always amazing and it's always unique to me and then it'll be unique to the next
12:41 person and the other person and he just has a way with that.
12:45 He's definitely a skilled, skilled speaker, a skilled teacher, a skilled preacher.
12:51 Well, one thing, Julie, because you've listened to my show for a little while.
12:55 So perhaps I've used this statement, perhaps I haven't, maybe you haven't heard me say
12:58 this, but you know, I'm, you know, we have the number one show and the, the Christian
13:03 men's space, whatever that is.
13:05 And so we've grown considerably since we launched in 2017.
13:09 And for years, Julie, I would be asked by random laymen or even pastors and churches
13:14 like, Hey, can you help us build a men's ministry, a vibrant men's ministry?
13:19 And then what they meant was is, can you help us get guys to show up, not just on Sunday
13:24 mornings and not just on Wednesday nights, but on some random, like, you know, Saturday
13:28 morning at, you know, five 30 in the morning to, to, you know, basically sit around a circle
13:34 and do Bible study and talk about our feelings or something like that.
13:37 And what I've kind of changed, Julie is over the years I've gone from, I don't really care
13:42 about men's ministry because that's essentially just programming.
13:44 It's, Hey, come to this event.
13:46 It's a show up to this room.
13:48 And I want to focus on making churches man friendly, where if a manly dude, whatever that
13:53 means.
13:54 So in the eye of the beholder, whatever a manly dude is that he walks into a church and doesn't
13:58 automatically feel like, Oh, I'm out of place here, or oh, I have to check my, you know,
14:04 genitalia at the door.
14:05 But like, Hey, my, my virile testosterone field nature is not going to be stymied here.
14:12 It's going to be elevated and it's going to be pointed in a biblically based gospel centered,
14:18 you know, help, you know, serve your neighbor type of way.
14:22 It seems like Joby has modeled that and has accidentally created one of the most man friendly
14:29 churches that we have in this country.
14:31 But also, I know it's taken me a while to set this up.
14:33 But for a lot of women, Julie, when there's a lot of testosterone filled strong virile
14:39 man in an environment, perhaps they've been harmed by someone that's been like that.
14:45 That's been very, very, you know, a dominant and something like that.
14:48 And so this feminization of our culture will look at an environment like that and be like,
14:53 Oh, that's oppressive.
14:54 That's authoritarian.
14:55 We can't have that.
14:56 It's disordered somehow.
14:57 We need y'all to chill out.
14:59 We need to tamp this down a little bit.
15:01 But it doesn't seem to be what we get from the church of 11 22.
15:05 But if you were to look through the employees, there's not a men's ministry pastor.
15:09 Y'all don't do men's ministry events.
15:10 I mean, we're doing a men's conference at the end of this year, but it's not like it's not
15:14 an explicit here's our men's ministry, but the church seems very, very man friendly.
15:17 I know that was somewhat a convoluted set up, but I'd love to see or hear your perspective
15:21 on that.
15:22 Yes, it's definitely for the man, you know, if you walk in all the beards, all the tattoos,
15:27 all the deer heads, all the, yeah, it's definitely, you know, got the testosterone flow, but he
15:33 also preaches every, you know, every sermon that Jobe will preach about act like men.
15:38 There's always a part of it of how that in and of itself when you're acting like a man
15:43 would be honoring and loving to a woman.
15:45 So the woman's elevated every time the man is elevated in his sermon.
15:48 So I think he gets so biblical with it that it's understandable and I don't think women
15:56 get offended by it because I think women actually appreciate it, appreciate the of what, how
16:02 their life would be changed if a man lives his life in the godly way that that is preached.
16:09 When I think you're hitting on something that the, you know, 5% of lady listeners we have
16:14 to the show, the messages or whenever I see them in person or something like that, that's
16:19 what they tell me.
16:20 Is there like we want men to do this and then Jobe gave me one of the most incredible experiences
16:25 which just seemed like a small thing, but it was a big thing to me.
16:28 There's a gal at the church who I think that you would know she attends there.
16:33 Apparently she's, she's single mother.
16:34 I think her son's like 7 or 8 years old.
16:38 Apparently the dad is a horrifically terrible person.
16:42 And she is struggling to get this young man, you know, around good male role models because
16:48 dad's such a jerk, right?
16:50 But one thing that she does is every time we do an ask a pastor episode on our show or
16:56 the forging table where it's me and three other guys sitting around, you know, doing
16:59 Bible study like men would do, make a mistakes, you know, chopping each other down, making
17:03 fun of each other, like just having a good time, right?
17:05 She makes sure that she exposes her son to that.
17:08 And then when I was there for, I can't remember if it was saturated or encounter or something
17:11 like that, he made sure that I got to meet that mom, that single mom and that young boy
17:17 just to kind of further like, Hey, I'm, I'm like a real dude.
17:19 I know you listen to me through your phone, but I'm like a real dude.
17:22 And I got to get down on that guy's level, that little guy and just talk about his spider
17:26 man shirt.
17:27 And all that's so awesome.
17:28 And I'm so glad you get to listen to me and keep doing that.
17:30 But I think Jobe and the church has set up a lot of those opportunities for women who
17:35 maybe are like, you know, they're victims of their circumstances and or their own decision
17:39 making.
17:40 And here they are just trying to make the best of it.
17:43 But I think that's one of the ways that that's real men's ministry, if you will, like it's
17:48 not just, Hey, read wild at heart, even though you should, it's not just, Hey, go to this
17:52 men's conference, even though yeah, buy your tickets and you should October 17th and 18th
17:55 in Jacksonville, Florida, but at the same time, like that's when the real ministry starts
18:00 happening.
18:01 You know what I mean?
18:02 That's all to teach you how to do the ministry, the ministry, the walk is, is being the father
18:08 figure to, to all the, the boys at the church, you know, or all the children of the church.
18:12 So yeah, if you, what good is it to go to men's ministry and to do, you know, all the, all
18:18 the men, things that you're doing if you're not applying them to your life.
18:21 So there's definitely application.
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19:53 Okay, and so let's talk a little bit about Gary as well, so he's not here to speak for
20:03 himself.
20:04 So let's talk about him behind your back, but he's your wonderful and lovely husband.
20:08 So he is an elder at the church 1122 and that's another thing that's weird.
20:12 Typically, when you have these enormous churches with these kind of like pastors that have
20:16 their own gravitational pull, they tend to try to insulate themselves a little bit.
20:20 So they don't have elders.
20:22 They have a board of directors that they happen to also be the chairman of.
20:26 And so basically, there's no way that they can be kicked out of their own church.
20:30 There's a lot of prominent pastors that I can name right now that that's how they set
20:33 themselves up because it's a business and they don't want to be able to be kicked out
20:37 of their own business.
20:38 It's like, that's one of the reasons why Undaunted Life is not a 501c3 because I've heard of several
20:43 men that have been kicked out of their own 501c3 because one disgruntled person on the
20:48 board got a few other people on board.
20:49 And all of a sudden, they got kicked out of their own thing that they started, right?
20:52 And so, but Joby's got elders and he is submitted to the leadership of the elders from the
20:57 beginning.
20:58 He talks about a conversation I with his wife Gretchen at the beginning like, should we
21:02 even do this?
21:03 This is crazy.
21:04 And Gretchen was like, do you think these elders would let you do this if they didn't
21:07 feel like God was leading you in this direction?
21:09 Like, let's let them be elders.
21:12 But how did I guess, how did Gary get picked or selected or are basically identified as
21:18 a man that that could be an elder in Church 1122 and help really guide the Leviathan that
21:24 that church has become?
21:25 Wow.
21:26 That's a good question.
21:27 He, my husband has from the time we've gotten married to present day, he's always, you know,
21:34 had a love for the Lord and he is such a scholar and just he thrives on learning the Bible.
21:42 And he's, I can't even I don't even know all the books he's read like many, many, many,
21:47 he's got it, you know, a whole library of books, but he doesn't, he doesn't, he wants
21:50 to learn it, but he wants to totally understand it.
21:52 So I, I tease him that he's like an encyclopedia of the Bible, but he just loves, he loves
21:57 all of that.
21:59 And he lives his life that way too.
22:01 And he's, he's very humble, like if you wouldn't, you couldn't meet a more humble person.
22:05 Like he's the most humble.
22:07 And he's just lived a life where he would do these great things, because I'm his wife,
22:12 I could say that he does the great things and he does, he's a great man that does great
22:16 things.
22:17 But you would, he always sits in the back.
22:18 He's always the last one to enter, hold in the door for everyone to leave, kind of stands
22:23 back in the shadows.
22:25 And I think, you know, eventually, you know, it, you know, it, you know, with doing Bible
22:29 studies with them and people coming into his life and learning how he can pour so much
22:34 out into other people.
22:35 And he's just such a wealth of knowledge and inspiration to an encouragement to others
22:41 that he was recommended by a few guys, I think, and then there's a whole vetting process
22:47 and a whole onboarding of the elders, which is, you know, years, this isn't a something
22:51 they take lightly, it's something that, because, you know, like you said, this is something
22:56 that, you know, Joey doesn't just stack the deck with people who he knows is going to
22:59 keep him in charge.
23:00 He's, you know, he wants people who are biblically sound and, you know, fit the biblical principles
23:07 too of being an elder.
23:08 And so it's, it's a big thing and it's a big honor and I'm super proud of, of Gary for
23:14 doing that.
23:15 One, and one other thing, if we could dig in a little bit, give us a peek behind the curtain
23:21 of what that vetting process was like, because I think I've heard, you know, Joby talk about
23:25 it before, but it's like a two year process from the time of basically nomination, I guess
23:30 you could call it.
23:31 I don't know if it's that formal, but you're nominated.
23:33 You're basically pegged, but then it's like two years of stuff that you have to do and
23:39 vetting before you're actually officially an elder.
23:41 And then I don't know how long the terms are, if there are terms or whatever, but can you
23:45 give us like, okay, what was it two years?
23:48 Like what was going on during that time?
23:50 Was he having to like submit, you know, blood samples and like do crazy, you know, weird
23:55 things in the woods?
23:56 Like what was he having to do?
23:57 Daily testosterone levels.
23:59 No, I'm teasing.
24:00 That's right.
24:01 I got to stay above a certain level guys.
24:03 No, he, I do remember him.
24:06 He had a whole basket that sat by his recliner, full of books that they were reading, that
24:12 they had this, you know, standard reading that they would get together and discuss.
24:16 And I don't even, I don't even remember which ones they were.
24:19 I think he had to, I think he was writing something at one point.
24:23 I know he had meetings.
24:24 I know he had interviews and it was a two year entire process of, of learning and, you
24:31 know, making sure that his biblical principles and are in line with, with the churches.
24:36 I mean, just hearing that is so encouraging because I've been reached out to guys and
24:43 there are guys probably listening to this where they're young guys that are elders of
24:47 their churches, right?
24:49 And you know, Joby talks about it's like, how can you be an elder of a church when you've
24:52 never like, held it anything?
24:53 And it's like gray hair doesn't mean that you have wisdom, but it's a pretty good indicator,
24:58 right?
24:59 And me right now, if my church asked me to be an elder, I'd be like, no, like I'm 38
25:04 years old, like I'm, my family is young, like there, there's still a lot of things that
25:08 I feel like I need to be sanctified in.
25:11 And my, some parts of my life have been a fairly slow sanctification process because I'm a knucklehead
25:16 and other parts is just like, Hey, it's just not, I'm just not been prepared for that.
25:20 And so I like that whole idea.
25:22 I want to kind of wrap up the discussion of church 1122.
25:25 So we can get into some of your mission work, but I did want to ask you about this because
25:29 I don't feel like I really got to experience 1122 until saturated last year.
25:35 And guys, this, this sounds like it's like a commercial for 1122.
25:38 It's not, I'm just like, I like talking to somebody that's like been there from the beginning.
25:41 This is really, really interesting to me.
25:43 So hopefully it's interesting to, to you guys listen to this and that you're not too
25:46 bored, Julie.
25:47 But when I was at saturated, so here we go, I'm there and I'm there to work, right?
25:51 So we've got Jim Berg and Matt Chandler, Durban Gray, Ben Stewart.
25:55 And after they, they preach, they go into a room with me and Joby and Pastor Vinky and
25:59 we, we record a podcast and then, you know, I was there and I was there to work, but I
26:03 had been there a few times and, you know, I'd seen, you know, the services and seeing
26:06 Joby preach live and all that.
26:08 But when Jim Berg and preach that first night, and when I experienced the worship and I've
26:13 always kind of been weird with worship and I've talked about that a lot on the show, then
26:16 Joby gets back up on stage after just to basically close out and tell everyone to go home.
26:21 And he's like holding his chest because he can barely breathe.
26:24 And you can hear him even say under his breath, he's like, gosh, I can barely breathe up here.
26:28 Like he was so overwhelmed.
26:30 It was weird, Julie, the feeling in the room and not just like, oh, it was, you know,
26:35 emotive because the music was emotional and because the sermon was good.
26:39 It was like there was a heft of the Holy Spirit.
26:43 I felt like I could just grasp a handful of the Holy Spirit because it was just hanging
26:47 in the air.
26:48 You know what I mean?
26:49 And then it just kept going, right?
26:51 Every single night and it's just like it was overwhelming.
26:55 And when you see guys like Jim and Matt and Derwin and Ben that are all from big churches
27:02 that all have, you know, sold books and done the big conferences and to hear them all at
27:06 dinner afterwards be like, Joby, what's going on here?
27:09 Like what is in the water in Jacksonville?
27:12 What's happening inside of this congregation?
27:15 This feels different and every single one of them said that.
27:18 And from your perspective, Julie, was it just like, yeah, this is just church.
27:22 Like this is just whatever because from an outsider that comes from a very kind of reserved,
27:28 very chill, very like no high, no low emotion, like straight down the middle church, it just
27:35 didn't feel the same.
27:36 I'm just wondering what it felt like from, from your perspective being, you know, one
27:39 of the OGs of the entire church.
27:41 Wow.
27:42 I love that that's the sensation that you felt that's amazing.
27:47 It is every Sunday that you can feel the Holy Spirit comes in and the worship is real
27:53 and the people are real.
27:55 And that's what Joby tries to say, you know, on stage is that we are a real church with
28:02 real problems and we need a real Jesus and real man to die on the cross for our sins.
28:07 And he just brings it to a level where it, like I said it a hundred times already, but
28:13 it's just so accepted.
28:15 It's so me.
28:16 It's so you.
28:17 You can apply it to your life.
28:19 However, when it comes to saturated, if you think about, I mean, the meaning of saturated
28:24 is, you know, it is all over you.
28:26 And you're night after night with these big powerhouses of these sermons and you know,
28:32 you're on your knees every single night.
28:34 And I think of, you know, the whole abiding when you abiding Christ like that, that it
28:38 just flows out.
28:39 You can't keep it in and you, it's this building abiding that just, you know, accumulates and
28:45 at the end of the whole saturated, it is you're on fire and you are day one, right?
28:50 So then, you know, toward the end, you're just, it is, it's just abiding in Jesus in
28:55 such a, such a worshiping, powerful way that they're, I don't know, it's just, it comes
29:00 out.
29:01 Oh gosh.
29:02 And then Sunday, when Joby's closing it out and you've got the baptismals right there
29:06 and it's just baptism after baptism after baptism and I was at the, the first service,
29:10 I guess on Sunday.
29:12 And I mean, the service was over and the lines were still full of people that were, were going
29:17 to get baptized.
29:18 And I was just like, what the, I mean, the, the floors are soaking wet.
29:22 And I mean, it's just person after person.
29:24 And then as is fairly typical, I guess there's the people that plan to get baptized that
29:28 day.
29:29 And then there's the people that that day in that service had given their life to Christ.
29:34 And so they're just getting in line and volunteers are trying to find them a t-shirt to get
29:38 baptized in and, you know, they didn't come with a bathing suit and a change of clothes.
29:42 Like these are people and their church clothes are like, let's just go.
29:45 Let's, let's get in the water.
29:46 So anyway, I should stop like slobbering all over the church because I think, uh, you
29:49 know, obviously I'm a huge fan of what Joby's built in.
29:52 You know, I'm, I'm just thrilled that I feel like I'm a small part of it and I get to be
29:55 a part of kind of, you know, saturated and encounter and beach baptism in the men's conference
30:00 and that I can kind of be ingratiated into the church 11, 22 family, even though I live
30:04 in the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma.
30:06 But one other good thing about the church is there is a missional focus.
30:10 But every, not everyone is, I guess is called to missions, if you will.
30:14 I mean, that's kind of like a church phraseology thing.
30:17 But you and your husband did have a calling on, on your heart and on your lives that kind
30:23 of pushed you towards the world of missions.
30:26 And so let's just start there with kind of those initial, uh, I guess promptings of the
30:31 Holy Spirit for you and Gary that, hey, there's, there's something that, that y'all are needed
30:37 to do and there's work that needs to be done and not just in Duvall County.
30:40 Yeah.
30:41 Well, um, I, as a, as a little girl, I used to watch television and they would have infomercials
30:48 of, um, save the children for 50 cents a day.
30:52 You could help the starving child in Africa and it would, you know, show all the, all
30:56 the children laying around pretty much starving to death and it hurt me.
31:00 I get, just hurt my heart and I was like, I am going, I'm not going to have kids.
31:04 I'm going to go adopt all those children and I thought I could drive there.
31:06 I didn't know Africa was in another country.
31:09 I didn't know I couldn't drive my car, but I just, that was just embedded in me at that
31:14 point in time.
31:14 And then I was going to become a nurse and do all these things to get to Africa one day.
31:19 I was going to join the Peace Corps.
31:21 I was trying to figure out how do you do that because now mission drips are just so common.
31:26 Every church has a mission platform, but at that time they didn't, beach didn't really,
31:31 you know, I, um, when we were going to beach church, they didn't have one.
31:35 They had missionaries at that time, like a lot of churches had planted missionaries,
31:39 but not short-term mission trips.
31:41 Uh, my husband and I, when we got married, um, you know, I shared that dream with him that
31:47 something that I had always wanted to do was to go, you know, save the world, so to speak.
31:52 And it just, I, I knew I was supposed to be somewhere.
31:55 And he too had had, you know, kind of thoughts growing up.
31:58 If that's what he wanted to do in a different kind of form, but we sort of googling or,
32:02 well, Google didn't exist at the time.
32:04 So we started looking up, like, how do you go on mission trips?
32:06 Cause I didn't know, do you have to go to a mission school and become a missionary?
32:10 And do I have to memorize Bible verses or like, how does this work?
32:14 And we were invited to come along on United Methodist Volunteer's Emission.
32:19 And they said, yeah, join a team if, if there's an opening you guys can join.
32:23 And we figured that I think it was like July would be a good month because our daughter
32:28 was out of school.
32:29 I'm always out of school.
32:30 So it was she could go visit her grandmother and we didn't go into Panama on a trip with
32:36 the United Methodist Volunteer's Emission and they let us go, didn't have to do any kind
32:40 of studies or anything.
32:41 We just joined a team and I was a nurse and my husband was a doctor and we ran a medical
32:46 clinic.
32:47 And that was our first one.
32:48 And I think 1998, 1998.
32:54 And then started just going, you know, every year trying to hit a different country.
33:00 We went to back to Panama a couple of years, but then hit a new country and kind of just
33:04 fell in love with it, adopted a child from Guatemala.
33:09 We already had three biological kids of our own, but we just wanted it, it's just that
33:13 passion to serve.
33:15 And then eventually we, you know, God just kept calling, you know, that orphanage, Julie,
33:20 that orphanage, you got to save those children.
33:22 And we ended up starting our orphanage in Panama.
33:25 And that was probably in 2007 is when we bought the land in Panama.
33:32 But we started running submission teams and building stuff in 2009.
33:36 And then running teams, you know, people just wanted to come with us.
33:40 It was not built.
33:41 We weren't doing it to be a mission trip organization.
33:45 We were doing it to be, um, just to build an orphanage, but people wanted to come along
33:49 with us.
33:50 So kind of grew into like a mission center.
33:53 Okay.
33:54 Well, let's go back just a little bit because plenty of people have been on a mission trip.
34:00 Okay.
34:01 So they've, they've gone on a trip to, you know, wherever and they're, they're just there
34:04 for a week and, you know, they're, you know, helping people, they're building houses, they're
34:07 digging water wells, they're sharing the gospel, they're doing that kind of stuff.
34:10 And then they just kind of go back to their normal life.
34:12 And then you have more long-term missionaries.
34:14 So maybe they are living in one of these places for a year or two or even longer and they're
34:19 kind of ingratiating themselves into the culture of that area.
34:23 And then there's kind of what y'all did, which is somewhat hybrid to where you're still
34:27 living in Florida, but you're running this thing now.
34:31 I stepped on my own question.
34:33 You went to Panama once and that could have been it, Julie.
34:35 That could have been it.
34:36 Y'all, y'all did the good work.
34:37 You were the hands and the feet of the gospel and, you know, you did good work.
34:41 I guess why, why, why?
34:45 I was watching y'all's videos on y'all's website and I want y'all to, you know, talk
34:48 about that.
34:49 My wife's just hearing the video and she's getting upset.
34:52 She's like, Oh my gosh, I want to go save all the babies, right?
34:54 And you know, she just kind of has that because of her feminine energy, you know, being a
34:58 mother, all the things, right?
34:59 Some of the same things that you said that you felt.
35:02 But there's so many opportunities to do stuff that's like that, but it's different to like
35:06 dedicate your time, energy and resources and money to actually doing it long term.
35:12 So where, where did that shift come from?
35:14 No, I didn't just go to a trip and do a thing one time, but this is just what I'm going
35:17 to do now.
35:19 I think, I think it, I just, you know, we, it was something that was in me for so long
35:25 to do like that passion to go help kids like how your wife or the video and got moved and
35:32 had that moving moment.
35:33 I had that moving moment from a child and then when I finally got to go and do what
35:39 I've been dreaming of doing my entire life, there was like, there was no way it was not
35:43 going back.
35:44 Like it was just, I think a God given heart and love and desire for that and not everybody's
35:49 called to that and some people are called to be, you know, maybe in your point in time,
35:55 like just the mother or the father, you know, for your child and some are called to do missions
36:00 here in the United States and I've, I've had critics as well ask me, you know, why,
36:05 why aren't you helping people in the United States?
36:07 You know, why aren't you using your money, you know, to help people, there's poor people
36:10 here.
36:11 And I'm like, absolutely, there's poor people here.
36:13 But, you know, apparently, you know, God has called you in your heart to help people here
36:18 and he doesn't call everybody to the same place because you imagine if we're all standing
36:21 around in Panama trying to help Panama and he just, that's just where he, he put me and
36:27 I just feel like we've just gone back to where God has called us to go and there was an unsettling
36:33 and unrest until we went back there and we had, he kept calling us back and back and back
36:37 and that's kind of when we're like, okay, I think we're supposed to be actually setting
36:42 up a nonprofit here because we were just going and serving short term, short term, but there
36:48 was just something missing.
36:49 We needed that continuation of being the hands and feet of Christ in that area to be able
36:56 to share the love of Christ with those people.
36:58 Okay, I want to get into more specifics about the nonprofit here in a second, but back in
37:04 the past life, I was doing a lot of consulting work for different tech companies and sales
37:09 and management and marketing type consulting and I worked for this group that did technology
37:13 for veterinarians.
37:15 And this was the first time I had heard the phrase empathy fatigue and I was like, what's
37:20 that?
37:21 Like, well, the suicide rates for veterinarians are higher than just about any other profession.
37:27 They're in the top tier and I'm like, why would that be?
37:31 And they're like, because every single day you're having to empathize with an animal
37:35 that can't tell you where it hurts, right?
37:38 And they're constantly having to put animals down, they're dealing with the emotions of
37:41 the owners that are losing their best friend and all the things, right?
37:46 And they see it's, you know, it's so sad to think about, but they see these dogs or cats
37:52 or whatever that are in massive amounts of pain.
37:54 And they administer a little vial of medicine and all of a sudden that animal's no longer
37:59 in pain anymore.
38:00 And here they are getting this fatigue and fatigue and fatigue and the crazy hours and
38:06 people demanding that they work on Saturdays to help their dog and all that type of stuff.
38:10 And then finally, one day, they want the relief for themselves and they take that way out.
38:16 So, I am not, you're probably going to be shocked by this, I'm not a naturally compassionate
38:21 person, right?
38:22 Like I'm kind of a knuckle-dragger in a lot of ways and so I have to kind of stop myself
38:26 to remember, oh, sympathy and empathy, like those are emotions I should be able to feel
38:30 and like it's okay to have compassion.
38:32 But when I heard about what you were doing in Panama, my first thought was, okay, well,
38:37 there's poor people in America, there's poor people in Sri Lanka, there's destitute people
38:41 in Congo, like there's problems everywhere, like it's impossible to fix all these problems.
38:49 And so not like, hey, we should just throw our hands up and not do anything.
38:52 But I'm like, how do you point to your empathy in a direction, Julie?
38:57 Do you just kind of let the Holy Spirit guide you and say, yes, I know that there are people
39:01 that are in bad situations other places, but that's not your race, Julie and Gary Proctor.
39:05 That's someone else's race.
39:06 That's something that I've got for somebody else to do.
39:09 I need you in Panama.
39:10 Like, just help me understand because again, I feel like anyander tall sometimes, or I'm
39:14 just like, why are these people being so emotional, but just kind of help me counsel me in this
39:18 moment, Julie.
39:19 Wow.
39:20 That's, that's tough because you're absolutely right.
39:22 There's, you know, and you just have to go, you go where a guy is calling you to go.
39:28 Like you, you won't, you won't feel at ease or settled with yourself if you're not doing
39:33 what he's called you to do.
39:34 Now we also serve and do work here in the United States, not through our organization,
39:40 but when there's needs, different organizations, you know, we, we try to help as well.
39:44 Like it's not exclusively to Panama, but, you know, I, I, that's hard.
39:52 It's just a calling is where God's leading you to go and, you know, I have empathy and
39:56 you know, you talk about the empathy for the hurting, but it's not even just that sadness
40:01 for them and they can't say sometimes they bite back, you know, and so you've got to
40:05 have that ability to, to have compassion and understanding and all circumstances and you
40:12 know, people burn out with that because there's, you don't get a lot of gratitude from a teenage
40:16 girl who's been abused and, you know, you don't get like good vibes from her all the
40:20 time.
40:21 Like she, she a lot of times wants to run away, you know, why do you have me here and
40:25 you know, this is jail and there's that, you know, that negative fighting, but then the
40:30 beauty comes from when she sees the beauty within her and eventually it's good time.
40:35 So I, the answer is you just got to, you just got to step in faith, pray that God keeps
40:42 directing you and, you know, you know, I'm not, I don't know, I'm not limited to one country
40:47 and I don't even know that I would always stay in Panama if it can get up and running
40:51 and you know, God leads me to another country.
40:53 I may eventually get to Africa, which was my original, my original dream.
40:57 Okay, so let's talk about the non-profit.
41:01 So what's the name of it?
41:03 What's kind of the mission?
41:04 What's the focus?
41:05 You know, let's go from the beginning.
41:07 Let's work our way to today.
41:08 Okay.
41:09 It's called hands of faith, but in Spanish.
41:11 So it's manos de fait, hands of faith.
41:15 And we are, we are a home, a home for young girls who have been abandoned, abused, human
41:23 traffic, and they come to us after they are rescued from a rescue and organization, then
41:30 put into the governmental kind of like Department of Children's Services, then they will get
41:36 placed with us.
41:37 And we are a safe, transformative home that's kind of protecting the children and has psychologists,
41:46 has house moms, has everything to keep, it's multi-focus, it's hard to put it into words,
41:55 but we are a safe home for young girls who have been human trafficked, who have children
42:00 as a result of their abuse.
42:04 Okay.
42:05 And so in terms of the programs, I think I remember from your website, you do, so there's
42:10 family outreach, there's education, and then there's orphan transition.
42:15 And so if we could maybe spend a little bit of time on each one of those, like, how are
42:19 these women identified?
42:21 Are y'all in the process of getting them out of the trafficking situation?
42:24 Or this is just, you found them afterwards, so it gives a little bit more detail there.
42:27 So we get the girls in our orphan, the orphan care program is girls who have been rescued.
42:35 So their operation underground, railroad works in Panama, and also their government has a
42:41 task force as well.
42:43 And they will go rescue the girls or rescue the little boys as well that get rescued,
42:49 and then they get put into our custody until they're doing the research to see where there's
42:54 a safe family.
42:55 So they tried to put them back into a functioning safe family, which is actually the best for
43:01 the kids.
43:03 And then we also have girls who have transitioned out of your standard orphanage, where they're
43:08 young and have no skills for the future, so at 18, you have to leave an orphanage.
43:15 Or even if you're 14 and have a baby or 15 and have a baby, they would separate the baby
43:21 and put them in a baby orphanage and the girls go in a young girl's orphanage.
43:26 But we are an orphanage or a home where we would allow them to stay together.
43:31 So ours is like a little different kind of orphanage of any other orphanages in Panama
43:37 and the fact that we allow mothers to stay with children and teaching them how to be mothers
43:43 to their kids.
43:44 And then we have, we realize that when they come in that they have not been educated, some
43:51 of them come off the Indigenous reservation where the girls in particular aren't allowed
43:55 to go to school or it's not found to be important to go to school.
43:58 So we try to get them education to at least be able to read and write.
44:03 And if they can succeed beyond that, then we've had girls to go to college even.
44:08 So we push them in their educational pursuits and find out what it is that they want to
44:13 do when they get older and they're welcome to stay with us as long as they need to to
44:19 be able to launch on their own.
44:22 Go ahead.
44:23 No, I was just, actually go ahead, I think you're going to hit on what I was going to
44:27 ask.
44:28 And then we also have our family outreach program which is a little bit of an orphan
44:33 prevention program.
44:35 We found young moms and sometimes grandparents that had been given the custody of their children,
44:41 of their grandchildren because their children have, you know, have issues or problems that
44:45 they're not able to parent.
44:48 So we help them be able to keep their children, you know, together in their family unit by
44:54 offering food in their family outreach program once a month from our pastor and clothing
45:00 and school uniforms or whatever it takes, medications to be able to keep that family
45:04 intact.
45:05 So that's our family outreach program.
45:07 Okay.
45:10 One question that came up, there was a book that came out years ago when helping hurts
45:14 and there have been a lot of pieces, you know, obviously you sound like you're familiar
45:17 with that.
45:18 There is a line that's not, you can't put a line on an entire culture or an entire group,
45:23 or anything like that, but there's a line with each individual person where once you
45:27 help them beyond this point, you're actually doing harm to them because it's kind of like
45:32 people that take care of the elderly patients.
45:35 It's like whatever they're capable of doing, you have to let them do it.
45:39 You can't do it for them.
45:40 And it's the same with small children.
45:42 You're taking away developmental ability and cognitive ability and things like that when
45:46 you just do everything for them.
45:49 Is there some sort of a governor, I guess you have in your ministry to where it's like,
45:54 okay, this particular woman or this particular whatever situation, this is where we have
46:00 to say, okay, you got to stand on your own two feet now, like, you know, we've helped
46:04 you.
46:05 We've gotten you out of this horrific situation that you couldn't have gotten yourself out
46:08 of, even if you wanted to, but now you got to stand on your own two feet.
46:12 You got to do your own thing.
46:13 Like you got to be an adult now, like you got to perform.
46:15 Is there something in there that kind of, you know, I guess solves for that?
46:19 Yeah.
46:20 Well, for sure.
46:21 And we're very picky about that and we're very strict on that because we feel like that
46:27 when you do something for someone who can do it for themselves or when you give them
46:33 something that they could actually work for themselves, you're pretty much telling them
46:37 that they are, they're worthless or they're not able to do like, let me do it for you because
46:42 I'm so much better than you.
46:44 So we have families that leave the program once they get a lot, some of our, some of
46:50 our families have just no employment options at the time.
46:52 They're indigenous, they're migrant farm workers.
46:56 The farming season has ended.
46:57 They just need a little help for a little while while they're waiting for the next crop
47:01 to come in.
47:02 And so they would leave the program and it's, we make it an honoring thing to when you,
47:06 when you get to leave the program and you get to suggest a family maybe that, you know,
47:10 that could potentially need some help.
47:12 So it's an honorable thing to not be needing our assistance anymore.
47:17 And then also we try to, if there's employment options that we can find for them or even
47:21 coming to work for us, we do that.
47:24 Nothing's really given away.
47:25 Everybody has something that they can get, whether it's community serve dates, it's coming
47:29 to work at the church and help the pastor with things or, you know, some of the elderly
47:33 ladies just get prayer lists of people they can be praying for and, but everybody has
47:38 something to that they can contribute that is a board.
47:42 All right.
47:43 And there's something else and that I hear about in these different communities where
47:47 you're doing the work that you're doing, um, and I don't want to oversimplify it.
47:53 But if fathers were doing their duties as fathers and husbands were doing their duties
47:58 as husbands, there wouldn't be any need for y'all to be doing what you're doing in Panama,
48:02 right?
48:03 But we, we don't live in this fanciful, you know, parallel universe.
48:06 We live in a post Genesis three, post Genesis three world that's been broken by sin.
48:10 And you have a bunch of men that are perfectly okay with siring children, but not fathering
48:15 them.
48:16 You have men that are perfectly okay with taking advantage of sexuality and taking advantage
48:21 of sex and the entire reproductive process, but not wanting to stick around afterwards.
48:25 They want the, the pleasure, but without the responsibility.
48:28 And so is there anything that you guys are doing as an organization to I guess show these
48:36 women, similar to what I was talking about earlier with the woman that I met at church
48:39 11, 22, where you're showing them like, Hey, here are some positive masculine influences
48:43 in your own community.
48:44 Cause it's one thing if, if I show up to an orphanage and you know, the kids for a week
48:48 and look at me as like a, you know, a masculine, you know, role model or something like that,
48:52 but I don't live there.
48:53 It's the same thing when I go speak places.
48:54 I speak at other churches.
48:55 I was like, guys, I'm here to burn it down and walk away.
48:57 I don't live in who's this what's Indiana like I don't, I live here, like I don't live
49:02 here.
49:03 I live somewhere else.
49:04 You all have to deal with this whenever I leave.
49:05 So how do y'all kind of make sure they're not just getting, you know, feminine energy
49:09 or just energy from Westerners that show up, you know, periodically to make sure that everything's
49:14 still working right?
49:15 Yeah.
49:16 Well, don't, don't discredit yourself being Westerner because I think a lot of the mission
49:20 teams that do come, the male influence is huge because they get to see something that
49:26 traditionally and culturally they don't get to see, which is a man having pride and love
49:32 for their child, you know, like putting your child on your shoulders and running around.
49:36 That's not something they did.
49:37 They don't play with their kids like that.
49:38 It's a very hard culture, the indigenous culture in particular, but so they do get a lot from
49:45 the mission teams that come, especially the men, but also they go to, we have a church.
49:51 We are a 1122 church plant site.
49:53 So we, we have church 24 seven church is the name of the church in Panama.
49:58 And our girls are leaders in the church.
50:01 They sing in the church.
50:02 One of the girls teaches the Sunday school class.
50:05 Another girl plays a keyboard there, but they are active in the church and seeing good
50:10 godly man coming in.
50:12 And our pastor in particular is a spiritual kind of leader or a head for them.
50:19 He does, he does Bible verse, I think Bible lessons and then memory verse lessons with
50:24 them a couple of days a week, but then he goes out and uses, lets our girls like help
50:29 direct a lot of the programs in the church and things.
50:32 So we're intentionally trying to give them leadership positions.
50:36 So they do get that in the church, but it's hard like we don't have, it's the area that
50:43 we're in.
50:44 There's not a lot of, you know, young boys or young activities to do with young boys,
50:48 with our girls.
50:49 It's a very farming kind of rural town, but that, that is a good point.
50:54 I should try to think more about, you know, kind of how to incorporate that.
50:58 Well, I've got some ideas when you talk about, uh, off air, because one thing, when you start
51:03 stepping over cultures, it's, it's not as simple as, you know, clearing a field and putting
51:07 in a couple of soccer, you know, goals or it's, it's not, you know, it's not even getting
51:11 them a book to read or something like that.
51:13 It is a cultural level thing that comes down to a sin nature that if you embrace the sin
51:18 side of your nature, you won't do the things that would lead to, you know, flourishing.
51:23 Because, you know, I've been putting on this planet to equipment to push back darkness.
51:26 And when you do that, you take dominion and you provide for human flourishing, like your
51:30 job is to provide for human flourishing primarily for your bride, right, who lives in your household
51:36 and your progeny who live in your household.
51:38 And then it's an outworking from there, right?
51:40 That is home base and you battle the rest of the darkness in the world from home base.
51:46 But if you don't have any of that set up or if it's kind of all out of whack, you know,
51:49 good luck.
51:50 But I guess a question I have for you and this, this isn't meant to be voyeuristic in any
51:55 way.
51:56 It's just, I do ping more towards the darker side of things because anytime you look at
52:00 a website like, like y'all's website or an organization that does something similar to
52:04 that, like, you know, there's a lot of emotion tied to it.
52:07 And you know, obviously you're raising money because ministry is expensive and people need
52:10 to stop getting, you know, their hackles up whenever ministries ask for money because
52:13 you don't perform ministries with, you know, and pay for it with hopes and dreams.
52:17 You pay for it with your money and right, if you don't have money to do the things, then
52:20 you can't do the things.
52:22 But for you and Gary specifically, what are the, what's the hardest part of running this?
52:29 Like, whenever, whenever you're not there, whenever there's, there's no cameras around
52:33 and whenever you're not, you know, doing a working in the business and y'all are just
52:36 sitting there at the end of the night, right?
52:39 What's the, gosh, this is just such a heavy burden to carry.
52:44 Wow.
52:45 That's, yeah, that's a good question.
52:49 It's time consuming on my end, I'm the one who runs a lot of the teams.
52:53 So there's a little separation of me with my biological family here in the United States.
52:58 I, I'm gone a lot.
53:00 I usually go and on teams with about 11, 12 times a year.
53:06 But I think the biggest, darkest, heaviest thing is like, what, what if we're not able
53:12 to fund it for, you know, I, you know, in six months, like what if the funding goes away
53:18 and then what happens to these girls and, and also it's just the darkness of, like you
53:24 said, there is, there's so much evil in this world and, and our girls have been through
53:29 like some of the most horrendous things that were done by the men that were supposed to
53:34 protect them.
53:35 You know, we're talking fathers and stepfathers are the number one culprit of the girls that
53:40 we have at, at Monos de Fe and that would do things to them that, you know, they're supposed
53:46 to protect and love them.
53:48 So that heaviness and dealing with that and then figuring out what, but that's heavy, but
53:54 then it's also fueling because that has led us now into doing a lot of education in the
54:00 community, especially in the indigenous reservation with the gender based violence and, and that's
54:07 another way our girls are learning is they're, they're hearing this and they're hearing about
54:11 how traditionally in that culture that women don't go to school and that women don't have
54:17 an opinion and women aren't allowed to do certain things and women can be given away
54:21 in marriage or traded by their father before, or lost in a poker hand like there's, they,
54:28 and they don't have any say or anything with it.
54:31 Now that is human trafficking when a girl is sold or when a girl is given away and then
54:38 for them to hear that that's not right and that's not normal and that's not the way that
54:42 the Bible says that you're supposed to treat a woman and so they're hearing, they're hearing
54:47 good biblical sound doctrine of how a man should treat a woman.
54:53 So it's, it's hard to hear the stories and it's hard heavy burden to sort through, but
54:58 it's also fueled to, to change.
55:01 Well, Julie, just let me take a second to, I guess, steal your nerves, STEL, your nerves
55:08 and that of Gary's as well, because, you know, some of the emails I get and some of
55:13 the DMS I get and some of the stories that I have to spend time in and the atrocities
55:19 and the, the darkness that I expose myself to so that I can help equip other men.
55:24 It's substantial and people don't really think about that.
55:26 We always look at the things on the back end, but if you're going to push back darkness,
55:29 you're putting yourselves on the front lines.
55:32 When you become an elder of a church, you were exposing yourself to the front lines
55:35 of a spiritual warfare.
55:37 The guys in my Dominion coaching program, I tell these guys, the moment you sign up
55:41 for this, this is spiritually like you're getting off of the couch.
55:45 So Satan and, you know, all the, the dark spiritual forces that we can't see, they haven't had
55:51 to do anything with you.
55:52 And now you're getting in the game and I was like, Oh, shoot, I guess we need to kind of
55:54 step our game up a little bit.
55:56 And so I guess this is me just telling you how much I appreciate you, you all still moving
56:02 forward, even though you have this internal consternation, even though dealing with the
56:06 dark things is no fun, but it's, this is what you're called to do.
56:11 And if you are actually reading the Bible, you don't get this idea that once you become
56:15 a Christian, everything is flowers and rainbows, it's exactly the opposite.
56:19 Like all of the apostles, except for John, who they tried to boil alive and they just
56:24 couldn't kill the dude, all of them suffered horrible deaths, skinned alive, sawed in half,
56:29 crucified upside down, like all these horrible things.
56:33 You don't get this guarantee of a nice, easy life.
56:36 But the guys in my audience, they're very action oriented guys, right?
56:40 And you know, they're, they're oriented by, you know, emotions of anger and injustice.
56:43 And we've got to figure this out.
56:45 But obviously most guys aren't just going to like gather up all their materials and go
56:49 to Panama and start working on things, right?
56:51 So for people in my audience that want to help y'all with the work that you're doing,
56:57 just kind of tell them tangibly what are, what are the best and easiest ways to get
57:00 involved in that work?
57:03 If you did want to come to Panama, that would be the best thing because I would love to
57:06 show you our girls and show you how happy they are.
57:09 And then you would not know their history based on how awesome they're doing right now.
57:14 And the kids, their children growing up in, in the, in a loving, nurturing home, the breaking
57:20 that cycle of abuse, you know, within their family.
57:25 But secondly, if you know, you can go on our website, monostefay.org, there are ways to
57:30 financially contribute because we, we're growing our relationship with the government who through
57:36 the years is, it's been difficult, like you can't just go into a country and start doing
57:42 things like you have to earn trust.
57:44 And it's taking years to earn that trust and years to earn the government's approval.
57:50 And they, it went from them thinking that we were training, we were opening a center
57:54 to train warriors, like for army or something, that's what they originally thought.
58:00 And then they thought that we had our orphanages right by the border because we were going to
58:05 traffic young girls across the border.
58:07 I'm like, no, we're actually the opposite of what you're wanting.
58:10 And it just took, it took many years to earn their, their respect.
58:14 So now the, we sit on the country of Panama's, I think it's called the, I forget, the Children's
58:24 Protective Services has a board and they ask of all orphanages, they ask monostefay to
58:29 sit on the board.
58:30 And we're working with their, their army to onboard a human trafficking task force of
58:37 young ladies who are going to be the frontline of the rescue and the trauma.
58:41 So it's, it's just the need is that we get calls all the time for more girls to come,
58:47 more girls to come.
58:48 But we need to hire more Tia's, those are the house moms that stay with the girls.
58:52 But it's just that ongoing ministry support is the important theme because we, you know,
58:59 we are only limited by the funds that we get in.
59:03 And that's, that's the biggest, the biggest thing in prayers, because it is hard.
59:07 It is hard to have to fight with these girls and, you know, not me, the Tia is the house
59:12 moms, but in a loving way and showing them that, you know, this, you know, going back
59:18 to your abuser, because trauma has so many layers and they, they have that bond with
59:22 their, with their father or mother that they want to go back to.
59:26 And that's their normal and they're trying to learn their new normal and it takes a lot.
59:31 So it takes, you know, it takes finances.
59:33 It takes education.
59:34 It takes, there's just a lot of that.
59:37 Okay.
59:38 Well, I really appreciate you going into all the detail on the work that you're doing.
59:42 Guys, we will put that website here in the show notes so that you can check that out.
59:46 But we've, we've done it out a lot of different areas and I really appreciate all of your
59:49 great answers.
59:50 But that's all for me, Julie.
59:51 Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
59:53 I just, you know, want to appreciate you guys out there.
59:57 And I think, you know, you being there and showing what Godly men are all about, that
1:00:03 that, that is what breaks that cycle and that's what breaks, you know, if you think about
1:00:08 human trafficking as a whole, it's just, it's fueled by pornography and pornography, pornography
1:00:15 is broken by men, I like men and learning what men, you know, and making that the common
1:00:21 church vernacular.
1:00:22 Hey, we have support groups for man battling this.
1:00:24 Like don't make it taboo.
1:00:25 Don't, you know, make it like we're here to help you brother and, and none of you guys
1:00:30 talk about that, you know, in the darkness and helping one another.
1:00:32 So just keep doing what you're doing.
1:00:34 And I appreciate the opportunity to talk about monastery and there's just so much more to
1:00:40 it.
1:00:41 We were limited by time, but just keep doing what guys calling you to do one step at a
1:00:46 time and one direction at a time.
1:00:48 Well, thank you so much.
1:00:49 I'm glad there's warriors out there like you there on the front lines again, Julie.
1:00:53 Thank you so much for coming on the show.
1:00:54 Thank you.
1:00:55 I appreciate it.
1:00:56 Thanks.
1:00:57 There you go guys.
1:00:58 I hope you enjoyed my time with Julie Proctor, but before we let you go, we are going to do
1:01:00 a quick resilience boost at undaunted life or mission is equipping men to push back darkness
1:01:04 with content that forges spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
1:01:07 So the link I've got for you today, I've got a link to the monastery website and guys just
1:01:11 go there.
1:01:12 Check it out.
1:01:13 If you want to become a donor to their ministry, like obviously church 1122 supports what they're
1:01:19 doing and they don't just give money to these organizations that end up having a bunch of
1:01:23 pizza parties and they're flying all their, you know, board members around the world first
1:01:26 class, like that money is being spent to help these people that are on the ground there
1:01:30 and Panama.
1:01:31 And so you guys can check that out.
1:01:33 It's all there in the show notes.
1:01:35 Thank you for listening to this podcast.
1:01:36 Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five
1:01:39 star review.
1:01:40 If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an
1:01:43 email to info@undonton.life.
1:01:46 That's I N F O at undonton.life.
1:01:48 Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else,
1:01:51 including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.
1:01:54 Just go to www.undonton.life and as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing
1:01:59 us to use their music for our content.
1:02:01 The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self-titled debut album
1:02:05 on Face Down Records.
1:02:06 The links are in the description.
1:02:08 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:02:10 Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
1:02:17 Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:02:24 [MUSIC]
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