Speaker 1: So there's this political story about the homeless industrial complex,
and then there's this this personage, this entity called Jesus,
and there is a struggle between the homeless industrial complex
and Jesus. And then there's this nature of humanity and
how we change and what does it take to actually change.
I'm gonna be joined by my friend Cameron Burke's a
founder and CEO of Absolute Ministries, and we're gonna learn
all about this with the help of bulwer kepl Management,
Know Your riskpodcast dot com and of course courtesy of
God Almighty.
Speaker 2: But Todd Herman Show is one percent disapproved by big
pharma technocrats in tyrone sebrianware from the high mountains of
Free America. Here's the Emerald City exime.
Speaker 1: Todd Herman. Today is the day the Lord has made,
and these are the times in which God is this.
Do we shall live? People joining us live. Sorry for
the early starts, We just wanted to get an early start, cameer.
Burke joins me. It's my tradition to shake hands, even
though that's bad staging, et cetera. And welcome to the
Todd Herman Show. CEO, founder of Absolute Ministries. You help
people you said this is the other day someone said
what do you do? You had the very best answer,
So I'm gonna ask you what do you do?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I appreciate being here. Thanks a bunch, Todd. We
teach people how to live. We teach people how to live,
and that's what it boils down to. Individuals don't know
how to live. And we started with the people group
coming out of addiction and specifically in recovery. But we're
discovering more and more that this individuals that don't know
how to live is expanding. It's more and more people.
Speaker 1: So it's not just addiction based anymore.
Speaker 3: No, individuals can come to us if they're teachable and
want to learn to live in a new way. Yeah,
ultimately following Jesus.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, and that's obviously part of the living. I mean,
that's the only really living attached to the mind. But
you had a entry point into this and into helping
people this way. That matters because I think it's the
heart of the mission. So can we talk about this,
this the trail you walked, Yeah, because it was a
straight and easy path, right right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I was gonna say that's generous. Yeah, learning to
live in a new way for me came with very
rocky road at the beginning. And at sixteen years old,
I got diagnosed with type one diabetes and I heard
the doctors say in that clinic, your life is over.
That's not what they said, That's what I heard. As
the sixteen year realized that's right, and the you know,
my freedom, you know was gone. You have to live
with this medication. You can't do what you want to
do anymore. This new structure has to be put on
your life. And that just sent me into a tailspin.
So the living the peer pressure that I had abstained from,
I was like, well, screw it, let's just go right.
Life's over, so send it. And that was a quick, fast,
dark road, ultimately culminating in a cocaine and alcohol addiction
and burned a lot of bridges and a lot of
people and heard a lot of people hurt myself or
my family.
Speaker 1: Can you U still remember what it's like to be
addicted to a substance. I knew a friend who was
a coke addict who said, cocaine loves you so much
that you can't imagine anything loving you anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say that's accurate. Yeah, I mean, the euphoria
is ridiculous. That's why it's so deep and so fast.
It's intoxicating. And I mean I've boiled addiction down to
the pursuit of pleasure. No'm otter of the cost. Yeah,
and when you think about that, that is, you know,
that's a great encapsulation. I have not seen an individual
that's truly addicted to something who's not throwing everything else
to the wind in the pursuit of it.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: And so we watch individuals go down that road and
we all do as society, right, and we see him
homeless on the street. Obviously there a lot of times
there's mental health components too.
Speaker 1: That could be driven by addiction.
Speaker 3: First. Yes, And one of the best t shirts I've
ever seen about addiction and it was a recovery ministry
that put it out. But it said, you know, it's
based on the Prodigal Sun's story and it said party
till you're homeless. And I mean, that's what that guy did,
That's what I did. That's what a lot of people do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, they're but the grace of my mom
and god, you know, I didn't party. Uh. I went
through a period of time where I drank a ton.
I've always been afraid of drug uggs. But yeah, you know,
I lived in a studio apartment in the ghetto. We're
not supposed to say that, but very common to hear gunshots,
drive by shooting occur. There's a dude dead in our
elevator who's a strange dad of a little boy. And
so I lived around.
Speaker 3: People like that.
Speaker 1: I worked with folks who were homeless, employing them to
do door hangers and deliver phone books, et cetera. And
I got to know some people and they taught me
some things about homelessness that always just frightened me, like
poverty scared me. So I think it kept away from
some things I want expanded this. In a second, we're
talking with Cameron Burke and Absolute Ministries. We have a
link in the show that's there donation based and it's
not an organization that's getting rich doing this, so we'll
talk about that. A second, Chemist is talking about healthcare.
Over the weekend, I talked to one of my dearest friends,
and I don't understand the reluctance people have to simply
go try something new. This is he's a smart man
and he has immunological issues that are just crippling them.
When I'd last talked with the folks at Renew Healthcare,
they were telling me about their ability to reset immune
systems using the stem cells they get from donors in Mexico.
They get to actually monitor the health of the woman
and the baby during pregnancy, and afterwards they take those
stem cells. They gently carry them all of five minutes
if that, into a world class lab, one step below
like in a bowl lab. It's a class four lab,
not class five. They reject ninety percent of the stem
cells because they don't match their quality standards. So the
ten percent they do accept, they they then culture. That
is the exact opposite of what happens in the United States.
You're gonna get told you get stem cells up here.
It's very much like the difference between a five Star
meal and something frozen burrito style at a roadside deli.
They are resetting immune systems. They are now about five
months away from announcing a cure for type two diabetes,
and they think can cure type one. So if you
have any immunological issues like this, or even things like
rectiled dysfunction, avoiding surgery for knees and backs go to
renew r E and you E dot healthcare. Please tell
me you're part of the Todd Hermit Show family. Renew
r E NU E dot Healthcare. So you went through
your dark periods and you crashed and you experienced all that,
and then people are always going to ask, Okay, so
how did you win the lottery to get where you're
at now? That shared the CEO of this thing? And
which billionaire came along and lifted you up and handed
you money?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that did not happen. Okay, Uh, yeah, still waiting
for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I came to the end of myself although I wasn't Uh,
I wasn't asking for it. My transformation happened because my
parents quit enabling me. They actually my dad was distraught,
as you can imagine, and he asked his brother, who's
a pastor. You know, Cameron's destroying himself, like his life
is a dumpster fire, you know, I regularly refer to
it as that, and he told him about a one
year program, and so they took me there. I looked
at it, I did a walk through. I was not interested.
I was smoking a cigarette in the front yard and
I was twenty years old at the time, and uh,
you know, the director had done a done an interview
with me, and he said, so, what do you want
to do? And I said, not this, like this is insane.
You know, at the facility that would transform my life,
you know, God's grace through that facility. And I said,
this is nuts, Like, you know, the free I don't
have freedom anymore. I don't have the ability to do
what I want day to day. Like now I'm out
of here. And I stood up, walked into the front
yard and my dad said, like, I'm cutting you off,
like you're you're cut off basically, if.
Speaker 1: You know no money, this is it. That's it.
Speaker 3: And I just began to consider my life and I
think this is the grace of God in this moment.
And I began to ask myself, like, what would it
look like if I just fully committed to this and
just and I pictured myself on the edge of a
swimming pool just jumping in, you know, not dipping my
feet in, but just fully jumping in. And that's when
things changed for me. And actually God spoke to me
in that moment. It wasn't out loud, but it was
crystal clear in my heart. First time I'd ever heard
God like it had shocked me, surprised me. And he said, Cameron,
give me this year of your life and watch what
I'll do. And you know he said that, yeah, and
so I did, Yeah, signed up. I think it shocked
my parents. I turned and looked at him and I said, Okay,
I'll do it, and they were like, let's go back
in the office.
Speaker 1: Sign sign up.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I was there thirteen months as a student
and then another twelve months as an intern. Just began
to have a heart for other individuals desiring life change.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And yeah, that was two thousand and three.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, twenty two years later, founder and CEO, and you
have facilities in North Idaho. You have facilities in western Washington.
We were just talking about, you know, you're not shy
about bringing people, you know, into this. I'm referring a
friend of mine to you, friend that I've mentored and
you know, just become friends with with the mentoring process
and you know that change. This is what I was
talking about the top of the show, that there's the
Jesus way that you're describing, because Jesus definitely showed people
how to live right and that three years of ministry
here's how I live, Here's how I want you to live.
This is how we treat the people around us. And
then where I spent a ton of time around homeless
people was in Seattle, and man, they are big money, Cameron,
they are just walking coin. So there's a reason that
these big cities and these fallen cities and separate countries
like Seattle, Washington, they suck these people in. There's a reason.
They want free you know, cost free heroin. They want
to provide fetanol the people. They call it harm reduction.
Every one of those bodies they refer to is coin.
And you have big organizations. One of them is called
Lehigh Low Income Housing Institute. There's a bunch of others.
I've forgotten the specific names. But they become wealthy. I mean,
you're talking about organizations with one hundred and fifty million
dollars in land assets that they have gotten. And the
business model is they get the dingiest, grossest lot they
can find. They literally take a garden shack that might
cost five hundred bucks to build. They let you sleep
in there. You can do drugs, you can traffic yourself,
you can traffic others. No expectation to change at all.
They call it a low barrier shelter. It's no. And
here's the business model. So federal government steps in and
pays for that. Washington State taxpayers pay for that, and
it's just a mortgage and they're just paying off the land.
And then here's the kicker to this. You lose often,
and this has been proven through hidden video recordings. You
lose your shack if you don't show up at a
city council meeting to advocate for more Democrats, wow, more socialism.
You lose it if you go to a job interview
that I had someone on my show who had undercover
video of if you go to the job interview today
and you don't work in the kitchen, you are not
going to have a place to sleep when you come back.
And the money camera that's involved in this. And my
friend David Preston from a group called Safe Seattle, he
coined this phrase homeless industrial complex. And I'll just say
this so that you get an idea the scope and
folks get an idy the scope. In one year, the
puture Sum Business journal did an audit. In one single year,
King County spent one billion dollars on homelessness and it
got worse. It goes all in one billion dollars in
things that you'd never expect, like folks stealing natural gas
and blowing up a building, and or cops arresting the
same homeless person three times in one day. So that's
the other side of this. Have you encountered any kind
of slimy people like that in this industry?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the answer is yes. Unfortunately, I think people are
always going to be bent towards that, especially if there's
not you know, if they've got no underlying guiding principle.
So you know, we're part of an organization and a
credit agency that accredits housing providers and actually they're one
of their main purposes is to root out some abuses
like this. And because I think it is rampant. When
you have a vulnerable people group who can speak up
for themselves, they're not informed, they don't know how to
do it, et cetera, et cetera, powerful people will take
advantage of them. Yeah, and so it's no surprise I
think obviously, like ourselves and others, there's good players in
the space that really do want to help people and
are doing that. It's a matter of looking at the fruit.
What's coming off the tree. Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that there's these all also kind
of little fiefdoms that sometimes get built up. It's not
even necessarily the big government backed stuff. Always at a
friend who was in a housing rider and they're having
this guy work twelve hours a day, yeah, and use
his own gas money to take people to and from
the airport, and oh, we also need you at church
and you're going to serve there. And I mean, he
was fine serving in church, but I started looking at
his schedule and realizing he's an unpaid employee, right right,
it's not an internship. And you guys have some rate programs. Man,
you the difference between what you do and what some
of those other places do. And I want to talk
about some of these metaphots. I was looking at this,
like job placement and letting people drive your cars, your
license and insured cars. And so we'll talk about that
as we unfold this. And I do want to get
into the personal change because you did it, Jesus did
it through you and to you. I don't want to
talk about some of the barious people have to change. Yeah,
we'll talk about that, all right. Hey, this weekend, my
wife and I watched the Angel Studios movie I've been
telling you about, and I've seen clips of it and
read reviews, and we sat down and watched it. Man,
I am so jazzed about. Thank you, doctor Fauci. First
of all, it's raw, and this is a really really
interesting approach that the director took to this that you
actually watch him uncover this stuff as they're going through
the research. And his name is Jennifer's young dude, and
you see these he and the producer and his researcher
blown away as they go through the background of who
Fauci is? This take this from COVID, the origins of this.
They make a very very strong case that some people
we know about, like Ralph Basic Basic and some of
the other players that we've talked about in the show,
Peter Dashick, et cetera, these guys are probably spies and
probably double agents, playing us against China on both sides.
Incredible Rath Barrack is talking about. They also go through
and talk about design of the virus. And I remember
Judy Markobitz said at the very very beginning of this,
these these this is made in the lab because this
part of this virus, here's AIDS. This is put in
this way. This is a cancer agent, and they they,
I think, prove this and that Fauci knew this, but
they take this a step further. You might remember an
interview I did with an author who wrote a book
called Fauci's First Fraud, and it was about AIDS. Well,
believe it or not, it's not just AIDS, it's polio.
It's an incredible story. They go all the way back
and guess what. Some of the same players were involved
in the AZT con to make people take that poisonous
drug as the only thing that would quote cure AIDS
or mitigate it. This is an incredible movie and it
is available right now for you to stream. Go to
Angel dot com slash hermon and it's called Thank You,
Doctor Fauci. Go join the Angel Guild today, stream this,
share this with friends. We wanted this movie, made no
one else to do it. Angel did it, Jenner did
it Jenner first, Angel dot com, slash Hermon. We joined
the guild. You're not just watching, you're not just consuming.
You're making sure that more movies get made like this
at demand accountability. So Cameron, I, So, I've had various
addictions I don't know that I was addicted to porn
when I was young, because it never it didn't cost
me jobs, It wasn't something that it wasn't at all costs.
What caused me to stop that behavior, I'd like to
say it was Jesus, and probably was. It was realizing
that I was watching videos of sex assaults and of
people who were being raped. Okay, can't do that. Boom done,
Praise God. Food. So I used to weigh almost four
hundred pounds, and I was I was a secret eater.
So I would go to McDonald's and this was my bit,
double quarter pounder of cheese, the fish sandwich, thing, fries,
diet coke, gosh nos. I would eat that on the
way to the next McDonald's and I would hide it. Wow,
because I was in my attict's mind. There were the
people at the next McDonald's, Hey fatties on the way.
I remember Fatty with the ponytail, Fatty with the ponytails
on the way. So then i'd go in and order,
but i'd be I'd be on the car phone that
was mounted. What do you want hunt?
Speaker 2: Oh no yeah what?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah no yeah, I'll get you fish sandwich too. Yeah, okay, yeah,
all right, see it a bit.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: So I had a kid.
Speaker 1: It's weird of kids, and I had this attic mind
and now at all costs. Yeah, I knew I was
balloon or not, so I could relate it to that.
This is some other things I've been addicted to and
don't put me in rushes, et cetera that I think
is common with people. For me, it was seeing a
picture of myself. This was the weight thing. I saw
myself getting out of a car and it was a
scissle reel we put together our PR company put together
for my internet radio network, and literally, Cameron, I'm watching
this and there's a dude getting out of a cab
in San Francisco. And I said to my PR agent,
who is that? That's you? That's me?
Speaker 3: Wow, And I'm out.
Speaker 1: And I made a pledge to my girlfriend's fiance, who's
not my wife. I'm not going to be your fat husband.
I refuse to do it. Now. My elements to change
are hardcore. So I'm going to In Seattle, I had
a you know, a personal trainer, a guy named Jerome
and Steve, a couple of different guys I paid in advance,
No cancelations unless my arm is falling off. You charge
me money. Made it first thing in the morning, count
every calorie, hard edge like to this day, it's a
sixty to eight fast. I found out for myself. I
am a guy who needs eat that structure for myself,
and that's an enforcement of change. And then spiritually, I
have to be a guy who constantly surrenders because my
flesh man, it wants to make a comeback, and it
can lead to dark times. And I have to challenge
the flesh and let the spirit rule. That's my change,
and that's how I've structured this. And I have to
install habits. They have to be habits. You help people
with job placement. You help them. You give them cars.
If they have their own car, that's great. You let
them use yours. You give them college credit for completing
your program, which is incredible. You matching savings accounts, et cetera.
That's insane, that's so cool. You have people making twenty
five thirty five hundred bucks a month sometime to your
program in these jobs. So let's start with this. How
common is it that people need that shock? Like me
seeing myself at nearly four hundred pounds or you know
that that classic thing and looking in the mirror and
you missing your teeth or said, how common is that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually don't think it's that common because well,
I think it's a slow slide.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, So what what stops them?
Speaker 3: Then? I think it's other people, an intervention. I think
it's other people, loved ones in their life that hold
emotional weight, sitting them down and saying I love you, Like,
let's just whiteboard for a second. What's going on in
your life and potentially what it could be if you
will yield in some areas.
Speaker 1: Are you actually talking about like really whiteboarding?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I think it's beautiful for real. I think
it's super helpful. Yeah, I love you as no whiteboard?
Speaker 1: Well I love them too. Yeah, but my mofice at
Microsoft was all whiteboard.
Speaker 3: Yeah there you go. Yeah, best companies in the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you literally think it's not it's not a
common thing for a person to encounter themselves or a god,
show you a picture of yourself, or look at your filth,
look at what you become. I love you, come back
to me. But it's loved ones sitting down with a
whiteboard and saying here's where you're at, here's where you
could be, or here's where you could end up if
you don't change.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think that's one way. I think
the overarching truth that I just mentioned is real and
being that individuals get accustomed to themselves. So it's like
the frog in a pot of boiling hit right, starts cold,
and pretty soon you're four hundred pounds. I think individuals,
whether it's a loved one or just someone who has
value for them so doesn't have to be a loved one.
And we're seeing that more and more people don't have families.
You know, we're in the jails every other weekend reaching
out to people and literally sitting down through that glass
and sometimes we're going in and saying, like you have
immense value and just tears. They've never heard that, yeah,
like what, yeah, I mean? And so for people who've
grown up in a decent family, like what, there's people
who don't know they have value and that there's a
potential future for them, especially in Christ and through the
Church and his mission, et cetera. No, no, lots lots
millions of individuals that don't know they hold im men's
value and capability, natural talents, aptitudes, and so a lot
of it is can be just a soft vision cast
for like, are you content right now? The answers lots
of times no, okay, Well what if we walked alongside
you literally house you, provide transportation, provide grafting into a
local church. So you're not just successful now, you're going
to be successful big picture. Because we're playing for sustainability.
We can structure people into success while you're in our program.
Speaker 1: That's easy, yeah, because the doors are locked and have
to be, and people can even sometimes they fool themselves
into I'm okay, or if they know they're it'll lock.
Was like I'll play the game.
Speaker 3: It's right, yep, one hundred percent. Yeah, but that's that's
not real life. So individuals then finish those programs and
whether it be a third thirty day program, ninety day
or even one year. And in my case and tip
Over like clockwork, that's where this organization that my wife
and I founded was born was working and seeing individuals complete,
go out the door, get their graduation certificate, and call
back in thirty days, call back in sixty days, sometimes
not call back at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the structure's gone, and the program, all the
theory that worked inside because everybody was doing it outside,
not everyone's doing it and without that structure that bed
to lay on and people to come around you. And
you're saying getting embedded with the church community, and people
know in the church community because you're honest, this is
what I'm going through. This is how I've come to
your church. And so they're there. I guess is the
body of Christ to say, hey, did I see you
at a liquor store or right right? Or you just
look down and are you okay? But it's also is
it I know that there are people because I work
with a guy. I am the person he knows full stop. Right,
he's in a program right now. He decided to try
to end his life, and praise God, he got caught
with meth and he didn't even get to use it.
And he wasn't even really a meth guy. He just
wanted to end his life because the last living relative
of his died and he didn't talk to her. But
it was just this, no one cares about me, I'd say,
but brother, wait, you could have called me. I know,
but I lost my phone and write and I don't
know how many people watching this and they're listening to
this know what it is to have the devil tell
you are alone. It will always be this way. So
that connection into the church community for a lot of people.
And again this is unrelatable for folks. This is the
first place I walk into and more than one person
knows my name or comes to hug me and they're
glad to see me. I don't know if people can
relate to a the feeling of loneliness that you are
alone in the world and then the change to wait,
people know me and they still like me, right. So
how how important is that that aspect, that body of
Christ aspect?
Speaker 3: I think it is. I like to describe it as
wind in the sail, you know it. There's nothing more
empowering than being fully known. That's what you're talking about.
You're talking about being fully known yea, and fully loved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and does a lot of work in that
sentence because fully known and wait, you still love me
right right? Like I know, I think about my wife.
My wife fully knows me, and there's been time she's like, oh,
I don't like you even a little bit, but I
love you, yes, right? Uh. And so there's that and
that get cares a lot of weight.
Speaker 3: Well, and only Jesus facilitates that in the context of
the local church, right, And that's what's so beautiful about
a church. Who's doing it right is man, We're all
of us are the exact same human right. I mean,
I love it when people just get radically honest. There's
nothing more refreshing. And we have a phrase we've coined
in our curriculum called ugly honesty, and that means if
you tell the truth, if you really tell the truth,
it's going to be ugly, and that's okay because of Jesus.
And we're all the same. We all suck super bad,
but thank God for Jesus.
Speaker 1: Man. And ugly truth, yeah, those are hard to tell,
but there is also when you confess them within the
body of Christ. The Lord is there to say, hey, look,
let me take that from you. Would you like me
to carry that burden? And if you've ever had the
experience of actually being crushed under the weight of something
and then bowing your head in prayer and literally saying, Jesus,
I need you to take this from me. I cannot
carry this. And I've had times in my life where
the Lord has said Okay, I got it, and camera
I've sat there and felt the Lord go okay, yeah, wow.
And you're pretty strong dude, you do CrossFit all that stuff.
You're strong for your age. But yeah, this is crushing.
But for me, Jesus this, I don't even feel this.
So I want to relate this to you. That there's
a guy who's he works with the state, but he's
one of the good guys in the state. And there's
a lot of good people that work for the state,
let's be clear, but there's a lot of corruption in
the state level too in dealing with people, and I
think they make it really hard for people to get
into programs like yours. I think they make it really
hard to change. I'd like to talk about that. He
shared this story that he was a prole officer for
a guy who had been a pedophile and he had
repeatedly violated young girls. And this guy is a dad
of girls, and so he's this guy's prole officer and
his last violation had been like twelve years ago. And
he told the story of being in prison and meeting
other meeting dads and some dads who didn't beat him up.
Because pedophiles don't have a run of it in prison.
And he took some beatings and he took some other things,
but he met some other guys in prison who said,
you know, I have daughters, and like, how dare you?
And beginning to understand this, and he was changed. And
he started coming to his parole office every day. And
his par office come out and said, dude, you only
need to come here like once a week, and then
once every o the week. But he kept coming every day.
And so one day this guy's walking into the office
and this was in Boise, and they had big snow
down there. It looks down and the dude is wearing
shoes that have no soles basically, I mean there's a
little sole left with his feet of freezing. And he
walked over from this flophouse motel. He's like, do you
have shoes? Oh, this is the shoes I have. Let's
go buy your shoes.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Put him in his truck. Took the man to a
shoe store bottom not just shoes, but a pair of
boots too, and socks, and he puts those things on.
They throw out the other things and qualified shoes sits
down in this truck. And this man weeps and he
is He's you talk about ugly truth. This man was
in his mid thirties. That was the first pair of
shoes he'd ever owned that didn't come out of a
garbage can or you know, someone's four year old pair.
And his prole officer bought it for him. And as
they sat there in that truck, the pro officer just
God spoke to him and he said, do you know
Jesus And he said, I've heard about him. He goes
those shoes, those are from Jesus.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Because I don't like you.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: I don't want to work with you. But you're child
to God and you have immense value.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: So he used that word. You use that phrase, immense value.
And Jesus loves you, and do you want to accept
him as your Lord's savior? And in the in the
truck that gay did that guy he can't work around kids,
obviously given that background, but he now consults within the
prison system to help people come out of those behaviors.
He works with offenders, and he does it from a
position of Christ. So those are the sort of ugly
truths you have to like. What's that like when a
group of men or women. When someone tells an ugly truth,
you know, welcoming environment like that. Most people have never
seen that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's shocking, you know, and the truth is shocking.
That's why we're so used to plastic, right, because most
people don't tell the truth. Yeah, and especially in institutional
levels or organizational levels, and so that's why, you know.
So the secular version of this is AA AA or
NA same premise. Yeah, come in, admit your stuff. It's anonymous.
We all recognize we're in this room and messed up,
and we all walk away and there's no judgment. Now
those were Christians, the founders of AA but they took
Jesus off the cover of the book, but he's in
the pages. And it is so empowering to be accepted
in the midst of your humanity as much as you're
willing to admit, right, and Jesus will meet us. And
I think a lot of times, you know, the piece
that weighs on people is well, what if what if
they just you know, thump me on the other side
of telling the truth? You know, what if they just
And I think a lot of times individuals paint God
with their experience of humanity and Jesus, God is way
better than we think he is. You know, he's not
thumping us. That's what Jesus took for us so that
we can be act. And James four to ten, it's
My life. Verse says, when you bow down and admit
your dependence on God, then he will lift you up
and give you honor. And that same word admit, that's
that's the first word in step one of AA. And
admitting is so difficult because we just hear lies in
our head. You know, you're going to be rejected, they're
gonna not want to have anything to do with you anymore,
you'll think less of you, et cetera, et cetera. But
it's actually really attractive when people get ohly honest.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then there's this also, I think one of
the lies the enemy tells you it's not changed that
much from the garden and we'll surely die. God I
wouldn't do that. I mean, he's just afraid you're gonna
be like him. But you're going to be super happy
because you're going to be like gods. And I want
to relate that experience here in just a quick seconds
as we're talking through this and being like gods. We
have an opportunity here to choose who we work with.
And this is a big Christmas time thing. This is
a huge Christmas gift for people. People who speak the
language of all lives matter, people who speak the language
of being pro life and really mean it. This is
the time for you to go to Alan soaps dot
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the company. Also, a guy works there every single day
invent some of the soaps. He is effectively nonverbal, has
a heck of a dance move though when he introduces
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He's fourteen, he's been through about eighteen operations. Because he's
got challenges moving to his brother Ian works there in
acted by autism as well. We had a young lady
named Amy working there. But we are running into man.
This is a tough season because John, who founded this
company for his kids, he's going to the Lord sometime
next summer, if not sooner, and he knows this, and
I gotta get I got to get his permission to
read this note he wrote about what it's like to
be dying. It's an interesting note and I'll share that
with you if he'll let me. And this isn't a
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world's best soap for the world's best reason, because all
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you get tempercent off all the products there, World's Best Soap,
Alan Soaps dot Com slash Todd. So these ugly truths,
you know, Cameron, you're talking about and that change and
people admitting things, and I watched this with young men
because I work in the youth ministry and I'm blessed
to do that. And when you have a young man
come to you and say, hey, can I talk to you?
And pull aside? And here's the thing that I look for.
This is so astonishing. Is young man pulled me aside
through the nights and hey, can I chat privately with you? Sure?
And he goes, he goes, Hey, first of all, I
your wife was sick. How is she? She's a lot better?
Thank you for asking. Okay, your daughter, how's she doing?
My daughter's good, man, Thank you very much. My daughter's
in an exotic location and she went out for Thanksgiving
for someone. I had a round here, mister a little bit,
but she's having fun. Cool. I'm glad they're well. The
reason I want to share this with you is I
did some things on Thanksgiving break and I'm super not
proud of them, and wondering if you'd help me tell
my parents.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So young man goes through and says, so you
know what, I relapse on porn, bad Todd. I looked
at some stuff I can't even believe I looked at
and try to get my girlfriend to look at it
with me, and she broke up with me because she
thought it was gross. And like, honestly, go good for her,
sweet good Christian girl.
Speaker 3: Is she here?
Speaker 1: He goes, she's here. She won't even talk to me.
And to be able to say, I'm so proud of you.
I love you even though you chose to sin, I
love you, so does Jesus. So first of all, let's
pray into this and let's give this to Jesus. And
I see that you're repenting, and he said, I this
is the crazy thing. He goes, I finally get that word,
you know, repent, Finally get that I'm sick with myself. Well,
help me tell my parents. Sure, I'll hope it, tell
you folks, all right, see, And but what for me?
There's so many elements to that, and it begins with
thinking outside yourself. So how important is that aspect to
this life change that you gain this ability to think
outside yourself? Because I think when you're addicted to stuff,
a satan saying you're happy, this is happiness and it's
at all costs. But dude, look how happy you are now,
our young lady. Look how happy you are. Look how
thrilling this is and distract destroyed the press. That's the
distract part. And you're not thinking outside yourself. You're not
even thinking within your family unit like you like, No,
you're not thinking in your family unit at all costs.
So how important are at what stage does that come in?
Do you see where people then kind of boom, wake
up and once again they're thinking outside themselves or thinking
outside themselves for the first time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I think the word repentance specifically gets confused
a lot of times with damage control. So if individuals
are caught in something so you know or know something
is going to come to light and now you're trying
to get in front of it, that's not repents right,
that's damage control. Now we encounter that all the time
as we have limited structure in our program for these individuals.
What you just described, that's repentance. Nobody knows except him
and the girlfriend. And he's initiating keyword, he's initiating the conversation. Right,
you're not seeing tells in his life and sitting him down, Hey,
let's talk about this and then it, you know, comes out.
That's key. That's a that's a tell for me that
somebody is alive. On the inside. When somebody is telling
on themselves, that's a byproduct of God. That's not natural,
that's not natural, that's supernatural. Right. That is the opposite
of self protection. That's like what you said, you're experiencing
that grossness or that forget the word you used. I
can't stop. It's disgusting, right versus normal humanities. Just like, yeah,
just send it, go for it. It feels good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there are times I think where God uses loved
ones to show you your sin, right, and when that
happens and you're you're confronted in that A, it's so crushing. B.
It's an opportunity to experience grace from loved ones and
forgiveness from loved ones. And when you know forgiveness is
hard given where someone has to work to forgive you,
that's real. Like it's almost the difference between someone popping
into a store and buying you something versus they sat
down and made you something right and it was real effort.
Or it's the widow's might thing. You know, you get
a gift from someone like I'll just give you an example.
One of the guys that mentored has no money. I mean,
he's an SSI. He bought me because he saw the
podcast and he sees that we've about these records behind this.
He bought me four albums and I mean it was
like probably twelve bucks, but for him that's two meals. Yep,
that's a great, big deal. That's hard one. And so
this sort of forgiveness, like you're right about the damage
control thing, that repentance has to contain real sorrow. True
forgiveness mean you can say like, oh, bro, you know
my bad not for you. It's cool, it's cool. That's
not forgiveness. That's convenience, it's politeness. But true forgiveness, isn't
it really an effort to truly forgive?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think so? Yeah? Yeah? What is the rule?
Act of the will? Pardon an act of the will?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to do this. I'm going to let
God force me to do this because I don't want
to do it, because I'm super angry.
Speaker 3: And because I'm aware of what I've been forgiven of
by God. So that empowers me now to turn around
and forgive others.
Speaker 1: That's a huge aspect to it, isn't it like to
really think about Wait, like God forgave a lot with me,
what's it like for individuals to forgive themselves after the
telling this ugly truths? What did you?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 1: What you call them?
Speaker 3: What's your phrase again, ugly honesty?
Speaker 1: Ugly honesty? They go through an ugly honesty session? What's
it like for them to forgive themselves?
Speaker 3: That's a process because the enemy or ourselves will like
to just whisper or scream in our mind, in our
ear all day long, right, And so walking with an
individual and checking in and having follow up conversations. We've
got worksheets that we sit down and do with individual
or actually we ask them to fill it out, and
then they bring the worksheet it's called a four your
Best worksheet, and they bring that to our one on
ones that we have with them with staff, and it
just goes through some categories of life, and a lot
of it is based on what they're thinking, because what
you're thinking is directly determining what you're doing. Yeah, right,
And you know we can sit in a church service
for an hour a week, but I preach way more
sermons to myself in my own head all week long, right,
just that inner monologue that never stops. So what is
that speaking about? And how do I infuse the truth
into other individuals regular thought process? And it's eighty five
percent encouragement And I like to say eighty five percent
encouragement and fifteen percent soft correction. You know, this people
group specifically doesn't need to be told they suck at life.
They're pretty aware, right, I certainly was. I certainly am
aware of my own humanity. I need wind in my sale.
I need some because I don't see it oftentimes in
and in myself. Just like, dude, you're amazing, Like that
feels good, even now you know I'm forty I don't
know how I am forty two. You're a young kid
that I appreciate that when I hear that, how much
more an individual just getting out of incarceration or just
getting out of rehab and trying to get their feet
underneath them, and they're loved ones, sometimes the closest ones.
Two individuals are so aware of the negative that sometimes
it's actually better if family just ceases communication for a
little bit, because oftentimes it can be overwhelmingly negative and
let the staff at absolute like just walk with this
individual for a while because there's just so much hurt
there that's legitimate, right, those bridges have been so torched
over the years, and so for a mom and or dad,
aunt and uncle, granma, grandpa to think and sometimes rightly,
like they'll never change.
Speaker 1: There's just there was this kid I coached back in
the day when I was in community college, played football there,
and one of my work study programs in exchange for
a little bit of money off of college, was to.
Speaker 3: Coach.
Speaker 1: So I ended up coaching this kid. Incredible wrestler, incredible kid.
And you walked into the rest room and when you
wrestle and you can recognize great movement. I watched this
kid move like wow, special kid and started to work
with him. His name is Chris. And first match comes
and he's on the floor with a kid that he
should have pinned in like seconds, and he is tight,
he can barely move. He's like getting taken down. This
kid should not be able to even nearly take him down.
And the kid got a bloody nose his opponent. And
so I went out and I talked to Chris, and
I said, I'm just I'm trying to distract him. So
I said, hey, do you know that cheerleader over there
but with the other team, Yeah, blonde girl yeah, no,
she's in love with you. She is. Yeah, yeah, just
can stop looking at you. Oh anyway, hey, just have
some fun out here, man, relax, have some fun, so
come back together. Start they wrestle Boom Chris pins kid
And upon reflection, as I was thinking about that match,
his dad was screaming bloody murder at the kid. And
I've been the sports dad like, I fell into that trap.
I'm embarrassed to say, and I've repented to that. It
was gross. I can't believe I fell into that having
watched it, and I got to as a young kid
pulled that dad aside. He came to practice and we
had these portal doors, so like the circle windows. I said, hey, miss,
and I said this last time. I won't say it
on the show, but you know, sir, I want you
to watch your son Russell. And he looked at the
wind who he goes, why doesn't he do that matches?
I said, nah, that's all due respect. He's terrified of you.
Speaker 2: He is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this guy confessed to say, you know what,
I was a professional hockey player.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And so the point of the story is this a promise.
It's not just me like telling old man stories is.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: Four or five years later. I hadn't seen this.
Speaker 3: Kids.
Speaker 1: I dropped out of college, went and played in bands.
I'm doing other things. But some of my buddies are wrestling.
Say hey, the state founder's coming on, going go watching.
Some of my friends are wrestling coaches, so oh yeah, yo, gosh,
my friends are coaches now. And I show up down
there and there's the kid and he's winning his second
state championship and oh my gosh, he's And so I'm
just down on the floor hanging out with my buddies
or coaches, and this kid looks over me and goes, oh,
coach Todd. And it runs over to me, jumps up
in my arms like and I'm crying. I didn't do anything.
I didn't do anything, but he remembered. That's change. So
I wanted to ask you, like you walk the life
spoken that cigarette man, this is not for me, and
then God causes you. I'm going to commit you change.
Twenty two years later, you run Absolute Ministries dot org.
You can donate money there. They need to reach their
year end goal. This is a donation based organization. No
one's getting rich doing this. It's Absolute Ministries dot org
and go donate there. Tell me about one of the
first times you met someone who graduated your program and
you just and they did it and it worked. I mean,
tell me about that, Like, what are the first ones
you remember?
Speaker 3: I love these. We had an individual come to us.
He was about forty years old and he grew up
in California. Uh. He still actually texts me every morning.
Speaker 1: Awesome, just what.
Speaker 3: You're talking about? Yeah, right, Because individuals remember the role
you played in their life.
Speaker 1: Even if it's minor. In my case, I did nothing.
Speaker 3: We're going to play a role. So are you going
to the villain or the superhero? And you know, I'm
just taking some creative license there, But what will they
remember you as? The villain? Is the negative? The dad
in that story, right, just constantly chiding doesn't mean it
wasn't true. Do better, do better? Right? But man, the
guy the kid knew he was struggling. Yeah. So this
individual is forty years old, he comes to us, spent
all of his twenties locked up in the California Department
of Corrections. Didn't see a daist sunlight in his twenties,
outside the system into his thirties, gets released, relapses contributes
to the recidivism rates that are overwhelming. And I can
tell you why. I we can get into that ends
up coming to us and we walk alongside him. This
individual captures every room he walks into. He struggled dramatically
throughout program. He spent over two years with us, and
I'd like to highlight that just for a second, that
we're doing real life with these individuals. It's just with
a full time team of people staff around them dedicated
to their success.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, what does that cost in real life? A
full time consulting team who's like just with you, facilitating
life to make you successful.
Speaker 1: Personal experience. Thirty thousand months, thirty thousand bucks a months
in some cases. I know that for a fact.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he through our partnership, through our job partnerships,
we got him a job. He worked at multiple jobs,
but slowly began proving himself and through a connection one
of our board members has got him a job in
a school district, big school district, doing custodial work. Crushed it,
loved by the kids in that very huge school district
in western Washington. Lots of kids in that school district
who don't have dads and this individual was the light
in their day, just filled up the hallway with this
just the presence I got just love the kids and
invested in them. And he just two years ago, twenty
twenty three, got the employee of the Year district wide.
Yeah in western Washington. And guy's so cool, like that's wild,
didn't see one day of his twenties in the California
Department of Corrections. Comes up here, goes through our process
and gets employee of the Year district wide, voted on
by his peers.
Speaker 1: So cool.
Speaker 3: And if you're listening, I love you, so proud of you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hadn't met you, and I'm proud of you. Yeah,
real quickly and we can have you back, and I'd
like to do that. I'd love to just talk about
personal change with people, and particularly young people. Love this
idea of this whiteboard confrontation or intervention. I actually liked
that show Intervention. You know, hey, you know we brought
you here for the following reasons. This is as you're
making are harming us in your family, and today we
want to give you the gift of treatments. And that
was actually a really good show. So just give us
low lights on why we have such a high recidivism rate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I'd love to get partnered with that show
because there's a lot of people. Oh you could be
that show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just need to call an absolute intervention.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if only knew someone in lots of content, I'll
tell you that.
Speaker 1: If only new people in the media business.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who does know that? People in the media.
Speaker 1: Business don't know what the studio or something.
Speaker 3: I don't So recidivism rates are contributed to. First of all,
there the rates are off the chart. They're terrible, right,
Nine out of ten fail they go through treatment like
that's wild, especially for the amount of money and the
funds being invested in that space. Yeah, okay, I think
with over twenty years of personal experience, the reason for
that is because what we just talked about, the structure
is easy. In the program, they walk out the door
and the structure disappears gone. There's no self structure that's
been developed. It was all external structure, like an exoskeleton.
I think of a tomato plant and the tomato cage, right,
the tomato cage goes away and tips over. And so
when you look at the six areas of life that
we specifically facilitate, so the safe and stable housing, the
job placement, the transportation, the financial framework and guidance how
and where to relationships, so getting individuals grafted into the
local church through our authored mentoring process, and then our
department of Corrections and legal assistants all six of those areas.
If an individual has to only one of those has
to tip over in their life for the other five
to tip over also, so somebody has a bad day
with their car, their car doesn't start, they lose their job, yep.
The other categories all fall like dominoes. Yep. And this
is why we've had overwhelming success because we've got a
team of people and a fleet of vehicles and safe
and stable housing that's all facilitated by us, and we're
walking it out with them, and it's a graduated structure,
so they come in they're much more dependent on us
at the beginning in season one. Our workbook is four seasons,
four chapters, and by the time they get through to
season four, they're doing it themselves. They've used a word earlier,
a groove or a process each season each chapter. It's
not new stuff. It's the same route, but it's been deepened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I would shortcut this in a way
that all those six things are so important that a
if you've never been through this or watch the movie
through It, the barriers that society puts in front of you,
they're imments. I've a guide, worked with and mentored and
and God put him back into my life recently. And
he put himself back in prison because he couldn't stand
being in a parole because he wanted to be free
or not. So, you know what, I don't like the
fact that my po can just walk into my house. Yeah,
I don't like that, and I'm gonna end up snapping
and I'm gonna yell at him. I'm gonna like, he's
gonna wake me up one morning and I'm gonna get
in his face. So he put himself back inside. Okay,
he's out. And this PO right now will not let
him live anywhere near jobs, nowhere near services, because he
needs to live at the point of origination of the crime.
I mean, he's this guy's just by the book. Consequently,
he lives in a camper with no insulation. I recently
was gifted My wife and I were able to give
him a propane heater and a solar generator and I
drive out to meet him and he said, hey, there's
no address where I live. I'm going to drop your pinion.
You can drive back here. And I'm like, no, bro,
I'm not driving into tweak or paradise, not doing it,
So come and meet me here. He has job, offers
great short of cook and this guy wants Jesus and
he wants to change lives an hour and a half
from me. And these are some of the barriers that
society puts up. Now, look, I'm I'm you need to
pay for your crime. I'm not a soft on crime guy.
This guy committed some hardcore crimes. He was not a
human traffick, but a drug trafficker for some cartels, and
they'd very much like their money back. So he's not
always in the safest place. Where do we draw this line?
Because you don't just work with offenders who work with
other people. You teach people how to live. Sounds like
you're expanding mission. A lot of people need to know
how to live. Where do we as a society draw
this line? In your mind? You know, the Lord I require,
I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Right, the Lord Jesus has
said you need to know what this means my father,
My father wants mercy, not sacrifice. Where do we draw
the line as a society on making sure that we
put people who need to go away away, but then
making sure they come out and don't always go backslide?
Speaker 3: Yeah. I used to be so when I was staff
in this program, not at Absolute, and it worked in
another program for years. Initially I was the buy the
book guy, and it didn't yield anything good. I could
tack people to the wall for breaking the rules and
it made me feel good. But that's because I was insecure.
I needed the affirmation or the validation that I'm okay,
I'm doing a good job. Look at me, Look at
look I you know, got Bill in trouble for not
hitting the mark he was supposed to hit.
Speaker 1: Sounds pair seeing.
Speaker 3: And when we started Absolute, I employed that at the beginning.
But when you're ultimately responsible for something, yeah, you look
at it a little closer and you start to do
some soul searching and digging, like, Okay, what am I
what's going on here? What are these results? What's what's
going on in these results? And that's where things changed,
That's where we became wind in the sale versus just
tacking people to the wall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, praise God. I think that's a great way to
explain it. We'd love to have you back. It's Absolute
Ministries dot org and this is a great place for
or you're a donation. I assume it's tax deductible, yes, sir,
all right, Absolute Ministers dot org. Appreciate you and God
bless you for your work. Thank you very much, Kevin,
thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Todd please come back. This is the Todd Hermitshew. Please go,
be well, be strong, be kind, and make every effort
to walk in the light of Christ. And man. I
get to go home and be fully seen and man
and that word pulls a lot of weight in my
life and fully loved