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 going to be joined by my friend Cameron Burke
as 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 disapproved by big pharma
technocrats in tyrans everywhere from the hind mountains of Free America.
Here's the Emerald City exile.
Speaker 1: Todd Herman. Today is the day the Lord has made
and these are the times in which God is the same.
Do we shall live? People joining us live. Sorry for
the early starts, We just wanted to get an early start.
Cameron 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?
Speaker 4: I appreciate being here. Thanks a bunch of 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.
Speaker 3: It's more and more people.
Speaker 1: So it's not just addiction based anymore.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I was gonna say that's generous.
Speaker 4: 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 live being 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 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 5: Yeah, I'd say that's accurate.
Speaker 4: 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 5: Yep.
Speaker 4: 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. First.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 3: 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 5: 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 and the show that's their donation based and it's
not an organization that's getting rich doing this, So we'll
talk about that a second. Did you get a chance
yet to go watch Thank You, Doctor Fauci? The more
I think about that film and the conclusions that's reached,
the more I understand why no one wants to talk
about it. Jenner first, the director, He is an award
winning director. He's got a long history. He worked with
some of the most powerful people in Hollywood to put
this together. I didn't know that until it chatted with him.
Some of the biggest names in Hollywood backed this thing.
And the conclusion they came out with is, you want
to talk rigged game. A guy Tony Fauci for forty
years is responsible, in their estimation, for in his labs,
the lapsis to run, is responsible for all the pandemics
during that time. That's the that's their analysis, create the problem,
charge people for the cure. So much worse than that though.
They contend that we are the victims of Chinese spies
working against us in a bioterror race, but inconveniently not
Chinese spies, spies for the Chinese Comments Party working against us,
But inconveniently they're American citizens with a lot of power
who are also working against the Chinese government as double
agents for us. We're in a bio terror race with
the Chinese Commonist Party, and Fauci knew these things and
hid these things. So it's an extraordinary movie that actually
takes The movie is a movie within a movie. You're
watching them make the movie and what's cool about that
is you're watching them ract livetime to research and then
watching Jenner go through the halls of Congress to try
to get someone to actually look at the evidence that
Fauci is a psychopathic killer. And it's very frustrating but
very illuminating. It's called Thank You, Doctor Fauci. You canstream
it right now at angel dot com slash herman. That's
Angel dot com slash herman. Don't just stream the movie,
become a member of the guild and you get to
vote for more movies like this to be made. Angel
dot com slash herman. 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 you're the CEO of this thing in which
billionaire came along and lifted you up and handed you money.
Speaker 4: Yeah that did not happen. Okay, Uh yeah, still waiting
for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I came to the end of myself although I wasn't
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.
Speaker 3: I regularly refer to it as that.
Speaker 4: 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 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, no, 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 you.
Speaker 1: Know no money, this is it. That's it.
Speaker 4: And uh, 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 day
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 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, Wow, that's a long said 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: Let's just sign now, sign up.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: 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 and.
Speaker 3: Yeah. That was two thousand and three. 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
by to 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 in 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 fet and all 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 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 idea 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 when it goes all in one billion dollars
in things which 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 ever encountered
any kind of slimy people like that in this industry?
Speaker 4: Yeah, the answers 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.
Speaker 3: This, and.
Speaker 4: Because I think it is rampant. When you have a
vulnerable people group who can't 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. 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,
and 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 provider 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
a schedule and realizing he's an unpaid employee, right, right,
it's not an internship. And you guys have some great programs, man,
You the difference between what you do and what some
of theo's other places do. And I want to talk
about some of these manifests. 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 barrious people have to change. Yeah,
we talk about that, Parr. I have a friend of
mine who is right now fighting for his life and
he is facing an American healthcare system that's telling him this. Yes,
we told you you need to have an aordal valve replacement,
and you have about thirty days to live because you
could die in thirty days if you don't get this replaced. Okay,
well let's get a surgery scheduled, right. We'll do that
right after you get a dental appointment. And yes, believe
or not, your mouth health is tied to heart health.
That's true. Okay, so go go g with the dental appointment.
Dentist says, yeah, I'll do that right after you solve
your sciatic pain, because I'm not going to do this
operation in your mouth, this procedure until the sciatic pain
is solved. Well, what if the sciatic pains not solved, Well,
I mean now you've got twenty five days. See, it's
extraordinary to me that in the persons of Renewed Healthcare
and port of Art to Mexico, we've saved three lives
people put down for stem cell treatment and they ended
up having an advanced heart screening. It beats Ekg's to death.
And this has happened three times that people have been
down for getting stem cells. In one case, it was
a lady with her husband. She didn't even tend to
get the stem cells, but she paid for the heart
screening and turned out she needed to have heart surgery
the next day. Two other people, two other people, same story,
and in Mexico, guess what, they can get you into
world class hospital the very next day. Stem cells solved
things like a rectile dysfunction. They solved things like keeping
out of surgery. They can help replace bone, bone, cartilage, muscle, tendon.
But only the stem cells in part of our renew
dot Healthcare are the world class because that's not allowed
in America. Go to renew r E U E dot
Healthcare that's renewed r E and U E dot Healthcare.
Tell them you're part of the Todd Hermannshaw family and
unrig your healthcare. So, Cameron, I 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.
Speaker 3: Food.
Speaker 1: So I used to weigh almost four hundred pounds and
I was a secret eater. So I would go to
McDonald's and this was my bit, double quarter pound er
with cheese, the fish, sandwich thing, fries, diet coke, Gosh knows.
I would eat that on the way to the next
McDonald's and I would hide it. Wow, because I was
in my atdicts mind. There were the people at the
next McDonald's. Hey, Fatty's on the way, remember Fatty with
the ponytail, Fatty with the ponytails on the way. So
then I'd go in and order, but I'd be on
the car phone that is mounted. What do you want hunt?
Speaker 3: Oh no, yeah what?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, yeah, I'll get you a fish sandwich too.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Okay, yeah, all right, I see it a bit.
Speaker 1: All right, say out a kid. 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 Sissle 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?
Speaker 5: That's me? 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 personal trainer, a guid Hmed Jderme 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 to 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 card, that's great, you let them use yours.
You give them college credit for complete your program, which
is incredible. Do 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 of looking in the mirror and you missing
your teeth or said, how common is that?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I actually don't think it's that common. Bea well, I
think it's a slow slide. Yeah, right, So what what
what stops them?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 4: I think it's other people in 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 whitebarding?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I think it's beautiful, so 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 whiteborn.
Speaker 5: 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 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 the
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 4: 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 wright right, starts cold,
and pretty soon you're four hundred pounds.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 4: Individuals, whether it's a loved one or just someone who
has value for them, so it 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.
Like no, no, lots lots millions of individuals that don't
know they hold immense 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.
Speaker 3: You literally.
Speaker 4: 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 up.
Is like I'll play the game.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 3: And in my.
Speaker 4: 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 5: Yeah, because the.
Speaker 1: 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 right, 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 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 4: I think it is. I like to describe it as
wind in the sail, you know, okay 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,
oh man, 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. And so there's that and that
get cares a lot of weight.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 5: Tell the truth, if you really tell the truth.
Speaker 4: 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 an 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 parole officer for
a guy who had been a pedophile and he had
repeatedly violated young girls. And this this guy is a
dad of girls, and so he's this guy's parle 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 good 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 officer come out said, dude,
do only need to come here like once a week
and then once every 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. He looks down and the dude
is wearing shoes that have no souls basically, I mean
there's a little soul left with his feet of freezing.
And he'd walked over from this flop house 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 sore bottom. Not just shoes, but a pair of
boots too, and socks. And he puts those things on.
They throw out the other things I qualify shoes. Sits
down in his 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 bottom 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 5: 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 5: 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 savor? And in the truck that
I 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 4: 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
n A same premise, 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.
Speaker 3: And it is.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 5: And I think a lot of times, you know, the
the piece that weighs on people.
Speaker 4: Is well, what if what if they just you know,
thump me on the other side as 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 accepted. And James
four 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.
Speaker 3: One of AA.
Speaker 5: And admitting is.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 5: Less of you, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 4: But it's actually really attractive when people get oly 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.
Speaker 3: We'll surely die.
Speaker 1: God wouldn't do that. I mean, he's just afraid you're
going to be like him, but you're going to be
super happy because you're going to be like God. And
I want to relate that experience here in just a
quick second. You know, people would look sometimes at in
the followers of Christ, would even look at people who
were disabled, and they would say, Lord, you know, Rabbi,
who's sinned this this person or their parents that they're
in this condition. And Jesus taught that look, wait, wait, wait,
neither of their parents sinned. This is done for the
glory of God and the testing of mercy, for the
opportunity for you to extend mercy and kindness for the
poor disabled and paraphrase, and will always be here with us.
So we have a decision as a society how to
do this. And on a very personal basis, my friend John,
who runs Alan Soaps for his kids for the time being.
Because John is going to the eternal reward of Christ
sometime next year spring, probably summer, John will breathe his last.
He's passing on the company to his wife, tissing her
and I run it. Alan Soaps proves that there are
people who are disabled, like Allan, who is effectively nonverbal.
His brother Ian impacted by autism as well. Differently, Alan effectively, well,
he's been through eighteen operations.
Speaker 5: He's fourteen.
Speaker 1: So now the soap company is not about sympathy. It's
not a charity. It's a company found that on selling
you the best soap in the world, made in the
Midwest by a family of three generations of soap making expertise,
made with fragrances. You can only get there with the
purpose of selling you the best soap in the world.
So they can employ their sons, that's the point, and
not just their sons. Before this terrible news about John,
we were employing other people. So we have a decision
to make support this soap company or soap companies that
are just made with chemicals and exploitation. Go to Alan
Soaps dot com slash todd. You get ten percent off
all of their products there. It's 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. 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 a side? 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 because he goes, hey,
first of all, Ie, your wife was sick.
Speaker 3: How is she?
Speaker 1: 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 some I had around here. Miss her
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 I'm wondering if
you'd help me tell my parents.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So young man goes to 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 tried to get my girlfriend to look at it
with me, and she broke up with me because she
thought it was gross, And I 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
was 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 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 and 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 4: Well, I think the word repentance specifically gets confused a
lot of times with damage control. So if individuals are
caught in some things, 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 repentance, 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.
Speaker 5: That's key. That's a that's a tell.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: That is the opposite of self protection.
Speaker 4: That's like what you said, you're experiencing that grossness or
that forget the word you used, I can't stop.
Speaker 5: It's disgusting, right.
Speaker 4: Versus normal humanity is just like yeah, it's just send it,
go for it.
Speaker 5: It feels good.
Speaker 2: 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 when you know forgiveness
is hard given where someone has to work to forgive you,
that's real.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: 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 right and it was real effort.
Or it's the widows might thing. You know, you get
a gift from someone like I'll just give the examp. 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 got 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 could say like, oh, bro, you know
my bad not for You'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?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah? What is the rule? Act of the will?
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 4: Angry, and because I'm a 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 us ugly truths? What did you is that? What
you call them?
Speaker 3: What's your phrase again, ugly honesty?
Speaker 1: Ugly honesty? They go through an ugly honesty sision. What's
it like for them to forgive themselves?
Speaker 4: 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 year
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.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 3: So what is that speaking about?
Speaker 5: And how do I infuse.
Speaker 4: 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 forties. I don't know how I am forty two.
Speaker 1: You're a young kid.
Speaker 4: 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 her dad, aunt and uncle, grandma,
grandpa to think and sometimes rightly, like they'll never change.
Speaker 1: There was this 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 5: Coach.
Speaker 1: So I ended up coaching this kid. Incredible wrestler, incredible kid.
And you walk into the restroom 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 the 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. No, she's in love with you.
She is, yeah, yeah, just can't 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 the 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
and he goes, why doesn't he do that matches? I said, yeah,
that's all due respect. He's terrified of you.
Speaker 3: He is.
Speaker 1: 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 promise
it's not just me like telling old man stories. Is
it was four or five years later. I hadn't seen this. Kids.
I dropped out of college, went and played in bands.
I'm doing other things. But some of my buddies are wrestling. Said, Hey,
the state founder's coming on, I'm going to 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. And so I'm just
down on the floor hanging out with my buddies are coaches,
and this kid looks over me.
Speaker 5: And goes, oh, coach Todd.
Speaker 1: 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 walked the life you spoke in that cigarette. Man,
this is not for me. And then God causes you.
I'm going to commit your 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 the 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 one are the first ones you remember?
Speaker 3: I love these.
Speaker 5: We had an individual come to us.
Speaker 4: He was about forty years old and he grew up
in California. He still actually texts me every morning. Awesome,
just what you're talking about? Yeah, right, because individuals remember
the role you played in their life.
Speaker 1: Even if it's minor.
Speaker 4: In my case, I said, nothing gonna We're gonna play
a role. So are you gonna be 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.
Speaker 5: Do better, do better?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: But man, the guy, the kid knew he was struggling. Yeah.
Speaker 4: 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 we can get into that ends up
coming to us and we walk alongside him. This this
individual captures every room he walks into. He struggled dramatically
through a 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 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean what does that cost.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 4: So he through our partnership, through our job partnerships, we
got him a job.
Speaker 5: He worked at multiple jobs, but.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 5: So cool, like that's wild.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 5: Voted on by his peers.
Speaker 3: So cool.
Speaker 5: And if you're listening, I love you, so proud of you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't met you and I'm proud of you. Yeah,
real quickly and we can have you back in a
like to do that. Love to just talk about personal
change with people and particlarly 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 falling reasons. This is as you're making
are harming us in your family, and today we want
to give you the gift of treatment. And that was
actually a really good show. So just give us the
low lights on why we have such a high recidivism rate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I'd love to get partnered with that show
because there's a lot of people.
Speaker 3: Oh you could be that show.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we just need to call an absolute intervention. 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 5: Yeah, who does know?
Speaker 3: People in the media.
Speaker 1: Business don't know with a studio or something. I don't.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 5: Okay, I think with over.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 3: Away and tips over.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 4: The other categories all fall like dominoes. And this is
why we've had overwhelming success because we've got a team.
Speaker 5: Of people and a fleet of vehicles.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 5: Doing it themselves.
Speaker 4: 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 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I would shortcut this in a way that
that all those six things are so important that that
a if you've never been through this or watched someone
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 gonna drop your opinion.
You can drive back here, and I'm like, no, bro,
I'm not driving into tweaker 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 softer 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 the 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 the
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.
Speaker 5: Backslide. Yeah.
Speaker 4: 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 any thing 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.
Speaker 1: Was supposed to hit sounds pair seeing.
Speaker 4: 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 sail 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
your 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.
Speaker 3: Keren, thank you very much.
Speaker 5: Appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Todd, please come back. This is the Todd Hermershell. 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.