Creativity and Mission: A Conversation with David Zach from Remedy Drive

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I am here with my co-host, Nate, and I'm going to let him introduce our guest today. I'm excited for him and our guest to be here. So, Nate, take it away. This is my buddy, David, from Remedy Drive, one of the first concerts I ever did with Air One Radio was Remedy Drive. And I actually didn't know the music at that point. And I've been a huge fan of the music ever since. And then just everything that he does also. So really excited to have you, David. Welcome to the show. Guys, thanks for having me on. Good to see you both. Well, David, you know, I don't know. I obviously I've listened to Remedy Drive, but I don't know a lot about you particularly. Do you mind just kind of sharing your story, how you got into music? Like, you know, give us a thumbnail sketch of that to start us off. I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. I only listened to Mannheim Steamroller from Omaha and then like Keith Green. And we weren't allowed to listen to rock and roll, but it was in my blood from the 60s, from once my parents. They didn't let us listen to Stones, but the Stones were in me somehow. I don't know how. So I just loved music. I played piano, started writing songs when I was 13. The band started picking up momentum in college in Lincoln, Nebraska. Stayed independent for a long time, signed a couple of record labels in the late 2000s and then went independent 10 years ago. And we've been making our own music for the last decade. That's pretty awesome. Very sweet. So were your parents, did you grow up Christian then? I mean, you couldn't, you couldn't listen to rock and roll. So you grew up Christian. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if there's other traditions where rock and roll is not allowed, but for sure in the fundamental tradition it was not. Absolutely. Go ahead, Nate. So I was going to say your first record, Daylight, is still one of my all-time favorite songs by you guys, but also All Along. I know you got some new music coming out too. You're working on a new record right now and we can jump into Exodus Road. I want to chat about that for sure. But what's that process like for you with writing music? So Daylight was 08. That would have been like our sixth album. By the way, your first one. Yes, my first one. I'm thankful that it put us on the map there. My whole time, you know, from the first days of recording on cassette, straight to cassette from like a just a straight up boom box recorder, not knowing anything about it, recording on the tape, actually like thick tape in the Mannheim studio, the Mannheim Steamroller studio. I've watched the process for 25 years. I've been involved in different ways, writing, coming up with guitar ideas, arranging, and a little bit of production, but this is my first time I'm producing and mixing, which is a no-no for most of the time. It's too involved to produce and mix. You want fresh ears on it, but I just want to. And so I'm learning how to mix. Like this is where I'm at most of the day. If I need another vocal, my mic's right there. If I need something warm in the midsection, I bring out that Gibson right there just to warm things up. Synthesizers right here. And I'm really taking my time with these 10 songs because sometimes after writing for 30 years now, it's just, sometimes it's just not there. So you have to, I'd have to just kind of court the muse and put in the time and effort to hope that, that something gets that divine kiss on it. You know, that shine, that sparkle that resonates with our souls for some reason. For you, like it worked with Daylight and that just kind of happened. I was holding my baby girl. She's 16 now. I'm holding her, playing on my piano on that daylight. It's just three notes, but something about it, you know, I got to discover those three notes put together in that way with that word. And I'm thankful that I got to be that, be there for that moment. Absolutely. We've had a lot of musicians on and so usually I ask like, so I don't have any musical bone in my body at all. Couldn't carry a tune at all. No music whatsoever, but I write a lot. And I used to actually draw in high school. I was an art guy. And so I'm just wondering, you know, when I go through, like I can remember doing art, I'd have, you know, all this stuff that I just sort of doodle and draw, but never really went anywhere. And I have very similar things when I write. Like I have tons of stuff started and I'm like, ah, I don't, I'm not really feeling this right now. I'm just going to set it aside and sort of bank it. And I have a little folder on my computer, you know, it's like, you know, writing projects. There's probably, you know, a hundred documents in there that I'll never go back to. Right. Do you have something similar with the music? Like, do you, do you have a lot of, I don't know, stuff you're sort of editing back and just saying, you know, this was kind of a good idea, but I'm not going to finish it right now. And then you come back to it later, you know, like what does that look like? I love that question, James. Like, I think that everything I've done to this point is built on of everything that I've done before. Yeah. But it's a constant lifestyle of curating and noticing and listening and being open to being inspired, whether it's a movie and a lot of times it is film. There's something really special about film. There's amazing directors and amazing storytellers in Hollywood. Like I'm so thankful for that. And so I'm open to it. I wait for it. I write it down. And then the second stage for me is like a couplet. I have a line that I like. And then I find a partner for it that rhymes with it and hopefully rhymes like five times in the same lines. And then sometimes those couplets, you know, they move around and they can be in this song and I'll pull them over and it's with this lyric idea over here and it gets edited. It gets changed. And sometimes it's not even a rhyme. Sometimes it's just a thought. Like one that my brother Paul had a long time ago was when will we ever return to our design? Like that really haunted me. And you'll see it show up all over the place. My, my buddy Luke worship pastor at my church. I was talking to him over the weekend about having you on because he's a big remedy fan and North stars, his favorite project. And he was curious, do you write the music first and then the lyrics or do you write? Do you come with lyrics first or does it just depend on the song? Like with that album, with North with, with that record, did you, did you have a different way of doing that or is it, how did that work? That one? I like that question too, but that one in particular had, I mean, if you look at the lyric sheet and you add them all up for most albums, they're probably this long. North star is three or four times as long as most albums because there was so much hip hop influence in the songwriting. Right. And so if you take a song like for instance, so that song Polaris has the same theme of the song brighter than apathy, the same idea of we have currency to our lives. What are we going to spend the currency of our lives on? And in brighter than apathy, it's like your voice, your youth, your time, your art, your song, your life, your heart. What will you spend it on? But I wrote those ideas down at the same time the, from Polaris, it says like, you've got your, you've got, uh, what is it? You've got your, your fingerprints. You got your camera lens. Uh, it's the string that push. It's a note that bends. It's a light that bleeds. That's bleeding out of our camera lens. You've got your voice. So sing it out, my friend, the song of freedom at 110. Like those are, those songs are cousins in a way. They're sisters, I guess. Um, but sometimes you're finding a home for the melody that's already been written. And it's really hard to get a lyric idea that might sound cool as a poem without music to still feel cool with the melody. So I'm always worried. I'm going to like ruin a melody with like trying to jam an idea into it. That's a, that's a, I think everybody struggles with. I was watching that Rick Rubin. He says sometimes he'll work with an artist and he'll just have them scat nonsense. And some of that nonsense, that vowel sound, finding a word for that vowel sound ends up being the first lyric on, on a record. And it's all inspired. Like all of that is it like that same with like your visual art. If it's beautiful, it has to be inspired. It's coming from some other place, some other. So, so

And so I just love getting to tap into that for a living. For sure, and that is kind of a fine line you have to walk, though, as an artist, because I know from other people, just from experience, and you alluded to it earlier, it's a no-no usually to try to mix and produce plus write, like involved. Does it ever get to where it feels like something's too forced and you kind of get stuck and you have to take a break or take a step back and back up? I mean, that has to be challenging when you're creating anything, but especially if you're trying, you don't want to force something, like you said, you have to kind of tap into that other realm. I like the way you described that. That's really beautiful, actually. Well, I have Fortnite and Rocket League right around the corner. And sometimes that's taking an artistic break. Sometimes that's being too distracted. My kids come home at 2. I can't sing, you know, I can't do vocals when they're here, but more so when you're writing. That's why I think more of it for me is the constant process of curating. This is beautiful. That moved me. I'm going to write that down. So that there's not that moment where I'm just sitting down with a blank. I never have a blank canvas. I'm like, James, there's always all these started things that I go back to them and there's like a ton of voice memos in my phone. And I go back to that. Oh, I like I like that. And then and sometimes those come out naturally and they they show up again as I'm remember, where did these guys tune in in like 2020, April, May, where I was doing all those piano live streams during lockdown? Yes, I got to be on a bunch of those and they were amazing. I really enjoyed those. And sometimes I would just play for a while instead of singing a song. And melodies came out of that. Like I went back through the live stream and found a melody for a song that ended up being Caravan Princess that way. Oh, wow. So you always gravitate to these melodies. And sometimes I'm not so particular about making sure that I remember it. Sometimes I kick myself. I'm like, man, that was cool. Why didn't I record it or write it down? Because I really believe that it'll resurface if I keep on searching for it. That idea, that thought will come back to me, I hope, if it's real enough, if it's important enough to be said. And some of this, some of this sounds goofy when we talk this way, because it's just songs, you know what I mean? It's just something that makes you want to move your, tap your foot. But it is living and it's something that God can use to impact someone's life in a real way. So, I mean, I get that, the delicacy that you, you know, that you approach that with. I totally understand that. And I think that's with any creative. Sometimes it might hit you when you're laying in bed and you have to get up and write it down or grab your phone. Like, I totally get that. And I think, James, you're probably the same way when you have an idea. You want to write it down so you don't forget about it. Yeah, so what I was going to say, I mean, I think the, the process you're describing, like, let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. I think about when I teach, right? Like, I try to read really broadly. So my specialty is in Old Testament, but I, you know, I've gotten to the point where I don't read a lot of Old Testament books anymore, right? I read outside of Old Testament stuff. I still read the Old Testament, but I don't read, like, Old Testament theology books anymore because they seem a little too repetitive to me. And so I'll go and sort of dip into other areas and try to sort of see things from new angles based on what I'm getting from there. And so like your reference to movies, obviously you've read Lewis and Tolkien, right? Like, all of those inputs then are part of that curation process, right? And they ultimately come out in the weirdest times, I think. You know, like I'll be in the middle of the class and somebody will ask me a question and I'll be like, oh, well, let me explain it through this concept. And, you know, I'll kind of throw something up on the board that wasn't planned in the lecture. It wasn't, you know, it was very serendipitous, but it's because that constant curation is there that you can have that sort of moment and spark of almost inspiration because it's just sort of the spirit bringing it to mind. You know, that little moment where you're like, oh yeah, that was a great point. And this would be awesome to explain it just right here. So I love the process. I don't know. I just find it interesting to talk to, you know, folks who are involved in creative process because I have this sense that, I guess this is my little thesis that I've been trying to develop over the course of talking to musicians and different artists and stuff. But I think this happens to people every day. It just doesn't always yield the artistic kind of products, right? Or the artistic pieces that you and other folks in the music business produce. But I think that, man, if we're not constantly curating, if we're not constantly watching what's going on around us, I think we're missing out on some inspiration that we could have during the days. And yeah, so I just, I love the idea of that creative process and how it could relate not only to folks who are actually creating content, like I write and you're doing music, but also just to folks who are doing a job on a daily basis. You know, how does this come up in dialogue? How does it inform the way they talk to their coworkers about Christ? How does it, you know, how does it really allow them to be different on a daily basis? And so there's something about paying attention and doing that curation work that I find really compelling. And the elevation of what is, what is dishonestly understood as mundane. I don't believe in it. I don't believe in the mundane. To have an architecture in my home recently talking about re, like when we, when we put two different materials together, it's all about connection. And we were talking about some of this unfinished architecture in my home, but he was, he was, he was here because he's teaching a class at Belmont about what, for interior design slash architecture and designing safe homes for survivors of sex trafficking. And so he said something to me that I'd never thought that an architecture that's, that's an artist, that's an artisan that, that at least taps into that because you said we all are, we are, we all are creative, made in the image of a creative energy, a creative force, right? That is us. That's the image of what we're made in creator. We are made in the image of a creative force. And so he's talking about these connections and what's the purpose of the way that we connect one thing to another and all these different materials is for the purpose generally of human connection in these spaces that we're designing and creating. And suddenly the, the whole, the whole thing of architecture, which some people might think is a mundane thing, is elevated. And I have looked for the last three, four years in particular to find the, the, that, that thing, that, that thing that shimmers in what we could easily call mundane. And that's been really fun for me because I have this, it's not fair that I get to go on podcasts. Why doesn't like an architect to go on a podcast? I'm sure they have architecture podcasts, but why should this be musicians and actors? So I really tried to, because there's also an ego thing with musicians, you know, musicians think that we have something to say or think that we have some sort of authority. And I, you know, I'm, I don't have any sort of authority. I just have experiences and, and I want to find and curate other people's experiences and then put those experiences out and celebrate those experiences. So celebrate and ask those questions. That's the question that I have. Like, man, I have a hard time with Old Testament theology. I would be a terrible person to be in your class. You would get really annoyed with me and the questions I would ask you, James, if I was in your class, I have a lot of hard time, especially when it comes to slavery in particular, because that's been a, something I've, you know, I went to Old Testament and other than Exodus, it's hard to find anti-slavery, like really sound anti-slavery other than if they're your, if they're of the same tribe as you, you got to treat those ones better than the other ones, but you can treat those ones bad

get to have these conversations more frequently is because for some reason that creative process is a little more transparent. You know what I mean? Like, I think it's more, there's a sense in which musicians, artists, writers, they think about their process more frequently. Maybe it's because it's a more independent process, you know, a little bit. It's not as regimented as like a day-to-day job, let's say, but I think that there's just a sense in which that process is something that is much more forward for creatives than it is for folks like, again, in my wife's job, where she's, you know, more of an upper-level administrator, and so she attends the process, but not necessarily even her own process, right? She doesn't necessarily approach it in the same way that I would writing a book or you would writing a song. And so it's just sort of a, it's one of those things that I think would be great for everybody to be thinking through. Oh, totally, man. It's so refreshing to hear you say that, David, because me, my background, as you know, is skate ministry and skateboarding. I spent a good deal of my early years serving Christ and trying to find my way, trying to convince people, you know, of like the significance and the impact that skateboarding can have in people's lives and evangelism in general. And I'm always reminded of 1 Corinthians where it talks about the different parts of the body, you know, the hand can't say to the foot. So I think it's really refreshing to hear you say that we should be looking for ways to celebrate everybody. Even though James's wife is not going to actually have a release like you are this Friday with her work, it doesn't make it any less beautiful. It doesn't make it any less impactful. It's still a creative thing that, you know, she's putting her heart and mind to and, you know, God's blessing it. And I just think that's encouraging and really inspiring and we all could use to, you know, look through that lens like you said earlier, a little more. So that was really. In all honesty, it's not that it's not any less beautiful. It's way more beautiful. Music just provides a soundtrack for the beauty that someone like James's wife is involved in. That is administrating, giving medicine to those in need of medicine, giving care to those in need of care. That job of orchestrating that is a call, you know, it's a call and she gets to answer that call. And I get to decorate that space, you know, maybe my songs there in that space when that real thing is happening. Because music points to something that is real. I think it's the most real chance we have of understanding that there is something more real than skin and bones and four dimensions. So I like this cover. I didn't realize this is where the conversation would go, but I have enjoyed myself. No, this is great. We're really fluid like that. We don't really know where it's going to go ever either. But I think a good segue here is talking about Friday. You got a new song coming out. You want to share a little bit about that? Yeah, this one is the first from our first album back after 10 years, a trilogy of counter trafficking themed albums. So we have three in a row. Commodity, The North Star, which you mentioned, and then Imago Amore. And those three are all really focused on that heavy issue. And this album, we're still supporting counter trafficking work with the band. And one of the major themes from this comes from an Old Testament concept that I didn't know. And I don't think it's included necessarily in the Christian Bible, but Taliq Olam, I think, something like that. It's this idea of bringing and restoring light by putting the pieces of light that are scattered back together. It's a kind of an ancient Jewish social justice concept. With that combined with Makoto Fujimura's restoring of shattered ceramic vessels and beautifying them with gold in the seams. Those two concepts are where this album started for me. And the song coming out Friday is called Real Life. And I'm really excited for it. The lyric I posted last night is white lightning, bright screen dopamine. Sometimes it's the only way we cope, it seems, but we're designed for more than these remote machines to harness the divine winds of our hopes and dreams. I need you with me in a real life. And that's just about my kid sitting across the room on his phone. That's a pretty way of saying, hey, ignore me. Look me in the eyes and love you. I was having that conversation with my daughter on the way to school this morning. That's me, man. I'm the one that's, I mean, we're all in front of our screens all the time. So when will the album come out? Do you have a date? I'm hoping, I mean, it was supposed to be in March, but the problem with doing everything on your own is like, like if I give someone like four mix edits, I don't know if you know how it works. If you get the first mix from the mix engineer and like, oh man, here's a bunch of things. Comes back a second time. Oh man, it's better. How are these two things there still? And then hopefully third time's like this one thing. And then you're like, I don't think I should. Cause then it's like when he says version four, it's like, it seems like version four is right in your face. Like, hey man, this is version four. Don't send this one back to me. But for me, I can do that as much as I want. I can take all, I'm doing it to myself, you know, indefinitely. Sending it back to the drawing board. So it's taken longer. The answer is hopefully August. Because we've really haven't, we don't have a record label. We're independent. I'm trying to warm up the Spotify algorithm by releasing a song a month. Nice. I've heard that works. My son, Jack, knows way more about it than I do. I don't even know how to pre-save. He's going to have to teach me to pre-save so I can teach our fan base to pre-save the song for Friday. That's awesome. So you mentioned the last three records and I knew that, the theme. Do you want to talk a little bit about your nonprofit work? I think it's incredible what you do. The band has partnered with a counter-trafficking organization called The Exodus Road for 10 years now. And we also buy all of our merchandise from organizations that help with rehabilitation and aftercare for survivors of trafficking. And The Exodus Road has undercover operatives and teams all around the world that infiltrate criminal networks that are selling underage girls and boys for sex. Sometimes selling refugees. Sometimes making promises to parents when their kids get sent down from the hill country into the major cities of work in hotels, work in maybe hospitality of some sort, but instead they end up in the red light district or they end up in, you know, child labor, child trafficking, like, or fishing even, the fishing industry. So we have teams all around the world that we sponsor. Our fan base helps send money for raids, for spy equipment, helps send equipment and vehicles. And we support the work of these national operatives all around the world. And in addition to that, what I love about The Exodus Road, that is what I truly love is that it's women and men that I can't show you their faces that are doing this work, but the faces are going to look different than mine because they are the leaders in their country, whether it's India or the Philippines or Thailand or Latin America. It's an Indian man named Sean. That's my friend that runs all of that. It's his, some of his family members and his team he builds. But sometimes, especially in Latin America, I like going there. They need Western faces. So the band has recruited seven or eight undercover operatives that go over on short-term deployments. And the presence of a Westerner sometimes will make traffickers take risks that they otherwise wouldn't make because we can pose as rich Americans or rich Brits that the national teams can make use of us. So I get to do that when I can afford to and when I have time to go over on a volunteer basis, just like everybody that we recruit at concerts on a volunteer basis, along with a team of maybe, I think, 30 or so volunteers that are this close knit fraternity of people that spend their own money on plane tickets to go and assist these teams around the world with the emphasis being on the teams in these countries that we work in that do this work. And we're here in the United States, both doing cyber work with some really amazing technology that helps the teams around the world, but we also work with law enforcement here too. That's awesome. If you can remember back the first time you went, you already obviously had a heart. This was tugging on your heartstrings and you had a vision to see this and, you know, take it further. But when you went the first time, did, did it really grab hold of you? Like, was it eye-opening, like in a more, you know, did it, did it make you realize it's a bigger issue than you realized? Like, what was that like the first time you got to go do that? Do you remember Kony 2012, the documentary that Invisible Children did on a guy that's enslaving boy soldiers? Yep. I watched that. I watched a lot of documentaries. Angelina Jolie has been really involved in this. There's a lot of, a lot of people in Hollywood that have been really involved in exposing trafficking.

Basically, we have the kind of the blown out of proportion, exaggerated views of it that you get with a movie like Taken. But I thought I was prepared because of how much homework I did, all the documentaries I'd watched. But to see it firsthand and just see the scale of the problem firsthand and to take it down from 40 million people impacted by slavery to this girl, this 14-year-old that's should be playing with her siblings, barefoot in the country of Thailand, in the mountains, but instead she's forced down into this. And being there, being in like such close proximity, seeing that a child be bought shots of tequila. She's 90 pounds. She's smoking hookah. She's smoking cigarettes. Or she's down in Latin America sniffing glue out of a bag on the side of the road. Like it is devastating to see firsthand and to see the customers, to see the network and the organized way that traffickers have worked, and to see the abject poverty. Like all of that really broke, broke my heart in a way that I wasn't prepared for. I thought I was prepared for, but I wasn't. Wow. Yeah, that's heavy. Do you find that it's more out in the open in other countries than it is here? I mean, I know there's a human trafficking problem here as well. And, you know, living in Chicago for as long as I did, you know, you'd see the things like Asian massage parlors and, you know, different things like that that were a little more visible. But, you know, you're not really seeing kids like what you just described. You're not, you're not seeing those kinds of things happening. It feels a little more closed door, but am I off base on that? Well, the majority of trafficking happens in, I think, like 10 or 20 nations, like of those 40 million people. I see it here because I have a cell phone. So this contributes to human trafficking, right? So if you know how to look, you see it. Slave labor is responsible for most of our products. And deregulating at the federal level makes it easier for companies and corporations that have no conscience to take advantage of slave labor. So I see it. But I mean, I was really frustrated last year in one of the countries in Asia that I was in. It was really hard to find. Like, it's not easy to find anywhere online. It's easy to find. It's just it's easy to find online here, too. Yeah. And here, you know that you're that you're risking, you know, that guy from Dateline or where, you know. And so we're setting that up overseas, too, you know, and making it making it a deterrent, any sort of deterrent, pushing as hard as we can for the highest penalties when people are arrested. And then celebrating the work of like International Justice Mission. They're there working on better laws, better education, helping families be more prepared. But I don't that's a hard question to answer because it's you just don't walk into a place. I don't want to make it sound like I'm able to just walk into a place. The reason I'm going into the place I'm going into is because the national teams have done a ton of research ahead of time. I see. They're in all these long conversations that I don't have to be in ahead of time. And sometimes they're they're like just putting me out there as bait and sense to to to draw out the traffickers who take risks the other ones wouldn't take so that we can bring the full force of our technology, which is really amazing, to bear against these criminal networks. Because if you can get one, hopefully you can get a lot of them through all these techniques that I can't talk about. But that I'm thankful that we have on the technological side. Absolutely. You mentioned about the products that these women make that then the band sells. Yeah. We sold a lot of the camorras and a lot of the jewelry and a lot of the scarves and things like that. If you could talk a little bit about that, because I think that's a beautiful part of it. You don't just rescue them or get them out of that situation. Then you give them something to do and you kind of help plug them in and get them on their feet. I thought when I first heard that years ago, I thought that was beautiful on it. Everybody I worked with, I was like, you should consider selling some of this stuff. The stuff is awesome, but it's handmade by these women that have been rescued. If you could share a little bit about that, that'd be awesome. So the goal isn't for someone, you know, for someone over 18, the goal isn't for them to be making T-shirts, you know, indefinitely. So we've found organizations that specialize. First of all, she needs aftercare and trauma care. So we buy from these organizations as a way to financially support them. We're gonna have to buy our stuff somewhere. And so we buy from these organizations because then we're supporting aftercare. We're supporting trauma care. We're helping a woman that's maybe 19 now, that's been trafficked since she's 15. She doesn't have a resume, so she needs a resume. She needs transitional employment. She needs education. She needs childcare. And her kids need school. So then we can break the cycle. So Agape International Mission is one of these organizations we buy from. And when I went there the first time, I almost got bit by these dogs. I literally had to get big. That's the first time I had to get big. These dogs were coming at me. It was just a little jungle village. And now it's paved streets. And I was with my kids there six years ago. I took my whole family over there. They've got this amazing school. And the rooms where some of my bracelets are made, where some of my necklaces are made, those rooms used to be child brothels. And so not only are these lives being restored, but Agape International Mission has restored and repurposed the actual physical space. And that's like, that is amazing, you know? That is restoration. That is renewal. I forget the word. It's like making all things new. That's the business we're in, right? Making all things new so that they're actually making, they're bringing a newness. They're bringing a hope. They're bringing a new life to something that was. And so hopefully, it sounds weird when you say, I need a better way to talk about it because people think, oh, they go into child labor. That is not the case at all. It's not, these are jobs that hopefully will be stepping stones to a career of some other sort. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, it really does. I mean, you think anybody who's gone through that, I mean, like you said, the aftercare and the trauma, but then also just the practicalities that they would have missed out on. Right. And so if you want them to have any sort of chance at getting a job in society, you've got to help them reenter that society in a functional way. And so it makes perfect sense what you're saying. I think it makes good sense. Like you mentioned, the girls, you'd mentioned earlier, there are also boys. Do you find, are there different structures to help the boys? Or is that, you know, sort of as they go through that aftercare and trauma, you know, we talk a lot about in the United States, the importance of fathers in a family, a male role model, you know, with boys. Do you know of anything that's done there to sort of reconnect a boy who's been involved in any kind of trafficking with a male role model to sort of help them build back into, you know, again, reentering society? Yeah, I've met some of those men and my work has been mostly on the other side and all the organizations I visited, with the exception of two, have been geared towards teenage girls. But Agape International, for instance, across the street from where the jewelry is made, there's a gym and it's a boxing facility or it's the equivalent of Thai. I don't know what they call it in Cambodia, but it's like Muay Thai. So it's called Muay Thai Boxing in Thailand. It's their equivalent of that. And so they train MMA fighters and like all of it. Like this is the, once again, something that could be mundane. Like using anything that you love doing. They found some guy that likes MMA, you know, and he's using that to rebuild lives. And that's really inspiring to me. That really does inspire me. I'm trying to think of other things with boys. I wanted to mention the one my family was there. These girls made cookies. They had chef's hats. They were 16. And so they're being trained in culinary arts. And some of the girls that have graduated from that have actually made cakes for dignitaries, which is a complete Cinderella story. Like that's a complete Cinderella story. So I know with confidence because I've, I've met some of them that what you're asking about exists. I'm just not as familiar with it. Yeah. No, I was just, it was a curiosity because I think, you know, a lot of times, especially I've traveled in Germany and Austria and, you know, even up into Amsterdam a little bit and the brothel scene is huge over there, which while, you know, those countries say that it's regulated, I can't imagine it's a top priority to regulate those with any at the highest level, let's say. Right. And so, but those are very visibly female forward sort of challenges. And so you don't see the male aspect of it quite as much.

At least from an everyday perspective, you know, if we're looking at it, it seems like the female aspect is more prominent, and I'm assuming it probably is. Like, I'm assuming there's more female trafficking than male trafficking, but maybe I'm wrong about that. Well, in sex trafficking, for sure, but in, you know, we just rescued several boys down in Latin America from forced labor. So trafficking as a whole, but the most, the most people that are vulnerable are women and children. And you mentioned Germany and Austria, and that's complicated in a way. You know, if I was in charge, I don't know how I'd do it because I do believe in decriminalizing prostitution and redefining it as an act of exploitation of women and children. But then if it's decriminalized, does that mean it's legal? And I was just in Germany, and I talked with four or five different organizations of women that go in and try to give refugees, really, it's refugees that are most vulnerable, without the love, the Christian love that should exist for refugees in a lot of countries, ours included. Who's going to, who's going to, who's going to take advantage of whatever the crisis is, whether it's Ukrainians fleeing for their lives, it's going to be traffickers. Without the Christian hospitality and the Christian welcoming arms of exiles, which is commanded over and over in Old Testament for sure. And in the New Testament, I'd make the claim. They're going to go into the arms of traffickers who are experts at luring them in, not because people are stupid, but because desperate people have to make desperate decisions and take risks that they otherwise wouldn't risk. I hope this is a good person. I hope this person is not pretending to be, and then it turns out in other, they are not a good person. And all those Romanian women in Germany, and we've met so many Ukrainian refugees, they're such a shining light in that country. And I said it for all 15 concerts there that I said, I am inspired by you guys. You guys, instead of like bickering about what to do when someone's drowning, you guys just jumped in and now you're figuring it out. You just jumped in. And I, I like that way of living. It was fascinating. I guess. So I was teaching over in Czech Republic and I met a Ukrainian missionary, uh, Lee Humerian. Um, he was actually in a, a Christian metal band and I'm blanking on the name of it right at this moment. Um, but anyway, uh, we, I had him on the podcast and he was just telling the story of how they handled evacuations, how the churches in Ukraine and the neighboring countries really came together to care for Ukrainian refugees. And all the different Christian organizations over there were trying to make sure that they could provide food and shelter and just care for these people, knowing that they're in a very vulnerable position and not wanting them to, um, you know, sort of get sloughed off and just sort of be homeless and vulnerable in that way. It was really fantastic to hear all the efforts that went into it. I mean, Herculean, really, um, Herculean efforts to take care of it. To me, being over there for two weeks was so refreshing because I was like, oh yeah, I forgot what Christianity looks like. That's right. And so did they, you know what, so did they for a time. And I drove over in their Christian nation, you know, in the forties and then in the fifties, I drove over that five kilometer, uh, no man's land between barbed wire here, barbed wire here, families separated on either side. Why? Because someone was protecting their economy. They didn't want people to leave because it would hurt their economy. And so they had barriers there. And for me, like it, it was, it's hard to see real Christianity and then to be surrounded in this culture of fear and apathy and obsession with economy, obsession with security, obsession with prosperity at the expense of people, very similarly to Ukrainian refugees stuck on one side or the other of other barriers and barbed wire, razor wire. Like literally there's Christians that are celebrating buoys with razor wire when kids that are trying, just trying to, trying to find some safety, trying to find some chance are stuck. Who's going to take advantage of a kid that's stuck on the Southern side of our border? A trafficker's going to, period. There's no way around it. And take politics out of it completely, even though all these things are political issues. So the whole test, take politics out of it. Whoever's right in the laws, either way, there's an incredible opportunity for us to emulate the German church on our Southern border. Like, say you're someone that wants to vote. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide, or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. But for someone not to have safe refuge in our country, they are here anyways. So go and be like Jesus and go love that person and go send funds and organize and orchestrate, like you said. Like, be part of the symphony. I'm looking for that symphony, that beautiful sound of selflessness to go and partake in somebody else's freedom, somebody else's protection, and quit believing these myths of scarcity. There's not scarcity. There's so much. And I honestly read stories about a guy that had five loaves of bread and two fish, and it turned into enough. And if we would, like, celebrate our five loaves of bread and two fish, there we could be like Germany in that regard. And it would be beautiful. I just wrote a piece on this, evangelicals and immigration. It hasn't been published quite yet, but one of the things I talk about in there is that the best thing the church could do for immigrants is to be and make disciples. Because if we're at root disciples of Jesus Christ, hospitality is going to be as natural as breathing. We're just going to automatically take care of these vulnerable people. And it won't matter. Yeah, go vote for whoever you want to vote for. But we can't depend on the government to fix this issue, because the government is working within limitations. They don't recognize the abundance that Christ can give. We do. And so we don't have any fear, which means that's great. We can live an alternative lifestyle in reference to these people. And so there's something, I think, really, we're shorting ourselves when we're not really digging deep in discipleship and figuring out in moments like this, these are not political issues for us. They're theological issues. These are convictions. These are part of our identity that we should just be doing. But we get caught up in those politics. And so I think the work at the border, it's going to be a little scary to see what happens if we continue to allow what seems to be going on down there to go on down there, because I think it will open up more exploitation, more trafficking, and just more unfortunate situations for very vulnerable people. I was going to say, especially when these women and children are the most vulnerable state they've probably been in their lives. And like you said, David, they're just like hoping and praying they're making a good decision, but they don't have a choice. They got to take the one hand that's extended to them. And I think the hard thing for me with this is, like Sound of Freedom that just come out, everyone wants to watch it. Everybody wants to talk about it. But not any, not many people are doing anything about it. And it's one thing to talk about it and discuss it and be like enraged about it or upset. Like I'm guilty of this. But like, there's not many people taking action. And I, I love that you guys are doing that and working with all these different organizations. That's just amazing. And hopefully this shines a light for other people to get involved. And if they can't, to support some of these missions, because I mean, it is life or death for these people. The innocence of these children, like you said, they should be playing with their siblings. Like, I know God can restore and bring back what was taken, but like, it just breaks my heart when I think of a little girl or a little boy that, you know, has this taken from them. And it's not, it's not right. It's not fair. It's not, you know, not what God intended for them. And it's just really hard. It's hard for me to even wrap my head around sometimes. I can't fathom that type of evil that's in the world. I know it's there, but man, it's just really gut wrenching. David, I mean, on that note, how do you, how could people get involved? I mean, what any, any specific steps you'd have for them? I mean, just obviously, you know, Exodus World website, that kind of stuff. But I mean, Anything you'd suggest for people who are really passionate about this, see the need for it.

that otherwise I've thought of, from running a 5K in stiletto high heels, something I can't do, but this woman in Iowa did it. She raised funds. She raised awareness all the way up to, like, a guy that came to our concert just an hour north of here that's spent the last nine years giving his life in a volunteer fashion to setting up our volunteer undercover force and heading it up. Like, and anywhere in between. What you have is something that I don't have. We all have our own currency, and we're using the currency of your podcast to shine a light on injustice right now. The currency of your microphone, your voice, and anybody that's listening has a currency and a passion and a creativity and a capital that I don't have. And so that's my response to your question is, what is your currency? What do you have? Use it with joy in the direction of freedom and hope and justice and compassion and mercy. And that's gonna look like something. Like, it's, but it's gonna look small and insignificant. Just like everything I'm doing feels very small, feels very insignificant, but that's simply not true. Like I mentioned earlier, that the audacity and the so-called naivety of a child with his lunch brings it to the one that forms the heavens and formed the earth and says, Jesus, here's my lunch. What can you do with it? And Jesus lifts it up and blesses it. And that's what he does with my songs, I hope, is that they're lifted up and blessed in a way so that they can multiply. And your impact that you'll have might feel like a ripple at first, but ripples that we create, they just keep on going out and we'll never see the true impact. So just go do it and don't let anybody tell you that your small, seemingly insignificant contribution doesn't matter. But I don't believe it's an option for anybody to do nothing. It just isn't. Not today. Yeah, totally. Die Moody's got a great quote, man. And I'll kind of close it up after this. But Die Moody's got a great quote. I'll butcher it. But he basically says there are so many Christians who miss out in building the kingdom of God because they're seeking to do great things, but they're unwilling to do little things. And so, I mean, exactly what you just said, I think is 100 percent right. Do the little things. It doesn't have to be a big, crazy step, but just whatever you have in front of you to do. And I think we'll link out to remedydrive.com backslash action to give people just a sense of some of the things that have been done and maybe get the creative juices flowing. Because I agree, this is an issue that's sort of more pernicious and far more prevalent than I think a lot of us give a credit for on a daily basis. I don't think I know personally, I don't understand it as well as I probably should. I have an inkling of it, but it's nothing that I would say the knowledge you have of it is very experiential and deeper than probably most of the people who are going to be listening. And so, yeah, we'll encourage people to go there and check it out. I appreciate that. Yeah. Well, David, man, any last words here for the for the folks listening? What do you think? I'd love talking to you guys. Everything I said just now is kind of my mantra. You only get this one life to live. What are you going to spend it on? We're going to spend it on something. What is your church budget going to, you know? Is it going to singing and praying and talking and preaching? And then there's crumbs from the table going over to a that's the way you can make big difference. Go find out what percentage your church budget goes to feeding and clothing and helping human beings and then fix it. Don't don't settle for anything less than 5 percent. That sounds ridiculous, but 5 percent would be high in most cases. But if we can move some of that away from a new LED wall and away from new sound systems that we only can run it at, you know, 50 percent capacity of what they're able to do, like buying a Ferrari for the congregation that can only go 35 miles per hour. Whatever it is, go change those things and be be the light. Jesus says the light is our action. And that's one real way we could change it. So figure out one way and go do that this week and then do something next week. Cool, man. Well, it's been awesome talking with you. I'm I'm gonna commit to writing a little piece on slavery in the Old Testament. So I'll figure that out and get that with it. I'll be pretty skeptical. Make sure to make sure to give it to me because it's rough. I'll dig into it. But that Yeah, you piqued my interest. So I'll dig into that. And outside of that, bro, it's just great talking with you. Really appreciate the work you do. Appreciate your music and loved having you on the show. So thanks for being here. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks, David. All right. We'll catch everybody on the next episode of Thinking Christian. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to LifeAudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Want to learn more about God and his will for your life one verse at a time? I'm Quinice Patway, co-host of the Your Daily Bible Verse podcast. I'm inviting you to tune in and subscribe at LifeAudio.com.