IWD- Charlie C from OKC

100% Dad interviews with dads. Introduce yourself, name, occupation, marriage, kids, all that jazz.

Yeah, I'm Charlie Collins, married going on almost 20 years now, got 7 kids ranging from college age down to 4. Occupation, I just, I do a little bit of everything, just came out with a game app Roll of Fortune. And, um, and that's kind of what I've been working on for the last quarter year. And I also do property management and, um, you know, just different stuff like that.

Yeah, which is how we met. Yeah, renting an office from you. So 20 years—

how old's your oldest kid? 20. She's 20 years old.

Okay, so you got married right into having kids?

Well, uh, we adopted our oldest two. Okay, yeah.

So how long were you married before you had kids?

We were probably married 2 years, 2 or 3 years.

Okay, yeah, so you got a little normalcy together before you introduced—

Yeah, it was, it was a little normalcy, you know. You kind of, those first years, you're, you know, you kind of wonder, you know, should we have kids yet and all that kind of stuff. But, uh, um, you know, God just, he, he provided this, uh opportunity to adopt foster kids that were actually in our church, and they kind of grew up in our church, so it was, it was really kind of neat. The foster family, mom and dad, they were the choir directors at our church and stuff like that, and so it was kind of a— it was all a God thing. He just provided open door.

So the first kids you had were adopted then?

Our first two kids, yeah.

Okay.

And then I think during that whole adoption process, my wife got pregnant with our third, so it was like 3 kids all at once.

Happened fast.

Yeah, it's kind of crazy. Baptism by fire. Our first 2 kids, you know, they're the guinea pigs. Okay, we don't know what we're doing, and then, you know, they have to learn on them.

So, so I've always heard, I've always read, heard, uh, if you can go about a year first year of marriage without having any major changes, without buying a house, without changing jobs, without, you know, any big moves— having kids would be included— that it would be— it's a tremendous thing to your marriage to be able to just adjust to living together for that first year.

You know, getting married, it's been 20 years ago for me, so it's, you know, time's kind of made it hazy a little bit, but Yeah, there is a big adjustment period, you know, but when God says it's time to have kids, and you know, who's gonna argue with that? And, but yeah, you got financial— finances, and you've got just getting used to each other. Who, who, yeah, you know, who has the toothpaste?

I think that's the big part. Yeah, exactly.

Kind of stuff. But yeah, it's an adjustment.

The way the one guy told me, the weird things you think are cute when you first get married 5, 10 years down the line are going to be the things that drive you the most crazy.

Yeah, I can kind of see that. But I'm sure my wife would say the same thing.

Oh yeah, absolutely. All right, so 7 kids, plus you're like 7 feet tall.

How tall are you? I'm 6'9".

Close enough.

Yeah, yeah, 3 inches away.

But I told my kids, I'm like, like, it's not very often I walk into a room and I have to look up to someone.

Yeah, me either.

And they're like, did he play basketball? I'm like, I'm sure at one point he played basketball.

Everybody asked me that, and I always asked them, well, yeah, I did, but did you play miniature golf? Yeah.

Uh, uh, where was I going with that? All right, 7 kids, 2 adopted, then you had one. What, what came next? And this, that was like 3 kids.

Yeah, that was like 3 kids all at one time, all at once. So you're going to make— you're going to kind of put me on the spot here because I don't have the best memory. I'm just like, yeah, they're my kids, but yeah, uh, the next one Uh, let's see, probably 2 or 3 years later we had another biological child. Okay.

Um, and the oldest 2, were they twins or same age?

They, they're a year, almost exactly a year apart.

Okay.

But yeah, they, they get—

so what, they were like 2 and 1 when you adopted them?

Uh, 2 and 3, something like that. 3 and 4, I think, by the time we adopted them. You know, there's a long process, so— but think about, actually, by the time we adopted, I think they were 3 and 4.

Okay, so 3, 4, then infant, and then a year later another.

Yeah, well, yeah, so, and then a couple, probably about 7 years ago, I went on a mission trip, 7 or 8 years ago, I went on a mission trip to Africa, and God just, I mean, he just wrecked my life over there. I don't know, It's hard to explain, but I came back and I wasn't really the same person. I don't know if you've ever had that kind of experience, but I knew God was calling me to do something, I just didn't know what it was, and it was this probably year-long journey of trying to figure out what, what he wanted that ended up leading up to adopting our two daughters from Uganda, Africa.

Um, so that was, uh, which are two daughters after you've adopted two and had your own. So this is kids, uh, 4 and 5?

Yeah, yeah, no, 5 and 6.

Okay, because you had two kids then. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Um, so we had— we went over there, adopted them, and that, that's very simplified.

So yeah, so why'd you go on a mission trip?

I wasn't gonna go. I felt like God called me going to Africa sometime in my life, you know. I was— I've always just always felt that way, or like, I've just met you like maybe for 5, 5 years before this or something like that. I just, I've, uh, really been into missions. I've always been in—

Is this something your church did regularly? So it was kind of like always—

It wasn't— not Africa. My sister decided to lead a team and, uh, to Africa, and I thought, man, that would be kind of cool, but it's not really something I can do right now. And I remember this, I was in Sunday school and I heard some kids, some youth out in the lobby, and I thought, you know what, I'm gonna go send them to class, they should be in class. So I go out there and there were no kids out there, but there was this old man named Bill out there, and he said, Hey Charlie, have you heard about this mission team going to Africa? And I said, yeah, I have. And he said, you know what, there's only women going on that team. They need a man. They need a man to go on the team. He said, I'll pay your way if you go. And I said, okay. And I went, and it was like, you know, I've been on a ton of mission trips, and this was one of them that normally you're building houses, you're you know, helping people that are poor and things like that. This one was all Spirit-led. It was spiritual. It was like you're going to hospitals praying for people.

Okay.

I mean, it was just one thing after another, people getting healed, people— we went to a prison, shared the gospel at the prison. There's like 180 men and women that came to Christ that day. It was just I mean, one thing after another, and it was like by the time we were done, I was just like, God has shown me so much here, I can't leave here unchanged, you know? And so I didn't know what I was supposed to do, you know, I just didn't know what God wanted me to do with that. I ended up writing a book, it's called Nukauka's House, that goes through all of that, and Mukaka in my daughter's native tongue means grandma, and so the actual name of the book is Grandma's House, and I wanted to write that so my kids can remember God's faithfulness. He wasn't just faithful to the orphans and the kids that we went originally and helped. He wasn't just faithful to the people in the hospital that had been praying to be healed and then God healed them. He wasn't just faithful to my daughters that were in an orphanage, and he wasn't just faithful to their grandma that had been praying that they, that they wouldn't, that they'd have a place to live, and he wasn't just faithful to us. I mean, he was faithful to all of us at the same time, and that, that's something only God can do. I mean, it's amazing, and I wanted them to see that God is faithful no matter what, no matter what circumstance. Circumstance. He's so big, he can be faithful to everybody at the same time. And it was— God's faithfulness is the point of that book, and, and I want my kids to remember that.

Is that a, like, a fiction book based on, like, your experiences, or is that like a, uh—

that's like a diary.

I mean, a diary of what you did.

Yeah, that's exactly it. And that's one thing I wrote down. I was like, I don't want to glamorize. I don't want to overwrite something. This is going to be something that really happened, that I stand behind, and I do. I stand behind that book, and God really worked through our team and through the missionaries that were there. It was pretty amazing.

So when you go on a mission, you answered half my question. One, I guess you have to pay your way. You obviously had someone volunteer to do it for you. The second is, I guess, you have to kind of put your life on pause. And at this point, you have a wife and kids, I'm assuming. You definitely did. Yeah. And some sort of career. So I guess, how do you handle that? Like, because I don't even know how long you're going for this. I don't know if this is like a 5-day mission or if this is a 5-month mission, but walk me through that.

Yeah, for, uh, for our team, it was a 2-week mission.

Okay.

And a lot of times mission teams go for maybe a weekend or a long weekend or a week. So 2-week mission was pretty long for me. And so it kind of just depends on who's leading the team, what the actual mission is for that team, and things like that. But so like down in Louisiana, Louisiana, um, when Hurricane Katrina went through, there was tons and tons of teams that went down, but they may only go for a week, and when they leave, the next one picks up right where they left off, right? And stuff like that. So our team—

and I get those make more sense and are logistically easier.

Yeah.

Um, Africa, on the other hand, a little more challenging.

It took us, because of flight delays and everything going on, it ended up taking us I think, I think it was 52 hours after everything. It normally takes around 30, but that time— and I couldn't sleep. I'm so big, you know, I just couldn't. What am I gonna do, lean over on everybody? You know, I mean, I mean, I'm big, I'm uncomfortable in those seats.

Yeah, and I'm what, 7 inches shorter than you? So I think I would have just laid in the hallway until someone yelled at me.

Yeah, I, I couldn't, I couldn't sleep. And so by the time we got there It's daylight when we landed. It was daylight, so they have us doing stuff. Boom! I mean, they—

this—

the missionaries there were amazing. They just had us boom going and going and going and going. And, uh, and so I was so tired that first day, I couldn't even hardly keep my eyes open. And by the end of the mission, I couldn't sleep on a plane, but I ended up being able to sleep in the van going over huge potholes and bouncing up and down. And, and by the time I was going going home, I could sleep on the van. It was like peaceful, you know.

That's funny.

But yeah, so I encourage anybody that has an opportunity to go on a mission trip, if God's calling you to do it, you know, put your life on pause.

So how do you manage to, I guess, get away from work for that long?

Well, I work for my mom and dad, so that was—

Oh, that helps.

Yeah.

They're a little more tolerable.

They're a little more tolerable. And I was able to line things out, you know, in a way that I could maybe get by with it and things like that. I could actually connect in from over the internet and stuff like that.

Do they have internet there? They do.

Not great, but they do have it.

Okay.

Yeah, so nothing really bad happened while I was gone, so it was a good thing back at work.

That's always good.

Yeah.

And how'd your wife, uh, respond to you coming home?

My wife was great. She, you know, if God's telling me to do it, she, she won't let me not do it. That's nice. You know what I mean?

I, I could see a lot of, a lot of wives maybe not being too thrilled being left with 4 kids at home. Yeah, for 2 weeks.

Well, she got her opportunity because she went back to Uganda without me.

Okay.

And so to actually find us, we thought our calling was to go back over and to be missionaries that help people find kids to adopt.

Okay.

And it ended up God said, well, actually you're one of those people that I want to go over there to adopt, to have kids to adopt. And so, you know, God He's amazing. He has it all figured out. We don't always have him figured out, you know what I mean? And so he knew what the plan was, but he didn't let us in on all of it, maybe because we couldn't handle it. Maybe we just didn't know if we could. If we knew everything, I don't know though, because we ended up selling our house, we sold our belongings, we moved to our family farm, getting ready to go. And, uh, oh, so you were gonna permanently— we were gonna go, yeah, we were semi-permanent, yeah, like 2 to 5 years was kind of our thinking, and taking your family with you, taking everybody.

Okay.

And, uh, and I mean, it was, it was a journey, it really was.

How long did you end up— you went over there, found Got called to adopt 2 kids. Did you guys come back or did you stay and do that?

We, uh, we never moved over there. Uh, we, we actually, uh, ended up, uh, buying a house next to my mom and dad because our house eventually sold. It took like a year, and, uh, but we, uh, we ended up going over there about a year later, and it took us that long to kind of figure out what God was calling us to do and to get it lined up. And then once we knew, they say, "Wait on God with your running shoes on." That's what happened. You know, once we got the call, "Hey, they're ready to adopt," I mean, we had like 2 weeks to get there. And then, you know, and we took all of our kids, we all went. This was our mission., and so we took all of our kids to Uganda, and, uh, it was amazing, really was. Our youngest was about 4 at the time, 3 or 4, and I mean, we're going all over Uganda. I mean, it's just—

it sounds fun.

It was fun. It was— as a dad though, you know, as the protector, yeah, you're going into a scenario you don't know anything about normally.

Sure.

So you don't know the language as well, you know, you don't know the layout. So, you know, I'm like, you know, the techie guy, so I'm trying to have Wi-Fi wherever we go and have GPS on my kids.

So how's it? I mean, you go over Africa, I genuinely have no idea what Africa is like, so I don't know, it's like, do they have hotels? Are you just going to a village? Like, what is the—

Man, you name it, you name it, you could have cardboard slums. You could have—

so it kind of depends on where you go.

Yeah, you could. We stayed at Hotel Africana at the end, and it's, it's really nice. A really nice place.

More Americanized, I guess, kind of.

Yeah, yeah, a lot more than, you know, just out in the bush or something like that. But you get outside of the big city You don't know. And anywhere you're at, you may have electricity one day and you may not have it the next day. That's just— they have a saying, "This is Africa," and that's what it is.

It's Africa. Do you hire, I guess, people to drive you and whatnot?

You do, yeah.

I assume you don't know where the next gas station is, or—

No, uh, you could rent— you can actually rent a vehicle there, um, but I'd say unless you're you live there like a missionary, you're going to be hiring the driver and you don't really know them. You might have some reviews or you might hear people say this one's good, this one's not, but yeah, there's weird stuff that goes on that happens, but overall we felt really safe.

That happens at the cruise terminal. I mean, uh, yeah, that's 10 times worse there. Um, that's interesting. Uh, and so I guess adoption-wise, how much does that cost? I've always heard like around the $10,000 mark, but I don't know if that's old data or just high, or that's back when— because you also hear the horror stories of like people who like put tens of thousands of dollars into adopt a kid, then there's no kid and they just got ripped off and it was a whole scheme.

And well, you do need to be careful. You need to— do need to do your research, you know, know people that have adopted through a certain agency. I would definitely use an agency that's, you know, that is American-based when you're going to do an adoption that already has contacts, already has lawyers over there that they've already done the legwork and stuff like that. It would be very hard to bring a child back into the United States that's not fully vetted. Okay, so yeah, the United— the Uganda government. Yeah, the Uganda government does their whole side, but then the U.S. Embassy doesn't just take their paperwork and, and go with that. They, they do their due diligence as well.

Okay.

And then you're doing your due diligence. I mean, I'm, you know, we're researching too.

What can you do though?

Well, you get online and you see, okay, is this, you know, um, who are we going through? What are they—

okay, for the agency, not necessarily the family you're adopting?

Not necessarily the family.

So I'm like, I doubt they're on Facebook.

Yeah, yeah, well, they're surprisingly— but not our family. But, um, but yeah, you can, you can kind of find out different things people have adopted through there before, or what are they saying.

Okay.

There's a stigmatism though sometimes that's not good, you know, hey, they're taking our kids, or, you know, something like that., and that's something that, you know, we don't— we didn't even—

oh, so you're talking that the kids you're adopting from Africa are being kidnapped or somehow?

Well, the, the local people, they might think— okay, they might have a bad impression about, uh, people coming in and adopting kids. Got it. They may hear horror stories or something like that. Sure. Um, that may or may not be true, but, uh What I do know is that we had an opportunity after we adopted our kids. We took the grandma and the uncle out to eat and the lawyers and stuff like that. It's kind of a tradition, and the grandma wanted us to come back to her house, which was just a hut basically, out way out in the bush, and I thought, you know what, I don't want it to look bad, like we're going to go there and exchange money or anything like that, but God just really nagged me to, you know, really both of us, my wife and I, you need to go. You need to see where they're from, where they actually lived and came from. We went out into the bush. We were already way out there. It was Fort Portal in Uganda, and we went way out into the bush and, uh, hike. We got as far as we could drive and then we hiked the rest of the way. And my daughter Sarah, she just took off running. We didn't even— couldn't even see her. And I'm like, oh, what's going on?

Right?

You know, there's, you know, banana trees and there's, you know, weird-looking cows and everything. I'm just— I, I'm kind of freaked out. She knew right where she was going. She was going to Grandma's And we walk up and she comes out with sugarcane that she's chewing on and a plastic cup of water. She's at Grandma's house, and Grandma took us out right probably about 200 feet outside of the house underneath the banana trees and pointed down, and the translator said, She's pointing to her daughter's grave.

Hmm.

She's pointing to Sarah and Faith's mom's grave. And that meant so much to us. You know, it was something that we could never forget. We were there. We could see where Sarah and Faith grew up. As long as the grandma could afford it, afford them, could afford to take care of them, but we also saw that we had physical evidence they are orphans.

Right.

They do need a home, and to have the grandma bring us into her world and her intimate atmosphere, it was like such a privilege and an honor, and she brought us into her house. And in her house, I'm huge, so I had to duck down. Yeah. And there was a rat running across one of the beams, and she started jumping up and down praising God, and she grabbed our hands and prayed. We couldn't understand what she was saying, but the translator was telling us, and she just started jumping up up and down, and man, that lets you know that God answered her prayer at the exact same time he answered my prayer and my wife's prayer, and that he answered Sarah and Faith's prayer, and man, to have that happen was an honor and a huge responsibility, all all at the same time. I mean, it was just, uh, it was awesome. And I— and that's why I named that the book after her, because after her as Grandma, because what an awesome lady, what an awesome woman of God that deserves to be remembered.

So, um, I guess what kind of circumstances was that? Was this a village? Was this a city, uh, where the grandma lived?

I don't even No, it was way out in the bush.

Like, were there other people around her?

There was probably 100 yards away was the neighbor.

Okay.

You know, and then probably 100 yards the other way was another neighbor. You couldn't see them because it was like a, a banana tree or plantain type, uh, farm. And one of the neighbors came, and the grandma was so excited to show off, uh, not Sarah and Faith. And she wasn't excited to show off my wife and I, and she wasn't excited to show off my white kids that have red hair, but she was excited to show off my oldest two that were adopted because what she's showing off is that, look, they have adopted kids that have grown up that they've taken care of and they're well-fed and they're healthy. This is what my daughters are getting, and I never knew what kind of impact that would bring to have my oldest kids that had been adopted to Uganda. I never would have thought that, but it meant the world to her because it gave her comfort and a peace.

That's interesting. So like, what did Grandma do for a living? Like, how did she How do you make money out there? Was she connected? Was she connected like water and electric, or is this like—

oh no, no, no, this is like, uh, this is like a hut, and the kitchen is another hut with a fire pit.

Okay, um, so very remote, very village, I guess.

Yeah, this would be like, uh, yeah, no water, no— I mean, to get water, my daughter had to carry a jerry can and go, go to the creek and get water.

Okay.

Now Grandma, I think, I think how she made a little bit of money, I think she helped out at a hospital, which is basically a room with beds in it.

Okay.

And that was probably, I would say, 3 or 4 miles away. Okay.

And I'm assuming walk in there?

I would guess so, yeah. And, uh, you know, they had neighbors that would help out with milk that had a milk cow or whatever.

Sure.

Stuff like that.

Yeah, I think one of the things that lacks in our world here in the comforts is just perspective. And you've gotten to see how other people are living, which, you know, I mean, Grandma there is living what, maybe 200 years from what we lived, you know, how America lived.

Yeah, or yeah, even more. I mean, uh, now they do, they do have cell phones and amazingly that work really well out in the States. And they've got, uh, they call them boto-botos, but they're motorcycles that you can, you know, hire, get on the back. I never— I said I'd never ride one. I never did because I'm just not gonna— not gonna be good for a big guy like that.

I might bottom out those shocks. Yeah.

Uh, and their speed bumps are huge. They're like, uh, probably 6 feet wide and 2 or 3 feet tall. I mean, they're just ginormous. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah, but there's a lot of stuff over there that doesn't make sense to us, but they, they do it and they do it well, you know.

Okay, interesting. Okay, so you adopted— so I guess cost of adoption, or even the process, if if you don't want to get into cost. What was more challenging, adopting from here in the U.S. or adopting from abroad?

I would probably steer clear of the cost just because it's going to fluctuate so much depending on where you're at, who you go through.

And what's the variables there?

Well, a lot of it could be attorney's fees this side and that side. Okay. Travel costs. Costs. Um, you know, we took our whole family, so that's gonna— sure, ratchet it up. Uh, you know, things like that. They've got court fees, visa fees, you know, get— just going in and out of the countries costs money. Um, passports there, then you got to get passports here because of it. Then you got a whole court process over here to go through just to get them to be United States citizens. So it does add up. Um, I don't know, you know, how comparable, comparable it would be to just have hospitalization fees for a normal child labor or C-section, you know what I'm saying? Like with doctor's fees and stuff like that.

Um, I can tell we paid cash for, um, our kids and it was about $5,000 apiece.

Really?

By the time you— doctor, hospital, all that, anesthesiology, all that. And that was for C-sections.

And there's funds out there available for— to help people that can't afford adoption. So, like our church, it has the Charis Adoption Fund, K-A-R-I-S, and they've got funds, and they've helped 150 kids get adopted so far. Just for families that, you know, hey, this is expensive. I can't— I'm being called to I want to do it, but I don't have the funds. You know what, let's help these people that are being called that just don't have funds, and so that's what that fund is for, and if there's one fund like that, there's going to be more. Yeah. So if God's calling you to do it, man, don't stop. I mean, it's a blessing. It really is. So what was the second part of your question, the process of it, or— you compared the the stateside adoption versus—

oh yeah, versus domestic, versus— yeah, abroad.

Yeah.

Um, because you've done both.

We've done both. Uh, but it was almost like we did them both the hard way. I don't know, you know.

Okay.

It was like, I don't know, I think, uh, 9 months of pregnancy might be easier. Uh, it was for me, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

But my wife might disagree I agree with that, but the adoption here for us was a challenge, and then just overseas, I guess that's always going to be a little, you know, you're going overseas, you don't even know the language, so yeah, that's going to be a challenge.

How long is the process?

Well, probably about 6 months would be my guess.

Yeah. And is that from saying, hey, I want to adopt, or is that from identifying, hey, these two kids right here are the ones I want.

I would, I would say either way, it could be such a big variable because Uganda law changes, you know, daily. There's not like this big process like, um, maybe in China or something like that, that you hear, okay, you're going to be here a week, and on the day you move to this spot, and then on the day you go here, and then you will be back home by this point. Uganda, you know, sometimes they're open, sometimes no, you need to live with the family for a long time in country. I mean, it just changes. So, you know, really doing research on that kind of thing would be my advice, and it's been a while since we've done it.

So, because I remember before I even had kids, I read it was a Dungy's book. Tony Dungy, because he adopted. I remember he was thinking about adoption because one of his, like, coaches had thought or had done it, recommended it. So I guess he went in, filled in some paperwork because they just want to explore the options. I guess the other coach had— it took about 6 months, a year, whatever it was, like a good long time. He got a call the next day saying they had a kid ready. Yeah, which, which I guess was, um, you know, Tony's Tony's black, and so he was willing to adopt a black child. I think the other coach was white and was going to adopt a white kid. And so I guess there's so many black kids in the system that they just saw him, and probably he's Tony Dungy, so you probably get expedited a little bit faster. You can, you know, verify money is obviously not an issue. And well, I would say, you know, I know he was shocked by the speed.

Yeah, I would say, you know, the more open you are to, uh, the the child's age, the child's, you know, health, the child's race. I mean, if you just say, hey, you know, we're open, we want to adopt, you know, there's going to be a lot of opportunities. And the more specific you get, you know, it's going to take longer.

And you never did the fostering, right?

No, we've kind of done like respite and stuff like that where—

I don't know what that means.

Which means like you're a short-term foster, you know, you help out a foster parent or something like that. You, you, you're just helping.

Okay.

You're not necessarily a foster placement. I told my wife, I said, I, I can adopt, I can like take a kid for the rest of their life, but to take a kid for 2 years and then maybe send them back to a bad environment I said, I just— that would tear me up. I just couldn't do that.

Yeah.

And so foster parents, man, they've got a, they've got a huge heart, and they— I don't know how they do it. I really don't.

So I have a friend that did it, and he was on one of our podcasts. He's down in Mississippi, and they fostered and adopted, and then they fostered the two other boys and were in the process of adopting one and I guess something happened and, um, a family member intervened and, and I guess regained custody. And they were almost to the point where they were like, they were planning, I guess, the celebration, you know, for the, for the adoption. And they had a whole overseas trip planned. They were going to go to Italy. And oh man, uh, yeah, it was a bit, you know, it was a big deal. It's heartbreaking because they'd had him for a long time. Um, uh, and then, you know, obviously you hope that they went back to their real family and ended up being in a good situation. But I guess you just never know because you're not really allowed to find out.

So yeah, it's— in a lot of ways it's a messed up system. Yeah, they try to do— they try to do—

you hope that, you know, they went back to family and everything went good.

They try to do right. They try to keep the family together, and, and I, I appreciate that part about at least Oklahoma DHS. But sometimes they go too far where, you know, they, they end up keeping the kids in the system longer because of that. And then maybe one of them becomes unadoptable, and then it's just like this, you know, why couldn't we have done this?

Moved quicker.

Moved quicker 5 years ago.

So as kids get older, they become more difficult to adopt?

Is that what I just heard you say? Well, I would, you know, I would definitely say that's probably the case.

Okay.

You know, and then the older they get, you know, the more chances they have to, you know, make mistakes. And I don't know, you know, have some sort of— they need a family that loves them and cares for them. And the longer they go without that, the more behavioral problems they're going to get into. I think that's the importance sense of, you know, of a family. I mean, that's, that's why we adopted. So, and they just need it. They need families to step up and say, you know what, this is what we can do. Fair enough.

So that's kids, and how old are your, uh, the two girls? Two girls, right? From a—

yeah. 12 and 11 right now.

Okay. Um, and you were telling me earlier you guys had a planned trip this year.

Yeah, well, everybody had a planned trip this year, didn't they?

Sure. Was that going to be your 20th celebration?

No, going back to Africa? No, no, no celebration going back there. Uh, I love the— I love Uganda. I love the people, man. They're so hospitable and loving there. Um, but it wouldn't definitely be a 20-year anniversary trip, but we did, we were planning to go back and have this, you know, amazing race type thing. I don't know what you'd call it, but we were going to try to find Mukaka and any family that we possibly could.

Sure.

And they're at an age where they could remember that and they'd really appreciate that. And, you know, Mukaka was getting old, so we wanted to to do it as soon as we, you know, as we could.

But, uh, do you have any way of knowing, uh, or contacting or communicating with her?

No, we've, we've tried going, you know, contacting the orphanage that they stayed at, um, but, uh, haven't heard anything back.

Because I guess if you're in the middle of the woods in a shack, there's no mail service.

Yeah, it's very hard to get anything over there, you know.

Right.

Yeah, mail is is not their, their strong suit.

Okay.

Email is okay, but the guy that was our contact—

well, if you have no power and electric, then—

yeah, yeah.

And some tell me she doesn't have an email address. That would have been fun. Uh, you guys still gonna plan on, I guess, doing it for 2021, or have they eased up international travel, or is that still shut down?

I don't know. I mean, everything's like crazy right right now. So I don't even know. I think this is going to be a time to remember, but, um, I hope they do. That would be awesome if we still could. That's still, you know, we're planning on it.

Okay.

As much as you can plan anymore, right? You know, we, we could plan on going around in the country in a, in a camper, but there's only crazy people that do that, right?

Yeah, there's a lot more than I thought, to be honest. I thought we were going to be going to places to be completely alone, really isolated. And we're getting into campgrounds that are just sold out. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people— one of the best things to come out of COVID is, um, the family unit is kind of coming back together because life slowed down. Uh, there was nothing else to do. Kids were at home, they weren't in school, parents weren't at work. Um, so I remember when I first started, uh, like, we had a friend that owned a bike shop and could not keep bikes in stock.

All right, yeah, we couldn't find a bike either because everyone was buying bikes.

I was getting their bikes fixed. I mean, his business was booming. Um, and RV sales right now are the same way. RV dealerships just can't keep— if you have an RV and you're not using it, you can sell it to a dealership for good money because they just, they need inventory because they're just, they're, they're running out. Um, because everyone's going camping, everyone's got time to spend with their family, everyone's going on bike rides, everyone's going on hikes, everyone's going to the nearby park. So it's— I think it's one of the, uh, one of the good things to come out of COVID is families are spending a lot more time together. They're getting outside together.

Yeah.

And it kind of slowed everyone down from the, um, the craziness that can consume lives.

Yeah.

So then we don't— you know, we, we never fell into it too hard. I know, like, with baseball practices and things like that, um, you know, some of those after-school activities, which, you know, we've been doing homeschool for a while, so it wasn't quite after school. But even with that, that was still— it was running our afternoons like crazy. And yeah, and getting to practices and games, and you think it'd be simple because it's like 2 practices a week and a game, but then schedules are always bouncing, your field's wet, it just— it created such chaos.

And if you got multiple kids playing, you know, we homeschool too, and, uh, I already know that. Yeah. And so we We, and I coach the basketball team, but thankfully they have all practices early in the morning.

So that's nice.

It's a big gym, you know, big huge complex has multiple courts. So that makes it more doable. But if you got practices spread out for multiple kids and each one of them has a game a week, I mean, you're running around like crazy. It's already crazy right now. So that makes it even worse.

Yeah. And so, so we would Like, we would play spring baseball. We would not play fall ball. Was it fall or whatever it was, summer? Um, you know, baseball always has two seasons, and my oldest loves baseball, but we wouldn't play the other season. Yeah, we played the one because this— it wasn't worth it as a family. Like, we wanted some more time because we really bond, and I think most fam— a lot of families bond, uh, over the dinner table. Yeah, that's just where we talk most and kind of connect the deepest because, you know, there's no TVs and we're all just sitting there and either stare at each other and chew and listen to the sounds, or yeah, you just talk.

That's what we do too. We, you know, actually lunch and dinner most days because I work from home a lot of times. But, uh, you know, on Sundays, uh, we normally do what we call Family Forum. And, uh, everybody— it— I always say, okay, it's time for Family Forum. It's a place where you can come and say whatever you As long as you're respectful and you won't get in trouble. And so it's like this open time where sometimes you have kids that are maybe a little more reserved and maybe they're afraid, hey, I might— if I say something, I'm gonna get in trouble, or somebody's gonna— well, it's just they, they like it. And yeah, that's always, you know, you always have something like, I want to buy this, or I want to get that, can I do this? This or something like that, or I don't like it when so-and-so, you know, plays, you know, the Xbox more than I do or whatever. But most, you know, a lot of times you get some good conversation, and that happens around the table. Right. And so they know once a week, you know, they've got a time. You know, they can bring it up anytime really, but they know once a week, and we're gonna pause and we're gonna say, hey, how's it going, and what do you have for the family, and things like that.

What good has come out of that so far besides the, you know, openness and communication and all that? Yeah, anything specific come to mind?

I'd say my kids seem happy.

Happy. That's good.

You know, they don't— I don't— and I can't say I relate it directly to family form, but, um, it helps if there's nothing pent up and you're able to— and that's the— that's what I mean. It's not like they're always happy. I mean, but like you said, that you can, you can understand them better. You know, you know what, you know, when something means a lot and they're bringing it up, and they feel comfortable to do that.

So I grew up, I remember my dad always said, especially usually when we got caught, it's better to tell me the truth ahead of time than try and lie to me. I was always like, yeah right, I don't know whose house you're living in, that is not true. We are better off lying, the punishment's gonna be about the same.

Oh man, yeah, I could, uh, I try mentally, you know, I really do. If they bring it to me, I do try to make that happen. Yeah, where they're not, you know, in some ways you got to kind of do that because you kind of have to, and we have to, I guess, punish the bad behavior.

You have to kind of incentivize the fact that it's something good too. Otherwise, you don't want to punish that and push, you know, make that behavior not happen again. You want that to be a repetitive thing.

It's this whole thing of like, uh, you know, it's this test, you know. You're trying to figure out, okay, this works for this kid, but it totally did the opposite for this other kid. And so I've got, you know, some that may lie. And so like Come down really hard. We're not having lying in this house. Oh, huh-uh, we're gonna, you know, come down really hard on you so you'll learn your lesson and never lie again. Well, now they're scared to death lying all the time because they don't want to get into that kind of trouble anymore. And so, you know, I've had to— we both had to kind of try to learn, you know, the hard way and what works for each kid. Some things don't work at all. We can spank one kid or even threaten, even look like I'm about to spank them and they cry and they'll never do that thing again. The other one, you know, you could spank them till the sun went up and down and up and down and they'd still do it. You know, what's going to work for one kid doesn't always work for the other.

Yeah, I think a one-dimensional dad is going to be a problem.

Yeah.

Where it's, you know, the complete my way or the highway. Now there are some things that I'm definitely like that, my way or the highway. But yeah, all three of my kids— my first kid, I thought I was the greatest dad ever. I mean, I genuinely did, because he's a little OCD, wants to impress everybody, so like wants to learn, wants to show off, wants to like be the best at everything, and, you know, definitely listens to rules rules, loves rules, loves structure. So I just thought I was awesome. Second kid, not a care in the world for rules, not a care in the world to show off, doesn't really want to— like, he's smart, he learns things, but he'll tell you the wrong answer on purpose because he just— just to mess with you, just doesn't care. Like, Levi wants you to know he knows everything, and Ryder's like, yeah, yeah, it just is not motivated that. Yeah. Um, and so it's been, it's been a, uh, like you said, you just have to take different approaches, different kids. And my third one's a wild one. I'm just absolutely crazy. That doesn't really think about consequences. Uh, he's only 4, so, you know, he doesn't get a ton of discipline, just, you know, guidance and adjustments. But we're getting to the age to where I think he's gotten spanked once or twice now. But I don't like— I've never been a big fan of spanking unless you can like really— the kid can understand why you're spanking. Yeah. Um, so my thing is I've only done it a few times, and I'm definitely like a— I'm okay with spanking. I know there's a lot of parents out there that— I put a meme out there once, I just got a ton of hate from it. I'm usually for moms, and, uh, I've just always been like, spanking shouldn't be beatings. Yeah, like you're not trying to injure the person. Like, you're not like getting revenge. Like, you're just, hey, this is behavior correction. You got spanked because you did this. Yeah, I want to spank you. I just want to make sure you don't do this again. Yeah. Uh, and like, you know, if spanking didn't work, wouldn't do it.

Well, there's no point. Yeah, I mean, you actually don't want to do it. And so if it's not working, it's almost like, well, you gotta do something different. Almost a relief, you know. I think, you know, with spanking, if I was going to give any kind of advice on it, you know, set your own rules for yourself. I mean, okay, you're gonna spank up to this age, after that, you know, we're not gonna spank after this certain age, you know, the amount of spanking, you know, what constitutes, you know, the offense, what offense would constitute spanking, sure, you know, things like that that you and your wife agree agree on. And, uh, and I, and I— the, the main point would be, what do you agree on, you know? So the punishment needs to be, uh, something that both husband and wife agree on, because both husband and wife have to back each other up. And if you don't, those kids—

I would say that's for almost everything.

Oh yeah, those kids smell it. They're gonna— even the best kids can smell a little division and they know who to go play against.

Capitalize on it.

They're going to capitalize on it.

Absolutely.

So no matter what the punishment, you know, make it fit the crime and then, you know, have some boundaries on it. One thing that we learned was we realized what we were doing, we were double punishing, where we would triple punish, like give them a SWAT and then send them to their room, or, you know, you know, something like that.

Okay.

And so they're actually getting punished twice for the— for one thing, you know, it's almost like double taxation or something like that. You know, and then we'd also realize the punishment that we're punishing our kids with is actually punishing us. And so like these week-long groundings that we had to remember, you know, it was just miserable.

You know, for us, we're in that stage right now. Yeah, towards— I'm, I'm actually starting to get a little concerned. I'm not sure how to punish my kid though.

Well, my oldest one, because find a punishment that benefits you is kind of my thought.

Now he's cleaned the bathroom every day.

There you go.

Because he carved his name into my truck, the outside paint.

Yeah, like, well, why not?

I mean, it's a truck. He's going to clean that bathroom every single day until he finally cops up to it because no one else carved his name in there and it's his handwriting, and he still hasn't owned up to it yet.

Well, he probably won't, you know, until he's way older. I mean, you know, kids, and, and to expect a kid to not be a kid, you know, is like— no.

So that's something I was giving thought to the other day, was, um, uh, a way— all right, so going back to punishments because we're living a life now on the road, so we're already super good. There's like not many things we can take away because we just— we're living very minimalistic now. We're in an RV, we can only have so many things. Um, and then like I said, if we're gonna ground them, we're still going to a new city almost every week or every other week. Yeah, which we're gonna go explore. We can't just leave a kid at the RV, like, and Grandma and Grandpa aren't there to watch them. I'm not going to trust a babysitter in every city just not knowing who they are. So they're still going to go to the science museum today. They're still gonna, um, and then when we're out, we're gonna go out and eat because, you know, we don't always get back to the RV in time. Um, so yeah, it is becoming— we just don't have— we don't have a lot of luxuries to take away.

Yeah.

One thing, and time punishments are— they're just as much of a punishment on us as they are on the kids.

Exactly. So one thing we would do on the road, because my wife's from South Dakota, so that's like a 12-hour trip. And we'd make them sit on their hands, you know, or they'd have to close their eyes or, you know, put a sheet over their head or something like that. Nothing suffocating them or anything, but like a blanket or something.

Put a plastic bag over your head.

That'll teach you. And then my dad would always make us run. I hated running. And so—

Oh yeah, yeah, I had to do that too. We had a steep driveway too.

He would make us— we had like this park area, it was like a mile around it, so go jog a mile, you know, when we got old enough. It gets us out of the house, we're not fighting anymore in front of them, and we hated it. And so we'd have to go jog a mile. Well, I mean, depending on the age of the kid, you know, the distance can vary, but it gets their energy out, you know, stuff like that. Punishments is— we used used to have like a jar that had sticks in it because some of the— one of the hardest things about punishing a kid is trying to think of the punishment to make them have, you know. It's like, ah, now I gotta— no, I did that one yesterday. Yeah, so they got to go get a stick out of the jar that had a punishment on it, and, uh, you know, it's like Russian roulette for them, but it worked pretty good for a while, you know, until we didn't do it anymore.

Yeah, I think I'm just It's going to be more cleaning chores, whatever we can do to help Mom. You're going to do the dishes, you're going to clean the bathroom, you're going to clean the other bathroom. And of course, I mean, the RV is pretty small, so there's only so many things to clean.

Yeah, clean somebody else's RV, right?

I guess we can always wash the outside of it.

Yeah. Oh man, I don't envy you on the road like that because they know they got you over a barrel sometimes on the road.

Yeah, a little bit. Um, I'm also— we're living much more, um, this is a phase of our life where we're kind of much more relaxed and free. So they are allowed to get away with a little bit more now than they used to, because I used to be very, um, I say military style, but that gets some bad connotations. Like, we woke up at the same time, we went to bed at the same time, we pretty much ate at the same times. Um, you know, we had fun. They homeschooled, they got used to— they were always at the beach or, you know, walking a hiking trail or going to a playground or meeting up with friends. We had trampolines in the backyard that the whole neighborhood descended on. Um, so we had a lot of fun. It wasn't like military horrible, it was just we were very structured.

Yeah.

And now we're not. Now we never know when we're gonna eat. Um, we almost never know when we're waking up or going to sleep because we're out doing stuff. Um, our time zones are changing all the time. So I've tried to become more relaxed and less, uh, like, rule-bound. Like, so they get away with a little bit more. We've been giving them a little more freedom and things like that. Um, every once in a while I have to dial it back in because especially the oldest will take advantage of that. I do. But it's been, uh, so I've been trying to not— like, even our, our meals are, uh, we have a small small table in the dining room. We can't all fit there, so it's like someone has to sit on the couch or sit on a different chair. So we really don't get to eat as much anymore. So it's a different life, but at the same time, we're together all the time. Yeah, like there is not a moment in a day we're not, you know, the 5 of us are not together. Um, except of course today where they left me at the RV and then never came back.

Um, so, uh, they knew you needed some alone time. I guess.

Well, I got— I came here and got a bunch of work done, and I'm like, man, I'm so good, I'm so glad I got that done. Um, at the same time, I left here with a whole nother list of things I need to do because I finally got some clarity and like figured out what I had to do. And that's gonna be never-ending, um, trying to work on the road with the life we're living, uh, because it's not like we go and we're just like at the RV all day. We're out doing stuff all the time, um, you know, exploring and seeing what's out there. So I never really get a chance to kind of like zone in and get focused. And it takes me— I'm just not one of those guys that gets right into it. Like, it takes me like 20, 30 minutes to like kind of like regain my bearings and figure out where I'm at and, and, you know, start to get actual work done.

Yeah, I'm kind of the same way. I gotta have a list, you know.

Yeah, let's start making a list. Certainly help. But just getting in that mindset where I can be actually productive Just takes me some time, and I've always been that way. And so it's hard when everything gets scattered. Something like, if I try and work in here with you kids, like, I'll get like 10 minutes into it, kind of start to get there, and then like someone's calling me, I got to go fix something, or— and I'm always getting pulled out of that mode. So it's been really tough to get work done. I just went off on like 9 different tangents. I can't remember what the original intent was.

I don't either.

Yeah, I mean, something about the way we're living. But so I'm trying to dial back on rules now to where we don't have as many rules because what I noticed was starting to happen and what I didn't want life to be like is where like I'm always crushing the kids. Like they're always getting in trouble. We have so many rules that they're always getting hammered on something.

Yeah.

Which is just no fun to live that way as a parent. No fun to live that way as a kid where like you just can't do anything right. You're just getting yelled at all day, every day, because there's just too much to worry about. And they're kids, like, you got to give them some freedom to be a kid. And in our situation, we stuck 3 kids in a tin box and then we traveled like all the time and are doing stuff all the time. And there's that stability they've known their whole life is essentially gone.

Yeah.

And now it's more chaos and wild, tons of fun. Fun. The learning experiences are off the charts. The, um, their perspective of the world is off the charts. Um, uh, but it's different. So I, I've, I've, I've really tried to ease up on rules. Um, but yeah, like, you know, writing your name into the outside of a very nice truck—

come on, Dad, I thought you were easing up on rules here.

Yeah, that one, uh, that one I'm not thrilled about. Um, With that one, I'm just mad because that truck's my baby. I mean, I've just, you know, we, we've our whole lives, we've had, we've always bought older, um, not crappy, like they drove really well, they were mechanically sound, but all of our vehicles were like 200,000-mile vehicles. You know, the Expedition I just got rid of, I had like 280,000 miles before I bought this truck, um, and you know, it was a 2008, so I didn't mind that the kids beat it up. Like, if food spilled in there, I really didn't care. We always had the rubber mats, um, you know, sand was everywhere because we're a beach family. We're always driving on the beach, dirty boots, didn't care. You know, if a kid wrote on, you know, the marker of the seat, you know, don't do that, but it didn't really matter because we're gonna beat the crap out of this car anyway. And so now I have a super nice truck. I'm like, it's kind of my thing. Um, so, you know, like, you didn't harm anybody, It's probably not, uh, you know, a sign of bad character. He probably just did something stupid, probably while it was like, uh, uh, we drove through that snowstorm, so all that sand and salt and everything, you know, that layer of crap, probably just wrote on that and then realized that it was scratching the paint.

Yeah, but it's probably, you know, some people would say, you know, that's in 10 years when you look back, you're going to think, wow, there's you know, his name or whatever you wrote on there, that it's going to be a good memory and all that kind of stuff. You know, I disagree with that. I think in 10 years you're still going to be kind of ticked off. You know, my son, he was, I don't know, probably 7 years ago, I had this new Honda Pilot and, you know, we don't get new cars very often. That one was new. He took his little Oh, I don't know what it was. It's like a skateboard, but you wiggle on it. I don't even know what the kids were riding them a lot.

Oh, they kind of like the rollerblade wheels that they—

yeah, yeah. And, uh, he slipped and he hit his head on that thing, you know. And, and Hondas— I don't know if all Hondas are like this, but if you sneeze, it dents, you know.

Yeah.

And, uh, and so the, the head mark is still there, you know. I ran out there and I was like, you know, I want to say I was like, are you okay? You know, to my son, but it was really more like, what happened to my truck? You know? And so I still look at that and I'm like, dang it, you know?

You know, so you can pop those out, can't you?

I tried, but it was right on the, you know how like the, it'll curve and kind of have a sharp curve to it, the fender. It was kind of right by that. So that curve kind of keeps the dent in. I'm not a body person, and I just haven't had it paid to be popped back out. But yeah, I did Google it, I did watch videos on how to do it, took the hair dryer out there and all that, but didn't work.

Yeah, well, oh well. Yeah, I'll get over him writing on the scratch on the truck because it's not too deep.

But you just need to have everybody do it, then it'll be kind of fun. Everybody's name will be on there.

That will not happen. So I'm trying. I know this truck is gonna, um, I've just never had a really nice vehicle before. Like, I always bought used, so I've never had something to care about because, because I had kids. And this is what happens when you have kids, like, your, your, your vehicle is going to get torn up no matter what. Um, yeah, so I've got to learn to let it go because it's going to get scratched, it's going to get dented, it's going to get chipped. I mean, we're on the road all the time. Yeah, screws and rocks are going to pop up and start chipping paint eventually. Um, someone's probably gonna bump into it at a parking lot one day, although I still park all the way in the back, take up 2 spots, and we walk 7 miles to get wherever we want to go to the front door.

Uh, it is a nice truck.

Yeah, I also park back there because we're wide.

Like, if I were to take a normal parking spot, like, you couldn't get out anyway.

We're gonna bang other people's cars. Like, especially I have kids, and like, the wind here in Oklahoma, sometimes they crack the door open and it goes— just flies open, man. Yeah, I'm like, wow. So I usually default all the way to the back.

Yeah, I don't blame you. I do that too when I'm driving a truck.

Yeah, I mean, it's easier that way, and then I know I can get out. I won't get in weird spots where two cars are tight on me. And then, um, I don't know if you've been to any Lowe's. Lowe's is like the worst parking on the planet. The way they structure their, uh, their parking lots It's like they think everybody that goes and shops at Lowe's has like a Prius because every spot is narrow, and then the width of their aisles where you drive and park are super narrow. So it's like getting out, it's like 30-point turn to get a decent-sized truck out of there.

Yeah, I actually— it was Lowe's that made me put double park. I started double parking at Lowe's and Home Depot. But in the truck, you don't have a choice.

Yeah.

And, uh, you know, I waited till he got back out there and he was real cool about it, but I was like, man, I'm not doing this again.

So Lowe's, you don't even have a choice. I mean, it's so— I would have wheels hanging over both sides of the paint anyway.

It's ridiculous. Um, trying to think, I forgot what we were talking about.

Oh, but I've— so I've been trying to have less rules rules to be broken, and they kind of care a little bit less, let go a little bit more, and let them, uh, because that's one of the things I appreciate when I was a kid, that was having some freedoms to go out and do stuff. And yeah, uh, you know, I think every generation that grows up is getting less and less freedom because parents are getting more and more scared to let their kids out of their sight and go do stuff.

And rightfully so. I mean, uh, you know, it's kind of scary even, you know, letting your kid go down the block. Sometimes.

So, yeah, but scary. But how many times has your kid been kidnapped?

Well, I can't count that. True. But I guess with our older two, you know, we were really, really strict. And, you know, they go off to college and you're like, they're like, man, freedom, I got all this freedom. And you're like, Please no, you know, and, and you kind of see the other side of it. And so it does help me to lighten up some. I'm not on the other side of true teenagerisms yet, so I don't really know, like, you know.

How old are your oldest?

19 and 20.

Uh, so they're currently in college?

Yeah.

Uh, are they staying at home and going to college, or they—

no, they They live on their own. They kind of have roommates and stuff like that.

So what was the, I guess, the, the, was it father-daughter, father-son talk before they went off to college?

Oh man, how many of those have we had? I don't, I can't keep count.

Were there like critical things you were saying, like don't go out and drink every night, don't get hit, everyone else see me getting hammered, try not to get hammered, or You know, I only get hammered twice a week.

Yeah, uh, they kind of know where I come from and, and, uh, what, what we expect from them.

Just kind of been ingrained through the years.

It has been. And, and then yelled at them, you know, when they're in their teenage years, and then, uh, pleaded with them when they're— they leave. And but they're, you know, I guess one of the hardest things to learn as a parent is that your kids make their own decisions, and in the end it reflects their character, not yours. And so that to me as a dad was very hard to learn because, you know, I'm a coach, I'm a dad, I, you know, I'm a Christian guy, and so to have, you you know, a son or daughter, you know, that feels like they're disrespecting me by going against what I've taught them, then you take that burden upon yourself, and it's not a burden that you can bear. It's only a burden that God can bear. And so when you actually leave that burden at the cross, then you realize that the cross is the only thing that can save you and your kids, so you start praying more. And that's where the power is really at. That's where the change really comes from. And you actually, you know, the ground is level at the foot of the cross, and when you put that burden up, when you put the burden at the cross, you might even realize, you know what, when I was their age, I also had to put some burdens down here at the cross and some sin down here at the cross, and And so you start looking at it maybe with a little bit more of mercy and grace, and not enough. You know, I don't have enough of that. You know, I'm still learning that with my kids. And I tell you what, teenage years are the hardest for me. I got a 4-year-old, 10-year-old, you know, I'm a— I help out a youth youth for a long time. I, you know, helped out in the middle school. Middle schoolers are weird. They're just crazy and weird, but I can understand that, you know. The 18, 19-year-olds, it's tough, you know. That's a tough age because they're making their own decisions. You don't know if they're making them because of you or despite you or because they just want to do what they want to do, you know. So, so yeah, that, that it's a different, different age group.

Well, so as a parent, I mean, you gotta lay those foundations down before those teenage years. Yeah, because if you're waiting, I mean, because, you know, your core values as a family, like you were kind of saying—

well, we did, we did lay them down, but it's still not gonna make it— can I go ahead?

But if you don't, if you don't have those discussions, if you don't talk and then try and do that in those teenage years, I can see that being a massive problem and not being received well.

And what is received well when you're a teenager?

Nothing.

Okay. Yeah.

So that's why the kind of character integrity aspects are, uh, I just feel it's important to have the being talked about and being demonstrated because it builds that foundation.

And they listen to you back at that age, or at least they, you know, they want to, they, you know, respect you, they, they hear you more. I think by the time they're teenagers, they hear a lot of stuff.

I don't even care if they listen. This is what you know because this is your family. Yeah, our family doesn't do this. Yeah, so that was my kind of theory. You know, we're not a family that does drugs. We're not a family— like, there is no expectation anybody in our family is going to go to jail. Yeah, this is not going to happen. We, we don't live that kind of life. Uh, you know, we don't go to strip clubs, so, um, you know, we're not heavy drinkers, uh, or whatever it is. They've never seen Dad, um, you know, have an affair or anything like that. I mean, it's just, you know, living by example, and then always kind of just talking about, I guess, what the morals and the values of the family are. Which, obviously, you're clearly a man of God and are active in the church, and I think the church certainly helps lay down some of those values. Although I went to a church once. It wasn't my church. It was my parents' church, and they were having the youth group graduation. And like half the kids, it was really interesting, weren't sure about their faith. Hmm. And they kind of just said that in their testimony, that they'd grown up in the church and they just weren't 100% sure if it was right. You know, they enjoyed the camaraderie of everybody, and I just couldn't help think, man, this church has done, or this youth group, I've done a pretty crappy job of— I don't know if they're just not talking about it or what, but I feel like those are things we addressed before you're 18 and getting out of there. It was such a high percentage.

Yeah, well, hopefully—

of the kids that just didn't know if they believed in God.

I mean, you almost got to appreciate those kids for being so honest. Oh yeah, and I think everyone there did, and maybe it was an eye-opening experience. I think, you know, what you were saying earlier about You know, this isn't— my kids know that this isn't acceptable in our house. Whatever that is that is not acceptable in your house, your kids know it. But at some point, those— your kids are gonna have to make that their decision.

Yes.

And, and sometimes they won't. There's gonna— oh, there's gonna be a clash.

And I would expect almost every kid's gonna rebel a little bit and purposely go against the direction of the family.

Yeah, and it's the same way with their faith. It's the exact same way with their faith. They've been taught about, you know, Christ their whole life, but at some point in their life, they're either going to rebel or they're going to accept it, but it's got to be on their own. And that's all we can do as as parents is to lead them in the right direction, pray for them that they make those right decisions. And that's what's been hard for me because I want to make them for them. You know, I want to make those decisions for them, but thankfully God doesn't allow that. That's not our job because that would be too big of a burden for any dad or any parent to to have?

Well, I'm big on raising them to be adults. Like, we're not raising kids, we're raising, you know, fully functional, independent, capable, productive members of society, but adults. So to that extent, I want them making those types of decisions on their own, and, you know, and kind of trying to train them and allowing them to make decisions as they get older and older so that they can, you know, I guess make some mistakes and make some bad decisions while Dad's still around. And I guess just learn the fundamentals to good decision-making.

Yeah, I guess for me, like, what I struggle with is when they make a decision they know is against me or against what what I would do. And they just, hey Dad, this is what I'm doing. I don't really care what you think. And this is who I am now and what I'm doing. And how bad that hurts, and then how I internalize that to, you know, every dad wants respect. And how I translate that hurt and to disrespect, and then trying to still have a relationship with my kids. You know, that's where I read in the Bible where, you know, this dad had two sons, and one of them came up to his dad and said, "Hey, Dad, I want— I don't really care about you. I don't really care if you're alive or dead, but I want my inheritance right now.

Proud of your son.

Yeah. And so he takes his— his dad's like, surprisingly, his dad's like, here you go.

Here's your—

here's the inheritance. That's actually my money, but you can have it. And the son goes off and he parties and he blows all that money and everything else while the other son stays behind and works diligently and works hard.

The faithful.

The faithful son. But in his mind and in his heart, you know, he's despising the other kid, probably because the other kid is getting away with stuff that he knows he can't get away with. But maybe deep inside he might even want to, but he's not going to do it. He's going to stay behind and be the good, good kid that stays and helps his dad. And then the other, the first son, the rebellious son, decides, you know what, after all of his money's gone, he doesn't even— he just wants to eat what he's feeding the pigs because that's the only job he can get. He's saying, thinking, you know, the hired servants my dad has get fed better than this. I'll just go back to him and I'll kind of give an excuse. And the dad sees him a long way off and he runs to him and he tells the servants to bring him the the best robe and to kill a calf and to have this party for him. And the other son is out in the field. Now that's kind of who I am. I'm the guy that is out in the field doing the work. And he's out there, he's like, "What's that sound?" The servants are like, "Well, there's a party because your brother's come back." And he's mad. And the dad goes out to him even and he says, "You know what? Everything I Everything I have is yours, but your son was lost and is now found. And the son that was out in the field, he's just, he's bitter and he can't get past that. He never even had a young goat or lamb slaughtered for him and his friends. And in my mind, that's kind of me. Even with my kids, I'm like, Man, I know God loves them and I want that grace for them, I want that mercy for them, but you know what? They disrespected me, they disrespected my family, they've done this against me. And then I, you know, as I say it and as I think it, man, am I so selfish? Am I that selfish? It's not against me, it's against God. And look what God did with with that. God turned around and ran to them. God accepted them back, and that's what I'm waiting on, is to see that kind of repentance. And I want to be like God. I want to be where I drop my pride in the field where it belongs, with the manure, and I run to my kid, you know, and I welcome him back into family because I don't want the bitterness and pride of my life to ruin that relationship. And I've got that struggle in my life.

I think most men do.

And I want, I want my son, I hope maybe Someday, you know, he listens to this and he knows I love him.

Have you had that conversation with him?

Ah, man, you know, I've had so many conversations, um, somewhat But it was probably at a point in his life he couldn't hear it.

Yeah.

You know, there is a point in that story. That's why reading the Bible is so important because it gives us such a good perspective, but there's a point in that story where the son realizes how hungry he is and how miserable he is, how alone he is, and God did not run to them before that point. God ran to him as he was coming home. Mm-hmm. And before that point, if he had a change in his pocket, he wasn't going to listen. He wasn't about to come home. And I think that's— there's some people, even me included at times, we've got to get to a certain point in our life, and our kids have to get to a a certain point in their life that they realize they're nothing without God. And I'm nothing without God. And until we can get to that humble, prideless point, you know, we're on our own. But once we realize that, man, God is right there beside us to help us the rest of the way.

Pride is usually the downfall of most guys.

Yes.

Yeah, that's, uh, that's a tough one, that's for sure. Have you had that, um, um, I guess that talk anytime with your son to where it's, uh, you know, no matter what, I'll always love you, no matter how bad it gets or how, how stupid you get or whatever it is, I'll always love you. I just don't like what the hell you're doing.

Yeah, I have. And then he does some really stupid stuff and then I get even more mad. Yeah. And, you know, I had to— he had to leave the house at 17. And it was very hard, very difficult. And It's one of those things that, you know, you see him getting older and hopefully he's maturing through that as he's getting older.

Mm-hmm.

But you love him. But sometimes you— the only way to not condone what they're doing is to take a step back. And the only way to, as a dad, sometimes to, you know, just help your marriage, help the other relationships, is just take a step back. And it's one of the hardest things to do. You know, people look at me and they're like, man, you've adopted these kids, you're such a great guy and such a great blessing. Man, I'm human.

There's some truth to that.

I'm human. And I'm embarrassed, you know, some of the time, you know, 100% dad, you know, some days I'm 50% dad, and some days my kids might even argue I'm even that. And so, but I know a guy who's a million percent dad, and that's God the Father. And if I can point my kids to him, I've done my job. And that's what I pray every single day, that they, they see him through me and not me, because if they, if they just want to be like me me, it's over. But if they are like the person that died for me, man, they've got an awesome life to live.

I like it. Um, how old are your other kids?

I got them from, uh, 20, 19, 15, 12. 12, 12, 11, and 4.

Are they twins?

No, one's adopted from Uganda, so one's white and one's black. So we don't ever get, are they twins?

Yeah, it'd be a funny way to introduce them. Uh, 12, so where's the other one?

4, 11, and 4.

11, 4. Yeah, man, you got a long time ago. How old are you now?

Oh man, I mean 40, 42 or 43. I can't even keep count anymore.

So you still got 14 years on top of that.

Yeah, why are you bringing this up? I don't, I don't really get it. No, no, because I mean, you're making me feel like I got a long way to go.

You do, you do. Well, it's 4 years. It's, it's a long path. It goes fast. I mean, you've probably already seen that already.

Yeah, my, my 4-year-old though, we found out my wife my wife was pregnant, it was like we just died laughing, because it was like way late and we were not expecting it. And, but he has been the biggest blessing. My wife almost passed away after having him, because she started bleeding internally. And God answered that prayer. But since then, you know, my mom came down with ALS, which is Lou Gehrig's disease. She passed away at the beginning of this year, and then just issues with family and things like that. But God used him as this, just this little light, you know? I mean, how can you? Everybody, you know, he lights up the room, and all my kids do, but he, God has just used him, and so it's been, he's just been a blessing. Blessing to us.

I've, uh, just mentioned family drama. I've yet to meet anybody that doesn't have some sort of crazy family drama in their life.

That's family.

Like, I kind of want to meet someone like where they're like, oh yeah, we're all just normal.

Well, that would be abnormal.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's yet to happen. Yeah, there's always some fun crazy story in there.

Um, I mean, if you look you look at Jesus' family line himself, it was a family drama. Yeah. Prostitutes, murderers, craziness, you know. We're human, and I think that's what draws us to God because we're so imperfect. Nobody can claim that they're anything but sinful. That's what makes us all the same in a lot of ways. We're just— we need him. Yeah, I agree.

Um, you've got like 30,000 kids to pay for college. Um, how are you guys handling that pressure? Oh man, a lot of, uh, have you like— I guess so. How does that work with kids? Like, do you say mom and dad are going to cover college, or I'm never gonna try and cover some college, but you're gonna have to work through it, or you need to go find like 10,000 scholarships, or I guess maybe does adoption—

It depends. Like Oklahoma, if you adopt, so they'll, they'll, uh, the kids that are adopted through Oklahoma, they have what right now, I don't know if they still offer, but it's Oklahoma Promise. So they get, they get tuition paid for. Which is awesome.

So you just gotta cover like books and Ruben Ward?

Yeah, my kids do.

Nice.

They cover that.

Um, so that covers two.

That covers two. We haven't got to the other ones yet.

So you got five coming?

Yeah, five coming. So, you know, you just pick the one you think is going to do the best, throw all your money there. I don't know, uh, we'll get there when we get there.

You haven't saved any college fund yet then?

We don't really have like specific budgets and stuff like that. We save and we invest and stuff like that, but it's not segregated out.

Okay.

If that makes any sense.

Because I don't know if what we do is a Florida thing or if it's nationwide. We do the 529. So it's like a— it's a— so So it's a college— it's actually a higher learning vessel. It's kind of like, you know, a Roth IRA or a 401k or something like that, but it's just for college expenses and higher education. So you could use it for like vocational schools. Yeah, anything that's higher education. If you want to go to become a nurse or whatnot, or fireman, uh, or mechanic. But what I liked about that is is you can pick the investments in it. So you can, you know, you're not stuck with just some stuff that grows like 2% a year. You can actually put some like really good growth stuff in there. And then it's shareable between siblings. So if the oldest, you know, decides not to go to college— because I'm actually not that big on college. So I went for 2 years, dropped out, and life's been pretty good. And I was really not thrilled with my 2 years of college. I thought they were kind of— I didn't learn anything amazing. It was just more math, more English, more history, psychology, sociology. Um, you know, obviously it's different if you want to be a doctor or an engineer or something, but I think the whole plan of, you know, everyone has to go to college in order to be successful in life is just not true. Yeah. And I think we're seeing that where blue-collar tradesmen. I've got some friends that are like plumbers and electricians and just make killings. Yeah, because there's so few of those good ones anymore. I mean, there's just so few skilled tradesmen because everyone for, you know, at least my whole life growing up was, you know, don't make your living this way, don't make your living with labor. Yeah, you know, you need to get an air-conditioned office. And now you got a whole bunch of people that can barely make, you know, barely make an anything in an air-conditioned office and not happy, and miserable 9-to-5. And yet there's a few guys out there, you know, gluing pipes together just making absolute killings.

Well, I guess kind of our thought process— that's one of the benefits of homeschooling and having a family business, is our kids, they can work. They work, you know, and make money that way.

That's true.

And also, you can have like what some people call a super senior year of homeschool where you have light load classes, but you're working a lot right before college, making up, making up some money that way. And then the community schools around here, community colleges, you can take the same courses in high school from junior and senior year that have college credit.. And then if you combine that with CLEPing out of classes, taking tests to basically CLEP out of classes, you can have a semester or more done even before you start college.

Yeah.

And it depends.

I mean, which I think is super smart. I've heard a few stories of that. I mean, because it's free. Yeah. But yeah, you graduate high school and have, you know, a year if not more of college under your belt, it's, uh, that's pretty impressive. And then community colleges, I think, in general are a smart move if you're going to go the college route, especially if cost is a concern, because they're stupid cheap. But everyone wants to go to, you know, the big school. What here is it, Oklahoma or Oklahoma State? Yeah, everyone's going to big school and get the college experience, which everything I've seen—

you still can, you still can, but you know, if you go to the, the community college route, you you can transfer after 2 years.

Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. You do those last 2 years where—

yeah, because the first 2 years you're just not learning anything that important.

Well, it's the same.

It's an expensive 2 years of learning because what, what a lot of kids do is they skip class and they—

yeah, they party 100%.

And, uh, and so it's a burn.

They get the college experience, which is getting drunk and having sex. That's what the parents are taking out loans for. This is expensive prostitution.

Yeah, so there you go. Oh man, but at some point it's kind of like when they get to a certain age, you're like, man, I— you, you can't— I don't know if you can stay here another semester. You're just—

you—

they get in this mindset where, you know, it's when the dad starts saying 'You know, if you live under this roof, you gotta abide by my rules.' And basically, if you gotta say that, it's almost too late, you know? I mean, it's kind of like they already know that. Yeah, they're just disobeying the rules because that's what they want to do. And, and so it's, it's about time for them to spread their wings by that point, you know?

I moved out when I was 16, um, and, uh It makes you grow up pretty quick. Yeah. When you have to take care of yourself. There's just, there's really no other option.

Yeah.

Which I don't think it's a terrible thing. I don't think it's like the recommended course for everybody. You're working on the app, so is that all you do? You just have some properties and you get to do the app and fly the drone?

You're, yeah, fly the drone. I'm making a killing on the drone.

To fly it for fun.

Yeah, uh, you're in Oklahoma, so, which you knew that, but it's huge petroleum, you know, oil and natural gas.

Yeah.

And so that's tanked, and we go through this like every 10 years or something like that.

But, and I think because of this year, everyone stopped driving and then gas went negative for a while, or, well, kind of almost even before that it started to And then it just went to pot.

And so, all, you know, any property that you have, you know, the tenants are moving out, they quit paying or they don't need it anymore or whatever. And so, you're sitting around with empty buildings and empty buildings don't pay money. Sure. So, Oklahoma, it'll bounce back. You know, I've heard people say, you know, it's, it's going to go electric and all that kind of stuff. It always does this, you know, not anytime soon. Yeah, it always does this. Uh, so I'm, I'm hoping it's going to bounce back when once the market gets a little more stable. But until then, you know, slim pickings. So I've got to come up with different ways to make money. And, uh, I had time my hands, and I'm kind of a computer guy and programmer and things like that, so I made that app.

So the app, is it like a free app and then you make money off of advertising or things you buy within the app?

Yeah, it's a free app. So when I was growing up, you know, growing up until about 10 years ago, our family business was trucking and we sold rolls of carpet. In vinyl. And so back then I was, you know, trying to come up with some marketing type campaign, and so I made this game. And if you buy different rolls of carpet, you get tickets for this prize, and we gave away leather couches and TVs and stuff like that. And I called it Roll of Fortune. That was like 11 years ago. And, uh, and everybody loved it. They loved the game because they— it was like one carpet dealer playing against another one and they could see who won. You know, it was just kind of like an intertwine between the, you know, almost like a camaraderie and competition against different dealers and stuff like that. And so I thought, you know what, people really like that game. And so I made an app for it to where any business could use it. You know, you can create your own game within the app and have your clients or your customers play it, have your own set of prizes. And then the way I make money on it is you, you get free tickets every day, and you— there's a bunch of ways to get free tickets. But if you want to buy extra, then, then in the app there's like in-app purchases and stuff like that that you can buy extra and stuff like that. Okay. But it's like It's like a wheel you spin and you get points. You can go bankrupt. But the intriguing side of it is you don't just spin the wheel. You can also try to do double or nothing. You know, where you— it's like a 50-50 chance of doubling your points or there's a 1 in 10 where you could get 10 times the points but you have 90% chance of going bankrupt.

Okay.

Stuff like that where, you know, my kids like to play it. Sure. It was something fun and something I really wanted to do. I never created an app before.

Did you code that or did you hire out the code?

I coded it, did the artwork except for the panda. My sister-in-law did that. There's a little panda that pops up and stuff like that. And did the server, the database, everything. I used to work at a bank and was over the internet banking, so I learned a a lot about internet and servers and stuff there. And then took some classes at a community college on how to code and stuff like that. And so this year's been really a learning year. I learned a different language, coding language and stuff like that. But I got to put a lot of things together that I'd always learned, that I had learned previously and they all all just kind of came together. And, uh, so it's fun. I actually built it for my church youth group. That was, uh, we, we had a game, and if they brought a Bible, they get, they get certain, uh, tickets. And if they bring friends, they get certain things. And if they bring, uh, if they do Bible memory, they get certain things. But since COVID happened, a lot of kids aren't coming to church. Yeah, so this is a way where they can still play the game and, and play with their friends, but from home. And so that's kind of one of the reasons that I did that. So the bad part is, is that Apple categorizes it as simulated gambling, so I'm not really sure how that's gonna go over in church. Google says it's rated E for everybody, but Apple Apple was the stickler on that.

I was about to ask, did you, because most people when they write a program, what is it they always say? We know Android is a predominant mobile platform, but most of our customers happen to be Apple customers, so we're going to release it on Apple first and then we'll get to Android. And so every company says the same thing, and we all know it's because it's easier to code for Apple and it's harder to code for all the different versions of Android.

That's interesting. I hadn't heard that. I'd always just kind of thought of Apple as like this gold standard. If you can get it past their review process, then you can get it past Google's, which I found to be kind of true because Apple like rejected it, rejected it, rejected it because, you know, some of their protocol— wasn't really anything with my coding but they were really picky on certain things. And then once I got to Google, it just kind of— it's still a process, but it was easier. It's a learning process, that's for sure.

Yeah, so the different variations, I think, of Android's different— because they have so many different operating systems, I guess— causes issues for like complex apps. Yeah, like very involved in like banking and things like that.

Yeah, we'll find out because I'm hoping that it'll be compatible with a lot of different phones and stuff, but I may be going through another learning curve.

If it's simple, it's just running algorithms and things like that, you might not have to worry about it. Yeah, it's not like connecting to other things. Yeah, right.

Yeah, it connects back to my servers, but, uh, hopefully that'll, that'll be all right. Yeah.

Did you go to college?

I did. I graduated Oklahoma Wesleyan University, Business Administration. Okay. And yeah, I've thought about going back, you know, and things like that, seminary or this or that, but I just never— it never— the door never opened wide enough for me.

So I got one of my close friends just keeps going back to school, and I can't figure out why. He's like, he's now a PA. I think he's gonna like specialize into something. And the military's paying for him to do it, so like he has zero student debt. And that's awesome. Not only gets school paid for, but gets paid to go to school.

Well, there's a reason.

Yeah. Um, but you know, you'll also just be a PA or be, you know, there's lots of tracks in the military you can go.

Um, I love that about the military, you know, it's a great option.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, if money was an issue and your kid wants to be a doctor, military.

Yeah, I mean, I tell my son that, I'm like, man, you know, Air Force, or, you know, and he's been intrigued by it, you know. And so I think that's a great option for some guys.

100%.

Um, they're serving the country, you know, at the same time they're learning the value of of freedom. So exactly, and they earned an education.

Yeah, they're going to get paid, and you know, if they're doing it while they're in there, or if it's a career track within, um, you know, you can definitely get paid to do it. You know, then even if you're just, you know, you do your 4 years and serve and get out, and you still have the, um, what is that called, VA benefits. Is that what it is? Is it VA? Yeah, VA benefits. So you get 4 years of college.

Okay.

And you can either use that yourself or give it to your spouse or give it to your kids. You can split it up. Really? Yeah, yeah, military takes care of those guys, and they definitely should. Yeah, uh, yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a, it's a nice, uh, nice little thing he's done of get a check while going to school and accumulating no debt. And to the point where he'll be able to leave, you know, as— I don't know if he's going to become a full-fledged doctor or not, but he could. He just— then you get to leave and go into private practice with zero debts, and he gets a healthy paycheck now.

So yeah, I'd almost think there's very few doctors out there that can go, you know, be a doctor on their own without having massive amount of debt.

It's expensive.

Yeah, it's a long time to go to school.

I mean, even if you get schooling paid for, I mean, you've got to like live, so yeah, and it costs to live.

Um, and some people don't think of the cost of, you know, not having another job that pays. You know, you're going to school for 8 years, well, that's 8 years you could have been working somewhere else making more money. Yeah, and so there's an actual cost cost there that doesn't add up, you know, in your bank account, but it's there. Yeah, it's a lost revenue cost.

No, that's a real, real, real thing. Um, you got nothing else, huh? I'm trying to think if I got anything. Nothing super. How long has it been? I don't know. Did we get enough? On tape?

Yeah, we did.

Okay, good. We can end it. 9:23.

My gosh, yeah, we got plenty.