How do two ordinary people in Kansas City end up building a school in a remote African village? A school that not only educates, but saves local children from lives of slavery? Only through the hand of God. You'll love the story of Joe and Robyn Neurerburg on this week's episode!
The Dan Scott Show Podcast
Dan Scott Show, Radio Episode 99 - Joe and Robyn Neurerburg (12-8-24)
The following program is a presentation of Grand Slam Ministries. Hi again everybody and welcome to this week's edition of The Dan Scott Show. This is episode 99, 99, and every one of them have been presented by our 501c3 nonprofit organization, Grand Slam Ministries. I am Dan. It is great to be back with you. I want to thank all of our affiliates for being able to adjust on the fly last week. If you were listening last week, you noticed that we had a repeat program, and I left it up to the stations to pick one because I was on a plane to Las Vegas, Nevada for Furman University basketball. We played in an event out there that had us in Vegas on Tuesday night, and then in Lawrence Kansas at the University of Kansas on Saturday. Time just got to the point that I couldn't do a new version of the show, and so I just want to thank the affiliates for being able to pivot on the fly like they did. I'll tell you, again, nothing catches God by surprise as much as it might have caught the rest of us by surprise, but one of our affiliates replayed my testimony, and I saw someone post on Facebook the PAIN acronym that I used to describe what I was going through pornography, alcohol, infidelity, and notoriety, those things that had really led me down a path of destruction, and using that as the jumping off point back to what God had done in my life. So it impacted somebody, and that's what we want to do on this program is impact as many people as we possibly can. On this week's show, you want to talk about impactful Joe and Robin Newerberg, just two normal people that have impacted an entire village in Africa, how you say, well, two people on their own through the work and the help from God building a school. It's an incredible story, and that's just a tip of the proverbial iceberg. This week's guest, Joe and Robin Newerberg will be with us when we come back after you hear this from Grand Slam Ministries here at Grand Slam Ministries, our goal is to share the love of Jesus Christ through multiple platforms, while at the same time executing our core missions of mentorship and helping children in need. The primary way we can effectively do all of those things is through the Dan Scott show, our weekly Christian radio show that airs in multiple markets around the nation and the world. We are asking you to partner with us to not only sustain what we are currently doing, but to grow both our on-air, online presence, and our ability to fund those core missions. Can you spare as little as $25 per month? How about $10 per month? If we can get 200 partners to join us at each of those small, sustainable levels, we can begin to accomplish everything we believe God has called us to do. So can you help us today with a donation of either $25 or $10 per month? Please go to www.grand slamministries.org for your donation to get more information or to ask questions that's grand slamministries.org. And thank you for supporting the Dan Scott show and Grand Slam Ministries. Like what you hear, have a question or comment, maybe a guest suggestion. Drop us an email and let us know. Dan@danscotchow.org. And now, back to the Dan Scott Show presented by Grand Slam Ministries. Episode 99 of the Dan Scott Show. It is great to have you with us. Hope that everything has gone well for you this week. Try not to mess it up if it has. Hey, as you know, the one stop shop for everything we do is Danscotchow.org, grand slamministries.org is a page there. And while this show is airing on Saturdays and Sundays, we're recording it on Tuesday. This just happens to be giving Tuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, that has become very popular for nonprofit organizations, for colleges and universities all across the country. So if you have time at the end of the program, I want to talk about that just a little bit. But I want to remind you that you can get everything you need to know about what we do, archives, everything else at Danscotchow.org. Well our good friend, Neil Getzlow is responsible for hooking me up with Joe and Robin Newerberg. Neil's been a guest on this program a couple of times, had me out in Kansas City back in October to speak at a Celebrate Recovery meeting. And one of the people in that meeting who came to hear me speak was Joe Newerberg. He and his wife Robin have taken it upon themselves to build a school in a village in Africa. And it's so much more than that now. How do two people do that? Well, that is the story we're going to tell you in our interview with Joe and Robin Newerberg. And as always, I just began by asking them to kind of introduce themselves to you, our audience. Well, I'm Robin Newerberg and life right now is probably the best it's ever been. We've got two grandsons, which are just a lot of our lives. And the work that we're doing in Ghana is so much fun, it's fulfilling and things look very bright. And I'm Joe Newerberg and we have an F4 kids as well besides the two grandkids that we like. Oh, yes. We'd be like that too. Well, but you know, it's funny. We have four grandchildren, three here, one in heaven and we have another one on the way. And when we had the first one, we found out that the old joke is true that if we'd have known how great grandkids were, we'd have had them first. Yes. I'm glad we didn't kill any of them because this was way worth it. And the temptation is real, isn't it? At times. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, my background is actually commercial real estate finance and so that's kind of the day job and Robin's a nurse. That's how we keep the roof over our head when we're not working on things in Ghana, but that's truly a passion of ours and we've seen God do some amazing things. And it's, what are we, six years in? It's already bigger than better than what we ever, ever dreamed it would be. Well, I want to get into from the very basics of how it started and tell the story up and where it is now, but I think it's important that people know how we got connected because it's through a mutual friend in Neil Getzlow who has been a guest on my radio show twice. The last time was talking about the Celebrate Recovery Program at the Rock of Casey Church there in Kansas City. And out of that, he said, Hey, you need to come out and speak if we can work it out. And it happened to work. And I know Joe, you were there, but you had just come in and you were jet lagged and left right after that, right? Because you were. Yeah, we had just gotten back from it, we actually took a trip to Kenya for something kind of ice extreme related and Neil said, Hey, you've got to come here to the sky talk. So he said, you've got to come Wednesday night and just kind of your Dan and his story. And so like you said, Neil, Neil and Amy are just very dear friends of ours and wanted to be there because if Neil says, Hey, you got to hear this guy speak, I believe him. So I was able to make it there that night, but yeah, our body clocks were quite right yet. So I was going to say I'm glad that I found out later that you were jet lag because had I looked back in the audience and noticed you asleep, I probably would have taken it personally without having all the facts, you know, the good news was I say the way you do the great job. Yeah, that is funny. So so you guys go to the rock of Casey there there with Neil. I had a just a wonderful time meeting all of the people that we got to meet on that Wednesday night last month. But let's let's I guess let's just let's dive right into this. How in the world do a commercial real estate guy and a nurse end up building a school in Ghana? I mean, so what's the genesis of the whole idea? Well, what's interesting is you kind of you we talk about divine connections and going back in time. There's before Robin and I even knew each other, there was the gentleman that I had met from a church I used to go to and he had a they don't live in Kansas City anymore, but had a nonprofit that did some work in 80 in Africa and went to one of his dinners and became a donor there and kind of got to know him and then, you know, and he's in the medical field and so, you know, fast forward, I meet this lovely blonde here and we date and get married and we go to one of his events and start telling him a little bit about her. If you've got anything kind of coming up that's, you know, that you could use a nurse or medical team because Robin, her heart is really missions work and he's like, well, hey, I'm taking this team to Ghana, this is something 2016 and won't you kind of take it from there. Yeah, so it's my first ever medical mission trip, I've been dreaming of going on the opportunity of Rose. I was just so grateful, I went with a lot of people I didn't know and made some very good friends, but the we did some we did some volunteering in different places and we did some medical care and some just physicals and then the last day that we were there, a gentleman took us out to this village, they wanted us to do free medical clinic out there. So here we are, we're walking in the mud, no shoes on, then we have to get a canoe and cross the water and then a walking again, it felt like hours and I thought, what in the world have I gotten myself into and where are we going? So we just turn a corner and there's Ayavekope and the second I laid eyes on it, I knew I would be there again without a doubt and I didn't know why or why even felt like that, but it was an instant that I knew I'd be there again. It's interesting, my wife has been on mission trips to the Dominican Republic once and to Mexico twice and then she and I in 2017 went together on one in Canada, but you go, she tells me you go into those things, not knowing what to expect, you go into those things and you really get stripped of all pretense and you're going with the mindset of being a blessing to someone else, which you do, but the first thing she told me when she came back was she felt like that she got a bigger blessing than anybody that they had worked with down there. That's true, we say that a lot that we almost feel like we're cheating kind of because we feel like we get more out of being able to be with them than what they could ever get from us. What is life, what was life in that village like? Well, it was like a scene off of National Geographic, mud huts, that truth, no electricity. I just never in a million years would have pictured myself there. I mean, when we were growing up, we went to Branson for vacation, like we never did anything like this. It was very, very, very primitive, almost like the world had just forgotten about them. Yeah, and then when she came back and told me a little about her experience and how something was stirring in her about going back and doing a little homework, it's in an area that there's a large fan made lake in Ghana, depending on where you look, it's considered the largest man made lake in the world, actually was flooded to create a dam for electricity, but it's a flooded forest basically. And this lake has one of the highest rates of like child slavery and trafficking in the world. So these slave masters prey on these rural villages, they go there and say, I'll give you a little bit of money and I'm going to take your child and I'm going to get them educated and we'll get them out of this life. And then those kids are on a canoe fishing boat for 12, 14 hours a day. They never see a school. So having a school in that village then takes away, takes that away. So they've never had a school there before and now that we've actually seen that in one of our villages, we were told that someone came saying, well, we've got to, we'll take you away and it was how many hours away and they're like, well, no, we go to this other village and go to school there. And so that's kind of the genesis of it is when we did a little homework on where the lake was and then Robin felt that calling and the chicken family then went back a second time. Yeah, I think we wanted to fight the human trafficking child slavery. We wanted to fight that so bad and God just, I mean, it was one day I can still clear. I can hear it. I was coming to traveling home and I heard a bill to school. And so that's how we, that's how God wanted to fight child slavery is by providing education. So after a while, they were making some of the boys get up early in the morning like 2 a.m. to go fishing. And so when we found out about that on our next trip there, we laid out the, we laid, we laid it down. If they didn't stop doing that, then we were done. We wouldn't come back and we were the buildings were theirs. They could do what they want with them, but they had to stop letting, making those boys fish in the morning. They had to have rest to be able to go to school and it stopped. And I, one thing I thought was really cool. So Robin actually reached out to the, the gentleman in Ghana that took that original group on the tour and said, Hey, I want to come back up. I want to meet the chief and I want to talk to him. He actually set all that up and she went and met with the chief and the elders. And cause it's like, well, we want to do this, but do they even want to work with us? Is this even? Oh boy. So when he brought it up to him, they said, Oh, we already know what we're going to build it. We'll show you. We've been trying in the government promise. Nobody came back, so they took us over to this pile of like cement blocks and then as they say, the rest of history, I guess. So, so you, you think that you've had this inspiration, which you did, I suppose, but God was already working ahead of time. He'd already put in the minds of, of the, the villagers that this is something we want and we know where it's going to be. Yes. Yes. They, it took them a couple of trips for them to take us seriously that they really, now they're stuck with me. We've told them, you know, we're, they're stuck with us now for life. So that took them a couple of trips to trust us that we were really going to do what we said. And we've always told them we'll never, ever promise something that we know we can't 100 percent do. So if we say we're going to do it, we're going to do it. We know that God will provide. We are visiting with Joe and Robin Newerberg on this week's edition of the show. Two people who through divine inspiration decided to build a school in Ghana and we're going to talk about the, the process and everything else. You mentioned going and talking to the chief and how well it was, it was received by them. What did you feel like in the moments before the conversation, how much trepidation did you have when you were getting ready for that meeting? Oh, a lot. A lot. I was very nervous. I've never done anything like that in my life. And here I am. I felt like I was sitting with royalty and it was, it was such a big deal and everything was so formal and traditional. And yes, I was very, very nervous. But then I think that was when he started calling me his wife. So every time we go, he calls me his wife, but he knows I'm not going to be his wife. I was going to say there's not some kind of village tradition that you got roped into without realizing it, right? No, no, no, we are not married. That's 100% for sure. The chief has a, he's a great leader and has a wonderful sense of humor and the, the first time I was out there, it was like Robin's fourth trip or something like that. But through an interpreter, he just, he was joking with me saying, Hey, how about we have some sort of competition and the winner gets to keep Robin? I'm like, I already won. I'm about to do anything. You hope he was joking. Right. Yes. Wow. He's such a good leader and he cares so much about his family and his people and he's just been wonderful to work with. So how, how big is the village? How many people are we talking about and inside of that, how many children are we talking about? And that is the, that is the million dollar question. Everyone asked how many people, we don't have no idea. The chief has no idea. It's, they can sometimes be kind of like nomads where they hear that there's better fishing somewhere else on the lake and they just pick their family up and go. So we really have no idea, but right there, we have, there's over 400 students. Right there at the, at I have a copate, our main, main school. And then you can kind of get into the, to the growth, but you know, we have a satellite location and we're actually starting to work with another village. So our main school serves five villages and then we have a satellite school and another one and this other one we've kind of started. So in about a month ago, our total student count was 600 and we're getting close to 700 kids that are having the option that they've never, ever had before and would never have had from, from what ages, what age, what age group? Pre K all the way till, well, it'd be ninth grade here, but the, some of the kids we, for a while had a 22 year old in the second grade class. Yeah. You're talking about kids who have never seen the inside of a classroom. So they can be any age and still be in school, but it's, yes, it's grades like pre K till ninth grade. What I'm, I've got a thousand things running through my head here. And I know what it's like when I come up with, with an idea and I'll run it by my wife and she'll give me that look, uh, like, have you lost your mind again? Yes. You know, again, so, when we, when I went on that first trip. Yeah. So, so that's what I'm wondering, Joe, when Robin comes back after I what the second trip or whatever it was and said, I want to build a school in Ghana, I mean, were you on board immediately or what was that reaction? Yeah. I would say, when, because I remember her telling me, you know, I think she had, I just had lunch with my mom when, when she had, you're driving back and her bill, so I remember like being in the driveway and her talking about it and, um, there was, there was just a, I don't know what the right word is it, a difference or there was a different tone, but you could just, I could tell the conviction of something was truly laid on her heart. This wasn't a, I went to, I went this place and it was really cool. I'd like to go back, but it was a just, the God was relentlessly pursuing her. I'm like, Hey, this is something I can tell something had truly been laid on her heart to do. It wasn't a, it wasn't a whim, you know, we're, um, you know, so there was a lot to figure out of how to get, how do you form them? Yeah. Where are we going to start? How do you form a 501c3? How do you get people to start, you know, all that others, but, but, but I, but I, I just knew that there was, there was just a, this was from God. It was something she thought would be cool to do kind of thing. So, so then you two were on the same page. So now you've got to take it from, we know this is what God wants. How do we execute? How do we pull this off? I mean, how do you go about not just a 501c3, but how do you go about building a school in a foreign country and doing it in a, in a remote village that you have to canoe to get to and all of these other issues? What, what, what was the investigation period like? What was rough too was when we wanted to do it, everyone said you cannot do that out there. You can't do it. It can't be done because there's no road. There's no way to get supplies over there. There's no way to get anything over there. So then of course that made me want to do it 10 times more. And we knew, I knew God was telling me that's where he wanted the school to be. So yes, investigating, getting with the social welfare department and making sure that the school was up to standard, tiring, degree teachers, yes, it was, it was a lot, a lot of learning. And would the government of Ghana even allow you to do it? I mean, you've, you've got that issue too, right? Oh, yeah, they would, they'd love for us to put a free school in that they don't have to pay for and they can save theirs. Well, in, in another divine connectors, when Robin went back that second time, the gentleman that in Ghana, his name is Bernard that had coordinated the medical mission trip and Robin second trip, there was a someone else that was driving Robin on that trip. And so we were talking about how, how do you build this? How do you get a contractor out there? And he's like, he was raising his hand, he said, I build houses, and it was Victor. And he was our, so he was our boy number one and our main guy over there today. But, and he's got just an incredible story that kind of led up to meeting us, but, but yeah. So the guy that had to be driving Robin that day was a contractor who was actually getting ready to start his own business and the capital. Yes. And then when he learned about we were doing, he felt like God was calling him to, to go live in this village and help us build this. And so he was, he is, he's truly been with us. Well, really before day one. Right. So some people are listening this and, and, and they're saying, man, what a coincidence, but we know there are no coincidences with God. Yeah, it was not definitely not nothing that's happened out. There's been a coincidence. It is all, it's all been heaven sent visiting with Joe and Robin Newerberg on this week's edition of the program. So logistically, how did you overcome the obstacle of getting materials there and, and doing it? I mean, I don't know if you watch Homestead Rescue, but I mean, it's something Marty Rainey would do. Yes. So, so how, how, how did you logistically pull it off? When we first got started, we had these old ratty canoes that like the water would be maybe a half inch from the edge of coming into the boat, and we would be scooping water out. So they started out carrying all the concrete in every, all the tools, everything in the canoe across the water. So then they handmade every single brick that's been in every, any building, every single one is made by hand. So there's no machinery, there's no big, there's no big tools, electrical tools and nothing, everything they do is by hand, and slowly, now we have what we call the yacht. So we have a very big boat, they can take out the slats in the middle and they're able to get all kinds of things across the lake, but. And it's got a motor, they don't have the rowing one. Yes. We used to have to roll too. Now, now these people that go on our trips, now they're all bougie. They don't know what it was like back in the day. They think they're roughing it, but they have no idea, right? Yes, oh yeah, they don't have any idea. But isn't that part of the satisfaction? Yes. I mean, and what God has allowed you to see basically, I mean, you're talking about hand making bricks. I mean, who hand makes bricks, right? We go to Lowe's, we go to Home Depot, we buy a skid of bricks, do what we need to do. Yes. And hand making bricks to build this building. Yes. It's been, we owe lots of Victor, because he's the one that has figured this out, like how to do it. He's made the connections with suppliers and, you know, sometimes stuff, he'll go to the cap, we'll have to put stuff on a bus to ship it out and then, you know, we'll have guys waiting on the shore when it makes its way there and, yeah, he has made the right connection has figured out how to, you know, how to make it happen and the best place to get. They've taken a lot of ownership in this and they're very proud to say they have these buildings and all the other, you know, villages, nobody has anything like that. So they're very, very proud of the building. And another item or two is because of our location, you know, we require all of our teachers to live in the village during the week. So you show up Monday morning, you don't go home till Friday night. So we had to build housing for the teachers. We wanted them to have an apartment that felt like what they had in town. Right. So in addition to the school, we've got, you know, each teacher has an apartment unit out there. So we've built housing for the teachers. So they've got a place that feels like home, you know, when they're out there during the week. So, so how do these buildings have electricity? No. So we have solar power and they have, they use a generator, so yeah. I don't know that we'll ever be able to get electricity out there. But what about what I'm saying, whether it's through solar or whether it's there, there's some way to, to have lights, to have whatever, you know, whether heating, cooling, whatever is necessary. Yes. Yeah. So Victor has figured that out to you. So he's built some of those. We have where we can plug in generator or he's put a solar panel on. The only building we have really power to all the time is we couple summers ago, we opened up a medical clinic in the village as well. That's a good story to honor someone out there. But yeah, so that has solar power and generator, the back of generator too. So that we do have one, one building out there that truly has power available at all. Right. We have refrigerators. We have anti-venom and other things we have to keep at a certain temperature. So we have to make sure that that is always running. Right. So, so the other big question that comes up, you, you, you got the idea, you got the blessing of the people. That God directed you to the right people to, to get it built. How do you pay for it? Wow. Well, at first it was just our family and friends that were donating and when I did go out on that second trip and they kept asking when will you come back? When will you come back? Like they want to know when we were going to get started. And I just blurted out February and I thought, why did I say that? This was like October. Why did I say that? Why did I say February? Well, on February, I think it was the 18th of the next year. We were back in Atlanta because we broke ground on the school. So we had raised enough money just to get started. Yeah. And, you know, the gentleman that really kind of helped us go and, you know, we leaned on a lot starting out. He said, it's going to start up with people that know you personally and believe in anyone what you're doing. So yeah, I was friends, family, us, you know, and just some great connections and a lot of want to, you know, we'd rather than call them Tupperware parties, right? We'd be at our house or someone's living room and we'd have just a horrible PowerPoint to share about what we're trying to do and just trying to get people to kind of donate to you to hit that milestone that we at least had enough that we knew we could, we could break ground and finish the building. Right. It's thought about education because people don't know modern-day slavery still exists. How has having the school helped probably hasn't totally remedied it, but how has it helped that situation? It stopped. Slave masters don't come around us anymore because they know that we've got a school and they know there's, they just know better. So we haven't had anyone approaching of our students in years as far as I know. And it's gotten to the point to where social welfare has reached out to Victor a couple of times and said, "Hey, we've rescued these two kids from slavery, but we don't know where their family is. We don't know where their family is. We don't know where their father or their parents are. We you guys take them." So our village has even embraced some of these kids. And so now we're solely but surely getting these children to care for. And that's actually our next construction project. For next years, we're going to, we're building a home strictly for rescue kids so we can house them and educate them and do so that that's kind of taking the next step of stopping it to be a social welfare, knowing, "Hey, Isaac, we'll help with these kids if we don't have a place to put up." And they know I'm crazy, so they think that I will when I say I'll get on a plane and come out there, I will get on a plane and come out there. Are you starting to think because, and you know, we hear, we hear so much about child trafficking, even in this country, sex trafficking, unfortunately, are you starting to think that maybe God put you to do what you've done so far as the preamble to this being maybe the, the most important part of your, of your mission moving forward? To open it by education so that we can spread the gospel? Oh, yes. That was God's ulterior motive all along. He just sugarcoated it with the school. But, but, but, but, but specifically rescuing these children out of slavery, is that, is that maybe the, the bigger picture in all of this? I don't, I don't know. I know that I've only heard, I know I'm sure God's talked to me a whole lot in my life, but there's two times I can remember just specifically and we had it, we were in church and our pastor was talking about Moses and talking about holy ground and I just heard rescue my children like three times and it was just as clear as all, as, as clear as it could be. And so we got out to the car and I told Joe, I said, I think we're supposed to build a house. We're supposed to build something for the rescued kids like we have to do something. So maybe that is why we, we, it was just for the gospel too, but maybe that is why. Because, you know, when we first started, we touched that was far out, maybe not even attainable goals. Like, oh, that'd be cool. At some point we could help the kids that are rescued, but you know, I guess, at least for me, the first time I went with Robin and we, like the school, she had already broken ground and by first time I met Victor and was in the village, you know, and we were doing some activities with the kids and I bet there was 20 to 25 kids on a few benches. So in my mind, I thought, oh, this is, this is a cute little project. We'll have a little house on the Prairie school out here and we'll have 20, 30 kids. It'll be a cute little thing and, you know, all that other stuff, but just, but just to watch it continue to, and we wouldn't have medical care. I mean, that's Robin, you know, that's her background and, you know, and there was a, you tell a story better than I do, but, but a young man that was, that by snake and that kind of led, led to this clinic, but now, you know, now there's two new villages that we've been visiting that were constant, you know, we've hired teachers and ones. There's no building yet, but this, you know, we, we kind of have this expectation of God's going to do this little thing and what we really think it's been, it's been more of God saying if you're faithful, you'll get a peek at what I can do. Yeah. Why do we do that? Why do we just say, oh, I think God's going to do this. And then I think just, who's happened, lose it out of the water? I think that especially Christians in this country, we have a very, very bad habit, and it's probably because we have all of the comforts that that part of the country doesn't have or that part of the world doesn't have, I mean, but we have this bad habit of putting God in a box, right, you know, and, and not having, and maybe I should just speak for myself, not having a big enough faith for a big enough God. Right. We, yes, honestly, where we are today, I would never, ever have dreamt that we'd be where we are today. Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, and it didn't, if I'm being honest, I, I didn't really want to go there. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm tall. I take up a lot of real estate, you know, selfish, I was thinking, man, that's, that could be you know, a comfortable plane ride, you know, I've got bigger, better things to do here than when it's, I was starting to meet with some folks and there's raising money. I always get asked, have you ever been there? I thought, well, I should probably go once just, just like it starts saying yes to that question. Right. Yes. I played eyes on it, you know, I'm, and you've probably figured out right now, I'm the nerd robbing stuff on one. So it'll be, you know, something for her to do and, and whatever, but then, you know, you're there once you're there twice and it's just led to, like the more I'm there, the more I want to be there and, you know, I really honestly think God's changed my heart towards a lot of things, you know, over that period of time, but yeah, you're right. We kind of tend to put him in a box of like, well, here's what I think he can do or what he will do. And he's like, you, you really have no idea. Whenever God does something amazing, Satan always tries to try as a counter. He always attacks. What kind of opposition have you faced here in this country and in, in what you're, you're trying to do with, with the people there, as well as in Ghana. Well, we warn our team members every time, because the spiritual attacks are very real before we leave, especially this last trip. It was really my, is that one my mom broke her arm and yeah, we had several things. We were going to go to the prison and they changed their mind and then that was going to mess all of that up, but yeah, the same does not want, he does not want us there. And I think this last trip, we had, we baptized 15 prisoners. And I think that's the reason that's why he was fighting it so hard. Yeah. And like she said, yeah, that's what always tell people is be prepared for something to happen. There's something's going to pop up where you think I'm not supposed to go or, you know, there's a reason I should stay back or something, you know, there could be flight issues, travel issues, whatever it is, but just, you know, be ready because, because it is coming. And even something like, you know, last year, you know, we do a fundraising dinner each year. And last year, even we had, you know, our, the gentleman that does a lot of our photography and videos for us, you know, as we were setting up for the dinner, like their system wasn't working. And we're like, are we going to be able to show any of these videos? Mm hmm. And it's, it took, you know, luckily we're there early enough, but it took an hour or two just to get it, get it working so we could actually function in that dinner. And he, and he lives in Austin and he was even saying, you know, I'm getting attacked. You know, he just, he just knew things are happening. He's trying to get all the stuff ready to show the dinner. But, but I'm just trying to imagine back at the, the very beginning stages of this when you started telling your close friends and your family members what you wanted to do. They had to look at you like you were out of your mind. Or somewhat they did. I think our, I think our family was all in from the very, from the very beginning. Yeah. I think so because they could just see and tell that, you know, like I said, I've never, I grew up in a very small town. We went to South Missouri for vacations, you know, we just didn't, we never did anything like this. And I think they knew that it was, it was holy ground up there. And we're both fortunate to have parents that are firm in their faith and believers too. So I think that was a big component of them being, you know, it's like, hey, we think we're being called to do this and I don't really think in the beginning we had people opposition. Do you feel like we did? No, I, you know, the, I felt like there was a lot of, well, like I said, our initial presentations were not good. Our first dinner was, I don't know, we're novices, you know, and there's a lot of stuff we just, we didn't know we didn't know. I think that was kind of the hard part of like, well, how are we going to do this? What will this look like? Or how do you keep an eye on something halfway around the world? So there's, I think there was a lot of the unknowns that were hard because, you know, I don't like saying, I don't know to answer questions, but there was a lot of I don't know is in the beginning. And I think, you know, that obviously planted some doubt for us and right, but, but doesn't that come with you have to be humble enough to say, I don't know? Yes. We like to say, we'll tell you, we don't know, but we'll find out. Yeah. And, you know, we've told our board and other people to, you know, if this ever becomes about Joe and Robin, it's going to fail. Yes, definitely. And so if they ever see it becoming about Joe and Robin, we've told them, please say something. Yeah. You know, we don't, we don't ever want it to become. If we don't keep it Christ centered, it'll, it will crumble without a doubt. Well, I think we can just look at what's going on around our country and see, see that's the case, you know, so not to get political or anything, but I think that we can, we can easily see when you take Christ out of whatever, take Christ out of the government, take Christ out of school, and some places take Christ out of the church. We see, we see what's, what's happening around the country, so I think you're exactly, you're exactly right. And God has a way that I've experienced this, and I'm sure you have, if you do start filling a little too proud of yourselves, he has a way of reminding you that, that, hey, I'm the one doing this, not you, right? Yeah. He'll bring us right back to that's for sure. So as we come down the stretch here, share a story or two about the impact that you've had with, you started to go into one story a while ago about a young man who had gotten bitten by a snake or something, but just talk, maybe share a couple of stories that'll let our audience know about the impact it's having on the big, the villages and the large group, yes, but when you boil it down and you know that you're actually impacting a person's life. Right. You have those stories? When we, when I, before we really got started, we had a boy's name was wisdom, and he went to, he was out by the lake and he didn't have his snake boots on and he was bitten by snake. And we said, we sent all the money, we paid for everything. He got to the clinic, but when he got bit by the snake, he got on his bicycle and peddled it. So he just coursed that venom through his body even faster. And I think it was about four days he lived and they passed away. And that was when we knew we had to get medical care out there. We had, they have to have medical care, they have to have access to care. We cannot, we can't do, we cannot lose another student. And then since then, you know, there's been four or five other people or kids that have been bitten by a snake and they've all lived because we've been able to get them stable with the medical clinic. But we, we've had medical things happen like that a lot. There was a, a young girl that had been burned, she had a seizure and was burned in a fire. And I went to check on her and she, it was the most ungodly painful burns I've ever seen infected. And they told me if we hadn't, if we hadn't gone and seen her and we hadn't paid, she would have just lived like that. She would have just lived the rest of her life like that in pain. And God only knows what else from the infection. So that kind of made me sit back and think, wow, this is really, this is really big. What we're, what is, what God's doing. There's a lot of medical care stories I think out there. And, and on the education side, you know, we, and gone after ninth grade there, you take like a major exit exam and take several days. And so we, so last year we had our first group of kids go take that exit exam. And so we're in the process of building a trade school right now in the village. So, so that's after you get out of there, you can go learn a trade and create a business out of it. But, but some of those kids even went, they got scholarships to go to high because high school, there's more of like a boarding school. It's not, you go live there and go to school there versus. And we had when five or six kids get scholarships to go in the town and stay and, and go on to high school. And they're all successful to this day. And so just, I, I think that's been pretty cool. And then there's a girl that was from our village and she went on to fashion design and, and in graduate there. So on Robin was there earlier this year, you know, they did a, like they did a fashion. So she's making dresses and, and so that's part of the trade school we have sewing now. So all the sewing students are making all the uniforms for the kids at school. But so, but just being there long enough now to see that and I think one of our favorite ones from this last trip is there, you know, there's a language barrier there's, but the kids learn English and French and in school. And so a lot of the kids are speaking English now. So there's more communication there, but we have a child sponsorship program, you know, where you sponsor a child for $50 a month. And then when we go over there, we let you know, and we take over cards and read them to the kids and try to give you reports on them. Well, this last trip, Robin saw an older student actually reading the English letter to a younger student. He was two, one of our board members, Tina, just loved to death. And I said, wait, listen, and we could hear one of them reading the letter of older boy reading the letter in English to a younger boy and just tears came. I just never in a million years when I'm really pictured that we would get that far and shame on me for thinking that, but it was a beautiful moment. I think the last thing and in my mind, the most important thing out of all of this and everything that you've done is important, but you referenced it a while ago and that's sharing the gospel. I mean, that's got to be the center of everything that's going on over there. What is the religious background of that area of Ghana and how open have they been to Christianity? Yeah, I'd say it's a mix of Christianity and Muslim in the area to give the Muslim population grows a further north you going on, I would say. And to some of the Christianity there is kind of the Old Testament, you know, kind of deal with its, you know, it's a lot of work based and different things like that. But they've been open and another one of our board members, Brad, who's been with us since day one, he was in ministry world for a while. That's kind of what they did is help mobilize and go to other missions. And that was kind of things, you know, to share the gospel, you've got to build reports. Like Robinson, the school does help solve this child slavery problem, but it built a relationship. So now there can be this trust. So we are much more open each time about sharing the gospel with the kids and, you know, and with the adults as well. And we even have someone on staff now who Wednesday mornings, he is basically preaching the gospel to the kids. And he's laying the groundwork right now is we're actually, hopefully in the next year so open to open up a church in the village as well. And this young man will be, will be our pastor out there. So we're, yeah, that's where we are with that. So what's next? I mean, what's, what's left to accomplish, right? And there's, there's always, there's always something else guys, the limits. Well, I think college is next, our kids that are in high school right now. I think the sky's the limit for them. And, you know, and we're, it's, it's, I kind of sometimes like we're just getting started to, you know, we, because we went on this trip to Canyon, met with a group that's 30 years ahead of us, bought some stuff and learned a lot from them. And so I think this home and school for rescue kids is next and we're looking at doing some, some farming as well to create jobs, but then also we can use that to feed the kids in this rescued home and some of the access to create revenue. So I, I'm, we were just talking about this earlier tonight, I just, I kind of feel like I was just getting started. Like there's, there's some big stuff coming in 2025 for us. If people want to find out more about this, if someone wants to offer some kind of help financial or otherwise, is there a website for your nonprofit? How can they, how can they get in contact to get more information? Yeah. So our, our website is Isaacstream.com and it's ISAACSdream.com and there's, there's our stories on there. There's a link there to donate. They can also email us at info@isexstream.com as well and on. We've already started planning for our summer trip next year. So we've still got a lot of seats open for that summer trip. Yeah. And then we, we push a lot of information out through Facebook as well. And our handle there is Isaacstream nonprofit on Facebook and Instagram. Uh, that, that's where we, yeah, that's where we tell most of our, that's where, yeah, we share most, I share a lot on there. So, uh, it keeps, uh, Facebook's probably the quickest way to update. I'm going to be interesting to see what God does with this interview because, um, we're on 39 over the air radio stations here in, in the US, eight internet only stations. One of the internet stations is in Paisley, Scotland, which we have, we have a huge listening audience. The other international one is in Cape Town, South Africa. Oh, wow. So I'm, I'm going to be really interested to see what God does with this because I, again, I don't think there are any coincidences, I, I think that through God bringing nilling and me together that it was meant for us to do what we're doing right now. So we'll see. Yes. It's very exciting. Yeah. And it is exciting and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed getting the opportunity to talk to Joe and Robin and I would bet you'll hear them again as we get opportunities to update you about what continues to happen with that village that they have invested so much of their time and their life into. Thank you again, Joe and Robin Newerberg. We'll take a break. Come back and get into wrap up mode here on this week's edition of the dance show. Every day there are children who leave school on Friday and eat little and sometimes nothing until they come back to school on Monday. It happens in every community, including yours. Many of these children live in circumstances that deprive them of basic needs necessary for a quality life. At Grand Slam Ministries, we want to change that. We want to invest in our children, giving them hope for the future. That investment includes necessities such as food, clothing, school supplies, and a safe environment to play, to study, to live. Please visit our website, www.Grand SlamMinistries.org to find out more about our ministry and how you can help. We're just getting started. Will you come alongside us for the children's sake? Again, that's www.Grand Slam Ministries.org. Want to see a listing of our affiliates? Check out videos or listen to past shows and explore our archives. It's all available at our website, DanScottShow.org. And now, back to the show. We are back to close out the 99th edition of the DanScott Show. Can you believe that 99 of these bad boys that we have done since starting back in January of 2023? And hey, before we go any further, I want you to listen to this. Greetings in the Lord Dan and Grand Slam Ministries, this is from Linda in Nebraska. And I just want to take a moment to give God thanks for His goodness and for the marvelous works that He's done in my life recently from listening to the DanScott Show. So I was unsure about the direction I felt God was leading me in my life, and I was stuck in moving forward. A couple of months ago, I contacted you by email, and not only did you reply, but you also prayed for me. And it was not only encouraging, but the Lord was speaking to me through your words. And in these recent few weeks, the Lord has restored my soul, He's revived my life, and I am now moving forward through a new door that the Lord has opened for me. Thank you, Dan, and Grand Slam Ministries for being a faithful servant of the Lord. May He continue to bless you, your family, and your ministries. In Jesus' name, amen. I can't tell you how much it meant to me to get that from Linda listening out in Nebraska. She responded to the call we've been putting out about people, "Hey, if this show has had an impact on you in some way, email us or send us a recording, 60 seconds or less, and tell us." And she did that. It's impacted her so much. She started her own radio ministry designed at helping widows like her, and she's been in contact with us many different times and just can't thank you enough, Linda, for doing that. Folks, that's the kind of impact we hope this show is having. And as I mentioned, we're recording this week as we normally do on Tuesday. 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Thank you for tuning in. Back next week with another all-new program. Until then, I'm Dan. God bless you. And so long, everybody. Thank you for listening to this week's Dan Scott Show. ScottShow.org. and I'll see you next week. You