I can say your name, right, I think you can, Travis Hunt.
It's out there. There was freedom in that well, there's some freedom and there's some you know, some sadness.
Interesting, I didn't even think about that.
There is a sadness. I've had to die to what I wanted.
Wow, you know that that's the one thing we should start were I'm at you, and then we'll see that something you've been doing for a very long time has drastically changed in the three years that I've known you. We're actually we have we have some friends in the room today, which is rare but cool, and guys. I wanted these guys to hear your story along with everyone on the podcast. But I'll take us back to a when's the fair July? Yes, July July August, three years ago,
this coming July, and we're playing a concert. I am on fire for the Lord and on my way out of music, but no one knows that at the time, but my band is. They They just laugh at me. They see me doing these Bible studies and reading the Bible and and engaging with people, engaging with people talking about Bible things. And we end up at this fair Chemist Valley fairs. What is it called? Nope, No, Roseburg, the Douglas County Fair, Douglas County Fair in Roseburg, Oregon.
Yeah, and with Granger Smith as a headliner.
Yes, we were headlining. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful place. And you know the hillsides and green green evergreens and and and hardwoods and rivers running through right right behind where the fair was. And my guitar player Todd comes on in that afternoon, Hey, Granger, something you might like out here in the fair? Like what he goes, There's a booth out here that says what does they say, Heaven or Hell? Yeah, it says Heaven or Hell. You know, to question booth.
They call it two Question booth. You might want to go check it out. And I was like, yes, I do, Yeah, I jump up. That sounds that sounds amazing. I would love to go talk to these guys. So on my way there, I'm walking to this booths in the middle of the afternoon and this beautiful fair, and I had been doing so much work with atheist it like the previous day. I think I was talking all day with an atheist and and I thought, I think I'm gonna be an atheist today for this booth. We'll test them
out a little bit now. Whether or not this is a good thing or not, it's I don't know, probably not a good thing. You guys, don't judge them. Actually, yeah, don't judge me for it. This was the wise decision that I had. I was working with the tools I had at the time. So I go to this booth and they're like, you know, hello, sir, how can we help you? And I was like, I just don't know. What are you guys? What are you selling? Like, well, actually,
we're not selling anything. We're just here to answer a simple question. You know, are you going to heaven or Hell? And I was like, neither exist, so I don't think I'm going to either one. And they're like, yeah, we respect your opinion. Can we ask you a few questions? And I was like is it religious garbage? And they're like, let me show you some let me let me, let me ask you a few questions and we could we can get to your point and find out, you know,
where you're standing. This went on, you know, I'm just throwing out everything. They were very gracious and very wise, and uh, they had a heart for me. They loved me. You know. It was a beautiful thing. And this went on for In my mind it's thirty minutes, but it was probably more like fifteen, you know. And then this girl walks up. I remember she was. She had short hair and it was spray painted pink and she was wearing all black. Other than that, I just wanted to talk.
There's something about her and I just thought, oh, like the game's over now. Yeah, well, she needs to talk. And so I was like, I'm sorry, guys, let me let me, let me bring her in here. And they were like, we're not finished with you. Yeah, And I was like, seriously, guys, like you need to talk to her. I think she really wants to talk. And Farren, who I now know is your son who's now a dear brother, love him to death. He was like, I'm not finished
with you yet, you guys, can you handle her. We're going outside.
Yeah, we're gonna step outside of the booth, which means something else in your previous life stepping outside.
This is a good thing to step outside. And I went around the side of the booth and I was like, brother, I'm a Christian. He goes, I don't believe you one bit, and I said, don't really. He goes, tell me the gospel, and so we started walking through the Book of Romans, you know, right, and he goes, oh, so you are okay, okay, you're believing. What in the world are you doing? And I was like, it might have been this might have
been unwise. I just I came over here and I've been talking to this atheist in the last few days and you guys did great. Let me go introduce myself. One of the guys, he was brand new to the booth. I think it was his first year. He was a little upset and rightly so he was like, what were you trying to do? And I was like, oh, you're right. I'm so sorry. I was out of line. And but then Farron and I connected and he goes, hey, let's
let's take a walk. So we walked through the fair and we went and looked at the stage and the guys were kind of sound checking, and we our conversations were getting deeper and deeper, and I told Farren, probably the first person outside of my family, and I said, see, oh this is going away. I'm leaving this yeah, And he wasn't like what He goes, the Lord does that thing. You know, the Lord. The Lord does such things, you know.
Yeah, he's seen a couple of them, or the Lord just radically changed people like that.
And he said, you know, you should meet my dad one day. I think you'd really like my dad. And I was like, yeah, you know, maybe I wasn't. I was not expecting you or anywhere in the vicinity. And I was like, yeah, I would like that, and he goes, okay. We exchanged numbers, and I said, let's let's get together to night. Let's have dinner and we'll have you guys backstage, and and he said, yeah, I have a friend that's coming tonight and he's he's not saved, and but he
really loved you. And I said, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna preach the gospel from the States tonight. And he goes, that would be that would be really encouraging, that'd be fantastic. And so I get back on the bus and then he texted me. He says, hey, Dad's here, you want to come meet him.
I was like, okay, so you had like just minutes away from him, and turned around and came back.
Yeah, it was short. It was a short time. I go down and and there you are, and you brought someone with you about Chris, Yeah, that's right. And I met you and I just thought, I like this guy. You to me, you brought you brought a navy seal aspect to a believer when sometimes people think of Christians is mild. And we misuse the word meek all the time. We completely misuse it as we we use meek as weak. But here you are, and you're just locked on you know,
your eyes around me. You're probably going let me see if this guy's a believer. First of all, you want to know what I was thinking. Yeah, yeah, okay, So my son had told me you were a believer. I have seen God do so many insane things. I was praying, Lord, what is this about? Who is this? What do you want?
That was seriously, I'm like, okay, we got somebody who's famous in front of me, engaged.
What are you doing? What do you want? That's seriously what was going through my mind.
So as I was listening, we're engaging, I was trying to assess, Lord, you got your hand on this guy. I just need to know why I'm here. So that's what I was praying about. Why am I here? Why is this conversation happening. So that's what was going through my mind.
Well, everything that's going in my mind is I'm talking to you and you're telling me. And at the time, kind of going back to the beginning of this conversation, the world, your name doesn't exist in the world at this point outside of your own church. Really, your your name doesn't exist on purpose because you you're international missionary. I don't even like to say that because that gives people this this wrong wrong the idea, this wrong view.
So we'll get to that. But you're you're a guy that travels for very specific reasons and does pretty significant things, and you don't go for flippiant reasons. It's all. It's always very calculated, and everything in my spirit was just saying, go go with them. Yeah, I heard that.
I was pretty surprised at your response.
So I said, can I get your number? Uh? Somehow we exchange numbers, and I said something, you remember it better than I at all. I remember what I say.
You said, consider me a coin in your pocket, spend.
Me wherever you will.
Yeah, yeah, and then you remember what I said. No, And I think someone was with me, but I can't remember who. It was, but I remember saying, don't say that to me. Those are my words. I remember, don't say that. You know, actually, do not say those things to me, because now you know what I mean. Because when somebody says that and they really mean it, I know there is a great work ahead and it's far beyond anything we've ever imagined. Yeah, and so yeah, you're like, no, no,
I'm serious, I'm serious. Use me if the Lord has a place, use me anywhere you see fit. Consider me a coin in your pocket.
I remember asking there in that night, I said, is your dad serious about that? I mean, is he one of these guys that like says things to talk? Yeah? And he goes, I've never known him to say anything that actually didn't happen. He's like, Okay, he's that kind of guy. Later, a few weeks go by, Farren and I connected again through the loss of a son. We both have in common loss of a son. I'm not sure if he realized it at the time. I certainly didn't realize it with him. But we connected later and
you know, talked for hours on the phone over several times. Yeah, and got closer and closer throne than I did. But I didn't know what was coming with you. Neither did I. It was only a few months. Yeah, it's not very long. Hey, Granger, it's Travis.
Well, first of all, that's surreal for me. I'm gonna call Granger Smith. I mean, that's just so you know, that's just a little unusual.
So I call you. Yeah, Hey, Granger, And what am I about to say? I have not spoken about in public at all. You and I spoke before we recorded. We think that this is probably open information now.
I think that at this point because of what's happened through social media and actually what happened in our trip to the country. I don't know if you're going to name it, but the trip to the country we went in, I realized at this point I'm no longer hidden, and so what I have to do now needs be done publicly, and someone else has to do the work I was doing because you can't.
You can't have a.
Social media or an electronic footprint and do what we were doing.
You can't.
And it's getting harder and harder with AI anyway, So at this point, yeah, I think we're probably okay. I think we should keep some of the details quite.
I'll go like minimal details.
But yeah, we can talk about the idea of it and what happened.
So what happened. A lot of people that have been following me for a long time might remember this time when I kind of went dark and said I'm going some places and you know you won't hear from me. Well, that goes back to this phone conversation, which at the time you were either t or another name that we used as a nickname, which we don't want to use here, which we won't. I won't use that name, but but travel was not a name. Really, I didn't call you
Travis for at least a year into our relationship. Yeah, not because it was necessarily bad and right place it was a good It was a habit. I didn't want to say by having you were gs. Yes, yes, And so he says T at the time says to me, we're talking on on on on closed you know, encrypted and messaging. We're not we never talk on regular phone lines. He goes, can you record an album? I was like, yeah, I've done that. I've done it. Yeah, I've done it for years, And you go, can you record an album
outside of the studio? Yeah? Sure, he was, can you do it anywhere in the world. Yeah, sure can. Yeah, I said, I actually have the equipment in my backpack almost at all times because I have a radio show. I carry it right, you know, Okay, have an idea. In fact, you we might have continued to another time. You might have said, I'll get back to you. Yeah, But either way, what happened was you realize that there
was a need in your ministry. From the multiple facets of your ministry that you were doing with your team, you realize there was a there was a gap in worship music for certain cultures around the world, with certain languages, but didn't have it. Yeah, the great, the.
Great need is and it has been missed by Western missionaries for so long.
Is that a lot?
And you see this when you travel in the Third World. A lot of the churches are singing our songs translated into their language. It's our hymns, it's.
Our worship songs, our choruses. There are are words the way.
We say things, and they're not their heart language, they're not their style. There's just no connection. But they think that's Christianity, and so we must. We want to say these good things about God, so we must use these words and sing these songs. These are spiritual songs.
And in fact we're European, we're Western. I mean, the.
Messianic or Jewish worship songs are nothing like our songs because they have a completely different heart, language and the
way they the music that they that they enjoy. And so the problem was that I personally, and I know there's a lot of people that feel this way, feel like the people should be able to sing songs to God the way they sing, imagine that that the worship would be something that they would be doing with their family and their friends, and that there's a lot of amazing songwriters out there who have just no connection to anybody, and how do we get their music to their people?
So when they're singing and the songs are bursting out of their mouth and they're gatherings, it's their songs. Yeah, a new song, you know, Revelation says a new.
Song Revelation five. And you you recognized that there were certain language groups that didn't have it, and certain churches that had none, none of their own music to sing and write zero. That is a major gap that the Lord put on your heart to fill. And somehow that coin was in your pocket from me. Yeah, I'm like, oh, I got to I got someone who knows how to make music. Yeah. So the first plan was to go
somewhere else. I think it was somewhere in Europe, and we were going to go do this in Europe, and I'm like, you know, I've still got a tour schedule, i still still have a job at the time doing music. And then I was like, oh yeah, wow, okay, Lord, maybe you have prepared me all these years for this, like for you know, I thought making music was for me, for exalting myself and getting people like me. Maybe it never was about me at all. Maybe it was just
my recording skills. Yeah, it's just the computer and learning how to set up a microphone. And then that changed. That actually fell through, and I thought, oh that's a bummer, you know, it fell through, and then it so we went a little deeper. It came up here, if Europe doesn't work, we'll go a little deeper. It was actually into the Middle Eastern area, into the sandbox. Yeah, let's go. Let's go into the sandbox and do this. You're ready And I'm like, yes, I'm ready, got tickets. I'm thinking
maybe this, maybe this will fall through. Sure, you know, I've got a couple of microphones, cables, computer.
And let's let's remember you and I have never done anything together, never, And so you're believing that this guy with this idea isn't just a nutcase, but he's going to follow through a little bit.
So you're thinking same thing with me.
I was like, I can't believe he's going to do this. It looks like he might do this. This is great and if not, we'll record him with our phones.
But you know, yeah, so I get to uh said country land. You picked me up with with one of the guys that we worked with, and late night at the airport, we came into the you know, really a safe house. We could say that, you know, it was stayed in a missionary safe house. And I had been to the Middle East before, to Kuwait and Iraq. Right, but this but but once again, that was like the Lord was preparing me. I'd been in Iraq three times, right, Why did I do that? Oh? The Lord was getting
me in a rhythm for something. All these little things started adding up. I was having dreams about the Middle East, I mean, like wildly vivid, the kind of dreams that we talked about this yesterday, the kind of dreams that your brain didn't generate, right, right. You know, there are dreams the Lord very rarely in your life. Does it happen some people more than others. But there are times when you wake up in a cold sweat with chills, your down, your your entire body, and you go, what
just happened in my dream? Yeah, those kind of dreams about what we were about to do. So we get there, We get to the safe house and woke up the next morning early, and we walked to a coffee place, uh, and got a turkey croissant. Because there is, by the way, that is important.
If you do travel with me, you must go to a coffee place.
Coffee very important. Tray, yes, very important. Uh. So we go, we kind of get and it was a beautiful thing. You know. We go to this coffee house and and you're like, okay, we we will pray. They're saying this low you know, we will pray, but we're gonna say the King, and we're gonna keep our eyes open. We're not gonna bow our heads and see your hats on. We leave your hats on. We're holding our croissant. Sandwiches, looking at each other, going, isn't the king good? Isn't
the king good? Yes to the King, to the king, you know that was those That's that's a beautiful prayer. Yeah, if you think about what that means, that's a prayer that that was said many times in the Book of Acts and during that era in the early Church under persecution. Keep your eyes open, your head up, fill your heart with rejoicing for the Lord, and he sees, and he sees. Yeah, so we we we start. We ended up recording five different languages, five songs, so twenty five songs.
Right, but just posted actually, but I don't want to give the website.
And we'll still do that. But meanwhile, you and the rest of the team are working on your own things. Right, So you said, okay, Granger, you're good. Okay, we're out, you know, well.
Way a second, wait a second that you're yeah. I don't know if you're going to give the details. But he makes his own studio by flipping sofas on edge and shoving these pads on top of the making a little microphone areas. And I remember walking in thinking this, I took pictures of it. I'm like this is funky, but you got the sound you were looking for, and we had because of the concrete walls, right, it was just the echo was a problem and street noise and you're hot.
Yeah, it was so hot. I don't think there's any air conditioning in that room. No, we had to turn off recording so loud.
It was just sweating and and oh yeah, yeah, I remember that.
And I go at one point, I go upstairs and you guys are teaching pastors. You're teaching them to read and and to teach the Bible accurately. And you guys are kind of sitting in your chairs and you're going, Nope, that's not what the Bible says. No, And they you know, these guys, and they're from all over the Middle East and India area regions, multiple regions, and they're like, go back to it again, go back And I'm like, whoa, this is cool. They go back down and continue recording.
So I I have a translator, thank goodness. A couple of these guys, a couple of these musicians cannot speak any English at all, right, and but we're wanting to make sure that what they're singing is good. Yeah, biblical, biblical, So We're constantly going back checking lyrics, making sure these these things add up, and a couple of times we're like, well let's not say it that way. How do you say this? And then translate back. But the musicians were amazing.
The singing was beautiful. I learned quickly that the you know, my style would be let's do it and go back and fix mistakes. But we would do it and they would go I'd say, let's go back and tell them we're going to listen for mistakes. Tell them. He says, he didn't make a mistake. So it was. It was
such such a beautiful thing. There was there was I remember there was a moment though when I don't know if you remember this or not, but one of our singer songwriters was singing and he had to take a break and he wasn't sure if he can come back and finish the project. It was just he was overcome with grief as he was singing these songs. He was overcome with them motion and and heaviness, and he went outside. He was just kind of standing on the balcony and
the translator comes back. I goes, I don't I don't know if we're gonna get him. He's he's he's pretty broken, he's a broken place. And I said, you might ask what's going on? And he said, this is a pretty heavy story here. He lost his son. And I was like, I said, well, will you please go tell him that I've also lost a son. He goes you have? I said, yes, will you tell him? He goes back out, but it
tells him looks back at me. I stood up. We have no words in common, right, I just put my hand, you know, right around the back of his shoulder and neck, and I just looked at him, just eye to eye, and our eyes were just glazed over. Yeah, you know, there was no words, just yeah. And he put his hand on me, and suddenly we were brothers united in something that was deeper than we could ever imagine. And
he came back in when we finished the song. Yeah. Well, it's incredible even talking about this, because I haven't got to talk about these things. Constantly interrupted, constantly by the loud speakers outside calling for prayer, the the Islamic call for prayer. Yes, we got to stop now, got to stop. Just blaring call for prayer constantly woke us up in the morning. And it was a good time to get
four am. He's calling, you know, and and not only one loud speaker, but they're kind of all the different little moll and it just became part of our rhythm where it's just it was like i'll say it this way, and I don't, I should say it this way. It was like the enemy was always always right around the corner, you know, just going I'm watching you. Yeah, that's what it felt like.
Yeah, So that's the worship of God went on, and it has been posted in the places that are safe, and the national churches and the indigenous churches are using it and they are singing it. And we've even had seminars where we bring in worship leaders and teach them their own songs. Yes, because they've never heard these songs, but they're their songs and their songwriters. And so that
has occurred. And I have videos of small groups which, yeah, singing these worship songs in small secret Christian groups that this guy wrote and that was recorded and they got off of YouTube. And that's I'll talk a little bit about the YouTube thing if I can.
I mean, we were, you know, security better than not.
Yeah, we were gonna put them. We were going to give them to them through secret electronic means. And after a while, the the people who make the decisions all to say that the inside people in these countries said, you can't can't do that anymore. If you show up with these and there is no other place on planet Earth you can get them, they will already know you're a Christian, so they said, and this is where we're at now. The best thing you can do is post
them for the whole world. And then if you have them on your device, you could say I just found this place. I found this and I downloaded this. No, I didn't have a secret meeting with a secret believer from a secret country.
Yeah, I got it off the internet. This is right here. Look, i'll show you this place. Now.
They may still be beaten, but they're less likely to be tortured to find out who their contacts are.
Yeah. Well, one time I was in Tennessee in an uber and I asked the guy where he's from. He's from one of those countries. I ask him what language he speaks. He's from. He speaks one of those five languages. And I said, oh, you're you're Muslim. He said yes, And I said, hi, I have some music I would love to play for you pulled up you know yeah, and started playing it. And instantly, first of all, you're thinking, how could you possibly know my language? Yeah, my language
press playing he's what you know? My culture? And then and I said do you know what it's saying? And he goes, yes, yes, I know. What is that? I was like, here, I'll get your number, man, I'll give you this right now. Yeah. It was like, wow, this is beautiful. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. So then from there we made a jump into a country. I don't know if we want to say we don't have to. I don't know that we should say. But it's still
in the region. It's a very hot region. We went to a country where you are not supposed to go and we went there. Yes, and we thought we were being sneaky.
Yeah, we had a plan and it was a great plan and it should work, and we had a lot of professionals involved so that it was a legitimate reason for being there, and we were just kind of doing exploration. You know, is this something that can fly? Is can we start a small business kind of a thing that is legitimate and then employ underground believers, feed them and then teach them at the same time. So that's kind of the plan. Can we do this we show up
at That's when I realized I was uncovered. At point in time when we arrived, they were really interested in you. You were the main contact when we arrived. But then at one point, at a table about twice as long as this or three times as long as this, we were sitting down and eating something and drinking something else something. We got very sick on, Yeah, very sick.
And they typed in my home town.
And the second picture of my hometown on their Google photos was me at the pulpit preaching.
Yeah.
I just kind of shrunk back, and suddenly I didn't want to talk anymore because now this looks really bad, really really bad, and it got.
It got I felt sketchy.
I think that we were wise and that we didn't engage, But we had some strange interrogations that occurred after that. Yes, you specifically, because I got quieter and quieter, but they kept saying, what exactly do you do?
Yeah, one of the guys, what do you do? You know you would see him in a movie and be he's just that guy. Guy's a scary guy man, mob boss, kind of guy. And we had been saying he was a guy that drove around with machine gun back this truck. But anyways, yeah, which we later learned, don't don't ride in the truck with the machine gun right in the other truck truck.
We learned, don't ride in the truck that's in front of.
The machine gun. So they knew that you and the other guy that was with us were investors, business investors, and all that was correct. What I was, that was all correct. The amount that you were. We didn't have to say that. And then you talked a lot about ranching and chicken farming, and but you also just knew.
A lot of information about a lot of way too much information about everything.
This mob boss guy at one point at dinner goes, tell me again, what is it you do just like that? Yeah, And me and the other guy, well two other guys were yeah. Red flags went up, Oh man, this is not this is not this dinner is not going. Well. That's when we all knew, without saying it, that this was bad, that we can't come. We can't return to this country like we thought we might not in the plan we had. Uh, we go back and at the hotel. The American flag which is flying there is now flying
upside down, right, it's like pictures of it. That was not settling. We thought behind the multiple barriers for explosives, so we have to go through multi get into the hotel lobby. Yeah. Yeah, and it wasn't No one makes a mistake to fly the American flag upside down. No, it's intentional. It was a message.
Oh well, you know, as a message because you actually mentioned it to the concierge and it didn't get fixed.
Yes, I did. For all those people I listening right now, I actually said, hey, this might not be a big deal to you, but that's my flag out there and it's upside down, and just just wanted to bring it up. Oh it is, yes, yes, yes, we will tell, We will tell. Yeah till management So sorry about that. Yeah yeah, yeah, nothing happened. Yeah, and then again didn't get changed. We we got out of there. We didn't know we got back to the airport, we didn't know if we would
actually make it back into the the host country. But we did. I mean we were. It was good out. It was Yeah.
I've had a few close calls in my life and all that. Oh, nothing was openly done. I had I was not comfortable, spiritually, not comfortable prepared for anything. When we were in the hotels, we didn't talk about and then we decided this before we went in. There was no conversation about our faith, about the Bible. We didn't open a Bible literature. We are surveilled the entire time.
There's someone listening. Yeah, you just you just It was just. There wasn't any code words, We didn't do anything. We were just what we were.
Because they were watching continuously. But I was pretty happy when we left.
I was very happy. It looks like I'm going home. I had a Louis Lamore Old Cowboy book reading. You know. That's as far as exposure as I wanted to get. My phone had like no pictures, just very boring pictures of my dog and things like that. We were fully prepared that we were going to get some kind of interrogation. But we got out of there and then we learned a lot from that trip, a lot. I learned a lot too, And that's the first trip we took together.
It was crazy, was that the first trip. That was our first trip together. Man, when we got close. Yeah, yeah, if you want to get a hold of me for any reason. Go to cameo dot com slash granger Smith. It's a great way to get someone a gift that you don't know what to get. It's a video message from me. Basically, you message me and say, hey, can you tell my brother happy birthday? Can you tell my wife happy inniversary? Or can you give me a word of encouragement or maybe even a prayer? Go to cameo
dot com slash granger Smith. Fill that out and it comes right to my phone. I read what you want me to say. I could add libit. I take my phone, put it on selfie mode, shoot a quick video saying hey, Bob, Cindy wanted me to tell you a happy anniversary, and you know whatever you woman to say, and then I'll send you that video message and then you give it to Cindy's It's a great little tool. Using this for a long time. Cameo dot com slash granger Smith. Have
you heard about ee Fest yet? I need to tell you. It's May ninth and tenth at the EEE Farm. We're gonna have a truck show, We're gonna have a mud bog, lots of good food, lots of people from YE Nation will be there, and I'm even gonna do some kind of live podcast. Uh don't know how that's gonna look yet, but we're gonna do a live audience, live podcast, answer questions, gonna have Amber there, most of my team and my brothers will all be there, and you know, we'll be
at the EEE Farm, so you get to come. It's open to the public completely and you get to come and hang out with us at the EEE Farm. I think it's gonna be so much fun. And here's the surprise. Saturday night, May the tenth, I'm actually playing a concert, my full band, all the crew. It's it will be the only concert we do the entire year. So you don't want to miss this. I mean, this is gonna be If you're part of EU Nation or you want to be part of EU Nation, you got to check
this out. You go to ee E fest dot com for all your info. I'm looking at it right now. If you're wondering the price for the full weekend, it's seventy nine bucks for a ticket. If you just want to go to one day, like a single pass on Friday is thirty nine bucks, and a single pass on Saturday is only fifty nine bucks, So if you want to go to this concert fifty nine bucks, kids are cheaper than that. And then there's all kind of like vip packages ways to get your truck in there. We
could sit on your tailgate of your own truck. It's going to be a really, really good time. I'm so excited about this once again. Ye Fest coming May ninth and tenth. Go to ee dot com or eeefest dot com for more details. We have since traveled to many countries after that, some we can't mention again, but we have done done some crazy work together. Israel twice. We've done that twice. Well before we jump onto Israel, let's stay in that country. We have and you have been
a part of this in a big way. Brother.
We have rescue believers in that country who were being hunted to be executed. Multiple families are currently spread around the world in safe locations because we have helped them to find a way out, and some of their stories are super hair raising. But that same country we were not, we weren't able to go in, and I'm still in contact with leaders in that country and we're still helping them, and I can't really tell you the projects because it
would reveal the leader. But some of the key leaders have been uncovered, especially at the fall of another country which you could probably figure it out. There was a removal of American military, but I'm not going to say that name. They helped them, So that country we were in was helping this other country.
Which was in worse shape. Everyone knows what we're talking about, and yeah, they do it.
Yeah, but it's not as easy to search my AI if we don't use the names. So anyways, they they got uncovered and had to flee for their own lives. So it just sort of dominoed out. And even currently your translator, it's currently in that place where all the mosques were. He's there right.
Now and.
Working hard for the Lord in an amazing way. But I would just say, would you pray for him. He's he's got a very legitimate reason and we've applied for asylum in the US. But it's not a good environment right now, you know, with all of the illegal stuff that's going on the immigration and all the response. But he he's a real he's got a real shot if somebody will actually look at his his paperwork.
So remember to pray for him. Yeah, yeah, we're talking about the guy that was the translator that we're not said. The guy lost his son and we had you know, we got really close to the translator and I and he's a great brother and he is he's heavily persecuted in that country because you cannot return. Even within the Middle East, those countries are prejudiced against each other, and that's what's going on. He's from another country. They don't
like that other country. Racism. We don't know much about racism. Do you want to know racism?
Go to the Middle East and watch the way they treat each other Sunni's and shes and you know, this clan and that clan and this sect and they there is racism, enormous racism. And then ask, okay, I'm really going to go out on a limb, ask the Arabs how they feel about the Africans, and you're like, wow, there is real racism that occurs.
Yeah. So there are countries in between that we won't mention, but we have done different things there. But but then Israel, we could we can openly talk about Israel because I've actually filmed that and put that on social media. Another glaring aspect of racism is right there in that country. Oh man.
Yeah, there's real there's real ethnic hatred.
Yeah. So we've taken two trips together, two of them both of them were last year. You took a trip which I have FOMO about without me recently. But there are multi layered reasons while we have done those those trips to Israel, and one of the reasons that it's it's a place we could return to is because of the turmoil the war. Yeah, there is a softening in the country of hearts that are more willing to listen.
Yeah, there's some amazing stuff that happened. So, having been you know, to Israel a few times prior to our first trip together, we've tried to do you know, I actually I don't know how much we can talk about because some of what we would like to talk about may not be acceptable to the count to that country the conversation. So we have been shared the gospel absolutely with people. But I have just been amazed at the softening that occurred. I have one specific incident which I
think I can say, which totally blew me away. And if I don't give any dates, probably no one will get in trouble. So we're there and because of the war, everybody's fear of death. Psalm ninety twelve teach us a number of our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Right, And in Ecclesiastes seven it says, I'd rather go to the house of morning than in the house of feasting, for that is the end of all man, and the living will take it to heart.
So death is what creates a softening in your heart.
It should can create a softening in your heart towards Okay, what happens next, Yes, it's that breaking point that we were talking about. That moment we're like, wow, I'm at the bottom, like literally I could die tomorrow and so unbelievable. So we're walking up to the jaffagain. It's my favorite story. It may be for the next twenty years, because I've tried so hard to share the Gospel with Jewish people.
And they're hard like rock, you know, and like just that if you had enough. Well, it's Israel, it's Christian Disneyland.
So they're sick of every type of Christian, every strange and odd Christian showing up and doing strange and odd things in their backyard. And they're just sick of it. But we're there and there's nobody. There isn't a single other anybody. We opened up so many sites. They're like, hey, could we see this amazing, like when nobody's been here for months? Yeah, can we We had to bribe one priest with it.
What was it? A peach? Oranges? An orange? Yeah, from Jericha. Yeah, like this is the best orange in the world. It's a Jericho orange.
And he finally came back and he almost didn't open it, but he did open the caves of Bethlehem for us.
But anyways, I digress. So I'm we're at the.
Jaffa Gate and we're leaving and we have these little pins, these little leather pins that we had made. They just have their very simple non Christian. It's got the Star of David with a heart in them. It's a little lapel pin and they're really classy. And so we have these and we're giving them out and praying for people.
Can we pray for you?
They want us to pray for them. They are open to the Christians praying for them. They're open to a couple of things, but that's one of them. But so we're standing off. You were there, right, We're standing off at the Java gate and there's like twenty military people at the Java Gate and there's a civilian outfront going blah blah.
We're talking away and we're just looking at this.
Now there's a lot of military and Jerusalem. This is when rockets were going over and there was a lot of activity and there was terrorist attacks in the city, knife explosions. Last trip, there was explosions when I was there.
They blew up four buses right where we were. But anyways, so there's military movement and we come later on to find out that there is a guard change occurring in Jerusalem, and so these are twenty or twenty five officers who were overseeing the new recruits who are now gonna take Jerusalem proper and guard it. And they're shifting out for the war and God and so they're getting orientation.
So we didn't know any of.
This, and I didn't know they were officers, you know, I just here they are all standing there and we have these pins, and everybody had been so open to let us pray for him, and so we're just kind of standing at a distance.
I remember, we're all kind of huddled and we are we are we stand out.
We are clearly not them, and nobody else is there but us. And they're standing out there and this woman comes back and turns out she's the commanding officer. And she comes back and she.
Says, why are you here? Good English? Why are you here?
And we're like, we tell her, well, we want to pray and let you guys know that the you may feel like the whole world's against you, but the Christians are not. We love you, we're praying for you, we want to encourage you.
We're praying for.
Your safety and for peace for this land. And she's like, oh, it's wonderful. Do you want to talk to my officers? And I said, this is one of those out on a limb. I said, well, the only thing I really want to talk to your officers about is Jesus. Now that is not the good plan, but that's just a totally supernatural event.
I remember. She kind of turns her head sideways and looks at me and she goes, you want to tell my officers about Jesus. And I'm thinking that's the end of that. I said yeah. She goes, come come, and so here we come.
We're literally going to go stand at the Jaffa gate in Jerusalem to twenty officers, and she's just given me permission to tell them about Jesus. She brings him around and she kind of does a little miniature introduction and the civilian. Turns out, the civilian did not like it. She was some sort of an administrator.
Was very I'll tell that story after. Yeah, okay, that was my issue. Very unhappy with the event.
So we go around and I remember the basics of what I shared. It was from Isaiah. I said, I want you to know, first of all, we love you, we're praying for you.
And we believe your Bible. We believe your Bible. You don't believe your Bible.
Yeah, I started quoting Isaiah fifty three and I said, who else died for your sins and rose from the dead?
Who?
And I just began going through the prophecies of Isaiah, which is the irrefutable proof that Jesus is the Messiah. I mean all the way down to the fact that we can prove that the oldest copy that we have is hundreds of years before Jesus arrives, It wasn't changed, and Jesus is the Messiah.
It's still on display. It's amazing. Yeah. So all that to say that, So I told him.
That I believe your Bible and it's tall true, and I believe all the prophets. And I remember as I was gospeling some woman, I didn't turn because I didn't want to point her out because I heard a female voice from this side. And as I was preaching from Isaiah fifty three and then Javagate to twenty of officers of the idf unbelievable story, I remember hers.
I remember her. I heard this under her breath. Yes, shoe ahmasiuk. And then I said, that's right, yeshoe ahamashiak, which is Hebrew for Jesus the Messiah. Yeah, that's right.
And then things start to get a little fall apart up this point, and we give them, give them.
Uh. I can't tell you what.
We give them pins and other things because I think the other things are illegal.
So we give them pins and we pray for them, and then we leave. But now you can tell the rest of okay. So when you said I want to tell them about Jesus, and she was like, you know, turned her head. She said, yes, there was another lady the civilian. There was like some kind of administrator and some kind of superior in this situation. She was sort of running. She was more like the government of the street. And she was like, you cannot tell you no religion
could be talked about, and you started. I turned to her and I was like, so where are you from? That's right. You totally engaged her. And she was like kind of looking around, and she was like, I am from the North. And I was like, tell me about what. I just came from the North. So I'm from Texas. You know, we have these very just don't look at that looking around, like looking around my face, and you know, I was thinking, hurry up, Travis, telling the god. I
remember that. That's right. You shielded me so I could have that window. And you were just finished and she could say, hey, s you cannot say these things. You cannot say these and you're like, oh, yes, ma'am, we won't say anything else. There's another moment on that trip. No, it was the second trip we took to Israel that there was there's a thousand stories. Is this the cucumbers?
It's not the cucumbers. That's an incredible story too. Maybe we should tell that also, well, you and I could have a podcast every day of the week and for a year and probably still not have enough content or still cover too much content. But there was there was a moment maybe you're not even thinking of. We found up in the north. There were churches there and they were almost all bad. So it's fair to say bad meaning I was not sure that their pastors were saved
exactly exactly. So we go to visit one of these churches. We're looking. We're hunting for our believers that are leaders. That's what you could say that right in a nutshell, we're hunting for We're looking. We're looking for young men. We want to help them. We want we want someone that could be that we could pull aside and say, hey, we could provide training, We want to support you and
your church. We didn't find us, which is unfortunate. So we had to go to the ground level, which is fine, but that's what yea.
So couldn't find any leaders in that position, but we did find believers, that's.
Right, So we had to start at the believer level. But regardless, we are at one of these church leaders will call him a pastor with a very loose term as a very loose term. We're at his house with several of his co leaders. I don't dare want to say elder in this scenario, but they are in the Christian side of the faith. They're not Jewish, they're not Muslim,
They're they're proclaiming that they're Christians. They have a regular church, they have a church service, and we go there and they are We're having every house we'd go into, we would usually have some kind of coffee, like Arabic coffee. Were these people Arabic or were they they're Arabic. They're Arabic, Yes, so they would have Arabic coffee, and so if you
cook cookies and sweets things like that. We're sitting around, it's hot, you know, the windows are open, and these guys are just telling us how awesome they are, Yes, how awesome the church is.
They're going to plant multiple sites to get multiple countries. Blah blah blah, were so good, you know, just we have so many conversions, and you know, all the blow we're going to build a bigger building.
And we had been a long day, you know, we had walked a lot, our feet were tired. We're hearing this guy tell these Americans, how awesome his church was. Maybe so we could give them money or something, which we weren't there to do that anyway with these guys, but but maybe they think Westerners and you're silent, you're not saying a thing. And I'm like, Travis is either about to fall asleep, literally sitting in his chair taking
I was praying. I really wanted a word from the Lord. Yeah, and I but then I thought, most likely he's up to something. And he's praying not not about you know, not necessarily for this man. But but Travis is more more so praying for a word in the money. You want to say, why why are we here? God? You know that, what are we here for? And then you go, can I can I say something? Can I excuse me? Guys? Can I say something? And by the way, we have
a translator. They're speaking in Arabic, but they actually they also knew English, and there's a translator, and and Travis says, they were like, yes, yes, yes, speak speak. He said, will you translate this? And they're like, we could speak English very well, sir, And you go, I'm not talking about can you translate it into English? Can you trans into Arabic? And they're like, what's this guy talking about?
And that was mainly because I didn't think the person that you're about to refer to English.
Were right about that. So I'm like on the edge of my seat, like what Because I know Travis maan, I'm like, it's about to be funny whatever. This is gonna be good.
You know.
I've like, I've been in a lot of countries at this one, like a lot of really sketchy situations with you. So I'm like, well, this is gonna be good. He has the floor you want to? I think you should tell the story what happened next? No, no, I like your storytelling, he said. Travis says, do you know who Jesus says is the greatest to his disciples? And they're like and I'm thinking, oh, it's good because they're talking about how great they are. Yeah, they're battling with who's
the best in the room. And Travis says, the one who serves? Is that what you said? What are the one who serves? And he goes, who in this room do you think is the greatest? Right? All right? A sudden, the sweet little old woman carrying a tray.
Feeding all of us refreshments. The entire time, all these important people are sitting on these couches drinking their stuff. She just making sure everything's okay for everyone here.
And when that gets translated back in Arabic, who do you think is the greatest here? She stops, puts her head DOWNE Travis looks right at her. Thank you for loving us, for serving us. She started weeping. She was broken. She broke and weeped. We come to find out it was her. She had been on her knees every day for these men, for the church, for the community, for the families. It was her. She held the church together. She was holding it together. It was by her prayers.
She was the one that was that was that was broken and had a delight for the Lord. And yet she was the one you called it out perfectly. That was pretty amazing. They were her voice, her weeping. She spoke no English, and I a moment for me. The rest of them looked like they had just swallowed a slug. Yes, that's true, and then they quickly were like, we got to kind of it's time to go.
I got some important ministry to do. But I was able to pray with her, yes, which was really special. But yeah, and we come to find out they, you know, that culture, they didn't care about her. No, culture doesn't really elevate women.
It was beautiful. Uh, we mentioned it. We got to say the cucumber story. You said, okay, yeah, just so let me tell you just the background. You know it.
But for everybody who's listening, the background to the Gaza Lebanon Iran crisis. And at one point Israel was fighting on seven fronts, which is pretty crazy.
Just think about that.
And what's happened is there's no tourism, and everybody in Israel lives off a tourism, everybody in some ways tied to tourism, and so their economy has been utterly crushed. I would probably relate it to the Great Depression of the US.
It's that bad.
Nobody you don't hear about it. Nobody's talking about it. But when you have no income for the country, everybody suffers, and including the people who are in the West Bank, the Palestinians, if you will, A lot of them, A number of them, was it one hundred thousand or some really a large number have work visas and so this person gets a work visa in the family, they end up coming over to work in Israel proper.
They make a good wage.
They bring it back and they support three or four or five families one worker, because you make so much better money in Israel proper. Yes, they were all when the war started, all visas were dropped. You couldn't so nobody could leave the West Bank to work. Everybody lost their job, so there's no income. I gotta be careful. I don't want to make the Palestinian authority hate my guts, but I'll just say that the Israeli government is giving
a stipend, it's a survival stipend to their people. Nobody's doing well, but they're living. They have food, that's probably.
They have food.
They have electricity. The other side not so much zero in fact, And so the people inside the West Bank terrible starvation.
Yeah, it's horrible. They're starving. We saw it.
And they're literally could take a rock and throw it over the guard station and hit dirt that if they were there, they'd have enough to eat.
It is so bad.
Anyway, So we're in that area and we're just praying with people, and that's about all I'm gonna talk about, praying with people and loving on people. And we're with this woman who is living with her mom and raising her son. No men, we saw that a lot, no men involved in the families. Just women surviving in groups, groups of women surviving in huddles. And we're praying for her. And I just say, you know, I'm just trying to assess is it as bad as I think it is?
Because you know, they they're.
Very stoic, very stoic, don't want to show, don't want to be ashamed.
I mean, they're offering us food. You know, well water. I think you drank some of that one. That's probably why you got sick.
But anyways, they're offering us that, and we're sitting and talking and praying and hearing their stories. And I said, well, you know, I think I said, do you have enough to eat? And she's looking at me, you remember she's looking and she goes just barely wiggles her head because she doesn't want to say we're hungry.
It's shameful.
She just kind of wiggles her head slightly. I said, do you mind if I look? Now, that is very American. Nobody in accept a European, but especially in American.
It's going to be.
As uncaring as that, but I did it for a reason and it had great benefit.
But she can't say no. They're in their culture. She can't say no.
So I want to go look because I'm hearing the suffering is really bad, and I haven't actually seen their kitchens. So we end up going into the I end up going into the kitchen and I think you came with the camera.
I was with you, you were running the camera. I'm like, let's look, which I don't think it ever made anything we put out, but.
It was, yeah, because it would. We can't uncover her. So we opened up the cupboards and there's seasonings, just seasonings, you know, spices, that's it. We opened the refrigerator and you want to tell them what we saw?
Just cucumbers that they had grown in their front yard.
Nothing but cucumbers. There wasn't another item in the fridge but cucumbers. And I asked, and that's all they've been eating for months. Months, They've been living on cucumbers and spices for months.
That was their food. Oh my goodness. I was so broken. And then we've met a family that same day, little children about this about the age of Maverick and in fact one was the age of Maverick. And we asked them. It was a father and a mother, and we asked him, when's the last time you had meet When was the last time you had meat? And they said, you said a day, a week, week. You're kind of going to listen.
They're going no, no, shaking their head. And it got to like seven eight months, no meat in eight months, and we had beef jerky in our bags. Oh yeah, right here here, here's some beef jerky. Heave gave them, you know, several things, and and and you said, I want you to gather around your table tonight with this meat. Tell them what you said. That was another moment. It was another Travis moment.
I just wanted them to thank God for it. And I, yeah, you remember it better than I do.
I think you said something like, gather on the table and you tell your children, Oh, Jesus provided Jesus provided meat for you gather.
Yeah, you gather around your table and you feed the people at your table, and you use this meat, and you say, you tell your children. You look at your children and you tell them Jesus gave us this meat.
And if and if you have any leftover, bring your neighbors in here and give them the rest of it. Yeah.
Well I and I said make me a promise, will you do that? And he said I will.
He said I will, and I know he did because the way he looked at it, I will. I was a little afraid not to. Oh will. Yeah, that was That was a beautiful moment. There was so many moments in Israel. We've been talking an hour. We could probably talk six hours. Has it been an hour?
Yes, you love that, But we haven't even touched on anything yet.
Well, we need we just it's evident we need to do this again. But I want everyone to know about looking up for him, so that in the let's see, if I could say this the right way, in the time that you realized you were uncovered and that you're you couldn't hide as as the covert the guy that you were before. So we went the other direction. You went the other direction and said, you know what, let's be public. I have a lot of devotions I've written
and I continue. You continue to write them, and I'll just speak them on my phone and put them on social media and it.
I never had a Facebook account, I've never had Instagram, I've never had a social media account.
Ever rightly, so, yeah, ever, but but people heard truth and they were hungry for it, and they and your account grew and grew and drew it until I reached out. I was like, hey, you know, this is growing at a level that's likeficant unusual unusual, And you're like, we don't know. I don't know what that means.
Do you remember when Ever had to teach me how to make a reel? I'm like, man, this is terrible, I really it cuts me off. And then you're like, you know you don't have so I would go live. I'd always go live because I wanted to post something more than ninety seconds, and so everything was live. Every one of them was live. You're like, you don't have to do live every time. You could just make a post and that can be like sixty minutes.
What. Yeah, I don't have to go live. So go follow looking up for the number four him, him, looking up number four him, and you will see Travis. Who's I could say his name now, and you'll give a lot of devotions. You'll answer questions we do.
A Thursday night live Bible answer.
Yes, and you also will give updates on Occasionally, where you're going, or at least that you're going to be somewhere, depends on you, and you'll have praier re quest for that. What you can do is just go follow and if you follow Travis, you will at least see him, and you'll hear the Bible. You'll hear the Bible. You'll see it a beautiful ranch. And yes, you do get some.
Updates on something is happening, very significant. Please be in prayer. Those updates do come out to everybody, but you don't know where or when or who or why, because how in the world could you do it? And so yeah, it's it's a it's really its attention and it's a sadness. But but I'll say this, and you said this early on when we talked about the whole oh man, just give it to him.
God touches people's hearts. So I don't. I don't.
Maybe I'll like to tell you about this. You probably don't know this, but the second trip, you know, we there was some stuff that was done in Israel. Yeah, somebody based on Jost of the instagrams. I didn't even know it because they sent it to a different organization. Somehow they connected me to a different organization. They sent a very large gift. I didn't even know it because I don't. I don't have anything to do with those.
That you can't it would be corrupting to you. Yeah, so I didn't know that.
But we by faith were going in to take care of some things, to help some people, some people we love, some Christians, to bless them. And it was a significant amount. I didn't even know it until this is really funny, until like seven months later, I get a direct message from this guy.
I don't know this guy.
It's just some guy, all right, And he's like, did you ever get my gift?
I'm like, I don't know, when did you send it? What was it? You know?
So this is now I look really flaky or like he doesn't even have a clue, right because it was a significant amount.
And I'm like, well, I don't We're just send it conversations. I don't know. Maybe how did you get there? And he told me and.
So and then he direct messaged me it was for this much, and I fell out of my chair. I'm like, uh, I'll go look I got I don't know. I still told him I don't know.
I go look I don't know.
And I contacted the people who were our accountants and said, did this something like this come in And they're like, yeah, but it was anonymous, it's got no name attached.
It comes from nowhere. I'm like, oh, oh my goodness.
So all that I want to want to say was there was no plea for money. There was there was nothing. There was a guy who was watching this, and he was he was watching the he's watching the instavotions. He said, that's real. The Lord, Yeah, that's real. He didn't send it, by the way, he didn't send it to the social media, didn't send it to looking up for him. He sent it a different route.
And I was just stunned.
And it was one of those It was one of those things like you had said, little take care of this, Yeah, the little take care of this.
Just don't worry about it. Just don't even worry about it. Just be faithful. Put the word out there. And let me just say, and I'll say this as vague as I can, people didn't only eat cucumbers for a little bit of time after that. Yeah, because of that, because that guy made I'm sure there was more than cucumbers. Yes, there was more than going around it. We made that trip.
It was fantastic and I and it was just because of this little social media thing that I'm looking up for him. Yeah, just between me and you, I know, we've got to wrap this up because you got to somehow make this fit into a podcast.
I am not for social media.
In fact, my kids all had a problem when I started social media. I had a problem when I started. I felt like I was unclean.
But I don't think people by now after this hour, are not thinking anything less of you for doing that. I was thinking I was. But my kids they all sat me down. They literally had those we need talk, Dad, we need talk.
You have Facebook, and I just want to know, are you what's going on? And how did you come to that conclusion and and just it's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
And I hope they're listening. Your sons that I have traveled separately in different countries apart from each other and different states of the US. That's true. Yeah, I love those love those brothers so much. I love you, man, thank you. I love you. Fact. I mean, you're here for crazy circumstances which we don't have to get in. But you're here at my house, and I I just appreciate you and love you. And I'm still that coin in your pocket, you know.
Yeah, I'm still that oh yeah, yeah, you got a little string on you so I can put you in and then you and use you again.
Yeah all right, Well, thank you man, appreciate you. Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate all of you. Guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel. Hit that little like button and notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video. Yigi