Don't get down when you're seeing the worst, cause the last will be the first. What a day I'm telling you, all things will be new. Living up in a down world. Yeah we're living, yeah we're living, living up in a down world. This is Jimmy and Annette and we are scared of Annette. She's literally jumping out of the chair. She's standing up in the chair. Oh my god. Hey, welcome to living up in a down world, take two. This is take two because I had a boo boo. I had a podcaster boo boo big time.
And by the way, you are. Boo boo, how old are you? By the way, you're gorgeous. You're so cute. Absolutely gorgeous. Haven't had a real bath shower in days. Only hot tub because our water's been out. So I'm not gorgeous. So this is episode number 73 of living up in a down world. Check us out at livingupinadownworld.com. This is Jimmy and Annette and we have Mr. Chevy with us because we're actually at home.
Adam Curry, my best friend on the planet, helped me put together a backpack mobile podcast kit. And so we're giving it a try for the first time. We actually did this what yesterday? Was that when I messed up? Was it yesterday? Today's Thursday. Yeah it was. So yesterday we recorded a full broadcast 37, 38 minutes worth. And I haven't used GarageBand in a long time and I literally accidentally jettisoned the file and it disappeared and I could not get it back.
And I mean, I was sick to my stomach almost. It really upset me. My thought was it just wasn't meant to be. Oh, I know. Cause you're much more. I was. You've already. Okay. Here's what. Let's just talk about this. Okay. Let's talk about the reason why I felt bad about it. I know. But the reason why we had a faux pas is because this whole week has been one big faux pas.
It has been a weird week. So we'll see if this one works. I will see if this one. I think it's going to. I'm feeling good about it. Everything looks good. All the lights are on. That's good. Everything's lit up. So I'm assuming it's working. But what you're doing, not really. So I want to welcome you. Does any podcast really know what they're doing? So anyway, we want to welcome you to the broadcast. We are living up at a down world and wow, what a week.
Okay. So this is good. Let's start today and work our way back. Let's reverse engineer the week. Okay. Go ahead. So today we get up very early and we first of all have no water. We have not had water in two days. Unbelievable. We live out in an agrihood, we call it. So it's this neat area. We've got like five acre lots. I don't know how many units are in our neighborhood, but it's all spread out through the hills because we live in the Texas Hill country.
It's a beautiful place and beautiful homes. It's just great. Good neighbors. But we had a well issue that services our entire community, except for the people who have their own wells, a handful of them do. But most of us are on city water, aqua, and all of a sudden the water is gone. I mean like won't come on. And we're like, what just happened? I thought we were having a plumbing issue. I thought, oh, something just happened.
Our new toilet that we just had installed. You thought that was a deal. And then I was thinking, oh no, we've got a leak outside or something. So I was looking for water outside to make sure we weren't just blowing water out into the neighborhood and nothing. And for a long time, we didn't know what was going on. No. Finally, somebody building a new well.
We knew there's work company. We knew there was work happening. A new well, but they had to shut ours down because of some issues with the new one. And then when they got it back up, they found all these leaks. So it's taken two full days and they've been running water. We couldn't go to work yesterday. We couldn't even get ready. Couldn't do a shower. Couldn't even get ready.
And this morning, because I had a doctor's appointment in San Antonio, which is an hour away, we had to get in the hot tub. We had to turn the hot tub on, get in, rinse off. I smelled like bleach. No, we smelled like we smelled super clean all day. I just bleach and no bacteria in our body. I mean, unreal. So she should have felt sorry for me when she saw me. Who? The doctor or smelt me.
She's intense. She wasn't feeling sorry for nobody, but I liked her. She was great. I did. So what'd you do to your knee? So this is kind of the thing that's going on. We're not sure. You mentioned that you thought it was me doing deep squats. She said no, and you need to do those. Right. She put me in my place. She did. She said that did not do this. Are you sure you didn't do anything? We can't figure it out. If I did, I sure don't remember. Right.
Could be degenerative, but I have a torn meniscus. Torn medial meniscus. Yes. And then you've got some kind of cyst, a Baker's cyst. Baker's cyst that's ruptured. That's ruptured, which is kind of a good thing because it's going to go away and it absorbs. Yeah. You've got fluid around your knee. Yeah. And the radiologist who did the MRI said surgery. So my doctor sent me to a surgeon. We put a prayer flare out to our church because I have said all along, I do not want to have surgery.
And when we went to see the doctor today, she said you have two options. One is I can give you a steroid shot. We can get you into PT for a few weeks, see what happens, see if you get better and that this takes care of itself or have surgery. And of course, I chose that because I'm still praying. Yeah, we chose not to do surgery. Yeah. I'm still praying that God will fix this. Right through your knee. That was crazy watching that. It hurt. Yeah.
I could tell, but she handled it like a champ. Well, I kicked her. You did kind of kick her, but she said that's why I sit here because people, people kick me and not something else. Oh my God. Yeah, I heard her say that. And it hurts right now. I just took ibuprofen 600 milligrams about an hour ago and I'm still in pain. But at least we got some direction. We know exactly what's going on. And she said some people opt for this and then end up having to have surgery anyway.
She said, but you know, if you want to do this and try it, I'm just like, yes, I don't want to have surgery. And I think Dr. McCurley probably told her I did not want surgery at all because that was the whole thing. The beauty of that is you have a sports ortho doctor who did the first exam. Then we go over to a very high rated. I mean, like high.
This lady is amazing. Her credentials are insane. She's 40 years old and she's worked with the Detroit Lions. She's worked with National Hockey League. Another NFL team. She's put together a lot of knees and shoulders. Yeah. And I love the fact that she wasn't surgery happy. Yeah. Because most doctors would say, let's just get this done and do this. She gave you options. And she gave me options.
Of course, we don't have insurance. She probably felt sorry for us. It's not that we're derelict or anything. It's a lot of money too. What we do is we do a metashare program. It's a Christian metashare, not that particular company. Yes. But it's really cool because it's way less, but you share with others and help others. It's a real cool. It's a cool program. It's a brilliant way to do it.
The biggest drawback is you have to pay everything upfront. And that, I mean, if it's a hundred thousand dollars, that's, I mean, I don't know. I'm sure hospitals work with you. But an interesting thing, and this just tells you a little bit about the medical industry. When you tell them that I'm self-pay, like when you go out to pay. Oh, the price is reduced. The price is reduced drastically. Yes. I mean, insanely. Yes. And that just tells you the markup on insurance. Of course.
And so no wonder we pay so much for insurance, right? So anyway, it works for us, but yeah, you're out of pocket on the front end. But they do take care of you on the back end. And it's always, it's really well done. And what's really cool is they'll put your name out on a list. There's a prayer list. I know. I mean, people be praying for you. If you opt in for it to be on a prayer list, they put it out. I think that's super cool.
You know, I don't know how many subscribers they have for this, but we absolutely love them. It works. It's phenomenal. Yes. I had a cancer surgery on my nose a few years ago and that got covered eventually too. So I know it works. Yeah. It's a great program. I'm not looking forward to surgery. So I hope that's not, and I hope that with PT and everything that this will work out. But what I didn't understand, if you have a tear, what happens? Is it just, the tear doesn't go away?
She said it finds a new home. So the tear doesn't go away. It didn't, there's nothing torn away that can't be, that can't still be there. And she said the flap, it's flapping around the meniscus. It's this little half disc thing. That's a cushion between your bones and it's flapping around a little bit. And she said it'll eventually settle in and find a new home is the way she put it, where it'll just be part of your body. It's the way it is. But you won't lose range of motion. You'll be okay.
So she thinks you'll be able to rehab it because she's, she's an athlete herself. You can tell. Yes. She's totally like, totally. I mean, she shook my hand. She broke my knuckles. I was like crack. I mean, I was like, whoa. Okay. She's intense. She is. And, but she was so thorough. She talked so fast. Liked her. She was Rick Green as a female. I was like, whoa. Okay. Slow down.
He runs the, he's the founder of the Patriot Academy, which is a phenomenal school for training at the next generation of legislators. But when he speaks, it's like 90 miles an hour. And she did the same thing. And you even asked the nurse about that. You said, is she, is she always like this? The nurse said, yes. Cause I'm, I'm a fast talker too. So I found my match.
I'm like, wow. Yeah. So I feel like we got good news. We did. Because we were certain. I still need this pain to go away. Oh, no doubt. That's going to be a part. So those of you listening to our show, you can really help us talk about value for value. Just by praying for Dame Annette, pray for Annette, pray that the pain will lift and she won't have to have surgery. That really, we would appreciate that more than anything. Yes. Just pray and just make sure she's covered in this.
Cause you know, this last, she's a go getter. You are an energizer bunny. You're a race horse. And this is like putting you on a pony ride. It is. And I want to be back in the gym full time. And we got work to do. We have work to do. Yes. We love what we do.
But I do love that she said, you will get to the point where you can do squats again. And I'm going to get you to the point to where you never have to say, I can't do that anymore. That's what I needed to hear. Because there shouldn't be any limit. I don't care if I'm in my sixties or not. There should not be any limit because I've worked out for 32 years.
And she said, there won't be. She said, you'll be able to go back and do what you do. And she said, and I want you to, I'm going to get you back to doing what you do. So that was encouraging. That was really good. Really encouraging. So while it was hard, it was, it was also, I'm so glad that we found out what's going on.
And now we have a clear path. It's just funny that the MRI and the radiologist said surgery. I mean, it just essential. And she's like, they always say that, but I want, I want, I always like to try something else first. Who does that? And I tested something. I've had this brain, brain, brain thing where I was like, okay, I'm going to take everything the radiologist said, throw it into perplexity AI. And I'm going to see what, what AI says about it. So I did a prompt.
Because we had the whole report from the radiologist. And it's, it's in medical language that you can't even understand. So I took several of those paragraphs, the whole thing, and I put it into, and as a cue or a prompt, I said, I said, what course of action would be recommended by a doctor? Based on this information.
Based on this information. I would have worded it a lot better than that. But anyway, and then I hit, you know, I hit the prompt button or the inter button. And I mean, it gave this full on. Well, a doctor would probably, and it was always a, we'll probably, we'll probably, you know, I thought that's interesting, but there's being safe. But it was everything the radiologist recommended. Yeah, it was.
And it was surgery. So then when we go in there, we're thinking, oh, they're going to tell us surgery for sure. And I'm thinking, oh, she's going to want to schedule this next week. Radiologist, the doctor said it probably. And now AI said it. So there it is. The internet said it. And then she says, no, she says, we have options here. And that just made me very happy. It did. Me too. I did not expect that because no other doctor has given me options.
So we celebrated by going to Snooze in San Antonio. And had an omelet. Snooze is this amazing breakfast place. I mean, it's a restaurant, but it's, they're known for their breakfasts. And we went there and just kind of caught our breath because we were like, wow. Okay. We've got some news. We got information, you know, and there's something about, and those of you listening, you get this.
There's something about just having all the information, even if it doesn't change the status in the moment, just having the information helps you navigate it and helps you absorb the information and absorb the shock of it sometimes. And so that I felt, I hope you, I think you did too. I did. I did. I felt better. For me, you know, when I went to the doctor a week ago, I've just, you know, I went in to the other doctor saying, please no surgery. Tell me this can be helped without that.
And so all week we got the church in on praying for me and just because I really did not want to have to have surgery. And so I feel like this is just giving us more time for God to do something. And I really, I mean, I don't know what he's going to do, but it sure would be wonderful if we had a really good outcome. So just for those of you that are with us and you're hearing this, I have a rule of thumb that may help you.
And this is what I've taught for many years is we pray like it depends on us. And then we trust like it depends on God, which means we don't become the master of the outcome. Right. We don't try to manipulate God. We don't try to tell God what to do. We simply do our best to pray in alignment with the word of God, with scripture. And that helps us feel like, OK, if we're in his will, then why wouldn't he do something?
And then we trust the outcome because the outcome might be something different than we wanted, but yet it's exactly what was supposed to happen. So there's a trust that happens. And so. And sometimes, I mean, sometimes I've noticed this with people that need healing, that they'll pray that and then they end up having to have surgery. But then the doctor says, if you wouldn't have had this, I wouldn't have found this issue. Very true. Names are coming across.
Yes, many names. And so recently, that's yes. So I have left it up to God. But if it was left up to me, I just want it healed and I want to be walking. I want to be in the gym again. Of course, I can go to the gym. She said you can do upper body all day long. So we're going to the gym all day tomorrow. Well, I know about all day, but we are going because tomorrow is Friday. So we're recording on Thursday because this week was really messed up from the beginning.
I mean, I don't I guess we can backtrack. Well, Monday morning, we went into the office because we're working on Mondays now. We used to take Mondays for our Sabbath. But we're changing that to a Friday or Saturday. We need to be in the office more. So we went in on Monday. But I woke up in a weird funk. You were in a funk. And I can't even explain it. I've probably seen this two or three times in our marriage. That's it.
Well, I would say it's happened more than that, but I've always tried to mask it better. But for whatever reason, I couldn't shake it off. And we took Chevy to work with us so that we could record and he could be with us. Yeah. And he I don't know. It was almost like he was sensing that there was something going on with you. I've never seen him acting like that either. He lost his mind in the office. He would go and hide. He would jump. He was shaking. He only wanted on your lap.
He wouldn't sit on mine like right now. He's sitting on my lap. Just fine. But and then when you were trying to push him down, he went and hid, which he never had. Really odd. It was really. So here's the thing. I remember Dr. Ricebrook saying this many years ago. He says, you know, you don't go looking for a demon around every corner. You don't look for spooky stuff. But also on the flip side of that coin, you never ignore the obvious.
And the bottom line is this. The Bible is very clear that we live. We are spiritual beings in a natural world. I mean, we have a body, sure. And we have a soul. But we are we're spiritual beings by our very nature. We're just stuck in these earth suits for a while on this earth. But that precipitates that there is a major, major war going on. And you were having mind wars. Big time. Big time. Like second guessing myself, doubting myself.
I mean, the stuff that I rarely deal with. Because you don't. I would deal with that a lot more often than you. But that was unbelievable. And I think it was worse than you were even letting me know. Probably. People in our office knew something was off with you because it was obvious. And it wasn't until the end of the day that I realized, wait a minute, I'm kind of slow to the party sometimes or late to the party.
But I realized, wait a minute, this was a total spiritual blitz because the things that I'm doing, I'm stepping out into a lot of new territory. I've been doing it for a year, over a year now. And yet the stakes are getting higher because there is a lot of darkness in this world that is trying to destroy our nation, trying to destroy the church, trying to destroy Christians, families, individuals.
And when you start to come against all of that stuff and you start to fight it and you start to out it, so to speak, I begin to, I do this thing at the beginning of most messages, not every time, but most of them, called theater, the absurd, and talking about what's going on in our culture right now. The things we need to be aware of, what we need to be praying into, what we need to be standing up for.
And when you start standing up for truth on a stage like that, on a platform, the enemy says, oh, yeah, I'm going to come take you out. And so I just woke up with just a major turmoil. Well, and also the fact that we're having all this happen to me and we don't even know what caused it. That's true. Literally do not know what caused this. Oh, and our daughter started having issues again, health issues, was back in the hospital, sent to the ER. Going back to the doctor tomorrow.
And all of a sudden we're all just under this deluge or this mirage of spiritual warfare. And so it's been really a hard week. And yet so blessed in the middle of all that craziness, so many God taps, so many God moments, so many little things happen where you go, that is so God. Well, and you had to come to a realization, which you did very quickly, that this was all warfare. This was not, I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed kind of thing. This was total warfare.
And the good thing is, is when you're a mature Christian, the longer you're a mature Christian, because you could be a Christian all your life and not be mature. True. But the longer you're a mature Christian, the quickly you can recognize the enemy's hand and what's really going on. And I feel like, you know, if this would have happened, you know, 10 years ago, you might have had two or three days of mind wars, but you didn't. And you just did a message, you know, on mind wars not too long ago.
But you recognize that this is more than what we see with our physical eye. I think, too, the last three Sundays I've done several messages that are really on faith. First one was made for more. You know, you are made for more than you think. I mean, God has got massive plans for you. So when you start to out that stuff and help people realize their potential, the enemy hates that. Because the last thing he wants anyone to think is that they're worth anything, especially to God.
And so I did that the first Sunday. The second Sunday I did a message called Made to Rain, talking about we're called a rain in life. And rain above our circumstances. Exactly. We're the head and not the tail. Deuteronomy 28. We're above only not beneath. We're blessed coming in. Blessed in the city. Blessed in the field. Enemy comes at you one way. He's got a little flea seven. So I preached that and that led into a strong faith message. Enemy hates that.
He always hates when you talk about faith and building your faith. So that was that. And then this weekend I did Made for Faith and I did a full on run into. I didn't finish it. I did the introduction to Hebrews chapter 11 verse one that talks about the fact that we walk by faith. I mean, we are called to faith. And that Jesus is our anchor. You have to, faith is substance. So it's something and people will have faith in certain things. I'm sorry. I will try to quote it and I just lost it.
No, I know. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So I start unpack just that verse. There's six more in that passage. I'll do this Sunday part two, but I have to believe that because I'm going there, the enemy is uptight because he does not like people getting a hold of faith. Faith is the currency of the kingdom. It's the coin of the kingdom. It's what moves mountains. It's what created the world. It's what stilled an ocean.
It's what healed Lazarus is faith. It's what got the woman of the issue of blood healed when she touched Jesus. He said, it's your faith. And so faith is the coin. It's the currency of the kingdom. Which means belief in something. Yes. Yeah. It's the amplified version. You know this. Yes. Trust in, adhere, believe. And the thing is, we all trust in, adhere, and believe in something. True. But we need to put our trust in God.
And we need to trust that he is with us, that he loves us, that he adores us, and that he wants only the best for us because he's a good God all the time. Even when things don't look great, he's still good and he's still working things out for good for those who are called according to his purpose. And so I love the fact that, I mean, obviously you were being tested. No doubt.
And when you're tested, I'm tested because I was the brunt of what was, I was being affected by what was happening with you. And then all of this other stuff happened. I wasn't mean or anything. No. I was sullen and I couldn't get out of this. You were not yourself. It was like you were a zombie walking around. Yeah. I felt. And then you were a little short tempered because we were having dog issues. The dog acted like he wanted to go out.
And our other dog happened to be at the church with faith and ran out the door. You've got one on a leash. You've got the other one running outside of the church. Never does that. So when I go out to chase Gracie, the other dog, the door locks behind me. And you can't get in. How'd you get in? I had to go all the way around the building. I wondered about that. It's a big building with carrying a dog. But the crazy thing is, is Gracie never does that. I know.
She'll run out and go to the bathroom and run back in. I know. It was just a comedy of errors. It was a comedy of errors kind of thing where it was like anything that could go wrong was going wrong. Interesting enough, I wake up on Tuesday morning and I'm fine. It's like the fog was gone. We went in, had staff meeting. Man, we just had a great day. Got a lot of work done. We moved the ball down the field a lot, moved the needle. And I was laughing about it. That was crazy.
But then we got the news from the radiologist that, oh, you're going to have to have surgery. The doctor calls. That you did indeed have a torn meniscus. So that was like, ah. So it was kind of a week. The whole week was just. And then we lose water yesterday and today. And we just got our water. I can't wait. When we get done with this podcast, I'm sorry, but I'm going to take a bath. Did I mention that I lost our recording, our first? Yes. Did I already mention that?
I think you did at the beginning. Did I? But you did. We recorded 38 minutes. Yesterday. It'll be the best podcast. No one will ever hear. Well, same thing happened with you and Pastor Brian. Yeah, Pastor Brian. And I heard that one because I was in there when y'all were talking. It was phenomenal. And then you had forgot to hear the record. I know. Wait, am I muted now? Because you muted me earlier. No, you are not. I need to see that. Okay. I just want to make sure. Uncheck.
Everything's rocking and rolling. We're 26 minutes in. I think this is the best one, but I definitely want to make sure I'm not muted. It's number two for the week. So yeah. Yeah. Here we go again. But you know what? This is life. It really is. Life is messy. That's for sure. It is. And sometimes you don't get the best news. And things don't work out all the time. Things don't work out the way you want them to. We have an anchor and we have faith in God and his... An anchor for the soul.
Yes. I almost want to say cheers for that because we're both drinking decaf coffee. Well, we're drinking decaf coffee this evening. We just cheered. We're drinking Black Rifle decaf coffee. JD. Oh my gosh. Just decaf. I do love their just decaf. It is very good. It makes everything better. I'm just saying. Even though it's decaf. The reason that we're doing that is 716 in the evening. And I can't stay up. So I have to tell one little thing about last week.
I was backtracking a little bit further since we had our last podcast. So we have a friend named Adam Curry and he has a birthday coming up. This Friday. So what do you get a guy like Adam Curry? I mean, it's kind of- Who has everything. He's owned an helicopter. He's the pod father. He's just... What do you get a guy like that? And I knew exactly what I wanted to get him. And you and I thought about it at the same time. Exactly the same time.
We both talked about it on one day because we were like, gosh, what do you get Adam Curry? And I said, here's what... I actually flew it out there wondering if you'd go for it because I wasn't sure. Because it's expensive. It's expensive. And I said, I want to get him a pellet grill. And you said, really? I was just thinking about that. Literally. And I said, then it's the perfect gift. This is what he needs. Because he's a meat eater. Tina's a big time meat eater.
And so they do a lot of beef and stuff. So I've been singing the praises of mine and I was like, I want to get him- And other people in our friends circle are getting pellet grills. And so it was just perfect. And there was a certain one that I wanted for him because it has a sear plate on it and I just needed- And I wanted to give him an extra long one. Yeah, a larger one than mine. Because he and her are so social. They host. They host a lot. We don't. They host people all the time.
So we didn't need a large one. So we actually got him a better one than we have. But isn't that what you do with friends? You do. I think that's what everybody should do. You should always treat everybody better. You should buy the better gift. Totally agree. Worn up to myself with him. You did. Because I want him to have the best. And so here was the caveat. It didn't come assembled, right? Shipped to you. You assembled ours and it took six hours?
Six hours by myself and it was 120 degrees in the garage because it was 110 outside last year. So how long did it take you to do this one? So Adam and I did it together on Saturday. I can't, wait, I can't picture in my mind Adam with the wrench. Hey, I was super proud of him. No, no, he did great. I was super proud of him. What did he do? Did he just sit there and talk to you? No, not at all. No, he jumped in. We both jumped in. I'm shocked. I know. I can't see that. Well, I'm not shocked.
Cause he's. Well, I know, but it's his own gift too. Why would you ask him to help with his own gift? I wasn't going to ask him to. We just, we didn't even talk about it. He just did it. We just jumped on it. I said, let's attack this thing. It really needs two people to put this together, which you only did by yourself. And we did it fairly quickly. The first one. I can't, I don't remember the exact time, but I mean, we got it done pretty quick. And so he tried it out.
I think last night he fired it up and said it was a hit and he's excited about it. And so I made my day. Well, it's not his birthday yet, but it came early and I just wanted to go ahead and give it to him. Well, it's the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah. And they're going out of town. So I wanted him to have it before they got out of town. That's his birthday gift as they're going on a trip together. It was fun. You know, he turned in a wrench, playing with metal, you know, putting a sibling.
I wish I had a picture of that. You didn't take a picture of him helping you. Why would I do that? That's weird. Because I want to see it. Why? We're dudes. Yeah. Hey, here's a selfie with me and Adam. Do you do selfies with everything? No, not with stuff like that. No, this was due to time. Well, it's the gift that keeps on giving and that's the kind of gifts I like. Yeah. I just love my friend. And you know, when you care for somebody and you love them, you want them to have the best.
And so I'm just super, super blessed that it worked out and happy. But we're not doing Christmas gifts next year. Last year they said only birthday must don't do Christmas. Oh, I'm cool with that. And then I ended up buying them Christmas and she was like, don't you remember? And I said, oh. So I told them this year, especially after spending what we spent on that, I said, no, no Christmas gifts. They're like, okay, okay. It's all cool. It's all cool.
We've all blessed each other and that's what's fun about having great friends. So Adam, team. Our relationship is more important than any gift. Just so blessed by those guys. And go check out their podcast. They have, if you've never listened to their podcast, they are who inspired us to do a podcast and they do a podcast called Curry and the Keeper. They're on an episode like 103 or four right now. And you and Adam are about to start another one called Hello Fred.
Hello Fred. Yeah. Me and Adam are going to do some things together. Fred is not a person. Fredericksburg. What we're trying to do and I love, this is his brainchild. I mean, God really dropped this on him. He's doing a thing called a thousand voices where he wants churches all over the United States and different varying communities to begin to have a voice into the community on current events on what's going on.
Even like a to do calendar and like a show where, and that's part of why we put together and he put together this, I just kind of watched him. Wow. That's amazing. But this pod mobile, it's called pod mobile. This is a prototype. It's a prototype, but I think this is the now the one they're doing, but this was a prototype that was built. And so we're using it tonight and you can throw it in a backpack to a couple of microphones and you've got a podcast. I mean, it's really, and it's well built.
It's got processing on it and everything. So the goal is to get these out to churches and individuals within churches who will be a voice into their community. And here's why, it's because newspapers are going away, especially in smaller communities. So now you can't get local news. Radio stations are going away, broadcast stations, because everyone's streaming now or there's the huge conglomerates.
So there's no local voices out there in the airwaves and yet you can become a voice for your community. So he's going to do, he called it Hello Fred. I love that. Like good morning Fred kind of thing. But I'm going to have a segment in it too. And we're still talking it through, whiteboarding it a little bit, kicking it around, but I want to do a section called, did you know? And what that is, that's about the history of our community. I've got some books on it already.
I've met a couple of historians of our community. I'm going to be interviewing them, having conversations about our community, how it started and then I'm going to do another little section called, what's right with Fred. Which we did a campaign like that in Abilene and it was wonderful. What's right with Abilene, yeah, and did you know? So based on what we've done before, I did that with the mayor and kind of brainstormed that with him.
And then he did this big billboard thing, but this will be voices. This will be us podcasting and having a show. Adam needs another podcast. Yeah, he's not doing enough. I think he's doing five right now, at least. It's unbelievable. Oh, he's amazing. He works all the time and he loves it. See, he's good at it. Y'all are working, Tina and I, out of a job. So we might not be doing our podcast with y'all. I thought y'all were going to do one God and two girls.
I know, we might just have our own without y'all. Is that right? One God, two girls? One God, two girls, one God. Two girls, one God. I mean, her and I could just do one and just forget y'all. Y'all just do y'all's own. I'm excited for all this. So these are fun things that we're working on in the podcast world. In our heart, I'm not Seth Gruber. I'm not Joe Rogan. I'm certainly not Adam Curry. But everybody's got a voice. Everyone's got something to say.
And that's part of what Adam was, why he drew us into this world. He was like, you guys have a voice and you need to have an outlet for your voice. So let's do this podcast. So we came up with Living Up In A Down World and we're now on episode 73. 73. I know. So we're chugging right along. So anyway, thank you for joining us on this experiment today. This is a completely different platform. Now I hope this sounds okay. We usually put blankets up when we're at home. We didn't do that.
So Adam will probably critique us a little bit. If you'll get a little closer to the mic, it'll help. You don't have to talk so loud. Well, Adam might critique us on this, but we'll see. Well, I hope he does. That's what a good producer... That's why I pay him the big bucks to be our executive producer. I was surprised you didn't put the blankets up. I didn't want to. I wanted to set up in a way that you would do this in a hotel room. You do it where you're...
Because you don't have all that stuff. And so I thought, let's do it like this. Let's see how the sound works out. Again, we're guinea pigging for him to help out and we'll make some tweaks as we go. So anyway, we want to say to you, first of all, thank you for joining us today. Thank you for listening. I've noticed that we're up around 65,000 downloads over our 73. That's good. That's amazing. That's a lot of people listening. It's shocking. It's a lot of hours of people listening.
We have listeners from all over the world, literally. I love rss.com because you can get analytics on that and it shows a map. And I'm just so grateful that people would take the time to listen to us and listen to our podcasts. And so we want to encourage you. Our whole goal is to help you live up in a down world. That is what we're all about and anything we can do to brighten you. But we also wanted you to know that we have bad days too.
This is why we wanted to talk about my bad days, my bad week. Well, we usually talk about mine, but not yours. So this was unusual. This was my bad day. So your one that you'll have for 10 years was this week. I hope that's all it is. Yeah, because you're the optimist, which I love, which is why I love being married to you because you're the optimist. You're much like Adam Curry. He's definitely the optimist always. It's only in our buds. You are so much alike. It's unbelievable.
We love God, how God, and we are living up in a down world for sure. And you've helped me be able to live up in a down world. Aw, baby. Which I'm giving my testimony. I love you. September 22nd at church. I'm doing a women's luncheon. I'm super happy about that. That's going to be amazing. And I'm sure your name will be coming up quite a bit because you are directly responsible for, and I named this luncheon Redeemed and Restored. Love that.
Not because you redeemed me and restored me, but Jesus did through you. Wow. Thank you. I'm going to be definitely talking about my story and how you play the biggest part in my redemption. That's humbling. Yeah. It makes me look forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. So if anybody's in the area and wants to come, it's a luncheon at Bridge Church. You can go to bridgefbg.com and look at the calendar of events. And really excited. I haven't given my testimony like this in many years.
Yeah. It's great. And just thank you for saying that. I want to riff on that just for a sec. Thank you for just bringing up Bridge. Bridgefbg.com. For those of you who don't have a home church, maybe you don't have a home church, maybe you're not sitting under biblical teaching. We put all of our sermons. I'm the main speaker, but also Pastor Brian Mandel is my executive pastor. He's a phenomenal communicator as well. We're going to be tag teaming.
We're going to do a whole series on the book of Acts coming up. But we put all of our messages are online. You can find us at bridgefbg.com. Go about halfway down that page. You'll see it. You go into the archives there. You can watch them. They're on video. You can watch our worship team or you can just go straight to the message. So we want to encourage you any way we can to help you live up in a down world. And thanks for being with us today. I think that about does it for this evening.
We landed at 38 minutes, so I'm super happy about that. Yesterday's was 38 minutes. Okay. Well, we got in right now. The lost episode. The lost episode that no one will ever hear. But it was amazing. So, hey, this one was better. Okay. We love you guys and I love you. And Mr. Chevy just popped right up. Hi, Mr. Chevy. I'm glad you're with us again on the show. We've missed you. So God bless you. Have a great week and keep living up in a down world.