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The Bible tells us to take dominion over every creeping thing.
Thanks for joining us for the Baptist Bias.
And that Benelog was so good, we almost had to do it twice there.
But, Noah, so much thanks for coming and joining us on the show.
Live, we've got some special guests.
The Wild Brothers. I don't know how wild they're going to get, so we better buckle up.
Also, we will be taking some call-ins if you want to ask them some questions.
I know our guests have been kind of all over the world, done a lot of different kind of exploring.
And it'd be great to just hear from some of their personal experiences.
And so if you want to ask them a question live on the show, we'll be taking calls at 231-Baptist.
But I'm going to go ahead and kick it over to my co-host, Ben the Baptist.
How's it going? Why don't you introduce our guest to us as well?
It's going great. Thanks for having me on as per usual here on the Baptist Bias.
It's another week, it's another episode of our show, and we're a variety show here on Tuesday nights.
We like to switch things up, and tonight we're doing just that with our guests, the Wild Brothers.
And what I find interesting about them is they did missions work,
and it was through that that they were inspired to spend a lot of time outdoors
and to make content for their own platform.
They have their very own platform, they have a streaming service, YouTube channel,
all kinds of content about just God's creation and just the importance of being active.
And I think that's something that we all need to work on for sure,
but it's something I feel strongly about because as technology continues to advance,
and there's a lot of good things that we could use technology for,
unfortunately though, one of the downsides is that it can lead to a very sedentary lifestyle,
and I'm sure we'll talk about that a little bit later on,
but the Wild Brothers have some good content, especially if you're younger
and you want to learn more about this kind of thing, or even if you're older
and you're interested in being active in the outdoors and trail life and things like that.
So we'll be talking to them about that. A couple of the brothers are joining us,
and I think Pastor Shelley, it should be a wild discussion.
All right, let's go ahead and bring our brothers on the show. We got two of them this evening.
Why don't you guys say hello and introduce yourselves to our audience.
Hey guys, good evening everyone. My name is Morgan Wild. I'm the oldest of the four Wild Brothers.
And on number two, my name is Hudson Wild. Happy to be joining tonight.
And so, you know, you guys are out there. Where are you guys even at?
I mean, you got a world behind you. I mean, where do you find these elusive Wild Brothers?
They're on Earth. We know that.
Yeah, right now we call home the Panhandle of Florida.
So we're on the Gulf Coast. Yeah, just chilling out.
Nice.
Yeah, bunker down right on a little bayou full of alligators and watching out for hurricanes.
Yeah, we love it down here, but the world map behind us kind of keeps everything perspective.
That's right.
All the places that we've traveled to and different areas that we call home across the world.
I looked at some of your videos online. It seems like, and maybe I'm wrong for the timeline,
but Hudson, did you like recently get married? Is that something that I saw?
Yeah, semi-recent. We're coming, we're just over two years now.
Okay, two years, all right.
We're a one-year-old, so.
I'm catching up.
I think myself as an old married man, but.
There you go.
So you've already fought. You've already had a fight by now, right? No, I'm just kidding.
Not many, not many. I have a wonderful wife.
They're still in the honeymoon phase, Ben.
Yeah.
Okay.
We are.
All right.
And you guys have two younger brothers as well?
Yes.
That's right, yeah. So Kian and Astrid cannot be joining us tonight, but they're spread out.
Kian is actually local right now, but he was busy tonight, couldn't tune in.
Plus, when you get four of us together, it's like we fill up all screens.
Too many voices.
Two people will be plenty, that's plenty of wild.
And then our youngest brother, Astrid, he's actually currently in Indonesia right now for just a couple months.
So he'll be back in a few weeks, but he's enjoying spending time back there on our old stomping grounds.
So we're kind of spread out right now, but yeah, happy to be here and kind of represent the four wild brothers.
What I like to see is how you guys are still friends, apparently.
Is there any difficulty in kind of maintaining that relationship all for you guys?
Do you kind of butt heads a little bit, or does it seem like it's pretty easy so far, or what?
We had to figure that out very early on, living over in the jungles in a small house, you know, 30 by 30 square foot.
We, you know, ironed out a lot of our arguments and disagreements when we were younger.
So now we're best friends, and brothers make great coworkers, so yeah.
That's great.
And your parents, what are they doing? Are they still out in the wilderness somewhere, or what are they up to these days?
Yeah, they are. They're living on a boat off in some island region over in Indonesia, working hard.
Oh, wow. Indonesia. So where have all of y'all been? Can you give us like a quick rundown of just kind of some of the places you guys have been?
Where have you spent the majority of, you know, your life? Is it any one place?
Yeah, sure. Mostly confined to Southeast Asia. So all of our roots are actually based out of here in the Panhandle, Florida.
That's where my parents met and married. My dad had a charter business, and he was a boat captain.
Learned about tribal missions and the incredible number of Bibleist people groups all around the world.
So it changed careers, changed trajectories, and took his family and young family into missions.
And so for kind of the early years of my life and as my brothers were born, we were kind of different transitioning moves across the states
as my parents sought to be equipped through Bible school and cross-cultural and linguistics trainings for four years.
And then we moved to the country of Indonesia with a heart to reach an unengaged, unreached people group,
share the gospel with them for the first time, translate the Bible, and we spent the first year in the island of Java.
And then we moved to the province of Papua Indonesia, which is kind of the remotest province of the country of Indonesia,
which is the largest archipelago in the world, thousands and thousands of islands, hundreds and hundreds of distinct language groups.
But we spent the majority of our lives there on the island of Papua among one unengaged, unreached people group, the Wano people.
So most of our time was in Southeast Asia. We've had the privilege of visiting different countries, you know, during our travels,
but that was for the majority of our time spent over there in Indonesia, so about 16 years of our lives over there.
Wow. Have you guys been to the Philippines or to Australia at all since you're on that side of the world?
Yeah, I've been to like Singapore, Australia a number of times, some of those neighboring countries for sure.
Thailand, China, Japan.
Okay, wow.
But never for too long periods, you know, more short trips.
Interesting. And there's a clip of you guys that I want to share for our audience.
It's clip number one talks about getting off the couch and into creation and kind of talking about God's creation.
I really like this video clip and I think it kind of introduces our audience a little bit to you guys.
So we're going to play this clip real quick.
Clip number one.
Hey, guys, I'm sitting here on the couch and I'm just starting to feel kind of restless.
The adventures that we used to go on, we were catching new insects of science.
We're finding cryptic creatures and going places where no one had ever been before.
We can't really have that kind of adventure here. What's left for us to find or actually discover?
There's a lot of commotion up here.
This is crazy. We're cross-country skiing over a frozen lake.
Can you guys hear that?
Hey, guys, looks like we have a big gator right here.
Guys, I found it. I found it.
It's all across the riverbed.
I can't believe this. We actually found it.
Thank you so much for today. Thank you for this opportunity and for your beautiful creation.
Getting off the couch and into creation.
This is what you can see right in your backyard.
It's so beautiful.
Those are some pretty cool action shots you guys got there.
I'm kind of curious. How do you film these things?
You guys using some kind of a drone or something?
Someone manning that while you're out there?
How does the filming go down for something like this?
Yeah, we're a self-taught four-man film crew.
We grew up in remote places where no Western naturalists had ever set foot.
A beautiful corner of town.
Early on in our childhood, we started documenting our adventures for the purpose of exposing our peers to the reality of God's mission,
but also just inspiring and kind of spurring the minds to do more with your lives,
but also an emphasis on outdoor and God's creation.
We kind of picked up filming on the side as a side hobby and a side ministry,
and that kind of grew into more of a passion and self-taught.
We tend to go to remote, kind of exclusive areas though,
and so oftentimes it's difficult to have a large film team with you.
Because we got good at just kind of working amongst the four of us, we kind of kept it up.
Each of us has a different role, either holding the camera or audio gear.
Our youngest brother, Asher, is a very talented drone pilot.
He's a very talented drone pilot.
Our youngest brother, Asher, is a very talented drone pilot.
So all those aerial shots are Asher's doing.
He's always flying the drone and has it concealed either behind his back or right in front of him.
He always has a drone up in the air.
I have to ask though, is he destroying any of these drones?
Because our film crew struggles with keeping them intact sometimes.
Oh yeah, we've lost countless drones over the years.
There's many of them in the bottom of the ocean in remote jungles.
We've lost a lot.
He's gotten better though.
At least you guys are losing drones in jungles and out in the middle of nowhere
and all of these exotic places and things of that nature.
Meanwhile, I'll come clean. I'll be candid with everyone.
I lost one in a parking lot one time when I felt like I could land it on the streetlight.
It can happen.
Whoops.
We love to memorialize all of our drone crashes by including those last shots in our episodes.
Some of the shots, we'll see an epic shot where the drone's coming super close to a rock formation or an island
and then that's the end of the shot.
People are like, how'd you do that?
One second later, it crashed right into the side and then fell into the ocean.
Or it's cool, you can actually reverse those shots.
It looks like it's just coming out of the rock or the trees.
Oh yeah.
Cool.
There's all sorts of creative ways you can salvage those things.
What about film editing?
Do you all do your own film editing or how does that work?
Yeah, we also do that.
We wear a lot of hats.
We're a film crew, but also we take the roles of director and producer and editors and story writers, all that stuff.
It keeps us pretty busy, but again, we've never been able to have a film crew keep up with us.
Most of the locations are hard to access and it's complicated.
There's red tape, so we like to leave a light footprint, so we do all that in-house as well.
That's great.
Yeah, we definitely have our share of filmmaking and it can be a lot of effort, a lot of energy.
I'm kind of curious, you also guys do some kind of like cartoon or animated stuff.
How exactly are you all creating that?
I'm just kind of interested in that content, like how you guys came up with that.
Great question.
When we first, our filmmaking really started as a hobby, but more importantly, the mission behind it was really to reach our peers.
Every time we left the jungles, came back to the US, we're always so burdened for our peers because they're really just running after the agendas of the world.
Even like the American dream, that kind of secular agenda has crept into our churches in many ways.
They're just drawing young people to live for themselves, live for their own desires and pursuits and careers.
God's word so clearly tells us that we need to sacrifice and live for Christ and come to Him and seek His direction in our lives.
So burden for our peers kind of sent us on this journey of filmmaking.
When we reached the States, we started kind of doing some investigation work and seeing what kind of media is most influential in young kids' minds and what helps develop their character and their virtues and their desires for the jobs they want to do when they grow up.
We saw animation as being one of those key players.
So that was really the heart and soul behind us moving from reality TV to trying a new endeavor and create our own animated series.
Well, I'm just kind of curious. We've been exploring things like that too, like trying to use AI or other stuff.
Are you using some kind of a software that generates animated characters? I don't want you to still give all your secrets, but I'm just saying I'm just kind of generally curious.
Yes, we use a combination of things.
Real quick, our younger brother, Kian, he's like the mastermind. He's the creative in the family. He's a great artist.
Even from an early age, he loved art and drawing and using programs.
So we didn't think animation was possible. We consulted with some of the leading Christian animators in the industry and a number of them said,
like phase one, you need a crew of like 30 to 50 people on a budget of 10 million to start your first season.
And I was like way overhead. They're like, all right, scratch that. Animation is not for us.
But our brother Kian kept pushing us like, boys, just buy me a special laptop.
I already found the program. Give me a budget and let me see what I can do.
And so he's from the ground up really run with the program and is kind of his self-taught animator.
So using some different animation programs has created what are called the puppets, customized each one of them to kind of look similar to us and the movements.
And so incredibly quickly, he's mastered the art of animation.
Yeah, it's laborious, painful, frustrating, and many hours equate seconds of animation.
So it's a lot of work. But to answer your question, yeah, we're kind of using a combination of different things, including a little bit of A.I. for some stuff.
Yeah.
So he's drawing a lot of the characters and in like, I don't know what program, but just maybe like Illustrator or something like that.
And then.
Yeah, some of them. Yes.
Okay.
Cartoon animator.
Yeah.
Cartoon animator, illustrator. Yeah.
One thing I want to point out about an animated series is that it's an option for Christian families to show their children content that won't contain something objectionable.
And I think that for a lot of conservative Christian families or biblical family, they want to live by the Bible. They have those kind of values.
It can be difficult sometimes to find something that you can put on for the kids and you don't have to worry about any kind of messaging that you don't want your children to hear and see.
And so, you know, again, as a father of three, Pastor Shelley, what are you, father of about 14, 15 now?
Six children.
Six.
It's, that's invaluable. And so I would just kind of wanted to get your guys' perspective on that in terms of the philosophy behind the animated series and really the motivation behind it and just talk to us a little about the importance of putting out some content that Christians can enjoy.
And like I said, without having to worry about anything objectionable coming up.
Yeah, well, it's interesting because when you look at Christian media as a whole, it's notoriously cheesy, notoriously low budget, and notoriously mediocre and lukewarm.
And so some of the, unfortunately, that's just the reality of it and there's different reasons why.
But, you know, the kind of hallmark pure flicks culture is also, has really sanitized most Christian media.
When it comes to kids' content, unfortunately, we've seen that there's some safe content, what I call safe neutral content, that most Christian parents end up, you know, letting their kids watch.
And it's not overtly Christian by any means, but at least it's safe, at least it's clean, at least there's nothing harmful.
There's a little bit of that and most of that content actually comes from secular networks and producers, but the Christian families end up using it because there's not an alternative.
You know, the only alternative is very cheesy, very low budget, actual Christian ones.
And so a lot, kind of the heart behind most of our productions is actually, you know, we're not professionals by any means, but we want to create content that's glorifying to God, that actually exalts a life of sacrifice, adventure, living on mission.
More than just, I'm just going to be a mediocre Christian and barely scrape by, you know, and go to church on Sunday and pay my tithe.
We want to actually create a culture and media that gets kids past that, to forsake their dreams, to live all that for Christ, and actually experience at the end of the day that when they're following Christ, it's the most fulfilling thing to do with their lives.
And it's actually the ultimate adventure. So we want to glorify, we want to lift up content that shows the Christian life from a cool perspective, that you can be cool and be a believer.
And that doesn't mean being crude or, again, embracing the kind of entertainment that the world produces. You can still produce clean content that's actually impactful, that actually has a deep message.
And so that's something that we really feel strongly about. And we've just avoided that kind of media as a whole, especially from a kid's perspective.
Most of the things that would be on all the basic Christian streaming platforms for kids are, they might be safe, but I don't know how formative they are in your child's worldview. I don't know how much they're contributing, really.
So with our animated series, Wild Bros., which will be coming out next year, we really want to highlight the adventure of following Christ and show that the premise of the show is based loosely off the experiences of our childhood adventures, my brothers and I.
But to show that when you live on mission, it'll take you places you never dreamed, and you'll get to experience things you never thought possible, and you'll be able to see God work in ways that you just never would think.
Living on mission, living a life of faith and dependence on God, always on the edge, that's exciting. And so that's kind of some of the messaging that we really want to encourage.
And we also want parents to feel, like you were saying, just good about the content, that there's nothing objectionable, there's no secular messaging or even political spins and spiels.
You have platforms like the Daily Wire that are doing great things, but all their content is, nothing about it is overtly Christian, nothing about it is overtly building and strengthening a biblical foundation.
It's really just fighting against the low culture, which is needed to a degree. So we really want to try to bring some fresh series and shows that really showcase the power of a life of faith and living on mission, and that get kids and families energized and excited about, in deeper ways, living sacrificially and engaging in God's global mission.
That's what we think is really important.
But some of the themes, it's the nuclear family, it's the strong bond of brotherhood that revolves around having adventure together with the backdrop of missions, seeing the nations reached with the gospel, and then in that also inspiring kids to that spirit of adventure.
Because I think all kids are just wired for adventure. And I think here in the U.S., most kids have to live vicariously through entertainment or video games because they kind of lack that daily adventure or that excitement.
So we want to show kids, really, kind of real adventure. There's still discoveries to be made out in the world, there's still adventures to be had. It's not a boring life. But the ultimate adventure is following Christ.
So those are the themes and the highlights that we want to bring throughout this show.
I want to go back to that trailer that you showed from the Off the Couch series. That was reality TV, but actually the premise of that show was built on the foundation of what Hudson just said.
Four years ago, when we moved back to America full-time, we thought that our days of adventuring were over. We thought that, wow, we're living in America, there's a naturalist here for over 200 years, every rock and stone has been removed, every tree has been named, there's no new bugs, there's no new nothing, right?
So we found ourselves sitting on the couch a lot. And then we set a challenge one day for ourselves. What if we just shifted the paradigm? What if we actually got off our couches, put our phones away, got back in creation and just see what happens?
And that really started a personal journey of seeing and experiencing that. It doesn't matter where you live, what corner of the map, what corner of creation.
Adventure starts with getting off the couch into creation. And there's so much just right outside our doors that can be discovered and experienced that we would never realize because we're living in America.
What is there out there to be experienced? And so that's really the premise of Off the Couch.
In the ninth episode, season one, you see us getting off our couch, starting in our own local bayou here, right in our backyard, and then going through multiple states and experiencing everything from archaeological discoveries, to finding aircraft like wrecks, to diving on sunken ships, to experiencing the rarest mammal in the world which actually happens to live in our backyard here in Florida, not in Indonesia, the red wolf.
All sorts of incredible things. So the series really showcases that it doesn't matter where you are, as long as you have that spirit of adventure and are willing to get off your couch into creation, there's all sorts of adventure to be had.
Yeah, we got some clips here of your animated series from another clip you guys had. And I like the idea of the adventure mixed in there too, because I think for a lot of young men, we need to inspire them to be manly and be going out and doing activities that men do and searching and exploring.
Obviously it's great to mix in there Christianity as well and have something that's tied to the Bible so that kids can kind of couple those two things. They can make Christianity also have masculinity to it and adventure and excitement, because obviously suburban life can be different than what you guys are experiencing.
And I mean, I guess in Florida, you still got some gators and you still got some stuff, but you know, lots of parts of the United States, it's kind of conquered. And so yeah, as far as the wildlife is concerned, and you don't have to fight the natives, I'm kind of curious, you know, out there on the wild.
Are you guys actually experiencing any kind of danger as well? Could you share like maybe any stories of any actual peril or danger you guys actually really face? Because some people don't realize that the world out there is a lot more dangerous than a lot of parts of America, or there could be uncertainty or confusion. And I'm just kind of curious if you guys have any stories about that.
Yeah, we have multiple, yeah. Several close calls. Which ones do we want to share?
Wasn't there something like the island of the four kings? Was there some danger with that or something?
Yeah, well, I think the first real kind of perilous moment was early on when we first got to the jungle. In certain areas, there's like guerrilla warfare groups that are fighting for independence. And so there's some tight situations where helicopter had to come and save the day for us and get us out of a sketchy situation.
But then there's also multiple times where just, yeah, nature. Our family built a 60 foot wooden double canoe to sail to America. And one of its maiden of wages was kind of across the coast of Papua about 500 miles.
And there's some nights where we're sailing past these big rivers and there had been flash floods that earlier that day that brought all this giant trees and branches out to the water.
And so like Han Solo kind of navigating our way through the asteroid field. After with flashlights trying to steer around these giant trees so that it doesn't sink our ship.
But also with medical situations where we fought bouts of malaria and dengue and places where there were no hospitals. And in fact, that's one of the most deadliest creatures out in the jungle is the tiny mosquito. Man, those things can cause a world of hurt.
So yeah, many situations where it's either hostile, you know, people, nature, you know, whether it be like natural disasters or sickness. But some of our adventures as well, like on our boat or on the Four Kings.
Two just battling the elements. Like we lived off grid for years and years in three different locations, three different houses, but among the same people. And it was really amazing because you just lived a daily life of dependence on the Lord because you weren't taken for granted like electricity or water.
Because, you know, we needed the sun every day to charge our solar panels so we could keep a few lights on and charge computers, you know. We needed rainwater for our third house. We didn't have actually like stream fed water in that house.
And so we had header tanks. And we're just, you know, really daily and weekly dependent on thorns and rain because it would be, you know, just a couple of weeks, you'd have to, you know, ration water if there wasn't any rain.
So many experiences like that over the years just taught us that, yeah, that life is fragile, you know, and that, you know, it's easy to live here in America with all the comforts, which are a blessing.
But you tend to sometimes forget about the daily things like food, water, sunshine that are so vital for most people in the world, you know, as they depend on those things.
So really living closely with the Lord and depending on daily was a great adventure as well. Great for our childhood.
You know, one thing that I think some people are afraid of, not only just the dangers and the risks that you guys kind of brought up, but people going on missionary journeys or trips like this and kind of isolating their family.
I think sometimes maybe they worry that their children will maybe miss out on childhood or growing up or they might be weird or not adopt, like kind of adapt back to society.
But obviously, and I don't know about you, Morgan, I know at least are you married as well, Morgan? Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. So you guys are both married. You don't seem that weird. Like, is there this danger of being like a homeschool family out on the mission field or kind of being a part of society, normal society?
Because I mean, from my perspective, you guys seem pretty well adjusted. I'm just kind of curious.
Yeah. I think homeschools are supposed to be weird, but you add like life in the jungle and no man's land. You come out pretty strange.
Yeah. I think there's weird people everywhere. I mean, there's some pretty weird people here, you know, and in every pocket, in every local church, there's some weirdos. It's just the reality. I mean, everywhere you go.
So I think there's always going to be those people. And sure, a lot of people have, you know, just a hard time adjusting to cross-cultural situations. There's a lot of challenges that come with that.
We were blessed to grow up there. At a very early age, we moved to Indonesia. So that was like normal life for us. But my parents did a good job balancing, kind of harmonizing our life and cultural experiences there with also our identity as American citizens.
So they did a great job raising us to understand our history and our citizenship and the blessing that that is. And they also raised us to be American citizens and as much as possible to, you know, teach us about American culture and way of life.
And every three and a half years to four years, we would come back to the States for about a nine month period for like a furlough, a home assignment. So that really helped us just reintegrate each time, reconnect with old friends, with family, experience life a little bit.
And then we're back on the mission field for another four years or so. So during those intermediate periods back in the States, it helped us just learn more about our culture. But yeah, moving back, there's totally some culture shock and some things we had to catch up on like, you know, driving and hey, how to use a credit card and all those things that we weren't using on a daily basis over there.
So there's definitely that shift in transition. But by God's grace, we adapted pretty easily. And that can't be said for everybody. But I feel like our parents did a great job just really teaching us the value of a family ministry.
I think that had a world of difference in our story because we grew up not feeling isolated, not feeling disconnected or underprivileged, not being able to experience certain things that our peers were in America.
We rather saw it as an amazing opportunity and as a season of life that the Lord had called us to. And our parents really, from an early age, equipped us with responsibilities in their ministry so that we felt like we were a part of a team.
We weren't just there on the side being dragged along through all these experiences, but rather they daily relied on us to be a part of the mission. So that helped create identity and ownership for us as well in the ministry. And I think that provided a lot of stability growing up.
It was one of the main reasons actually we did a reality TV show early on during our teen years. It's because we saw that very issue limiting families from coming overseas.
And we just saw that there's so many parents that we interacted with here in the U.S. that said, I would love to go to the mission field, but I'm terrified for my kids. I can't take my kids over there.
They might get hurt. They might turn out weird. How do we do education? And so we did several different series to kind of showcase third culture kids can actually thrive on the mission field.
There are challenges, but there's also awesome adventures and kids can thrive over there and have just amazing experiences.
I'm curious about your homeschooling because my family, we use the Rebecca program, which is actually coming out of Florida, kind of probably where you guys are at. But I'm kind of curious what curriculum or resources did you guys use while you're abroad?
Early on, we used a lot of Sunlight, it's called. And then in middle school and high school, my mom just did a conglomeration of different curriculums for different subjects. So we used a lot of Apologia for Science.
Not Grass for History.
Matthew C. for Math.
It was a mixture. Each year is a little different. It was really hard for her because she'd have to very intentionally plan ahead to have certain books shipped over, which is really difficult. Other than that, homeschooling was pretty much the same as anywhere else. We didn't have any co-ops or anything. We're a very small class. But we had a great time.
And we all graduated.
Yeah, we all graduated. Great grades. And we all excelled in college. It hasn't been an issue. So kudos to my mom. She did a great job. She's an extremely hard worker as well as my dad. So we really are grateful for them.
Go all you homeschool parents.
Yeah, you guys aren't weird. It's a great way to spend quality time with your kids and really instill a worldview that exalts Christ in them instead of five days a week having them send or somebody else. So it's a lot of work, but it's definitely a worthy cause.
Well, if they're homeschooled, they might miss out on becoming communists. But you know, I guess that's a downfall.
That's true.
I want to change it up a little bit. And I want to talk about something that I think is in your guys' alley. But several years ago, at the ARC, where the ARC encounter area, there was a debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham on fitting all these animals on the ARC.
And Bill Nye was kind of hypothesizing that there's like 16 million species out there and that that would be mathematically impossible to fit on the ARC.
And I've, I've actually researched this myself a little bit of like trying to categorize like how many animals will be on the ARC. But I wanted to play a clip from him. So he can at least explain, you know, his viewpoint that I wanted to talk about it with you guys. Because since you guys are world travelers, I want to kind of see if you know, I've I've missed any animals in my, you know, basically conglomerate of list here. But let's go ahead and play Bill Nye for a second. So get this set up.
So let's see if there are 4000 years since Ken Ham's flood. And let's say, as he said many times, there are 7000 kinds. Today, the very, very lowest estimate is that there are about 8.7 million species.
But a much more reasonable estimate is it's 50 million or even 100 million when you start counting the viruses and the bacteria and all the beetles that must be extant in the tropical rainforest that we haven't found.
So we'll take a number which I think is pretty reasonable 16 million species today. Okay. If these came from 7000 kinds, that's let's say we have 7000 subtracted from 15 million, that's 15993.
We have 4000 years, we have 365 and a quarter days a year, we would expect to find 11 new species every day. So you'd go out into your yard, you wouldn't just find a different bird, a new bird, you find a different kind of bird, a whole new species, a bird every day, a new species of fish, a new species of organisms you can't see and so on.
I mean, this would be enormous news. The last 4000 years, people would have seen these changes among us. So the Cincinnati Inquirer, I imagine, would carry a column right next to the weather report. Today's new species and it would list these 11 every day. But we see no evidence of that. There's no evidence of these species. There just simply isn't enough time.
All right, you can go ahead and pause this clip or whatever. But I earlier in this debate, he brought up that there was the, you know, trying to fit these 16 million species on or, you know, on the on the ark. And then he kind of here in this particular specific argument is saying, well, let's just give Ken Ham the benefit of the doubt and say there was only 7000 animals on the ark. How could you go from 7000 to 16 million today that would require us to have?
11 new species of, quote, animals every single day. But I actually see if you can pull up. I'm going to pull up my screen here in just a second. I want to get to this particular chart. See if you can pull that chart up when you get a second.
He's got it. How quick our production team is.
Okay, so let's check it. I just typed it in like how many Shelley animal species are there? You hit I agree that giant yellow box. Want me to agree? Yeah, I don't even know what I agreed to. Okay, here we go.
So if you actually look at just the number of described species, the one thing that Bill Nye is being pretty misleading on is the fact that the vast majority of the quote number of species that we're talking about were of like bacteria.
And then like the second category was like insects. And then like when you actually get into what we would typically think of as like animals or something, and especially animals that were on the ark, there's only 11,000 reptiles, 11,000 birds, 8000 amphibians, 6000 mammals.
So, you know, we're not talking about 16 million that were on the ark, or that were, you know, even the from the 7000, you would have to get to 16 million, we're talking about less than 100,000, even on this particular number, which is totally reasonable.
But I'm sure that you guys out in the wild have seen all kinds of crazy animals and new discoveries and things that you didn't even I don't even know where the things out there. You're like, I don't even know what this is.
So it's an interesting argument, like you said, and if you want the full answer, go check out the ark encounter. And you can see they do a great job answering all these objections.
But I would just say that there's a lot of issues with that argument. From our personal experience, we actually helped describe many different types of species of moths, butterflies, some potentially small mammals and birds as well for Hudson.
So our family got to participate in that. So we have some moths and stuff named, actually named after our family, our last name, so it's not impossible. What you'll find is that there are some modern countries, especially in Europe, in the West, that have actually taken upon themselves because we have enough free time to actually go and find all these things.
In some countries in Europe, scientists are so desperate to find something new that they'll actually position massive lights on the coast to try to draw a new moth or something that they can then describe and say, wow, we haven't found one of these yet.
They're looking under every rock and every crevice to try to find something new, some small European countries. But most countries in the world, they're trying to survive, and so the last thing on their mind is looking for beetles and butterflies.
So most people in the world aren't interested in this, and they're not natural so hard, and they're not searching. And even if they could find something, there's no way to document it. It's very, very difficult for the average person to actually get something scientifically approved as new species.
So actually, the formal process to getting something called, you know, this is a new species, it's extremely difficult. There's not a lot of people in the world who are doing this. So that would be the first thing. If all of us were looking, we'd be finding a lot more.
The second thing is that, like I said, most of the countries in the world where people are not doing this happen to have the most things that are not described for that very reason. And so where we grew up in the jungle, there had been no Western naturalists.
And so we had the benefit of having a clean slate. So pretty much every leaf, you know, was new. All you had to do was go to a little stream and pick up some water beetles, and they would guarantee to be new. It wasn't difficult.
All you had to do was go to a certain elevation, a certain altitude. It wasn't hard to find new things to science.
But one thing that we had the privilege of seeing was just how quickly microevolution takes place. So there's the macroevolution, where you have some giant change and, you know, a monkey evolves into a person, which we believe would be false and could never happen.
But then you have microevolution, which I don't like the word, but it just means a variation or form takes place. And so we got to see that on a regular basis as we collected numerous new species of insects.
And some would, you could directly see how it would morph. Oftentimes something would happen, a landslide, something would cause one, you know, type of insect over here now to be isolated and over time would slightly change.
And some of the coloring, you know, on different butterflies, it was most noticeable with their coloring. Slightly change, and if they're isolated long enough, they could actually, you know, interbreed and become its own species or subspecies is what we would describe.
And so that happens all the time. And so it's not hard for one species, something to happen, and, you know, part of that colony gets isolated and is over here, and all of a sudden they morph into their own subspecies.
And so we got to describe numerous subspecies of butterflies and insects. And so it doesn't take millions of years for, you know, one host or one kind to then kind of morph into multiple different species.
But as Ken Ham would say, it's all part of the same kind. You know, a butterfly doesn't change to a grasshopper.
Right. So you're still just finding butterflies and beetles and moss and everything. I actually made a list of my own several years back and just kind of just trying to go through different lists.
So I looked at like Wikipedia for their list of animals. I looked at the Bible, like all the animals mentioned in the Bible. I looked at bird classifications. I looked at several other websites, and I tried to combine them all into my own list.
And I have, it's kind of hard to see all the data, but I have it pulled up on my screen here.
It's done your homework.
But I calculated about 740, quote, kinds of animals that would be put on the ark potentially.
And again, you know, there's going to be a speculation as far as like how do we really classify these and everything.
But what I thought would be kind of interesting is you guys could help me and maybe just think of maybe the craziest animal or things that you saw.
And I want to see if I have it in my list because I just want to know if you can help me refine this list a little bit.
So I was just kind of curious, what are some of the craziest things you've seen out there in the wild?
Right away, there's one that stands out above all the others. Are you familiar with the echidna?
Echidna? I'm not sure.
Echidna is by far, it's spelled E, it's ECH.
I tried to spell it. The first letter that came out of my mouth was wrong.
Okay. So I think it's this one. Is this what you're saying? The ECHIDNA?
Yeah.
Echidna. Yeah.
There you go.
I don't even know what that is. Let's look this thing up.
You need to look at this. It'll blow your mind.
So it's one of the only mammals in the world that lays eggs. So the most famous one would be the platypus. Everybody knows about that.
What a strange creature, right? But he actually has a friend, the echidna. This is the other mammal that lays eggs.
It looks almost like a porcupine mixed with an anteater. They actually have pouches, but they lay eggs.
After their young hatch, they climb into their pouch. So they're actually a marsupial. It's a mammal that lays eggs, and it's the craziest little critter.
It's a nocturnal marsupial that lays eggs. It lives up in the highlands of Papua Indonesia, but also on the island of New Zealand and some parts of Australia.
Really, really bizarre little creatures, but some are cute. Some are a little bit scary looking.
Where did this evolve from, Ben?
You're asking the wrong thing.
This is its own kind.
I know, right?
Yeah, you're asking the wrong guy, that question. I want to pop in and just say, and we'll go right back to the animals.
I just want to pop in and say that when you bring up macroevolution and microevolution, I think that a lot of people in the secular world,
they seem to think that when Christians like us claim we don't believe in evolution, we hold to a non-evolutionary worldview,
it seems like what they hear is that we're rejecting microevolution as well, which is observable.
And you guys talked about some of the variations that you were able to observe and the changes you were able to observe and things of that nature.
And I think it's important to make that distinction between what I would categorize and what the Bible categorizes as science falsely so-called,
the macroevolutionary theory, this idea that one kind can somehow through small variations end up turning into something completely different,
my biological ancestor being a fish or a single-celled organism or something like that,
and the microevolution process that you described where there are variations within kinds that happen because they adapt and they change,
but they're not switching to a completely different kind.
So I think it's important for people to understand the distinction between those two processes
because it'll help them, I think, understand where we're coming from a little bit better and realize that as Christians, no, we don't reject science.
In fact, we embrace it and we love science. We love science. And I think you guys love science as well.
Absolutely. I think the Christian worldview should make Christians the most scientific people of all because we have a reason to be scientific.
There's purpose and an agenda behind it.
Absolutely. Do you want to add to that?
Well, not only are there cool creatures, there are some dangerous creatures out there.
What are some of the dangerous creatures you guys have encountered?
We're actually really blessed. The island of Papua shares a lot of the same flora and fauna as New Zealand,
whereas other parts of Indonesia have tigers and rhinos and monkeys and large dangerous animals.
The island of Papua has a lot of small creatures. The most dangerous is probably the cassowary.
There's a lot of cassowaries out in the jungle and they're large birds, kind of like an emu or an ostrich,
but they're very territorial and defensive. Their feet almost look like velociraptor feet.
They have these giant claws and they will impale you and rip your abdomen open. So they're very dangerous.
They'll run and attack you. And also wild boar.
Wild boar and a lot of venomous snakes, but we were fortunate to live almost 7,000 feet above sea level,
so most of the venomous snakes were not around at that elevation.
But if you go down to the coast, like in the swamps and marshes, you have massive crocodiles.
Even on the coast, saltwater crocodiles, which is the craziest thing.
You can be snorkeling and a massive 12-foot, 15-foot croc could be laying down there on the reef.
And they eat people. They're man-eaters. So you have to watch out more than the coast.
There's a lot of dangerous sea snakes, crocodiles, but where we're at in the highlands is, yeah, we were pretty fortunate.
We weren't having to look above every tree.
There are a lot of snakes in some of the lowland areas.
One of my good buds pulled up this YouTube video and his uncle never came back home from work one day.
His family got a little bit worried. They went out and sure enough, right where he usually takes a nap,
they found his machete stuck in the ground and a giant python.
And they cut him open and his uncle came falling out. He's like, look, they got it all on YouTube.
Take a look at this. There definitely are some large reptiles over there in the jungles that you have to watch out for.
That's crazy.
That doesn't sound very fun.
This is the cassowary or whatever?
Is that it right there?
Oh man.
There it is.
We actually had a pet one for a few years and it was lovable.
When they're little, they're actually very great pets. It's one they get to their teenage years and they'll turn on you.
So nobody can keep a pet cassowary for a certain amount of years.
But ours was named KFC, which stood for Kentucky Fried Cassowary, and she was great.
Some of our videos feature her. She's pretty fun.
See, that to me, like on the onset, I can picture seeing that in a zoo or someplace and not thinking that it's very threatening.
I don't know if you disagree, Pastor Shelley, but I mean, I look at that and I don't envision it hurting me in any way.
Those are the most dangerous animals because you kind of, you have your guard off and you're just kind of thinking like,
oh, it's friendly and you get up there close and then all of a sudden it just, it's talons or something.
It gets you.
Yeah, I've even seen playing golf, like there was just a goose or a duck or something.
But a mother duck is like really territorial, especially around her chicks or chicks.
They're ducklings, I guess, maybe the ducklings.
And I've seen a guy get bit by a duck and it'll really just like nip the just the skin off of your body just like real quick.
A lot of animals are twice as scary if they're not behind a cage.
Whenever you're behind the cage and we're on this side, then it doesn't feel that threatening.
But if you're right there and there's nothing between you, suddenly it's a different experience.
A little survival tip though, the cassowaries, they have weird legs. They bend forward like this.
And so they're really good at running uphill. But then if you run downhill, their legs are like this.
They have a really kind of hard time going downhill.
Their joints are backwards. So they can't run downhill fast.
You've got to run downhill as fast as you can and hopefully they can't keep up.
Well, there's a lot of animals. I have cassowaries on my list too.
So now I'm going to challenge you guys because I think there's this dangerous predator that's out there that makes really strange noises out in the wild.
And I'm kind of curious if you guys have ever come across one of these.
But let's go ahead and play clip seven and see what's going on in the wilderness.
Right now I feel. What do you feel?
Oh, my goodness.
You know, on second thought, I think we we need to send Jacob out there in the wilderness to find out why.
Yeah. Oh, by the way, they say the home schoolers are weird. I just want to put that out there.
These are all public school educated. So no, I'm kidding. The liberal. Have you come across this out in the wilderness or is this something you've ever seen out there in the wild?
No, no. I don't want to grab my bow and, you know, yeah.
I mean, it's kind of crazy. You know, people going out there in the woods just hitting sticks. I mean, even if the tribes act this interesting when you're out there in the bush.
You know, when you're out there in the bush, you're focused on like, all right, I need to provide food for my family. I need to go chop firewood so we don't like freeze tonight.
And, you know, I need to protect my family from the dangers of the jungle. So that's all acting weird.
You're going to be cast out of society. You don't have room for that. You know, like, hey, we're all busy here. If you want to go be a crazy person.
That's not acceptable.
Go climb a mountain and do by yourself.
And I was also asked, that's a total waste of exerted energy right there. It's like that contributes to nothing that has to decide. So people would say you're, they would actually refer to you as a crazy person.
So they would quickly, you know, repent of their craziness and come back, you know, embrace normality if they're in the jungle.
Yeah, I think they were just trying to get out, let out some steam. You know, these, these women have their lives, their lives are so hard out there in city life. They have to come out and scream in the woods.
And detox a little bit. Yeah, get some bad vibes out.
They're just the wild sisters. We're talking to the wild brothers.
No, but you guys, obviously you guys got married. So is this something that was kind of post the missionary work? Did you find your wives like back in the States or how did you guys meet your wives? I'm kind of curious how that connection happened.
It's just like Tarzan Jane.
She wasn't like screaming in the woods with a stick or something.
No, it was, so for my wife, Alyssa, we actually met as childhood friends. So her family, they were also involved in tribal church planning and Bible translation among an unengaged, unreached people group on the same island.
And since we were connected with the same organization, we, you know, some, I mean, annually would connect over conferences or just fun retreats as a family so that we're those childhood friends. So that's how I met her. And then your wife?
My wife, she's from Montana. I met her four years ago. So our parents knew each other way back in missions training. Her family, they were here in the States and our family just had never gotten together.
So when we first moved back to the US, we were living here in Florida on a bayou right next to the Emerald Coast beach. And her family was like, wait, we could really use a vacation. Can we come visit? So they came down, stay with us for a week. I got introduced and then things kind of just progressed from there.
That's cool.
I have a question from the chat room here. Let me scroll up. This one says, Bill, well, I'm going to read that one. Okay, here's a question. What kind of crazy foods, this is thebrojstu is asking this one.
What kind of crazy foods have they had to eat local foods? So he's asking about any unorthodox foods that you've had out in the wilderness on some of your adventures that you might want to share with the audience.
Yeah, some pretty unorthodox food, but I'll say nothing as distasteful as the American hot dog. That's like way up there with like, what is this? Are you serious?
Foreign substance.
Foreign substance in my body. Yeah, everywhere you go, food is one of those things. It's a part of like, in a sense, material culture. So like the standards of food, what is good, what is not, what's spicy, what's not at all is berries.
So the food is food. I think some of what Americans would find distasteful probably be animal entrails, interesting organs, the feet of certain kinds of animals.
Where we grew up, meat was a rarity, something scarce. So you kind of just get in the store, giant fat-infused plump chicken breasts and all sorts of stuff. Everything's on steroids and hormones and stuff.
So any kind of meat that you caught was like, it was a delicacy and it was treated with respect. Usually the whole animal was eaten. So kind of like the First Nation people of the Americas and most people throughout history and still today, how they would eat meat.
So anything that was hunted was eaten in its entirety. So that led to a lot of uncomfortable, strange, you know, organs and things that we would reject or the fat on a wild board that still has all this hair singed on it.
Probably animal brains are my least favorite. I'm just not a brain guy. Every brain, it doesn't matter what kind of animal. It could be a bird, it could be a...
Chilled monkey brains?
Exactly. Indiana Jones style. It's never tasty. And then also, if you remove the teeth of an animal, underneath is like a really soft gelatinous gum. They love it over there.
For me, I'm just like the texture totally throws me off.
Do they have balut over there? Do you know what that is? Balut?
It's a Filipino food. What is it?
It's basically like a half duck egg. It's been fertilized, but it hasn't been hatched and they basically eat it raw.
Yeah, they would eat...
We've ate our share of those.
Half developed birds, yeah.
Is that good?
Especially the cassowary.
No.
So the cassowary, that giant bird that you had up a bit ago.
He said no.
Those things lay massive eggs. I mean, it's like this big.
Oh, man.
And you've got a fertilized pick in there.
It's like Jurassic Park.
No, it's literally, if you look up right now, cassowary egg and they're bright green. They're beautiful. It's incredible. It looks like it doesn't look real, but they're massive eggs and yeah, they'll be half developed.
It's very hard to get a cassowary egg that's just the yolk that's early on. Usually, they're always half developed, so you're kind of like trying to make an omelet.
It's like a 70-30 chance. You crack it over the skillet and you're praying, let's just be a normal egg. Sometimes there's a little baby that flops out.
That's crazy. It looks like a lime almost or something.
Yeah, it's not something. It's like CGI.
Yeah, I think that looks enticing.
That looks enticing. I'll let you try it, okay? That's crazy.
A massive omelet.
See, I like them scrambled.
Well, you've got to catch your prey sometimes. There's a clip I want to play of you guys making a slingshot.
How to make a slingshot.
I'm kind of curious about if you ever had to use this to catch some food, but let's play this clip real quick to learn how to make a slingshot.
And that, my friends, is a wrap. Literally. Alrighty, let's test it out.
It's important to shoot the slingshot the right way. Don't be doing anything like this all sissy-like.
The correct way to hold it is to wrap your forefinger around the front Y piece. Your thumb supports it right here.
You have it at a sideways angle. Pull back and launch. Awesome.
So that was how to shoot it. Let's play clip 4-2, because I wanted to play also the one where you guys teach us a little bit how to make one, I think. Is that correct?
So let's play clip 4-2.
And also make sure that they're responsibly sourced. You don't want to just go hack down a beautiful, young, vibrant tree just for one little piece of wood.
Step one, find your Y handle piece. Super important.
And what I like to do is the squeeze test. I like to take both the Y pieces in my hand and squeeze it as hard as I can.
If you can't break it, that means it's a good piece. It's going to be strong. It's going to last a long time.
Step two, we're going to attach the rubber tubing onto the Y pieces.
And I oftentimes carry around rubber tubing with me.
So what I like to do is take my knife, my pocket knife, and just to carve a little bit right here at the base of the Y.
And when we secure it tight down, it'll be nice and snug. It won't be moving around on the round surface.
And what I want, I'm just going to kind of measure. You want probably about an inch, an inch and a half of excess rubber right here.
And this is where we're going to attach the rubber onto the Y piece.
And then pull the remainder back and see about how far you want it to be.
I want mine to be about a foot. That's my first piece.
And now I'm going to use this as the measurement for my second piece so that they're exactly the same length.
So now that we've completed that, we're going to attach the rubber tubing.
The best method to do this is using rubber bands.
So, what I do to tie is overlap. I want to take this end and I'm basically going to just give it over to my other fingers.
Just like that. I'm going to pull.
Nice. I like this video. It's like something we could just get our kids, like some of these tools and help them make some screenshots.
Good ol' Sherlock USA.
Yeah, that's a great tutorial.
Just hope that the kids don't start shooting each other with the slingshots.
Do you shoot your brothers?
Yeah, that's the only problem.
So, tell us a little about this, you know, kind of that video we just watched and making slingshots.
Have you ever had to? I mean, I'm sure you have.
Tell us about shooting them and your experiences with the slingshots there.
Yeah, we group with bows and arrows. That was our primary tool out in the jungle to defend, multi-purpose, shoot your brother if he's being stinker.
You know, but arrows are a craft. It takes a while to create a good arrow and so you spend all this time making, you know, 20 arrows.
You go hunting and you lose half. And you shoot an arrow in the jungle, you'll never find it.
So, slingshot ammo is much more accessible. You know, we'd go through hundreds of rounds of slingshot ammo.
And so, it was actually my father-in-law. This was before I met my wife.
He came over there to do some construction work, I think, for a team.
And I got to meet him, I was I think 12, Morgan, 14 or so. Anyways, very young.
But he had a slingshot with him. And he had made it when he was a boy in the Amazon jungles. He was a missionary kid.
And so, he gave it to me before he left. And that kind of became our example.
We modeled all our slingshots after his. We called it the Schroeder Slinger. His last name is Schroeder. Dave Schroeder.
Started a discipleship ministry called Mentoring Timothy. You guys got to check it out. Mentoring Timothy.
Anyways, his slingshot was our model for all of our slingshots. And wow, we never left the house without our slingshots roped around our shoulders.
Just great for hunting with.
Yeah, where we grew up as well in the country of Indonesia, it's not legal for citizens to carry any firearms.
So, we didn't have like a .22 or anything. Maybe like some redneck kid here would, you know.
And so, you could have like air-powered rifles and stuff were allowed, were legal.
But slingshots turn out to be seriously dangerous. They can mess you up if you know how to use them.
And we wouldn't use like a little pitiful little…
Like BBs.
So, like BBs that you might buy at Bass Pro Shop. We would actually craft certain type of rocks for all of them.
Yeah, we had a whole like quarry.
Yeah, a whole rock quarry of slingshot, you know. And so, I mean, it would seriously like…
You hear the story of like David and Goliath, like clearly the Lord was like with him.
But like, I mean, if you do it right, I mean, it can like really hurt something.
So, if you're, you know, hunting in moderation with respect according to the guidelines, things like birds or small mammals, you can really take them out.
I mean, you take… When we got back to America, I had someone out with a slingshot and took out a squirrel in the first like five minutes.
We didn't realize that there was like squirrel fumes.
Like, look at all these dumb squirrels. They're so like accustomed to like people. They're just like right in front of me.
Pop, you know. And you just, I mean, you take them out like nothing. You don't need a twine.
We were too savage when we first got back. It was like Eye of the Tiger. Every movie creature was food in our eyes.
And so, it's like our grandparents kind of say.
There's rules and regulations. There's squirrels in the backyard.
I wanted to plug the Trail Life USA channel and the playlist, Trail Hacks.
That's actually how my wife discovered you guys is through the Trail Hacks playlist on that channel.
She wanted to show some of that content to my son. He's young. He just turned four years old.
So, he still has a ways to go before he can do some of this stuff on his own.
But, we wanted to get him started young. But, there's some cool videos on there like the one we just showed.
How to make a rope. How to make trail bread. How to make pine needle tea. Cooking in a pit.
So, a lot of these different tips that you have there in short form videos and people could check it out.
But, it does feature the Wild Brothers and some really cool tips for, you know, being on the outdoors on the trail and making some of this stuff.
So, I personally really enjoy it myself as well.
I need you to tell my dad how to do that because he has squirrel issues.
Because he's really into golf and they tear up his green.
And so, he's always trying to catch squirrels and he tried to get a BB gun but it didn't work.
So, maybe he needs the Schroeder shooter. He needs to get in this.
There you go.
Do you know how fast that goes feet per second? Do you have any idea?
I'm kind of curious. I'm kind of curious how fast that goes.
I think you wanted to, it sounds like you were about to say something about the Trail Life USA.
Oh, no. I was just about to say they're a great organization.
A couple of years ago we started partnering with them to produce some content for them like the Trail Hacks that you saw.
But, also just a partner, a bigger scale through organization because we really saw the value in their mission to kind of equip and mentor and disciple young men.
And in collaboration with local churches in the wake of Boy Scouts spiraling the drain.
So, we really appreciate their values as an organization and it's been fun on a small scale.
The last few years being back in America actually partnered to create some content and try to be as much as possible by God's grace.
Somewhat of a mentor or an example because there's just not a lot of young guys out there who would make very good role models unfortunately.
So, it's something that we don't feel like we're definitely not influencers by any means.
But, according to the platform, what God has given us we're going to be responsible with.
And so, it's something that we've started to do as we have our own families.
It's like, hey, people need good examples of strong men who are God, the men of integrity.
And that just happens to be what Trail Hacks is kind of all about.
So, it's been a fun partnership for sure.
And you guys have your own streaming platform as well that you guys are working on the animated content, some of the real life.
I think you've also done some film projects.
Yeah, documentaries, reality TV.
What is the future? You're just kind of trying a lot of different things right now or do you have like a big project in mind?
Like, what is the future of this streaming the Wild Brothers?
Yeah, great question. Thanks for asking.
So, we've been filming for about 10 years.
Most of us have just been unprofessional as a hobby.
The last two years, the four of us have been called by the Lord to collaborate and work together for a season to produce content for our generation that gets them excited about God's mission.
So, a year ago we launched our own streaming platform.
It's called Wild Brothers TV and it's the number one source of great commissions entertainment for children.
So, something like PureFlix, but it's for kids and it's all about God's mission.
Also, heavy emphasis on outdoor adventure content.
It's our own platform. It's our own app.
It's a streaming platform akin to something like Netflix or, I don't know, Daily Wire Plus.
But what's unique about it is that it's more of a membership than a subscription.
So, we actually have a community of young Christian families from across the U.S. and around the world who are on the platform.
In addition to streaming great commission entertainment, like you were saying, ranging from reality TV to documentary, now to animation.
They also get to engage as members.
There's social media features. There's something called the Adventure Chat that people are posting and communicating on every day.
And we jump on monthly live streams with our community.
So, the app is really neat because it takes a lot of membership features and kind of our heart in it is really mobilizing a generation of young families who get re-engaged with God's mission.
And are spurred on to live a lot for Christ.
So, Wild Brothers TV, that's definitely the place to find all of our content.
Past, present, and future stuff.
We also have the privilege of partnering with different ministries, organizations, other film producers to take some of their content on our platform as well.
So, there are licensed, some third-party content.
Right now, we have a little over 200 titles that are coming out with new content that comes out every Saturday.
And a lot of that is original content.
So, we're not just circulating the same old shows that have been around for the last 10 years on Pureflex and everything else.
It's actually new and interesting content.
So, it's definitely a fun community and it's been a fun challenge.
We, a few years ago, never foresaw us doing something like this.
But it's been really neat to see the Lord kind of provide and give direction through the process.
And it's still a startup. It's only been going on for one year, actually.
Yeah, we started last year in August.
So, it's just been over a year of Wild Brothers TV actually being out for everybody.
But it's quickly grown to be the number one source of great commissions entertainment for children.
So, we want to continue to use that as our main vehicle to impact and equip and kind of mobilize families.
But there's also a lot of free stuff that you can see on our Wild Brothers YouTube as well.
Yeah, we want young families and kids especially to move from like passivity to like action.
And be excited about using their lives for things that really matter.
You know, for what God is calling them into.
It's just so easy to be lukewarm Christians here in the U.S.
And kind of just sit on the sidelines.
You know, to be a pure warmer instead of actually doing something that matters and being sacrificial.
Living all out for Christ.
And so, kind of our motto is, following Christ is the ultimate adventure.
Whether that be halfway across the world in a jungle or here in the U.S.
The body of Christ is so diverse and we're all called to play a part.
And so, we want to just instill that in kids from an early age and excite them to.
And the wonders that God is going to call them to and the part that they get to play in his global church.
Seeing all the nations reached. It's kind of the heart for our platform.
One thing you guys mentioned earlier in the interview about traditional Christian entertainment and media.
And you had brought up that some of it can be a little cheesy, some of it can be perhaps of a lower quality.
And that's not to bash anybody who's putting this content out or anything like that.
God bless them, they're trying and we appreciate that.
But, I have to say, you're right, okay?
And you know, it's nice to see that you're self-aware about that and understand the ecosystem of Christian entertainment.
And realize that, you know, that is kind of a drawback.
And I think for those out there who are listening, you have Wild Brothers TV, the streaming platform, as an option now.
If you do want some Christian media, some Christian entertainment that will provide you with not just quality,
but also content that's good for the whole family and something that can actually influence children positively.
And I know we already discussed this, but that's a big thing for me as a parent,
is I want to make sure that if my kids are watching something on television for entertainment,
that it's influencing them positively rather than negatively with all the subliminal messaging and the woke and the left-wing stuff,
the liberalism and everything like that that they cram into the entertainment.
It's good to see that there's an option out there.
Yeah, and I like the mission also. I mean, we do a lot of missions trips too.
We've gone to the Bahamas, Fiji, Philippines, Canada, Mexico, a lot of different areas.
And we don't always document it as well as you guys have done.
And getting those cool screen, you know, those wide shot drone shots are really epic.
I mean, their production is like way better.
Yeah, the production quality is pretty...
It makes us feel pathetic.
It's pretty incredible considering you guys are pretty much self-taught and everything.
But I think sometimes that's really beneficial.
You know, they say a picture is worth a thousand words.
And I think even in these scenarios, like some of those shots you'll have look really nice.
And they can kind of motivate people to want to go out there and explore and spread the gospel themselves.
And so I definitely...
Observe God's creation.
I'm definitely motivated to try and capture better video on our next trip.
Yeah, well something too I was going to throw out there that's really unique about Wild Brothers TV
and to me is one of the hallmarks of it being something different and unique is that
in addition to just, again, streaming content one way, like most platforms, like I was mentioning, there is this community.
And one of the things that we started probably a little over half a year ago was something on the channel called the Young Adventure Channel.
So in addition to all the different playlists, different content, there is something for our members.
And what's really unique is that when we started the Off The Couch Into Creation series,
accompanying those nine episodes are these challenge videos.
And each challenge video is basically instructions for how kids can get off their couches into creation
and they go on a challenge akin to the adventure that they just watched us doing.
Replicating their own adventures.
And they follow something called the 3Ds, which is Discover, Document, Devotion.
So they're discovering something new, they're documenting it, whether that's drawing a picture, capturing it on video like us, writing about it, and then devotion.
They're giving glory back to their creator for it.
And so what's amazing is that our community actually goes out on their own adventures, records their own experiences,
following the 3Ds, and then uploads those videos.
We have little tutorials on how to edit your own videos.
These are all for young families.
They create their own content.
They upload it to us as long as it follows the guidelines.
We then post it on Wild Brothers TV on the Young Adventure Channel for everybody else in the community to experience.
So we have over 50 of those and we just started that not too long ago.
It's amazing to see how this has started a small movement of Christian families who are also giving out their couches into creation,
giving glory back to their creator, and inspiring the whole community.
So it's a really fun place for not just one-way streaming content, but also going on your own adventures and then participating and actually contributing content to the platform.
It makes it really unique.
So that's something that, just throwing that out there for young families to consider.
If you're looking for outlets for budding young filmmakers, that's a great place.
Because what we've seen is that there's so many kids and families who want to post up on YouTube or want to post up on TikTok or Instagram.
It's just not really an edifying community.
It's just not a great place to try to start your own list of subscribers.
But on Wild Brothers TV, you can post your own adventure videos and there's a great receptive community there who's going to follow along, be encouraged, comment.
So it's been this almost in seed form, a place for young Christian filmmakers to start exploring those same giftings.
Yeah, that's cool. And you can get some feedback from people who would probably be interested in that type of content.
Whereas you upload it to these big platforms and sometimes it just seems like a drop of water on a hot stove.
It's kind of hard to get noticed.
Yeah, right.
So maybe I ought to trek back over to the Middle East and upload my own adventure videos.
That's a different kind of Wild Brother.
That's true.
There you go.
Hey, I want to also say something that I like about this stream and the Wild Brothers in general is the value you place on observing and glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ, but specifically God's creation itself.
And really not wanting to take God's creation for granted.
But the question I have for you guys is this.
You know, a lot of us, we work an 8 to 5.
We have office jobs and things like that where we may not be able to enjoy God's creation as much as we would like.
But do you have any tips for perhaps the average person on things that they can do, activities they can do outdoors, whether it's hiking or whatever else.
Maybe something that you think people should be doing more of just to enjoy the world that God has created for us and the creation that he has given us for us to enjoy and to observe and basically to glorify him.
But do you have any tips for the average Joe out there who wants to get off the couch themselves?
How do you do it?
Yeah.
Well, the first step is just that, getting off the couch.
We've seen that even with a little time spent outside, you grow in your appreciation for the creator, the one who's made this beautiful world around us, and you learn different attributes about him.
His creativity, his power and his strength and just the design order all around us and his creation.
So get off the couch and like what we tell our community is just get out in the backyard.
That's like the closest little piece of creation.
As long as you're not like in a big apartment complex and you literally don't have any dirt outside the front door.
But in those situations, go to a park, get outside and just take off your shoes, put your feet in the grass and just enjoy being outside for a little bit.
But then beyond that, find hobbies and things that you like to do outside and then pursue those because not everyone likes to go on a hike or even could or maybe would feel intimidated by something like that.
How do you organize a trip to get on a trail?
Sometimes that can be intimidating.
But find things that you enjoy doing outside and then spend more time doing it.
Find time to carve into your busy schedules to get outside and just appreciate God and the world that he's created because ultimately it is for our enjoyment.
The things that he's made, the trees, the grass, the birds, all that we see is for a man's enjoyment, for us to appreciate and reflect that glory and praise back to the creator.
I think too, one thing that we coined upon moving back to America was something that we called the urban machete.
And the urban machete is this right here.
So the sole device that everybody carries in their pocket, this is an urban machete.
When we grew up in Indonesia, everybody had a machete and that was one of their main tools. They used it for everything.
Well, when you move back here, there's very little use for a machete but this is actually the urban machete because you can navigate, you can call people, you can pay for things.
Pretty much you can Google things, you can do any, calculate things, right?
This is the urban machete. It's the main tool that you need for slashing through jungle and surviving here in America.
But most people see this as a toy, not a tool.
Yes.
So we kind of, you know, a big part of that getting off the couch is also eliminating other things, you know.
Because we're filling our time in the day doing something, whether it's watching TV or most of the time it has to do with this, the urban machete.
But if you can start to shift your perspective from this being like something fun that have a million games and a million distracting activities on to, oh, this is a tool.
So this is how I survive here. That doesn't mean you can't have any social media.
But like this is an urban machete, this is my tool.
Just like a machete is very sharp and in the hands of somebody who is not skilled, does not know how to wield it properly, it can cut you.
It can really mess you up.
And the same way our phones are actually very sharp tools that if not used properly, it's treated like toys can actually hurt us.
And there's a million things that you can think about on that, you know, how our phones can hurt us, be like a sharp machete.
So part of that getting off the couch in the creation is also to start thinking about your phone as like an urban machete.
This is my tool. This is how I get around. This is how I survive.
It's not just some toy to, you know, just mess around on all the time.
That'll really help you, I think.
And you know what? I think there's a time to consume digital media, obviously.
I mean, we're talking to some guys who produce digital media. We're producing digital media right now.
Yeah, we're streaming, okay? So it's not like I'm just totally anti that.
But here's the thing. There's also a time to put the thing away, put the electronics away, and just grab a baseball, grab a football, grab a soccer ball, go out.
And you know, I remember this was back when Pokemon Go was a fad. I don't know if you remember this, Pastor Shelley, when this thing was beginning to do.
I went to the park with my wife. I'm not exaggerating. Every single person there was just like this on the phone doing the Pokemon Go thing.
And again, I'm not saying never consume digital media. However, I think there needs to be a resurgence in parenting that says, let's put the phones away for a while.
Let's step outside. Let's throw the baseball around. Let's go to the park on the swing set and be active and enjoy the outdoors with the kids rather than just be addicted to electronics all day.
I'd like to shoot some swirls.
Shooting some swirls would be fun.
They sold me on that.
A slingshot that you learn to make courtesy of the Wild Brothers on the TrailHacks Playlist.
Hudson taught me how to make a slingshot over here.
There you go.
It happens so quickly. Our parents were good to limit our screen time at an early age, and so you grow a greater love for being outside than your devices.
And as we got older and had more responsibility and were allowed to be on devices more, we actually more times than not chose to be outside than on our devices.
So if you can cultivate that from a young age, there's just a greater longing to be outside. Do productive activities. Use your hands. Enjoy your hobbies.
And if you steward that at a young age, when your kids get older, they'll choose that over electronic devices.
Well, I really appreciate you guys for what you're doing and coming on our show and talking about this.
You guys have a really positive energy, and it's really infectious, and I really like that about you guys.
I really like the content quality that you guys have, and I haven't necessarily consumed a ton of it yet, but I really liked a lot of the videos that I've seen.
The animated series looks really professional, so I was kind of curious.
It's pretty impressive to hear that you guys are making that in-house, so you've got to give your brother some props from me on that.
But, you know, we need more Christian content in general, and not just Christian content, but just content promoting good things.
Like you said, ventures and missions and these type of activities. Our church is very mission-oriented.
We love to talk about the Bible, but it's good to also kind of incorporate that into real life with some adventures and fun activities and things like that.
So, I really appreciate you guys coming on the show. I wanted to give you a last minute here to plug anything or bring anything else up.
Is there something else that you guys wanted to share with us this evening?
Yeah, no. I would just say, you know, if people out there are interested or curious about Wild Brothers TV, kind of what the content is, feel free to go over to wildbrothers.tv and try a free trial.
Or, I think our Labor Day sale is still active. I think it's just, what is it, Wild Labor? All caps Wild Labor, like a 30% off discount is still valid until tomorrow.
So, take advantage of that. If you jump on, try the free trial, if you like it, go ahead and use that coupon to secure your annual subscription.
But, follow us on socials and keep up to date. We're really excited about our animated series. I think it's going to be super cool and unique.
And, yeah, so, track along on our socials to stay up to date with all that.
Yeah, this has been a great experience. We appreciate the opportunities to connect with you guys and it's always encouraging to see other believers networking.
And, I mean, this is like, this is what it's all about.
Putting positive content on.
Yeah, and this is the kind of stuff that we do too. It's all grassroots. It's all about just this right here and this fellowship being as Brothers in Christ and exhorting each other to live on missions.
So, we really appreciate the opportunity and it's been a lot of fun.
Now, I'm going to subscribe to The Baptist Bias. Absolutely, so I can track you.
That little intro caught my attention.
Yeah, it caught my attention. I'm listening to more of these episodes.
Well, we are a really, really different show. So, we try to do all kinds of different things.
You guys are really kind of niche, like in the sense that you have a really consistent product and I really like that.
But we have theological shows, we've had debates, we've had political guests, we've had all kinds of stuff.
And, of course, most of the people we interview don't have The Baptist Bias. We're trying to get them to have The Baptist Bias, right?
Or we're just not hiding our bias when we come on a show at least, right?
And so, we like to interview all kinds of different people and kind of come to their worldview and, you know, collaborate on ideas that we can share on and try to influence each other in a positive way.
And so, you know, I think sometimes our audience lives in an echo chamber pretty easily.
You know, we're independent fundamental Baptists, we're King James only and, you know, we're pretty conservative and traditional.
But I like to have this show to kind of go out there and talk with all kinds of different people and get some different perspectives and to, you know, collaborate with other individuals and just kind of see what's going on, try to influence them for the better.
That's super important. That's so good.
Now more than ever, I feel like we as believers, we really need to know what we believe and why we believe it and where it stems from Scripture.
You know, because if we just are told these things to believe and we have these different ideas but we don't really know where it comes from or why we believe them,
that's a dangerous place to be. You're going to be, you know, thrown to and fro by, like, the waves and doctrines of the world.
So I love that you guys are kind of, like, bringing on different topics, different theological or doctrinal issues and saying,
hey, this is what other people are believing, let's look at the merit, but what do we believe and where does that come from Scripture? I think that's super important.
Yeah, and this season's really different, almost every single guest.
Every episode wildly different, no pun intended.
Yeah, of course. I didn't know, like, when I heard Wild, I was like, are these guys, like, crazy or what? It's just the last name. It's a really cool last name.
It is a cool last name.
Yeah, we're pretty chill. It's a blessing and a curse. We always get mixed vibes. It's like, a lot of people are like, that's like a crazy adjective so they're completely turned off or they're, like, curious.
You know, it's one or the other. And then they meet us and they're like, oh, you guys are like, you're such an undersell. You're like the most chill, you know, people ever knew.
Well, I love the name. It's provoking.
That's right.
Yeah, it's engaging. So, well, thank you guys so much for coming on the show and I look forward to sharing some of your animated content with my family.
My kid, if it's animated, my kids will watch it 100,000 times.
Same here.
You know, I'm tired of VeggieTales. I want something else.
So the good news actually for the animated series is it's not going to technically come out to probably next year, but the first pilot episode is actually streaming on the Wild Brothers TV.
So the proof of concept pilot episode is actually out right now and you can go watch it.
And the other content episodes will drop as they're made.
He is super fast. He made this episode to enjoy it, but no, he made it in like two months, I think, through it together.
So it's our proof of concept. The other ones to come are going to be even better. He's working on some of the other episodes and man, they're so cool.
But it's a great place to get introduced to the series and that's only for the Wild Brothers TV members, but if you want to start following the meme, that's a great place to start.
So again, Wild Labor, that's the coupon code at your checkout experience with Wild Brothers TV. Love to see you there on the platform.
And we're also there every month on Zooms.
And on the adventure chat. So get on the safe social media platform there on Wild Brothers TV and just introduce yourselves if you join the community.
We'll say hi.
Great. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show and we have different guests for all of the other shows.
Who's their guest this upcoming next week?
It should be Richard Gage, shouldn't it?
Oh, yeah. So for September 10th, which is the day before 9-11, we're having the former CEO of the Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth coming on and going to talk about all the stuff that happened.
He also has his own network that he's created and I'm really excited to have him on as a guest. You've actually hung out with him before.
We hung out for a couple of days. He was in Florida when I lived there for a while and he was there for a few different events.
I met him at one of the events and I wanted to just volunteer, help him set up and things like that.
He stayed at my apartment for a night because he needed a place to stay.
So I really got to know Richard Gage very well during that time period.
It was great to hang out with him and learn a lot about where he came from, how he arrived at some of his conclusions that he's arrived at regarding that event.
And I think next week should be an informative show, a different one and an exciting one as well.
So looking forward to talking to Richard Gage again after all these years.
It's been a while. A lot has changed since the last time we hung out, but it's going to be fun.
You want to check out that show live, you can call in, put in your questions in the chat because we'll probably take a few callers for that episode.
I'm looking forward to that interview that we're going to have scheduled next week.
Also, for those that did our locals sign up for the t-shirts, we've already sent out our first batch of t-shirts for all of those individuals.
We have been getting several emails of people that signed up and we sent out those t-shirts for you.
Also, if you want to follow us, you can follow us at BaptistBias.com slash join.
That's our mailing list where we send out the links for our show.
And we're still on rumble for now.
But you always want to get on the email list because you never know where we're going to be.
But I'm really looking forward to next week's episode.
Make sure you guys join us live. It really helps the show and we like to get your comments as well.
You can share it on the platforms for us as well.
And thanks again to the Wild Brothers for coming on. It was a great episode.
Ben, is there anywhere else they can find us?
Well, I mean, if you want to end up signing up or I should say subscribing to our podcast feed,
you can do so by just using the keywords The Baptist Bias on Spotify and Apple podcast, Google podcast as well.
And we would, of course, invite you if you haven't subscribed yet to our rumble channel to do that
because that's where the video feed is broadcasted to and take part in the chat room as well.
You know, we want you to interact with other listeners during the feed so you can get their feedback on what's going on.
You can talk amongst yourselves and every once in a while, if the comment is good enough, it may actually make it to air.
So there's your incentive. But we invite you to come back Tuesday night, next Tuesday, 8 p.m. Central time for another edition of The Baptist Bias.
And this is my own personal slogan for the show. You never know what you're going to get.
Well, that's going to be rich. Do it for us this evening, guys.
Look, everybody's got a perspective out there, but you need to get The Baptist Bias.
We'll be right back.