Shawn Ryan Show - #37 Machine Gun Preacher - Sam Childers

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

From 1%er Biker Gang Member to rescuing children from being massacred in Africa. This man has made a positive mark felt by many in this world. Sam Childers AKA The Machine Gun Preacher joins us for an interview on The Shawn Ryan Show. ⬇️ 🚨 Please Donate to Rescue Children 🚨 ⬇️ https://www.machinegunpreacher.org/ Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://blackbuffalo.com/discount/SRS https://www.mudwtr.com/shawn (USE CODE SHAWN) https://www.bubsnaturals.com (USE CODE SHAWN) https://trueclassictees.com/ (USE CODE SRS) Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website - https://www.shawnryanshow.com Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/shawnryan762 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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you want, like the all-new 2023 Hyundai Powseed and Hyundai Tucson. This holiday season, get into a vehicle that will give you confidence with Hyundai owner assurance America's best 10-year 100,000-mile warranty. Visit us online at WoodhouseHundayofomaha.com. Welcome back everybody. Once again, we have an individual who has made a major, major impact on the world. Started out as a 1% biker guy, dictated to drugs, all kinds of crime, turned his life around, went to Africa on a mission trip and made a tremendous impact to children over in Africa,

made a tremendous impact on the world. Once again, guests on the Sean Ryan show are proving that you do not need an army to make an impact in this world. It starts with an idea, and then idea grows into something massive. And before you know it, you've helped thousands and thousands of people. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to welcome Sam Childers,

also known as the Machine Gun preacher to the Sean Ryan show. If you don't mind, please give us a like, leave a comment, let us know what you think of the show, and please subscribe, hit the subscribe button on the YouTube channel if you're watching this on YouTube. And if you're on iTunes and Spotify, please, please leave us in iTunes or Spotify review. If you haven't done that.

That's all we're asking ladies and gentlemen. Without further ado, please welcome Mr. Sam Childress to the Sean Ryan Show. Enjoy the show everybody. Love you. I got a scholar of the Korean but a born-again Christian that's going to help to deprogram these children because they're so much programmed under the Kran believing that every person they kill, that's a believer or non-believer, they believe they're getting more rewards for when they get to heaven.

I had everything I wanted. It didn't mean nothing to me anymore. All I could remember was children starving, children hungry. They stopped us on the road and they said, you gotta come quickly, you gotta come quickly, you know? So we're running through the jungle. Me and a few guys and we have our guns and, you know, amel bags on and everything. And here was a big trade.

And these rebels nailed children to the trade. There was a time that Coney was coming in to South Sudan, Juba. I went there with one of my sniper rifles. I was going to breed him on the road. And they said, we just figured out who you are. There's no way you're going to be able to do this Crusade. Coney called the radio station, said if you do this Crusade, he's coming here to kill you.

Well, I've done the Crusade with a grenade and he's pocketed and pissed the one with a pack. And I was one of them that he said he was going to kill that he hasn't. Sirius question, who wants to take the best shit Serious question. Who wants to take the best shit of their entire life? Right here, I do. How do you do that?

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And man, I got a lot of energy now. Anyways, go to BubsNatrals.com, use promo code Sean to take 20% off your order. Thank you, Bubsnatrals, for being a sponsor of the Sean Ryan show. Sam Childers, welcome to the show. Hey, good to be here. I am over the moon that you're sitting here today.

I've been really excited about this interview. We've been trying to get it out here for a long time and now here you are. But just a quick introduction. So your motorcycle list and author, a humanitarian, part of the 1% Detroit Highway motorcycle club member, recipient of the Mother Teresa Award for Social Justice. You founded Angels of East Africa, which has orphanages in South Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia,

which are full of children that you've saved from the South Sudan war zone and They made a movie about it a big Hollywood production also known as the machine gun preacher. I'm so happy to have you here God's good he is he is you know You're one of a kind guest on any show. I've never had anybody on mine like you at all. And you know, I spent a lot of time researching. I watched your documentary, the movies. I've read about you. And when I started this show,

the premise was to help people with mental health, with PTSD. And I never made my business about money. And then as it went on, I started making it about money. And things started getting complicated. I still try to help a lot of people. And through my research for you, for this episode, it made me realize that I need to get back to what I was originally doing and that money is not going to bring me any fulfillment. And I just want to say thank you for bringing me back back. But unfortunately, we live in a world where if you don't bring in money you won't be able

to do a show like this. That's true. So I think we have to balance that all out. You know, I know I wouldn't be able to do the work that I do in East Africa if we didn't have the money. Yeah. I've always had this motto that if you're doing good, if you're injecting good into the world,

then good's gonna come back to you. But that's not true, because you know, if you look at a lot of nonprofits, our nonprofits are pretty high nonprofit on a dollar, actually spending the field, always over 50 cent. The average nonprofit out there is 15 cent and less. Some of the big name non-profits are only like a nickel on a dollar, you know.

Wow. So organizations like yours, and organizations like mine, we have to balance it out and we have to make sure that we're making money, because you're not gonna be able to do your good shows without good cameras, you know, so. That's very true. I look at it a little bit different.

That's very true. But we'll move it on. Well, for starters, everybody gets a gift. Wow, on the show. So just a little something for your travels. All right, well thank you. I don't know what all it is, but it'll be used. So just a little something for your travels. All right, well thank you. I don't know what all it is, but it'll be used.

It's vigilance lead gummy bears. Is it really? Yeah, we got our own gummy bear line. Is it one of the CBD gummy bears? No, just candy. I can't eat many at one time. Just candy. All right.

But, so, I want your life story. So the arc in your life story is just incredible. And I think it gives a lot of people hope you've done amazing things in the world. Yeah. I tell you what, I'll kind of skip through it because it can be pretty long and pretty complicated, but I was born in a Christian home. And a lot of times when people hear my testimony,

or they hear anybody's testimony that got in a lot of trouble, the guy with the bad testimony always tries to blame it on someone from his family. I couldn't. I had the perfect mom and dad. My dad was in the Marines. He was an ex-Marine, tough guy, but born again Christian. My mom, I think, only send three times in her whole life when she gave birth to me and my two brothers. My mom always described her. She came out of the womb, speaking in tongues, very religious woman, and good woman. And she actually just died this past year and died at 87 years old.

But I had no reason to get in trouble. But when I was a little kid, five years old, six, seven, eight, even 10 years old, if you just said, Sam, what are you gonna be when you grow up? I'd have told you, I going to be a preacher one day. But at 11 years old, going to the secular school, I have a lot of, I have a big heart for kids here in America that's in a secular school. They go through things that we forgot about. And at 11 years old, I started wanting to fit

in with the kids that I thought was cool. I'm thinking in my mind, man, those kids are cool. They're smoking cigarettes, smoking marijuana, and all of a sudden, I started doing what they was doing. So by the time that I was 12 years old, I'm going to booze parties, 13 years old, eat nassad, poppin pills, 14 years old snortin' coke. I'm fitting in. Everybody likes Sam Childers.

I become the most popular kid in Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Everyone knew me. At 15 years old, I didn't care if I fit in anymore. I found myself waking up every morning putting a needle in my arm, shooting up heroin, cocaine.

At 15 years, 13 years old. At 15 years old, yeah. I left home before my 16th birthday. You started selling drugs. Like the documentary, there's a doco out there that was done. A guy that they interviewed said, I never known anyone at 15 or 16 years old that walked around with a suitcase full of drugs.

And I did. I mean, I'm talking when I was 16, 17 years old, I would have $50,000 where the drugs in my possession. Nowadays, we're talking a quarter of a million, 300,000. That's what they'd be worth. So I started selling drugs and grandrapets. Then I started running drugs from Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Minneapolis to Chicago, Chicago to Orlando, Florida.

There was a time in my life I became a shotgunner, hired gun for drug deals. My life went out of control. I was in my 20s living in Orlando, Florida, and I'm skipping over a lot, but I'm living in Orlando, Florida, and I get into a really bad bar fight. That bar fights what changed my life.

And a lot of people, when they get to this part of my testimony, if I'm in a church, people start thinking, oh, that's when he gave his life to the Lord, no, it wasn't. That's when I made up my mind. Oh, made up my mind. I'm done living this life. And I was in the back of this bar and there was people got shot, people got stabbed. I was beat up really bad. And I looked at the front door. And I remember I made up my mind. If I make it to that front door, I'm done living this life.

I made it to the front door, went home, told my wife that night, which was from the movie Lynn, and she was a stripper at the time, and I said, we're moving. And she got all worked up, because in her heart, she wanted a way out. And she said, what happened? And I said, I got into a fight and I know someone's going to end up killing me for nothing.

See, I had never had a problem with dying, but I have a problem with what I'm about to die for. If I'm going to die for something, I want it to be worthwhile. I want it to be something that can be written on a tombstone. I don't want to die for nothing, for a bar fight or a jealous husband or anything like that. I want to die for something worthwhile. So we moved over a thousand miles away back to my hometown, where people didn't really know me very well. They knew me as a little kid. Her story's about me, but I was able to walk away from the biker world, I was able to walk away from friends,

anyone that done drugs, I could walk away from drugs. And for two years, I lived a clean life. And my wife started going to church. And over that two years, she would ask me every Sunday, honey, will you go to church? Will you go to church? And I always tell people, you know, if you got a nag honey, will you go to church? Will you go to church? I always tell people, you know, if you've got a nagging wife, you've got to shut them up.

Just do what they want, you know? So she kept asking me for two years, go to church, and I couldn't take it no more. So I wanted to shut her up, so I went to church and gave my life to Christ and then all of a sudden I'm finding myself on a mission trip in Africa. Rewinding real quick. You didn't go through any rehabilitation or any go out of this. No, I didn't go through any rehab. I mean, at 15 years old, I would usually shoot up

three times a day. Yeah, at 15 years old. In the morning and back in my days, I mean, I was really, in the morning, and back in my days, I mean, I was really heavy in the cocaine, and the cocaine back then you had to set on the toilet when you shot it up, and most guys know what I'm saying, because it would just relieve you so much, you know. But by the time I was 19 years old, and my addiction was a really strong addiction.

I mean, at 19, 20, 21 years old, I had it all. Motorcycles, guns, women, drugs, I had it all. But I tell people, I speak in a lot of rehabs around the world. I've spoken rehabs on this tour. And a lot of people have a hard time grabbing onto my message because you can do it, but you have to want it. That's the biggest problem is sometimes we still want

that drugs, we still want that excitement more than we want clean. And it's hard, I understand that, man. I mean, I went through it all. Imagine most of your addicts nowadays got to steal them. They got to steal to be able to support their habit. I just sold drugs to support mine. And I didn't sell a little bit, I sold a lot.

So I literally, it was a mental game for me, but the only way I did it, see there was a key. Now if somebody hears this show and they say, I can't do it, I can't do it, you can do it, but you gotta leave all your friends, you gotta leave your relatives, you gotta leave the club. I left the club world for years.

There's a five year grace, and what I mean by that, so many times people leave, but then a year later or six months later, they say, I'm going back to help my friends. You're not gonna be able to help your friends because it takes five years to be clean. For me, I left it all for 10 years. 10 years of my life, I never had a drink. I never had a problem with drinking.

Now, I love to have a glass of scotch. Now, good scotch, I drink the most expensive scotch I can get because I know it won't drink much. You know, it just may be a couple drinks every night. But I mean, I left it for over 10 years. Now I can be at the clubhouse, I can be with friends, family, anybody drinking, doing drugs. It don't bother me, don't affect me.

I don't have any crave for it. Don't even think about doing any drugs, it don't bother me, don't affect me, I don't have any crave for it, don't even think about doing any drugs, you know. That's incredible. Yeah, but I only done it because I moved a thousand miles away, I didn't know a drug dealer. I didn't know anybody in for 10 years, I kept myself away. If I even thought somebody smoked marijuana,

and I never had a problem with marijuana, but I say marijuana is a gateway drug. A lot of people don't like me to say that, but for me it was, that's what I started on. But anyone that I thought done any kind of drugs or went out to bar rooms or done anything, I stayed away from them until my feet was grounded. Now I can be around it all, it don't bother me.

So you moved the thousand miles away and you got into... Moved from Orlando, Florida, to Central City, Pennsylvania. Wow. And then two years later, my wife was going to church for two years and two years later, I went to a church service and a man was from Africa. He was a white guy, preaching. And that's the day that I gave my life to the Lord. And I am a preacher. I surrendered my life to the Lord that day. But I went back the

next day because I wanted a little bit more. Well, this preacher's, he starts praying for me at the altar. He takes a couple steps back and he starts prophesying, telling me what I'm going to do. And he starts telling me I'm going to Africa. And I'm looking at him and I'm thinking, I ain't going to Africa. I'm a white man. Why would I go to Africa? That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. Then he starts telling me I'm going to be in a war. And I'm thinking, I'm a white man, why would I go to Africa? That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. Then he starts telling me I'm gonna be in a war. And I'm thinking I'm already married,

I ain't gonna be in another war. I mean, so I'm getting mad at this preacher. I literally just gave my life to the Lord, okay? And I was still a little hotheaded. So in my mind, I start thinking, I'm gonna have to beat the snot out of this preacher. So I walk outside the church, and I waited and waited, smoking a cigarette,

waiting on this preacher to just walk through the door. He comes out, I start cussing him out. I start, don't tell me I'm going to Africa, I'm not gonna go to Africa, I'm not gonna be in a war. Those people got in a problem over there, they can live in their problem, and all this preacher did was looked at me with a big smile. I think they teach you that in preacher school, how to smile.

Looks at me with a big smile and he said, we'll see. That was June of 1992. And 1994, God just kept moving on me to go to Africa, go to Africa. So I started putting money in Africa. I had a contracting company, building homes, painting, roofing, and I was making big money. And then 95, I was making more money. 1996, I literally put $25,000 or more into Africa,

thinking, God, when you rather have my money, God didn't want my money. He wanted me to go. So in 1998, in my mind, I'm thinking, I know what I'll do, I'm going to trick God. I'm going to go to Africa on a mission trip. So I went on a mission trip to Africa thinking, this is the one time thing. And like the movie showed, there was an explosion and I went running through the bush and found a young kid that stepped on a landmine, but that's not what happened. What happened there was a village that was raided

by the Lord the resistant army. And I'm a hillbilly, okay, I have no education. I gotta see it from my own eyes. I got to touch it. I'm the one that had to touch the holes in Jesus' hands just to know he was real, you know? So we were walking around in this village in the bush, looking for children that were hiding.

And I come across the body of a small child that stepped on a landmine. The child may have been 8, 9, 10 years old. I couldn't really tell because there was nothing from the waist down. I couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl. But it was a fresh body of a child that stepped on this landmine. And I remember walking around the body and I said, God, how can this happen in the world today and we don't hear about it? I mean, we don't hear about landmines killing children

in South Sudan. And I said something, I didn't realize what I was saying until today, until now. I said, God, I'll do whatever it takes to help these people. Well, more than two and a half decades later, I'm still there. Africa's my home, I've dual citizen, my wife is African now, but I'm still there rescuing children.

When you, before we get into that, what was it that made you walk into that church? Your wife had been going for two years. You had not. You know, I always knew God was real. You know, I always knew He was real. And I am a preacher. I'm not a religious person, but I know that if you look close into my life, the businesses, the money that I have made, the money that I make, if you look close into my life and

you're a total atheist, there has to be a God. Because there's no possible way, like right now in my life I work about 560 people a day. I don't even have a high school education. I have no education at all. I'm a motivational speaker around the world. I've spoke from Mercedes Ben, Fuzo, Harley-Davidson. I mean, some of the biggest manufacturers in the world have me come in to speak to their people. How can that happen? And then when you keep looking a little bit closer, many, many years ago, when I was a young guy all the way up into my 20s, I used to stutter every other word. I couldn't speak. Not stutter a little bit every other word. Wow. And then God healed me on a

mountain when I was hunting out. So I mean, if you hear the whole story, even if you say, I don't believe, what about this? What about that? You know, just research my story, and you will believe and you will know there has to be a God out there. Wow. Back to Africa. You found the body.

Come back to America. I was here for three months. Had a very, you know, like the movie showed me, had a successful construction company. The movie didn't show nothing what I had. I had a camper trailer. I had a four-wheeler, I had a motorcycle, I had a gun collection, probably 100 guns. I would go hunting on three to four weeks a year,

hunting trips, Colorado, all over the place. I was a successful contractor. You had a big contracting business. I'd done union and non-union company. Sometimes I would work, you would work 50, 60 men, always worked 15 to 20. I was a successful contractor. My last year was $1.8 million of building houses and doing construction work.

For Pennsylvania, that's pretty successful company. But I come back and it didn't mean nothing to me. I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't walk by my gun cabinet. I had guns that were special built for Hunt and Elk. I had a 340 weather bee with a Leopold scope. I had everything I wanted. It didn't mean nothing to me anymore.

All I could remember was children starving, children hungry, children dying because of some crazy warlord. And I knew I could do something because along with that first trip, we were ambushed. We went into another village and we was ambushed. When the van got ambushed, it had other missionaries in the van. Everybody run out and hide and start hiding in holes and hiding in the bush. The first thing I looked for was a gun. I knew I'm too fat to run, so I'm going to fight. I knew I could do something. Three months later, I found myself back in Africa in the heat of the moment. And I will say that many of the guys, you know, back

in those days, there was good rebels, there was bad rebels. That was it. The good rebels are still there to this day, the SPLA. And I was, I was with some guys when we got into another firefight. We had to stop our vehicle. We got ambushed on the road. And I'll never forget, I grabbed my AK as I was getting out of the car and I was running to jump in this ditch. When I got into the ditch, I cocked it laying there and I was so scared, you know, like maybe you and other guys were Rambo in the bush, but I'm gonna tell you the truth. I get scared to this day. Now I don't hear him shooting at me anymore because I don't hear too good, you know. But I was scared and I'm laying there and I looked up, I peeked up, peeked over this ditch and here was the soldiers that were with me, these SPLA soldiers,

dinged from the movie, walking down the center of the road, firing their guns, and they're getting shot at. And I remember laying in the ditch and I said to myself, oh my god, they're all going to get killed and then they're going to capture me, they're going to torture me. This is what's going through my mind. And I look back up and I seen the rebels turn and they started running. And that day I realized that if you fought the fight by running towards it, the enemy would run. And so from that day forth about every ambush I was in after that, I was right with them, you know,

hitting it right on, you know. And I got so bad at doing it that even some of the guys, like Peter, Peter and me was really close and he told me one day, you got to stop testing God. God wants you to get in the ditch sometimes, you know. What can you describe a little bit about the conflict that was going on in Sudan at the time? You know, the biggest problem was the president of Northern Sudan, Bersheer. Bersheer was like the president, leader of Northern Sudan. So he was paying all these rebel groups, which the guy that I fought for a number of years over a decade was Joseph Coney, the leader of the LRA.

But he was financed by President Berchir. But see, Berchir would send his Antonov in. You know, they were Russian Antonov, Russian pilots, and they would fly into South Sudan, and they would drop these Antonov. That's my biggest problem, Why I can't hear. I mean, I was in bombings where my head would just shake for days and days. I didn't have ear plugs or anything. You know, I had to put over my ears with my hands, you know. But, Bershear was the man that was financing everything. And at one time, Berchir even had a bounty on my head. You know, people say it was

Coney. It wasn't Coney. Coney, Coney tried to kill me many times. But Berchir had a bounty on my head that even had a warrant for my arrest if they could ever arrest me for aiding in a betting rebels. And that you can even find on the internet. Berchir, thank God, you know, everybody like what goes on in the darkness will come to the light. The word even says it. Berchir now is in prison, you know, he was overthrown by the people of Northern Sudan. So he's in prison waiting to be tried in everything, you know. Now the Hague actually tried him a number of years ago.

He's the only president of a country that was guilty for genocide, you know. So I think he'll be in prison the rest of his life if not killed. Why would they keep hitting your orphanages? Well, you know, there was a, there was a, uh, uh, Dateline NBC done a story on me and it came out July of 2005.

You can, uh, you can Google it. I think it was called the night commuters or something like that, but it's easy to find just Dateline NBC, Michigan preacher Joseph Coney. At one time they called Joseph Coney the worst terrorist in the world because he didn't have agenda. His reasoning for doing all this stuff would change every day. So it made him the worst terrorist in the world.

You know, most terrorists, they got one thing they're focusing on. You couldn't tell with this guy. He was like a madman, you know. So he was just a crazy madman, killing people for no reason, and it would change every day, you know. And his biggest thing is he wanted to brand his victims. He would cut the nose off of elderly,

cut the breast off of women that was nursing their children. He would cut the hands and fingers off of women. He wanted to brand his people to scare them and he wanted to take over because of people's fear. them and he wanted to take over because of people's fear. Geez. Do you want to talk about some of the stuff that they were making the children do? You know, to this day, and there's even things going on in Congo that's still going on

to this day, you know, they'll make you children kill their parents. What Kony used to do, and Kony was big on it. Kony would make the children kill their parents. A lot of people here in America, they'll say, how can a child do that very easily? Because it was done through timidation. You got to put you got to put yourself in that parent's place. They would tell the parent, if your son doesn't kill you, we're going to kill your son in front of you slowly. Any parent loves their child enough.

They don't want to see their child die. So all of a sudden, they brainwashed the parent where the parent thinks his only hope for their child to live is for their child to kill him. So the parent will literally plead to the child with tears in her eyes, it's okay. You can go ahead and do this and you're going live. Because that parent has so much love for their child, they don't wanna see their child be killed. So that's the beginning of the timidation of what these warlords will do in Africa,

maybe around the world, I only know Africa. So that child, once they kill the parent, that child's mind is there's nothing they can do in life any worse than what they just did. So they're just totally gone, you know. So the only hope for that child is to rescue them and to begin to deprogram what these warlords have placed in them. Most of these warlords, Kony claimed to be Muslim at one time. The ones that I'm dealing with now

are Islamic State, ADF, and ISIS. And they have no heart even for their own family, even for their own kind. They don't care if they kill 20 Muslim to kill one Christian or one non-believer. You know. So there's only one way to deal with these people. You have to get them on their grounds where you're not going to harm other civilian people. In your documentary, you talk about how in America, we're very cautious about our kids being in the streets.

Yeah. And, but when you got over there, you'd mention that kids go to the streets for safety. Yeah. You know, right now, now the Coney War is finished. Gulu is an unbelievable town now. I mean, I love going to Gulu now, but Gulu, 20 years ago, had something called the night commuters. And those children, more than 50,000 children,

would walk from the village into the streets and sleep on verandas for safety. But there's something that people don't hear about now. In the Congo, there's a bridge. And that bridge every morning, over 25,000 women and children cross that bridge back into Congo to work their crops, to go and make a living for themselves.

But every evening before dark, over 25,000 women and children cross that bridge, back into Uganda for safety. You know, Uganda now, they had a lot of difficulties over the years, but I call Uganda the land of milk and honey. The president is an unbelievable man. My only worry is, I hope he can stay on for a long time because he's a good president. He's born again. He's about justice and he doesn't tolerate these warlords. So right now that happens every day on that bridge, 25,000 people. Morning, evening back for safety of Uganda.

Wow. Do you see that every day? I only see it. I just started working in the Congo just for six months or so now. So I've been in zone one in the area of Congo. You know, there wasn't the restrictions 20 some years ago when I was rescuing over two and a half decades ago, when I was rescuing children in South Sudan, there wasn't all the not restrictions or wasn't all the requirements as there is now. Like what we had to do is I can't put these children that we rescue in my orphanages. You can't. It could harm the other children. So I have a farm in Northern Uganda. We built a dormitory where the children are going to be around adults, you know. But I had to get a scholar of the Quran, but now I'm born again. I got a scholar of the Quran, but I'm born again Christian, that's going to help to deprogram these children,

because there's so much programmed under the Quran, believing that every person they kill, that's a believer or non-believer, they believe they're getting more rewards for when they get to heaven. So these kids got to be deprogrammed. Every three months I got to have a mental evaluation done on the children and then they'll be kept in this particular place whether it's my truck stop in northern Uganda. I'm building a dormitory there or the farm in northern Uganda. There'll building a dormitory there or the farm in Northern Uganda. There'll be a dormitory there. They will be deprogrammed and worked

with for at least a year. After they they're evaluated, if we feel they can be placed back with other children, then we'll put them into schools and start their life all over again. But it's a process that's going to be done slowly. Good. Yeah. How many children are in that particular situation? We're talking about an unbelievable amount, thousands upon thousands of children. You know, these warlords, especially of Africa, most of them are coward

and they're fighting for a no cause. So they can't get people to enlist in their military or enlist in their cause because they don't have a cause. So what they do is they kidnap children and they timidate children and forced children to do the fighting for them. You know, it's only a handful of warlords, but they go after hundreds and thousands of children. Damn. When you started this, when you went over there the first time, came home, went back. How did you get started? How did you find this?

You know, I speak in a lot of churches and seminars and you always get people that say, I got a vision. I got a vision or they'll say, especially Christians, will say, I got a vision from God. And when God gives me the money, I'm going to step out and do it. You'll probably do nothing. Okay? If you're going to wait till you get the money, you'll probably do nothing. When I started this whole thing, when I had the vision of starting this orphanage, I didn't have money. I

would fly to Africa on one way tickets. I had enough money to buy some shovels and slasher's and machetes. And I started clearing the land. I didn't have nothing. And this went on for years. And I believe as a Christian, I believe that God watched me for years. Now some Christians would say, oh, God, I help you right away. Well, that could be for you. But for me, he watched me.

And I believe that he watched me for eight years until he's seen I was serious and I was steadfast and I wasn't gonna quit. You know, I've been telling everyone, there's a second documentary they're starting to film. There's a second movie getting're starting to film. There's a second movie getting ready shortly to go into production. And people say, well, why?

Why? It's been because I never stopped. And the name of that documentary is never stopped. And I believe no matter who you are, success comes through never stopping. No matter what the storms, trials, or whatever you got to go comes through never stopping. No matter what the storms, trials, or whatever you gotta go through, never stop. What was the first step?

Was it orphanage? Was it a church? Well, for me, I think the first step for me was I had to get it in my head. I was willing to let it all go. And like the movie, Machine Gun Preacher, it did have some things. That was accurate. You know, Hollywood will take the truth and they put a twist to it.

One of my first steps was I took my gun collection. And it was hard for me what I did. I knew I was getting ready to sell my gun collection. And I'm a hillbelly, okay? So you got guns that your dad gave you So you got guns that your dad gave you, you got guns that your uncles gave you, you know? So your guns mean something and the guns weren't used to harm people. I was grown up, you know, hunting squirrel and hunting rabbits, you know? And so there were some of my guns that really meant a lot. So I called my brother and I called my

nephew over and the guns my uncle gave me, the guns my dad gave me, I gave to my brother and nephews. Because I knew I was going to sell everything. And I sold my entire gun collection, sold them all, kept a couple of guns just to keep around the house. Dear rifles, sold them all. And so that was my biggest thing that I had to do. And then I started selling out of fishing boat, that's tracker fishing boat.

I had a camper trailer. For the first two years that I was in Africa, I didn't ask anybody for anything. And then all of a sudden I found myself on the third year flat broke. I spent all my money, spent all my toys, I sold, and I found myself having financial problems, sold my construction company out.

So on that third year is when I started going out to churches and letting people know what I was doing, but it was still a struggle until the eighth year. And the eighth year in, they were getting to, they were starting to repossess my own. And my wife called me. I was in Africa and she said, Sam, we just got notice of a share cell on the house. And I just started this feeding program. I was, I mean, people literally starving.

I'm feeding them. And I asked her, I said, well, how much money do we have? And she said, we got a little over $2,000. And I needed $2,000. And I remember I told her, I said, well, they can have the house, send me the money. And she said to me, are you sure? And I said, yeah, they can have the house. We'll get another house.

And she sent me the money. Well, the following week was a share cell. And a guy came through the night driving from Kentucky. And he drove through the night to my home and he handed my wife a check for $5,000. And he said, I don't know why I did this, but God told me I had to be here today. So two days before the Sheriff's Cell, she paid the $2,000 some dollars and stopped the cell. And from that time on, that was like eight years into this thing. And I've been over two and a half decades there now. From that time on, I believe God had His hand

upon the work. I believe he always watched me. But first he wanted to see that I was gonna be steadfast before he jumped on board. Do you know that man? What's, yeah, yeah, I know, yeah. Keep in touch. You know, I haven't seen him in a long time, you know, right after that, I got tied up with Jesse James.

And one of his secretaries was kind of a religious person. And so they all thought, well, you can't take money from the world, the secular world, and be a Christian. Well, they don't know the Bible very well. Because the Bible says you can take money from the kingdom or excuse me, you can take money from the wicked and use for the kingdom. I haven't talked to him in many years,

but he knows what he did. He knows he saved my house from a share of sale. Wow. He knows he saved my house from a sheriff's cell. Wow. Yeah. Let's take up just a real quick break and when we come back, we'll pick up back in Africa. All right.

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All right, Sam, so moving back into Africa, it looks, it appeared to me that you were building basically compounds or small villages. Yeah. How did you find the people to help you? Where was the first one? The first one was in Nimli. Nimli South Sudan is the first and one of the oldest orphanages that I have, but our registered, registering that orphanage is steel number 006. And we are one of the first, we are one of the longest, one of the largest orphanages, not the largest, one of the largest orphanages that never shut down during the war. So we are in South Sudan, the oldest registered orphanage

in South Sudan. Never closed one day. We were attacked several times during the war. We were bombed by Russian Antonov, but we never shut down, we never left. And we're still there. But a number of years ago, God said something to me and be, you know, I'm not a real smart guy, so I got to listen close to God. He said to me, if you're

just going to build another orphanage, why don't you stay home? And I tell the churches this around the world, most people don't realize in a third worldworld country if you're in an orphanage, you have to leave at 15 years old. You're out. And most people don't realize that more than 70% of those children end up in prostitution. So I asked the church, what did we really do? We built an orphanage, we take all this money from US and Europe and other Western countries. We build this orphanage, we take care of these children to their 15 years old, they go into prostitution, they die of AIDS or murder or some kind of disease, what did we do? We really done nothing. So I started asking God, God you got to explain to me a little

bit more. So we started teaching a skill and a trade. So I opened my first restaurant in Uganda. And over the years, we have had over 200 young people go through that restaurant. We taught people how to be a chef, how to be a prep chef, how to be a waitress, how to be a manager. But I noticed it worked. And something that always say to Americans, a lot of Americans, when we do something in a work, we only want someone to pat us on the back. And then we really do nothing else.

But because of me not having no education, I always wanted to be the best when I do something. So I've seen it work. So I wanted to do more. So we started this commercial farm, a little farm in northern Uganda, not quite 200 acres. And I'm no farmer, I've been a biker all my life, you know. And so we started this farm and it started working and we started feeding more people. We started training people in irrigation and farming and ranching. Now that farm is over a thousand acres. That farm works more than 80 young people. We have probably 150 head of cattle. We got sheep there. We got goats there.

The last four years we have gave away all of our rice harvest. Last year we gave away 50 ton of rice and filled our own storehouses. 50 tons. 50 ton of rice. The year before we gave away over 90 ton of rice. That's like 200,000 pounds. Yeah, yeah, we have. So last year we'd done a crusade in December, a three-day crusade, and we fed over 6,000 people that day, over 6,000 people, but not with rice and beans. I mean, I brought cows from the farm. We butchered 20 head of cow and 20 goats, you know, and we fed people, you know. So our ministry is not just taking care of children. It's giving people hope, you know. And skills.

Yeah. And teaching a skill and a trait. Real skills. How did you, how did you in the movie and in the documentary, it seems when you picked that first spot for the orphanage, it seems as if you had an epiphany at that exact moment in time. I believe now, I would love to sit here in this chair and tell you, you know, I was an oneducated person, but I made myself smart. I can't.

Okay, the truth is, I believe that my success in life, and I'm a pretty successful guy now. I believe my success from life came from hearing from God. How do you know God speaking to you? You don't want to do it. You know, if you're all happy about doing it, it doesn't mean it's not a good thing, but it's probably not God speaking to you.

I recently started a American-style truck stop in Northern Uganda. And we were getting ready to buy this a little 2.5 acres of ground. And this is why I tell people it's always a big thing to hear the voice of God. We went to buy the land and we're getting ready to sign the papers and I could hear God say, it's not big enough. So I told the guy, no, we can't buy it.

So it took another year, another year of having this vision, but I knew that two and a half acres wasn't big enough. So finally we found ten acres of ground. We started this American style truck stop. I based it off truck stops in America and also in Europe. So now I'll skip over a lot. Shell used to have the largest truck stop in East Africa. My God is bigger than Shell. Now we own the largest American style truck stop in all of East Africa. It's over 60 acres. There's two restaurants.

There's a supermarket, a hardware store. There's hotels, a auto mechanic, a fuel station, a paint shop, a tire shop. I mean, there's so much on this property over 60 acres. It's working way over 60 people. I'm not even sure how many work there now,

but it's teaching people a skill and a trade, and it's making money. That's how we're able to keep operating during COVID and everything. Our ministry is still feeding about 10,000 miles a day. So I believe that my success came through hearing from God. All the way to the initial orphanage where you picked that exact location.

Yeah, all the way from the beginning. I remember when I first started clearing the land, I bought the land, the original piece of land. I paid $500 for this land in South Sudan. That's over two and a half decades ago. And I started clearing the land, I had legal papers on it, and the government, so-called government, there wasn't a government there,

but the people running the government at the time, they come out and they said, Sam, you can't build this orphanage here. You can't do this here. The rebels are going to kill you. And I remember throwing my tools down because I was angry because I knew, I knew they were right. And I looked at the guy and I said, I know, you tell God, I already told him, but he said it has to be here. Well, I never got killed yet, and I'm still there. Still there. Can you talk about some of the struggles that,

I mean, you went from a raw piece of land to a safety, a safety. You know, I think the biggest struggle that I had to deal with over the years and you still deal with it, and I'm sure you probably had it in your journey so far. Is the people that you always think is going to be beside you aren't the people that's next to you.

And so many people that started this thing with me, when times got hard, they would say, Sam, if God was in it, we wouldn't be struggling like this. And they left. But I never quit. You know, I got, I got two books. I got a third book getting ready to come out. I, or really counting the small documentaries. There's been a lot of small dockos done on me. But the full feature documentary, they're starting another one here soon, the second movie, Machine Gun Preacher, none of that stuff would have happened if I would have quit. So I tell people all the time, don't focus on your

friends that's on either side because they will change during your journey. The biggest thing to focus on is you and God. What about some of the struggles from deep rebels? You know, I never really focused on the struggles from the rebels. You know, I never focused on what I, the good things I've done, I always kind of focus on the bad things that I need to still keep doing, you know, because you know, over the years I lost my marriage and a lot of that was because of money and success, you know. You know, a lot of people, when you get money and success, they think it's time

to quit, and I couldn't quit, you know. So I kind of focused on what I need to do and not on what I've already done because I might end up quitting like a lot of people, you know. Well, you were getting hit a lot. At least it appeared you were getting hit a lot when you were standing that compound up. Yeah, yeah. And we talked about this downstairs before, probably should have waited, but

some of the stuff that I saw in the documentary or the movie and I've done a lot of research, so I'm getting they blend, but you had, you kept getting hit over and over. Yeah, the main orphanage was attacked like three times, but the rebels could never penetrate through a bamboo fence. And like the movie showed, Hollywood movie showed the rebels burning the orphanage to the ground. If you read my book, another man's war, they never burned it to the ground. And I would love to tell you, man, I was like Rambo, I run out there and fought them off.

The truth is, they would run up, they would be like a hundred meters away, shoot an RPG, and that RPG would do a nose dive before it hit a bamboo fence. We were attacked at least twice with nearly 200 rebels at a time. They could never penetrate through that bamboo fence. 200 rebels.

And there was only ever like 10 of us on the other side of the fence. And we would fight them off every time. But it was God-maricles. I'll tell you, God-maricle, it's in my book, Another Man's War. One morning, we were getting ready. Me and two soldiers were getting ready to go into

the city. And there was a lot of fighting going on. And back in them days we didn't have a lot of bullets and stuff, you know. So when we left that morning each of us had a one full clip for our AKs. And I had a Macronoff pistol, an old German pistol, you know, and I had one clip for it. So we started driving and we got ambushed. And usually when I'd get ambushed, if there was a ditch around, I would drive my car into that ditch. Because that was the best place to be fighting from. Don't just stop, you know.

And so I drove down into this ditch and we started fighting. We fought for over three hours. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You know, I don't care if you believe this. I don't care if the people that hear this, believe this. I would love to tell you a different story. Truth is, we fought for over three hours. Never reloaded our guns. Are you kidding?

You can believe it or not. I love to tell you a different story, but that's the truth. And when we left there that day, we each had at least a half magazine left. So, when you want to hear a better story, We were driving up on the border. Bivia used to be the border that was in Uganda. And they said, Sam, they said, you can't go no further. This is the UPDF. You can't go no further. The rebels are attacking Antonov or Anaka.

And I said to him, I said, well we're soldiers. Man, let's all go. go and they said you can't So I had two trucks and there was five of us and that day I had Peter and Thomas with me and I told these guys said well We're going so I put Peter on the top of one V-hickle and put Thomas on the top of the other vehicle and we start driving down the road and As we were driving, I didn't know what was happening. Did you ever hear that song, this is stupid, this is stupid,

this is stupid? Well, if you did, I wrote it. So I'm thinking, God, what in the world am I getting into? And I could hear God say, drive faster, drive faster. So I'm driving down the road. I'm in the lead, driving this land cruiser as fast as I could drive. Peter's on the roof of my car, barely hanging on on the roof on this luggage cage. And we come around the corner and you could see all the chaos and huts burning and smoke. And God said, tell Peter to start firing. So I hollered up to Peter and he started firing.

And when he started shooting that 30 caliber PK, all I could see was people starting to run. And I looked in my rear view mirror to see where Thomas was on top of the other truck. And all I could see was a cloud of dust. I couldn't see nothing else. The enemy ran that day. They thought an army was coming down the road. I would love to tell you, we went in there, five of us, and we slaughtered them, you know, but what's so crazy, you'll hear the story to this day, you'll hear stories tell,

stories told from the locals about how when the machine gun preacher came in, the bodies were stacked, yay high of the rebels. The truth is, I didn't even fire a shot. They run. That's truth. Man, interesting. Yeah. Where I was going is in...

You cleared, we talked about this downstairs. You cleared all of the brush so that there was nowhere for these guys to hide. Yeah. You know, I'm not a trained military person like you and so many other good soldiers that fought for our country. And I fought because I just felt I had to do something to save children.

So I mean, they kept attacking us from the riverside and I know Grilla warfare, okay? So most of these guys are kids and even the guys, they don't have shoes, okay? They walk with sandals and to walk through the guys, they don't have shoes, okay? They walk with sandals and to walk through the jungle there's cactuses around and stuff to step on. So most of your rebels will follow the river edge. That's how they walk because if they walk on the river edge there's nothing to cut their feet up. So they kept

attacking us from the river side. So all I knew is we had to stop them from coming from that river. So I just started thinking, all right, what are we going to do? And there were so much trees and brush between us and the river. They were almost right upon us, you know. So I told them, cut everything down. We cut everything, every bush, everything down, burnt everything to the ground. And then we went and just told everyone, don't walk from the river at night, but they even

had curfews back in them days. But I told everyone, if you walk from the river, we're gonna shoot you. And we never was attacked again up to this day, never have been attacked. We're... Now, the everyday civilian is not gonna come up with that. They're not gonna, where are these tactics? You know, I got it, like I could say again, I got to give all the credit to God, you know. These were things that, I mean, because I'm setting there, I mean, I've been a biker all my life.

I started, I've been a one percenter since I was 15 years old. You know, I knew how to, I knew how to fist fight and use a gun. My, my dad brought me and my brothers up as kids to be able to shoot with either hand. So I shoot a pistol with either hand right or left, you know. So that training was from my dad, but I, my, that, all the things that has happened in the bush, I believe it was just the Holy Spirit moving on me. Yeah. Love to tell you a better story, but it can't. How many gunfights do you think you've been in?

I've been in over ten ambushes where they ambushed me. I've been in over 10 major battles and I've had people try to kill me over 10 times. Been shot once and stabbed three times, but that was in the US. That was all right here at the US. One of the big things that I would like to tell the people out there that might be listening is, you know, because I never quit, we have a project going on. It's called the Bush Kid Project. That Bush Kid Project, we go with a blood lab, we go with doctors, we go with nurses, we go with a security company, which I own, we go deep into the bush on cow trails and minister to sick children that are dying of malaria.

You know, a lot of people don't realize in Africa alone every two minutes a child dies, malaria. Bacteria infections, they say up to 1200 children die per day of diarrhea from bad water and bacteria infections. So we've been doing that project for two years now. And we're still doing that project to this day. We're working in Nukongo rescuing children. Our feeding program is over 10,000 meals a day.

We have five working orphanages, so we're still taking care of children. We've drilled way over 50 wells over the years. We've repaired over three dozen wells. We've built seven schools from the footer up. We're building the eighth school right now. So because of never quitting, because of people that might be out there listening, we have never stopped because of people supporting and jumping on the mission with us. So we're not an organization that's trying to get started. We're not an organization that's starting to do things. We're an organization that is proven for over two and a half decades,

we're never gonna stop. That's amazing. That really is truly amazing. How many people you're helping? Yeah. And something else that I'll tell for you and I'll tell for a lot of organizations out there, you know, a lot of founders from organizations,

they always wanna keep their hand on everything. They wanna keep everything operating. And what happens when they die, the organization falls apart and it closes. For the past seven years, I'm 60 years old now, for the past seven years, I'm 60 years old now, for the past seven years, it started coming to my mind, wow, if I die, this whole organization's gonna fall. So that means I dedicated my entire life to nothing.

So for the past seven years, I started organized, bringing in key people that when I leave this world, the organization is going to go on. I'm a businessman. I don't want to invest in something that's going to fall when the leader dies. So, we are finally at that spot that if I die tomorrow, this organization will keep going on. The CEO of the organization is not even 30 years old. Her husband, Pastor Michael, is 38 years old.

So I mean, I know this organization's going to keep going on. My wife, I've remarried since my first wife. My wife is only like 37 years old, you know. And everybody is sold out. And I have so many young missionaries that's with us now, that's in their 20s and 30s, that, you know, God's setting it up. I hope I just get to sit down in a rocking chair one day, but I don't think that's gonna happen

What you've seen a lot of carnage You've been a lot of gunfights. You've seen a lot of war you've seen the Some of the worst things that could happen to people you just showed me a video downstairs, you know of I believe it You said it was in the Congo. Yeah, it was Congo. Yeah. Of children, beheading other children. Yeah. And, and I guess kind of where I'm going with this is everybody has to come part mentalize

that kind of drama one way or another. And when you were coming home, when you were starting this thing up, how did you compartmentalize that kind of, what you were seeing, that kind of trauma from? I believe that what I've been through, I was always through it with God at my side. So I believe that other soldiers like you and so many other good soldiers that

fought for our country, I believe that their struggles happen because maybe they didn't have God right at their side. I don't know. But I know that up till now I've been okay. I don't wake up with bad dreams. The only dream that I ever had a few times was I dreamt somebody told me I couldn't go back to Africa and I would wake up crying and I'd wake up and you know just all stressed out because somebody told me I couldn't go back. So, I mean, the worst thing that I ever seen over the years, and I tell it now and then, is people will ask, what's the worst thing you've ever seen?

One time we were driving into front lines and they stopped us on the road and they said, you gotta come quickly, you gotta come quickly, you know? And so I thought, oh man, we're gonna get into a fight. And you know, once you do it for a few years, you get excited about it, you know? So we're running through the jungle, me and a few guys, and we have our guns and we, you know,

ammo bags on and everything. And we get to where we're going. And here was a big tree. And these rebels knelt children to the tree. And the children were already dead. But it was the most horrible thing trying to get them off the tree. Because you don't want to hurt them, but at the same time they're already dead, you know So that's probably the worst thing that I've ever seen But what I try to stay focused on is the children that we still have to rescue You know, will there be another machine gun preacher? I don't know Am I trying to change a train one? No. I'm just trying to train

someone to love the ones when they're rescued and don't stop working with the children. And just keep trying to feed the starving people. You know, I don't know if you get into statistics or anything, but statistics right now, because of COVID happening, because of the war in Ukraine, statistics in East Africa, they say that more than 28 million people will die of starvation, east Africa only. And by the end of 2023. Can you repeat that? They're saying that in east Africa only by the end of 2023 because of COVID because of the war in Ukraine, there'll be 28 million people die of starvation. And these are statistics that you can find big replica people like World Food Program is saying this. This is not me, okay? And I know I can't fix the problem,

but I can do a little something. So that's our big focus right now. There's something everyone can do. Just because you can't fix it, that don't mean you stop. That's a lot of people. Yeah. Let's take a quick break.

Yeah. I want to give a big thank you out right now to all the vigilance elite patrons out there that are watching the show right now. Just want to say thank you guys. You are our top supporters and you're what makes this show actually happen. If you're not on vigilance elite patron,

I want to tell you a little bit about what's going on in there. So, we do a little bit of everything. There's plenty of behind the scenes content from the actual Sean Ryan show. On top of that, basically what I do is I take a lot of the questions that I get from you guys or the patrons,

and then I turn them into videos. So we get right now, there's a lot of concern about self-defense, home defense, crimes on the rise, all throughout the country, actually all throughout the world. And so we talk about everything from how to prep your home, how to clear your home, how to get familiar with the firearm, both rifle and pistol, For beginners and advanced, we talk about mindset, we talk about defensive driving. We have an end-of-the-month live chat that I'm on at the end of every month where we can talk about

whatever topics you guys have. It's actually done on Zoom. You might enjoy it, check it out. And if Zoom's not your thing, or you don't like live chats, like I said, there's a library of well over 100 videos on where to start with prepping, all the firearm stuff, pretty much anything

you can think of, it's on there. So anyways, go to www.patrion.com, slash vigilance-elite, or just go on the link in the description. It'll take you right there. And if you don't want to and you just want to continue to watch the show, that's fine too. I appreciate it either way, love you all.

Let's get back from the break. And during the break, you're bringing up some pretty interesting stories. All of my stories are in my first book, and my second book, first book is another man's war, and my second book is living on the edge. And then my third book is the most likely. So the most likely to be out this coming new year. But there was a time that Coney was coming in

to South Sudan, Juba, for a peace talk. So I went there with one of my sniper rifles. I was going to greet him on the road. But he was supposed to stay at the bridge hotel. So I went and got a room at the bridge hotel and his mom was staying there. Were you going to kill him? I was going to greet him. I was going to be his welcome committee. And so he ended up not coming. He didn't come in. So anyways,

the morning that I went out to eat his mom and the other people that was with his mom, they dusted me. And you know, I don't know if you know much about the African way of killing people, they'll dust your food. They'll have a little bit of it in their hand and it's a real fine dust. And when you're getting your food or you turn your head, they'll just blow it on your food while I got dusted. I almost died. Yeah, I almost died. What is it? What's the chemical? I'm not sure. You know, it's just it's all herbal stuff, witch doctors. You know, everyone knows Coney. You know, and this is not me talking. Coney said at one time when the ant died, he

took her demons. So he said he had 260 some spirits that gave him his orders, what he was going to do. And his mom was the same way. And everyone that run with the mom and Coney, you know, they were all into witchcraft and devil stuff and everything, but my liver started shutting down and everything. I'll never forget. I went back into my room and within about three, four hours, I was definitely sick. And I knew I was going to fast. Yeah, three to four hours after eating my food, I was definitely sick.

And one of the guys, ding, ding was with me from the movie The Real Dang. Dings are right, hand man. Yeah, while ding, ding still in the SPLA, he's a, I believe ding now is a captain now, but I still see him, still talk to him and everything. Well, ding and the other guys that was with me, Peter was with also, they said, Sam, you got poisoned.

And so I thought I was going to die. And I remember laying in my bed for hours, and I said, God, I ain't afraid of dying. But do you realize how you're going to look if they haul my body out of this room? I said, God, this is all on you. I said, God, you got to heal me. I said, God, I want you, please, God, just touch me and heal me that I could walk out of here tomorrow morning and walk to that buffet and get my food. And the next morning, I could barely walk. And stuff was just coming out of me like all the liquids and everything I could barely walk

But I got up and I said God I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna walk out and I walked out that morning And I remember looking over at the lady setting at her table Joseph Coney's mom And I told her I says I'm still looking for your son and I literally said that and I could barely move. I mean, I literally at the time thought I was still dying. But I wanted her to know that the God that I served was bigger than any poison she could give to me. And Coney has killed, successfully killed everybody that he's ever put a hit out on.

You know, yeah, Coney, everyone that he would that he's ever put a head out on you know yet Coney Everyone that he would say he was gonna kill we always killed And it just slipped my mind one of his right-hand men Uh, and it's in my book, but uh Oh, I maybe to come back before I finish telling the story But they were setting at a table and they're talking and he just picked up a pistol and shot him in the forehead.

And he told everyone, I didn't kill him, he's just asleep. But Coney was a wild man. I mean, everyone that he would say he would kill, he would kill. And I was one of them that he said he was gonna kill that he hasn't. I'll like I told him I done a I done a crusade in Gulu one time a preaching crusade and

The the people in people in town the government people came to me and they said we just figured out who you are There's no way you're gonna be able to do this crusade Coney called the radio station said if you do this crusade he Coney called the radio station said, if you do this crusade, he's coming here to kill you. Why'd done the crusade with a grenade in each pocket and a pistol in my back? But I preached it and I told him, I said, listen, if you can't make it, tell me where you're at and I'll come to your house for dinner. You know, so Joseph Coney, as far as I'm concerned, was a coward, still a coward. And he will pay for the crimes that he's done.

I hope he does. Yeah, really hope he does. So what are you guys getting into now? I mean, it took you, how long did it take you to get fully set up? You know, I still don't believe we're fully set up to where I would like to see it come to. You know, I would love to see before God takes me out of this world.

I'd love to see our organization feeding 20, 25,000 meals a day. I'd love to see our farm be a few thousand acres. You know, my goal for this next year, you know, because of COVID, because of the war in Ukraine, our food bills have doubled. Like, for what our farm would produce now, our main food bill was about 12,000 a month. That's just food.

That's not payroll, nothing else. 12,000 more dollars we spend on food. It's up to 28 to $28,000 a month. That's what our food bill is now. So for this new year, I would like to grow 40 to 50 percent of the crops that we use to feed people. I'd like to grow on our farm, you know. So I'd love to see a lot of expansion on our farming. I'd love to see some more children homes built. And we do a lot here in the US as well, you know. What the kids that you get in the movie,

there's a lot of separation. The kids are ripped from their family. Maybe they're forced to kill their parents. They're separated from their siblings. If you've been able to reunite any family. Yeah, and I got a good story for you too. Our biggest thing is we don't want to keep children if they have immediate family. We want to place those children back into their homes. But a number of years ago, and this happened one of the big magazines, I think it was the Inquirer magazine.

I believe it was, they'd done a story on me. Well, anyways, the story was about a father that found his child. And how this father found the child was through his brother. One of the local newspapers in Uganda had done a story on me at Christmas time. And it was kind of a story about the machine gun preacher rescuing children. And it had all these children around me. While the uncle was in Gulu and read the newspaper and seen this child. While the uncle seen it was a child that was his brother's son. So he came to where I have a home in Gulu. I've been in Gulu over 20 some years.

He'd come to the children's home, and so they called me out. I happened to be there and I come out and he was pointing at the paper and he's speaking in their local language. And he said, this child, is he here? Is he here? And just so happened, the child was there.

So I brought the child to the gate. And when he seen the child this uncle passed out, just passed out on the ground because it was the same child that they rated a village, the LRA, and they rated a school, and they chopped these children all up. And the parents and family members had to come to this school where all these pieces of bodies was, and they took pieces of bodies that they thought was their child, home to Barry. So here the father and the mother and the family, excuse me,

took all these pieces of body that they thought was their son and buried this child. Well, this child was one that escaped and hid in the bush, and then he was dramatized really bad, but we rescued him. So here, I told him, I said, I can't give you the child. I said, you go bring the father. And because the child was still mentally not stable. So here a week or so later, he come back right at Christmas time. You know, the story was done before Christmas, the kind of, you know, get everybody into Christmas spirit of me rescuing children. And here the father came. And the father fell to his knees and just fell to the ground and couldn't believe it.

Well, the son recognized the father and everything, even though he was so dramatized. But that was one of the good stories of placing a child back. So imagine you buried your son. You had his body in your hands, but it wasn't your son. And then you find your son still alive. You know, it's a good story. Wow. What's the time separation on that?

You know, it was probably, I'm going to say, almost two years or so. Two years. Yes. Yeah, it was almost two years. What's happening now, you know, I turned 60. I've been in Africa over two and a half decades. And I believe there's a lot of things, there's a lot of things we try to block out. And so you try to block out a lot of things.

So there's some things you don't remember, but you try to remember a few good stories. How many of these children still have hope that they're going to read? You know, our organization is one of the only organizations out there that when you finish school and you leave our organization, if you're 70% or better in your class, we will send you on to university. So before COVID, I had 20 some kids in university. I mean, you don't even want to see our school fees, our school fees are ridiculous. Even now I have about eight kids in university right now as we speak, you know.

So our organization, we don't only create jobs for you to learn a skill and a trade, we give you the opportunity to go to university. We got some very good success stories. We got some very good success stories. You know, in Africa, you don't get a lot of, you don't hear of a lot of organizations working with women. It seems like all the programs are for men, you know? So on our farm, we built a two-story house, six bedroom, four bathroom, with cottages on the outside, big rooms, and we

built this house to teach young ladies from Africa that was involved in the war. You know, in a lot of African villages, if you're a young woman that you may have been used as a sex slave, you were a wife to the rebel, you had children to the rebels, they don't want you back in the village anymore. So a lot of these women will just walk into the bush and set down and die, because they have no skill, they have no trade, they have no future. So we built this house to teach young women

a skill on a trade. We teach them how to clean a house and how to make a bed. And people say, well, most people should know that. If you were raised in a mud hut with a grass roof, you don't know how to make a bed. But we have got, and if you're on a passport from East Africa, you can travel anywhere in East Africa. We got unbelievable amount of women

that are working in hotels, nice hotels because of the skill and trade that we taught them in this house. We have one lady particular I like to tell her story. She wanted to work in the kitchen with me. I had three restaurants at one time and I loved to cook. I don't call myself a chef. I just love to cook and eat, you know? So she wanted to know everything that a mizungu, a white person like to eat. So I, you know, Spanish omelets, eggs, benadec, you know,

she wanted to know all this stuff, pancakes, French toast, waffles. She wanted to know everything that us, Mizzongos, like to eat. For two years, I taught her everything I could teach her and how to make a simple lunch, simple sandwiches and hamburgers and stuff. And two years later, she goes into Gulu

and she opens up a little restaurant. And this little restaurant, you could barely put 10 people inside and 10 people outside. You would stand in line to wait to eat in this restaurant. It was just amazing because she learned how to do this just the way we love it. And then she even got a bigger place. And now she got married, moved to the other end of Uganda,

has another restaurant. But these are some success stories of people that got into our hands and learned to skill and a trade. I've always said, if you want to change a nation, it's not by handouts. You know, when you do handouts, what do we create? We start to create another America, you know, but if you teach people a skill and a trade and how they can function on our own, that's how you change a nation. That's amazing.

That's incredible. I love that you just said that. Yeah. Where are you headed from here? You know, I'll be back in the Congo here soon. So right now, when I fly from the U.S., I fly from my office in Pennsylvania, which is a bike shop. It's run by my brother and then another young lady. I'll fly from there to Ethiopia. I'll spend a few days in Ethiopia.

We have a really big project there that we might end up selling. It's been hard raising money for this project. Six-story building almost finished. And then I'll fly from there back to Uganda. I'll go into Congo to do some work there in the South Sudan. I mean, Africa is my home now.

What are you doing down in the Congo? You know, the Congo, we are preparing to rescue children and take any children that are rescued by the government and give them a safe haven to go to. But the biggest thing is these children got to really be mentally evaluated, they got to be worked with. It's gonna take some time because of what they've been made to do

and not only made to do, but what they have seen, you know. So it's gonna be a long process in the Congo. Do you foresee your organization opening orphanages and churches and no we'll stay on the Ugandan side. Okay. You know Ugandan side I love Uganda like I said it's the land of milk and honey. Everybody knows me everybody trust me. I'm not like other NGOs. You know and I don't want NGOs to get upset with me saying this, but NGOs a lot of times follow the news because where the news is, the money is, you know, and I've been

a proven NGO that I came to East Africa and now it's my home. I'm not going nowhere. How long have you considered that home? You know, I've been married to my wife, Justine, for three years now. And I've been basically living there full time for about seven years now. Yeah. No, you don't miss the US at all.

And no, you know, everyone used to say say well, I missed this I missed that I got an upper-class restaurant that everything that I miss I make there You know so and and I think the the biggest food that I love is Sushi I love sushi man. I just go crazy over sushi and If you look in Kampala right now, there's probably 13 Japanese restaurants in Kampala. And I get a kick out of missionaries, they'll say, I'm going to Uganda to preach the gospel. I always ask them, where are you going?

They say, Kampala, we're going into Kampala to preach. And I kind of laughed because when I went there, there was no pizza hut. Now there's pizza hut. There's like 12 Kentucky fried chickens. There's two McDonald's. Everything is there, you know. But I spend most of my time to this day in the bush.

And I love the bush. I think a man like you that has fought for our country and dedicated years of your life, you know, you always got a piece of wanting to be there, you know. For me, I've been blessed enough to live there and have a wife that loves living there with me, you know. So I'll be there the rest of my life. With these mission trips, I saw on your website that you host mission trips. Yes, we host mission trips. That's through Angels of East Africa.

Our organization, the nonprofit name is Angels of East Africa, USA. Now we have an Angels of East Africa, Poland, Angels of East Africa, UK, Angels of East Africa, Germany, there's several offices around the world. Because when I do world tours and you take money out of them countries, you've got to have nonprofits. And then there's an angels of East Africa, Uganda.

So we meet people around the world that will go on these mission trips. So that's all run through angels of East Africa. I have no doings with none of them. You know, I don't like being around people. You know, so the only thing that I do when you get there, the company that I have, I run and I own and run an armed security company. So we make sure and I'm usually the face you'll see, I make sure you get from point A to point B, you know, I make sure you get to all the all the projects. So people can come in, you know, and there's

always people they want to come in and get a gun in their hand and go fight. That's the last thing you should want to do. I tell people all the time that ain't ever going to happen. But what can happen is you can get one of these children that was harmed or hurt really bad and you can hold them in your arms and you can love on them. That takes more of a man and a woman to do that than it does to pick up a gun and go hurt somebody.

I would agree with you on that one. Yeah. Well Sam, you're just an incredible human being. Oh really? He's got, yeah. And I just wanna thank you for coming out. Yeah, and I wanna invite you to Africa, maybe for you, not to come to Africa you to Africa maybe maybe for you not to come

to Africa on a mission trip maybe for you to come on a visit. And we do some of these set downs in Africa. And I get you to set down with Deng, I get you to set down with Peter and get you to set down with some of the people in the bush. And I think it'd be a really, really good show, man. And that's- Well, I got to tell you, it's funny that you mentioned that because on my way over here, I called a friend of mine. He's been on this show.

He painted these paintings. His name's Justin Hughes. And I asked him if he would be willing to go over there with me if we got an invite. Yeah. And he's a former seal as well. Yeah, I think it would be good for you. Yeah, I think it'd be good for you.

Be good for your show. I mean, you're not hearing from me. You're hearing from victims. You're hearing from people that's still there fighting the fight. You can hear from my wife. A lot of Africans, they wanna to marry a Mizzungu because it's like a ticket out.

And if you interviewed my wife, she would tell you, how I can't leave, you know. And at my motorcycle shop, I own 15 acres of ground there. And I was going to build a nice house and everything there, and my wife, when she was over here about a year ago, she said, Sam, she said, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but she said, you don't need to build that house for me because I can never come to America to live. She said, you know, our work is in Africa.

So I mean, at least I know I got the right wife because you know she doesn't want a ticket to America. Maybe to visit you know she was just in Germany and Italy and Switzerland with me speaking and we had a good time but our home is Africa and that's where we work. Well I would love to take up on that invite? Yeah, I think it would be really good. Yeah, I think I could see you, you know, setting your cameras up and doing your thing there. Working people find you.

Where do they donate? You know, the easiest way to find me is just remember the name, machine gun preacher. You know, I can set here and tell you, angels of East Africa, you'll be trying to write it down and you're gonna mess it up. But everything to find me is just machine gun preacher. And that's pretty simple.

Most people can remember it. You Google machine gun preacher, that's the name of our website. That's how you get ahold of me. My main office is in outside of Central City, Pennsylvania. And it's a motorcycle shop. We build custom motorcycles. There's actually a small clothing line

of machine gun preacher clothing. And people say, why, you know, and it does about a half million dollars of sales a year, you know? So you can go online, you can go on to Facebook, Google, machine gun preacher, or my name, Sam Childers. But our work is done because of people like you out there, you know?

And I challenge people. Look into the, if you have a nonprofit that you're financing, there's a few questions you need to ask them. Ask what the CEO makes. You have every right to ask. You know, ask how much on a dollar is spent in the field? You have every right to ask.

If people don't want to ask you financial questions for a nonprofit, then don't support them. And we need your help. Machine gun preacher. All right, we'll link everything below as well. That way it's easy for them to find as well. And Sam, I just wish you the bus to luck and and thank you so much for gracing us with your presence. It's been a real honor. And hopefully the next time I see you, it'll be in another hemisphere. All right, thank you. God bless.

God bless you. Cheers. Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan Show review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. It's time to get away in a new Hyundai vehicle during the Hyundai Getaway sales event at Woodhouse Hyundai. The Hyundai lineup of sedans and SUVs has the capability you need and technology and features you want, like the all-new 2023 Hyundai Powseed and Hyundai Tucson.

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