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Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. Hey, what do you think about when you think about the word glow? I mean, does your mind light up? Do you light up?
Does the world around you light up when you hear the word glow? Well, with me in studio today is probably the most precious couple on the planet that I know. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that.
They're laughing right now. But darn Andrew Draper, welcome back to the Man Up show. We are pretty amazing.
Well, and yes you are. In fact, for all our listeners out here, I'm going to tell you, and this goes around the world, Andrew Dar Draper found a glow mission with a vision. I like that. Mission with a vision to see individual hearts set ablaze with a fresh passion to personally go love others well. Hence the word glow, an acronym to see teams of people mobilized creatively using their skills, talents and resources to meet the physical and spiritual needs of others all over the world.
We're going to dive into that and talk more about that. And to see the ones we serve also ignited and effectively launched into their destiny to, you guessed it, to glow. Okay, who came up with that, Andrew? Yeah, those were my words. No, you're right beside me is the one who wrote those. She's the wordsmith. I'm just the comedy hour. She's the wordsmith and you're the comedy hour. You know, I've never even heard the wordsmith until a dear friend of mine by the name of Lex Luger accused me of being a wordsmith.
I'm like, what's that even mean? I had to go look that up. But I do know your other half, Miss Dar there, is an incredible creative writer. There's so much I want to talk to you guys about and cover since the last time you were here with me. And I'm not even really sure where to start, but let me start here. So you got the introduction.
Okay. And I want to tell you more than just words on a piece of paper. You know, this couple ever met this couple. You know, those words ring out to be very true in this couple's life.
And I say that in all sincerity. But we go back. I was trying to think of my drive to the studio today. And I tried to think of this last time probably too, but at least 20, if not 25-ish years. And I know, Andrew, even before we came on air, you talked about teaching.
One of my daughters, Connie. That's right, yeah. So way back when. Way back, yeah. And that was at what? Covenant Classic School in Concord, North Carolina. And of course, you were on a staff of the refuge for many, many years.
You know, you say you're the funny one. Children's pastors. Yes. For how many years were you? Ten. Ten years.
Ten wonderful years. On staff at the refuge. And the children's ministry. I just had a friend just visit the refuge recently from Aiken, South Carolina. And he's got like a little seven or eight year old. He goes, if we went to church here, he got a nickel tour of the building.
He said, we'd never get our daughter out of here. We sell that children's area and she would want to live here. And of course, a lot of that is credit to your hard labor in the early days of the refuge. And the foundation that you guys laid.
Dara, let me ask you. What was that experience like for you back in those early days of being a part of the children's ministry? Oh, I'm so thankful for that season of our life. It was really the training ground for us, the incubator really, for ministry. And we were so blessed to have been raised up by Pastor Jay and Pastor Mel Stewart. One of the things I learned there is children are the most fertile soil there is. I mean, it's like 87% of people get saved under the age of 14.
And so really, when you invest in the lives of children, you're getting the most fertile soil. I would walk in, I didn't tell anybody this at the time, but I would walk in on Sunday mornings. And I'd feel like me and the Holy Spirit would walk in and we had the most important job in the entire building.
And nobody knew it but us. But I knew it because I would work, specifically the last five years, I worked with the five and unders. But I would teach the four and five-year-olds.
I took it so seriously. And I felt like the Lord showed me that some of the most significant, the most significant moments of ministry for me could have been one-on-one moments with a four-year-old. And it means as much to his heart as being able to fly around the world and being on any kind of stage. Just ministering to one child is so significant to the heart of God. And, Andrew, I know, of course, some of the sets that you guys would build there to be able to draw the attention of the children, to be able to share the gospel message with them. I know there were a number of times I saw you guys, or you.
I mean, I don't want to use the word entertain, but you do have a funny bone about you. Has that always been there with you? Or when did you first start to develop that? Yeah, it's funny that you ask that because I remember there was a point in time where I grew up in Raleigh. And I remember being in junior high one time. You used to have these little teen clubs.
And it was called Julian's, and I was at this teen club with my friends from junior high. And all of a sudden I just noticed, I'm like, man, everybody really laughs when I get going. I start feeling good. Feeling the moment, right? Yeah, feeling the moment. And I'd do stuff, and they would just laugh.
I'd say things, and I could just kind of keep on a roll like that. And at that point in time, I was like, I guess I'm kind of funny. So it was great that it translated into children's ministry so well. And there was really nothing that I had ever done that translated so well as children's ministry because in order to minister to children, especially with what you're up against, I mean, with their cartoons and all those things that are coming at them on YouTube.
All the streams now, right? Just crazy amounts of creativity coming at them. You have to be able to hold their attention, especially if you want to get a gospel message in there. And so you have to kind of be on this high level and make things funny and keep them engaged in order to bring that message because they'll quickly tune you out. They can be really brutal. I mean, we've seen people come in there and try to minister, and the kids will just shut it down. And they're just like, oh, my gosh, this was brutal.
It's like, I guess, a comedian going out on a set and going, oh, my gosh, that was the worst. But it was just the best ground for me because my humor translated so well, and they just ate it up. And then I was able, through that door of laughter, to come in through the back door of their heart and then minister the gospel to them, and it was just such a beautiful, fruitful time. And how many years did you teach children, roughly? I think, yeah, before I was a children's pastor, I think four or five years.
Four or five years. And did either of you, or Dara, maybe I'll come back over to you, see yourselves being children's pastors? Or at what point did you… Now, we always had a heart for ministry, and we always saw how important children were, I mean, to invest in them. So it's been a journey.
It's been a journey for sure. Well, and I'll speak for my daughter Tawny, because your name pops up, crops up every now and then. And of course, we're talking about some of her funny posts on social media. And you were asking me if she's an influencer. She doesn't specifically do it, but she does influence. And now she has five children of her own, and of course, she's influencing all of them and training them up. She homeschools. She actually homeschools.
So she's training them up and raising them up in the way they should go. And Andrew, I'll give you some of the credit for that. Yeah, I'll take it. She's a special girl. You take it.
And of course, she's just one of four daughters, as many know. So you're at the refuge, you're there for ten years, and let's fast forward, Dara, to, I mentioned the GLOW ministry, Go Love Others Well. And there's so much going on that you're involved in, but let's first talk about how that vision came about, because I know there's so much you do. I mean, you've done stage plays, you've written books, am I correct? Yes.
Yeah, so take a minute or two and talk about some of that. Well, it's a perfect segue into the GLOW mission from our children's ministry days. I prayed this prayer a little over nine years ago. I prayed, Lord, give me more of a heart for kids in the world. I remember being on staff at the refuge, loving it, loving what I did, but there was a stirring inside of me, as we often feel as believers, when God's getting ready to launch us into something else, and I call it divine dissatisfaction. You just know that there's something more that He's calling you.
There's a deeper He's calling you into. And so I remember being alone in the altar area of our church and had this moment where I was just like, Lord, give me more of a heart for kids in the world. I heard the Lord say, okay, but you'll cry a lot. And I was like, wow, I'm not even a crier. That's not even me.
I'm not real. I love people, but I never felt myself very compassionate to where I was moved to tears so much. I could cry with those who cry, a little, but I was more like, rejoice with those who do cry.
A little bit of girly crying there somewhere. So I thought, huh, that's interesting that I would hear that. And what happened was actually nine years ago, coming this Christmas, we were given an opportunity to host an orphan in our home for Christmas. And so when someone asked me about hosting this one boy from Ukraine, the Holy Spirit reminded me, you asked me for a heart for kids in the world, and this was the open door to it. And so we said yes against our will.
We didn't even really want to host. It just seemed like a lot at Christmas. I had four kids, but we said yes. And through having Sasha in our home, he was 16.
He couldn't be adopted because U.S. law is, after 16, you can't adopt. But it gave us a heart for our nation. He came into our home for a month, and it felt like he was part of our family. And it was right between my two boys' ages. And when he went back to the orphanage, Ukraine was already at war with Russia in 2014.
It had started. He was a Ukrainian orphan refugee from the east. His orphanage got moved to where he is. So he'd already been there, lost his parents, war started, evacuated. Now he's like thrust into this American family, and we fall in love with each other.
Our family, we fell in love with him, he fell in love with us. We sent him back to the orphanage, and that's when the tears started. I cried every day for three weeks. I remember months and months of just mourning.
Even got diagnosed with depression. Over just the gravity of what an orphan means to be an orphan. And I'm like, this kid has no parents. Even before I was attached to him personally, it started hitting me, wait, this kid in our home has no parents. We don't always consider the orphan. We don't consider that here. The gravity of that.
We don't consider, you know, in America with the foster system and we just, I don't know, an orphanage, you're going to send your kid back that you feel like is your kid to an orphanage at war with Russia. It felt, it was very, very difficult. But what the Lord did through that is he renovated my heart. I felt like he was like, my heart was a complete mess. He was expanding it and creating more room in my heart, more capacity to love. And it's a prayer I would pray for years, Lord, increase my capacity to love, increase my capacity to love. And he answers these prayers, and he answers the prayers to give you more of a heart for kids in the world. He'll answer these prayers, we pray, and they hurt sometimes.
And you don't even realize, you know, wow, I asked for this. And so what it did, though, is he came again for hosting and then we ended up, the Holy Spirit made it clear, you need to go to that country. So in September of 2016, I took my first trip to Ukraine with another mom who had hosted and we visited this orphanage. We got in extreme favor with them and we got to stay in the orphanage and we fell in love with all the kids. And so those relationships have been going on for nine years and we still, like, the Lord's story, the way he writes a story is so interesting because we never knew this invasion would happen. We didn't know we'd be involved in their lives for years to come. And now some of them are in America. We've actually gotten them over here as refugees, helped them get started on life, like things we had hoped to accomplish in Ukraine with orphan graduates. That's where our work really started, was working with orphan grads, those who would age out of the orphanage system and in a society that does not embrace orphans, in a society where there's a lot of stigma with orphans. I wanted to help give them opportunities like the Lord, you know, in our heart, as Proverbs says, we plan our course but the Lord determines our steps.
And the Lord had quite an adventure in store for us with Ukraine. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Go to www.coop.net and donate today. The Man Up show is honored to have Dr. Johnny Gaten as one of our longest running supportive sponsors. Dr. Gaten is regarded as one of the world's leading elite eye surgeons. He is motivated by his faith in doing all things heartily as unto the Lord. His desire to do his best has contributed to success in his eye care practice, performing over 70,000 eye surgeries. In addition, he's a world-renowned speaker, writer, and author.
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You can give monthly, annually, or one time. God bless you for making a difference around the world. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. That's incredible. And so Andrew, so you guys have made, I know, numerous trips back and forth for various amounts of time that you have spent there. And is there anything specific that comes to mind for you in those trips? And I want to lead into POPS Project at some point, too, because that's something going on over there, right, in Ukraine.
And so is there a trip or two that are specific? And then lead us into a little bit about POPS Project, too. Yeah, it's funny you say that, because immediately I just thought, you know, when God calls you to a new place, you know no one. I mean, we knew a few people, and there was a few relationships we had, but you don't know what He's getting ready to weave. It's almost like if you picture a quilt, you know, two pieces of fabric that are apart, and then He starts to sew, or, you know, you start to sew these long strands.
And you're not sure where they're going to go, but eventually they're going to pull those two pieces of fabric together. And so what we saw when we were there is that, you know, we'd see these pieces of fabric in people, and someone would just really resonate with us, like that same fabric that's woven in our heart, and He would start to kind of stitch us together. And then so over these years, the thing that I think about is I think about our Maxime, who's up in the Chernobyl area, and he's ministering to the widows up there. We had no idea who he was when we first started coming, but, man, to get involved with him, and this guy has, I mean, he's like Jesus right there with these blue eyes, and the way he cares for these grandmas, and not that Jesus has blue eyes, but Jesus has these brilliant eyes when He looks at you. Eyes of compassion, right?
Yeah, compassion and love. And He's boots on the ground. Yeah, boots on the ground. And then our Sergei, who's our head of operations there, and just all these ways that He knit us together with other leaders. And because of those relationships, now we're able to do so much, like we're putting in churches. We're at our fourth church now that we've helped to put in there, and we're able to put homes in these communities. Well, it kind of came out of these homes that we're putting in, these areas that were war-torn, and the elderly did not want to leave their property. They wanted to stay on their property.
So they would live in root cellars, and so we're like, here's the opportunity to bring them in a small, tiny home for them to stay on their property, but stay in a safe way, in a dry way, in a nice way. And then because of that, we're putting, you know, there's hundreds that have been put in. I believe, I mean, Blow's put in like 65 or so, but there's, you know, through the ministry of Sergei, there's been like 230, I believe, that have been put in. Over 300 now. Oh, over 300 now. So it keeps growing.
Yeah. So what's happening in those areas that were decimated by war, now, you know, you've got all these homes going in. Well, then they would come to the Lord because we invite them to a dinner. Sergei would preach the gospel to them, and they would get saved. And now, all of a sudden, they need a community. You know, there's really a church that's already started, so we just needed to build a building for them to come to. Wow, okay. And so it's amazing what's happened through all these relationships that the Lord has knit together.
How it's evolving. And Dara, correct me if I'm wrong, Babushka? Babushka is the word for grandma in Russian.
That's what I was thinking of, Babushka. I should know that, you know, being the Russian national. I mean, you are the Russian nightmare.
Well, yeah, yeah, I should know that. It's been so long, though. You know, you've been in America too long. I've been in America a long time now. Yeah, yeah. Forty years now. You kind of forget some of those things. You lost your Russian accent. That's right.
Good English tutoring as well. That's right. So, okay, so you post on your social media, and we're going to make sure people get your website and how they can contribute or serve or help Glow Ministries. And they are some of the sweetest looking ladies, these Babushkas, that you post on your site. Yes. Oh, my gosh, it just, like, grabs my heart.
They're precious. So let's talk about Pops Project, which has to do with your dad, right? It does.
It does. We call my dad Pops. Okay. And my dad, well, I'll start with Sergei.
It felt like the Lord told him just to talk to me. Like, he wanted to start a church for these Babushkas in this one area, the Mashin area, outside of Kyiv, Ukraine. It was an area where 80% of the homes were destroyed.
Okay. And they had, a lot of them had gotten saved, and they, homes, like, over 100 homes had been put in there between YWAM and them. And so they wanted to build a church. The Lord told them to build a church, and the Lord said, talk to Dar.
Like, he's clearly heard, just tell Dar about it. So he's talking to me, and he says, we need about $80,000 to build a container church. They actually take two containers, and they built a church around containers. Wow. And it's really amazing how they've done it. Very innovative. Very innovative. You've got to get innovative. You're in a war-torn country, you've got to get innovative, right? Right, and you can't, can you imagine building a church and the land for 80,000 here?
No. And it's a humanitarian hub. It's not even just a church for Sunday worship. They use it all week long.
It's just a gathering place. So he's telling me about this back in, oh, months ago. It was back maybe last spring or summer, and he said $80,000. And the thing that hit me in my spirit right away was my dad was getting ready to turn 80. And my dad had this dream his whole life of going, when he retired, he was going to go to other countries to build churches. And he'd gone on about five trips to different countries like Costa Rica and Dominican Republic and Nicaragua, and he's gone there and helped to build churches.
Because when I retire, I'm going to build churches in other countries. Well, my dad had a terrible car accident, would not be able to do that several years ago. So I was like, in honor of my dad's eighth birthday, I want to rally people to raise $80,000 for Pops' Project. And so for Father's Day, I gave him, I told him that. I was like, this is what we're going to do till your eighth birthday, which was last week.
It was the week of Thanksgiving. So we have been rallying to raise. And it's not just us.
Sergey has other partners have given us this, too. But we had bricks made. We were like, buy a brick for $80. $80 a brick. So I had a thousand bricks printed.
My dad's picture, giving a thumbs up and telling the story. And so we have been raising $80,000 worth. Where's it currently at? Our fundraising is like 50-some thousand. We're like 20-some thousand, slightly over 20,000 away from our goal. Okay, because the latest statistic I had was like 56,000 and some change. 56,000, that's it, yeah.
Okay, is that something accurate? We have, last I checked, we had like 290 bricks to go. 290 bricks, all right.
And we've got to make sure people know the website, how they can buy it. I think you bought a brick, didn't you, Nikita? I may have gotten more than one, maybe. And if not, I will now need to get more than one, actually.
If I hadn't gotten one. No, I think you are. I think you have.
But I do, for the record, I do. Listen, that's how much I believe in this couple's ministry. So I'm a monthly sower.
You are. I so appreciate that. Monthly sower into this ministry, that's how much I believe in it.
And for the record, there's only a handful. I can about count the ministries on one hand that I actually will sow into or invest into. I'm very, very strategic with that and spend time in prayer to see where the Lord wants me to invest and who He wants me to invest in. And you guys are part of that investment. It's an honor to do it.
Thank you. And so Pops Project. Yes. And so all that money raised will go to help to build this church. Yeah, it's being built right now. It's being built, okay. So 80,000 is the target.
And listen, whenever this airs, it doesn't even matter if they hit the goal or not. I'm just going to tell you right now, if you want to sow into fertile soil, Dar talked earlier about the soil of a child's heart and the seeds they sowed in youth or children's ministry way back when in the refuge. If you want to sow into fertile soil, Glow Ministries, Dar and Andrew Draper, you will not go wrong in doing that. I can assure you that money, any money you give, whether it's on a monthly basis or a one-time donation, will be put to good use through this ministry. So, well, that's amazing.
So that's the current, so the current project is, Pops Project is the current project. We have that and we have grandmas. We have, we do adopted grandmas. So we have our grandmas, our babushkas, and we're about to get a new batch of grandmas. We had 60 sponsored last year and we just found another ministry has to kind of, they can't cover their grandmas anymore because they moved to, because of the war, moved to a different country.
Okay. And so we're about to pick up 24 new grandmas. They're in big time need.
They are. They get very little from the government. They get a stipend of like, I think it's like around $50 a month for them to live on. So they need, we help them get firewood. We get them supplies for their hygiene and medicine and $50 a month.
And so that goes nowhere. But what's amazing is that, you know, we have, you know, some of our grandmas that we just absolutely adore. And one of them is, she's the cutest little thing ever.
I mean, she's just wonderful. And I remember coming to see her and her taking her little, her little wallet thing out and pulling some grieve knife out and giving it to Maxime. And she wanted to, she wanted a tithe. It was so precious because she had absolutely nothing. And yes, she was just so grateful for what the Lord had done in her life and how we had come in and helped take care of her. And she wasn't giving it to us.
She was giving it to the Lord. So Andrew, website before we run out of time, how can people find out more about Glow Ministries? How can they give? They go to glowmission.org. Okay. Glowmission.org.
Okay. And so, and you'll see on there, there's a giving page. You'll see the very first page you come to, you'll see, you know, how to give right there.
And then it'll give you a whole list of things that you can sew into. And on the website, of course, they can read more about what you guys are, some of these projects and other things that you guys are doing there. And Dara, I'll give you the last word, perhaps. And so to our listeners out there, and this goes worldwide, what would you want to say to our listeners out there in terms of what you guys are doing through Glow Minute? Well, I would just want to encourage everyone that the greatest thing you can do is to love, to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love others as you love yourself. You know, we, as especially Americans, we love to be great, right?
We want to do the greatest things. And what the Lord kind of showed me is the greatest thing. He spoke to me when I was in my 20s. I always really wanted to serve the Lord. And I felt like he said, you have the greatest call on your life. I heard the Holy Spirit say it, and I was like, what? What is the greatest call?
You know, of course, you're in your 20s and you're wanting this big call. Right, right. It will impact the world.
Yes, it will impact the world. And we have our ideas what that means. And I heard the Holy Spirit say, to love. Like, your call is to love. And I felt it.
I felt it imparted to me, like, this is not just some pat answer. This is not just some, but if you can really love. So I decided then, I was like, okay, I'm going to commit my life to lessons in love. And I want to be the greatest lover of people, the greatest lover of the Lord that I possibly can be. And if you think about the great commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And the great commission is to go into all the world. So what we want to do is fulfill the greatest commandment through the great commission through the greatest commandment. And so we have a heart just to keep on loving people well and imparting that to people all over the world. I love it. Someone once said, I heard it said one time, we stand before the Lord.
The one, maybe the very foundational question he asked is, did you learn to love? Yes. So, one more time, Andrew, the website. One more time. glowmission.org.
glowmission.org. Listen, darn Andrew Draper, you will be sowing into good soil. Take my word for it. And I challenge you today, go out and love others well today as Dar put the challenge out there. Thank you for tuning in and just have a God filled and a God blessed day. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers, support, and generous gifts.
May God bless you for your continual contributions. Go to koloff.net and donate today. If you are enjoying the man up show, would you help us spread the word? Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe, and leave a comment. Ah, Nikita Koloff, be sure to check out the man up show now available on television, broadcast, and podcast. Go to morningstartv.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings or better yet, download the Truth Network app today. Nikita Koloff here.
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