You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Now, The Devil's Nightmare.
Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. In the midst of a tragedy like, well, for example, Hurricane Helene, which jogging your memory would go back a few months and some of you or many of you, maybe most of you or all of you, are aware of how devastating that hurricane was to certainly western North Carolina. I think the most attention out of that, but parts of East Tennessee.
But even South Carolina, like some don't realize, it impacted a pretty wide swath of land. Well, with me today are some dear friends, I mean, major, major supporters to Call Off the Christ Ministries in many different ways. But I'm excited to have Brian and Jamie Johnson. Welcome back to the Man Up show, guys. Thank you, Nikita.
Thanks, Nikita. Well, great to have you guys because you guys are down in Aiken, South Carolina. But you don't live in Aiken, you've got a business in Aiken you've had for years and years and years.
We'll touch on that here shortly. But technically you live where? In Johnston, South Carolina. Johnston. A small town right out of Aiken County. So how is it the Johnson's live in Johnston? How did that work out? Well, when most of the kids grew up and moved away and went to college, our big house was too big for just the two of us.
So we tried to, we tried to downsize, but as you know, we have another little girl that we are raising. So we moved to the farm, so to speak, actually quite literally moved to the farm. And for the record, because I have been on that farm, an absolutely gorgeous, beautiful farm, 100 plus acres? I forget now. Refresh my memory.
Yes, there's about 110 acres out there. Okay. All right.
I was thinking it was something like that. And of course, not only do you have a business in town in Aiken, South Carolina that you've had many, many years, Crescent Automotive, right? Yes. Jamie, you have a bridal business out there, don't you? You have a barn and host weddings and stuff out there too, right?
We do. As we added to our property over the years, we acquired a barn that is right behind our house, and it's kind of set apart from the rest of the property. So we began a barn venue after our oldest got married, and I enjoy entertaining and parties, and it just became second nature to me to do so. I call that my fun job, and this is my real job. All jokes aside, though, we only do a handful of events a year just to keep it very special. It's on our own home property, so we don't want to have people out there every weekend, but it's just something I'm very passionate about.
Yeah, so you don't overload. And we'll make sure before we go off the air, like if people want to learn more about Crescent Auto or the wedding business, we'll make sure and get that information out there. So you guys, growing up in the area, and I know Brian, we've had many, many, many talks about Bell Auditorium. Brian, do you want to take a moment and just elaborate on what Bell Auditorium means to you personally? Well, that's where you and I spent our Monday nights.
We weren't together, but you were backstage swinging a chain around and taking opponents out, and I was ringside booing you and cheering you and just having a ball. Yeah, that's a big part of my childhood was spent following Georgia Championship Wrestling, Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, the NWA, everything that was associated with South Carolina and Georgia when it came to wrestling in the 80s. That's right, that's right. And for those of you who know Augusta, Georgia, which is right across the, is it across the, is there a river that separates? Across the river, Savannah River, it separates Georgia and South Carolina.
And what's crazy is there's Augusta, Georgia, but then there's North Augusta, South Carolina. Yes. I'm confused, I'm so confused.
You know, I didn't draw the maps up. Now Brian, Brian, before I go back to Jamie, just real quick, how times have changed, correct me if I'm wrong, like speaking of your childhood or those formative days, 12, 13, 14 years old, your dad would roll up to the curb of the Bell Auditorium and literally not kick you out of the car, but basically drop you off and then go, but then show up at the pickup point, you know, 10 o'clock at night or whatever, right? Every Monday night. I mean, it just, it's just what we did. I wanted to be there when the doors opened because it was ringside, but you had, it wasn't assigned seats. So you had to outrun those ladies with the walkers that were, that were putting fast, that were trying to get ringside so they could hit you with their cane. And I was trying to get down so, you know, I could see some, some blood or some, some action or hear some, I just wanted to be ringside. You want to be close to the action, right?
I want to be close to the action. And you were like 12, 13, 14 years old though, right? Something like that? Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. This was in my early teens. I probably went when I was a little earlier than that. And then I remember taking, when I was probably 12, taking a younger sister with me who's seven, six, seven years younger than I am. And she still loves it to this day. You've met her and she's just a big wrestling fan too.
And I carry her along with me. Dad would just put us out, like you said, on the curb. Back then you could do it. We didn't have cell phones.
We, you know, we might've had a quarter for a payphone or a dime for a payphone. Wow. Wow.
You know, he would, he would go do whatever he needed to do and come back by and pick us up. And man, I was set for the week. I'd hold onto that program and I'd fill in, you know, who won the match or if it was a draw or not. Wow. I know you've seen programs like that.
You've signed them at conventions and stuff and that. It was just, it was just entertainment. We didn't have cable TV as a little boy. So I didn't get to watch you on TVS unless I was at a friend's house or in a hotel or, you know, something special. So, so I was into the live wrestling.
That and the wrestling magazine. That's pretty amazing. I thought you said, I wrote down your sister, I thought you had said that she had gone with you. My sister Sally. And now let me revert back to that barn where, where, where Jamie hosts the, these weddings. Cause I've, I've been in that barn and, and you brought, you brought me in a number of years back, really kind of reconnected us. Cause we had met many years ago, but that reconnected us. And, and in that bar, I mean, and I don't hold this against you, just so you know, Brian, you got pictures of Ric Flair and, and who, who I, I. If I'm not mistaken, is your numeral, like your number one guy is the nature boy and maybe rightfully so. I've got one of his pink robes. Tell the story. Jamie, the other day I said, you know, I love Nikita so much and I know he loves me. And I just, I feel like one day he's going to leave that chain and it's going to sway all my favoritism right to the Russian. Oh boy.
Putting it on thick. Okay. Yeah, I will. No pressure. No pressure.
No pressure. I'll sleep on that one right there. So, uh, well, uh, speaking of the barn and you know, in the opener about hurricane Helene kind of shifting gears from, from, from entertainment and, and, and laughter is, you know, in the midst of all of, all of life, tragedy strikes, right? Tragedy happens and something happened, uh, that, that, that, um, that bar, that barn, excuse me, that barn, uh, played a role in a real miracle during hurricane Helene. And, uh, and I don't know, Jamie, if you want to kind of, uh, elude to give kind of just a, the snippet or a small version of, of some of what happened there.
Uh, you went out shopping and, uh, just, yeah, just tell a little bit of that story. Um, we could not get in or out of our property. We have about three driveways on either ends of the property and couldn't get out.
They were covered in trees, um, galore. So we, uh, literally had to use our ATV to maneuver and get friends and start with chainsaws and try to just cut our way out. And I had all these fellows helping Brian and myself, uh, you know, clear the way for us and Kendall, our daughter and I jumped in the car and, and would just try to go a few miles just to try to find maybe some snacks for these guys. Of course, we had no power and you know, the chips and all had run out, so we're just going to try to see what we could see, honestly.
Um, doing a little stir crazy, not knowing what's going to happen next. And, um, so we, we had a ceiling in our house. Um, so Kendall and I got in the car and did the best thing we knew how to do is just try to go find some, you know, civilization and somebody that has some power. And we came across a little, uh, grocery store, a little Mexican grocery store slash gas station, and they were advertising that they were, they were open even though they didn't have any power. So we ran in and just gathered up some groceries real quick before everything, you know, ruined and melted and just was going to head back to the house and just kind of put, you know, fend for the guys and see what they could snack down on. Um, but when I was leaving, the fellow said, well, we have ice if you need it.
And you know, you're in, you're in desperation mode. So I, um, Brian had called and was trying to, you know, get us a hotel. We were calling hotels all over just because we knew this was going to be a bad situation and it would last a few days. So we were looking for a hotel. I had already grabbed this ice and my daughter looks at me like, mom, what are you going to do with the ice? You don't need this ice. And I don't know, I just feel like it was there.
I must need it. You know, let's go back to the house and feed these fellows that were, you know, chopping down trees and cutting. And it was crazy. You could hear chainsaws for miles. Um, but, uh, we, our home was down, downwind, so to speak, of the barn. The barn was up on the hill and thank goodness it was really not damaged at all.
Um, few limbs down and things like that. So, um, we had not, we put it on the back burner. We hadn't even really needed to, to check on it, but we had our son-in-law coming in and we had everybody park up there because the main driveway was just devastated. So, um, everybody was parking at the barn and walking down to the house and getting supplies and helping. So I say all that to say at the end of the day, um, my daughter and son-in-law were leaving and they walked back up to their car and, um, they called Brian immediately. And I'm packing for a hotel and, um, I'll let him explain what they, what they found when they were, went up to their car.
So what was so unusual about the ice, Nikita, was that we had already secured a hotel room. And so as soon as she got back, we got some snacks in us. We were clear, we were going to head to this hotel and, you know, she walks in, I said, what'd you get us to eat?
She goes out, you know, Snickers and cracker, cracker, crackers, whatever it was available. I checked, but I got a bag of ice. I said, well, that's great, honey, but we're fixing to leave. There's no power.
There's nowhere to put it. I said, we really don't need a bag of ice and some water and some water. I said, well, that's great. You put the water, the ice, the water on ice.
Anyway, keep going, keep going, keep going. I've got us this neat hotel across the street from the township auditorium in Columbia. Another story I said, and you know, I just don't, I don't have ice at the hotel.
That was my exact words. To make a long story short, our daughter called back down and said, dad, you need to get up to the barn. You need to get up here.
Someone's up here. And of course, so I take off and you've been on our place, you know, we don't get visitors very often. And if we do, you know, you, you know it, uh, we're four tenths of a mile off a long driveway and very secluded.
And so we get up to this barn and it's even more secluded than the house is. And there's a, an older lady, um, African lady, African American lady sitting on the porch of the barn. And, and I never seen her. I didn't know her. She had a walker and I said, my goodness, ma'am. Um, what are you doing here?
Are you okay? And she said, well, sir, I'm your neighbor. And of course, neighbor where we live by the crow flies is, you know, three quarters mile a mile or further away. And I knew there was a lady who lived back behind us away that, that had a little mobile home back there on some other property and I had never met her, but, but I knew she was there and I looked at her and I said, well, ma'am, how did you get here? And I looked down my driveway.
We had not cleared this and there was trees and you know, it had been difficult for you or I to just walk and navigate it. And she said, I came down that driveway right there. And I said, my goodness, ma'am. I said, well, what do you need?
What can I do for you? She said, well, and I said, why did you come here? She said, well, I was praying and God told me to come to your barn. And I said, okay. And I said, well, what can I do for you?
And she said, well, I'm diabetic and I have insulin. We don't have any power and I really need some ice. The hair on your arm stands up and you look at her and you know, you say, okay, well, I just happen to have some ice.
I don't have any power. I can't make any ice, but I happen to have some ice. And she said, I said, is there anything else I can get you? She said, well, I would love a couple of bottled waters. And so, you know, here's this lady who navigated down, I still don't know how she got down this driveway. With a walker, right?
Yeah. Just with a walker, you know, and I said, well, ma'am, how did you do this? And she said, well, God took care of me. And he told, I said, well, ma'am, how long have you been sitting here?
She said a couple hours, but he told me you'd be back. He told me you'd come. We talk about hearing God. We talk about seeing God or not hearing God or not seeing God and see that afternoon in the midst of that storm and the quietness still.
My family, we saw God. We saw God on that lady's life and on her and we exchanged numbers. We drove her back home. She's since called. She called a few weeks ago when she had a problem and needed a little assistance. She had a water pipe busted and we were able to go over and help her. And it just connected something that we didn't have that connection. And we didn't have that. We didn't know her. And through bad circumstances, God was able to bring us together and, again, speak to Jamie through the conviction of a bag of ice. She didn't know why she bought.
Hear me fuss at her for buying it and then know there was the need. For more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. Go to www.colof.net and donate today. 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. I bet you couldn't. I'm thinking in my mind, Brian, as you're describing this, you guys, that you could wait to get back to go, Jamie, you're never going to guess what happened. I said, get up here. I said, get up here now. You're not good. I couldn't tell her on the phone. Just get up here.
You're not going to believe it. And break the ice. And break the ice. My words were, I know why you bought the ice. Bring it up here.
I know why you bought that. Here's what popped in my head right now. So in 1980, there was something called the miracle on ice. Right. I'm testing the sports listener's knowledge. Russia in the USA.
Right. Miracle on ice. Lake Placid.
Gold medal. But here's how this story, miracle of ice, not miracle on ice, but the miracle of ice. So Jamie, let me take a minute. So he gets you up there and says, I know why you bought the ice. What were you feeling? Like, what were you about this story, even as you relive it? You know, you just, you're just in awe. The story is almost supernatural.
It really is. And I'm thinking back on it saying, you know, it was my heart telling me maybe one of the kids needed it or maybe someone got hurt. You're like that motherly instinct.
You think that's why you bought it. But it was just the Lord, I mean, just telling me. And since then, I've really, you know, I think back on it very often and very fondly because we were so poor, pitiful us.
Look at our home, look at our farm. This poor woman sacrificed her life, I mean, to walk like that. And obviously she was very elderly and just knew a need was going to be met because the Lord told her to go to a stranger's home, which could have been dangerous. I mean, let's be honest.
Right. And she was just so precious, such a precious woman and such a faithful woman. And she really taught me a lesson that day.
I promise you that. When I saw her on the porch, I said, how long have you been waiting? She said, oh, just a couple hours. Just a couple hours. He told me you were coming. And I think, wait, wait on the Lord.
Be patient. And those couple hours to her after walking over a mile down a dirt road, over limbs and trees. You know, you saw some pictures of this. I mean, it was devastation. I mean, we lost, I don't know, 23 or four large trees. And we're still not cleaned up. I mean, we're still cleaning things up.
Nothing like the devastation in North Carolina, but definitely an inconvenience out of our home for seven days. But what a testimony to share. And again, we remind ourselves of it almost daily.
We do. Well, and that's, of course, you know, I made a note. I said, yeah, like we're months and months and really months later now. And there's still tons of devastation. Yeah, when things like this happen, you know, Hurricane Helene or, you know, the fires in L.A. or whatever it is, you know, this is, it's not an overnight fix, right?
There's a long game to all of this. And, you know, you guys, you know, out of your house for an entire week. And, you know, one other, to me, almost kind of one other miracle, we just got a few minutes left, but one of you can touch on, let's go back to Crescent Auto for a moment. Because, you know, when you lose power, you lose internet, you lose everything else, you know, you're in a sale, you sell cars, which, by the way, I'll put a shameless plug. I drive a Crescent Auto, two of my daughters drive Crescent Autos, and one of Lex Luger's friends drives Crescent Auto, and now my pastor drives Crescent Auto, everyone drives.
Right, so you should, too. Shameless plug right there. But one other quick miracle, and maybe, Jamie, you can reference this, is the business, there's no power, there's no internet, there's no nothing. But you guys, almost like in the first few days, one person alone had three cars all destroyed from the hurricane and bought three of them. But you gave cars, I'll just say, kind of on good faith and credit, right? And then the money eventually came in because banks weren't even operating, correct, Jamie?
Right, right. The banks were closed, they were unable to print checks. And we met so many people that just were, some were in just dire straits and needed a vehicle, and some people just came in and shared their story.
It was almost like 9-11, the community came together so strongly and so faithfully, but at a time when we thought, you know, we could have just been out of business for weeks, people flooded in, we were here faithfully, and just, it was awesome to see the amount of people that came. And, you know, obviously there were needs there being met, but yeah, we literally had to handwrite bill of sale like it was the old days. Old school, old school.
Old school for sure. And we just, you know, took all the information that we could and got people riding as fast as we could. And the bank was open a few hours a day, but they were unable to process, their processing center had no power.
Right. They couldn't cut checks. I think I called you about the fifth day in and told you the tally was getting kind of high down here, how much the bank owes me, and I said, you know, I'm selling cars left and right.
I'm not getting funded for them. And you know, God had his hand on us, and it all worked out, and the power eventually came back on, and the banks were able to get us going. But it reminds you of how much we depend on different things when all that really matters is life itself and the master, and that he provides. He says, I'll provide for the birds and the animals and the fish and the sea. And sparrows, right?
Yeah. And, you know, and he did. And he provided, and he provides with abundance. Well, and that's quite a testimony. And so, you know, you're listening today to Brian and Jamie Johnson, and there's so many other stories that we could share, and just wanted to certainly have them share these two stories as you continue to pray for, you know, those have been affected by Hurricane Helene and are still affected by it.
And I hope this encourages you today. Think about that elderly woman. She walks roughly a mile with a walker basically through the woods, you know, and because God said go to that barn, and then God said wait here because the owners would come. And then when they came, God randomly provides ice for her diabetic medicine and, but God. I mean, just incredible. What an incredible story. And I'll just say for the record, too, you know, I know people travel from really all over the country into Aiken, South Carolina, to Crescent Auto. And as I already mentioned, several people, myself and others that I know personally, family and friends that have traveled down there because you've probably picked up on just what an incredible heart Brian and Jamie have.
And they treat the customer right. They do the right thing with every car because you guys have had repeat. Brian, what's the most cars a single person has ever bought from you? Just real quick. We're almost out of time. You wouldn't believe me. It's over 200. What? One person? One individual. We had a man today right before this interview buy two more from us today, and he has bought over 40. Is that the guy I met? You met him. The last time I was there, he was like, he like weakly, like, okay, I'm tired of this one, Brian.
Get me another car. I'm like, wait, what? Like he just like, he treats the man. Most don't believe it. Sometimes I don't believe it myself, but he buys two or three cars a month, and he has for many, many years. It's his hobby. He doesn't fish. He doesn't hunt. He doesn't golf.
He doesn't do anything. He just buys cars. I mean, he trades. Here's what I'm going to say. He trades cars like I traded baseball cards when I was about 12 years old.
He trades cars anyway. That's incredible. And I know you've got an incredible staff down there. What's the website for, in case somebody's curious and they just want to go online and see what your inventory holds, what's the website? DriveCrescent.com.
DriveCrescent.com. As you know, we're a faith-based business. We share that with our customers, our staff. We make sure that God is in everything we do here, if any way possible.
We try to solve our problems in a kingdom way, and we try to give God all the credit for everything we know that comes from Him. And that's a whole other story. We might have talked about this in maybe one of the other interviews, how I challenged Brian and Jamie to put a Bible in every glove box of every car that they sold, and I'll just give you a real condensed version of this. They eventually did it.
I won't go into the whole story, but they eventually did it from that moment on. Ironically, it seemed, maybe coincidentally, business exploded and really hasn't slowed down since. Now, I know, Jamie, you said the bridal business. You're very selective, but is there a website if somebody wanted to learn more about the barn? The name is Barn at Double J Ranch, and we strictly go off of social media.
We're on Instagram and Facebook as well, and we do not have a website, so we go straight off word of mouth and social media. But it's Barn at Double J Ranch in Johnston, South Carolina. Barn, uh-huh. Go ahead, Brian. Oh, you're on Facebook, Barn.
That's the easiest way to reach us. Barn at Double J Ranch. I wonder where the double J comes from. So Brian and Jamie Johnson of Johnston, South Carolina, incredible, incredible supporters of Cola for Christ's ministry.
Man, I love you guys, and we'll have you back, and we'll talk more. You've got another miracle by the name of Presley Jane. We'll talk about that miracle, maybe, and have you back on and talk about her another time and what a rock star she's becoming. How old is she now? Six? Five, six?
How old is she? Eight. Eight already. Good gracious. Eight and a half.
Wow, time flies. Okay. Well, we'll have to bring you guys back and just talk about some of that miracle story of how Presley Jane came into your lives when you thought you were done, you know, raising children, and little did you know, another miracle pops up on the doorstep, so to speak. Well, God bless you guys. I love you guys. I appreciate you guys so much. Love you, Nick. Love you, Nikita. All right. Thank you. And all you guys out there, thank you for being so faithful week in and week out. Keep spreading the word, The Man Up Show, and hey, go over to the Truth Network and check out the Q&A with Koloff podcast as well.
If you ever want to be on it, you can go to koloff.net and get a personal phone call from The Russian Nightmare. God bless you. Have an amazing 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. Hi, 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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