Q&A With Koloff- #134

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This is the Truth Network. Ladies and gentlemen, the following contest is set for one flaw. Introducing first, from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, the Russian nightmare, Nikita Kolov. Welcome to another episode of Q&A with Kolov, the Devil's Nightmare. Today, in studio with me, what a privilege, what a pleasure to have this precious couple, Dar and Andrew Draper.

Welcome to Q&A with Kolov. It's an honor for us. We're so blessed to be here. Well, it's an honor to have you guys here, and it's not all the time, you know, that we, of course, have women on these shows, and sometimes we do, but not all the time, but Dar, it's always great to have a female voice. Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Well, it's great to have you guys, and of course, we go back, back, back, back to the, I think, first meeting, maybe the Refuge Church, and, or even, I was thinking too, not long ago, the Christian school there in Concord as well, kind of connected. I think Andrew taught your daughter. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Tony, yeah.

That's what I'm thinking, right? So it was Tawny that you taught there at the Covenant Classical, right? Yeah, back and forth. So here, little quick side note, so my daughter Tawny and her husband Matt toured a classical covenant school in the Tennessee area and are considering putting their oldest son in a covenant classical school. So I'll have to remind her of that, because your name came up when we were talking about them touring that school. And so anyway, little side note there. The scars of me teaching her is not too deep.

Well, apparently not. You must have had some level of influence on her there. I don't know how much she learned, but we had a lot of fun. Well, and fun is your middle name as well.

So you're the fun part of this relationship. Dar's the creative side of this relationship. Tell our listeners just real quick what, or who, I should say who Dar and Andrew Draper are. Dar, I'll start with you. I'll start with you.

Oh, Dar and Andrew Draper. Let's see. We are, we are children of God. We are, we are big kids and we never want to grow up really.

And I don't mean that and not being mature because you know, the Lord calls us to all, unless you change and become like one of these, you can't enter the kingdom of heaven. So we really embrace being his kid, being dependent on him, listening to what he says to do. And that has meant a lot of things in our life. We've had a very interesting journey in the Lord. Always wanted to be in ministry.

We were camp, we loved camp when we were, but we were both camp counselors, independent of each other. Always worked with kids. We're children's pastors. We're into creative arts camps and theater and all kinds of things.

And writing books, writing children's books, writing books, creating plays. Just a lot of fun, creative, and really knowing that even our friends, and I love all forms of ministry. I love women's ministry.

I love ministry to all people, but really we're all God's kids, you know, and that's really a heart of ours is to help people change and become like one of these so they can enter the kingdom of heaven. That's your heartbeat. And Andrew, I know you guys met, you guys met in 1992? Is that when you met?

Yep, that's right. Well, probably 91. 91, 92? Yeah, we got married in 92. We got married in 92.

Okay, okay. And you weren't engaged, from the time you met, you weren't engaged that long before you got married, right? Yeah, just six months. We dated six months. When you know you know. Engaged six months and then we were married.

When you know you know. That's right. Yeah. So all these years later, and of course I know you have several children.

Yeah, we have four children and we also have one we spiritually adopted in Ukraine. So yeah, we just, Dara is awesome because she collects people, that's what I say. That sounds kind of creepy, but she does, she like, she wants to know everybody. She's a people person.

Yeah, she sees somebody. She wants to know them. She wants to know their story. She sees kids and she's like, I just want to know that kid.

I want to know their story. I want to, Mike, she's just a very unique, awesome, amazing person to be around. And because of that, it's just brought out a lot of great things in me. Well, and you guys have, I know back when you were children's pastors at the Refuge Church there in Kannapolis, North Carolina.

Our dear friend, of course, Jay Stewart and some of the amazing, speaking into that creativity, some of the amazing sets that you guys would build and then some of the dramas, just the draw of kids to come in and the experience for them. I know many, many kids over the years were blessed to have the two of you kind of spearheading the charge and sowing God's seed into young hearts, right? And so God calls you out of that door. He calls you out of these. There's a stirring going on a number of years ago that you're sensing. And what, what, what, what, what does that lead to? Yeah, we sometimes we pray a dangerous prayer and I pray, we say dangerous, but really we're always safe with him. But I prayed, God, give me more of a heart for kids in the world.

And he said, OK, but you'll cry a lot. And it led to us hosting a boy from Ukraine, which led us to have a heart for a nation. And little did we know what that nation would face and the people we'd meet, the people we'd fall in love with. It's amazing to be kind of in America your whole life and then to truly love a people and God to, you know, I, I know some people wonder why.

Why you go help in other countries when we have so many problems? And you're like, well, because we are all, the Lord loves us all and he made us all. And there we're going to live together for eternity with all of our brothers and sisters all over the world, you know. And, and so we're, we're just feel so blessed that the Lord would let us share a part of his heart for the Ukrainian people, especially the orphans.

Yeah. Well, and there are, and there are, I mean, obviously plenty of needs in America, but at the same time, you know, in the Christian circles, we call it a calling, right? And I mean, if God stirs your heart and calls you to another nation, you know, you're, you're best.

It's best to answer that call to just say yes, as I've heard you say before, Dar, say yes. And so out of that stirring, Andrew has come a ministry glow ministries, right? And tell our listeners real quick what glow stands for.

A glow stands for go love others well. And you know, it was birthed out of just us seeing a need and saying yes to it. And the need was, is that these, uh, Ukrainian orphans that we were called to this, this, it was really just one class of kids. And they started the whole thing of just us, that parental heart that God has given us to, to take care of them because they had no one to, to journey with them. Once they left the orphanage, what's going to happen to them? They had very little structure when they were at the orphanage, but they at least had some kind of protection. They had, you know, a home to be in. They had food provided, they had all these things, but the thing that they didn't have is like, how are they going to navigate life?

Who's going to help them? That's a lot of times when we, you know, we would ask our parents and we would ask those around us. Well, they didn't have people around them that really cared for them.

And so we just knew we needed to care for this group of, of kids that were, you know, going into adulthood. So, and also in that country, there's a stigma against orphans. And when you understand the mentalities of other cultures, America, we have a lot of safety nets here. I mean, you can, people are like in tough places, but there's always a place, there's always a soup kitchen.

There's a, there's resources and countries like that. People, they look down on orphans. It's like the people, the orphanage would say, why do you do all this? They're just orphans, you know? And, and you're just like, what? It's just mind blowing.

And that's why the average life expectancy is 30 years old for an orphan grad in Ukraine or Russia. And so when we heard that statistic, it just, we were like, we have to do something more because we fell in love with those kids, you know, and you, you meet them, you fall in love with them and you're like, no, we have to do more. And so we've spent the last seven years parenting a whole bunch of kids, a whole bunch of extra kids. And, and we've seen some fruit and the fruit has been beautiful and amazing. Well, you are fulfilling a biblical mandate and that is reach out to the widows and the orphans of, and certainly of the world. And you guys are doing that. These guys are boots on the ground.

What I mean by that, in fact, just recently you got back from a three week trip in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, right? And, and if you have a heart and or desire to sow into any ministry and you're praying and wondering what ministry that should be. I can vouch and tell you right now that Glow Ministries, what's the website, Andrew? It's glowmission.org.

I had a blank moment. I was like, okay, what is our website? glowmission.org. glowmissions.org and of course I know you literally are taking care of the widows and the orphans and they can sponsor some of the babushkas, some of the grandmas over there, right?

Or sponsor. Yeah. If you go there, you can see all the different things that we're doing.

We're, you know, we're putting in homes. And if you know a little bit about the history of the war, the, the recent course, it's out in 2014, but then of course, you know, they, this new invasion that happened. One of the, the city that they were turned, Russia was turned back from, they were getting ready to completely take over Kiev. But this one city, Gestomal was, which is right near European and Buchev people that know a little bit about the war would recognize those names.

But this one city, Gestomal was the place where they were turned around. And the interesting part is this is where we're putting in all of those houses. And so now a church has been birthed out of these homes that we've put in. And now if you go, you can see the video where there's a church that's there and there's people that are meeting.

These are all people that received those homes. And it was at the place that was critical for the war to be turned around out of that, out of the ashes of this place is this church that's rising up. And, and we were just there. I got to preach the gospel. And half of the, half of the people raised their hands and gave their lives to the Lord. A simple gospel message. And so God is doing just beautiful things right now in Ukraine in the midst of all this, but it just, it takes people to say yes.

And so we're able to say yes and we're able to go. But, you know, some people are like, you know, I can't go, but man, you know, that's just, you can look at our website and you can see how to give and you can see how to make a difference. And if you want, if you want to hear more of this story, and I hope, I hope you're inspired just in this brief moment to, to want to know more of this story.

But by all means, go over to the MANA podcast and, and Dar and Andrew Draper and, and listen to the full story of Glow Missions and Glow Ministries and what they're doing overseas. And, and you will be amazed. And so, well, it is the Q and A with Koloff. And so, you know, I have no clue what, knowing your sense of humor and her creativity, I have no idea what you might ask. But either one of you go, let's, let's transition and go ahead and fire away your first question. I will start. I'm already thinking of so many things.

She really has like 20, but I have one. There's so many tracks. What's your favorite color of ice cream? There's so many tracks I could go on. Yes, yes. First, I just want to ask you, because, you know, one of our things we believe so much is that God is always calling us further out.

There's always a deeper. One thing I feel like He said to me was like, you weren't created for surface level living, you're created for the heights and the depths, you know? And I know you have had this just amazing story you've lived, but like, what is one of the hardest yeses you've ever had to say to the Lord?

Man, that's a, that's a really good question. Because sometimes He'll ask us to do hard things, won't He? I mean, and, you know, for me, in first giving my life to the Lord all the way back to 1993, and just wondering what this, what all this looked like. And I first, I didn't just jump right into ministry. I went to, I just felt prompted to go get my hands dirty. And I didn't really fully know what that meant.

But at the time, groups of men were going to other nations, like you guys are going now to Eastern Europe, going to other nations to build churches and to build a Bible college. And I'm like, I'll go get my hands dirty. And can you guys find anything for me to do now?

I was a little bit bigger back then. And they're like, oh, no, don't worry, we'll find some. Well, what that meant was carrying these big cinder blocks from a big pile over to the guy laying them. And I'm like, didn't take me long to figure out, I think I might want to learn to lay these cinder blocks here. And I was wearing myself out.

I didn't even know, truth, true story. I didn't even know what a pair of construction boots was. Like they said, go, you know, go buy construction boots. I go and I go up to the guy like, like, what exactly am I supposed to buy? And he's like, are you kidding me or what?

I'm like, no, not really. I don't know. Right. And so, so those, those initially, those, those projects were, were difficult in, in, in early on, but they began to teach me and give me a heart of serving, just learning how to serve others. And of course, you know, the attitude is I'm going to go to bless these people when in return, I got some of the biggest blessings, as I know you guys can relate to going over now to Eastern Europe. Would your company, business, or you personally like to partner with me in supporting Koloff for Christ Ministries, the Man Up Show and Man Up Minutes? Go to koloff.net and click the donate button.

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. Nikita Koloff here and I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?

Well, maybe it's a minor announcement. Anyway, Facebook, go look up my new fan page, Nikita Koloff Fans, and like it and follow today. If you would like to support Koloff for Christ Ministries, for a gift of $25, Nikita will send you his two CDs, Adoration and Declaration. For a gift of $50, Nikita will include his book, Wrestling with Success. And for a gift of $100 or more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption.

Go to www.koloff.net and donate today. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. And so that was initially difficult. And then when the Lord began to call me to preach, I'm like, really, Lord?

Like, I don't know about this whole preaching, pastoring thing or whatever, you know? But he made that pretty clear. And so just kind of step by step, he challenged me. And the last thing that doesn't even essentially relate to any of that, but knowing if you know some of my background, many of the listeners know some of my background. You know, I come from a real poverty mentality, you know, having grown up in the projects of Minneapolis. I wasn't an orphan, but my dad, similar to you, Andrew, my dad left when I was three, youngest of four, my mom to raise for you. And we didn't have a lot of money.

Right? So, and we, by default, we became products of welfare. And so the Lord really had to stretch me, Dar, in overcoming a poverty mentality and learn what it meant to be, one, a cheerful giver, and then even more important, a generous giver. And that's taken some time in this walk with him to learn how to just loosen the purse strings and be willing to just give.

And certainly in my time, but even more importantly for me personally, my finances and not to try to hoard or hold onto it, but just to open up the purse strings and let that go. So great question. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah.

You've got one? Yeah, I've got actually, I mean, I've got so many I would like, because, you know, I grew up in Raleigh and I loved watching wrestling. Oh my gosh, it was awesome. And I love watching you and the whole Russian team and the whole, it was during the cold war and like everybody just hated you. They loved you.

Yes. But yeah, I mean, there's two things I would ask you and one, you can bypass one or be answered both of them. But one is like, I just remember seeing you on my TV and just the, I mean, you're wildly popular.

I mean, people just, like you said, love to hate you. You were this great villain, but then you transitioning, you know, the Lord getting a hold of you. I don't really know that story. A lot of people probably already do know that story, but I would love that story.

But also too, in the whole financial thing, what was your greatest, like your greatest need that happened and the greatest financial miracle that happened for you? Well, let me, let me first say, so Raleigh, a lot of history in Raleigh, cause that was my first official match was in the Dorton Arena in Raleigh. In June of 1984, I debuted on television, having never been in a ring, having no professional training and no amateur background.

And they said, you're going to debut on television. You're kidding. No, in front of a sold out crowd there in Dorton Arena. So you probably know that name, Dorton Arena.

Dorton Arena very well. Right. And, and, and guilty by association. They didn't have a clue who I was that night, but they knew who Ivan Kolov was, the Russian bear and the turncoat Don Crenodle. And just my association with them.

They immediately hated me from day one, right out of the gate. And of course that launched as many know the, the career, some know the career, but that launched a whole career. You know, fast forward 13 months later and I'm the world tag team champion, world six man champion of wrestling, a guy named Ric Flair for the world heavyweight championship.

Right. And, and so crazy, crazy career when I think back on it, the way it all unfolded. And, and really I give the Lord credit in that, in that it wasn't something I was looking for, but a door of opportunity opened up. And, and now he's utilized that the Lord has as a platform for his glory. And so that's been, yeah, really, really amazing. The financial side of it is some know and don't know him. The last time I was on somebody's payroll was WCW world championship wrestling in 1992.

Wow. And so in walking away and I by choice walked away from that career at age 33, still under contract. And, and with a, with a large future ahead of me and millions of dollars potentially in front of me, but yet by choice walked away, not knowing what the future was going to hold. 11 months later, 17 October, 1993, given my life to Christ, him opening up the doors of opportunity to minister. And so it has been a walk of faith since 1992. Nobody's, you know, sending me a check every week.

Nobody is. So if for those of you listening out there, if you want to talk about a walk of faith and thinking about answering this question, you know, I, I'm just, I have had to learn again to just trust the Lord. All these years to just put food on the table and a roof over my head and clothes on my back and give me transportation. And then he's taught me this, I want to say this too. He's taught me there's three levels of giving.

There's the, the, the tie that was just, just non-negotiable. 10% just comes off the top and whatever I earn, 10% comes off the top and goes into the local storehouse, right? The refuge and wherever you're going to church, that local storehouse. And then there's the offering above and beyond the tithe. And so the Lord put it on my heart to support Glow Ministries, for example, to support you guys.

And so, you know, on a monthly basis, I sow into Glow Ministries as well as several other ministries. And then two times he challenged me with what I call extravagant giving. And he reminded me of a prayer. You'd said, Dar, either on this show or the Man Up show about, you know, dangerous prayers, right? And so one time I said, I said, Lord, I would love to start giving these ministries, you know, like times 10.

Like, right? So like if I'm giving $25 a month, I love to be able to give $2.50 a month. And just real quick, I was sitting in this, I was out at this conference in Arizona and I'd been there numerous times. I knew they, you know, they'd be taking a love offering for the ministry and it kind of had a figure in my heart. You know, on the flight out on what I was going to give, kind of preparing for that.

And when it came the day of giving, the Lord reminded me, kind of tapped me on the show. You know that times 10 conversation we've had? I'm like, you know, a little lump in the throat. I'm like, yeah.

And he's like, well, here's your first opportunity to extravagantly give. So I want you to times 10 the figure you had in your heart times 10. I'm like, okay. So I did.

Right. And all that to say, narrow the story down. I'm with the pastor the next day. We've known each other for years at this point. I'm with him and his wife at breakfast.

He goes, can I ask you a question, Akita? I'm like, sure, Larry. He goes, so I kind of went over like all the, all the, all the offerings and the commitments last night. And like, is there a mistake on yours?

Like, did you have like too many zeros to yours or something? I go, well, Larry, actually, no, you know, the Lord challenged me. What you're going to get is exactly what the Lord challenged me to give you. And he, and he said this, he goes out of 35 years of doing these conferences. That's the biggest single offering we've ever received from an individual.

And I said, well, Larry, give God the glory and the credit cause it's, it's not me. So stretch, stretching me. So Dar, one, you got, got, got it. One more.

Got another one. You mentioned going to over 30 countries. Yeah. 36, I think presently.

Yeah. 36 countries. What area of the world really has your heart or do you have, do you have more of a burden for a certain nation or if you could speak about kind of what your heart for the nations. Well, the Lord put it on my heart, just the nations.

Right. And, and, uh, so what was it? So a couple of things are interesting with, with that question is, uh, for, for a while, for a season Africa. Like I used to say, you could put me on a plane, blindfold me, open the doors, just let, before I get off, just let me smell. And I go, Ooh, I am in Africa. As they say over there, I am in Africa. So I've made 11 trips to a number of different countries in Africa.

Love the Bush love to go out into the Bush love to minister to the people of Africa. And I hadn't been in a number of years, but 11 trips over a period of years. And so maybe that was for a season of time.

I don't know, but I still love Africa, you know, love the safaris and all the different things that even some of my three of my four children had the opportunity to experience a mission trip to Africa, which is incredible for them. It's a whole nother story in itself. And then out of all the other countries I've been to, I felt like the Lord was prompting me to go to, to X number of countries.

And, you know, as I get older, I'm like, I don't know that I'm going to hit that number. And, but here's a cool part of the story is a guy named Stu Epperson pops up about two and a half, three years ago. And, uh, he's a founder of truth radio network and he randomly reaches out and says, you need a radio show. You need a podcast.

And I'm like, okay, I don't know about all that. And when I got time to do that, you know, and I'm like, but then he reminded me, you know, that prayer, you pray about your, you know, almost like the prayer of Jabez expand my territory, expand my reach, expand my influence, expand my voice. Because what the airways is a pretty good way to expand your reach and reach more nations. So, um, when I first started the radio show on the podcast, I said, a hundred countries. I want to reach a hundred countries. Uh, and, and so today we've reached a latest count, 88 countries so far.

Through the man up show and through Q and a with coal off 88 countries. And so, although I may not get to travel to a hundred countries, my voice, thanks to truth radio is reaching coming up on a hundred countries. So, yeah, so, you know, that's so that, and I'm still open to traveling, uh, more places. Like there's an opportunity right now to be on, on a ministry team, uh, to France next year during the Olympics. Um, and so I'm just praying into that. And so that's a possibility. And, and, and I'll say the last thing I, I, I, I like going to new countries to countries I hadn't been to before. Yeah.

So if those, you know, as those doors of opportunities open up, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll still travel and go. I love that so much. Yeah.

So I love that. Well, awesome. Well, you guys have been amazing and, uh, thank you for what you guys are doing. Give the website, Andrew, one more time.

Do you remember it? glowmission.org glowmission.org. See everything we're doing there. We've got videos and pictures and everything. Um, then you can catch us on, uh, Instagram also. We've got a lot of social media there. Yeah.

Um, yeah. Facebook. You can always email us to dar at glowmission.org or Andrew at glowmission.org. And we'll be happy to talk with you, pray with you. We just, I make a lot of the videos, so go check the videos. I want to tell you this guy, I mean, obviously there's a serious side to what they're doing in, in rescuing orphans and ministering to, to the grandmas, the babushkas and the widows and orphans. But when it comes to creativity, uh, and, and, or being funny, I'm telling you this couple, uh, ranks right up there at the top.

If you go to Webster's dictionary, you're going to find Darren Andrews pictures next to creativity and funny. So I love you guys and appreciate you so much, man. This means, it means so much to us. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you again for tuning into another episode of Q and a with Koloff until next time, go out and live a God blessed, God filled 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. I, 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. If you are enjoying Q and a with Koloff, would you help us spread the word? Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe and leave a comment. Are you looking for the perfect gift for your pastor?

Well, look no further. Bless him with a trip to the Holy Land with yours truly, Nikita Koloff, the Russian nightmare. I'll be hosting this once in a lifetime trip, December 27th, 2023 to January 5th, 2024.

Your pastor will never be the same. Go to koloff.net to get registered today. Nikita Koloff here.

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