This is the Truth Network. From rags to riches, from being locked in a closet as a kid, to now traveling 68 different countries, proving that nothing is impossible, you want to hear this story, don't go anywhere.
For one flaw, introducing first, from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, The Russian Nightmare, Nikita Kolob. Now, The Devil's Nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. What a pleasure to have in the studio with me today, Jeff Kahl.
Jeff, welcome to The Man Up Show. Thank you so much. Thanks for inviting me. Well, it's great to have you here. Of course, we met just recently. I don't know, as part of my introduction, I could say world traveler, ministry, husband, father.
More recently, hired on by Truth Radio, right? Yes. See if you can help, hopefully, maybe help take it to the next level, perhaps, get more viewers, more listeners, and potentially more viewers as well one day. Really looking forward to it. I've been at it for maybe three weeks, three weeks at the top, so hopefully we can get rolling here soon. Well, I know you're just kind of getting your feet wet, so to speak, and kind of, if you want to say, in my terminology, learning the ropes.
Yes. No pun intended there. But, there's so much to your story, Jeff. You and I had breakfast just recently, and of course, you were sharing some of your story with me, and you've got a camp up in Wisconsin that, if I'm not mistaken, I think you should have had about a half a million people that have come through that camp at this point. A lot of kids since the beginning of the camp, years and years ago, yes.
Yeah, since you took it over. But even at lunch, even just today, at lunch, you talk about some of the stories. I mean, here's a man who is, I'll say it this way, in my view, dined with world leaders. I mean, this is a man, 68 different countries to date, right? Yes, sir.
Yes, uh-huh. 68 different countries that you have traveled to, and I don't think we have enough time for one show. We may have to do two shows just to get your whole story in, but let's back up a little bit and give us a little backdrop on, I mean, you're living in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, but I don't think you grew up in Charlotte. No, no, I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, was born in Detroit, and then a little suburb outside of Detroit is where I lived until I was 18 years old, and then moved to Wisconsin to a Bible college, and then served there for about 20 years after graduation, moved back to Michigan. I wanted to be a help for the churches there that I really had admiration for. I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I was picked up by buses to go to church. That's how I got to church. Okay, bus ministry. Yes, I was a bus kid.
My mom and dad were divorced when I was really young, so I didn't really know my dad until later on into my teen years, but she wanted us to have some type of spiritual influence, but she didn't go to church herself. So anyways, I grew up in Detroit, went to Wisconsin, came back to Michigan, the upper peninsula or lower peninsula up north, I guess you'd want to say that. UP, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All my children were born in the upper peninsula, so they're Yup'er babies. They don't like hearing that.
Yup'ers. But then I had an opportunity to come down and do some things in Central America. We wanted to set a base of operations, so the founder of this ministry that I was working with said I could move anywhere except Miami and New York City.
I think he wanted to cut down the cost, and so my wife and I prayed about Charlotte, and we came to Charlotte, and that's how we got here in later 2013. So all right, so let's pause here because that's a lot to unpack there, but let me go back because there's some relatability. I have some relatability to your story in that I was raised by a single mom as well. I was the youngest of four, and you had brothers and sisters? Yeah, I have seven brothers and sisters. Seven? Yes.
Okay, so you've exceeded my limit, but seven brothers and sisters. Yes. So she raised all eight by her essentially?
Yeah, she essentially did. Now, when my mom and dad divorced, she got remarried to another person. I didn't know him either.
He was a very violent man. So thankfully, I wasn't raised in that environment because it only lasted a little bit. I was maybe three or four years old at the time. But then she started dating, and she didn't get married after that. She just started dating, and she dated quite a few fellows she met at non-church events, let's say, call it that.
Right, right. And so there were probably, I can count, 15 that lived in and out of our house during that timeframe that I kept record of. I wanted to know who these folks were, but she was a single mom, I think, trying to make it.
Against me. And so she dated probably more as a means to survive than it is for fulfillment because I never really saw her fulfilled in any of those relationships. And I can relate to that in that, so my dad, I was around three, and he didn't support my mom financially. Yeah. So by default, we became a product of welfare, and I remember vividly those days, the special lunch colored, lunch tickets and that whole embarrassing time of life.
Yep, I'm there. Yeah, I'm sure you can relate as well. Now, we had four, you had eight, so I can just imagine double the amount of pressure on mom to try and take care of eight kids on her own. So there was some real tumultuous times for you, it sounds like, and yet here you are. Are there any lessons? I know you said you were kind of keeping count. There was a roll call of 15, you remember, but what would be just one lesson maybe that comes from those early formative years that was a takeaway for you that's helped you get to where you are now?
Yeah, I think there's a couple lessons. One in particular is, I've said this before, that I believe God used those experiences in my life to help me deal with people today. They all have different personalities, but I learned how to deal with rejection at an early age without bitterness. At 58 years old, I really have never felt like I was a victim of my circumstances. Although as you go to Christian family events and you're faithful to church all these years, you read the scriptures, you disciple people, you realize that what you got was not what you should have gotten, for sure.
But I was never... It's the hand you were dealt, so to speak. I was never really bitter about it, but at the same time, there were wounds that I didn't even know existed. I didn't understand certain things as I went into adulthood. I worked through that through gracious people and mentors that entered into my life, which I'm so thankful for. And then I have a great wife, we've been married 37 years now, so she's just wonderfully, spiritually mature, but balanced. And so that helped me through that process, but I remember having a fundamental distrust of men. Even though I wasn't mad at them, I just thought, you know, they'll say one thing, but they probably won't say for the long haul, so don't get connected to them.
Don't draw near. But I think the biggest lesson I learned is that as I'm reading the scripture as a young boy, as early as eight years old, I realized that the God that I'm trying to love as an eight-year-old loved my mom as much as he loved me. And that helped me understand that I didn't have to expect a perfection from her. She was a sinner who needed Christ, and I was hoping through my behavior to show her what the Lord can do in her life as well. You modeling that. Trying to, yes.
Yeah, or intrigue her or, okay, so let me ask you a question on the, you know, the rejection part of it, because, you know, there may be somebody out there in Listening Land right now that is struggling with rejection. And you said you learned how to handle that or how to overcome that. Was there any key or catalyst that you could link to?
Yeah, absolutely. We were locked in our bedroom closet numerous times. And, you know, and during those days, I was probably 74 to 78. No one, I don't think people really knew how to handle that. You know, I remember the police came over one time, and my sister got a good beating, and the police told her, told my mom that she was doing a good job. It's hard to raise children, and I remember I was sitting there as an eight-year-old thinking, note to self, don't call anyone for help because I don't think they're going to help us. Now I don't blame the police on that. I think I'm just, I'm using it as an example that no one really knew how to handle that, and there was a little bit of a, kind of a coarse way to handle child-rearing in those days.
Right. And so, you know, as I watched that, I realized that my hope had to be in God alone, and so I immersed myself in Scripture. When I was locked in the closet, I remember telling my Sunday school teacher that, and my Sunday school teacher decided to give me biographies of Christians who, you know, experienced life, and then I would read those biographies. And I was encouraged as I was reading those biographies that there were people who went through worse things than I did, and they turned out in such a way that someone wrote a book about them, and I learned some lessons. And so I saw anything that looked like suffering or rejection, I looked at it almost as a badge of honor that the Lord would use me someday.
You know, if I just got through and had a proper perspective and never get bitter about it. So it's interesting, that whole perspective, of course, what pops in my head is the story of Joseph, right? Mm-hmm. Betrayed by his brothers, right? Yes.
First thrown into a ditch, right, into a pit, and they're like, nah, we don't want to leave them there, let's go and sell them into slavery. Yes. And so he becomes a slave taken down to Egypt, but then falsely accused of rape by Pharaoh's wife, right? Yes.
Now he's in prison. Yes. And then, you know, he interprets a dream hoping, hey, by the way, when you get out, make sure you put in a good word for me to get out.
And he's there, I think, another couple more years, right? Yes. All of that, what's amazing about that, your story reminds me of Joseph's story, Jeff, in this sense. He finally reconnects with his brothers, anyone who knows the story, and he says these words, what you meant for evil. Yes. God meant it for good. And so if you out there listening, you know, maybe you're in the midst of some sort of struggle right now, whether it's struggling with rejection, abandonment, or you're wounded in some way. I want you to be encouraged as you're listening to Jeff's story today, I want you to be encouraged that what the enemy might mean for evil, somehow, some way, even though you maybe can't see it right now, you know, because the glasses are not, your perspective is not clear, that God, Romans 8.28, right?
He'll turn all things for good for those who love him, right? Yes. Well, Nikita, the great illustration that you shared there from Joseph Life, fortunately, I didn't have evil brothers. That's good. They might have been willing to sell me if they knew that was an option, but I was the younger brother.
They thought you had some value there. Yeah, I was the younger brother. Okay. I have a twin sister, and so there were three, you know, brothers and sisters older than me that kind of took the brunt of the issues that were happening in the home, and I was kind of just following by.
The KI symbol. I was the caboose kind of following it and learning lessons along the way. Okay, paying attention. But I'm thankful for my three older brothers and sisters. You know, my older brother in particular, he's been in law enforcement for many, many years. Of course, we're now retiring age.
You know, he's retiring age. He was eight years older than me. But I remember him taking me to Awana. I remember him making sure I was in church when he got a little older. There is a power with a sibling or, you know, with a brother or sister that really is on fire for the Lord and wants something.
That really was one of my other helps. He really became my, you know, lack of a better way of saying it, almost like a de facto dad. Yeah, like a dad, mentor. Yeah, so he's always been there. We've been friends for all these years. I've always enjoyed that relationship. And he really did a great service to the other brothers and sisters, kind of like Joseph, where he provided a benefit to us where we didn't have a benefit with a father figure.
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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 Now there's some other relatability there too, you know, because when I look, again, similar to your story, I look back at mine, you know, I never really would, I guess it would have been easy to have resentment or bitterness towards my dad for leaving my mom and leaving us in the, you know, the woes that we found ourself in. Looking back, now maybe at the moment I didn't think all that, but, and or my mom. My mom wasn't the most loving, doting, you know, she wasn't abusive in any way, but she also wasn't that loving, doting mom either, you know. In fact, if she was, first time she, I remember she ever said, I love you, she was 76 years old.
And that's because I was initiating those statements in conversation. And then my dad, which that's a whole story of reconciliation in his 80s and my 40s. He was 84, I think, the first time he ever said, I love you son. And then the caveat to that is the very last words out of his mouth before he passed on, were those, those words, I love you son, the very last words out of his mouth. So, so a lot of life lessons that you took away from, from the tumultuous childhood. And I think it's fascinating too, that just the, thank, thank you for all you out there who have bus ministries, right? Oh, you know, the churches that reach out to young people, you know, generally the parents don't mind if it's done in the spirit of, you know, graciousness. And as long as the church isn't trying to grab loyalty and draw this following that, you know, the church should be ministering in such a way to build those family relationships and hopefully have crisis at the center of the home. And I'm thankful that I had, you know, there was a couple scenarios, maybe we'll discuss that some other time, in the church where they didn't know how to handle the bus kid, they go through all that effort to get them. And then we're a wild bunch of folks running in the church without a parent there. Well, and to that point, actually my home church, The Refuge, early on in the early stages, we partnered with, with a guy named LC who, who had a bus ministry, like that was his ministry. So we partnered and provided a building for him. So 10, 12 different bus loads of inner city kids, to your point.
And I was there on most Wednesday nights, just in the, in the shadows, if you will, in the back, just kind of praying over the service and, and observing. There were a few fights that had to be broken up and either on the buses or in this, you know, in the youth center or, yeah, I know what you're talking about, but for real. It's a wild place and it's a, it's a risk worth taking though. It's a risk worth taking.
Yes, that's what I was going to say. But there are many, many of those young men who look at LC as a, as a father figure, and are grateful that he was willing to come into those, those neighborhoods and pick them up and, and bring them to church. Yeah, I'll tell you one funny story. As I figured out the church bus ministry scenario among many of the churches, I realized one church might give pumpkin, the other church might give a watermelon, other church might give, you know, a handful of obstacles, whatever it was. So I would call churches during the week to find out what they were giving during the, I would go to church based on who gave the best prize.
Who's giving out the best prize. And finally they got onto me, they said I had to pick one because at one point, three churches came at one time with their buses in front of our house. Oh no, come on. So I guess I was an entrepreneurial young person. At an early age.
At an early age. And here again, I could, I could, sixth grade, I think sixth grade, I, you know, got a paper route and began to, and eventually hired a guy to deliver the papers, Jeff, collect the money and then paid him a percentage while I went and played football. Yeah, yeah.
I get it. You know, and again, I'll, I'll tell, I'll tell folks the bus got me to church. Yeah. The people in the church kept me in church.
Yeah, that's good. They, they, you know, I have, we, we all have a bad experience. Some people have a bad experience and then they just leave church altogether. But I, I had those similar bad experiences, but I, you know, I, I really feel like there were some wonderful Christians there and they reached out to me.
They genuinely cared that they were the family. I didn't have at home, you know, all, you know, I serve a perfect Christ within the context of imperfect Christendom. And I realized that, you know, I don't expect the church and every person to be perfect. No, in fact, the whole, that whole term church hurt. Yes.
Right. If you're in church for any length of time, you're going to get hurt. I mean, it's just a reality because people, we live in a fallen broken world. You know, I'm reminded of that scripture says where there's no oxen, the trial stays clean. Well, Hey, if you want a clean church to keep the doors locked, don't let anybody in. But the minute you put people in, like you put oxen in a stall, there's going to be a mess eventually. Yes.
And there's going to need to be cleanup. Yes. And, and, and that's, Jesus said, I didn't come to, you know, I came to for the sick. Yes. You know, so anyway, so, so, okay.
Well, so amazing story. So fast forward, so you, you go off to Wisconsin, off to Cheeseland. Yes. And so you leave Detroit, Motor City, and you head off to Cheeseland and, and you go to school, you get some schooling there, some Bible schooling. And I mean, I don't even, Jeff, I don't even know which story to ask you because you have so many stories with the 68 countries you've traveled to. And we get to that, but how did that, those early days? Yeah. Pick up from, from when you go off to Wisconsin and kind of where that path is. And there's a, there's a whole bunch of other stories kind of leading up to my graduation in high school that I'll be happy to share a little bit later. Cause I had to navigate a lot of family, you know, no grandparents, no aunts and uncles, they're always fighting. Different dynamics, yeah.
Yeah. And so, so I find out about most of that later on, so I actually hitchhiked to college. I, for the summer of 1984, I went to Roanoke, Virginia in Salem, a little suburb of Roanoke. I worked at an amusement park called Lakeside Amusement Park. My brother, who was a police officer there in Roanoke, got me the job. And then I got a job at a Super X, I think, I think it was called Super X Drugstore. So I worked those two jobs all summer, made, you know, a lot of money compared to what I used to.
What you were used to. And so, so my brother said, Hey Jeff, I want you to live with us and that'd be great, but I wouldn't be doing you a good service. You need to go out to college, check that box. And you know, and you wanted to go into ministry. So go to that place in Wisconsin that you talked about and I'll get your bus ticket and I'll get you at least to Detroit. So I got to Detroit and then I decided to hitchhike from Detroit all the way to Wisconsin.
And that's a little trick because I never hitchhiked before, but I got there. And when I got there, I was standing in line and I realized you needed money. I had some money, but I gave it all away to people who needed it on the way to school. And I just didn't know, I never had to spend money for school, so I had no idea. I didn't even sign up to go there. I was the last person to register at this little Bible college in Wisconsin. And I didn't know what excuse I would have.
I know, I kind of felt shame that I, that I didn't have anything. I remember the fellow there said, so who are you? And, you know, I said, well, my name's Jeff Call. He says, well, I don't see your name here. I said, well, I didn't send you anything.
I just, someone told me I should come here. And he said, well, you need $800. And I said, well, that makes both of us.
So I, my first merit was being a smart aleck to the registrar. And so he didn't know what to do with me. He said, well, maybe I should call your parents.
And I said, well, you'll have better success than I will if you got a hold of them. And, well, what church do you go to? So evidently he called the pastor and they thought it would be better if I, if I stayed at college. So someone from the school or from the church in Detroit sent $800. And I went through college five years and I paid, when I graduated from college, it was really important for me to say I paid my own way.
I didn't take any financial aid. I worked hard every week, working almost 65 hours a week to go to Bible school. And this $800 was nagging on me because that was the only $800 that I didn't, you know, take care of myself. Raise yourself, yeah. So Monday after graduation, I went to the bank and borrowed $800 and sent it back to my church, told the pastor, please, I included a note on there.
So I really want them to know that I appreciate them believing in me. Yup, me and the verse. Yeah, and they felt like that was the moment that I matured. The church felt like that was the time I matured. But my journey at that Bible school was fantastic.
I enjoyed it. The founder had a first grade education and he took a liking to me. And then the camp director, he became a mentor to me when I was 18 years old. A freshman in school took me under his wing. And that's a whole other story.
Yeah, well, you've got so many stories. In fact, I know up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, you've got a property up there that 2,000 acres, a million something square feet. A million and a half square feet under roof. A lot of it's empty because there was a school there at one time and it closed. But now it's a camp. It's a camp. A large portion we use as a Christian camp and work with young people from all over the Midwest and families and specialty groups. Yeah, I think you told me at this point over half a million people.
Since the beginning of the school. Kids that have been through that camp. Yes, and they hear the Gospel and they hear opportunities to work through their own issues. And it's a safe, I always say that a Christian camp is the safest place to make the hardest decisions. Because it's filled with people who really are dedicated to love that individual. And some of those kids don't even know how to respond to that. That kind of attention, right?
They've never had it. Yeah, a lot of folks don't know Christian camp is designed to use every minute that a person is there to help guide someone to the Lord. And for many folks the Christian camp is the last frontier before a child will go out into life and kind of doing their own thing. Most people who get saved are when they're exposed to the Gospel as a young person. Yeah, I've heard of many, many of course high percentages of many people that I got saved at camp. I gave my life to Jesus at a camp or whatever. I didn't personally have that luxury growing up in Minnesota next door to Wisconsin. I didn't really grow up in church.
So for me it was later in life at age 34 that I ended up giving my life to Christ. Not that I didn't know the story. So you've got so many more stories I'm here with. And I'm just going to say Dr. Jeff Call. He doesn't like to be called Dr.
But he's got more letters after his name than before his name that I could even potentially ever desire to acquire. But man of many hats and many, 68 different countries you mentioned earlier that you've been to. We're going to have to do part two here.
We just have to Jeff because we're out of time. So when we come back, okay, so be thinking about when we come back maybe a couple of your favorite stories out of these 68 countries that you've gone to. We're going to share when you come back some of the things that you've done. How you've been able to impact God's kingdom around the world.
And I'm not kidding when I say dying with world leaders I mean you have some stories. So you're out there in listening land. You make sure you tune in next week because you're going to want to hear as if you're old enough to remember a guy by the name of Paul Harvey. Yes. I'm sure you know that name Jeff. I do.
You know that name. So Paul Harvey used to always on his show say now and now the rest of the story. And so when we come back we're going to be part two with Jeff Call and we're going to hear at least more of his story because even another show won't capture 68 different countries. But we're going to highlight some things.
Don't you go anywhere. Tune in next week and thank you for tuning in this week. I hope already you were inspired by the first part of Jeff's story and we'll look forward to bringing part two next week. OK. Go out today.
Here's my challenge to you. Go out today and live a God field and have 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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