NRB Chronicles 2022 - Don't Mess With This Mama

Well, once again, how fun, NRB Chronicles, as we're sitting here on the convention floor in 2022, and how fun. I have Missy Maxwell Wharton. Is it? Did I pronounce it right? Missy Maxwell Wharton.

Yeah. It says Wharton, but it looks like Wharton, but it's actually, it is Wharton. That's why it looks like Wharton. That's why it's Missy Maxwell Wharton, because it is with a W. And you've got to love the title of this book, which we've talked to her before, but don't mess with this mama and risking it all to rescue our daughter. And I remember this story from a couple of years ago, but from what I understand, you've been on a real adventure since the last time we talked, Missy. So tell me what's going on.

Absolutely. Well, I was all ready and set to release this book, and two weeks into it, two weeks before we were launching, of course, we had a pandemic happen. So we had to cancel everything, and we had to do it online, live stream.

But God was good. Oh, that would be right, because when I did this interview, it was like right before the pandemic hit. I remember, like we did the NRB, and two weeks later the whole world shut down. We were going to flatten the curve. We gave them our two weeks, and then they gave us two weeks more, and then two weeks more.

Yeah. So that's what happened, but it was God's perfect timing, even in the release of my book, because what we discovered about our book is it is about walking in authority and saying no to fear and yes to love. And so during that time, we were able to go on probably over 100 podcasts and just talk about the love of God and how we don't need to fear. Fear is false evidence appearing, real.

Everybody, I think, knows that acronym. But it also is where is your trust? Is it in the Lord?

Is it in the God who promises, just like in our story? He promised that we would bring favor home, and we trusted Him, and sure enough, things happen. So that's what's happened, and we've just been really excited. The Lord's been good. This book has won a lot of awards, and I don't think it's because of me.

I think it's because He just created a great story. And so I know it's been a while, so I know our listeners are like, so what happened? Like, don't mess with this mama just begs to tell you.

What happened? Why was somebody trying to mess with this mama? Well, they had, my husband and I went to Ethiopia when we found out our daughter, adopted daughter of six years old, had been taken out of the orphanage and put into a false foster care system, which we had to hurry over there. We were the last flight out of Dulles International Airport before Hurricane Sandy hit, and so we flew over there and did a rescue mission, and we were able to rescue her with the help of her aunt, and we got her there, and suddenly our agency, the embassy, the immigration, everybody started turning against us, and they started saying that we were the human traffickers, which we were not. But we were the human traffickers, but we had to stay because they had taken her visa and passport when we tried to leave at immigration. We were surrounded by immigration officers, and they took her visa and passport. We knew that she would get into the hands of a wrong type of man that wanted her for wrong reasons.

Right, and as I recall, and it's been a while, your husband and you, it puts you in a very crazy place. Yes, we ended up having to hide because they were trying to basically kidnap her back, the agency was. So you had the baby. We had her. Her name's Favor, so we had Favor. We had done the rescue, and then they turned against us, and so we kept her, and we were told to hide out and not to let her out of our sight, so we did.

And of all places, a person who had seen my first adopted child, Shweet, and taken a picture of him and used his picture to raise money to become missionaries in Ethiopia just happened to get there one month before they were supposed to was right when we came. Right. So she saw my post on Facebook where I said we didn't get out of immigration. We don't know what God's doing, but we're not going to leave our little girl here. So we are going to make sure, because we knew if she got in the hands of this man, she would either end up dying, as everyone had who had gotten to him, or trafficked. So we stayed, and we kept her out of danger. We fought for her every day we would go to the court system to prove our innocence, and to prove that our intentions for her was just to give her a family. That is it.

You know, and love her, praise her. So that's what happened. But the funny thing is, well it's not funny, but we ended up hiding out in the middle of radical Islam in Ethiopia. And so we were at an eight acre compound that held Christian missionaries, and that's where this person was.

And they were blessing the community there, but it was surrounded by radical Islam. So this person on Facebook is obviously an interesting connection that God provided for such a time as this, but the adventure was far from over. And to some extent I guess you're going to have to read the book to get all the details. It's called Don't Mess With Us Mama, Risking It All to Rescue Our Daughter. Again, Missy Maxwell Wharton is the author. And so I'm interested, since you prolonged the, because of COVID, right, it's interesting you had this hurricane that caused this, and you get out of the book, and now you got COVID. And so you see like there's a certain pattern that shows up. Let's hope it's over.

Who knows, because you know, it's just whatever God has in mind. But how's your daughter? Faber is amazing. She's going to be 17 next week. She is a power, 17 now, and she is a powerhouse. She wants to be an attorney, and the girl can argue you underneath the table. So I have no doubt she's going to be an attorney that will do good things.

She wants to go back to Ethiopia and fight for the orphans actually. Wow, and so she understands her story, right? Like she knows what actually took place. We now have found out that she literally knew that we were battling for her. So she knew.

How old was she when you were... She was six years old when we were battling to take her home and rescue her. So you're saying she knew before you actually picked her up, or she knew? No, she knew. She knew something was... She saw what happened at the airport at immigration, and she saw the people surround us and take her visa and passport. So she saw that happen, and she noticed that we grabbed our stuff, and we went into hiding suddenly. So she told the people who... She spoke their language because she wasn't speaking English yet.

She said, God has given me this family, and I am very thankful because they love me enough to fight for me. And it was a David and Goliath tale. We found out later that the whole city knew about it, and everywhere we went they would refer to us as the Deborah Brahant case. And they would say, oh, the Deborah Brahant case, you stayed and you fought. And that's just... That encourages me right now with what we're going through as a nation because we need to stand and continue to fight as far as with praying and standing up for what's right, all those things.

It's just coming back around. And I suddenly recognized that we're all... We were sent for this time in history. It's like God looked around and said, okay, who can I trust in this time in history to stand up and do my will and to bring forth my kingdom in this hour? And I look at all the people here even, and I'm thinking all of us were sent right now.

Yeah, like you were sent specifically. Like God knew I could trust this family with this precious life, right? Because it all makes an impact in so many different ways.

Like, oh my goodness. One life at a time. One life at a time in so many different ways. And then He uses the story to encourage other people. They may find themselves in some other fight, but to realize sometimes you just got to take it and say, hey, I'm going to follow where God takes me here in spite of the fact that I might be breaking what might be...

They consider the law or they might be considered whatever they want to consider, but I know this is what God has in mind. And so did you... Well, let's just go back for one more minute to those moments where I'm guessing you sensed that this is where I... This is where I draw the line? Yeah, this is... Well, okay, my story started with God showing me a picture of her two years before I ever was introduced to her. So I believe that was a key. And then He had a man encourage us with two words. He said, I really believe God is telling you you need to hold on to Ephesians 3.20 and Philippians 1.6. I'll be faithful to complete what I started and more than you can ever hope or imagine is what He will do for us, Ephesians 3.20.

So we held on to those promises. Well, that same man, when we arrived in Ethiopia after being tossed and turned in Hurricane Sandy, he walks out of the elevator of our hotel in Addis Ababa. He had just been working with Heidi Baker and their airplane just heading to Rome suddenly decided, we don't have enough room at Rome, we're going to drop you off at Addis Ababa. And to think that that whole plane full of people had to go to Addis Ababa Ethiopia instead of Rome just weren't me to see him and he prayed over us. Did I ever tell you what he prayed?

No. Okay, so he sees us in the hotel lobby and he comes over and he says, are you stuck here because of Hurricane Sandy? And we said, no, we flew over Hurricane Sandy to get here to rescue our daughter. He said, oh man, we need to pray about this. So he grabs my hand and he's praying with his wife and me and my husband is checking in and he just begins to pray, Lord, I thank you that you are going to give them favor in this situation. Father, I see favor walking before him and Father, your word says that you have gone before us and you will open the door. And Lord, I just keep seeing that you are going to give them favor.

And I start laughing after about the fourth time that he says favor. And I said, did I tell you what her name was? And he said, no. And I said, her name is Faber. And he said, oh, God is so good. He said, I just kept hearing, tell them I've got this. They are going to have favor. They are going to get favor and take her home.

And he's like, well, surely they didn't need their daughter Faber. And what a cool thing for me personally, when I hear that it reminds me of maybe about five years ago, maybe it was 10 years ago, actually, that everywhere I went, somebody was talking about grace and the pastor at the time was doing a whole, he was going to preach a year on grace. And it had me so confused. I was like, what does grace mean? Because people would say her grace or you're going to say grace and you got this and I'm like, what does grace mean?

And I heard him preach this sermon on grace and it seemed so different than that sermon on grace and I couldn't get a grip on it. And so I decided to like, man, I'm going to figure out what grace is. I just do.

This is going to find sound funny to you, but it works. Okay. So I'm a grandfather and my granddaughter is watching and I've been studying this, that it means favor.

It means favor. Okay. And so I'm watching, my granddaughter wants to watch Barbie, the mermaid princess. Okay. And so I'm watching Barbie, the mermaid princess.

My listeners are used to my craziness. And Barbie is, it's a typical story of, she's a princess, the evil Ursula type character has stolen her away from the king. She grows up under Ursula and then she gets invited back to the palace, but she has a very special power.

She can put pearls on. Have you ever seen the episode? Yes. Good, good, good.

Okay. So she's going towards the palace and she comes across the stone fish. And the stone fish is every, he's got poisonous spikes all over him and his name is Spike. And as soon as, you know, little mermaid and her little flounder buddy come up, whatever it was, you know, the Spike, who's got this real squeaky voice, is like, you can't come near me cause I can pull it, you know, one touch of my deadly whatever. But Barbie treats Spike with complete grace. Like in spite of the fact that he's being mean and nasty and all this stuff, she's like, Oh, well what a strong voice you have than Spike.

You know, like, you know, you don't want, you need to be nice to your fellow fish. And she, she just still treats him like he's her favorite. And I'm watching her do that.

And all of a sudden it hits me. That's grace. And this, this princess has grace. Like she's treating this horrible fish like he's a really good guy. And it's by the fact that he doesn't seem to be a really good guy.

That's grace. And then all of a sudden it hit me that in John chapter one, it says, right, Jesus is full of that stuff. Like I've, I've been in people, I've been with people that as soon as you're in your presence, you know that they think that you're their favorite. You can just tell they treat you like, Oh man, like I can feel this person really likes me. Like I can feel the favor just to be in their presence. And I had this pastor that might, man, it'd be in his presence. You just felt like, man, this guy loves me. It's like, I feel so loved. And I thought, that's it. When people, when you're in their presence and you feel absolutely loved, that's grace.

And you take that and multiply it by 80,000. That's to be in Jesus's presence because you're going to feel like you're his absolute favorite. And so I redid Isaiah 61 in my own way. And I said, okay, so this is the year where we declare that Robbie is my favorite. And so when, when you say her name is favorite for me, I did, you know, we've done the interview before, but I'm thinking what a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful concept. Because to me, one of the biggest ways you can impact anybody, anytime, anywhere is to treat them like they're your favorite.

Yeah. Just like Jesus does us. I know me and my girlfriends have an argument. I'm his favorite. No, I'm his favorite. I'm his favorite.

He told me so. Missy Maxwell Wharton. Yeah, you got it. The book is don't mess with this mama.

And it's all about favor. There's going to be an attorney and oh, that's just awesome. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. And my website, you want me to tell you the website? I do, I do. It is missymaxwellwharton.com.

Missymaxwellwharton.com. And you get the book, Don't Mess With This Mama. Yes, absolutely. Was there something else you wanted me to say? Oh. You got another book coming?

I do. It's actually birthed out of Don't Mess With This Mama called Walking in Authority, Choosing Love Over Fear. And it's got a beautiful title, oh my goodness. Walking in Authority, Choosing Love Over Fear. So you got a new book, when's that coming out?

That's coming out this summer. Wonderful, wonderful. Just sharing exactly what you were talking about. How the more you love it, the less fear you have. And that's what is going to win this war, is love will always love, grace, faith. Those are the things that will win the war. Wow. Again, missymaxwellwharton.com. Bye. Thank you.