August 15, 2025 • 35 mins
Roger Wheeler's journey from a successful real estate broker to a humanitarian advocate in Zambia is nothing short of inspiring. With nearly three decades of experience in real estate, Roger has dedicated himself to helping those less fortunate, creating impactful initiatives through his organization, Shoulder to Shoulder. In our conversation, he shares his transformative experiences, including the profound lessons learned from transcribing the Bible and how they led him to address food insecurity and poverty in Zambia. Roger highlights the unique challenges of working in a country where faith and survival often intersect, emphasizing the importance of fostering relationships and community support in his mission. Join us as we explore the heart of humanitarian work and the vibrant exchange of faith and resources that can change lives.
Roger Wheeler, a seasoned real estate broker for nearly three decades, shares his inspiring journey from the world of real estate to humanitarian work in Zambia. A founding member of Shoulder to Shoulder, Roger's passion for helping the less fortunate shines through as he recounts his experiences advocating for those in need. The conversation dives deep into the importance of effective mentorship, with Roger reflecting on the pivotal moments that shaped his commitment to service. He discusses the profound influence of a Bible study challenge that sparked his journey of faith and the unique relationships he has built while working on the ground in Zambia. This episode highlights the significance of understanding poverty not just as a statistic but as a human experience that deserves compassion and action. Roger's heartfelt anecdotes serve as a reminder of the impact that one person can have in the lives of many, encouraging listeners to reflect on their own roles in addressing global challenges.
Takeaways:
- Roger Wheeler has dedicated his career to real estate while passionately advocating for humanitarian efforts in Zambia.
- The journey from real estate to humanitarian work highlights the flexibility and freedom of being a Realtor.
- Shoulder to Shoulder is built on the concept of 'food for faith', emphasizing mutual support between communities.
- Challenges in Zambia include not only food insecurity but also unique agricultural obstacles due to wildlife interactions.
- Roger's inspirational journey illustrates how faith can lead to significant humanitarian contributions and personal growth.
- The mission of Shoulder to Shoulder continues to evolve, focusing on addressing both immediate needs and long-term sustainable solutions.
Links referenced in this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Roger Wheeler has been a realestate broker by trade for 28 years
and a founding board member ofShoulder to Shoulder. He has become
an advocate for those lessfortunate in the country of Zambia.
We welcome Roger to thepodcast. Well, Roger, welcome to
the podcast. How are you doing today?
Thank you. I'm doing fabulous.It's a thrill to be with you.
(00:23):
It's a pleasure to be withyou, too. I'm going to ask you my
favorite question that noguest can avoid answering. And that
is what's the best piece ofadvice for you've ever received?
Yeah, so that's a bit of achallenge, but I. You're going to
find as we chat that I'm aBible guy. I highly value the Bible.
(00:43):
And When I was 21, 22 yearsold, I led my first small group Bible
study with a young marriedsgroup. And at the end of that study,
one of my friends came up tome and said, wow, you're really good
at that. You'd be dangerous ifyou knew anything about the Bible.
(01:03):
And I kind of took thatpersonally because I'd been raised
in the Bible, but that, thatit wasn't really advice, it was more
of a challenge. And so I'vebeen on a bit of a journey ever since
then. And actually I'll followthat up. About 15 years ago, a pastor
of mine did a New Year's Evesermon and he challenged everybody
(01:28):
in the sanctuary to write outthe Bible, to transcribe the Bible.
And I said, wow, I neverthought of anything like that. I
was kind of a read through theBible type guy. And I said, okay,
I'll give that a shot. And soI started. And six and a half years
later, I had transcribed theentire Bible, going about an hour
(01:51):
a day. And so I. Those areprobably the two best pieces of advice
I've ever got.
That is interesting. I neverthought of that. Those are really
interesting. I love those.Both. Those are really good. I can
take those. And after, after acouple years, say, as Keith always
says.
Yeah.
So I'm curious, Roger, as youthink about your life and people
(02:11):
who have been important toyou, who are some people that served
as a mentor or inspiration foryou, here's a chance for you to kind
of give them a shout out andthank them for being such an important,
vital part of your life.
Yeah, well, so I don't have alot of those. When I was 18, my father
had a major stroke, massivestroke, and lived as an Invalid the
(02:35):
last 8 last 18 years of hislife. And so I've kind of thought
over the decades, if I had hadan active father in my life in my
20s and my 30s, I think itwould have made a difference for
me. But I didn't really, and Ididn't really have anybody step in
and kind of take that spot. Iwas always kind of active with peer
(02:58):
groups my own age. I do. I, Ifeel like I have a relationship with
the Holy Spirit that's alittle bit of a mentoring type of
thing in a, in a unique way.And I don't want to over spiritualize
anything. But if I were toname a human being, I would say Tom
Nesbit, who was a pastor atGrand Avenue Baptist Church in, in
(03:23):
Ames, Iowa. He's the guy whochallenged me to transcribe the Bible.
And I did serve and, andworship under him for a number of
years. And he, he stands kindof large in my life.
Oh, that's so cool. So, Roger,I'm curious about your journey. You've
been a real estate agent fornearly three decades. What drew you
to that profession?
(03:45):
Excuse me. Yeah, so right outof college at Drake, I graduated
from Drake University. We cantalk Iowa, since there you go.
Go Drake.
We're both in Iowa right now.I graduated from Drake and I got
into the technology sector andfound myself in sales. And I, I can
talk and communicate prettywell. And so I had some success at
(04:06):
sales. I ended up selling atechnology product that had me flying
around the world most of thetime. Eastern half of the U.S. caribbean,
South America, Australia. Andthen I had three little children
and really decided that wasn'ta great way to raise children. And
so I was looking for somethingthat would allow me to use what I'd
(04:29):
learned in the, in the fieldof sales but not have to travel very
much. And you know as well asI do in Iowa, we don't have a ton
of stuff. And so really the,the big ticket items are when people
are buying homes.
Right.
Buying real, buying realestate. So, yeah, I actually had
a friend who was just startingin the building, in the construction
field, said, hey, I'll build.He said, I'll build houses if you
(04:50):
sell them. And that kind ofgot me into it.
Also in Iowa, we don't like totravel because there's no good way
to get out of Iowa. And the plane.
Yeah. 6:00am Des MoinesAirport flights are. Yeah.
Are killers. So you don't want.
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Oh, so it's so funny, youknow. So tell us about what your
(05:10):
journey led you to, from realestate to your humanitarian work
in Zambia.
Yeah. So there really isn'tmuch connection between real estate
and humanitarian work otherthan having a career as a Realtor
gives the flexibility to dokind of anything you want to do.
(05:33):
I say, you know, every once ina while, a young realtor will kind
of complain to me about thedifficulty of their job, and I will
just try to take them back astep and say, look, almost anybody
in the world would tradeplaces with you. You have the best
gig. We have a lot of freedom.We can make a pretty good income.
And so that leaves us withopportunities to do what we want
(05:56):
with our time. I actuallydidn't start in Africa. I started
up in South Dakota on a NativeAmerican reservation. Because I was,
as I was transcribing theBible, I was noticing that poverty
was a big theme. Seems likeGod cares about people who are impoverished.
Yes.
(06:16):
And that's honestly not thateasy to find in Iowa. Iowa is a pretty
well off state. I don't, Idon't want to be little because there
are people who struggle, butit's different when you go to other
spots of the world. So onRosebud Indian reservation, I was
able to see kind of anAmerican version of poverty. And
then I ended up in Ghana tosee more of a, kind of a world vision
(06:40):
of poverty. I was, my, myfamily was doing orphan care and
education there. And then my,my brother and I decided, you know,
it seemed like Jesus reallyliked to feed hungry people. And
so we started thinking aboutwhat it might look like to feed people.
And we discovered Zambia isone of the hungriest places on the
face of the earth. It's alsovery Christian that 98% of the people
(07:04):
in, in Zambia are reportedlyChristian. And so it, it was a place
where we could travel safelyto, to see brothers and sisters in
Christ who were at the otherend of the economic spectrum and
say, hey, let's do this thing together.
So tell us about Shoulder to Shoulder.
Yeah, so Shoulder to shoulderstarted in 2020, and it's based fully
(07:30):
on this Bible verse that comesout of Second Corinthians, chapter
eight. I'm going to read itfor you. I, I didn't like the message
version of the Bible. Mybrother was a big fan and I do thank
Eugene Peterson now because hedid some great stuff. But in Second
Corinthians, chapter 8, Paulis talking about this thing called
the Collection for the Saints.It's a thread that I think a lot
(07:51):
of people don't recognizeBiblically. When I say I transcribed
the Bible, it caused me to getinto some nooks and crannies that
I lot of people don't see. Andif I ask almost anybody what was
the Apostle Paul doing on hismissionary journeys, they say, well,
he was evangelizing for sure,and he was church planning. And most
people would limit it to thosethree things. Well, there actually
(08:12):
are those two things. Thereactually was a third leg to that.
And he was collecting moneybecause there were people starving
in Jerusalem. And soeverywhere that Paul went, he was
picking up money from thechurches and he was finding a way
to get it back to Jerusalem.He called that the collection for
the saints. And it'sreferenced maybe a dozen times, times
throughout the New testament.But in 2nd Corinthians 8 and 9, he
(08:35):
gives kind of his treatise onthat project. And in chapter 8, verse
13, Paul says to theCorinthian church, he says, so here's
what I think. The best thingyou can do right now is to finish
what you started last year andnot let those good intentions grow
stale. Your heart's been inthe right place all along. You've
got to. You've got what ittakes to finish up. So get to it.
(08:57):
Once the commitment is clear,you do what you can, not what you
can't, then listen to this.This isn't so others can take it
easy while you sweat it out.No, your shoulder to shoulder with
them all the way. Your surplusmatching their deficit, Their surplus
matching your deficit. And mybrother and I fell in love with that
(09:18):
passage. It describes a trade.It took us a while to figure it out,
but the trade is food forfaith. In our case, we have lots
of food in Iowa. In fact, whenI go to Zambia, I have to confess
that my relationship with foodis I try not to eat too much. That's
the challenge, right? But thatis. That's kind of insulting in Zambia
(09:40):
because the people I'mspending time with there are trying
to figure out how to getenough to eat, right? So I have.
I have a surplus, they have adeficit. It took me a while to figure
out what they have in surplusthat I have in deficit. Because Paul
clearly states it as a tradehere. It took a couple years and
we finally realized when youwake up in the morning and you don't
(10:01):
know how you're going to feedyour children that day, there's really
only one thing you have, andthat is faith. And so there is a
level of faith that my Zambianfriends have that I'm never going
to get to. I have a deficit inthat area. But as I share with them,
I find myself growing in thatarea. So we do a food for faith trade.
That's what shoulder toShoulder is all about.
(10:23):
So tell us more about itbecause I'm fascinated by that. Tell
me a little bit more aboutZambia for those of us who've not
visited it. Kind of give uskind of a snapshot of what you would
experience if you landed onthe shores or the streets of Zambia.
Well, I will land in ZambiaAugust 9, so in a couple of weeks
with my wife. And we will fly.It will be in the air for 24 hours.
(10:45):
It's miserable travel to getthere. We'll live in the. Arrive
in the capital city of Lusaka.It's a large developing world type
of city. But then veryquickly, we will move out into some
regions where we do workmostly in the villages. And when
(11:07):
you drive out into thatvillage, I want to be careful not
to say anything that feelsinsulting at all. But it's almost
like you're in a time machineand you drive back two or 300 years.
We actually have been doingsome training on farming techniques.
We've connected with someagriculture guys from Iowa State
(11:27):
University, and the trainingthat we're doing is moving these
village farmers from what youwould say is maybe an 18th century
farming technique to a 20th.Maybe 19th century. 20th century
farming technique. And so youjust, you just see a different world,
(11:48):
a different time, and you seepeople very unconcerned with all
of the modern amenities andchallenges that we experience here
in the United States. Youpeople, you see people concerned
with the basics of life. Howdo I. How do I protect my children
from the elements? How do Ifeed them? Each day? It's just very
(12:10):
different.
How do you balance. Becauseyou're coming from a different culture
altogether. How do you balancenot going to a place and doing harm?
Because I know some people,some missionaries or missionary work
goes over. And you'reintending to do good. Because I just
talked to a person I want togo from, From Haiti, and he says
when people come to Haiti,what they end up doing is they bring
(12:34):
clothes to the people in Haitiwhich they can never wear. So how
do you. How do you make surethat what you're doing is. Is actually
providing.
Yeah.
Stuff that they.
So, yeah, there's a. There's abook out that a lot of people know
called When Helping Hurts.
Yes.
And people reference that withme a lot. My son actually says I
should write a sequel to thatcalled When Helping Helps. The reality
(12:57):
is, if you have no food inyour home and you're just trying
to figure out how to eat andfeed your family. There really isn't
any way to harm that person bygiving them food.
Right.
So we're. What we've done iswe've established a distribution
network through the church inZambia. So everything we do is, Even
(13:19):
though we're a 501C3 as aparachurch here in. In the United
States, we operate through thechurch in Zambia. So we have 124
churches currently. Wedistribute corn to each of those
churches monthly. All of thosechurches have. Have given us kind
of a snapshot of theirmembership. They may have 300 members,
(13:42):
and maybe they identify 40 ofthose members as vulnerable. That's
the term we use. Their foodinsecure. For the most part, these
people are eating two to threemeals per week. And when I use the
word meal, I'm using itloosely. It's basically a ball of
cornmeal, they call it inShima, and they're eating two or
(14:03):
three of those a week. Sothese people are living sometimes
on 400 to 600 calories perweek. And so our program works with
the churches to provide bagsof mealy meal which they cook, they
boil into in Shima so thatthat household is able to consume
(14:24):
two meals per day. And sowe're taking them to somewhere around
3,000 calories a week. Stillnot nothing at all by American standards.
But our goal is that we'reelevating that caloric intake to
the point where they now canbecome functioning members of the
Kingdom of God. They don'thave to spend all day, every day,
(14:45):
worrying about how they'regoing to find their next meal.
How did you end up working inthat field and finding this particular
community? I'm just curious.
Social media is a great thing.When we were doing work in Ghana,
we were working. We built anorphanage and a school there. And
there were some connectionswhere we brought in a farmer from
(15:08):
Zambia who was doing farmtraining there. He came into our
orphanage in Ghana and helpedthem set up a farm. And we just got
to know him over a couple ofyears. And so when we decided, uh,
it's kind of odd, but eventhough we were doing relief work
in Ghana, we decided therereally weren't that many hungry people
(15:29):
there. Uh, if you look at theWorld Hunger Index, you kind of get
an idea of where the hungriestspots on the globe are. And we found
that Zambia was much Hungrier.There's about 5 million people that
are starving right now inZambia. And so we connected with
this gentleman when he wentback to Zambia. We ended up in his
church network. Once you're onFacebook, connected to one Zambian
(15:52):
pastor, it's not very long.You're connected to 100 Zambian pastors.
And my brother, my brother,Rob Wheeler, we're partners in this.
He loves to be on socialmedia, connecting with the pastors
and the people in Zambia.
So what were some of the. Youtalked about? Just the food insecurity.
What are some of the otherchallenges you've. You've run across
and you're doing thishumanitarian work?
(16:16):
Well, we. We're not providing.Providing relief work for food is
our basic. That's our basicgoal. We also drill boreholes. Fresh
water is a pretty massiveproblem throughout Zambia. We actually
have a group that went with mybrother last year from Denver and
(16:38):
Colorado Springs area, andthey are now drilling one or two
boreholes every month throughthis year. So we've done something
like 25 or 30 wells, which.That's. That's an interesting thing
that we need to balancebecause by. By sending money to feed
hungry people, we'redefinitely affecting a family. And
(17:00):
right now we're serving foodmonthly to about 3,500 families.
Maybe 25, 20, 25,000 peopleare eating. But if we take $2,000
out of that feeding budget andwe dig a borehole, then that literally
changes an entire community.And not just for this, this month,
(17:20):
but for in. Into thisforeseeable future. And so we're
always trying to balancethose, but both of those, we think,
are really kind of reliefwork. We have moved into the development
side more where we are doingfarm training. We provide every fall
here, we provide inputs. SoNovember, December time frame, we
provide food, I'm sorry, seedand fertilizer to some of our farmers
(17:44):
in some of our churches thatwe work with, those that have been
trained. And then every springin the April, May time frame, we
buy their harvest. And so wethen take that harvest. So we just
sent over roughly $145,000 tobuy bags of corn. That corn has been
stored now in our 124churches. So when my wife and I are
(18:06):
over there next month, we willtravel around to the regions that
we're doing work in. And allof those churches will be so excited
to show us the stores cornthat they have, because they right
now have enough bags of cornto feed the vulnerable people in
their church for the next 12months. And then each. Each month,
they kind of dole that out tothose that are most hungry, those
(18:28):
that are most needy.
That is such a neat ministry.I'm just. That's I'm very excited
to hear that. I had a podcastyears ago about someone who did the
wells and how they weredigging wells around the country
to try to provide some of thatin Africa, too. So I'm just. I love
what you're doing.
Yeah. The beauty ofdistributing through the church is
(18:50):
that we have no Americanoverhead. So when I do fundraising,
I literally can look you. Lookyou in the eyes and say, look, you
give me $5,000. I'm going tobuy seed and fertilizer this fall,
and every penny of that isgoing to Zambia to buy seed and fertilizer.
We have no American employees.We have no marketing budget. We have
(19:12):
no buildings. And so it's justusing God's network, which he has
naturally established throughhis kingdom in the churches. It just
allows us not to have toduplicate anything. And so it's.
Yeah, it's just. It'srefreshing because fundraising is
not a fun thing. I don't likeasking my friends for $5,000. I.
(19:33):
I pick that amount because wedo have a number of friends who have.
Who understand the vision ofwhat we're doing. And so every fall,
they write a check for 5,000,and every spring, they write a check
for 5,000. So they make a$10,000 annual donation, and that
puts them right in the middleof the development world within God's
(19:53):
kingdom. It's really fun.
So I'm glad you mentionedthat. So if somebody hears this and
says, I want to be a part ofthis ministry, how can they get involved
if they want to maybe go withyou to do this work or donate? Where
can they do that?
Yeah. So the best place tostart would be to go to our web website.
I don't know if you have a wayto share that, but our website is.
(20:14):
It's shoulder-thenumeral2-shoulder.org so shoulder-two-stander.org
and there's obviously a donatebutton there. We love to take donations.
We have two types of donors.The one that I just described, that.
That are kind of our largerdonors that give every fall and every
spring. We're trying to raiselarge amounts of money those two
(20:38):
times each year. But then wealso have monthly donors because
we do have a staff of five,actually six now, individuals in
Zambia. They're overseeing allthe work that is done every month.
They go out and they check theinventories. They make sure there's
no theft, they make surethere's no spoilage. They're making.
Making certain that all ofthese. All of these funds are going
(21:01):
where they're supposed to go.So we have travel budget there, we
have salaries there. And so,so we do have monthly needs as well.
And so we have a, we actuallyhave 130 donors at this point. So
we just, in May we sent overour one millionth dollar. So we've
been doing this for fiveyears. We've sent just over a million
(21:23):
dollars. All of it goes toZambia. So you can click on that
donate button, it'll ask doyou want to be a one time donor or
a monthly donor? We lovemonthly donors. $25 to $200. That
just helps to cover theoverhead that we do have in Zambia.
My, my brother also does ablog each week, sometimes more frequently
(21:46):
that he kind of updateseverybody on what's going on in Zambia.
That's, that's available on,on the website. In terms of going
there. Yeah, we're leavingAugust 8th to go. This will be my
third trip in the last fiveyears. My wife and I are going. We
also have a couple from Oregonwho is joining us there. They' that
(22:06):
we've had. They want to seewhat's going on in Zambia. And just
beautifully, we're takinganother agronomist from Iowa State
who's kind of a world renownedanimal guy. So to this point, all
of our farming efforts havebeen about growing corn. We're taking
a guy with us this time who'sgoing to help us try to figure out
(22:26):
how can we add protein tothese diets. It's one thing to give
them calories, but can we alsoprovide protein? And so I can't wait
to see what this, this guy isgreat at his job. He does development
around the world and I'manxious to see what he recommends
we try to do to get startedwith protein there in Zambia.
That's fascinating. I love tokeep us up to date on how that works
(22:48):
out. I'm curious about that.
Yeah, yeah, thanks.
So I'm curious. This just, I'msure you grew a lot from this work.
What did you learn as a leaderin doing this humanitarian work?
Well, the thing that I'mconstantly learning is what it means
to be faithful. Both mybrother and I, when we started the
(23:14):
work in Ghana, we said, okay,we'll go there, we'll do what we
need to do. We're happy tohelp, we're happy to donate. The
one thing I won't do isfundraising. And it's generally not
a great idea to tell Godthere's one thing you won't do because
I'm almost a professionalfundraiser now you've already heard
that out of my voice. And sojust learning to be faithful in everything
(23:40):
that he asks us to do. Wewere, we were sending over a few
hundred dollars every monthfor the first couple years. And we
don't have a budget, we don'thave a plan, we don't have a strategic
idea. We're just trying toeach month do what God asks us to
do. And so when my brothercame to me that first month and said,
we're going to buy corn thisyear and store it, he said, I'm going
(24:02):
to need $50,000. Well, thatjust sounded absolutely ridiculous
to me. We were sending over afew hundred dollars a month, but
we started praying about itand we started talking to our friends
about it. Lo and behold, wehad. We had $50,000. Now that next
spring, that next spring, we,we had to buy harvest for, for about
(24:23):
a hundred thousand dollars.And again, I actually traveled around
the country in Zambia lettingthem know, hey, you guys, pray for
us. We need a hundred thousanddollars in the next 30 days, and
I have no idea where it'sgoing to come from. Again, we put
the word out and we sent overmore than a hundred thousand dollars.
So just the main growth thatI've seen is just seeing how God
(24:44):
is faithful when I'm willingto do what he asked me to do, even
when I don't want to do it, Ilove it.
So what's next for you?
Well, next certainly is thetrip. And I'm anxious to see that.
This is a hardship. This isnot easy travel. The last time my
wife went with me two yearsago, she got sick on the plane on
(25:07):
the way over, they lost herluggage. She got sick on the flight
back and ended up in the er.Once we got back to Iowa, about a
week later with something inher stomach that shouldn't have been
in her stomach, she announcedto me at that time she would never
go again. Through a series ofevents too long for me to tell the
(25:28):
story. But she is getting onthe airplane and going this year.
So certainly that's the nextbig adventure. To see how God will
care for her, how our travelwill be managed, what he will do
through this trip. I'm superexcited. You know, Paul, I don't
know. I think it's Paul whowrote Hebrews. People will argue
(25:48):
with me about that. But theauthor of Hebrews said, hey, it's
not good for men to live onmilk. They also need meat. They need
protein. That is the theme ofthis trip is how do we grow this
thing? We feel God telling us,thanks for giving my people corn.
Now it's time to give themmeat. And I just can't wait to see
(26:11):
because I don't have thevision. I can't see it. I don't see
any way that it's going towork. But I believe he does. He can
and he, he probably will. AndI just can't, can't wait to see that.
So what I'm curious, as youthink about that challenge, what
is the challenge of meat inZambia? Is it, is it because of the
crops or is there some otherissues that you have to overcome?
(26:32):
Oh, yeah, there are. There areother issues. So my favorite place
in Zambia is Mamwe. Mamwe isprobably the most economically challenged
region that we will go toafter this 24 hours of flying. We'll
then get on a bus and we'lltake a 12 hour bus ride that'll take
(26:52):
us to Chapada. We'll do somestuff there, and then we'll take
a two or three hour bus rideto Monbwe. And we are literally in
the heart of Africa at thatpoint. This is one of the most economically
challenged places on theglobe. And we've said to them, hey,
we were planting corn. We'reproviding seed and fertilizer. The
chiefs in those places willgive them land. They have plenty
(27:16):
of land. So if they get theland, we give them the seed and fertilizer,
they can grow corn. Corn. Theyshake their heads and they say, we
can't. If we grow corn, theelephants will come and trample our
village. Because Mambwayhappens to be right next door to
where the country of Zambiadecided they were going to put their
Federal Game Reserve. And sowe said, okay, no problem. How about
(27:39):
fruit? Why don't we doorchards with oranges and apples?
And they said, yeah, no,that'll bring, that'll bring the
monkeys in. How about if we dochickens and goats? Because we see
all kinds of chickens andgoats around the country. Absolutely
not. That brings the lions andwe're in big trouble. I mean, just
you don't even think aboutthat. Nobody in Iowa is worried about
(28:00):
whether the elephants aregoing to come and trample the corn
or not. It's just so unique,seeing the different challenges that
we've seen. But I, I firmlybelieve God has an answer to that.
And I think we're gonna see,we're gonna see those things overcome.
Yeah. My biggest problem isthe deer in my backyard.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, every oncein a while they'll announce a mountain
(28:22):
lion. Is roaming about inIowa. Every decade or so that comes
on the news. And we're allintrigued by that. Literally, not
too long ago, one of ourdeacons in one of our churches was
trampled to death by anelephant. He was out working in his
field. And I, I can't evenimagine what that's like, but that.
(28:43):
This is 2025. This is, this isZambia. Yeah.
Wow, that's. That's amazing.So what one thing would you like?
One hope you want the audienceto know about the work you're doing
in Zambia.
So, so here is my biggestchallenge. Jesus said, I come to
(29:04):
preach good news to the poor.The people in Zambia love us when
we show up. We're bringingfood, we're bringing hope, we're
bringing good news to thepoor. Jesus also said it's harder
for a camel to get through theeye of a needle than for a rich man
to enter the kingdom of God.This food for faith sharing, it's
(29:29):
much more exciting to sharewith a guy who doesn't have enough
food than with a guy whodoesn't have enough faith. Because
frankly, in the United States,we all think we have more faith,
right? We all, we all, we allthink we're the, we think we're the
king of faith. And so, yeah,the biggest challenge is just to
get people in America who loveJesus to recognize that the American
(29:53):
dream is not equal to thekingdom of God. And that if you can
step out of that dream alittle bit and, and go more deeply
into the kingdom of God,you'll find that there's this upside
down world where wealthypeople are working to try to figure
out how to share food withpeople on the other side of the world.
And those people are thenautomatically sharing faith back
(30:17):
with us. And it's thisbeautiful exchange that, that God
has designed within hischurch. It's a worldwide exchange.
It's really. I'm just beinghonest with you. It's a tough sell
here in, here in the UnitedStates, Even here in Iowa. In Iowa,
our slogan is we feed the world.
Right?
But it's, but it's awfullydifficult for me to find very many
people who want to feed Zambians.
(30:38):
Yeah, that's great. So I loveto ask my guest this question to
what do you want your legacyto be?
I actually had a questionasked similar to this a few years
ago in a Bible study that waspart of. I don't think in terms of
legacy, but I thought I wasthinking about my funeral. So sometimes
(30:59):
I little. I don't know, Idon't know if that's. I don't know
what that is. But I wasthinking about my funeral. And here's,
here's my vision. My vision isthat one day I will die and there
will be a funeral. And therewill be people from every corner
of the state of Iowa, everycorner of the United States, every
corner of, of the world whosay, oh, man, we're gonna miss that
(31:23):
guy. And it'll probably,hopefully be a bunch of people who
were underprivileged in thislife who met me because I was trying
to find some way to makethings just a little bit easier.
I have, I have three fosterdaughters that are now grown, that
graduated high school in myhome. And, man, I love to watch them
(31:46):
grow and flourish. And I wantthem to celebrate my life at my funeral
because God connected me withthem. I want people from Ghana to,
to remember me as the guy whohelped them with their education,
their orphan needs. And Iwant, I want there to be a bunch
of people in Zambia who say,gosh, I wish that guy didn't die
because he was, he wasbringing us food. I, I just, I just.
(32:08):
That's how I think about it. Idon't know if that's legacy or not,
but I think about my funeral.
I love that. So here'ssomething new. In season six of the
podcast, I asked my guest topick a number, and they get a secret
question that you did not getahead of time. So pick a number.
I got to be number one. Let'sgo with number one.
(32:28):
Oh, here we go. If you had apersonal mascot, what would it be?
Oh, my goodness. A personalmascot. I. You know what? I think
(32:49):
I'm gonna go with the camel.
Okay.
You know, you know, I, Italked about this. This. You know,
Jesus insulted us when hesaid, you guys are a bunch of camels.
Right?
But I, I live out thatreality. I'm not, I'm, I'm not preaching
to everybody else. I'm talkingto myself. I want to fit through
the eye of that needle. Inorder to do that, I got to go from
(33:09):
being a big fat camel down toa little tiny, you know, think, honey,
I shrunk the kid type thing,right? Yeah. I want my mascot to
be a, to be a camel. I thinkthat's as honest as I can be.
That's so cool. Beast ofburden who brings. Who can.
I love it. I love it. Yeah. Aloaded down camel with bags of corn.
(33:30):
That's a beautiful picture.That's beautiful.
So, Rob, can you tell us wherepeople can connect with you and on
social media and Shoulder toShoulder if they want to be part
of this ministry you're doing.
Yeah, well,shoulder-two-stander.org is our website.
That's a great spot. We alsohave Shoulder to Shoulder on Instagram.
(33:52):
I think if you, if you searchfor Shoulder to Shoulder Zambia,
that's probably how you fight.Find us. The same thing is true on
Facebook. I do have a realestate page. If you, if you search
for Roger Wheeler, realtor inIowa, you'll probably find me. Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram. Yeah, Idon't know. I'm kind of new at this,
(34:13):
so I don't know how availableI am, but I hope people can find
me. And I do believe thatthere are some camels out there that
are listening to me that aresaying, hey, I've never really heard
anything like this. We thinkGod is building this unique community
called Shoulder to Shoulder.People all around the world that
I think are going to join in.It'll be a really fun thing of just
(34:33):
experiencing God's kingdom ina really special way.
Well, Roger, thanks so muchfor sharing today and really kind
of inspiring us with the workthat God has placed on your heart
to do and, and may you be anamazing camel for him and the work.
Amen. I'm gonna be prayingthat with you, brother. Thank you
very much. Maybe I'll see youup in Fort Dodge someday.
You never know. Yeah, we gotit. We got a taco Tico up here, so
(34:54):
you can come.
There we go. There we go.Actually, I'm an elder at Friendship
Baptist Church in Ames, Iowa.That is National Baptist NBC Church.
And I will be preaching onSunday, August 3rd. I'm going to
deliver to my church a previewof the message I'm going to be taking
with me to Zambia. So if you,if you get the itch, come on down
(35:17):
to ames in about 10 days.
Well, sure. And we'll bepraying for your work there and that
your wife gets. Get there andback getting sick and.
Please.
And losing any luggage.
Please. I'd like to reportback, have me on again after we get
back sometime this fall. I'dlove to report.
I would love to have you backbecause I'm dying to hear what you
find out from the meat thing.So. Protein thing. So if you, you
(35:37):
figure that out.
Me too.
Come back on, we'll talk about it.
Okay. Thank you, brother.
Roger Wheeler has been a realestate broker by trade for 28 years
and a founding board member ofShoulder to Shoulder. He has become
an advocate for those lessfortunate in the country of Zambia.
We welcome Roger to thepodcast. Well, Roger, welcome to
the podcast. How are you doing today?
Thank you. I'm doing fabulous.It's a thrill to be with you.
(00:23):
It's a pleasure to be withyou, too. I'm going to ask you my
favorite question that noguest can avoid answering. And that
is what's the best piece ofadvice for you've ever received?
Yeah, so that's a bit of achallenge, but I. You're going to
find as we chat that I'm aBible guy. I highly value the Bible.
(00:43):
And When I was 21, 22 yearsold, I led my first small group Bible
study with a young marriedsgroup. And at the end of that study,
one of my friends came up tome and said, wow, you're really good
at that. You'd be dangerous ifyou knew anything about the Bible.
(01:03):
And I kind of took thatpersonally because I'd been raised
in the Bible, but that, thatit wasn't really advice, it was more
of a challenge. And so I'vebeen on a bit of a journey ever since
then. And actually I'll followthat up. About 15 years ago, a pastor
of mine did a New Year's Evesermon and he challenged everybody
(01:28):
in the sanctuary to write outthe Bible, to transcribe the Bible.
And I said, wow, I neverthought of anything like that. I
was kind of a read through theBible type guy. And I said, okay,
I'll give that a shot. And soI started. And six and a half years
later, I had transcribed theentire Bible, going about an hour
(01:51):
a day. And so I. Those areprobably the two best pieces of advice
I've ever got.
That is interesting. I neverthought of that. Those are really
interesting. I love those.Both. Those are really good. I can
take those. And after, after acouple years, say, as Keith always
says.
Yeah.
So I'm curious, Roger, as youthink about your life and people
(02:11):
who have been important toyou, who are some people that served
as a mentor or inspiration foryou, here's a chance for you to kind
of give them a shout out andthank them for being such an important,
vital part of your life.
Yeah, well, so I don't have alot of those. When I was 18, my father
had a major stroke, massivestroke, and lived as an Invalid the
(02:35):
last 8 last 18 years of hislife. And so I've kind of thought
over the decades, if I had hadan active father in my life in my
20s and my 30s, I think itwould have made a difference for
me. But I didn't really, and Ididn't really have anybody step in
and kind of take that spot. Iwas always kind of active with peer
(02:58):
groups my own age. I do. I, Ifeel like I have a relationship with
the Holy Spirit that's alittle bit of a mentoring type of
thing in a, in a unique way.And I don't want to over spiritualize
anything. But if I were toname a human being, I would say Tom
Nesbit, who was a pastor atGrand Avenue Baptist Church in, in
(03:23):
Ames, Iowa. He's the guy whochallenged me to transcribe the Bible.
And I did serve and, andworship under him for a number of
years. And he, he stands kindof large in my life.
Oh, that's so cool. So, Roger,I'm curious about your journey. You've
been a real estate agent fornearly three decades. What drew you
to that profession?
(03:45):
Excuse me. Yeah, so right outof college at Drake, I graduated
from Drake University. We cantalk Iowa, since there you go.
Go Drake.
We're both in Iowa right now.I graduated from Drake and I got
into the technology sector andfound myself in sales. And I, I can
talk and communicate prettywell. And so I had some success at
(04:06):
sales. I ended up selling atechnology product that had me flying
around the world most of thetime. Eastern half of the U.S. caribbean,
South America, Australia. Andthen I had three little children
and really decided that wasn'ta great way to raise children. And
so I was looking for somethingthat would allow me to use what I'd
(04:29):
learned in the, in the fieldof sales but not have to travel very
much. And you know as well asI do in Iowa, we don't have a ton
of stuff. And so really the,the big ticket items are when people
are buying homes.
Right.
Buying real, buying realestate. So, yeah, I actually had
a friend who was just startingin the building, in the construction
field, said, hey, I'll build.He said, I'll build houses if you
(04:50):
sell them. And that kind ofgot me into it.
Also in Iowa, we don't like totravel because there's no good way
to get out of Iowa. And the plane.
Yeah. 6:00am Des MoinesAirport flights are. Yeah.
Are killers. So you don't want.
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Oh, so it's so funny, youknow. So tell us about what your
(05:10):
journey led you to, from realestate to your humanitarian work
in Zambia.
Yeah. So there really isn'tmuch connection between real estate
and humanitarian work otherthan having a career as a Realtor
gives the flexibility to dokind of anything you want to do.
(05:33):
I say, you know, every once ina while, a young realtor will kind
of complain to me about thedifficulty of their job, and I will
just try to take them back astep and say, look, almost anybody
in the world would tradeplaces with you. You have the best
gig. We have a lot of freedom.We can make a pretty good income.
And so that leaves us withopportunities to do what we want
(05:56):
with our time. I actuallydidn't start in Africa. I started
up in South Dakota on a NativeAmerican reservation. Because I was,
as I was transcribing theBible, I was noticing that poverty
was a big theme. Seems likeGod cares about people who are impoverished.
Yes.
(06:16):
And that's honestly not thateasy to find in Iowa. Iowa is a pretty
well off state. I don't, Idon't want to be little because there
are people who struggle, butit's different when you go to other
spots of the world. So onRosebud Indian reservation, I was
able to see kind of anAmerican version of poverty. And
then I ended up in Ghana tosee more of a, kind of a world vision
(06:40):
of poverty. I was, my, myfamily was doing orphan care and
education there. And then my,my brother and I decided, you know,
it seemed like Jesus reallyliked to feed hungry people. And
so we started thinking aboutwhat it might look like to feed people.
And we discovered Zambia isone of the hungriest places on the
face of the earth. It's alsovery Christian that 98% of the people
(07:04):
in, in Zambia are reportedlyChristian. And so it, it was a place
where we could travel safelyto, to see brothers and sisters in
Christ who were at the otherend of the economic spectrum and
say, hey, let's do this thing together.
So tell us about Shoulder to Shoulder.
Yeah, so Shoulder to shoulderstarted in 2020, and it's based fully
(07:30):
on this Bible verse that comesout of Second Corinthians, chapter
eight. I'm going to read itfor you. I, I didn't like the message
version of the Bible. Mybrother was a big fan and I do thank
Eugene Peterson now because hedid some great stuff. But in Second
Corinthians, chapter 8, Paulis talking about this thing called
the Collection for the Saints.It's a thread that I think a lot
(07:51):
of people don't recognizeBiblically. When I say I transcribed
the Bible, it caused me to getinto some nooks and crannies that
I lot of people don't see. Andif I ask almost anybody what was
the Apostle Paul doing on hismissionary journeys, they say, well,
he was evangelizing for sure,and he was church planning. And most
people would limit it to thosethree things. Well, there actually
(08:12):
are those two things. Thereactually was a third leg to that.
And he was collecting moneybecause there were people starving
in Jerusalem. And soeverywhere that Paul went, he was
picking up money from thechurches and he was finding a way
to get it back to Jerusalem.He called that the collection for
the saints. And it'sreferenced maybe a dozen times, times
throughout the New testament.But in 2nd Corinthians 8 and 9, he
(08:35):
gives kind of his treatise onthat project. And in chapter 8, verse
13, Paul says to theCorinthian church, he says, so here's
what I think. The best thingyou can do right now is to finish
what you started last year andnot let those good intentions grow
stale. Your heart's been inthe right place all along. You've
got to. You've got what ittakes to finish up. So get to it.
(08:57):
Once the commitment is clear,you do what you can, not what you
can't, then listen to this.This isn't so others can take it
easy while you sweat it out.No, your shoulder to shoulder with
them all the way. Your surplusmatching their deficit, Their surplus
matching your deficit. And mybrother and I fell in love with that
(09:18):
passage. It describes a trade.It took us a while to figure it out,
but the trade is food forfaith. In our case, we have lots
of food in Iowa. In fact, whenI go to Zambia, I have to confess
that my relationship with foodis I try not to eat too much. That's
the challenge, right? But thatis. That's kind of insulting in Zambia
(09:40):
because the people I'mspending time with there are trying
to figure out how to getenough to eat, right? So I have.
I have a surplus, they have adeficit. It took me a while to figure
out what they have in surplusthat I have in deficit. Because Paul
clearly states it as a tradehere. It took a couple years and
we finally realized when youwake up in the morning and you don't
(10:01):
know how you're going to feedyour children that day, there's really
only one thing you have, andthat is faith. And so there is a
level of faith that my Zambianfriends have that I'm never going
to get to. I have a deficit inthat area. But as I share with them,
I find myself growing in thatarea. So we do a food for faith trade.
That's what shoulder toShoulder is all about.
(10:23):
So tell us more about itbecause I'm fascinated by that. Tell
me a little bit more aboutZambia for those of us who've not
visited it. Kind of give uskind of a snapshot of what you would
experience if you landed onthe shores or the streets of Zambia.
Well, I will land in ZambiaAugust 9, so in a couple of weeks
with my wife. And we will fly.It will be in the air for 24 hours.
(10:45):
It's miserable travel to getthere. We'll live in the. Arrive
in the capital city of Lusaka.It's a large developing world type
of city. But then veryquickly, we will move out into some
regions where we do workmostly in the villages. And when
(11:07):
you drive out into thatvillage, I want to be careful not
to say anything that feelsinsulting at all. But it's almost
like you're in a time machineand you drive back two or 300 years.
We actually have been doingsome training on farming techniques.
We've connected with someagriculture guys from Iowa State
(11:27):
University, and the trainingthat we're doing is moving these
village farmers from what youwould say is maybe an 18th century
farming technique to a 20th.Maybe 19th century. 20th century
farming technique. And so youjust, you just see a different world,
(11:48):
a different time, and you seepeople very unconcerned with all
of the modern amenities andchallenges that we experience here
in the United States. Youpeople, you see people concerned
with the basics of life. Howdo I. How do I protect my children
from the elements? How do Ifeed them? Each day? It's just very
(12:10):
different.
How do you balance. Becauseyou're coming from a different culture
altogether. How do you balancenot going to a place and doing harm?
Because I know some people,some missionaries or missionary work
goes over. And you'reintending to do good. Because I just
talked to a person I want togo from, From Haiti, and he says
when people come to Haiti,what they end up doing is they bring
(12:34):
clothes to the people in Haitiwhich they can never wear. So how
do you. How do you make surethat what you're doing is. Is actually
providing.
Yeah.
Stuff that they.
So, yeah, there's a. There's abook out that a lot of people know
called When Helping Hurts.
Yes.
And people reference that withme a lot. My son actually says I
should write a sequel to thatcalled When Helping Helps. The reality
(12:57):
is, if you have no food inyour home and you're just trying
to figure out how to eat andfeed your family. There really isn't
any way to harm that person bygiving them food.
Right.
So we're. What we've done iswe've established a distribution
network through the church inZambia. So everything we do is, Even
(13:19):
though we're a 501C3 as aparachurch here in. In the United
States, we operate through thechurch in Zambia. So we have 124
churches currently. Wedistribute corn to each of those
churches monthly. All of thosechurches have. Have given us kind
of a snapshot of theirmembership. They may have 300 members,
(13:42):
and maybe they identify 40 ofthose members as vulnerable. That's
the term we use. Their foodinsecure. For the most part, these
people are eating two to threemeals per week. And when I use the
word meal, I'm using itloosely. It's basically a ball of
cornmeal, they call it inShima, and they're eating two or
(14:03):
three of those a week. Sothese people are living sometimes
on 400 to 600 calories perweek. And so our program works with
the churches to provide bagsof mealy meal which they cook, they
boil into in Shima so thatthat household is able to consume
(14:24):
two meals per day. And sowe're taking them to somewhere around
3,000 calories a week. Stillnot nothing at all by American standards.
But our goal is that we'reelevating that caloric intake to
the point where they now canbecome functioning members of the
Kingdom of God. They don'thave to spend all day, every day,
(14:45):
worrying about how they'regoing to find their next meal.
How did you end up working inthat field and finding this particular
community? I'm just curious.
Social media is a great thing.When we were doing work in Ghana,
we were working. We built anorphanage and a school there. And
there were some connectionswhere we brought in a farmer from
(15:08):
Zambia who was doing farmtraining there. He came into our
orphanage in Ghana and helpedthem set up a farm. And we just got
to know him over a couple ofyears. And so when we decided, uh,
it's kind of odd, but eventhough we were doing relief work
in Ghana, we decided therereally weren't that many hungry people
(15:29):
there. Uh, if you look at theWorld Hunger Index, you kind of get
an idea of where the hungriestspots on the globe are. And we found
that Zambia was much Hungrier.There's about 5 million people that
are starving right now inZambia. And so we connected with
this gentleman when he wentback to Zambia. We ended up in his
church network. Once you're onFacebook, connected to one Zambian
(15:52):
pastor, it's not very long.You're connected to 100 Zambian pastors.
And my brother, my brother,Rob Wheeler, we're partners in this.
He loves to be on socialmedia, connecting with the pastors
and the people in Zambia.
So what were some of the. Youtalked about? Just the food insecurity.
What are some of the otherchallenges you've. You've run across
and you're doing thishumanitarian work?
(16:16):
Well, we. We're not providing.Providing relief work for food is
our basic. That's our basicgoal. We also drill boreholes. Fresh
water is a pretty massiveproblem throughout Zambia. We actually
have a group that went with mybrother last year from Denver and
(16:38):
Colorado Springs area, andthey are now drilling one or two
boreholes every month throughthis year. So we've done something
like 25 or 30 wells, which.That's. That's an interesting thing
that we need to balancebecause by. By sending money to feed
hungry people, we'redefinitely affecting a family. And
(17:00):
right now we're serving foodmonthly to about 3,500 families.
Maybe 25, 20, 25,000 peopleare eating. But if we take $2,000
out of that feeding budget andwe dig a borehole, then that literally
changes an entire community.And not just for this, this month,
(17:20):
but for in. Into thisforeseeable future. And so we're
always trying to balancethose, but both of those, we think,
are really kind of reliefwork. We have moved into the development
side more where we are doingfarm training. We provide every fall
here, we provide inputs. SoNovember, December time frame, we
provide food, I'm sorry, seedand fertilizer to some of our farmers
(17:44):
in some of our churches thatwe work with, those that have been
trained. And then every springin the April, May time frame, we
buy their harvest. And so wethen take that harvest. So we just
sent over roughly $145,000 tobuy bags of corn. That corn has been
stored now in our 124churches. So when my wife and I are
(18:06):
over there next month, we willtravel around to the regions that
we're doing work in. And allof those churches will be so excited
to show us the stores cornthat they have, because they right
now have enough bags of cornto feed the vulnerable people in
their church for the next 12months. And then each. Each month,
they kind of dole that out tothose that are most hungry, those
(18:28):
that are most needy.
That is such a neat ministry.I'm just. That's I'm very excited
to hear that. I had a podcastyears ago about someone who did the
wells and how they weredigging wells around the country
to try to provide some of thatin Africa, too. So I'm just. I love
what you're doing.
Yeah. The beauty ofdistributing through the church is
(18:50):
that we have no Americanoverhead. So when I do fundraising,
I literally can look you. Lookyou in the eyes and say, look, you
give me $5,000. I'm going tobuy seed and fertilizer this fall,
and every penny of that isgoing to Zambia to buy seed and fertilizer.
We have no American employees.We have no marketing budget. We have
(19:12):
no buildings. And so it's justusing God's network, which he has
naturally established throughhis kingdom in the churches. It just
allows us not to have toduplicate anything. And so it's.
Yeah, it's just. It'srefreshing because fundraising is
not a fun thing. I don't likeasking my friends for $5,000. I.
(19:33):
I pick that amount because wedo have a number of friends who have.
Who understand the vision ofwhat we're doing. And so every fall,
they write a check for 5,000,and every spring, they write a check
for 5,000. So they make a$10,000 annual donation, and that
puts them right in the middleof the development world within God's
(19:53):
kingdom. It's really fun.
So I'm glad you mentionedthat. So if somebody hears this and
says, I want to be a part ofthis ministry, how can they get involved
if they want to maybe go withyou to do this work or donate? Where
can they do that?
Yeah. So the best place tostart would be to go to our web website.
I don't know if you have a wayto share that, but our website is.
(20:14):
It's shoulder-thenumeral2-shoulder.org so shoulder-two-stander.org
and there's obviously a donatebutton there. We love to take donations.
We have two types of donors.The one that I just described, that.
That are kind of our largerdonors that give every fall and every
spring. We're trying to raiselarge amounts of money those two
(20:38):
times each year. But then wealso have monthly donors because
we do have a staff of five,actually six now, individuals in
Zambia. They're overseeing allthe work that is done every month.
They go out and they check theinventories. They make sure there's
no theft, they make surethere's no spoilage. They're making.
Making certain that all ofthese. All of these funds are going
(21:01):
where they're supposed to go.So we have travel budget there, we
have salaries there. And so,so we do have monthly needs as well.
And so we have a, we actuallyhave 130 donors at this point. So
we just, in May we sent overour one millionth dollar. So we've
been doing this for fiveyears. We've sent just over a million
(21:23):
dollars. All of it goes toZambia. So you can click on that
donate button, it'll ask doyou want to be a one time donor or
a monthly donor? We lovemonthly donors. $25 to $200. That
just helps to cover theoverhead that we do have in Zambia.
My, my brother also does ablog each week, sometimes more frequently
(21:46):
that he kind of updateseverybody on what's going on in Zambia.
That's, that's available on,on the website. In terms of going
there. Yeah, we're leavingAugust 8th to go. This will be my
third trip in the last fiveyears. My wife and I are going. We
also have a couple from Oregonwho is joining us there. They' that
(22:06):
we've had. They want to seewhat's going on in Zambia. And just
beautifully, we're takinganother agronomist from Iowa State
who's kind of a world renownedanimal guy. So to this point, all
of our farming efforts havebeen about growing corn. We're taking
a guy with us this time who'sgoing to help us try to figure out
(22:26):
how can we add protein tothese diets. It's one thing to give
them calories, but can we alsoprovide protein? And so I can't wait
to see what this, this guy isgreat at his job. He does development
around the world and I'manxious to see what he recommends
we try to do to get startedwith protein there in Zambia.
That's fascinating. I love tokeep us up to date on how that works
(22:48):
out. I'm curious about that.
Yeah, yeah, thanks.
So I'm curious. This just, I'msure you grew a lot from this work.
What did you learn as a leaderin doing this humanitarian work?
Well, the thing that I'mconstantly learning is what it means
to be faithful. Both mybrother and I, when we started the
(23:14):
work in Ghana, we said, okay,we'll go there, we'll do what we
need to do. We're happy tohelp, we're happy to donate. The
one thing I won't do isfundraising. And it's generally not
a great idea to tell Godthere's one thing you won't do because
I'm almost a professionalfundraiser now you've already heard
that out of my voice. And sojust learning to be faithful in everything
(23:40):
that he asks us to do. Wewere, we were sending over a few
hundred dollars every monthfor the first couple years. And we
don't have a budget, we don'thave a plan, we don't have a strategic
idea. We're just trying toeach month do what God asks us to
do. And so when my brothercame to me that first month and said,
we're going to buy corn thisyear and store it, he said, I'm going
(24:02):
to need $50,000. Well, thatjust sounded absolutely ridiculous
to me. We were sending over afew hundred dollars a month, but
we started praying about itand we started talking to our friends
about it. Lo and behold, wehad. We had $50,000. Now that next
spring, that next spring, we,we had to buy harvest for, for about
(24:23):
a hundred thousand dollars.And again, I actually traveled around
the country in Zambia lettingthem know, hey, you guys, pray for
us. We need a hundred thousanddollars in the next 30 days, and
I have no idea where it'sgoing to come from. Again, we put
the word out and we sent overmore than a hundred thousand dollars.
So just the main growth thatI've seen is just seeing how God
(24:44):
is faithful when I'm willingto do what he asked me to do, even
when I don't want to do it, Ilove it.
So what's next for you?
Well, next certainly is thetrip. And I'm anxious to see that.
This is a hardship. This isnot easy travel. The last time my
wife went with me two yearsago, she got sick on the plane on
(25:07):
the way over, they lost herluggage. She got sick on the flight
back and ended up in the er.Once we got back to Iowa, about a
week later with something inher stomach that shouldn't have been
in her stomach, she announcedto me at that time she would never
go again. Through a series ofevents too long for me to tell the
(25:28):
story. But she is getting onthe airplane and going this year.
So certainly that's the nextbig adventure. To see how God will
care for her, how our travelwill be managed, what he will do
through this trip. I'm superexcited. You know, Paul, I don't
know. I think it's Paul whowrote Hebrews. People will argue
(25:48):
with me about that. But theauthor of Hebrews said, hey, it's
not good for men to live onmilk. They also need meat. They need
protein. That is the theme ofthis trip is how do we grow this
thing? We feel God telling us,thanks for giving my people corn.
Now it's time to give themmeat. And I just can't wait to see
(26:11):
because I don't have thevision. I can't see it. I don't see
any way that it's going towork. But I believe he does. He can
and he, he probably will. AndI just can't, can't wait to see that.
So what I'm curious, as youthink about that challenge, what
is the challenge of meat inZambia? Is it, is it because of the
crops or is there some otherissues that you have to overcome?
(26:32):
Oh, yeah, there are. There areother issues. So my favorite place
in Zambia is Mamwe. Mamwe isprobably the most economically challenged
region that we will go toafter this 24 hours of flying. We'll
then get on a bus and we'lltake a 12 hour bus ride that'll take
(26:52):
us to Chapada. We'll do somestuff there, and then we'll take
a two or three hour bus rideto Monbwe. And we are literally in
the heart of Africa at thatpoint. This is one of the most economically
challenged places on theglobe. And we've said to them, hey,
we were planting corn. We'reproviding seed and fertilizer. The
chiefs in those places willgive them land. They have plenty
(27:16):
of land. So if they get theland, we give them the seed and fertilizer,
they can grow corn. Corn. Theyshake their heads and they say, we
can't. If we grow corn, theelephants will come and trample our
village. Because Mambwayhappens to be right next door to
where the country of Zambiadecided they were going to put their
Federal Game Reserve. And sowe said, okay, no problem. How about
(27:39):
fruit? Why don't we doorchards with oranges and apples?
And they said, yeah, no,that'll bring, that'll bring the
monkeys in. How about if we dochickens and goats? Because we see
all kinds of chickens andgoats around the country. Absolutely
not. That brings the lions andwe're in big trouble. I mean, just
you don't even think aboutthat. Nobody in Iowa is worried about
(28:00):
whether the elephants aregoing to come and trample the corn
or not. It's just so unique,seeing the different challenges that
we've seen. But I, I firmlybelieve God has an answer to that.
And I think we're gonna see,we're gonna see those things overcome.
Yeah. My biggest problem isthe deer in my backyard.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, every oncein a while they'll announce a mountain
(28:22):
lion. Is roaming about inIowa. Every decade or so that comes
on the news. And we're allintrigued by that. Literally, not
too long ago, one of ourdeacons in one of our churches was
trampled to death by anelephant. He was out working in his
field. And I, I can't evenimagine what that's like, but that.
(28:43):
This is 2025. This is, this isZambia. Yeah.
Wow, that's. That's amazing.So what one thing would you like?
One hope you want the audienceto know about the work you're doing
in Zambia.
So, so here is my biggestchallenge. Jesus said, I come to
(29:04):
preach good news to the poor.The people in Zambia love us when
we show up. We're bringingfood, we're bringing hope, we're
bringing good news to thepoor. Jesus also said it's harder
for a camel to get through theeye of a needle than for a rich man
to enter the kingdom of God.This food for faith sharing, it's
(29:29):
much more exciting to sharewith a guy who doesn't have enough
food than with a guy whodoesn't have enough faith. Because
frankly, in the United States,we all think we have more faith,
right? We all, we all, we allthink we're the, we think we're the
king of faith. And so, yeah,the biggest challenge is just to
get people in America who loveJesus to recognize that the American
(29:53):
dream is not equal to thekingdom of God. And that if you can
step out of that dream alittle bit and, and go more deeply
into the kingdom of God,you'll find that there's this upside
down world where wealthypeople are working to try to figure
out how to share food withpeople on the other side of the world.
And those people are thenautomatically sharing faith back
(30:17):
with us. And it's thisbeautiful exchange that, that God
has designed within hischurch. It's a worldwide exchange.
It's really. I'm just beinghonest with you. It's a tough sell
here in, here in the UnitedStates, Even here in Iowa. In Iowa,
our slogan is we feed the world.
Right?
But it's, but it's awfullydifficult for me to find very many
people who want to feed Zambians.
(30:38):
Yeah, that's great. So I loveto ask my guest this question to
what do you want your legacyto be?
I actually had a questionasked similar to this a few years
ago in a Bible study that waspart of. I don't think in terms of
legacy, but I thought I wasthinking about my funeral. So sometimes
(30:59):
I little. I don't know, Idon't know if that's. I don't know
what that is. But I wasthinking about my funeral. And here's,
here's my vision. My vision isthat one day I will die and there
will be a funeral. And therewill be people from every corner
of the state of Iowa, everycorner of the United States, every
corner of, of the world whosay, oh, man, we're gonna miss that
(31:23):
guy. And it'll probably,hopefully be a bunch of people who
were underprivileged in thislife who met me because I was trying
to find some way to makethings just a little bit easier.
I have, I have three fosterdaughters that are now grown, that
graduated high school in myhome. And, man, I love to watch them
(31:46):
grow and flourish. And I wantthem to celebrate my life at my funeral
because God connected me withthem. I want people from Ghana to,
to remember me as the guy whohelped them with their education,
their orphan needs. And Iwant, I want there to be a bunch
of people in Zambia who say,gosh, I wish that guy didn't die
because he was, he wasbringing us food. I, I just, I just.
(32:08):
That's how I think about it. Idon't know if that's legacy or not,
but I think about my funeral.
I love that. So here'ssomething new. In season six of the
podcast, I asked my guest topick a number, and they get a secret
question that you did not getahead of time. So pick a number.
I got to be number one. Let'sgo with number one.
(32:28):
Oh, here we go. If you had apersonal mascot, what would it be?
Oh, my goodness. A personalmascot. I. You know what? I think
(32:49):
I'm gonna go with the camel.
Okay.
You know, you know, I, Italked about this. This. You know,
Jesus insulted us when hesaid, you guys are a bunch of camels.
Right?
But I, I live out thatreality. I'm not, I'm, I'm not preaching
to everybody else. I'm talkingto myself. I want to fit through
the eye of that needle. Inorder to do that, I got to go from
(33:09):
being a big fat camel down toa little tiny, you know, think, honey,
I shrunk the kid type thing,right? Yeah. I want my mascot to
be a, to be a camel. I thinkthat's as honest as I can be.
That's so cool. Beast ofburden who brings. Who can.
I love it. I love it. Yeah. Aloaded down camel with bags of corn.
(33:30):
That's a beautiful picture.That's beautiful.
So, Rob, can you tell us wherepeople can connect with you and on
social media and Shoulder toShoulder if they want to be part
of this ministry you're doing.
Yeah, well,shoulder-two-stander.org is our website.
That's a great spot. We alsohave Shoulder to Shoulder on Instagram.
(33:52):
I think if you, if you searchfor Shoulder to Shoulder Zambia,
that's probably how you fight.Find us. The same thing is true on
Facebook. I do have a realestate page. If you, if you search
for Roger Wheeler, realtor inIowa, you'll probably find me. Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram. Yeah, Idon't know. I'm kind of new at this,
(34:13):
so I don't know how availableI am, but I hope people can find
me. And I do believe thatthere are some camels out there that
are listening to me that aresaying, hey, I've never really heard
anything like this. We thinkGod is building this unique community
called Shoulder to Shoulder.People all around the world that
I think are going to join in.It'll be a really fun thing of just
(34:33):
experiencing God's kingdom ina really special way.
Well, Roger, thanks so muchfor sharing today and really kind
of inspiring us with the workthat God has placed on your heart
to do and, and may you be anamazing camel for him and the work.
Amen. I'm gonna be prayingthat with you, brother. Thank you
very much. Maybe I'll see youup in Fort Dodge someday.
You never know. Yeah, we gotit. We got a taco Tico up here, so
(34:54):
you can come.
There we go. There we go.Actually, I'm an elder at Friendship
Baptist Church in Ames, Iowa.That is National Baptist NBC Church.
And I will be preaching onSunday, August 3rd. I'm going to
deliver to my church a previewof the message I'm going to be taking
with me to Zambia. So if you,if you get the itch, come on down
(35:17):
to ames in about 10 days.
Well, sure. And we'll bepraying for your work there and that
your wife gets. Get there andback getting sick and.
Please.
And losing any luggage.
Please. I'd like to reportback, have me on again after we get
back sometime this fall. I'dlove to report.
I would love to have you backbecause I'm dying to hear what you
find out from the meat thing.So. Protein thing. So if you, you
(35:37):
figure that out.
Me too.
Come back on, we'll talk about it.
Okay. Thank you, brother.
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