December 1, 2025 • 43 mins
We trace Eric Long’s path from American Dream career to a redemptive tech mission that brings thoughtful connectivity to remote workers reaching the unreached. A field-tested pilot in Papua New Guinea shows how mesh networks can lift isolation, support families, and enable care.
• vision of all nations and the task remaining
• college friendship becomes a faith-fueled partnership
• ritual faith challenged by loss and rebuilt as relationship
• leaving IBM to pursue a calling grounded in Ephesians 2:10
• forming a three-legged company with a redemptive core
• why “Pleroo” and the wind-in-the-sail metaphor
• mesh networking explained in simple terms
• guardrails against harmful, unfettered internet access
• Papua New Guinea pilot outcomes and daily impact
• telehealth, Bible access, and offline-first tools
• cost, kits, and a nonprofit model that lowers barriers
• design for needs, not ego or one-size-fits-all
• plug-and-play deployment and remote support
• discipleship ripple effects and practical next steps
Go check out pleroo.world
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:05):
In Revelation 7, John shares his vision of heaven
with members from every tribe,tongue, people, and language
standing in the throne roombefore the land.
Yet today, there are still over7,000 unreached people groups
around the world.
For the last six years, myfamily and friends have been on
the journey to find, vet, andfund the task remaining.
(00:30):
Come the journey with us to theends of the earth as we share
the supernatural stories of Godat work to the minimum he has
called to reach the unreachedgreat.
Hello, friends.
Welcome back to the UnreachPodcast.
Dustin Elliott here today.
Your host and I have a friend ofmine.
We've been friends for the last24-5 years here today.
(00:51):
Our friendship started in a verysecular way.
It took a very sacred turn laterin life.
And you're going to hear storiestoday.
This is going to pull on severalthreads we've talked about
recently.
This is part of the rising tidethat lifts all boats.
This is this is when tech meetsmissions and supports missions.
This is a lessons today in howlocal discipleship can have
(01:12):
global impact and how lovingyour neighbor well and checking
in on old friends can becomeincredibly redemptive through
the Holy Spirit and throughGod's power to reach the
unreached.
And so I'm so excited to welcomemy old fraternity brother and my
longtime friend, Mr.
Eric Long.
Eric, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_03 (01:31):
Dustin, thank you so much for having me here, man.
It is such a what a change 24years, 25 years makes.
SPEAKER_00 (01:37):
No kidding.
No kidding.
Eric rushed me into thefraternity.
He's a year older than me incollege for context.
And uh I'd say the only time wewere praying uh at that point in
our lives was was when we neededto pass a final.
Um a lot has changed.
SPEAKER_03 (01:51):
Maybe not to do some some after some partying the
mornings after, but maybe yeah,maybe some.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (01:57):
I don't know if that's I think that's
applicable.
I think that's applicable.
We're gonna talk a little bitabout Eric's story because
Eric's story has some reallymajor um meat in his testimony
of stuff that he's walkedthrough in his life and that
God's used to wire him for, andI use that term wire kind of pun
intended, right?
(02:18):
Because we got a tech guy, wirehim for where he is and what
he's doing today.
So part of his story is going tobe tough.
It's gonna be hard to hear, butif you'll stay with us to the
point where we get to where thistechnology is enabling
connectivity in the missionsworld, uh particularly in really
hard-to-reach places wherethere's not great, you know,
(02:39):
internet access or electricity,uh, this tech that they've
created and then found out akind of figured out a way
through the Lord to enable itinto this nonprofit side is
game-changing.
So if you are in missions, ifyou know anyone in missions, if
you know anyone runningbusinesses in parts of the world
that it would help theirbusiness if they could be more
(03:02):
connected to their workers inthe field, this is something you
need to hear.
This is a technology you couldimplement and use, and and it
would dramatically enhance yourability to do your jobs well in
the field.
So stay with us today.
Hear this tech, and then you'reprobably gonna want to call Eric
when we get done.
(03:22):
All right.
SPEAKER_03 (03:23):
Man, for not being a techie, you're you're nailing
the outcomes of what we'redoing, which is which is fun.
And we'll get to that.
SPEAKER_00 (03:28):
I'm a tech investor.
I got a little bit of it.
Okay, so so let's go back to uhlet's start back at the
beginning, right?
So before I knew you, um yougrew up in Houston.
SPEAKER_01 (03:38):
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (03:39):
Give us a little talk about kind of you you had
you had some religion and somekind of repetition early in your
life.
Take us through that.
SPEAKER_03 (03:46):
Grew up in Katie, Texas, right outside of Houston
for the better part of my I callI call it childhood.
I wasn't born there.
I was actually born in Kansas,migrated south to Oklahoma for a
little stint.
Thank goodness that was short,right?
Can't be in Sooner Country toolong.
Um, and then got to Katie when Iwas in about fourth grade.
And some of my uh my past withand my relationship with Jesus
(04:09):
started real early.
God was never not a part of ofthe family.
I still remember my baptismstory, my parents tell me over
and over.
Um I got sprinkled with withwater, as we'd call it now, back
in the day when I was a baby,and I'm a twin.
And so there's the pastor hadtwo of us up there, and I
grabbed his microphone whilethey were baptizing my twin
(04:31):
brother, grabbed the microphoneand decided to just swallow it
with my mouth.
And so that was how I I guess myfirst relationship when I got
sprinkled and baptized, decidedto swallow a uh what do you the
land of lavalier mics?
Is that what they're called?
SPEAKER_00 (04:44):
Um I don't know, Clint's not on the mic today,
I'm sure he would know theanswer.
SPEAKER_03 (04:48):
So that was kind of my intro into the world, yeah,
into the relationship.
Take it all in, yeah.
That's right.
Yeah, uh so grew up Methodist,God was always around, but it
was really more routine and I'dcall it religion as opposed to
relationships.
So, you know, checkboxy uhrelationship with the Lord.
And then one of the reallydefining moments was a missions
(05:12):
trip.
So yeah, United Methodist Churchum had something back in the day
called UM Army, and we went toborder towns um in Texas on the
Mexico border, and we got towork and we were there and you'd
spend a week involved in this,and I still remember the impact
like seemingly small things hadon these on these folks that
(05:33):
just brought Jesus into them.
They could see Jesus through thework that was being done and
some of the outcomes, and thenthat man, that sticks today.
Past that, it became moreroutine getting to the college
years, which you alluded toearlier.
What was to the typical Americandream?
You know, we were in collegebecause we wanted to socialize,
(05:53):
we wanted to make sure that wewere armed to crush the business
world.
That was the goal, that was thedream, that was what we what we
were chasing.
Of course.
So started dating a wonderfulwoman in uh high school, went
through dating on and offthrough college, but mostly on,
and ended up marrying marryingher.
She was a Catholic, and so bythe time college finished that
(06:16):
and graduated, right aftergraduating, I think Stacy and I,
my uh my girlfriend at the time,had got married and were kind of
again living that Americandream.
Um, I started working for IBM aseverything from a developer,
architect, executive, so on, andtraveled the world, which was
awesome.
SPEAKER_02 (06:34):
Yep.
SPEAKER_03 (06:35):
Again, chasing and living that American dream.
We right out of school, webought a house, started thinking
about kids, got another house.
All the goals we had were reallyaround that next title, that
next, you know, lot or a house,or what's the next car look
like?
And it wasn't necessarily thatwe were, you know, those were
the only things we cared about,but it certainly wasn't rooted
(06:57):
in, you know, my relationshipwith the Lord is gonna direct my
next move at all, right?
Right.
Started having children, we hadtwo wonderful girls.
Four months after Addison, ouryoungest, was born.
I'm traveling the world at thattime for IBM, and we get hit
with just a big doozy of a hey,you're not in control from the
(07:18):
Lord situation.
I'm uh, I'll never forget, I'min Brazil.
I am teaching a uh a group, uh aroom full of developers and
architects, and maybe even someexecutives at that time, how to
how IBM's technology competeswith a competitor.
And I get this buzz in my pocketwhile I'm on stage, you know,
(07:38):
the no-no of you're on stagepresenting in front of people,
don't don't have your phone on,mind's going off, um vibrating,
and I'm like, all right, that'skind of weird.
It's going off for a while.
So at the next break, I checkit, and it's a message from my
wife who says she's discovered athey've discovered a five
centimeter mass in her liver.
SPEAKER_00 (07:58):
Boom.
SPEAKER_02 (07:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (07:59):
Right?
One of those boom moments ofholy cow, you know, I'm living
what I thought was the dream, upon stage, traveling the world.
I'm in Brazil, beautifulbuilding.
Like we had a view of the city,and then just whammy, you know,
what happened?
Turns out she has a uh or had asuper rare cancer.
(08:20):
It's in your bile ducts, in yourliver.
It's called intrahepaticcalangiocarcinoma.
It just rattles off the tongue,right?
It's a cancer of the liver,super rare again, like one out
of every 200,000 people gets it.
And it had grown fairly large umat that point.
Yeah.
So had to pump the brakes onquite a few things to really
just focus in on that.
(08:41):
The first prognosis we got wasyou need to make amends.
You've got three to six months.
Hearing that, we're like, no,no, no, no, no, no.
You got this all wrong.
I'm in control here.
That that's not right.
This can't be this can't beright.
So we went to many, manydoctors, lots of prayer at that
(09:02):
time, and we'll I'll kind of getto that.
Like, that was kind of againgoing back to prayer and the
lack of relationship reallyaffected things there because it
was almost I call it nowjokingly, even though it wasn't
a joke, like almost Santa Jesus.
Like, Lord, fix this.
Like instead of what can we dowith this?
What are we supposed to do withthis?
(09:23):
It was largely how do we fix it?
SPEAKER_00 (09:24):
Yeah, what's your will for this?
What's your purpose in this?
What are you teaching us?
And it wasn't that.
Yeah, it was just fixing it.
SPEAKER_03 (09:30):
Just make her better.
Right.
We get to uh there's a prognosisof three to six months.
She fought, you knew you knewStacy very well.
She was a fighter.
No doubt.
She was not gonna stop with thatshow.
SPEAKER_00 (09:41):
She she won poker night at the house more than
anybody else did.
SPEAKER_03 (09:44):
I think she I think you're right on that.
Yeah.
Um, so yes, and then uh so thatwas a long battle for four
years, two months.
Um, so she passed about tenyears ago, and unfortunately did
lose that battle, but um was awas a fighter with that.
So I'm 34.
I just lost my wife.
(10:05):
I've got a four-year-old and asix-year-old.
What the heck am I gonna dohere?
Yeah.
So it's at that time just diveinto what I knew back then.
I mean, wasn't unfortunately itwasn't, and I'll just be honest,
like it wasn't diving back intothe Lord.
The Lord helped, and lookingback on it, 1000% helped guide a
(10:26):
lot of that, and was obviouslythere through that, but I wasn't
leaning into that relationship.
What I did was go back to myAmerican dream.
Well, I got this, right?
I'll pick up my shield insteadof his shield, and I'm not
putting on his armor, I'mputting on my armor.
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:40):
And uh it was Eric, Eric six, not Ephesians six.
unknown (10:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (10:46):
So exactly right.
And so, you know, church everySunday, visiting the cemetery
every every Sunday, and then Idecided to just take a year of
like just focusing on figuringlife back out again.
Two years after that, as Godwould have it, met Julie,
current wife.
She challenged things that Ithought were status quo.
(11:07):
I mean, going back tochallenging things like routine.
She challenged, like, why areyou saying the Lord's Prayer?
Like at night.
I was like, Because you say theLord's Prayer at night.
Yeah, yeah.
What do you mean?
That's what you do.
Yeah.
And she's like, Well, wouldn'tit be more impactful if you
actually talked to him?
And I was like, Whoa.
Blue, like, you know, thesethese blinders you have on,
(11:28):
right?
Just started getting shattered.
And this was, again, veryimpactful in my walk, faith
walk.
About that same time, or maybe alittle bit before that, all this
happened intentionally, right?
I had lunch with you, and you wehadn't seen each other in at the
time, I don't know, six years.
SPEAKER_00 (11:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (11:46):
And I didn't know much about you.
We hadn't talked regularly.
You grabbed my hands and said aprayer at lunch, and I acted
like, what the heck's going onhere?
Who are you?
Who's this guy?
But you were so convicting inthat moment, and it had a huge
impact on my faith walk.
So thank you for that.
(12:06):
So that that happened at thesame time as uh new wife with
Julie, her relationship, and howshe encouraged relationship, all
that kind of blended togetherwonderfully in us kind of
finding a new church home thatwe call uh home here in Austin.
We we absolutely love it.
We get into the word um daily,and it just uh it's now
(12:29):
relationships leading as opposedto routine and and and religion,
and it's really changed not onlyour relationship with the Lord,
but our relationship with ourfamily, with each other, and
it's been a um uh at this pointthat's gonna be a great segue
into what it what else haschanged, which is you then you
dove deep, you know, you fellcompletely off the deep end, and
(12:52):
and you met with the missionspastor, and you started taking
classes and you started reallylike figuring this stuff out and
what is God calling me to.
SPEAKER_00 (12:59):
I've got this unique testimony, um, I've got this
kind of unique skill set where Ireally uh I've spent 20 years
traveling the world in in intech and developing tech and and
taking tech to market.
And what do I do with all that?
And that that led you then toreconnect with some other of our
old fraternity brothers.
You start talking to DavidPearson, who you and Pearson
(13:20):
were always super, super close,and we well, we all were, but
but uh y'all were really close,and then you know, he had on his
own journey, he had he hadstarted a tech company and and
and invented some reallyfascinating technology that he
was focused on use for for thegovernment and the military, as
well as potentially somecommercial use.
(13:40):
And then you come into that withthis fresh new set of eyes and
ears, and you're like, wait asecond, this could actually do
something profound in thenonprofit world.
So tell us about that journey.
SPEAKER_03 (13:52):
Yeah, you nailed it.
Part of this journey of, andagain, going back to the lunch
with you, right?
Of holy cow, I've got all theserelationships of you know, deep
relationships.
I mean, we're we're friends fora long time in college.
We walked, you walked through alot of stuff together in
college, and what does this looklike now?
How can we re look re reopenthese opportunities?
(14:12):
So, David Pearson, who's also inAustin, started a tech company,
and we like to joke.
I was a computer science major,he was an English major, and he
ends up with all this crazy cooltechnology and starts a tech
company.
It's like, what's going on here?
So, again, around this same timeframe, I find out about his
technology.
He's only in the governmentmilitary space at the time.
(14:34):
He's this was uh you know, sevenyears ago.
Um, and I said, dude, thistechnology, if you can pull it
off, is gonna be a game changer.
I'll invest in it now.
The second you want to take itto the commercial space, I'll
leave whatever I'm doing.
I feel called to this, you know,I'll do that.
And that happened not this May,but the previous May, so about a
(14:57):
year and a half ago.
Yeah, so so you stepped out ofIBM?
I stepped out of IBM after 20years, 20 years, which is
absurd.
SPEAKER_01 (15:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (15:03):
And was again, it was all around the same calling
of okay, Lord, I'm in a betterrelationship with you.
You're gonna start driving.
I'm letting go of the wheel alittle bit.
I'm gonna have a lighter touchon this wheel.
SPEAKER_00 (15:17):
But just so the listener gets this, like you had
you had it made at idea.
You had a great, you had a greatsalary, you had a great
position, you had leadership, aplace that was American dream
security, if that's where you'reputting your faith, right?
If if Mammon is your little Gguide, you had that part
covered.
That's it.
(15:37):
Right?
You could have taken care ofJulie and the kids and private
school or whatever and college.
I mean, it was all there.
And then you said, No, but God.
Yeah, God's got more for me andsomething bigger in my life.
And you didn't you didn'tnecessarily decide I'm gonna
uproot and move to anothercountry and be a missionary,
right?
You said no, this is my set ofgifts and my set of skills, and
(15:59):
I can actually support theentire mission community if I
will lean into this technologyand make it available uh to
them.
SPEAKER_03 (16:08):
Right, you you're yes, um thousand percent.
And it wasn't quite that easy.
I was sure.
It was that easy.
Yeah, of course it was.
I am a very stubborn guy, and uhso the Lord laid it on my heart
probably five years ago, and ittook me until a year and a half
to actually get my my rear ingear.
But yes, that's it.
And it was all around, you know,Ephesians 2.10, like for we are
God's masterpiece created in hisown image to do good works, and
(16:32):
so it is.
Well, what do I know?
And so looking back at a 20-yearcareer at IBM, it's like, well,
I know emerging technology, youknow, I can talk tech, I've got
the glasses, I can, you know,I'm a nerd, I'm I'm a nerd at
heart, believe it or not.
So I can nerd out on sometechnology.
So that's I was like, how do Itake that?
And then going back to that13-year-old Eric, right?
(16:53):
Of man, this missions thing withJesus was alive in that.
I mean, bringing people talkingabout the gospel through good
works, where does that mean?
SPEAKER_01 (17:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (17:06):
And again, this is one of the we mentioned, you
know, why are you saying theLord's Prayer at night?
This is one of those the scalesfall out from your eyes, right?
It's well, there's not a churchEric and a business eric and a
family Eric.
There should be one Ericgrounded in a relationship with
Christ.
And it was all of these things,just like, oh my gosh, what
(17:26):
we've been I say we, I've beendoing this all wrong, and it's
gotta change.
And so again, that was that isexactly what happened.
It's like, well, I know emergingtechnology, I love the mission
field.
I don't feel called to themission field, but I I love our
mission pastor at uh at ourchurch here and had some good
conversations with him.
We were talking about you knowsome entry points, and they were
(17:49):
like, Well, connectivity stinkswith our missions teams.
Like, I know I knowconnectivity, I got some things
that might be able to work here,so let's what if we get tech and
just get it on mission?
So tech on mission.
And that that's how Playrow wasbirthed, yeah, and that's the
the nonprofit.
So, and we'll get a little bitback to David Pearson.
So his technology, KriusTechnology Group, had been
(18:12):
crushing it.
Now they have like teens ofpatents um that are around this
technology that really improveconnectivity.
And so we walked David and Ithrough how we're gonna take his
for-profit company and make itredemptive, and then what does
the future look like for Krius?
So, again, uh just to do itquickly, they were a government
(18:33):
military, still are basedcompany looking to go into the
commercial market.
And we said, that's great.
It could be a two-leggedcompany, it can have a
commercial arm and a governmentmilitary arm.
Awesome.
Then we really took a look backand said, well, hold on, there's
there's an element missing herethat we need to make this
redemptive.
So how is this going to be aredemptive company?
And we said, well, it probablyneeds to do things like get tech
(18:55):
into the mission field or givesome type of redemptive quality
there.
So it's now a three-leggedcompany, we call it government
military, commercial, andredemptive.
But really, it's redemptive fromthe core and it filters through
all of those.
That redemptive piece thenbecame the nonprofit uh play
row.
SPEAKER_00 (19:11):
Okay, what's playrow mean?
SPEAKER_03 (19:13):
Playrow, yes, glad you mentioned it.
So in in part of the study withthis, uh I went through a class
on Ephesians 2.10 where uh faithand calling meet your business
workplace.
And in doing that class, itwasn't even related to the
assignments, but I was justreading Mark, and it's the first
thing Jesus says in Mark, and ityou have those moments when
(19:35):
Jesus just smacks you on theback of the head.
I don't get the crazy likedreams or like visions or
whatever, but words just pop outon the page in this instance.
Yeah, and it was Mark 1:15.
The time is fulfilled, and thekingdom of God is at hand.
Repent and believe in thegospel.
He laid that on my heart sohard, and I got, again, nerd,
(19:58):
nerded out, went to Logos andBlue Letter Bible to understand
what this word uh fulfilled isbecause it is popping off the
page for me.
So look under the covers and atthe it's a verb, the verb
version of this word to fulfill,to complete is play row.
Technically it's playroo, butthat doesn't roll off the top.
(20:19):
Yeah, yeah.
It's easy.
And I was like, I love thisword.
I've got it like this this Lord,what do I do with this?
I love it, I'm in it.
Let's go.
I think this is what I'msupposed to do with it.
If you look at furtherdefinitions, so the the word
means to complete or to fulfill,and in this case it was to
fulfill spreading the gospel.
There's and it's litteredthroughout the New Testament.
(20:41):
But one of the coolestdefinitions is you mentioned
rising tide lifts all boat, asyou often do in this podcast,
which is awesome.
So keeping with that nauticalanalogy here, one of the
definitions of Playrow is thewind filling a sail of a ship.
And I was like, whoa, that'sthere's something here.
I'm not a mission or I'm not onmission, I'm not in the bush, in
(21:04):
the jungle doing mission work,but they are.
There are mission teams in thebush doing all around the world.
Yeah, those are our ships,right?
They're they're sailing around,they're crushing it, they are
spreading the gospel.
I mean, they are the greatcommission, right?
Playrow just wants to give alittle boost to their sale so
that they can communicate withtheir sending organizations,
their sending churches, and justhelp them out, you know,
(21:27):
whatever it may be.
So, highest level, Play Rowbrings tech to the mission
field, period.
Emerging technology to themission field.
But by virtue of having a deeprelationship with this
connectivity company in Creus,that's where we're starting.
And again, trying to keep alight touch on where it goes.
SPEAKER_00 (21:44):
I'm gonna bring this down to a fifth grader level.
Yeah.
Does this does this mean that Ican use my phone where I
couldn't use my phone?
SPEAKER_03 (21:52):
Oh, it means a lot more than that.
SPEAKER_00 (21:54):
Okay, okay.
It means I can it means I canget more electric electricity
and access through my phone,computer, et cetera.
So it's not just like Starlinkand Wi-Fi.
SPEAKER_03 (22:04):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (22:05):
So let's tell tell it to the fifth grader level of
me what it can do so that if I'mthinking about deploying this or
engaging and deploying this techfor my mission workers, what
does it do?
SPEAKER_03 (22:17):
A great way to and I'll correct a little bit on the
electricity part because there'sthey got a really cool
application.
It doesn't bring electricity,but what this technology does,
one of the core components ofthe technology is anywhere there
is electricity or existinginfrastructure, so power lines,
coax, or anything, um, even raillines, which is an interesting
(22:38):
application, it can buildexpansive mesh networks on top
of it.
I think we know what meshnetworks are, right?
Like leader house, you canusually kind of go outside and
then you start losing yourconnection.
Yeah.
With this technology, thegovernment wants to use it for a
coast-to-coast mesh network.
So the scale gets blown upthere, right?
(23:00):
It's it's a lot different.
It's not just bringing likeinternet like a Starlink to
disparate places, because with aStarlink, you can go and
populate a house really easily.
But what happens about the nexthouse?
Well, you need another Starlinkfor that.
Yeah.
What happens if you want to goon a hike?
Oh, there's a mobile Starlinkfor that.
And those are all great, thoseare good solutions.
This technology could take aStarlink and distribute it
(23:22):
across an island, or a Starlink,or an internet feed, or not even
having internet, you could stillhave communication with these
devices across an island.
SPEAKER_00 (23:32):
So going back to like analog or like like older
school than Wi-Fi.
SPEAKER_03 (23:38):
Right.
Well, I mean it it's stilltechnically a network, yeah,
like Wi-Fi.
Like so the way to think aboutit, you still get on your phone
and connect any device to it, soI could then WhatsApp you or
message you, and so we couldstill do that.
Yeah.
Um, but you just wouldn'tnecessarily need even need the
internet.
Because there's been some mixedresults, I'll call it, with
people just, hey, there's atribal village, let's go throw
(24:00):
some internet on it.
SPEAKER_00 (24:01):
Yeah.
Um think about what they'regonna find pretty quickly on the
internet.
SPEAKER_03 (24:04):
And they do.
It's so sad.
And it's it's just how strongthe devil has hold of this
place, right?
I mean, Elon Musk did this, hebrought Starlink to a remote
tribe in, I believe it wasAfrica.
Within six months, the primaryusers of that technology were
addicted to social media andporn.
SPEAKER_02 (24:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (24:20):
It's that fast.
When you just go and say ungatedaccess to the internet, go have
at it, what are we gonna do?
We're gonna go back to our vicesand it it's gonna take hold.
SPEAKER_02 (24:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (24:30):
So one of the goals of Playro is to empower the
mission teams first so that theycan help steward the technology.
SPEAKER_02 (24:38):
There you go.
SPEAKER_03 (24:38):
But also to have the mission teams use the technology
to impact their goals, right?
So that you know, it's not justhaving Wi-Fi so they can unplug
and watch some Netflix, right?
Yeah, it's so they can videochat with, you know, their
organizations, their supportteams.
Man, we just we just uh had somemission folks here for for an
(24:59):
event, and I was just in Greecedoing a missions conference, and
they are so isolated at times.
It's real easy to get isolatedfor years at a time when they
don't have access to theirsupport teams.
So if we can do things to bringconnectivity to help them feel
better supported, awesome.
SPEAKER_00 (25:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (25:16):
There are more long-term plays that I think are
even more impactful.
SPEAKER_00 (25:20):
Well, just think about just think about practical
life, right?
So you're you're raising yourkids, you know, they're young.
You you have just normal lifeissues of being a married couple
raising kids.
Now you're you're working in atribe or in an unreached people
group.
There's issues where you need toreach back out to your support,
and you can't do it from whereyou are, so you've got to leave.
(25:43):
You've got to hike dayssometimes, or get on a
helicopter and go back to a townsomewhere where you can
reconnect with everybody and getyour newsletter out and do those
things.
And now she's back alone.
She can't communicate with youbecause she has no ability from
there.
You're not sure how that sickkid's doing, you're not sure how
that pregnant woman in thetribe's doing, you're not sure
how all these things.
SPEAKER_01 (26:04):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (26:04):
Yeah.
Right.
And and so the practical usecase for this is very easy to
see if you'll just kind of letyourself explore it.
And I can think of any anymissionaries or heads of mission
orgs that listen to our pod,like they're gonna get this
quickly.
SPEAKER_01 (26:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (26:18):
And my next question, if I was one of them,
is what does it cost?
Yeah.
Can I afford this?
Yep.
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (26:24):
This is part of the model we're working through
right now, right?
So let me real quickly go backto how it can impact.
And so using some of the eventhe terms you you played on to
make it real for the listeners,right?
The pilot project was just doneearlier this year.
That pilot project was for acouple with a family that has
raised them in Papua New Guinea,and they had the exact problem
(26:47):
you mentioned, which was theyhave to walk half a mile up a
hill to hold their phone up,maybe just write they get some
reception, and they can send outa barely a uh a text.
Right.
To get internet, they had to gointo town, which is a five-hour
car ride, or an hour and a halfboat ride.
Yep.
And in the the exact example, asyou mentioned, where now
(27:09):
family's away or whoever'strying to get connectivity is
away from the family.
So we designed a solution, sentit to them, and I can they live
in a house with barely anyelectricity, had no service, and
now I can WhatsApp the guy andthe wife from their house.
Changes the game for them.
(27:29):
He even mentioned that when theit's a little spottier there
because when the weather'sright, they get better
reception.
But he even mentioned one timehe was in town and was able to
WhatsApp video call his wife.
SPEAKER_00 (27:40):
Video call.
Right?
Wow.
SPEAKER_03 (27:41):
Yes, when the when the conditions were right.
But still, but still, right.
And so take that a step further.
SPEAKER_00 (27:47):
Just think about how encouraging that is just in that
moment for her and the kids andtheir family.
Just in that moment.
SPEAKER_03 (27:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (27:53):
That's so, so good, man.
SPEAKER_03 (27:55):
And then what's so take this a step further.
Our big hairy ambitious goals,writer bags, are if we had this
across the island, this the wifeis a nurse.
And what if we had the nurse beable to telehealth with people
on the island who have zeroaccess to good or not zero
access, but very little accessto quality health care.
(28:16):
Take that a step further, andnow we could even connect them
with doctors perhaps inAustralia, New Zealand on the
same time zone, wherever that uhthey are, and be able to assist
her in even maybe morecomplicated things.
So the the the we're justgetting started on this and
really excited on where that thethis year and a half, three
years, five years could looklike with the with you know
(28:38):
better connectivityconnectivity.
SPEAKER_00 (28:40):
I'm gonna answer my own question a little bit for
the mission world.
It's not expensive.
Oh, yeah.
Because you're doing it as anonprofit arm of a for-profit
entity, and because ofeveryone's heart for this, the
for-profit entity is supportingit.
You're raising private funds aswell to support it.
Uh, and so the cost to deploythis tech for the missions org
(29:00):
for the missionaries is nothigh.
SPEAKER_03 (29:03):
Right.
That it's not high.
We're still, like I said, ourpilot project was just finished.
We have a kit that we think willfit a lot of needs that we can
get down to around the$5,000mark.
SPEAKER_00 (29:14):
Yeah, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_03 (29:15):
But yeah, not expensive in the in the grand
scheme of things for for those.
SPEAKER_00 (29:19):
Well, and pretty much everybody I mean uh uh has
somebody that would that wouldfoot that bill for them to get
that connectivity out there andand provide them with that kind
of quality of life, opportunityfor missional excellence, right?
And um and just think about howyour witness grows in that
community.
Yep.
Uh if you're able to telehealthin a doctor and save someone's
life in a childbirth situation.
unknown (29:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:41):
Right.
I mean, I mean, really, it it itcomes down to the very practical
hands and feet of Christ and theactual work uh with widows and
orphans.
I mean, it it's it enhances yourability to do all those things
without giving the whole groupthe internet.
SPEAKER_03 (29:56):
Right, unfettered access to the internet.
SPEAKER_00 (29:57):
Unfettered access to whatever they're gonna find on.
on the internet, um, which mayget them chasing all sorts of
rabbits that candidly we want toprotect them from and protect
their innocence from untilthey've had more time to grow
and develop and you know in theLord and in world culture that
they're not completely aware ofat all.
SPEAKER_03 (30:14):
Yeah.
Right.
And so and then we get into likethe nerd talk goes into now
we're talking about well what'sthe compute we should or can
bring there.
And so that compute could be,you know, most people think of
you know the internet as the endall be all, but when I say
compute, I'm talking about whatcan we bring like realistically,
maybe think of an app.
Like you could bring the Bibleapp as a as a thing on our
(30:36):
network that could beinterconnected that wouldn't
require the internet.
Or I think you just hadApologist AI on uh as well,
right?
Like what if they were part oflike an integral part of all
these devices on the network.
So instead of just hey openingup a browser, no, you open up
Apologist AI and the Bible app,right?
You're there.
And so you're bringingtechnology to the folks as
(30:59):
opposed to just bringing the Isay the big bad internet, but
you know it's not it's it's notan internet for all play.
Not to say that that'snecessarily bad, but we know
some of the outcomes for folksthat um have received that.
SPEAKER_00 (31:11):
Yeah.
Well and I think so let's lookat the use cases right because I
think if I'm listening to thisand I'm being a devil's advocate
here, I would say like, well whoare you to say what they should
and should not have access toright?
SPEAKER_03 (31:21):
Oh 100% big bag sensor.
SPEAKER_00 (31:23):
Yeah but it but but this isn't a big brother thing.
This is more of a like thinkabout how a missionary family
shares the gospel with anunreached people group, right?
So you learn the majoritylanguage, you learn the minority
language that's four or fiveyears worth of getting to a
level of excellence in theirlanguage before you can even
really share the gospel becauseyou've had to learn that they
don't have words for forgivenessand love and righteousness and
(31:45):
and really key terms that youneed to effectively share the
gospel.
You've had to figure out how toconvey all those things it's
taken years to do that.
You don't just show up and tellthem day one, this is what I'm
doing here because you couldn'tanswer their questions.
Right.
This is the same concept it'sjust deploying with excellence
in a series of steps that guardsyour heart and their heart as
(32:06):
you build community and andestablish that relationship
right so I think if you look atit in that context it's it's not
big brothering it's just beingresponsible with what they would
have access to like like youwant to be responsible with what
your kids have access to.
SPEAKER_03 (32:21):
Right.
That's it.
SPEAKER_00 (32:22):
And it's actually another way of even spinning
that would be you know we willbring some connectivity but what
are you wanting right like tothat end like what that's the
scatter that's Andrew Scott andDana Tucker Decent and those
guys right there they go inthere and say what do you need?
Yes not here's what I have butwhat do you need?
SPEAKER_03 (32:39):
And that's why even going back to your the your
question why I didn't answer itof like well what's the kit look
like we have kits that mightwork for certain applications
but really it is a listen tomission partner needs to design
solutions for what's missingright and then going back to
that couple after their sendingorganization it's a Bible
(33:00):
translation organization calledWycliffe they heard about it.
They want some of the technologyand a different implementation
for their translation office onthe island.
There you go great that's goingto require some a little
different scenario but we wantto make sure that we're just not
throwing widgets you know Ithink of the well situation in
(33:21):
Africa where there's a lot ofwell intentioned but a boom
there it is there's a lot ofwell-intentioned companies that
would go out and do these digwells but what they ended up
with was they'd go dig them thenleave them and then there's a
ton of unmaintained shutdownwells that aren't there.
So like we don't we don't justwant to go dig wells and not
have them be maintained andserviceable.
SPEAKER_00 (33:43):
And so that's something it was a heartbreaking
moment for me when we had dug 21wells and raised a bunch of
money and we felt great about itto find out that the average
shelf life of what of a handpump well is a year and a half.
SPEAKER_03 (33:53):
Oh gosh so you're living oh man.
Yeah that was pouring salt on awound sorry about that.
SPEAKER_00 (33:58):
No that was that was uh 2018-19 kind of context of us
learning through bless what wewere what we were doing and and
not doing well and andgratefully God showed us several
things we weren't doing well andwe were able to pivot right but
so like even even the scatterconference right so we had this
conference and we had we hadsome people in uh from several
other parts of the world and andsome of what they shared um that
(34:21):
was shocking okay so I'll I'mnot gonna give exact locations
but let's just a guy from Ugandacame over and he was raised in
the slums and he he worked hisway out through technology and
and there's it's a beautifulstory and we may have him on
someday to tell it.
But but when USAID shut down ifyou looked at the news here it
was it was a horrible thingright oh how could we do that
(34:42):
USAID shut down and and it itwas terrible and and he
literally is over here sayingwe're celebrating that thank you
for doing that because allyou've really done is give a man
a fish give a man a fish give aman a fish and he's waiting for
you to give him another fish.
He's like we need the resourcesto teach our people not only how
to fish but we need a resourcesto teach our people how to
(35:02):
control the ponds.
Oh that's it that it just likeit gives you goosebumps right
getting the goosebumps becausebecause we were we thought we
were doing good and we thoughtwe thought we were doing good
looking back at the orphancrisis right we were like oh we
should fund these orphanages andthis is better for kids.
Well then families are puttinggetting rid of their kids to
send them to the orphanages andthe real truth was it was no it
(35:24):
was we needed to we needed totalk to the family about what
they needed to keep their kids.
Yeah right it wasn't we we justmiswired it with this whole kind
of intent of doing good but wedon't look deep enough we we're
too shallow in our giving likewe invest with excellence but we
give to check a box and we havegot to give with excellence too.
(35:46):
That's what you're doing you'relike I didn't just build a
widget and throw it at the worldand say here.
What I did was we developed techthat could be curated and could
be put together in a certain waydepending on the need of that
people group in that part of theworld and it's not always going
to look the same.
So we need to slowlymethodically ask questions about
what do you need and what's thelevel of engagement you want at
(36:09):
this stage depending on whereyou are.
SPEAKER_01 (36:12):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (36:12):
So if you hear that and I I can he I can hear
friends of mine that listen tothis smiling because I know how
much they're going to appreciatethat posture.
SPEAKER_03 (36:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:20):
What can we do to help?
SPEAKER_03 (36:22):
That's it.
And it goes back to even I meanI'll parallel this with
Faithwalks right it's like it'snot just routine check mark
throw money at the problem it'sit's breaking these trends of
routine and check mark andgetting into what the
relationship because that'swhere it is that's where you're
gonna provide the most value.
And so that's it that is rightat the heart of PlayRow is you
know keeping that light touch.
(36:44):
We're not just pushing widgetswe're pushing relationships and
we're looking for folks withrelationships that have big
ideas so that we can help solvethem.
You know we've got uh right nowit's very lean and mean with
Playrolow it's myself at at thethe head right now but I've got
a slew of engineers and contactsthat help with design work.
They want to volunteer time andtechnology to solve some of
(37:06):
these problems.
And so it really is who are thewhat are the relationships that
can yield some low-hanging fruityou know we've got a good kit
quote unquote that we talkedabout earlier that can solve
some needs but there's more herethat we can that we can do with
with proper relationshipsunderstanding what they are and
then designing some really wehope and so let's let's play
this out somebody calls you theysay hey I've got an opportunity
(37:29):
you've at it it makes sense whathappens does somebody fly over
with the tech and set it all upwe didn't even do that for the
previous one.
We don't even necessarily haveto fly over a lot of it is plug
and play wow like plug this inand now granted our Papa New
Guinea pig in this previous onethis is the all time pun
(37:50):
episode.
Yeah I mean who do you thinkyou're I mean I haven't changed
from college you're still gonnaget those dad jokes um so our
guinea pig there man he had a 14foot bamboo pole with one of the
antennas to get betterconnectivity to a cell tower.
So he's he was experimental andwilling to work with us but a
(38:10):
lot of this stuff is we shoot itto you you plug in and sometimes
that's even hard so we even sendgenerators and solar powered
stuff with them as well but youplug in you're done there's no
like let me reset my router orgo and unplug my open your phone
and you go to the settings andyou look for the thing and you
connect and you're going you'redone.
Actually and for some of themyou don't even have to do that
(38:31):
it just grabs a signal boostyour cell signal.
Yeah so uh yeah so there's thatthere's some cool stuff there um
and then we'll take that cellsignal turn into a network and
then we can shoot that out a avariety of ways too so that's we
try to make it as plug and playas possible because we know you
know not everyone's techie andespecially those in the mission
field they might not have anybackground in in technology.
SPEAKER_00 (38:53):
So all right this may sound silly um but God just
prompted me to say it so I'mgonna say it the first person
that reaches out to Eric thatvets a project that he decides
to do the Unreach podcast willfund that one.
SPEAKER_03 (39:04):
There you go.
SPEAKER_00 (39:05):
All right let's go so let's get this going let's
get this moving let's do it.
Clint and I would love to be apart of that team um so we'll
we'll support that we'll praywith you on that.
And man just thank you for forfor giving everyone an example
today of what it can look likeright to to chase the American
dream and secular success andall those things and then and
(39:25):
then get to a point where Godbreaks you you look back you see
where he was working the wholetime right but then you see this
massive pivot point where it'snot about me getting up every
day and asking God to help meaccomplish what I want to do.
It's about me getting up everyday and asking God what does he
want to do?
So it's your day you've made ityou've made me you've made me
(39:47):
for something what is thatsomething what do we want to do
with this today right and you'vepivoted that in such a beautiful
way and you're bringing peoplewith you.
Right?
So we we we talked the other dayand you shared that you've got
five or six of our otherfraternity brothers and y'all
are doing a D group right now.
And and I'm telling you ifyou're listening to this and you
knew the guys I was talkingabout, you wouldn't believe it.
(40:09):
You would not believe it.
I mean I don't believe it butwhen you meet a man like Eric
Long who has such conviction andsuch passion and such love for
the Lord it's just contagiousand you just want to be around
it and you want to know why doyou have such joy and they want
to know and look at the changethat's happening just because
you're out authentically showinghim off.
SPEAKER_03 (40:31):
Oh man that you you nailed it it's authentic being
authentically you being and himshining through you man that's
that's you brother that's uhwell that is you that's that's
going back to a lunch that's youreaching the unreached on this
podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (40:43):
I appreciate that that's very kind and very
humbling to hear my very clearlife mission is to make
disciples locally and reach theunreached globally.
And when you get to make adisciple locally or be a part of
that and then that disciple'sreaching the unreached globally
I mean that's like the ultimatewow.
Disciples making disciples it isat 2 Timothy 2 2.
SPEAKER_01 (41:04):
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (41:05):
Thanks for being on thanks for doing what you're
doing stay in touch obviously wewe want to do we want to do a
follow-up when we get thisproject that we've just put out
into the ether out into theworld.
That's right.
So I did a podcast recentlywhere I said I was going to
write a book and you know TravisRoby he texted me after Travis
was like you put that out thereand I was like yeah I know I've
got accountability now.
Now you're stuck and we'realready working on it.
(41:27):
Jack and I are already workingon the book.
So we'll we'll do that too andthen we'll do a follow up and
we'll maybe we'll even have onthe people group that we don't
even know yet that's going toget this tech.
SPEAKER_03 (41:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (41:34):
And hit and hear their story of how they deployed
it.
SPEAKER_03 (41:36):
Well I think it's might be a whole continent now
if we do it right and reallyhave you on the hook for this.
SPEAKER_00 (41:42):
All right well you know it's all God's money right
that's not ours.
Yeah yeah okay so for thoselisteners that hear this and
they want to engage they want tofind out more they want to see
if this is something that couldbe a a a solution for them or
someone they know what do theydo next?
SPEAKER_03 (41:55):
Yep so right now we are like I said we're lean and
mean but we do have ourwebsite's the easiest place to
go.
We've done a lot of the plumbingI'll call it so there are places
to donate at playroplayrow.world so it's
P-L-E-R-O-O.World and that'swhere you find us.
SPEAKER_00 (42:12):
Okay so go check out playrow.world and Eric you know
we always ask our guest to prayfor the listeners at the end of
the episode so would uh wouldyou please close us in prayer?
SPEAKER_03 (42:22):
Be honored.
Heavenly Father Lord my goodnessso grateful for you filling up
this room just havingconversation to glorify you.
It's not it's not why we do thisit's what we do with the gifts
that you've given us we're sograteful for that grateful for
the conversations and justexcited to see the joy you bring
the gospel you spread to thedifferent parts of the world
(42:43):
that haven't even experiencedyour joy let us fulfill and
complete that mission.
We love you.
In your name we pray amen.
SPEAKER_00 (42:50):
Amen thank you for listening to Unreached our
sincere desire is that whatyou've heard today will cause
you to see the mission of Goddifferently and your role in it
more clearly if this adds valuefor you and we hope it does
would you please rate and reviewthe podcast wherever you listen
also share with your family,your friends, your church, your
life group, small group, D groupwherever you do life and if you
(43:12):
want to connect with us find uson Instagram at unreached
podcast or email us at unreachedpodcast at gmail dot com
In Revelation 7, John shares his vision of heaven
with members from every tribe,tongue, people, and language
standing in the throne roombefore the land.
Yet today, there are still over7,000 unreached people groups
around the world.
For the last six years, myfamily and friends have been on
the journey to find, vet, andfund the task remaining.
(00:30):
Come the journey with us to theends of the earth as we share
the supernatural stories of Godat work to the minimum he has
called to reach the unreachedgreat.
Hello, friends.
Welcome back to the UnreachPodcast.
Dustin Elliott here today.
Your host and I have a friend ofmine.
We've been friends for the last24-5 years here today.
(00:51):
Our friendship started in a verysecular way.
It took a very sacred turn laterin life.
And you're going to hear storiestoday.
This is going to pull on severalthreads we've talked about
recently.
This is part of the rising tidethat lifts all boats.
This is this is when tech meetsmissions and supports missions.
This is a lessons today in howlocal discipleship can have
(01:12):
global impact and how lovingyour neighbor well and checking
in on old friends can becomeincredibly redemptive through
the Holy Spirit and throughGod's power to reach the
unreached.
And so I'm so excited to welcomemy old fraternity brother and my
longtime friend, Mr.
Eric Long.
Eric, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_03 (01:31):
Dustin, thank you so much for having me here, man.
It is such a what a change 24years, 25 years makes.
SPEAKER_00 (01:37):
No kidding.
No kidding.
Eric rushed me into thefraternity.
He's a year older than me incollege for context.
And uh I'd say the only time wewere praying uh at that point in
our lives was was when we neededto pass a final.
Um a lot has changed.
SPEAKER_03 (01:51):
Maybe not to do some some after some partying the
mornings after, but maybe yeah,maybe some.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (01:57):
I don't know if that's I think that's
applicable.
I think that's applicable.
We're gonna talk a little bitabout Eric's story because
Eric's story has some reallymajor um meat in his testimony
of stuff that he's walkedthrough in his life and that
God's used to wire him for, andI use that term wire kind of pun
intended, right?
(02:18):
Because we got a tech guy, wirehim for where he is and what
he's doing today.
So part of his story is going tobe tough.
It's gonna be hard to hear, butif you'll stay with us to the
point where we get to where thistechnology is enabling
connectivity in the missionsworld, uh particularly in really
hard-to-reach places wherethere's not great, you know,
(02:39):
internet access or electricity,uh, this tech that they've
created and then found out akind of figured out a way
through the Lord to enable itinto this nonprofit side is
game-changing.
So if you are in missions, ifyou know anyone in missions, if
you know anyone runningbusinesses in parts of the world
that it would help theirbusiness if they could be more
(03:02):
connected to their workers inthe field, this is something you
need to hear.
This is a technology you couldimplement and use, and and it
would dramatically enhance yourability to do your jobs well in
the field.
So stay with us today.
Hear this tech, and then you'reprobably gonna want to call Eric
when we get done.
(03:22):
All right.
SPEAKER_03 (03:23):
Man, for not being a techie, you're you're nailing
the outcomes of what we'redoing, which is which is fun.
And we'll get to that.
SPEAKER_00 (03:28):
I'm a tech investor.
I got a little bit of it.
Okay, so so let's go back to uhlet's start back at the
beginning, right?
So before I knew you, um yougrew up in Houston.
SPEAKER_01 (03:38):
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (03:39):
Give us a little talk about kind of you you had
you had some religion and somekind of repetition early in your
life.
Take us through that.
SPEAKER_03 (03:46):
Grew up in Katie, Texas, right outside of Houston
for the better part of my I callI call it childhood.
I wasn't born there.
I was actually born in Kansas,migrated south to Oklahoma for a
little stint.
Thank goodness that was short,right?
Can't be in Sooner Country toolong.
Um, and then got to Katie when Iwas in about fourth grade.
And some of my uh my past withand my relationship with Jesus
(04:09):
started real early.
God was never not a part of ofthe family.
I still remember my baptismstory, my parents tell me over
and over.
Um I got sprinkled with withwater, as we'd call it now, back
in the day when I was a baby,and I'm a twin.
And so there's the pastor hadtwo of us up there, and I
grabbed his microphone whilethey were baptizing my twin
(04:31):
brother, grabbed the microphoneand decided to just swallow it
with my mouth.
And so that was how I I guess myfirst relationship when I got
sprinkled and baptized, decidedto swallow a uh what do you the
land of lavalier mics?
Is that what they're called?
SPEAKER_00 (04:44):
Um I don't know, Clint's not on the mic today,
I'm sure he would know theanswer.
SPEAKER_03 (04:48):
So that was kind of my intro into the world, yeah,
into the relationship.
Take it all in, yeah.
That's right.
Yeah, uh so grew up Methodist,God was always around, but it
was really more routine and I'dcall it religion as opposed to
relationships.
So, you know, checkboxy uhrelationship with the Lord.
And then one of the reallydefining moments was a missions
(05:12):
trip.
So yeah, United Methodist Churchum had something back in the day
called UM Army, and we went toborder towns um in Texas on the
Mexico border, and we got towork and we were there and you'd
spend a week involved in this,and I still remember the impact
like seemingly small things hadon these on these folks that
(05:33):
just brought Jesus into them.
They could see Jesus through thework that was being done and
some of the outcomes, and thenthat man, that sticks today.
Past that, it became moreroutine getting to the college
years, which you alluded toearlier.
What was to the typical Americandream?
You know, we were in collegebecause we wanted to socialize,
(05:53):
we wanted to make sure that wewere armed to crush the business
world.
That was the goal, that was thedream, that was what we what we
were chasing.
Of course.
So started dating a wonderfulwoman in uh high school, went
through dating on and offthrough college, but mostly on,
and ended up marrying marryingher.
She was a Catholic, and so bythe time college finished that
(06:16):
and graduated, right aftergraduating, I think Stacy and I,
my uh my girlfriend at the time,had got married and were kind of
again living that Americandream.
Um, I started working for IBM aseverything from a developer,
architect, executive, so on, andtraveled the world, which was
awesome.
SPEAKER_02 (06:34):
Yep.
SPEAKER_03 (06:35):
Again, chasing and living that American dream.
We right out of school, webought a house, started thinking
about kids, got another house.
All the goals we had were reallyaround that next title, that
next, you know, lot or a house,or what's the next car look
like?
And it wasn't necessarily thatwe were, you know, those were
the only things we cared about,but it certainly wasn't rooted
(06:57):
in, you know, my relationshipwith the Lord is gonna direct my
next move at all, right?
Right.
Started having children, we hadtwo wonderful girls.
Four months after Addison, ouryoungest, was born.
I'm traveling the world at thattime for IBM, and we get hit
with just a big doozy of a hey,you're not in control from the
(07:18):
Lord situation.
I'm uh, I'll never forget, I'min Brazil.
I am teaching a uh a group, uh aroom full of developers and
architects, and maybe even someexecutives at that time, how to
how IBM's technology competeswith a competitor.
And I get this buzz in my pocketwhile I'm on stage, you know,
(07:38):
the no-no of you're on stagepresenting in front of people,
don't don't have your phone on,mind's going off, um vibrating,
and I'm like, all right, that'skind of weird.
It's going off for a while.
So at the next break, I checkit, and it's a message from my
wife who says she's discovered athey've discovered a five
centimeter mass in her liver.
SPEAKER_00 (07:58):
Boom.
SPEAKER_02 (07:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (07:59):
Right?
One of those boom moments ofholy cow, you know, I'm living
what I thought was the dream, upon stage, traveling the world.
I'm in Brazil, beautifulbuilding.
Like we had a view of the city,and then just whammy, you know,
what happened?
Turns out she has a uh or had asuper rare cancer.
(08:20):
It's in your bile ducts, in yourliver.
It's called intrahepaticcalangiocarcinoma.
It just rattles off the tongue,right?
It's a cancer of the liver,super rare again, like one out
of every 200,000 people gets it.
And it had grown fairly large umat that point.
Yeah.
So had to pump the brakes onquite a few things to really
just focus in on that.
(08:41):
The first prognosis we got wasyou need to make amends.
You've got three to six months.
Hearing that, we're like, no,no, no, no, no, no.
You got this all wrong.
I'm in control here.
That that's not right.
This can't be this can't beright.
So we went to many, manydoctors, lots of prayer at that
(09:02):
time, and we'll I'll kind of getto that.
Like, that was kind of againgoing back to prayer and the
lack of relationship reallyaffected things there because it
was almost I call it nowjokingly, even though it wasn't
a joke, like almost Santa Jesus.
Like, Lord, fix this.
Like instead of what can we dowith this?
What are we supposed to do withthis?
(09:23):
It was largely how do we fix it?
SPEAKER_00 (09:24):
Yeah, what's your will for this?
What's your purpose in this?
What are you teaching us?
And it wasn't that.
Yeah, it was just fixing it.
SPEAKER_03 (09:30):
Just make her better.
Right.
We get to uh there's a prognosisof three to six months.
She fought, you knew you knewStacy very well.
She was a fighter.
No doubt.
She was not gonna stop with thatshow.
SPEAKER_00 (09:41):
She she won poker night at the house more than
anybody else did.
SPEAKER_03 (09:44):
I think she I think you're right on that.
Yeah.
Um, so yes, and then uh so thatwas a long battle for four
years, two months.
Um, so she passed about tenyears ago, and unfortunately did
lose that battle, but um was awas a fighter with that.
So I'm 34.
I just lost my wife.
(10:05):
I've got a four-year-old and asix-year-old.
What the heck am I gonna dohere?
Yeah.
So it's at that time just diveinto what I knew back then.
I mean, wasn't unfortunately itwasn't, and I'll just be honest,
like it wasn't diving back intothe Lord.
The Lord helped, and lookingback on it, 1000% helped guide a
(10:26):
lot of that, and was obviouslythere through that, but I wasn't
leaning into that relationship.
What I did was go back to myAmerican dream.
Well, I got this, right?
I'll pick up my shield insteadof his shield, and I'm not
putting on his armor, I'mputting on my armor.
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:40):
And uh it was Eric, Eric six, not Ephesians six.
unknown (10:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (10:46):
So exactly right.
And so, you know, church everySunday, visiting the cemetery
every every Sunday, and then Idecided to just take a year of
like just focusing on figuringlife back out again.
Two years after that, as Godwould have it, met Julie,
current wife.
She challenged things that Ithought were status quo.
(11:07):
I mean, going back tochallenging things like routine.
She challenged, like, why areyou saying the Lord's Prayer?
Like at night.
I was like, Because you say theLord's Prayer at night.
Yeah, yeah.
What do you mean?
That's what you do.
Yeah.
And she's like, Well, wouldn'tit be more impactful if you
actually talked to him?
And I was like, Whoa.
Blue, like, you know, thesethese blinders you have on,
(11:28):
right?
Just started getting shattered.
And this was, again, veryimpactful in my walk, faith
walk.
About that same time, or maybe alittle bit before that, all this
happened intentionally, right?
I had lunch with you, and you wehadn't seen each other in at the
time, I don't know, six years.
SPEAKER_00 (11:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (11:46):
And I didn't know much about you.
We hadn't talked regularly.
You grabbed my hands and said aprayer at lunch, and I acted
like, what the heck's going onhere?
Who are you?
Who's this guy?
But you were so convicting inthat moment, and it had a huge
impact on my faith walk.
So thank you for that.
(12:06):
So that that happened at thesame time as uh new wife with
Julie, her relationship, and howshe encouraged relationship, all
that kind of blended togetherwonderfully in us kind of
finding a new church home thatwe call uh home here in Austin.
We we absolutely love it.
We get into the word um daily,and it just uh it's now
(12:29):
relationships leading as opposedto routine and and and religion,
and it's really changed not onlyour relationship with the Lord,
but our relationship with ourfamily, with each other, and
it's been a um uh at this pointthat's gonna be a great segue
into what it what else haschanged, which is you then you
dove deep, you know, you fellcompletely off the deep end, and
(12:52):
and you met with the missionspastor, and you started taking
classes and you started reallylike figuring this stuff out and
what is God calling me to.
SPEAKER_00 (12:59):
I've got this unique testimony, um, I've got this
kind of unique skill set where Ireally uh I've spent 20 years
traveling the world in in intech and developing tech and and
taking tech to market.
And what do I do with all that?
And that that led you then toreconnect with some other of our
old fraternity brothers.
You start talking to DavidPearson, who you and Pearson
(13:20):
were always super, super close,and we well, we all were, but
but uh y'all were really close,and then you know, he had on his
own journey, he had he hadstarted a tech company and and
and invented some reallyfascinating technology that he
was focused on use for for thegovernment and the military, as
well as potentially somecommercial use.
(13:40):
And then you come into that withthis fresh new set of eyes and
ears, and you're like, wait asecond, this could actually do
something profound in thenonprofit world.
So tell us about that journey.
SPEAKER_03 (13:52):
Yeah, you nailed it.
Part of this journey of, andagain, going back to the lunch
with you, right?
Of holy cow, I've got all theserelationships of you know, deep
relationships.
I mean, we're we're friends fora long time in college.
We walked, you walked through alot of stuff together in
college, and what does this looklike now?
How can we re look re reopenthese opportunities?
(14:12):
So, David Pearson, who's also inAustin, started a tech company,
and we like to joke.
I was a computer science major,he was an English major, and he
ends up with all this crazy cooltechnology and starts a tech
company.
It's like, what's going on here?
So, again, around this same timeframe, I find out about his
technology.
He's only in the governmentmilitary space at the time.
(14:34):
He's this was uh you know, sevenyears ago.
Um, and I said, dude, thistechnology, if you can pull it
off, is gonna be a game changer.
I'll invest in it now.
The second you want to take itto the commercial space, I'll
leave whatever I'm doing.
I feel called to this, you know,I'll do that.
And that happened not this May,but the previous May, so about a
(14:57):
year and a half ago.
Yeah, so so you stepped out ofIBM?
I stepped out of IBM after 20years, 20 years, which is
absurd.
SPEAKER_01 (15:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (15:03):
And was again, it was all around the same calling
of okay, Lord, I'm in a betterrelationship with you.
You're gonna start driving.
I'm letting go of the wheel alittle bit.
I'm gonna have a lighter touchon this wheel.
SPEAKER_00 (15:17):
But just so the listener gets this, like you had
you had it made at idea.
You had a great, you had a greatsalary, you had a great
position, you had leadership, aplace that was American dream
security, if that's where you'reputting your faith, right?
If if Mammon is your little Gguide, you had that part
covered.
That's it.
(15:37):
Right?
You could have taken care ofJulie and the kids and private
school or whatever and college.
I mean, it was all there.
And then you said, No, but God.
Yeah, God's got more for me andsomething bigger in my life.
And you didn't you didn'tnecessarily decide I'm gonna
uproot and move to anothercountry and be a missionary,
right?
You said no, this is my set ofgifts and my set of skills, and
(15:59):
I can actually support theentire mission community if I
will lean into this technologyand make it available uh to
them.
SPEAKER_03 (16:08):
Right, you you're yes, um thousand percent.
And it wasn't quite that easy.
I was sure.
It was that easy.
Yeah, of course it was.
I am a very stubborn guy, and uhso the Lord laid it on my heart
probably five years ago, and ittook me until a year and a half
to actually get my my rear ingear.
But yes, that's it.
And it was all around, you know,Ephesians 2.10, like for we are
God's masterpiece created in hisown image to do good works, and
(16:32):
so it is.
Well, what do I know?
And so looking back at a 20-yearcareer at IBM, it's like, well,
I know emerging technology, youknow, I can talk tech, I've got
the glasses, I can, you know,I'm a nerd, I'm I'm a nerd at
heart, believe it or not.
So I can nerd out on sometechnology.
So that's I was like, how do Itake that?
And then going back to that13-year-old Eric, right?
(16:53):
Of man, this missions thing withJesus was alive in that.
I mean, bringing people talkingabout the gospel through good
works, where does that mean?
SPEAKER_01 (17:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (17:06):
And again, this is one of the we mentioned, you
know, why are you saying theLord's Prayer at night?
This is one of those the scalesfall out from your eyes, right?
It's well, there's not a churchEric and a business eric and a
family Eric.
There should be one Ericgrounded in a relationship with
Christ.
And it was all of these things,just like, oh my gosh, what
(17:26):
we've been I say we, I've beendoing this all wrong, and it's
gotta change.
And so again, that was that isexactly what happened.
It's like, well, I know emergingtechnology, I love the mission
field.
I don't feel called to themission field, but I I love our
mission pastor at uh at ourchurch here and had some good
conversations with him.
We were talking about you knowsome entry points, and they were
(17:49):
like, Well, connectivity stinkswith our missions teams.
Like, I know I knowconnectivity, I got some things
that might be able to work here,so let's what if we get tech and
just get it on mission?
So tech on mission.
And that that's how Playrow wasbirthed, yeah, and that's the
the nonprofit.
So, and we'll get a little bitback to David Pearson.
So his technology, KriusTechnology Group, had been
(18:12):
crushing it.
Now they have like teens ofpatents um that are around this
technology that really improveconnectivity.
And so we walked David and Ithrough how we're gonna take his
for-profit company and make itredemptive, and then what does
the future look like for Krius?
So, again, uh just to do itquickly, they were a government
(18:33):
military, still are basedcompany looking to go into the
commercial market.
And we said, that's great.
It could be a two-leggedcompany, it can have a
commercial arm and a governmentmilitary arm.
Awesome.
Then we really took a look backand said, well, hold on, there's
there's an element missing herethat we need to make this
redemptive.
So how is this going to be aredemptive company?
And we said, well, it probablyneeds to do things like get tech
(18:55):
into the mission field or givesome type of redemptive quality
there.
So it's now a three-leggedcompany, we call it government
military, commercial, andredemptive.
But really, it's redemptive fromthe core and it filters through
all of those.
That redemptive piece thenbecame the nonprofit uh play
row.
SPEAKER_00 (19:11):
Okay, what's playrow mean?
SPEAKER_03 (19:13):
Playrow, yes, glad you mentioned it.
So in in part of the study withthis, uh I went through a class
on Ephesians 2.10 where uh faithand calling meet your business
workplace.
And in doing that class, itwasn't even related to the
assignments, but I was justreading Mark, and it's the first
thing Jesus says in Mark, and ityou have those moments when
(19:35):
Jesus just smacks you on theback of the head.
I don't get the crazy likedreams or like visions or
whatever, but words just pop outon the page in this instance.
Yeah, and it was Mark 1:15.
The time is fulfilled, and thekingdom of God is at hand.
Repent and believe in thegospel.
He laid that on my heart sohard, and I got, again, nerd,
(19:58):
nerded out, went to Logos andBlue Letter Bible to understand
what this word uh fulfilled isbecause it is popping off the
page for me.
So look under the covers and atthe it's a verb, the verb
version of this word to fulfill,to complete is play row.
Technically it's playroo, butthat doesn't roll off the top.
(20:19):
Yeah, yeah.
It's easy.
And I was like, I love thisword.
I've got it like this this Lord,what do I do with this?
I love it, I'm in it.
Let's go.
I think this is what I'msupposed to do with it.
If you look at furtherdefinitions, so the the word
means to complete or to fulfill,and in this case it was to
fulfill spreading the gospel.
There's and it's litteredthroughout the New Testament.
(20:41):
But one of the coolestdefinitions is you mentioned
rising tide lifts all boat, asyou often do in this podcast,
which is awesome.
So keeping with that nauticalanalogy here, one of the
definitions of Playrow is thewind filling a sail of a ship.
And I was like, whoa, that'sthere's something here.
I'm not a mission or I'm not onmission, I'm not in the bush, in
(21:04):
the jungle doing mission work,but they are.
There are mission teams in thebush doing all around the world.
Yeah, those are our ships,right?
They're they're sailing around,they're crushing it, they are
spreading the gospel.
I mean, they are the greatcommission, right?
Playrow just wants to give alittle boost to their sale so
that they can communicate withtheir sending organizations,
their sending churches, and justhelp them out, you know,
(21:27):
whatever it may be.
So, highest level, Play Rowbrings tech to the mission
field, period.
Emerging technology to themission field.
But by virtue of having a deeprelationship with this
connectivity company in Creus,that's where we're starting.
And again, trying to keep alight touch on where it goes.
SPEAKER_00 (21:44):
I'm gonna bring this down to a fifth grader level.
Yeah.
Does this does this mean that Ican use my phone where I
couldn't use my phone?
SPEAKER_03 (21:52):
Oh, it means a lot more than that.
SPEAKER_00 (21:54):
Okay, okay.
It means I can it means I canget more electric electricity
and access through my phone,computer, et cetera.
So it's not just like Starlinkand Wi-Fi.
SPEAKER_03 (22:04):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (22:05):
So let's tell tell it to the fifth grader level of
me what it can do so that if I'mthinking about deploying this or
engaging and deploying this techfor my mission workers, what
does it do?
SPEAKER_03 (22:17):
A great way to and I'll correct a little bit on the
electricity part because there'sthey got a really cool
application.
It doesn't bring electricity,but what this technology does,
one of the core components ofthe technology is anywhere there
is electricity or existinginfrastructure, so power lines,
coax, or anything, um, even raillines, which is an interesting
(22:38):
application, it can buildexpansive mesh networks on top
of it.
I think we know what meshnetworks are, right?
Like leader house, you canusually kind of go outside and
then you start losing yourconnection.
Yeah.
With this technology, thegovernment wants to use it for a
coast-to-coast mesh network.
So the scale gets blown upthere, right?
(23:00):
It's it's a lot different.
It's not just bringing likeinternet like a Starlink to
disparate places, because with aStarlink, you can go and
populate a house really easily.
But what happens about the nexthouse?
Well, you need another Starlinkfor that.
Yeah.
What happens if you want to goon a hike?
Oh, there's a mobile Starlinkfor that.
And those are all great, thoseare good solutions.
This technology could take aStarlink and distribute it
(23:22):
across an island, or a Starlink,or an internet feed, or not even
having internet, you could stillhave communication with these
devices across an island.
SPEAKER_00 (23:32):
So going back to like analog or like like older
school than Wi-Fi.
SPEAKER_03 (23:38):
Right.
Well, I mean it it's stilltechnically a network, yeah,
like Wi-Fi.
Like so the way to think aboutit, you still get on your phone
and connect any device to it, soI could then WhatsApp you or
message you, and so we couldstill do that.
Yeah.
Um, but you just wouldn'tnecessarily need even need the
internet.
Because there's been some mixedresults, I'll call it, with
people just, hey, there's atribal village, let's go throw
(24:00):
some internet on it.
SPEAKER_00 (24:01):
Yeah.
Um think about what they'regonna find pretty quickly on the
internet.
SPEAKER_03 (24:04):
And they do.
It's so sad.
And it's it's just how strongthe devil has hold of this
place, right?
I mean, Elon Musk did this, hebrought Starlink to a remote
tribe in, I believe it wasAfrica.
Within six months, the primaryusers of that technology were
addicted to social media andporn.
SPEAKER_02 (24:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (24:20):
It's that fast.
When you just go and say ungatedaccess to the internet, go have
at it, what are we gonna do?
We're gonna go back to our vicesand it it's gonna take hold.
SPEAKER_02 (24:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (24:30):
So one of the goals of Playro is to empower the
mission teams first so that theycan help steward the technology.
SPEAKER_02 (24:38):
There you go.
SPEAKER_03 (24:38):
But also to have the mission teams use the technology
to impact their goals, right?
So that you know, it's not justhaving Wi-Fi so they can unplug
and watch some Netflix, right?
Yeah, it's so they can videochat with, you know, their
organizations, their supportteams.
Man, we just we just uh had somemission folks here for for an
(24:59):
event, and I was just in Greecedoing a missions conference, and
they are so isolated at times.
It's real easy to get isolatedfor years at a time when they
don't have access to theirsupport teams.
So if we can do things to bringconnectivity to help them feel
better supported, awesome.
SPEAKER_00 (25:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (25:16):
There are more long-term plays that I think are
even more impactful.
SPEAKER_00 (25:20):
Well, just think about just think about practical
life, right?
So you're you're raising yourkids, you know, they're young.
You you have just normal lifeissues of being a married couple
raising kids.
Now you're you're working in atribe or in an unreached people
group.
There's issues where you need toreach back out to your support,
and you can't do it from whereyou are, so you've got to leave.
(25:43):
You've got to hike dayssometimes, or get on a
helicopter and go back to a townsomewhere where you can
reconnect with everybody and getyour newsletter out and do those
things.
And now she's back alone.
She can't communicate with youbecause she has no ability from
there.
You're not sure how that sickkid's doing, you're not sure how
that pregnant woman in thetribe's doing, you're not sure
how all these things.
SPEAKER_01 (26:04):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (26:04):
Yeah.
Right.
And and so the practical usecase for this is very easy to
see if you'll just kind of letyourself explore it.
And I can think of any anymissionaries or heads of mission
orgs that listen to our pod,like they're gonna get this
quickly.
SPEAKER_01 (26:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (26:18):
And my next question, if I was one of them,
is what does it cost?
Yeah.
Can I afford this?
Yep.
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (26:24):
This is part of the model we're working through
right now, right?
So let me real quickly go backto how it can impact.
And so using some of the eventhe terms you you played on to
make it real for the listeners,right?
The pilot project was just doneearlier this year.
That pilot project was for acouple with a family that has
raised them in Papua New Guinea,and they had the exact problem
(26:47):
you mentioned, which was theyhave to walk half a mile up a
hill to hold their phone up,maybe just write they get some
reception, and they can send outa barely a uh a text.
Right.
To get internet, they had to gointo town, which is a five-hour
car ride, or an hour and a halfboat ride.
Yep.
And in the the exact example, asyou mentioned, where now
(27:09):
family's away or whoever'strying to get connectivity is
away from the family.
So we designed a solution, sentit to them, and I can they live
in a house with barely anyelectricity, had no service, and
now I can WhatsApp the guy andthe wife from their house.
Changes the game for them.
(27:29):
He even mentioned that when theit's a little spottier there
because when the weather'sright, they get better
reception.
But he even mentioned one timehe was in town and was able to
WhatsApp video call his wife.
SPEAKER_00 (27:40):
Video call.
Right?
Wow.
SPEAKER_03 (27:41):
Yes, when the when the conditions were right.
But still, but still, right.
And so take that a step further.
SPEAKER_00 (27:47):
Just think about how encouraging that is just in that
moment for her and the kids andtheir family.
Just in that moment.
SPEAKER_03 (27:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (27:53):
That's so, so good, man.
SPEAKER_03 (27:55):
And then what's so take this a step further.
Our big hairy ambitious goals,writer bags, are if we had this
across the island, this the wifeis a nurse.
And what if we had the nurse beable to telehealth with people
on the island who have zeroaccess to good or not zero
access, but very little accessto quality health care.
(28:16):
Take that a step further, andnow we could even connect them
with doctors perhaps inAustralia, New Zealand on the
same time zone, wherever that uhthey are, and be able to assist
her in even maybe morecomplicated things.
So the the the we're justgetting started on this and
really excited on where that thethis year and a half, three
years, five years could looklike with the with you know
(28:38):
better connectivityconnectivity.
SPEAKER_00 (28:40):
I'm gonna answer my own question a little bit for
the mission world.
It's not expensive.
Oh, yeah.
Because you're doing it as anonprofit arm of a for-profit
entity, and because ofeveryone's heart for this, the
for-profit entity is supportingit.
You're raising private funds aswell to support it.
Uh, and so the cost to deploythis tech for the missions org
(29:00):
for the missionaries is nothigh.
SPEAKER_03 (29:03):
Right.
That it's not high.
We're still, like I said, ourpilot project was just finished.
We have a kit that we think willfit a lot of needs that we can
get down to around the$5,000mark.
SPEAKER_00 (29:14):
Yeah, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_03 (29:15):
But yeah, not expensive in the in the grand
scheme of things for for those.
SPEAKER_00 (29:19):
Well, and pretty much everybody I mean uh uh has
somebody that would that wouldfoot that bill for them to get
that connectivity out there andand provide them with that kind
of quality of life, opportunityfor missional excellence, right?
And um and just think about howyour witness grows in that
community.
Yep.
Uh if you're able to telehealthin a doctor and save someone's
life in a childbirth situation.
unknown (29:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:41):
Right.
I mean, I mean, really, it it itcomes down to the very practical
hands and feet of Christ and theactual work uh with widows and
orphans.
I mean, it it's it enhances yourability to do all those things
without giving the whole groupthe internet.
SPEAKER_03 (29:56):
Right, unfettered access to the internet.
SPEAKER_00 (29:57):
Unfettered access to whatever they're gonna find on.
on the internet, um, which mayget them chasing all sorts of
rabbits that candidly we want toprotect them from and protect
their innocence from untilthey've had more time to grow
and develop and you know in theLord and in world culture that
they're not completely aware ofat all.
SPEAKER_03 (30:14):
Yeah.
Right.
And so and then we get into likethe nerd talk goes into now
we're talking about well what'sthe compute we should or can
bring there.
And so that compute could be,you know, most people think of
you know the internet as the endall be all, but when I say
compute, I'm talking about whatcan we bring like realistically,
maybe think of an app.
Like you could bring the Bibleapp as a as a thing on our
(30:36):
network that could beinterconnected that wouldn't
require the internet.
Or I think you just hadApologist AI on uh as well,
right?
Like what if they were part oflike an integral part of all
these devices on the network.
So instead of just hey openingup a browser, no, you open up
Apologist AI and the Bible app,right?
You're there.
And so you're bringingtechnology to the folks as
(30:59):
opposed to just bringing the Isay the big bad internet, but
you know it's not it's it's notan internet for all play.
Not to say that that'snecessarily bad, but we know
some of the outcomes for folksthat um have received that.
SPEAKER_00 (31:11):
Yeah.
Well and I think so let's lookat the use cases right because I
think if I'm listening to thisand I'm being a devil's advocate
here, I would say like, well whoare you to say what they should
and should not have access toright?
SPEAKER_03 (31:21):
Oh 100% big bag sensor.
SPEAKER_00 (31:23):
Yeah but it but but this isn't a big brother thing.
This is more of a like thinkabout how a missionary family
shares the gospel with anunreached people group, right?
So you learn the majoritylanguage, you learn the minority
language that's four or fiveyears worth of getting to a
level of excellence in theirlanguage before you can even
really share the gospel becauseyou've had to learn that they
don't have words for forgivenessand love and righteousness and
(31:45):
and really key terms that youneed to effectively share the
gospel.
You've had to figure out how toconvey all those things it's
taken years to do that.
You don't just show up and tellthem day one, this is what I'm
doing here because you couldn'tanswer their questions.
Right.
This is the same concept it'sjust deploying with excellence
in a series of steps that guardsyour heart and their heart as
(32:06):
you build community and andestablish that relationship
right so I think if you look atit in that context it's it's not
big brothering it's just beingresponsible with what they would
have access to like like youwant to be responsible with what
your kids have access to.
SPEAKER_03 (32:21):
Right.
That's it.
SPEAKER_00 (32:22):
And it's actually another way of even spinning
that would be you know we willbring some connectivity but what
are you wanting right like tothat end like what that's the
scatter that's Andrew Scott andDana Tucker Decent and those
guys right there they go inthere and say what do you need?
Yes not here's what I have butwhat do you need?
SPEAKER_03 (32:39):
And that's why even going back to your the your
question why I didn't answer itof like well what's the kit look
like we have kits that mightwork for certain applications
but really it is a listen tomission partner needs to design
solutions for what's missingright and then going back to
that couple after their sendingorganization it's a Bible
(33:00):
translation organization calledWycliffe they heard about it.
They want some of the technologyand a different implementation
for their translation office onthe island.
There you go great that's goingto require some a little
different scenario but we wantto make sure that we're just not
throwing widgets you know Ithink of the well situation in
(33:21):
Africa where there's a lot ofwell intentioned but a boom
there it is there's a lot ofwell-intentioned companies that
would go out and do these digwells but what they ended up
with was they'd go dig them thenleave them and then there's a
ton of unmaintained shutdownwells that aren't there.
So like we don't we don't justwant to go dig wells and not
have them be maintained andserviceable.
SPEAKER_00 (33:43):
And so that's something it was a heartbreaking
moment for me when we had dug 21wells and raised a bunch of
money and we felt great about itto find out that the average
shelf life of what of a handpump well is a year and a half.
SPEAKER_03 (33:53):
Oh gosh so you're living oh man.
Yeah that was pouring salt on awound sorry about that.
SPEAKER_00 (33:58):
No that was that was uh 2018-19 kind of context of us
learning through bless what wewere what we were doing and and
not doing well and andgratefully God showed us several
things we weren't doing well andwe were able to pivot right but
so like even even the scatterconference right so we had this
conference and we had we hadsome people in uh from several
other parts of the world and andsome of what they shared um that
(34:21):
was shocking okay so I'll I'mnot gonna give exact locations
but let's just a guy from Ugandacame over and he was raised in
the slums and he he worked hisway out through technology and
and there's it's a beautifulstory and we may have him on
someday to tell it.
But but when USAID shut down ifyou looked at the news here it
was it was a horrible thingright oh how could we do that
(34:42):
USAID shut down and and it itwas terrible and and he
literally is over here sayingwe're celebrating that thank you
for doing that because allyou've really done is give a man
a fish give a man a fish give aman a fish and he's waiting for
you to give him another fish.
He's like we need the resourcesto teach our people not only how
to fish but we need a resourcesto teach our people how to
(35:02):
control the ponds.
Oh that's it that it just likeit gives you goosebumps right
getting the goosebumps becausebecause we were we thought we
were doing good and we thoughtwe thought we were doing good
looking back at the orphancrisis right we were like oh we
should fund these orphanages andthis is better for kids.
Well then families are puttinggetting rid of their kids to
send them to the orphanages andthe real truth was it was no it
(35:24):
was we needed to we needed totalk to the family about what
they needed to keep their kids.
Yeah right it wasn't we we justmiswired it with this whole kind
of intent of doing good but wedon't look deep enough we we're
too shallow in our giving likewe invest with excellence but we
give to check a box and we havegot to give with excellence too.
(35:46):
That's what you're doing you'relike I didn't just build a
widget and throw it at the worldand say here.
What I did was we developed techthat could be curated and could
be put together in a certain waydepending on the need of that
people group in that part of theworld and it's not always going
to look the same.
So we need to slowlymethodically ask questions about
what do you need and what's thelevel of engagement you want at
(36:09):
this stage depending on whereyou are.
SPEAKER_01 (36:12):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (36:12):
So if you hear that and I I can he I can hear
friends of mine that listen tothis smiling because I know how
much they're going to appreciatethat posture.
SPEAKER_03 (36:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:20):
What can we do to help?
SPEAKER_03 (36:22):
That's it.
And it goes back to even I meanI'll parallel this with
Faithwalks right it's like it'snot just routine check mark
throw money at the problem it'sit's breaking these trends of
routine and check mark andgetting into what the
relationship because that'swhere it is that's where you're
gonna provide the most value.
And so that's it that is rightat the heart of PlayRow is you
know keeping that light touch.
(36:44):
We're not just pushing widgetswe're pushing relationships and
we're looking for folks withrelationships that have big
ideas so that we can help solvethem.
You know we've got uh right nowit's very lean and mean with
Playrolow it's myself at at thethe head right now but I've got
a slew of engineers and contactsthat help with design work.
They want to volunteer time andtechnology to solve some of
(37:06):
these problems.
And so it really is who are thewhat are the relationships that
can yield some low-hanging fruityou know we've got a good kit
quote unquote that we talkedabout earlier that can solve
some needs but there's more herethat we can that we can do with
with proper relationshipsunderstanding what they are and
then designing some really wehope and so let's let's play
this out somebody calls you theysay hey I've got an opportunity
(37:29):
you've at it it makes sense whathappens does somebody fly over
with the tech and set it all upwe didn't even do that for the
previous one.
We don't even necessarily haveto fly over a lot of it is plug
and play wow like plug this inand now granted our Papa New
Guinea pig in this previous onethis is the all time pun
(37:50):
episode.
Yeah I mean who do you thinkyou're I mean I haven't changed
from college you're still gonnaget those dad jokes um so our
guinea pig there man he had a 14foot bamboo pole with one of the
antennas to get betterconnectivity to a cell tower.
So he's he was experimental andwilling to work with us but a
(38:10):
lot of this stuff is we shoot itto you you plug in and sometimes
that's even hard so we even sendgenerators and solar powered
stuff with them as well but youplug in you're done there's no
like let me reset my router orgo and unplug my open your phone
and you go to the settings andyou look for the thing and you
connect and you're going you'redone.
Actually and for some of themyou don't even have to do that
(38:31):
it just grabs a signal boostyour cell signal.
Yeah so uh yeah so there's thatthere's some cool stuff there um
and then we'll take that cellsignal turn into a network and
then we can shoot that out a avariety of ways too so that's we
try to make it as plug and playas possible because we know you
know not everyone's techie andespecially those in the mission
field they might not have anybackground in in technology.
SPEAKER_00 (38:53):
So all right this may sound silly um but God just
prompted me to say it so I'mgonna say it the first person
that reaches out to Eric thatvets a project that he decides
to do the Unreach podcast willfund that one.
SPEAKER_03 (39:04):
There you go.
SPEAKER_00 (39:05):
All right let's go so let's get this going let's
get this moving let's do it.
Clint and I would love to be apart of that team um so we'll
we'll support that we'll praywith you on that.
And man just thank you for forfor giving everyone an example
today of what it can look likeright to to chase the American
dream and secular success andall those things and then and
(39:25):
then get to a point where Godbreaks you you look back you see
where he was working the wholetime right but then you see this
massive pivot point where it'snot about me getting up every
day and asking God to help meaccomplish what I want to do.
It's about me getting up everyday and asking God what does he
want to do?
So it's your day you've made ityou've made me you've made me
(39:47):
for something what is thatsomething what do we want to do
with this today right and you'vepivoted that in such a beautiful
way and you're bringing peoplewith you.
Right?
So we we we talked the other dayand you shared that you've got
five or six of our otherfraternity brothers and y'all
are doing a D group right now.
And and I'm telling you ifyou're listening to this and you
knew the guys I was talkingabout, you wouldn't believe it.
(40:09):
You would not believe it.
I mean I don't believe it butwhen you meet a man like Eric
Long who has such conviction andsuch passion and such love for
the Lord it's just contagiousand you just want to be around
it and you want to know why doyou have such joy and they want
to know and look at the changethat's happening just because
you're out authentically showinghim off.
SPEAKER_03 (40:31):
Oh man that you you nailed it it's authentic being
authentically you being and himshining through you man that's
that's you brother that's uhwell that is you that's that's
going back to a lunch that's youreaching the unreached on this
podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (40:43):
I appreciate that that's very kind and very
humbling to hear my very clearlife mission is to make
disciples locally and reach theunreached globally.
And when you get to make adisciple locally or be a part of
that and then that disciple'sreaching the unreached globally
I mean that's like the ultimatewow.
Disciples making disciples it isat 2 Timothy 2 2.
SPEAKER_01 (41:04):
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (41:05):
Thanks for being on thanks for doing what you're
doing stay in touch obviously wewe want to do we want to do a
follow-up when we get thisproject that we've just put out
into the ether out into theworld.
That's right.
So I did a podcast recentlywhere I said I was going to
write a book and you know TravisRoby he texted me after Travis
was like you put that out thereand I was like yeah I know I've
got accountability now.
Now you're stuck and we'realready working on it.
(41:27):
Jack and I are already workingon the book.
So we'll we'll do that too andthen we'll do a follow up and
we'll maybe we'll even have onthe people group that we don't
even know yet that's going toget this tech.
SPEAKER_03 (41:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (41:34):
And hit and hear their story of how they deployed
it.
SPEAKER_03 (41:36):
Well I think it's might be a whole continent now
if we do it right and reallyhave you on the hook for this.
SPEAKER_00 (41:42):
All right well you know it's all God's money right
that's not ours.
Yeah yeah okay so for thoselisteners that hear this and
they want to engage they want tofind out more they want to see
if this is something that couldbe a a a solution for them or
someone they know what do theydo next?
SPEAKER_03 (41:55):
Yep so right now we are like I said we're lean and
mean but we do have ourwebsite's the easiest place to
go.
We've done a lot of the plumbingI'll call it so there are places
to donate at playroplayrow.world so it's
P-L-E-R-O-O.World and that'swhere you find us.
SPEAKER_00 (42:12):
Okay so go check out playrow.world and Eric you know
we always ask our guest to prayfor the listeners at the end of
the episode so would uh wouldyou please close us in prayer?
SPEAKER_03 (42:22):
Be honored.
Heavenly Father Lord my goodnessso grateful for you filling up
this room just havingconversation to glorify you.
It's not it's not why we do thisit's what we do with the gifts
that you've given us we're sograteful for that grateful for
the conversations and justexcited to see the joy you bring
the gospel you spread to thedifferent parts of the world
(42:43):
that haven't even experiencedyour joy let us fulfill and
complete that mission.
We love you.
In your name we pray amen.
SPEAKER_00 (42:50):
Amen thank you for listening to Unreached our
sincere desire is that whatyou've heard today will cause
you to see the mission of Goddifferently and your role in it
more clearly if this adds valuefor you and we hope it does
would you please rate and reviewthe podcast wherever you listen
also share with your family,your friends, your church, your
life group, small group, D groupwherever you do life and if you
(43:12):
want to connect with us find uson Instagram at unreached
podcast or email us at unreachedpodcast at gmail dot com
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