July 15, 2025 • 12 mins
What drives someone at the peak of worldly success to abandon it all for a deeper purpose? Santonio reveals the extraordinary transformation of Cole, a successful model and actor who seemed to have everything society values – looks, skills, and opportunities – yet found himself trapped in a cycle of emptiness and dissatisfaction. His story reminds us that when someone is willing to journey with another person through both spiritual curiosity and personal struggle, the impact can extend far beyond what we imagine possible.
Share this episode with someone who might be inspired by this story of transformation, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform to help others discover these powerful testimonies of faith in action. How might God be calling you to walk alongside someone in their journey toward discovering real joy and purpose?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Unwritten, a podcast dedicated to sharing
stories of the movement of theHoly Spirit in the world.
Today I'm your host, trevorBureka, and on today's episode
we're getting to hear fromSantonio Hill.
Have you ever heard someone saythat they hate small talk?
I often think to myself whatdoes that mean?
What does it mean to say thatyou hate small talk?
(00:27):
I often think to myself whatdoes that mean?
What does it mean to say thatyou hate small talk?
And I think the gist is thatpeople, while they care about
the weather and they care aboutsports and other things that
people talk about, what theyreally want is to enter into
someone's life and get anopportunity to really know how
someone's doing, because theyhave a desire to really get into
the meat of life, quest formeaning with someone else and
(00:47):
share in that quest together.
In today's story, santonio isshocked by a surprising moment
of someone sharing from theheart that leads to a years-long
journey of faith.
Welcome to the show and listenin.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
So I met Cole when he was a senior in high school.
Now my wife her name is Kristen, and her family was really
close friends with Cole's family, so they would hang out all the
time and whenever they wouldhang out I'd get to know people
and everything and it'd be great.
But the longest conversationthat I ever had with Cole was
(01:24):
for probably 20 minutes and itwould be that way for three
years and he was a bit of a gymbro very stylish man, has crazy
athleticism and into the partyculture.
But God wasn't really in thepicture.
Three years later, gettingmarried to my wife, kristen, you
(01:44):
know, we prayed for miracles tohappen and for lives to really
change, and so we prayed a dailyrosary for a month hoping that
some results like that will comeabout.
And we got a few and it wasreally beautiful to see.
But one of those was Cole.
I remember we were dancing, mywife and I, and there was like a
(02:09):
circle that had surrounded usat our wedding and we were doing
all kinds of crazy swingdancing flips.
It was awesome.
And at one point he walks up tome and he whispers in my ear
very loudly because it was aparty.
Your life is awesome and I wantit.
I thought, whoa, you know, Ididn't say much at the time,
it's kind of walked away andsaid thanks, man, god bless.
(02:32):
In my mind.
I thought maybe Cole isallowing God to work in his life
through his desires.
And so from this point on, coleand I, whenever our families
would meet, we would have thesethree hour conversations, and
they would be beautiful.
We would always start off witha small talk and then get into a
(02:54):
deeper philosophical topic.
You know something about God,or why we exist, or why God
exists, the purpose of life,identity, religion, spiritual
warfare, you name it, we coveredit.
But then he'd go back tocollege and he would dive back
into the party culture.
Now, this pattern would happenfor the next three years or so,
(03:18):
and during that time he droppedout of college, pursued modeling
and acting, and very early onhe achieved wild success in
acting, premiered in a fewmovies that probably hit your
local theater, but it was alwaysmet with an emptiness every
time that he would achieve abrand new height, and so he
(03:38):
searched for fulfillment in manythings, and as he looked into
all these things, he ended upgetting the same exact result
emptiness.
And so one day he gets tired ofhitting all these rock bottoms
and he sends me a text veryrandomly your family going to
mass today at Epiphany at 10 am.
(04:00):
And I said, absolutely, are youcoming?
Would you like to sit with ourfamily?
He said that would be great,I'll be there.
And so me and my family, we go,we sit at mass and the entire
time I'm just looking around forthis guy, I'm kind of waiting
for him, and he sends me a textand he says I'm in the back.
And so I run back there, I gogive him a big hug and I say
(04:31):
welcome and I said my family'sup here, come sit with us.
And he sits the entire mass.
He's kind of uncertain on whatto do, kind of has some muscle
memory in there from being acradle Catholic, but for the
most part a little uncertain,which is absolutely fine.
And so right after mass wasover I look at him and I say how
are you doing?
And he just takes a big inhale,lets out a really big sigh and
(04:51):
says I'm all right, I'm allright, I just wanted to, you
know, really dive into all thethings.
Right then and there.
But then my son takes off andso I have to go get him.
And my wife and I were throwingan engagement party for a couple
of focus missionaries at ourhouse, and so we invited Cole
(05:11):
over and said, hey, I don't knowwhat you're doing after this,
but we would love to have youover our house throwing a little
party.
You can get to know a fewpeople.
So he said, yeah, I'll come,sounds great.
He comes, he hangs out andthere's about 10 focused
missionaries there, 10 morestudents of those missionaries,
and a very awesome time for himto have a lot of intentional
(05:35):
conversations and people justpour into him in a way that he's
most likely never been able toreceive.
And we did end up getting alittle bit of time at the party
to kind of chat a little bitabout mass and what his thoughts
were and everything that he'skind of going through, because
it is a big 180 for him to justnot be at mass at all, to really
(05:56):
just be living for himself andyet stroking his own ego, so to
speak.
And now here he is worshipingGod, here he is worshiping God
and so just having a littleconversation with him about that
experience and what that waslike, and he said it was
peaceful.
It was peaceful, but I couldtell he was still timid and
(06:19):
seemingly pensive and not reallyknowing necessarily what to do
or the right things to say.
Our typical conversationsaren't the conversations that
he's having now at his party andhe's just kind of drinking in a
lot of what he's seeing and alot of what he's hearing.
After everybody leaves he sticksaround until the end of the
night and I asked him, cole,what's going on?
(06:43):
What's changing?
You never come to Mass with usbefore.
What's the inspiration?
And he said I just have hitrock bottom so many times and
I'm just so tired of it.
I keep trying new things and itends up with the same result of
emptiness.
When I look at other people andsee, especially you, san
(07:07):
Antonio, that there's certainthings in your life that you
don't have, but I do.
But the one thing that you dohave that I want is joy, and I
don't know what it is, but Iknow that you go to church.
And so I said maybe I'll trythat out.
And, san Antonio, to be honestwith you, when I close my eyes
(07:28):
and I look for God, the Father,for whatever reason, your face
pops up.
And so I wanted to explore moreof this church thing that you
are and your family is into.
Now, when he said that, I wasvery humbled and very yeah,
caught off guard and reallycaught me by surprise.
(07:48):
But what a beautiful sentimentthat he shared with me and from
this point on I continued todisciple Cole in a lot more of
an intentional way.
Our conversations that we wouldhave about deep philosophical
topics turned into apologetics.
It turned into walking withJesus to apologetics.
It's hurting to walking withJesus.
It's hurting to readingscripture, getting in front of
(08:11):
the blessed sacrament andadoration and continuing to go
to daily mass.
And so one day, during our manyjust three to seven hour
conversations that we would have, I mean, covid literally spent
all day at our house, from massto coming over our house for
(08:31):
brunch and then like stickingaround until we put the kids
down for bed and then even acouple more hours after that.
I mean he was hanging out allday long with our family and I
loved it and my wife loved itbecause she knew him since
diapers, and my kids loved itbecause they had somebody else
to play with and so it was justgreat for everybody.
(08:52):
But during one of these momentswhere I was able to just really
disciple him a little bit moreand speak a little bit more into
his life, where we end upgetting a little bit into the
nitty gritty.
You know, cole, as I'm askinghim questions about his life and
about his faith journey, hebrought up something that's kind
(09:13):
of tender to his heart, broughtup something that's pretty
personal, and just being able tospeak into that a little bit
from a faith perspective, talk alittle bit about how you know
that hurt that you have is realand just being able to validate
it but also being able to giveit to God, offer up that
suffering, give it to him andcontinue to work through it,
(09:35):
obviously, but also give itopportunity for grace and give
opportunity for rest and time.
And so to be able to just givethat hurt and that pain over to
God and let him heal and let himtransform you, and that it's
not going to go away immediatelybut that in time things will
get better.
And so just being able tojourney with him through that
(09:57):
moment, it just seemed like thatconversation was a catalyst of
him just really being able toexplode in a faith in a way that
I mean this kid now is able toevangelize me.
The change that I see in Cole isnothing short of a miracle.
He had the looks he still hasthem Skills, the opportunities
(10:22):
for all these great things thathe was aiming for.
But he was unhappy and God waspersistent, and he was attentive
to God's persistence.
Through the gift of my family,and eventually others as well,
that began to walk with him andCole is now in Bible study on
(10:43):
his own.
He leads his own Bible study aswell.
He's in adoration every day, hegoes on mission trips, he goes
to daily mass, prays a rosaryevery day and he has a real
relationship with God and he hasreal friendships of excellence
with others, with God, and hehas real friendships of
excellence with others and he'sactively trying to bring others
into the church.
Today.
At this point now, he'sdiscerning his vocation, so
(11:06):
please pray for him on hisjourney.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Thank you so much, santonio, for sharing that
amazing story, and there weretwo things that I mean just
struck me as I was listening tothis story.
The first is that Santonio'sability to witness to Cole
started with prayer.
I really struggle sometimes tokeep that consistency in praying
for people because I knowintellectually that this brings
them closer to God.
But in this story there's justa living and vibrant testimony
(11:35):
that man, if we really cancommit and this is maybe my
invitation to you listening isif we really commit to bringing
people to God often andconsistently, every day, in
prayer, to just believe that Godis going to use that powerfully
in their life for conversion.
The second thing was just theradical hospitality he and
Kristen, his wife, had to, youknow, welcome into their family
(11:58):
by welcoming Cole in sofrequently as he shares in the
story.
Like that.
That's a lot of sacrifice butit's beautiful because all he
did was invite him into his lifeand share real and honest
conversation in the midst offamily life with someone that
led ultimately to their Cole'scoming to a deep faith.
If you enjoyed this episode, Ijust ask that you share it with
(12:18):
a friend that you think you'd beimpactful for and we'd love for
, whatever platform that youlisten on, for you just to leave
us a review so we can have anopportunity to continue to find
and share more stories of God'sprovidence at work in the world.
Thanks so much, santonio, forsharing your story, and thanks
so much to you for listening tothis week's episode.
We Tony for sharing your story,and thanks so much to you for
(12:43):
listening to this week's episode.
We hope to see you next week.
Welcome to Unwritten, a podcast dedicated to sharing
stories of the movement of theHoly Spirit in the world.
Today I'm your host, trevorBureka, and on today's episode
we're getting to hear fromSantonio Hill.
Have you ever heard someone saythat they hate small talk?
I often think to myself whatdoes that mean?
What does it mean to say thatyou hate small talk?
(00:27):
I often think to myself whatdoes that mean?
What does it mean to say thatyou hate small talk?
And I think the gist is thatpeople, while they care about
the weather and they care aboutsports and other things that
people talk about, what theyreally want is to enter into
someone's life and get anopportunity to really know how
someone's doing, because theyhave a desire to really get into
the meat of life, quest formeaning with someone else and
(00:47):
share in that quest together.
In today's story, santonio isshocked by a surprising moment
of someone sharing from theheart that leads to a years-long
journey of faith.
Welcome to the show and listenin.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
So I met Cole when he was a senior in high school.
Now my wife her name is Kristen, and her family was really
close friends with Cole's family, so they would hang out all the
time and whenever they wouldhang out I'd get to know people
and everything and it'd be great.
But the longest conversationthat I ever had with Cole was
(01:24):
for probably 20 minutes and itwould be that way for three
years and he was a bit of a gymbro very stylish man, has crazy
athleticism and into the partyculture.
But God wasn't really in thepicture.
Three years later, gettingmarried to my wife, kristen, you
(01:44):
know, we prayed for miracles tohappen and for lives to really
change, and so we prayed a dailyrosary for a month hoping that
some results like that will comeabout.
And we got a few and it wasreally beautiful to see.
But one of those was Cole.
I remember we were dancing, mywife and I, and there was like a
(02:09):
circle that had surrounded usat our wedding and we were doing
all kinds of crazy swingdancing flips.
It was awesome.
And at one point he walks up tome and he whispers in my ear
very loudly because it was aparty.
Your life is awesome and I wantit.
I thought, whoa, you know, Ididn't say much at the time,
it's kind of walked away andsaid thanks, man, god bless.
(02:32):
In my mind.
I thought maybe Cole isallowing God to work in his life
through his desires.
And so from this point on, coleand I, whenever our families
would meet, we would have thesethree hour conversations, and
they would be beautiful.
We would always start off witha small talk and then get into a
(02:54):
deeper philosophical topic.
You know something about God,or why we exist, or why God
exists, the purpose of life,identity, religion, spiritual
warfare, you name it, we coveredit.
But then he'd go back tocollege and he would dive back
into the party culture.
Now, this pattern would happenfor the next three years or so,
(03:18):
and during that time he droppedout of college, pursued modeling
and acting, and very early onhe achieved wild success in
acting, premiered in a fewmovies that probably hit your
local theater, but it was alwaysmet with an emptiness every
time that he would achieve abrand new height, and so he
(03:38):
searched for fulfillment in manythings, and as he looked into
all these things, he ended upgetting the same exact result
emptiness.
And so one day he gets tired ofhitting all these rock bottoms
and he sends me a text veryrandomly your family going to
mass today at Epiphany at 10 am.
(04:00):
And I said, absolutely, are youcoming?
Would you like to sit with ourfamily?
He said that would be great,I'll be there.
And so me and my family, we go,we sit at mass and the entire
time I'm just looking around forthis guy, I'm kind of waiting
for him, and he sends me a textand he says I'm in the back.
And so I run back there, I gogive him a big hug and I say
(04:31):
welcome and I said my family'sup here, come sit with us.
And he sits the entire mass.
He's kind of uncertain on whatto do, kind of has some muscle
memory in there from being acradle Catholic, but for the
most part a little uncertain,which is absolutely fine.
And so right after mass wasover I look at him and I say how
are you doing?
And he just takes a big inhale,lets out a really big sigh and
(04:51):
says I'm all right, I'm allright, I just wanted to, you
know, really dive into all thethings.
Right then and there.
But then my son takes off andso I have to go get him.
And my wife and I were throwingan engagement party for a couple
of focus missionaries at ourhouse, and so we invited Cole
(05:11):
over and said, hey, I don't knowwhat you're doing after this,
but we would love to have youover our house throwing a little
party.
You can get to know a fewpeople.
So he said, yeah, I'll come,sounds great.
He comes, he hangs out andthere's about 10 focused
missionaries there, 10 morestudents of those missionaries,
and a very awesome time for himto have a lot of intentional
(05:35):
conversations and people justpour into him in a way that he's
most likely never been able toreceive.
And we did end up getting alittle bit of time at the party
to kind of chat a little bitabout mass and what his thoughts
were and everything that he'skind of going through, because
it is a big 180 for him to justnot be at mass at all, to really
(05:56):
just be living for himself andyet stroking his own ego, so to
speak.
And now here he is worshipingGod, here he is worshiping God
and so just having a littleconversation with him about that
experience and what that waslike, and he said it was
peaceful.
It was peaceful, but I couldtell he was still timid and
(06:19):
seemingly pensive and not reallyknowing necessarily what to do
or the right things to say.
Our typical conversationsaren't the conversations that
he's having now at his party andhe's just kind of drinking in a
lot of what he's seeing and alot of what he's hearing.
After everybody leaves he sticksaround until the end of the
night and I asked him, cole,what's going on?
(06:43):
What's changing?
You never come to Mass with usbefore.
What's the inspiration?
And he said I just have hitrock bottom so many times and
I'm just so tired of it.
I keep trying new things and itends up with the same result of
emptiness.
When I look at other people andsee, especially you, san
(07:07):
Antonio, that there's certainthings in your life that you
don't have, but I do.
But the one thing that you dohave that I want is joy, and I
don't know what it is, but Iknow that you go to church.
And so I said maybe I'll trythat out.
And, san Antonio, to be honestwith you, when I close my eyes
(07:28):
and I look for God, the Father,for whatever reason, your face
pops up.
And so I wanted to explore moreof this church thing that you
are and your family is into.
Now, when he said that, I wasvery humbled and very yeah,
caught off guard and reallycaught me by surprise.
(07:48):
But what a beautiful sentimentthat he shared with me and from
this point on I continued todisciple Cole in a lot more of
an intentional way.
Our conversations that we wouldhave about deep philosophical
topics turned into apologetics.
It turned into walking withJesus to apologetics.
It's hurting to walking withJesus.
It's hurting to readingscripture, getting in front of
(08:11):
the blessed sacrament andadoration and continuing to go
to daily mass.
And so one day, during our manyjust three to seven hour
conversations that we would have, I mean, covid literally spent
all day at our house, from massto coming over our house for
(08:31):
brunch and then like stickingaround until we put the kids
down for bed and then even acouple more hours after that.
I mean he was hanging out allday long with our family and I
loved it and my wife loved itbecause she knew him since
diapers, and my kids loved itbecause they had somebody else
to play with and so it was justgreat for everybody.
(08:52):
But during one of these momentswhere I was able to just really
disciple him a little bit moreand speak a little bit more into
his life, where we end upgetting a little bit into the
nitty gritty.
You know, cole, as I'm askinghim questions about his life and
about his faith journey, hebrought up something that's kind
(09:13):
of tender to his heart, broughtup something that's pretty
personal, and just being able tospeak into that a little bit
from a faith perspective, talk alittle bit about how you know
that hurt that you have is realand just being able to validate
it but also being able to giveit to God, offer up that
suffering, give it to him andcontinue to work through it,
(09:35):
obviously, but also give itopportunity for grace and give
opportunity for rest and time.
And so to be able to just givethat hurt and that pain over to
God and let him heal and let himtransform you, and that it's
not going to go away immediatelybut that in time things will
get better.
And so just being able tojourney with him through that
(09:57):
moment, it just seemed like thatconversation was a catalyst of
him just really being able toexplode in a faith in a way that
I mean this kid now is able toevangelize me.
The change that I see in Cole isnothing short of a miracle.
He had the looks he still hasthem Skills, the opportunities
(10:22):
for all these great things thathe was aiming for.
But he was unhappy and God waspersistent, and he was attentive
to God's persistence.
Through the gift of my family,and eventually others as well,
that began to walk with him andCole is now in Bible study on
(10:43):
his own.
He leads his own Bible study aswell.
He's in adoration every day, hegoes on mission trips, he goes
to daily mass, prays a rosaryevery day and he has a real
relationship with God and he hasreal friendships of excellence
with others, with God, and hehas real friendships of
excellence with others and he'sactively trying to bring others
into the church.
Today.
At this point now, he'sdiscerning his vocation, so
(11:06):
please pray for him on hisjourney.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Thank you so much, santonio, for sharing that
amazing story, and there weretwo things that I mean just
struck me as I was listening tothis story.
The first is that Santonio'sability to witness to Cole
started with prayer.
I really struggle sometimes tokeep that consistency in praying
for people because I knowintellectually that this brings
them closer to God.
But in this story there's justa living and vibrant testimony
(11:35):
that man, if we really cancommit and this is maybe my
invitation to you listening isif we really commit to bringing
people to God often andconsistently, every day, in
prayer, to just believe that Godis going to use that powerfully
in their life for conversion.
The second thing was just theradical hospitality he and
Kristen, his wife, had to, youknow, welcome into their family
(11:58):
by welcoming Cole in sofrequently as he shares in the
story.
Like that.
That's a lot of sacrifice butit's beautiful because all he
did was invite him into his lifeand share real and honest
conversation in the midst offamily life with someone that
led ultimately to their Cole'scoming to a deep faith.
If you enjoyed this episode, Ijust ask that you share it with
(12:18):
a friend that you think you'd beimpactful for and we'd love for
, whatever platform that youlisten on, for you just to leave
us a review so we can have anopportunity to continue to find
and share more stories of God'sprovidence at work in the world.
Thanks so much, santonio, forsharing your story, and thanks
so much to you for listening tothis week's episode.
We Tony for sharing your story,and thanks so much to you for
(12:43):
listening to this week's episode.
We hope to see you next week.
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