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Rachel Denning (00:00.75)
Oh man, have I got a story for you guys. Wow. Hey, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. Thanks for being here. Thanks for caring. Thanks for wanting to live an extraordinary life and for making family a priority. Thanks for being awesome. I'm sitting in our hotel room in Quito, Ecuador right now.

Rachel and I are on a 17 day trip to celebrate our anniversary. And oh man, there's going to be lots of awesome stories coming out of this. But I have some amazing stories that are going to blow your mind and actually a really important question. And so I want to start with a question because very few people actually think about this and we definitely don't take it seriously enough. And if, if we do think of it, we rarely,

reconsider it often enough. And man, it's far, far more important than most of us think. And here's the question, I want you to chew on this for a little bit and really contemplate it. Are you prepared to help?

When situations arise.

Are you willing? And are you able?

Rachel Denning (01:29.55)
And it's huge. That question right there, you might think, well, that's no big deal. Yeah, of course I'm ready. Of course I'm able. But there's more to it than that. And I'm going to try to illustrate that today with some experiences that I've had. And I feel like because this is something I've wanted, passionately wanted to do for decades now, I've wanted to be able to help and serve when opportunities arise.

I feel like God and the universe have conspired in my favor to constantly give me reminders. And those are some of the stories I'm going to tell you today. In fact, this has happened a lot before I get into the story. Let me start the story. So we are traveling through Mexico and we've been in several weeks just having absolutely wonderful, wonderful experiences and tons of opportunities to

blessed people financially as they've struggled through the COVID. So just coming in and just buying things and hiring help. And it's just, it's been such an amazing blessing to be able to help so many people and so many families get some income that's so needed. They haven't had much work or any work or business since COVID started. So it's just been wonderful as the world starts to open back up and...

things start to flow and move again. It's just been amazing. So we, we rent this gorgeous beach house and we drive, uh, we drive most of the day. We can't, Oh man, you guys, we camped on this beach. I wasn't even going to tell a story. We camped on this beach in this little teeny town in the middle of nowhere, right? It's we're so far out there and we, we pull on the sand and this is the exact same place.

where we camped nine years ago. Exact same place we camped nine years ago, right? We camped on this beach, but nine years ago, I was in this old truck and the truck broke down and we just could not figure out what was wrong. I had to get it towed. My wife got super crazy sick. So it ended up, it was a wonderful experience and a terrible experience. So we actually wanted to go back to that exact same beach with our family.

Rachel Denning (03:54.445)
and have a totally different experience now in our new rig and our amazing rooftop tent. So we set up the tent, our friends from Germany drove up and met us there. We all camped right on the beach on the water, watched the sunset and the sunrise and played in the water and the sand. Oh man, it was magical. So we drove from there and we wanted to stop at a cenote. So cenotes, if you don't know what a cenote is, they're just all over the whole Yucatan Peninsula. So it's kind of underground.

freshwater fountains and swimming holes and they're amazing caves. They're all over the place. And so we found this one we wanted to go visit and it was a 17th century Hacienda, which was just stunning in and of itself. And the, and the family that they're, they had owned dozens of Haciendas and they had like 10 ,000 hectares, which was like maybe 25 ,000 acres. And they raised cattle and they, and they grew, um,

They grew the like, it was kind of like a, what's that plant called? Agave, it was kind of like an agave plant, but they would scrape it down and they made ropes. And so they made string and ropes out of this and it had this processing plant. It was really awesome. Anyways, they didn't even know about it. The people had the Oceana, they had a well and they didn't even know that at the bottom of their well was this unbelievable cenote that was covered. It was, it was this underground cave. And so they finally discovered it and now they turn it into like this maze, amazing tourist attraction.

So you go down this cave, you're swimming in this pool down on the ground, and then you swim through this tunnel, and then you have to be quiet, and it's completely silent and totally dark because the cave is just filled with stalactites hanging from the ceiling that are thousands of years old, and you're swimming through this, and it's super deep, and they're like 400 feet deep, and you're swimming through, oh, it was unreal. Such a cool, cool experience. So fun with all of our families playing.

So we get to this beach house at night and we didn't have any groceries or anything and so we're kind of tired, a little hungry and everyone's getting settled in. We're just super excited to be there because it's such a nice place. And so Rachel and I, we unpack everything and Rachel and I jump in the van and we're just going to run to the nearest grocery store and just grab a few things for tonight and tomorrow. And so we jump in the van and we go around, it's called Fallen Maps and we turn the corner and...

Rachel Denning (06:17.325)
As we turn the corner and start to accelerate, I see a bunch of people stopped. I'm like, oh man, what's going on? So I slow it down and I look over and there's a wrecked motorcycle and there's a guy laying on the ground. And I'm like, okay, I gotta go. I gotta help. I gotta go into help mode here, right? And so I pull over, jump out. Rachel jumps out, grabs, we have a really amazing first aid kit we take with us everywhere. And so she grabs that and I run over there and I start assessing and the guy's unconscious.

And there's people standing around, maybe four or five people. And I'm like, what have you done? What are you doing? And, and as has happened many times in a situation like this, they're just like, we, we have no idea what to do. And so they were standing there. They weren't doing anything because they didn't know what to do. They had no idea what to do. And I'm not, I'm not faulting them. I'm not condemning them, but man, is that not a constant reminder for me. And now for you, this is what I'm sharing.

to be prepared to help. And of course I realize we can't all be prepared in every way, right? There's so many ways to help. We can't all be prepared in every way. But I think we have to choose something. We have to deliberately and intentionally choose to become skilled, to be knowledgeable, to be prepared in the ways that you really feel drawn or called or maybe...

No, you just feel like that's how I want to help. That's why I want to make a difference and a contribution in the world and get ready to prepare for that or prepare and get ready for that, right? And it's huge. And so they didn't do anything except they actually did one thing. And it was the very thing they should not have done. And I won't be too graphic about it. He had had a helmet on, but it was just one of those little helmets that kind of sits on top.

and I think when he wrecked, he hit the edge of the curb right underneath his helmet, so about the level of his ear, and he had a significant hole in his head.

Rachel Denning (08:27.437)
and he was completely unconscious and he had lost a lot of blood. And when there's a head injury like that, one of the first rules is you don't move the patient unless it is absolutely necessary. If their life is at risk or other people's lives are at risk and like if you know they will die if you don't move them, that's when you try to safely move them. But these guys had flipped them over because...

They said to me, oh, he was drowning in his blood, which wasn't true. And I've realized now, I've heard that multiple times traveling through Latin America. And it's just this false idea. I mean, it can happen, but it wasn't happening in the situations that I'm gonna tell you about. It wasn't happening, but they believed it was. And it was like one of their first thoughts. They didn't know what to do, but they're like, oh, he's gonna drown in blood, he's gonna drown in blood. And so moving him shouldn't have done that.

I'm going to, let me say this. Sometimes our erroneous ideas, our mistaken ideas and our false beliefs can get us into a lot of trouble. And can get others into a lot of trouble. And it's not just in emergency situations. I see it in marriage. These, these erroneous or mistaken ideas.

and we have a false belief, we hang on to it and we go, oh no, but it has to do this. I have to do this. I have to, this is what needs to be done. And it's actually the wrong thing. And it harms the marriage. I see it in parenting a lot. A mistaken idea, a belief, something they're holding onto. Like, oh, this is the way it's supposed to be done. And it's not working at all. In fact, it's causing more problems. Right? And so I'm going to pause there for a minute.

And I'm not, I have another, I had another experience here in Ecuador that I'm going to tell you about in another, in a coming episode. So if you have not subscribed to the podcast yet, subscribe, because you're going to hear about this one. There was a serious emergency while we were up in the mountains here in Ecuador. And.

Rachel Denning (10:47.757)
I'll just say, man, I can feel the emotion of it again. A lady literally died in my arms while I was trying to help her.

And man, does that affect you. And there's a lot of lessons from that. So stay tuned for that one. It'll be coming in a couple episodes here. Wow. But before I finish the rest of this awesome story with the motorcycle guy, I want to...

kind of touch on some other experiences I had because there's so many ways to help and so many things to be prepared. In this podcast, if you go back, you know, maybe a hundred episodes or more, I've shared stories about when I went base jumping in Idaho and we were riding the boat back along the Snake River and these girls were calling for help. And so I, I, and we couldn't get the boat over to him. This girl had stepped into a hole and broken her leg.

And so I dove in and this other guy had a base jump with he dove in, we swam over, started assessing and helping turned out, I didn't know this, the guy jumped with he's an ER doctor in like a trauma one hospital. So he, he was all over it. It was amazing. We were able to help her. I mean, just opportunities like that all the time. I told the story in another episode about that truck that rolled over on the near the Colorado Utah border. And it'd gone into the median rolled many times and the whole family only spoke Spanish. And nobody else on scene knew how to do, did spoke Spanish or knew how to do any first aid.

stuff and so I was able to help and I've told the story about when we lived in Costa Rica somebody came slamming on our door one day we were getting ready as a family to go out and somebody come down like you speak English right you're a come help come help this guy speaks English and so I go running over there.

Rachel Denning (12:37.357)
And this gentleman had been riding his bike downhill super fast and he had no helmet on and he had wrecked and he hit his head so hard he wasn't speaking English. He was just, it was gibberish. Nothing. He didn't understand anything. And I was able to help in that situation and especially help the responders, the first responders who they didn't even know what to do. And so I was able to help there.

And you guys, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not boasting, I'm not bragging. I'm just sharing there's been so many opportunities to help.

And because early on in my life, I had come on scene of accidents where I didn't know what to do. And I hated that feeling of not knowing what to do. And so I've been trying to prepare myself in a lot of ways. But this can be anything. There's a time when you're standing in line and if you're aware, you're standing in line at the grocery store and you realize that, you know what, I need to pay for the groceries for the person in front of me or the person behind me. You're just paying attention, right? And you're prepared to do that.

Or there was another time, I don't know if I told you this story, I was on a humanitarian trip in Peru, this was years ago, and it was actually 15 years ago.

And we went up to this little hospital all the way up north at the border of Ecuador. So being here in Ecuador, I've been thinking about this experience. And we went into this little hospital up there. And I, you know, I was connected with the doctor and the nurses there. And we just kind of built a quick relationship. And so they ended up giving us a tour of the entire hospital, took us back into the operating room, let us see everything. And at the time, I was volunteering on an ambulance in the United States where we were living. And I distinctly remember.

Rachel Denning (14:23.471)
thinking that we had more resources and more supplies in the back of an ambulance than they had in that entire hospital. And man was it humbling. And made me feel so grateful and the contrast in life and as we were walking through the hospital that day.

there was a little mother holding her little toddler, maybe he's one and a half or two, and the baby was just all burned. And what had happened is the little baby had reached up and grabbed a boiling pot of water off the stove and pulled it onto himself. And it was so sad, just heart wrenching.

And we were like, well, what's being done? And the doctor said, well, nothing's being done. They can't afford the medication we have. And we're like, what are you talking about? How much is it? And it turns out that he told us how much. And when we translated it, it was only $12 for the cream that the baby needed. And so of course, that was immediately taken care of with enough and to spare.

But it was interesting, he said, how many people came to the hospital and they just would wait there and die because they didn't have the needed resources. And so there's opportunities all the time to help and to make a difference and have an impact.

If we are prepared and sometimes you guys that's just knowing how to listen, you'll come across somebody who really just needs someone to listen to them. And sometimes it'll be somebody who needs advice and they'll come to you and they'll say, what should I do? And if we've been studying and we've been living and we've been paying attention, we were trying to make the most of ourselves, we're tapped into our own inspiration, we'll know what to say.

Rachel Denning (16:10.573)
And on and on and on, there's so, it might be a letter you write, an email, a text message you send. I mean, there's literally countless ways to make a difference. But I just keep thinking, it only really works if we are both willing and prepared to help. So now we go back to the motorcyclist and.

I was there, I was able to help assess his whole body, all of his injuries, help stop the bleeding. I was making sure, because nobody else knew how to do anything. And so I was making sure he was at an airway, his breathing, so I had a pulse that he was stabilized until he got there. Then when the ambulance got there, they needed some help, and so I was able to help him get him.

onto the backboard, up on the gurney, and then into the ambulance and just kind of helped take out care of that. Little did I know, they were all the people on scene who were standing there, didn't know what to do. They all had their phones on and they were all recording it. And so everything got recorded. But I didn't know that. I just helped out and we got him loaded up and on the way to the hospital. And then I went back to the van with Rachel and...

And after the intensity of experiences like that, they're super emotional. They're super intense, right? And your adrenaline's pumping. There's a lot going on. And you're just, you got to keep cool and calm and just steady. You got to have steady nerves and thoughts. So I went back and I got in the van and I was just kind of letting that settle. And it affects you, my friends, to see a fellow human being.

in that kind of condition. And to see those kind of injuries and wounds, it just, it affects you. You guys know what I'm talking about. So I'm processing that and man, what a reminder of how precious life is, how fragile it is. So just feeling a lot of love for Rachel, for our kids. So we went to the grocery store, we went home and hugged on everybody, loved on everybody. Just, you know, just.

Rachel Denning (18:25.965)
Just one of those reminders, right? And I was grateful for the opportunity to be there to help out. The next morning, and so the night before when we got to the place, we had met the caretaker whose name was Gabriel, right? Great guy. And so we were gonna be there. It's like we're renting the place for like five or six weeks, and so we're gonna be there a long time. The next morning, we're making breakfast, and Gabriel comes and knocks on the door.

And he says, hey, did you help somebody last night? And I'm like, what? He's like, did you help someone last night? I'm like, yeah. And he opens his phone, and it's on Facebook. He's like, here it is right here. Right? And it went on Facebook, and then it got in the news and all this. And he's like, that was my cousin. And he's like, and they operated on him last night. He's going to be OK.

And then like two days later, he got released from the hospital. He was all right. And Gabriel, he was like, I'm just so indebted to you, my whole family. We're all so grateful. I want to thank you so much for stopping to help. Right? And I didn't know that. And it just ended up being just this beautiful connection and just a fantastic opportunity. So I just wanted to, cause, and again, I'm sharing a message that impacts me. Cause I always want to stop and ask myself, am I willing to help? Am I prepared?

And I think part of that willingness is also the commitment to prepare. Because if I'm willing to help and really help, then I'm also willing to pay a price in gaining knowledge and skills. Does that make sense? At least that's how it works in my mind. Like, I'm willing to pay a price in gaining knowledge and skills.

Like, okay, if I truly am willing to help, then I'm also willing to spend some of my free time, trade some of my entertaining for training.

Rachel Denning (20:24.653)
Right? And so I make some sacrifices, and it's not even a sacrifice, because I'm making myself a better person, and I'm making the world a better place, and I'm making myself more useful, more capable, more able to make a difference. And again, I don't want to be misunderstood here. It's not just medical emergencies. There are so many ways to help and make a difference in the world.

from teaching self -reliance to having the financial resources to help, to having the time freedom to help, to having knowledge and skills and abilities. There's so many skills out there that we can use to bless people's lives, from handyman skills to going in where there's natural disasters to knowing how to fix things and build things and I mean on and on and on. There's so many ways. So that willingness to do that. So our, and this is what I asked myself and so I wanted to just,

When I have an experience like this, it really affects me. I just want to pass it along so it might be useful to you as well. Are you prepared to help?

And as part of that preparation, part of that skill, part of the knowledge is knowing when to help and knowing when not to help. And boy is that true in parenting. We have to know when not to help our children because it'll be the best thing for them. And it's true also in humanitarian efforts. We have to know when not to help. When helping actually hurts because we're not empowering people. We're disempowering people. So.

Are you prepared? Are you trained? Are you skilled? And I just have this deep sense in my soul and it's been my experience again and again and again that God will use you. That the universe will put you in the path of people who need you if...

Rachel Denning (22:32.013)
You are both willing and ready. And I have learned time and time again that when the time to perform has arrived, the time to prepare has passed.

And so my friends, I just feel this sense of urgency in my great desire to help and serve and bless lives and love people and protect people. This is a huge one. Protection, protecting others is a major way that we can serve. And we have to be prepared and willing to protect others. We have to be able to step out and we have to have some skills.

Right, and some resources to protect others. And that's one, that's a big one for me and for my kids. Like I'm preparing myself and I'm preparing my children all the time to be able to protect others. And those opportunities arise more often than you would think. When you have the confidence and the competence to step in and say, uh -uh, don't mess with them and don't mess with me.

Right, because there are people, unfortunately there are people out there who will take advantage of and they're specifically looking for people that they perceive to be weak. And you and I, we have to be able to step up and protect those who cannot protect themselves. Man, that's a huge one.

But again, the reminder for me, especially, and I want to show this for you if it's useful, is when the time to perform has arrived, the time to prepare has passed. So let us be preparing. Let's prepare now when we can, when we have some time and some resources. And even you might be thinking, well, I just don't, I'm too busy, I just can't do all this. We can, we can. I think, and I found this with coaching people and working with people all over the place, like if we're a little more cognizant,

Rachel Denning (24:32.687)
and aware of our schedule and the way we use our time, we find we actually have a lot more time than we think we can do. We can be more efficient, more effective, more productive, and we can get more done. And where there's a will, there's a way, right? And that's just true. And where we lean into this, when you really want something, I mean, sincerely want it. Not just with lip service.

And not even just with, yeah, I want it, but not enough to actually do something about it. But when you want it so much that you're willing to act on it consistently, opportunities will open before you.

Chances to have an impact will be there and it's amazing and that happened again here on that mountain in Ecuador and that story is gonna blow your mind and it has blown mine. It was it was stunning. So that's coming. But let's do it my friends. Let's do it. Just all of us together. Let's be prepared willing and ready to help whenever the opportunity rises.

Let's go out and make a difference. And hey, remember, if you haven't subscribed yet, subscribe to the podcast. If you find value in these episodes, grab a snapshot of it and share it. Share it on social media and pass along to people who you know would appreciate this and need to hear it. And let's share this message and let's get a group of us ready to make a difference in the world. Think what we can do, all of us together.

Think what an impact we can have, what a change we can bring about by being ready. Love you guys. Awesome's always an option. Reach upward.