Always Choose Adventure: Faith, Family, and Purpose w/ Dan and Sam Mathews

Aaron Smith (00:00)
Dan and Sam, welcome to the Marriage After God podcast.

Dan And Sam (00:58)
Yeah. Ready.

Thank you for having us. Hey, we’re super excited about this.

Aaron Smith (01:07)
Yeah, I love doing this podcast because I get to meet so many awesome believers and just all the different stories, but there’s always these lining up factors in their testimonies and their stories. And it’s always around Jesus and it’s always around ministry. And it’s exactly what marriage effort God is all about is we’re just trying to encourage marriages to realize that their marriage is their first ministry and that their parenting, their children are their first, you know, disciples and all of these things. And you kind of incorporate that in your own marriage and

Dan And Sam (01:20)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (01:37)
So I’m excited to meet you and I’d love for you guys to introduce yourselves to my audience.

Dan And Sam (01:41)
Yeah, definitely. So my name is Samantha. I’m Dan. And we’ve been married 11 years going on 12, 11 and a half. We have two children. Canyon is eight Ember seven and we have one on the way. ⁓ live a very adventurous life. We share life online, ⁓ on every platform and yeah, chase God chase adventure. That, that pretty much sums it up. I we’ve been doing that since we first got married. In fact, since we’ve been dating, ⁓ just getting out and enjoying God’s creation.

as much as we can. And then when we had, when we had our son, we were like, you know what? He, he takes a back seat to our relationship with God and then our relationship with each other. And so a lot of people were like, Oh, get ready. Your whole life is going to revolve around your kids and sporting activities and taking them to friend’s house. And I was like, no, I think that’s how we’re going to do it. You know, it’s going to be, they’re part of our lives and we’re going to raise them up in the way that we see fit as we follow God. so.

⁓ From the time he was like three months old, we were hiking Long’s Peak with him in a little baby carrier on the front. And he just joined up with everything that we were already doing. And so we’ve kind of tried to keep that model throughout our marriage.

Aaron Smith (02:53)
I actually want to dig into that, this negative connotation that children have, I don’t want to say children, that people have of children in a second, but I actually want to go back. What was your guys, you said ever since you guys got married, probably even in the dating season of your life, this adventure, my wife and I love adventure. We love going on road trips. We love going on visiting. We’ve been to nearly every state, not all of them, but most of them, especially with our kids. But what was that?

Dan And Sam (02:58)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s awesome.

Aaron Smith (03:23)
your marriage story like the adventure, how did that get incorporated into your marriage and kind of feed this ministry and life that you guys now have?

Dan And Sam (03:27)
Yeah.

I think for Dan, it started early on. mean, he had four other siblings and a brother and they were always outside adventuring, shooting BB guns, bike riding through the neighborhood. And I grew up with a single mom. So our version of camping was loading everything in our car, our dog, the kennel, like every grocery item possible and going to like a KOA or, you know, a cabin to stay. And that was my version. So when Dan and I met and started dating, he was the type where you put everything in your

backpack or your hiking pack and you hike three miles into your site where you’re going to set up your hammock and you sleep and you have to eat and wear what’s on your back. And so it was a little bit of a learning lesson for me, but yeah, for real. Exactly. For the first like four camping trips, I was carrying cans of food so that she could do foil packs when we were in the back country. I’m like, we got to lighten the load a little bit. We’ve, we’ve compromised a lot because we still do some, some of that sort of stuff, but just

Aaron Smith (04:12)
Yeah, catch your food and eat your drink right there.

Yeah.

Dan And Sam (04:31)
you know, little less weight that we have to carry around. ⁓ I’ve probably gone more towards his style of camping or style of adventuring and ⁓ more rugged, I would say, and through our marriage. But we found out that that’s one of the things that we enjoy together. Like Dan’s a hunter, and so he loves camping, hiking, hunting, fishing. As a single mom, like I said, with my single mom, it was just a campsite.

in KOA, that was my type of adventure, but I loved learning what he was interested in and doing it with him. So we started, you know, doing adventures together. and we had a couple that mentored us before we got married. And one of the things that he said, the husband, he was like, if you can get through a long canoe trip together without like all communication breaking down without you being at each other’s throats.

You’re probably set up for marriage because canoeing with two people down a river can be quite strenuous to say the least. And so yeah, we’ve just incorporated adventure all throughout our marriage, the relationships that we have with other people and definitely with the family.

Aaron Smith (05:40)
My wife and I, we were missionaries for about a year right after we got married. We went and spent four months in Africa and we lived in a two-man tent with all of our stuff sitting outside the tent during the night while we’re sleeping and then inside the tent while we were awake. And I always tell people, like, you know, I feel like we got seven years of struggles out of the way in those four months when you’re living in a tent with your new spouse and you’re like so close and dirty and smelly and hungry and all these things.

Dan And Sam (05:46)
awesome.

my gosh.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

For sure. I feel like that’s us kind of in a sense. We lived in our RV for a while and we may get into that, but we were in close quarters, like 160 square feet, maybe 200 square feet where you’re near each other every place you go, even the bathroom. That you have to get used to being with each other and living in those tight quarters and what you need, what you don’t need.

Aaron Smith (06:09)
You guys are

Dan And Sam (06:34)
It definitely brings you closer, both physically, proximity wise and emotionally. And I mean, that’s just, that’s been our lives all throughout our marriage all throughout his tiny homes, ⁓ pulled behind camper living RV living. And now we finally have a space that is big enough to where we can actually be like farther apart, but we always find ourselves in the same room together.

Aaron Smith (06:59)
What drew you guys together? I love sharing, I love people sharing their early marriage stories because it’s so relatable to almost every single marriage. like, I remember my early marriage story, but was there any struggles in the early on or what drew you guys together and then what came out of that?

Dan And Sam (07:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, Dan came to Missouri for Bible college and he was actually in the same level of, guess, master’s commission and Bible college as my sister was. And then he had a younger brother that ended up coming down to to finish his junior year of high school. And so we kind of all hung out together and loved his chrismas, wittiness, his humor, but also his love for the Lord. And ⁓ I mean, I would say your relationship with the Lord, but also just like you’re you were always so fun and like, I mean, adventurous, too.

But that and I mean that started like a four-year in a sense dating journey for us ⁓ My mom wasn’t too fond of the relationship at first I think it was part of it was losing her youngest daughter, you know quote that might me leaving and trusting my care into someone else’s hands and so for a while that was hard for her, but ⁓ It grew us closer together. It it grew us closer to the Lord and realizing that

Aaron Smith (07:58)
Yeah.

Dan And Sam (08:12)
We do want our relationship. We do enjoy each other’s company. We do see like in the future what God has for us and wanting to do that together. And so through Bible college, you coming down here and just. Yeah, we met that way. And I mean, growing up around or doing life around people, I mean, we had a pretty tight community at the church. She worked at the gym that I worked out, which was attached to the church.

And so we were just always around each other. And so when you get to see somebody at like a youth camp or during youth service or serving at the church, it’s like, it didn’t take very long for me to be like, okay, there’s something there, you know? And we started talking after I would work out every day. She would make me protein shakes. I spent way too much money on protein shakes. I probably went into debt.

just so that I could sit and talk to her for hours and hours. It paid off. And it ended up paying off. She did shoot me down a couple of times and then she came running back, but that’s okay. ⁓ But yeah, it was just seeing her love for the Lord, her love for serving, and she was just so happy and excited all the time. And so ⁓ that’s how things kind of kicked off. And then as soon as we got married, it was, I mean, four years of dating each other and really kind of doing life together that way. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (09:06)
you

Dan And Sam (09:35)
⁓ I I just kind of trickled into it seeing in him growing up without a dad I didn’t have a good depiction of what a godly man was or we had several like ⁓ fatherly figures in the church like our youth pastor and several other men that were encouraging would pray for my sister and I and would be in our lives when my father wasn’t but I didn’t have anything to look at that i’m like this is who I want to be the father of my children this is what I want the father of my children to look like or to emulate and

Aaron Smith (09:45)
Mm-hmm.

Dan And Sam (10:05)
in dating or in finding someone that’s what I was looking for was who could be not only loving and caring for me and leading me in the right direction spiritually, but also love my children and have fun with them and like be helpful because we have to like serve each other and you know, we got to clean the house on hard days. Like I wanted, I wanted that. And so in you don’t necessarily know and you’re dating like everything that you, you’re not going to see everything that you want to in the future, but you’ll see the glimpses of

That is like the great start to what a father will be one day. That’s a great start to like what a future husband will be. And Dan had that and I could just see in him the fun, his leadership spiritually that like all of it was a good recipe for like what I wanted as my spouse.

Aaron Smith (10:50)
Were you both raised in Christian homes? So you, your mom was Christian and your parents were Christians?

Dan And Sam (10:54)
Yeah, you were right. Yeah,

I was I definitely grew up in a more traditional like small town AG home, ⁓ you know, tattoos, you know, straight from the devil, you know, piercings, ⁓ all of that. And so it was it was definitely a different look ⁓ at Christianity and the more rules and regulation side of it. I mean, it was getting saved every single Wednesday night at youth group. Like I got to rededicate. did something wrong.

Aaron Smith (11:24)
Yeah.

Dan And Sam (11:24)
And

it wasn’t until I moved away from my home, came down, started really diving into the Word of God instead of just memorizing Scripture and like understanding what the text meant that I feel like I found a real relationship with Jesus. Not that I didn’t have one before, but I think that it was just kind of a skewed view of what Christianity is and what following Christ is like.

Aaron Smith (11:49)
Yeah.

Dan And Sam (11:50)
it became more of a relationship for me than a religion that I had to follow to a T. Yeah. And mine more so like whenever I was born, my mom was addicted to every drug. My sister was feeding me through the crib and my parents weren’t there, but until it was like late elementary, then my mom completely turned her life around. God freed her of every addiction.

raised us up in church and from that point on we were like heavily involved in church. Like Dan said, I was working at church, volunteering at church, attending church and that’s where like my relationship with the Lord ⁓ was solidified in that area. So yeah, pretty much my whole life.

Aaron Smith (12:29)
I love that. And Dan, what you were saying about, you had a relation with Christ, it transformed. It reminds me of what Paul says about growing in the knowledge of Christ, of our Savior. We have this beginning stance of knowing Him, and then we dig into the Word of God and we’re like, oh, and our knowledge of Him grows. And it really does. It’s exactly how we deepen our faith in Christ is by knowing Him more, just like He knows us. And so you were raised, Dan, in a Christian home.

Dan And Sam (12:36)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (12:59)
⁓ Four brothers?

Dan And Sam (12:59)
Mm-hmm.

No,

so I’ve got three older sisters and one younger brother Yeah for siblings

Aaron Smith (13:06)
was, okay, I was way off. have fourth siblings. Yeah. Fourth siblings. there’s five of you. So you

came from a decently larger family. And then, Sam, you came from just your new sister? Your mom. Yeah. How are those dynamics, how did they like play into like you guys coming together, early years of your marriage? Cause you guys have been married 12 years, you said? Which is incredible. It’s like way above average. And so congratulations. ⁓

Dan And Sam (13:14)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Me, my sister, my mom. Yep, so just three girls. Mm-hmm.

Almost. Yeah, January will 12 years. Yes. Yeah, thank you.

Aaron Smith (13:34)
You guys are winning. I mean, got decades to go. But the

Dan And Sam (13:35)
We’ve made it. Yes, exactly.

Aaron Smith (13:40)
that you’ve gotten here, there’s a lot of stuff that you guys have had to get through to get here. How much of those dynamics do you feel have been playing, you know, played a part in either the struggles or the successes in your marriage?

Dan And Sam (13:44)
Yeah.

Yeah. feel like for me, I was always very comfortable around women, not like in a ladies man or player type of way, but I had three older sisters and my mom was in the house all the time. My dad drove truck over the road. And so I kind of got the masculinity side from ⁓ like him being gone and me and my brother wanting to prove ourselves when he got back, like, look at how far I can kick a footballer or throw a baseball now, or I can shoot my BB gun all the way across the yard or whatever.

And so my brother and I became very, very competitive and very, ⁓ traditionally masculine, you will take, making sure our sisters are taken care of, even though they were all older than us, we were, we were the little brothers that were protective when a guy came to date them. It was like, dude, you better not hurt my sister. And they’re like, okay, little buddy. I’m like, dude, I’ve got golf clubs and a baseball bat. Okay. You know, like I’ll mess you up. Plus my dad’s coming home this weekend, so you better watch out. And so.

Aaron Smith (14:37)
Yep. You guys just threw up.

Dan And Sam (14:49)
I had always been very comfortable around women, very protective of women. And I think for Sam, ⁓ her growing up in a house full of women, was just like, she saw the emotion and the comfort and the caring and nurturing side of things. But then it wasn’t really until we got married and then especially when we had a son that she’s like,

Whoa, boys are really different. This is totally different than how we grew up. Yeah. And, you know, not having a dad, my mom did an amazing job raising us. ⁓ You know, turning her life around was literally like 180 night and day difference. And she did an amazing job as both a mother and a father, if you will, you know, providing for us and setting the example of, you know, not only a woman of God, but trying to teach us still respect for my dad, despite, you know, their divorce and

and what to look for in somebody and what to ⁓ look for in a marriage. And so I’m thankful for that. And then, like I said, looking at other people in our lives who played that fatherly role, but also had these strong marriages of 20 years, of 30 years, where I could look at them and be like, that’s what I want in a spouse, but also a marriage. And although my mom gave great advice and encouragement, she didn’t have that marriage advice to give. And so really,

looking at other people that we looked up to. And Dan and I still talk about it to this day. Like the couples that we were mentored by are still together. There’s like three that we can point out that we’re thankful to have been guided by them, by being encouraged by them, and be prayed for by them because that’s what we want long term. And so I think we both kind of looked at what we grew up with, what we had as an example, but also just what we wanted for ourselves and what we wanted to be for and didn’t.

didn’t sway from that and didn’t let any hardship kind of come between it. Well, and I think we both learned from successes and failures in the relationships we’ve seen because all three of my sisters had gotten married and I watched some of the marriages fail and one of them succeed and the common denominator it just seems like is when God is at the center of it. And, you know, some of my sisters don’t live for the Lord and

They don’t have an intimate relationship with Jesus or follow his teachings. And then I’ve got a sister who really does. And it’s not that Christians don’t get divorced, but like we said from the very beginning, divorce is not in our vocabulary. Like we will do everything that we can to stay together forever. This isn’t a vow just between two humans. It’s a vow with the Lord. Like this is my partner. This is who you’ve entrusted me with. This is who I’m going to put first.

Aaron Smith (17:24)
Yeah.

Dan And Sam (17:38)
in my life and who I’m going to serve for the rest of my life. And so at the very beginning, we said that, I mean, I remember that in counseling sessions with other people, even in talking with your mom, that was one of the things before we got married. And once everything had kind of fizzled out and she was like, Hey, you can like, have my blessing now and you can marry my daughter. She’s like, just promise me divorce is never an option. and I promised her that and I.

We’ll keep that promise forever. And so that’s really, ⁓ not that we’re constantly thinking like, Hey, we can’t get divorced. We can’t get divorced, but it’s like, it’s yeah. Yeah. It’s like this it’s till death do us part. That’s it. Like that is the only time that we’re going to be apart. And so, ⁓ yeah, we’ve just put that in our lives. We make sure that kids know that we make sure the kids know our priorities. We, talk to them all the time and I’ll ask them, I’m like, who does dad love most?

Aaron Smith (18:16)
No, but it’s in the hard times that you’re like, wait, we made this

Dan And Sam (18:37)
And one of them is like, Jesus. And the other one’s like, God. And I go, okay, both right. And then I go, who next? And they’re like, mom. And then I go, who next? And they’re like, me, no, me. I’m like, both of you guys, you know, and soon another little one, like, I’m going to love you guys. But that’s our priority list and everything comes after those three. And we’ve said that and we’ll continue to say that and live by it. And so we want them to know that from a very early stage, because that’s one of the things that like, I knew that my parents loved each other.

Aaron Smith (18:41)
Yes. ⁓

Dan And Sam (19:06)
But in my mind, like we were their priority and my dad, my dad worked a lot. My mom started picking up jobs on the side and they ended up divorcing after all the kids were out of the house and seeing that and I’m like, I try to dissect things and like, where did it go wrong? What happened? And I know that couples can have issues without their kids even knowing about it. But I go, what was the breakdown? Was it that we were a priority? Were their priorities out of order? Were they idolizing?

work in making a living and being better off financially or were they idolizing making sure I’m a good mom or making sure I’m a good dad over a follower of Jesus and a husband or a wife?

Aaron Smith (19:48)
What you guys are saying is, for my listeners, I just want to encourage you that that promise, that covenant, which the Bible would call this idea of marriage, it comes from the same story of salvation, how the gospel works. God made this plan of salvation and it’s set in stone. What Christ did is permanent and it’s for everyone who believe. And that promise

Dan And Sam (19:57)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (20:18)
is not devoid. It’s not voided out by our lack of what we can bring to the table. And we get to have a little bit of that picture in marriage that even when it’s hard, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it sucks, you can look back on something that’s outside of you, that promise that you made to each other. It’s separate from the current situation, from the moment of difficulty. you say, well, we made that promise. And I think that’s something that we forget sometimes.

Dan And Sam (20:24)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (20:48)
the royal way of realizing that we can still look to that promise we made and believe in that even in the midst of these things that feel like, this is not working. And it helps us together.

Dan And Sam (20:49)
Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah, cuz yeah

even 11 years in with us. It’s like we’ve had it was like six months We did a follow-up with our officiant our mentor and he was like, alright, so how is it? And I’m like Dan’s like he goes he goes what are you guys at with marriage on a scale of one to ten? And I’m like man, I feel like I’m probably at a nine And I was like a six and I was like, whoa, that’s quite a ways off, you know, and he said it’s pretty common like guys and guys and girls they just

Aaron Smith (21:22)
⁓ yeah.

Yeah. Yep.

Dan And Sam (21:31)
view things differently or in my mind, it’s like I’m providing. And that was one of the things that I had to learn early on is that my idea of providing is I bring money home, I pay the bills, I take care of things, I fix the lawnmower, you know, whatever. And her idea of it is like, well, yeah, we need money to survive, but also like you need to provide for me emotionally. you need to be here on my hard days and you need to be by my side and not just like…

Aaron Smith (21:44)
healthy. Everyone’s fed.

Dan And Sam (22:01)
I made the money, so everything’s good. It’s like, no, there’s a lot more provision. In fact, the financial side of it is probably the least important as far as a marriage goes, because it’s like, if she doesn’t feel loved, if I don’t feel loved, or if I don’t feel respected, no amount of money is going to fix that. And I had to learn that the hard way, because when I heard six come out of her mouth, I was like, what did I do something? Like, what happened? I thought things were going great. And then, you know, he kind of broke it down for us and he helped us walk through that.

Aaron Smith (22:26)
Yeah.

Dan And Sam (22:30)
and understand like what my role is as a man, not just provider, not just protector, it goes way beyond that. but in those times of us like maybe disagreeing or where we’re at and where we feel in our relationship or maybe we’re going through a hard season with the kids or hard season financially and you don’t feel like you’re as strong as you were to not ever, like you said, the divorce isn’t on the table, to not ever see that as an option, your only option is to talk it out.

to pray it out, to work it out and to vow together that we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna make it through. And I think that’s the hard thing about some relationships, we have people that message us and say, like, thanks for setting a good example. I wish my husband was more apt to want to make things work or whatever, and it’s hard when one party’s not. But I’m very thankful that, like, and I both are at the place that, like, even if I’m going through something, it’s like he’s there fighting for it, even when I’m my weakest. Or when I’m, like, when he’s weak, like, I’m there to keep him strong.

Aaron Smith (23:16)
Yeah.

Dan And Sam (23:29)
I heard one stat, I can’t remember, I think it was on a podcast where someone was like, it’s not just like a 50-50 thing. There’s times where I’m like, all I have to give energy-wise or, you know, pregnancy’s taken out of me. I have like 20 % to give. Well, Dan is like giving that 80 % to keep us where we’re at, or he has to go above and beyond where, you know, whether it’s a hard, like I said, financially sickness, children, or you see the grass looks greener on the other side, it’s not. It’s just a matter of working together.

to make it work and that being your only option.

Aaron Smith (24:01)
I was just having a conversation with my wife because, you know, periodically we still have really, you know, hard moments with each other. And we’ve been married, you know, 18 years, 19 years this next January, so 18 and half years. Which when I say that doesn’t make any sense because I don’t feel like it’s been that long, which is just so crazy. We’ve only almost two decades married. ⁓ And she’s like, you know, I feel like we should be past these things. And, you know, we’ve been married almost 20 years. what? And I’m like, I’m like, well, like, you’re right. Maybe we should. There’s like definitely some big.

Dan And Sam (24:06)
Yeah, same.

That’s awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (24:31)
We probably should be better at by now, but I was like, we in general are way better. Like where we at today is much more healthy than where we were originally. And when we first got married and the first four and a half years of our marriage, which was the hardest season of our marriage, but something that we, we forget often through, through over the years is we, think like, but like my wife said, like we should be not like, we shouldn’t be dealing with this anymore. like, well, like we all have, we’re going to have seasons. There’s going to be like, things are going to come up.

Dan And Sam (24:36)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (25:00)
you know, deaths and hardships and sickness and all of the unknowns of life that are going to bring up sin nature in us. They’re going to like our flesh is going to react in those moments in ways that we may have thought we’ve figured out. like, those that we just in those moments, we got to deal with it again. We got to deal with it in prayer, you know.

Dan And Sam (25:07)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I think one of the biggest things is my sister just recently got married. She’s older than me, but she just got married about six months ago. And I’ll be like, okay, so how’s marriage going? She’s like, well, we’re walking through this. And I’m like, we just walked through that last week. Like you’re not alone. And I think for listeners or even like, you know, I try to remember, remind my, like our followers on Facebook who are followers on Instagram, they’re like, hey, I love your guys’ marriage. I try to remind people and show them and…

maybe not show them, explain to them that we still have hard times. We still have times where we disagree, where we argue. That I think at times you feel alone, like you and your wife, feel alone in what you’re going through that like no one else is walking through this. No one else is experiencing this. But that’s such a lie. Like here my sister is six months in, walking through something, having to talk through something, compromise, ask for forgiveness. And Dan and I, 12 years in, are still doing that exact same thing that it may look different because we’re farther along in our relationship and maybe it’s a

It’s a quicker conversation. Maybe, you know, we know now, years down the road, how to get through it, rather than maybe it taking a little bit longer when you’re first getting married, because you’re working that out. But I think the biggest thing to remind yourself is you’re not alone in it. Like everyone’s walking through it. It just looks like a little different. It’s a different season. But I feel like when you feel alone in your problems or the hardship that you’re walking through, that’s when you start to set in your mind that like,

maybe this isn’t it. Maybe there’s a better marriage. Maybe there’s a different spouse for me. And it’s like, don’t put, even start that thought process. Just know that like everyone’s going through this. It’s just a season. You know, you walk through it, you pray through it you get through it and, and you’ll be better for it on the other side. And you would think after 11 years of marriage, she wouldn’t have to remind me to shut my closet light off anymore, but it still happens. I’m like, yeah, we make a joke out of it now. Like ⁓

Aaron Smith (27:07)
You don’t have to remind me every six months to laugh.

Dan And Sam (27:12)
We do. It started out with her being like, babe, your closet light is on. And I could tell it was really affecting her. I was like, I was getting annoyed. was like, babe, if you look to your left a little bit, you’ll notice that your closet light is also on. And so now we joke about it. Like if I’m in our bedroom and she’s out in the living room with the kids or doing something else, I’ll just yell through the house, babe, your closet lights on, you know, and we’ve we’ve just

Aaron Smith (27:21)
Bye.

Dan And Sam (27:38)
had fun with it. What was actually a pain point that was really annoying her. ⁓ Now it’s just like, Hey, guess what? It’s just a closet light. And I’m going to do my best to shut it off. But it’s not eternal. We all forget about it. Or like something major comes up, our kid is screaming, our dog breaks the mirror in the front room. And it’s like,

Aaron Smith (27:43)
Yeah.

Dan And Sam (27:57)
And the closet light got left on a little too long. Sorry, but I had to clean this mess up. like he folds the towels wrong. He folds them like hamburger style and I prefer like hot dog style. But guess what? I don’t do the laundry. So why am I going to sit here and complain about how he folds them when they’re clean? Like who cares how they look in the cabinet? They’re done. Yeah. We’ve learned to just not keep score. Like everything that was an issue at one point we’ve turned into humor that we actually connect over and have fun with each other over. And

It was just our style of communication. It was like she would hold it in for a while until it was a big deal And now it’s like she just tells me right away like hey just a heads up I don’t like this or hey, you shouldn’t have done this She doesn’t like when I shave fully because I look like I’m 12 and I didn’t realize that or she’s coming around to the dad bod She doesn’t want me to be super skinny anymore. And I’m like, hey that works for me So do you think like maybe we can like work out together?

Aaron Smith (28:34)
Mm.

Yeah.

Dan And Sam (28:53)
I think being comfortable with your spouse and like being able to have those conversations that are, you know, maybe deep and hard, but also can be fun and lighthearted. Some of my friends are like, how does Dan feel about like you pointing out like his belly or whatever? I’m like, like he’s cool. Like he’s totally fine. I’m like, we like joke about it now that it’s it’s funny. We enjoy it. But I think, you know, not taking things too seriously or kind of making light heart about it, like making it lighthearted. But also whenever there is something that’s like really bothering me that

taking a moment to have a conversation, be like, hey, you know, all jokes aside, you’ve been doing this and it’s making me feel a certain way, not him like invalidating what I’m saying, but like listening and hearing me out and then us kind of working together how we can fix that or vice versa. You know, if I’ve been doing something, I’m like, you can always come to me and like in a gracious, calm way, hey babe. But when you’re like, my gosh, you keep leaving this light on or you keep doing this. If you’re going to be aggressive, then I’m going to want to be aggressive. But if you just come to each other calmly and you’re like, hey,

this is something I’ve noticed, maybe we can work on it. Everyone’s calm and it keeps the peace. Well, and I think analyzing the intention behind something that she says, if I get offended by something she says, I have to take a step back and just go, is she trying to be mean to me? Is she trying to be rude or malicious? And I go, no, she’s not. She’s trying to help me understand what she needs from me or understand that if I drink 15 Monster energy drinks a day, like the kids.

Aaron Smith (30:08)
Yeah.

Dan And Sam (30:22)
I’m going to have a heart attack. Like maybe I shouldn’t drink so many. ⁓ and so I have to think about the intention behind it and then it diffuses things pretty quickly.

Aaron Smith (30:30)
Yeah. Well, I think the

key point you’re making and it’s something that it’s like a lifelong practice just for believers in general. know, what is the definition of love? You know, it’s one of them is love is not irritable or another translation is easily angered. Yeah. So like, are we irritable? Are we easily offended? You know, and that when we’re easily offended, we’re not walking in love.

Dan And Sam (30:54)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (30:59)
And

it’s such a hard practice to not be easily offended by things. But you guys a solution to that is make it a little bit more humorous. Enjoy it. I have a solution for your closet light thing. Put one of those auto switches. When the door opens, it turns on. And when you shut it, it turns off.

Dan And Sam (31:02)
Yes. It takes work. Yeah.

Love it. That would actually be really great.

That would really work if you shut your closet door. That’s true. I don’t. Everything. Yeah. As long as there’s no motion. Mine actually don’t really latch. So even sometimes when I shut them, they still kind of prop open. That’s my excuse. Yeah. We joke about it all the time and people come over and like our friends or neighbors will be in our house. And then they just hear me yell through the house and they’re like,

Aaron Smith (31:17)
put an auto door shut on her door.

Yeah.

It reminds me of this.

Take a

Dan And Sam (31:40)
what was that all about? We have to explain it to him like, we have fun with this. This is how we deal with things like, if it was actually a major issue, that’s the thing we realized it wasn’t a big deal. And it was at first though, like it really bothered me where like, it was probably a week straight where every day I realized that it was on I was like getting frustrated. And then immediately he pointed out and I was like, yeah, my fault. But there’ll be times where I’m like, cooking dinner or I think one time I was crying over something and then you’re like, it’s okay, baby, whatever. And then you’re like,

Aaron Smith (31:40)
What is that about? Yeah.

Dan And Sam (32:10)
Also, you left your light on. Where it’s just fun or like, thanks so much for cooking dinner. Also, your light’s on.

Aaron Smith (32:17)
It

reminds me of one of my social media is a huge thing. Like my wife and I, we have social media accounts, you guys have massive followings. But one of my favorite things about social media these days is how much marriage talk there is about the realities of these things and how common they are. And one of the ones I love the most is like the wife’s walk in and she’s like, you know, my husband, just can’t believe it. what he did. He always, and there’s like a toothbrush and there’s some toothpaste on the sink.

Dan And Sam (32:23)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

And then you look

Aaron Smith (32:47)
always leaving it out and she pans over and all of her makeup is all over the counter and then like it quickly takes away from that. I’m like, you know,

Dan And Sam (32:47)
over. Yeah, that’s me.

Aaron Smith (32:54)
I really appreciate those things because it’s shining a light on what you were just talking about. Someone I interviewed a while ago called it the uniqueness fallacy where we think our situation is unique. Like no one understands it. And it just shows how normal all of these things are in marriage and how it’s not just Christian marriages that deal with it, but every marriage

Dan And Sam (33:03)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. That’s good.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (33:15)
Literally has these exact same conversations

every day It does make you feel good that it’s like, ⁓ okay

Dan And Sam (33:21)
yeah. Makes you feel less alone and you’re like, okay, we’re,

we’re normal. And that’s what, I mean, that’s what I built my whole social media channel off of. It’s hunting related content within a marriage. it’s like, I bought this, which is really expensive or I’m leaving on a hunting trip again. And I realized that all the Gulf channels involving marriage have the same exact thing. All the gaming, all the fantasy football or the kids sports. It’s like, we all deal with very similar things. It just be a different.

Aaron Smith (33:42)
this thing.

Dan And Sam (33:51)
venue that you’re dealing with it in. so when we realized that it’s so relatable to people, people are like, my gosh, that’s my husband 100%. Or we just did one the other day and it was like me washing off the boat, my wife got me for Father’s Day. And I’m just spraying the hose at nothing. And all these guys are like, dude, that’s the same model my wife got me. then some of the women are like,

Aaron Smith (34:11)
that’s so funny.

Dan And Sam (34:16)
it’s the same color as the car that you bought her for her birthday. And I’m like, it’s just funny because when people can find the fun in the pain points, makes them less painful.

Aaron Smith (34:27)
Yeah, what’s so okay. You just mentioned the boat your wife got you the boat Air quotes. Yeah the boat. Uh, my wife is lately she Like this super nice truck will drive by with this super brand new boat and she’s like see you babe. See Look at that boat right there. And so my wife If she could would do that. She would literally buy it and i’m like, yeah, I don’t know if I want a boat so It’s really funny. All the guys are like what? She’s yeah. Oh my gosh, she would die if I got her a boat

Dan And Sam (34:29)
The boat.

Yeah. ⁓

She wants the boat. ⁓

Aaron Smith (34:57)
That’s funny. ⁓ Let’s talk about adventures. You guys wrote a book about adventure.

My family loves adventuring. We did when we were building this house we’re in now, we did a six week road trip around the country, just got in the van and just drove and stayed in Airbnbs and went to national parks and love it. And we do those sorts of things as much as we possibly can. And we’ve been doing it. I mean, we have six kids now. We just had our six about 10 months ago. She’s almost 10 months old, but we’ve been doing it since.

Dan And Sam (35:09)
That’s awesome.

That’s awesome, congrats.

Aaron Smith (35:27)
Before, we said, we did missions work right when we got married. But all we ever heard early on from believers and unbelievers alike, ⁓ good thing you got all your traveling out of the way now, because once you have kids, it’s not going to happen. you know, get all your sleep in you can now. Like only negative. I know they’re saying it like they’re probably not meaning it to be negative. ⁓ They’re not meaning to have an ill intention in those comments, but it’s kind of the standard these days.

Dan And Sam (35:28)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (35:57)
to have these negative conversations, this negative talk about children. And I’m just a hundred percent anti that. Like I think the only comments that should come out of our mouths outside of like actual truth conversations with people in their families and kids and all that, when you’re just having a bypass and it should be encouragement. Like children, listen, it sounds like you guys had very similar, like you love the venture before kids.

Dan And Sam (36:03)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (36:27)
then you got pregnant, you

guys had that. How did you guys combat that negative or did you even feel that way? Were you afraid?

Dan And Sam (36:33)
Yeah,

we got that for sure. I had a boss and she was absolutely hilarious and I always joked that she was the female Michael Scott from the office and It was it was so funny because one day I was in there talking to her and she’s like She was dealing with some stuff with her kids and she’s like it just takes one bad friend Like it’s so difficult raising kids you have one bad friend and then your kid starts making poor choices and this and that and I went

Aaron Smith (37:00)
That’s actually good advice.

Wow.

Dan And Sam (37:02)
I went into

her office and she was like telling me all this stuff, but I went in there to tell her that Sam and I were pregnant with our first. And as soon as those words came out of my mouth, she’s like, I mean, kids are the biggest blessing. Like they are so great. And I was like, it’s so funny because I would get those comments all the time. Your life’s going to change. say goodbye to your hunting trips. Say goodbye to all your travel plans. Say goodbye to.

Aaron Smith (37:12)
yeah.

Yeah.

Dan And Sam (37:30)
basically all freedom together. And I was like, that’s not, yeah, I’m like, that’s not gonna be our story. I don’t wanna resent my kids because I can’t do the things that I wanted to do. How about I just help them find a passion in some of these things, or they tag along with me, or they find something that they’re passionate about, and I encourage them in that and help them be the best version of themselves they can be. And so we, mean, that’s been the story for us the whole time.

Aaron Smith (37:33)
All fun done. Yeah, no more fun.

Dan And Sam (38:00)
Kids are a blessing no matter what. We thought we were done up until six months ago maybe. It was like we were done after we had our son and our daughter. We felt great. Sam did two surrogacy journeys where she helped other families make, create their families. And we were like, we’re good. For seven years, we said we were good. And she was scheduled to get her tubes tied. And the night before I came in and she was crying and she’s just like,

I’m scared about tomorrow.” And I said, I actually don’t feel at peace about you doing this. I’m not saying that I want more kids, but like taking that option away seems kind of crazy. And all she heard was, want another baby. And so that led to us having another baby. I’m like, I will never be the guy who finds out she’s pregnant. And I’m like, ⁓ my gosh, not again. You know, I’ve heard that so many times from people and I’m like, children are a blessing.

Aaron Smith (38:46)
Crazy hot.

Dan And Sam (38:57)
And I will forever be excited if she comes to me five years from now and she’s like, I’m pregnant. I might be like, okay, here we go. planning that. But awesome. Like I’m super pumped. I’m excited to find out what it is, you know? And so we’ve just always, we’ve always been that way. And again, we said, our kids are going to go on these adventures with us. Our kids have no idea what normal life is. Like they go to school, but they miss a lot of schools. don’t know how many letters I got of.

of absent warnings like, you’re at 88%, hey, you’re at 83%, hey, we’re gonna have to, and I’m like, you know what? If it gets to the point where they’re missing too much, then we’ll pull them out in homeschool. We’re not gonna stop our life and stop our family time making memories, adventuring for the sake of public school. We prioritize learning, but we also prioritize family time and that time together. And I think with adventuring with kids, then what steers people away is it takes a little bit extra work. It’s more packing. You do have, Dan read something to me the other day.

about, paying thousands of dollars for your kids to complain in a different state. And it’s like, that does happen. There are times where your kids, like, we just went to Disney world for the first time. And let me tell you, that was a lot of money for five meltdowns before 10 AM. Like it was, it was a lot, but looking back, my daughter did the bibbidi-boppidi boutique and she looked so cute and had so much fun. And they are still talking about that and wanting to look at pictures and remember, and like remembering that time and our six months in an RV.

You know, it was a lot. homeschooled the kids and we, you know, we had to figure out nap time and how and how that life worked. But they still talk about it. And we look back and that was the most fun that we had as a family, the most memories we’ve made. And we just tell ourselves like we’re never going to look back and be like, man, we wish we would have stayed home or ⁓ we wish we would have worked more. It’s like, no, we wish we would have traveled more. We wish we would have gone to these other places and checked out other states that I think that.

we can find ourselves getting comfortable in, don’t want to deal with the meltdowns or the tantrums. I don’t want to have to pack all this junk in and the car get messy. I don’t, it’s like, how about you look at it in like, in a good way, in a good light and like, you know, it is a little bit more packing, but that’s okay. We’re going to be more prepared. And if one trip fails, the next trip is going to be better because we’re going to know what worked, what didn’t work. And I think that just the comfort of it and not wanting to go through the, the

meltdowns and stuff kind of steers people away, but we just say like embrace it and just like go head on into it. Well, and in realizing that everything that your kids go through is a learning opportunity for them and the way that you respond to something that they do wrong or do right is how they’re going to understand how to deal with conflict or reward in their own life down the road. And so ⁓ we’ve been dealing with that with the kids and communication with each other and communication with their friends.

in responding to us and, then on the adventure side of things like turning everything into an adventure. And that’s what a lot of the book is. We want people in all different stages of an adventurous life to learn that there is adventure to be had. If you’re someone who stays inside and watches Netflix every night, like you don’t go on trips, you don’t do this. There’s plenty of things that you can do that are adventurous. They might not be adventurous for us, but for you, like go try a new restaurant, go do this for the kids lately.

Aaron Smith (42:15)
and

Dan And Sam (42:19)
one of their favorite things to do. One of the neighbors, they’ve got a white rabbit that got loose. Well, it loves nature and they’re like, it’s way more happy outside than it was as a pet. So now it’s just a wild rabbit. The kids every day, probably two to three hours a day are trying to catch this white rabbit. And that’s like the biggest adventure for them. They’re setting up like umbrellas, they’re putting food in the umbrella and they’re like, it’s gonna jump in there and then we’re gonna scoop it up. And I’m like, this is what they’re gonna remember. They tell everyone they encounter about this.

Aaron Smith (42:45)
You

Dan And Sam (42:49)
rabbit. so it’s like, yeah, they’ve done the national parks things. They’ve got their junior ranger badges. But at the end of the day, we want them to also live an adventurous life, to step out of their comfort zones, to try new foods, to try new things, to jump off a diving board instead of just walking in on the stairs. You know, there’s so many growing moments and learning lessons that can be taught along the way for our kids. And so we try to view it in that light instead of like, we could be doing this instead.

Aaron Smith (43:18)
Yeah.

Dan And Sam (43:19)
You

Aaron Smith (43:20)
What was the, so you guys have done a lot of travel, a lot of RVing, all of those sorts of things. What was the catalyst for this stuff? Like, were you doing this like when you were dating, like two, like just all the adventures or was it post-marriage and you’re like, hey, we want to go do something fun. And then it just turned into like a lifestyle. What was the catalyst for all of the…

Dan And Sam (43:25)
Mm.

think it

turned into a lifestyle and we found ourselves early on in marriage. We got married and about the two year mark we had like a life change. Like he had a big job change. We moved and it kind of like changed the trajectory of our life and to where in a sense adventure was more of a focus. And then two years later something else happened and we moved to Colorado. we, whenever he had a change with work, we always wanted to go move to Colorado but we never.

we were scared or never financially made sense, but we decided to move. And then again, two years later, we found ourselves moving back. So it was kind of this like two year streak of what changes coming and a lot of it was job change. And at first it’s scary cause it’s, you know, financially the job hardship and moving and handling all the change. But then we found ourselves like,

being really excited for the change and not knowing what was next and also like the adventure that lies ahead because at that point, then our hands are open, like it’s in God’s hands to direct us to take us somewhere new, to try something new. ⁓ And we ended up looking forward to it. The RV life kind of came, it was always something that I wanted to do when we lived in Colorado. ⁓ We had no money, like we took a pay cut to go there. Cost of living is so high. We had no family, no friends out there. ⁓ One income, we found out we were pregnant with our second.

our second child and we were living off of nothing and we couldn’t like adventure because we had no money to. We could do stuff on the weekends. But I was scrolling Instagram at the time and this was in 2017, 2018. And I saw people, kind of skipped over the bus, but I saw people living in RVs and I’m like, I want to live in an RV. Well, the cost of living in RV at like a campsite long-term was about the same price as our

low ⁓ income housing. So it didn’t really make sense, but I had this desire and kind of talked it through with Dan and it was kind of like, you know, put it the back burner for later. But then we ended up getting an RV, renovating it, renting it out as an Airbnb. But when we moved back to Missouri, we were like, let’s just live in it. We have it. It’s here. Like, let’s just live in it. And then after living in it for a few months, we enjoyed it. And so it’s kind of like sometimes things fall into like our lap.

But then sometimes it was like through a season of change, it gave us the option to, to RV or to try and venture. And it was like intriguing. And I think one of the, I think for me, there were two pretty big catalysts when it came to the RV side of things and just letting go of the normal nine to five, doing our own thing. One of them, when we lived in Colorado, we had a great mentor who ended up being her boss down the road. ⁓ but he was talking about parenting in like with his kids.

His kids were all kind of in that transition from like high school to college or like to young adult life. And he said, I always encourage my kids when there’s multiple options, choose the most adventurous one. Yeah. And I was like, huh, that’s really interesting. I’ve never thought about that. For me, it was like, can I make money? Can I provide for my family? Is this a safe bet? And we talked about it.

Aaron Smith (46:39)
and

Dan And Sam (46:51)
as soon as we left his house that night. And I was like, man, that’s a really cool thing. And we found ourselves multiple times where there were different doors open and we didn’t have clear direction from the Lord which direction to go. We had peace on either we were like, what if we just do the most adventurous one? And at that point it was, I had two job offers in Colorado. could, or one job offer in Colorado, one back here in Missouri. I was working at this company that I could have stayed very easily at.

Aaron Smith (47:04)
Mm.

Dan And Sam (47:20)
And we had an RV at that point that we were had gotten done renovating. And she was like, what if we we could live wherever, but what if we live in the RV? And I was like, OK, let’s choose the most adventurous one. And that ended up being moving back to Missouri, living out of this camper. And sometimes we live in somebody’s backfield who had power hookups and septic hookups.

Other times it was living at a campground or living in my buddy’s back lot behind his garage. And it just, that, that conversation with Kirk was a catalyst for us in choosing adventure. And then the other was once we had renovated that, lived in it, we started an RV renovation company. And so we were doing a lot of cosmetic interior design stuff and we made old nasty nursing home looking campers.

Aaron Smith (48:03)
with.

Wow.

Dan And Sam (48:13)
Look really cool and updated, like a farmhouse or a new modern house on the inside. And we got invited to be on a TV competition show called gutted where we had seven days to transform a Mercedes Sprinter van fully gutted into a working livable vehicle that you could travel across the country. And, and so we went out there. Yeah. Yeah. And so we, get out there and it was like,

Aaron Smith (48:37)
I built one of those before. I know exactly how that goes. Yeah.

Dan And Sam (48:43)
Our team was the van team, and then we had an RV team and then we had a school bus team. And so all three of us had seven days to do it and meeting the people out there. Like we felt adventurous seven days. Yep. Start to finish. And so, I mean, being competitive. Yeah, it takes a lot. And we, we only knew RV life where you have

Aaron Smith (48:54)
Only seven days? Holy…

took me six months.

Dan And Sam (49:06)
You have plumbing and you the structures there, you just do some paints and kind of cosmetic. Yeah, that’s it. So with a van, you’re starting from scratch. You’re building the counters, building the bed, putting the composting toilet in, putting the diesel heater in, cutting through the room. it was wild. mean, it was so cool though, because all of these people that were competing had been in this space. Almost all of them had lived full time in their renovated van or school bus or whatever. And here we are like, we’re doing two month long projects on people’s

Aaron Smith (49:07)
You’ve cut all of it in.

Dan And Sam (49:35)
⁓ campers and we’re just changing out handles and doing new paint and trim and fixtures and things like that. And so we show up and it’s these people who are like, yeah, I spend my summers out in the desert or my winter is out in the desert. And then I kind of bounce around. Maybe I live up north in the, in the dead of winter or, we’re like, we’re like the lamest people out of everyone here and seeing people do that. We’re like, well, couldn’t we do that?

Yeah. And we, had the conversation. It was like, yeah, but we have two kids now. Like, could you imagine traveling every single day and setting up and tearing down and doing the hookups? And it was like, well, they’re doing it. They have a family of six. That actually sounds kind of fun. And so we ended up doing it for six months, just hitting the road. We told our friends when we left, we’re like, we might be terrible at this and be back in six weeks, or you might not see us except for like two or three times over the next two years. We really have no idea.

And we didn’t have a plan. It was like, we knew we had to pick up a dog in Montana at some point. We knew a couple places, but we’d find ourselves in the middle of Utah and Sam would go, you know what? I want to go to the Oregon coast. There’s a place that I saw online. And I’m like, all right, that’s our next stop. Where are we going tomorrow? Yeah. And so we like went up there and then it was like, we’ve never been to glacier. Let’s go to glacier. Okay. So we’d go to glacier. Hey, remember that place we stayed at a couple of years ago on the

Aaron Smith (50:48)
Organ Fils

yeah.

Dan And Sam (51:03)
on the rim of the Badlands in South Dakota, let’s go stay there. And it’s like, all right, let’s go do that. The kids weren’t with us, they would love to see it. And so that was just our life. We might drive until 2 a.m. and park in a truck stop and like make sure all the doors are locked, you know? But it was just fun and the kids learned so much. Walmart parking lots are the scariest place on the planet when you know you’re sleeping there for the night.

Aaron Smith (51:20)
or Walmart parking lots.

Yeah, at least they have their

lights on.

Dan And Sam (51:29)
Yeah, for real. But that was it. It was seeing other people and going, why are we making excuses for why we can’t do it? What is actually keeping us from being able to? It sounds like our attitude and our doubt is the only thing keeping us. seeing God throughout the Bible, He’s calling people to do amazing things, to do incredible things. I challenge people all the time. I’m like, I would love it if you could find me a verse.

where God just said, hey, you’re gonna spend your life comfortable staying right here. Everything’s good. You don’t need to trust me. And I’m like, it’s just not there. He wants us to live adventurous lives. And so we’ve taken that up. People are like, wait a minute, you just had a book come out about adventure and you just bought a house. I’m like, yeah, but the adventure doesn’t have to stop because you have a house. Like, yeah, you might have to pay someone to mow the lawn while you’re gone.

Aaron Smith (52:21)
their own adventure.

Dan And Sam (52:23)
Yeah,

it trust me a backyard renovation is its own adventure and even more scary than some nights on the road.

Aaron Smith (52:29)
Yeah.

We’re still doing, trying to get our backyard done and now we’re trying to work on our front yard and it was like literally dirt when we bought it. So it’s like trying to make it all look nice and then trying to do it ourselves because it’s so expensive to pay someone else to it. I do a couple of last questions I have for you guys. ⁓ And I’m sure this is something that you guys are constantly thinking about. So you’re, how old are your two kids? Seven and eight. And then you have one on the way.

Dan And Sam (52:35)
yeah.

dang, yeah.

cheaper.

Seven and eight, almost nine. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (52:58)
⁓ That’s a pretty good gap. That was because of the surrogacy I’m imagining, right? ⁓ The reality of all of the traveling like you have a home now, how are you as a family keeping connected in the church, showing your children the value? Because you talked about how valuable the community you had, those mentors you had, was in your marriage. And even still now that you reach out to them and talk to them. How are you?

Dan And Sam (53:02)
Yes. huh.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (53:27)
cultivating that in your home because it is hard to have close tight fellowship when you’re traveling. How are you building that up?

Dan And Sam (53:32)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. And that was

that was one of the things that caused us to stop traveling. I think we would have kept going because we loved it. The kids were having fun, but we were missing the aspect of community. And, you know, we would meet new people at each stop or each campsite and the kids would, you know, find some kids to play with. But we didn’t have that community. We together we had, you know, our time with the Lord and our time together, but we didn’t have friends. And in moving back and settling down, that’s caused us to be able to get.

get involved in a church again and serve and our kids to get involved in. In the past two years, both of them have gotten saved and have gotten baptized. And it’s been amazing to witness as a parent, their love and desire for the things of God and to, and our community and our friendship are those that are involved in the church. And so yes, prioritizing our time together and adventure and enjoying God’s creation, but also

⁓ serving the church and being a part of what God is doing and teaching them how to serve and how to love others and how to give back is really important, but it takes, ⁓ being strategic about it and not being flippant and just like going wherever and not having, ⁓ a good foundation of being, connected in church. And even when we do travel, like we go down to certain parts of Florida all the time and there’s churches now that we’ve gotten connected with down there. And it’s like, when we’re there.

we’re attending that church. If we go down and stay for the month, that’s where we go to church for the month. And the kids know that. They’re like, yeah, it might be nine months in between going there. They’re like, I remember this church. There’s mangoes on the tree in the back. And we’re like, yep, we’re going to pick some fresh mangoes after we leave here. But like when we’re home, it’s so important. And it’s like, we missed that church family so much. It felt really, really weird. And now we’re very involved.

Aaron Smith (55:08)
Yeah.

Dan And Sam (55:25)
Like I’m on the board of trustees at the church. And I was like, I feel bad because I’m probably the only, or I’m probably the least attending board of trustee member ever because like, yeah, I go, we go on trips as a family or I have trips planned in the fall for hunting and stuff. And I’m like, I’m not here, but I’m connected. Like I talked to my pastor.

almost every day. ⁓ I talked to other people from the church. They’re some of the people I’m closest with. In fact, all of our friends, we had a party here for the 4th of July. And I think out of what 50, 60 people that were here, maybe four of them we have never attended church with. Everybody else, the closest people in our lives, the people who ⁓ continue to be in our lives, even when we’re on the road, the ones that were

constantly calling and talking to and encouraging, or that call us if there’s an issue, or we call them if there’s an issue. ⁓ They’re all people that we’ve done life with together within the church. And so the kids see that all of their closest friends, it’s the same way for them. And it’s just really cool to see how your church family becomes even closer than your actual family sometimes. Like my extended family or even my siblings, we live out of state, we don’t talk all the time, but these people that

I do life with together and I serve with, we’re in constant communication and helping each other out however we can.

Aaron Smith (56:52)
And I think that’s got to be the key in these. mean, because on one hand you could say like, you should never, you know, go and be gone for long periods of time because you need to be so connected to your church, which I mean, I believe wholeheartedly that the Bible teaches us that we should be, it says, do not forsake the gathering of the brethren, that we should be in community. That’s the point is that we are the church together in walking and accountability and all of the things that it’s like safety, right?

Dan And Sam (57:01)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (57:19)
But you still can, like you said, that intentionality is there, like when we are home, we are home and we’re with our community and we’re connected. And when we’re gone, they still have access to us and can reach out to us and we go back and forth and we’re communicating. I’ve seen other families ⁓ not see that as a necessity. They say, no, like we have our relationship with God. We know God, we love God, we love the Bible, but we don’t necessarily need a home base. We don’t need a community. We can get a little over here, another bit over there.

Dan And Sam (57:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (57:49)
And I think that’s dangerous and it doesn’t sound like you’re doing that. It sounds like your hearts are, like, we understand this and so we’re going to cultivate that and enjoy the adventure and still show our children that we can be away and still there.

Dan And Sam (57:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that now it’s just teaching them. They don’t understand. Wait, they go to a different church. Like some of our close friends go to a different church than us when in the past we used to go to the same one. So they’re like, wait, they go to church, but they’re not with us. And we have to explain, yes, there’s different kinds of churches. But yeah, I feel like it’s a new it’s probably not a new thing, but I’ve I’m hearing it more and more from people like, this is my church. Like being out doing this with my buddies, that’s my church. And it’s like,

Well, no, that can be like your community, but you golfing and talking about Jesus with your buddies while you’re golfing isn’t church. It’s different. And I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t know if it’s just hurt people who have been in church and something bad happened or they were treated wrong or didn’t feel like they were seen at church or whatever it is. But the whole phrase like, I was hurt by the church.

Aaron Smith (58:37)
Yeah.

Dan And Sam (59:03)
I’m like, man, you were hurt by people and people are sinful and that’s going to happen. There’s going to be somebody who hurts you in the future or offends you in the future. But to hold that against every body of believers and every gathering on a Sunday morning or a Saturday night or a Wednesday night, it’s, it’s hard because I haven’t felt that. Like I’ve been burnt out for sure. Like I’ve, I’ve given everything to the church for years and years and I’ve been burnt out by it, but

I can’t hold that against God’s house, you know? It’s just missed expectations. I didn’t think I’d be doing as much as I was, or I didn’t realize how fatigued I got. so, yeah, for people who see things going wrong in their life, they don’t feel like they have community, they don’t feel like they have X, Y, and Z. I’m like, are you attending church anymore? Are you there? Are you building that community or serving somewhere?

And I said the same thing to family members who were trying to find a husband. I’m like, are you dating people? Like, are you trying or are you just doing your own thing? And it’s like, well, no, I’m not really trying. And I’m like, get out there. Like go to an adult singles thing at church. And I bet you, find a husband. There is nobody who wants a wife or a husband more than someone following Jesus who’s single. Because they’re not doing all the things that they’re not supposed to be doing.

And they want that, you know, you should, you should put yourself out there. And so I hear that a lot. People feel lonely or they don’t feel like they have anybody else to talk to. And one of the first things is, do you have a church home? Come check it out. See if you feel welcome. So.

Aaron Smith (1:00:40)
Yeah, get

comments all the time from people. I’m sure you guys get the same thing. Like, I don’t have anyone else to talk to. I can’t talk to anyone in my church. So here’s my question. like, you don’t even know me. Like, yeah, you may see me on social media and YouTube and whatnot, I’m not like there with you. I don’t know your life. think a lot of many of that struggle with this struggle with getting connected, struggle with being known.

Dan And Sam (1:00:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, exactly. Yep.

Yeah.

Mm.

Aaron Smith (1:01:08)
Is it specifically that there’s a fear of being known? There’s a fear of accountability. There’s a fear of actually having change or be seen for who you are, your life choices, your, way of living, your being judged. And that’s a, that’s real thing. And that’s hard. So I, I commend you guys for being able to, learn adventure, grow in adventure and traveling and seeing the country and, ⁓ world. don’t know how far you’ve guys traveled, but showing your kids the ability to do that, but.

Dan And Sam (1:01:09)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yes.

Aaron Smith (1:01:38)
Showing

that that community aspect showing that fellowship with other believers is cannot be like substituted. There is no So that’s Amazing. I’d love to hear ⁓ so I don’t know if we’ve said the name of your book share with my audience Name your book where to get it and then where to find you guys online

Dan And Sam (1:01:46)
Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. So our book is called Always Choose Adventure based off of encouragement from a mentor about choosing the most adventurous route in life. it’s just our journey to chasing the things that matter most. And we share stories of our life and how through sacrifice and faith and trusting in God and putting fear aside, we had some of the most adventurous, most memorable moments of our life. And yeah, we just share the good and the bad with you. Some funny stories, some pictures you can buy at all major retailers.

It’s pre-order right now, but it’s releasing August 26th and we share our life online. Dan has hunting platforms where he shares hunting humor, the nomadic outdoorsman. And then ours is just, are Dan and Sam on all platforms.

Aaron Smith (1:02:38)
Amazing. ⁓ Love you guys’ story. Love what you guys are doing. Keep encouraging people and ⁓ congratulations on the little baby you got coming soon. Yeah, God bless you guys.

Dan And Sam (1:02:41)
Thank you.

Thanks so much. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you.

You too.

Aaron Smith (1:02:53)
All right.