Previously on The Sean Ryan Show.

My stepfather used to hold my mom at gunpoint. He'd just sit in a chair and he'd hold a pistol at her and get her to say things that weren't true, get her to denounce God, all evil. My stepfather was in counterintelligence in the army. I never forget the first time someone asked me after doing the gun disarm. What motivated you to get that fast? I never forget. I never forget my brain saying, One day, one day, I'll be so fast, no one will ever be able to hold a gun to me. Kids who were born in the fire won't be burned by the heat of life. The other thing I would tell adult survivors is don't lose hope. I've worked with so many men who are just like, I couldn't stop it. The best weapon I've ever used for my soul is forgiveness.

That is maybe the most powerful thing I've heard in this room. All right, Victor, we're back from the break. That was a super heavy segment previous to this, and we ended on talking about forgiveness. One thing that we didn't touch on is how you got yourself out of there as a child.

Yeah, it was... Well, the night we left, the pedophile stepfather was the night that he came home drunk, which was... There's two types of drunks. There's the happy, jovial drunk, and then there's the main one, and he definitely was a mean one. He came home drunk and he's yelling and screaming at my mom, and it was based on the electric bill. That's what he was using that night. Why is the electricity bill so high and all that. Then he ended up pulling out his gun and walking around the outside of the house, shooting all of our spotlights out in the corners of the house. Boom, shooting him. I mean, even me as a kid, of course, we're freaking out, but I'm thinking, Why in the world? You can just turn the lights off. How does that even make sense? But when he starts shooting everything and yelling, and he's walking around the house, my mother grabs us and the kids were there. We ran into the back room and then ran into a closet like we're hiding. And my mother kept the door open to the room to try to throw him off. But when he came in the house and we're all in our doors cracked so we can see and just intense.

Gosh, it was intense. And he started saying, Where are you all? Where are you? You better come out. And that was like a horror movie right there. And he got to the door of the room. We were all just trying not to make a sound. We were terrified because all I could get thinking about is him walking into there and just shooting us in the closet. My mom was worried for that as well. But she started praying. She started praying to Jesus quietly, like calling out to the Lord. I mean, look, I was like nine years old or something. I'm thinking, Jesus, the Jesus I know from Sunday school, he's a really nice one. He's breaking bread, handing fish out. He's on the felt board, Jesus. He's going up to heaven. He doesn't really look masculine or capable, just loving. I'm like, We need a different type, but we need like a ramble of Jesus right now. I mean, it's like we need someone who can flex and get something done. Then my mother started praying this, The blood of Jesus covers the door. The blood of Jesus covers the door. Again, I'm thinking, Wow, what's that going to do?

What happened next made me really understand that Jesus was alive and that His blood, there was something powerful about it. Because with a drunk stepfather at the door to the room holding the pistol, looking in and seeing the closet door, he's looking at the angle, but he hasn't come in. He said, Come out, or I'm coming in. My mother's just, 'Pray to blood Jesus comes through the door because we had no other options there. A lot of times in life when you have nothing else but Jesus, you go to him real quick. My stepfather couldn't enter the room. Something physically restrained him from crossing into an open door, a barrier, and he was... He was so mad he couldn't get through and he's growling. He's like, Yeah. I remember just going, What? What's happening? That was my first. Again, this is the guy that abused me and was crazy and had my mom with a gun and hurt my sister and rape and all this. I said, He can't get in the room. I'm thinking, What? What is this about? But I knew Jesus had to be real because nothing else would stop Him. He left.

He went and lay down. My mother were waiting. Were waiting from the pass out. We didn't want to run down the hall because his bedroom, their bedroom was right on the other side. My mother opened this window in the room and it was small and she starts pushing us through. All she said was run. Just start running. These were... This was a nicer area at the time, nice homes, nice land. We're just running. We were just running through this dark woods area trying to get to a neighbor's house. I could remember there was so much fear because you could imagine them just coming out, running after you like a monster. Then before my mom could get out, the telephone rings. We had one phone in the house for us as a family. It was in the kitchen, the kind that hung up with the long cord. My mother was scared for my sister to come home because she's like, once we leave, if any of the kids come home like my sister or brother, he might kill them. As we're launched out of slow little deal running, the phone rings. She's hoping he's passed out.

My mom tiptoe down the hall into the kitchen, answer the phone. She goes, Don't come home. Don't come home. It's like she just needs to say a few things and run out the door. And that's what she hears. Rita coming to the room. It was messed up, Father. That's how he pulled her out of the room. Because back in the day, old phones, you could dial a number, hang up, and it would automatically call your phone ringing. That's how he pulled her out. Then she's talking to one of the kids real quick, and then she hears this pretty evil voice. She had real presence of mind. She said, Okay, I'll be right there. She goes, I just need to use the restroom first. She puts the phone down, doesn't hang it up, puts it down, and runs out the front door. The side door of the garage runs around, ends up fighting us. We end up going a couple of houses down across the street. It was a Christian family. We felt safe, and they end up calling the police. We never went back. They got them out. I went up moving to a different city.

Actually, I never went back to that house until, gosh, like 30 years later. When I went back, it was that time I was traveling through and I went to that house after, actually it was before I met with him. It was like, again, I felt like the Lord said, Go to the house you lived in them. That was more terrifying to me than meeting with him because it was like first encounter. Oh, my gosh, not that house. It was weird in my mind when I was just thinking, Oh, my God. There's got to be monsters in there or something. I'm a full grown man thinking I don't want to go to the house. But I did. I trusted God, obeyed him, knocked on the door. I remember stepping back. I didn't have a gun or anything. I was like, I don't know what's going to come out of this house. The door opens, it's an elderly lady, gray hair, definitely '70s, maybe close to '80s. I'm like, Whoa, hi. She goes, Can I help you? I said, Yes, ma'am. I'm not a salesman because I was dressed in a suit. I said, I actually work for a ministry.

I said, This is going to sound odd, but I said, I used to live here. She goes, You did. She goes, Who is your dad? I told her. She goes, I must have father. She said, I bought this house from him. Now we're just standing there. It's awkward. She goes, Bad things happened here, didn't they, son? She goes, Ma'am. She said, I want to buy this house. She goes, The neighbors told me what had happened in the abuse and the evil. She said, I'm sorry you all had to go through that. I said, Ma'am, me too. She says, Would you like to come in? I was like, Sure. I walked in the kitchen. She goes, Wait right here. I want to show you something. Again, I could just feel my anxiety just going up like, How do I get out of this house quick? She comes back and shes dead. She's holding something. She goes, When you all left, and I know you all had to escape, I heard the stories. She goes, You all didn't take anything. You all just fled. She goes, I bought the house and all you all's stuff was here.

She said, We gave away most of it to Goodwill and whatnot. She goes, But I kept this picture. She lays it down. It was a picture of me and my brothers and sisters. Thirty years she's kept the picture. I said, Why? She goes, I pray for you all all the time. I said, Ma'am, you never have even met us. She goes, I know, but God had me pray for you. I've been praying for you all these years. I've never stopped. I said, That's me right there. I couldn't believe it. Never met this woman. Here she's been faithfully praying. I said, Well, I remember saying something to the fact of, Well, I made it. I says, I'm a married family and I'm in ministry, Christian too. Then she's like, I can't thank you enough for praying. Your prayers kept me alive through some really hard, difficult times in my life. Then we're talking and I said, We escaped through the back room through a window. We were hiding in a closet. I said, Do you mind if I see it? I want to see if is it really how my mind remembers? She said, Sure. She starts walking around the hall and my body's getting rigid like, Oh.

She comes back and she grabs my hand. Tend toshe just grabs my hand. She walks me back there and I walk in. I'm like, Yeah, there's a closet. It was everything so much smaller because it's bigger when you're a kid. I'm like, Wow, that is a small closet. Then the window, I was like, Wow! That's where we escape. It was I told her. I said, Man, God kept you alive. I mean, for me to come back and thank you. Actually, when we made the film, the documentary, we went back and interviewed her for it. And she's in it. I think it was just a couple of years after it was complete and she got to see it. She went to heaven. It's a really special part in the film to see the power of prayer and the faithfulness of people praying for you when you don't even know it. So it was the last time ever. I have no desire to go back. I'm going to punch that ticket.

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You know, it's hard to tell, but I know my mom's mother was divorced or married. I know my mother's dad didn't claim her early on as his own kid, so she suffered with that pain of rejection. Which again, I think rejection is one of the motherloads betrayal. When you're betrayed by a family member with incest or them selling you out or allowing stuff to happen. And it does. I would say, because sometimes I pray for people and they definitely have generational trauma. Here's the great news. It can be stopped.

How about your dad's sight? Your biological dad?

My biological dad, his mom and dad didn't make it. They were divorced. For a time period, he was put in St. John Bosco's Home for Boys. That's where he learned how to box and fight. And his dad, my grandfather, was a professional prize fighter and then a pro boxer fought in Madison Square Gardens. But he died in a mental hospital because of head trauma. He was in the Philippines during the war, and he was giving kids food off of his ship. He was a merchant Marine. And they were told they didn't want them doing it because they claimed the kids could be bringing the Japanese. And he was like, Well, I'm not throwing it out. These kids are starving. He directly didn't listen to them. The second or third time they came and they were going to arrest him. He didn't and he didn't take lightly to that. When they tried to, he knocked the guy out. Again, he had hands. He knocked the guy out, knocked another one out, and then a bunch of them jumped on him with clubs, but they beat his head to where they actually had to put a still plate in his head.

Back then, we didn't have the technology or the tools, so I think he got a lot of rust. He ended up being placed after the war in a mental hospital. It's called Louisiana State, Pineville State Hospital. I looked up the records and ended up talking to one nurse that was there when he was there because I think he died when he was around 40. But I talked to this elderly lady and she says, Oh, I remember your grandfather because he was a prize fighter and then he was a boxer. She says, He was the nicest guy. He was real calm and very caring. She said, He could sure swab a deck. She goes, That was his role. He's mopping. She said, One time when people still talk about it, he's mopping the hallway. One of the inmates busted loose a big guy and started attacking people. He was running down the hall, so they start yelling from my grandfather, Watch out! Watch out, Mr. Marks. They said, He's mopping. He sees the guy and he pulls the mop to him and he gets as close as he can to the wall to this guy in the room.

And he said when the guy got running fast right about here, they said, Your grandfather just did a hook punch, boom, and knocked him in his head hit the ground and he slid on the wet floor. They said he just kept mopping. Never even thought of it as a thing. They were laughing. They were able to get the dude in a straight jacket and put him in a room. But that's the same hospital my biological dad went to.

Your dad went to a mental hospital as well.

Same one. When my mother left him and it was horrible circumstances. Again, I want to honor my mom, so there's things I don't need to say. But my dad, yeah, he got put in the same mental hospital for homicinal tendencies and a break in reality or something. Then what I go through, I literally remember going, Oh, my gosh. Am I next? Is this like a time chair for our family? Because you do, you do feel like that. Then you hear these whispers, Hey, your grandfather, your dad, now you. There's always abuse and a trauma associated with it. I certainly remember telling my wife maybe I should just go where I started becoming a little functioning and struggling. Maybe I should just... You shouldn't do power of returning. Just put me in a place. I'm causing you pain and I can't get a hold of this. My wife is like, No way. She's like, You need help. Because we've been separated twice, but my wife, we said we will never get divorced. Never. That's the one thing no matter how bad things got or I'm losing touch with reality or struggling or dissociating or whatnot, my wife, she's like, Hey, I'm never going to divorce you.

I'm going to stay with you. She goes, Because I know you love God. I know He has a bigger plan for your life you don't even know of yet, Victor, but you have His favor. She would always say, You have God's favor, Victor. I'm like, What good is God's favor when I can't even function? I don't have any flashbacks. She stayed. There were a couple of times she had to leave. I mean, one time I loaded up in the car with the kids. I'm like, I'm on meds. I don't even know what's going on. I had a bad neighbor, so I pulled out a weapon and I'm just tracking him through his house. I'm thinking, man, I could smoke this dude. She's like, You know, that's not normal. I'm like, I know. But again, all these crazy thoughts. I know this. God made us to heal. He made the mind to heal. The power of God can break any type of dysfunctional or even demonic, legacy from your past, I'm convinced of it. I think a person has to be convinced of it. Because the name of our organization is with God, all things are possible.

It takes faith, it takes belief that the word of God is truly holy scriptures. Then if you apply it to your brain, and that's been the key thing, and this is what I'm telling people right now, these sacred scriptures has made the difference in my life. 1:2 Timothy 1:7, which I sign on the board. God has not given me a spirit of fear, but power, love, and a sound mind. I have chanted that like a mantra tens of thousands of times. Just God's not giving me a spirit of fear, but power, love and a sound mind. I have a sound mind. Romans 12:2, don't be conformed to this world any longer, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may be able to what is the perfect, good, acceptable will of God. It's scriptures like, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. When people find themselves failing, struggling in a cycle they don't want to be, they have to start to learn who their identity is in Christ and what weapons they can access. First is the power. Another scripture says, The same power that raised Christ from the dead, raised Christ from the dead now dwells in me.

And do I believe it? Yeah. Did it take me a while for my know to really know? Yeah. And that's what you have to stand on or else doctors will label you and you'll never get beyond the label. People will label you and they'll speak negative thoughts on you. People from your past, it'll affect you. I mean, this is funny to me, but it's a good point. My fighting weight and adult weight was always 181. I'm six one, 181. I was always thinner, speed, that's what I wanted. I started working out with a friend. He was on a TV series called American Gladiators. His name is Darren Mcbee, but Malibu was his actress name. He's the blonde guy. We were working out. I never forget, he goes, Victor, you can be bigger. I was like, Oh, not really. This is me, man. I'm 45. I'm pretty much... He goes, No, you can change your body structure. You can be stronger. You can be bigger. I said, Well, I don't want to lose my speed. That's my thing. He goes, You won't. And then he's like, he keeps speaking this into me. And then he actually drew a picture or a painting that was awkward, where it's, Yeah, it's me without a shirt doing a flying kick and I had sparkles.

I'm like, Okay, it's odd. He's like, I don't look like this. He goes, I know, but you can. He's just, You can. I'm like, Okay, well, guess what? I start working out. I changed some approaches to protein. I checked my testosterone level. Then over probably three years, four years, I get up to 215 at 11% body fat, and I didn't lose my speed. I'm like, Good night. But here's the deal. I remember as a kid, a relative saying, Oh, he's pathetic. He'll always be scrawny. He'll never do. That imprinted in my mind. She wasn't even speaking to me. She was saying to someone else, But I heard it. All of a sudden, that was an imprint into my soul. Again, I mean, that's one example. But yeah, I don't have to be an alcoholic. I don't have to be addicted to drugs. I do not have to be a serial, person that gets married again and again or cheat on my wife. In order to break that stuff, that generational stuff, you have to decide, do you want to follow God's way or do you want to follow your family's way? That's so important because my brother, one of my brothers, when I met Eilidh and we got engaged, he's like, I never forget.

He goes, Man, how is she? I said, How is she what? He goes, How is she in bed? I said, Look, you know I'm a new Christian, so is she. I said, We're trying to do it God's way. God's way is like, we've had relationships. We've done it the world's way and other things. Although you think you're full grown, but you're 22. It's like you're a kid. But I said, We're going to do it God's way this way. He's like, What? He says, Are you telling me you're not going to have sex with her until after you're married? I said, Yeah, that's what I'm telling you. The Bible says, and I never forget, he goes, Hey, man. All right, little brother, come here. He goes, I know you're in this Jesus thing. Good for you. Everybody needs a little bit of Jesus. He goes, You can't marry a woman without testing to see if you all are sexually compatible. Actually, Sean, at that moment, I was like, Oh, maybe he has a point. What if we get married? It's like, Oh, I don't even... Does it even... Then I was like, Lord, I'm new to this and I'm trying to follow you.

Your Bible says it's fornication or adulter. We're supposed to wait. He has a point. What if something... Then my brother is looking at me like, What you going to say? You know I'm giving you wisdom, but it was worldly wisdom according to my family's treat. God gave me the perfect thing. I'll never forget. I look at him and I said, brother, because he's a car collector and he's got some cars. He's got the Eleanor. He's got cars. I said, You like Ferraris, right? He goes, Yeah, of course. I said, If we went right down here to the Ferrari dealership, they let you walk in the showroom floor and you could pick out any car you want and they give it to you. They give you the key and the title. It's yours, signed over. The only deal is you can't test drive it. You just have to leave with it. I said, Would you take it? He goes, Yeah, of course. I don't need to test drive it. I'm like, I don't need to test drive my fiancé either. She's a Ferrari. I said, I'm going to do God's way. I got 35 years married now, never cheated or been cheated on.

For people who don't wait, all I say is there's one way to do it. But the best way, the best way, especially when you want to practice and know you won't cheat on your spouse is, well, don't cheat before. Wait, so you have self-control. And then when you're married, for people who've been, you know, at intimacy before they're married, commit to God, ask for forgiveness. Tell your bride, Hey, I didn't know better, but I apologize. Had I known better, I would have waited because you're worth waiting for. Something as simple as that, that's so sincere can do so much for a relationship. But yeah, it's renewing your mind in those times you can't follow your family's pattern. Certainly you don't believe the whispers in your ears of, Hey, you can't. It's always you. That's when you know there's demonic whispers coming when it's saying you can't, you won't. Do you really? That's a different party. That's not your mind doing a self-assessment.

It's an interesting point. With everything you've been through as a child, and we haven't even gotten into the Marine Corps or the martial arts stuff yet, but when did you... When did God come into your life? When did you accept? When did.

You seek? Yeah, well, I remember being six years old in a church service, and they gave what's called an altar call where the preacher says, if you want to give your life to Christ, you want to have the assurance of heaven come forward. I remember thinking this is a six-year-old, Well, I don't want to go to hell. Are you clear to explain what that is. Heaven sounds like the better choice. I'll do that. It was a no-brainer. I got up and walked down by myself and the pastor was like, Good for you, young man. He prayed for me. I remember when he prayed for me, he had a very distinct vision, and there was Jesus at the top of a pedestal. I was walking up the steps to him and he reached out his hand. I remember the moment he grabbed my hand, I was out of the vision. I mean, it was so clear. This is what I know. That's not the moment I actually committed my life to Christ. It's the moment Christ showed me, I've got you. I've got you until the day you do. It was actually in my time in the Marines.

I did a very short stint, three years. My commander-in-chief was Ronald Reagan. Then I was a calm guy who then became a shooter and I shot on Western Division matches. Nothing was going on much during that time period. But I remember I had this very distinct feeling in my life, and I got heavily involved in martial arts. As a young man, you just want to test your battle. Like, do I have what it takes to be a man? How far? So joining the Marines, doing that, learning how to fight in a completely different way, and then, of course, chase women. That's, that my recipe for manhood, for my lineage was you got to drink, fight and chase skirt. Have a liquor, never step back from a fight and chase skirt. That's really what I... That's what a man is that I had been taught. Here's the problem. I started meeting girls in the Marines who could do the same thing and probably better than me, just as good as drinking. They could hold their own fighting and they get a lot more women than me. I'm like, Well, that don't make her a man. There's something skewed about this.

Then I started feeling this sense of emptiness, like something's not right. I became pretty proficient in martial arts, and I was like, Man, I've checked off all the lists, but something's missing. Then I get a letter from my biological dad. This was so bizarre because what led up to that is I was out partying on a New Year's Eve night. I used to hit black clubs, dancing and joking and all that stuff. My friends in the Marine Corps, one was a black guy from Louisiana, one was a Mexican from L. A, and one was part Native American. It was just funny, our little bunch. But I'm out partying, and I remember thinking, This is empty. This is futile. I was driving back to Kent Pendleton from L. A. My buddies passed out and I got a big stereo, got the car, and I'm twisting through the dial and I come across a preacher. The preacher's name was Greg Lorry, just an evangelical type of preacher. What he was saying made sense. He wasn't screaming. He was just talking. What he was saying, it was truth that I need to hear. I remember after listening to him, I would get up every morning and listen to him.

It was early morning for some come up. But I go sit in my car because I was in the barracks and I'm like, I don't want anybody. I know I'm just a preacher. Then that radio station and a list of other guys teaching the word, and it was the word of God that started renewing my mind, making me go, Whoa. Just like you made that post. He said, The more I read, the more I understand. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. During this period of me just privately, quietly reading the Bible or listening, trying to figure this out, I get this letter from my real dad. We had been a strange forever. The times I had seen him, he was just a nut job. I mean, he was a practicing warlock. Then he tried Japanese Perfect Liberty religion and Shinto and he was a seeker, but he was a bowser too. Then he taught karate, judo, and jiu-jitsu. I just thought, Man, what an odd bird. I remember visiting with him one time as a teenager and I went to work with him. It was a big country bar. He was, like in the movie, Roadhouse.

The cooler, that's who my dad was. He was older, he was experienced, and he would train younger bounces. I never forget I was in there. This was like me trying to get him to know my biological dad because you're like, What does he like? A group of guys come in this big country club, bar cowboys, and they walk and the guy, somebody points in our direction, they come over. My dad's sitting on a bar stool. This guy walks up, the leader of the bar walks up to my dad. He goes, So you're the boucher? He goes, I consider myself a public relations officer, young man. How can I help you? He goes, Well, me and my buddies are going to have a good time, don't have a damn thing you're going to do about it. If you think you are, you might as well test this out right now. I'm standing back going, Oh, here we go. Fun as seeing my dad never got off the barstool. He just thumped the guy right in his forehead, just popped, and it caught the guy off guard. He backs up. He's like stumbling. He tries to catch himself.

His foot hits a chair, and then he trips and his head hits the corner of a table and he's not completely out. He's on the ground hats. He's like, My dad never got off the barstool. And everybody's like, What the heck was that? And my dad said, Hey, you ladies to his friends. Now he says, Gentlemen, get your little lady friend out of here. They picked him up and went out. We're driving back. This is one of my few times ever I was like, What was that? He goes, It was an accident. I just was going to aggravate him. He punched me and I just bounce him off. He said, But it worked out really good. I'm like, It sure did. He just loaded with stories like that. But here he is while I'm on the way. He sends me a letter. In this letter, he says, Dear son. I was like, Don't call me son. You get my mom pregnant. You didn't even claim me as your kid. You said I was some pimps kid or whatever. And he goes, I know I've been a good dad. And I'm like, Yeah, you're right. And he goes, I know I've never been there for you.

And then he goes, I know you think I'm crazy. I'm like, Given, that's our lineage, Crazyville. He goes, This time I'm crazy, and I still have the letter shown, This time I'm crazy for Jesus Christ. That didn't excite me. That made me go, Oh, great. What's the angle now? Jesus Christ. He just goes, Look, I'm just asking for a chance. Then the rest of the letter was pretty compelling. You seemed genuine and sincere. He goes, Would you come visit me? Just when you have a leave of absence, come visit me. I want to make some things up to you. Actually, I got in trouble in the Marine Corps. I have an unauthorized weapons in the EQ and lying to the officer in charge of the day. He got cut from one of my sickles because he stuck his hand somewhere and had a weapon back there and he pulls it on. He's like, You got nothing. I'm like, How did I get out there? I get office hours. I get a stand trial for my nonsense, but they let me go visit my dad and they go, You better come back. I said, I'm not going to you all for this.

I'll just take my lumps when I get back. I visit my dad, and here's this guy, thick neck, huge forms, tatted up. His nose stays flat. He said it broke so many times, even had surgery, but didn't work. He's like, Well, hey, I'm glad you're here, son. I said, Let's not do the son bit right now. Let's just try to be men. He says, No, good. Then through this time with him, he invited me to go to church. June 22, 1986. He's like, Hey, you want to go to church with me? I said, Not really. I said, I've had my share of church. He goes, I'm bringing some of the fellows. And the fellows were guys from his stable of fighters. And literally in the '80s, and he had been doing the martial arts systems, punch, kick, throw, choke. So it was like MMA before it was popular. And he goes, Well, a few of the guys are going. And they were knuckledragers. I was like, They're going? He said, Yeah, I'll go. I never forget the preacher is talking good stuff. Then the people start worshiping like music. They were raising their hands. They were all in to God.

In my mind, I'm like, Whoa, I thought Christian people, I just didn't think tough men would do this. They're really... They're into it. They give flying squirrels if anybody's watching. They're just worshiping God. I was like, And then I got to tell you, I had to do an honest assessment. I was like, Well, I'm not a Christian like them. That's weird. Then I felt God's conviction, just a simple conviction that showing me the sin, the areas in my life I messed up. Yep, no, I never abused a kid, never tortured anybody, never did that. But if you look and compare your life against the Ten Commandments, if you break any one of those, that's actually sin. You're missing the mark. So, disobeying the parents, liar, adulter, fornicator, putting anything above God. And that was the one that got me. That was the one that really got me. I was like, I know God. You're not the most important thing to me. And then I felt conviction. I was like, Wow, that's in. Then he showed me the cross is why the cross is for you. Your forgiveness, anything you've done, anything you could do, that's why Jesus died on the cross.

It is for you. That's when I just I surrendered my life to the Lord. I was not a cryer. That mechanism didn't work for ever. I call them man tears. I was like, Oh, my gosh. I remember sitting in church, grabbing a Bible pulling it up close to me because I didn't want to... I felt so embarrassed. I was like, I don't want anybody to see me crying. My tears were hitting the pages and cringling them. When the guy said, Hey, if you need to get your business right with God, come forward. I did. I literally just ran forward, kneeled down. Man, I could feel God's love, feel it. I never felt His love. I could feel the conviction of my sin. It's happening at the same time. I was like, This shouldn't be happening. What do I need to do? What do I need to do for penitence, for my wrong? I was like, God saying nothing. Jesus did it all. You just have to accept it.

Was there ever a point in your life where you wondered.

Where.

He was or why he allowed all that to happen to you as a kid?

That, Sean, is probably one of the most important questions you could ask me because it was such a pivotal point. After I came to faith that day, years later, it was with a counselor who simply asked me this, Victor, where was God? Where was the Lord? You were getting abused and I said, Hey, you should just shut up. He was, Why is that offensive? I said, Look, God always does what's right. And he's probably helping other people. He goes, But why wasn't he there for you? I remember I had the same intensity and feeling of that movie Goodwill, Hunting, when Robin Williams is talking to the guy about his abuse. And he goes, It's not your fault. I said, Don't mess with me. He goes, You know it wasn't your fault. He kept saying, Don't f'in' mess with me. Don't. Because what victims do, especially when you're younger, you build these messages in your mind to justify how and why. And it's false because it's never your fault. And the guilt and the shame is never yours. It's the perpetrators. And it was then that I was challenged to just ask the Lord where was He.

Took me two years to do it because I had developed false hope. Some people are going to understand this. It's not a real hope. It's a false hope. I'd rather it be false than ask the question and realize he wasn't there. Then my hope is gone. Took me two years. When I was in a place where I was ready to ask him, it's just me. I said, Lord, I need to know where were you. Because all of my little, well, you're helping kids in Africa. You're helping kids who really needed help. I didn't really need, I was down with that. I was just like, I just didn't understand where were you. What happened next was one of the most pivotal moments in my spiritual life of learning truth, replacing years of lies with the truth over Jesus was. When I asked him that, all of a sudden I was transported right back to my stepfather's room. It was a particular instance where he was beat me with his belt. I could see it, Sean. I could see the room. I could see the carpet, bathroom windows, closet, the bed. Then I see myself laying on the bed because my stepfather would make you get out of your pants and in your underwear, those white beavies, he'd make you lay and stretch your arms out through your body.

Then he'd take his belt out, wrap it a couple of times, and then he would start to beat you. I see all this and I can feel the anxiety. I'm seeing it. I'm like, Oh, gosh. He has his beard on one hand, his belt, and the other. I'm like, Lord, where? I guess you just weren't there. All of a sudden, I literally see the Lord Jesus appear. He's right there next to my stepfather. Then instantly I start thinking, touch his heart, kill him, make him die because I don't want to get beat. If that would have happened in my vision, it would have been fake because he never died like that. Then my next feeling was, Oh, my gosh! Are you just going to watch him beat me? How impotent of a God is that? How sick. You're just going to stand there and watch this man beat the hell out of me again. Then what happened next? It changed everything. He stepped in between me and my stepfather. He faced me and then he kneeled down and he put his body over mine right before I got hit. He took every beating, far and with me.

He took it far and with me so that I could survive. There's a scripture that says, The Lord will never leave you nor forsake you. He proved it. That's why I survived. I thought, That's a savior I can follow and trust because His love is action. Never again did I doubt He wasn't there for me. I'll tell you, it always breaks God's heart when somebody's being abused in any way. But what I learned is God doesn't cause that to happen. He gives the person a free will to do good or bad. When this person does evil, He just allows the person a free will. Then in that redemptive, unbelievable, loving way, he enters that pain and he understands the suffering and it breaks his heart. But he enters it with us every kid. That's truth, my friend. That's the truth that sets us free. He really does love us.

I'm speechless right now. I don't know what to ask.

That is one of my most personal, private, spiritual moments that no one could ever change my mind on. It changed my life. And it was all based on that one question. And you asked it. It's the right question. Where was he? He was right there with me. And he's with everyone. It doesn't matter who they are, whether they follow him, whether not, because it's humanity. And that's what the battle is. The battle is good and evil against the human.

Victor, let's take a break. When we come back, I want to dig into what got you into Saving Children. I think it's pretty self-explanatory, but what I would like to talk about the journey that led you into the nonprofit and all the stuff that you're doing within it right now.

I would love to.

Perfect. Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through, and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. All right, Victor, we're back from the break. We're getting ready to dig into your nonprofit.

But.

First, you've mentioned your wife a couple of times. Oh, yeah. How long have you guys been married?

Thirty-five years.

Thirty-five.

Years. Yeah, this year. Congratulations. Thank you. Best accomplishment ever.

That is amazing. You and your wife founded this.

Together, correct? Yeah, we did. Okay.

What is the key? What's the recipe for a successful marriage?

One, marry the right person. One, two, learn to forgive a lot. And three, be intentional in growing your love. I think a lot of... I think a lot, I mean, in essence, our human nature, we're all selfish, and marriage proves that. Then children help accentuate that. I just think if people invest and are intentional in their marriage and learning to work beyond what they feel, and I'll tell you a little secret, I've never said this. Here's a little secret that I do over the years. When I just am not standing my wife, I'm like, She aggravates me. I make myself think about what's true and good and what I love about her. It's a mental discipline to go, Okay, yeah, right now. But what do I love about her? What? Not her current stat, but right. What do I love? And I just start thinking about all the good things, all the good things. And guess what? It changes your mind. And then it's easy to forgive when you know you've been forgiven too.

Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that. There's a lot of... There's a lot of broken homes out there, and I think there's more divorce than successful marriages at this point in time. That's important advice.

We have an online course. People can go to VictorMarx. Com/marriage. It's an online course that thousands of people go through, and it helps. It's literally like just sitting down with me and my wife in our living room. We share ups and downs and struggles, but we share Nuggets and insights that people can apply instantly.

I bet you got a lot more people coming to check that out here soon. But let's move into the all things possible foundation. Let's just start at the beginning. It sounds like you guys do a lot of things. Is the marriage stuff through the foundation as well?

It is, but we didn't start doing that until later.

Let's talk about just the birth of the concept, the idea. How did that come about?

Well, it was, I'll tell you, Sean, because it's actually interesting and funny and unexpected. I got invited to speak. Our background was martial arts and fitness. We lived in Hawaii for years, raised our kids there, and at one point, I had the largest facility, martial arts school. It was interesting, Vitor Belfore, his first fight outside of Brazil was in Hawaii, and he came to our training center. Him and his instructor, before he passed away and his mom. He trained and worked out. But we got to a place to where we felt called to ministry. I tried being a pastor and it didn't work out. I was an assistant pastor. I tried to be a senior pastor. But I mean, when I realized, oh, gosh.

Is- Why didn't that work out? You seemed like the perfect fit. You come from a line of trauma. You've overcome so much. I think a lot more people could relate to a man like you than the squeaky clean pastor who's who's never had a challenge in his life, you know what I mean? Right. I'm just going to be honest. That's something that really drove me away from God, Christianity, Jesus, whatever you want to call it, is the picture perfect snapshot Christian. Extremely judgmental. Most of them haven't been through any trauma, never deployed overseas, no childhood trauma, everything. I think a lot of them have just been handed everything. Then they become super judgmental, and they judge everybody who's going through some type of a hardship because they don't deal with it the way that they think that that person should be dealing with it. I find it to be extremely hypocritical. Zero self-reflection. It's all about them. It's not even about Christ. It's not even about God. It's what makes me look good in front of my people in church. That drove me away for a long time, and it kept me away. There have been times where I would start to want to find faith, and then I would go, that's what I saw.

Then walk right back out.

The door. I think Western Christianity many years ago got off course and it became a machine and it lost the heart of real ministry. That's to help people not to become, I mean, literally pastors are just like anybody else. Especially when you start building and growing, it became a business and enterprise. They judged their outcomes were flawed based on that. Well, how many people do I have? How much money are we bringing in? That's where I think they get off course. It's like, are you not successful if you have 40 people and it's a country church? Or if you're faithfully managing to 100 and you go visit people who are in the hospital, you marry people, you're bearing people. I mean, standardly, that's how been that's Christianity has been. But we got into this, I think, Western mindset where, well, this is what it looks like. Then everybody's looking at other pastors and other churches. My wife and I went to a... She was at a pastor's conference event. I mean, this was like, gosh, 25, 30 years ago, 30 years ago. I never forget she came home disgusted. I was like, Babe, what's going on?

She goes, Honey, I went to this thing and it's supposed to be older Christian pastors, wives ministering to younger. She goes, They had a coding system by what color name badge you were if you were a senior pastor's wife or an assistant. It was cliquish. They actually treated women different. She goes, She was like, Are you kidding me? The reason why, and maybe I'm a better fit now, but back then, backthen, a defining moment was I was on staff at a church. It was a Calvary Chapel, which are popular churches. Some pastors are amazing. I got a friend in who here in Tennessee, amazing. They're doing it the right way. He's in Chattanooga. Then I've got other guys I know. I'm like, Dude, you should be out of the ministry. This is a vocation. You're using this whole platform and it's about you. Why I step back many, many years ago from that forward facing church type atmosphere is they wanted me to counsel somebody. I wasn't even married yet, didn't have counseling training. They're like, Well, you just try to counsel a few people. Then I got a phone call and it was a guy that came in.

His older daughter was in my little youth group, and he came in and goes, Man, I just got in an argument with my wife. He says, I blew it, Victor. I messed up. I said, What? He goes, I cheated on her. I'm like, Well, that's a big one. That's one of the big ones right there. He goes, Could you please just help me get back with her? He says, I'm repentive and I'll never do it again. I'm like, I'll talk to her. But that's a heavy order right there because it's biblical. If someone commits adulry, you have a biblical precedent to divorce them. I talked to her and she's like, Well, he's doing drugs. I said, What's up to you? She opted to forgive him and be reconciled. She let him back in. Few months later, he did it again. He came in and he was like, Oh, my gosh, please. Took a little longer. I was like, Do you want to... Some women, they're messed up with dysfunction too, and they allow stuff to happen.

Generational.

Trauma. Generational trauma. She let them back in. It was a few months later. I get a phone call from her. She says, Victor, I need your help. What's going on? She goes, My husband cheated again, but he's high on I think he was smoking crack. She goes, He just freaked out when I confront him about it. He hit our daughter, their toddler. He punched her into a wall, full-on just wham. She said, You know what? Busting the wall. She's like, What do I do? I said, Call an ambulance and call the police right away. She goes, Okay, I'm just telling you in case you come to church. I'm like, That idiot wouldn't come to church at this point. Guess who comes walking in? This dude comes walking in. This was a defining moment of why I wasn't church material at the time. He sees me and then he keeps walking. He's going to find another pastor. I do an intercept and said, Hey, man, what's going on? He goes, Oh, things aren't great. I said, Well, why don't you come back to my office? We walked and there were many pastor's offices. I was at the end because it was a big church.

When we walked in my office, I put him behind my desk and I sat at the door and said, Tell me what's going on. Oh, man, it's just... I said, I know I got a call from your wife. Because you did. I said, Yeah, you really have messed up at you. He was definitely tweaking. I said, She said you hit your daughter? You hit your toddler, bounce her off a wall? Because I don't know what happened, man. I just lost my mind. Then he goes, and he's like, fake crime. Oh, my gosh. He goes, I don't... And he said these words. He goes, I don't know what's wrong with me. Maybe I should get hit. I thought, I don't have a lot of skill sets. I'm fresh out the Marine Corps, but I'm comfortable in conflict. That's what I'm thinking. I go, Yeah, I think you should. I got up, went over there. He suddenly said, What are you doing? I said, You just asked for it. You're going to get it? Swep him, put him on the ground, start pounding this dude. Hes screaming. I mean, he is screaming. The door flies open and it's the number two pastors.

He's like, What are you doing? Stop. I'm like, It's okay. He said he should be hit. It's legal and he had his toddler. The guy's like, Victor, please come out. I come out and the guy's like, Call the police. The guy's like, You can't hit people when they come in. I go, He just needs his butt whoop. Then the police need to come and arrest him. He's a complete punk. It was pretty soon after that I was asked to find a different approach to ministry outside of the church walls. I said, Okay. I said, I get it. Then God led us on a whole journey where our ministry became us teaching and reaching out to the public through martial arts, big schools and people were coming to faith and we had devotions after every class. I think it'd be 60 people. We're having devotions. We're praying every class. People started calling me their weekday pastor. They go, You've really become like how we apply this stuff because you all just talk normal. I'm like, Well, we're just just trying to walk in our lane or run in it. But then when it came time, a defining moment that said, I think we're going to start this ministry.

My gosh, I was 40 and down the road, business and life. Yeah, it's just before 40. It ended up being I was asked to go to youth prison and share my testimony. I had worked for Dr. Dobson and somebody had heard me share a little bit. They're like, Would you come to see the prison? I was like, Why do I need to go? They said, Your story could really help them. I prayed about it. I said, Yeah. I said, Who's going to be there. They said it's 75 kids locked up. It's a full high security facility, guards and all kinds of stuff. I'm like, Oh, man. I start getting a little nervous. I'm like, I don't know what to say. He goes, Why don't you do a little martial arts demonstration? I can do that. We go, They bring these kids in this gym. They're all sitting there looking at me. They really are going, What in the world are you going to talk to us about. And so I decided to do a little demonstration with a pair of noon checks and have a guy hold pencils in his hands and one in his mouth.

And I was nursing a shoulder injury, so I probably shouldn't have done it. But I knocked the pencils out of his hand when I went for his mouth, I missed and I split his chin open. And this is what's crazy is all those kids were looking at me like this. Then when I hit that guy and split and he starts bleeding. They were all like this. This guy playing around, this preacher, is his preacher. Is he a preacher or what is? Then I had their attention because they were like, This is weird and he's violent, but they could relate to it. Then I do a hit where I can hit a person, eight points of contact in a little over a second. Of course, the gun is on. I had all their attention and I shared my story. 56 of the 75 gave their life to Christ that day. It was so odd and I couldn't believe it. So many responded. I told them, Sit down, I can ask again, do you understand this? Coming to faith in Christ, you get forgiven, but you're surrendering and you're being intentional about following Him. If that's you, stand up.

I think it was 56, stood up. I was just like, the warden comes over to me and he goes, I've been praying that someone would be able to touch these kids. He says, It's you. I remember being stunned. There was somebody to follow up weekly with these kids so they would grow in their faith. That's who had invited me in. But I end up going home and going researching. How many youth prisons are there in the US? I don't even know. Oh, my gosh, it was unbelievable. Back then on any given night, there was 175,000-200,000 kids were locked up or under some type of legal thing. I'm like, Who's reaching them? I looked and I was like, Whoa, nobody's reaching them. Very tiny %. Because of the Western church, they're the misfits. There's no benefit to trying to win them for Christ outside of maybe crime reduction, but they can't do anything for the church. They're a hard group. I said, Well, that's perfect because I like to go after those who others won't. That's when I told my wife, I think we're supposed to reach these kids. She's like, Then let's do it. And we did.

We're celebrating 20 years this year. That's how it started. But it grew on the Coast and it grew.

I mean, you guys are saving kids all over the world now. Next on Sean Ryan's show. How did it come from being a ministry for kids in prison to going overseas in Iraq, Syria, wherever you go?

Over a hundred missions complete. With trauma care help, over 45,000 women and children.

Wow.

Yeah. Right into ISIS confinement camps.

What stuff is happening to these kids?

Everything from they're hiding with their parents and their parents are murdered to they've been abducted by ISIS. Bad things happen.