- Hey guys have a seat.
Good to see you guys tonight.
And, we've talked about
getting men's events together.
Well, here you go.
And we are guys getting
together to worship
and to learn of God.
And this is a men's event,
we tried to get a tank up here,
but it wouldn't fit through the doors.
So, but we'll do some other things
maybe next time, we'll see
but tonight we do as
Brad was saying earlier,
we have special guests with us.
Just a man who just I got to know recently
and really a man of God,
but, he went through a lot of
different things we'll talk
about, I'll be interviewing him.
And he'll also be able to
teach a little bit as well.
But he comes to us as a former Navy SEAL
and by way of the Bronx,
by the way of Nigeria
and so, really great
testimony really great work
what God's doing in his life.
So would you please give
a nice warm valor welcome
to Remi Adeleke.
(audience applause)
- How are you doing brother?
- Good, thanks so much for coming.
- Thanks for having me.
- Have a seat please have a seat.
- Yes sir, yes sir.
What's up fellas, how you guys doing?
- Well, Remi, thanks
so much for coming out.
You are like one of the
busiest guys right now.
And I'm seeing you all over the place,
I'm seeing you on People Magazine.
I'm watching you on the Today Show.
I'm watching you on the Eric Metaxas Show
who's a good friend of our ministry
and then also on Fox, and Fox and Friends
and so you were just
like all over the place.
- Yes sir.
- So thank you for coming here tonight.
I know you're really busy
and you took time out of your schedule
with your family at home.
So thank you for doing that--
- Thanks for having me
is honor to be here.
- You know at Harvest.
One of the things we
appreciate so much is those
who are in our military
and who are former military
that they would sacrifice their own lives
for our freedom and you
are willing to do that
and for that we say thank you so much
for that it mean so much to us.
- Thank you guys.
(audience applause)
Thank you.
Thank you guys.
Thank you.
(audience applause and cheers)
Thank you fellas.
God bless you.
- Yeah see we just appreciate you now
and we have a lot of military in our area,
March Air Force Base,
not too far from us here.
And of course, we have Riverside
National Cemetery where,
men and women were brave enough
to give their lives for us.
And so we understand some things about it
but we're gonna learn more
tonight about your story.
I just finished your book Transformed.
- [Remi] Yeah.
- And this book was so amazing
was so much fun to read
in a lot of different ways.
And it was one of those books
that you start turning pages
and you cannot put it down.
So I really appreciated that.
So I'd like to kind of take us
through your life a little bit
and one of the things that intrigued me of
your early childhood.
Tell us about that where you're born
and how that was a part of your life?
- Yeah, essentially born into wealth.
My dad, he was a well
known Nigerian engineer,
philanthropist, businessman.
He engineered the first man
made island in the world
that exists to this day
is called Banana Island.
He had businesses all over the place.
- We have a picture of you
right there with you dad.
- That's me and my dad--
- You were a cute little guy.
- I was, I don't know what happened.
(all laughs )
And then we I was born
into wealth and riches.
We traveled the world, we
had cars, we had nannies.
We didn't live in a house.
We lived on a compound.
I mean, we had cooks and
horses and we had it all.
And my dad, he not only
was he a businessman
but he was also a chief in Yoruba tribe
and Western and European culture
we refer to royalty as King, Queen
Prince, Princess, that sort of thing.
But in Nigerian culture,
especially West African culture,
royalty is referred to as
chief or your last name.
So my last name Adeleke, Ade means crown
and leke it means above,
Aderemi is actually my full first name.
And that means the crown has appease me.
So not only did we have the riches
from a business standpoint
but we also had it from
a royal blood standpoint.
But in 1987 Nigerian government
who was very, very corrupt at the time
and still corrupt, consistently ranked
as one of the most corrupt
countries in the world.
They decided,
my dad couldn't have all
the things that he had.
So they stripped my father
of absolutely everything.
He went to war with them, not
literally but figuratively
and he died within days
and we went from rich,
having absolutely everything to poor
and as someone my mom
brought us out of Africa.
- So how old were you at the time?
- [Remi] I was five.
- Five years old, my good.
And we saw a picture of
you and your brother there
is that older brother younger brother?
- He's my older brother,
a year older yeah.
- So he was six and you were five
that must have been just so hard
going from that part of wealth
and a solid family environment
to now going to a single parent home.
- [Remi] Yeah.
- And tell us how that was,
as far as was that really hard on you?
I'm assuming it was.
- My mom,
she did a fantastic job
of masking the reality of
what happened.
My mom, she was American.
So when my dad died, my mom was just like,
there's no way I'm raising
my kids here in Africa
and she moved his back
to the States permanently
and that's why I grew up in the Bronx.
What I tell people all the time is,
it was as though my mom
created this movie set.
And on a movie set,
everything seemed perfect,
but when you walked off the
movie set, we were in chaos.
And so because of how well she did that,
we didn't really fully
grasp what was happening.
As a matter of fact, I remember
the day that my dad died, my
mom put my brother on one side
and me on the other side.
And she said to us in such
a calming easy manner,
your father is gone, he's not coming back
and she said it in such
a way to me my brother
didn't realize anything bad had happened.
So we just looked at each
other and said, okay,
and we went back to playing in the bedroom
as if nothing happened.
And it wasn't because
my mom was being callous
it was because she had to keep it together
'cause she knew that if she broke down
then we would break down, we broke down
she would break down it
would just create the cycle.
And people ask me all the time
Remi where do you get your perseverance,
your resilience from?
How did you get to be a Navy
SEAL and all of these things
and I always say, I had
a living example of it
every day of my life 'cause
I watched my mom put in work
every single day in
order to get my brother
and I the life that we
had in order to protect us
from the craziness that
we were surrounded around.
So it didn't really bother me,
but it wasn't until I
got a little bit older
seven, eight, nine then
I begin to notice things
like I began to notice me my brother,
we would share clothes.
Me and my brother, my mom
didn't have enough quarters
to do the laundry.
So she would have us to
give us a big bar Ivory soap
and make us wash our underwear
and socks in the sink.
And there were times when we would go
to the rent office and she would beg
for like an extra few
days to pay the rent.
And then there were times
when my mom didn't have enough
food to feed herself.
She had just enough food
to feed my brother and I,
and she would split it between us
and that's what we would eat.
So as that when I got eight years,
eight, seven eight, nine years old,
I recognized like, oh my
goodness, like what's going on?
Like, what's this life?
We don't have the life with my dad.
How come he hasn't come back yet.
And that's when it finally hit me.
And that's when that transition
took me kind of begin
to take me down a dark path.
- That's been so challenging.
As I opened up your book,
there was a statistic that
you put in the book on
the on the fly leave of it
and really, shocked me and
I would like to read it.
You just tell that statistics tell us
that African American males
who grow up in a single parent
household are nine times
more likely to drop out of
high school and 20 times more
likely to end up in prison
than any other demographic.
Obviously, the latter part didn't happen
to you here right now.
- Yeah, yeah.
- But growing back in
the Bronx was not easy.
- [Remi] No.
- There was a lot of
challenges that you faced
living in that environment.
- [Remi] Yeah.
- Tell some of the
challenges that you did have
living in the Bronx.
- Oh man is a whole lot of challenges.
(laughs)
(mumbles)
Wow, where do I start is a question
I'm just walking down the street.
(laughs)
You don't know if you're
gonna walk down the street
get robbed, get jammed,
get your face slashed.
I mean, but I appreciate
it that environment
because it really kind
of gave me street smarts,
street wisdom.
It really helped me learn
when to trust people,
when not to trust people,
when to keep my mouth shut, when to speak.
So yeah, I mean that
the violence was very evident
drugs, crack heads everywhere,
I would walk through the park all the time
there were just crack
heads all over the place.
Prostitution.
And when I was growing up,
the Mafia was still prevalent.
So I remember walking down the streets
and seeing the Mafia guys in
suits with their big collars
going into the local bodega stores
and collecting the rent from
the Dominican shop owners.
So it was it was a concrete jungle.
And it was hopeless for a lot of...
I mean, for me and a lot
of the guys I grew up with
was just one of those things
like we're never gonna get out.
Like, I never thought I
would get out of the Bronx
I was just like, this is my life forever.
And then the education system.
I mean, wow, the education
system in the Bronx was horrible.
I mean, it was just the books
will always in shambles.
There were no resources.
I remember what terrible times
we would go into classrooms
and the teachers would
just sit in a classroom
and be like, I'm not teaching anything
like 'cause they were just so upset
and fed up with the
students they wouldn't teach
and if they did teach you tell it,
they didn't want to be there.
So a lot of how I was raised
was almost setting me up
for failure for the
most part but thank God,
I have my mom, my mom was a
teacher in the South Bronx.
And so she knew how bad the
public education system was.
So she would homeschool us
during the summer breaks.
And she would make us do art assignments,
she would make us read books,
all kinds of literature books and do math
and all of these different
subjects in order to set us up.
So then when a new school year came around
we were a bit ahead.
So but yeah, those were those
were a few of the challenges.
- Yeah, again, just
thinking about that time
and era of our country
living in the Bronx.
And so you mentioned the fact of,
the drugs and the gangs.
Did you get caught up
in any of that at all?
- Oh the gangs, no, I
always hated the gangs
like I always hate 'cause
I hated this concept of
five people beating on one person.
You know what I mean?
To me, I just couldn't stand that.
And I had that happen to me I was jammed,
I would walk down the street
and see other people get jammed
I did not like the gang thing
for me was about getting money.
And in the late '80s, in the early '90s,
Hip Hop and rap culture, street
culture was very prevalent.
And so where I would...
I tell people all the time,
every boy needs a father,
because we every boy needs a father
to teach him how to be a man
and every girl needs a father
to teach her how to be loved by man
so she chooses the right one.
And instinctively, within
every single child,
they are just always yearning
and searching for father.
And so whether they know it or not
and I didn't know it at the time
but I was searching for a father.
I found it in the street
life, in the street culture
and Hip Hop culture, for the most part.
And so I would listen
to rappers talk about
hustling and selling drugs and
getting money power, respect,
and that's what I wanted to do.
So I started out stealing from my mom,
that progress to stealing
from bodegas stores
and shops on my street.
And then that progressed to getting jobs
and stealing from jobs.
And then that progressed to selling drugs
and in that progressive
running high level scams.
And by the time I was 19,
I was bringing at 10 to $12,000
a week from a legal money,
doing the things that I was doing.
- Yeah, and as I'm reading the book,
I knew that you got arrested.
- [Remi] Yeah.
- I still don't know at what point okay,
was it the drugs?
Was it illegal activity?
What was it that that actually
got him thrown into jail?
And I was actually he's like, really?
- Don't give it away let them
read the book and find out.
(laughs)
- Yeah well, it was it was funny
so it has something to
do with golden arches.
But I'll leave it at that,
but at that point, how old were you
at that time in your life?
- I was about 18, 19.
- Okay.
And then we know being a military
there was a point when
something clicked in your mind
like you know what, I
think I could do that.
I think I want to go into the military.
What was the first inkling
that you wanted to go into the military?
- Well, kind of there
is a few stages to it
for the first stage was,
in 95, I saw a movie called Bad Boys
that really kind of inspired me that,
show me that I can be more
than just a rapper or athlete
or drug dealers show me
that I could be a hero.
So that first film kind of
inspired me then a year later,
a film by the name of the Rock came out.
And that was the first
time that I heard of
or show Navy SEALs,
and that was the first time
I was exposed to Navy SEALs.
And so in my mind, I was just like, wow,
if I'm gonna do anything,
it's gonna be that.
But again, that was a
far fetched dream for me
'cause I was 15 at the time
and I was still in the street.
So there was no foreseeable way
that I thought I could do that.
Fast forward to when I was 19.
I got involved in a deal with
a drug dealer that went bad.
And he I sold them some products.
They weren't drugs.
It was something else you find
out in a book if you read it,
but I sold them some products
and it was supposed to last
for a certain amount of time
and those products only lasted
for a fraction of that time.
And he came knocking on
my mom's apartment door
and threatened my life and
my mom's life in directly.
So I went out into the streets,
I made them the money that
I needed to make them back.
And then I gave up the street life.
I was just like, I'm done hustling.
I'm done selling drugs, done
doing all of these things.
And for six months, I
did absolutely nothing.
I just meander around my house
and my mom would just get on
me Remi you need to get a job
like get out of my house.
And then in June of 2002,
I was lying in my bed
and I heard this voice speak to me.
And at that time, I thought
it was my subconscious
but in retrospect, I truly believe
that it was the voice of God.
And I didn't believe in
God I was I would fluctuate
between atheists and agnosticism,
depending on which day to
week all the way up until
when we get, I'm sure we'll
get to my transformation later
but I had no faith at all but
I truly believe will come back
to the one's gotten that voice said to me,
you need to get out of here.
You need to join the military.
And I remember when I heard that voice,
I prop myself up in the bed
I was like who said that
you know what I'm saying?
And then, I went to the window
and there was nobody there.
And I was just like, who said that?
And I heard the voice again.
And I was like, join the military.
Is like why would I want
to join the military?
Because you got to understand
growing up in the Bronx,
I saw a lot of injustice is
carried out by the police,
by government agent, I saw
a lot of bad stuff happen.
And so I hated the police.
And I associated anybody in
the uniform as the police
and I hated the military,
I hated the government.
I like my clothes,
baggy, my hats backwards,
I like things a certain way.
And so the military was totally contrary
to absolutely everything I was
and everything that I stood for.
But I looked around my
room and I said to myself,
what else do I have left?
I have absolutely nothing left.
I've tried everything
and everything has failed
I had a record company that failed.
I was hustling that failed.
What else am I going to do in my life?
And that's when I was just like, why not?
And I ran down the street I grew up on
when I went to the Marine
Corps recruiters office first,
there was nobody in there.
And then I went next door
to Navy recruiters office
when there's a recruiter there
by the name of Tiana Reyes.
And one of the first
things that she had to do
after I took the practice as that test
she run my background and she found out
I had two warrants off my rest.
I had a warrant in New Jersey
and I had a warrant in New York.
- [Brad] Didn't know that they--
- I didn't even know I had warrants.
So when she told me I warrants,
I got up and I got ready--
- [Brad] I gotta go now, right?
- Yeah, I was like, look
at the time I gotta go.
And right before I got to the door,
she said to me, where you going?
I said, I'm getting out of
here I want to go to jail.
And she said, "do you have a suit?"
And I said, No.
She said, "do you have a
collared shirt and some pants?"
I said, yeah.
She said, "come back tomorrow."
And I come back the next day
and she's in her dress uniform.
And she takes me to the judge in Jersey
and a judge in New York and
she advocates on my behalf.
She's like, listen,
this guy's made mistakes
but he still has potential.
He's trying to turn his life around
911 just took place can you
please expunged his record?
And both judges unanimously
expunged my record.
And then she went a step
further fudged all the paperwork
at the maps in order to
sneak me into the Navy.
And that's how I got in the Navy.
- So you snuck into the Navy.
- [Remi] That's how I got in the Navy.
- Wow that's great, that's great.
- Yeah.
- Well, along the way,
some people might call them
- Coincidences.
- Yeah.
- We call it the the
providential hand of God
- work in your life,
- Absolutely.
- even though you didn't
know that at the time.
And then so I can't imagine
what your mom must have thought.
When she heard her son is
gonna go into the military
what was her thought?
- She was horrified.
She was just scared
because she had a brother,
who was in a Korean War.
And grenade blew up not
too far from his head
and he got horrible.
We call it now TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury
but at that time it was shell shock
and he was confined to hospital
bed for the rest of his life
in a VA hospital.
And so she her immediate
thought was military die.
Like he's gonna go to
military he's going to die.
And so it was really, really hard for her
and I just remember telling
my mom I gotta go like,
I gotta go like I can't be anymore.
And she finally kind of capitulated
and then here I'm yeah, I got the Navy.
(laughs)
- Then I know that, again, I'm
not gonna give too much away.
And just know guys that we're
talking about a few things
this book is has so much more in it--
- Yeah.
- And you're really gonna want to read it.
And I don't get any
commission off of book sales,
so please not trying to sell it
but just in the fact of
'cause you didn't immediately
go into to BUD training or the SEALs.
- Yeah.
- You had a different aspect of
what you were gonna do at that point.
- Yeah, yeah.
So when I got into the Navy,
I didn't talk about this much in my book
but one of the first
things that happened was
I went to a Boot Camp I
went to a presentation,
a Navy SEAL came and he
put on a presentation
as to what SEALs do.
And that dream that I
had like years earlier
kind of reemerge within
me and I was like man like
'cause in the video guys
were jumping out of planes
they were scuba diving,
they had on ski masks
and suppressors on a
weapons and a running around
long hair a beard so I was like,
oh man, this is legit.
I was like, I want to do that (laughs)
and get paid to do it.
But I would three
problems I couldn't swim.
You gotta still know how
to swim to be a SEAL.
I didn't have the academic scores.
You can't be an idiot and be a SEAL.
And I was super skinny.
I could barely do 10 push
ups so you can't be skinny
and be a SEAL.
You can be skinny but you
got to be strong, you know.
- [Brad] Yeah.
- And so when I got to my first command
which was Naval Hospital, Camp Pendleton.
I work with my LPO and asked him
to change my schedule around
and she changed my schedule around
so I'll work four hours in
the morning had four hours off
in the afternoon and now work
four hours in the evening
and that four hours an
afternoon is where I just put
the pedal to the metal I
mean I don't have a car
I would run three miles to the pool
jump in the shallow in
lifeguards were looking at me
like all man, this guy
again, hopefully I don't have
to get into rescue him.
And then I will run three
miles back to my barracks,
I would go to the gym
and I just jumped on.
I didn't know what I was doing,
I would just jump on a pull up bar,
I would just do push ups, I
would just make up workouts.
And then I just got an acrobat book
and I just started studying,
I just did the extra hard work
and that's what I try to teach
and tell people all the time,
like for the most part,
all of us are going to have deficiencies
on the road to achieving our dreams.
Some of us our deficiencies
are gonna be major
for some of us our
deficiencies may be minor
but we will have deficiencies.
And when you have a deficiency
on the road to your dream,
you have to make a decision.
Are you gonna allow those
deficiencies and say, okay,
I'm gonna throw my hands up.
That means this is not meant for me
that means I can't do it,
or are you gonna do the extra hard work
in order to overcome those deficiencies
so that you could achieve your dreams.
And what I made the decision to do was
I made the decision to do
the extra, extra hard work.
And it sucks.
It wasn't easy, it wasn't fun.
But after a year of checking
into my first command,
I was checking out and
going to SEAL training
and that was unheard of and it was all
because I did extra hard work
to get over my deficiencies.
- One thing I also read is the fact that
you're a pretty smooth talker
when it comes to getting out of things.
- Yeah.
- And I know that earlier
on when you were gonna
fail High School.
- [Remi] Yeah.
- And your English teacher
just like there's no way
that we haven't yet you sweet talk to him.
- [Remi] Yeah.
- Into to allow you to do a few things
and you were able to pass and graduate.
But not everything was all roses
when you went to Camp Pendleton
there was nobody loves Remi
Not a few people.
- Yeah they were all haters.
- One particular that
yeah, it was a trotter.
- Yeah trotter .
So that she challenged me--
- She didn't really necessarily--
- She didn't like--
- Gravitate towards you.
- No, not all.
Again, that was good for me though.
I mean, I have a love hate
relationship with adversity
(laughs) you know what I mean?
Like I love adversity because
it really pushes me man
like it really like when my
back is up against the wall
like throw my hands
down like I let's get it
but I hate adversity 'cause
adversity is adversity right.
But I had this was as Pastor
Brad was referring to,
I had this person in my book,
in my life and the story
where she just threw all kinds
of adversity at me every day,
to try to keep me from
doing what I wanted to do.
And I just use that as fuel.
That was my fuel.
I was just like, I'm gonna
prove this person wrong.
I'm gonna be absolutely everything
that she's saying I won't
and I'm gonna crush it and so yeah,
she was definitely a thorn in my flesh
but it was a good boy though.
- One of the stories that you told
I was scratching my head
as I'm reading this part of the story.
Remi is that you were
going to kind of defy
what she had for you to do.
You are on duty that night--
- [Remi] Yeah.
- To be on was it for the
car duty is it driver?
- Oh yeah duty driver.
- And so you wanted to
go to San Diego though
down to the Gaslamp district down there
and put you on call.
- Yeah.
- And you can't be like a
Gaslamp (mumbles) on call
you need to be on base.
- Exactly.
- When you're on call.
And and I'm thinking
surely you're not gonna go
to the Gaslamp here you're on your call
and trotters the one who's
like having you on call.
- Yeah.
- What happened then?
- I got in trouble, I got caught.
(laughs)
I got caught but I
worked my way out of it.
Yeah.
- Indeed you worked your way out of it
this another example of
you just sweet talking.
- And you know, it goes I
think it kind of goes back
to my dad.
People ask me all the time they're like,
do you feel like your dad is with you?
And from a spiritual standpoint no,
but from a physical standpoint, yes.
My dad he was a very brilliant man.
As I shared earlier,
he engineer one of the first
man made islands in the world.
He was one of the first
black man on the board
of the World Trade
Center in New York City.
He was the first black man on the board of
the Town Planning
Council in Great Britain.
I mean, this is a guy who,
he got a full ride scholarship
to study engineering
and architecture in London
and a full ride scholarship
for his masters as well.
And he built these massive enterprises
what my dad was always about was
he was always about strategy.
He had a very strategic mind.
And he was always thinking way ahead
of the people around him.
And so going back to that situation,
I truly believe that I inherited
that strategic mind that DNA
because every time I find
myself in a situation,
whether it's bad or whether
it's really really bad,
my mind is always trying
to work to figure out
how do I get out and in
that particular situation
when I snuck off base
and then I got the phone call
and I'm like an hour and
a half away from base
and there's no way I can
get there in five minutes.
I was able to figure out
a way to make it work.
- Yeah, you did.
(laughs)
You have to read it but
I didn't need apologize
for something though
just real briefly here is
is I didn't know we were
gonna have a plant here.
I wanted a bowl of hand grenades--
- Yeah.
- To be kind of our prop there.
- Is all good I like this.
- So we got a plant so
we apologize for that.
- Is all good.
- I appreciate so much Remi
that how transparent you are,
you certainly weren't perfect far from it.
And you able to really show
us some of the challenges
that you had and I was thinking about that
and I want to be transparent here as well.
When I was thinking about
questions to ask you,
I called a mutual friend
of ours Chad Williams up
- Yeah.
- Chad Williams you guys all know a of God
and I said Chad, give me some questions
that I can ask Remi he said, okay,
the first question you asked him.
If Chad and Remi were
gonna do an arm wrestling,
who would win?
No, I didn't ask that question.
- I would win.
- He didn't ask that question.
- But one of the questions that
a lot of people want to know
and we've had people
texting in is the fact of,
during your SEAL training,
what was the most difficult part of that,
was the hardest experience
you had in your SEAL training?
- Yeah for me, it was a cold,
the cold was the worst part of it.
'Cause, I mean, they put
you in that cold water man.
It just zaps you mentally.
It really challenges you because,
you're in your head you get in your head
'cause you're just laying there.
And it's just you and your mind.
And it's so easy to say
okay, let me get up.
Let me go to the warm
truck or let me get up
let me go to the back to the
barracks or get a hot shower.
Let me quit.
And so that was the hardest part for me.
- That was during what
they call BUDS right?
- BUDS yeah.
- What does BUDS stand for?
- BUDS stand for, Basic
Underwater Demolition,
SEAL training.
- That's where you go to
start to be training for that.
- Yeah that's the process yeah.
- Can you run us through
what that looks like?
'Cause a lot of us don't know
what does a Navy SEAL go through
that the BUDS training, kind
of can you briefly tell us
about that?
- Yeah, so starts off.
Well, first you have to get
in and part of the process
is passing a screening test,
500 yard swim followed by push ups.
Sit up test, pull up test
and then a mile and a half run
in a certain amount of time.
- So far, I could do that,
I'm on my way, keep going.
- Yes so there certain
numbers, you got hit though.
(all laughs)
And then after you do
that you pass a physical
and then you pass an academic test.
And all of those things
qualify you to go through now,
out of 1000 guys who will
go through that process,
only about 250 to get selected 250 to 300.
And then those 300 go to
Basic Underwater Demolition
SEAL training.
And then Basic Underwater
Demolition SEAL training
BUDS is broken up into three phases.
First phase, second phase, three phase.
First phase is the
worst phase of training.
That's where they're essentially
weeding out the weak.
They're getting rid of the guys
who don't have what it takes
mentally every single guy
that shows up the SEAL training,
if he's passed a qualification chest test
that I mentioned earlier,
he's pretty much told
the Navy that physically
he has what it takes to be a SEAL.
The question now is do you
have what it takes mentally
95% of BUDS i mental it's not physical.
And so the first eight weeks is
when you really break you down mentally,
you do live PT, you do self tortures,
obstacle courses, long runs stay up all
it's not fun and then there's a week
in the first phase call Hell Week
where they keep you up for six days
starts on Sunday ends on Friday
and he has taught you until Friday.
You get two hours on Wednesday
and two hours on Thursday
but by that time doesn't really matter.
And then after you make
it through first phase
and you go to dive phase
which is a diving portion
and after you make it to dive phase
you go to weapons phase after
make it through weapons phase
which is third phase and
demolition phase actually,
then you go on to SQT which is
SEAL Qualification Training,
then you go to your SEAL team.
- Was there ever a point that you thought
I'm gonna ring the bell, I'm gonna quit.
- [Remi] No.
- Never even crossed your mind?
- No 'cause for me,
I tell people all the time
anytime you want something
you have to have a deep
rooted emotional reason
as to why you want it.
People always asked me
like my graduating class
started out with 270 and
only 29 of us graduated.
And that's the way it is every
class you get, 10% to 15,
sometimes 20% make it and
people ask me all the time
Remi why is the attrition rate so high
and I always say is because
the majority of the guys
who showed up to training to
them it was just a good idea.
It was just a good idea to be a SEAL.
It's just a good idea
to run with Navy SEALs
that have cool guns
have gone cool missions,
but they didn't have a deep
rooted emotional reason
as to why they wanted to do it.
So for me, I had a deep
rooted emotional reason why
that was I had failed so
much at life, previously,
that I did not want to fail anymore.
And that was my emotional why
I was like, I'm not gonna fail again.
And so, because I had that deep
rooted, emotional reason why
that idea of quitting
never popped in my mind.
- Yeah, at one point, through
the process of it all.
And again as I'm reading, I'm
thinking, this guy's amazing.
What they go through is just incredible
thinking on those things.
And but at one point, I
mean, you almost died.
- [Remi] Yeah.
- You almost lost your life
- Yeah.
- You kind of laugh about it
but it was pretty serious.
- Yeah, I had pneumonia.
- But let me also input this
because it's important too
when you first went in you were a medic.
- Yeah, I was a Corpsman yeah.
- So you understood medical things.
- Yeah.
- And so--
- I was a medic and before
I went through Hell Week
the first time I was
started spitting out blood
before it started.
And just knowing the signs and symptoms,
I had been in salt water
for a long period of time,
spitting up blood, that essentially meant
that I had site stands for
swimming with pulmonary edema.
And that also can lead to pneumonia.
So I ended up getting pneumonia as well.
And then I went to Hell
Week with inside pneumonia.
And keep in mind Hell Week is already bad
and to go through a start Hell Week
with pneumonia inside can
is potentially deadly.
And so I went through and
I just kept getting worse
and worse and worse.
And then I got disorder
called rhabdomyolysis,
probably pronouncing it wrong,
where my body was trying
to repair my lungs.
And so much so that my
body just started eating
and my muscle tissue started
eating away at itself
for energy.
If that makes sense, it's way more to it.
If there's a doctor in a room,
please don't quote me but it
something along those lines.
But essentially, I was
pretty much almost dead
and I ended up almost dying
and ended up in the ICU
for four days trying to recover.
- Yeah, and the doctors
they were kind of miss
diagnose to that point.
- Yeah.
- And yeah, kind of hid things too.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause I knew what was going on with you
but you're not a quitter.
- Yeah.
- And that was pretty obvious
to this whole process.
- Yeah.
- And you're sitting here today,
because of that reason absolutely.
- Exactly.
- So then after that point, there was
continue walk us through the process
of your personal experience with it.
- There so, I make it through Hell Week
I get to second phase.
And I ended up getting
kicked out a second phase
'cause I felt some evolution
to certain amount of times.
Too many times, actually.
And it was my fault.
And that was one of the first times
that I actually took
responsibility for my failure.
Previous to that, I would
always blame other people
for my failures.
But that was the first
time I looked at myself
in the mirror said,
you fail because of you
not anybody else.
And that's when I also
learned a key lesson.
Failure is not only a failure
if you don't learn from it
but if you learn from it becomes a lesson.
And so the lesson that took
from that failure is anytime
you show up to anything in life,
make sure that you're prepared.
And so, I went away for two
years about a year and a half,
actually, I went to first
Marine Division as a Corpsman
Battalion 14 I served
there and did a deployment
and then when I got back,
I made sure to prepare and
I went back to SEAL training
and made it through.
- The second time when you
were back in the Corpsman
being a medic, you met a man there
who was spiritual nature--
- Yeah.
- But wasn't a Christian.
- Yeah.
- But yet you weren't either.
- And so he but he kind
of taught you a few things
to help you through that
process of it as well.
- Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, as I said, earlier,
for a long period of time,
pretty much most of my adult life
I fluctuated between
atheism and agnosticism
depending on the day of the week.
And the first time I
opened up to the concept of
spirituality was when I was,
as you said, when I was with the Marines,
I met this guy who,
he always had this sense
of peace about them.
And that intrigued me,
especially getting ready
to go back to SEAL training
I wanted as much knowledge and wisdom
that I can gain as it related
to the mind and peace.
And so, he began to teach
me about meditation,
he began to teach me about
just other spiritual practices.
And, that's the first
time I began to open up
to the concept of spirituality
before that, I would mock it,
I would just make fun of people
who had any faith background
but that's when I began to open up.
- In fact, you went to a church service.
- Yeah.
- And I kind of laughed through
that process of it as well,
because you you went kind of
with ulterior motive, right?
- Yeah.
- Tell us about that.
- Yeah, so right when I
got back to SEAL training,
I met this girl who I fell in love with.
And I was willing to do whatever it took
to spend time with her.
And one of the things that she liked to do
was she likes to go to church on Sunday.
So, for me, I was just like, all right,
I'll go and I went a
bought three times with her
and I hated it.
I hated it with a passionate
I just remember mocking
the people were raising
their hands and worship.
I remember mocking the pastor
and, just calling him
names under my breath.
And I just remember
just hating everything.
And then after those three
times I went to church with her.
We got into a deep relationships,
I'd have to go to church
anymore so I stop.
(laughs)
- And just thinking
about God, at that point
he could have said, you know
what, I mean, that's fine.
You're gonna ridicule me.
I'm gonna turn my back on you.
- [Remi] Yeah.
- But he never did that,
because God is so good.
- [Remi] Amen.
- And he loves us so much.
- [Remi] Amen.
- And he was he was getting after that one
that meant so much to
him and that was you.
And so then, I mean, it
took you several times
because of having the
performance part of it
the medical part of it,
it took a few tries to
actually get to the point
but then there was.
- [Remi] Yeah.
- And I almost cheered
for you at that point
- 'cause that He did it.
- Yeah.
- And so but at that point
was becoming a SEAL everything you hoped
and thought it would be?
- Well, from a work standpoint no,
because one thing they teach
you as you're going through
SEAL training is when you graduate
that doesn't mean nothing
you haven't done anything.
You just graduated from training.
It's like yeah, we're going downrange
and then and you haven't
earned your tried it yet.
So from that standpoint, no,
it didn't mean much of anything
from a spiritual standpoint
I will say I was empty.
Because I had it all went outside.
I had girlfriends all over the place.
I had money at a beautiful house,
beautiful apartment in Mission Valley.
I just had it all had a nice car
but there was just a sense
of emptiness about me.
And that really led me to a
really, really dark place.
- When I'm reading and part
of me is cheering for you.
I'm about three quarters
of the way through.
And I'm thinking, this guy is amazing.
This guy is a stud, this
guy is like it just,
again, just blowing my mind
of all the physical things
- you did.
- Yeah.
- But then another part of me says,
this guy's a jerk, this
guy is a womanizer,
this guy's, taking women
for granted and using them.
And it wasn't until I got,
through that part of it,
then I started to celebrate
the fact of you becoming
in faith in Christ,
we'll get to that in just a moment.
But, when you talked about earlier about,
the movies that that kind of impacted you
with Bad Boys and then also with the Rock.
It was ironic that both of
those films were Michael Bay
movies and we'll get to
that in a moment too.
But the fact that meant something to you
as far as Michael Bay
and there was a lot of
what some people might call
coincidences in your life.
- Yeah.
- With Tiana Reyes the
coincidence that was
and going to Camp Pendleton
and all these other things
but God certainly had
his finger on your life
and now you have a mom who
loves Jesus and loves you.
- [Remi] Yeah.
- And I'm certainly she was
praying for you that whole time.
- [Remi] Amen.
- But I want to backtrack
just a little bit
because there's another
figure in your life
and your aunt.
- [Remi] Yeah aunt Dokimo.
- And what she did for you
what was pretty amazing too
because when you again I
apologize for backtracking so much
but when you were gonna go into the Navy,
not only did you have your record expunged
but then you had fees to pay.
- Yeah.
- And you didn't have the money to pay him
and your mom didn't have
the money to pay him.
But she came to your rescue.
- Yeah Doki she pulled pretty
much all the money out of
a savings account and
said, she gave me the money
so I just want you to be somebody special.
And that stuck with me 'cause when I BUDS
there was a big sign on the
BUDS compound that said,
be somebody special.
So I mean, yeah, that's
really what drove me
to make it was making her
proud and making her realize
that investment that she made,
it's not gonna be in vain.
- Yeah, and at 100 years
old, she's very proud of you.
- Oh yeah.
- Yeah that's great.
- [Remi] She wants to be 101 in September.
- Oh so great.
- She is at my house right
now working out with my mom,
probably, (laughs).
- You wanna go check any of those things.
- If you go to my Instagram you will see
I'm serious, she's 100
and she still works out.
- He showed me a video
earlier, go on his Instagram
and follow him and you'll see
Aunty Doki doing those things.
And so it's just great that you had
that influence in your life.
Another thing that that bothered
me, as I was reading is,
your mom lost her husband--
- Yeah.
- Very early on and but
there was an engagement ring.
- Oh Yeah.
- That was there and you ended up taking
that engagement ring--
- Yeah.
- And pawning it.
- Yeah, pawned for $60.
- Your conscious going back
and forth back and forth.
And, kind of broke my
heart and this is that
your mom, she's done so much for you.
- Yeah.
- And I come from a single
family home where my mom raised
five of us children.
And, there's a special bond
between moms and sons isn't that?
- [Remi] Yeah absolutely.
- I know you have that
special bond with your mom
and I was wondering to
myself, is mom gonna find out
that Remi was the one who stole her ring
by reading the book?
Or how's that gonna come about
but I know that you had that conversation.
- Yeah.
- But it is really important
that we have godly people
influenced our lives.
- Amen.
- Talk about your mom in that manner.
- My mom, she's amazing,
man, she's amazing.
And, I truly believe that the only reason
why I'm alive and have gotten
as far as I've gotten in life
is because my mom was praying for me.
Prayers powerful man,
is Ephesians
no is James, he talks
about the earnest prayer
of a righteous person has great power
- That's right.
- producing wonderful results.
- Yeah.
- And that's the Scripture is so true
there's so much power in prayer.
- Yeah.
- It has ability to just break things.
- [Brad] It does.
- And my mom, she
prayed, aunt Doki prayed,
my brother prayed.
And I was a knucklehead man.
I was far from God but God kept chasing me
through those prayers, you know?
- Yeah, you may have felt far from God
but God wasn't far from you.
- Amen.
- That's great.
- So let's get back now
then to the the SEAL program
and I want to just read,
what the classes go through
and what the accomplishments are.
And at that point, when you
would be the final address,
this is what your accomplishments were.
At that point, you would have
run 806 miles, swam 77 miles,
which is amazing because
you didn't know how to swim.
- [Remi] Yeah didn't know how to swim.
- That's pretty amazing
that you paddle a boat
for more than 19 hours on
obstacle course, 29 times.
Spent 35 hours diving underwater,
done 126 hours of physical training,
3000 rounds of arm munition.
Dreaded water for five minutes
with all your dive gear,
you held your breath for
50 meters underwater.
And you completed the most
demanding training week
in the United States military.
And that, again is just
so amazing to think that
the brave men of the Navy
SEALs do what they do.
And I know that's been asked
before it has there ever been
any women who have participated in BUDS?
And so have there been any
women who participated?
- Oh, no I mean, it's open to women
but not it hasn't been a woman that's past
the entry screening test
to get into the program.
- So then, keep taking
us down your journey.
So now you've graduated,
what happens next.
- Faith or career?
- Career.
- Career, I gotta go to Cold
Weather Survival Training
in Alaska, I get some
other follow on training,
Jump School training, free full training
and then after I finish
all of the different
quality trainings I go to my team
and then get to my team and get to work.
- And another evidence of the steel of you
I know that you were going
to is it paratrooper school
- or Jump School?
- Jump School, yeah.
- Static line Jump School.
- Yeah and getting the wrong information
from the men on the
ground and tells you to do
the wrong thing and you being
the obedient soldier do it.
And you end up just
annihilating your ankle.
- Yeah.
- [Brad] Tell us about that as well.
- I split my bone in
half and my ankle yeah,
I jumped out of a plane
and the parachute...
I was into the wind and the
DC commander was yelling,
hey, number one guy get into the wind
and I was already into the wind.
But what I didn't realize is that
the number one guy had fallen past me
'cause he was heavier than...
The number two guy had fallen past me
and he had become the number one guy.
So he was actually screaming
at the the real number one guy,
not me and it was my second jump.
So I figured DCO Commander
knows way more than I do.
I might not be into the wind
and so I turn out of the wind
and the wind hits my
parachute the wrong way
I come burning in
towards the ground I knew
I was gonna die but I knew
I was gonna break something
as soon as I hit the ground
hurt my ankle snap crackle
and pop literally exploded.
And I had two more jumps to do--
- So you just quit at that point, right?
Cause you being medic knew that.
- I could have.
(Brad laughs)
I had the injury, which was very painful
'cause every step the
bone was just slipping
all over the place.
And then the next day I
did my last two jumps on it
and then I went to the
hospital I couldn't walk
for four months, but I
graduated from Jump School.
(laughs)
- That's the strength of our military guys
just amazing that that you
do things just like that.
So, let's do now shift gears.
I want to start getting into how you came
to faith in Christ.
Part of your training is you
went to Alaska in the Kodiak
talk about your experience there.
- Yeah, as I shared earlier, guys,
and I'm going to just
be super transparent man
before I came to Christ,
I was just a wild Dude,
I was a straight heathen man.
I mean, women, parties, women,
more parties, more women,
vulgarity, I was just that kind of guy
and especially at that made
it through SEAL training,
like my pride was just through the roof
'cause here was this guy who
went from Africa to the Bronx.
Went from the Bronx into
the Navy became a Navy SEAL,
which is like nobody
couldn't tell me anything.
And success is very dangerous
because it can either
make you or break you
and my success was
pretty much breaking me.
And long story short, as I
shared, there was this girl I met
and she would take me to church
and we got into this
really amazing relationship
but I was just emotionally
abusive towards her.
Verbally abusive towards her.
I never physically abusive but
I was just not good to her.
And regardless of what I did to her,
she would never leave me.
She always stay with me, I cheated on her.
I tried cheated on her one of her friends.
And she just kept showing up.
And when I broke my ankle from that jump,
for four months I couldn't walk.
And then those four months like this girl,
cook for me, clean my house,
picked up my groceries,
helped me to the shower,
helped me out the bath.
I mean, she did everything for me.
And I was more bitter as the time went on
'cause I was this guy was super active
but I here I couldn't walk.
And so I had nobody else
to just spew my anger on.
So I would just spew it onto her.
And they would talk to
me, she would just cry.
And she just like, I don't know
why you're doing this to me.
Well, fast forward.
Once I was able to finally walk.
I remember leaving her,
she came to my apartment one day
and I was on my feet walking around
and I told her hey, it's over.
I'm breaking up with you.
And I just I'll never forget it.
She put her back up against the wall.
She slid down to the floor,
she was just in tears.
She's like, I can't believe
you're doing this to me.
I've given up so much for you.
I've done so much for you,
why are you doing this to me?
And I was just like I don't care
'cause in my mind I wanted to be single.
I wanted to be able to go out
and I'm able to walk now
so I had my freedom now
I didn't want to be tied down
and I told her get out of my apartment
and she did--
- One of the things
too, sorry to interrupt
but I know that at the relationship
she had told you Remi
just don't break my heart.
- Don't cheat on me.
- Don't cheat on me just
don't break my heart and so.
- Yeah and I did,
and she had had her heart
broken a lot in the past.
And she is beautiful girl
highly intelligent had her MBA
was a graphic design artist,
I mean, gorgeous girl.
But that's the thing man
when you don't have the Lord
you know what I mean, it's never enough,
you can have the most gorgeous
woman on the face of planet
live in the biggest mansion,
have the biggest boats.
You still gonna be empty,
you still gonna claw and
scratch for more, right?
And that's just the way I was,
I just wanted more she wasn't enough.
And fast forward into June 2008,
similar to when I was laying in my bed,
six years early in June of 2002,
June of 2008, I was laying in my bed
and I heard this voice speak to me.
And, again, I thought it was
my subconscious bothering me.
But I truly believe it
was the voice of God
and that voice said to me,
you need to take her back.
And I was like, I couldn't believe it.
Take her back.
Why would I take this woman back?
I have it all.
And I happen to have
tickets to a roots concerts
at all right I'll take this
girl to a roots concert
and see how it goes.
And long story short,
that led to us getting
back into a relationship.
And then two months later,
I got sent the Navy SEAL
Cold Weather Survival Training in Alaska.
And that was the best thing
that could have happened to me,
because when I got to Alaska,
we had to do this really
long land navigation hikes
where we had to walk through
the wilderness of Alaska
and get from one point
of the Alaska wWlderness
to the other point and they
were only 20 about 29 of us,
and the points was so spread out
that you can go days
without seeing anybody.
So here I was in a very
miserable place for me,
because one I'm a city boy,
so I hate the wilderness.
Two I'm from Africa, so I hate being cold.
And three, I hate being cold
and I hate the wilderness, right?
And so here I am walking
through this wilderness
cursing just everything with my GPS
and my map like where am I going?
And but the blessing and all of
that was I had time to reflect,
all the noise was gone.
I had no cell phone, I
had no radio, I had no TV,
it was just me and nature.
And it was serene, it was beautiful,
because I never experienced
silence like that before.
It was just the only
thing I heard was my feet,
touching the ground and
walking through the snow.
And I would hear birds chirping
and the rustling of the trees
and it was just like this.
It was supernatural.
And the more I walked, the
more I begin to reflect
and it was as though somebody
was holding up a mirror
and showing me my life
and I truly believe
that it was supernatural
and as I looked into that mirror
and I saw how I treated my brother
'cause my brother was a Christian
I will make horrible fun of him.
I mean, I would persecute
him for being Christian.
I treated my mom horribly,
I treated women horribly,
I treated my girlfriend horribly,
I was just as crazy dude.
And as I was looking into this mirror
and seeing this reflection,
I didn't like what I saw
and actually got
disgusted with what I saw,
because all of these memories
were just coming to me.
And it got to the point
where I was just like,
I can't believe I treated
my girlfriend like that
or I treated my mom like that, like I did,
no that cannot be.
It was literally as though
somebody had invaded my body
and lived in my body
for the last 20 years.
And I just came back and
I'm witnessing the chaos
that had been carried out.
And for days I just reflected
and after walking through the wilderness
by myself and reflecting
I made a decision you know what?
When I get back home,
I'm gonna change my ways.
I'm gonna meditate more.
I'm gonna marry my girlfriend,
I'd like I said, I'm
gonna marry my girlfriend.
I'm gonna do everything right.
I'm just gonna do everything right.
And I made that decision.
And then two weeks later no a week later,
no, two weeks later, unbeknownst to me,
my girlfriend goes to a party.
I'm still in Alaska at the time
but my girlfriend goes to a party
and she meets a woman
who she used to work with years earlier.
And his woman says, hey, I
heard that you're dating a SEAL.
And she's like, yeah
and the lady was married to a SEAL.
And she said, which is it
is a whole God thing in it,
and I'll share it later,
but this woman said..
This woman's name is
Penelope, she asked her
"hey, how's the relationship going?"
And my girlfriend at the time
was like, oh, it's going okay.
And Penelope said, "if
it's going, okay now
"you need to leave him
"because being married to
a SEAL was really hard.
"They'd gone all the time
and they just hard men
"to be married to."
And for the first time in two years,
for some reason my girlfriend
got the strength to leave me.
I didn't know this is going on.
So a week after she has this epiphany,
I get out of the Alaskan Wilderness.
I'm still in Alaska but
I'm back at Base Camp.
And I get to a phone and I call her up.
And I'm like, hey,
Cecilia, check this out.
Don't say anything.
And she was like, okay, I was like,
when I get back home, I want to marry you.
I know I've been a dirt bag.
I know I've done a lot of bad days
but I'm gonna make everything right.
Don't worry I'm changed.
I'm a new man, I'm a new man.
And she's silent on the phone
and I was just like, what's wrong?
And she said, I wanted to wait
to tell you till you got home
and like wait to tell me.
What are you sick?
Like you got cancer?
Like what's going on?
And she's like, no, I'm leaving you.
And when she said that, I
was just like, wait, what?
I was like, no, this can be just like,
no, listen, I know I've been a dirt bag
and not admitted that I'm changing
and she's like, no, it's too late.
And when I got off the phone,
I felt like I wasn't the twilight zone
and it really rattled me.
And--
- And when she did that, by the way,
I kind of cheered for
her a little bit on that
I say good for you.
(laughs)
- Yeah.
And but when we got off the phone,
not only did that guilt bother me
but just a guilt 'cause we as men,
we carry a lot of guilt
and we're really good
at hiding it at times.
But it was as though all
of that the waves of guilt
just poured out of me.
And I was just like, man,
like, what have I done?
Like, I brought all of this upon myself.
And I literally was like,
I'm trying to start fixing myself now.
So I started meditating.
I started doing all of
these different things
and I'm in Alaska and nothing I did work
and I just this depression
is fell on me like
I fell into a deep, deep depression,
like never in my life that
I experienced depression
but I experienced depression on a level
that I never want to experience again,
my depression affected my appetite.
I didn't really want to eat,
I couldn't sleep.
I began to have suicidal thoughts like
here I am like, it's the craziest thing.
Like, I got money, I'm a SEAL.
I got, well, my girlfriend broke open
but I got other girls.
Like I got it all but I'm
having suicidal thoughts.
And my brother he had been a Christian
for a long period of time.
And, he would tell me from time to time,
Remi when you hit rock bottom,
not if but when you hit rock bottom,
just remember to cry out to Jesus.
And I started crying out to Jesus,
like in Alaska, like I
didn't know what to say.
But I would just literally
say like, yo, Jesus help me
like, I can't take
another step like help me.
Like Jesus helped me and
everything that changed
when I would get these bouts of peace
which has come upon me.
And then finally, when
I got back from Alaska,
I call my girlfriend up
and I just said, hey,
I begged her to take me
back because she said,
I won't take you back.
So the words just came out of me.
I said, okay, if you're
not gonna take me back,
can you at least take me to church.
And she was like, all
right, I won't take you back
but I'll take you to church.
And the next day I went to church
and yes there was a part
of me that wanted to go
to show where I'm different, I'm changed
but there was like another
part of me that was like,
I need something bigger than me.
Like, I've tried everything,
you know what I'm saying?
That's the way we as men are
like, we try we're fixers,
right we try to fix everything on our own.
And like I had been good like I said,
I had the strategic mind.
So I've always been
able to like figure out
but I couldn't fix myself.
Like I couldn't get out of
this freaking depression.
It was driving me crazy.
And I wanted a church service.
And I can't tell you
anything to pastor preached
in the message but I could tell you
that when he started giving an altar call,
and sort of saying, if you need peace,
if you're struggling,
if you never had a dad
and you've been longing
for the Heavenly Father,
and if you just trust Jesus,
like tried, like, just
give your life to Jesus
hey, I'm this big bad Navy SEAL
and went through SEAL training twice
and grew up in the Bronx, that
sold drugs and I'm in tears
like, I'm broken man, like,
and I tell people all the time
in the streets of the Bronx.
There was a saying when I was growing up
and it was people will
come up to you rob you
and they put a gun in your face.
And they say either you
get down or you lay down
like literally that's the
way when I was growing up
that's the way they would
rob it was a saying in Bronx.
Either you get down to lay down,
either you get down or lay
down whats you gonna do
and if you don't get down willingly,
they shoot you in the face kill you
and they take the money out your pocket
that's the way it was.
And that's the way God is.
Like, when God has you marked.
He puts a gun to your head,
he said, get down or lay down.
And either you're gonna get down willingly
or you're gonna hit rock bottom
and you're going to lay down
and literally God laid me out.
But when he laid me out,
that's when I was like, all
right, I can't do this anymore.
And I cried out to him and
surrender my life to Christ
in that service and ever since
then everything changed man.
- Yeah that's great, great testimony.
(audience applause)
In Ecclesiastes is it tells us that,
we have this God shaped void in our life
and it was our early
father Augustine who said
that "our hearts remain restless."
- [Remi] Yeah.
- "Until we find our rest in Christ."
- [Remi] Amen.
- And Remi your heart was restless.
- Yeah.
- You were you were searching.
You had some meditation opportunities,
spiritual opportunities
but until you found Christ.
- Yeah.
- You never had that rest.
- [Remi] Yeah.
- But then after you receive Christ alone
for your salvation, you had
that peace you had that rest.
- [Remi] Yeah.
- But God didn't restore your
relationship with Cecilia.
- No.
- He didn't necessarily
give you these things
that people call us blessings.
- Yeah.
- It was still, you
know, a tough road ahead
but you didn't do it alone.
- Yeah.
- The Bible tells us that
- God never leave us nor forsake
and so you got to experience that as well.
- No, absolutely.
And you know, something that
my testimony is a blessing for me.
Because I'm gonna be honest
with you, fellas, like,
I still go through stuff today
where it's easy to doubt God.
You know what I mean?
I don't know if that makes sense.
Like, I remember when I first
started reading the Bible
I will read like the
story of the Israelites
in the wilderness and like,
they had seen, they were in Egypt.
They saw God perform all
these miracles in Egypt.
And then they saw God part to seas
and then they came and
they saw all these miracles
as they were going through on
a journey to Holy Land, right?
But then they still doubted God.
And I remember I was
reading I was like, man,
you guys are fools,
man, you saw God do that
and you doubt God like you crazy man.
Like making a gold calf
like this is silly.
But you know, at times,
we just me as a man,
I can get caught up in my
own understanding at times.
And so God's grace is still sufficient.
He still guys, me like I still,
yeah, I'm an actor.
Yeah, I'm a writer.
Yeah, I've been in the movie.
Yeah, but I still need Jesus man.
- [Brad] Amen.
- Like, that's just the
reality of it for me
I still need Jesus and
he's still growing me.
And we're all growing,
we're all being perfected
into the image of Christ every day so.
- I appreciate Remi the fact that
it wasn't just that you
came to faith in Christ.
Get your fire insurance, make
sure you don't go to hell
but you wanted a true
relationship with the living God
through His Son Jesus.
And you grew in the
grace knowledge of God,
every day you're studying,
even when you were deployed,
your commander, I'm not sure
if that's the right word for him.
But he would say, I want you
to be the pastor's of Petunia,
you do a Bible studies in your group
when we were in Kuwait
and all these other things
it wasn't just you, you
came to faith in Christ
'cause you felt that
you needed him as more
I do need him but I need to
keep moving forward in that.
So, I mean, today you're
leading Bible studies
and even as you know,
partition as a youth pastor
in some ways and so,
God doesn't just save us
and leave us to ourselves,
he continues to grow us
to use us and I think
God has definitely done
that in a mighty way with you
and your mindset change at that point.
Now you have your you're
married to your wife, Jessica.
You have three beautiful children.
- Yeah.
- All little boys.
- Yeah all boys.
- And as I was thinking about that
here's a man who grew up without a father.
- [Remi] Yeah.
- Didn't have necessarily
a spiritual undergirding
could have been one of those
statistics we talked about
at the very beginning of our interview.
And and yet, that didn't happen to you
so how do you then translate
what you went through
to now you're a father to three boys.
Yeah. When you didn't
really have the undergirding
from your father.
- Yeah.
- You just kind of grew
up in a single mom home.
- Yeah, for me like it's the Holy Spirit.
And for me, it's the scriptures,
you know what I mean?
Like, I look at Jesus, in the gospels
and I see how he was, as a father.
I see how he, how the
children came to him.
I see how he loved people.
I see how he was with the disciples
and they were knuckleheads
and he wanted to lash out
but instead he show grace.
So for me, I got to look at Jesus,
I gotta look at God the Father
and that's how I learned to be a Father
and I'm still learning to
be a father is by watching
the life of Jesus and
watching how God operated
and operates as a father
to us in the scriptures.
So that's how I do it and
I can't do it without it.
- Yeah that's great,
well I appreciate you raising three sons
to hopefully one day
love Jesus and be strong.
I saw this tweet from a well known pastor.
This past Father's Day, this
last Sunday was Father's Day.
And he said this, on this Father's Day,
I lament that the fact that
our nation, biblically,
masculinity is too righted and discouraged
by almost everyone.
Christian men have few men telling them
how to be biblical men, whoever does
that will make a wonderful
much needed contribution
to the cause of Christ
and that's what you're doing.
You've got not only those three young boys
in your family but also
now you've got young men
that you talk to regularly,
you're speaking at conferences and things
that shows them what biblical
masculinity truly is.
You can be a Navy SEAL
and you can be a believer
at the same time it's not
weakness, it's simply meekness.
- It's something that I've been
something I've really passionate about
when I preach and teach about,
I was in a prison last year in Denver
and preaching--
- As a visitor though, right?
- Yes.
- You were like, (mumbles) sure.
- No they got me on my bed that I did.
They got me on something I was a visitor.
And it was cool because,
I talked about boldness as it
relates to being Christian.
Not being weird, but being bold.
And keep in mind, just to give you context
I'm in this gymnasium
and there's 100 inmates
and there's one security guard
and he's behind a glass.
And I thought to myself,
man, I told these guys,
I was a former SEAL not former Superman,
and I share this message
at the end of the message.
Like 10 of the inmates approached me
and they say to me, Remi I'm
so glad that you talked about
there is nothing week
about being a Christian
because out there in the yard
in the yard was 50 feet away.
The guy said, all of those guys out there
they look at the Christians as weak
because of our who we follow
'cause in a lot of prisons,
everything is divided by gangs.
And the leader of the gang is supposed
to be the strongest guy in the on the yard
or the strongest guys
it relates to that gang.
- [Brad] Sure.
- And so for the other gang members,
they look at the Christians and
they say your leaders Jesus,
and he's weak.
And because he's weak, you're weak.
And so the guys were like,
I'm so glad you told on
that because now we know
that there's nothing weak
about being a Christian.
- And nothing week about
Jesus oh my goodness.
- Yeah then which brings me to that point
there's nothing weak about Jesus
there is absolutely
nothing week about Jesus.
Look at Exodus 15:3, it
says "the Lord is a warrior,
"Yahweh is his name."
That right there just says it all.
- Amen.
- Jesus is a I say this all the time.
He's ahead bursting, no cole
dragging, and pipes swinging
and zebra backbreaking, broccoli.
He's a warrior.
(Brad laughs)
I mean, and I emphasizes
because I get so frustrated
with the way media and
TV and even Christian
sometimes portrayed Jesus as this weak,
androgynous, timid, manicure,
floating on the cloud,
cornball of a person
and that's not the Jesus
in the Scripture.
- That's right.
- Revelations 5:5 says that
"Jesus is a conquering Lion."
He's a bad man, when Muhammad Ali said,
that's "a bad man," he should
have been talking about Jesus.
Just look at his job before
he went into ministry, right?
Jesus was in Western terms we say
that Jesus was a carpenter,
but that's incorrect
when you look at the proper texts
and that's also incorrect
when you actually go to the Holy Land.
And the reason why that is
is because Jesus was actually
a stonemason.
When you go to Israel, you'll
notice that there's not
a whole lot of wood out there,
because Israel is a desert.
But what there is a whole lot of is
there's a whole lot of stone.
And when you visit all of
these sites that Jesus visited
the synagogue's, the house,
I have been to the house
where Peter lived.
You'll notice that
everything is made of stones.
The houses are made of stones,
the chairs are made of stone.
I'm been to a synagogue
where Jesus preached.
And even in the synagogue
that's made a stone
the beam seat is made of stone,
so everything is stone.
So Jesus was actually a stone mason,
he chiseled stone, he worked one stone,
stone is a lot heavier than wood, right?
And Jesus built stuff for other men.
I know for me, I'm not a man's man.
Something breaks in my house
I call up a man's man to come fix it.
And my wife gets on me all the time
because she's like, you
should know how to do this.
And I tell her babe they
have a father teach me
how to do this I'ma get
somebody who had a father
to teach me how to do it.
- You don't plug the Navy SEAL card?
- I don't know anything like.
- Honey I'm a Navy SEAL.
- Yeah.
- I mean like how much
more man's man isn't that.
- Exactly, but Jesus didn't
have to call up anybody
to fix this stuff He did it himself.
And there's two examples
that I like to give
when I talked to men about this is
just look at the temple story,
and what Jesus goes into the temple,
everybody knows that story?
But for those who don't I
kind of give you some context.
He goes into the temple and he sees people
exchanging money illegally.
And he also sees people selling animals.
Now that was borderline sacrilegious.
Why was that sacrilegious?
Because at the time, the
Israelites was supposed
to buy a lamb, raise that land from birth,
invest in that lamb feed that lamb,
love that lamb, build the
relationship with that lamb.
And after they've done all
of this work with that lamb,
then they're supposed to bring
this lamb as a sacrifice,
hence the word sacrifice.
But instead of doing that,
what they were doing was
they would just go to
the temple and say, oh,
you see that lamb right
there that has a broken leg.
I'll take that one for $5.
And so Jesus goes into the temple
and he sees these people
disrespecting his father's house.
What does Jesus do?
It says that Jesus was
consumed with passion.
And if you read the scriptures closely,
you'll notice that it
says that Jesus chases
all the men out of the temple.
Read it by himself, while man
Peter to help them read it,
12 disciples didn't help him read it,
Mary Magdalene didn't help him read it.
Jesus by himself chase more
than 12 men out of a temple
and I tell you something somebody
come up to me with a whip.
Unless you a ninja turtle
he man and optimus prime
one I wanna knock you out.
But Jesus by himself
chased all of the men out
of the temple and that's a real man.
That's a strong man.
And I'll give you one more
example if I have some time.
Just look at the cross.
- Yeah.
- Before Jesus went to the
cross, he wasn't fresh.
What do I mean by that?
He was dehydrated, sleep deprived.
His body was in ribbons.
He had been beaten like a rag doll.
As a matter of fact,
historians will tell you
the most people who went
through a Roman beating.
The Roman beating was so
horrific than most people didn't
even survived the Roman beating.
Historians will also tell
you that Jesus walked
a quarter of a mile part of it,
he carried the cross by himself.
And another part of it was
upheld a scholar of Golgotha
think about it for a second.
Blood oozing everywhere,
sweat from his brows,
stain in his open wounds,
cuts all over his body
but he's still walking.
That takes physical strength.
- [Brad] Absolutely.
- And not only does that
take physical strength
but that also takes mental strength.
Why does that take mental strength
because at any point Jesus
could have push the stop button.
Remember when Jesus was in
the garden of Gethsemane
and Peter pulls out the sword
and cuts off the soldiers ear,
and Jesus picks up the dude's
ear puts it back on him.
What does he say to Peter?
He says, Peter, check this out.
I appreciate you trying to help me out
but any point I can call
down a legion of angels
and they will come to my defense.
- Yeah.
- Are you with me?
At any point Jesus could have
when he was getting beat,
when he was getting scored,
when he was getting
strung up on the cross.
He could have said you know what,
this hurts too much Gabriel,
Michael, come get him.
Remember in the book of Chronicles,
when David sinned sinned
against God and numbered Israel,
God sent one Angel
and one Angel kill 70,000
people in three days
and here Jesus said I
send a legion of angels
and sort up the entire
Middle East in a millisecond.
But Jesus didn't push the stop button.
Instead he pushed through
physically, mentally,
emotionally, spiritually for you, for me,
for all of us to have salvation
and my friends, that is a man's man,
that is a real man and listen.
(audience applause)
Don't ever let anybody put this concept
in your mind of Jesus
being weak, corny or soft.
That's why and please forgive me
if you're a Christian filmmaker,
I can't stand 95% of
Christian films out there
because they portrayed Jesus as weak.
And that is not the savior of our soul.
He is bold, he is strong.
And that's the perspective
that we need to have of
him because most of us men,
we have this desire with
us to follow strong men,
to observe strong men.
That's why guys like Navy SEALs,
that's why guys like MMA fighters,
that's why guys like boxers
and look up the pro athletes, why?
Because to us, they're hard, right?
That's why gang members
like the strong gang member,
that's the killer, right?
Because he's strong, but Jesus
is stronger than all of them
he's stronger than any Navy SEALs
on the face of this planet.
Every Navy SEALs that
has ever walked the face
of this planet combined He's stronger than
and that's the savior of our soul.
And we need to remember that
and not get caught up in
this false perspective
of who he is.
- That's right, thank you Remi so much.
That's so right on.
(audience applause)
Well, there's so much more we
could talk about here tonight.
But there may be guys here
who are in the same place you were
in that Kodiak Wilderness,
that they're just wondering through life,
what is the meaning of life?
Why do I exist?
What is my purpose?
And they've never had a
relationship with Jesus Christ.
And I want you to address
the guys in this room.
In several different ways,
one for those who don't know the Lord
to introduce them to Jesus,
the strong man that
you've been talking about,
and for those of us who are in Christ,
to encourage us to know
that Jesus can break
the bonds of addiction,
that Jesus can take
and heal our marriages,
Jesus can heal even physical ailments.
You all those things
are written in your book
and you see example
after example in there,
that's why I enjoyed the book so much
not because this Navy SEAL was so strong
and he was so persistent
because this sinner
came to faith in Christ.
And from that purpose
we see the miracles of God taking place.
So in our time remaining,
I want you to dress them in that manner
and feel free to allow the Holy Spirit
to speak through that point.
- Yeah, I was gonna stand but
I think I'm just sit for now
just 'cause I don't want to seem above
I just want to seem
below because I am below.
I'm a wretched man.
I'm a man who once was
blind but now I see.
And I know the realities of
what life is without Christ.
And I know the realities of
what life can be with Christ.
I've been on both sides
just like every single man
in this room and some in this room.
We've been on both
sides and just know that
there's just so much more.
There's so much more
we just release, right?
So often as men we try to fix,
we try to do even when it
comes to the church thing
is just like I don't want to do church.
I'm like, why do I have
to go here on Sunday?
Why do I have to read the Bible?
I don't have to do this.
I could just watch church online
I could just do it this
way in God's like, no,
let's do it this way
'cause if you do what undermined terms
things will be better and
so I just want to encourage
all of the men here if
you don't know the Lord,
just know that wow, man.
There's just so much more
there's so much power,
there's so much authority,
there's so much more grace,
there's so much more wisdom,
there's so much more
life than we could have.
I shared a message the other
day about light and darkness.
And one thing that I said is how God
will often use physical things
to help us to understand spiritual truths.
In Romans 1:20 it says, "ever
since the world was created,
"people have seen the earth and sky
"through everything God made,
"they can clearly see
his invisible qualities,
"his eternal power and divine nature,
"so they have no excuse
for not knowing God."
So what Paul is saying in that scripture
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
is that it is through physical things
such as light such as darkness,
such as winds and waves and tornadoes
and earthquakes and fathers
that we as human beings are able
to understand invisible things,
such as the invisible
divine nature of God.
God will often use physical
light and physical darkness
to explain spiritual light
and spiritual darkness.
For example, in the Bible,
good is referred to as light
and evils and referred to as darkness,
the Bible itself is referred
to as a lamp to our feet
and a light to our path
and Hell is referred to by
Jesus on multiple occasions
as outer darkness, righteousness, holiness
and obedience to God is referred
to as living in the light.
And sin and morality and disobedience
to God is referred to as living
in darkness so dark living.
And so many of us we've
been living in darkness,
physical darkness not so
much but spiritual darkness.
And God is saying that I have holy light
that I can shine down upon you
in order to extinguish the
light from the darkness
and they allow you to truly see.
This earth would not be able to exist
without light shining down upon it.
We all heard a scientific term
called photosynthesis, right?
What is the process the
plants use to convert light
from the Sun and the
energy in order to thrive
and grow so that this earth
can have what it needs.
So about light penetrating
this globe physically
we want to have plants and
trees if we want to have fruits
and vegetables.
Without light penetrating this globe,
we won't to have herbivores
which eat plants and trees.
Therefore, we want to
have ribs and chicken
and steak and all of this stuff we eat.
Without light penetrating this globe,
we wouldn't have trees
to convert carbon dioxide
and oxygen so we could breath.
So essentially, without
light penetrating this globe
physically this world will collapse.
Without light penetrating you spiritually
we all collapse allow
this light from the Son
to shine down upon you.
And so I want to challenge
every man here right now
and I'm gonna ask that every man stand up
if you don't mind and I'll stand with you.
And essentially what I
want to challenge is,
if God spoke to you in one way today,
in anyway today.
And if God said to you
something along the lines of
hey, listen,
I don't know you and you don't know me.
And it's not because I
don't want to know you.
Is because you have run from me,
is because you have had one
foot in and one foot out.
And here today, I'm telling you
that I want you to be
completely in with me
'cause I have so much more for you.
That depression that you've been fighting,
the sin that you've been struggling with,
that you've tried to overcome
on your own over and over
and over again and you
just keep falling back.
I have the ability to
give you what you need
so that you won't fall back anymore.
And if that you, I want you to come down
so that I can pray with you.
And listen, man, this is not about you
and the men around you.
This is about you and the Lord.
Because all of us when
we stand before the Lord,
we won't stand with anybody
to our right to our left
but God, Amen.
So the Lord spoke to you in any way.
I want you to come down
so I could pray for you.
I'm gonna call out different men.
Jesus said in his scripture, he said.
(audience applause)
(soft music)
He didn't say my house is
gonna be a house of preaching.
Jesus's didn't say my house is
gonna be a house of singing.
Jesus said, "my house
is a house of prayer."
And so what we're gonna
do is we're gonna pray.
So again that the Lord
is tugged on your heart
in any way, if you came in here,
not walking with the Lord,
if you came here and knew that
you were far from the Lord,
and God spoke to you on
one, or two or three ways,
or maybe he spoke to you
as though you were the
only person in the room
and he said, I want to know you.
I want to have relationship with you.
I have so much more for you.
Give up, give up, give up,
give up fighting in your own might,
give up trying to make
it work on your own.
Just give up and let me
give you what you need.
I want you to come down
so I could pray for you.
Next group.
If you're here,
and you're in the faith,
you're in the faith.
(audience applause)
But you've been in a tremendous battle
and you've been questioning God.
And you've been asking
God like, what is it like
why isn't things working
out the way I want them
to work out?
Why am I having to set
back again and again.
And you just need more of the Lord Spirit.
You just need more of the Lord's presence
to shine down upon you.
To give you that extra
push to get over the edge,
I'd like you to come down
so I can pray for you.
You know what you need.
(audience applause)
I don't know what you need.
But you know what you need.
You know what you need.
If you're here today.
Somebody said today and they
keep going back to their vomit.
Their vomit might be pornography.
Their vomit might be the
way they treat their wife.
Their vomit might be the way
the neglected their children.
I don't know what your vomit is,
nothing to be ashamed of.
It's nothing to be ashamed.
But the Spirit wants you to come down
so that he can give you that
extra push, that extra grace,
that wisdom and understanding
so that you could turn from that vomit,
and turn to be the man that
God has called you to be.
God you see every man who was here.
Now Lord, I pray for
these who have come down.
I pray first for the men who come
to surrender their lives to Jesus.
I pray that you wash
them of their sins Jesus.
I pray that you fill them up
with your Holy Spirit Jesus.
I pray that you show them the Kings
that they are Lord in you, Jesus.
I pray Jesus that from this day forward,
they will not be the same.
They will be transformed
as I was transformed Jesus,
that they may be new men
not just for themselves
but for their wives, for their kids,
for their friends, Jesus.
And for the men who come down,
who do know you Jesus but they
just need that extra push.
I pray that you bless them
and fill them with more
of your Holy Spirit Jesus.
Your Word says, "let your
light shine before others
"that they may see your good deeds
"and glorify your Father in heaven."
God, let your light penetrate
through all of these men.
That the world may see
their good deeds and glorify
your Father in heaven Jesus.
Grow every man in here, Lord,
because all of us can
always use more Jesus.
Don't let us go out of those doors,
the same men that we were when we came in.
Help us to be forever changed
even if it's in the smallest way, Jesus
and help us to be what this world needs.
Your Holy lights
that illuminate the darkness.
We give you the glory you
the praise for your worthy
and you are awesome.
In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
- [Audience] Amen.
- God bless you guys, love you guys.
(audience applause)
Thank you for having me guys.
- Amen, Amen.
Remi thank you so much,
it's great to have you man.
- Thank you.
- so appreciate that
- so much.
- Yes sir.
