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What does it take to feed 750 people from a chuck wagon with no electricity or running water? In this episode of the Cowboy Kent Rollins podcast, we share what 30+ years of chuck wagon catering and cowboy cooking has taught us — from weddings and large events to one of the most meaningful cooks of our lives.
We take you behind the scenes of cooking for the Give Kids The World Foundation fundraiser, the largest crowd we have ever served, and the unforgettable moment that reminded us why food and faith still matter.
If you are interested in:
• cooking for a crowd
• chuck wagon cooking
• cowboy cooking history
• large event catering tips
• outdoor cooking for big groups
• or the heart behind feeding folks in need
…this episode is for you.
🤠 In This Episode
• How we cook for 750 people from a chuck wagon
• The biggest challenges of off-grid cooking
• Lessons from 30+ years of catering
• Behind the scenes of Give Kids The World
• The moment that changed us forever
Check out our BEST SELLING cookbooks. Get your copy here: https://www.kentrollins.com/shop
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0:00
What is the largest catering that you have ever done? One that stands out. Give Kids the World
0:07
Foundation. So I took a dear friend of mine, old Bobby. I told him, I said, "What we're doing, we're going to try to
0:12
make a difference for kids who have a terminal illness.
0:22
Howdy, my name is Kent Rollins. I've been a cowboy and a chuck wagon cook for over 30 years cooking for ranches all
0:29
across America. You might have seen me on the Food Network or alongside my beautiful wife Shannon on our YouTube
0:35
show where we share cowboy cooking from the trail. But now we're going to take you behind the scenes to real campfire
0:42
conversations. Join us as we share humor, cowboy wisdom, and stories full of history, heart, faith, and of course,
0:49
a little fire. So, grab you a cup of coffee, pull up a chair, and welcome to the podcast.
0:59
Thank you all so much for joining us. And Ken, I'm I'm really excited for this episode because, as you all know, we're
1:06
trying this new podcast because Kent, you have so many good stories, so many behind thescenes adventures. And one of
1:14
the things that I thought would be interesting to talk about in this episode is Chuck Wagon catering. go
1:20
because um I don't know if a lot of people understand the evolution of our
1:27
cooking business and how it evolved into catering, right?
1:32
You know, we have the first meals on wheels ever invented. You know, there's it's a mobile kitchen that travels a
1:37
little everywhere, but I think we need to go back for maybe there's some new viewers here that haven't been with us.
1:42
Uh absolutely. And and we're so honored to have each and every one of you. Y'all are a part of our family. uh we love you
1:48
and uh we just want you to know that this wouldn't happen without y'all and this sweet beautiful woman by my side.
1:55
But it sort of started by word of mouth, you know. So you started you you went from camp
2:00
cook and an elk camp to cooking for working ranches. So we cook for
2:05
traditional working ranches. These aren't dude ranches, meaning these aren't vacation ranches. These are
2:11
traditional cattle ranches all across the country. And we primarily go in in
2:17
the spring and the fall to what they call work. So kind of explain what that is. All right. You know, there's there's
2:23
spring works and fall works. In the spring, baby calves have been born, you know, and uh they want to try to work
2:30
them calves before they get too big. It's all done remotely out there, horseback, take them to a set of pins,
2:36
and uh it starts with breakfast every day, you know, and breakfast. Now, why
2:42
wouldn't you um go to town, grab something to eat, or why don't you have bring a sack lunch? Like, what's the
2:48
need for a a ranch cook? Well, a lot of it is due to the remoteness that you're there 50, 60
2:55
miles to town in some places, you know, and time you you say, "Hey, we're going to meet at a cafe at 4:00. We're going
3:01
to eat." Well, then you have to drive all the way out there and then you get a late start, you know, and it's um it's
3:08
not good when you're going to quit at lunch. We're going to go to town and eat. then you ain't going to get back to 3:00. You've wasted a half a day driving
3:14
back and forth, you know. So, the wagon was thing that was needed to be able to
3:19
be mobile to feed cowboys in different camps around the ranch because at times
3:24
I was moving camp every day. You know, you to a different set of pens where they were working. You'd cook breakfast and you'd cook
3:31
lunch, then you'd harness up a team, load everything, go seven or eight miles, set it up, cook supper, do it all
3:38
over again. And really the only difference between the 1800s when the chuck wagon was first introduced and
3:44
moving up the trail head um hundreds of miles is that we are stationary on a
3:50
ranch and we cook three meals a day. Old Cookie was probably only doing two if
3:55
they were lucky and it was like beans, biscuits maybe and some hot coffee. And
4:00
our menu is extremely expansive. And we've always prided it on ourselves on saying um anything you can cook in the
4:07
house in your oven, we can cook outside in a Dutch oven. And it I don't think people really realize too uh what's going on out
4:15
there. When you start at 2:00 in the morning, you're feeding cowboys. You know, um there's no running water.
4:21
There's no electricity. Unless it's thundering and lightning or it's raining, that's when you get running water. But it's it's something that the
4:29
old cooks did before we ever came along. They were doing the same things. Sure,
4:34
we have a whole lot more to work with than he did and and our recipes have changed a lot, but it's such an honor to
4:40
be in some of those on those ranches and some of them camps that Cook was on some years ago in the 1870s and 1880s, you
4:47
know. So, we're preserving a part of history one plate at a time. However,
4:53
another evolution that we made and and some chuck wagon cooks do is move into
5:00
catering. Yes. And this is a completely different animal when it comes to cooking off the
5:05
chuck wagon. Right. Yeah. I mean, I can remember my first catered job that I ever done was in 92
5:13
and these people had hired me to come and feed like 80 people at this little party is have an anniversary party. And
5:20
I remember my mother asking me, she said, "You can feed 80 people by yourself?" I said, 'We'll find out, I
5:27
guess. You know, and it's but it's when you you know quality and you know quantity
5:34
and you don't scrimp on either one. There's shortcuts that you can take. You know what gets cooked first. Dessert
5:40
always gets cooked first, you know, cuz you can let a cobbler or a pie sit. Bread's always cook last. Meat's always
5:47
cooked last. But it's not really that hard after I figured out there can't be
5:52
any wasted motion. How did you get into the catering side? Well,
5:57
and when we're saying catering, this is not ranch cooking. This is um going out in more event based. So, weddings,
6:04
corporate events, um some historical events. Yeah. I mean, one of the one of the
6:11
first caterings after that that I thought got pretty large that I actually had to hire somebody to help me was a
6:17
bar mitzvah. And I didn't even know what a bar mitzvah was. You know, this lady
6:22
called on the phone and she said, "Hey, I hear you can feed 400 people." I said, "Yes, ma'am." And she said, "Well, I
6:29
want you to cook for my son's bar mitzvah." And I said, "Ma'am, I don't believe I know what that is, and I don't
6:34
know what you'd like to have on the menu." And uh she schooled me pretty good on what a bar mitzvah was, you
6:40
know. And uh I went up there and I can remember looking down the line. I mean,
6:45
I knew how much food it would take. And you know, I did brisket, smoked them before I got up there, you know, and it
6:51
kept them warm. And I had this big old set of warming trays that I could put stuff in when it got done. And there was
6:56
brisket and there was beans, there was bread, and there was cobbler. You know, when they line up, it's you look down
7:04
the line and you think, "I ain't got enough." That's the worst feeling really. That's
7:09
my greatest fear in catering and the thing that I I despise the most is food proportioning and control. So,
7:17
let me give you a little tip. If you are doing a mass feeding, um, even if it's a
7:23
family gathering or if you were doing a little side catering gig, um, don't let
7:29
people serve themselves. Unless you're just meat, one steak or one chicken fry because people's eyes are always bigger
7:36
than their stomach. So, you're going to have a lot of food waste. And then when you're cooking, you know how much you're cooking for. And so, you can control
7:42
that. So, that's one of the first things I learned. When you have a long line of people, Kent and I will always do the
7:48
serving because then we can control it. Yeah. You don't never turn a horse loose at the feed trough and let him have it all.
7:54
What's been interesting to me on catering side and especially, and we're talking specifically in the chuck wagon
7:59
cooking world, so we're doing the same cooking style as we do on a ranch. So,
8:05
we pull up to an event. We have no electricity. We have no running water.
8:11
We cook with an open fire in Dutch ovens and we are expected to feed hundreds of
8:18
people this way. Now, you had briefly mentioned this before, but we get this question a ton. Can do you have any tips
8:25
for large group or cooking for a crowd? Yeah. Um what what are some tips? make you a
8:32
menu, you know, and we we used to offer like three or four different menus for meatwise, you know, so stick to that.
8:40
See what the people want. Uh, and when you're planning your menu, make sure it's things that you're comfortable
8:46
with cooking and that when you're looking at the big picture because you're going to have the main, the
8:52
sides, the dessert, and pos possibly bread. So, what are things that you can cook all together? So, a lot of times
8:59
we'll do a steak or a pork chop because those are things that are easy to cook,
9:04
you can hold, you can keep warm. That's the big thing. What are things that you can make ahead of time and keep warm or
9:11
serve at room temperature? That really helps in when you're creating your menu.
9:17
Yeah. I I can remember at one time doing about 450 steaks, me and one other guy,
9:22
and uh we was cooking them rare, and then you just put them in a a good ice
9:28
chest that's going to keep them hot. You know, we'd preheat that ice chest with hot water. And uh
9:33
that is one of the biggest smartest tips I think that I learned from you is that don't think ice chests are just for
9:40
keeping things cold because we use uh Yeti cooler so much for keeping things
9:46
warm. Yeah, you put a little hot water in it, let it set for a minute, dump that hot water out, the cooler's warm, and then we've
9:53
kept bread. We've kept meats in it, any kind of sides, close that. Don't open it, and it will keep stuff warm for
9:59
long. We put a lot of cakes in there just to keep somebody from eating them from the raccoons. Yeah. So, now through all the catering that you've
10:06
done throughout the years, and it's been a lot of jobs. Huh. Do you have I'd love to know like what your best and worst behind thescenes
10:14
catering experiences were. So, let's start with the best. Do you have like a really memorable experience either with
10:20
the catering or maybe the group you cooked for? I I think one of the best and one of the
10:26
best compliments I ever had in my life. Uh first ranch I ever cooked on when I started was down by Abalene, Texas. And
10:32
there was an old fell there. He was in his 70s at the time when I was in my 30s
10:38
and uh sort of an abrasive old fell, you know, old-timer. And that first morning,
10:44
he just come right up there and told me, he said, "Well, God, anybody can fry meat and bowl coffee." And I just didn't
10:50
pay him no attention, knowing kept on cooking. The next morning, he was in there and he said, "I bet you can't even cook desserts. It's worth eating. You
10:56
know, that's when I'll call you a cook. You need to learn how to cook bread and cakes and pies." As years went by, and I
11:02
figure it was probably close to 16, 17 years, get a call from his granddaughter. He said, "Hey, this is
11:10
Amy. Do you remember my grandpa? She told me. Sounds like it's a guy you couldn't forget.
11:15
Oh, yeah. He made an everlasting impression. One of the first critics I had, right? And I said, "Yes, ma'am. I remember."
11:21
Well, he's having his 90th birthday party. We'd like for you to come cook. He said, "Surprise.
11:27
If you could get here at this time and park behind the barn, there'll be about 70 of us."
11:33
"Yes, ma'am. What do you want to have? We'll leave that up to you. You cook whatever you want." So I can I could remember how much he
11:40
really loved a good chicken fried steak, you know. So I had chicken fried steak, gravy, mashed potatoes, beans, bread,
11:47
and uh and a cobbler. I hadn't seen him. Didn't know what he looked like, anything in the world. And uh I was just
11:53
as busy as I can be with 70 people in his warm that day. It was probably up
11:58
close to 90 around behind this barn. The wind was blowing, you know how to do, funneled around the corner about 60
12:04
miles an hour. They come wheeling him around there in a wheelchair and he looked over there at me and he sort of squinting his eyes and he just kept
12:11
looking at whe he said get me up there closer on up there. He still had this same old gruffy voice, you know, and I'm
12:17
thinking he ain't changed nothing. He sat there in line. He never did say nothing till after he got through
12:24
eating, rolled that wheelchair over there by me and he held his hand out and he said, "I'd like to shake your hand. I'll be
12:31
damned. You finally made a cook. took you long enough, you know, but no tell how many wagons he had been
12:36
on, how many times he'd eat at a wagon. That's when you have a really good compliment when it's coming from
12:42
somebody who has been behind the fire and and had been with a chuck wagon so long. What was your worst catering
12:49
experience? Well, these folks called from northeastern Oklahoma one time, wanted
12:54
us to cook for this wedding, and the bride was from Oklahoma. I I was she Okay. The groom was from New
13:01
York City. That sort of, you know, got in here for a minute and I'm thinking, you know, he probably ain't never seen a
13:07
chuck wagon, but this will be good. And this was on a ranch. But the thing that sort of got me when we first pulled up
13:12
is they put us in a set of pins out there where the wagon was. It wasn't up there close to where the wedding was. It
13:18
was you had to walk across the driveway, open two gates, go in there where the wagon was. So, you had to carry
13:24
everything, the serving table, everything around there. And the the bride's family was so nice. They they
13:30
were great people. Uh they had been in the ranching business a long long time. But the groom and his bunch, they looked
13:39
at us if we were like just citizens, run-of-the-mill carnival catering
13:46
cookers. Yeah. They It was um extremely rude. I remember we were
13:51
trying to move some items back and forth and his group, there were a bunch of young
13:57
guys. They stood right in front of you. Yeah. And didn't let you pass by. Yeah. And it was unreal.
14:03
I was carrying a big old heavy table trying to get it back out there to the trailer. He just walked over there in front of
14:09
the gate, him about four or five others. And I said, "Excuse me, fellas." I said, "I need to get by here. You know, you need not come through here. You're just
14:15
the caterer. You could go way around." The way around's like 200 yards further and I said, "Ain't going to happen." I
14:21
said, "I'm going through that gate, you know, and they all bowed up right there in the middle, you know, and I just dropped the table."
14:26
They were like young 20s. Like, just tough. It don't make me no difference, fellas.
14:31
You know, I can knock y'all out today or knock you out tomorrow. I don't care. But I said, "I'm going to load this table." I said, "Just please get out of
14:38
the way." Well, they finally did move. But went back, got some more stuff. Here they were again, you And I told him, I
14:44
said, "You know, my mother taught me something a long time ago." She said, "I'm going to teach you manners, and
14:51
it's free, but the cost of not having manners will hurt you so richly. You
14:57
don't deserve it." And that guy just looked at me and he said, "Well, you're just the caterer." You know, and I never
15:02
look down on people in my life. It's not my place to judge people, but I'm just I want I just I think the point I'm trying
15:09
to get across is whoever you're working with or whoever you're working for or they're working for you, treat them with
15:16
the same respect that you'd love to be treated with. I mean, we all have a job to do. Oh, yeah. And I don't think anybody's better than
15:22
anybody else, you know, and and the way they sort of I'm very protective of you and the way
15:28
that they sort of treated you. I remember you getting in the pickup and you was was just nearly more than you could take.
15:33
Oh, really? See, I I've kind of blocked some of this out, but uh I just remember that and that was one of my very first
15:39
cooking experiences. Of course, Kent's been doing this forever. Um I'm a Johnny come lately to the whole ranch cooking
15:44
and catering. Um and I must say though that I did step up our presentation a
15:50
little bit, you know, for for catering. We have like we have like flowers and placemats and you know, like little I
15:56
mean it's not traditional, but it makes it look a little better. What's your worst? That was definitely one. And you know
16:02
what? Another one is not because of the people or anything, but we had to cook. It was on a ranch um near Henrietta,
16:11
Texas. Oh. And we had to do their family's Thanksgiving party. And the only reason
16:17
it was one of the worst was just because you don't ever want to make somebody's
16:23
else's Thanksgiving because, you know, everybody's got Nana's favorite casserole and oh, Uncle Tom always did
16:30
the best turkey. And then so we come in, you know, and that was the only reason it was it wasn't the worst, but it was
16:36
just a little tricky. It's a little stressful. I mean, we did three different kinds of turkey. There was a smoked turkey, a deep fried
16:41
turkey, and a turkey in the oven, you know, two kinds of dressing, three or four different kinds of dessert because
16:47
they just kept saying, "Well, this is what we'd like to have." And I remember they, this was also like a family reunion. Yeah. And they brought
16:54
in Montana Wall Tent Company came down from Montana. We're in Texas. They
17:00
brought in these wall tents that were fully furnished, had like four poster beds, arm wars, carpet in them, and Kent
17:08
and I show up with our little range tepee and a cot. And I'm thinking, we're doing this all
17:14
wrong. H, you know, I was They had a shower teepee. I mean, we get a shower when we get home.
17:20
Yeah, but it's outside in a bucket and like a little toes. Yeah, it was good. Let good people. It
17:26
was fun, but it was just it was just nerve-wracking when you when you're doing a very important holiday dinner
17:31
that everybody has certain expectations for. That is true. Um, but I would love to
17:37
transition into your largest catering experience because
17:42
as we've talked about, there's so many logistics that go into cooking because
17:47
you have to realize we're not a stationary restaurant where, you know, your whole staff comes in and you've got
17:54
everything set up and you have the burners and the oven and everything set. You just turn on the lights and a switch
18:00
and you're ready to go. catering for us is so different because everything's
18:06
mobile, everything's on fire and a water barrel. Um, and so what is the largest
18:15
catering that you have ever done? Well, there's there's been a few, but one that stands out uh would be Give
18:22
Kids the World Foundation, you know, and they're out of CMI, Florida, and this this lady called and she said, "I hear
18:30
you can feed large groups." And I said, "Yes, ma'am." I said, "How how what you
18:35
got in mind?" She said, "750 people." Now, folks, that's a lot of people. And
18:43
then bring it back to cooking from the wagon. And that's a whole another ball game.
18:48
And this was like 2005 somewhere along in there. And uh I said, "Yes, ma'am." I
18:54
said, "I'll uh I got two guys that I work with. We'll bring in one more wagon." I said, "Where's this at?" And
19:00
she said, "Pentonville, Arkansas." She said, "It is a a fundraiser for us.
19:05
We'll have some sponsors there, but it's not just 750 people." I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "Well, it's 750
19:11
people for Friday night supper, 750 people for breakfast Saturday morning,
19:18
and 750 people for a noon meal." She said, "Does that bother you? Back to back?"
19:23
Yeah. She said, "Does that bother you?" I said, "No, ma'am. Bother you?" And she said, "You can get this done." I said,
19:30
"Yes, ma'am. if you let us make the menu. I said, "The first night be
19:36
chicken fried steak, gravy, beans, bread, and cobbler. The next morning will be bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits,
19:46
and gravy." And I said, "At lunch, we'll do stew, cornbread, and cobbler."
19:52
Stew is a great choice. Like, it's traditional. Everybody loves it, but it's um easy
19:58
easy to put together and keep warm, you know. when you one of the things that I think that I always think about when you're cooking for something that
20:04
long is u the amount of groceries and storage. I mean, you've got the wagons,
20:10
you've got them loaded, but then you have to think, well, I need this many more ice chests. I need this many more
20:15
Dutch ovens, you know, because we're not talking about feeding hundred. Now, so obviously the main reason you
20:21
were there was for the cooking. Yeah. Um massive massive deal. Do you even do you
20:27
remember how much they raised for that? uh little bit over $895,000
20:33
that day. And given that was back in '05, so that's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. That's a great deal. But now you you did have a little
20:41
chance to kind of like decompress, right? And do some some different activities.
20:47
Yeah. you know, when when we got finished and and that that gal that had hired me come over to the wagon and she
20:53
said, um, sort of had my doubts about this character, she said, "But you proved me
20:59
wrong in so many ways." She said, "Number one, you and your crew are some of the politest, hardworking people I
21:05
ever known in my life." And she said, "I think you'll notice today there was a lot of parents here, too. Some had blue
21:12
ribbons on, some had red ribbons on, you know, and a ribbon.
21:18
It was to either let you know their child was still alive or they had lost
21:23
their child to this. Now, for those who don't know, Give Kids the World is it a it's a
21:29
cancer research foundation or It is a Give Kids the World Foundation was really started
21:36
at one time. Well, back up before that, John, Glenn, and Henry, they would have
21:42
space for kids a long time ago. And uh then it sort of transpired to
21:48
that to where Henry was a gray man. He still had the original numbers right
21:54
here of the Jewish concentration camp he was in. He said when they unloaded him and his
22:00
family off the train at one of them camps, they shot every one of them but him. He didn't know till
22:07
up in the 80s that his sister was even still alive. And he said, "I will never see a child have to suffer the way that
22:13
I've seen children suffer in those camps and die the way they did." So, he's him
22:19
with some help bought about 40 acres down there close to CMI, built three-bedroom houses on it. They wasn't
22:27
just going to take the child that was terminally ill or sick. They wanted to bring the whole family to where everybody was together. When this
22:34
lady got through and I was fixed to leave there and we had the wagon all loaded, she said, "Hey, Kent." She said, "You know anything about a hypotherapy
22:39
program?" And I said, "Yes, ma'am." And we had done this. That's when horse is a
22:46
acts as a therapist, right? For children or anybody, adults, too. They do it a lot for veterans.
22:52
So, I took a dear friend of mine, old Bobby, uh he ain't never been on airplane much. He scared death whole
22:57
time. He kept telling me, he said, "I'm going to sit uh by the aisle. That way, if I need to get out here, I can." I
23:03
said, "Don't make no difference, Bobby." I said, "Uh, if this thing goes down, we'll even beat
23:09
the ambulance there." you know, it'll be one of them kind of deals. But I told him, I said, "What we're doing," and he
23:15
was wholeheartedly in this, you know, I said, "We're going to try to make a difference for kids who have a terminal
23:23
illness, you know, and I I didn't I didn't know what to expect, you know,
23:29
and we got there that day and uh it was raining and they took us out there and
23:34
they said, "Hey, well, we can't start this today, but would you mind taking these kids fishing?" you know, and they had this big long dock with a gazebo
23:41
around it and uh this little gal come running up through there. She was maybe
23:47
seven, eight years old, had bushy hair, and her name was Sarah. And uh she
23:54
grabbed a hold of Bobby's leg and just hugged him. She said, "I love cowboys."
23:59
Oh. Now, I don't know if she'd ever met a cowboy before in her life, you know, and uh she looked up at him and uh she
24:07
said, "Thank you for being my friend." Oh my gosh. And he looked at me with tears running
24:13
down his face. He said, "If you tell anybody I've been crying, I'm going to whoop you." I said, "Bobby, if them the
24:19
first tears and the last tears we shed here," I said, "Something's wrong with us." And they had those perch trained
24:25
there. What do you mean? You just throw a line on a hook out there and they seem like they just jumped on. You have no bait.
24:31
It's a good success. So we we did that the first day for two or three hours and got to meet the kids
24:37
and the families, you know, and we toured around the facility. There was an ice cream parlor there that kids could
24:43
have ice cream 24 hours a day. You could have pizza 24 hours a day because you
24:48
need to think about this for a minute. These kids have been going through chemo and radiation and maybe nothing tasted
24:55
good. Oh yeah. You know, and so if they think, hey, I can wake up 2 o'clock in the morning and
25:00
I can go have ice cream. Let them, you know, that's the best deal in the world because
25:05
they wanted to make a difference so much to that young child, but also to those
25:10
parents and the family members. And I can remember the first day that we had the horses down there and we were
25:17
some of them we'd actually put a saddle on and you could lead them around. Others we had to just hold on to them.
25:24
uh you know because they weren't stable and uh the kids you mean is it just too too weak
25:30
and it's I tell people this today if you think you got something going on in your
25:37
life that you don't have time to do or you think you're busy go down there and volunteer a week it will open up your
25:42
heart your mind and your soul but is I guess it was a day before we were
25:48
supposed to leave and um this little young fell from Toronto
25:54
come over there and we was walking back through there and and he had some kind of really bad uh leukemia that they
26:01
really didn't know nothing about. Uh he was one of them little fellas that just
26:07
brought a smile to you. And I I truly believe this. God gives
26:12
children so much more strength in times of a crisis in something like this to
26:18
where it's a life and death matter. They look at it totally different than adult might. Uh I can't I've never lost a
26:25
child, so I'm not trying to judge people or tell them, but that's just the way I feel. And uh he come walking across
26:31
there. He had a blanket throw over his shoulder. And where are you? We're walking back to really
26:39
the middle of the Give Kids the World park. Okay. And uh we're walking down this little
26:45
path. Ice cream parlor's over. Okay. And uh Jonas asked, "Mr. Kent," he
26:52
said, "Uh, would you have some ice cream with me?" And I said, "Be honored, my
26:58
friend. It would." But you need to realize when you go in that little deal, it's soft serve ice cream in there. You
27:04
just pull the little deal, get all you want. But it's it's open. This is Florida, January, 70 degrees, you know.
27:12
Um, but everything is geared for little children. There's these little preschool
27:18
seats, little tables. You know, me and Bobby ain't little children. It
27:25
takes us a while to get down there in these little chairs and then we both get to thinking how we going to get out of them.
27:30
But he wanted to know, he said, "Can uh can I sit in your lap?" And I said, "Yes, sir." Got him some ice cream and
27:38
he was sitting there in my lap. He was telling me about all he had been through. And uh it was more than I can
27:44
imagine, you know. Uh he said he didn't want to be a burden to his family. And I
27:51
said, "I'm sure you're not that, my friend." He said, "I just want to be
27:58
happy." And uh I said, "I hope you get that more than anybody I've ever known
28:04
in my life." And he eat his ice cream. And he's he's so frail from going through this, you know. Um,
28:12
I bet him weigh 60 pounds. Told him I said, "Uh, you need more ice cream." No.
28:18
He said, "I'm really tired." He said, "Could you uh take me back to my room?"
28:24
And I said, "Yeah." So, I picked the little fell up and he just put his arms around me, you know, and he had this
28:30
blanket laying over him. And you look up in the rafters because it's open trust in there and there's blankets hanging
28:38
everywhere. and they all got kids' names on them, you know. And um he said, "Mr. Kenny
28:46
said, would you help me put my blanket up there?" So I reach and take the blanket and I put it up there on top
28:55
and we're walking out. I just remember him laying his little head on my shoulder there and I said,
29:01
"Young fell, why why' we put them blankets up there? This this got me." He
29:07
said, ' So when we die, we can get them on our way to heaven. And folks, the courage that these children
29:15
have um just blew my mind. I met so many that
29:20
just they would tell me their stories, but they wasn't telling me the story to make me feel sorry for them or make me
29:26
feel sad. They want to tell you that story to what they had accomplished. You know, hey, they told me I wouldn't be I
29:33
wouldn't be seven years old. I'm 11 now. you know, they they looked at it from that point of view that said, "I can get
29:39
over this. I can do it." Um, we need to all have that grit and determination in
29:46
our life. That bad things to us are
29:51
going to happen. It the road is never just smooth as glass everywhere you go.
29:58
There's holes and humps, bumps. Sometimes you get thrown out of the wagon seat, but you have to put yourself
30:05
out there to be able to accomplish something like this. Did I know this
30:11
little kid's history? No. Did I know what I was getting into when I went down there? Who got the blessing from it? I
30:17
did. God blessed me and Bobby so much by being down there to be able to see this,
30:23
to witness it. And I tell people this story all the time. you make a
30:28
difference in someone's life. I think and I know this story and I cry
30:33
every time. Um I think what's really hard is that when
30:40
and especially now, you know, we feel like we're living in a lot of darkness
30:45
or there's a lot of hate or sickness and we don't understand why. Like why do
30:52
bad things happen to good people? How do we understand God's plan? But it's it's
30:58
not ours to understand, right? No. In Proverbs 3:5 and 6, he says, "Lean not on your own on your own
31:04
understandings, but lean on me. Do my will. Do the things."
31:09
He's not out to punish us. He's out to help us, to bless us. There's there's little little light
31:16
everywhere. Yeah. Even in the darkness. And I think our challenge is to find
31:22
that light and to make it brighter. You know, you're never alone. I tell people this a lot. You're not alone.
31:29
You're in mine and Shannon's heart, but God is with you. There's an old old hymn
31:34
from long ago that says, "Just as I am. Come to me just as I am." All you got to
31:40
do is ask. Uh he's there. You don't have to face these problems alone. And I get
31:46
so many YouTube comments that, "Hey, I really needed this today because I was having a hard time."
31:53
We all got friends. We all got family. We all have neighbors. The world is a much better place when we lift those
32:00
people up, when we help those people. And you can do that every day with just kindness or a gesture or a plate of
32:07
food. Just go over and help some. Well, I hope that you all enjoyed this
32:14
message today. Um, it gave you a little hope. You gave some great cooking tips.
32:20
So, put those to use the next time you're cooking for a crowd. We appreciate you all so much for being
32:26
here. As Kent always says, we want to thank our veterans. Yes, ma'am. I tip my hat.
32:31
Servicemen and women, all those who uh make sacrifices for our safety. Um,
32:37
thank you for joining us. Please leave us a comment. Give us a five-star rating. We would love that. Join us on
32:43
YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. We do this every week, so we would love to have you. Yeah. Be sure and share with your
32:49
friends and neighbors. Mr. Rogers said we need to be good neighbors. God bless you each and everyone. We'll see you
32:55
down the next podcast trailer.
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