Pirate Money Radio focuses on helping you unpack the economic headlines
Kevin Freeman: Have you ever had such a passionate calling that you couldn't stop thinking about it? Sometimes I feel that way about dessert, particularly ice cream. And no, I don't think that President Biden's passion for ice cream was a sign of senility. In fact, that's what gave me confidence that he was still able to reason. Yeah, I want some ice cream. But I digress. What I'm really talking about is a passion to accomplish something great, to really make a mark. That's how I feel about establishing gold and silver as transactional money. And I believe we've been doing it for the Kingdomnomics of God and for his people.
Pirate Money Radio welcomes Bob Burkle from Eastern European Missions
In this episode of Pirate Money Radio, though, we're going to talk about another passionate pursuit, one so impossible that few would dare to believe it could even happen. Yet history records this impossible action happened. And millions of people have come into God's kingdom as a result. And the best news is that it was just a beginning. The best is yet to come. Joining me in studio is my friend Bob Burkle, President and CEO of Eastern European Missions. Bob's a business owner who has applied decades of best practice expertise to eem, Eastern European Missions in order to share God's mighty word across Eastern Europe and beyond. He's going to be our co host today. Welcome, Bob.
Bob Burkle: Welcome. Thank you very much, for inviting me here today. going to be exciting.
It is.
Kevin Freeman: You know, you're also board member, as you know, of Patriot Mobile with me. We're both board members and they're one of the sponsors of the Pirate Money Radio program. So I want to, before we dive in, give honor to whom honors do as the Bible tells us to do, and a shout out to our friend and sponsor. There are only three things you can do with your money. You can give it, you can spend it, you can invest it. Here at Pirate Money Radio, we work to explain solutions that support all three areas in a way that promotes liberty, security and values. Patriot Mobile, it's a mobile phone company, supports the Pirate Money Radio program. Patriot Mobile uses US carriers including AT&T, Verizon and T Mobile and operates on both Apple and Android phones. More information about the economic war room, Pirate Money Radio and Patriot Mobile is [email protected] AFR that's PirateMoneyRadio.com AFR Now, Bob, that's how we met was at Patriot ah, Mobile. I think it was our Initial.
Bob Burkle: Yes, that's correct. Yes.
Yeah.
Kevin Freeman: but you are going to introduce. We've got a guest, also that's via remote. Would you introduce Dirk?
Bob Burkle: Yes, I'd like to introduce Dirk Smith. He's co author of a book that we've done. It's called the Impossible, the Unstoppable Journey of God's Word behind the Iron Curtain and Beyond. And Dirk is an incredible speaker, a presenter, and a business person as well who has found a calling to be here, working with our nonprofit. And we authored this book in order to be able to show results, real world results of what happens when people get a Bible in their hands.
Kevin Freeman: When people. I love that. And Dirk, you're also the co host of the 5511 podcast and you live in Nashville, is that right?
Dirk Smith: Yes, that is correct.
Kevin Freeman: Well, we're so glad to have you
Dirk Smith: here in the Nashville area.
Kevin Freeman: So glad to have you on Pirate Money Radio.
Eastern European mission is bringing Bibles into Eastern Europe
All right, Bob, you and Dirk dialogue. Tell us about EEM and why we should care about it.
Bob Burkle: Well, from my perspective, EEM is an incredibly important ministry. My background is in engineering. I did work on products, for the military. And I came into position at one point in time saying that everything we're doing perhaps is for naught. There's got to be a better way. And at that point in time I found what Eastern European mission was doing as far as bringing Bibles, into Eastern Europe and seeing the impact that it's having on lives over there. And that really made a tremendous impact upon me.
Kevin Freeman: Who was there first?
Bob Burkle: Dirk?
Kevin Freeman: Were you there first or Bob?
Dirk Smith: No, Bob preceded me by a good number of years.
Bob Burkle: Yes, I got involved in 19, 99, and then Dirk came on, what, about 12 years ago?
Dirk Smith: 15 actually. It's hard to believe. Okay, yeah, 15 years ago.
Bob Burkle: Right.
Kevin Freeman: So tell us, why did you join Dirk?
Dirk Smith: You know, Kevan, it's it's been a journey for me. I like Bob. I'm not, I don't have a theology degree. I've got an mba and I spent a number of years in healthcare consulting and then management consulting. And it was really just a one of those epiphany, moments where I credit the spirit pulling on me and saying, okay, when I'm 80 something years old, what do I want to look back on my life and say I did for the kingdom? And at the time I was just making a lot of people a lot of money. And you know, we have to have money. Money makes Things go around, obviously nonprofits survive on it and good things happen with it. But for, me, I wanted to somehow combine my kingdom, work with my business acumen and help the kingdom in some way. EEM came knocking and I thought, okay, what's the downside of this? People are asking for Bibles in their heart language who have never had them before, and I get the opportunity to provide those. And I tell people really, for the last 15 years I have not had a job. it's a calling and I absolutely love every minute of what we get to do for the kingdom. I mean honestly, this is God's mission and ministry. We call EEM, but it is 100% his.
Kevin Freeman: It's focused on Eastern Europe, which is interesting to me because I see Middle East Forum has recently published an article, October of last year. It says Eastern Europe is the West's last hope. Why is Eastern Europe important to the world?
Dirk Smith: I can answer that being Bob. yeah, honestly, Eastern Europe and, and a lot of people, you know, look at Eastern Europe because in, in one country that we look at specifically and they don't understand this, but we do it in the U.S. but Ukraine, I would say, and a lot of people would agree, is really the Bible belt of Europe. They started a movement a number of years ago to put Bibles in their public schools. We engaged with them. I mean right before the full scale invasion of the war, Kevan, we had put Bibles in over three fourths of the public schools in the nation of Ukraine. They teach an elective called Christian Ethics. And they were seeing the results, I mean in the, in the oblast or the regions or we would call them states where they were doing this. They saw test scores going up and discipline problems going down. So Europe is, is critical in the movement that happens in that part of the world. We get very removed over here. We are very insular in our views. I can remember when we did a translation of the Bible in Slovenia, worked, with a translator and we provided a translation of the Bible in Slovenia. First time they had a translation that they could actually read in 500 years. And I went around speaking and I would put a map up that was an unmarked map of Europe. And I had a crisp one hundred dollar bill. And I, would say if you can come up here and point to Slovenia, that that hundred dollar bill is yours. I kept the same hundred dollar bill for six months. Nobody, ever knew where Slovenia was. So we here in the West a lot of times don't know. We don't know our European history, we don't know what's happened there. And it is good soil because as we hear from the parable of the sower from Jesus, now as a businessman, I would never invest in Jesus's seed company. It's kind of a bad model. I mean, there's three. Three soils that he knows aren't going to be good. But it. His story is so applicable because it's not about us, it's about the spirit. But we just happen to be in the playground where there's a lot of good soil. It's been churned up for a lot of years. And if people dive into their European history, they're going to see that these nations have. They've had turmoil and war over and over and over again for a very, very long time.
Kevin Freeman: Well, I think of Spain generally. I think of Western, When I think of Europe, I generally think of Western Europe, like Spain or France or, or Italy or UK Or Germany. and those nations which were once really strong Christian nations, they've seemingly receded. And we see the rise of Islam in those areas and so forth. But the Eastern European nations, as I look, they're more free market and, they're more Christian than the West. And it sounds like they're hungrier for the truth of God's word.
Bob Burkle: Well, the other thing too is they've lost their freedom and now they're getting it back. Take Ukraine, take Romania, take all the Soviet satellites that are out there right now. They're rediscovering that. And they're also rediscovering the fact that, communism, basically is atheism. And so they're now rediscovering God. And we are seeing the transformation in the people, the transformation in their country, the transformation in their hearts and their schools of the Bible and the different Bibles and Bible materials that we and others have been able to provide to them, either directly or through different ministry partners that we have, working throughout the region.
Kevin Freeman: We don't get a lot of, coverage in our media. When we hear Europe, we again think the Western nation. We don't get a lot of coverage. And younger people don't understand what an Iron Curtain was. I mean, we know that we're all old enough to remember there was an iron curtain.
Bob Burkle and Dirk Smith tell an impossible dream in new book
Explain that when you said they are getting their freedom back. How are they getting their freedom back? Where did they lose it?
Bob Burkle: Well, they lost it through autocratic rule. They lost it through, war. they lost it through a number of different things. And Perhaps forsaking God as well. And so they're rediscovering God, rediscovering the freedom. And for example with the Berlin Wall, I mean it's falling, symbolized basically, overcoming the slavery and entrapment and the atheism of communism compared to what the west had to offer.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no, I think that's true. I want to dive into that in detail because the book is titled the Impossible Dream. The authors Bob Burkle and Dirk Smith, they tell an impossible dream. It doesn't seem impossible now, but it was impossible then. We need to understand the history, a little bit of communism and, and the power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ when it's presented. We'll cover this and more right after the break.
Kevin Freeman: And I'm joined by Bob Burger of eem, Eastern European Missions. They're the authors of the book the Impossible Dream. And now that's a strong title. The Impossible. What was impossible? The story starts in 1961, that's the year I was born. And it's about Gwen and Gail Hensley who are in their mid 20s living in Oklahoma. So they're in their mid 20s living in oklahoma. I'm born in Oklahoma, so I feel a connection as I'm reading it. And they have this just crazy off the wall idea. We're going to take the Bible to a place where you're not allowed to take it.
Dirk Smith: Really?
Kevin Freeman: Tell us the story about getting Bibles to break the Soviet Union, Communism.
Bob Burkle: Okay, Dirk, why don't you go ahead and expand upon that for us.
Dirk Smith: Yeah, it's actually seven couples. Gwen and Gail were two of one of the seven couples. Two of the 14 people. So you got 1420 year olds, 20 somethings. Yeah. They graduated from Abilene Christian College at the time ACU now and went to Vienna. They, they enrolled in grad school that got them visas. They could go behind the Iron Curtain as it was known for those that don't know if they're younger listeners, like what's the Iron Curtain? When the Soviet Union was in power, the Berlin Wall was up and their sole goal was to go behind, go through those checkpoints and get into Soviet territory to teach people about Jesus. Gwen is who I really credit with being the entrepreneur for Jesus because Gwen goes on one of these trips behind the Iron Curtain, comes back, tells his wife Gail, this is an impossible task. How do we teach people about Jesus? They don't have Bibles in their language. It's impossible. And so he then referred to it. And we have a letter, excerpts of the letter that are in the book, which are just priceless, a letter that he wrote to his wife and referred to this as his impossible dream. The impossible dream of getting everybody, every human being, a Bible in their heart language or in their native tongue. And that really turned em on its head. He came back and said, we've got to change what we're doing. We've got to provide people Bibles and trust that the Spirit is going to do what he does best. And so that really changed and turned the ministry into a printing operation, printing small, what we affectionately refer to now as the Marlboro Bible because it was the exact size of a pack of cigarettes. And they knew that the guards didn't care if you smuggled cigarettes in. They would just ask one of two things. Do you have any guns or Bibles? Which, Kevan, if you think about that, two things that can cause a revolution in two very, very different ways. And so that was, that was the beginning. And then of course the wall comes down. And thankfully our board at the time decided to stay put, where people were saying, hey, why don't you go to China, why don't you go to Cuba, Why don't you go to some of these other places where communism is? And we stayed put, which I'm so thankful to God that they did that because we had the relationships. And now at these truck, these checkpoints, where they were thrilled to get 50 to 60 Bibles smuggled across, we're driving tractor truckloads across. And in many situations, in most situations, we're actually printing in those countries.
Kevin Freeman: Well, the Bible is so powerful. I read in your book about how an entire Romanian village shared one single Bible. That's kind of amazing. One single Bible in a village. Now, a, good friend of mine, you probably know Virginia Perdan.
Bob Burkle: Yes.
Kevin Freeman: Virginia is Romanian, and she saved her assassin because she got a Bible and she was able to come to know Jesus and somebody was sent to kill her. And, the government sent someone to kill her. And she shared the gospel with that person who came to kill her. He got saved. And of course she's living today, which is am. She's written a great book called Saving My Assassin. But all of that, because you all got Bibles into Romania and in one village they had one Bible and it had that much power.
Bob Burkle: That's true. It's very transformational and very important to that end. Yeah.
You've helped change the world for Jesus through coffee can collections
Kevin Freeman: So we've Got about a minute left in this segment. What were coffee can collections? Because I read about coffee can collections in the book. Describe that. I remember those, I think, from my church in Tulsa.
Bob Burkle: Well, in the early days, what Eem, would do is they go around to the different, churches and put coffee cans out there and people just stuff money in there in order to try to be able to, provide Bibles, for the different areas that we're in. Initially we started out small, focusing in Russia, and then we expanded out to the different areas, as the Lord led us.
Kevin Freeman: Wow, I love this. There's a great quote. I just want to right the unrightable wrong, to love people who owed me nothing and would not finger me out in a crowd if I had not gone. But I loved them from afar because I had been loved by God and forgiven of my sins. I think that kind of sums up the reason for the Impossible Dream and then the impact that you're having. All right, we gotta take another break. When we come back, I want to talk a little bit more about how you've helped change the world for Jesus and you've done it with Bibles. We'll be right back.
Mike Carter: Pirate Money Radio, helping you give, spend and invest in ways that align with liberty, security and values.
Kevin Freeman talks about the traveling Bible revival sparked by a train guard
Welcome back with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: You know, we talk about, on Pirate Money Radio all the time. We talk about, what John Wesley said. He said, make all you can, save all you can, and give all you can. And I remember as a kid, one of the places that we could give was in a coffee can collection at my Methodist church in Tulsa. Ah, you could put it in. I don't recall if it said Eastern European missions, Eem m on it or not, but it probably did because I remember, that you could give to promote Bibles. And I hope that I put money. I don't remember I gave money to a lot of different places. But there are great stories of the impact. That's what I love about the book and I want to talk about the book in this segment. one of the examples that's in there is called the traveling revival or traveling Bible revival sparked by a train guard. You can cover that one or pick any story. You want to tell us a story from the Impossible Dream, Dirk?
Dirk Smith: Yeah, that's ah, that's one of our favorite stories, the train story. And it really sums up the Ministry of EEM. So the story goes, it was in the 60s, probably 69, somewhere around that time frame. So communism was still very much Alive and well and Soviet Union in power. And there's a gentleman by the name of Ivan Martos who was. He was actually Hungarian and was a banking official in the Hungarian government. And because of that job, that kind of put him at a prominent member of the. Of the Communist Party status. But Ivan was a believer. And Ivan every year would make his trip once a year to Vienna to do some banking and take care of some business. So he would leave Communist Hungary and then make his way to the free land in. In Austria, in Vienna. And the team there, as they tell the story, and they originally told it, said he was the life of the party. He was the guy that always had the dad joke, if there were dad jokes in the day, and just was fun loving and just laughed all the time and just loved people. But this one year, he shows up and they said he got off the train and he looked like he had lost his last friend. And I mean, either somebody's not well. And so they met him and they said, yvonne, are you okay? What's going on? He said, oh, on my way here, like I am, every year, guards come through the train like they always do, checking our papers. But for some reason, two guards came to my compartment. One's checking my paperwork. The other one reached down and opened my briefcase, and he found my Bible. And he pulled it up and he said, Mr. Martos, why do you have this book of lies? You're a prominent member of the Communist Party. This is embarrassing for you to have this. It's a warm summer day. They're traveling about 60 miles an hour. Train windows are down. And he said, the guard took my Bible and he threw it out the window. He said, it's gone. Well, of course, the team, that's what they were doing when they were in the business of printing Bibles. They said, oh, we can get you another Bible. Even. He said, I know that. I know I can get another Bible, but that's my Bible. It's got my notes in it. It's got all my highlights. It's got everything that I study. It's gone. It's my Bible. It's gone. He was so distraught, they tried to console him, but he was honestly unconsolable. So he leaves. They didn't see him for two years. He comes back two years later. And they said when he got off the train two years later, he was the old Ivan. He was excited, couldn't wait to see me. M m. He said, man, I couldn't wait to see you guys. Guess what? I got My Bible back in the mail just the other day. They said, you're kidding. He said, no, my address was in there. And it came back and it had this letter with it. Listen what the letter says. Dear Mr. Martos, we're so sorry we kept your Bible this very long two years. Some children were playing by the railroad tracks and found your Bible, brought it back to our village and shared it with some of the older women who recognized it as the Book of Books. We're so sorry we kept it this very long two years. But it took us that long to make a hand copy for ourselves so that we too could have God's word. We hope you don't mind, but we'd like to let you know There are now 35 of us who call ourselves Christians and meet together daily. Now, Kevan, that epitomizes eem. We're in the parable of the sower business. We just need help buying seed because it doesn't matter how it gets there when it lands on good soil. And that's what Jesus tells us in the parable of the sower. You can't stop the growth. It doesn't matter if a guard throws it out the window. It. If it lands on good soil, it's going to grow no matter what we do.
Kevin Freeman: Marnie and I believe that. And Marnie and I have been supporters, as you know, Bob. not like we. Not as much as we'd like to, but we've been supporters of EEM and we will continue to be supporters. How can people support eem? M Where do they go?
Bob Burkle: We, have a website, eem.org.
Kevin Freeman: how good is that?
Getting Bibles into the hands of people so you can see a real change
A website? Eem.org and that's where you go if you want to support Eastern European missions. Getting Bibles into the hands of people so you can see. See a real change in their life. All right, one, we've got another break coming up. When we come back, I want to talk about even more. I, want to talk about the chocolate bar tray. We'll be right back.
Kevin Freeman: Have you ever watched those videos, you know, the man on the street videos where they walk up and they ask questions and people often give dumb answers. Jay Leno did this a lot on the Tonight show. And yes, you may not be old enough if you're listening. You may not remember Jay Leno, but even before him, I remember Johnny Carson. So I'm dating myself a little bit, but I Don't remember Jack Parr, so. But I've read about him in the history books. But anyway, the man on the street video, they'll walk up to people and they'll ask them a dumb question and say, how many branches of government are there? And they'll say, ah, three. And all right, what are they? I don't know. Who won the civil war? The Germans? Dumb answers. Well, there was a man on the street video that is very poignant for pirate money, radio especially. There was a guy sitting outside a coin shop and he said, I will give you a choice. You can have a Hershey bar that's cold, we've kept it cold for you, or you can have this 1 ounce gold coin. You have your choice, which do you want? And the vast majority of the people, they would take the Hershey bar and you say, why do you want, well, I don't know what I do with the gold. What would you do with that? I can eat the Hershey bar, they'd say. And so they would pass up something truly valuable and they would take the chocolate.
In Romania and other Eastern European countries, literacy rates far surpass ours
Well, when I was reading the book the Impossible Dream, I came across this chapter, called the Chocolate Bar Revival in Romania from the 2000s. So this is a fairly recent story that you put in your book, and there was a young boy given a choice. tell the story, Dirk. Would you share that?
Dirk Smith: Yeah. And what people have to understand is in the 2020s, it hasn't really changed. What we take for granted here in our country, these countries that we deal with, their literacy rate is phenomenal. Like Romania, I mean, you gotta, you got a literacy rate there in the 90s, you know, 91, 92%, which far surpasses us. So in most school systems, you, you got the important people in the school. The second most important person is the librarian. So this little boy, he's given a basket, and, and people can get the book and read the, the details. But he's, he's presented this basket and in there is a chocolate bar, a Bible, a children's Bible. Well, he grabs the children's Bible, comes running back to his parents and says, I'm going to read this, I'm going to read this right now. Now, part of his enthusiasm is it's a book. It's a book, and they love books. I mean, I've watched kids get, one of our children's Bibles, sit down and read it four and five times in a setting. I mean, they just stay in a corner reading the book. Now, the beauty of that is they grasp what it's talking about. We've had story after story of children who, in the midst of the war, for example, in Ukraine, who get a children's Bible and they call it their book of hope. So this little boy understood, he gets the Bible and like other children, reads it and digests it, understands it and again gravitates towards the beautiful stories that are in there. That again, we don't, we can't grasp this. But they, if you did a word association game with them and you said Noah, they're not going to say Ark. If you say David, they're not going to respond with Goliath. They don't know these stories. So for them it's the first time to hear these stories of hope and the good news of Jesus through these stories.
Kevin Freeman: You know, the sad thing is here in America we have so much biblical, historical, truth in our country, but we'll hear things that are clearly from the Scripture, examples clearly from the Bible, and people won't even know what the beginning of that was. Where did that come from? Because we've forgotten it. that's one of the. Familiarity breeds contempt. And I probably got 10 copies of the Bible on the shelf behind me and throughout Liberty Hawk, which is a good thing. But we're talking about people who may not have one Bible, maybe not one that they've ever even seen. And you, Bob, what drove you to be part of eem?
Bob Burkle: well, what drove me, to be part of it is just as you said and what Dirk has said, it's just this hunger that people have for it that when initially, I got involved with the em and you'd go to Russia or Ukraine, places like that, the sincere thanks that they had for receiving God's word, the way they just opened the book up, they dove into it, they started reading it and wanted to know more. We have other books as well. We have a tagline called, the Bible. We want everyone to get it and what that means we want to physically for them to get the Bible into their hands and once they read it, they get it into their minds. And after they get it in their minds and start to understand what God is telling them, it goes into their heart and with their heart, then they want to go out and share it with other people. So it's a continuous cycle that goes on. And so what we do is we provide those Bibles for that, but we also have age appropriate material. We have children's Bibles, teen Bibles, coloring Books, Bibles, NewSong Testament newcomers guide the Bible. And also we have character lessons. And so we have established programs with other ministry partners to teach the Bible as character because they just don't have that. They don't understand responsibility and love and care and all the other things like that. They've just, in many of the Eastern Europe, European countries just been indoctrinated with the communist propaganda. And this is an alternative. And more importantly, this is freedom. this is freedom in Christ. This is freedom in living. This is freedom. And once they understand that the impact on that is transformational. And that's why we've talked about how this is transformational both for individuals, institutions, like schools we've talked about. And also within countries we're seeing that as well.
Kevin Freeman: You know, we're going to cover this next week on Pirate Money Radio. A comparison between communism and freedom. Free markets and literally communism is a form of slavery where you don't own even your own personal economic output. It's owned by the state. Well that, that's no different from being a slave. You have to get up and work for the state all day. But these nations have experienced freedom economically. When the Berlin Wall came down, the Iron Curtain came down, they had, well, economic opportunity. You could own private property. And so I remember visiting Moscow, with, with producer, Russell Lake in 2006 and people owned their apartment in Moscow. They were technically millionaires because those apartments were worth millions dollars apiece. But they didn't have freedom in their mind or in their spirit. And what you're doing is you're bringing, this is breaking down that wall to bring freedom in the spirit and in the mind. And I think that's so powerful. Dirk, what do you find when you meet people there?
Dirk Smith: You know, people just have a hunger again. They've experienced a lot in, in their journey. And we are, we are very spoiled in this country. So you, you alluded to statements that are made that die, that are directly tied to the Bible and how people have forgotten. I, I would, you know, politely correct that. And I think unfortunately it's, they don't know. It's not that they've forgotten that it comes from Bible. There are so many here in the US that have no idea. Even though we have access to God's word. So as we know when you have freedom, there's responsibility. So even though we have access to God's word, you know, Lifeway did, did some research a number of years ago that they polled church going Protestants. It was a huge Group. It was a very, very good study, but they polled churchgoing Protestants and one of the questions they asked them now in order to qualify, you had to say that you went to church at least twice a month. Well, Kevan, I don't know about you, but in the fact that the average in the US is one time a month, twice a month, that's the, a team of Christians, of Protestant, Christian, I mean that's the 18. So this is the group they polled. And one of the questions I asked them was, how often do you read your Bible? Well, I thought, good grief, this is the 18. I mean every day this is going to be a huge number. It was only 32%. 32% of church going Protestants read their Bible every day. Now the bottom was rarely and never. And I thought, well, surely this is going to be zero percent. It was 12%, 12% of church going Protestants rarely or never even open the book and read one, just read a verse, anything. So the biblical illiteracy in this country is staggering. we see studies CBE center for Bible Engagement. If somebody reads their Bible one day a week, really no change to no change, three, a little bit of change four days a week. Anxiety drops 35%. Depression drops 35%.
Sex outside of marriage drops 59%. Viewing pornography drops 59%
Sex outside of marriage drops 59%. Viewing pornography drops 59%. But the issue is we're not reading. We're engaged with a population they don't read four days a week, they read seven. And they are hungry. They're hungry for hope. They know that this world is a mirage. This is a false foundation. It's going to let them down, but God won't. And they are, they are searching and they want to hang on to that.
Kevin Freeman: Well, Jesus talked about sowing into good ground. You know, you can toss your seed if the ground is rocky. And unfortunately in many parts of the United States today, you might have a tiny spring up and then it's going to get wiped out by the sun. You're talking about fertile land where you plant seeds and you're getting great results. All right, we're going to have one more segment where we're going to dive a little bit into the impact of Eastern European missions. You can learn [email protected] but you've got some incredible stats here of great things that have happened just by distributing the truth of God's word. That's what we're doing here on this program. Hopefully getting the word of God out. But Eem, you're doing a great job. We're going to learn More right after this break.
Glint offers an alternative way to store and use gold for everyday purchases
Mike Carter: Welcome back to Pirate Money Radio with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: You know, we have the opportunity to talk with great guests like Bob, Burkle and Dirk Smith, the authors of the Impossible Dream, who really, lead an incredible organization, Eastern European mission, Sharing the gospel through distributing Bibles, getting Bibles in the hands of people so they can read them every day and have better lives as a result. And we're thankful for the support for this program that comes from Glint. It's a financial technology service offering a debit card and mobile app that enables users to access gold holdings for everyday purchases. With Glint, users maintain ownership of allocated physical gold, which is stored in a managed vault. At the time of a transaction, you go to buy something. Gold is sold in real time to cover the purchase in local currency. Glint offers an alternative way to store and use the value. Combining gold and silver with modern payment infrastructure can move monitor their gold balance, view transaction history and manage their account through the Glint app available on major mobile platforms. More details about how vaulted physical gold can be used as money are [email protected] Gold247 Again that's glintpay.com Gold247 Glint providing access to gold for modern spending. And the amazing thing about that is, the CEO and founder of Glint read my book Pirate Money, which is what Pirate Money Radio is about, and says, hey, I want to partner with you guys and jumped in to do it. And it helps us to bring important stories to you like Eastern European missions, EEM M. And when I read the book the Impossible Dream and saw your website eem m.org, i learned that over 2.1 million Bibles and Bible based materials were distributed in 2025 across 36 nations and 32 languages. Is that right?
Bob Burkle: absolutely. And continuing to grow every year, we continue to grow more and more. And in fact the, demand has outstripped supply.
Kevin Freeman: That's just last year, 2.1 million. That's an impossible dream. When they were collecting a few pennies in the coffee cans, I don't think they ever thought in the entire lifetime they'd get a million out. They have 2.1 million last year, 36 nations, 32 languages, and all free of charge.
Bob Burkle: We don't charge anything. Not for production, distribution, transportation, storage. It's handed out to people free of charge, both to individuals and to ministry partners.
Dirk Smith: Wow.
Kevin Freeman: And 634,206 children and teens received Bibles through the Bibles for Kids campaign last year. 634,000 children and teens. You want to impact the future of the world, you have to impact the children of today.
Bob Burkle: Exactly. And in fact when we Dirk had spoken previously about this, where we went ahead and put Bibles into the schools of Ukraine, at one point in time, the President of Ukraine called in his Minister of education and said, I don't understand this. I'm seeing areas in the country, they're not contiguous, they're northern, southern, all over the place. And in those areas test scores are up, discipline problems are down, you know, Mr. Secretary, could you please explain the correlation? He said, well that's where we put Bibles into schools. And the president said, well, why don't we do that everywhere? So results, we are result driven. You know, both Dirk and I are business people and just to go out and hand things out. We're very bottom line driven. We want to see results and we are seeing results over and over and over again in multiple times, multiple places and multiple demographics.
Kevin Freeman: You would think even secular nations would say if this improves our test scores, lowers our costs, improves the quality of life for our citizens, we should do this. And yet, here in America, we're not putting Bibles in schools. We took them out, didn't we?
Bob Burkle: Correct. And also, you know, we're in schools teaching character. All biblical based as well. And so we see that there in other places as well. Some of the programs we help some people start them on their own. Some of our ministry partners do and perhaps Dirk can talk to us about that later.
Pirate Money Radio has 3,000 trusted field partners in 35 countries
As far as what we're seeing with the puppet ministry and some of the other things as well, Well I see
Kevin Freeman: 3,000 trusted field partners in 35 countries. What does that mean, Dirk? What are those? 3,000 field partners?
Dirk Smith: Yeah, so we work with the indigenous people. that's always the best way to go about it. I mean we're come alongside ministry, so we provide, we're a publisher, we publish, print and distribute and the distribution happens through those partners. So I mean when you work in last year, 37 different countries, 33 different languages, that's going to take a lot of partners. So those can be organizations. Other ministries like Prison Fellowship International is a big partner of ours. Every Home for Christ EHC is a partner of ours. So we have lots of partners who are on the ground. Our statement is if you're going to give it out, it's got to be for free. It's got to go into somebody's hands and just tell us the Stories.
Kevin Freeman: All right, we're talking about. About the impossible dream, which is taking the truth of God's word to people around the world. We're talking with the authors of the book, Bob Burkle and Dirk Smith. And we'll have more right after this break.
Mike Carter: Pirate Money Radio, helping you give, spend and invest in ways that align with liberty, security and values.
Kevin Freeman: You can make a difference with a very small gift
Welcome back with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: If I told you personally you could make a difference in the life of someone halfway around the world, you could do it with a very small commitment, small amount of money, a little bit of time, a little bit of effort. But you could find one person where you could make a difference, maybe by giving them a Bible. And then I told you that there are people that are doing this and they'll make it easy for you that you can partner with, you can be a supporter of, help get 2.1 million Bibles. Not just a small number, but 2.1 million Bibles across 36 nations in 32 languages. And you could do it, you know, with less than the price of a meal out. In fact, a meal out, with today's inflation would probably do quite a bit, because I took my wife, to dinner in San Diego for Easter. dinner. And it was 100 bucks for the two of us. That's, you know, it's getting pricey there. And we skipped the Easter burger brunch because it was $100 a piece plus a mandatory 20% tip. So here's a question for our two guests here, Bob Burkle and Dirk Smith. that Easter dinner, if Marnie and I had gone and eaten that at the hotel where we were staying, it would have been $240. Would $240 make a difference in the life of a person?
Bob Burkle: Oh, absolutely. The average cost of our Bibles, across all the different varieties, and languages, etc. Etc. Is under $5.
Kevin Freeman: So less the price of a cup of coffee. You can get the Bible in hand and one Bible in one village shared by the village where they, you know, in one case, the train story, where they actually made copies of it by hand before they sent it back when they found it. This is, this is talking about genuine impact. What are you going to do? I know you, you gentlemen both told me, you know, when you go to meet the Lord, you want to say I did something, you want to hear? Well done, good and faithful servant. A lot of us have jobs. We have, work that we have to do. We go to church. We're trying to raise our family. But we want to make a difference so that we hear the well done. Is it possible to partner with EEM and make that kind of difference? And how would people go about doing it?
Dirk Smith: Yeah. Eem.org, go to our website. We are right in the midst of our Bibles for Kids campaign this year, which is, and I want to say this here's a differentiator with us. These Bibles are not looking for people. These are people looking for their Bible. Every one of our Bibles has a name on it already. So this year's Bibles for kids campaign is 725, 250 children's Bibles going into 21 different, in 21 different languages. So they can go and partner with us again. As Bob said, For less than $5 you can supply Bible. Now, our Bibles for Kids campaign, we have very generous, donors who have stepped up and they are providing a matching fund and they've said, hey, we're gonna put this money in this fund so that every gift that's given, we're going to match it dollar for dollar, Bible for Bible. So right now, through our Bibles for Kids campaign, if somebody gives enough for one Bible, they're actually giving two Bibles. And it's the parable of the sower. It just so happens we're in good soil. So you can change the destiny of a child, you can change their eternity with a very small gift. And I'll put that on people's hearts, whatever they want to do. But they can go to eem.org it's going to pop up and show them the Bibles for Kids campaign give securely on our website or if they'd rather, you can see how to give. They can transfer stock, they can send a check. If they're old school and want to write that check out and mail it in. There's a number of ways that are listed there on our website. But more than anything, Kevan, I would encourage people go out and learn. Go ahead and learn about us. Get our newsletter. Sign up for a newsletter. Know who you're giving to. We've got our ECFA certification, we've got our Candid Gold certification. We're very transparent. You give us a dollar, almost 90 cents goes out the door in what we do. So we are all about keeping things as efficient as possible so that we can get more Bibles out the door.
Kevin Freeman: Well, I gotta tell you, I love the certifications. I love the fact that you're audited and looked at and all of that. But what I can tell you is I just met you, Dirk. But I know Bob. I've known you, Bob, for a number of years. I've watched you as you've managed your personal affairs, your investments and what you've done with Patriot Mobile. I know your background as a business leader and so forth. And I trust you. You, I, I found that you. I know you're not in this to get name recognition. You're not in this for fame and fortune. You're not in this. You want to get Bibles out. And that's why Marnie and I have been confident in making donations to EEM M&, and we'll continue to do so because we believe in God's word and we believe in you. All right, we're going to have to take another break. Some of you will leave now. And to you we say God. God Bless. From Kevan Freeman, Pirate Money Radio. But if you're following us on podcast or American Family Radio, stay tuned. We've got one more segment right after a break.
Kevin Freeman: And I've got guests here, Bob Burkle and Dirk Smith, the authors of the Impossible, the Unstoppable Journey of God's Word behind the Iron Curtain and Beyond. in our final segment, I want to ask a question. but before I do, I want to tell you. You know, Bob, you've seen us, we're fighting a lot of battles here in Texas. We're fighting the rise of Islam in Texas. We're fighting communism in NewSong York. We're fighting a lot of battles in Tennessee. We've been fighting battles in the legislature. There's a lot of bad things happening even in our own country, even with some people say we've got the right president. Well, it doesn't matter. We're still facing challenges and difficulties and all of that. My head's not in the sand. I see the problems that we're facing, inflation and so forth. But you both are hopeful, gentlemen. What gives you hope?
Bob Burkle: Well, what gives me hope is what God says. And he says, he allowed his son to come and die for us. we've just been through Easter, and the resurrection. And that provides us hope. And more than hope, it provides us certainty. So I know exactly what's going to happen. No matter what happens, temporarily while we're here. I mean, this is just the prologue of our life. I mean, if you open this book, you know, it's just the opening chapter of a book that's going to last through eternity. And we have that hope, that confidence. And since we do, we want to share it with others. here in the United States or a particular region that we focus on is, Eastern Europe and the neighboring countries. And, up to and including, if Iran opens up, the gospel, we want to be part of that as well.
Kevin Freeman: That's awesome. How about you, Dirk? What gives you hope?
Dirk Smith: One word. Jesus. I mean, that's it. you know, if people are looking for hope anywhere else and any human being, any government, any political party, they're going to let you down. somebody puts their hope in me, I'm going to let them down. Jesus is the only hope. And that's what we focus on. And we believe and we see it as we provide God's Word to people and they read and they fall in love with Jesus. The countenance changes, their whole outlook on life changes because they realize this little bit of time, all of you don't look around and see anybody who's 2,000 years old. I mean, we all have an end date. We're here. We're here temporarily. And the, hope that we have is in Jesus. And we have a calling. I mean, our calling is to share that we have the cure for everything. We have the cure for, for cancer. We got the cure for anxiety. We got the cure for depression. We just need to share it with people. But we're only going to share it when we ourselves believe it. And we are actually transformed people. We are people who are being transformed by that spirit of God living in us.
Kevin Freeman: Well, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And you all are sharing the word of God around the world, which is a beautiful thing. You know, you're not the most public ministry that you're not splashed everywhere. You don't spend a whole lot of time enhancing your image. you spend 90 cents out of every dollar to actually get God's words in the hands of individuals who really, truly want it. Not just stacking them up somewhere in a warehouse, but actually people who want that. And I'm grateful for that. Thank you for what you're doing. All right, if you have questions, prayer needs, or comments, email [email protected] and pray for America. Pray for a return to God's principles. Pray for the world to receive God's word. And listen wherever you get your podcasts, we're on Apple or Spotify, etc. Share this with your friends and check out PirateMoneyRadio.com. this is Kevan Freeman, joined this week by Bob Burkle and Dirk Smith for Pirate Money Radio.
Pirate Money Radio focuses on helping you unpack the economic headlines
Kevin Freeman: Have you ever had such a passionate calling that you couldn't stop thinking about it? Sometimes I feel that way about dessert, particularly ice cream. And no, I don't think that President Biden's passion for ice cream was a sign of senility. In fact, that's what gave me confidence that he was still able to reason. Yeah, I want some ice cream. But I digress. What I'm really talking about is a passion to accomplish something great, to really make a mark. That's how I feel about establishing gold and silver as transactional money. And I believe we've been doing it for the Kingdomnomics of God and for his people.
Pirate Money Radio welcomes Bob Burkle from Eastern European Missions
In this episode of Pirate Money Radio, though, we're going to talk about another passionate pursuit, one so impossible that few would dare to believe it could even happen. Yet history records this impossible action happened. And millions of people have come into God's kingdom as a result. And the best news is that it was just a beginning. The best is yet to come. Joining me in studio is my friend Bob Burkle, President and CEO of Eastern European Missions. Bob's a business owner who has applied decades of best practice expertise to eem, Eastern European Missions in order to share God's mighty word across Eastern Europe and beyond. He's going to be our co host today. Welcome, Bob.
Bob Burkle: Welcome. Thank you very much, for inviting me here today. going to be exciting.
It is.
Kevin Freeman: You know, you're also board member, as you know, of Patriot Mobile with me. We're both board members and they're one of the sponsors of the Pirate Money Radio program. So I want to, before we dive in, give honor to whom honors do as the Bible tells us to do, and a shout out to our friend and sponsor. There are only three things you can do with your money. You can give it, you can spend it, you can invest it. Here at Pirate Money Radio, we work to explain solutions that support all three areas in a way that promotes liberty, security and values. Patriot Mobile, it's a mobile phone company, supports the Pirate Money Radio program. Patriot Mobile uses US carriers including AT&T, Verizon and T Mobile and operates on both Apple and Android phones. More information about the economic war room, Pirate Money Radio and Patriot Mobile is [email protected] AFR that's PirateMoneyRadio.com AFR Now, Bob, that's how we met was at Patriot ah, Mobile. I think it was our Initial.
Bob Burkle: Yes, that's correct. Yes.
Yeah.
Kevin Freeman: but you are going to introduce. We've got a guest, also that's via remote. Would you introduce Dirk?
Bob Burkle: Yes, I'd like to introduce Dirk Smith. He's co author of a book that we've done. It's called the Impossible, the Unstoppable Journey of God's Word behind the Iron Curtain and Beyond. And Dirk is an incredible speaker, a presenter, and a business person as well who has found a calling to be here, working with our nonprofit. And we authored this book in order to be able to show results, real world results of what happens when people get a Bible in their hands.
Kevin Freeman: When people. I love that. And Dirk, you're also the co host of the 5511 podcast and you live in Nashville, is that right?
Dirk Smith: Yes, that is correct.
Kevin Freeman: Well, we're so glad to have you
Dirk Smith: here in the Nashville area.
Kevin Freeman: So glad to have you on Pirate Money Radio.
Eastern European mission is bringing Bibles into Eastern Europe
All right, Bob, you and Dirk dialogue. Tell us about EEM and why we should care about it.
Bob Burkle: Well, from my perspective, EEM is an incredibly important ministry. My background is in engineering. I did work on products, for the military. And I came into position at one point in time saying that everything we're doing perhaps is for naught. There's got to be a better way. And at that point in time I found what Eastern European mission was doing as far as bringing Bibles, into Eastern Europe and seeing the impact that it's having on lives over there. And that really made a tremendous impact upon me.
Kevin Freeman: Who was there first?
Bob Burkle: Dirk?
Kevin Freeman: Were you there first or Bob?
Dirk Smith: No, Bob preceded me by a good number of years.
Bob Burkle: Yes, I got involved in 19, 99, and then Dirk came on, what, about 12 years ago?
Dirk Smith: 15 actually. It's hard to believe. Okay, yeah, 15 years ago.
Bob Burkle: Right.
Kevin Freeman: So tell us, why did you join Dirk?
Dirk Smith: You know, Kevan, it's it's been a journey for me. I like Bob. I'm not, I don't have a theology degree. I've got an mba and I spent a number of years in healthcare consulting and then management consulting. And it was really just a one of those epiphany, moments where I credit the spirit pulling on me and saying, okay, when I'm 80 something years old, what do I want to look back on my life and say I did for the kingdom? And at the time I was just making a lot of people a lot of money. And you know, we have to have money. Money makes Things go around, obviously nonprofits survive on it and good things happen with it. But for, me, I wanted to somehow combine my kingdom, work with my business acumen and help the kingdom in some way. EEM came knocking and I thought, okay, what's the downside of this? People are asking for Bibles in their heart language who have never had them before, and I get the opportunity to provide those. And I tell people really, for the last 15 years I have not had a job. it's a calling and I absolutely love every minute of what we get to do for the kingdom. I mean honestly, this is God's mission and ministry. We call EEM, but it is 100% his.
Kevin Freeman: It's focused on Eastern Europe, which is interesting to me because I see Middle East Forum has recently published an article, October of last year. It says Eastern Europe is the West's last hope. Why is Eastern Europe important to the world?
Dirk Smith: I can answer that being Bob. yeah, honestly, Eastern Europe and, and a lot of people, you know, look at Eastern Europe because in, in one country that we look at specifically and they don't understand this, but we do it in the U.S. but Ukraine, I would say, and a lot of people would agree, is really the Bible belt of Europe. They started a movement a number of years ago to put Bibles in their public schools. We engaged with them. I mean right before the full scale invasion of the war, Kevan, we had put Bibles in over three fourths of the public schools in the nation of Ukraine. They teach an elective called Christian Ethics. And they were seeing the results, I mean in the, in the oblast or the regions or we would call them states where they were doing this. They saw test scores going up and discipline problems going down. So Europe is, is critical in the movement that happens in that part of the world. We get very removed over here. We are very insular in our views. I can remember when we did a translation of the Bible in Slovenia, worked, with a translator and we provided a translation of the Bible in Slovenia. First time they had a translation that they could actually read in 500 years. And I went around speaking and I would put a map up that was an unmarked map of Europe. And I had a crisp one hundred dollar bill. And I, would say if you can come up here and point to Slovenia, that that hundred dollar bill is yours. I kept the same hundred dollar bill for six months. Nobody, ever knew where Slovenia was. So we here in the West a lot of times don't know. We don't know our European history, we don't know what's happened there. And it is good soil because as we hear from the parable of the sower from Jesus, now as a businessman, I would never invest in Jesus's seed company. It's kind of a bad model. I mean, there's three. Three soils that he knows aren't going to be good. But it. His story is so applicable because it's not about us, it's about the spirit. But we just happen to be in the playground where there's a lot of good soil. It's been churned up for a lot of years. And if people dive into their European history, they're going to see that these nations have. They've had turmoil and war over and over and over again for a very, very long time.
Kevin Freeman: Well, I think of Spain generally. I think of Western, When I think of Europe, I generally think of Western Europe, like Spain or France or, or Italy or UK Or Germany. and those nations which were once really strong Christian nations, they've seemingly receded. And we see the rise of Islam in those areas and so forth. But the Eastern European nations, as I look, they're more free market and, they're more Christian than the West. And it sounds like they're hungrier for the truth of God's word.
Bob Burkle: Well, the other thing too is they've lost their freedom and now they're getting it back. Take Ukraine, take Romania, take all the Soviet satellites that are out there right now. They're rediscovering that. And they're also rediscovering the fact that, communism, basically is atheism. And so they're now rediscovering God. And we are seeing the transformation in the people, the transformation in their country, the transformation in their hearts and their schools of the Bible and the different Bibles and Bible materials that we and others have been able to provide to them, either directly or through different ministry partners that we have, working throughout the region.
Kevin Freeman: We don't get a lot of, coverage in our media. When we hear Europe, we again think the Western nation. We don't get a lot of coverage. And younger people don't understand what an Iron Curtain was. I mean, we know that we're all old enough to remember there was an iron curtain.
Bob Burkle and Dirk Smith tell an impossible dream in new book
Explain that when you said they are getting their freedom back. How are they getting their freedom back? Where did they lose it?
Bob Burkle: Well, they lost it through autocratic rule. They lost it through, war. they lost it through a number of different things. And Perhaps forsaking God as well. And so they're rediscovering God, rediscovering the freedom. And for example with the Berlin Wall, I mean it's falling, symbolized basically, overcoming the slavery and entrapment and the atheism of communism compared to what the west had to offer.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no, I think that's true. I want to dive into that in detail because the book is titled the Impossible Dream. The authors Bob Burkle and Dirk Smith, they tell an impossible dream. It doesn't seem impossible now, but it was impossible then. We need to understand the history, a little bit of communism and, and the power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ when it's presented. We'll cover this and more right after the break.
Kevin Freeman: And I'm joined by Bob Burger of eem, Eastern European Missions. They're the authors of the book the Impossible Dream. And now that's a strong title. The Impossible. What was impossible? The story starts in 1961, that's the year I was born. And it's about Gwen and Gail Hensley who are in their mid 20s living in Oklahoma. So they're in their mid 20s living in oklahoma. I'm born in Oklahoma, so I feel a connection as I'm reading it. And they have this just crazy off the wall idea. We're going to take the Bible to a place where you're not allowed to take it.
Dirk Smith: Really?
Kevin Freeman: Tell us the story about getting Bibles to break the Soviet Union, Communism.
Bob Burkle: Okay, Dirk, why don't you go ahead and expand upon that for us.
Dirk Smith: Yeah, it's actually seven couples. Gwen and Gail were two of one of the seven couples. Two of the 14 people. So you got 1420 year olds, 20 somethings. Yeah. They graduated from Abilene Christian College at the time ACU now and went to Vienna. They, they enrolled in grad school that got them visas. They could go behind the Iron Curtain as it was known for those that don't know if they're younger listeners, like what's the Iron Curtain? When the Soviet Union was in power, the Berlin Wall was up and their sole goal was to go behind, go through those checkpoints and get into Soviet territory to teach people about Jesus. Gwen is who I really credit with being the entrepreneur for Jesus because Gwen goes on one of these trips behind the Iron Curtain, comes back, tells his wife Gail, this is an impossible task. How do we teach people about Jesus? They don't have Bibles in their language. It's impossible. And so he then referred to it. And we have a letter, excerpts of the letter that are in the book, which are just priceless, a letter that he wrote to his wife and referred to this as his impossible dream. The impossible dream of getting everybody, every human being, a Bible in their heart language or in their native tongue. And that really turned em on its head. He came back and said, we've got to change what we're doing. We've got to provide people Bibles and trust that the Spirit is going to do what he does best. And so that really changed and turned the ministry into a printing operation, printing small, what we affectionately refer to now as the Marlboro Bible because it was the exact size of a pack of cigarettes. And they knew that the guards didn't care if you smuggled cigarettes in. They would just ask one of two things. Do you have any guns or Bibles? Which, Kevan, if you think about that, two things that can cause a revolution in two very, very different ways. And so that was, that was the beginning. And then of course the wall comes down. And thankfully our board at the time decided to stay put, where people were saying, hey, why don't you go to China, why don't you go to Cuba, Why don't you go to some of these other places where communism is? And we stayed put, which I'm so thankful to God that they did that because we had the relationships. And now at these truck, these checkpoints, where they were thrilled to get 50 to 60 Bibles smuggled across, we're driving tractor truckloads across. And in many situations, in most situations, we're actually printing in those countries.
Kevin Freeman: Well, the Bible is so powerful. I read in your book about how an entire Romanian village shared one single Bible. That's kind of amazing. One single Bible in a village. Now, a, good friend of mine, you probably know Virginia Perdan.
Bob Burkle: Yes.
Kevin Freeman: Virginia is Romanian, and she saved her assassin because she got a Bible and she was able to come to know Jesus and somebody was sent to kill her. And, the government sent someone to kill her. And she shared the gospel with that person who came to kill her. He got saved. And of course she's living today, which is am. She's written a great book called Saving My Assassin. But all of that, because you all got Bibles into Romania and in one village they had one Bible and it had that much power.
Bob Burkle: That's true. It's very transformational and very important to that end. Yeah.
You've helped change the world for Jesus through coffee can collections
Kevin Freeman: So we've Got about a minute left in this segment. What were coffee can collections? Because I read about coffee can collections in the book. Describe that. I remember those, I think, from my church in Tulsa.
Bob Burkle: Well, in the early days, what Eem, would do is they go around to the different, churches and put coffee cans out there and people just stuff money in there in order to try to be able to, provide Bibles, for the different areas that we're in. Initially we started out small, focusing in Russia, and then we expanded out to the different areas, as the Lord led us.
Kevin Freeman: Wow, I love this. There's a great quote. I just want to right the unrightable wrong, to love people who owed me nothing and would not finger me out in a crowd if I had not gone. But I loved them from afar because I had been loved by God and forgiven of my sins. I think that kind of sums up the reason for the Impossible Dream and then the impact that you're having. All right, we gotta take another break. When we come back, I want to talk a little bit more about how you've helped change the world for Jesus and you've done it with Bibles. We'll be right back.
Mike Carter: Pirate Money Radio, helping you give, spend and invest in ways that align with liberty, security and values.
Kevin Freeman talks about the traveling Bible revival sparked by a train guard
Welcome back with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: You know, we talk about, on Pirate Money Radio all the time. We talk about, what John Wesley said. He said, make all you can, save all you can, and give all you can. And I remember as a kid, one of the places that we could give was in a coffee can collection at my Methodist church in Tulsa. Ah, you could put it in. I don't recall if it said Eastern European missions, Eem m on it or not, but it probably did because I remember, that you could give to promote Bibles. And I hope that I put money. I don't remember I gave money to a lot of different places. But there are great stories of the impact. That's what I love about the book and I want to talk about the book in this segment. one of the examples that's in there is called the traveling revival or traveling Bible revival sparked by a train guard. You can cover that one or pick any story. You want to tell us a story from the Impossible Dream, Dirk?
Dirk Smith: Yeah, that's ah, that's one of our favorite stories, the train story. And it really sums up the Ministry of EEM. So the story goes, it was in the 60s, probably 69, somewhere around that time frame. So communism was still very much Alive and well and Soviet Union in power. And there's a gentleman by the name of Ivan Martos who was. He was actually Hungarian and was a banking official in the Hungarian government. And because of that job, that kind of put him at a prominent member of the. Of the Communist Party status. But Ivan was a believer. And Ivan every year would make his trip once a year to Vienna to do some banking and take care of some business. So he would leave Communist Hungary and then make his way to the free land in. In Austria, in Vienna. And the team there, as they tell the story, and they originally told it, said he was the life of the party. He was the guy that always had the dad joke, if there were dad jokes in the day, and just was fun loving and just laughed all the time and just loved people. But this one year, he shows up and they said he got off the train and he looked like he had lost his last friend. And I mean, either somebody's not well. And so they met him and they said, yvonne, are you okay? What's going on? He said, oh, on my way here, like I am, every year, guards come through the train like they always do, checking our papers. But for some reason, two guards came to my compartment. One's checking my paperwork. The other one reached down and opened my briefcase, and he found my Bible. And he pulled it up and he said, Mr. Martos, why do you have this book of lies? You're a prominent member of the Communist Party. This is embarrassing for you to have this. It's a warm summer day. They're traveling about 60 miles an hour. Train windows are down. And he said, the guard took my Bible and he threw it out the window. He said, it's gone. Well, of course, the team, that's what they were doing when they were in the business of printing Bibles. They said, oh, we can get you another Bible. Even. He said, I know that. I know I can get another Bible, but that's my Bible. It's got my notes in it. It's got all my highlights. It's got everything that I study. It's gone. It's my Bible. It's gone. He was so distraught, they tried to console him, but he was honestly unconsolable. So he leaves. They didn't see him for two years. He comes back two years later. And they said when he got off the train two years later, he was the old Ivan. He was excited, couldn't wait to see me. M m. He said, man, I couldn't wait to see you guys. Guess what? I got My Bible back in the mail just the other day. They said, you're kidding. He said, no, my address was in there. And it came back and it had this letter with it. Listen what the letter says. Dear Mr. Martos, we're so sorry we kept your Bible this very long two years. Some children were playing by the railroad tracks and found your Bible, brought it back to our village and shared it with some of the older women who recognized it as the Book of Books. We're so sorry we kept it this very long two years. But it took us that long to make a hand copy for ourselves so that we too could have God's word. We hope you don't mind, but we'd like to let you know There are now 35 of us who call ourselves Christians and meet together daily. Now, Kevan, that epitomizes eem. We're in the parable of the sower business. We just need help buying seed because it doesn't matter how it gets there when it lands on good soil. And that's what Jesus tells us in the parable of the sower. You can't stop the growth. It doesn't matter if a guard throws it out the window. It. If it lands on good soil, it's going to grow no matter what we do.
Kevin Freeman: Marnie and I believe that. And Marnie and I have been supporters, as you know, Bob. not like we. Not as much as we'd like to, but we've been supporters of EEM and we will continue to be supporters. How can people support eem? M Where do they go?
Bob Burkle: We, have a website, eem.org.
Kevin Freeman: how good is that?
Getting Bibles into the hands of people so you can see a real change
A website? Eem.org and that's where you go if you want to support Eastern European missions. Getting Bibles into the hands of people so you can see. See a real change in their life. All right, one, we've got another break coming up. When we come back, I want to talk about even more. I, want to talk about the chocolate bar tray. We'll be right back.
Kevin Freeman: Have you ever watched those videos, you know, the man on the street videos where they walk up and they ask questions and people often give dumb answers. Jay Leno did this a lot on the Tonight show. And yes, you may not be old enough if you're listening. You may not remember Jay Leno, but even before him, I remember Johnny Carson. So I'm dating myself a little bit, but I Don't remember Jack Parr, so. But I've read about him in the history books. But anyway, the man on the street video, they'll walk up to people and they'll ask them a dumb question and say, how many branches of government are there? And they'll say, ah, three. And all right, what are they? I don't know. Who won the civil war? The Germans? Dumb answers. Well, there was a man on the street video that is very poignant for pirate money, radio especially. There was a guy sitting outside a coin shop and he said, I will give you a choice. You can have a Hershey bar that's cold, we've kept it cold for you, or you can have this 1 ounce gold coin. You have your choice, which do you want? And the vast majority of the people, they would take the Hershey bar and you say, why do you want, well, I don't know what I do with the gold. What would you do with that? I can eat the Hershey bar, they'd say. And so they would pass up something truly valuable and they would take the chocolate.
In Romania and other Eastern European countries, literacy rates far surpass ours
Well, when I was reading the book the Impossible Dream, I came across this chapter, called the Chocolate Bar Revival in Romania from the 2000s. So this is a fairly recent story that you put in your book, and there was a young boy given a choice. tell the story, Dirk. Would you share that?
Dirk Smith: Yeah. And what people have to understand is in the 2020s, it hasn't really changed. What we take for granted here in our country, these countries that we deal with, their literacy rate is phenomenal. Like Romania, I mean, you gotta, you got a literacy rate there in the 90s, you know, 91, 92%, which far surpasses us. So in most school systems, you, you got the important people in the school. The second most important person is the librarian. So this little boy, he's given a basket, and, and people can get the book and read the, the details. But he's, he's presented this basket and in there is a chocolate bar, a Bible, a children's Bible. Well, he grabs the children's Bible, comes running back to his parents and says, I'm going to read this, I'm going to read this right now. Now, part of his enthusiasm is it's a book. It's a book, and they love books. I mean, I've watched kids get, one of our children's Bibles, sit down and read it four and five times in a setting. I mean, they just stay in a corner reading the book. Now, the beauty of that is they grasp what it's talking about. We've had story after story of children who, in the midst of the war, for example, in Ukraine, who get a children's Bible and they call it their book of hope. So this little boy understood, he gets the Bible and like other children, reads it and digests it, understands it and again gravitates towards the beautiful stories that are in there. That again, we don't, we can't grasp this. But they, if you did a word association game with them and you said Noah, they're not going to say Ark. If you say David, they're not going to respond with Goliath. They don't know these stories. So for them it's the first time to hear these stories of hope and the good news of Jesus through these stories.
Kevin Freeman: You know, the sad thing is here in America we have so much biblical, historical, truth in our country, but we'll hear things that are clearly from the Scripture, examples clearly from the Bible, and people won't even know what the beginning of that was. Where did that come from? Because we've forgotten it. that's one of the. Familiarity breeds contempt. And I probably got 10 copies of the Bible on the shelf behind me and throughout Liberty Hawk, which is a good thing. But we're talking about people who may not have one Bible, maybe not one that they've ever even seen. And you, Bob, what drove you to be part of eem?
Bob Burkle: well, what drove me, to be part of it is just as you said and what Dirk has said, it's just this hunger that people have for it that when initially, I got involved with the em and you'd go to Russia or Ukraine, places like that, the sincere thanks that they had for receiving God's word, the way they just opened the book up, they dove into it, they started reading it and wanted to know more. We have other books as well. We have a tagline called, the Bible. We want everyone to get it and what that means we want to physically for them to get the Bible into their hands and once they read it, they get it into their minds. And after they get it in their minds and start to understand what God is telling them, it goes into their heart and with their heart, then they want to go out and share it with other people. So it's a continuous cycle that goes on. And so what we do is we provide those Bibles for that, but we also have age appropriate material. We have children's Bibles, teen Bibles, coloring Books, Bibles, NewSong Testament newcomers guide the Bible. And also we have character lessons. And so we have established programs with other ministry partners to teach the Bible as character because they just don't have that. They don't understand responsibility and love and care and all the other things like that. They've just, in many of the Eastern Europe, European countries just been indoctrinated with the communist propaganda. And this is an alternative. And more importantly, this is freedom. this is freedom in Christ. This is freedom in living. This is freedom. And once they understand that the impact on that is transformational. And that's why we've talked about how this is transformational both for individuals, institutions, like schools we've talked about. And also within countries we're seeing that as well.
Kevin Freeman: You know, we're going to cover this next week on Pirate Money Radio. A comparison between communism and freedom. Free markets and literally communism is a form of slavery where you don't own even your own personal economic output. It's owned by the state. Well that, that's no different from being a slave. You have to get up and work for the state all day. But these nations have experienced freedom economically. When the Berlin Wall came down, the Iron Curtain came down, they had, well, economic opportunity. You could own private property. And so I remember visiting Moscow, with, with producer, Russell Lake in 2006 and people owned their apartment in Moscow. They were technically millionaires because those apartments were worth millions dollars apiece. But they didn't have freedom in their mind or in their spirit. And what you're doing is you're bringing, this is breaking down that wall to bring freedom in the spirit and in the mind. And I think that's so powerful. Dirk, what do you find when you meet people there?
Dirk Smith: You know, people just have a hunger again. They've experienced a lot in, in their journey. And we are, we are very spoiled in this country. So you, you alluded to statements that are made that die, that are directly tied to the Bible and how people have forgotten. I, I would, you know, politely correct that. And I think unfortunately it's, they don't know. It's not that they've forgotten that it comes from Bible. There are so many here in the US that have no idea. Even though we have access to God's word. So as we know when you have freedom, there's responsibility. So even though we have access to God's word, you know, Lifeway did, did some research a number of years ago that they polled church going Protestants. It was a huge Group. It was a very, very good study, but they polled churchgoing Protestants and one of the questions they asked them now in order to qualify, you had to say that you went to church at least twice a month. Well, Kevan, I don't know about you, but in the fact that the average in the US is one time a month, twice a month, that's the, a team of Christians, of Protestant, Christian, I mean that's the 18. So this is the group they polled. And one of the questions I asked them was, how often do you read your Bible? Well, I thought, good grief, this is the 18. I mean every day this is going to be a huge number. It was only 32%. 32% of church going Protestants read their Bible every day. Now the bottom was rarely and never. And I thought, well, surely this is going to be zero percent. It was 12%, 12% of church going Protestants rarely or never even open the book and read one, just read a verse, anything. So the biblical illiteracy in this country is staggering. we see studies CBE center for Bible Engagement. If somebody reads their Bible one day a week, really no change to no change, three, a little bit of change four days a week. Anxiety drops 35%. Depression drops 35%.
Sex outside of marriage drops 59%. Viewing pornography drops 59%
Sex outside of marriage drops 59%. Viewing pornography drops 59%. But the issue is we're not reading. We're engaged with a population they don't read four days a week, they read seven. And they are hungry. They're hungry for hope. They know that this world is a mirage. This is a false foundation. It's going to let them down, but God won't. And they are, they are searching and they want to hang on to that.
Kevin Freeman: Well, Jesus talked about sowing into good ground. You know, you can toss your seed if the ground is rocky. And unfortunately in many parts of the United States today, you might have a tiny spring up and then it's going to get wiped out by the sun. You're talking about fertile land where you plant seeds and you're getting great results. All right, we're going to have one more segment where we're going to dive a little bit into the impact of Eastern European missions. You can learn [email protected] but you've got some incredible stats here of great things that have happened just by distributing the truth of God's word. That's what we're doing here on this program. Hopefully getting the word of God out. But Eem, you're doing a great job. We're going to learn More right after this break.
Glint offers an alternative way to store and use gold for everyday purchases
Mike Carter: Welcome back to Pirate Money Radio with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: You know, we have the opportunity to talk with great guests like Bob, Burkle and Dirk Smith, the authors of the Impossible Dream, who really, lead an incredible organization, Eastern European mission, Sharing the gospel through distributing Bibles, getting Bibles in the hands of people so they can read them every day and have better lives as a result. And we're thankful for the support for this program that comes from Glint. It's a financial technology service offering a debit card and mobile app that enables users to access gold holdings for everyday purchases. With Glint, users maintain ownership of allocated physical gold, which is stored in a managed vault. At the time of a transaction, you go to buy something. Gold is sold in real time to cover the purchase in local currency. Glint offers an alternative way to store and use the value. Combining gold and silver with modern payment infrastructure can move monitor their gold balance, view transaction history and manage their account through the Glint app available on major mobile platforms. More details about how vaulted physical gold can be used as money are [email protected] Gold247 Again that's glintpay.com Gold247 Glint providing access to gold for modern spending. And the amazing thing about that is, the CEO and founder of Glint read my book Pirate Money, which is what Pirate Money Radio is about, and says, hey, I want to partner with you guys and jumped in to do it. And it helps us to bring important stories to you like Eastern European missions, EEM M. And when I read the book the Impossible Dream and saw your website eem m.org, i learned that over 2.1 million Bibles and Bible based materials were distributed in 2025 across 36 nations and 32 languages. Is that right?
Bob Burkle: absolutely. And continuing to grow every year, we continue to grow more and more. And in fact the, demand has outstripped supply.
Kevin Freeman: That's just last year, 2.1 million. That's an impossible dream. When they were collecting a few pennies in the coffee cans, I don't think they ever thought in the entire lifetime they'd get a million out. They have 2.1 million last year, 36 nations, 32 languages, and all free of charge.
Bob Burkle: We don't charge anything. Not for production, distribution, transportation, storage. It's handed out to people free of charge, both to individuals and to ministry partners.
Dirk Smith: Wow.
Kevin Freeman: And 634,206 children and teens received Bibles through the Bibles for Kids campaign last year. 634,000 children and teens. You want to impact the future of the world, you have to impact the children of today.
Bob Burkle: Exactly. And in fact when we Dirk had spoken previously about this, where we went ahead and put Bibles into the schools of Ukraine, at one point in time, the President of Ukraine called in his Minister of education and said, I don't understand this. I'm seeing areas in the country, they're not contiguous, they're northern, southern, all over the place. And in those areas test scores are up, discipline problems are down, you know, Mr. Secretary, could you please explain the correlation? He said, well that's where we put Bibles into schools. And the president said, well, why don't we do that everywhere? So results, we are result driven. You know, both Dirk and I are business people and just to go out and hand things out. We're very bottom line driven. We want to see results and we are seeing results over and over and over again in multiple times, multiple places and multiple demographics.
Kevin Freeman: You would think even secular nations would say if this improves our test scores, lowers our costs, improves the quality of life for our citizens, we should do this. And yet, here in America, we're not putting Bibles in schools. We took them out, didn't we?
Bob Burkle: Correct. And also, you know, we're in schools teaching character. All biblical based as well. And so we see that there in other places as well. Some of the programs we help some people start them on their own. Some of our ministry partners do and perhaps Dirk can talk to us about that later.
Pirate Money Radio has 3,000 trusted field partners in 35 countries
As far as what we're seeing with the puppet ministry and some of the other things as well, Well I see
Kevin Freeman: 3,000 trusted field partners in 35 countries. What does that mean, Dirk? What are those? 3,000 field partners?
Dirk Smith: Yeah, so we work with the indigenous people. that's always the best way to go about it. I mean we're come alongside ministry, so we provide, we're a publisher, we publish, print and distribute and the distribution happens through those partners. So I mean when you work in last year, 37 different countries, 33 different languages, that's going to take a lot of partners. So those can be organizations. Other ministries like Prison Fellowship International is a big partner of ours. Every Home for Christ EHC is a partner of ours. So we have lots of partners who are on the ground. Our statement is if you're going to give it out, it's got to be for free. It's got to go into somebody's hands and just tell us the Stories.
Kevin Freeman: All right, we're talking about. About the impossible dream, which is taking the truth of God's word to people around the world. We're talking with the authors of the book, Bob Burkle and Dirk Smith. And we'll have more right after this break.
Mike Carter: Pirate Money Radio, helping you give, spend and invest in ways that align with liberty, security and values.
Kevin Freeman: You can make a difference with a very small gift
Welcome back with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: If I told you personally you could make a difference in the life of someone halfway around the world, you could do it with a very small commitment, small amount of money, a little bit of time, a little bit of effort. But you could find one person where you could make a difference, maybe by giving them a Bible. And then I told you that there are people that are doing this and they'll make it easy for you that you can partner with, you can be a supporter of, help get 2.1 million Bibles. Not just a small number, but 2.1 million Bibles across 36 nations in 32 languages. And you could do it, you know, with less than the price of a meal out. In fact, a meal out, with today's inflation would probably do quite a bit, because I took my wife, to dinner in San Diego for Easter. dinner. And it was 100 bucks for the two of us. That's, you know, it's getting pricey there. And we skipped the Easter burger brunch because it was $100 a piece plus a mandatory 20% tip. So here's a question for our two guests here, Bob Burkle and Dirk Smith. that Easter dinner, if Marnie and I had gone and eaten that at the hotel where we were staying, it would have been $240. Would $240 make a difference in the life of a person?
Bob Burkle: Oh, absolutely. The average cost of our Bibles, across all the different varieties, and languages, etc. Etc. Is under $5.
Kevin Freeman: So less the price of a cup of coffee. You can get the Bible in hand and one Bible in one village shared by the village where they, you know, in one case, the train story, where they actually made copies of it by hand before they sent it back when they found it. This is, this is talking about genuine impact. What are you going to do? I know you, you gentlemen both told me, you know, when you go to meet the Lord, you want to say I did something, you want to hear? Well done, good and faithful servant. A lot of us have jobs. We have, work that we have to do. We go to church. We're trying to raise our family. But we want to make a difference so that we hear the well done. Is it possible to partner with EEM and make that kind of difference? And how would people go about doing it?
Dirk Smith: Yeah. Eem.org, go to our website. We are right in the midst of our Bibles for Kids campaign this year, which is, and I want to say this here's a differentiator with us. These Bibles are not looking for people. These are people looking for their Bible. Every one of our Bibles has a name on it already. So this year's Bibles for kids campaign is 725, 250 children's Bibles going into 21 different, in 21 different languages. So they can go and partner with us again. As Bob said, For less than $5 you can supply Bible. Now, our Bibles for Kids campaign, we have very generous, donors who have stepped up and they are providing a matching fund and they've said, hey, we're gonna put this money in this fund so that every gift that's given, we're going to match it dollar for dollar, Bible for Bible. So right now, through our Bibles for Kids campaign, if somebody gives enough for one Bible, they're actually giving two Bibles. And it's the parable of the sower. It just so happens we're in good soil. So you can change the destiny of a child, you can change their eternity with a very small gift. And I'll put that on people's hearts, whatever they want to do. But they can go to eem.org it's going to pop up and show them the Bibles for Kids campaign give securely on our website or if they'd rather, you can see how to give. They can transfer stock, they can send a check. If they're old school and want to write that check out and mail it in. There's a number of ways that are listed there on our website. But more than anything, Kevan, I would encourage people go out and learn. Go ahead and learn about us. Get our newsletter. Sign up for a newsletter. Know who you're giving to. We've got our ECFA certification, we've got our Candid Gold certification. We're very transparent. You give us a dollar, almost 90 cents goes out the door in what we do. So we are all about keeping things as efficient as possible so that we can get more Bibles out the door.
Kevin Freeman: Well, I gotta tell you, I love the certifications. I love the fact that you're audited and looked at and all of that. But what I can tell you is I just met you, Dirk. But I know Bob. I've known you, Bob, for a number of years. I've watched you as you've managed your personal affairs, your investments and what you've done with Patriot Mobile. I know your background as a business leader and so forth. And I trust you. You, I, I found that you. I know you're not in this to get name recognition. You're not in this for fame and fortune. You're not in this. You want to get Bibles out. And that's why Marnie and I have been confident in making donations to EEM M&, and we'll continue to do so because we believe in God's word and we believe in you. All right, we're going to have to take another break. Some of you will leave now. And to you we say God. God Bless. From Kevan Freeman, Pirate Money Radio. But if you're following us on podcast or American Family Radio, stay tuned. We've got one more segment right after a break.
Kevin Freeman: And I've got guests here, Bob Burkle and Dirk Smith, the authors of the Impossible, the Unstoppable Journey of God's Word behind the Iron Curtain and Beyond. in our final segment, I want to ask a question. but before I do, I want to tell you. You know, Bob, you've seen us, we're fighting a lot of battles here in Texas. We're fighting the rise of Islam in Texas. We're fighting communism in NewSong York. We're fighting a lot of battles in Tennessee. We've been fighting battles in the legislature. There's a lot of bad things happening even in our own country, even with some people say we've got the right president. Well, it doesn't matter. We're still facing challenges and difficulties and all of that. My head's not in the sand. I see the problems that we're facing, inflation and so forth. But you both are hopeful, gentlemen. What gives you hope?
Bob Burkle: Well, what gives me hope is what God says. And he says, he allowed his son to come and die for us. we've just been through Easter, and the resurrection. And that provides us hope. And more than hope, it provides us certainty. So I know exactly what's going to happen. No matter what happens, temporarily while we're here. I mean, this is just the prologue of our life. I mean, if you open this book, you know, it's just the opening chapter of a book that's going to last through eternity. And we have that hope, that confidence. And since we do, we want to share it with others. here in the United States or a particular region that we focus on is, Eastern Europe and the neighboring countries. And, up to and including, if Iran opens up, the gospel, we want to be part of that as well.
Kevin Freeman: That's awesome. How about you, Dirk? What gives you hope?
Dirk Smith: One word. Jesus. I mean, that's it. you know, if people are looking for hope anywhere else and any human being, any government, any political party, they're going to let you down. somebody puts their hope in me, I'm going to let them down. Jesus is the only hope. And that's what we focus on. And we believe and we see it as we provide God's Word to people and they read and they fall in love with Jesus. The countenance changes, their whole outlook on life changes because they realize this little bit of time, all of you don't look around and see anybody who's 2,000 years old. I mean, we all have an end date. We're here. We're here temporarily. And the, hope that we have is in Jesus. And we have a calling. I mean, our calling is to share that we have the cure for everything. We have the cure for, for cancer. We got the cure for anxiety. We got the cure for depression. We just need to share it with people. But we're only going to share it when we ourselves believe it. And we are actually transformed people. We are people who are being transformed by that spirit of God living in us.
Kevin Freeman: Well, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And you all are sharing the word of God around the world, which is a beautiful thing. You know, you're not the most public ministry that you're not splashed everywhere. You don't spend a whole lot of time enhancing your image. you spend 90 cents out of every dollar to actually get God's words in the hands of individuals who really, truly want it. Not just stacking them up somewhere in a warehouse, but actually people who want that. And I'm grateful for that. Thank you for what you're doing. All right, if you have questions, prayer needs, or comments, email [email protected] and pray for America. Pray for a return to God's principles. Pray for the world to receive God's word. And listen wherever you get your podcasts, we're on Apple or Spotify, etc. Share this with your friends and check out PirateMoneyRadio.com. this is Kevan Freeman, joined this week by Bob Burkle and Dirk Smith for Pirate Money Radio.
A powerful conversation with Kevin Freeman, Bob Burkle, and Dirk Smith on the remarkable mission of Eastern European Mission—printing and distributing millions of Bibles across Eastern Europe and beyond. From covert “Marlboro Bibles” to truckloads after the Berlin Wall fell, discover how Scripture is transforming schools, prisons, and entire communities. Hear true stories like the traveling train Bible that sparked a village revival and how today’s Bibles for Kids campaign is changing young lives. Learn how to partner at eem.org and fuel a movement where demand for God’s Word is outpacing supply.
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