When Vanek Was Here | Cambodia Testimony, Church Mission, Josiah Queen

Show open and docket

A produced voiceover opens the program, followed by the live show start from the Pathway Studios. The host runs the docket: two special guests are in the room — Vanek, a friend from Cambodia with a story about God's work there, and Cody McCormick in studio. He promises the show will be top notch rather than a dumpster fire.

Guest introductions and dress-code banter

The host introduces Vanek, who greets the listeners and hopes they will be okay with his pronunciation. Cody McCormick is welcomed back to the studio. Cody tells Mike he never got the dress-code memo and feels underdressed, and a tie gets put on for the occasion in honor of Donald, with whom Cody never got to do a show.

Gym membership comedy

The hosts trade self-deprecating gym-membership stories: paying every month while never going, the 'fat tax,' and being silently judged by teenagers at the high-school weight room. One host admits the unused membership feels like a promise he will never keep, addressed in jest to Mike.

Vanek's Buddhist childhood and violent father

• How did Vanek meet Jesus?

Vanek describes growing up in a Buddhist family: his father had been a monk for nine years before marrying, and his mother was active at the pagoda. His father drank often and terrorized the family — Vanek recalls being threatened with a long knife as a boy and vowing never to live with his father once grown. The hosts ask how Buddhist practice works, and Vanek explains pagoda visits, food offerings to monks, and ceremonies for weddings, funerals, and blessings.

Meeting Jesus at fifteen and the family's rejection

At fifteen, a youth leader's polite invitation — 'Brother, do you want to play football with my team?' — drew Vanek into church, where he came to faith. He says God changed him from the inside out: he now loves his alcoholic father unconditionally, citing the command to love God and love his neighbor. His parents forbade church, calling Jesus a foreigner God and fearing Christians do not properly honor parents or mourn the dead. The hosts discuss the outsider's view of Christian grief — 'we don't grieve like the rest of those who have no hope.'

How Buddhist practice works

The hosts ask Vanek whether Buddhist pagoda visits include moral teaching or only offerings. He explains the practice: laypeople offer food or money at the pagoda and ask monks to dedicate it, invite monks into homes for ceremonies, and follow what the family and community model. There is teaching, he says, but the emphasis is on practiced tradition handed down through generations.

From rejection to acceptance: the football team and a changed mother

Vanek's father had expected him, the only son, to serve as a monk for a time after high school — the normal custom. After being stopped from attending church for a year, a youth leader recruited him through his love of soccer by submitting his photo for a team application, which reopened the door. Over time his mother saw the change, stopped misunderstanding the faith, and began defending him at the market: 'My son really honor me and my husband.' She learned his whole weekly schedule and wakes him for church.

Child Development Ministry and Cambodia's post-genocide reality

Vanek explains the ministry he started, Child Development Ministry, now supporting over 300 children with the aim of transformed lives through education, faith, and community development. He sketches Cambodia's dark period: the Khmer Rouge killed nearly two million people, targeting teachers and the educated, leaving the country to start from zero with its first general election only in 1993. With jobs concentrated in a few cities, parents migrate for work and leave children behind; the ministry's learning centers supplement thin public schooling, provide food, teach Bible study, and visit homes.

Faith in action: the early-church parallel

A host connects Vanek's work to Rodney Stark's The Rise of Christianity: in a society that exposed unwanted infants, Christians went out nightly to rescue and care for them. The point is that action, not competing belief systems, softens hearts — 'People don't care how much you know unless they know how much you care.' Vanek confirms the ministry is explicitly a church ministry, open Monday through Sunday with Khmer, English, and math classes plus weekend Bible study, so the community sees tangible love before it hears the words.

How to help: giving without infrastructure

• How can listeners help support Vanek's ministry?

Vanek says he has no donor agency — only friends, a Singapore cell group that supports him after visiting, and personal supporters. Vanek mentions that Ben had asked about donor agencies on the drive over. The hosts encourage listeners to support faithful individuals directly even without nonprofit infrastructure: check it out, but it is fine to give through networks of friends and small churches. One host notes he skipped 501(c)(3) overhead this year — no office buildings, no t-shirts and logos — and offers the show's phone line, (515) 517-0085, as the contact point for anyone wanting to reach Vanek.

Fruit, the Pakistan friend, and guilt versus the Spirit

Vanek reports fruit: twenty young people in university, nine graduates — the first batch all women who overcame poverty — with support from Jim Ross and The Very Last ministry in Colorado Springs. A host tells the story of their friend Sarfraz in Pakistan, freed from debt slavery, and the $500 donkey cart that let him sell produce: 'I don't want another day to go by for this man to have to worry about how he might provide for his family.' The counsel is not to let guilt drive missions giving, but to pray and let the Spirit guide action — noting Dan's Zimbabwe work and asking Dan and Mike whether study-time conviction ever redirects them. Cash, the host notes, is simply easier to come by in America.

Cody's Josiah Queen concert: honoring Donald

Cody McCormick recounts the previous night's Josiah Queen concert at the Valor Ballroom in West Des Moines. Donald McCormick had loved Josiah Queen's songs 'The Garden in Manhattan' and the TikTok 'Barabbas' song; after Donald's death Cody emailed the production manager, enclosing Donald's funeral program, hoping to buy fifty tickets for the community. Mid-show, Josiah Queen told Donald's story, prayed over the family on stage, and dedicated a song. Cody notes Mike performed a song at Donald's funeral. The long first-person stretch of the concert story, including the car packed with Donald's unbelieving friends, the cream soda bought for Donald, and the blizzard-slowed ride home, is diarized under a host label but is Cody continuing his own account.

The crew watched the funeral: authenticity and the thread

After the show, stage manager Caleb told Cody that Josiah Queen had gathered his whole crew to watch Donald's funeral online — moved by the music selections and what people said about him. The hosts reflect on how rare authenticity is in the music industry and land the episode's thread: an awesome God does awesome things through faithful, normal people — the hands and feet of Jesus in every country. The host admits he once signed up for Josiah Queen text notifications and milked a birthday text to impress his kids.

Vanek the ultrarunner: 64 kilometers and a heart condition

The room learns Vanek runs: his longest run is 64 kilometers of mountain trail in eleven hours and twenty-three minutes, and he is running the London Marathon virtually next month. He says running is one way God helped him overcome Wolff-Parkinson-White, a heart condition with abnormal rhythm, instead of relying on medicine. He asks for prayer for a 100-kilometer ultra trail in Cambodia next January, which drew nearly 3,000 runners this year.

Dear LFTP: Martha, John, and Jerry

• How should a woman in love with her ex's brother tell friends, family, and his parents?

A host reads the first Dear LFTP letter: Martha dated John for two years, then he kept living with her six months after the breakup; John is an emotionally and verbally abusive alcoholic who burned every bridge. Martha has now fallen for John's brother Jerry, and they fear his elderly parents' disapproval. The hosts advise that feelings are untrustworthy, that neither the parents nor Jerry protected her from John, and that she needs a Christian community to evaluate her choices rather than secrecy. The Secular answer agrees the couple should not hide and says Jerry must tell his mother plainly or the relationship will wither.

Dear LFTP: the inheritance and the controlling husband

• Should a mother leave an inheritance to a daughter whose controlling husband will control it?

The second letter comes from a mother whose daughter married a controlling, rude husband; she wonders whether to leave a sizable inheritance knowing he will control it. Vanek declines to throw out an answer without knowing the root, offering his line about scratching the itch in the right spot — which the room adopts. The hosts reframe the question: what does the money facilitate, and will it produce blessing? They suggest alternative structures and, above all, local community and a pastor rather than a letter. The Secular answer suggests a trust paying monthly and leaving the remainder to a chosen cause.

Outro and sign-off

The host thanks Vanek and Cody, repeats the show's phone line (515) 517-0085 for anyone wanting to connect with Vanek, and notes he is out next week. The sign-off: 'be faithful in the means, God will handle the ends.'