Dive deep into the mission-driven life with Carl Barrett who has spent a significant part of his journey volunteering in some of the world’s most challenging environments. From prison walls to the epidemic of loneliness affecting today’s youth, Carl shares compelling insights and experiences that underline the importance of faith, obedience, and selfless service. Listen as he and Angie uncover the truth behind steadfast hope and the guiding principles of purposeful living.
00:00:01 Introduction to The Good News with Angie Austin
00:00:09 Discussion with Grace Fox About Her Travels
00:28:18 Conclusion and Carl Barrett’s Contact Details
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey there, friend. Angie Austin with The Good News along with Grace Fox. And we’re talking about the book, her book, Fresh Hope for Today, Devotions for Joy on the Journey, one of my favorites. And we’re moving to 152, the devotion titled Beyond Imagination. Welcome to you, Grace Fox.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thanks again for having me.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, before we do the devotion, I was thinking, you know, I love to talk about all your travels and all the countries you’ve been to and your ministry and the work you do in speaking around the world. And I was like, oh, as soon as like I’ve got one, you know, one left in high school, basically. And so one’s graduating in a few days. And then my son’s a freshman at college just finished. And I just I was thinking, well, I guess in two years, that’s when I’ll have like the total freedom right to travel, you know, a lot more. And I don’t know if like you, I’d travel for ministry because at this point, I don’t really have one that I would travel with. But I guess I could travel with yours.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I was thinking, have I got opportunities with you?
SPEAKER 05 :
But I thought, you know, as soon as she graduates, I’ll have that freedom because I’m in this group because I have a pass with Frontier Airlines. It’s not a high-end airline, but I have elite status, and so I get free luggage and seat selection, and I board first and things like that, and a lot more freedom to change my reservations and stuff. But this pass, I book 24 hours in advance or 10 days in advance for international flights. But in the country, one day in advance, and I can pretty much just fly to New York and go to a museum if I want. So I’m all excited about doing that, but I don’t have as much freedom with all the kids. But maybe next year, you know, because I’ll just have the one at home. But I just was thinking then I’ll be I can be more like you and find because I haven’t even been to Europe yet. You know, here I am, like practically a senior citizen. I haven’t even been to Europe yet.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, you just have a whole future ahead of you, and it’ll be really fun to see how that unfolds for you as the kids get older.
SPEAKER 05 :
I know. I know. It will be fun. I’ll miss them, but I’ll still take some tricks with them, too. I’ve got the girls. We’re going to Nashville because one of my daughters is going to go to school there, and she has a camp. She’s helping all the volleyball players in college help the younger kids at a camp, so I figured, oh, I’ll take my little one, but she’s going to miss a little bit of her basketball. So we’re plotting. This is terrible. We haven’t told my husband yet because my little one wants to go. And the coach said, you know, I don’t like to change my entire life because the kids have sports like she should. If she wants to go to Nashville and see some of the live music, like I want her to go, but she’ll miss a few days of practice. Right. And so we’re afraid to
SPEAKER 04 :
to tell my husband because we know we’re going to be in trouble it’s terrible but I said to her I’m like I’m going to leave it up to you because your coach did say don’t skip vacations and stuff during the summer but we’re both nervous to tell her dad so we haven’t told him yet and we leave in the middle of June we’re so bad I sound like I’m a teenager but we just don’t want to make him mad Oh, you’ll figure it out. We will. All right. So let’s get into our devotion beyond imagination. What do you teach us in this?
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, this is just one of my favorites. This is a great story. So Ephesians 3, 20 and 21 says, Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. And I love that, that God is able to do immeasurably more than anything we can even imagine. So there was this one time when my husband and I had to go to Slovakia for a staff conference with our ministry. And we wanted a niece of ours to come along. She owns a hair salon. And we thought if we could just bless our missionary staff with free haircuts, that’s just one way to love on them. And so our niece said, yeah, I’ll come. But can I bring another family member? This other one of my cousin’s kids worked for my niece in this hair salon. And Amanda, my niece, wanted to bring her along. And we said, of course. So now we had two hairstylists come into the staff conference. We thought that is so fantastic. So here’s the thing. I had to fly with a friend who had never flown before. She was a massage therapist, and she was coming along to bless our missionaries with that. She had never flown overseas, so I left from Vancouver with her. My niece and my cousin’s daughter left from Alberta, and our flights left within about two hours of each other, and we both were headed to London. So we’re going to meet up at the London Heathrow Airport. And if you’ve ever, if anybody’s ever been there, this place is massive with several terminals and you catch a bus to go from one terminal to the next. It’s like a city. So, you know, trying to meet up with somebody there is no small feat. But anyways, we land and there had been fog. So there was havoc everywhere at the airport, like hundreds of incoming flights that day were delayed. And their flight was delayed, ours was delayed. And all I’m thinking is, How in the world are we ever going to meet up with them now? Because, like, our plane sat on the tarmac for probably 45 minutes or an hour after we landed, just waiting for a gate to open for us to go in.
SPEAKER 05 :
Wait, so this is back when they used to do that white paging telephone. You know, Grace Fox, please go to a white paging telephone for a message. Like, back when it was like that, when you didn’t have any way to reach anybody but that overhead-like system thing.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, we had cell phones then. This was not that long ago. But it was like, we’re sitting on a plane and they’re sitting on a plane. And how are we going to find each other in this airport? Except, you know, we’ll be able to somehow figure it out. But really, how is this going to work out with hundreds of thousands of people in that airport in that one day alone? So we end up having to go through passport control, and you have to do that when you enter the country. So there’s masses of people, and the line zigzags back and forth like it does at Disneyland, you know?
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, my goodness.
SPEAKER 07 :
So anyways, we head to a line on the right, and a security guard just stops me with his hand and points to the left. And so I went, okay, I go that way, obviously, so… So I’m standing there with my friend, and we’re talking, and I’m, you know, looking at my phone and thinking, now I’ve got to text. But, you know, the phone rates, everything changes as soon as you hear it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, right. That’s right.
SPEAKER 07 :
So you don’t want to do this if you don’t have to. But anyway, so my friend and I are talking, and I just happened to glance up for a second, and I look at the head of this one woman standing in front of me. She turned sideways to talk to the friend beside her, and I realized this is my niece.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, my goodness.
SPEAKER 07 :
With my cousin’s daughter standing right in front of us and, you know, going through passport control at the same time, even though our flights came in, we were delayed sitting on the track. I mean, a mass of traffic in the airport. The chances of landing right behind them in passport control were zero to none. Yeah. And this, you know, this was critical because I don’t think she’d ever traveled overseas and neither had my cousin’s daughter. So if we missed each other, I would be responsible for three people who really didn’t have a clue what they were doing. And I just felt so responsible for them. But it was like, this is an example of what God is able to do when you just commit your work to him and you say, I need your help here. I got to get this right, you know, for the sake of these people and everything. You need to come through and do something that’s bigger than I can even imagine right now.
SPEAKER 05 :
I love your prayer. God, please answer my prayers in a way beyond imagination and bring glory to your name. Like I can’t even imagine your relief in a, you know, an airport that big where you’re taking buses from terminal to terminal and there’s hundreds of thousands of people and there’s havoc because of the fog. And so it’s overwhelmed with them for people that have been, you know, delayed and sitting on the tarmac, et cetera. Oh my, and flights then not leaving because they’ve got more people clogging up the system because they can’t leave because of the fog. Oh my goodness. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
It was totally an example of God’s immense goodness that day. All of us, like we just looked at each other and our jaws just kind of dropped and I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Why do we not believe it when we prayed for God to do something amazing, right? But that’s just the human band says, whoo, how did that happen? Well, because we prayed and God came through. We needn’t be so, so shocked when he does, but yeah, But it’s just so much fun to be involved in a situation like that where it’s God or nothing.
SPEAKER 05 :
I love that, God or nothing. That is so cool. Well, I was recently praying for something that we’ve been kind of working on for about six months. I don’t know if I mentioned it to you last week or not. And we are waiting for a couple of things to come through that take like a month to get answers on and paperwork and testing and this, that, and the other. And so I thought we’d have to really take it up to the wire and not know until later on this summer. But we got the answer early through like other people kind of helping us. And they’re all Christians in this group that we are working with. So I was really relieved because I was starting. Oh, I did talk to you a little bit about just when the anxiety starts to get to you. And you’re trying to disqual that anxiety like we talked about last week and how we’re not supposed to feel that way. We talked about when your baby was born and you were in Nepal and you had to stay in Nepal and your husband had to take the sick newborn infant back, you know, and you didn’t even know if you’d see her again. And so I was like, well, that’s a little more stressful than what I’m going through. So I’ve got to kind of lean on Grace’s advice on this one.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. And, you know, in cases like that, it’s hard to not feel stressed. So it’s not wrong to feel stressed, but it’s so important with what we do with it. Because if we let those stressful thoughts take up residence in our mind, if we just decide to camp on those stressful thoughts, that’s when we hit start. heading down the wrong trail and we want to maybe step into control and we start to try to manipulate things and we try to, or we start losing sleep and it affects our bodies in a physical way. But it’s recognizing that stress and then choosing to not camp on those stressful thoughts, but choosing to recite what we know to be true based on the word of God and letting our thoughts camp on those truths.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, my friend used to call it, or she used to say, don’t give those thoughts free rent in your head, you know, that they shouldn’t be able to reside there for free, you know. And I think about your journey with your husband and how long he’s battled his health issues and, you know, all the things you’ve gone through with that and waiting for answers and testing. I mean, it’s been several years, hasn’t it?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, he’s doing so much better. He had the treatment for, it was prostate cancer, and, yeah. You know, he had been diagnosed 10 years prior and the doctors had just kept a good close eye on things and frequent testing. And when the numbers started all of a sudden escalating, they said, okay, now’s the time. You have to take action on this. And he did. But it took probably 10 months for recovery from the treatment that he had. And, yeah, that was a journey. That was a long journey for him, a very active person to all of a sudden, you know, need help. so much more sleep and just a lot of other side effects that he had to deal with, but doing so much better now for which was great.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, but even the 10 years and in the 10 months, so the 10 years and then the 10 months of treatment recovery, but the 10 years of not letting that stress take, you know, have free rent in your head, you know, for both of you, you know, and so that’s when you really have to lean on your faith. Okay. So what’s the next book coming out for you?
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, I’m so excited about this one. It’s Names of God, Knowing Peace. So it’s the first one in the book series, Names of God, Living Unafraid. We talked about last week how it just won the Editor’s Choice Award 2025 for, they say it’s a prestigious award for quality writing and like flawless editing and So I’m just really, really thrilled with this book. But the second one in the series is the one coming out in July, Names of God, Knowing Peace. So taking a deep dive into seven biblical names of God and really exploring them and then seeing what do they mean, where do they show up in the Bible, how have I experienced God by those names, how have other women experienced God by those names, so interviews that I’ve done, but also how did Jesus fulfill those names, and then What do we do with this? So how do we get it from our head to our heart and start applying this? What difference does this knowledge make in our lives? Because nobody needs more head knowledge. We’re getting knowledge from everywhere. We need to take that knowledge and apply it for absolute transformation in our lives. And so questions and free video teaching for every chapter, it’s all there to make it super simple for small groups to use.
SPEAKER 05 :
I love it. GraceFox.com. Thank you, friend. Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 07 :
Fort Morgan is listening to the mighty 670 KLT Denver.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey there, friend. Angie Austin here with the good news, along with the author of God’s People Count. Carl Barrett is joining us. Welcome, Carl.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good morning, Angie. How are you doing? Thank you for having me on your program.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, you are welcome. All right, so just give us kind of an overview as we get started here in the interview of your book, God’s People Count.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, God’s People Count is all about the guide through the book of Numbers. And what you really see, a lot of people… As you look at the books of Leviticus and Numbers, and they don’t see a lot of underlying messages that apply to us today, but Numbers is a beautiful portrait of how God is now starting to bridge the gap from the time that he gave the law, his laws to the Israelites. Now he’s going to bridge that gap all the way to the promised land. But what you discover in the book of Numbers is a journey that should have taken 11 days is now going to take 38 years, all because… the two key components that lay in this particular book is being faithful to God and obedience to his laws and commands. God even tells that generation, that second generation of Israelites, because of the failings of the first generation from the Exodus, that you’ll be counted righteous if you will obey all my commands. This book is going to show us how We could be faithful and obedient to God, but we could also look at the ramifications and consequences if we test God’s patience, as you see throughout the drama of this unbelievable book.
SPEAKER 05 :
So again, God’s People Count, Connecting God’s Dots, A Guide Through the Book of Numbers. Now, one interesting thing is I was reading up on you in the book is that you volunteered. I’m sure everyone asks you about this inside one of the most dangerous prisons in the States. So why did you do that? And what did you learn? First of all, why?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I surrendered to preach back in 1978, Angie. And I was a licensed preacher in an association. And I served in various capacities in the church and ministry in the field. But there was this something that I felt like there was a void in my life. There was something missing. I felt like God was calling me to do something else. And what little did I know, I grew up in a very, very dysfunctional family. This could be a story for another day on your program, but I grew up in a family with a lot of verbal, sexual, physical, drug, and alcohol abuse. But what little did I know, Angie, is how God would use that in a ministry that he called me to there in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the New Mexico State Penitentiary. And when my wife saw the posting in the church bulletin, she said, I think this may be for you. I looked at it, and I did not hesitate, Angie. I said, I want to learn all the do’s and don’ts, and I didn’t care what kind of facility it was. And I got to tell you, when you walk into a compound like the New Mexico State Penitentiary, like you said, one of the most dangerous penal institutions in the entire United States, and those doors slam shut, I’m here to tell you, it’ll send goosebumps up a dang spine. But I’m here to also tell you that when you are out to serve God, And you are wholeheartedly committed to him. He will protect you. He will guide you. And he will provide you with the wisdom and the knowledge and insight and the right words as you’re spreading the good news to anyone and everyone, no matter who they are, what they’ve done, or where they are in life.
SPEAKER 05 :
So this is your wife. She sees this in the bulletin to volunteer with one of the most dangerous prisons in the U.S. This is a wife that’s like you? She likes you? This is a wife that likes you and you’re still married? Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, yes. I served. This is our 44th year this year to be married. And so, yeah, we’re still married. But she knew there was something that the Lord was calling me to. And it’s amazing how God’s timing was so perfect on that one Sunday morning. And I haven’t looked back. And I got to tell you, I have served in a state penitentiary. I have served in a detention center. I’ve served in minimum security, and I’ve even served in the most challenging, I think, of all. I know we’re talking about one of the most dangerous prisons in the United States, but I’ve got to tell you, one of the sad, most difficult, challenging prisons. ministries is juvenile detention, Angie. That is really challenging.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I can imagine. I grew up in a dysfunctional family, too. And one of my brothers was in a juvenile detention facility. And then another one of my brothers was murdered when he was in his early 30s. And the one that was in juvie, that was scary. I mean, it was full lockdown. And you’re right. It’s like these kids are so hurt. hurt. It’s just unbelievable, uh, the environment. So I can imagine that that would be challenging. I mean, as a woman, I think I deal, I, I view going into a very dangerous prison a little differently maybe than a man would. But I remember them telling my mom and I, at the time I was a teenager that we couldn’t meet with him inside because it’d be too dangerous for me. So we had to meet him like outside at a picnic table, you know, behind the fence, of course, but I couldn’t go in the building.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Yeah. It’s, it’s, uh, When I was for years, Angie, I mentored with men that were between the age of 20 and 65. Now, all of a sudden, I’m mentoring with young men, young boys that are between the ages of 5 and 12. And the mindset is different. The intellect is different. And then you’re talking to an 8-year-old boy who’s been in and out of halfway houses and orphanages and foster homes. since the age of one, and he has no recollection of who his real mom and dad is. I mean, it’s just so sad. And one of the things I learned as an instructor for National Fatherhood Initiative, that is 90%, 90%, think about this, Angie, 90% of homeless teenagers come from a fatherless home. Wow. That is so staggering. And that’s part of the epidemic that we’re seeing today with a lot of what teenagers are struggling with loneliness and even hopelessness and helplessness because they’re not searching in the right places because they’ve had no biblical, spiritual guidance in their lives. And we see a lot of that in the book of Numbers because God, what you see in the book of Numbers is that you start to see God is a God of order, but He also, because what we talked about earlier with the first generation, now there’s a hope for the second generation. So It’s a powerful book that people just don’t really see the personal life application that can apply to your life even today.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, when you do talk about that loneliness, obviously the epidemic of loneliness affecting many, but what do you think are some of the factors contributing behind the epidemic of loneliness in teens and young people?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know, part of that is the lack of biblical and spiritual guidance in homes. I mean, in my fifth book that I’m working on right now, it all starts with parents. I mean, in one survey by the Barnard Group, 70% of parents are concerned that their children, when they reach the age of 18, Angie, will walk away from the faith. And I think, really, a Christian parent, 70% of you, are concerned that your children will walk away when they’re 18 from the faith, then that tells you what was their lack of as far as active involvement and engagement since the early stages of their consciousness. So it all starts in the home, whether you’re a mother, father, guardian, any type of family leader. It all starts in the home. And here’s what’s happening. Now there’s new statistics saying that Almost 60% of teenagers are in a state of loneliness. I believe it. There’s a lot of variables that can lead to that, and social media and technology is a crushing part of that problem. Because a lot of people, they can’t connect with people in society because for whatever reason they’re looked down upon. And then what happens is they start looking at falsehoods. other areas like social media and technology where they get, they can easily get deceived and caught into this realm, this, this, this world that you’re not connecting to the way that the, that the Lord wants us to connect. And, and, and it goes back to what we talked about in the homes. It’s just a sad statistics of what’s, what’s leading to, that’s why it’s so important that you see it in my book, finding that common ground, how we can connect with people because it’s, I’m here to tell you, Angie, there’s a lot of people. It could be in your own family, your friends, your neighborhood, your community, even your church and schools. There’s a lot of hopeless and helpless people out there that are crying out for help.
SPEAKER 05 :
You said you felt like something was missing in your life when you saw that posting in the church bulletin about volunteering at the prison. I want to ask you two things. What do you say our calling in life is supposed to be as followers of Christ? And then I want to know a little about what the experience was like actually volunteering in the prison. So what do you say our calling in life is supposed to be as Christians?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, number one is we need to be imitators of Christ, as Paul tells us in Ephesians 5, verse 1. and then we need to be fulfilling the Great Commission. I’m a firm believer that if you follow the greatest command, love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbors equally as yourself, then what you’ll do is you’ll start to find out that you’re starting to connect with people because you want to fulfill the Great Commission. I mean, but I’ll tell you another big part of it, and you’re seeing it in churches today, Angie, is that people don’t do what Paul tells us to do in 2 Corinthians chapter 13. We’re not doing a genuine self-examination of our Christian walk, our spiritual life, to where we can really determine where our true faith doesn’t really lie in the promises of Jesus Christ. And I will tell you this, and I think this may help, is that so many times in mentoring sessions, an inmate who just became a new believer in Christ will say, Carl, from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, I… The Word of God is so full of depth and richness. I don’t know where to start. I’m going to make it really, really easy. On a comprehension level in the prison, you have to do this. Look at Galatians chapter 5. In there lies a true measuring stick for each and every one of us, starting with the fruit of the Spirit, from love all the way to self-control. Nine key elements in our daily life. All of us either will excel, or we either fail in many of those areas every day. And what we need to do is we need to do a self-examination like Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians, and we need to determine what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses, what are the opportunities for us and connect with people to where we can be genuine followers of Christ, where people see faith, love, obedience, and hope in our life. And then we need to look for those threats that the enemy, those tactics and strategies that he’s putting out as far as barriers in our life that prevents us from using those gifts and even our talents for being a genuine follower of Jesus Christ. So I know that was a long-winded explanation.
SPEAKER 04 :
Are you still volunteering in the prisons, by the way?
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m sorry?
SPEAKER 05 :
Are you still volunteering at the prison, by the way?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, I retired three years ago and I retired in Tyler, Texas, uh, for family reasons. Uh, unfortunately, uh, because of a lot of caregiving that we’re having to do for family members, that’s sort of taken precedence in my life. Uh, unfortunately, but that’s, that’s our calling for right now. So, but going back to that boy that you were talking about, I still needed to find something to do, uh, outside of writing books in the morning. I still need something to do in the afternoon to get me out of the hole and out of caregiving that can keep me connected with people. So now I deliver pharmaceutical items to nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and people at their homes who may be in hospice to where I can still connect with people that are in dire need for that need for hope and help. Because I’m here to tell you, Angie, it’s not just in the prison laws. Outside the prison walls, going back to what I said earlier, there are people in our neighborhoods that are living in a state of isolation.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, yes. I want to have you come back, Carl. I hate to cut you off so abruptly. The time got away from us. Give us your website real quickly, please.
SPEAKER 03 :
It is www.mondayblues2sundaypews.com. Pretty simple, mondayblues2sundaypews.com.
SPEAKER 05 :
And that’s God People Count, and that is Mr. Carl Barrett. Thank you, Carl. Thank you, Angie.
SPEAKER 04 :
Appreciate it.
SPEAKER 02 :
You bet. Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
Dive deep into the mission-driven life with Carl Barrett who has spent a significant part of his journey volunteering in some of the world’s most challenging environments. From prison walls to the epidemic of loneliness affecting today’s youth, Carl shares compelling insights and experiences that underline the importance of faith, obedience, and selfless service. Listen as he and Angie uncover the truth behind steadfast hope and the guiding principles of purposeful living.
