From Broncos to Boundless Love: George Sisneros

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In this powerful podcast episode, we hear the journey of George Sisneros, whose priorities were dramatically reshaped. 

Initially living the American Dream with thriving businesses and a love for the Denver Broncos, he experiences a profound spiritual awakening. 

Through introspection and a probing divine question about his true loves, he embarks on a mission-driven path, ultimately re-locating to Guatemala. 

Compelled to exchange frequent prayers for a simple 'I love you' to God, he finds fulfillment in missionary work, reflecting on faith, family, love, and a genuine call to serve beyond comfort and material success.

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Transcript

[00:03] George Sisneros: So then he asked me a question that is funny and sad, but he asked me, do you love me more than you love the Denver Broncos? And of course, in my mind, I'm like, of course I love. But before I could really even get the thought out, before I could say, of course I love you more than the Denver Broncos, like, that should be a very easy thing to say, I thought about it and I just spent three hours watching my team on tv. And I do every single Sunday. I had never in my life spent three hours praying and talking to God in my whole life. I had never spent three hours in worship or reading the Bible in my whole life. I had never spent three straight hours with God. Yet every Sunday I was spending three hours with God. Foreign.

[00:58] Jan: Welcome to Just Talking About Jesus. Boy, you are an adventurer. You do all kinds of adventures. What are a few things you like to do?

[01:09] George Sisneros: Oh, my gosh, I have done a lot of adventure. I've run a marathon and, you know, jumped out of an airplane. I even paid $100 once to wrestle an alligator, which was kind of goofy. That was, that was over a decade ago. So what do I like to do now? I really just like to. I like to experience life. I don't, you know, less being at home, but doing things with my wife. So we've traveled around the world. We've traveled to Cuba. Our favorite city is New York City. We've only been there a few times, but we love it. Please. Matter of fact, in July, I have a trip set with my sons to climb a high Colorado mountain lake and camp out overnight, which is a lot of fun. But my wife and I have climbed volcanoes here in Guatemala, the third highest volcano or peak in Central America. Spent the night in the crater. It's a dormant volcano, but mostly dormant.

[02:10] Jan: Yeah.

[02:11] George Sisneros: So, yeah, we like to savor life.

[02:14] Jan: Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. So you are doing some missions now. What made you jump? What were you doing first and then what made you jump into doing that?

[02:27] George Sisneros: Well, I never thought about or planned to be a missionary or do missions work in really any way, shape or form. My wife grew up as a strong believer who always wanted to do missions. She had gone on all kinds of different missions trips, short term trips to Honduras and just other places throughout the world. And when we were married, I owned my own businesses. I had a couple of small businesses. They were doing really well. We were making, you know, six figures. I wasn't working that hard, to be honest. Maybe 35 hours a week. And we were Living a really good life. We had a beautiful home and four kids and really living the American dream. Our church had an opportunity. Somebody canceled. And so there was this extra space to go on a trip to Guatemala. And so I, I thought, you know, I'm going to go on that trip. And my wife wasn't able to go, but I was able to go on that trip. It was just a week. And really, it was on that trip that I, that I realized that God was calling me and my wife to leave what we had and to serve him. It kind of starts. I'll back up one step, because this previous step is really kind of the catalyst of everything. And that step happened in, I think it was the end of 2010. I was at home in Colorado. We're from the United States. We're from Colorado. And I was watching the Denver Broncos on tv. I remember I was in my basement and, and the game was over. And I just remember sitting there kind of in silence, and I felt the Holy Spirit asking me, or felt God asking me if I loved him. And it was just kind of a weird question. I'm like, yeah, of course. In my mind, I'm like, of course I love you. And then I felt him ask. Well, it was, it was. Yeah, it did. As I, it's funny because I, as I look back, it did feel that way, because then he. But then he asked me, do you love me more than you love your wife? And I thought about it, and, you know, I see my wife every day. I see her physically. We have coffee together, we pray together, we eat together, all the stuff. We travel and experience life together. And, you know, I thought about him like, you know, I, I love my wife more, which is very humbling. Right? And, and really, what am I going to do? I, I'm not going to lie to God. Like, I, I had to be honest.

[04:51] Jan: With myself, who actually already knows.

[04:56] George Sisneros: Yeah. And then he asked. And so, really, so, and that's actually a good point, because he was really, I mean, he knew. He was just pointing some things out to me. And so then he asked me if I loved him more than I loved my kids. And anybody that has kids will tell you, I, I, we now have nine. And if one of my kids needed a heart transplant and I was the only possible donor, I would give them my heart. I love my kids. I would die for my kids. And so I, you know, I said, I, I love my kids. It was easier off the tongue. I love my kids more than I love you. But then he asked. So then he asked me a question that is funny and sad, but he asked me, do you love me more than you love the Denver Broncos? And. And of course, in my mind, I'm like, of course I love. But before I could really even get the thought thought out, before I could say, of course I love you more than the Denver Broncos, like, that should be a very easy thing to say, I. I thought about it, and I just spent three hours watching my team on tv. And I do every single Sunday. I had never in my life spent three hours praying and talking to God in my whole life. I had never spent three hours in worship or reading the Bible in my whole life. I had never spent three straight hours with God. Yet every Sunday I was spending three hours with God. And so it really, really convicted me. And honestly, it made me think in my heart, do I even love God? Like, do I even love him? Because here's the thing. It's easy to say that you love God. It's easy to say that you're a Christian and profess your love for him, but it is a whole other thing to live that way. So that night, I'm laying in bed with my wife and I'm telling her, listen, this is what happened. And just in my heart and in my spirit, I felt these questions and these were my answers. And I told her, I said, you know, I'm gonna stop praying. And so I literally, I'm gonna stop praying for an entire year, and I'm gonna trade all those prayers for a three word prayer for an entire year. I'm just gonna pray. I love you. Like, I wanted to be in love with the Lord. I didn't even know what that meant completely, but I definitely wanted to love him more than my wife and my kids. Like, that's what we're called to do. Those are the two greatest commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. And so for an entire year, I love you. And it was a year later that that spot opened up almost to the day. Weirdly, November of 2011, that spot opened up. I went on this missions trip. Nothing special. I didn't feel like God was telling me to go on this mission trip. I just, it opened up and so I went, I, it. We were at an orphanage. And at the end of that trip, we went to a feeding center at a church. It was a cafeteria. And that the room was filled with young kids, probably 5 to 12, 13 years old, 15, maybe 200 kids. And I can just, I can Picture the scene. I can hear the kind of the kids talking. Not real loud, but just. There was just a room filled with people talking. And then the worship team started up and they started singing and playing and every kid in the room just stood up. This is in Guatemala City, Zone 6. Now I know like poor, poor kids live there. They're all standing up, they're raising their hands in the air and they're, they're just so happy. And I could feel their love for God. And I, and, and I'm, I'm at the back of the room and I'm looking at this and I'm like, wow, that's love. They love God. And it was on that day that I realized and recognized I loved God. Like I, for the first time in my life, I was 45 years old. I love God. And God grabbed me by the heart that day. And again, I hadn't heard from him really in a year since that time in the basement. And he said, okay, I want you. I want all of you. I don't want you on weekends, I want you. And to me that meant that he wanted me to serve him with my life. And really that's what a believer is called to do, is to give up their life, like to deny themselves, to take up their cross and follow him. That's what the word says. But do we know what that means? And so I said, okay. And to me that meant coming to Guatemala. So I got home again. My wife wasn't with me. I remember the day perfectly because when you remember those impactful events in your life. I remember walking up the steps. We lived in Colorado, it had just snowed. I remember that it just snowed because I remember the kind of, the crunchy sound of snow under my feet. And I went inside, my wife's waiting for me. It's like 11 at night, late night flight. And we talked for a little while, went to bed. We're laying in bed and I remember we're laying there in my, I'm holding her hand. So we're laying side by side and I'm holding her hand and I'm telling her about everything that's been going on. And in my head just kind of like, like, what is she going to say about this? I kind of, I had a deal with God and the deal was like, I'm in, but you, you gotta, you gotta talk to her. And so I'm laying there and I'm telling her. And then, then I told her, you know, what I felt God was calling us to do. And Remember, we were living a very good life, really. We were debt free. We had a very strong marriage. We had four kids, literally living our best life. And. And I told her, and she literally. It was quiet for, I don't know, it felt like a bit, but it was three or four seconds. And she said one word and she said, okay, that was December, first week of December. Christmas, obviously is coming up, New Year's. And so we thought, okay. We made that decision that night, Jane, and we said, all right, we're putting our house on the market first week of January. Because we wanted to get through the holidays. We put our house on the market seven months later. From the day I returned back, we had sold our home, our businesses, all the kids toys, and we were landing in Guatemala City.

[11:31] Jan: Wow. Wow.

[11:32] George Sisneros: So that's how it happened.

[11:34] Jan: I know, but isn't that just how, you know the time when you come when you can be a Christian for how long? And then all of a sudden something. Something just like womp. And it's just like. It's just such a Holy Spirit moment that you just. You're overcome with, yeah, what does that really mean? And what is my responsibility? And what am I going to do with that? And, yeah, my whole time and thinking, and what is God telling your wife?

[12:03] George Sisneros: Absolutely.

[12:04] Jan: Because, yeah, as you know, it's kind of a moment like, you know, I don't know if you watch the Chosen, but the. Where the Nicodemus is trying to make a decision and kind of wants to go with Jesus, but it's like too much to give it all up. And to, you know, that's.

[12:21] George Sisneros: That's really the, the, you know, the whole point of the rich young ruler is that it's not the money. It's that the money was his God. The money ruled him. The money, he couldn't give it up. And God took us literally at the pinnacle. We had never. We'd never made so much money with, you know, such a little effort. And I'm not going to say it was easy, but such a little effort. We were debt free. We had gotten out of debt within the last couple of years. I mean, he literally took us from the best we'd ever been, ever. And. And it's like. I mean, that's the moment he used to say, follow me. And we didn't, interestingly, we didn't pray about it, which is a weird thing because I think as Christ were like, oh, well, I got to pray about this decision. And, you know, it was years later, for a couple of years, I felt Bad about that. Here we are in Guatemala. We were just kind of taking the next step and just following the stones that he had put out for us to just walk across. And a couple years later, I'm like, I had this kind of pain in my heart. Like, not in any way, like, did we make the right decision. I just felt like, as a Christian, we should have prayed about it. And I remember being out in the living room and reading the Bible. And I remember reading specifically. It was just so beautiful because God knew my pain and what that meant to me. And he just gave me this scripture. And it's like he's calling Peter. He says, drop your nets and follow me, and I'll make you fisher of men. And you know what Peter didn't do? He didn't pray about it. You know what he did? He dropped his nets and he followed him. And it just gave me so much relief that it's okay. Because I think as Christians, sometimes I think we use prayer as a stalling tactic. Now I listen, I. I'm all for praying, and trust me, I. I pray, like, every time I write my Bible study, I. I pray that God would give me the words. And so I think it's important. Of course it's important to pray. But that being said, you know, be careful, because I believe in my case and in my life, in our life, that because we were moving, God was able to move us and direct us. It's very hard to move or to direct a parked car. So, yeah.

[14:44] Jan: Yeah. So I just finished writing a Bible study, and it's called discovering your journey. And so the gist of it is, you know, mapping up your life because of this has happened, resulting in. And then we come, you know, comparing that to the lives of Ruth, Jonah, David and Joseph. But as we're doing, I'm doing it with my own Bible study right now group right now, just kind of playing it out, seeing how it goes. But the thing is, when especially like, you're looking at David, you're looking at Joseph, particularly what were the things that God used in his life to get him to be where he was? You know, I mean, and. And so I want to ask you, what were the things in building your businesses and doing, you know, the availability of funds to do what you wanted? What were those type of things that you've brought to your new mission life? You know, those.

[15:42] George Sisneros: Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

[15:43] Jan: You know that because. Because you were there, now you can successfully be here. What kind of types of things?

[15:52] George Sisneros: Listen, I. I fully, completely believe that Everything that God. It's really Romans 8:28. And God will, can use anything for his glory and all of our circumstances. And I, you know, when you get to be my age, you've gone through a lot of stuff and a lot of really hard stuff. And how is, how is God going to use that in my life? Well, he has our, our. My first, you know, year of marriage was brutal. It was very hard. And then the next six years were also super duper hard. And so God took us through that fire and thank the Lord because I'm madly in love now, but he took us through that fire to strengthen us to be able to be in a place that we could take this, take this mission and to come here. You know, he. We were 40 some thousand dollars in debt a couple of years before we came to Guatemala. And for whatever reason we were, we just decided, you know what, we are going to get out of debt. We didn't, we weren't at all thinking about our future and future missions being on the field in any way, shape or form. But it was just, I think we just got tired of it and we, we got tired of the wait. But God used that time because I, I don't believe it would have made any sense for us to go onto the field with any kind of debt. Well, we have like $45,000 worth of debt. So we made this decision again, it's just these, this is, you know, something in our lives. We make a decision. It's like, okay, let's do this for a year. So we decided to take an entire year off of spending money. So that meant no gifts for, for Christmas or birthdays. That meant no going out to dinner, fast food that like, other than the necessities of, you know, groceries to, to cook at home to, you know, utilities and mortgage and that, the basics. And we were out of debt. It, I think it took us 14 months to get completely out of debt. And so God used that time. We didn't have no idea he was preparing us to go onto the field. And because I think a lot of missionaries, short term, maybe longer term, I think a lot of them come because they feel like they can fix their marriage if they're focusing and serving God. Or they come and they're like, well, you know, I don't like my job, I want to do something different. And so, you know, let's try to do missions and this way I don't have to, you know, work a job, blah, blah, blah. Well, let me tell you, I've never worked harder in my entire life. Like I put more hours into this ministry. But the interesting thing about it is that I, I, I love it. Like I work late, I work long hours and I just absolutely love what I do. So I mean it, it literally, if you go back to, you know, college, I studied journalism and I ended up not becoming a journalist. But I learned to write and to communicate and I got, I never used that before I got onto the field. And as a missionary, I can tell you that's one of the unsexy parts about being a missionary is just the communication with supporters telling the story of what God is doing in the ministry. So the entire way, throughout my entire life, God has been preparing me to do the work that we're doing now.

[19:16] Jan: I think that's true. You know, there's so many things, so many things. And especially if you really start to look back and say, oh, because I knew how to do this, I did this and came to that, it's just like, yeah, so much. And even the pain points, you know, he uses our pain points, you know, either to share with somebody else or minister to somebody else or just to build us up and to know that we can trust him through it, you know, the other side of it through there. Yeah. So tell us about what your day to day is like, what are the things that you've started and just tell us about that.

[19:54] George Sisneros: Wow, this ministry has gone through so much transition. I think when we got here we were on a need-to-know basis. God said, okay, get to Guatemala. We got to Guatemala and we, the plans that we had to work with another ministry just weren't coming together. So I really felt again the Lord just directing our steps. And so my kids went to a missionary kids school here in Guatemala. My wife volunteered there and I stayed at home and I didn't go out and feed people, I didn't build houses. I didn't do all the stuff that I think a lot of people think of as missionary work. What I felt God calling me to do was to learn the language, to learn Spanish because we didn't know it and to spend time in the word, like to continue to build on that relationship, that kind of a new relationship. I just fallen in love with God and so to build that relationship. So I did that for probably six to nine months. From there we started, we found a small village in the mountains and that there was no missionary presence. We started an after-school program for boys. We didn't even know why. Again, just kind of felt that that was the leading of the Lord that we started this elementary program after I think it was about three or four years. We decided, you know, they're a little bit young to really fully grasp, you know, the significance of the gospel. And not that they can't, but we felt like we would maybe have more opportunity to teach a bit older boys to really grab ahold of what it meant to follow Jesus and to, to know him and, and really to accept his invitation of salvation. And so we started, we actually founded a private middle school. We only have you know, 30, 35 kids that come to the school. It's a small village. So my day to day is that I get up early, read the Bible, pray, prepare for my day. And when I say early I generally am up at about 4:30 or 5:00 clock in the morning and then I'm preparing for the Bible study that day. We are going through basically a chapter a day. We started in Luke, we then went to Acts and we're now in Romans and we're just. Every day I'm teaching a chapter of the Bible we're going to through. So I prepare for that. But then I teach that and it's about an hour-long lesson. It's, it's pretty deep and ah, it's where, it's where my heart is. I absolutely love it so that I do that. I also prepare. It takes a little bit longer for this preparation but I also teach a Bible study on Wednesday nights to the community. And so right now we're in Galatians and Galatians is very dense, a lot like Romans and so it just takes a lot of preparation. We go verse by verse and we cover a chapter tonight and it is pretty intense. But I, I also love that. And then my, my, my heart really is in the Bible study that I write. So currently I'm in the book of Acts, chapter 22 and I go line by line. It's like a commentary. But I think commentaries can be hard to read. It's an easy to read and understand commentary is the best way I it Generally it takes two to three. It's taken as many as five newsletters to cover one chapter. I try to keep it to one or two if I possibly can, but it almost always takes two or three. For example, chapter 22 is going to take two. The last chapter I took, I think it took three. And so that, that's the depth that I go into it. So if it takes four newsletters to go through a chapter, that's a month. I only send them out once a week. They're pretty beefy. Like, my newsletters are about 2,000 words, which is quite a bit. It's grown a lot. It took, it took 14 months to grow to a thousand subscribers, and then it took five weeks or six weeks to grow to 2,000. And then we're currently at 20. Probably this week we'll hit 2,500 subscribers. And the crazy thing about that is, as you know, you've got a newsletter, the open rate is extremely high. It's like a 67% open rate, which is unheard of, really. Generally it's like 25%, 20%. And so the people that are getting it, it's a lot to read, but they clearly love it because they continue to open it and it's, it's really starting to grab some feet and grow. So I, I spend a lot of time, I probably spend 10 to 15 hours preparing and writing, so studying and researching and, and writing for that newsletter. I obviously, obviously we need to raise money so just to, you know, pay our teachers and to run this program and to do everything that we do that, you know, I spend time doing, doing that. And that's more missionary work that most people don't think about and then don't think of, like, oh, you know, go be a missionary and raise money. I mean, it's just. So those are some of the things. We've got a feeding program, we have a medical program, we have a widow's program where we've adopted eight widows from our community and we just take care of them, we love them, we help them with their medical needs, we help them with. We deliver food once a month and just those types of things, of course, we pray over them. And so those are some of the things that I do day to day and some of the things that the ministry does.

[25:27] Jan: Yeah, yeah. Wow. And you know, when you talk about what you're doing with your. Just your Bible study and your newsletter, I mean, look at how God can use us thanks to the Internet, you know, but for way more impact than you ever could have imagined, you know, just to be able to, rather than, you know, with one on one. Okay, so here's a question then. This is something I think about all the time is what are the gifts that God's given you or your bents or your spiritual gifts? How do you see those playing out in what you're doing now?

[26:07] George Sisneros: Well, you know, I was, I was so interesting because I was horrible student in school. I graduated by the hair of my chinny chin chin. I just barely got through. I Went, I wasn't able to go to the university that I dreamed about, which is funny that I would even dream to go to college. So I entered into a lower tiered college and then after a year I transferred to Colorado State University, which is my uniform I wear, I wear it every day. So I transferred there. But I just, I was still, I mean, all along the way I was a horrible student. I'm not. I just didn't enjoy the learning process and I wanted to party and have fun and that was probably the reason I wanted to go to that school. And so it's interesting how, you know, here I am in a village in Guatemala and I, I started, founded and am a big part of running this school, which is crazy. So, you know, what gifts has he given me? I think the biggest gift God has given me is really just my compassion to teach my compassion to teach people about him. I mean, I just, man, I have this incredible heart for men specifically. And I'll tell you why. Because I think most churches, if you, if you go into most churches and you take a look around, you're going to find a majority, whatever that number is, whatever that percentage is, a majority of women. And I think that men have dropped the ball in a lot of cases. And I think that men need to stand up and think they need to, you know, read the Bible first and foremost. I think that's really where all, for me, I think that's where all the change happens. I think it's important to pray, of course, I think it's important to go to church. Absolutely. But if you're praying and going to church and you're not reading the Bible, there's a really good chance that you're, you're a weak, a weak Christian man. That's my opinion. I think it's, it's made all the difference in, in my life. So I'm a massive advocate for reading the Bible, studying the Bible, not just reading it to check it off a list, but studying the Bible, going deep and you know, asking the Holy Spirit who inspired the authors every word, asking him to just be with you and guide you through it. Because wow, if, if, if I could get across to, again, speaking to men, anybody, of course, but if I could get across to men what is waiting for them on the other end of that book as they go through that book and begin to understand the heart of a Paul or to begin to understand the faith of a Joseph or the plan, God's plan for someone, you know, like Jacob, it like their lives would be Transformed. Unfortunately, I think that because I was born in the States, I just kind of felt like, oh, I'm a Christian. I. You know, my parents started, you know, we went to school, and. And so I. I just didn't really think it was important for me to go any deeper than I already was. I really thought that my faith was all about me and my salvation in following these rules. To be the best person that I could, to somehow gain favor and. And hopefully at the end, get to heaven. Like, that was my crazy thinking back in the day. And I think there's a lot of people, but specifically young men and even husbands and men, who just do not understand that it has nothing to do with us. We are all sinners. We all fall short. And that when we put our faith in him, everything changes. Because as soon as we truly put our faith in him with our heart. So going from the mind knowing who Jesus is to the heart of, I love him. I understand that. I love him, and I love him, at least in the beginning. I love him with all the heart that I can, that I can put into it. Because when we love him, we're then filled with the Holy Spirit. We're promised. Jesus says it's better that I go, that I'll send the counselor. He's. He sends someone to be with us. And so, gosh, if I could just. If I could meet with one man at a time and just grab them by the shoulders and, you know, if you knew what I know, and that's what I feel that I'm doing. And I think that that's what God has prepared me to do over all these years. So my spiritual gifting is just an absolute passion for men. Everyone but men specifically. Because if we can get men to finally, in a lot of cases, step up and lead their family, not in this domineering way, but in this loving way, as we're called to in. In the Bible. You know, a woman biblically is supposed to submit to a man. And. And I think a lot of men look at that. It's like, oh, well, you know, you need to submit to me. But the reality is that we're supposed to love our wives as Jesus loved the church. Well, if you really. You don't have to scratch below the surface much to recognize and realize, what did Jesus. How did he love the church? What did he do for the church? He died for the church. So as men, are we willing to die for our wives? And for their part, are they willing to be someone worth dying, dying for? So there's a lot to unpack there. And I just. I have so much. We start talking about, you know, men leading families. I just get kind of worked up and passionate about it.

[31:50] Jan: Well, and even if you're working with your middle school boys, you know, that's where to start, right there. Training them up to be the fathers and husbands that they should be. You know that. Because there are some cultural things that you have to work around, you know, and kind of dissolve and maybe show a different way, a better way.

[32:12] George Sisneros: Absolutely. Yeah.

[32:15] Jan: So, yeah, there's some of that. So you adopted some kids. Tell me about that. I have some adopted kids.

[32:21] George Sisneros: Wow. We did. We. My. My daughter, who came to Guatemala with us when she was in her teens, she started volunteering at an orphanage that was nearby where we lived. And she would come home and talk about this little girl and she'd say, oh, she was born deaf and she's at this orphanage. And I just. We love her so much and just really had a lot of compassion for her. And so she would talk to us about her. And at some point, my wife also went to. To with my daughter to. To do some volunteering. And what my wife was volunteering for was to help this little girl get to speech therapy, but she had a cochlear implant put in. And so this little girl, as it turns out, had an older brother. I don't remember their ages at the time, but I want to say like six or seven. So they were a year apart. So six and seven. Seven. Seven or eight, something like that. And so they became adoptable. It took a little while. Weirdly, they're both Guatemalan, but he was born in Mexico because his parents happened to be in Mexico at the time. Well, the way it works is you're a Mexican citizen. So there was. There was a long process to get them to become adoptable. And so while we were in process of adopting them. So first of all, to adopt, you have to be a permanent resident of Guatemal. The Lord had prepared for us. We were permanent residents. We're still American citizens, but we're permanent residents of Guatemala. We had thought about adopting, but never really, you know, we want to be prepared to adopt, but we weren't thinking about it. So we had gone through the process of being able to. Being qualified to adopt. So to become residents took about a year and a half. To be able to adopt took about another year. And then somewhere along the line, we met these kids that they eventually became adoptable. So this is this long process. So once we start the process to adopt them. And we could only adopt them because she was. She had special need and because they were older. Normally, in Guatemala, you can't know the kids that you're adopting, but they were a special case scenario. And so we were in process. And while we were in process, turns out they had two younger siblings in another orphanage that they had found. They moved them over to the same orphanage. And the way the law works in Guatemala, which is a really good law, is that you, You. You have to adopt. You can't separate siblings. And so we get a call from the director of the orphanage, and she said, hey, I just want to let you guys know that we found these two siblings. And so we're kind of in a situation right now where you can adopt all four or none. And so you're expecting quadruplets? Yeah, yeah. No. And. And let me just tell you, it was like that. So we. We ended up adopting all four. And we said yes, immediately, like that day. We said, absolutely, we will adopt all four. We didn't. These two other kids were complete strangers to us because we had spent a lot of time with the other two. I remember her sending a picture, and I can. I can think of that picture, and I'm like, they just look like two random kids. But because we loved those two so much and we were just trusting, listen, if God would have come to us and said, hey, would you adopt these four? We said, not going to happen. There's no way we would have adopted four. It's just a. But at this. But now it was an easy yes. And that's. God continues to just do that in our lives, where it's just like, let me just show you this piece, and then I'm going to show you this piece and this piece. And then at some point, he turns the light on and we're like, oh, wow, okay, I get it. So we adopted those four. And then three years later, I think it was, we got a call from the orphanage, and they said, hey, there's another sibling who is younger. So when we adopted them, their mom was pregnant. Their mom was an alcoholic. Dad is a really bad guy. Not going to get into that. And so at. At court, when they had to turn over their rights to. To allow these kids to be adopted, even though they had abandoned them already, they'd already been abandoned. And in an orphanage. She was pregnant at the time. Well, it was that baby that, you know, three years later showed up at an orphanage. And so they asked us if we would be open to adopting their sibling. And again, I can picture where we were right outside our gate here. We get this call and we just said yes. We muted the call and I looked at my wife and she's like, yes. And I'm like, yeah, let's do it. So we get back on and we're like, okay, yes. You know, let us know what we need to do next. That process was a lot quicker. And that's how we went from four to eight to nine. So nine kids. We're done.

[37:12] Jan: You think, you say, yeah, I say.

[37:16] George Sisneros: I should be more careful when I say that. But no, I do feel like I think we're good, but we'll see.

[37:23] Jan: Yeah, when I had number 10, I said, no, I think I'm good. Thank you very much.

[37:28] George Sisneros: Yeah, Yep.

[37:30] Jan: But there's always that side of who am I saying no to then.

[37:34] George Sisneros: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I say it with caution. I say it with caution.

[37:39] Jan: So what would you say to listeners who just feel some kind of nudge? Where would, where would they start? What should they do? What?

[37:50] George Sisneros: Yeah, as far as, like doing missions work.

[37:53] Jan: Yeah, doing missions and.

[37:54] George Sisneros: Yeah, yeah, I would, I would recommend to them what I recommended to my, my kids. My son specifically wanted, you know, they wanted to do some type of missions work. So the first thing they did was they went to a Bible school, a good Bible school. Then they went to a different one. So they'd been to two Bible schools. And my younger son wants to be a missionary in an unreached country. So I think that. And then my older son is currently in an internship with his church to. He wants to plant churches in a, in a foreign country. So those two, I think you, first of all, in my opinion, have to be. I think it's smart to just get much more biblically sound than probably most people are. We, we came onto the field and I wouldn't say that we were super biblically prepared by the grace of God. He has, you know, prepared us over the years. But so that's thing that's probably the most important thing is prepare yourself biblically. I think that if you're going to come with a spouse or as a family, I think that you have to be debt free. I know that that's kind of a worldly qualification, but it doesn't make. If you can't manage your finances in the States or wherever you are, there's no way you're going to be able to manage the finances of a growing ministry. And when it's growing in a way that God wants to grow it. And so I would say have Your finances in order, and then maybe, well, more importantly than even that, is to have your marriage in order if you're going to come with a family. You, My wife and I were incredibly solid. We had a super strong marriage. And you will need it. You will be tested. It's not a matter of will you be tested. You will be tested multiple times over and over again. And so if you are, are. I've seen it. I've seen missionaries come onto the field trying to fix their marriage, and that is a really bad idea. And they all go home within a year or two. I don't. I don't know. I haven't thought about it, but I can't think of a missionary who has come onto the field and fixed anything on the field. So, listen, we're all human, obviously, we've all got challenges. So all I'm saying is try to have some of those bigger issues under control, if not completely under control, because you're gonna. Missions work is. I think it looks very romantic from the outside. Just like, oh, he's a missionary, and wow, look at the school that they have founded and they've got all these programs. You know, we're now working in Cuba. And you look at, I think from the outside, it probably looks just really like a great story and romantic and all of that, but it has taken a lot of struggle and a lot of tears. And so we are fortunate. We feel incredibly grateful to the Lord where we are right now. We do feel like we are on a very firm ground and that, you know, for example, we, you know, we recognize enemy attacks much more quickly than we did in the beginning. I'm not going to. That's a whole other podcast. But so we do feel. We do feel, and I think that confidence comes really from our confidence in the Lord. And so the closer you get to God and the more you fall, you know, deeper in love with him, the more that spreads into the rest of your life. And I think that you can correlate kind of your, you know, how you feel just foundationally day to day in life with how much time you're spending in the Word. I know that seems really simplistic, but I really believe that.

[41:48] Jan: Yeah, yeah. So all of that is just foundational. It's like get your foundation firm and then you're ready to go.

[41:57] George Sisneros: Yeah, yeah. If you're going to go to a country that speaks another language, I would also highly recommend that you have some sort of, you know, maybe a 70%, you know, kind of an understanding of that language. You don't have to be completely fluent. But I think that would have made a big difference for us coming here. It took a little while to kind of get that down. But you cannot. Like, what are you going to do? Like, you can't pray. You can, but, you know, it's. It's hard to share the gospel if you don't speak their language. It's hard to. It's hard to pray in their language, obviously. Can you pray in your own language? Of course. And I still even do that sometimes periodically. But most of the time I speak in their language and I of course, 100% of the time teach. You can't. How are you going to share the gospel? You know, so, yeah, that's another thing I would probably consider.

[42:51] Jan: Awesome. Where can people find you?

[42:53] George Sisneros: I am on social media, so I'm on Twitter, which is now X under 1G Cisneros. But I'm also on Instagram's version of Twitter, which is threads. And that's probably where I actually write every day. And I share. It's all about the Bible. It's all about my faith and ministry and what God is doing. I break scripture down quite a bit so you can look for me there. Also one Jesus narrows on threads. And I think the best place to find me, honestly is just to subscribe to the newsletter to. You can always just reply to any newsletter if you have any questions, if you want to just have a conversation. It's super easy to get a hold of me there. I see that most kind of brightly and most clearly. I'll see your messages coming in. So. And I really think this newsletter has been. I write this newsletter for myself honestly is because I'm learning. But I don't want to move on from a chapter until I understand the chapter. And you're not going to understand it a hundred percent, but I want to understand it in a way that I can explain it to someone in a simple way. And so those are probably the best places to find it.

[44:07] Jan: Yeah. And you have a website.

[44:09] George Sisneros: We do. It's Ordinary missionaries dot org.

[44:14] Jan: Okay. And then if someone wanted to, they could donate there.

[44:18] George Sisneros: Yeah, absolutely, I would. Before donating personally, I mean I would just. You can subscribe to that newsletter, which is a different newsletter. And that just is. Basically we send something out once a month that is. Tells what that. What's going on in the ministry. And generally it's a story of someone in the ministry and how God is moving in their lives and we just get to be a part of that and witness it. And so I share that. So, yeah, I think, I think that, that. And then, and then if you feel led by the Lord after, you know, kind of getting comfortable with what we do and how we're serving the Lord. And if you want to give that, that would be great, but really we, we just want people to kind of see what God is doing in Guatemala.

[44:59] Jan: Great. Could you close with just one story?

[45:03] George Sisneros: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I. I guess I probably. Another one of my big passions is Cuba. We've recently, within the last year and a half, started working with pastors in Cuba. And when we started working with them and visiting them, they live a completely different life. People have no idea. Honestly, I don't think most people have any idea what is going on in Cuba. And the country is riddled in witchcraft. A religion called Santeria, which is a kind of a melding, a fusion of Catholicism and ancient African religions that came over with the slaves into Cuba. It's kind of a very dark, crazy place, but bigger than that, when I went to, to visit Cuba, I was just shocked to know the poverty, poverty that they're living in. I'm living in Guatemala, which is a developing country and it's definitely a poor country, but Cuba is an entire entirely new level. So, for example, in the United States States, the minimum wage is, you know, between 12 and maybe $15 per hour, depending on where you live. If you're, you know, but that's going to be average, it might be a little bit more on the West Coast. In Cuba, the minimum wage is 15 to $17 per month. And it. That doesn't mean that everything's cheap there. As a matter of fact, it's not. It's, it's. It's just. How do you even survive with that? And so the country basically right now, in my opinion, based on everything that I've seen, you know, over the last half dozen times that I've been there, this. The country is really living on the. On what's called a black market, a version of a black market, which is basically this kind of trade market within the people. They. So, so what happens is everybody that works for the state, so that means teachers make, you know, 15 to $17 an hour, doctors make 15 to $17 an hour, gas station attendance. The government owns everything. Hotels, factories, they own everything. And that's what they pay the people. Well, that's clearly not enough to eat. So people get money from family that escape the island, that now live in generally the United States from, you know, different people who are supporting them from outside of Cuba, are sending money in. That's one of the ways that we support the Cuban people is we take money in to pastors to help them so that they can focus on sharing the. The gospel. And I think, you know, Jan, I mean, my faith completely just took another level. It just. It just went in a different place. When you go to Cuba and you see people that are living in that kind of poverty, in desperation, and then you meet these pastors who have a love for the Lord that is eternal. They are not living in any way for a worldly, you know, compensation in any way, shape or form. They're literally surviving day to day. But they're sharing the Lord and they're sharing the gospel because they want to see more people in heaven. And they're sharing it in a way that I've just never seen before. It's. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. It's completely changed me, and it's made me more desperate to share the gospel. It's made me more desperate to draw close to God. And so I guess that's the story I would leave you with.

[48:28] Jan: Wow. All because you were watching football.

[48:34] George Sisneros: That's where it started. Yeah. Obedience. I was so. I was not the guy that God should have chosen. I had. I really had nothing to offer.

[48:43] Jan: That's what he does, though. Look at all these people all the way through.

[48:49] George Sisneros: Yep.

[48:50] Jan: Yeah. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing your morning with us. Wow. It is just so, so, so good.

[48:59] George Sisneros: I'm humbled. I really appreciate you. You're having me on. Thank you so much. Yeah.