Rob Linton:How near-death moments and bold choices shaped one man's calling

YouTube. https://youtu.be/JARffJn5bKY

In this episode, Rob Linton shares his unique life journey from a childhood as a missionary kid in Papua and Indonesia to becoming an engineer with a passion for classic cars and motorcycles.

 Living on a farm in Washington, Rob and his wife enjoy traveling. 

The episode explores Rob’s significant life experiences, including a near-fatal car accident that deepened his faith, and a daring motorcycle adventure in Peru with his father. 

With an ongoing passion for helping others, 

Rob discusses the enriching relationships he's built and how he's navigated through personal losses and discovered new purposes post-retirement.

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Transcript

Jan: Welcome, everybody, to this episode. This will be episode 66. I have Rob Linton with me. Hi there, Rob. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Rob: So, kind of an interesting question, but I'll give it a shot.

My name's Robert and I currently live in Astoria. We do have a farm out in LA Center, Washington, and we absolutely love it. I have a incredible wife. We've been married about four years, and we absolutely.

How credible relationship? It's a very, very special,

special relationship. I grew up as a missionary kid. I got a career as an engineer,

worked my whole life through aerospace and had a passion for cars and motorcycles. So I've got a collection of those. A few at this point.

Jan: A few like. A few would be like, approximately how many cars?

Rob: About a dozen cars and.

Oh,good. Half a dozen motorcycles or more that are just toys. They're just things that I play around with. Yeah,

but it's interesting. We're trying to build a house on the farm at this point, and so we've been working on that, trying to get that ready to go.

Jan: Yeah, yeah. And so how did you decide this location for your farm?

Rob: I needed a place to store my cart.

So this, this farm had a couple of barns, and so we get to store the.

The cars in the barns, which is kind of nice.

Jan: Well, I looked the world over and this is where we landed. Well, that's good. The weather's warm and that you're kind of centrally located.

Rob: That's right.

Jan: That's good too.

Rob: It's easy to get to the airport. My wife and I enjoy traveling, so we get to bounce down to the airport pretty easily from here.

Jan: Yeah,

pretty good. All right,

so tell me,

what do you grew up with? Missionaries? Where did you grow up? Is it just one place or you were all over the place or.

Rob: A couple of places. My folks were administrators with Wycliffe Bible Translators,

and so they did various projects around the world. One of the more significant project that affected me was when they went to build a new high school in Papua, Indonesia.

And so we went over there for three years during high school.

I went to a boarding school at that time in Papua New guinea, which was a very cool experience,

and got to come home and visit Bentley four or five times a year,

which was pretty special.

Jan: What was. What did you like about the high school experience?

Rob: It gave me a lot of personal freedom,

opportunities to explore the local area, opportunities to know more about myself and understand myself in a better way,

and got to know the Lord a lot better during those years, which was pretty special.

Jan: Were all the students, missionary kids or they were from other places.

Rob: The majority were missionary kids. There were some various different officials there in Papua that would send their kids up to that school and so on that would live nearby.

Jan: Yeah, yeah. So you had different.

Rob: What do they speak in Papua New Guinea? They speak pidgin. And in Indonesia it's the basically Bahasa Indonesia or Indonesia.

Jan: And are you fluent in either?

Rob: No, I'm not.

I do speak Indonesian a little bit and I as Laurie and I get to travel over there, I can actually communicate and discuss things,

figure out how to catch a boat that we navigate.

So it's very, very helpful to be able to do that. I do not speak any pidgin.

Maybe four or five words in pidgin English.

Jan: Do they have pidgin on? Let's see, on duolingo or something?

Rob: They do. They do, do they? I. I've never exposed myself.

Jan: So growing up, you know, you're exposed to a Christian lifestyle or whatever. When did God become your own?

Rob: It was during high school.

Was a. There were a couple of pretty significant moments in high school, high school that affected me.

One was a senior retreat that we had where all the seniors took off and they basically had a weekend way down nearby city.

Pretty special time. Got to know the Lord pretty closely in a more personal way during that trip.

And then about a month before graduation,

I had a pretty horrific car accident where my roommate was driving.

I was just about killed. I was put in a coma for over a week with my head gashed open,

skull broken,

the side of my head kind of ripped off. But miraculously there was a pretty well known surgeon from Australia that just happened to be at the hospital doing some training that weekend.

And when I showed up in the hospital,

the nurses and doctors were doing the death wail and they were sure I was dead.

And he said he would give it a shot and put me back together. And he did and I somehow pulled through and survived. And the best thing about that was that I missed my final exams in high school.

But no,

that experience really helped me understand that God has a deeper purpose for my life and something special for me.

Jan: Definitely was not done with you yet.

Rob: That's right. That's right.

Jan: So what have you seen some of those special purposes?

Rob: So I have a number of different things. One is reaching out to a number of troubled men in my life throughout they just seem to gravitate towards me. I find them, I work with them.

We've got some pretty cool relationships.

I've done some building restorations up in Washington met a number of guys doing stuff like that through business and so on.

Just a number of different struggling men in various aspects.

I wouldn't say that I've been a key to bring them to any particular place in their life, but it's been a pretty impactful to me and to them. And then when my first wife passed away,

you know, it was a pretty rough time for a few years there where kind of struggling as to where.

Where I would land and what I would end up doing.

And so it was pretty special to have some of these relationships with different guys that I could work through problems and issues with.

So it not only benefited them, I'd like to think, but it also benefited me.

Jan: Yeah.

Rob: In those times of need, always.

Jan: Always. Whenever you're doing that. It does. Yeah. Because it brings forth,

I think it illuminates things that you don't even realize, you know, for sure. You know, I mean, it comes from the depths of who you are when you're trying to help somebody to,

you know, a little bit of the Holy Spirit, maybe.

Yep, for sure. For sure.

Rob: It's kind of neat because, you know, it's. It's an opportunity to kind of outreach and participate in their lives a little bit and show them a different side of what the.

What the world has to offer.

Jan: So. Yeah. Yeah. So you were an engineer and then you're retired now?

Rob: I've retired now, and my wife and I both have retired, and we do a lot of traveling now. And we.

I've been fortunate in that,

you know, we get this time to be able to spend together and do various things together.

We find ourselves a little more busy now than we always wish, but we do find time to try.

Jan: So it's a special place. Yeah. And it's a special time. What are some. Where are some of the places you've traveled?

Rob: We've been to Africa.

Number of places around Africa.

My wife and I got to go spend a month in Indonesia, in Papua Indonesia, which is a place that not many tourists get to go.

We've done some scuba diving in various places in Indonesia around Bali Raja Ampat,

and we've spent two or three different times in Bali. Love Bali. There's a small little island away from the city that's pretty special and traveled to Mexico a number of times.

We did get to travel to Peru, which is where I was born. Oh,

we got to go back to the place that I was born, the little village of Urina Cocha.

And I haven't been back there since.

Since you were born.

And so we got to go there. That again, is not a touristy area, but we had a blast and really, really enjoyed ourselves.

Jan: What was the story of you being born then?

Rob: My folks were teachers with Submarine Student Linguistics, which is a kind of a offshoot of Wliff Bible Translators.

Jan: Yeah.

Rob: And they were short term assistant teachers down there. And so while they were teaching out in jungle, I happen to be born. It's kind of fun.

Jan: Born at home in the jungle.

Rob: I.

The story goes that my mother woke up in the middle of the night, knew she was having a baby and my dad threw her on the back of the motorcycle and hauled her to the clinic and they had me.

And I've liked motorcycles ever since.

Jan: You were born with that love? Yep, born with that love. So you had miraculous escape from an accident. Any other miracles in your life?

Rob: Well, there was a pretty interesting1. About 15 years ago I took my dad,

we took a trip to Peru. Figured we would go explore the highlands of Peru.

We did not make it to the place I was born, but we went to Machu Picchu and we did a about a week of off road motorcycling up around Machu Picchu, which was just.

Jan: For old time's sake.

Rob: It was an incredible time. We had so much fun and we found a bunch of places that you could run down to a field and zip across rivers and stuff like that.

It was really kind of neat and I really enjoyed it. I do a lot of off road motorcycling and my father,

he enjoys a street bike once in a while, so it was a little more challenging for him.

He ended up wrecking his motorcycle a few times, which most of the times it was pretty humorous except for one time where he wrecked and ended up in a culvert.

And it was pretty touch and go. We didn't really understand how bad the impact was at the time, but somehow the culvert was about 18 inches wide, about 3ft deep.

I still can't figure out to this day how I did it, but I made sure that he could feel his feet and arms and everything.

And I somehow helped him up out of that culvert,

got him out and we got his helmet off very carefully, took his backpack off, his laptop was soaked and everything.

So we took him and across the trail.

Down on the other side was a river and I managed to hobble him down there across these boulders, got him into the river and dropped him right into the ice cold water and let this ice cold water run over his shoulders and his neck because his neck Was really hurting.

And we sat him there for about 45 minutes till he was just about turned blue and it was starting to get dark. So I figured, you know what? And, you know, when this first happened,

my dad and I, we said, lord, we're going to need some help through this one.

And so we sat there and I figured we got to do something because we cannot sit here. There's no traffic. Nobody was coming by this part of the road.

And so we did not see a single car this entire time.

Jan: That's what I was going to ask because you were apparently remote.

Rob: Yeah, it was very remote. So I had laid all his stuff on the rocks to try to dry out a little bit. So I packed everything up,

hobbled him back up to the road. He really couldn't put weight on his legs hurt at all. So I was pretty much manhandling him up there. We get him up to the road, and so we kind of discussed a couple options.

I said, well,

you leave your bike here, throw you on the back with me, go into town, try to do what you do, but no idea how to get your bike.

And what we ended up doing, I'm sure it was the smartest thing we could have done. We put him on his own bike.

I put his pack on the front of me, my pack on the back, and I had to walk, run along, and push start him because basically he dropped it in second gear and couldn't put his feet down.

So he goes taking off, and I'm like, don't stop until you see me.

And so I jumped on the bike,

chased after him as fast as I could, and about a half hour later, we come to a little village,

and I was able to pull over at a little store that we found and basically catch him as he rode into me and to stop. And so we successfully got him to stop, hobbled him in there, found a hospital.

We learned that the hospital, the doctor was at dinner or lunch or something. So we had to go wait for half hour.

And we turned the corner and they said, go down to the pool. And we turned the corner and there was this magnificent pool facility in the middle of the jungle.

It was the most unusual thing we'd ever seen at hot tubs and slides and this massive pool.

And so we sat around there for half hour, 45 minutes,

and then I hobbled them back to the hospital.

And the doctor looked them over, felt around,

said, you're fine, nothing wrong with you. Gave him some painkillers, really, and we went on our way.

So that night,

this Story could be very long. That night we barely slept because of the fireworks. All night, right outside the windows. And we get up in the morning, and I wrapped a towel and made kind of a neck brace for him, put his helmet on, and we basically sent him down the road.

And we had about 200km to go.

And we rode on dirt roads, through creeks.

Jan: And he was on his own motorcycle. He was on his own motorcycle and his legs were.

Rob: His legs had started working a lot better by this point. So we get all the way to the airport and,

you know, here I am, I'm wanting to go do adventure. I'm like, hey, we got like eight hours before our flight. And he's like, rob, I'm sitting here, I'm doing nothing.

So anyway, we flew to Lima, then waited there, we flew back, and we get home to Denver is where he was living.

And my mother picked us up.

She knew something wasn't quite right because he was in it.

Jan: Because you didn't even call her, let her know ahead of time?

Rob: We had let her know we had been texting and messaging and so on,

but. So she knew something was up. Well, the next morning, because he didn't want to have anything done. But the next morning, she's like, we gotta get you checked out.

And it turned out he had broken C2 vertebrae, which is the hangman's vertebrae. And the doctor was completely shocked. Couldn't believe he wasn't paralyzed. Couldn't believe he could still move everything.

He said, 90% of the people that break this,

they're dead or they're paralyzed for life. And so he miraculously came through that without hardly anything. He has a little hard time turning, you know, full motion on his neck still, but.

But he.

No, no negative effects from it. It's pretty amazing.

Jan: Wow.

Rob: So that was a place where I.

Jan: Would call that miracle.

Rob: God definitely put his hand in our lives during that time.

Jan: Definitely a but God moment, right?

Rob: For sure.

Jan: Holy moly. Huh? Well, I mean, you can just do and, you know, anything that comes along, right? Well, God can handle anything.

Rob: God's been there for me through a number of times.

When I broke my back on an accident, when a couple years ago, I broke my wrist snowboarding. And I mean, it's.

He's a healer. He's. He certainly does step into my life on a regular basis.

Jan: Yeah.

Rob: Pretty cool.

Jan: Wow. So you're one of those adventure boys.

Rob: I like my. My sense of adventure. It keeps me entertained.

Jan: And you married someone that likes adventures.

Rob: Yeah, exactly.

Jan: Right? Oh, my goodness. Wow. Wow.

Rob: Pretty Special.

Jan: That is special.

That is special. And just to have that relationship, to know that, yeah, whatever.

Do you feel like it puts you in a place where.

When you see something bad has happened to somebody or whatever, that you feel like you have more faith for whatever's gonna bring it through or whether it's gonna. How has that affected you?

Rob: That's a really good question. Yes, it does give me more faith for knowing what the Lord can do and will do in various instances.

I don't like to take it for granted.

Jan: Right.

Rob: God doesn't always step in and make the best of each situation.

I consider myself pretty blessed in the way that he's dealt with me through my life,

but it, I think, helps me be a little more compassionate to those that struggle through difficult situations because I know the pain people go through. I know the.

The difficulty with trying to recover from different things.

It's. It's not easy, and it's certainly something,

at least in my cases. I've had to rely on God to help pull me through a lot of those situations, so. But it also,

I would have to say it gives me a more positive outlook knowing that you can pull through it. And it gives me.

Gives me a lot more hope. I would say.

Jan: Yeah.

Yeah.

What would you tell people who might be going through things is that, you know, that those unexpected kind of things. What. What would you tell them to think or how to pray or maybe favorite scriptures or something along those lines?

Rob: Well, the. The.

I guess first thing that comes to mind when you say that is not to be afraid of what God's been frog.

I guess I'd say enjoy life as you have it here on earth, as God's given us some pretty cool stuff to do.

Jan: And.

Rob: And I can't wait till today getting to experience it in a different way in heaven with Him.

But even with the hardships that he gives us here,

knowing that he is our healer, he is our rock, that we can trust in him and not to give up hope because he's a pretty powerful guy.

Jan: Yeah.

Rob: Being able to rely on him and be able to talk to him on a regular basis and pray with him and with others to be able to work with those issues.

You know, I like to think that these things only affect me when I get hurt, but I realize it affects my wife,

kids, and family pretty significantly.

So being able to sit down and pray,

know that God's got His hand throughout all those different people is pretty important.

Jan: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Is there anything else you want to share or at least for this episode, right?

Rob: For today.

Jan: Exactly. Thank you so much.