We were interviewed by Christina Pierra.  Longer format, deepest dive media on the personal transformation and backstory.  Enjoy.

Transcript:

(228) How You Can Reach the Children in Your Life for Jesus With David Mauro - YouTube

(02:56) Well I absolutely love your Creation The Talking Jesus doll you know I came across your product your ministry and I just thought what an amazing way to reach children with the good news of Jesus in a way that really speaks to their hearts and comfort them the way that only Jesus can do I've told our listeners a lot about you can you share something with them maybe something personal just to help get to know you yeah yeah I am the author of three girls they're a little bit older now from the ranch from 10 to 16 and I had a beautiful wife and
(03:39) we live in Tennessee they're kind of the inspiration for the doll they're kind of the back story as we'll get into it and so they're definitely a big part of the how we got here today I love that I was just sitting here wondering if your three girls were part of how you came up with this amazing Jesus doll well since this is revealing Jesus I have to ask how you met our beautiful savior Jesus yeah yeah so I say I'm fortunate in the sense that I grew up in a family that or overly religious but we went to church
(04:11) and I remember being in church at a super early age and always kind of you know it's probably the reason why I'm assuming it's a large part of the reason why I always believed that there was a God always knew there was a god there's never been a question for me but I never got the whole you know Jesus Connection and that sort of thing until I got older and having kids and kind of in a church as a kid and going back to church with wife and family and things like that and you know we were at this church and we started
(04:41) getting stronger in our faith we got a great new Young Pastor who came in and really kind of challenged me and my wife and the congregation to just to kind of go deeper and it really helped us understand how the role Jesus plays in our salvation and you know it was a time of great a spiritual awareness acceleration besides remember some moments and feelings and some growth spiritual growth that developed like it wasn't a one-time thing I don't have this like hey I was at this place and this happened it was kind of the development
(05:12) over time so very thankful for that and that growth and development is really how we kicked off and got into you know trying to do things different in our lives I'll take a pause there I don't know do you want me to keep going or if you have another question but it could be a great segue for kind of how the dog got launched yeah of course I was just going to say that you know a lot of people have that story where they don't necessarily have one massive moment where they really encountered Jesus but they encountered him over time
(05:44) and he has this way of wooing our hearts into this place where we realize how real he is and how much he really wants to be a part of our everyday life so that's perfect it was a great season I think that's probably the best way for me to play like it was like everything kind of came together at the right place at the right time and you know it had a huge impact on my life and my family's life also the life of a bunch of others here in this town I love that where are you from Tennessee Little Tennessee nice I've heard Tennessee is absolutely
(06:15) beautiful it is it is that's so good well how did your inspiration come to you behind the talking Jesus doll yeah so the kind of the back story kind of picking up on this season of growth really kind of started questioning and reevaluating things in my life and my family's life started looking at priorities and you know I was working as a software sales guy and had a good career to make a lot of money we had a huge house a lot of land out here and I kind of started to realize that everything we were doing was to serve
(06:49) the things that we had and pay the mortgage clean the house you know maintain the property all that stuff yeah and so realize that you know it kind of owned us and that's when kind of had this this realization that hey we need to just right now we need to work for the man but not the man we need to work for the man upstairs and not the man the boss yeah our debt slaves right so that was one of these things where we said hey we got to do something good in our lives and that's when we started a non-profit I want to
(07:19) start to try to figure out ways we could give back I told you before with the show we started the garden seed company where we would have a grow and give one model for every pack of C's people buy we'd give one to someone a need we did that for a while and uh yeah it worked good but it was really hard it was really hard for us to I think have a meaningful impact giving is really hard if you've for anybody who's done it charity is not easy yeah to do it right covet came he shut down you know our supply chain we ended up moving and that
(07:50) whole business we basically turned it off because five years in it wasn't doing everything that we needed to do so we kind of killed it but this idea had during our move we literally moved we sold our house house I told you about before during this whole time we sold that big house we moved into a tiny little spider festive rental house and you know that's where we ended up finding the property and building a new house and when we were moving it had everything packed up and I realized that our kids had you know
(08:18) again young kids at this time they love stuffed animals and realize that they had like literally hundreds of stuffed animals like it was yeah like garbage bags full of these things I don't know where they put them all but like that's just every time we went somewhere like they got one they liked them right they had yeah some of them had educational value and some of them had maybe sentimental value because someone gave it to them but after looking at them for a while kind of realized hey there's a bunch of cartoons and frogs and things
(08:44) in here there's nothing here with any spiritual value and it's kind of one of those things where I had this you know again this realization that hey this is a missed opportunity my kids are growing up and I've been giving them a bunch of things that's kind of like empty calories you give them toys without any value spiritual value is kind of like a missed opportunity so so I thought about like hmm you're really cool if like we I can give them a you know Jesus dollars speaks Bible verses right yeah and I went to go look for it it didn't
(09:12) exist it's kind of surprised by that and I thought that hey I'm a guy who's trying to do this probably a bunch of people out there who might be interested in something like that so that's kind of where the concept for the doll came from it was like you know it's kind of these Revelations of like hey this is again this is like it very much fit the we need to do something good in our lives like yeah this is something that I know I can do right I learned how to do cartoon characters from my suit company I learned how to you know I've
(09:38) been in sales I know how to do things but I never made a doll before I never did overseas manufacturing before there's a lot of it was new but I knew I could do it and it was one of those things where I just kind of felt God pulling me toward that right it just seemed like I was made for it I love that so it's a back story there I love that so much you know I can absolutely relate to it I have a now eight-year-old daughter and literally the stuffies that we have oh my goodness it is out the yin yang and she still wants more and I just
(10:11) I'm like how many do you need how many can one girl have but they make her so happy and I absolutely love that you looked at all of them and said there's nothing of spiritual value like I love that analogy like empty calories it's so interesting I think if we want to reach children with the things of God we need to come down to their level and what do they love most toys this Easter put a talking Jesus all in your kids Easter basket when he squeeze his hand he says 10 phrases that Jesus said from the Bible Our Father who art in heaven Hallowed be
(10:49) thy name learn more at jesusdall.com I mean absolutely you know you can't give a KJV to a kid that's three I mean right it just it's just what it is there's some people that it's so wrong you made Jesus dull but the reality is you got to reach kids where they are like you said and more importantly it's a race yeah the world is coming after your kids through TV through media through through toys big toys yeah and there's a plan to corrupt your kid's mind into basically mentally enslave them and they've got a plan they've got
(11:21) they've got assets everywhere and so it's like what are we doing to fight back what is a parent do you got to reach your kid early the sooner they know Jesus the sooner they know God's truth the sooner they know right from wrong and just what's real and what's not once they know what's real what's they know what's of God yeah they become inoculated from the indoctrination there is a inoculation from indoctrination is what it is so we got to reach our kids early and you can't do that with the King James viable
(11:48) who's Jesus it's a weird story that kids don't understand it but when they see it and they kind of see The Taste is tangible they kind of can hold it and hear it it becomes something that's tangible that they can they can relate to you learn some Bible verses then you can talk to your kid about those Bible verses and what they mean and then all of a sudden you're you're so much further ahead than yeah you could even imagine because you can't wait like you can't wait oh I'm wait till they read to start talking about
(12:12) Jesus you can't you got to start out absolutely you know we're a kingdom family we live in that Christian realm we're always talking about Jesus we're always talking about what God's word says but you're right there's some things that you know as a three-year-old she can really understand those things I would say things like we don't do this because we're children of God that's not who we are she can kind of understand things like that but I love that you put it in a doll and I love that it's soft and I love that his arms are open and I
(12:41) love that he's speaking to you because children have a way they just they have this childlike faith and if we can get in there when that child like faith is really active before the world tries to shut it down we can make some really impactful inroads into their lives you know for the future for their entire life all the way up till they're 70 80 90 years old because the power of faith is truly Limitless you know I was on social media not too long ago and I saw this incredibly cute video it was this little girl and she had to be about
(13:18) three or four years old and it had snowed outside and the parents had taken her outside and she looked at her mommy and daddy and she she said Elsa did this and I I laughed and I giggled I knew what she meant she was talking about movie Frozen she said that Elsa had you know Frozen everything and created all the snow but what if we could do that with Jesus that's a great example that is such a great example there's so many things that I mean in today's world um like there's so many things that are perverted and are backward it's like
(13:54) there's an aversion of Truth everywhere and it's seeking you know to a little earlier and earlier age like just getting into things that we grew up in that were safe like the Disney Channel and like basic movies you know nothing can be trusted so parents have to be extremely Vigilant but now you you have to give Jesus early and often uh hallways and in all ways so tell me you said that your doll says was it ten sayings he said yeah 11.
(14:26)  let's say I love it okay as one as I love you and technically that's not in the Bible but you know he tells me so so yeah it's debatable that one I know Jesus loves me this I know where the Bible tells me so so I don't know that was Stables but we'll let the scholars debate on that one so we say those ten is a nice round numbers better than 11.
(14:43) right so tell me what are your ten sayings give me a few oh oh you're gonna play it oh nice all right here we go I don't know what's going to come on right now okay did you catch that some of it can you do it again I'm the way the truth and the life you know we have John 3 16 we have the Lord's Prayer on there which is awesome people love that we have um you know the Golden Rule treat each other the way you'd want to be treated follow me I have the way the truth of life I think I just said that one in a bunch of others you can see them on our
(15:21) website jesusdoll.com I love that so much so have you guys expanded into Amazon or anything like that or is it just jesusdoll.com we're on Amazon because I'm an Amazon girl oh okay okay yeah we have to be just because there's a lot of Amazon girls out there so yeah we're definitely we're on Amazon we're on jesusstall.
(15:41) com so that's where we are today we're at a few stores we're in a handful of stores around the country I love that so much well I'm you know honored to help you get the word out about this I think it's incredible and just in time for Easter coming up what an amazing gift for our kids for Easter. I love that thank you well I appreciate that you know as a mama I'm always looking for ways that I can speak to my daughter in a way that she'll understand and I think this is beautiful thank you well you know this is the single greatest conversation starter about Jesus in history except for those
(16:49) Miracles it's so easy to have a conversation with somebody about it whether it's a kid an adult like anybody like it's like the easiest it's the easiest way to like start a conversation because it's interesting right it's a little doll it's kind of interesting everybody wants to know what it is you know they hear it talking oh what's the saying like it's a great Converse station starter and it's like I said it's the greatest Icebreaker about Jesus in history I love that I love that so much you know for those people out there
(17:15) who may take issue with it or anything like that I just want to say quickly to them Jesus loves people so much that he is willing to take absolutely every single Avenue to reach people he was willing to go to the Cross he was willing in the garden of gethseth me he's willing at the whipping post and you know I think it's beautiful and I'm grateful the kingdom is grateful thank you thank you you know we say our mission is the Great Commission and us to make disciples of all children in all nations right that's what we're going to do you
(17:49) know we're reaching them early we're giving them a head start our goal is to have a big impact and we're making a Spanish Jesus doll second half of the year for Mexico central Latin America South America so that's you know so that we're starting here we're expanding but that's what we're called to do as followers and Make Disciples of all Nations so that's literally what we're doing and we're starting with kids hmm I love that so much and I absolutely love children they have such childlike qualities and you know they're precious
(18:20) to Jesus well David this has been so fun would you pray for our listeners maybe would you pray for those parents out there struggling right now maybe it reach their children with the things of Jesus and would you pray for them yeah absolutely Heavenly Father God thank you for this day and thank you for this opportunity to speak to this great audience and this great host thank you for all your many blessings God pray that parents and will do everything they can do to help their kids seek you know you and find you like
(18:54) I said give Jesus always and always God thank you for letting us be a part of that um you know bless our journey and I would just ask you to lead and lead us and let's pray that we can follow just for me it goes for Christina goes for everybody listening so God will give you thanks and praise and Jesus name we pray amen amen David thank you so much for being here with me today I so appreciate it thank you