Asatru Folk Assembly - 10⧸23⧸24 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 120 - Carolina Hurricane Relief

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00:03:30.000 To be continued...

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00:07:30.000 Hello and welcome to another exciting edition of Victory Never Sleeps. I'm

00:07:48.520 Wynton Daniel Young. I am standing in for all's hero goethy Matt Flavell. I know Matt

00:07:53.820 didn't lose all of his hair and shrink 100 pounds overnight. So tonight's broadcast is

00:08:02.500 coming to you live from YouTube, from Entropy, from Twitch, from the platform formerly known

00:08:11.820 as Twitter, Rumble, VK, and Odyssey. On Friday, you'll be able to catch us in podcast form

00:08:20.180 on Apple Music, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music. I believe that is it.

00:08:31.160 Tonight's stream is going to be a bit of a heavy one. For those of you in the United States,

00:08:37.820 you may or may or may not be aware of the devastation that Hurricane Helene caused in

00:08:44.240 the Appalachian portions of the Carolinas. And I know some of the folks that maybe live a little

00:08:51.160 bit more toward the center of the country or out west, and when they think of hurricanes,

00:08:55.160 they often think of the devastation that is a direct result as far as the coastal cities go.

00:09:01.720 What you may not know is that when those storms begin to make their way toward the Appalachians,

00:09:09.940 they they slow down and they dump catastrophic levels of rain and where I

00:09:19.840 live I live in central South Carolina and during that storm we saw 10 inches

00:09:24.980 of rain here and we saw riverbanks bust lakes overflow but our neighbors to the

00:09:31.420 north and west of me had absolutely catastrophic flooding and devastation to

00:09:40.840 levels that were nearly cataclysmic. Whole towns were lost, lives were lost, and

00:09:46.900 while many people sat on the sidelines and looked at those images when they

00:09:51.500 came up on the Weather Channel or CNN and thought, man I wish I could do

00:09:55.720 something. Two young men who are beacons of nobility in the Ossetree Folk

00:10:03.220 Assembly decided they weren't going to sit on the sidelines and decided that

00:10:07.600 they were going to take action. And with the help of your generous donations

00:10:11.980 over the past week, two young men you see on the screen with me and a few

00:10:16.660 others decided to band together, travel cross-country it for some, and decided to

00:10:23.320 get their hands and the face in the mud and come down south and be able to help those folks out

00:10:28.160 in these communities that were virtually inaccessible to a degree, which when I lost

00:10:36.320 contact with my folk builder in Western North Carolina, Tyler Buffay, I took a night off work,

00:10:44.540 called my boss and said, I'm going to go up to Hendersonville. I'm going to visit with a brother

00:10:47.980 of mine that I've lost contact with, and I got sent links to the North Carolina DOT services

00:10:56.020 that said Western North Carolina was inaccessible, that every major highway that fed in from my part

00:11:02.860 of South Carolina and into where he lives was absolutely destroyed. So with that being said,

00:11:10.940 I'm going to kick the ball over to my guests, folk builder Tyler Bethea from North Carolina,

00:11:16.520 and Tyler Heinlein from Montana.

00:11:20.160 Both these gentlemen are of the finest sort,

00:11:23.560 two guys I'm super proud to call my friends,

00:11:26.440 and I'm really excited to share their story with all of you tonight.

00:11:31.280 So, Tyler, Bethay,

00:11:33.280 why don't you tell us a little bit about the direct impact

00:11:36.620 that this storm had, specifically where you live?

00:11:43.220 Sure.

00:11:44.780 Appreciate you having us on.

00:11:46.520 to give folks an update and to let folks kind of hear the story of what went down out here.

00:11:54.500 So let me say that hurricanes have not really had a whole lot of impact on our area in the past,

00:12:05.600 as you were saying. 0.96

00:12:08.060 Part of what made Helene as bad as it was was the fact that for a couple days prior to the

00:12:16.340 to the storm itself um we had had quite a bit of rain um as a matter of fact the week uh prior

00:12:24.560 to the hurricane i was in montana for our national event out there the frayers harvest feast

00:12:30.320 and my flight home was uh delayed a couple of hours um and on my on my flight home there was

00:12:40.700 a lot of the turbulence and stuff as we were trying to fly through all the turbulence and all the storm clouds and such

00:12:50.840 that I did not know were going to be dumping all that rain on my home.

00:13:01.400 So between all of the rain that we got in the previous days and then the rain from the hurricane,

00:13:08.300 We saw, I believe, two feet of rain. There were trillions of gallons of water dumped on our region.

00:13:20.360 My father-in-law, he came over today and he told us that he had read a report that there was enough rain dumped on our region to cover the entire state under a couple of feet of water.

00:13:40.720 That is huge.

00:13:41.900 And when you combine that with all of the high winds that we had, I think that the wind was almost as devastating as all the water was.

00:13:52.580 Everywhere I went, there were down power poles, trees.

00:13:56.460 There is not a road I've traveled on between the border of South Carolina all the way up to Virginia or Tennessee that had not had snapped power poles, lines in the road, and the debris of the trees and such just everywhere.

00:14:22.980 That's part of what made this as bad as it was.

00:14:26.460 was that a lot of roads were impassable.

00:14:30.140 I live on kind of a top of a mountain,

00:14:33.020 so in my area, all it was was all the trees and all the damage from the wind.

00:14:40.180 But anywhere that was close to a creek or a river or a lake,

00:14:45.680 even just a ditch on the roadside,

00:14:47.840 Um, they, the damage from the water was just beyond anything I've ever imagined.

00:14:57.900 Um, when you have a river on the, the, the, the, the coast or anywhere that's a low line area, um, the rain will, will cause the river to rise.

00:15:13.360 sure, but when you add in all the mountains that we have around here, you have all the rain

00:15:20.340 above that has to go down low as well, and with that, you get mudslides. I've seen whole

00:15:29.680 mountainsides that have just washed away into the valley under it, and I think that's been the

00:15:35.780 number one cause of death that we have had around here is the mudslides and the landslides.

00:15:43.360 They've killed whole families. They've trapped whole communities.

00:15:49.200 And being an Appalachian man, it has been heartbreaking.

00:15:57.320 I'm not going to say that anybody else who came in, they didn't have their hearts broken as well.

00:16:04.880 But for us, it's not just human devastation.

00:16:09.760 is the fact that our landscape around us that we love and has become part of our soul

00:16:15.800 has irrevocably changed.

00:16:20.260 Like you mentioned earlier, there are whole towns that don't exist anymore,

00:16:24.400 whole communities that have been wiped off the map.

00:16:30.580 A lot of the images in the slideshow, like the horse farm that we were on,

00:16:36.060 where you saw the images of uh one of our members the rebuilding of a fence you saw us working on a

00:16:42.940 horse barn um that like whole the pasture area all of that was under about 12 feet of water so

00:16:52.540 the water there would have come up over that heavy equipment there plus about two to three feet um

00:17:01.740 um when i got on site and i looked at the water line it uh blew my mind um and what the pictures

00:17:10.320 there don't show you is that when you go to the river bank it's kind of like a bluff and the river

00:17:19.100 at the normal flow is about 12 feet under the bluff so the river came up 12 feet to the bluff

00:17:27.180 And then it continued to rise until it covered everything by, I'd say, about like nine feet or so.

00:17:39.120 And I've never seen that much water.

00:17:45.280 We lost power at my house for.

00:17:52.300 It ended up being.

00:17:53.680 about a week um but the people down below me only a mile and a half away so like i said i live on

00:18:01.280 the top of a mountain but when you got down to the bottom of my road that's the hungary river

00:18:07.740 and that river just it just it destroyed everything in its path um the people there

00:18:17.520 They were without power for about three weeks.

00:18:22.660 They're not going to have a bridge to their little community of about 20 homes.

00:18:28.200 They're not going to have a bridge there for an untold amount of time.

00:18:34.860 They've been quoted $2 million to rebuild their bridge.

00:18:39.460 And because it's a private road, the government is not going to handle that for them.

00:18:44.880 Um, so 20 households have to come up with, uh, you know, 2 million bucks in order to be able to, uh, drive a vehicle, um, out of their home. Um, and this is not an isolated incident. There, there are hundreds of these cases. Um, so, uh, yeah, we've, we've done a lot of work. It's, uh, taken a lot of work to, to get to the point where we're at now.

00:19:14.880 But I would ask that everybody try to keep this in the forefront of your minds.

00:19:29.540 It's pretty easy with the way that we consume the content and the news and such now to where it's always we focus on the next thing and the next thing after that.

00:19:43.120 and we don't take the time to think about, I wonder how those people in Appalachia are doing now.

00:19:51.700 You know, the wintertime is right on our heels, and a lot of these homes are heated by the propane and such,

00:20:01.640 and that's how they've got their gas stoves, they've got their gas logs in the fireplace, all this stuff,

00:20:08.440 And the propane trucks, they can't go to a home where there's no bridge. They can't go to a home where there's no road because of a landslide anymore. So these people are going to have a very hard winter.

00:20:22.140 um so i would ask that in the coming months um you continue to uh try to reach out to people

00:20:31.740 and you continue to uh to to ask the questions of

00:20:37.720 what do you need out of me how can i help you um because these people are going to need a lot of

00:20:45.440 help in the coming months so i'm glad you said that because it's like you said that uh with the

00:20:50.880 way that media and information is consumed now that everything comes in

00:20:55.480 15 and 30 second clips and a lot of times we don't see the forest for the

00:20:59.940 trees this is going to be a long road to recovery for those folks in Appalachia

00:21:04.860 and the work is just beginning you were talking about private roads and private

00:21:11.180 bridges and you know millions of dollars that they're not getting a lot of relief

00:21:16.200 for especially nothing coming from the federal or state level a lot of it's

00:21:20.520 coming through private donations so the other gentleman that's joining us tonight

00:21:25.140 joins us from Montana Tyler Heinlein one of our folk builders out there an

00:21:29.760 outstanding young man Tyler can you tell me how you found yourself wanting to

00:21:36.760 take part in some relief efforts in Western North Carolina and you know tell

00:21:42.420 us about that journey for you yeah absolutely so we were monitoring the

00:21:47.740 situation because tyler bethea was right in the path and we've been waiting to hear from him and

00:21:53.180 about 24 hours after the storm we started whispering hey you know maybe we need to send

00:21:58.160 someone to check on him let's see if one local guys can get a hold of him within 48 hours of

00:22:03.220 the storm we had finally heard back so we got we finally had on the ground intel and we heard how

00:22:09.480 bad it was and it was it was a pretty straightforward decision the uh the gentleman that helped me with

00:22:17.000 whole thing they are they are my brothers in a fraternity we run and one of our missions is

00:22:23.080 to help our folk and it really is a requirement of our men we require a minimum of 40 hours

00:22:29.960 within the year of service to our folk to even be part of this thing and this this is just what

00:22:36.040 we've been preparing for is something like this where we can go and make a real difference for

00:22:39.960 our people so as far as our response went within 48 hours we were planning concrete moves to

00:22:50.200 actually get men on the ground to actually provide help with search and rescue and then

00:22:56.600 rescue and recovery recovery distribution of supplies cleanup reinstatement of utilities

00:23:03.160 managing lost livestock repairing fences so those livestock can get back to their farms

00:23:08.520 getting these people's livelihoods saved if at all possible and this is a this is a process that's

00:23:15.640 it's very fluid when you have a situation like this and it's important that we get there as

00:23:20.600 soon as possible and that was one of the frustrations i had was how late i was in my

00:23:25.640 departure because we had to get a vehicle for this work so i actually purchased a vehicle that

00:23:31.400 had the proper lift kit the wench the off-road capabilities in order to actually get through

00:23:35.560 these areas or i wouldn't even have made it to to the site as it got later on some of the bigger

00:23:41.480 roads opened up and we were able to get more people in but initially these these roads were

00:23:46.120 either roadblocks or completely destroyed and wiped off the map it was over 48 hours of driving

00:23:53.960 when you factor in having to go pick up the vehicle and they're making my way down but

00:23:58.600 But I would say about 33 hours were spent from my departure point, once we had the vehicle and all the supplies gathered up, and we drove down to actually getting there.

00:24:11.160 And that was about six extra hours of driving just to get around all the roadblocks that destroyed bridges, the washed out highways.

00:24:18.560 I think people need to understand the scale in which we're talking is that they and I, when we were going around to get these jobs done, the driving was the hardest part.

00:24:28.600 I mean, don't get me wrong, pulling down a Widowmaker that's blocking the road and about to crush a house is difficult.

00:24:34.240 Going and hiking and supplies is difficult. 0.64

00:24:36.640 Searching areas is difficult.

00:24:38.540 But that's all sweat equity that you're paying in.

00:24:41.980 It's not a matter of time.

00:24:43.300 And time is just getting eaten away as you try and get to these locations.

00:24:47.940 You go down the road and you got a local boy, you know, riding copilot.

00:24:52.180 He's telling you to take it right here and there is nowhere to take it right.

00:24:55.200 And we got to rework the plan.

00:24:56.980 And, you know, now we're looking for a new road.

00:24:58.600 and that road's gone on another road and we go, well, we can get through,

00:25:01.600 but it's not really a road, but that's where the offer of tires come in.

00:25:05.100 You know, so we we had to really pull our heads together more than anything.

00:25:10.600 In the beginning is how are we going to get supplies there?

00:25:13.500 How are we going to pay for supplies?

00:25:15.000 How are we going to get our guys there?

00:25:16.400 Who can go and how fast can we get from there?

00:25:19.900 Now, we started off with a small donation gathering locally,

00:25:24.700 that quickly became the afa store running a proper donation uh i guess avenue and with that

00:25:34.780 we were able to raise quite about quite a bit of funds and that got us tools and supplies and food

00:25:39.580 and that made a huge difference the thing is a lot of people can't drop everything they're doing

00:25:46.620 drive through thousand miles away and get their hands dirty you know it was hard enough for me

00:25:51.500 i just finished a national event you're supposed to be preparing for winter i got

00:25:55.260 kid on the way in 2 202 already running around their mother's feet it was a lot for me to step

00:26:00.860 away but a lot of people can't step away a lot of people have obligations that don't

00:26:05.900 work for that sort of thing they can't get the time off work they don't have the luxury of having

00:26:10.940 a stay-at-home mom that can take care of their kids but they still found ways to help and that

00:26:15.660 was through donations because the donations aren't just dollar signs and cents what that was what the

00:26:21.020 donations got was food in small bellies it got water purification tablets and anti-diarrhea

00:26:29.980 meds to people that had tainted water or no water at all it got blankets to families that didn't

00:26:34.940 even have full roofs on the problem what you're talking about is a few dollars meaning the

00:26:41.660 the difference between someone's worst week in their life and the best day of their life

00:26:46.380 because a small teddy bear even if it's three and a half inches and a can of of soup after all that

00:26:55.340 that's the best thing they can have happen and it seems silly because it's such a small thing

00:27:00.380 but knowing that people care is essential we're not just dealing with an issue of

00:27:07.900 natural disaster we're not just dealing with a lack of power

00:27:10.380 we're dealing with a population that's lost hope because no one's come for them

00:27:16.380 I think the words I heard a lot were from from other people that came down to work where FEMA didn't we will.

00:27:25.680 And I'll leave the politics out of it.

00:27:28.640 The simple fact is we showed up.

00:27:31.740 People like us showed up.

00:27:33.520 Where was everyone else?

00:27:35.500 Right.

00:27:38.760 Right.

00:27:39.280 And I think I was helping provide some oversight along with y'all's here, Goethe, on the donations coming in.

00:27:47.440 And I may not have the exact number, but we raised in excess of, I believe, $5,000 to help those efforts.

00:27:58.060 And it's like Mr. Heinlein said that, you know, we sacrifice what we can.

00:28:04.820 And these gentlemen decided to sacrifice sweat, equity and time. And all we all we asked was that people sacrifice their their hard earned dollars.

00:28:17.920 You know, people were also donating, I believe, supplies also through a store run fund.

00:28:24.800 And, you know, all of those things are an act of an act of devotion toward trying to help our neighbors out.

00:28:33.720 Again, myself living in central South Carolina, I mean, the rivers here are still absolutely swollen with Appalachian mud that's still washing down from 120 miles north of me.

00:28:45.540 We saw swamps overrun and nothing to the level that they saw up in Appalachian, but there's still like a trickle down effect.

00:28:53.460 Everything that dumped in that area is washing somewhere and is actually washing down here.

00:28:58.320 So before we go any further, I want to recognize G.W. Farnsworth donated us five coffees.

00:29:06.040 Thank you, G.W., for your donation.

00:29:09.720 And we're going to do a couple of the questions.

00:29:14.700 Owl of Omens asks, I have a question.

00:29:17.680 Did you guys witness any federal interference in local relief efforts?

00:29:21.680 Bethea, I'm going to let you take that one.

00:29:22.940 Okay. So personally, I have not witnessed any direct interference from the people on the ground that are still operating.

00:29:38.740 We have a guy from Indiana, an AFA member who he came down two weeks ago.

00:29:48.120 So he's been here for two weeks, and he has not left, and he was down the weekend prior to that.

00:29:55.640 He had come down to help out with an organization who he linked up with.

00:30:03.880 So he had come down the previous weekend, then he went home for a while, then he came back for two weeks, and he's still out in the field.

00:30:11.660 He's actually camping out on location in order to be there, daylight too dark.

00:30:21.440 And because he has the ability to go do these things 24-7, I don't, I've got a family, I need to be home at night, I have a job, I've got to work now.

00:30:33.380 Now, he has told me that there have been areas where the government, this is really, this may be a little spicy, okay, but I think truth is important.

00:30:56.180 and it's one of our virtues, government employees of various organizations would drive up,

00:31:07.380 like in a pickup truck or a van, they're not hauling anything other than their lunches

00:31:15.420 and their waters and such, and they'll go to a donation site or a drop-off where people,

00:31:21.860 citizens. That's who's been doing everything is the people who live here and the people who come

00:31:28.280 from Montana, Indiana, Georgia. The things everybody will bring in, they would go and

00:31:38.200 take pictures with the supplies that were donated. They would go and pick up a case of water and

00:31:46.540 have their picture taken or food and such um so that that is a thing that has happened um

00:31:55.740 uh trust my source on that um there have been a lot of rumors um one one the rumor that i heard

00:32:05.180 that has been the discounted was that um the government had gone into one of these isolated

00:32:16.380 communities that was built on a river. All the roads in and out had to be on a river because

00:32:23.300 they're at a very high elevation, and the mountains there, they're rugged to the point

00:32:29.760 where you can't make a road in there. There wasn't a reason to make a road on these high

00:32:36.620 mountains, so all the roads and all the houses and such are built on the river, and so all their

00:32:45.240 The bridges are out, and they're completely isolated, and you had to either hike in or you had to be dropped out of a helicopter, which is what happened with the government, guys, as the rumor goes.

00:32:56.460 The rumor says that the government had gone house to house to get supplies that people had donated, and they hoarded them all up in a local school, and they put razor wire on the top, collectivized it all, and told all the residents that you had to come here to get things, and we will pass them out.

00:33:19.840 That is not true.

00:33:21.280 Um, the person who, uh, told me that, um, he asked me for supplies for being kind of off grid. Um, I'm an, I'm an outdoorsman, so I am well stocked. So I hooked him up and he thought he would have to like hike 12 miles. And he didn't, he, he, he, he, he drove all the way to the middle of town and none of the rumors are true.

00:33:51.020 So there are a lot of rumors that are going around. There are rumors that the government has their roadblocks, and if you're coming in from out of the area, they will turn you away. That is not entirely true.

00:34:07.820 I know that the path from out east of us, the direction of Charlotte, Raleigh, and the coast and such, that's been open for pretty much the whole time.

00:34:23.000 We had a member of the AFA who lives in the Wilmington area.

00:34:28.080 The hurricane hit Thursday night, and he was on my doorstep Wednesday morning, and he stayed for a number of days.

00:34:35.880 And he drove all the way in. He brought a bunch of stuff. It wasn't confiscated. He didn't hit a roadblock or anything.

00:34:49.120 But to the west of me, Tyler Heinlein, arriving 10 days after or so, he came in from the west side and he hit three roadblocks.

00:35:03.080 Now, he was able to navigate that, but they were actively asking folks, why are you coming in here? What is your purpose? All this stuff.

00:35:15.980 Um, so there are a lot of rumors, but the important thing to remember is that a lot of it is just rumors and that fear mongering and, you know, anti-government sentiment is going to be present anytime there's any kind of a disaster or anything.

00:35:36.000 I will say that any time I have personally witnessed the government on the scene, whether it be the National Guard or government agencies, they have been acting in either a traffic cop kind of role or they have just been observing.

00:35:57.020 I have not personally witnessed any of them, the rolling up sleeves to get to work.

00:36:03.680 I've not witnessed them passing out anything.

00:36:08.720 So that I will say, but I don't really call that interference more like just the machines of the cog are rusty and in need of a lubricant.

00:36:24.680 No doubt about that.

00:36:27.020 So I'm going to pull up another question here.

00:36:30.860 The Wolf Throne asks, when natural disasters like this happen, do you attribute it to the wrath of a god like Thor,

00:36:38.300 or do you believe there are malevolent Jotnar behind these disasters, or neither?

00:36:43.860 That's kind of a complex question.

00:36:45.840 I'm going to say neither.

00:36:49.000 These things happen.

00:36:50.220 I think when I look back to when I was younger, I'm in my mid-40s, so I came up during the rise of CNN and national cable outlets that broadcast news year-round, like the Weather Channel.

00:37:08.280 And I remember in 1989, 88, something like that, that South Carolina got struck by Hurricane Hugo, which was a massive storm that absolutely just plastered the coast of South Carolina and all the way up into Charlotte.

00:37:28.800 And I remember thinking how wild that was. And I remember that felt like a very isolated incident because we weren't as over-informed as we are now. And that's not to suggest that the storms haven't picked up in frequency or something like that in the years since then.

00:37:46.700 And I'm not a geologist or I don't study weather, so I'm not an expert in any of these things.

00:37:52.640 But I do think, you know, we're on a warming period.

00:37:56.200 And I think that plays a big role in a lot of this stuff that we've seen more and more catastrophic storms in the southeastern United States.

00:38:06.420 But, no, I don't think that that's I don't put that on the divine and I don't put that on these supernatural beings.

00:38:15.840 i think it's just a natural occurring thing though i'm i am not a god so i don't know

00:38:22.960 they haven't told me um sierra asks after being boots on the ground what supplies you say are

00:38:30.800 needed most currently i'm gonna ask uh heineland to pick that question up i would say right now

00:38:37.680 coats and blankets we're kind of in this mid game where a lot of the initial crises have

00:38:50.500 been averted we we have good running water starting to flow in a lot of places in fact

00:38:56.520 we were helping one of the families that was the lead engineer on getting one of the reservoirs

00:39:01.500 back and we helped get his animals re re fenced in and we took a lot of the burn of his troubles

00:39:08.700 off so he could go perform work that we just did not have the technical capability to do

00:39:13.100 and so now that we have water flowing now that we have power coming back to places

00:39:18.300 there's still communities are completely isolated and we're going to still continue to get them the

00:39:22.140 same supplies you know food water purification tablets all that but for the most part right now

00:39:28.540 we have a lot of people that are not going to have any access to good heating come this winter so

00:39:34.780 warm clothes blankets that sort of thing it's going to be november as soon as you blink you

00:39:42.140 blink again will be december these people are going to be cold i think there was 15 deaths

00:39:47.260 first night it dipped below cross point due to hypothermia and that's not going to get

00:39:52.060 it any better in areas that have received no sort of relief. Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna echo that

00:40:01.260 also. I know a lot of the folks that don't live in the southeastern United States, they have a

00:40:06.000 general picture or view of, you know, the climate here. The Carolinas is a unique place that,

00:40:14.240 you know, we have like the central and coastal part of it that's more subtropical. You start

00:40:19.400 getting into the Appalachians and all that, it shifts a bit. It's the Appalachian mountain

00:40:25.740 chain that keeps the central part and eastern part of the Carolinas as humid as it does

00:40:30.580 because it helps keep that coastal air trapped over this part of the state or both states.

00:40:36.620 When you go up into like the Mount Mitchell area, it's like a completely different climate

00:40:40.880 than you have in the rest of the Carolinas. Tyler only lives about two hours away from

00:40:46.240 me and i have left my house at you know 10 in the morning to uh to meet up with him for various afa

00:40:53.920 activities and have seen the temperature drop 25 degrees uh just going up by 26 and into his area

00:41:02.320 so it is a drastic difference in the uh in the climate there so they they get actual winter

00:41:08.000 up there as whereas the this this part of the carolinas is particularly mild

00:41:13.200 did you have anything you wanted to add to that what supplies you think are needed most currently

00:41:18.560 tyler um so my guy on the ground here tom denton um he popped into the youtube chat here on the

00:41:29.360 side i was just looking at my phone here to see the comments and he mentioned that um

00:41:35.360 The number one item that has been asked for is a buddy heaters. So if if you know any of you have got the resources to procure heaters, whether you want to donate a heater or you will you want to donate some money.

00:41:55.000 um please contact myself or a folk builder tyler heineland i believe that nick could probably

00:42:03.860 put our uh our email addresses up here on this up here on this screen for you guys um

00:42:10.800 please reach out to us um although the afa fundraiser is is now over um we do accept

00:42:21.300 donations and we will make sure that uh that we are able to um procure heaters and we are able to

00:42:29.080 get them into homes um i know the other day the temperature at night dropped down into

00:42:36.400 the low 30s high 20s and we actually had um snow at our higher elevations um my guy on the ground

00:42:46.540 here told me that he had personally witnessed, um, a house that had a hole in the roof and

00:42:53.120 the family was living inside still, um, covered up with all the blankets that they could muster

00:43:00.100 and it was snowing inside their house. Um, and they had small children. Um, my people

00:43:09.220 or a proud people, they're not going to leave.

00:43:15.120 So as long as they remain obstinate and want to tough it out,

00:43:21.420 we need to provide comfort to them.

00:43:26.780 So, yeah, I mean, that goes back to when I talked a couple of minutes ago

00:43:33.780 about how this is going to be an ongoing effort.

00:43:36.820 It's going to be an ongoing endeavor, and please don't forget our people.

00:43:42.680 So I appreciate you asking that, Sierra.

00:43:46.720 I would say heaters.

00:43:48.380 You need to think about winter supplies.

00:43:52.680 I will add a note to that is that a lot of –

00:43:58.820 uh uh that if you clothing it needs to be new um so i know that your heart may be in the right

00:44:13.460 place to go into your closet or your dresser and pull out all your warm stuff and say

00:44:18.660 i ain't worn this in a year or two i'm just going to donate it they're not going to accept it um

00:44:23.780 and clothing they've got mountains of it um so what's what is really gonna help is like uh

00:44:31.460 propane bottles for the propane stoves and uh buddy heaters that is the number one thing is

00:44:38.100 buddy heaters um so anything that is not electric because there are still places that

00:44:44.340 don't have power um but i do believe that for north carolina anyway um i don't know about you

00:44:53.140 know other areas but for north carolina um power is back for the majority of of of people other

00:45:00.660 than those who are the most remote or cut off because of the landslides or the bridges out um

00:45:10.580 so uh just to hedge your bets a heater that does not need to be plugged into a wall to work would

00:45:19.220 be would be a boon for these people yeah um and but while i've got the the floor i do want to give

00:45:29.300 a shout out um you were mentioning earlier how it wasn't just the monetary donations it was supplies

00:45:38.260 as well there were a lot of folks who donated supplies that we were able to get in here um

00:45:44.580 I know that one of our members in Georgia, Jace Cameron, he came out here for a number of days.

00:45:56.700 And when he did, he brought a lot of donations that were gathered by the Georgia guys that are around him.

00:46:04.260 People like Russ Henderson, Gilbert Page, people like this all around him.

00:46:10.760 Uh, Jordan Wells, um, his, his, uh, the brother and his wife, they, they pulled a lot of donations and he brought that stuff up with him.

00:46:21.160 Um, Rachel Kinsler, her house was, uh, used to receive a bunch of donations by mail because the mail here was, as you could imagine, it was not, it was not running.

00:46:39.240 um so it was not possible for donations to be mailed to my house even though i'm kind of in

00:46:45.320 the middle of all of this um so donations would go to her house and tyler and i were able to make

00:46:52.820 a drive you know up there do all the the detours and such in between us we uh crossed the mountains

00:47:01.280 And we got a hold of the donations that were at her house that were also donated by members in the area.

00:47:13.900 And they brought down a bunch of stuff as well.

00:47:18.540 My living room was absolutely full to the brim of the donations, the cases of water, food, blankets.

00:47:27.120 We had a big box of blankets, propane, the gasoline to put into generators and such.

00:47:35.860 There was just a plethora of things that were donated.

00:47:41.160 So I did want to mention that as well.

00:47:44.720 Awesome.

00:47:46.320 So let me ask this, guys.

00:47:48.720 So when you were on the ground, what was the response like from the locals that you guys came into contact with?

00:47:56.220 And let's start with you, Heinlein.

00:47:59.740 It was overwhelmingly positive.

00:48:02.240 It's everyone pretending they didn't need help.

00:48:06.380 That's just the nature of the area.

00:48:08.240 Of course.

00:48:08.580 For more than five minutes, they told you exactly what they needed.

00:48:14.040 And it's an area that has a large amount of elderly people. 0.99

00:48:20.540 and they just don't have the back strength to do a lot of the work that need to be done so 0.96

00:48:27.460 there was this one lady who 74 years old living up in the up in the hills and her spring wasn't

00:48:36.440 working and she had a little generator running things so she she was in better shape than a lot

00:48:41.540 of people this was fairly early on so she was in good shape but she had no running water and there

00:48:46.660 wasn't a water supply point anywhere near her. So when we got there, Bethea and Jace Cameron

00:48:53.440 got to work behind the building clearing, just this maze of brambles. All the wisteria

00:49:02.420 and the ivy just wraps around these trees. And when the trees come down, they become

00:49:07.680 one giant tangled mess. So we're talking about a seven foot tall pile of trimmings that were

00:49:14.460 just just a maze and while they cleaned that out i worked on getting the spring up and running

00:49:20.620 so i i ran the water lines through got them operational and then we did a little jerry

00:49:25.500 rigging with the generator and the and the well and we got it all hooked up so by the end of it

00:49:32.140 the power company was going to be able to come out and hook up power because all it was waiting

00:49:37.820 on is just the the brush clearing and she had her her spring operational

00:49:45.180 and then we brought out a little pack of the instant coffee and you should have seen her face

00:49:48.940 she hadn't had coffee since the since the hurricane now i'm a firm believer that you shouldn't ever

00:49:54.300 become too fond of any vice no matter how mundane but i think in that case she deserved her coffee

00:50:01.660 and it's these moments like that that really just show what we're what we're able to do with a very

00:50:07.180 small amount of work the the responses were always just overwhelmingly grateful for how lucky they

00:50:15.660 were compared to everyone else that was the that was the predominant attitude is you know we had

00:50:22.060 a we met a rancher who 26 feet underwater his entire property which is just an unfathomable

00:50:29.020 amount of water you just to think of the scale and he he was able to not be there when it came

00:50:36.460 through which is why he was talking to us but he said to think of how fortunate i am

00:50:42.860 when the rest of my neighborhood was not so lucky and it's just this attitude right here really

00:50:47.900 encapsulates the the initial attitude and then as far as our work goes afterwards it was

00:50:56.700 thank you you're doing you're doing good work you don't know how much this means you'll never know

00:51:01.100 how much this means and it was on to the next job where we got the same the same treatment i mean it

00:51:06.460 It's hard to describe because you can never do enough to feel like you've done enough.

00:51:14.540 Oh, don't I know it.

00:51:17.040 But to be able to do anything, it's one of the best feelings in the world.

00:51:22.220 It's hard to explain to people that haven't gotten their hands dirty how rewarding it is to put yourself out there, put yourself on the line and get these types of jobs done.

00:51:32.860 And they're dirty, filthy jobs.

00:51:34.540 and and you know the air quality in certain areas were were horrific we went through

00:51:40.700 we went through a town where for a mile and a half around the the funeral home there was

00:51:47.260 ash coating cars because it was running 24 7. i try not to talk too much about the grizzly

00:51:53.340 parts of the job and that's obviously a limitation in some of the pictures we don't have because

00:51:58.060 there's a lot of work wouldn't be appropriate to take pictures and that's it's it's another

00:52:01.820 thing thinking back he goes oh man i wish i took a few more pictures so people would see what

00:52:06.540 what this was like so they could understand how much they helped but at the same time while you're

00:52:11.980 doing it you don't you're frustrated that you're even stopping to take pictures there's so much

00:52:16.780 work needing to be done well i think you know getting the message out there through through

00:52:22.700 visual means is is uh is absolutely necessary because i think i mean we live in a we live in

00:52:30.220 day and age where we don't trust everything we see that comes across our screens whether it's from

00:52:34.940 you know social media or you know national media or international media we can't always trust what

00:52:41.180 we see when we see images from our guys on the ground uh looking at the just sheer devastation

00:52:49.500 of that area and it brings a level of realism that i think a lot of people don't take these

00:52:55.340 things seriously like you know i know when like uh these hurricanes you know strike the florida

00:53:01.340 coast and we you know we've got a lot of folk that are in florida and we'll hit them up you know

00:53:05.820 ahead of the storm hey you guys gonna be okay and they're like we deal with this all the time

00:53:10.620 with the folks in the appalachian area that weren't expecting any of this and and a lot of times

00:53:17.100 again because so many of our people you know don't live in this uh you know southeastern coastline

00:53:22.140 area, they have a general idea of what these tropical storms and hurricanes do, but what they

00:53:29.760 don't realize is what happens when they push that far inland and still maintain the level of strength

00:53:34.560 that Helene did, and just the sheer devastation that it wrecked onto the Appalachian area,

00:53:41.600 and, you know, I've got, you know, personal connections up in that same area. You know,

00:53:45.520 my mom is from Oconee County. She's from the Piedmont Foothills area of South Carolina,

00:53:50.720 So a lot of the places that, you know, we saw the devastation at places I'm very familiar with.

00:53:55.600 I spent a lot of time in my childhood and in the years since like Chimney Rock is gone.

00:54:01.340 And that was my that was my mother's favorite place to take me all the way up until I was a teenager.

00:54:08.120 My great grandmother lived on Lake Hartwell and I spent, you know, a couple of summers up in the Oconee County area, which is right there in the foothills of Appalachians and all that.

00:54:18.660 So that stuff's in my blood. And, you know, I have a passion about taking care of those folks out there because those people are my people.

00:54:27.040 And although I wouldn't call myself an Appalachian guy, but I certainly am descended from Appalachian folk.

00:54:33.500 You know, those are my mom's people and those are my people.

00:54:37.540 And seeing, you know, two of two of our guys, you know, being the face of this just fills me with so much pride.

00:54:45.040 You know, I've got, you know, on a personal note, I've got, you know, some personal connections to both of these gentlemen that you see on the screen.

00:54:52.440 Both of them have been, you know, mentored by by me at some level or another.

00:54:59.020 And seeing them put themselves out there, put themselves in harm's way, because that's something that we haven't talked about yet, is that, you know, just driving up there was absolutely dangerous, life threat.

00:55:10.520 and not to mention the stuff that these young men were doing on the ground

00:55:15.560 it was absolutely dangerous and you know chainsaws

00:55:19.540 electrical lines and standing water and stuff like that don't need to go into all of it

00:55:23.440 but you know these guys were putting their asses on the lines to get out there

00:55:27.340 and do some stuff while a lot of folks sat on the sideline and just

00:55:30.740 I wish I could do something when these guys decided if it ain't going to be us

00:55:34.640 then who's it going to be so we're going to go back to some more

00:55:38.480 the questions. Go through Trent East asked, did you gentlemen hold any sort of bloat or ritual

00:55:47.140 for the folk during your relief efforts? And I'm going to expand on that. Did you guys

00:55:50.800 get together for prayers beforehand or did you guys imbue this with any religious practice?

00:55:59.740 And I'll start with, I'll start with Tom.

00:56:04.100 Yeah, absolutely.

00:56:06.440 Whenever one of our members, he came up, actually with all of our members that came up, we did have prayers.

00:56:17.380 Prayers for our safety, but also prayers for the people that we were going to go and help.

00:56:23.220 This was not done publicly, of course.

00:56:26.060 A lot of the people around here are very religious, but not the way that we are.

00:56:33.420 This is an extremely Protestant area.

00:56:36.620 As a matter of fact, one of the places that we did the majority of our work with in the early days was a local Baptist church that are some of the finest individuals I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.

00:56:51.020 And I can't tell you how many times I was prayed over by a Baptist preacher before I got going on my work, which I'm grateful for.

00:56:59.400 You know, that man's heart was full to bursting with a love for his people.

00:57:08.260 So that did not offend me in the slightest.

00:57:10.460 But on an also true note, yes, we did do prayers one night whenever we had the majority of our members together.

00:57:21.380 Well, I say the majority. We had three AFA men who were also oathed into the Odenic order.

00:57:30.820 So we did a bloat to the high one, and part of that bloat was expressing our gratitude that we got to help these people and a recognition of the, what's a good word, tenacity of the people that we were going in there to help.

00:57:58.740 You know, they may not be of our faith, but there is a circle of our end and guard in which these people absolutely abide.

00:58:11.140 They uphold our morals. They uphold our traditions and such.

00:58:15.820 And it was an honor to be with them. And we we we we prayed that our efforts would be blessed.

00:58:24.920 We prayed that what we did pleased our ancestors and pleased our Iser.

00:58:35.140 Then on another night when we had some more of our members around, there were four members of the AFA there for this one.

00:58:46.860 And we held a sumble.

00:58:50.900 And with the sumble, we talked about almost everybody had a blood connection to this area or to the Carolinas in general.

00:59:05.020 Many heritage Americans do, whether you live in California, Idaho, Arizona, or Mississippi.

00:59:16.860 at one point your ancestors that came through the carolinas and um we honored them and uh

00:59:26.780 we spoke to them and asked that they bless our endeavors and we just hope that that we made

00:59:33.580 them proud that was a huge thing is we i talked about one of the men i hailed was uh my my wife's

00:59:45.420 grandfather papa donnie and um pop papa donnie was an appalachian man to the core uh in his you

00:59:56.340 know earlier years he was a hard drinker he was a hard swearing man he was he was just everything

01:00:02.840 you would expect out of a hard appalachian man um but in his you know older years um he uh he

01:00:11.520 you know, settled down and everything.

01:00:13.960 And he was very wise.

01:00:16.780 Papadani did not have a lot of education, but he was a wise man.

01:00:21.340 And he loved his people.

01:00:23.640 And he had a heart of, you know, service and such.

01:00:29.180 And that whole time I thought about, you know, if Papadani were alive now,

01:00:36.660 what would he be doing?

01:00:39.280 Oh, yeah.

01:00:39.620 how would he have responded to all these things um and i knew what the answer was and i knew that i

01:00:46.680 needed to make him proud i knew that uh you know i always had a good relationship with that man but

01:00:53.880 i wanted to think about it in the context of if he was here now and he was witnessing

01:00:59.680 the husband of his the granddaughter what would he want to see and i tried to make sure that i

01:01:06.820 lived up to his standards, you know, and did the things that he would have done, you know,

01:01:11.960 even as 80 year old man, he would have been there with us. He would have been driving his little

01:01:17.420 truck. He would have been off on a four wheeler. He would have done all he could. And so if an

01:01:23.860 80 year old man could do all those things, then I better do it too. Um, so, but to get back to

01:01:31.100 the original question uh the go the east yes we we uh we maintained an air of piety in all things

01:01:40.280 that we did and we understood that we were not there alone um and that everything that we were

01:01:45.960 doing was being watched and uh hopefully was uh i hope that we built a lot of the reputation and

01:01:53.900 bright fame in the eyes of our ancestors and our gods you certainly did amongst your peers

01:01:59.400 you know all of us are you know again swollen with pride from the effort that

01:02:05.280 you guys put into it and for those of you don't know Tyler Bethea is the

01:02:09.780 embodiment of the spirit of Appalachia I don't want to call Appalachian folk

01:02:15.660 rugged individualists but they are doggedly independent don't want no help

01:02:21.300 don't need no help won't ask for no help but they'll be the first to jump in and

01:02:26.400 help. And when I talk about Alcetru being a religion of action, that

01:02:35.820 represents, or I'm sorry, that's represented through the spirit of Arian

01:02:41.780 being. We're about action, we're about doing. Our first ancestor that stood on 0.54

01:02:48.000 the Caspian step and gazed upon the setting sun and asked himself what lies

01:02:52.200 beyond that horizon and decided he was gonna push that way and led you know

01:02:57.120 generation upon generation of men and women further west and further toward

01:03:01.860 that setting Sun that that spirit is very much reflected in the spirit of the

01:03:06.940 of the folks in Appalachia and nobody represents Appalachia better than Tyler

01:03:12.660 Pathé does so Nicholas Gunn asks are there any avenues still open for further

01:03:20.760 donations well I think AFA's official fundraiser for this has closed you can

01:03:26.800 feel free to donate to runestone.org and just tag it as relief you know for

01:03:34.520 relief efforts and we'll see to it those funds go to the proper hands to make

01:03:38.900 sure that people get what they need

01:03:42.920 Sierra asked how did you figure out who needed help was a post made or did you

01:03:47.760 drive around until you found people who looked like they needed help. I'm going to let Tyler

01:03:52.040 Heinlein take this one. So there's quite a few community organizers that were getting work

01:03:59.720 tickets in, if you will. There was a couple Baptist preachers collecting information, local bars

01:04:05.500 operated as information. You had a lot of these opportunities to get jobs, but the thing is one

01:04:12.340 thing led to another. It doesn't matter what organization you worked with, whether it was

01:04:15.840 local or not, once you got a job, inevitably the neighbor needs something, and then you'd

01:04:21.800 hear from that next neighbor that someone else needed something.

01:04:26.940 I think it's fair to say that there was more work than there were hands to do all the work.

01:04:33.120 It's just a matter of going bit by bit, job by job, and you do one job, you have 10 waiting.

01:04:42.220 was no shortage of work to be done and there's a lot of bad information out there what areas were

01:04:49.740 good what areas were were not good and oftentimes those were inverted in reality but as you go from

01:04:57.740 one location to the next you're you're not driving with your eyes shut you see what needs to be done

01:05:02.860 you see people in need and that's how we formed our plan to bring it back to the question of did

01:05:09.740 we pray did we hold bloat and such i'd like to say that you know just i hadn't heard it said

01:05:16.700 and i want to make sure it said that the entire time we were there working was an act of ritual

01:05:25.500 we were putting our intention into our folk we were putting our beliefs at the forefront

01:05:30.940 of our actions i think people talk a lot about what astrue is they they read read the the lore

01:05:39.740 they they ask some questions here and there but for the people that came out and helped me the

01:05:44.700 people that drove the various distances they did to come out and get their hands dirty and help

01:05:49.180 their people i want them to know that that was living as true it's positively an act of worship

01:05:57.980 to get out there and get your hands dirty and sacrifice blood, sweat, and tears

01:06:01.720 in the pursuit of betterment of the people around us.

01:06:08.780 You know, we want to be good neighbors in every avenue,

01:06:12.540 whether it's around our hoss, around where our kindreds are based,

01:06:16.820 around, you know, our varying places of residence.

01:06:21.940 We always want to be good neighbors.

01:06:23.660 We want to be the best representatives of Alcetree we could possibly be.

01:06:26.800 And I think also that it's just that we're good people.

01:06:33.340 Good people want to do good things.

01:06:37.000 So next question comes from Russ.

01:06:39.860 What moments of your volunteer work were particularly spiritually significant,

01:06:43.320 aside from bloats and sambals, of course?

01:06:45.520 Tyler Buffet.

01:06:46.120 um i had a moment before tyler heinland or uh mr cameron came out um i was with one of our

01:07:03.340 members from it from the wilmington area he had come out uh in pretty early days and we had

01:07:09.180 hooked up with the local baptist church who these guys were running all the missions and such they

01:07:16.540 have a radio station where uh the people could uh call in and they had a big white board where

01:07:24.140 they would put all the missions and then all the people available with all of their

01:07:29.260 skill sets and such and they would put the person to the mission and um

01:07:35.420 Um, one of the jobs that we were tasked with was actually right here on my road.

01:07:43.180 And, um, we were told that this was an elderly lady who, um, she was a teacher at a local

01:07:51.560 school for years and years and that she was, you know, up there as a widow up there all

01:07:57.260 by herself and that she was running out of gas for her generator.

01:08:01.300 turns out it was a generac generator and it takes propane and we weren't ready for that

01:08:08.560 we brought in a bunch of gasoline but um

01:08:11.820 i i knew that that bridge was you know out to get across the hungary river which is a substantial

01:08:20.620 river um and we were tasked with that job because it's my backyard

01:08:29.600 that river's only 100 yards from your house correct no no no it's it's about a mile from

01:08:37.460 my house yeah um that's that's where i that's where i deer hunt uh is down in there that's where

01:08:44.340 our uh the game land starts so that's at the border of the government land okay um which goes

01:08:50.940 all the way to the border with uh south carolina you're actually able to get up on the blue ridge

01:08:56.880 escarpment and you look down and everything is flat so it's like the very edge of the mountains

01:09:02.560 but anyway um my my my partner and i we took big backpacks um that would be used for like

01:09:11.660 hiking on the appalachian trail these are 80 liter backpacks right and um we went up to the

01:09:19.420 ladies at the church uh they were running a massive distribution hub and we had them just

01:09:26.820 load us down with all the food um hygiene items uh all these things and um we were ready to walk

01:09:35.600 in there so we made that journey down to where the bridge was out we crossed the river there

01:09:43.400 We parked our vehicles, put the backpacks on our back, crossed the river.

01:09:48.580 There was a footbridge there at that time, scaffolding, actually.

01:09:53.160 And we walked across that, and we're on our way to walk in, and a man on a, we call them side-by-sides here.

01:10:02.080 It's like a UTV that's four-wheel drive.

01:10:07.040 It's like a four-wheeler hybrid type thing, right?

01:10:12.260 I don't know how to explain it to you, but there was a local man on that thing, and he asked where we were going with the backpacks, and I gave him an address and the lady's name, and he said, well, I'm her neighbor.

01:10:27.280 Why don't you throw your bags in the back, and I'll ride things up there, so we were appreciative of that, and we headed up to this lady's house way up at the top of the mountain,

01:10:39.060 And then lots of parts of that road were kind of impassable if you didn't have kind of an all-terrain vehicle.

01:10:49.240 And we got up there and we knocked on her door.

01:10:52.980 And as soon as she opened it, she had tears in her eyes and was just so grateful.

01:10:57.500 She was happy that somebody cared, that somebody remembered she was up there.

01:11:04.800 And, you know, we told her that we had brought a bunch of things that Pastor Phillip had, you know, asked us to come out there.

01:11:15.660 And we offloaded all the food in her garage and we kind of we laid out all the stuff.

01:11:23.580 We're like, you know, any of this stuff that that, you know, you don't want that you're not going to eat, you know, all the all the cans of spam.

01:11:29.780 You know, I made a joke like my wife would turn her nose up at all that spam.

01:11:36.080 So if you want me to take that back with me, I will.

01:11:39.700 So we let her pick through all the stuff and I repacked my backpack.

01:11:44.620 And we stayed there for about two and a half hours.

01:11:52.400 All this lady just showered us with affection and told us about how, you know, she hasn't even gone out there to the river where the bridge is out.

01:12:04.940 She's not left her house, you know, in a week.

01:12:09.020 And, you know, the spiritual experience in that for me is that we're coming up on the winter nights.

01:12:18.380 A lot of us have already celebrated the winter nights.

01:12:21.420 My kindred and I will be doing that this weekend in eastern Tennessee.

01:12:28.160 Quick plug, if you're in the eastern Tennessee area and you'd like to attend the winter nights, email me at my email address.

01:12:34.780 I'd love to see you.

01:12:36.600 But a huge part of the winter nights is we honor our D-Seer, and our D-Seer are our female ancestors.

01:12:46.080 And my grandmother was a little old lady.

01:12:48.960 she was so frail and so small the whole time i knew her you know whenever i met her

01:12:57.360 32 years ago she was a little old lady and um i saw my grandmother in this woman and 0.69

01:13:06.000 her mannerisms the way she spoke the way she 0.99

01:13:09.360 she treated us like we were small children you know like uh oh shug i don't need all that you

01:13:19.920 know you boys are so generous and everything uh you didn't put yourself out did you and all this

01:13:28.640 it just uh i had to hold i had to hold my tears back because uh it was just such a profound

01:13:38.640 experience of how grateful and how loving that woman was um her house was fine you know she was

01:13:46.960 fine she was just lonely yeah um she needed a visit with some people um then the no power and

01:13:55.400 stuff she lost her husband years and years back um her kids had not been up there her grandkids

01:14:03.220 not been up there um it was just her neighbors who they they they checked on her and stuff they

01:14:11.300 made sure she was okay and everything but um i think that if

01:14:18.260 if you go trying to find the divine in everything you're going to be disappointed

01:14:26.120 but if you go at things with an open heart and an open mind and you allow things to happen

01:14:32.740 to you that's when you're going to have a spiritual experience and that was that was my

01:14:38.400 experience was i saw my this year in this woman and i would hope that if anything like that had

01:14:46.500 uh happened to my to my this year that there would have been a young man there who would 0.78

01:14:53.360 help her out and who would have just given a listening ear while that woman talked for two

01:15:01.140 and a half hours and i know from dealing with folks like that that you know a lot of times

01:15:06.660 just having company means the world to them you know you you could have brought no spam and no

01:15:12.440 peanut butter and and no nothing for them and just the fact you showed up on their porch just to

01:15:17.660 check on her and all that probably she's probably still talking about you right now

01:15:22.280 i can and when you said that all should and i don't want to put you out no i heard my mother

01:15:28.820 and all that. So we've got some questions rolling in, but I want to ask that same question to Tyler

01:15:35.660 Heineman. Was there anything, was there a moment during your volunteer service that you felt was

01:15:43.080 particularly spiritually significant? Absolutely. So I think the work we did that was

01:15:52.020 the most impactful lines up with this question really well we went to a farm that did equine

01:16:00.000 therapy for veterans that's that was their bread and butter they do trail riding all that but what

01:16:05.360 they really do is they go out of their way to make sure that when our when our young men come

01:16:11.200 back and they don't come back quite the way they should that they have an outlet and so this equine

01:16:17.780 therapy is the taking care of the horses the riding the horses and getting away from things

01:16:24.420 really bonding with an animal that doesn't have all the weight that the rest of the world does

01:16:29.380 have and this this family all their kids are grown or as the lady said all all her babies

01:16:37.940 were out of the house you know they had flown the nest and they they were quite something this this

01:16:44.580 this couple they got to celebrate their 52nd anniversary in a motel while their house flooded

01:16:52.100 that was how they celebrated their 52nd anniversary happened the day of the hurricane

01:16:57.140 all their horses found good dry land their outbuildings weren't so lucky some of them got

01:17:03.940 picked up and carried literal acres away and smashed into oak trees before they stopped

01:17:09.300 quite a lot of the pictures of some of the work was from that farm that's where we did the fencing

01:17:17.380 that's where you see those uh those outbuildings up on their side hung up by fencing fencing that

01:17:23.400 sort of thing it's also the picture that was put on the afa telegram channel and i'm sure other

01:17:31.560 platforms as well where there was four guys in identical shirts and the two couples i'm sure

01:17:36.900 nick can find that if we give them enough time but really great with that

01:17:43.380 they did they did echelon therapy and and that meant that helping them not only helped a really

01:17:49.380 good family with a really good heart it meant that we helped an entire organization and all

01:17:53.700 the veterans all the veterans families so we were able to impact quite literally over a thousand

01:17:58.340 people by just helping this one location out and that feels good but that's not where the spiritual

01:18:03.620 impact came from it happened when i was talking to the owner of this house we went back out there

01:18:09.620 a second time to help jack up his house so we had these bottle jacks and we had his the owner's

01:18:15.540 brother there who was a structural engineer so at least we were doing things a little less sketchy

01:18:20.740 than we could have we were still pushing the boundaries a little bit lifting a house with

01:18:25.300 bottle jacks but i was talking to him about it and this this family had built this farmstead

01:18:31.860 from scratch they milled every single bit of wood on site they hand pounded every single nail they

01:18:38.100 built this before screws were an affordable commodity power tools were not something that

01:18:43.380 were they had access to when they built this and they put every piece of fence up they built all

01:18:47.940 the barns all the buildings with wood they had milled and they did this together this is a couple

01:18:54.020 so in love that the husband lied about his age to get married he also forged his mom's signature

01:18:58.660 so

01:19:00.200 he was not 18, he was 15

01:19:02.680 but you know what, I guess

01:19:04.080 he was ready for it because

01:19:06.160 he built a beautiful life for this woman

01:19:08.220 and they seem to be one of the

01:19:10.740 happiest couples I've ever met

01:19:11.740 I'm talking to him under his house, we're spray painting

01:19:14.880 beams that are broken

01:19:16.840 or damaged or dry rotting

01:19:18.220 feeling a two story house above us while

01:19:20.700 we did so

01:19:21.300 and we got talking theology

01:19:23.540 and I didn't shy away, I have nothing

01:19:26.360 to shy away from, a lot of people want to

01:19:28.660 tiptoe around and beat around the bush with any of their religious beliefs doesn't matter

01:19:35.600 if you're muslim christian as true whatever you want to be there's a lot of people that

01:19:40.760 aren't comfortable talking about it but me and him we talked obert we talked long and hard about

01:19:44.920 religion and in the end he said something to me he goes you know my god sounds a lot more like

01:19:51.420 your gods than the other christians would say and he had this moment where things just kind

01:19:57.840 of clicked a little. He said he's probably too old to change his ways now, but he feels

01:20:03.680 like we were on the same wavelength. Just having that spiritually affirming moment for

01:20:09.820 him was powerful for me. Hopefully that answers the question well enough.

01:20:16.980 Oh, that's awesome. I think that trying to find common ground with people in times like

01:20:26.980 this, where we can pull together and try to help one another

01:20:31.000 is vitally important. And I think what that man

01:20:35.120 probably heard in Our Gods

01:20:38.180 echoed in his soul because it had already existed there.

01:20:43.380 And I think whenever his time comes and he passes

01:20:46.840 beyond the veil and he realizes that he's not going where he thought he was

01:20:50.960 going, his ancestors are going,

01:20:53.340 all that will come full circle by that time so uh no that's beautiful and

01:21:00.780 i think again you know the spirit of generosity and hospitality that comes through in

01:21:07.760 and seeing that reciprocated and and this and uh the spirit of being grateful

01:21:13.820 is uh is a beautiful thing to hear and that i'm i'm uh i'm fighting back misty eyes through a lot

01:21:20.380 of these comments so i mean if you'll indulge me another i think there's another one that i think

01:21:25.780 people could get some benefit from hearing if if we got the time we've got all night sir go go for

01:21:32.080 the oven bloat that they mentioned was an own bloat that i took quite a lot of time to prepare

01:21:39.560 for i wasn't i wasn't wanting to do it too quickly i wanted to take my time get myself in the right

01:21:46.760 headspace and really be intentional about as you should before blow but I

01:21:50.960 felt this one was very important I take the time to know what I was doing and

01:21:55.940 the thing I asked for was discernment the just a little bit of help with

01:22:01.820 discernment of what we needed to do and we were coming back from that lady's

01:22:07.200 spring that I mentioned how we got her running water and on the way back we we

01:22:13.080 saw two goats in the road and they were side by side running the length of this

01:22:19.640 highway like they could like they could have been pulling a chariot if you will

01:22:24.000 and they ran along the highway we stopped and we got them off the highway

01:22:27.840 and in doing so we got them back under their driveway we saw the down fence we

01:22:34.020 figured you know let's let's get these goats back and let's see if the owners

01:22:37.920 want help fencing and we moved them a bit further further on we saw scattered

01:22:43.540 goats everywhere we saw chickens and ducks scattered everywhere and we kept

01:22:49.080 looking and kept seeing worse and worse situations there was a plethora of down

01:22:56.200 fence a lack of feed there was one rotten haybale that wasn't gonna be food

01:23:00.360 or anyone there was dead livestock and abandoned home and we we took our time to try and figure out

01:23:10.040 what to do we corralled all the animals away from the home try to get them contained for the most

01:23:14.200 part but we're talking about chickens ducks a single goose goats pigs everywhere and they

01:23:23.800 they were thin they they were wasting away i'm really surprised that all of them made it in the

01:23:30.040 end but these goats you know they were sustaining themselves off of english ivy which

01:23:39.480 causes blow real fast and that's probably what killed one of one of the ghosts that was lying

01:23:44.440 on the ground it was a rough rough spot but luckily we knew some people in the area that

01:23:51.320 we were able to get a animal trailer to we were coordinate with another farm and get these animals

01:23:56.520 to a place where they could they could eat good food slowly and build themselves back up so they

01:24:02.280 didn't kill themselves from overindulgence they were able to rest up and they've all been got

01:24:10.520 got back into good to a good place and they're not in threat of dying anymore but the thing

01:24:16.480 that was interesting to me is there was exactly nine goats we asked for discernment and we saw

01:24:25.000 front of us two goats leading us in to a to his place that we needed to be and

01:24:32.900 we we saw nine goats in the end and I think that they wants to touch up on

01:24:37.660 this too the only goat that we saw in offense he was in the chicken run was a

01:24:47.380 a lame goat he had a bad leg so that was also significant so for the audience for

01:24:56.200 those of you who have not picked up on it yet you know also Thor he he rides in

01:25:04.720 a chariot pulled by by two goats and in the lore there's a story about one of

01:25:11.020 of the goats uh you know if you if you butcher the the goats and you eat them but you lay all

01:25:18.340 their bones out on their on the hide and you'll hallow them with the hammer the goats will come

01:25:25.740 back and thor had given an edict to the to these children that he picked up along the way that uh

01:25:34.800 Do not eat the marrow out of these bones.

01:25:38.920 There was a little boy.

01:25:40.320 He broke a leg bone and he got the marrow out of it.

01:25:44.760 So when the bones are hallowed and the goat is back together again and it has the lame leg,

01:25:54.300 Osathor knows what had happened there.

01:25:57.120 I thought it was very auspicious that the two goats were the ones who let us in, and then we saw one with a lame leg, and then we spent two and a half days on that operation.

01:26:15.080 And after the night before having a bloat where we asked, we directly asked the Allfather for discernment and for a mission.

01:26:26.940 And the next day, we were given a mission.

01:26:31.080 So, yeah, I just wanted to add that in there.

01:26:34.600 The lame goat.

01:26:36.340 Auspicious indeed.

01:26:37.560 I think it's important to realize that sometimes it's just a crow eating a French fry in a parking lot.

01:26:44.360 sometimes birds of prey just follow combines because combines chop up little animals it's not

01:26:51.080 always a sign it's not always this grand mythic quest you're being sent on because you saw a bird

01:26:58.240 move in the same direction as you as you drove towards the fishing dock sometimes a bird's just

01:27:04.980 a bird but when you do get that moment when you do get that little bit of nudge and you see those

01:27:11.940 signs you know so if you're if you're looking for some direction just take a breath and look twice

01:27:22.780 sometimes they're just eating a frank try but every once in a while you'll get a powerful

01:27:29.260 spiritual experience where you get to see an answer very very clearly you know i'll share

01:27:35.700 another story with you about me and my little brother and the experience we had so this was

01:27:43.260 our second first harvest piece so this was a few years back we were driving back and I had both my

01:27:48.780 little brother's presence for this but one refused partaking blow so in the cars my pregnant wife

01:27:54.540 myself my little brother Aaron my little brother Brian we're driving along the highway and it's

01:28:02.040 boring as can be and then a cougar comes and leaps across traffic six lanes of traffic just

01:28:07.960 lopes like nothing for those of you who haven't seen a big cat move it's like a little cat

01:28:14.120 except they clear feet at a top it's it's insane how quick they got across that freeway

01:28:20.680 but what struck me was we've been talking about how this was real to my little brother and he was

01:28:29.160 coming to that conclusion but this is the first time he had been in bloke

01:28:34.040 i saw my wife saw my little brother aaron saw but my little brother brian who stayed out of bloke

01:28:40.440 didn't see the cougar he was going around and rubbernecking at looking for this cougar

01:28:45.800 for about five minutes after he was like he was convinced there was no cougar

01:28:51.480 well these little moments happen so you just have to be ready for him

01:28:55.880 another thing tom uh that you mentioned too that sometimes a crow is just a crow

01:29:01.720 and it's not always a sign but i think if you find meaning in that

01:29:05.700 then it is real no matter what it is sometimes a bee is just a bee but if you find meaning in

01:29:13.540 that particular thing it shows up at the right time then it is real and a lot of times too you

01:29:19.880 won't you don't know the significance of it until after you know the deed is

01:29:24.320 done or whatever needs to come to pass comes to pass but and the same thing

01:29:29.100 works as far as like a runic divination that a lot of times the message may seem

01:29:34.820 clear in the moment but it's not until these things come to pass for you realize

01:29:39.380 that you know what you thought was coming didn't happen and looking back

01:29:44.120 and right in hindsight you recognize what it was trying to tell you um so nick gunn asked what can

01:29:51.960 we do to be more prepared for emergencies like this in the future i think and you know i don't

01:29:58.040 live in the appalachian area um you know i live in the i live in the flat lands of central south

01:30:03.880 carolina but i don't know how you can be more prepared than the folks are in appalachia because

01:30:10.120 because they're a very self-sufficient culture there.

01:30:15.980 And I'm not talking about the folks inside the cities and stuff like that,

01:30:19.480 but the mountain folk there that are highly self-sufficient.

01:30:23.880 But I think, you know, besides just trying to get out before the storm comes,

01:30:29.620 and, you know, Tyler touched on this, Tyler Bethea touched on this earlier,

01:30:33.420 a lot of those folks are dug in.

01:30:34.880 You know, they came there to get away from the sickness of the modern world.

01:30:42.820 And some of their folks have been up there for generations upon generations upon generations.

01:30:49.020 You know, my granddaddy lived on this hill. I ain't leaving it.

01:30:52.480 But I think the best way to be prepared is be prepared to help each other when these disasters strike.

01:30:58.680 Be ready to roll your sleeves up and help your brothers out that are struggling.

01:31:04.880 be ready to dig deep and donate to causes that actually put the funds toward the charities that

01:31:12.160 they say they do rather than keeping a percentage of it that's something i'm glad i'm glad i brought

01:31:17.760 that up that's something i do want to bring up a lot of times when you donate to these you know

01:31:22.400 bigger organizations uh whether they're government run or you know through private means if they

01:31:28.880 raised, say, $10,000, there's only a couple of thousand of that will actually make it to the

01:31:34.680 people that actually need it. Countless thousands of dollars go into the pockets of the people who

01:31:41.100 organized those fundraisers. That is not so with the Office Tree Folk Assembly. Every penny that

01:31:47.100 we raised went out to the guys on the ground to make sure this work got done. And the work has

01:31:54.380 really just begun but uh but i want people to understand that that when arles harry or gothe

01:31:59.900 runs a fundraiser there we don't keep a we don't keep a portion of that whether it's for the south

01:32:05.900 african fund or whether it's for a disaster relief like this or whether it's families in need

01:32:12.620 we don't keep any of that all that goes directly to the folks that need it

01:32:18.860 but uh comment on that tyler go ahead and uh pick up on from where i left off there but

01:32:25.340 yes sir um so another spicy take uh you got me on the show we're gonna have a little bit of spice

01:32:32.780 if i'm i'm allowed to put a little bit of pepper on it um nick's got the shepherds have a lot of

01:32:39.900 mess up so i mean that's not here so who cares

01:32:43.980 yeah so we have a lot of uh our our detractors and such and i'm not going to call them as a true

01:32:55.980 because they're not as a true if you're not afa then you're not as true preach but in the broader

01:33:01.020 heathen sphere we have our detractors who will say that um that the effect

01:33:08.300 grabbing your shekel and taking your money and that we're some kind of like televangelist

01:33:17.500 group and i'm here to tell you that that is not true anything that we have ever asked for money

01:33:23.980 for if you would take five minutes to look around at the things that we are asking for

01:33:32.860 for your donations for, whether it be a project to build a steeple,

01:33:41.100 whether it be to install statues of the father of modern Azzatru and his wife,

01:33:50.240 who is still extremely active in our church, or the steeple project, or the relief fund.

01:34:00.100 your money goes directly to these things and i for one am exhausted to the point of nausea

01:34:10.980 with all the detractors that that say that we're just out to to you know to grab your money and

01:34:17.500 that we pocket it and you know whatever all the all the all the rumors are you know who you are

01:34:24.020 Um, I know you're listening and, uh, I hope that our relief, you know, effort is, uh, kind of irrefutable evidence that your money goes to what we tell you it goes to and that things like what we just did, that is not possible without the money.

01:34:46.940 I don't like money either. I don't like the whole system and stuff, but we have to have the money to make it happen.

01:34:56.080 If we had no donations for this project, we would not have been able to purchase the fuel and the bar oil to run our chainsaws.

01:35:08.980 was we would not have had gas to to drive around all the roadblocks for a trip that should have

01:35:15.940 been a half an hour is now an hour and a half so that means three times the amount of gas

01:35:23.340 we wouldn't have had that gas we we we we would not have had any meals we would not have had

01:35:30.500 anything to hand out to anybody there would have been no blankets no propane none of this would

01:35:39.500 have happened so i hope that with that slideshow there and that you don't count us as a pack of

01:35:50.360 liars you know up here just telling campfire stories that are completely false i hope that

01:35:57.360 you believe us and that what we tell you that we did we actually did and that your donations

01:36:05.200 went to what you earmarked them for um yeah i mean that's that's my hot take of the night is just

01:36:16.320 i think that people like i said it wasn't like you know a portion went here a portion went there it

01:36:21.680 right around 5 000 bucks went directly into this i'm yeah i mean all all total uh combined all the

01:36:31.500 money raised we're we raised right around eight thousand dollars by all avenues and

01:36:40.200 we used almost all that money there's a little bit little little left over and it will be earmarked

01:36:48.740 the next time that we have a disaster that our folk encounter uh but i mean we raised eight

01:36:56.020 you know eight thousand dollars in the span of two and a half weeks yeah because of the giving

01:37:03.940 heart of our folk and that is where your money went it went to this and so i i i for one would

01:37:13.380 like to see all the all the naysaying about the finances stop you know well not only that you

01:37:21.540 know all the telegram channels all that stuff i want to ask those people what have you done

01:37:28.500 could you where were you that was what i was going to piggyback off of right because where

01:37:34.180 we're asking for that for that donation one of my favorite bits of our lore is the is the story of

01:37:40.820 of the fairy where we have odin disguise and thor trying to cross and they get into a little bit of

01:37:46.540 a an argument over their deeds one starts off says a great deed where were you the other responds

01:37:55.100 and where were you the phrase and where with you has become a bit of a mantra for me i try to live

01:38:02.060 my life in such a way that when someone has a problem with the way i live all i have to say

01:38:06.300 is and where were you so for these opportunities this one being a very clear one when you have a

01:38:15.340 problem with the way the relief effort was done if it's genuine come to me tell me we will workshop

01:38:20.780 because we are preparing for the next one because there will always be a next one i'm looking forward

01:38:24.940 to the day where there is a response that is adequate for what we're doing but for a couple

01:38:31.260 guys in the woods with this with the limited time and supplies we had we did a great thing

01:38:35.500 so i ask and where were you to bring it back to the original question of what can we do to be

01:38:40.140 more prepared for the next one when we talk on a personal level i want to share a story i was

01:38:45.500 conferred to just yesterday that came out of uh that cave area little girl 14 years old got stuck

01:38:55.900 in a car with her with her father the tree pinned the car car shut and uh and down they were in a

01:39:05.660 a drying up river bed when when they landed and this tree blocked them from from egressing

01:39:13.100 but she had to stay in that car for a couple days 0.99

01:39:18.060 i only mentioned her staying in the car a couple days they were both stuck in the vehicle but she 1.00

01:39:22.860 she was the only one there that had any fight left to give so she had to sit in 0.60

01:39:27.480 that car with her past father and the only reason she lived was because her

01:39:31.840 father was a man of forethought and he put a 72-hour kit in the back of his

01:39:36.300 car so she had dry clothes food and water because he was a thinker you want

01:39:43.080 to ask us what can we do to be better on the personal level it comes down to

01:39:47.820 personal responsibility just be aware that whether it's a snowstorm power outage or a venezuela

01:39:55.740 bosnia situation doesn't matter the scale it is your responsibility to take care of yourself and

01:40:00.060 your family a couple small steps can put you in a good spot 72 hour kit in a car save that little

01:40:07.660 girl's life might be something to consider that's on the micro on the macro what we're doing with

01:40:13.660 with the Odenic Order of the Opidnar is we are making steps to be more prepared. So out of

01:40:19.160 the fraternity's funds that are raised from our own members of the fraternity,

01:40:26.120 just to be clear, they're not coming from your guys' funds. We're putting together kits so that

01:40:32.460 our members all over have a backpack ready to go where they have the tools, the resources,

01:40:38.900 and supplies to throw it on, and they are covered. They can go and they can do relief effort

01:40:42.800 within 24 hours of a disaster hitting an area another thing is some of our guys are looking

01:40:48.980 into additional training and there'll be some certain certs that get attached to our names to

01:40:54.520 where when we hit those roadblocks all we have to do is show our paperwork and we get waved right on

01:40:58.560 in we're given a section to work these steps are long-term steps but with everything that i do i

01:41:06.060 try to do it with the most bang for buck we're doing it as quickly as we can but when the time

01:41:11.900 comes we'll be double if not triple prepared from what we were this time i think a 48-hour response

01:41:17.740 gathering funds gathering men gathering supplies and getting down there as quickly as we can

01:41:21.980 was good for our first proving ground but there will be another one and we will be much more

01:41:26.700 prepared in the meantime do us a favor and make sure that if you're going to be in the area that

01:41:31.660 has a disaster which i know you don't have a lot of control over be one of the people that when

01:41:38.220 guys like us knock on your door you go oh no i'm good but thank you it means a lot that you came

01:41:42.380 here so-and-so needs help don't be the person that had nothing because they didn't think that

01:41:47.020 the grocery store might have to restock eggs just think about these things ahead of time

01:41:55.580 well said all right so russ asked how did this how did this experience change the way you think

01:42:03.660 about and speak to others about tragic and traumatic events like this in the context of

01:42:08.460 alsatree i'm gonna let the thay take that one i lost it there witten young what was the question

01:42:17.820 sir how did this experience change the way you think about and speak to others about

01:42:23.100 tragic and traumatic events and like this in the context of alsatree

01:42:26.780 so one thing that i have uh talked about to multiple folks is uh three concepts

01:42:37.980 two of them are our virtues one being self-reliance the other being victory and

01:42:45.260 one of them is a concept of uh you know in and guard um when you get your runestones in your

01:42:53.020 inbox. Make sure that you read all those articles because

01:42:56.940 I focus on that a good bit, the In-N-Garthe concept.

01:43:03.840 The people I spoke

01:43:05.180 to who

01:43:06.120 are of our fault but are not of our faith were actually

01:43:12.920 talking about the In-N-Garthe concept without knowing

01:43:16.740 what that word was. They talked about how

01:43:20.400 they they cut their way out of their house first then they cut their way out of their neighborhood

01:43:27.660 then they cut their way to the main road which is what we did here we we cut our way out of our

01:43:33.600 driveway i had i had the trees down but behind my vehicle i cannot get out of my driveway till

01:43:40.600 i cut those trees up uh once i got to my road right in front of my house was an enormous

01:43:48.460 the red oak tree down in the yard my neighbors and i cut up to that tree we go down the road

01:43:56.220 there's another tree then there's a power pole then there's another tree we cut all of that out

01:44:02.300 as a collective then we go to the main road there are huge trees down that are blocking

01:44:08.860 the main road we're working on the one side of the of the tree and a and a fire truck and a uh

01:44:20.060 and a fire truck and a uh the utility the company truck are on the other side and they're working

01:44:27.020 on that end and we go out and out and out and out this is what i heard from a lot of the uh

01:44:38.860 The Christians who are in the area here were talking about Inningard.

01:44:42.660 They were talking about I dealt with my family, then my neighbors, then my community, and they reverberated outward in a series of concentric circles, right?

01:44:54.360 Which is, you know, often how we do explain the concept of Inningard is concentric circles that reverberate outwards.

01:45:02.140 um so i guess that that to get back to the question um has it really changed the way that

01:45:12.900 i think about things no but what it has done is it has the reaffirmed the way that i think about

01:45:20.280 things um getting guard as a concept uh self-reliance the fact that you are no good

01:45:28.020 to your community and to the people around you until you are a self-reliant individual

01:45:36.080 and you are able to rely on yourself to get yourself out of things and then you're able

01:45:42.820 to apply those same skills to your neighbors, your community, your family, etc.

01:45:50.000 um this is just like the concept of a fascist right the fascist is a bundle of sticks or or

01:45:59.460 rods that are around an axe in the middle all the all the rods around that axe are all of us

01:46:09.320 and we have to be strong individual rods but one individual rod that's easy to to break now the

01:46:18.540 stronger of a rod you are the harder you are to break but if all the rods in the fascists are are

01:46:27.180 are stronger rods then we will be absolutely unbreakable we'll be as hard as concrete right

01:46:34.700 um then the concept of uh victory or virtue of uh victory the 10th noble virtue that the afa has added

01:46:43.740 I have seen victory after victory in the past almost a month now where there has been no obstacle that we could not overcome if we band together as a unit of men.

01:47:03.620 At one point, a couple of weekends ago, I got a message that two organizations were going to be in the area that are pro-our-folk.

01:47:18.460 One was the Nationalist Coalition, and the other was the Patriot Front.

01:47:23.340 A couple of the men in those organizations, they knew me and said, hey, you're a local. You're on the ground. Can you come out with us?

01:47:33.620 said of course you're here to help us out I'll roll with you and what you had

01:47:41.180 was you had a band of men from all over the region I think the furthest away guy

01:47:46.800 was out near Indiana all the way down to like Georgia and such but all these

01:47:55.880 guys are there there's like 22 guys but every one of these men had uh had a self-reliance they they

01:48:05.400 were strong individuals and they banded together as a collective and we were able to pursue victory

01:48:14.520 and every task that we tackled in that day and some of them were very dangerous there were guys

01:48:20.760 who were i mean we we had our med kits on the standby because we i did not have high hopes that

01:48:31.080 everybody would walk away from that unscathed um but we were able to to make things happen

01:48:37.720 and we were able to be victorious um so these are concepts that i've i have tried to speak about

01:48:50.760 to the people that we have worked with,

01:48:52.820 for the people that we have worked for.

01:48:55.960 Self-reliance, victory, and the inning guard.

01:48:59.800 I would say those are the main concepts

01:49:01.640 that have been reinforced with my worldview

01:49:04.960 and my spirituality.

01:49:08.740 All right, well done.

01:49:09.940 As far as the inning guard concept is,

01:49:13.960 we take care of our own.

01:49:18.120 That's an Appalachian concept too.

01:49:20.760 all right the wolf throne asks question for all three which of the celebrated

01:49:26.080 also true heroes old or new are you most inspired by and why let's start with you heineland

01:49:32.100 yeah so i think the the easiest one for me to point to is eagle skull grimson

01:49:43.980 I just can really appreciate

01:49:48.260 the steadfast and tenacious nature of a man

01:49:52.940 who does what is right no matter the cost

01:49:55.680 who is uncompromising his convictions

01:49:59.840 who is willing to bite the throat on someone

01:50:03.380 that would cheat at a game even

01:50:05.620 it also helps that I'm a direct descendant

01:50:10.840 of Eagle Scala Grimson

01:50:13.740 and he's a name I

01:50:16.100 I utilize in

01:50:18.540 ensemble often

01:50:19.680 so I think if the world

01:50:22.600 had a lot more

01:50:23.540 men that were willing to be intentional

01:50:26.320 about their beliefs

01:50:27.280 that took their virtues as a way

01:50:30.480 of life and not a

01:50:31.840 hobby to talk about

01:50:33.760 we'd have a lot more boots on the ground

01:50:36.260 when we needed them in North Carolina

01:50:38.620 so

01:50:40.560 Eagle Sculler Grimson

01:50:41.840 unwavering finacity and loyalty to his own virtues

01:50:46.700 it's a good choice that's one of my favorite sagas

01:50:51.060 how about you Tyler

01:50:53.580 so mine was also

01:50:59.600 in ale but

01:51:02.140 another one that I would say would be 1.00

01:51:06.820 Prince Herman with the Cherusky

01:51:10.840 um again all the work that we've done here and the cooperation with others who

01:51:21.700 are like-minded in their their velton shong but may not be like-minded in our faith

01:51:29.220 um i would say uh a lot of inspiration that i draw out of him was his ability to band

01:51:38.700 and together all the tribes when they were faced with a common threat.

01:51:46.620 They put the folk first, and that is of paramount importance,

01:51:51.700 especially in the wolf age in which we find ourselves.

01:51:55.900 I know that our founder, he's talked a lot about the wolf age

01:51:59.080 and how times that we find ourselves can be scary and intimidating.

01:52:06.340 I try to think about Prince Herman, how intimidating it must have been to have to face the Roman legions.

01:52:18.160 The modern equivalent of that, you know, imagine you are an Iraqi in the face of a desert storm. 0.72

01:52:27.340 storm you know i mean it's just the overwhelming the power of that is just beyond anything that

01:52:36.940 that that you could imagine but to have the the grit to have the fortitude to stand against that

01:52:43.740 and to say you know enough's enough my my people have suffered they have bled and it's time to 1.00

01:52:52.860 to fight back and to, you know, to drive the foreigner out of our lands 0.74

01:52:59.940 and to unify our tribes and our clans as one people is very inspiring.

01:53:08.160 And I have thought about Herman a little bit in the past weeks

01:53:14.540 about how the majority of the people out here are Appalachians

01:53:20.760 And the overwhelming majority of the people out here, I would say 99.9% of the workers on the ground are folk.

01:53:31.460 Their politics are all over the place.

01:53:35.160 They're all kind of on the right, but, you know, the politics are everywhere.

01:53:39.680 The religion is kind of everywhere.

01:53:42.260 But at heart, we are one folk.

01:53:46.140 Ethnically, we are one folk.

01:53:48.280 And I've watched our people just stand so united against the common enemy, which has been the hurricane.

01:54:03.920 It's been very inspiring.

01:54:08.640 So while those gentlemen were talking about House of True Heroes, they're most inspired by old or new.

01:54:18.280 I would say I'm most inspired by Radbod, specifically for that moment where he was in the baptismal pool and the priest promised him that, you know, once he took the, he took the baptismal oath that he would get all these, you know, treasures in heaven.

01:54:36.140 And he asked about where would his ancestors be?

01:54:38.520 And the priest tells him that, well, they would be burning in hell because they were heathen.

01:54:42.240 And he says, I'd rather burn in hell with my kin than to live in luxury in heaven with a den of snakes.

01:54:52.580 So, I mean, that generation of Alcetruer, that generation of our people, faced obstacles that we don't understand.

01:55:03.180 It's not to say that we don't face dangers for being who we are openly and honestly, but we certainly don't face the blade the way that those guys did. 0.57

01:55:11.960 And they and they faced it with dignity and honor and with the nobility expected of the Aryan man.

01:55:19.200 And honorable mention would be living hero Stephen McNallan.

01:55:24.180 He I can't imagine the the guts and the intestinal fortitude that it took to wake up one day and say, you know, everything I've been taught is a lie.

01:55:38.840 And I'm going to strike out on my own. 0.84

01:55:40.920 We're going to start a religious movement right now. 0.91

01:55:46.120 Could you imagine that?

01:55:47.320 Being the only guy in the world, at least in his eyes at the time, I'm going to start a whole new religious movement by myself and look at how far we've come as a result of that vision.

01:56:03.780 Things have evolved and been tweaked along the way.

01:56:07.520 uh but it all starts with that vision and you could even go further back to you know bond list

01:56:16.080 and

01:56:16.800 rod mills and keep on pushing backwards and you still find those guys those those member visionaries

01:56:25.540 and i admire that aaron simbeck he asks what resource save for more hands to help did you

01:56:33.940 guys find was most needed in the disaster

01:56:35.860 area.

01:56:37.600 I'm going to let Buffet take this one.

01:56:44.800 Other than

01:56:45.600 more hands,

01:56:47.140 a

01:56:47.540 huge

01:56:51.220 thing that was beneficial

01:56:53.260 was the resource

01:56:55.340 pool.

01:56:56.900 Being able to pull funds.

01:57:00.300 A lot of folks

01:57:01.320 were bringing in supplies

01:57:03.420 from kind of all over, whether it be water or food or, you know, clothing, there was

01:57:11.140 a pretty heavy amount of that.

01:57:14.220 I don't think I went anywhere where there wasn't a stockpile of goods, but when you

01:57:22.880 have a stockpile of goods, there's always a thing that is missing, and that was where

01:57:28.260 it was a benefit to have a stockpile of funds.

01:57:31.660 A lot of places did not have to have that where they could pull on a pool of money.

01:57:41.360 There were times where we we we let the all's hear your go thief and know that, hey, we need to pull out X amount of cash.

01:57:50.060 We need hard dollars in order to make some things happen.

01:57:53.900 And there were no questions. It was just OK, go.

01:57:57.400 and uh we were able to pull the pull the cash out and go take care of what we had to uh take care of

01:58:05.080 like when we had all those animals that we had to to find a home for really fast on the fly

01:58:12.080 i was able to uh call up a buddy of mine who has got a local farm he's got room on it i helped him

01:58:19.360 put the fence up right um so i knew he had all that pasture land that he didn't have no animals

01:58:25.460 on um but we needed to uh to cover his gas we needed to uh cover his a little bit of time off

01:58:34.900 work that he had to he had to to to to drop everything i was like hey here's some gas money

01:58:41.100 here's some feed we we went and we were able to to uh procure animal feed and all all these things

01:58:50.100 in order to make that happen that would not have happened had we not had cash so i would say that

01:58:56.740 other than having hands or the boots on the ground which is the main thing absolutely we need bodies

01:59:04.100 on the ground here other than that we do need cash we need an account that we're able to pull from

01:59:12.340 to pay for things um the farm is just the one example there were times where we had to procure

01:59:18.900 tools on the on the ground and in order to make things happen when we got that ladies water turned

01:59:26.100 on at her at her spring there were a couple of items that we had to procure we had to go to a

01:59:34.260 hardware store had to travel a good bit just to find one open that hadn't been washed you know

01:59:40.580 washed out in a flood but we needed to procure items in order to make that happen and again if

01:59:48.340 If we had not had the cash at hand, we couldn't have made that happen.

01:59:54.420 We would have had to call around to people to see if they had the parts that we needed.

02:00:01.840 But because we had a pool of cash, we were able to go to the store, go make a purchase for the things that we needed.

02:00:08.540 so yeah i would say that that um having that monetary pool there was absolutely paramount to

02:00:20.880 our operations awesome uh tyler can you can you tell the folks um what the situation was like

02:00:29.680 whenever you would go to a store or something like that because i remember uh talking to emily

02:00:33.880 uh day or two after you guys got comms back up i mean people were like struggling to find places

02:00:39.740 like get pet food and you know baby formula diapers and stuff like that how scarce was that

02:00:46.240 in your area and how far out did you guys have to go to be able to procure some of those items

02:00:52.180 so obviously as the time went on more places kind of opened up and had availability right

02:01:01.960 um in the first week it was really dependent upon who had a generator that could power an entire

02:01:11.640 store yeah and who could get a truck in from a warehouse to restock shelves because as you can

02:01:19.500 imagine when folks had their driveways to cut out and they were able to make it to a store stuff did

02:01:25.660 not stay on shelves for very long um so what we found was the best bet was to drive to the south

02:01:34.520 for about an hour till we hit uh the the greenville area south carolina um i'm not going to say that

02:01:42.700 that area was you know wholly unaffected they were not completely unaffected you've got the

02:01:47.840 reedy river that runs in yep in the heart of the city it exceeded its banks it caused a lot of

02:01:55.060 damage um all the wind and such it knocked down a bunch of trees it took a bunch of power

02:02:00.740 but a lot of the outlying areas were a little bit better um so what what we did as a family

02:02:09.580 is we would go to uh traveler's rest and um i've got family would yeah we we'd go down there to get

02:02:19.240 a little bit of groceries we'd go down there to get gas because if you tried to to get gas

02:02:25.640 in the region of the western north carolina for about two weeks there were gas lines uh i've i've

02:02:35.000 never experienced that um before but there were gas lines where you would wait for hours in line

02:02:43.260 for gas and just to get to a pump and the pump to be off and they're they're they're telling you

02:02:51.480 there's no more gas the gas truck will be here tomorrow right um so that was a huge issue there

02:02:58.880 was there was a lot of travel outside of our region luckily uh the two main highways that go

02:03:07.280 south um were open pretty quickly there was highway 25 and interstate 26 both of those got

02:03:14.960 opened up pretty quickly um and another thing is the phone service i remember this i know you

02:03:24.760 scared me because i couldn't get a hold of you and that's when i started emails i was like hey

02:03:30.720 i've lost contact with the face you know we need to figure out something and uh i even called like

02:03:37.440 the uh emergency services in your direct area and i didn't get like a like a regular busy signal but

02:03:43.840 i got like that rapid busy signal like the lines didn't exist like bomb bomb bomb nothing i called

02:03:50.480 because the lines did not exist i called fire i called ems i called the sheriff's department

02:03:57.520 i called you know whatever the local substation was nothing couldn't get anything so yeah that

02:04:02.960 was uh that was pretty scary when we couldn't get a hold of you guys but uh thankfully uh you guys

02:04:07.040 got comms back up in about two days if i if i'm recalling right and uh finally worded everybody

02:04:13.520 was whole but you know it was but the area was in bad shape yeah and and that was a huge issue

02:04:21.520 up here is that this this the storm hit and i remember i woke up friday morning and um

02:04:31.920 i had slept in a little bit because the not before i got a message from my from my boss that

02:04:39.520 this was prior to the the full force of the of the hurricane right full force of the hurricane

02:04:46.560 hit overnight thursday night but up to that there was enough flooding and such because of all the

02:04:54.640 rain that we had that wasn't even the hurricane itself it was just kind of the outlying parts of

02:05:01.480 that um there was enough of that to where the rivers had exceeded their their banks and such

02:05:08.240 and our boss called them work off so i said yeah i'll sleep in it's no big deal i can't tell you

02:05:14.960 how many times in the past couple of years i've gotten alerts on my phone that flash flooding

02:05:20.800 warning in effect you know and it's never anything i live on the top of a mountain it's not a big

02:05:26.240 deal um so i woke up friday morning probably about eight o'clock or so i go into my to my living room

02:05:35.720 and my kids on the back of my couch they've got the windows you know open and they said dad come

02:05:42.460 look at this it's the leaf apocalypse i look outside and there's no grass showing it's all

02:05:53.320 leaves everywhere and the wind was so just intense it was blowing leaves all over the place so there

02:06:00.600 was a carpet of leaves where my grass was a couple of my apple trees in my orchard were down i don't

02:06:09.100 have an orchard anymore by the way all my apple trees are down and um so i looked at all of that

02:06:16.600 i said this is kind of ugly guys and i was able to get some of the messages out and i was able to

02:06:23.680 look on uh on like x formerly known as twitter and i was able to look on telegram because those

02:06:34.440 are the two places where i get my my news from because i don't have a tv and um i began to

02:06:43.140 understand that my region had been severely impacted and i had no idea because you know

02:06:50.680 it just happened overnight yeah um so not long after that flash you know that's why they call

02:07:00.280 flash flooding because it happened so fast because we were affected down here i mean again not near

02:07:06.460 the same level but we had we had no power and i live in camden just north of columbia we had no

02:07:11.860 power in camden at all for uh about 36 hours we had one operational grocery store and it you know

02:07:19.380 had i guess was generator powered or whatever and that that's when it occurred to me i need to check

02:07:23.840 on my boys out on the western part and i couldn't get a hold of you and you know like i said i

02:07:30.460 dropped an email to the you know the rest of the team it was like hey yeah i've lost contact

02:07:34.820 and you know that's that's about when heineland started talking about okay i'm going to start

02:07:39.000 gathering up resources and people and we're going to try to get down there i'm glad you guys made

02:07:45.220 it out whole and i know uh i know there's probably some emotional scarring and stuff like that just

02:07:49.920 from the you know the experience and everything but you guys made it out whole your family's

02:07:53.860 intact um your family is very much part of my family so yeah i'm glad you guys made it out

02:08:03.080 okay and that leafpocalypse thing i could totally hear your boys saying that too

02:08:06.880 yeah and you know dan um one thing was uh so the phones they went out at about noon

02:08:17.420 Once we had begun to realize how bad things were, I didn't think that I would need to, you know, to like tell anybody, hey, we're OK.

02:08:28.800 So we didn't do that. But I do remember I was having a conversation with somebody.

02:08:36.960 I forget who it was, but I dropped service. It was just gone.

02:08:42.380 and it did not come back on for about 40 hours or so.

02:08:50.140 Yeah, we lost you for about a few more days.

02:08:52.980 Yeah, and the next night, so Saturday night,

02:08:58.520 at about 11 o'clock at night, I'm in my bed.

02:09:05.580 Power's out.

02:09:06.680 It's hot.

02:09:08.600 I'm trying to sleep and stuff,

02:09:10.960 And I have a house full of dogs, and my dogs start going nuts.

02:09:16.680 And my wife's like, I think somebody's here.

02:09:20.100 I was like, go to bed, hush, trying to sleep, you know.

02:09:24.700 There ain't nobody here.

02:09:27.220 But we've got all of our windows up.

02:09:30.440 And, again, there are leaves everywhere.

02:09:32.780 So there were leaves on my porch, and I could hear the footsteps on the leaves.

02:09:38.500 it's like damn there's somebody here there's somebody on my porch and i saw the beams of a

02:09:44.980 flashlight coming in my windows so i grabbed the closest available firearm which happened to be an 0.95

02:09:53.380 ak-47 and i started heading towards my front door and my wife grabbed the flashlight i said turn 1.00

02:10:00.900 that thing off i said you're gonna open the uh front door and shine that light at eye level and 1.00

02:10:08.060 uh, on the count of three, open that fricking door and she, she opened it up and I brought 1.00

02:10:13.960 that rifle up and she got the light like right there. And, uh, it was my, my, my, my, my 0.99

02:10:20.240 best friend, Jordan. Uh, he, he was there and going, don't shoot. I was like, why didn't

02:10:28.780 you knock on the fricking door? Like a normal person is like, I didn't want to wake your 0.85

02:10:33.520 kids up was like you wake the kids up or you get a hole in your chest man which is the better

02:10:39.120 alternative here right and uh so we we brought him in the house and he was like

02:10:47.520 your mom emily's mom everybody has been reaching out like we have not heard from them

02:10:54.320 why don't you go up there because jordan's a lot like me he's a very self-reliant you know

02:11:00.720 individual he's the guy you call if you have a problem so he made it up there he had mud all

02:11:07.040 over his truck where he had to go off-roading to go through you know apple orchards and such

02:11:13.360 in order to get to our house um but he made it there and uh we were real real grateful and he

02:11:21.120 took us um to walhalla with him he loaded all of us in the back of his truck we drove to walhalla

02:11:28.640 We picked up a generator, we got eggs, we got some meat, we got some milk, all that kind of stuff to do us for a number of days.

02:11:40.480 We came back up, hooked a generator up, and life was back to reasonably the normal.

02:11:46.960 Now, we didn't have lights, we didn't have air conditioning, but we had food and our food was cold and all that kind of stuff.

02:11:55.660 you know it was fine but um yeah it was really interesting because we had the no phones in our

02:12:05.180 area but if you drove an hour south boom you had phone service so i drove down south every day

02:12:13.760 to uh try to folk build a little bit and then i realized that that just wasn't gonna work and so

02:12:20.460 I said, hey, guys, I kind of need some time off. And that ended up being almost a month of me not doing my my AFA job.

02:12:29.660 And I said, well, you know, if I'm not able to do my AFA work, which is how I serve my folk, then what I'm going to do is I'm I'm going to relieve the pressure on the people around me.

02:12:47.200 and that's that's when we started the the disaster relief stuff it was like you know

02:12:54.260 i've got to do something if if you know i can't do the afa thing because my phone's not working

02:13:01.080 then uh i've got to do something because my people are hurting um and luckily i had enough

02:13:08.220 my brothers in the afa who they felt the same way and they felt that that call and we were able to

02:13:14.680 have some good help. So really grateful for all the people who donated either of their money or

02:13:23.640 of their time. Y'all made a huge impact. I don't know if you realize how much of an impact all of

02:13:32.180 you had, but you made a huge dent in a lot of lives. So I appreciate you. Awesome. And shout

02:13:43.100 out to Jordan. I hope you're listening to this, watching this, and

02:13:47.080 you hear my voice. We've got a spot for you.

02:13:52.620 Alright, so

02:13:53.860 Russ asks, was there a particular God who you feel was with

02:13:59.080 you throughout this work, supporting and guiding you? I'm going to let Tyler Hyman

02:14:03.160 take this one.

02:14:06.500 Yeah, so without a doubt, I feel like

02:14:09.140 I feel like this was the opportunity I needed

02:14:13.300 to forge a better relationship with Thor

02:14:16.320 it's not something I had taken the time to do beforehand

02:14:21.020 you know I'm a fairly strong guy

02:14:25.120 for my size, I'm smaller though, smaller frame

02:14:28.340 but I think tapping into

02:14:33.000 being able to go out and help these people

02:14:36.520 and really immerse myself with people I did not know,

02:14:42.000 I was able to kind of forge that relationship I didn't have before.

02:14:45.800 I think it was a good experience for me spiritually.

02:14:49.240 And it certainly was a good experience for those we were able to help.

02:14:52.860 And we had a lot of opportunities to talk to people about our beliefs.

02:14:59.600 And a lot of people asked us, well, you know,

02:15:01.260 you're wearing those shirts with those funny words on it.

02:15:03.920 What is all that about?

02:15:05.140 and so we got to talk and it was it's interesting because thor was the first

02:15:12.460 point of reference they understood and they inevitably asked is that like that that that

02:15:18.600 marvel show no it's not like the marvel show okay let me learn you something and then we'd sat sat

02:15:24.500 down and talked i say sat down we put another fence post in and we and we pounded dirt with

02:15:30.380 with uh with two by fours until the fence post held but we talked during that process we go no

02:15:36.760 okay thor's not really a comic book just like there's no captain alla or you know jesus man

02:15:43.360 comic book that would really be appropriate to to reference you know divinity with and

02:15:50.400 we kind of backed off a little and i go well what's it about and and we talked and we you

02:15:55.620 You know, we talked a little bit of cosmology.

02:15:59.460 We talked a little bit about the stories.

02:16:01.840 We talked a little bit about belief system, morality, all of these things.

02:16:05.420 But it's interesting that the starting point, and not just because of common culture, but the starting point was Thor.

02:16:15.500 So that's my answer.

02:16:18.980 How about you, Tyler Bethay?

02:16:20.640 Do you feel like a particular God was there with you, or did you feel a particular connection with a particular God to help with your efforts?

02:16:33.100 I saw the question in the chat earlier, and I'm trying to think on it.

02:16:38.860 And I don't, I don't, I don't really think that there was a particular God that I, uh, in, in the way that it, it wasn't just one, you know, um, there were, there were elements of a handful, you know, um, I felt some odenic, you know, elements in that, um,

02:17:08.860 kind of in the way of like auguries uh i'm not one to really get into auguries a whole bunch but

02:17:19.340 i'm not in a region that has a bunch of ravens but uh there were times when i would help

02:17:26.660 there was one time in particular where i helped an old man and uh i heard heard the ravens and

02:17:34.780 they just would not shut up the whole time uh it was almost a a distraction um and this is an area

02:17:45.680 where i've never heard a raven before ever plenty of crows for sure never a raven and i just heard

02:17:53.540 ravens constantly and this old man was laying out plenty of wisdom you know and that that had me

02:18:01.160 thinking, had me contemplating

02:18:05.040 odinic concepts and such. There were times

02:18:09.520 when I'd be with an old woman and I'd think of Frigg. I would think 1.00

02:18:13.360 of all the maternal elements and such.

02:18:18.900 And, you know,

02:18:21.260 Asa Thor was, that was a constant.

02:18:25.180 That was a constant because of the strength of our people,

02:18:29.220 the resilience, the working man, the small people.

02:18:37.180 That's who we were there for, overwhelmingly.

02:18:45.480 So no, there were many.

02:18:48.440 I wouldn't say that there was only one.

02:18:52.100 There were quite a few of our ICer who had an influence.

02:18:57.060 And not only our gods, but one of our runes as well.

02:19:04.700 I remember speaking with Witten Young whenever we were beginning our work in earnest.

02:19:15.720 He talked about the rune Kenos and how we needed to bear the flame.

02:19:23.940 We needed to bear the torch, the light of our folk, the light of our church, and the light of our iser out into the world.

02:19:33.100 And we needed to burn bright for our folk, for our gods, and the AFA.

02:19:40.120 And that was a rune I meditated on constantly while we were doing our work was how can I be a beacon?

02:19:49.400 and how can I be the bonfire on the mountaintop?

02:19:56.100 You know, how can I light the way for our people?

02:20:00.740 And it's not like I was, you know, out there trying to proselytize for our faith

02:20:07.040 or trying to be some kind of evangelist or anything, because I really wasn't.

02:20:11.540 You know, a lot of times we've paired up with a church,

02:20:14.680 And I'm not trying to convert a devout man.

02:20:20.380 I'm there to meet the man where he's at, and I'm there to work with him.

02:20:25.780 But one thing I did kind of constantly is I tried to make sure that our focus, as we did this work,

02:20:36.280 our focus was on our people and how much our people they need our help and how we need to be

02:20:44.360 an example for everybody around us i tried to meditate on the the principles of the kenaz rune

02:20:58.040 so so sorry go ahead dan one of the things that's cool about kenaz and and how we carry that

02:21:06.280 it's it's about the way that i see things it's about carrying that torch beyond the illuminated

02:21:13.740 path it's going into the dark you know into the darkness where there is no illumination

02:21:17.720 it's being that that guy that lights up you know lights up the room that's that was previously

02:21:23.320 you know not illuminated we're going past the safety of the torches lit by the people that

02:21:28.200 came before us it's about being the guys pioneer almost the first guy there on

02:21:35.720 the on the front line bearing that torch bearing that banner you know bearing the

02:21:41.140 burden of our people and our gods and that torch is lit within we all have a

02:21:46.080 divine spark that was given to us at our inception at the inception of our

02:21:50.580 people and has been passed on from our all fire all the way down to us and it's

02:21:56.640 about carrying that torch beyond the illuminated path the one that was illuminated before us you

02:22:01.840 know it's clearing clearing the brush clearing the trees putting down torches and lighting the way

02:22:06.240 for the people to come after us and it's also about being a beacon of nobility it's about being

02:22:11.840 a beacon for who we stand for and you know like tyler was saying you know he wasn't out there

02:22:16.560 trying to prosper a lot of times now if we happen to convert a guy or two awesome but most importantly

02:22:24.160 he was out there as a representative of his ancestors,

02:22:28.200 his gods, and his people. And he did that through bearing that torch

02:22:32.020 as did Heinlein and the other guys. We haven't name dropped a bunch of the other

02:22:36.100 guys. Those guys are just regular members. But we want to give shout

02:22:40.140 outs to those guys too. And they know who they are. One of them was at my house

02:22:43.740 a few days after. And actually he went back up the day after he was at my house

02:22:47.480 to help with one more day of relief work.

02:22:51.100 cool young man awesome and he just joined our church and rather than just join the church

02:22:58.600 like okay now what i'm not decided to put you know put his hands on the shovel put his hands

02:23:03.580 on the plow and get out there and get stuff done and i forgot that young that's pretty impressive

02:23:08.840 um i appreciate you bringing that up uh tyler heinland do you have something to add to that

02:23:17.020 I do. That young man that you mentioned just joined up. Well, it's funny you mention him because he showed a lot of really good inner strength, both work weekend and not. He had this little post, it was a post-workout picture, and he said, out here saving the world one day at a time, or something akin to that.

02:23:41.800 and i was all fired up because we had seen some nasty things that day and i go you know what we

02:23:47.820 need some guys in the ground i'm gonna call some people out so i ruffled some feathers in the men's

02:23:52.160 chat just hey if you're able where are you i see this and i go you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna

02:23:57.740 push the envelope a little i respond hey if you want to you want to save the world i got a small

02:24:01.500 chunk in need of saving and he messaged me with what do you need when can i show up we went back

02:24:08.480 and forth and he came out this is a man working two jobs providing for his son raising a good boy

02:24:16.340 and raising him well and he dropped everything to come on out yeah people say you know hey i'm asked

02:24:23.960 through thorsoff has some of the best words we have words and he showed up and he showed that

02:24:33.120 he belonged to thorsoff so just wanted to give him a shout out since uh since we brought him up

02:24:37.280 Because that man, he proved his mettle.

02:24:40.220 That's a good young guy.

02:24:41.980 He came with his fiance to my house for a book study.

02:24:45.880 His fiance is brand new to Ossetru.

02:24:47.840 And rather than go through the book study that we already had planned,

02:24:51.920 we went through the Trulog Mall and just kind of taught her the basics and all that.

02:24:56.340 And sat and did a small, pretty intimate sumble.

02:25:01.620 And I can tell there's a lot of richness in that young man's soul.

02:25:07.280 I'm really glad to have him on the team.

02:25:10.680 So Jace asks, what is the AFA and the Odenic Order of the Ulf Hednar doing

02:25:14.520 to be prepared for the next tragedy to befall our folk?

02:25:17.700 I think that was kind of covered before, but Tyler Heinlein, would you take that one?

02:25:23.840 Yeah, I think this is a good opportunity to provide a clarification.

02:25:29.260 The fraternity, the Odenic Order of the Ulf Hednar only accepts prospects that are AFA members.

02:25:35.480 so just a point of clarification this is one the same there there is you know it's

02:25:44.780 kind of like all trucks or vehicles not all vehicles or trucks just figured I'd

02:25:49.160 want to clarify that we are not some two separate entities here the AFA is our

02:25:54.680 church our community our home and the identity court is just a group of guys

02:25:59.720 that were within that that want to dedicate themselves to specific causes

02:26:03.020 that we have done so with that clarification what we are doing is we

02:26:06.680 are establishing within the odenic order we're establishing members that are

02:26:13.760 going to take on higher training so if they can cover the individual training a

02:26:19.700 little bit better but it's a it's making a few of our guys wolfers getting a nice

02:26:23.960 big certification and all the knowledge that comes with it but as far as the AFA

02:26:28.220 we now have a functional disaster relief chat with people that have practical

02:26:32.780 knowledge and people that have the ability to coordinate for these things in

02:26:36.800 the future that chats not going away it I mean the the greatest thing about is

02:26:42.440 we can just simply put in people that know what they're doing and then when

02:26:47.120 disaster hits a region we put some local guys in we handle it when it's all over

02:26:50.900 we pull the little guys out next one happens but those locals in etc we now

02:26:57.380 have the ability to perform what we just did at a more efficient rate and you know i i hate to uh

02:27:05.860 to look at this as merely a training exercise but in in a degree everything we do is simply

02:27:11.300 training for the next time we do it i've never met a baby that was good at flat roofing as the

02:27:16.020 saying goes we all we always seek perfection through progress or excellence through progress

02:27:22.500 if you will the idea of these these newer heights of ourselves and our community we can only reach

02:27:28.420 them through effort and through consistency so as far as what we're going to do in the future

02:27:33.700 it means tighter coordination better understanding and more experience and and just having the

02:27:40.260 ability to to raise funds get the supplies we need and get them on the ground and in in action sooner

02:27:47.060 that's the afa and having the training and the and the men that are willing to drop what they

02:27:51.460 they need to do and jump into it, that is the odentic order. So hopefully that answers that 0.99

02:27:55.640 question. Awesome. And I appreciate the clarification because, you know, these young

02:28:01.480 men represent, these young men on the screen with me represent some of the very best of our folk,

02:28:09.140 especially our younger guys. You know, a lot of our younger guys, and we talked about this on the

02:28:14.460 last time I appeared on the program, we were talking about, you know, reforging Gimli or

02:28:19.140 forging Gimli in our own lives. A lot of guys see the state of the current world, of modern

02:28:26.880 society, and just complain and just go into this doom spiral thing. What I see from these two guys,

02:28:35.140 the Tylers, as we like to call them, is guys who want to take action. Rather than get sucked into 0.87

02:28:42.360 the you know doom porn and what was me mentality and we don't stand a chance these guys are out

02:28:50.880 here doing stuff real life stuff and just like this uh disaster relief that's actually doing

02:28:56.380 something that is putting their words into action you know we took we said it earlier and i apologize

02:29:02.700 for speaking over heineland when he mentioned the thor's off uh motto words are wind and deeds are

02:29:08.080 iron there are many people out there don't believe in what we believe fine

02:29:16.560 they might find what we believe a little intimidating and scary fine but you

02:29:22.840 won't find any of our deeds that we do that put this put this religious aspect

02:29:27.900 this religious concept into action can't show us what we do that's so scary

02:29:33.080 because we actually do good things we and that's the thing if you don't like

02:29:38.060 our beliefs cool but at least judge us by our deeds and our deeds our deeds

02:29:45.500 confirm our nobility whether it's this disaster relief that these two young men

02:29:50.900 headed up whether it's the toy giveaways at the

02:29:54.480 house for the winter holidays or the food giveaways that we do every month you

02:29:59.280 know to poor folks around you know around our house those are the things

02:30:03.920 that we do because we don't just want to be good neighbors we are good

02:30:07.940 neighbors, because we are noble, because we are just good people. So again, judge

02:30:15.120 us by what we do, not by what we believe. If you don't like what we believe, cool,

02:30:18.800 but judge us by what we do, because this is also true as an active religion.

02:30:24.560 It's an active spirituality. We worship through what we do, and our

02:30:29.940 ancestors judge us in the next life by our deeds. Whether or not they find us

02:30:34.460 worthy to accept us into their halls they're not going to look and they're

02:30:38.120 not going to just look inside our hearts while that's very important but they're

02:30:41.960 gonna look at what we've been out there doing with our hands and out there doing

02:30:45.440 with the spoken word and spreading the message of our of our of our faith it's

02:30:51.140 a faith it's a faith based on love love of each other love of our gods and love

02:30:55.880 of those who came before us so I don't see any more questions rolling in let

02:31:02.300 take a minute to plug our upcoming national event feast of the iron harrier nick if you would throw

02:31:07.100 that up on the screen um witten young uh there is there is one more in there i don't know if you

02:31:17.900 want to answer that one or not i'll get back to it in just a second but yeah for those who

02:31:23.820 those of you who haven't registered for feast of the iron harrier go to the link shown on the screen

02:31:29.020 Get yourselves registered. It's set to be an outstanding event. It'll be hosted by

02:31:35.160 Gauthier Nathan Erlinson. You can expect appearances by Austro Folk Assembly

02:31:41.900 founder Stephen McMillan, Ulterior Gauthier Matt Flavell, Witten Cliff

02:31:46.620 Erickson, and Witten Brandy Fassett will be there, among many many many others.

02:31:52.260 Okay, so that question that I missed was asked by Winnis McGump, and I hope I'm saying that right.

02:32:01.500 Aren't you guys doing stuff with PF?

02:32:03.660 Someone in PF told me that you guys are pretty active, and I guess PF means Patriot Fund.

02:32:12.140 So our guys were on the ground doing relief work with those guys, and those guys were doing relief work with our guys.

02:32:19.060 But outside of that, that's about the extent of it.

02:32:23.440 AFA is a church.

02:32:25.180 Patriot front guys are doing other stuff.

02:32:27.920 More power to them. 1.00

02:32:31.380 So with that, I'm going to leave the floor open to both Tylers to leave us with some parting words. 1.00

02:32:40.060 Tyler Buffay, what would you like the folk to take away from this conversation? 1.00

02:32:43.200 so the first thing is i would like to once again to thank everybody for your your your generosity

02:32:54.160 and for everything you've uh put into this you know effort um i'm kind of biased on this because

02:33:03.220 it's my community these are my neighbors these are the people i work with that i go to my kids

02:33:09.920 to go to school with and such, you have made a tremendous impact on these folks.

02:33:16.740 These folks felt pretty isolated.

02:33:21.880 They felt like nobody cared.

02:33:25.040 They felt like this was a very regional event.

02:33:30.640 They look at the news, and granted, it is an election year,

02:33:36.640 And people are already early voting. So the news has got a lot more stuff to focus on than a bunch of poor people in Appalachia.

02:33:49.640 But you will never know how much of an impact you have had on hundreds of lives.

02:34:01.580 It's not to say that, you know, we reached hundreds of people with our actions here because we didn't.

02:34:10.620 We reached a few dozen for sure.

02:34:13.460 um but uh you've made a tremendous you know impact with your donations uh with your prayers

02:34:23.320 and uh with your time like i said we've got a guy on the ground now who's an afa guy who

02:34:31.960 he's been here for for two weeks and he's going to be here for

02:34:36.020 an untold amount of time.

02:34:40.480 He's in between jobs, so

02:34:44.340 he's got all the time in the world. He has a roof over his head.

02:34:49.020 He's got food. He's got gas money.

02:34:52.840 He's just helping folks.

02:34:57.060 Again, I appreciate every one of you.

02:35:00.940 If you want to do some work,

02:35:02.720 uh if if nick will put my contact you know information on on the screen again um

02:35:11.360 you let me know if you want to come out and you want to help uh we can use you i'll put you to

02:35:17.940 work um you don't have to have any kind of specialized experience or skills or any of that

02:35:27.760 but uh if you've got anything you want to donate resource wise you know there was a guy in the

02:35:33.980 chat who he talked about how his business has got a lot of propane tanks we'll use them you know uh

02:35:41.400 get a hold of me at my email address on the screen um if you want to come up here to volunteer

02:35:47.360 your your time and your your labor we can absolutely use you um so just

02:35:56.340 i appreciate all of you and all of your uh generosity and all that you do

02:36:03.120 for our folk uh don't ever think that what you're doing is

02:36:08.080 too small of an impact there's no such thing if you do anything it's more than doing nothing

02:36:16.900 uh the majority of people are doing absolutely nothing they're they're looking at the news and

02:36:23.980 And they're saying, oh, that's terrible.

02:36:27.380 Did you see that the North Koreans are deploying troops to Ukraine?

02:36:33.320 Let's go focus on that.

02:36:35.180 Well, let's focus on our people.

02:36:37.280 Let's focus on them.

02:36:39.960 Our victories, our defeats, the things that hurt us and the things that elevate us.

02:36:46.120 All of these things are important.

02:36:47.900 That's what we need to focus on.

02:36:49.880 So I appreciate all of you.

02:36:51.920 And that's all I've got.

02:36:57.740 All right, Mr. Heinlein, any words before we depart?

02:37:01.140 Absolutely.

02:37:02.120 So first and foremost, the people that we were able to reach and get to know and work with while we were out there,

02:37:10.720 it is doubtful that you are seeing this.

02:37:13.540 But if you are, just know that we really appreciate the opportunity to help get you guys back on your feet.

02:37:20.260 and we know that you are the type of people that will do the same in the future for others.

02:37:25.640 Do not feel that that charity takes you down a notch at all.

02:37:30.400 You would have done it for me.

02:37:31.900 I'm doing it for you.

02:37:33.340 When the time comes, do it for the next guy.

02:37:35.560 To those of you that donated, I cannot express how much that made a difference.

02:37:43.080 The relief efforts for the hurricane, be it rescue and recovery, packing supplies in,

02:37:50.260 Dealing tree work, getting fences repaired, all of these things from the showboat heroics to the mundane work that had to be done in order to get people's livelihoods back on track, it changed lives.

02:38:03.520 And in many cases, it saved lives.

02:38:05.900 The supplies you donated, the tools that you donated, the funds that you donated that were then converted into commodities, supplies, and tools changed lives.

02:38:15.740 When we talk about being asked to you, you have two choices.

02:38:19.940 You can talk or you can do.

02:38:22.160 This is your opportunity, if you are not actively living as true, to reassess and begin.

02:38:28.240 When we talk about the black pill, we talk about, oh, woe is me, life is bad.

02:38:33.280 Understand that that is your responsibility to change.

02:38:36.520 Understand that we are here to help you.

02:38:38.620 We will give you tools and tips and tricks.

02:38:40.900 We will help you get your life back on track.

02:38:42.800 But at the end of the day, if you want it, you will do it.

02:38:44.940 If you think you want it, but you don't do it, then you didn't want it.

02:38:49.220 At the end of the day, all of this comes down to one fundamental concept.

02:38:54.160 If you have the ability to respond, you have the responsibility to do so.

02:38:59.720 Live as the true and hail victory.

02:39:04.120 So I want to touch a little bit on that.

02:39:07.760 Everybody's ability to put boots on the ground varies.

02:39:13.900 If you can't be there, help the guys who are there.

02:39:16.660 reach in your pockets and donate send supplies send support even if you've got

02:39:26.320 got like I said you can't be there maybe you don't even have funds to help out

02:39:30.220 maybe you know somebody in the area that would be interested in helping them out

02:39:33.700 we've got got guys all in that Piedmont South Carolina I saw a few of them up

02:39:41.420 there involved in it not all of them have money to donate maybe you know

02:39:46.280 somebody that lives close by that has no interest in house or true but they got a

02:39:50.840 chainsaw and they might want to help out reach out to that guy tell them you know

02:39:54.680 you got friends up there that are that are in need to motivate them we're all

02:40:00.380 in this together gentlemen I can't can't express to you how proud we all are of

02:40:06.800 the efforts that you put in like I said I've got a personal connection to both

02:40:11.000 these guys and that swollen with pride about them rolling up their sleeves and

02:40:16.940 getting out there and getting the stuff done house truths about action house

02:40:23.720 truths about doing and these guys out here these guys were out on the road

02:40:28.160 doing and we appreciate that hail the ice seal hail the folk hail the

02:40:36.720 Austria Folk Assembly, and remember, victory never sleeps. Good night, guys.

02:41:06.720 Thank you.

02:41:36.720 We'll be right back.

02:42:06.720 We'll be right back.

02:42:36.720 Thank you.

02:43:06.720 We'll be right back.

02:43:36.720 Transcription by CastingWords

Asatru Folk Assembly - October 24, 2024

10⧸23⧸24 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 120 - Carolina Hurricane Relief

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