Plays On Word Radio
An in-depth look at the Word of God, the Plays On Word community, and the Plays - with original music - we perform, that are based on the Word of God. New episodes drop Fridays at 7AM EST! To find out how Plays On Word Theater can perform 'LIVE on YOUR STAGE' and to support this missionary & podcast visit: https://playsonword.org/
Plays On Word Radio
Ep 89: (Part 1) Resilience on the Road - Navigating Faith and Hurricanes
"How can faith provide strength and guidance during physical storms like hurricanes, and storms of life? In this episode we share our resilient journey through challenging weather, emphasizing faith and prayer amid adversity."
What happens when a hurricane threatens to disrupt a long-planned performance? Join us on Plays on Word Radio as Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenney Jr., and his wife Katie recount their thrilling adventure from North Carolina to Tennessee. Against the backdrop of mountain vistas and unpredictable weather, we share how the unwavering support from our supporters made it all possible. Despite rainstorms and hurricane warnings, our trusty vehicle became a motel for us, helping us overcome travel challenges while reminding us of past journeys. You'll hear about our heartfelt encounters with Pastor Dave and his wife Marie, whose initial skepticism transformed into enthusiastic support after witnessing the powerful message of Genesis 'JOE'.
As our journey unfolds, we dive into the emotional core of our performance, exploring how the story of Joseph resonated deeply with both the audience and us as performers. With an impending hurricane looming over Florida, our focus remained unwavering: to deliver a message of faith and offer a chance for spiritual reflection. Our path then veered into what could have been a nail-biting drive from Tennessee to Atlanta, where severe weather and road detours tested our resolve. Guided by timely advice and faith, we navigated through the chaos, reminding us of the unpredictable power of nature and the importance of informed decision-making. Experience the transformative journey of faith, performance, and the human spirit on this episode of Plays on Word Radio.
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Lord you know. Hey guys, you are now listening to Plays on Word Radio.
Speaker 2:It's the best.
Speaker 3:We'll be right back. You're the only name. You're the only name.
Speaker 2:You're the only name.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to Plays on Word Radio, where we discuss, analyze, work and play on the Word of God. Thank you for joining us on this excursion. Today let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr, the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.
Speaker 2:Okay, welcome back. I should be saying that to us. Welcome back to you guys all listening to Plays on Word Radio. My name is Fred David Kenney Jr, otherwise known as Pastor Teddy, and I am here in studio at our Southern Command plays on word Southern Command, and I'm here with my beautiful wife, the one and only, katie Kenney. Hello to you, katie Kenney, hello, hello. Okay, and we are back. We wanted to share with you, all of you listeners in Pelham, tennessee and it was a United Methodist Church Pastor, dave right.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm and his wife Marie and Marie.
Speaker 3:The Gardners.
Speaker 2:Yep, and we visited them. Yeah, and we visited them. We actually met them at America's Keswick when we did Genesis Joe back in January, right Right At the Pastors and Leaders Conference. It was a retreat at America's Keswick that we go to every year and Pastor Dave he said he wasn't sure if he was even going to go to the play right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he said he took a look at it and thought, all right, I'll check it out. And he said he was quite surprised. Yeah, he was moved, he was blessed, and they were very excited to know that, yes, we would certainly come out to Tennessee, yeah, to perform for them yeah.
Speaker 2:So I said, yeah, you know. He said, would you guys come out to Tennessee? I was like, yeah, um, that's no problem, we'll come out to Tennessee in a minute. That's part of our commission. Uh, all of you that are plays on word supporters out there, you're nodding your heads right now saying that's right. Yeah, that's right, because you guys play a major role in us being able to go to these different places and being able to minister at these places and bring the gospel to unbelievers and to believers, get them really edified and amped up in the word. So we'll fast forward a little bit. We went back and forth, got a date when we could come out, and we were set to come out to Tennessee in September and bring Genesis Joe to the church out there, and it was really cool.
Speaker 2:So we last let's see not last yeah last week On Tuesday, we loaded up the trailer and the pickup truck, the pickup down here in North Carolina where we are, loaded it up and we headed out.
Speaker 3:We left on Wednesday, oh it was Wednesday.
Speaker 2:I thought it was Tuesday. Okay, so it was Wednesday. We left for Tennessee and we had a great ride out there. You know, it was a what did you say? Nine hour ride, something like that. Ten.
Speaker 3:Yeah, nine ten, we stopped for lunch Eleven Almost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, eleven-ish.
Speaker 2:We got in a little late but we took our time getting out there. We weren't in a rush. I mean, we're pulling a trailer and I don't think we hit. I was only concerned when we hit a little bit of traffic in Atlanta. And when we got to Atlanta we hit rain.
Speaker 2:And I usually check the weather before we do any major trip or anything like that. I usually check the weather. I have an app trip or anything like that. I usually check the weather. I have a app, a storm tracker app, and just check the weather. You know, am I going to be driving? What am I going to be driving in? But I really didn't check it. I'm like, ah, september, it's fine, it's not. I didn't pay attention. And next thing you know it was, it was a lot of rain. We were in Atlanta and I'm like, oh no, remember I was upset. We have to go through the center. I dread driving through the center of any cities, especially DC. Oh, my goodness, if you get hit with traffic, it's DC, then Atlanta and you could throw LA in there. Gridlock, yeah, the gridlock, and it's usually because I'm driving a questionable vehicle that either could overheat or run out of gas or is a breakdown, so you know those trips are not issue free, no, no.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, thank God for Marquise, because we've had a pretty reliable vehicle to drive our car. But that's not what we were driving. Out there we're driving the truck. The truck's been rocking, steady, holding it down we need to get a muffler on it but other than that, it's pulling the trailer and we hit this rain and I was like, oh, oh, that's interesting, and I didn't know that what we were hitting was part of this hurricane, like outer bands of this hurricane, and so we kept moving and we got out of Atlanta. It slowed us down, but we got out of Atlanta. We made our way.
Speaker 2:Now it's nighttime or dark and we're making our way towards Tennessee, chattanooga, and we got up near Chattanooga and the rain stopped. Where we were it wasn't that bad. The rain stopped and then we finally got to the place we were going. Pelham is in between Chattanooga and Nashville, so we finally get to the mountains area. Remember, I looked up, looked up. I said I see lights way up ahead, up high I think we're going into the mountains here and shown off. We ended up in in like mountains and the Pelham is down in the valley. So we went up. We stopped at a truck stop because there were really no places to eat and that's where I binged on or whatever. I bought a whole bunch of bags of junk food. We shouldn't do that. We got in at around 11 or something like that.
Speaker 3:This is Wednesday night you got sandwiches. You made some good choices. Oh, that's right, that's right. Yeah, that's right, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Some good choices. But I'm glad that was the end of the trip because that road was. It was a chicane, quite the winding road.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a chicane from. We were up like up on the mountain and we had to make our way down the valley and the only way was this road, with no lights, questionable guardrails. I think most of it was freshly paved, thank god, but it was not fun in a trailer and I'm glad it wasn't raining. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:it was not raining when we were going that way or going down, that I don't think it was raining no, no so this was dark, it was dark, it was really dark, and we got down in the valley and it was dark and I'm like, okay, well, let's just follow this but it was good that there weren't a whole lot of other people on the road either.
Speaker 2:I think we saw one or two cars right so we could take our time right, yeah, we didn't see a lot of cars and so we got to the airbnb where we were staying and, um, I just touched the strings there. There you go and the. We got to the airbnb where we were staying and I crashed out and I usually like to be in a day before, so I can you know, get ready, because it requires a lot of energy to do these plays and uh.
Speaker 2:But we didn't have that. So the next day, thursday, we got up and that's where we started hearing reports Okay, this is a hurricane that's coming in, that's hitting um Florida, and I was supposed to hit Atlanta and parts of Florida Cause my buddy, um Glenn O'Donnell, was texting. He texted me. He said he got evacuated. He's over near Tampa. He was like I'm evacuated. I was like, oh, this is more serious than I thought. Pam was texting me Well, yes.
Speaker 1:We're going to get to that but this is Thursday.
Speaker 2:This is the day of the play. It was calm. Where we were it was. I don't even know if the skies were cloudy, it was like a blue sky kind of ish, a little bit cloudy, but it wasn't raining bad. Anyway, we prepped for the play and we got set up. We helped Dave, pastor Dave, with his AV set up for a couple of hours. We got involved in that pulling wires and getting him straightened out.
Speaker 2:Then we did the play and we did the Genesis Joe play and we did the Genesis Joe play and when it's those of you that know it's a very emotional play and when Joseph especially when he it it kind of builds up to him being left in prison and the cupbearer forgetting him, and that's that is almost the end. I don't know if it's the end of act one, I have to look at the paper but the first half of the play builds up to that point where he says he forgot me, that the cupbearer, you know he forgot me. And then Joseph, joseph looks down, he says everybody's forgotten me. And then he looks up to God and he says have you forgotten me too? And then there's a pause and then he goes over to the piano and we go into the song. Lord, I trust you.
Speaker 2:And when we did that song I could hear people in the audience. They were so moved. I heard people weeping in the audience and that usually hits me and it makes it harder for me to even get certain words out. And people are like, oh, you're so real. It seems like those tears are real. Well, they are, because it's a feedback loop of sorrow and a reality, I should say.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a group of people stopped me and they were in awe of you crying like that I said, yeah, it's very, it's very real because he becomes. He becomes the character. It's very real because he becomes the character.
Speaker 2:Well, I will say this Every time I read Genesis, that section, I still cry, like something's wrong with me. For sure, the Lord did something to me. Where he something about the scripture, he gets a hold of my heart and I actually tear up every time I read that, those sections. And I believe the Lord did that to me so that I would be able to translate some of the emotion, the reality of of what the holy spirit was trying to convey. And uh, yeah, so I'm hearing people.
Speaker 3:You know what are you gonna say no, I was just gonna say and that's why people respond in the manner that they do, because I find myself I get teary-eyed too. Yeah, and I know it's coming I could probably recite the play yeah, but it's. You are right there and you know the word is alive and it brings so much emotion and so much, you know, confirmation of what's even happening in your own life that's why it's so personal right, right, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:And so I'm doing the play and as I'm moving along I'm hearing people weeping and they were laughing too. There's a humor. Humor usually comes right around the same time as the deep emotional stuff. Then there's some humor that makes you laugh, so you find yourself laughing when you're still crying and you're laughing. The play is just a. The play is fantastic. I must say so myself. The play is fantastic. The lord did a great job on putting it together you can say that, because he wrote it.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely it's not you. So, having said that, we continued with the play and.
Speaker 3:I just want to back up real quick, because one of the things that I, you know, was impressed with was you know, we are hearing all of these crazy stories about what's happening and what we could be driving into the next day, and what I liked was that you hon, you were, you're just like, you know what we're on mission. We got to, we got to take care of this tonight. We will let tomorrow worry about tomorrow and we'll figure out what we're going to do. And it was, it was, um, it actually was kind of a relief because you know you, a relief because you know, you do. You hear all this stuff and it's like you start thinking ahead and like, no, this is what we came here for. We're going to handle this first. And it was such a blessed evening to just be able to let go of all that other stuff and, do you know, be on mission and do what we came to do.
Speaker 2:Yes, and at the, at the end of the play, we, we always give an invitation. If somebody wants to make it official with the Lord, so they. If they're not sure they can, they can make it official by receiving the forgiveness that's in Christ Jesus. And I tell them, I said, listen, before you walk out, underneath that exit sign, you can know for a fact that you are in the family of God and I lead them in a prayer and I led them in a prayer and led them in a prayer and I.
Speaker 2:But my problem was I looked down at the lights when I said could, if you sprayed that prayer, could you just raise your hand? I usually say that you know it's. You don't have to come up front, nothing like that. It's between you and God. But just so we know, could you raise your hand if you prayed that prayer to receive Christ? And I had looked right down at the lights. So when I looked up, all I saw was spots. I saw nothing. So I didn't know if anybody raised their hand or not. I thought I saw it, but I couldn't be sure. And I also give an opportunity if you're walking with, if you're in the family of God, you've asked the Lord to come into your life, but you have no power, no victory in your life and you want to have the Holy Spirit power in your life and you want to have victory over things that are beating you up. And I prayed that and led people in the prayer of that and I saw a bunch of hands go up, which was encouraging.
Speaker 3:Well, you had said too during the first part. You said that it didn't matter if you saw them, that the Lord saw them, and that was important.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so you know it was a blessed evening. But I must say, after the evening I went straight to, I had to put my game face on like, okay, what are we going to do now? Okay, we're done. And we didn't pack up right after, which was a blessing, because normally we have to pack right up after the play and I'm usually wiped out and exhausted, and because I didn't have that extra day, I was exhausted kind of during the play and then after the play I was wiped out, and so I was grateful that Pastor Dave, let us pack up the next day, friday morning, so we get up.
Speaker 3:Friday morning and he was also very. I just really appreciate him being so flexible with us because we were truly like should we stay or should we go? You know, we originally had planned to leave on Friday morning but with everything that was being said about it hitting Atlanta, then we thought, all right, maybe we should stay an extra day. So he was going to find out if we could stay where we were, you know out for another day and then the next morning it kind of went back and forth.
Speaker 3:But we were just kind of responding to the weather because the next day, it was this thing started changing. Well, yeah, and the next day I got a. I got a text from my good friend lauren lully and she's in florida she's well. She just moved with kurt to um georgia, oh okay but, her family's still in florida and I had reached out and I reached out to um, my sister liz in florida, and other people to find out how you know, how everybody was you guys hear how she says florida.
Speaker 2:She says florida, florida. Like you still have a Florida accent. Really, you guys catching it. Anyway, back to Katie.
Speaker 3:Kinney, can I have a glass of water? We want to talk about that too. Water, water, water.
Speaker 2:It's water down here. Yeah, okay, I say water. They're like where are you from? Boy, it's going to take me a minute.
Speaker 3:Anyway, okay, had let me know she said everything was downgraded to a tropical, yeah, like a tropical storm, I think. I mean because it originally was like a cat three. It was, yeah, it was big, right it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was big, and I got downgraded downgrade?
Speaker 3:yeah, but when your phone?
Speaker 2:was blowing up and then pam hess was calling pam was like yo, yeah, this is no joke.
Speaker 3:Play by play, and yeah, and for pam to get nervous pam is our.
Speaker 2:She's not only just on our board, also she is.
Speaker 1:She is a missionary, um and she's a seasoned missionary step of faith they're actually going to be on the podcast soon yes, um, so for her to get very concerned means, okay, this has been dialed up a little bit.
Speaker 2:Uh, phone started ringing and santos, who was on last week you guys know the doo-wop, you know bada, boom, bada, bing. Baby, I'm gonna do up, yeah, anyway, he, uh, he called me and well, first we were texting back and forth and you know he's a, he's a seasoned road veteran, so he's, he knows these things and he's like yo, you need to hunker down, man, this thing is no joke. And uh, that woman in the text. And then then he called me. Let me get the story right. Make sure I get the story right.
Speaker 2:No, before he called me, I said, okay, I called mark case, who was a plays on word supporter and a guy that you know, I, I, I value his opinion and things like this, and he's a guy that I could call and bounce idea off and say, hey, man, what do you think? And he was like, uh, yeah, you should, you should probably get out of there. I said we're in a valley in between the mountains here. I think the hurricane is coming dead at us. And he was like, yeah, you need to get out of Dodge. And I so I said, yeah, I think yeah, you're right. And I looked at my app and I said I'm going to go north, I'm going to go up towards eastern Carol, north, western west, north, towards Asheville, up in the mountains, and we'll go that way towards the mountains and we will go north, away from this storm, and we will go Asheville, that area, back.
Speaker 3:And this was before we got confirmation that Atlanta wasn't hit as hard as we thought. So we're thinking, okay, yeah, we're in a valley, we probably need to get out. We'll just go the other way. We'll go the other way, we'll go away from the storm, we can probably outrun it no problem.
Speaker 2:And so Mark Case called Gil Snowden, who is in Atlanta, and Gil is like our weather guy in Atlanta.
Speaker 1:Also another supporter, he's another supporter of Plays no Word.
Speaker 2:Also, he's not just the weather guy but he was that day he was. I was like, okay, what Gil? What is how you doing, man? He said, ash, it's just rain, it'd be. This was before the day before, when I checked it's just heavy rain. I was like, okay, cool, he's all right, everybody's all right, okay. After I got off the phone with Marques, gil called me in a I don't want to say a panic, but in his voice there was an concern, there was an urgency yeah, in his voice that actually unnerved me a little bit.
Speaker 2:He was like do not go north, teddy, I'm telling you don't go north. Um, come back down, come this way. And as he was telling me that, I pulled up the app and I remember looking on on my um storm tracker app and I could see the storm was moving northward and spinning around. But yet if we were to go south back towards atlanta, we it looked like we'd be driving in the clear Right, but I didn't know what we'd be driving through.
Speaker 3:And even Pam was saying yeah, because there are road closures and stuff.
Speaker 2:But the whole thing was it wasn't as bad as it was because it took a different direction. It's almost as if the Lord moved it a little bit over to the, or let it go a little bit farther east, so that when we came back down south, we rode through nothing major when we were driving back towards, when we were driving in Tennessee, back towards Atlanta. But that decision, that decision right, there was the difference between life and possible death. Because I was, we were going to go north. And I remember thinking, yeah, this is the way to do it, we should go north. And as we were packing up the trailer, I'm like okay, we're getting out of here, we're heading north. And Gil was like, nah, you need to come back down south instead of going north.
Speaker 3:And later reports there were mudslides in between Tennessee and Asheville.
Speaker 2:And the dam. Remember the report of the dam was going to break. Yeah, there was like a report of a dam breaking.
Speaker 3:I don't remember exactly when it broke. Yeah, but it was bad.
Speaker 2:Really bad report of a dam breaking. I don't remember exactly when it broke yeah it was. It was bad, really bad. And so we, we prayed and we went south and as we moved toward atlanta, the sky was partially, partially cloudy and partially blue. And I was like, okay, we had a couple gusts of wind there were, you could see a storm had come through. But it was like, okay, we had a couple gusts of wind there were, you could see a storm had come through. But it was like, okay, we're moving. We were still moving on the highway and I was like, okay, this is great. And then we got to Atlanta and when we got to Atlanta, we got detoured off the highway into this residential area.
Speaker 3:that was like yeah, what is it? Route 75 was closed because there was a major crash.
Speaker 2:Major crash. Because there was a major crash, major crash, all lanes were closed, yeah, and so he detoured us off and we ended up going through a residential area that was high end, yeah, high end, like million dollar houses, and it was flooded. Bad. I was like, oh, uh-oh, this is bad. And then the roads were that the gps was taking us on. They were closed off by trees.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there were two closures that we hit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:There was a huge tree that was down and the other one was flooded and I had to back up.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I was quite impressed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had to back up with this trailer on this narrow road and it was I want to say good grief. I mean like a half a mile or a quarter mile. It felt like it probably was shorter than that, but it felt like it was. It just went on and on and on.
Speaker 3:And I was praying the whole time and then, when you were done, I said well, at least you didn't have to do that in the dark.
Speaker 2:That would have been ten times worse. Oh man, oh my gosh, yep right. Oh my gosh, yep right. Yeah, so, as we continue with this story here, it's getting better here, even though we're running out of time, it is getting better, this story is getting better. We went through Atlanta, we got around, we finally made it around the flood. And as we're getting out of Atlanta, we tried to go to a couple Starbucks to get some coffee and they were drive-through only and a couple of them were closed and I was like, oh, that's kind of odd, but the gas stations were open. It was seemed fine. Um, so we just kept moving, kept moving, kept moving. As we're moving towards augusta, uh, I got down to about a half a tank, a little under half a tank, and I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm gonna, we're gonna get some gas soon. And as we moved along, I was like, man, this is a long stretch here. And then it got down to a quarter tank.
Speaker 3:Then I was, there were no stations. There were no stations. We're kind of out in the country and that's where we started noticing.
Speaker 2:Look at all these trees that are down along the side of the road. A road crew have come through and cut these trees out the way, but they're still down. What whoa? And so now we're coming up on e and I'm pulling over, there's no power and the phones all of a sudden went to sos. Both of our cell phones sos, no service, no service. And I'm like, uh-oh, this isn't good. I can't even call triple a if so, you know, uh, and we got to the one exit, the this one exit, and we pulled off. I said, okay, we're with, and now my, my gasoline light came on right and we made it to that exit and I'm like, okay, and we're looking around and there's police. You see police cars parked but there's no lights anywhere for miles.
Speaker 3:We pulled off and I was like uh-oh. Uh-oh, gas stations, and it seemed like Gas stations were full of people just parked in the parking lot. Like it was, and there were a bunch of gas stations we had to turn around and those of you that lived through Superstorm, storm sandy, in new jersey.
Speaker 2:it was similar. It wasn't a zombie apocalypse, but it was just people driving trying to find gas and I was like, oh, this isn't good. But I'm thinking it's localized. I'm like, okay, maybe it's probably just this exit. We have enough gas to get to the next exit. So we got back on the main road and rolled, rolled, rolled, rolled, rolled, rolled, and now I'm praying. I'm like, lord, please, I'm on fumes now. Lord, this isn't good, I'm on fumes, please let this next place have something. And we pull off the road and there were no lights and I'm like, uh-oh, this ain't good. So we pulled towards this marathon. There were no lights.
Speaker 2:There were a couple cars at the gas station. The gas station was closed, the doors were shut locked, no one was there and I'm like, oh no, and it's dark because it's about 8.30.
Speaker 2:Now it's 8.30 at night and now I'm like, uh-oh, this isn't good. And now I'm like, uh-oh, this isn't good. And so we ended up camping in the truck. And as we're there and I'm praying, I'm like I wasn't worried or nervous, but I'm like, okay, Lord, whatever you want, I just pray you'd protect us, you know, because things can go sideways once society starts breaking down, losing gas, food, water, those type of things, and I'm like whew, and this gas station was a little bit more on the remote side, where we had first pulled off.
Speaker 3:There was a lot more activity. Yeah, this was kind of up in the cut a little bit. Yeah so, and I felt the same way. I felt God was with us, but I was like I was concerned. I don't like to be anywhere that I can't get out of Dodge. If I need to Right and we couldn't Right, you know, we might have made it out the exit.
Speaker 2:Right, and you know what, since we're hearing the music, we are going to continue this story because the story continues. Ok, this story continues. We're going to update you next time. Thank you for allowing us to to spend this much time on this story and you're not going to SoundCloud it.
Speaker 2:I probably should put it on sound cloud instead of just making another episode out of it, but we'll see. We're going to continue our conversation, but until next week may the lord bless you and keep you. The lord make his face shine upon you, the lord, and be gracious to you. The lord, lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Speaker 1:This program was made possible by the plays on word family of supporters. To find out more, check out our website at plays on wordorg.
