270 – Eric Swithin of Florence, AL Founder Of Outdoor Adventures, Filmmaker & Outspoken Advocate For The Fatherless

Transcript:

Tom Couch: [00:00:00] Special thanks to Horizon Therapeutics for sponsoring the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad podcast, working tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics’ mission at HorizonTherapeutics.com.

Eric Swithin: And what we’ve seen is these kids, when they receive love from a mentor and they receive guidance and discipleship, they begin to see God the Father, our Heavenly Father, in a much healthier light. When we see this type of thing happen, we’ve seen healing in their hearts. We’ve seen a desire to not just ride on the welfare system but to have a purpose in their life, to have a vision for their future. And then before you know it the generational cycle is destroyed and those kids end up being good fathers and good husbands and then their kids receive the love that they never did. [00:01:00]

Tom Couch: That’s our guest this week, Eric Swithin, founder and executive director of Outdoor Adventures, and creator of the film Fatherless Epidemic. Eric devotes his life to enabling fathers to be their best through outdoor activity and mentorship. We’ll hear Eric’s story on this Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Say hello now to the host of the Dad to Dad Podcast and founder of the Special Fathers Network, David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Hi, and thanks for listening to the Dad to Dad Podcast, fathers mentoring fathers of children with special needs, presented by the Special Fathers Network.

Tom Couch: The special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children connect with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support dads. To find out more, go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to [00:02:00] offer help, we’d be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to Facebook. com, groups, and search “dad to dad.”

Tom Couch: So now let’s hear this heartfelt conversation between Eric Swithin and David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: I’m thrilled to be talking today with Eric Swithin of Florence, Alabama, a retired U. S. Marine, a former youth pastor, now founder and executive director of Outdoor Adventures, as well as the Alliance for Ending the Fatherless Epidemic. Eric, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Eric Swithin: I appreciate you having me, David. Thank you so much.

David Hirsch: You and your wife, Kameron, have been married for 14 years and are the proud parents of two children: Mason, 6, and Mackenzie, 4. Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

Eric Swithin: I was born in Illinois, and my parents separated and divorced when I was two. And my mom flew us out to California, [00:03:00] and my dad quickly followed. So we spent the first 18 years of our life in California along the coast.

David Hirsch: Whereabouts in California, out of curiosity?

Eric Swithin: A lot of people call it the Central Coast, but it’s really not. It’s really the northern part of Southern California. Five cities area: Pismo Beach, Grover Beach.

David Hirsch: Gotcha. Out of curiosity, what did your dad do for a living?

Eric Swithin: He was blue collar in Illinois, and when he came out to California, he ended up finding a job digging water wells for a lot of really high end branches and celebrities and that kind of thing.

David Hirsch: And when you think about the relationship with your dad, how would you characterize it?

Eric Swithin: It started off really rocky. He was really pushed out of our life because of the family court system and also because of the fact that he didn’t really know how to be a dad. He did not really have a dad of his own that was a good father and also because of life circumstances and just weariness. So he wasn’t really an active part of our life growing up.[00:04:00] But then I’d characterize it as finishing really strong. We really became close after I went to the Iraq war. There was reconciliation in my family. At this point I knew Christ and we could see the love of God begin to penetrate our family and bring us together. And then I was able to walk him through almost three years of cancer before he passed back in April.

David Hirsch: Yeah, it was really sad to learn that your dad passed away, but relieved that you were able to mend that broken relationship and to have a meaningful relationship for the last couple, three years of his life. It’s really a powerful statement.

Eric Swithin: That’s awesome. He really gave his life to the Lord towards the end there. And he would describe cancer as the greatest thing that ever happened to him. Which is insane, because he suffered more than almost anybody I’ve ever seen. But what he meant was when you’re faced with your own death, and it’s inevitable, you really think [00:05:00] differently. Every breath you take, every butterfly, every minute you get with your kid, life just becomes infinitely more powerful when you’re in the present, because you’re facing imminent death. And so he really got right with God towards the end and he began to become a dad that I always wanted.

David Hirsch: Yeah, sorry he was not present the first 60-something years of your life. But that is a very profound statement that you just made. And unfortunately it was, I don’t know if it’s the fear of God or just the fear of the limited amount of time you have, right? And it does help you focus. I can vouch for that.

When you think about takeaways from your relationship with your dad, you mentioned one. Are there any others? Something that’s important, perhaps that you’ve tried to incorporate into your own fathering?

Eric Swithin: Yeah, and that’s the beauty of redemption. We can use the things that we’ve gone through in life as an excuse, as a crutch. We can always focus on our woundedness and the [00:06:00] things that we’ve endured. But if we have Christ, Christ redeems everything. He uses everything for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. And so what’s been beautiful is I’ve taken the good things that I saw in my dad.

My dad was a high-level adventurer. If I ever did get to spend time with him, I barely would escape death by the skin of my teeth. We would dodge rattlesnakes and we’d go rock climbing. And I can think of multiple situations where I almost died hanging out with Dad. He was so fun and he tried to convince me at the age of five of shooting a 44 Magnum that I could barely hold up and just… This guy was wild. He was definitely a wild dude. And so I try to implement that into my family, the beautiful things, the good things. We try to paint things black or white, but they’re often pretty gray. If I really think hard, he may not have seen us a lot, but when he did see us, he was pretty good at getting us outside and doing fun stuff. We’ve become an outdoorsy family and that kind of thing.[00:07:00]

But then there was stuff that I’ve really learned from him. He never received any kind of tenderness from his dad. His dad definitely didn’t receive tenderness from his dad. And I can remember hugs with my dad were very sterile. They weren’t very intimate. And I’ve never been kissed by my dad, on the forehead or cheek or anything. There wasn’t a lot of affection. There weren’t a lot of sweet words, that kind of thing. He might’ve done that towards my sisters a little bit more. With my kids, I didn’t even know… When my wife was pregnant with my son, I was like literally on my knees praying God, am I allowed to kiss him? Can I kiss my son? And then when he comes out, you’re like, dude, you can’t kiss him enough, it was so natural. So I’ve taken the good, I’ve taken the bad, I’ve taken the stuff in between. And through Christ, through His word, through mentors, I’ve used all of that stuff for good in my own family.

David Hirsch: Yeah I’m thrilled that you’re on the path that you’re on. I know we’ve talked about this in the past, but we both came from [00:08:00] broken families, our parents being divorced and not having a meaningful relationship with our dad, certainly as a young person, those influential years. And once you become a dad, it’s crystal clear I think when you’ve had a dysfunctional situation, that you have control. You can do something about this. And I’ve often talked about breaking the cycle of father absence and you’re doing an excellent job with your own family and moving forward with the lessons that you’ve learned, emulating the good stuff like you’re making reference to and maybe living vicariously through the not so good things so that you don’t repeat those same mistakes.

My recollection was that you took a BA in Economics from Rice University, and then a number of years later you got your Master’s in Theology and Ministry, and that you’re pursuing a Doctorate in Ministry from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. And I’m curious to know, [00:09:00] how has that educational path informed you as a dad and the work that you’re doing today?

Eric Swithin: Primarily, do not ever say, God, I really don’t ever want to do this again. Please don’t make me go to school. [David laughing] Because, like my spiritual father, Bay Forrest, his first book was Please God, Don’t Send Me to Africa. That was literally the title. So you can imagine what happened in his life story. But I was not the type of person to enjoy school. I hated school. One of the many reasons I went into the Marine Corps right out of high school or shortly after high school. And education for me came much later as I began to gain some wisdom. At 28 years old, I went back to school for the first time and I started realizing I’d lived quite a bit of life. I’d seen combat. I’ve seen a lot of life and death. I’d had my own company. And here I am sitting in a finance class and I’m like, dude, this is it. I understand this stuff because I do it. And so I [00:10:00] think it really puts some teeth to it when you’ve had some life experience because you can discern what’s useful and what’s not, what’s practical, what’s not.

So I actually started liking school when you start finding subjects you enjoy. Your bachelor’s degree, right? You’re just getting a survey of life and all these different types of things. Rice University basically tries to fry your brain in a short period of four years. I did it in three because I had a wife who was an attorney making good money and I had the post-9/11 GI Bill so I just buckled down and took 21 hours at a time.

But then when you go to get your masters, at this point you’re like, alright, this is what I’m passionate about. This is what I’m called to. And you really begin to hone down into what you love and what you’re good at. And I just loved… getting my master’s was really amazing in theology and ministry.

And now at my doctorate, I’m specializing in discipleship and spiritual formation. So in other words, how do you connect deeply with God, intimately with God, and how do [00:11:00] you help others do the same? That is amazing. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it’s in an area that I love the most. How do we apply this to ending the fatherless epidemic? Listen, I believe the only solution to being a good dad, a really good dad, the only solution to ending fatherlessness as an epidemic… It’ll never be ended fully, but it’ll be restored to levels that are somewhat acceptable, if you could say… is when we know God, and we know Him deeply, and His character shines through us. We emulate our perfect Heavenly Father in our own homes and in our own communities.

So that’s where this all transpires. Right now, I’m learning how to connect deeply with God in a relational way. Learning the tenderness of a perfect Father and then I’m learning to breathe that into the world and show others how to do the same. And when you do that for a kid who’s got a father wound or didn’t have a father, it changes everything. You want to talk about redemption, it changes everything for that kid. [00:12:00]

David Hirsch: Very powerful, thank you. So I want to go back just a little bit. Because you had some important life experiences before you, if you will, buckled down from an educational standpoint, found your purpose, if you will. After high school, you went into the Marines. You served in the Marines for four years, and my recollection was that you were a Nuclear Biological Chemical Recon. What is that, and what was your Marine experience like?

Eric Swithin: Again, right? God, please don’t send me to school, right? So I end up in the Marine Corps, and I’m ready to like, let’s go kill bad guys! And then I end up getting into this specialty that’s really heavy with school. There’s only a couple of other schools that are longer than NBC school, Nuclear Biological Chemical Defense. So I go to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and I’m playing around with chemical agents and going into gas chambers and learning how to train Marines on how to stay alive and that kind of scenario.

And I do pretty well. Find out even though I hate school, I might be a little bit [00:13:00] good at it. And so they’re like, hey, we’d like to send you to this other school. I’m like okay. So I do that and it’s Fox Reconnaissance School. There’s very few people that get to do that. There were only 10 vehicle platforms in the whole Marine Corps at the time. And so you have a crew of three or four in each vehicle. So do the math: 10 vehicles times a max of four people. You’re looking at less than 40 in the whole Marine Corps. And then after that, they sent me to one further school which was Master Fox Reconnaissance. And so I became one of maybe three Marines that had that designation.

And I believe I was the only one in Iraq during the war that had that designation, which allowed me to go into the Command and Control Center during certain decision making situations. And even my Chief Warrant Officer, who was the head of NBC on the battlefield, was relying on me because I was Master Fox qualified, that kind of thing.

My job essentially was just to find chemical or biological weapons in theater, in Iraq, pass them off through chain of custody to the [00:14:00] CIA. And then when we weren’t doing the science kind of stuff, I was manning a 240 Echo 1 machine gun in a turret, in a big LAV, light-armored amphibious vehicle. So I could swim across the Tigris River, or I could drive anywhere with this thing, but it was also a rolling laboratory. So I was running and gunning when things were heavy and we were in the middle of combat. We took 16 cities. And then when things were in a lull, I was trying to collect data.

David Hirsch: Holy moly. It sounds like that was a whirlwind experience in the four years that you were there. So how many tours did you actually do?

Eric Swithin: Praise God, I only did one. But keep in mind, I don’t even think I was legally allowed to drink yet and I’m over there doing it. To say it was a lot is definitely an understatement. It was insane. It was very formative.

David Hirsch: That’s just wild. Thanks for sharing. And obviously these are some of your foundational experiences as a young man. Like you said earlier, you experienced a lot, you saw a lot, life [00:15:00] and death with those Marine year experiences. And it helps form your world outlook on things, for good or bad.

Eric Swithin: For good or bad, right? And again, when we have Christ, He could take all this mess and He used it to break me emotionally. And then He used me to walk away from a business career and to go into ministry and He literally tripled, maybe quadrupled, my compassion for suffering because of what I’d endured over there and seen over there.

David Hirsch: Any PTSD or any impact of that nature?

Eric Swithin: Tremendous. Yeah, and I’m not ashamed of that. We’re finding now that if you have childhood trauma and then you go into combat scenarios, your likelihood for PTSD is astronomically higher. Any kind of trauma situation as a child, it could be very triggering later on. That’s really what happened to me. I didn’t even know that was going on. But [00:16:00] later on, as I began to process it, I realized, yeah, I really needed to deal with some things. I was really struggling.

David Hirsch: And if you don’t mind me asking or trying to drill down on that, how did you go about dealing with those things?

Eric Swithin: I was forced into it. I buried myself in my work as a businessman, trying to avoid thinking too deeply about anything. And so I would drink almost every night and eventually just pass out and get up a few hours later and go to work and run a company. And so there was a lot of self-medicating and a lot of really negative and unhealthy ways of coping.

But later on here I get married, right? And I move into my wife’s house after we’re married, and she lives in downtown Houston, Texas. And there’s a Channel 13 news helicopter that would randomly fly by our window at any hour of the night. And there’s a very significant moment in the war with a helicopter that saved my life. [00:17:00] And that noise just sent me over the edge. So I was forced to deal with it. Here I am, a newly married man. I’ve got a successful career and I felt like I was losing it.

So I got help. I finally swallowed my pride. Really I didn’t swallow it, I just threw it down. And I realized I needed some help. I needed to talk to somebody. I needed to figure out what I was experiencing because I really couldn’t understand what I was dealing with. I didn’t know what it was called. I had no idea what these things were. I thought I was losing my mind. I was hyper vigilant. I’d struggle if I was walking in a grocery store, or sitting in a restaurant, or… And of course I’m carrying a loaded pistol almost at all times.

And it reached its pinnacle when one night I had a night terror, and I woke up in the middle of the night. It was a really dark room, because I like to sleep in a, basically like a bat cave, and I pulled a gun on my wife. She was in the bathroom, walking out of the bathroom to go back to sleep. I thought she was laying next to me because the blanket looked puffed up. [00:18:00] I didn’t feel with my hand like I should have. And I was back in a combat situation. Hypervigilance took over and I was about to do what I was trained to do.

And that’s when I knew, this is not okay. I need to talk to somebody. I used a lot of prolonged exposure therapy, which is if you’re afraid of water, go swimming five times a day. I used a lot of prayer and counseling from godly people that could help me process what I saw and did and stop blaming myself for all the things I had to do over there .And it just took a lot of time in the mountains, getting quiet and not running from it and pushing it down by working tremendous numbers of hours, right? But actually getting still before God, getting quiet, putting away the phone, not having a to-do list, but really just spending some time marinating in your own thoughts and spending time in prayer and just coming to terms with it.

David Hirsch: Well, it [00:19:00] sounds like, just paraphrasing what you’ve said, a metamorphosis of sorts, right? The person that you were, or the issues that you were struggling with a decade or so ago, are in the rear view mirror. And I’m hoping that they’ll stay there, and that you’ll be able to continue on the successful path that you’ve been on.

Eric Swithin: I appreciate that. I’m usually pretty good unless my my son walks up behind me with a toy gun and says, “Pow!” [David laughing] and hits me in the head with it. I’m usually all right now.

David Hirsch: Okay. I think you mentioned that Kameron’s an attorney. What type of law does she practice?

Eric Swithin: I like to call her a recovering attorney. [David laughs] She’s in the ministry now. She is our Vice President. She’s also our Risk Manager. She’s also our Treasurer. She wears many, many hats. I like to joke, I believe God is 100 percent Sovereign, and He just knew that I needed a lawyer in my life at all times. And we’re constantly having [00:20:00] to find our way out of little legal things that come up in ministry. And yeah, she’s very good at it and she was called by God to be a lawyer and she didn’t really know why until we met and we went into ministry together.

David Hirsch: That’s awesome. And out of curiosity, how did you meet?

Eric Swithin: God is, I don’t know if you know this, but he is tech savvy. We met through eHarmony.

David Hirsch: Okay.

Eric Swithin: We were both super busy in our careers, and yeah, we met through an online dating site and ended up having our first date at a little bistro in Houston, Texas, and it turned into a four-hour love fest. I knew that she was going to be my wife on date number one.

David Hirsch: Wow. Yeah, it was made to be. And I think it’s one out of seven or something like that marriages today are based on some type of online type of experience.

Eric Swithin: I’ll just tell you, I did it before it was cool. [David laughs]

Tom Couch: We’ll be back [00:21:00] with more of the conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast in just a few moments. But first, this quick message. Please help 21st Century Dads gather research on families raising children with special needs by having them complete the Special Fathers Network Early Intervention Parents Survey. A link to the survey can be found in the show notes. As a token of our appreciation, each person, mom or dad, who completes the survey will receive a Great Dad Coin. Thank you. Now, back to the conversation.

David Hirsch: Most of the interviews that we’ve done for the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast have been focused on special needs. And I know that’s not really your situation, but just as a point of reference, have you or Kameron had any connection to the disability or special needs community?

Eric Swithin: Yes, we have. I believe, for obvious reasons, a lot of the kids we work with, they come from really rough areas.[00:22:00] We call it “the ‘hood.” These are areas that have gentrified in the wrong direction. These are areas that have a lot of crime and poverty. And when you have an intense childhood trauma, we see a lot of kids that are special needs in terms of learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, some extreme cases, but we also have a lot of Fetal alcohol syndrome. We’ve got kids that were abused as a child physically, who now have traumatic brain injury and those types of things. So a lot of the kids we deal with are not on par with their peers academically, for example.

David Hirsch: Yeah, there’s a lot of brokenness. That’s what I hear you saying. And while they might not have Down syndrome or autism or cerebral palsy, there is a lot of trauma. And in some cases it’s unseen, right? Physically they look typical and normal, but they’ve got a lot of issues, right? A lot of wounds, [00:23:00] psychological and emotional wounds that they’re dealing with. And those probably can be just as if not more challenging than some of the experiences that young adults who have special needs are experiencing as well. So I admire your commitment to serving.

So let’s talk about Outdoor Adventures, which I recall started in 2014. What’s the backstory on that? What was your focus when that first began?

Eric Swithin: Back when I was losing my mind and dealing with PTSD and all this sort of thing, I started finding peace in nature. And it started by just fishing on the river bank. And I think I went to some men’s ministry event and they’re all wanting to play basketball. I brought my fishing rod and was just killing it catching bass and stuff by myself. And I started feeling a little bit of peace and started realizing that I like to be by myself in nature and just feel the wind on my face. And so that kind of [00:24:00] turned into a love for camping and backpacking.

And I swore when I got out of the Marine Corps, I was like, I’m never sleeping on the ground again, ever. I think out of four years I was on the ground, maybe a year and a half total, if you added up all the hours. I hated getting bit by bugs. I hate it. It was, I remember, 115 degrees. If you’re not in your sleeping bag, you’re getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. Or if you sleep inside your sleeping bag, you got to drink two gallons a night cause you’re sweating. And it just, it was absolutely miserable.

But I finally got over that, was hiking in the Rocky Mountains. And I was up on top of a mountain by myself and I had an encounter with God. I experienced a peace that was just beyond my own comprehension or understanding. It was real. I felt like He was healing me and touching me. I just felt like I was resting in His arms. I felt loved. I could see beauty. I could see colors. I could feel the wind. I can smell smells. I was there. I was present. And I just [00:25:00] walked away from that encounter just different. I don’t think you could ever encounter God and not be different afterwards.

It just, the thought came to me – I believe it was a revelation from God – I need to get kids up here to do this. I need to bring other people. So I brought veterans up there. I even guided an elderly women’s trip up into the mountains. I said I would never do that again.

I was already volunteering in the inner city. When we finally brought some kids from the ‘hood up into the mountains, what happened was unbelievable. It was absolutely miraculous. I was like, wow! These kids experienced God just like I had. And it was absolutely amazing. It was one of the great joys of my life to discover this. And then every other trip, the same thing happened, like rinse and repeat. I was like, all right, I guess I’ll just stop when people stop encountering God.

And it became one of those things. We had to fundraise some money to get the gear. We had to have insurance so we don’t get sued if a kid gets injured or [00:26:00] whatever. And we just put some formal stuff around it for the non-profit. Again, my wife being a lawyer helped me do all this stuff. And it just took off, took off really quickly. We were partnering with inner-city ministries that existed already, but helping them to go deeper with the kids they were already pouring into and really speeding up the mentor-mentee relationship by years and building trust and showing these kids God through His creation. It was just awesome.

David Hirsch: So you spark a lot of questions in my mind. It sounded like it wasn’t a straight path. Veterans, working with elderly women, focusing on kids and youth that has become your passion. And how do you go about identifying the youth? I think you had mentioned that some of them are from the inner city. Where are these kids coming from? How do you vet them?

Eric Swithin: That’s a great question. We teach this a lot to other ministries that we’re partnered with. And it’s really simple. You have 500 kids a week that come to your inner [00:27:00] city program. But you have a few that are attentive and they’re reciprocating what you’re pushing out. You’re gonna have kids that show up just for the free pizza and to play basketball and to whatever. They’ve all got reasons why they’re there. But you find the ones that are really interested in having that mentor relationship and we begin to foster that.

And what happened when we picked the right kids was they would come back from this wilderness experience and we’d initiate them into manhood. They’d be a part of our fraternity called the Wolf Pack. And it wasn’t cheesy; they’d say the Boy Scouts are cheesy and all this other stuff, but what we were initiating them into, it was their language, it was a part of their culture. They loved it, so they’d come back and then out of those 500 kids, it started to catch fire, right? The other kids were like I want that. We just clicked. There was a family within the programming. And you can see it. [00:28:00] It was obvious. It was like a lamp in a dark room. So the other kids are like we want to do this.

So then we took it a step further, and we would have tryouts. Basically a formal interview, a day of team building, and all kinds of obstacle courses, and physical stuff, and mental stuff, and games. And man, these kids, it was like trying out for a football team. They were like all trying to fight each other to get to the top and get picked.

Then we took it even a step further and we began to start off the year with a boot camp. So it was a giant three-day camp with lots of kids and then we started figuring out who might be a good candidate. And then after that we would have the tryouts with those that might be a good candidate and then we would pick the ones that actually went that year to Colorado, to the Rockies.

David Hirsch: Wow, it sounds like a process, right? And you’ve been able to refine it as time goes by. You raised an interesting point, which is not everybody is of the right mindset [00:29:00] to be in a mentor relationship. And for those that are, it’s just a matter of providing them with the right resources and giving them the right role models and amazing things can happen. And I know that you’ve been at the center of all this, and I’m wondering, how have you been able to recruit other positive adult male role models to go shoulder to shoulder with as this endeavor has grown?

Eric Swithin: That’s an easy answer. Christianity is absolutely boring unless you’re on God’s mission. So you sit in the pew and you learn some stuff and maybe you have a quiet time here and there because you’re supposed to, right? You got to check the box. But no, if you’re in the weeds in God’s mission, you’re neck deep in His mission, it’s not boring. So that’s how I get men to do it. I don’t even try to pitch it to them. I’m just like, hey, come out here and hang out for a day and see what’s up. I had one guy, we were in the parking lot afterwards, and he looks at me and he goes, this is not for me. He goes, but here’s a huge check to [00:30:00] help you with what you’re doing. And ever since then, many years now, almost a decade later, that guy is still, he’s a close friend of mine, he still gives money. So they all want to be a part of the mission, whether it’s sweeping the floor, or playing basketball with the kids, or hiking mountains. Every man comes alive when they get to go into combat for the kingdom.

David Hirsch: I love it. You have a presence in I don’t know how many states, but could you just reflect on how this has evolved and how some of these partnerships or affiliations have occurred?

Eric Swithin: It started off with just Outdoor Adventures and then slowly we started to find that other ministries were asking how we’re raising up other disciples. You’ll know them by their fruit. I mean we were having young teenagers that were also winning their peers to Christ and they were baptizing their peers and they were becoming leaders.

We have a rank structure. You become a junior leader. And so it just started. Hey, this is what we’re doing and how can we help you? And we helped buy gear for another [00:31:00] ministry in Baltimore, Maryland and helped them get their ministry off the ground. And then another ministry after that on a Native American reservation. And pretty soon it was happening more frequently. We were able to help other ministries get to the next level.

Then when God told us to make the documentary it was just out of obedience. We had no idea what we were doing. You want to talk about the blind leading the blind. We were just stumbling our way through this thing. Doors opened and doors continue to open. I’ve got a call with the vice president of Right Now Media this afternoon to put it on there. And there’s all these things happening I can’t take any credit for.

But long story short, we had a feeling we would need to build infrastructure that when the movie was released, The Fatherless Epidemic, we knew that we’d get a big influx of people that wanted to be a part of this and wanted to learn how to do it. So we built out the infrastructure for almost three years, maybe two and a half years, so that when the movie was released we’d be able to send these people to the right people and show them how to do it. So that’s how the Alliance for Ending the Fatherless Epidemic was formed.

The Alliance [00:32:00] for Ending the Fatherless Epidemic can be found at fatherlessepidemic.org, but it provides a portal of resources for other ministries. It provides a way of getting them connected. It provides a way for churches to be able to have an outdoor ministry or a fatherless ministry in their ranks and get trained on how to do that quickly. And so that’s how it took off. We built the infrastructure, we released the film, and we thought the film would be pretty cool, but it ended up being way more successful than we anticipated. God’s in it. And so He’s taken it and done far greater things with it. And now we’re in 44 states. Our goals had to be rearranged. Our hope is to have a fatherless ministry in every county in the U. S. by 2029.

David Hirsch: That’s very ambitious. I think that’s how we came in contact, Eric, is that one of our volunteers, one of the dads in our mentoring program said, you need to watch this. And I did. I was like, oh my gosh. This is exactly what I’ve been focused on the last 25 plus [00:33:00] years. Focused on ending the epidemic of fatherlessness in society. And while you’re coming at it from a different angle, it’s very impactful and I can highly recommend it. So thank you for sharing. So from your lips to God’s ears, I’m hoping that you will be in every one of the counties across America by 2029.

Tom Couch: And here’s a brief audio taste of Eric’s documentary, The Fatherless Epidemic.

Mom and Dad divorced when I was two years old. Both of them came from generational curses of parents that weren’t present or parents who came from parents who came from parents who didn’t know how to parent. And so the product of that was a dad who was fighting the court systems to try to get custody and see his kids who was often pushed out. And then a mom who is trying to just stay afloat.

My teenage years, I [00:34:00] just didn’t have a lot of supervision. And what I learned was when a young man does not have validation from a father figure, they’re going to find that validation somewhere. There were times where the generational curses of addiction filtered through. What that looked like was…

David Hirsch: Is there any advice that comes to mind? I’m thinking about advice that you might give to parents, and specifically dads, as relates to raising their children.

Eric Swithin: Yes, and I think this goes whether you’re a ministry leader, or whether you’re a dad, or whether you’re an employee, whatever role you fill, we have to learn to be more honest with ourselves. If you run a ministry, you have to ask the question, am I actually making disciples? Am I actually making an impact long term? [00:35:00] Or does this just look really good? Is it just fluff? I’m raising a bunch of money and it looks great because we got a bunch of pictures with kids from a rough area. Whatever it is you do, be honest.

 And when it comes to being a dad… You know the other day I reacted out of anger towards my son. It happens to all of us, right? We all make mistakes. But I was honest with myself in that moment. I stopped, I got on my knees, I looked at him and I said, Mason I’m sorry. I should not have said that. And that was a mistake. And I’m sorry. Do you forgive me? And his face just lit up. He’s, I forgive you, Dada. And that humility, I’ll tell you my son and I are so close. And I can’t tell you how much that humility to admit when I’m wrong, or God forbid, I make a mistake as a husband, I want my kids to see me say sorry to Mama. And I’ll try to do that and make a big thing out of it. There’s [00:36:00] been times where I gathered my whole family in one room, I sat down before them, and I said, I’m sorry, I made a mistake.

One time it was over road rage. I had a person that almost ran us off the road, and I just about went United States Marine on him. And I was so mad, and my reaction was probably pretty scary for my family. And it seldom ever happened before or since, but I rounded them up that night and I apologized. I said that was inappropriate, that was ungodly. And we prayed for those people, which is what we should have done. We prayed for our enemy.

And so that’s my advice, is you guys, we gotta be more honest in grading ourselves. How are you doing as a husband? How are you doing as a father? How are you doing as a member of a church? How are you doing as far as leading your family in the ways of God? How many days this week have you started the day by teaching your kids something from the Bible? How [00:37:00] often are we on our phone versus connecting deeply with our kids in the moment? We’ve got to be honest with ourselves. It’s so easy to justify the way we do things and how we do them and just ignore what we’re doing. And before you know it, you’ve wasted copious amounts of time doing the wrong thing. And so we don’t have a lot of time on this earth. We need to be honest with ourselves, walk in humility, and be willing to course correct constantly. That’s why it says, those that are children of God, walk with the Spirit of God. To walk in the Spirit of God, to pray continuously, as it says – pray without ceasing – is to be present with God in each moment, to be aware of who’s with us, how we’re living, what we’re saying, how we’re thinking. And that’s just a reminder for me too, constantly, to be right there in the moment.

David Hirsch: Yeah, very powerful. And to paraphrase, learn to be more honest with [00:38:00] yourself, maybe others for that matter. The one that really struck me is the humility to admit a mistake and be forthcoming about it and then don’t just stop there but to course correct to make the adjustments so you’re not doing the same thing and expecting different results. And while you didn’t use the word, the thought that came to mind was being intentional, as opposed to just getting pushed along, going along, through the daily activities. But being purposeful and intentional. That’s what I heard you say.

Eric Swithin: Love it. That’s a great word to use. I agree.

David Hirsch: The signature program of the 21st Century Dads Foundation is the Special Fathers Network, which is a dad to dad mentoring program. Why do you think mentoring is the solution, or one of the solutions, to end father absence?

Eric Swithin: There are multiple ways to skin a cat. You can focus on making dads better dads. There’s a lot of ministries that do that really well. We love that. You could focus on reconciliation ministry, dads being reconciled to their kids [00:39:00] later in life. We’ve seen a lot of that. There’s a lot of ministries that do that really well. That’s a great approach. Our niche is to focus on ending the generational cycle with the kids we pour into. That’s our approach. And essentially we find kids that’ll probably be dead or in prison, won’t get married, most likely. If they do, they’ll get a divorce. Their kids are gonna receive the same type of upbringing that they did, and you just repeat the cycle, except now you’ve exponentially increased it.

And instead of going about it by training up dads or this or that, we’ve just found that when we find these young men, in particular – we do work with girls too, but we really focus mostly on young men and we mentor them in life. So we have three areas that we specialize in and we focus on, which is biblical discipleship. We’re teaching them how to have a relationship with God. Number two, we’re teaching them real life skills. And number three, we’re having outdoor adventures. We’re getting them into the outdoors [00:40:00] and enjoying nature with them. And sometimes we do all three of those. A lot of times we do all three of those at the same time. You go on a camping trip, you’re teaching them about God. You’re connecting with God. You’re also teaching them how to build a campfire and how to cook and how to fish and how to hike and how to pack. But you’re also enjoying nature and getting out into fresh air and getting away from screen time.

And what we’ve seen is these kids, when they receive love from a mentor and they receive guidance and discipleship, they begin to see God the Father, our Heavenly Father, in a much healthier light. And when we see this type of thing happen, we’ve seen healing in their hearts. We’ve seen a desire to not just ride on the welfare system, but to have a purpose in their life, to have a vision for their future, and to walk with God in their life. And I don’t want to get a divorce. I’ve watched Eric and his wife and how they love each other well. [00:41:00] That’s what I want. I want a family. I don’t want my kids to be fatherless. And you talk about fatherlessness over the campfire. A few times the kids, they start to realize, yeah, you’re right. I don’t want that for my kids. And then before you know it, the generational cycle is destroyed. And those kids end up being good fathers and good husbands, and then their kids receive the love that they never did.

David Hirsch: I love it. Yeah, thank you for emphasizing the importance of some of these other approaches. Trying to create better dads, these reconciliation ministries. You’re focused on a segment of the population, these young boys as well as young girls, who have come from these broken families. The issue is multifaceted. 40 percent of the kids growing up in America are growing up in father-absent homes. 40 percent of the kids that are born today don’t even have a dad’s name on their birth certificate. These are statistics that have an overwhelming impact [00:42:00] in our society today. The incidents of crime and incarceration, drug and alcohol abuse, teen suicide and pregnancy, which are the headlines in every community across America, have a lot to do with the “breakdown of the family,” and in many cases or most, that has to do with the lack of positive adult male role models, or dads, in their lives. I just applaud you and your colleagues for the work that you’re doing.

Eric Swithin: Thank you, and likewise. It’s easy to just promote our own thing, but at the end of the day, God has a mission for everybody, and we’re all trying to do our part, we should be, so I commend you as well. You’re doing something really important, and I support that, encourage that, and love that. And I appreciate you valuing what we do as well.

David Hirsch: Thanks. I think we’re members of the Mutual Admiration Society then.

Eric Swithin: [laughs] I accept.

David Hirsch: Is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap up?

Eric Swithin: God always puts this on my heart and anytime someone asks me this I just have to say we are not [00:43:00] just designed to walk in religion, we’re designed to walk in relationship. And I want… somebody out there is going to connect with this but I for many years did not have a relationship with a loving Heavenly Father. I had a relationship, so to speak, with a distant God who was punitive and pulled out the belt quickly and He walked away and huffed quickly when I made mistakes and He didn’t say, I love you, I’m proud of you, I’m pleased with you. He was a distant Heavenly Father. And I realized that it had a lot to do with my upbringing. It had a lot to do with what I missed out on.

And so there’s someone out there that’s going to hear this. Man, God is a perfect Father. He’s Abba Father, He’s Daddy. And He just loves us, and He’s not quick to punish us or spank us. His knee jerk reaction, if He had one, it would be to wrap His arms around you and tell you that He loves you and dust you off and help you do better. [00:44:00] He wants the best for us. And it’s easy to play church. It’s easy to just make that a secondary or tertiary part of our life. But my encouragement for anybody listening is that, God really wants a deep and abiding relationship with us, a love relationship. And when I moved over from religion to relationship and began to have that with Him, it changed everything. And it continues to change everything. So that’s my encouragement is, again, being honest with ourselves, would you describe Him as Abba Father? Because I used to think that was weird. I couldn’t call Him Daddy. That was the weirdest thing ever. Like what? You don’t do that. but now it’s just so natural. The way it comes off my tongue, it feels perfect and it feels right and it’s true. So that’s my encouragement. Someone out there is going to hear this and say, you know what, you’re right, Eric. I don’t really know Him that way, but I want to. That’s a good place to start.

David Hirsch: Yeah, I love it. Thank you. So let’s give a [00:45:00] special shout out to Scott Sowers of Lilburn, Georgia for helping connect us.

Eric Swithin: Thanks, Scott. Appreciate you, man.

David Hirsch: If somebody wants to learn more about Outdoor Adventures, the Alliance for Ending the Fatherless Epidemic or to contact you, what’s the best way to do that?

Eric Swithin: One stop shop. You can go straight to www.fatherlessepidemic.com. That will give you access to our full-length documentary which is 55 minutes, our short documentary which is 35, which is great for playing in lieu of a sermon, or for a Sunday school lesson, or a small group lesson. That’ll also connect you to our ministry, The Alliance for Ending the Fatherless Epidemic, which is fatherlessepidemic.org. So just lots of good free resources, or you can try to get ahold of me through there. So fatherlessepidemic.com. That’s the place to go.

David Hirsch: Got it. I’ll be sure to include that information in the show notes. It’ll make it as easy as possible for somebody to follow up. Eric, thank you for your time and many insights. As a reminder, Eric’s just one of the dads who’s part of the Special Fathers Network, a [00:46:00] mentoring program for fathers raising a child with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor father or are seeking advice from a mentor father with a similar situation to your own, please go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

Thank you for listening to the latest episode of the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As you probably know, the 21st Century Dads Foundation is a 501c3 not for profit organization, which means we need your help to keep our content free to all concerned. Would you please consider making a tax-deductible contribution? I would really appreciate your support. Eric, thanks again.

Eric Swithin: Thanks for having me.

Tom Couch: And thank you for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children match up with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great [00:47:00] way for dads to support other dads. To find out more, go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to Facebook.com, groups, and search “dad to dad.” Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story or know of a compelling story, please send an email to David@21stCenturyDads.org.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch.

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