Joanne Moody Audio

Dan Gariepy: [00:00:00] The Missional Life Podcast, inspiring Kingdom-minded believers around the world to live the mission of God in their lives.

All right. Welcome back to Mission, my podcast Today we're excited to have Joanne Moody with us. She's a speaker, author, and co-creator of Angel Studios' new series, miracle hosted by Bear Grills, a powerful project telling stories of modern day healings and divine encounters. Joanne's own story is part of the series as she shares her remarkable journey through near-death experiences, chronic illness, and a life-changing miracle that reshaped her faith and calling.

Joanne, welcome to the show. Welcome.

Joanne Moody: Hey, thanks, you guys. Great to meet you.

Dan Gariepy: Absolutely happy to be here. So glad to have you. Hey, congratulations on the new launch of Miracle. So exciting, and it, it's such a unique and such a timely thing too. So [00:01:00] give our listeners an overview of what the show is all about.

Joanne Moody: So, miracle is the evidence of people who have received a modern day. Healing Miracle from Jesus Christ. And the, the reason why we were so compelled to make this is certainly my own story, is that but all throughout the world I have been traveling for 13 years meeting people who the Lord has healed and delivered and saved certainly our greatest miracles that were saved in Jesus Christ.

That's the big thing. But people have experienced extraordinary miracles. So we set out my business partners and I to develop a show that would encase these just tremendous stories of Jesus's healing. But they would be done cinematically and exciting, and they would have verification with medical, scientific evidence that proves that these are miracles.

Because the last thing we wanted to do was bring something of something that, that everybody could speculate that [00:02:00] didn't really happen. We wanted actual medical proof that would show bodies have been transformed. People have received things they could not have received with medicine. And so this is a super, super compelling show.

The stories are gritty. They're, we didn't hold anything back. These are the stories where blind eyes have been opened and people have been raised from the dead. Somebody like me with denal nerve entrapment, which was incurable came onto the scene where Jesus was moving and he healed me. And what I suffered with for almost 15 years I received a staggering miracle, which I don't know how many times I was interviewed by my surgeons and doctors after I was healed.

'cause they just stood there with their mouths open going, this is impossible. And I kept saying, no, nothing's impossible for Jesus. So we wanted to tell the stories of what's happening in America and around the world today. When normal people pray in the name of Jesus. And God does extraordinary miracles.

Yeah.

Dan Gariepy: Wow. When normal people [00:03:00] pray in the name of Jesus, like 'cause that's exactly it. Right, exactly. Normal people with the power of Jesus Christ. Exactly.

Joanne Moody: We're, we're all just fallible people, but we have this great and mighty God who says greater things will you do in my name.

But the problem is the church doesn't really believe that. So when we go to other nations, there's so many times I was just in Cuba not too long ago. We get little children to pray. Instead of us, because we want people to see it is Christ's power. It's not us, it's him. And so sometimes we'll get a little 4-year-old kid and we'll say, Hey, pray for this.

And the child will pray because they don't know any better not to pray. Right? You, you encourage them. And people get healed when a 4-year-old prays and then they're just like, I have, I, I don't have any grid for that, you know, religion in the face of a small child, that really doesn't hold up very well.

So,

Dan Gariepy: man, on a quick side note, we live in the country of Belize and our daughter was seven. And we were praying for a man who had been stabbed in the lake. His legs were uneven. And as we were [00:04:00] praying, they evened out. It was so amazing for our daughter at the age of seven to experience that and see that this happened.

Miracles do happen and they do, especially with that faith like a child. When you get that in there.

Joanne Moody: Woo. Yes. It just, it's kind of like a

Dan Gariepy: superpower, isn't it?

Joanne Moody: Exactly. And whenever a room doesn't, a place where you're ministering doesn't have any faith, go get a handful of kids. Yeah. And their whole room will shift.

Dan Gariepy: Man, it's so great. So in miracle, what drew you to be part of this and what was it like stepping into the role of both a producer and a participant in this series?

Joanne Moody: Yeah, it's it was an interesting dialogue. My friend Kimberly and I were sitting in an airport and she had come to a meeting I was doing in New Jersey.

About seven years ago, and somebody invited her. She was from Connecticut. She came to this meeting and I had received a word of knowledge from the Lord about this blonde woman. And I went over to her and I prayed for her. And she was radically healed by Jesus with a [00:05:00] 27 year back injury. She needed surgery and her heart was also healed.

She'd gone through a terrible divorce. And so we were sitting, we became friends. We were sitting in an airport probably a year after that. And she said to me, you know, what I just really wanted to always know is why I was a Christian all my life and I never knew that Jesus healed today. And I said, same reason.

I was a Christian most of my life, and I didn't know Jesus healed today. I said, the church has largely evangelical churches. Select maybe not a pure cessationist platform. But we don't often see the manifestation of miracles, so we tend to believe that that died off with the apostles or whatever our theology is around that.

And, but she was so stuck on, why didn't I know? 'cause I feel like I wouldn't have suffered for 27 years if I didn't. And so she was truly the impetus in this whole thing because she kept saying to me, we should make a film about this. And I said, well, we'd have to really get amazing filmmakers. 'cause most of the time when you do something in this vein, it's labeled as crazy [00:06:00] charismatic.

And I said, I don't want to do that because I'm very theologically based. I, I wanna make sure it's, if it's going to, if we're gonna do it, we have to go after this thing. Mainstream needs to be incredible cinematography. It's to be very, very edgy, very relevant to today's society, yet biblically accurate.

So that's how it all started in this airport with this conversation. And then Kimberly just went crazy, like going, she's, she's just like a dog on a boat. She went after it, which I was thrilled. I was so busy traveling the world and doing all the stuff I do, and she just kept, kept after it. And so about four years ago, we finally said, okay, this can actually happen.

So we've been working on this thing for six years. Kimberly most emphatically the first two years, and then the last four years, our other business partner, Ben Kasika and our music supervisor, Joshua Silverberg, who brought in the most tremendous artists for this started working nonstop together and looking for distribution.

We had great great cinematographers, great stories. I [00:07:00] mean, we weren't, we are not void of stories. I can tell you. We are in hundreds, if not thousands of miracles to pick from. So it was something we felt like. For this time in history needs to happen. And my, my son is a genzer and I, I saw all over the world how we're losing the hearts of that generation.

Amanda Gariepy: Hmm.

Joanne Moody: And they're built to question, they're built for transparency. They are, there's so much about that generation that is so opposite of most other generations because they're the first digitally raised generation. And I knew in my heart, I've studied that for the last five years. 'cause I, I don't wanna lose the heart of my son or his wife.

And all of the Gen Zs we have on our teams that, that go into the mission field with us. And I was really trying to understand that. And the Lord really spoke to my heart about the power of media when done right. And so that was another really, really compelling reason, was to make something that would showcase the [00:08:00] gospel, the true gospel of Jesus, but reach a generation that is always on their devices that may never open a Bible.

But they will open their phone. And then we were like, well, okay, we, we can do this. And so that was reason number 58 or something to Yeah, but a huge one for me because I, I, I want, I believe the Lord's more creative than we are. And I believe that he can use media to redeem an entire generation.

Amanda Gariepy: Yeah. That's so good. So our daughter is 10, almost 11, and I was talking with her about the internet and how it's like a modern day Roman road. We were talking about Roman history Absolutely. And just saying how God chose specifically the time of when he had the Pentecost happen, when all the Jews were gathered from scattered countries.

Joanne Moody: Yeah.

Amanda Gariepy: And then went out on the Roman built roads, which maybe and probably were built through slavery Yes. Of conquered areas that the Romans used, but God took what the enemy had made [00:09:00] through bad things and a ruling empire and used it to spread the gospel and all the regions. Exactly. So the internet is the same thing today.

There's so many bad things that happen, but as believers, we can certainly use it for good things.

Joanne Moody: Yeah. We have such a need for redemption in, in that area and I, I just think when you can bring content that is real transparent, powerful. That can reach the heart of anyone who's struggling.

And that's, that's our heart.

Dan Gariepy: Well, you said you have hundreds if not thousands. We do experience and so I mean, this is like season one, but even in season one, your story is included in there and so it's, yeah. We'd love to hear some more about that, but I'm sure as producer, you've seen all these.

Is there another story that you can share that really sticks out to you that just grabs your heart that you just say, i'm sure all of 'em, you just back and say, wow, God. But is there one that just really pulled and spoke to you?

Joanne Moody: Yeah, I mean, they all do because they're all so different.

But I think. Because of the man the who, who it is. About 11 months [00:10:00] ago, it came to our attention and we already had season one mapped out. We had to put some stories into season two. We had so many stories, but we got wind of a man named James Drain, who 11 months ago, almost, almost a year ago now, was baptized in Michigan.

And he had MS and he was blind. He had had methanol poisoning. He was completely blind for eight years and he was in a wheelchair and he wanted to be baptized and had a really, really rough life. And he had come out of alcoholism and drug abuse after he went blind, he had just drowned himself in that, you know, he lost his family and he his pastor got him into the baptismal tank.

And when he comes up, we got sent the live video. That high school girl was videoing the baptisms and this staggering moment where this man comes out of the water and his pastor is kind of holding him and he's, he starts blinking really fast and you can watch his face. He's in shock. And he turns to the pastor and you can see [00:11:00] him talking to the pastor.

And what he says is, oh my gosh, pastor, I think I can see. The pastor's like, what? And he says, are those flags in the back of the church? Like water's dripping down his face and he's just blink, blink, blink, blink, blink. And he goes, is that an American flag at the end? And the pastor squints and says, I can't even see that.

And so this man, in a moment of the sovereign grace and mercy of God in the middle of giving re, you know, just the, the whole foundation of I want, I want to be baptized in the name of Jesus, he had given his life just not that long before that he is healed of blindness in a sovereign moment. And the, and then he went several weeks later, back to the clinic and was diagnosed completely free of ms.

Ms is incurable. Blindness is incurable when it's methanol poisoning that is literally fried. All of the nerve endings in your eyes. And this man today spends his [00:12:00] life now, this is not quite a year ago, spends his life caring for the disenfranchised and those in need people who are shut-ins and he drives a bus for the church and goes and picks up these people and has this ministry he never thought he'd have.

He's driving. He's, he's doing, I just, he was at our premier in Nashville and I just fell in love with a guy. I, I turned to him. I go, you know, what are you gonna do after you get a miracle like yours and mine? He goes, there's just no going back. I mean, what would, what would we do? You know? It's like, where would we go?

We, we only can be compelled by the love of Jesus to, to go out and give away what we've been given. And that's, that story, just, it makes me cry when I watch it. And the way we got to tell his story was to include his background and the things that God redeemed in a moment, sovereignly. It, it's just such a beautiful story.

Wow. Yeah. It'll be episode two, so everything airs on September 29th is, is [00:13:00] episode one. And so James', episode two gonna be great. That's

Dan Gariepy: incredible in my mind. There's that, expression, dead man walking. I'm thinking blind man driving. It's just so amazing, to see just the momentary change,

yeah. It's so amazing where you go into that water living one way and you come out of that water.

Amanda Gariepy: Yep.

Dan Gariepy: A different way. Yeah. And he went into the water spiritually, in one way. Came out spiritually different, went in physically, and came out physically. Yep. And that's just such an amazing,

Joanne Moody: isn't that amazing?

Phony. Wow. Yeah. And, and you know, most of our stories are the laying on of hands and and all of that. And and, and certainly that the Lord does whatever the Lord does creatively, but we wanted to showcase the story so much so because we wanted to make sure that people see that God is also moving sovereignly.

Yes. It's, it's not always the laying on of hands. So anyway, he's just such a tremendous person. And it was absolutely incredible to, to meet him and, and to know him. And now to see people are flying into that little church. From all over the world for [00:14:00] prayer, because that just doesn't happen, you know?

And the, the video went viral and it's millions of views. And now our our video of that video has now gone around again with more millions of views. So, you know, here what what everybody's addicted to with with social media, TikTok and Instagram. And, but now there's the stories of Jesus going out.

So that's the great thing.

Dan Gariepy: So amazing to see the goodness of God in that. Because like you said that he's still working sovereignly. It's like he's tasked us with the great commission, right? Yeah. He said, Hey, go you, therefore, but it's like he's not gonna be left behind either.

He's going work going and obviously he's in through us, doing the work, but he's also kind of got his side projects that he's doing, kind of a loan as well, and so Totally so amazing to be able to document those things as well. Ah, to be able to, what a privilege.

Not just document them, but in addition, be able to provide proof, because that's a big thing, right? Like nowadays proof is everything because like you said, just gen Z and so many, yeah. Not just Gen Zs, [00:15:00] but so many that are living in today's culture. It's like, yeah, but show me the proof. Exactly. Exactly.

Because we're so used to beings fooled, right? I mean, for lack of a better term, you know, we're fooled with ai, we're fooled with, you know, different kinds of news. We're fooled in so many different ways. Yeah. Hey. Like, I'll believe that when I see it. I'll believe it. Yeah. When it documented. And you guys are doing just that.

Joanne Moody: Yeah. It's been so exciting to work with doctors Josh and Candy Brown. They are both Harvard professors and he is a neuroscientist and she has her bachelor's, master's and PhD from Harvard. Her PhD is in theology. She's an incredible systematic theologian. And the two of them founded the year that I was healed in 2013.

They were at that event where I was healed, and they came and spoke to me and they founded something called Global Medical Research Institute, which their entire entity is to prove the supernatural [00:16:00] miracles of God with science. And the reason for that was because Josh Brown had an inoperable brain tumor.

So he is our very first story. Miracle that'll be showcasing on Monday, on September 29th because Josh's brain tumor, which was in operable he as a neuroscientist was completely stuck. What do I do with this information? My wife is pregnant. I'm going to die. My little girl's not gonna have a father. My wife's gonna lose her husband.

This isn't the way I planned my life. And he began to research where healings were happening with Jesus's in the name of Jesus Christ. Where were these healings happening? And he began to travel. So to seek out where understanding more than anything, they're very logical. And so this foundation that they created has proven.

And it's very, very costly and very difficult to get a certification from the American Medical Association that something is a supernatural miracle. It the type of testing [00:17:00] that they have to do the rigor that's involved in that. But they are committed and we're committed to them on, on their research and what they've done and the miracles they've been able to certify will boggle your mind.

So we did not want to do something without the science and medical evidence, because as you said most people who are skeptics and very logical, I'm both of those, I'm both skeptical and logical, but I am the recipient of a full blown medical miracle with absolutely brand new nerves in my pelvis that were destroyed.

It doesn't make any sense, but here I sit, you know, and run around the world when I couldn't sit or stand with my own story before. So what was I gonna do with that? You know, at some point in time you have to let God be God analyze the evidence. Look at the gospels and see that God truly is still doing what he did in the days of Jesus.

He's still doing.

Dan Gariepy: Yeah, I was just thinking about the man with the brain tumor. How he was just looking for where is God [00:18:00] working? Where is

Joanne Moody: God working?

Dan Gariepy: And it made me think of the man who's shouting on the street like Jesus, son of David have mercy. I mean, he's follow on Jesus as well and Jesus, you know, be it done according to your faith.

Right? Sometimes just. Beginning to look and getting on our two feet and going to where the Lord is already doing something. Exactly. We're too busy waiting for God to come and do something for us. That God's hey, like, pick up your mat and come, we've gotta start going and, pick up our feet and going to the places where God's working meet 'em there.

We've had family members go to different locations where there were healings and, they've been heal of different things as well. Sometimes it comes to you and there a person that comes to your house and say, Hey, lemme lay hands on you. And sometimes it's like, Hey, go find the people that are laying hands on others.

Exactly. And get to 'em as well.

Joanne Moody: Exactly. Yeah. So important. He, Josh ended up praying for, he went to Mozambique and he ended up praying with another friend of mine. This is all me finding this out way, way later. I didn't even know those guys knew each other. And they ended up being prayer partners and they were praying for these two brothers who were born [00:19:00] blind.

And so in the midst of seeking healing from the Lord. For his own brain tumor. He watches two born blind brothers turn their eyes turned from gray. Their pupils were completely gray to brown. And they could see. So this is his introduction to what Jesus can do. His brain tumor isn't healed at that moment.

And he's, you know, after a while he's like, what? Hello? What about me? All these miracles are happening when he is praying and he is going, wow, what about me? But eventually he has this divine, divine healing. But he saw staggering things go on which gave him the faith to believe that God did that.

Then God could do it again. And that is the point of testimony, right? In Revelation talking about we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony, the word of the testimony goes forth and says God, God, do that again. Father, do that again. It's so [00:20:00] amazing.

Dan Gariepy: And that's exactly why we do the show.

We believe that faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word. And we believe that Jesus is the word. And when people hear stories of what the word or what Jesus is doing in other people's lives, it gives them the ability to believe for what God wants to do in and through their lives as well.

Amen. So sometimes you just need that picture of something going on, whether it's in museum beak or wherever it is of, Hey, God did this for them. He's not a respectful person. What he does for other people, he will do for other do for you. And that can look differently.

I can't explain all of that. Sure. But all we know is that God does and wants to be involved in our lives much more than we give him credit for.

Joanne Moody: Absolutely. Absolutely. He's so incredibly intentional.

Dan Gariepy: So you said you've been working on this show for several years now. Yeah. And you know, sometimes I think we can kind of get into this mindset or different people can begin to believe, like when God gives you a mission, man, the doors are always wide open and every problem just gets removed and there's just a, way maker sort of [00:21:00] thing.

Pre-show you shared some of that. So I'm just wondering, could you share a little bit of some of The obstacles you have had to navigate as yourself and as a team in order to take this show from conception to release?

Joanne Moody: Yeah, I think that, you know, the first and foremost when God gives you a mission, you better pray for some tenacity, because I don't see anybody who followed the Lord in the gospels that didn't have to have tenacity.

Mm-hmm. It's, there's always going to be obstacles that come, you know, but we are triumphant in Christ and we're not trying to work to victory. We have victory, so we have to stand in that. But while we were in the process of creating this whole thing, there were obstacles of financing, making films is ridiculously expensive.

And we had some financiers behind this. And, and that whole relationship went south and we were all in shock. We were like, oh my gosh. We thought these were people, you know, in, in the trenches with us and we [00:22:00] had to, that relationships start all over again. In the, in the middle of that, we were like, what in the world happened here?

And it's, it's, you know, the, the spirit of offense is, is rife. It's rife within the body of Christ and outside the body of Christ. And so we were dealing with that. We were dealing with upheaval knowing what was going to come at us from those who might be ultraconservative from a religious paradigm.

So the first thing that I said to our business team was, I, I have to build a theological board. Of the most sound theologians in, and they're, and first of all, they were like, why? And I go, are you guys, you, you know, you don't travel. In my world, my world is like, if the Lord comes and the spirit of God's present, and then there's somebody there that doesn't understand that, the first thing they say is, you know, false.

This is a, this is witchcraft. This is a false profit. This is this, this is that. And so I'm like, Hey man, I wanna have the most incredible theological voices on the [00:23:00] planet today. That believe in, somewhat believe in renewal theology. And so we had to compile this beautiful theological board with Dr.

Craig Keener, who's at Asbury College, Dr. Mary Healy, who is one of the foremost Catholic theologians today and numerous others. And it's just, that was a huge thing to tackle. And, you know, the series hasn't even launched yet, but I got a word very, very clear to my heart from the Lord. Don't leave this out to chance.

I don't want this stopped. I, I want to have the word of God brought back again and again and again as the foundation for this series and then the, the simple fact of trying to be on location, filming all of these different stories and these different entities trying to retell a story that doesn't turn out cheesy.

And, and I say cheesy. It can't be subpar, it's gotta have cinematic excellence. It's gotta be thematic, it's gotta be big [00:24:00] story. We got big stories, but if you don't tell the big stories with big theme camera angles and great great filmmakers and, and great writers, then the story falls flat, especially when it comes to miracles.

So putting together that team and making sure that we had all of those logistics worked out, we had such an incredible team come together, but that's not an easy feat. And then our last shooting for weeks and weeks and weeks in in the Nashville area we just prayed like crazy. Lord, bring the right actors, bring the right people all of the all doctors who's gonna go on camera and say, this is absolute stunning miracle.

Okay? There are some doctors who know it's a miracle. It's certified as a miracle. They're not gonna go on camera and say it. So weeding e everybody's stories in season one, weeding out which medical professionals would actually be willing to go on camera. Reviewing all those medical records, Dr. Zuki and GMRI with the Browns, I mean, [00:25:00] countless staggering weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks of work of going through everybody's medical records, making sure that if that particular miracle wasn't verified, how much can we turn over to have it verified?

How fast can we do that? What can we do? Mm-hmm. So, I mean, there's, there's layers and layers and layers and layers to this thing to make sure that we brought something that was of quality that was true and compelling and also verifiable. And, and that was just not, not an easy thing. And then we wanted it to be a live experience for people as well as watching.

We wanted to be able to have live events because certainly I travel all over and we pray for everybody. So bringing in worship, our hearts are to be worshipers, right? From the very first time when Moses was leading the people, it was let 'em go so they can come and worship me. We are worshipers, so we wanted the worship experience for our viewers.

So, Joshua Silverberg is a, is a dear friend of ours and he is a [00:26:00] Grammy nominated multi dove award winning writer, composer, producer amazing man of God. And he also believes in praying for the sick. So he ended up becoming part of this project and he is so relational. He's got such. Such a tenderness about him.

And he prayed for Brandon Lake's guitar player Micah. And Micah was healed of this incredible thing in his guts which they call Ms of the Bowel. It's like a wasting disease. Simply Josh Silverberg in the studio with Brandon Lake, recording a new song for him called Micah. Micah was supposed to be there, was too sick.

He calls him and Micah was healed over the phone. Wow. And so bra. So from that moment, Brandon Lake was like, whoa I didn't know this about God. You know? And then we all became friends and Josh ended up oh, I think he co-wrote almost all the songs on the project, but got Rita Springer and Natalie Grant and Tarian Phil Wickham, I mean, all these amazing artists who love the [00:27:00] Lord wrote songs with Josh.

Or wrote songs for the episodes. And so the soundtrack is incredible. And it's all about what is possible with the God of the Bible. So we just believe that if people don't even get to watch the series, once they hear the songs, then the songs are launched at the time the episode is launched. So when you watch the series episode, at the end of that episode is the song that goes with that episode, with the music video that Josh produced.

And so that's just a whole nother element which we wanted people to receive this faith level in their own, on their own devices, in their living rooms, in their cars, wherever they are, but also to be moved to a heart of worship to understand that this could be their moment too, that they receive what they've been praying for.

Dan Gariepy: Wow. So amazing. And I think it's so important too, what you said. About doing things with quality and doing things with excellent [00:28:00] because our generation expects it, right? I mean, those angles and the music and all that coming together to create that full effect because, you know, they're really good at it on the opposite side.

This goes back several years and, it's kind of a funny, parallel, but I'm thinking of this old show and they weren't perfect back then, but the, show unsolved mysteries. Oh, yeah,

Joanne Moody: yeah. I remember that. It was compelling.

Dan Gariepy: They had the angles and the music and everything, and when I got done with that show, every single time I was convicted that the person is gonna be in my room like, Hey, that guy is waiting for me. I'm gonna be the next person. Yeah. I think on the flip side, that with you guys when doing all of these and sharing the stories, man, I hope that the person watching is convinced that they might be the next person and that God, that same Jesus that did all these miracles.

Yeah. Is same Jesus that's in the room, ready to do that for them and in their lives as well.

Joanne Moody: Yeah.

Dan Gariepy: Amen.

Joanne Moody: That's the whole point.

Dan Gariepy: Yeah. Wow. I've heard some good things about the episode number three in this one. So tell us a little bit about [00:29:00] episode number three, if I'm not mistaken. This is a little bit about your story. You yourself went through, it looks like nearly two decades of surgeries, chronic pain, even near death experience.

Share with us a little bit more your journey through that.

Joanne Moody: Yeah, so the, the brief version of that is I was a triathlete and so I was very, very dogmatic with exercise and knew that I could do anything. I felt like I was pretty invincible. And then I got pregnant with my only child after my husband and I got married, and I ended up going through a 91 hour non-progressive labor.

And at the time my doctor was out of town. I was left in the hands of on-call doctors that didn't come. And nobody knew what was going on with me. But after my son was born by emergency C-section in hour 91 from that moment on, I was in chronic debilitating pelvic pain that just got excessively worse.

And they kept saying, we don't know what it is. It took them from, that's 1999. It took them till 2005. When I finally saw like the [00:30:00] 30th specialist in San Francisco where they did a nerve conductivity test and found out that my nerves were crushed in seven places on my left side and five on my right with the denal nerve.

And that happened when I went through this very, very, very difficult labor. But my son's head was too big and, and so it fried the nerves in my pelvis. So from that moment I went through seven, seven surgeries and I ended up being advised to go to France because they did nerve decompression surgery, which doesn't cure the nerve damage, but if they could cut away some of the fibrous tissue that has squeezed off the nerve, they can decrease some of the signal and decrease some of your pain meds.

So I was given a. A chance between zero and 30% of some reduction of pain so that they could take me down from seven different opiates. I was on so many drugs that they were trying to take me down so that I wouldn't my liver wouldn't fail. And so I had to fly ambulatory to France on three seats.

My sisters went [00:31:00] with me, and during that decompression surgery, something went wrong. They tried to use an adhesive to keep the, the nerve canal on my left side closed and it didn't hold, and they had nicked my femoral artery. And I ended up bleeding to death on an operating table. In 2005, my I left my body.

I met with the Lord. This is a theater a surgical theater in this hospital in France, because it's a teaching hospital, so they have two floors of viewing. So it was very, very, very high. And my body went, my, my spirit went up and I met the Lord there. And, and he said these words to me. I've seen your suffering, child.

I know full well your pain. You can go with me now or you can stay for the prayers of the saints have given you a choice. Wow. No grid, no theology, no understanding of what does, where is that? I, that is literally what I thought at the, at the moment when the Lord's all encompassing love all around me, and I, I, I feel like, oh my gosh, you, you're, you're the creator.

God, you're the one who knows me. I don't ever wanna [00:32:00] go back to that body again. You know, I, I'm, and, and when he says that in my, I, you know, you are still yourself. If you, when you're with the Lord, you're still yourself. I always, I say this a thousand times, you learn to love yourself because God created you the way that you are.

And although we will get a heavenly body someday, you're still yourself, right? So I was expecting to be some, you know, rocket scientist when I leave my body, that was not the case. They, I meet the Lord and he, he, he says these words to me. And I think, I don't have theology for that. I'm trying to rack my brain, like, where is that biblical?

You know? And, and the wild thing was this exchange that I have with the Lord in that moment. Changed everything for me because his love is the healing bal. Even in suffering it, it's still the healing bal I end up being shown by the Lord my son who is, who is like hanging in midair in front of me.

He's not, not a movie or a hologram, it's the strangest thing. And he's six years old at this time. My husband's behind him and I just know in a moment [00:33:00] that love would choose to come back, that God's love would choose to come back. And so this, this starts this whole trajectory of God talking to me which is too lengthy to go into right now.

But coming back down to my body and, and this whole crazy explosion of pain that happens all over again. And from 2005 to 2013, I end up enduring 13 surgeries. Excruciating pain, incurable. And I hear the audible voice of God when I'm facing my 14th surgery, I'm so wanna give up so many times. I, I wanna kill myself.

I'm a very optimistic person. But this kind of pain, nerve damage is unbelievably unbearable. And so going through this rollercoaster of believing God, believing God, I'm in the word. I'm speaking, I'm praying, I'm worshiping, I'm trying. I I'm trying. And then just bottoming out over and over and over again.

And then I'm facing this 14th surgery at Stanford University, and I hear the audible voice of God say, go to voice of the apostles. You'll be blessed. And I [00:34:00] think that's in April of 2013 and I don't even know what that is. So I Google it and I can't sit or stand for more than a few minutes at a time without feeling like I got knifed right in my pelvis.

This is, this goes on 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 14 and a half years. This is at the end of this 14 and a half years where I get this word from God and I tell my husband, what in the world? What is this? I don't even, I, I can't fly. God is, I feel like God is saying I'm supposed to go to this thing.

I call my friend Michelle. She says, we're gonna go and you're gonna get healed there. You know, when you have a friend that has a gift of faith and you just have faith, whole different ballgame. So I end up flying there with two letters from my surgeons on my knees. The, the, the airlines give me special consideration.

I have this big pillow underneath my rear end. And I fly from California to Orlando, Florida, where a voice, the apostles is with this pillow underneath me on my knees. And on the last night of this [00:35:00] conference, a random business man named Richard. Comes and prays for me. And when he prays for me, Jesus Christ heals me and delivers me of all this hell that I've been living in.

And from the minute that this happens to me, I said to the Lord, you can have my life. I mean, I know I said that before, but I mean it like you can do whatever you want. And right after that I had all these people coming up to me and saying, I really want you to come and share your testimony. Come and share your testimony.

I went back to school and I've been in school forever, and now I'm finishing a doctorate. Because it was really important to me to not be theologically wacky if I was praying for the Sikh. And now today we have a ministry called Agape Freedom Fighters. We travel the world with 140 very normal people who know that Jesus Christ heals today when ordinary people pray.

And so we get the privilege of speaking and teaching and training. We've got an online school and all we wanna do is live by Matthew 10, seven, and eight, which is freely we have received. We wanna freely give. And that's [00:36:00] what we do. And miracle Series is part of that giving back too for what God's done for me.

Wow.

Dan Gariepy: Wow. All of us just Wow. But I'm thinking about when you are with the Lord and he gives you that choice.

Amanda Gariepy: Yeah.

Dan Gariepy: And you said love, I think of the verse of that love compels ultimately, given that same scenario, Jesus above the earth and essentially with the Father, what sent him to Earth.

It was

Amanda Gariepy: love.

Dan Gariepy: Yeah. Love always. For me that resound so true, as somebody that might be, oh, skeptical of these different things, but when I think about how the Lord compelled you out of love. That's how the Lord works.

It's, that's how

Joanne Moody: he works. Yeah. There's no guilt. There was no, nothing but love love's the better choice. It, it always is. And you know, it took me eight months and it took me, I had two more surgeries right after that. Bleeding to death just to get home. It took me more than a month. I was eight months in bed after that.

But in the eighth month of me sitting and talking with God in the most intimate way, after I had had my near death experience, [00:37:00] I flipped open to Revelation five. And I read from Revelation five to Revelation eight, and there is where I finally looked and saw the prayers of the saints rise up before the Lord as a fragrant offering and the angel of the Lord with a, with a golden censor.

Tho those prayers rise up before the Lord and as a result. There are lightning strikes and and answers upon the earth. It was just such a wild thing to read that all those months later when I really had no grid for it at the time. All I knew was he loves me more than I can comprehend, and I have the ability to love now if I come back.

Amanda Gariepy: Wow. You entered years and years of immense pain. Immense suffering physically, which affects every area of life. What would you say to the person who says, I have dealt with this illness for 15 plus years or 10 plus years, how would you encourage them to keep pressing in?

Joanne Moody: First of all, I, I would say to that person, don't give up. [00:38:00] And on the day when you feel like giving up, find somebody to pray for you. And I would say to the people who are around that person who's been suffer. Don't try to fix them, just be present. Mm-hmm. So much of the time it, somebody who's been suffering a very long time has tried everything and, and it gets very weary for them not to have friends who can just stand by.

Sometimes. All love is just being with that person, not trying to fix it. But having intercessors, having people pray with you, pray for you is so, so important. And I, I've given this exercise to so many people who are in root to being healed, which is to go through the Bible with every lie the enemy tries to toss at you, which is maybe God doesn't wanna heal you 'cause you're not worthy.

Maybe it was all your past sins and that's why you're suffering. Whatever the lie is that, that is against the gospel, go and write the opposite of that in scripture form and then pray that over yourself. I, [00:39:00] I, I. Think that that's one of the most it's most uplifting thing if you, if you struggle with anxiety that you're, or the lie that you're never going to be healed.

Write down everything about the character and nature of God that proves that he is a God of promise. He is the God of miracles. But finding the opposite thing of the lie, that that always drags you down to the pit. Find the truth in scripture. Write it out and pray it over yourself. Listen to uplifting things.

Even when you don't feel like worshiping, if you sit with worship on and you let your body relax and visualize who is Jesus to you, who is this magnificent savior that we have? You know, I, I tell people who are in chronic pain all over the world. You have Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Father, and you have the Holy Spirit.

You have two of the Trinity interceding for you day and night. You cannot lose in the midst of the journey to your healing. We cannot give up because he's for us. And so there, there [00:40:00] is so much strength and power in the living word of God. And finding people who believe that and who will stand with you is so important.

And then I would say never give up, seeking the face of the Lord first and then go where healing is happening. If you're not seeing it in your church, 'cause your church doesn't believe in it, then go to somebody who does believe it and, and find those places. We, we don't chase healing. We go to the savior and he points the way and, and we believe.

So that's what I would tell people. And you know, people prayed for me for 15 years, but nobody prayed like that man, Richard. 'cause that man Richard was like, oh no, God healed me. He healed my wife, he healed my son, and now he's gonna heal you. That's what he said to me. He was like, Nope, you're not gonna leave here without being healed.

And I, I just know that he had gotten a word of knowledge ahead of time. I found that out later. I didn't even know what a word of knowledge was. I, you know, I no credit for any of this stuff, but he was determined because he had heard very clearly from the Holy Spirit, that woman in the orange top. Go and pray for [00:41:00] her.

I want, I want to do something magnificent. So there are moments we just had, I just came back from South Africa a couple days ago. We just had a woman with four stage cancer eaten her hip away. It was fully metastasized. They gave her three weeks to live. Her children literally carried her, dragging her into this meeting that I was in.

We didn't have much time. We had to go to the airport. I had team that just went over to her, prayed for her. I just heard from the pastor yesterday. He said she is, she has literally no pain in her body and her eyesight was affected also by the cancer. It's fully in her brain. She can see perfectly. So she's back at the doctor now trying to get some medical reports and get everything retested to see.

We don't know, but all I'm saying is she came in sick with three weeks to live and she left with asymptomatic. So does that always happen? No, but the word of God is clear that we pray all the time without ceasing. With Thanksgiving, bring our request to the Lord. So we're not here to challenge what the gospel says.

We are here to adhere to the gospel, [00:42:00] which is to bring the kingdom of heaven to all the earth, to give away what we've been taught. And that includes healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead. Oh, amen.

Dan Gariepy: I was just thinking about your story and other people's story then to the people that are going through their own situation.

Maybe one of the listeners. Hebrews 11, right? was faith that endured and it was faith that persevere. That is the faith, and it doesn't always come instantaneously. Sometimes it just, comes progressively.

Sometimes it comes after a very long time. What you were saying is so true and I just wanna highlight one of those things that you said to do, go where, you see the Lord working, but also who you surround yourself with because, that's such a biblical principle that doesn't get highlighted.

Even Jesus only took a couple people into a room and did miracles. And you know what, there were other places that Jesus went that they were limited what they could receive Because of what? Because of the people that were there. Yep. And so who we are around. Matters. And so, absolutely, you know, if you've got something going on in your life, like bring that circle, but make sure [00:43:00] the people that are in that circle that you're asking to pray, believe in miracle that believe the word, believe those things because you want the right people praying with you.

If you're needing a miracle in your life,

Joanne Moody: a hundred percent. And my, my friend Michelle was that person, she just kept saying, no matter how long this takes, I just believe you're gonna be healed. Almost to the point where, you know, and we were, we've been friends for 25 years, almost to the point where I was annoyed.

I was like, how do you know? You know, because when you're the one suffering, you're like, whatever. But you need those friends. You need those foot soldiers standing next to you going, Nope, we are believing, we're contending. We're doing this together. And you don't need a bunch of naysayers. In your court and being careful of what I would also to say this, be careful what you agree with because whatever you give your yes to you empower.

So if the doctors have given you a poor report and they have told you you have a LS and you will never walk again. And yet we've seen a LS healed somebody with just barely weeks to live. We've seen this more than once. We've seen, I [00:44:00] don't know how many cases of fourth stage cancer where we got a black PET scan and now we got a white PET scan and there's no cancer.

I mean, whatever the prognosis or diagnosis is, we have to remember. And I, I have great respect for medicine. They're practicing medicine. So when they're practicing medicine, they're giving you a diagnosis and a prognosis based on X amount of statistics. God is not a statistical God. He is outside of time and outside of our ability to comprehend.

Therefore whatever you are agreeing with, you don't want that to have power over you. If you say, well, I'm going to die because that's what they've said, well then you have just limited God because you lent your authority to the word over your life instead of the word of God over your life. So it's impo, you know, it, it's very important not to deny, but to be realistic according to biblical truth.

Wow.

Dan Gariepy: I'm so glad you brought that connection point between, faith and, science and, religion or Christianity and science because they're not necessarily against each other so many [00:45:00] people put them at odds and that's not the case.

And so, yeah,

Joanne Moody: I think that's what the series, that's one thing that we're showcasing. So we are, we are not trying to dispel that one is against the other 'cause that's not true. They're, God created science, didn't he?

Dan Gariepy: I want wanna be conscious of your time, I do have this question, as a person who's a producer of a film talking about, all these different miraculous things that have happened.

What do you say to skeptics? Who dismissed miracles as just coincidence or like placebo effect.

Joanne Moody: I would probably bring them into a dialogue. And, and we've certainly done this, I don't know how many times with people that are skeptical. I have people in my own family who are skeptical and I'm sitting here a medical miracle, right?

I mean, because I have a lot of logical, very, very smart people in my family. I ha I engage with them and say, well, what would you do with this? So I tell them more testimonies. I bring them evidence. I, I have submitted to many people this, the proof from GMRI the Global [00:46:00] Medical Research Institute reports are unbelievable.

And because their reports are verified from the American Medical Assistant, you put that in front of somebody and they say. Well, that's just placebo. That's coincidence. Well over and over and over again. I mean, you've, you've got these strange things that come together. But one thing I do know is that our eyes are veiled and our ears are plugged until we let the Lord unveil our eyes and unstop our ears so we can present all the evidence.

And the thing that you don't wanna get into is having an argument. If you come into the thing low and slow, with humility and with love and patience, you can present evidence to somebody. And remember this, that the Lord always said, we were sowing seeds. He let the wheat grow up with the tears. You couldn't tell the difference.

But I love this analogy that the wheat, when it's at full term, it bows low. The tears stand straight up. Wow. And the tears never bow. [00:47:00] And I heard Julian Adams teach on that. And I was like, whoa. That is so necessary in the body of Christ, man. We are just so ready to combat everybody. So we're not here with a Miracle Series to combat the world.

We're here to bow low and say, Lord, scattered the seeds in people's hearts and bring a harvest of righteousness through them at the right time. And, and that's what, that's what we're here for. We can bring all the evidence, which we will but it really comes down to sowing into somebody's life and expecting a harvest because the Lord is good even when we're not.

Dan Gariepy: You hit the nail on the head with that. It's a matter of the heart, right? We just prayed that this show just. Drenches the people's hearts, honestly, if it were just a simple do an amazing miracle and everyone would be saved, then God would've done that.

Right? Like course because of course, because it says like he desires that none should perish, but all should have eternal life. If it were just a one of a matter of boom, he would've done that. We were all believed and this absolutely this could have been [00:48:00] all done, right? Yeah. But it's not, and so it's a heart issue.

We simply just keep planting, we keep watering. Yeah. And we expect the harvest and we're just so thankful you guys would just show our planting seeds of faith, planting seeds of just what God is doing and then watering those things. And so we just pray just amazing fruit from this and we're just so thankful.

Amen. Are doing this. So

Amanda Gariepy: yeah. And we just continue to pray that, faith in science do have that healthy relationship they were intended to have. I just wanna remind listeners and who may not be aware of this fit. Luke was a Gentile physician Yep. Who wrote the book of Luke.

Yep. And the book of Acts recording all of the miracles, signs and wonders that happened. That's right. In those times. And God chose him to do that, I think, not coincidentally. Years ago, so I worked as a nurse for several years and many years ago I was feeling discouraged of all things in a research class that I was taking.

And like, God, how do you know what to believe? How do you know if a study is not corrupted? How do you know that it's not funded [00:49:00] poorly or Yes. You know, just made to create an outcome that's intended based on the data that is given. And he spoke so clearly in my heart that day. My word is evidence-based practice and it is pure good.

So I just wanna remind believers to hold onto that word, as you have said so beautifully during this interview, that God's word does not return void.

Joanne Moody: Amen. Amen. And there are so many things within medicine where God is working and you know, the statistics, even today with our American Medical Association, there's new reports coming out that 78% of diseases are linked to the way people think.

I mean, so when you're talking about a renewed mind in scripture, you're, you're, you're talking about Philippians four, eight, may your meditation be on the pure and the noble and the right, and the lovely, admirable, excellent. If we took inventory of what our thought life was like every day. I, I think we'd have a lot less sickness in the world [00:50:00] in terms of anxiety and fear and, and even manifestations of disease because the enemy's such a liar and he wants to come around and, and, and kill you and destroy you.

But sometimes we are in agreement with him in our thought life more than anything. And then we give, we give him a foothold. And so I pray also that this series brings about a renewed faith in people to, to get back in the word of God and to truly believe what it says, and use it as the tool that it was meant to be against darkness.

Amanda Gariepy: Amen.

Dan Gariepy: Whoa. We went pretty deep on that. Woo. I love it. Amen. My favorite

Joanne Moody: subject

Dan Gariepy: as

Joanne Moody: Jesus.

Dan Gariepy: As we're pulling up here. I wanna end with just a couple fun questions for you man. Not totally unrelated. So the first one here is if you could interview one biblical figure about miracles for the show, who would it be and why?

Joanne Moody: I would wanna interview John, and I'd probably wanna interview John, just because I feel like John had so much [00:51:00] endurance and he was such a man, really about the whole mission and the way that he wrote. I don't know, the Gospel of John. How, how can you not fall in love with Jesus when you read the Gospel of John?

I would wanna interview him because I just feel like. He really went after the heart of the Lord. And not just self-serving, he just, you can just feel how much he felt about Jesus. And I would wanna talk to him about what he saw and, and what he saw the master do would be just so cool. Okay.

Dan Gariepy: Awesome. You've said you've gone around the world, you've been laying hands on the sick.

You've seen a lot of amazing things. I'm just wondering, what's the funniest or most unexpected place someone has asked you to pray for them?

Joanne Moody: Oh my gosh. Probably in a bathroom coming out from the bathroom and somebody standing there, ah, I was waiting for you. I was like, okay, great.

I guess I'll just do that right here. Yeah, it's there. Public transit, [00:52:00] I mean, you name it in the Starbucks line. The Lord is the one who cracks me up. You know, if I'm like, I really don't wanna do that right now, Lord. And he's like, pray for that person. It's been very funny. So there's, there's there's no limit to where people need prayer.

Amanda Gariepy: Everywhere you go. Yeah, everywhere you go. So funny.

Dan Gariepy: Oh man. We've been talking about these big miracles here, the whole show. You got the last question for us.

Amanda Gariepy: Yeah. So what's one small miracle in everyday life that always makes you smile?

Joanne Moody: It's probably this, my buddy Brian Blo, he travels a around the world, but mostly to South Africa.

And about two years ago being on the road so much and praying for so many people in the streets. 'cause he, he's really an evangelist at heart. He kept saying, praying really long, a long time is taking too long. Lord, I need another way to do this because there's so many thousands of people out here who are hurting.

And this is just everyday life. He's going to a restaurant, he's going to get coffee, he's going, you know, [00:53:00] and he's got people with him. And he said, the Lord said, why don't you just look in somebody's eyes and smile at them? Now here, here we go back to the power of love again. And so I was with Brian about, close to a year ago now in South Africa and he goes, I'm gonna show you what I just learned from the Lord.

And and so I saw him do this and I saw the Lord heal this woman's back. When Brian didn't pray for her, he looked at her with all the love of Jesus into her eyes and smiled at her and her back was healed. And he looks at me and he goes, I can tell this is uncomfortable for you. And I go, I don't know.

That's kind. You know, I'm used to praying like, he goes, you think I'm heretical? I go, no, I think you're lovely. I think you, you, you have this love of Jesus in your eyes. So I watched him for three days and we had a team of about 28 people with us. People were getting healed like this. And so it took me about three days to like come around.

'cause I, I, I can be pretty logical and skeptical and I, I was kind of, I don't know. So, but here's what happened at the end of that week, and this is the most unbelievable thing. This was not in churches, this was not in meetings, this was on the streets, in restaurants, in coffee shops, [00:54:00] going day to day.

We even went to a game reserve. We took a a bunch of people, 650 people came to the Lord that week through holding their hands, loving them, smiling at them, them having a touch from God in the moment, and then leading them to the Lord. It was the most simplistic, childlike thing I've ever been a part of.

And I was dumbfounded that in everyday life, something as simple as sharing the gospel with love through a touch and a smile could actually bring the kingdom of heaven forth. I made it more complicated just because I thought I had to pray this many prayers. And I'm not saying I don't pray 'cause that's actually what I prefer to do.

But when God says, I just want you to share love, I know what he means now. And so, I mean, I just had it happen in a restaurant with a waitress where I just said, Hey, can I have your hand? And she was so frazzled and I had her hand. And then I said, listen, I, I really feel like God's saying your dream to be a cosmetologist and do hair and do nails is not too far fetched.

And she falls [00:55:00] forward and starts sobbing. And I said, she goes, that's my dream. I go, I know. I said, listen, let's, I wanna just pray for you right now. I pray for her. And then we just all took all the money out of our wallets and, and gave it to her as seed money for her school. But there's these moments in time all over the place where you can keep on going about your everyday life or you can stop and you can say, Lord, who are you breathing on right now?

Who do you want me to share your love with? And you'll be shocked at how fast the Lord will come. On your behalf, in spite of you even because he wants the world to know that he's present and he heals.

Dan Gariepy: Wow. Amen. That's wonderful. It's just small things every day. The new show Miracle is broadcasting all these big stories, but don't miss the small miracles.

Amen. Every day. Amen.

Joanne Moody: Just be love, be kind. Kindness is the gospel. How about that?

Dan Gariepy: Jen, what an honor to have you on the show. Tell us how listeners can find more about miracles, where they can see it as it releases, and how can [00:56:00] they connect with you?

Joanne Moody: Okay, Studios has its own app, so just download.

You can go to your app store, download the Angel app. You can type in Miracle Series or you can go to our website, miracle series.com. And you'll, we have a link there. The first episode for season one starts on Monday, September 29th. So we want you to go, you can join the guild where you have uninterrupted watching of anything that you want, and there's lots of content on Angel that is very Christ-centered.

And then as far as our ministry, it's called Agape Freedom Fighters. That's agape freedom fighters.org. You can check and see where we are in the world, what we're doing what we're about and write to us at that. If you have questions about healing or you have questions about anything, and we're happy to get back to you.

And yeah, we're, we are in some city near you, I'm sure, at some point in time. And we send teams all around the world to equip the body of Christ to do the works of Jesus so that everybody knows. He is who he says he is. Amen.

Dan Gariepy: [00:57:00] Amen. Well, Joanne, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you guys for having me, much for doing what you guys do.

Thank you for sharing these stories with everyone, and we just pray just blessing and favor over these over the show. And another thing you guys are doing as well, and we thank you so much we're to follow your journey and, and see the fruit that that God does produces through you and your ministry.

I

Joanne Moody: appreciate you guys so much. Thanks so much for having me on. Amen. It was great.

Dan Gariepy: Right. Thanks for joining us today on the Mission Life Podcast. You enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss out on future conversations. And don't forget to share this episode with your friends, family, or anyone you think will be blessed by it. We also wanna invite you to check out our free 31 Day Devotional Living and Mission, all life designed to help you step forward into the purpose he has for you.

Just click the link below to get your copy today. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you next time on The Mission of Life Podcast.