God's Great Outdoors

Adam Erickson: Each of us comes to places in our lives where we have to make long-lasting decisions. We can choose to run into trouble or run away from it. The choice is usually easy to make if we think before acting. Then there are times when we know what's right and we don't need to wait, we just need to run.

On today's program, we visit with a young man that grew up amongst the crawling and slithering creatures of the Okefenokee Swamp of the deep south of Georgia. He dealt with all kinds of situations when he had to make choices to run or stay. Thankfully, he made the right choices.

We need to be prepared to make the right choices nearly every day of our lives. Having a close relationship with God is the best way to be prepared. Let's join our host, Dean Hulce, as he talks with this young man about nail polish and alligators. Thank you for joining us today as we travel down the Trail to Adventure in the swamps and rivers of Florida and Georgia on God's Great Outdoors.

Dean Hulce: Welcome to God's Great Outdoors on the Trail to Adventure in Fernandina Beach, Florida. We are at the First Baptist Church of Fernandina Beach and we're actually with the head of facilities, John Brantley. Good to have you, John.

John Brantley: Man, it's great to be here. I appreciate it.

Dean Hulce: We met two years ago when I came through here.

John Brantley: Yeah, your first time, first visit. It was pretty good. I think you had some friends of mine on and the podcasts were great. We greatly appreciate what you do.

Dean Hulce: It's interesting because this is, and it's partly because of our friend Susan, that she keeps me hopping. I think she does it so her and Linda can go goof around while I'm in here working. I was just thinking back because again, we were here two years ago and I think I did seven or eight interviews at that time. A few of them I thought, I don't know how this is going to work as we talked about.

Kyle has no outdoor experience. Zero. He's a city boy and he's a musician and the outdoors is outdoors. That's it. There is no hunting or fishing stories there. But it worked out great. Johnny's testimony, we're going to revisit that this afternoon in a different light. Dustin, great testimony.

The men of this church, coming in from the outside looking in, I get to go to a lot of churches and work with a lot of men within churches. This is really a pretty close family for the size of the church.

John Brantley: Even the community is kind of that way too around here. You've got this really nice small-town feel, even though we've grown so much since 2020 and the great Florida migration. But you still have a very good small-town feel. This church, even though it's grown tremendously in the last few years, we definitely have a very tight-knit group of men.

There are great guys to be around. Some of us don't have as exciting of a testimony as Johnny or Dustin, but at the end of the day, no one looks differently or anything. We all love each other. We all know that their hands, were feet, and we move together.

Dean Hulce: You oversee the facilities here and it's getting to be a pretty large facility.

John Brantley: Oh, yes sir. Yeah, we just added on so we made it to about 82,000 square feet here on our main campus or our island campus, excuse me. We have a Central Nassau campus that we're planting. It's going to be about 13,000 square feet as well.

With all the land that we've purchased for this place and for that, that'll put us on about 35 acres or so. So it's going to be a pretty big complex. But it's used every day of the week. We've got a school and a preschool, and then church on Wednesdays and Sundays, plus all the events that go along with that. It's good to be busy. It means that we're doing what we should be doing.

Dean Hulce: It's interesting because there's not a lot of churches have a Wednesday night service anymore. When I was growing up, we were there Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening, and usually one or two other times. You could relate to this, but my parents were actually custodians for a while. As little kids, we got to go ride the buffer as they buffed the floors and we got to sit on top of it and it's funny.

John Brantley: Dustin, my maintenance guy, when he cleans, we have a big floor cleaner and his son will ride on it as well. Oh yeah, the extra weight helps. That's what I always kind of figured. It helps it scrub.

Dean Hulce: Why don't you give me a little, you grew up just in Southern Georgia, not very far from here. Give me a little bit of your background.

John Brantley: I grew up in Folkston, Georgia. It's the little dip in the bottom of Georgia. That's where I tell everybody where I'm from, right there next to the Okefenokee Swamp and the Saint Marys River was kind of where we spent a lot of our time. Real small town. Closest Walmart was 30 minutes away. Really, we had a Big J that's now finally upgraded to a Harveys.

Mom was real big in the church. Dad's got good faith, but my dad was always working. He always pushed us to go to church, just not necessarily was always available to go himself. But my mom, very much was key in my faith and my walk with Christ.

I always tell her about how I was five the first time I remember feeling the love of Christ and I truly knew what salvation was about 12. Actually, this is a funny story. I got baptized by accident one time is what I tell everybody. I was nine. The Power Team, the guys that would break bats and all that stuff, they came to Callahan and they did the sinners prayer and said if you raised your hand go down front.

So I went down front and next thing I know they're like, you're getting baptized. I'm nine so I didn't know. I was like, I've already been baptized. They're like, doesn't matter, come on. So I actually got baptized three times, but only two of them meant anything.

I can hardly remember a time in my life that Christ wasn't a part of it. Even in my 20s, when I left home and went to college lifestyle and things like that, I could still look back and see the hand of Christ through my life at every bit of it. So it's been good. Like I said, my mother was definitely and still is, a great counselor and someone I can go to. She's definitely a prayer warrior. I'll tell everybody the reason I'm alive is because I've got a praying mama.

Dean Hulce: Me as well. I had basically the same upbringing. My dad worked a lot, but he was always there on Sunday morning. Matter of fact, we were hunting one time and walking down a dirt road near our camp and this older gentleman stops and says, "Hey, where's your dad?" Well, he's in church. He said, "He's the only man I know could kill a buck sitting in a church pew." But he was always there.

We went to camp almost every weekend and he was always in church on Sunday morning. It was just the way that we did it. But we had a praying mother and I remember my mom having the flannelgraphs when we were little kids and doing the little Bible stories on the flannelgraph, telling us and making it real. But so you grew up next to the swamp, Okefenokee, which is big. You don't want to get lost out there from what I understand.

John Brantley: It's the largest freshwater swamp in the country. We were legally legit right next to it. The entrance is 11 miles outside of Folkston in the middle of nowhere. But if you go to the, because there's three entrances to get to the swamp that are legal, and one's in Folkston, one's in Fargo, and one's in Waycross.

The one in Folkston, if you go there, there's a little pavilion that's called Chesser Island Pavilion. That's my grandmother's uncle's house. My family was one of the first to actually settle the swamp.

Dean Hulce: So did you go exploring there as a kid?

John Brantley: All the time. You want to talk about getting dark, it gets dark out there. There is no light pollution in the Okefenokee Swamp when you're camping. But we were out there a lot. We did boat tours, things like that. Spent a lot of time on the boardwalk, talking about all the different snakes, birds, and alligators obviously. That's the big thing with the Okefenokee, there's lots of American alligators running around there.

All that and the Saint Marys River runs from the Okefenokee to the Atlantic Ocean. I spent a lot of time on the river. It's a nice tea color. It's real dark water. Most people when they think water, they think river that's clear, unless it's been polluted, but this is naturally a tea color. So it's real dark. That's where the alligators and stuff can kind of blend in because of the peat moss and everything that's in the swamp. It dyes the water. Probably a tannin. Cypress trees probably have that as well.

Dean Hulce: We were close. When we first met Ms. Susan, who put me here the last couple of years with you all, but she lived up near it the first time we ever came down here.

John Brantley: She's on the other side of the river from me is where she grew up. We're literally just on opposite sides of the river. The river divides Georgia and Florida. So that is the line. I was in Folkston, she was in Hilliard, which is literally you go over the water and there you are.

Dean Hulce: We just figured out almost 40 years we've been friends and we came in and out of each other's lives for a while. The funny thing is, and this is a God thing because we were kind of looking for her wondering, we hadn't talked to her in probably eight years. We find out when we find her, she's looking for us.

That's a great God thing. It's the same thing, the Bible talks about how we really can't come to Christ unless he's hunting us. He's hunting us down. So it was very similar thing. But before we move on, let's take a quick break and then we'll get into some of your adventures as a kid and as an adult, and a little bit about your family.

In the meantime, we're going to take a quick break so Adam can share who makes the show possible and also tell people how they can come alongside because we are listener-supported. Without the support of our listeners, we wouldn't be here. But we'll be right back on God's Great Outdoors heading down the Trail to Adventure.

Adam Erickson: For the last 26 years, God's Great Outdoors Trail to Adventure has been broadcast out to win men and women, boys and girls to Jesus Christ. This is only possible by the generosity of our listeners. Thank you to all who have supported us in the past. God has blessed us because of you and we pray that you feel His blessing as well.

Additional underwriting support has been provided by:

Matthews Archery, the leader in the archery industry.

Mission Archery with revolutionary crossbow technology.

3 Rivers Archery, supplying everything you need to make your own traditional archery equipment.

Hunter Safety Systems, saving lives is what we do.

And Conviction Game Calls. At Conviction, we don't separate work from our faith. We believe that our faith should be evident in every aspect of our lives and the outdoors is one of the best places to share that.

God's Great Outdoors has produced many ministry tools, including tracts, DVDs, and books to help you reach others for Jesus Christ. You can access these items, other God's Great Outdoors items, and so much more at our website, godsgreatoutdoors.org. That's godsgreatoutdoors.org.

Dean Hulce: Welcome back to God's Great Outdoors on the Trail to Adventure. We are with John Brantley. John, as we said, you're the head of facilities here for an ever-growing church since you started. That's only actually, I didn't realize you were just fairly new to the facilities team here or overseeing it when I first met you.

John Brantley: Gosh, I was only maybe a year in, not quite. I'm just shy of three years now. But yeah, this whole area and I can remember driving in here when this was a, I don't quite remember a two-lane road coming in, but I do remember a bunch of trees. Now it's all shopping centers and stuff. But definitely we were able to ride four-wheelers and all that stuff and get back to the Nassau River and stuff without having to pass a bunch of houses like you do now.

Dean Hulce: We came in here, let's see, my oldest son was probably around 10 and I think he's 44 now. We stayed over in Hilliard area, but then came in here and went to the beach and such and the kids looked for shark's teeth and things. But it was, it's a different, but even yet when you go around the coast of Florida, when you come here, it's a different feel. It really is. It's a great place.

Linda and I are staying close to the beach and we said one morning we're going to make sure it's halfway clear, but we're going to get up and watch the sunrise. This morning we could have done it. I was awake way before the sunrise, but didn't get out there.

John Brantley: It's a beautiful one. Right now the weather's going to be pretty good. It might be a little chilly but maybe not for you all. It's chilly for us down here.

Dean Hulce: Why don't you, you talked about the swamp, you talked about growing up near there, but you got any great stories of outdoors?

John Brantley: There's always as a kid running around. "Mom what kind of snake is this?" You always learn that question first before you go picking it up. A lot of fishing. I grew up freshwater because everything around there is freshwater. Saltwater was not that far away, but again just really close to a lot of ponds, the Saint Marys River, all that stuff. So we fished all the time. A lot of small, large-mouth bass, stuff like that mainly is what we're going for. We did a lot of that.

Boat tours that we gave, the fun part, when you're in the swamp you always listen for key phrases, especially from the tourists like, "Honey watch this," "Honey get closer," things like that. "Hey look, can I touch one?" No. The answer is no because they will eat you. Yes, it's docile right now, but that 11-foot alligator will spin around and take your leg off.

For me, one of the best times I ever had as a kid fishing, I was probably 12. My parents have these two ponds right behind their house that's walking distance. We were always just trying to catch, we knew there was bigger bass in there, but no one, none of us in my friend group, we could never catch, you know three, four-pounders. But that was about it.

I caught a little brim and I put it on there and threw it out into the middle and I was waiting and it hit. Man, it hit hard and I was not a big kid. So I was going as far as I could with it. I think I had an old Zebco 33 and I'm just the thing's just a whining and I'm pulling as hard as I could on that thing and my friends are cheering me on and I'm pulling it in.

It ended up being about a six-pound bass. It was pretty good for our area and that little pond. That was the biggest thing we had ever seen at that point. It was great and I pulled that thing out of the water. I ended up throwing it back just because it's bass and we weren't going to eat it and she had eggs too.

But it was great to have the picture. My mom still has that picture of me holding that thing up. It's in my old bedroom at my parents' house. It's just one of the best times. Me and my friends, we would make up rules to fake fishing tournaments that were funny. No snatch fishing and all that stuff, you know all the things that are just funny.

A lot of time in the woods, a lot of time. One of the scariest things that ever happened was a rattlesnake encounter. That's one of the big ones. I was actually getting my fishing pole out of the shed. Our shed was not exactly the most organized in the world. I understand that, trust me. I had to kind of retrace my steps backwards.

I get about halfway out of the shed walking backwards and I hear it. I have no idea where this thing is at because my head is still in the shed. I don't know if it's in the shed, I don't know if it's behind me, and I'm just sitting here and I just freeze. Eventually my leg kind of starts to tremble a little bit and I'm yelling, "Mom! Dad!" but it's going into the shed and they're the house is closed up behind me.

I've got to look. I've got to hold up enough courage to look. I look down first and it's not there and I kind of lean back and I'm looking and luckily it was about seven feet away and it was stretched out. It was just letting me know, "Hey listen, I'm here, don't mess with me."

So I went inside and got the 12-gauge and I took care of that thing real fast. My dad was like, "What are you doing?" I said, "There's a snake!" So he came out and made sure that I shot the right thing.

Lots of alligator stories and stuff about people being silly. One as an adult, we went, took my at the time she was eight, now she's 14. Geez. The school took a trip to the swamp and there's an alligator swimming and I'm like it's hunting, that's what it's doing. They're moving, they're hunting.

It's the male and they'd already told us like you're going to see the male, he's going to be hunting, just don't walk off the path. Sure enough, one of my daughter's friend's moms goes right over to the edge of the water and I'm like, "He will eat you. He will eat you. Do not do that."

And she's like, "I just want a picture." I'm like, "Well, you need to do it from the path." A funny story about that one, some of the previous owners to the Waycross entrance would feed the alligators marshmallows to get them to come up so people could see them. Well, then the alligator started coming up to people's cars looking for marshmallows.

You can't do that. So these unfortunately there's a couple they have to have in pens all the time because they will approach people saying where's my marshmallow? So when people say don't feed the wildlife, don't feed the wildlife.

Dean Hulce: I think there's a good biblical application to that. I think of Joseph and Potiphar's household and Joseph running out from Potiphar's wife. You just don't go there. You run away as he did. But in life so many times we don't do that. We say I can take this. I can stand there next to the alligator, no big deal, or just walk out of that shed not caring. You know danger's close but you're not going to pay attention. You did the right thing.

So often we don't do that and we've got to realize that Satan is roaming around like a lion trying to devour us, especially as believers.

John Brantley: It's funny because we think Satan wants us to rob a bank or have an affair or whatever. All he really wants to do is, "Hey, you don't need to read your Bible today. Your prayer life, you don't need to go. That Sunday school class you go to, you don't need to go in there. Or you shouldn't go into that Sunday school class, you're not good enough. If those people knew you, they wouldn't want you in there."

Stuff like that that he's telling us that all we have to do is lean on our flesh and we'll fall. We've got to have Christ in there. If we don't do that, like you said, whether it's just we inch towards the alligator, you may be able to pick that tail up and not get bitten. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But it's just being comfortable being close to the dangerous things when Christ says flee. Cut your eye out, cut your arm off. It is a severing of.

I heard a guy say one time that the root of the word "decide" is the same as "homicide." So you are to kill off all other options. Once you make a decision to follow Christ, you need to kill off all other options. I thought that was great.

Dean Hulce: We need to be alert and on the alert all the time because Satan, especially once we've come to Christ, Satan is wanting to separate us from Christ. Not that we can ever be separated eternally, but just because if we become a bad testimony, he's done his job.

I was thinking as you were saying that, I did hunt gators long time ago. We did it on airboats down at night down Lake Orange by Ocala. We went on a couple different places down there. Anyhow, the guy with me, this young guy invited me and a friend to come down and gator hunt.

This young guy would take the airboat at night and you would be amazed how many eyes we saw. I thought, people actually swim in this. We're going along and he would cut the motor and it would coast and he would see a small gator up ahead and it was up to three, four feet. He'd jump down on the bow and as he come up alongside, he grabbed him behind the neck, behind the head, and pick him up. No thank you.

He said, "You want to try?" I said, "I'd love to try." I could not bring myself. I could get up to it till I was just about ready to touch it. But that's like sin. We can't get that close. If we're not careful, we're going to get bit and eventually we will. In our lives with sin, if we don't stay away completely, like Joseph running away from Potiphar's wife, we're going to get bit.

John Brantley: It's real easy. I've seen plenty of guys down in the south, they bring in guys like wildlife experts and they'll show and they'll have a python so people can see or a little alligator. But really those guys, some of those guys are missing fingers legit because they'll take a little foot-and-a-half alligator thinking everything's fine and it latches a hold of a pinky, does a death roll, and you don't have a pinky anymore.

Even though they're trying to be educational, at the end of the day, these things are dangerous just like sin is dangerous and it can cost you a lot.

Dean Hulce: It's funny, I was at a outdoor show in Texas last summer. It's actually called God and the Great Outdoors. It's Christian run. They do a great job of showing Christ to people. But there's one guy in there and he's probably about as big as this room, he's got an area that's all inside the building and he's got just tons of rattlesnakes in there. And he's in amongst them. He's making lots of noise to get them to rattle, everybody's excited.

My wife and I were talking to him at having some lunch and we mentioned to him, she said something about "How do you do that and never get bit?" And he said, "What makes you think I never get bit?" He said, "I wear chaps," but he said, "I get bit all the time." And he said, "Sometimes they miss the chaps." We thought how foolish. How foolish because sooner or later it's going to cost you.

Met a guy in Texas that was telling me that they have a big Texas rattlesnake roundup and I think it's near Freer, Texas in South Texas. The guy that ran it had done this for years. He was holding a snake just two years ago I think and the snake turned around and bit him and he bit him in the chest. There was nothing they could do for him. It was too close to the heart and he died within minutes.

Now this is a guy that handled them all the time. But we can't stay that close to sin.

John Brantley: Exactly and I think that's a great metaphor or illustration of how easy it is. Because a lot of times we can get overconfident in our flesh and be like, "No, it's okay, I got this." It's like Johnny going to a bar. "Sure, I can go to a bar." But how many times until he dives back into the life that he lived before? Christ warns us about that in the beatitudes. Absolutely does.

Dean Hulce: Listen, we're out of time for the radio, but we're going to jump into the podcast and share some more stories and what God's doing in your life and around here. In the meantime, we're going to sign off. If you can join us on the podcast, please do that. If not, join us here next week as we head down the Trail to Adventure in God's Great Outdoors.

Adam Erickson: God allows us to face many obstacles that we need to decide between what's right and what might appear to be right at first glance. We often walk that edge when we should run away. God's word tells us in 2nd Timothy that we should flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

Whether we are approaching a sinful situation or picking up a small alligator, we need to stop and turn around and run. 1st Thessalonians tells us to flee from every appearance of evil. When we focus our hearts on our relationship with Jesus Christ, we'll be prepared when temptations come our way. Stand firm and follow His lead.

If you've enjoyed today's program and would like to hear the extended podcast version, you can find it by looking for Dean Hulce or Trail to Adventure wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. This program is provided by, and can be contacted at:

God's Great Outdoors

PO Box 414

Powers, Michigan 49874

Or on the website godsgreatoutdoors.org.

Thank you for joining us this week on the Trail to Adventure. Please join myself, Adam Erickson, and our host Dean Hulce again every week right here. We'll look forward to meeting up with you and to hear your stories of great Christians from around the country in God's Great Outdoors.