Confessions of a fugitive: our time on Hunted

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β€ŠHello everyone and welcome to another episode of Record Live. Jared, hello. First of all, I have a question for you to start this show.

Okay, fire away.

If you could be on any reality TV show, what would it be?

Ooh, that's a good question. I think it'd have to be something like the amazing race, like seeing around the world, getting to go cool destinations.

Some of the competition elements aren't always up my alley, but , it'd be nice to see the world. I think what about yourself?

I'm probably your cliche survivor fan. Or maybe that new show alone that everyone is talking about, where you can only take ten things.

Everyone's telling me, you'd be really good at this. I haven't seen it, but apparently I would be better. I think I would just probably In any reality TV show, I think I would struggle with teamwork. So I find something that I can go out alone.

Well,

you're on record live we are the dream teams, Anita. So I think your team works not too bad.

Yeah. Why do you ask about reality TV?

It's just topical. It's about conversation today. We have had some awesome conversations recently, but they've been a little on there. Heavier side, the more serious side. We had our mental health series with passes, and then we had, , a conversation with someone about the fires in Hawaii.

And today we have a bit more of a lighthearted, fun conversation, which I'm looking forward to. , we have Jordan and Theron, Hutchinson. They were on the show hunted recently, , so welcome Jordan and Theron. Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Well, we'd love to know for anyone who watches record live and doesn't really know What hunted is has never heard of it. Can why don't you just fill us in? What is this hunted show? What, what is it all about? And how did you guys get onto it?

Yeah, look, hunted is a, firstly, an incredible show just in general. , the premise of it is that, there are 10 teams. We were one of those teams you're in pairs, and that you are being chased. You're a fugitive. You're being. chased by law enforcement. So detectives police and they all are legitimate, professionals in that area, army, all the rest of it.

And we just run around Victoria. This one was based in Victoria and do what we think is best to stay hidden.

I was hunted before the program even started. I was hunted down by Jordan to join. So

tell us a little bit about

how did you guys get on the show?

I also am very much a survivor fan, and also. Some reality TV amazing race great one and have always applied because dad taught me growing up Actually something that I will never forget and always remember to do is you have to ask the question, right?

So we're two very ordinary people but if you don't apply for these things that you might want to do You'll never find out. So, we got a call back, for hunted. We got, kind of asked, would you be interested? It's something that I'd applied for, , season one. And, I said yes, straight away.

And then they were like, how about your dad? And I was like, well, let me call him.

I understand that you, Jordan, applied. Had you initially chosen him to be on the show with you? Or like, why did you choose him over anyone else?

Let's just say, so you've got to answer when you apply for a show, you have to put a video, but you also answer a lot of questions.

And I spoke about my family and Arcus is about family. And I think they like the concept of dad being, someone that I always consider as one of my heroes. A minister, works in a juvie. Dad can speak to that a little bit more, but I think they kind of like that little play. The only other person I probably would have done it with.

Would have been either my brother or my wife. My wife was pregnant. So, , Elise wasn't able to potentially join me. And dad was definitely then the next best, if not the best person, which I mean, as it played out, we were a pretty good team.

Absolutely. Well, yeah, my case, I just, I figured they were after somebody old and they.

Probably figured that wouldn't run so fast. They should be able to catch them fairly easy. So

it must've been pretty special. Dad to be asked, , by your son, Hey, come on this show with me. Like. Could have had friends, different people, how did it feel to be given that opportunity? And did you have any trepidation at first? You are an Adventist minister. It's not the sort of normal thing that we see Adventist.

Pastor's doing running around on reality television shows., how did you feel leading into it?

Yeah, look, there's a fair bit of trepidation. , not only did I wonder how they were going to portray the story, but also, our story. But also, I also had to speak to my boss and have a bit of a chat with him.

But I honestly felt honoured absolutely honoured , you know, what opportunity does a dad get to spend a good quality son, 24 hours a day for 21 days with his son. So that was it.

Pretty good time off. Is this kind of like detective running away, cops and robber kind of stuff? Have you guys been interested in this, I guess, in your journey of life together as father and son? Like, have you particularly been interested in that kind of thing that gave you the experience to do this?

Or is it just a little bit random, you applied, got the opportunity?

Well, first of all, our family is very competitive. We grew up playing a lot of sport and, And anything that is competitive monopoly. Dad was always the banker. I'm not going to fill it out any more questions of why he was the banker, but we always were, competitive.

And, I guess that competition slash opportunity to be together. We know each other really well, even though I haven't lived at home for quite some time now. , we're similar, we're very similar. So we're able to talk, to think things out and I'm normally on the same page, but when we're not, it's normally actually a good thing.

Cause we balance that positive and negative out pretty well. So, yeah, not necessarily cops and robbers, but I mean, hide and seek, everyone loves hide and seek and that's kind of what it is as well.

An enormous game where we just, we find ourselves in a position where we've got to ask for help,, which is actually quite unusual.

But, yeah, look, certainly we love working together and we do actually balance each other out, which, which gives us a pretty fair approach to, making good decisions most of the time.

Now, one thing that's been pointed out with you guys and your journey, like I haven't watched the show myself, but, , some people in the office who are watching it, they noticed that you guys were paying it forward, helping out to get ahead

in

a sense. Now, many people that go on reality shows, compete survival of the fittest to win sort of idea, but you guys had a slightly different philosophy.

Tell us a little bit about that. Maybe some examples of how that played out as you were on the run. How did you use people to help you and in some ways help them back.

Look, we've been given so much. God's given us so much in our lives and we're a family of service. We love helping. We've done mission trips together.

We've done storm coast together. We've done puppeteering together. And helping others when we see the opportunity is something that we just love. It actually feels as full of a sense of joy. That we get out of it. But, ,, for this occasion, , I wondered how that was going to play out.

I seriously wanted, , but it was interesting where God showed up in this whole, in this whole journey, time after time, which gave us a unique perspective, but also just a really a positive attitude moving forward.

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. What dad just. We figured that we are out there playing this crazy game that is great, but we're doing it in everyone else's day to day lives.

So to come in =and to ask for help , to be vulnerable. We also felt like, what we could give back is some service, helping out, whether that was, you saw brief moments in the show of us pulling up boards at a winery, um, playing Mabel. Such an awesome little place. We're able to help them out, do some whippersnapping.

Whether one, one house we stayed at, we just, we cleaned their windows outside. , , whatever we could do, we felt like we owed the people that were helping us to help them, you know? So it kind of was a two way street of, we want to help people. We want to find people in a spot where they might need a hand.

Two men can help them out, do a job pretty quickly, and God opened up those opportunities for sure, many times, and it was a lot of fun.

I guess in Return, obviously you were, Being intentional about helping people. What were some of the key moments, where you were surprised by the ways in which people helped you?

The most surprising help came when we decided to ditch all our stuff and just ask for help. It was a day that started, well, it ended quite differently to the way it started, but we ended up with one small little day pack and a sleeping bag and, or not much else. And somebody offered to get us, buy us some underwear and clothing.

Sounds bizarre, but it was such a blessing.

Oh yeah. A hundred percent. That was day 10. So the halfway point we ditched everything. Yeah. It didn't show that, but we ditched all our supplies, our food, our camping stuff, our clothes, , and for the next 11 days, we relied on strangers. And. That first night and then second night, the people, the families that we met were just so open to helping us out.

I will admit that night, day 10, , the family that helped us out lovely, gave us food, got us some clothes. We did sleep in their cubby house. It wasn't that big for the both of us, but that's all right. We made it work. We made it work.

Often,, people say that someone's true character comes out under trials, in difficulty, difficult circumstances. , how did you feel the show grew or stretched or challenged you guys, in your own personal development? What has the show given to you now reflecting back on that experience?

That's a really good, really good question. Personally, I figured that I was going to spend time with my son. I was going to take some time off work and Jordan's family practice of holding hands morning and evening and saying prayer. We adopted. on a daily basis. And so we invited everybody to join us for prayer morning and evening.

Regardless of where we were or what we did. And God had this amazing way of just It's bringing us all together, our camera crews, the people that we stayed with. And it was just actually gave us a real sense of, well, for me personally, it gave me a sense of peace , that really did surpass understanding because every day we did not know our next connection yet we weren't, well, I personally was not scared about the next day.

I was actually looking forward to a new day,, when it started, what was God going to deliver? And the way he did it was miraculous.

Oh, 100%, 100%. We had, just so many points. I guess the one that was mentioned just before the main one or that Dad said was we had to ask for help. And Dad and I, by nature, aren't people to ask for help too often.

It's more we want to give help and help where we can. So, breaking that barrier and going to people and just asking. Can you help us? We're in this situation. It humbles you a lot, but it also presented opportunities to share through conversation. , it was nothing more than asking for help, helping them where they were at, talking to them, and that conversation just rolled into opportunities to share who we are,, who we are as individuals, what we believe.

We said prayer every night and every morning and, each day, the places we ended, we were meant to be at, and it was quite incredible that, that whole journey and dad and I reflected on that during it. But especially after, cause during it, it's also pretty crazy, right?

You're thinking one day ahead and that's about it. Not even a day ahead, the hour ahead.

Yeah. And I'm assuming things would change pretty quickly as you're going, you might have a plan for the next day, but next minute, something else is happening. And yeah, I think even just that idea of, if you're so used to being able, being the one who's helping all the time, it can be really challenging to then step back and like, accept that, or ask for that.

So yeah, that's cool that, that's been your experience. What about, what was your overall like, highlight? When I was reading the reviews of the show, it was saying that you guys did When you ditched everything, you also ditched, your phones and social media, which I was like, that would be awesome!, obviously the whole show would be awesome, but just that experience, it's like we don't get the opportunity to just switch off for that long.

But yeah, I'd love to hear what your big highlights were.

Uh, so, with the phones thing, they they take your phones off you at the start, but you can obviously pick them up from friends, and family along the way, but we, one of our strategies was actually not to touch any technology, so we didn't touch a phone, a computer, uh, iPad, whatever, for 21 days, and that in itself was refreshing and lovely, you didn't, to be honest, I didn't even notice it, you're so focused on the people around you, and it probably, Actually speaks volumes to the fact that you then worse are we were so focused on each other and on the people that will approaching, but then I guess highlights, one of the main highlights for me was, , and you saw bits of glimpses of it, in the show was day 19.

We were at the cricket, so we're close to the end. Obviously, when you're that close to the end, you're you're thinking about the end and there's not many teams left. You're probably almost getting hunted. Where are the hunters? But we ended up at Craigie Boone, cricket club. The ladies were playing and they just brought us in.

They gave us, coaching shirts, hats. Dad was in full coach swing. I was in full cheer swing, but it was just relaxed. , on a time that should be panicked and it should be your, your, you know, you're that close to the end. What are you doing? What's your next move? We spent eight hours there, just cheering on the girls.

And, it felt like dad and I. That's what we, you know, growing up, we did a lot of sport and a lot of anything we did, we did together. So that was cool. Amongst many, and they

won, which was absolutely beautiful to, too bad we weren't there for the grand final anyway. But, yeah, look, another highlight for me, was I was just soaring up some wood and there was a camera person there that was, was just there part time.

And I pulled back a nice big bit of bark cause they were from England. I just wanted to show them something. And it was full of, big Huntsman's like a big family of Huntsman's all together. Which she freaked out a little bit. I kind of felt bad about it, but I didn't realize till later on that she thought everything in Australia was out together.

So I kind of felt bad, but it was, yeah, it was memorable for me, not necessarily from her cause she froze. But yeah, just the little links, honestly, the links where people shouldn't have been where they were, but they were there at the time. A golf club was too hot. They should have been shut, but they decided to open.

Meeting up with concrete is that should have been pouring concrete, but we're waiting for a concrete truck that was late. And every time, at the end of every day, we got to say, Hey, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. We're here for another day.

Yeah, , a hundred percent. And I, one other thing I just want to throw in there.

Is just the crew that we had. We had a incredible crew, that we were able to connect with, very quickly and that made the whole team. It was like, it wasn't just dad and I, it ended up being all of us who were there. It wasn't many, there was two or two or three, depending on the time of day. But, we were one team and.

, still talk to them today and probably will for the rest of our lives. So pretty cool.

The absolute highlight for me, Geordie was the, Actually, after filming and finished and we, we all went out for lunch together and I said at the end, I said, well, I looked at the time said that it's time for me to catch my plane and the cameraman said, as I went up to go, the cameraman said, Hey, should we all close?

We finished with prayer. , and that just. That blew me away and actually made me feel like that should have been my suggestion, and then afterwards, as I went out of , the restaurant, I kind of broke down a bit and Jordy came down and gave me a hug and said, it's all right. I love you, dad. , and we said goodbye. And that one moment really was a pinnacle pivotal moment for me.

Yeah, I guess faith, in public spaces is not always easy. So it's awesome that you got to, share that. Was that something, I don't know how much of that was shown on TV, but I guess was that something that, you were able to do quite a lot in person with the teammates?

Well, we were just who we were and that's, that was a really great thing. We were just who we were. They didn't show our, we visited, uh, we went to church on Sabbath and to my absolute proud, another proud moment was when an older lady in the church congregation, I said, can we bring our camera in?

And it was conditional. And she said, yeah, come on in. Come on in. And then they fed us for lunch and it was just, it was a funny time. It was funny for a couple of reasons, but it was just such a, it was so relaxing to be in church among church family and friends. Yeah. All the way down in, , Where was it, John?

Colac.

Colac Church. Colac. That was awesome. Yeah. It might sound a bit silly of like we were just ourselves, but we were, , and we were able to be. It's quite a unique show. Anyone out there listening that might be interested in it, it's worth applying for because, It's not a set, you're not set, you're not having to do this and that, it's, you just do what you think is right, you do the best you can, you are who you are, and that's it.

And it's beautifully unique in that way, I think, compared to all reality TV. And... Something that I am very thankful for because dad and I were just able to be us

We've got an audience question. , it's actually my wife sneaking in the comments here. Would you guys do it again?

Oh, I would for sure Dad are you coming?

I I need to get fitter

I will say Like for me, I loved it And I know dad did as well. And it's something that I obviously had wanted to do and applied for other shows. And I definitely will probably continue to try and get on survivors. The top of the list, , in my mind, it's going to happen one day.

, but do it together again. I would for sure dad was what? 53. , doing the show and second, third oldest on the show, but killed it. You know, there was no day that it was, that dad was struggling. I thought we worked really well together.

It sounds like you guys did really have a good time back to your.

Outside the show lives. Darren, you're a chaplain at a juvenile, detention spot. I've done some visits in that sort of scenario here in Sydney. , it's not always easy., relating to the boys chatting about things and how they're going, but how have they responded to the show? I mean, they may not have been able to watch it, but I'm sure you have.

You told them, Hey, this is what's happening. What was the reaction and how is the response when you go in now? Or since the show

well Another good question Yeah, look, it was interesting one on one particular day. I walked in and one of the young people said I've seen you before So, you know

Immediately it gave us something to engage in. Other of the young men, were happy and eager to dialogue about it. And one of the great things is nobody's hit me up for a loan yet.

I remember you dad speaking to me about it. The fact that, they were. Early days when the first few episodes coming, , come out that they were all debating how long you would last. There wasn't many believers there.

You've shown them all

you need. It doesn't matter if you didn't win.

That's right. I got the comment. I didn't realize you're so fast.

Nice.

I know a girl from my childhood who went on a reality TV show.. I think it was, for troubled children they got sent to strict parents and strict nannies and they were basically supposed to be transformed and on the show they made it look like, they had completely changed her life and that she was now this princess and that she was going to come back to her family in Australia and everything would be changed but when she came back she was Just as she was before, and she said that a lot of it was staged and that they basically told her what to say.

So it's really interesting to hear that, like you guys are saying, you just got to be yourselves. Like you had the freedom to do what you wanted.

Absolutely. During one particular occasion, we actually left , our Bible, , behind at a person's place that we stayed at. And the person actually chased us down.

And said, I think you might need this. And it's like, he took hours out of his day, a couple of hours out of his day, just to do that. And he was self employed and I thought, you know, yeah, absolutely. We could just be ourselves.

So guys, we put this story up on record when the show finished, we put it out on our socials and it got quite a lot of response.

I think Adventists, like seeing people from the church family doing interesting things or getting a bit of notoriety, maybe a bit of celebrity, Adventist celebrity, but, there were a lot of comments. It was quite, funny, you'd know, , Adventists end time theology. And there are a few comments about how this would be good preparation.

Maybe we should get the path, the pathfinders to do it. Did any of your pathfinding skills come in handy? Was that, was that in the back of your mind at all doing this show? Like Hey, maybe this is good preparation for anything down the pipeline, or how do you guys view some of that sort of commentary from the church members?

I like the enthusiasm, and The pathfinder side of things. , we had a few days where we were actually multiple days where we're camping or at least pitching a tent. So the tent skills came in handy. And then we had one day in particular, that we were on the side of a mountain pouring with rain.

And we actually, our tent was fine, but it was actually our camera crew that weren't super prepared. And, Dad, you jumped straight in and I ended up helping you out. Morphing a tarp on the side and. Making sure that it was somewhat waterproof.

You were able to give them a tutorial. I understand that you also wanted to accomplish, or be the first team to finish together. And that not everyone did that. Some of them kind of split off. Why was that so important to you guys? You did well. You got to like basically the last few minutes and then you started running separate ways.

But yeah, how come that was so important to you guys to stick together?

It just made sense. It just made sense to do it together and it worked. And it worked so wonderfully well that there was never any impression that I received that for us ever to split up. , I think Geordie slowed down at the end just to, keep his dad company.

We both, like dad said, we were never splitting up. I guess we wanted to show that we could do it together. We didn't need to try and split up and. Maneuver, cause we'd already done that. We were definitely under the radar pretty much the whole time, a little bit of luck on the hunter's end at the end there.

And you know, dad and I were, we're there together. We lasted 21 days. We made it to extraction, which are the two things that they're asking for. And, we did those two things. We did 'em together. And no other team has done that. Yes, we didn't quite get on the helicopter, but we made the 21 days, we made it to extraction.

And yeah, we milked everything that we could out of the show. , we were, we we were there for the full amount of time. , so yeah, no, it was, never an option to split up. And I think the show displayed that really nicely. I'm very grateful for whoever, I know it's a big team that put the show together, but they demonstrated us as a family.

So father and son. willing to help people out. It mentioned us, myself as a teacher, dad as a chaplain and minister, it mentioned it, it didn't go into a lot of detail, but it was very obvious our purpose. And that was to be together, father and son love on each other and love on people. And I, I was very grateful for that.

I know you guys weren't officially crowned the winners, but it sounds like you consider yourself as the win, like you won the show, in terms of what you got out of it personally and all of that. We just had another comment here. Thanks so much for sharing.

Amazing , to live by faith under the public spotlight and see how God provided and the effect that that has had on others. So I think, that's a really nice thought, one of our viewers, just as we wrap up, like what we try and do with record live is to be practical. , we tried to end on a practical note.

If you could both just give us a lesson, that you learned that perhaps you think other people could. It could help them in their day, their week, in their day to day lives, , as they face the future. What's something that you could take away that you could share

with us?

One thing is be true to yourself. I think we don't need to hide. Who we are as people as Christians as long as you are Yourself and confident in who you are and just allow God to work through you Everything and anything is possible Ask those questions be willing to help

we had 21 days of witnessing really we And that's something that we maybe shy away from a little bit, especially here in Australia, , in any country, any city that's busy, we feel like, we just got to do our own thing, but no, we can be who we are and share that with people. It doesn't have to be, Hey, I'm a Christian.

No, that will come from conversations that will come from who you are. And when you get that opportunity, allow God to lead. And we got that multiple times. It's

certainly the case that, but every time that we look after ourselves, we need God less. And every time we put ourselves in situations where we're where we challenge ourselves, then God not only shows up, but he lavishes us with gifts.

And I think that, just having the courage to step outside , and,, minister out of who you are. That's all. That's all any of us can do. We're not perfect. We know we're near that. We're just people and, and God is And that's, that's what we found., I thought I was going to get a bit of a holiday.

My son thought it was great because it's the cheapest holiday his dad's ever done. But, but the truth is that, at first we didn't think we needed God because we thought we had a plan , but the truth is God showed up right from the very beginning and he was always there.

And I think that. It's just, as a Christian, sometimes we take that for granted. God is always there. He's never far away.

I just want to tack on to what dad said and he said, play to who you are and your strengths. We would rock up to someone's house who said, yes, they're willing to help us and relax.

And I sit down the younger of the two and I look around and dad's gardening for them or washing their windows or speaking to them. , and like that. But true to, true to himself and who he is. And I tried to do the same and, people love that. And when they see that genuineness, it breaks down that barrier straight away.

So. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing your journey. We have another comment. I only watched the show because of you both. So well done. You deserve to be the winners in my opinion. Jeff Parker. Yeah. Thank you for sharing your journey. , it's been awesome to see , you guys on the show and hopefully we'll see you maybe on Survivor or Hunted season six or whatever it is.

100 all stars. Dad, let's go.

We need to pitch to hope channel. This idea of, testing a bit of a Adventist survive time of trouble. TV show. I think it'll work.

Dad, you can be the host.

You got experience.

You're the host. We'll be working out from there. But thank you for having us on. We really do appreciate your time. Yeah.

No, we're very appreciative that you guys made time in your schedules to join us today. . Good luck and God bless with your ministry or your teaching and everything that you're doing in your lives. Keep shining that light bright. As for record live, we're going to have a break on the streaming shows for the next couple of weeks, but we will be uploading some episodes that haven't made it to the podcast yet.

So keep an ear out for those until next week. God bless and we'll see you πŸ“ then.

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Confessions of a fugitive: our time on Hunted
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