How One Family Travels the World Seamlessly with 8 Kids in Tow - Ben and Felicita Myers

Ben and Felicita Myers, parents of eight, are passionate theater directors with a heart for helping people discover and live out their God-given roles through the lens of Scripture. They are the creators of Actor's Bible, a fun and engaging family devotions app that brings the Bible to life through role-playing, teleprompter-style scripts, immersive 360-degree visuals, original music, and thought-provoking application questions. Ben is also the author of the Book of Roles. We've had Ben and his daughter Isabella on the program several years ago regarding the Actor's Bible, but I knew we needed this parenting duo on our show to talk about travel. They're always traveling as a family of 10. I just saw them cruising through the NRB conference this past February, a bunch of kids in tow, no chaos, no parent corralling the children, but an organized, happy family serving God together. So we had to find out more about how they do life on the road and have fun at it. This is the CounterCulture Mom Show. I'm your host Tina Griffin. It's all about travel this week. I'm with Ben and Felicita Myers, co-founders of Actor's Bible. How are you two lovebirds doing with eight children in tow? What's happening out there? So good to be with you, and thanks for having us back. That's something I guess we did all right Absolutely. I'm so glad you did. Phenomenal last time. Isabella crushed it. I don't even remember how old she was. 10, 11 years old. She could have her own TV show back then, but you two get the award on the CounterCulture Mom Show. Five years in production with the best backdrop we've ever had on the program. Thank you so much. We just arrived in Brooklyn overlooking the downtown Manhattan sky scene. We literally just arrived 10 minutes ago and set up, and so this was a little delayed today, but we made it. So we're here, and praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. So you have to tell us what in the world are you doing out there near New York, in Brooklyn, having at it, serving the I know you're obviously doing ministry. You're in your phenomenal RV. I have a bunch of pictures here with everybody. This is how they travel, guys, doing ministry, living out loud for God with eight children, and like I was saying ahead of time, both of you have a lot of hair, so you're doing something right. Tell us what you're doing for ministry. Why are you set up in base right now there with your eight kids? Yeah, our base is in Philadelphia. We have a RV today because we have about three days of meetings here in New York City, and so we'll be the whole family. So our family is going to be attending several meetings, and then I speak at the New Canaan Society this week as well, and so some of my kids will join me there, and yeah, we just have incorporated family life, ministry life together. It's been amazing. Phyllis does a large part of our homeschooling as well too, and then I take care of the family Bible time using our app. So on the road, we're doing Actors Bible, not as much as when we're home truthfully, so when you're on the road, it does get a little, but we get to have family Bible time using Actors Bible with other families, and that's super fun right outside of our RV sometimes or in churches, and so that's what we're out and about doing today. This is just phenomenal. Now, you say that you don't do as much Actors Bible, but you are living it out when you're on the road. This is when you put into practice what you're learning about on Actors Bible because you're in a tight space, eight children. You can't tell me that it's 24-7, A++ with all the kids getting along, so we're going to get in the nitty-gritty, but I will tell you at NRB, there's thousands of people running around. All your kids are smiling, happy. Even the little kids are listening to you. Mom, when you're all together, they want to take pictures with me. I was like, here's some shots right now, everybody, going back in time. I am so impressed every time I see your family on the road in person, and I know it's not a front and you didn't have to do a threatening two-minute speech before you got out of the vehicle. I can tell you guys are the real deal, and obviously you know our tactics, so we have to be learning from you guys. You are the essence of what God's idea of family looks like. Yeah, we'll talk, I bet, and I love that you guys do live together. When we decided to go on the road doing the RVing, you know, we had in our mind what that would look like, all the kids sitting by the window, looking out at the landscapes, and how wonderful that would be, but truthfully, they're on technology a lot to help them pass the time because we're driving long hours, and it helps to keep the peace because it does get tight when you're on the road and 10 people in the RV. Thank God we have two bathrooms in there so we can get going, and with a way to cook and refrigerate things, it's just such a blessing because it makes things a lot easier, and we can just keep moving forward, and we don't have to make a lot of stops. Yeah, that makes complete sense, and honestly, if you can figure out how to do this as a family of 10 living on the road, doing ministry, and serving God together, they will be ready for literally anything once they're out of your nest. I mean, everything is a blessing to them as well because they learn how to do more with less, even like less material possessions. You guys are just, I really want to do what you're doing, and the wild thing is not knowing you are on the road as much as you are with eight kids. We have four kids, and my husband and I were just talking the last couple of days when him and I had our first getaway trip in a while. He was working, and I was visiting friends that we want our kids to potentially jump on the road with us for a full year, and we're going to talk to the kids about that. Didn't even like drop that news in their head yet just because we just got off a flight eight hours ago. Because you learn so much being together as a family unit, which I'm going to learn a lot from you today on that, it's just crazy timing. So tell us, what are some of your experiences touring and traveling all over as a family of 10? What has that been like? What are the pros, cons? What has God taught you as a family unit? Yeah, so we've done quite a bit of international travel, and toward the middle of COVID, we went to Egypt, and Turkey, and Greece, and we were capturing footage for the Bible app. Some of the locations that the Bible stories took place, and that was stretching, and that's what we talked to the kids about. We have a lot of family meetings where we say, listen, it's going to be hard. There's going to be things we can't expect. We just have to be flexible. We're going to be grouchy at times, but we're in it together, and we'll make it through. So at one moment, someone's stronger than the other, and they help the other person, and that's kind of how you have to do it. So that was amazing because there weren't a lot of people at a lot of the sites because it was COVID time. So we were studying ancient literature at the time, and the ancient history, and the kids were at the Pyramids of Giza, and we got to go to the camel rides in the desert, and they got to go on a small boat ride through the Nile River. So it was just this amazing opportunity to do what we need to do for the ministry and still make some wonderful memories as a family. That is just so awesome. The Bible's coming to life when you do that. Absolutely. I'll provide a necessity. Exhibit A, if you'll bear with me just one moment. So a double stroller. If you have small children, invest in a quality double stroller. This thing has taken us all around the world. This thing is a Valko Baby Twin. I do a lot of bargain shopping because we have a large family on Facebook Marketplace, but I needed to invest in something that was going to help us make it through a lot of the transitions and flights. So this thing, it's one hand steering, full recline, goes through one door. So a lot of the twin strollers are wide and they don't go through one doors. So it hit all the boxes. And it's light. Yeah, it's fantastic. It has a long awning at the top to cover the kids in the sun. So that thing right there, if you have younger kids, invest in a quality double stroller. And we've had it for like six years. It's been everywhere. It's been like the streets of Jerusalem, bumpy, bumpy, bumpy everywhere. Greece, Egypt. It's a blessing. Yeah, we would have been able to do it. Now it's so phenomenal. Now I have to ask you two critical questions about that. First of all, everybody out there, we're going to get the exact make model of that stroller because I can hear mom saying, you better ask her that. So we're going to make sure that that link will be surrounding this show episode at counterculturemom.com. Click on this episode and you'll always see like every week we'll make sure all those resource links are right underneath every episode. That is critical. Do you know the make and model offhand? I don't. I just know it's a Valco Baby Neo Twin. So I'm sure they have a newer version. We've had this for a couple of years, but it's about 600 bucks, but it's worth every penny. It's amazing. Sometimes we have enough littles and they're sleeping. So you're carrying one on your chest or on your back and then you put the other two there. Even if you just got one kid, I would still get it because then you can put all your bags and everything else on the other side. That is so funny that you guys are literally bringing back memories of us with our four crazy kids. We had four in four years, but you had eight, so you know what you're talking about. Now the next very important question, did you have eight kids so the older kids could take care of the younger kids so you guys could have a break? No, we just have as many as he wants to give us. So every time we're, we find out we're having a new family member, we just have, we're just rejoicing and just excited. Yeah. Unbelievable. Now we're going to go to a short commercial break. At some point in this program, Isabella is going to jump in the mix to answer that very same question to see what her take is on that. More of this fantastic duo right after this. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that I shouldn't exist? That I should be dead? That I deserve to die that day? Can you look me in the eye and tell me that my very survival was a mistake? A terrible toll on society? Can you look me in the eye and tell me that in my most vulnerable state, I was nothing more than a parasite? A collection of body parts? Subhuman? Worthless? In 1952, I survived multiple abortion attempts. DNC abortion. An instrument abortion. DNC abortion. A vacuum aspiration. A saline infusion abortion that was meant to poison and scald me to death. I am the face of choice. I am that choice. These are actual human beings who survived abortion procedures when they were still in their mother's wombs. These are the eyes, voices, and faces of choice. Choice is not merely a word. Choice is a person. Learn their stories. Visit facesofchoice.org. You both had some ideas with packing less and traveling more easy. Can you give more tips on that? So if you have anybody over the age of four, you only need five days of outfits. If you need one dressy outfit, I would put that on there. Depending on your climate, like three pairs of pants and two shorts and things that just can be used in a lot of different ways. So less is more, except for when it comes to snacks. So depending on where you're traveling to and how easily accessible or if you're going internationally and you don't know if the kids are going to like the food. I'm often pregnant or nursing when we're traveling and I don't want to get hangry. You need to have a lot of snacks that are non-perishable. So we have the little cans of tunas with the crackers, beef jerky and excess, much supply of beef jerky and granola bars, nuts, those kinds of things that you can just pack a whole suitcase full of snacks and everyone's happy. When we were traveling to a lot of different countries, it's making a cheat sheet because you have, when you go into customs, you got to fill out those forms and you need everyone's birth dates, you need everyone's passport numbers, your expiration date of your passport, you need everyone's visas number. So people, you know, you have a kid that's sleeping on you. Before you left for the trip, you probably only got about three hours of sleep even though you tried to get more hours of sleep. We're always going to bed at three and waking up at five to get on the road. I don't know how that happens but it just does. So everyone's really tired and he has one, I have one. So instead of pulling out the passports and going to the last page and doing all that, we just have one sheet with all the pertinent information and we go through and fill it out and that was really, really helpful. That, I wish I would have done that. I do have a cheat sheet packing list that I talked about in the previous episodes on this series, everybody. So check out this entire week of travel tips because it will help your anxiety go way down if you apply what these experts in the field are talking about. Got like five critical minutes left and we have to get in some of these key questions regarding where your favorite memories of traveling as a family has been that you loved. Can you give, go a little bit more in depth with one or two spots you've been to? Sure, sure. Yeah, we love Arvin and when the Lord's work takes us to Florida, anyone where there's beaches, we love to break up our trips with the campgrounds and having fun exploring. So if you can incorporate into your work or into your ministry, whatever you're doing, times where you could just have a blast in between and go fishing and taking hikes and things like that. But internationally, we really love when we went into Jordan to Petra and then to Wadi Rum. My kids will tell you hands down their best memory they've had abroad was in a dome, like these little dome huts that you slept in in the middle of the Wadi Rum desert, which is where Moses and the Israelites came up through. And it looks like Mars, like this Martian landscape. And it was a Bedouin camp where it was around a fire and he was dancing and a whole bunch of people were there all spending that time together overnight. And the food was incredible, the Bedouin tea. So that's one of their most amazing, because it just looked otherworldly and yet had a biblical connection as well to it. They loved, you know, sleeping under the stars. And yeah, so that was probably one of our highlights. I love that you do this as a family. You live life together as a family, both when you're at home and when you're on the road. So many families today are separated, even if they're underneath the same roof, because the kids are on tech gadgets. Parents are working 60 hour weeks, separate locations, and they don't even see each other. It's in passing in the hallway for three minutes every day. You guys do life together. It's so cool. It's so encouraging. I have to ask you this question because I think it's so critical. Discipling our kids, especially when we are traveling on the road. What's your advice for keeping up with discipling and even discipline while traveling on the road? And I know it depends on how old your kids are, but any advice on that? Sure. So we love two apps, one that we made and then one that we partner with. So the one we made is called Actor's Bible. It's the entire Bible. It's a script, 62 acts, 833 scenes. And you chronologically journey your way through God's word. Everybody gets a part. So you're Abraham, you're Sarah, you're Lot, you're the sheep. And everyone, as the teleprompter scrolls, spoon-feeding your lines, you're able to live out the scriptures as 360 visuals appear on the screen behind you of the actual location the story took place. There's mood music, sound effects, and application questions at the end. It literally takes our family 20 minutes, and that's with a big family. So other families can do it in 10, 15 minutes. One story a day. It's just sharing God's word incarnate. It really is what we have seen our children be shaped in God and apply his word to their own heart. So we do that on the road. And another app that we really highly recommend is called PRS, public reading of scripture. And that's a free app. And that is for audio listening. So our Actor's Bible app has audio dramas too, and songs. But if you just want moments where you're driving down the road and you want the best audio drama there is, the entire Bible in most languages, please check out PRS. So we do both in our family. We do Actor's Bible where all the kids get a part to play. They feel like they're living the scriptures and applying it. And then while we're traveling down the road, we're playing the same text of scripture just so we can hear God's word and have that. Deuteronomy 6, 5 says, Here is where the Lord our God is one. Love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and teach these things diligently. And you're going out, and you're coming in, and you're lying down, and you're getting up. Well, that's a lot. So our charge, our most important work that we will ever do as parents is to make sure that as a husband, I'm washing my wife with the word, that I'm bringing it forth, and that I'm discipling my children. And Dad, that's on you. You are the spiritual leader in that you're the priest of the Lord to make sure that family Bible time happens. It's your most important job that you will have ever been given and you will ever have. 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It's a simple way to take a step toward protecting what you've worked so hard to build. Hey, Ben, we are back from commercial break and we've got one of your fantastic kids in the mix, Isabella. Bella, how are you doing, girl? Your hair like tripled in size. I want your head of hair right now. How are you doing? I'm doing well, thank you. Yeah, we're in New York and we've been traveling in the RV again. It's been really fun, really crazy, really awesome. Everything's always happening very fast, but we've adjusted. God's really blessed us with a lot of opportunities this year and we've been growing in all of our skill sets. Yeah, traveling with my siblings, so fun. You guys are absolutely phenomenal. Ben, I want to make sure everybody knew exactly how to get involved with Actor's Bible. Where do they go to download that free app? Yeah, you can go to the iOS or Android store and type in the word Actor's Bible, all one word, Actor's Bible. Download the free version. You just sign up, click sign up, and then you're ready to go and try that out. If it's great for your whole family, then upgrade to a full subscription. I've been a producer director of large productions along with my wife for many years. I thought the greatest show of all was what I was putting on stage, but what God really had to humble me and show me that the greatest show of all is me portraying Jesus to my bride, laying down my life for her, and disciple my children, and that we would all play our prophetic role on the stage of our home. That the gospel would be shown the way I treat my wife and the way as the father God is to my children, and that I would prioritize them first so that they would be a people prepared, that we would be a people prepared for our Lord's return. And at the same time, is to then inspire and encourage as many other dads and moms, we call them stage manager moms, director dads, to do that same thing on the stage of their home. That the gospel would go forth and that we wouldn't have a distorted image of who God is and who the son is based on how we've seen generation after generation of brokenness, but that we would have a healthy example and image of who God is played out in the roles of our home. So that's our big question and big thing that we're trying to accomplish. Watch all four episodes, share these episodes with everybody you know. A lot of times parents don't take the step forward to travel with their kids because they don't know where they should go, what they should do, how to lessen the anxiety, and you can easily have a fun free during and post travel experience. It is possible. You guys rock, keep at it, have fun out there, and I'll be watching for fantastic shots jumping up here on the internet of your travel and adventure. Go get them, people. Thank you, Tina. So great. Angel Studios has the coolest concept ever for kids. 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