Stories of Faith and Family with Ed Novak

SPEAKER 02 : 0:00

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SPEAKER 04 : 0:51

Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.

SPEAKER 05 : 0:59

Hello there. It is Angie Austin with The Good News. Thank you so much for joining us. Excited to have my friend Ed Novak back on the show. Ed is a longtime friend of mine. In fact, I had my wedding at his restaurant 20 some odd years ago, and his wife was in my wedding, Gail Novak. Gail has passed, and Ed and I have stayed friends, you know, because I was really friends with Gail, but then I became friends with Ed. Ed is a restaurateur. He owned a broker restaurants, and He is just one of the best storytellers I’ve ever met. So Ed has, you know, a lot of wisdom, shall we say, from his many years on this earth. And he’s got grandkids. Do you have great grandkids yet, Ed?

SPEAKER 06 : 1:41

I have two new great-grandchildren this year. Oh, my goodness. That is so exciting. Thirteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Oh, my goodness.

SPEAKER 05 : 1:49

So I just wanted to bring Ed on to talk about life lessons. And so we’ve talked about how he started in the restaurant business and his family and a lot about his faith. And so today we’re going to talk about some life lessons involving your grandfather. Is that right, Ed?

SPEAKER 07 : 2:06

That’s right.

SPEAKER 05 : 2:07

Let’s do it. Oh, and I’m friends with Ed’s daughter as well. We’re about the same age. She has four kids. I have three. And many years ago, your wife, Gail, said, you have got to meet Ed’s daughter, my stepdaughter. You have so much in common with her. You’re so much alike. I love it. Yes. You said you’re so much alike.

SPEAKER 07 : 2:24

You and Julie have so much in common. Yes.

SPEAKER 05 : 2:28

you’re both such hard workers i mean honestly uh you guys yeah you guys get along great i love it well she knew that we’d get along right and what’s so funny is that we’re both so busy julie and i never got a chance after our lunch meeting with gail to hang out but we stayed in touch and then I follow her on social media. We go to the same church. Our kids are around the same age. They go to the same high school. So she and I have had lunches now more in the more recent years together. And, you know, I’ve stayed friends through you as well. But it’s just funny because we are so much alike and we’re so much alike. We’re too busy to do much together.

SPEAKER 07 : 3:04

Yeah, I’ll tell you something else.

SPEAKER 05 : 3:09

Let’s talk about your grandpa, shall we?

SPEAKER 07 : 3:12

Okay, I appreciate the opportunity. My grandfather was Charlie Pounds, and he, of course, was Mom’s father. My mother, Betty Novak, or Pounds, was her maiden name. And Charlie and his wife, Cecil, lived in Rosalie, and you know Rosalie is a population of 119. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER 05 : 3:43

That’s Nebraska, right?

SPEAKER 07 : 3:45

This is Rosalie, Nebraska. It’s up in the northeast. It’s like 35 miles from Sioux City, Iowa. It’s 100 miles north of Lincoln. And so anyway, 119 people. And my grandfather was, he was about six foot two tall. He was a very big man. And he was definitely not fat. He was just a big person, okay? And he was the Marshal of Rosalie.

SPEAKER 06 : 4:14

Okay.

SPEAKER 07 : 4:16

And so he had a chrome badge that said City Marshal, and he wore it every day on the bib of his overalls. He wore overalls every day. He put the badge on his bib. Okay. And Rosalie, he and his wife lived right next to downtown Rosalie. And downtown, we had a post office. We had a bank. We had a drugstore. We had a hardware store. We had two grocery stores that competed with each other. And then we had a cafe that served breakfast, lunch, and dinner and no alcohol, no drinks or anything. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER 05 : 5:09

I know. I know about that with your mom. She was not a fan of the alcohol.

SPEAKER 07 : 5:13

And then we had Morgan’s Bar, and Morgan’s Bar was on the other end of downtown. And it served only beer and cocktails and no food at all. And then across the street then was our barbershop. And then right next night near downtown, Rosalie, then we had a fire station. And we had a beautiful fire truck, but we had no firemen there. No firemen.

SPEAKER 06 : 5:43

Hilarious.

SPEAKER 07 : 5:45

Just a truck. And so what my grandpa would do, you know, as city marshal, was that we had a jailhouse that was a block off Main Street, and it was a very, very small building. And it had a cell, one cell in there that had steel bars on it, And it had a small bed and a sink and a toilet, and that was it. And I think my grandfather was marshaled for eight years in Rosalie. I don’t think they ever had a prisoner. I don’t think they ever had used the jail for a prisoner for eight years. Rosalie was hardly hit with a lot of crime.

SPEAKER 06 : 6:39

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER 07 : 6:41

So but what the other thing that was in the jailhouse right when you come through the door right there was this this siren handle that you could pull down. And so what my grandfather had to do every morning at seven o’clock. and at noon and at 6 o’clock is go down to the jailhouse and pull that siren handle down. That siren was so loud, you could hear it for three to four miles away from town. Oh, my goodness. It was almost ear-bursting, you know, if you were right there. Yeah. And this had been going on. They did it every day except Sunday. My grandfather did it every day except Sunday. Mm-hmm. And it was a tradition, and it started many, many years ago, where that was done to tell the farmers what time it was. Oh. When it was 7 o’clock, they knew it was 12 o’clock, they knew it was 6 o’clock, and they were supposed to go home at that time. Anyway, that was the whole program with that. And the other thing was, But let’s say that there was a fire at the – like on one of the farms or in town, whatever. It didn’t make any – if a farmer had a fire, what he would do is he’d call somebody in Rosalie. And then they would go down to the jailhouse because the door was never locked, and they would pull that siren button, that siren handle down and send off that huge siren. And then people from the city and from the farms would all go to the firehouse, and they would drive that fire truck to the fire and put the fire out. Oh, my goodness. Volunteer firemen. Yeah, yeah. And the other thing that my grandpa did as part of his job, if you will, was just about a block from his house was, you know, a standpipe. You know, it’s a water tower. And all of the cities in the Midwest, you know, for certain areas, Every town had a water tower. And what that water tower did is that provided it was up high, and it always had the name of the town on it, as you recall, when you drive by. You see the name? And that tower provided the water for all of the homes in Rosalie. And so every afternoon, my grandpa would go up there and then turn on the pump. And then all of us kids used to, when we were there at that time, we would all go and sit with him outside of the pump house. And then what would happen was there was at the top of the, it was a huge tank. It held a lot of water. And at the top, there was a six-inch gap between the top of the tank and the roof of the tank. And when the thing was full, then the water went over the side and it all came down like a big rainstorm. And we would go back there and watch and be in this rainstorm, you know, back under the water tower. And it was just a really wonderful memory for all of us kids sitting there visiting with Grandpa and then going back and watching that water come down. Oh, man. Really, really just an amazing, amazing time. And he was just a wonderful, wonderful grandpa. And I want to mention something about, I guess I want to mention something about his nephew. And, you know, every Memorial Day, all of the Novaks, as a matter of fact, Everybody I know was over at the – they would go to the Pender Cemetery. Pender was about 10 miles west of Rosalie. And Rosalie didn’t have a cemetery. So all of the people that passed away in Rosalie were buried in Pender. And like my dad was buried there, of course, and mom too later. But the thing was that we would go as a family. And when I was in grade school, high school, whatever, and we would all go there, and there would be a nice crowd, and every year there would be like five people. army soldiers or something, and they would do a little trumpet concert. The five of them would blow, each had a trumpet. They’d do a little trumpet concert, and then the pastor, one of the local pastors, then would do like a 10-minute service, 10-minute sermon, if you will.

SPEAKER 06 : 11:36

Oh, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER 07 : 11:38

And then all of us would go to The graves that we wanted to visit, you know, we just split up, and then we would put flowers on the graves of people we wanted to visit. But at the end of the time, the whole family then would go to Grandpa’s nephew’s grave, and that was the last one we would visit every time. And Grandpa said… Grandpa said that his nephew’s birth certificate, the name on his birth certificate was Freedom for America Pounds. Oh. And that was his name, Freedom for America Pounds. That’s so wild. And so he went by the name of Free, F-R-E-E. He went by the name of Free Pounds. That’s so wild. And so when we would go to we would be at his at his at his gravesite and he had a beautiful tombstone and it was all engraved with freedom for America pounds. And it was so special to the family. And what we would do at his gravesite every year, then we would do a time of silent prayer, of just silent prayer. And we would just be there for like, you know, five or ten minutes in silent prayer. And then we would all go home. But it was an amazing, you know, just an amazing, amazing time.

SPEAKER 05 : 13:21

So in terms of your grandpa, what are some of the things that you think you learned from him?

SPEAKER 07 : 13:27

Well, I’ll tell you what. He was just – I don’t know. He was just such a wonderful, wonderful man. He was so good to us kids, and he was obviously wonderful to mom and to his wife. And he just – We just admired him so much, and he was such a big guy, too. We’re little kids and stuff, and he always looked so big. But he spent so much time with us, and we had such nice visits, like when he’s pumping water, for example. Each of us had a chair. We would sit there with him outside of the pump station, the pump house, And we would just sit there and visit with him, you know, and, uh, it was just a wonderful, wonderful, uh, wonderful memory. And, um, I don’t know. It’s part of that Nebraska thing. I thank you a little bit. He was just a superman.

SPEAKER 05 : 14:25

Yeah, I think that you kind of grew up the old school way with the work ethic, et cetera, and that’s something I really admire about you and how hard you’ve worked to get to where you are and how giving you are. Ed, always a pleasure to have you on the show. I can’t believe we’re already out of time. Just a real blessing to have you join me on the good news. Thank you, Ed. Talk to you soon. Bye. Talk to you soon. Thank you.

SPEAKER 01 : 15:12

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SPEAKER 06 : 15:46

Fine Bluffs, Wyoming is tuned to the Mighty 670 KLT.

SPEAKER 05 : 15:56

Hello there, friend. Angie Austin here with The Good News. Thank you so much for joining us. I just feel so blessed that we’ve had so many wonderful authors on the show lately. Nicholas Komnenelis is joining us, and his book is Five Bags of Gold, A Modern Parable of Wealth, Responsibility, and Internal Investment. Welcome to the program, Nicholas.

SPEAKER 08 : 16:15

Wonderful to be with you, Angie.

SPEAKER 05 : 16:17

OK, so I grew up really poor and I did not want to be poor anymore. And so this topic is very important to me and my family. So I want to talk about just give us an overview, first of all, of five bags of gold.

SPEAKER 08 : 16:32

Everyone has treasure and that’s not necessarily financial treasure. And when we want we want we want possessions. We want positions. We want to be respected. We want to accomplish things with our skills. We want pleasures as well. And then there’s also relationship with people. And I call these the five P’s. that people treasure possessions position projects pleasures and people and within the currency of the kingdom of god it is people that are the priority but it’s really true that we can use those other treasures on behalf of people we can use our possession our position in our projects and sometimes even our pleasures in order to bless other people and so what will we do with our treasure is the question.

SPEAKER 05 : 17:26

And I love the idea that treasure is also like your gifts that you can share with others. And if you don’t share them with others, is it really a gift? You know, if you just keep whatever this gift is to yourself. And tell everybody a little bit about your background. You have a pretty interesting background. You are a doctor. And just tell us a little bit about InMed and, you know, what you do.

SPEAKER 08 : 17:46

I read a moving account when I was growing up. It was the autobiography of David Livingston. And we think of David Livingston as the great explorer, but actually his life was way more interesting than that. He was born in total poverty. He was a child laborer in factories in the UK. And his father homeschooled him, and he got into the University of Glasgow, where he met inspiring people who had a vision of serving Christ throughout the world. And so David Livingston arrives in what is now South Africa, in the early 1800s, where he was immediately mauled by a lion. And he spent the next 10 years caring for sick people and starting a church. And then he began his explorations. And I read his account and I thought, that is so inspiring. I want to do that. And so as a young doctor, I moved to China, where I worked for two years at the Charity Hospital in Shanghai. Wow. And China at one time was a very low income country. And most of the diseases we cared for at Shanghai charity hospital were connected with poverty. It was tuberculosis and rheumatic fever diseases, which are, have almost disappeared now that China has some, um, economic growth. But, uh, at that time it was myself as well as Chinese people who knew Christ. that were serving their their city’s most forgotten individuals and then in the 90s i lived in angola a nation in southern africa best known for its civil war and as a result we saw measles every day and landmine injuries almost every day and it wasn’t until the war was resolved that those diseases started to disappear and those injuries started to disappear Well, I came back to the U.S. and was immediately approached by young health care people who said, I want to do what you did. And so for the last 25 years, I’ve been leading the Institute for International Medicine, which provides formative health care training for individuals who want to serve the world’s most marginalized, most forgotten, those who are elderly, disabled. Victims of war and disaster. And so in Christ’s name, we want to use our treasure on behalf of such people.

SPEAKER 05 : 20:17

I can see why other health practitioners would really love what you do. I hear about these big, you know, like Doctors Without Borders and these ships that travel around and, you know, help kids that might have a cleft palate. I can see why it’s just, you know, having someone come in your office and you saying you’ve got the flu. Yes, that is satisfying and giving them medicine. But the idea of changing someone’s life through a surgery that they would know they would not be able to get if, you know, the doctors did not travel to their area, their village, etc. I can see why other doctors would be inspired by your work.

SPEAKER 08 : 20:54

Well, thank you. And there are many people who would love to be on the front lines, you know, putting the good news of Christ into action as they show compassion to others. But they don’t know exactly how to get started. Who do I talk to? What group do I join? What kind of skill do I need? And that has really been my focus the last couple of decades is giving people pathways to enter that kind of ministry.

SPEAKER 05 : 21:19

And is that what InMed is about? I know you founded that in what, O3, I think? That’s great.

SPEAKER 08 : 21:25

InMed is a graduate school. We offer a master’s degree in international health. And we’re best known for service learning. We have faculty in 25 countries who are modeling Christ’s compassionate ministry throughout the world. And so people will study with us and then we’ll connect them with a service experience in Bangladesh or Papua New Guinea or India or Ghana. And it often is transformative in their lives that they want to carry on this vision of being the hands and feet of Christ throughout their career.

SPEAKER 05 : 22:01

Well, and you talk in the book about a life focused on the well-being, on the welfare of others, being an extraordinary life. I think that’s kind of self-explanatory, but why do you say that?

SPEAKER 08 : 22:14

There’s an event coming up, Angie. You know, we’ve just come through the big holidays, you know, Christmas, New Year’s, Easter’s coming up, Fourth of July. But there is an event on the horizon, which is far more important than any of these. And it’s described in Matthew chapter 25. And the scene here is Christ has entered Jerusalem for the last time. And he’s teaching in the temple. He knows time is short, and so he is communicating to the people of Jerusalem probably the most important things before he is executed. And he describes the account of the bags of gold, that a master was traveling, and he entrusted his treasure to his servants. And he told them to be faithful with what they have received from him. And so this is instructional for us that we all have got treasure. And what will we do? Because the master will return at some point, and we will tell the master what we have done with the treasure that’s been entrusted to us.

SPEAKER 05 : 23:22

And I think some people – I have a friend who’s written about 60 books and has his ninth movie coming out. He said he makes money just to give it away. Like that’s his inspiration to give away scholarships, and he opened a business school in his name at his alma mater. So that’s his goal that he gives away is literally money. But in your case, it might be medical care. And so what do you say to people who feel that they have not invested their bags of gold well? In other words, they have not used their gifts well and have not passed them on to others in a good manner, in a fruitful manner.

SPEAKER 08 : 24:01

I would start by talking with your spiritual community. Who are people in your church, in your fellowship group, who know you well, who can help you identify what are your particular talents, what are your spiritual gifts, what are your priorities and responsibilities? We This doesn’t necessarily have to be a complete life transformation. Just start with one evening a week or one weekend a month and, you know, can I volunteer my skill to teach a refugee how to speak English? to help a disabled child so their parents can have some respite, to volunteer at a school that needs assist with some after-school program. Find some outlet that fits your particular talent and your time frame where you can begin to step out in faith using the skill you have on behalf of others.

SPEAKER 05 : 25:00

And I like the idea.

SPEAKER 08 : 25:01

Go ahead. Well, the whole question of spiritual gifts is really important. You know, four places in the New Testament talk about the fact that the Holy Spirit has entrusted to us, you know, gifts, the gift of mercy, the gift of wisdom, of prayer, of leadership, of teaching, of exhortation, of health. As we identify what are our gifts, we in community with others who are following Jesus can discover what specifically should we be doing in order to use those treasures we received from Christ.

SPEAKER 05 : 25:35

Now, and I like the idea of using your gifts so that really you’re investing a lot into the organization or the ministry. Like if you’re an accountant, instead of scooping soup at the soup kitchen, maybe you could help out a lot more by helping with their books. Or if you’re a doctor, obviously you’d have – why do you need to scoop the soup if you can do something that’s more valuable to them and use – Your gifts, not to say that it’s not valuable to feed people as well, but you know what I’m saying. Like, you can really give a lot of benefit if you have an area of expertise that you can donate to a ministry. And I want to know, before we run out of time, I want to know about, in the book you talk about General Job, and what did you learn from him when you were in Angola?

SPEAKER 08 : 26:21

Well, I was living in that country. It was very dangerous, especially at night. And so my host said, never open the door at night. Oh, it’s very, everybody outside is a, is a thief or a, or a soldier or just never opened the door. And so one evening, um, following clinic, I was, I was in the house with my, with my kids and, and there was this over. and I looked out, and the house was surrounded by soldiers, and there was a man with a gun banging on the door, and I was sure they were going to come in, and I thought, geez, I guess I should just open the door, and so I undid the latch, expecting the worst, expecting them to flood into my home, but they didn’t. There was a little pause, and then this older man in a uniform came to the door, and he said, well, can I come in? I said, well, sure, come in. He sat down, and And he said, I want you to know that I really admire the work you’re doing caring for the Angolan people. And it’s dangerous here. And Every time you go out, my soldiers have been following you. We’ve been protecting you. We’ve been waiting out for you. You may not have seen, you won’t have seen us because we are stealth. But don’t be afraid to go out and to provide care because we’re watching out for you.

SPEAKER 05 : 27:47

Oh, my goodness. That’s pretty wild, and you didn’t even know. That is just so wild. All right. If you could tell people, Nicholas, what you want them – what would you want people to take away from your book? So I finished reading it. How do you want me to respond? What would you like for me to gather from your book?

SPEAKER 08 : 28:07

Just take an inventory of the treasure you possess. especially your skills and your passions. What is it you’re really excited about? And then in conjunction with your spiritual community, make a plan and decide how are you going to apply a skill that you have on behalf of the kingdom of God. And we don’t have to look far to see this in Scripture. You know, Ephesians chapter 2 talks about how we’re saved through faith. It’s a gift of God. Not from works, but we are also God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared for us in advance to do. And so the expression of receiving the gift of life, the gift of salvation, is that we become diligent and focused on responding to that gift by serving one another.

SPEAKER 05 : 29:07

I love it. All right, Nicholas, give us a website where we can find out more about you, your book, and what you do.

SPEAKER 08 : 29:14

Certainly. So inmed.us, I-N-M-E-D.us, inmed.us, is the organization that I lead. And the book Five Bags of Gold is easiest found on Amazon. You can just go to Amazon and type in Five Bags of Gold, and it’ll likely be your first search result.

SPEAKER 05 : 29:36

Well, Nicholas Condonellis, thank you so much, Doctor, for your interview. And God bless you for the work you’re doing.

SPEAKER 04 : 29:42

Wonderful to talk with you, Angie. You too. Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.

SPEAKER 03 : 29:54

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