Dan: Adventure isn’t one-size-fits-all. Adventure is going to look way different for someone that lives in a big city [who] is very confined—there’s not a river to go float down or a mountain to climb. Adventure can just be getting outside of your comfort zone and trying something new.

Embracing the Uncharted: Dan and Sam Mathews & Jacob Robinson – Episode #482

Narrator: Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast. This week, we’ll hear from Dan and Sam Mathews, full-time content creators who’ve built a life rooted in creativity, family, and a passion for adventure. From backcountry camping and RV renovations to raising their kids on the road, they’ve shared their journey online—offering an honest look at the challenges and joys of living boldly and encouraging others to step outside their comfort zones and choose a more adventurous route.

Later in the episode, we’ll hear from Jacob Robinson, founder of Dig World, a construction theme park where kids and adults can operate real equipment. Behind the fun lies a deeply personal story. After a life-changing medical crisis with their son Pierce, Jacob’s world shifted, pushing him to navigate grief, hope, and a new way forward. Today, Dig World isn’t just a park—it’s a place where families connect, challenges are embraced, and joy is celebrated in its purest form.

Let’s begin with Dan and Sam.  

Dan: My name is Dan. 

Samantha: And my name is Samantha. 

Dan: We are full-time content creators. We love the Lord. We have a podcast and social media channels, and at the end of the day, we just love to live adventurous lives and help our kids do the same thing—whether that’s going new places, seeing new things, or just new experiences. 

Taking the More Adventurous Route

Samantha: Dan and I met at church in Bible College in our friend group. He was very adventurous and would go camp and hike and canoe and kayak, and I liked that lifestyle. 

Dan: I grew up camping and exploring, and that was my whole childhood. During the summers, we would get on our bikes, me and my brother, and we would just go explore the woods or a local trail. Once you actually get past the comfort of what you’re used to—being able to bring everything in a car and now you have to survive for four days in the back country with only what you carry in—it’s just a different level. 

Samantha: I grew up with a single mom and two sisters, and we would go camping and stuff but not to the level that Dan would. But I loved his sense of adventure and desire to try new things and go new places, and through dating, that led us to doing different trips together.  

When we got married, we had many mentors in our lives that we would look up to and go to for advice and encouragement. One of those was Kirk Noonan. I actually worked under him at the nonprofit that I worked at. He was like, “My biggest piece of advice to someone is always take the most adventurous route.” And we’re like, “You’re speaking our language here,” because a lot of times people will sadly make a decision based on money, based on a title, a career, and something that maybe doesn’t matter eternally. But when he said, “Choose the most adventurous route in life,” he was like, “It may not make sense on paper, it may not make sense to others, but if it makes sense to the Lord and it makes sense to you and it’s something that you get excited about, go that route.”

“A lot of times people will sadly make a decision based on money, based on a title, a career, and something in that maybe doesn’t matter eternally.” – Samantha Mathews

Dan: There are a lot of times when there’s multiple doors open, and we don’t know which one to choose. As long as it’s in line with the Lord’s will and we have a peace about it, we just look through the door and go, “Which one’s more adventurous?” And then, we go from there. 

“There are a lot of times when there’s multiple doors open, and we don’t know which one to choose. As long as it’s in line with the Lord’s will and we have a peace about it, we just look through the door and go, ‘Which one’s more adventurous?’” – Dan Mathews

Samantha: Starting a family, we really wanted to incorporate that into our life. We wanted to start camping early, so we brought our kids camping since they were three months old. And it has been fun to share our memories and experiences with them and give them a desire for the same things that we had. 

Dan: A lot of mine and Sam’s early trips were down in Arkansas—floating through rapids, hiking up waterfalls. Right away, we knew we wanted to see more of the country, so we started traveling out to Colorado together, and eventually, decided to move out there. 

Samantha: We got there, and we realized we had no family around, we had no friends, the cost of living was crazy, so we couldn’t afford anything. He was working all the time, and I sat in my front room and I see these two young kids, and I’m like, “Is this the rest of my life where I have no adult interaction, adult communication with people—just these little ones?” I think as moms, we lose ourselves in those early years of raising babies—not to say that’s not an amazing thing and our God-given calling to raise children—but I needed something else. I needed a creative outlet. 

From RV Renovation to Social Media Sensation

Scrolling on Instagram, I’m seeing a lot of RV renovations, and I’m like, “Oh, how cool that they get to experience that. They’re gonna be outdoors and in nature and have the money to buy these RVs.” I started to save a bunch of stuff and just take notes of what they were doing. And that led us to actually purchasing a travel trailer and flipping it with the little money and time that we had. It gave me something to do and be creative with, but then, that launched me into sharing about it online. I was like, “Well, maybe if I just share the process, I can have a few friends online, because I didn’t have any in person.” And it was fun. I think I got up to 5,000 followers just from sharing our journey of renovating the RV and also our lifestyle and just parenting. We moved back to Missouri, closer to family, and we lived in an RV. I ended up quitting my nonprofit job, and I went full on into social media. I’m like, “Dan, I’m gonna go for this and give it everything I have and make it work.”

Dan: And I feel like with Sam, she’s all in on everything. When she gets an idea in her mind, she goes with it, and I love that about her. 

The Freedom of Downsizing

Throughout all of that, it’s been difficult to not just chase more—more followers, more money, a bigger house, just more things. One thing that really helped us in that is when we downsized and got rid of everything—I mean, we weren’t living in a mansion. We were living in a tiny little apartment in Colorado, and for what seemed like several years, we continued to just downsize. When people were looking at bigger houses and larger floor plans, we kept going smaller and smaller—from an apartment to an RV to a tiny house, back to an RV at one point, to Sam’s mom’s attic, which seemed like twelve square feet. When we downsized the first time, we were planning on moving back to Missouri, and we realized we just didn’t have room for everything. We said, “Our whole lives need to fit in this little bumper pole camper.”

It got to a point where it was time to leave. We were packing up the hour before we had to hit the road, and we just put all of these things that we thought were so valuable and that we had to have to survive right by the dumpster. It said, “Free.” We left, and we never thought about it again. We realized in that moment that what we have is enough. 

I remember reading a verse that said, “Lord, give me too much, and I’ll doubt You. On my own, I’ll become prideful. Give me too little, and I doubt You, doubt Your provision for me. Just give me my daily bread, what I need to survive every day. [Proverbs 30:7-9]” That verse, that motto kind of stuck with us. It doesn’t matter how much or how little we have. We could be in the biggest house in Missouri or we could be literally in a pop-up camper going campsite to campsite, and what we have is enough. And so, feeling contentment in that, knowing who we are in the Lord and that we have a great relationship as a husband and wife and a great, great, relationship with our kids, that’s all we need. Everything else is just extra. And honestly, the more you have, it can just become a distraction, and in a way that keeps you from fully experiencing what God has.

“The more you have, it can just become a distraction, and in a way that keeps you from fully experiencing what God has.” – Dan Mathews

Samantha: We want to be in a place where we need the Lord, where we are relying on the Lord. Sometimes those moments of little square footage or little things require you to trust the Lord more. So trying to keep ourselves grounded even with more, to just still be intentional about the things that we bring into our home. 

“We want to be in a place where we need the Lord, where we are relying on the Lord. Sometimes those moments of little square footage or little things require you to trust the Lord more. So [we are] trying to keep ourselves grounded to just still be intentional about the things that we bring into our home.” – Samantha Mathews 

Dan: We were watching a show about people who live in the back country in Alaska. There was a guy on the show who was a father of three, and he mentioned that success to them wasn’t about money, it wasn’t a number. It was about how much time you had to do what you loved. Right away, we both were like, “Oh my goodness, that’s it!” Going through your whole life—chasing a new job title or a bigger house or nicer car or more zeros in your bank account—at the end of the day, it just leaves you unfulfilled. Having time to do what we love, to share Jesus with people, to love on one another, to spend time with our kids, to go and see new places, that became our idea of success. Once we shifted and made money secondary to all of that other stuff, that’s when we actually saw more money coming in and more time freedom and more opportunities to go new places. Success has definitely evolved for us all throughout our marriage, but I think the one constant thing is that if we don’t have the time to do what we love and to spend time with each other, then all other measures of success don’t matter.  

“Going through your whole life—chasing a new job title or a bigger house or nicer car or more zeros in your bank account—at the end of the day, it just leaves you unfulfilled. Having time to do what we love, to share Jesus with people, to love on one another, to spend time with our kids, to go and see new places, that became our idea of success…Success has definitely evolved for us all throughout our marriage, but I think the one constant thing is that if we don’t have the time to do what we love and to spend time with each other, then all other measures of success don’t matter.” – Dan Mathews  

Beyond Comfort and Into Adventure

Adventure isn’t one-size-fits-all. Adventure is going to look way different for someone that lives in a big city [who] is very confined—there’s not a river to go float down or a mountain to climb. Adventure can just be getting outside of your comfort zone and trying something new. 

“Adventure isn’t one-size-fits-all. Adventure is going to look way different for someone that lives in a big city [who] is very confined—there’s not a river to go float down or a mountain to climb. Adventure can just be getting outside of your comfort zone and trying something new.” – Dan Mathews

For our son, adventure is like trying something new food-wise. It is the scariest thing to him, but watching him do it and then realize, “Wow, I like this!” And sometimes he doesn’t like it. But adventure can be a ton of different things. We just want people to understand that God doesn’t want us to live a stagnant life. If you look through the stories in the Bible, you can’t find anywhere God is like, “Hey, just stay where you’re at. Don’t change a thing. Long-term, we just want you to hunker down and be comfortable.” He’s always calling people. He’s telling people to go. We want people to understand that’s what He’s wanting from us. If all we do is desire comfort, it really is not healthy to just be comfortable all the time. You should be pushed. There should be things that scare you. There should be things that get your heart racing. When we do that, and when we’re in line with the Lord’s will, we just feel like that’s the most fulfilling life you can have. 

“We just want people to understand that God doesn’t want us to live a stagnant life. If you look through the stories in the Bible, you can’t find anywhere God is like, “Hey, just stay where you’re at. Don’t change a thing. Long-term, we just want you to hunker down and be comfortable.” He’s always calling people. He’s telling people to go.” – Dan Mathews

Jesus Listens, January 12th: 

Jesus, my loving Companion, 

I am on an adventurous trail with You. This is not an easy time, but it is nonetheless good—full of blessings as well as struggles. Help me to be open to all that You’re teaching me as I journey with You through challenging terrain. And enable me to let go of familiar comforts so I can say a wholehearted “Yes!” to this adventure. I want to make wise choices as I journey with You. I need to pray continually about these decisions, trusting in Your perfect wisdom. You know everything—including what lies ahead on my path. My busy mind tends to make various plans about the way I should go, but You are the One who directs my steps and makes them sure.

In Your infinitely wise Name,

Amen

 

Narrator: To learn more about Dan and Sam Mathews, you can follow their adventures on social media. And be sure to check out their new book, Always Choose Adventure: One Couple’s Journey of Chasing the Things in Life That Matter Most, at your favorite retailer.

Stay tuned to Jacob Robinson’s story after a brief message.

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Jesus Listens for Every Season!

Jesus Listens: Prayers for Every Season is a 365-day devotional prayer book by Sarah Young which offers topical prayers for issues like anxiety, grief, and gratitude and aims to help believers grow their prayer life through consistent, scripture-focused prayer.

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Our next guest is Jacob Robinson, who turned a journey marked by heartbreak and hope into something extraordinary. After his son Pierce experienced a life-altering illness, Jacob was inspired to create Dig World—a one-of-a-kind construction theme park near Houston, Texas, where kids and adults can operate real equipment and families can make lasting memories together.

Jacob Robinson: My name is Jacob Robinson, and I am the founder of Dig World in Katy, Texas, right outside Houston. It’s a construction theme park where we let kids and adults operate real construction equipment.  

Reprioritizing Life Through Loss and Illness

I grew up with an amazing family. There’s five of us. I moved a ton. My dad ran healthcare systems in hospitals across the country, and I told him actually a couple of weeks ago that  being where I’m at now, how thankful I am for that life experience—but as a kid, I don’t think I obviously appreciated it or probably enjoyed it too much. When you look back on it, it forced us to get outside of our comfortability bubble, make new friends, and learn how to try to flourish in those environments. 

I have some of the greatest parents in the world. They’re still some of my best friends, and they love and support my family in many, many ways, as well as my brothers and my sisters. But I think when you experience hard times—my mom had cancer when I was in sixth grade and watching my parents handle that, and then going into senior year, my dear friend Hannah was diagnosed with cancer, and she passed away in November of our senior year. When you’re seventeen years old and you’re in ICU rooms watching your friend get chemo, suffer, visibly and physically change, and watching this terrible disease take over, I think you reprioritize a lot in your life, whether you know it or not. I was forced into this situation to really wrestle with big questions with God, and one of the things I learned from that experience was how Jesus welcomes those tough questions. He says, “I see you, I understand you, my heart is breaking with you and I love you. And there is a bigger plan.”

“I was forced into this situation to really wrestle with big questions with God, and one of the things I learned from that experience was how Jesus welcomes those tough questions. He says, ‘I see you, I understand you, my heart is breaking with you and I love you. And there is a bigger plan.’” – Jacob Robinson

I look back now after going through things with my wife and our family and I go, “Man, those seeds were planted in me at a young age of really living out your faith and truly believing that God is still a good God.” Whether we can feel it or not, He is still in complete control.

Where You Turn When Life Collapses

My wife and I met at Texas A&M our freshman year. We dated all the way through college, got married, and then moved to Houston after school and both started working there. In 2015, we had our first kid, Pierce. Pierce was born in May of 2015 a happy, healthy baby boy. As new parents, we were trying to figure out everything, right? Why doesn’t he sleep? Is he supposed to be sleeping? Should he be sleeping now? Why is he crying again? All those things as first parents that you endure, suffer through, the rite of passage, all of the above. But just a sweet baby boy—just brought so much joy to our lives in those early years. Life was just fine, life progressed just normally. 

And then in 2017, our life turned upside down. We thought Pierce just had a normal cold. We took him to a couple of doctors who said, “Hey, listen, he’ll get over it. It’ll be okay. Just give him some rest and maybe some Tylenol” and things like that. On February 4th, on a Saturday morning, Melissa went into his room and found him unconscious in his crib. We rushed him to the local ER, and then eventually to Texas Children’s Hospital, where they told us that he had contracted bacterial meningitis and they weren’t sure that he was going to make it. A couple days go by. If you know anything about seizures, if you have one that lasts over five minutes, you sustain some type of brain damage. Pierce began to seize and seize for about eighteen hours straight before they put him into a medically-induced coma. He was in that coma for twelve days, and we were ultimately in the hospital for seventy-five days.

When we left the hospital, we left with a different little boy. Pierce is now profoundly deaf in both ears. He’s nonverbal, he’s epileptic, and he’s in a wheelchair. But he is the happiest little dude you’ll ever meet. He radiates joy. He sees life the way that I think Jesus wants us to see life. He doesn’t see your skin color. He doesn’t see how much money you make. He doesn’t see what car you drive or what your house looks like. He truly just wants to be with you. We always say, “If Pierce is with his people, he’s content.” That’s all he wants—to be with his people. And I think that’s how Jesus would want us to live. 

“Pierce is now profoundly deaf in both ears. He’s nonverbal, he’s epileptic, and he’s in a wheelchair. But he is the happiest little dude you’ll ever meet. He radiates joy. He sees life the way that I think Jesus wants us to see life. He doesn’t see your skin color. He doesn’t see how much money you make. He doesn’t see what car you drive or what your house looks like. He truly just wants to be with you, and I think that’s how Jesus would want us to live.” – Jacob Robinson 

Pierce had an amazing support group around him, from our family to friends and community,  but I think in those moments, you have to make a decision. Do you run towards Jesus or away from Jesus? Somebody said to me early on—their kid had cancer and they were at some hospital—”Hey, don’t try to figure out your faith on the seventh floor of a hospital,” and I think it’s a wise thing to look at. Don’t try to figure out your faith until your kid’s in a coma or wait until you have a life experience that turns you upside down. Figure out what your faith is and lean into that faith when those times come, because they will come, right? Jesus promises us that challenges will come. But how do we lean into that and how do we lean into Him? 

“Don’t try to figure out your faith until you have a life experience that turns you upside down. Figure out what your faith is and lean into that faith when those times come, because Jesus promises us that challenges will come. Lean into that, and lean into Him.” – Jacob Robinson  

A Father’s Dream – A Son’s Joy

So one of the things that Pierce has always loved is garbage trucks, dump trucks, and construction equipment. The greatest days here are Wednesdays and Saturdays when the garbage men come. You will see us on most Saturdays walking the neighborhood with him in his stroller, chasing the garbage men just so that he can watch them. We call it his “happy flappy.” He just flaps at these guys, and they love it and are super kind to him. 

Knowing that he had a love of garbage trucks, dump trucks, construction equipment, really the burden on my heart was how can we create something that brings people together? The idea of building a construction theme park came to mind and we said, “Yeah, let’s build a theme park. It can’t be that hard, right?”

I had zero experience in construction equipment and theme parks. I went into both just doing a ton of research and borrowing any information from anybody that I could pick their brain from—kind of going back full circle to being comfortable getting to know new people because of my upbringing and moving around so much. We truly learned everything from the ground up. 

[After] receiving over 240 rejections, we had to cobble together thirty-three different investments to get this thing up and going, and it was a long, long, long windy road. Bringing Pierce to the park while we were building it was always amazing because he would just love it, right? I get choked up thinking about it. Pierce is nonverbal, but one of the things that he can do with his brain injuries is he recognizes logos very well. He’s got his logos that he loves and his places that he loves—most of them involve chicken fingers and other food items—but one of the things that he loves is our Dig World logo. Whenever I’m wearing a shirt with Dig World or a hat, he always will reach out and grab it and try to pull it to him or it makes him smile and laugh. I think that’s the Lord’s way of letting my son talk to me about something that we’ve truly created together. 

“Pierce is nonverbal, but one of the things that he can do with his brain injuries is he recognizes logos very well. Whenever I’m wearing a shirt with Dig World or a hat, he always will reach out and grab it and try to pull it to him or it makes him smile and laugh. I think that’s the Lord’s way of letting my son talk to me about something that we’ve truly created together.” – Jacob Robinson 

More Than a Theme Park – A Place for Everyone

Really like, how far we have come… it is so cliche to say, but every day is like, “Pinch me,” where you’re like, “That’s my job today—I get to go and watch kids lose their minds in a great way.” It’s the coolest thing ever. So if you’re over the age of three years old, we want to have you out to the park. We’re going to let you drive a skid steer. We’re going to let you drop an excavator, a UTV, some mini tractors. We’re to let you go up on a boom lift. We’ll actually let you do these things—obviously in a very safe manner that we’ve re-engineered and designed [with] all the safety protocols—but really what we’ve created is an environment where families can come together. Grandparents bringing grandkids, aunts and uncles, college roommates, and long lost friends.  

We have two other kiddos that live in the special needs community, and one of the things that we wanted to do when we started the park was to create special needs nights where the whole family comes for free as long as somebody in the family has a disability or a special need. It’s one of those great nights that reminds you why we do what we do when you see these families come in. 

Living Up to the Calling – One Day at A Time

I don’t deserve an opportunity to create something fun and unique like this, but here I am, and I get to just try to do my best to live up to that calling. I think what’s so amazing about Jesus Calling and Jesus Listens is how much they speak to you that day. I think rather than starting our day [by] letting everything go crazy, and then hopefully remembering, “Oh yeah, Jesus…” Right? If we can we can stare and listen for a second and go, “You care about me way more than anybody in this world could ever care about me—not tomorrow, not next week, but today,”
what a great framework to start the day. 

“I don’t deserve an opportunity to create something fun and unique like this, but here I am, and I get to just try to do my best to live up to that calling…If we can we can stare and listen for a second and go, ‘You care about me way more than anybody in this world could ever care about me—not tomorrow, not next week, but today,’ what a great framework to start the day.” – Jacob Robinson

I’ll be reading a passage from Jesus Listens on May 22nd:

Jesus, my Rock,

I rejoice in my dependence on You! I’ve discovered that this is a place of wonderful security. I found out the hard way that depending on myself, others, or circumstances 

was like building my life on a foundation of sand. When storms came, I realized how flimsy my foundation was; it was totally inadequate to support me. Now I’m seeking to build my life on the rock—a foundation that is more than sufficient to support me during life’s storms.

In Your joyous Name, 

Amen

Narrator: To learn more about Jacob Robinson, visit www.digworldnation.com. 

If you’d like to hear more stories about choosing adventure, check out our interview with Bear Grylls.

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Next week: Lisa Harper

Next time on the Jesus Calling Podcast, we’ll hear from beloved Bible teacher Lisa Harper, who shares why theology isn’t just for scholars, and what happens when we change the way we approach the Bible. 

Lisa Harper: When you think of the Bible as a rule book or that it’s primarily about biblical ethics, then it becomes punitive. It’s something I have to get right. When you see it as primarily a love story, then everything changes.