Brinkman Adventures Season 3 - Review

We had a great time listening to the latest installment of the Brinkman Adventures This time we got to listen to Season 3.



We had the chance to listen to some of their adventures before....specifically their adventures in Season 2.




This time around, we got the actual physical CD's and not the downloaded version.  Even though I have figured out downloading and all of that fancy new technology.........I was happy that we were given the chance at actual CDs and could listen to them this way.  Either through the computer or in the van....well, I guess we could have used an actual old fashioned CD player too!

My laptop always played the CD without any issue, but our desktop kept trying to recognize it as a movie DVD for some reason.  I just had to manually open the Media Player and play it from there and it worked fine.

There are 4 CD's in this particular series with 12 stories, and each story is about 25-ish minutes long.

I love this audio drama series and this family for a few reasons.  The stories in this series are based on true life stories from missionaries around the world. (There are some details that have been changed to protect people - and I am sure there was a bit of dramatic license taken - but, for the most part, what you hear is what actually happened)  The voice work is done by a mixture of actors and the kids from the Brinkman family. (Little Charlie sounds exactly like one of the voices from The Wonder Pets!  He is actually one of the Brinkman kids though and not an actor.  And, as a mom with a big family, I did sort of love the real life naughty tidbits that happened with the family.  It is always funnier when it is happening to someone else, right?)   The stories are uplifting and inspiring...with a little bit of intrigue/adventure/angst thrown in.

I will tell you the truth here, I had intended for us to take this along and listen on our road trip to and from Florida.  I packed it.....and it never made it out of the movie bag.  Never.  Plastic wrapping was still firmly in place when we got home to Georgia.

Sigh.

So, we ended up parceling out the stories one at a time at home, usually in our quiet time after lunch....sometimes in our morning time before we started out school day.

These CDs are so well done.  The sound effects are cool.  The people/actors are awesome.  The stories are awesome.  (Occasionally, I would say there might be a little too much going on at a time and your ears aren't sure which thing to listen to, the background music, the people talking or the dishes clinking. But, that is what makes it so real and like an old fashioned radio theater production - which I used to LOVE.)

Still do.  Truly every time I heard their theme music and the deep announcers voice saying, "You have been listening to the Brinkman Adventures..." I was brought back to listening to the radio station KTIS, up in Minnesota.

The website has interesting background information if you decide you want to dig in more deeply to the stories you hear.  It is basically the stories behind the stories.  (Don't read them until you listen to the stories though or you only have yourself to blame for being  your own spoiler!)

Season 3 has 12 stories, 4 Cd's  (a few of them are Part 1 - part 2 stories though).

1.  God's Mule
2  Mountain Mover
3. The Silent Ambassador
4.  Translating Trouble
5.  Man-Up
6.  Acorns & Oaks
7.  A Saint's Story, Part 1
8.  A Saint's Story, Part 2
9.  Untouched
10. Busy Bees and a Bullhorn
11. Missionary Tourist, Part 1
12. Missionary tourist, Part 2

I don't want to tell you the stories of these missionaries, because the Brinkman Adventures CD will do a much better job.

But, I will tell you this, these CDs are a good reminder to Christians in the West that Christians in other places do not get to live like we do.  They just don't.  I think we know that, in theory, but when we are faced with real life stories of what people have to do in order to get Bibles, for instance, you just can't ignore it.  You have to gain an appreciation for how blessed we are in this country - despite the turmoil and some of the people in leadership positions here.  We still live in an amazingly blessed place.

It is also a great reminder to the fact that God is still working and doing amazing things.  All things are possible with God.  Prayer changes things.  God is at work....everywhere.  Really.  It is important to remember that.

This is just a fun thing for your whole family to be able to do together.  The material isn't too scary for the littles or too dull for the olders.  As Goldilocks would say, "It is just right."

You can find them on Facebook too.  There is a suggested donation of $27.99 for the Season 3 set or $17.99 for the downloaded Mp3 version.

Take a look at what other TOS reviewers thought of the Brinkman Adventures.

Brinkman Adventures - A Review

This is a review.



Brinkman Adventures is a fun, family-centric, missions based radio theater program.  That was a description filled with lots of words that

We got to listen to Season 2 of the Brinkman Adventures.

The Brinkman Adventures is the brain child of Ian Bultman, who thought it would be fun to follow along on these adventures with a large missionary family.  The Bultmans have 9 kids....so, I loved how accurate and real some of the family moments were in a large family.

There are 12 episodes on Season 2 and they follow the adventures of the missionary family as they travel around the globe and the various people and fellow missionaries that they meet along the way.  (Lots of the stories are based on real things that happened to missionaries)

They travel to Mexico, Belize, China, to name a few places.  They have normal family foibles of going on a road trip together.  They meet interesting people along the way.  They laugh.  They are scared.  They worry. They pray.  They praise.

These are little fantastic stories that are about 30 minutes or so long, which adds up to about 5 hours of entertainment.  Some of the parts are  even acted out by the real family.....some of the kids voices are just adorable.  Each episode, in addition to telling a real life story about missionaries, also teaches things like how to communicate within a family or what kind of bugs you find in Mexico.  I can't cover all of them, but each episode is full of little educational tidbits.

The titles of the episodes are:

1. The Mystery Ring
2. Blue Hat and the T-Shirt Bible
3. How Big is Your God, part 1
4. How Big is Your God, part 2
5. Mexico by Bus
6. Treehouse Academy
7. Pirates of Mayan Island
8. Sapphire Slaves, part 1
9. Sapphire Slaves, part 2
10. Hadi’s Choice
11. Castle of Secrets
12. On the Run

It is really like those old radio theater shows that they used to have......you know, back in the olden days! Sound effects, dramatic music and all.



Another cool feature is that you can read about the "real" missionary stories behind the episodes.  You can see exactly what parts of the story were real and what were fictionalized to tell the story.  We didn't do this for each episode, but one we did look up was  the Blue Hat and T-shirt Bible episode.

We had great discussion on this one because the kids really didn't realize that not everyone can happily sing about Jesus, go to church a few times a week, have Vacation Bible School, or read their Bible openly, like we can.  It was such a strange idea for my kids that in some places you have to be secret about God/Jesus/Bible.

The episodes are all interesting and filled with lots of real family type moments, but there are a few that were sort of....I guess....intense.....would be the right word.  Slightly scary to the kids, but what it did was allow for great discussion afterwards about the fact that these kinds of things (child slavery) really can happen.

If you become a fan of the Brinkman Adventures Facebook page, you can see some behind the scenes footage of the episodes being taped.

I love this one where the mom has a tough "mom moment".  It is cool to see a little bit of how these are recorded.  Some of the actors are really "actors", but the kids are the kids of the creator, Ian Bultman.  It is fun to see the kids lined up behind their microphones waiting to say their lines as they are getting in trouble from their "mom" who is holding a bullhorn!





We listened to these together as a family.  Sometimes as we ate breakfast, sometimes after breakfast while the kids were doing their math homework, sometimes while we ate our lunch, one time we even listened at bedtime (but honestly, that one time got the kids a little too riled up to head right to bed!  These would be a fantastic thing to listen to on road trips or if you have to travel and are in the car for about a 30 minute stretch.  I would make sure you have the full amount of time available, because otherwise, you will find yourself sitting in the parking lot at your destination....waiting to see how the story ends!


Want to listen to one of the episodes to get a feel for the Brinkman Adventures?  Check out Episode #9 The Provider  Per their website: In this episode, the Brinkmans run low on cash and Jack recalls the story of how God provided for him using a commercial fishing trip in Alaska.  Full of adventure and God's intervention, the Provider is a modern day telling of casting the net on the other side of the boat.

We really, really loved listening to these stories.  It is sort of a crazy thing nowadays to enjoy listening to a story without a screen to watch, but we loved it.  Some of us just sat and listened, some colored, some did math drills, but we all had moving pictures inside our heads of what was happening.....and it was awesome!

You can purchase a CD or get the download versions of Season 2 of the Brinkman Adventures.  They operate on a suggested donation basis.....so......the suggested donation for the CD is $25 and for the download version is $17.  Season 1 is also available for the same suggested donation amounts.

Take a look and see what other TOS Reviewers thought of the Brinkman Adventures.