Surviving With Jesus in The Wilderness

“To go be outdoors, do something outdoors, be on TV, and have a chance at winning $1 million. I mean, who wouldn't?” said Joseph Malbrough.

He wasn’t a celebrity—just a humble mechanic from Louisiana, known for his hunting, fishing… and quiet faith.

But when he stepped onto the national stage in Netflix’s survival series Outlast, everything changed.

"I'm an extreme outdoorsman. Like, that’s what I do,” Joseph explained.

It wasn’t just his strength in the wild that caught the world’s attention—it was his strength of character. In the harshest conditions, Joseph showed something rare on reality TV: unshakable faith, and an act of forgiveness that moved millions.

“I was always open about my faith from day one,” says Joseph. “Like, hey look, this is what I got. Y’all got knowledge, y’all got YouTube. Y’all got, you know, book smarts. You got experience from camp and hiking—it’s way cool. I lean on God. I lived it, and I actually wrote it on my jacket: Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6. ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Acknowledge Him in everything you do. Lean not on your own understanding, and God shall lead the way.’ I lived by that the whole time I was out there. And then, whenever they saw my unwavering faith, it started to rub off—because everybody, just one by one, started to share their stories about God and how they understood Him.”

Excerpt from Outlast:

“Cool if I pray?”

“Prayers are good—lead us, my boy.”

“Heavenly Father, thank you. We appreciate You for the journey with these amazing people. I come to You in prayer for safety for both the Bravo team and also the Delta team. I pray we will be victorious. Of course—we earned it with honor and integrity. In Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.”

They brought Joey in from another team. At first, he was a valuable addition—but it wasn’t long before tensions rose and conflict followed.

“Man, look, I love Joey to death—and shoutout to Joey, because he’s a great dude—but he was aggravating me,” Joseph recalls. “I kept telling the team, look, we’re going to mind the business that minds us. We’re going to take care of each other, and we’re just going to wait it out. As long as we focus on food, firewood, water, and helping each other—making sure everybody’s healthy enough to sustain their job in the camp—we’ll be alright. So him wanting to know what the other camp was doing… it was kind of annoying everybody, because we had our own little thing going.”

Joey quietly took the boat to visit the rival team. The move sparked outrage among Joseph’s teammates—who saw it as a betrayal—and they quickly began pushing to vote him out.

Outlast excerpt:

“They were kind of bickering and, you know, talking crazy to Joey—questioning him and all kinds of stuff, kind of jumping down his throat. And I was just kind of quiet, just looking at them. But I’m like—I’m looking at him—and I’m like, he ain’t telling the whole truth. I kind of let them bicker a little while, and Joey stormed off or whatever, walked away, and he was just sitting at the shoreline. And I went to wash my hands. And I love one-on-one. So when I saw him isolated, that was my opportunity to talk to him—and it just kind of flowed from there. I just, like, let God take my heart and my mouth. And He used it.”

“I ain’t gonna lie—I was disappointed, I was sad. But me being a man of God and trying not to judge, I just gave him the benefit of the doubt, even though I didn’t want to. I believe in forgiveness. That’s just the way of my life, man. I can tell you right now—this is a game where you play it however you want. Yeah. No rules. Play it however you want. But don’t—don’t let your mind get the best of you. Not one of us is on this team for something selfish. Every night you talk about your family. Every time we talk about what we’re going to do with the winnings, everybody says their family, their mom and dad, their kids. Ain’t nobody saying, ‘I’m going to buy a Ferrari.’ We’re putting ourselves through this stuff for a way greater purpose. So what you gotta do is dig deep, man. Dig deeper. It’s worth it. All this is worth it, bro. But one thing I won’t do is give up on you—or the people back in the camp. I won’t give up on y’all.”

Grateful to have made it through 32 days in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness, Joseph returned home—surprised by an outpouring of messages from fans around the world.

“I’m thinking I’ll be watching an intense survival show, and it’s going to be high intensity. But it’s like—I never thought I’d be watching a survival show and get moved by God… and it’d be me,” Joseph reflects. “And then the feedback started coming. I’m talking about thousands of people—and I’m not even exaggerating—sending me messages. I can’t even respond to them all.

Stuff like: ‘You helped me find my way back to my faith.’
‘You helped me forgive my uncle that, you know, molested me.’
‘You helped me forgive my best friend who betrayed me.’
‘You helped me come back to God—I used to be an atheist.’

So I’m looking around like—God, boy, You slick. I’m thinking I was going there for some money… but He really sent me there to expose my faith.”

Though he didn’t win the million dollars, Joseph discovered something deeper than survival. He learned to truly hear from God.

“Not having to worry about a cell phone, work, bills, job—nothing—like, that is something every man needs. To kind of decompress and have that one-on-one time and give God their full, undivided attention,” says Joseph. “Because listen—that type of silence is loud. Very loud.You can kind of hear yourself. You can hear God. Your thoughts flow. When you close your eyes at night, you really, really hear God. And you see God when you walk into the woods looking for something to eat—you hear God’s directions. Even when you’re just sitting on a rock looking out over the water—you get so much clarity on the reason you’re here and what God wants you to do, even just sitting there. God will say, ‘Peace, be still. I don’t want you to worry about nothing.’”

Today, Joseph remains humbled by how God used his time in Alaska to shape his story—and touch the lives of others.

“The whole time on that show, I didn’t know I was loving on God like that. I didn’t know I was really praying. I didn’t know I was really being compassionate. I didn’t know I was really giving grace,” Joseph says. “Like—God, what did You do? You done sat here and literally made me famous for worshiping You. I can’t do nothing else. Like—why would I?”