Sunday, May 7, 2023 PM
Sunnyside Baptist Church
Michael Dirrim
Transcript
Good evening everybody. Thank you for coming back. It is good to be together again
Tonight we're going to have a fairly normal Schedule we're going to start off with Thanksgiving.
So be thinking about what you're thankful for And we will have a hymn to sing and a scripture reading and instead of having our normal 15 minutes of fellowship time we're just going to go ahead and directly hand it over to our brother
Jonathan to come share with us about how things are going and That will give him enough time to share with us
Let us know how we can be praying for them and what we can rejoice with them about And also some opportunity for Q &A time.
We're trying to get as much Q &A time as we can because Norm is here Yeah We'll let you know when it start
Jonathan. Let you know when there's time for questions. Okay, Norm, okay And then after that, hopefully we will just translate fellowship time after It's all said and done.
Okay, so that is the plan tonight. So what are we thankful for tonight? And we are too
Good to see Norman Loretta with us. Very thankful anybody else Yes Yeah, I bet you are.
Yeah quality of life is much better with your parents It is thankful the geezers and the gulets made it back from Mexico Yes It was an encouragement to all of us
Nobody else Yes Friends and family and grandkids.
Yes Very thankful anybody else.
Yes Anybody else
I'm sorry. Yes Thankful for God's mercies in our travel that Jay and Chris are back.
Yes Thankful for the
Wilcox family. Yes, indeed Well, let's go to the
Lord together with Thanksgiving Heavenly Father we do. Thank you For all these many blessings that we've mentioned here tonight.
We thank you that you are such a generous and loving Heavenly Father Giving to us all these many blessings all because of your son
Jesus Christ And we rejoice in these blessings and give our
Adoration to you and ask that you would help us as we sing together and read your word together
And Lord, we pray that you would bless Jonathan as he comes and shares with us
How things are going and how it is that Christ's kingdom is on the advance and expanding in parts
Beyond here and we pray all these things in Jesus name. Amen I love that.
We count our blessings on Sunday nights and talk about what we're grateful for and What better way than coming to the fount of our many blessings?
So there's a handout in the back. If not, it's Psalm or hymn 2 in your hymnal come now fount of every blessing
Come Every blessing to my heart
To sing thy grace streams of mercy
Never ceasing Calls for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some Melody a sonnet sung by flaming tongues above Praise his name
Fixed up on it name of God Hither to thy love has blessed me thou hast brought
Me to this place And I know
Thy hand will bring me Safely home
Jesus saw me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God He to rescue me from danger
Brought me with his precious Oh to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be
Let thy goodness Like a feather
Bind my wandering heart to thee
Prone to Wander Lord I feel it prone to leave
God I love He is my heart
They can see Seal it for Okay, so tonight's reading is going to be from second
Kings 2nd
Kings chapter 3 verses 1 Through 14. I saw
James running in to read but Dylan asked me on a different Social media, so I don't you know, you know
I didn't sorry James Wasn't trying to take away his blessings.
I just got oh, he's crying. Okay, I'm sorry Never offend the man that makes the coffee
All right second Kings chapter 3 we're gonna be reading verses 1 through 14
Now Jehoram the son of Ahab became king over Israel at Samaria in the 18th year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah and reigned 12 years and He did evil in the sight of the
Lord But not like his father and mother For he put away the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had made
Nevertheless, he persisted in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who had made
Israel sin for he did not depart from them Now Misha king of Moab was a sheep breeder and he regularly paid the king of Israel 100 ,000 lambs and the wool of 100 ,000 rams
But it happened when Ahab died that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel So King Jehoram went out of Samaria at that time and mustered all
Israel Then he went and sent to Jehoshaphat king of Judah saying the king of Moab has rebelled against me
Will you go with me to fight against Moab? And he said I will go up.
I am as you are my people as your people my horses as your horses Then he said which way shall we go up and he answered by the way of the wilderness of Edom so the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom and They marched on that roundabout route seven days and there was no water for the army
Nor for the animals that followed them and the king of Israel said alas
For the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab But Jehoshaphat said is there no prophet of the
Lord here that we may inquire of the Lord by him so one of the servants of the king of Israel answered and said
Elisha the son of Shaphat is here who poured water on the hands of Elijah and Jehoshaphat said the word of the
Lord is with him So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him
Then Elisha said to the king of Israel What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother
But the king of Israel said to him no for the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab and Elisha said as the
Lord of hosts lives before whom I stand Surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah.
I would not look at you Nor see you. Well, we can praise the
Lord. We have a king Lord looks with Oh Superb regard
God would not have anything to do with us And would not give us his word if it weren't for our
King Praise be to God. Let's pray father. We thank you for this day. We thank you for the word.
We thank you for The way in which you shepherd history into the fold of your glory
And we pray that you would help us recognize our place in this your history
And I pray that you would help us to be aware and praying and Laboring and the work that you give us to do
Now we pray for our brother Jonathan as he comes to share with us that you would give him Great encouragement and know help him to know how much he is loved and appreciated here at Sunnyside We pray these things in Jesus name.
Amen Jonathan good evening
Hopefully we're gonna get a PowerPoint up there Okay, there you go So I'm gonna try and make sure that we leave enough time for question
You know questions and answers Especially for Norman. He traveled a long way Not as far as I did though Norman say
I'm gonna give you a whistletop stir stir through what we've done in the last few months And then a few thoughts from the book of Revelation before Before we get to the
Q &A So a lot has happened and I could stop on probably on any one of these pictures that I'm going to show and spend half an hour talking about it
But I'm not going to I'm gonna try not to at least But there's you know, there's a lot of different things happening.
So we began the year With a new grandbaby That's grandbaby number nine.
That's Hannah with her two boys Caleb What did we know
Caleb Luis? It's his name. He was born December the 21st. So technically that was last year
But you know, we saw the new year coming that way. So that was a lot of fun to be able to see To see him
You know fairly early on Then I started traveling
I went to Colombia and I was there for several weeks
I'm part of the Colombian field leadership, even though I don't live there I'm also part of the regional leadership.
And so my role in Colombia is is discipling the leaders that are there during the time there we had our field conference and This couple
Wayne and Patsy Gibson Retired after 50 years on the field 46 years working with the
Pia Poco Indians in Colombia out on the Eastern Plains and There are now
I don't know how many churches amongst the Pia Poco I mean lots we're talking
Maybe a hundred or so. It's a big tribe goes from Colombia into Venezuela and They've they've finished up and they're the
Pia Poco that they've just moved back to Sanford Rachel And I saw them last week And they had actually like zoomed with their disciples in Puerto Anirida, which is a village right on the border with between Colombia and Venezuela and The Disciples are showing them they were printing books.
They were preparing materials They're doing all sorts of stuff. So it's really exciting to see so it was great to actually recognize them and give them
You know just that Send off from the field and for what they they've been doing there
They're good friends of ours And I've spent a lot of time with Wayne learning a lot from him from His 50 years of experience on the field
So then after the field conference, I went to FUSA or FUSA Gasuga, which is where we got the training program in Colombia So we're training missionaries, you know
Columbia we have Colombians Panamanians and Ecuadorians Peruvians Venezuelans all training in that training center and So I've been working with all of the
Latin American training programs over the last two or three years Basically since Kovac we've been meeting online months a week and so I spent some time with the guys in Colombia and working with their curriculum working with their staff handbook they've been functioning there for over 30 years without the staff handbook and So it's all by kind of word -of -mouth and It is you know
The ideas of what you should do and shouldn't do kind of gets bloated After that long and so we spent some time and I couldn't continue to work with them online
Now that's one of the one of the challenges and one of the blessings of this new technological age is
I can be any anywhere in the world and I can be meeting with people anywhere else in the world
It's a blessing, but it's a challenge when they're on a different time zone and You really don't want a meeting at 2 o 'clock in the morning
It has happened but not very often I'm glad to say Okay, so I went to Los Angeles But not the
Los Angeles you're thinking of This is a Los Angeles a very small village
Los Angeles in the Amazon Basin And this is again. This is in Colombia This is me with Jordan Keefe.
He is a third -generation missionary And so both his parents actually are second -generation missionaries
And So he works with the tikkunah people Sorry, that's not true.
He works with the tukano people the tikkunah another group The tukano people it's there's a whole language group language family related to tukano and So in this village
Which we'll see pictures of it in a minute in this village there are at least four or five different tribal
Cultures and languages Present in the village Okay, so we'll see a picture of the pastor in that village in a minute
Fulvio he is Tujuka he's not tukano at all.
He's a Tujuka Indian. His wife is tukano and a lot of the
Marriages are that way that they they're intermarried between different Different cultures and it presents a whole different way of doing things a whole different challenge
Which we'll talk about a little bit bit of that in a minute So we flew out to the the city of Mito in over on the edge of the
Amazon Basin This is there you go. So before we went we had to get the important supplies and This is one of those things that's going on is
Okay, Jordan had to get doughnuts because there was somebody looking after his house Yeah, and what do you do for somebody who's looking after your house while you're away?
Well, you have to take them something and this is what the guy asked for Because I want doughnuts so You know you think well, why do they want dunking doughnuts in the middle of the
Amazon jungle Why not? So so we flew out there so we had the one flight from Bogota to Mito and then we got on a
Cessna 185 for a short 25 minute flight into the into the jungle
And so it was you know, it was a it doesn't seem that long
Half an hour in a small plane, but that same trip
Takes three and a half days on the river And so you will see a clip in a minute of us going back we couldn't go back
From the airstrip we landed in because it's too short So we had to go about three and a half hours
Up river to another strip to be able to get out So the reason we went out there is
Jordan and I've been talking about doing this Not exactly a workshop, but having totally changed
So so that was a conversation that we had the reason I put this picture up is it really very interesting because all of the
Tucano family if you like that family of languages and so on they all believe that they they have a common ancestry and Their common ancestry is this that the their ancestors
Came up river from the sea on the back of a giant anaconda and The giant anaconda kind of just dropped them off at different points along the river and That's where they come from So we had a quite an interesting discussion with them because I said so what about People that don't live in the
Amazon Basin You know, which there's lots of people and they know about them now and they were like Never really thought about that So that was if you like that was their world view
And a lot of people obviously there still believe that way and Just in case we think well, that's kind of silly.
Why would they think that? Let's just think about what other people think around us here Not it's not any sillier
So anyway, so that was an interesting discussion The the village of Los Angeles this the
Evangelical Church was started there about ten years ago And then somewhere
I think it was five or six years ago the Catholic Church Tried to get the evangelicals thrown out of the village
Okay, because they said they're not following our traditions They're not following the tradition the tribal traditions which for them included
Catholicism Interestingly enough, even though the Catholics haven't been there much longer than the evangelicals
But it's it's interesting again. It's one of those worldview clashes that's going on That those the cat there is no priest all the time
There there's like a lay reader Whatever they call them something like that From the
Catholic Church who lives there Doesn't have a good reputation. He joins in all of the parties and so on but he's there and he
You know rings the bell to get everybody to go to church Sunday morning But so it's a challenging situation there because you have the traditional tribal culture then you have
Catholicism thrown on top of that and Then you have some people who join the evangelical church and They don't understand any more than the people going to the
Catholic Church for different reasons Happens here in the state state, doesn't it?
So so that's that's why we were there talking through some of those things Trying to trying to figure out how to be more effective in Evangelism in discipleship and so on So this is a picture of in the middle there
You know, we were watching I was out there while the earthquake in Turkey was happening and we were watching some of that They watch, you know
National Geographic programs we watched something about this vet treating exotic animals here in the in the
US and The amount of money that people were putting into pets was
I mean, it was just phenomenal and You know you you look at that and you think who are these crazy people?
Yeah But this is what they're learning about You know, this is if you like For a lot of people that's now what they're thinking is of a civilization
Kind of crazy But so so we're there we were there looking for you know ways to help them to address some of those issues
Not everyone was quite as interested as I was This is one little girl in the church service
Falling asleep There we go
So we're gonna go upriver as this Yeah on this it's upriver that way
But if we went downriver 15 minutes we'd be in Brazil Okay, that's more or less where we were and so just to give you an idea of some of the stuff you all the
Context of where we were staying So we went the days that we were there when we got there the river was quite low and Had we had it not rained
We would have had to go through eight sets of rapids to get to the airstrip
Okay, as it was it had rained and so we only had to go through three Okay, the river goes up and down really quite a lot
And so the time that I was there it had risen about six feet We you know because We were praying
I think quite a lot But we didn't have to do eight sets of rapids Anyway, so that's what it was like there so then okay on the left you have
Yeah, your left on the left you have The airport in we do that's what we would consider an airport on the right we have the airport in the village that we took off from That's our stuff waiting for the plane to arrive
Bit different Okay There we go
So I got back from that trip we had some friends who worked with ethnos 360 aviation
It's a lot easier to say NTMA, but you know they work with the aviation arm
And they came over to the UK For a missions conference at the training center there
We knew Juanita from our time in Colombia Years and years ago, and so they came and stayed with us, and we took them around a few of the sites around where we live
Yeah, and Rachel Did her normal hosting or hostessing thing?
Which is very good at So we had some fun there, and then of course we had some fun
Ruben our oldest English grandchild we have seven grandchildren here in the in the
States and We now have three in In the
UK and so he's the oldest of the the British contingent Anyway so you can tell he can barbecue plastic food
Very well oh And I mean, but yeah while I was there when we're back in England we got
Logan Logan Ezra is our tenth grandchild so So then
I hit the road again about four just four weeks ago For the astute among you
It says this time to Bolivia But on the picture it says I was in Panama.
That's because I was in Panama I Was in Panama on my way to Bolivia.
That's how I flew But obviously you know that's kind of You know being my life recently is you know figuring out how to get to places?
And spend time there, I just in Bolivia for just a week and and it was
Really it was a good time I just there for it was just less than a week and the reason
I'd gone there is because the field of Bolivia is our oldest field as an organization and They're struggling they don't have very much leadership or very many people in leadership there and They're not sure quite what they should be doing and How to move ahead
So the reason I say it's an historic moment is because We had the
Bolivian leadership there we had representatives of the Brazilian leadership there and we had representatives most of the
Paraguayan field leadership there and they were all talking about how they could work together
Now you might think well isn't that what we do in theory
But in practice, you know historically what's happened is that so many fields they
Think just within the country that they're in and so This is for me.
This was historic because that we had three fields Talking about how to work together and how to coordinate their efforts in lots of different ways
So one of the things that we weren't actually talking about during this week, but just to give you an idea is
Is when we think of the Amazon Basin, which is considered to be one of the one of the least reached areas of the world with the gospel
Outside of the 1040 window. It is the least reached area of the world.
Okay So the Amazon Basin It's mainly in the south
You've got Bolivia. You've got Brazil Yeah, then as you go up you've got
Peru Yeah, you've got Colombia Yeah, Ecuador Venezuela and so on and So what we're seeing one of the things that I'm seeing because I work at a regional level is that we have works
Tribal works which we have it in more than one country And so we've got different teams working in different countries doing the same thing
And so that seems like why are we Doing that.
We're not actually thinking about how to Coordinate our efforts and so we're actually having opportunities to work in Bolivia Peru Colombia particularly
To work with either with other organizations or to work with within global partners to train indigenous people as missionaries
Okay, so that's that's going to be a coordinated effort, which is kind of You know taking slowly taking off But it's very exciting to be involved in anyway,
I'm not going to keep talking about that. Otherwise, I won't stop Okay, so then I was back to the
UK for a week for safety training for new missionaries You know
Rachel and I are involved in doing this every year in the UK this year I'm hoping to help out doing it in Colombia and in the
States later in the year so We were back there for the week
And we actually stayed with Rachel's parents. I'll mention them. I think at the end
So we were there for a week and then There's a week missing in there we went to Germany as well for international security meetings and then last week
We got we were in Sanford, Florida for international leadership meetings if you look carefully at that picture, which you probably
Might be able to you'll notice that we're not in those in there. Yeah, you notice that is like did he put the wrong picture up?
No, because what it is is I'm not on the international ministry team But I work for them and so very often we're invited to be in their meetings
Because because of what I do I have to represent them and Then I have to report back to them so that's why we were there and You took the picture, oh no,
I took that one. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I took it. It's good, isn't it? Yeah, okay, so I'll stop there as far as this is what that's what we've done so far
Just to bring everybody up to date Rachel's mother had a heart attack about four weeks ago something like that She's been operated on she had bypass surgery her dad has
Alzheimer's and so We are now wrestling with the
You know the confusion I'm supposed to for the rest of this year. I've got trips planned for Colombia Bolivia Mexico and the
States We don't know how that's going to work if Rachel can travel with me or not
So we definitely appreciate your prayers For clarity with that because Rachel's parents really can't be left as long as her mom is
Still recovering and not full strength. She they really can't be left alone
And yeah right now Rachel's brother is there Looking after them so that we can be here
Okay, so Just a few thoughts from the book of Revelation, I don't know
If you've ever thought about this for some reason I just got stuck on this and It's just one of those things sometimes, you know a bit of a verse or something you start thinking why does it tell me this
Yeah, and so at the end of verse 1 of Revelation 21 it says and the sea was also gone
Yeah, it says I saw a new heaven and a new earth the old old earth had passed away and the sea was also gone
Why Why does he say that? Yeah, what what's the significance in in the sea also having?
Cleaned up lots of reasons probably a lot more theological than I'm going to tell you now But you know just a few thoughts
I don't know if you've ever watched the blue planet or any of those Programs where they talk about the all the stuff in the sea.
Have you ever seen those? Yeah, and and I mean it's kind of fun because Because you hear somebody like David Attenborough or so David Attenborough talking about you know
I mean, I remember one thing, you know, they're talking about this. There's the events at the bottom of the ocean spewing out boiling
Sulfuric acid Yeah, you seen that one? Okay, and so and so the the narrator says
Surely nothing can live there Sulfuric acid boiling water.
Oh look There's something there There's these snails
Just sitting there by the edge of these vents and they're they're like somehow not just surviving
That's where they choose to live Yeah, and then you see these other things you see these dark
You see creatures that you know when the when those submersibles go down They go all the way down and the pressure on those things.
It's incredible And they keep finding new new creatures
Yeah, and so you think about it, you know Let's just say that the earth is 6 ,000 years old.
Let's say it's 12 ,000 years old, whatever for all of that time things were there
Yeah, so why did God do it? You know for me it told me one thing it tells me is that he creates things for himself
Before anything else he does it for himself because he enjoys it. You know
God creates Firstly because he's a creator That's what he is he does what he is yeah, and And he doesn't do it because you know somebody's telling him to it's just it's just fun
And I sometimes wonder how much of what we do We do out of drudgery
You know Instead of just because it's fun so he creates for his own good pleasure and The last point there is that I've got written up is
God's economy is different from ours So I don't know about you We Some of you are still some of you are old enough to remember
When we When we lived in Colombia we
Basically, we lost everything we had Yeah, because we were Out in a budget in Colombia, and then we came out ratio was six.
She had hepatitis And we could never go back there Because of the guerrilla situation in Colombia, so then we moved to Panama so everything that we owned that we had left in a budget
Is still there? Probably not anymore Okay, and so you think what a waste
Yeah, and some of you I know you've you know You've lost homes and so on through tornadoes and so on that type of thing and you think what a waste
But then you see you think about that verse And it says and the sea was no longer there
Why did God do that when he knew one day he's just gonna get rid of it all
Because his economy is so different from ours Yeah, and he's looking forward.
He's thinking of something else That's going to be so much better So then if we move on in Revelation 21 in verse 6
We hear this is Jesus speaking and he says it is finished. Does that sound familiar?
Yeah, where else does Jesus say it is finished On the cross, yeah, but you know what?
That's what I thought But you're wrong. I mean, it's the same in English, but not in the
Greek In the Greek what we have in in John 19 30 where Jesus hung on the cross and he says it is finished
He used this term telio Which in my best Greek accent, of course Okay, and that that term telio, it's the same it has the same root is when we it talks about us being perfect complete
Yeah Okay, and so he says on the cross he says it is finished.
It's done and what he's saying is It's a little bit like when you pay your mortgage off.
Yeah, or your last car payment Yeah, it's done
What do we leave? salted Yeah, but in Revelation 21 6 the term he uses is this one
Ginnemey And Ginnemey is different again. It's saying it's like it is finished, but it's like When you're going on a long trip and you have to get your car ready
You know have you checked the oil check your tire pressures make sure there's water all those things
Yeah, and at the end would you do say it's done Okay different word and the difference that I mean
I see here is that it's looking forward Yeah, so So Jesus says
In John again, he says I'm gonna go Build you a place
Yeah, I'm gonna get a place ready for you And then here he says It's done
It's ready So the end the end of the book of Revelation and It's one of those things so when you read a story normally you get to the end of the book you think oh
I wish there was more if it's a good book You know you think that was so good.
Yeah This time there is more Yeah, this time basically what we have in the
Bible is just the first chapter Yeah, so what
Jesus was saying basically was let the party begin Yeah, you say
It's done. Everything is done Everything is prepared and from now on We can party we can have fun together
So for me, that's an encouragement. That's that's what I want people to understand
Hopefully, that's what you want people to understand, too Okay, I'm done talking well maybe
I've left some time for Q &A And feel free to ask Rachel questions,
I know I've said everything so far, but She's told me what to say so you know
You know if you have questions otherwise, I'll just keep talking Stunned into silence no there you go
It's gonna be a long long process, but I So I was in Peru when was
I there last year? And I sat down with a couple of Huni Kuin Indians pastors
They have I think it's 14 missionaries so indigenous missionaries working around Pucallpa in Peru and then into Brazil.
They've got like two in Brazil and the rest of them are in in Peru and so The they said to me one of the one of them said to me he says
Said we've been here obviously a long time. We've seen the foreign missionaries.
They come and go Yeah, they'll stay for five ten years whatever and then they leave The Peruvians same thing they'll come and then they'll leave
If this job is going to get done who's going to do it? It's gonna have to be us We live here this is where we're from Plus, you know, they said they recognized that there are places for example in Brazil there are places where Foreigners and by foreigner that means non -indigenous people can't live in an
Indian community Okay, but if you're indigenous
The government can't stop you living there So they can just say hey, I'm just visiting my cousins, which is probably true
And so they can go and they can begin to preach and teach and disciple in those communities
So so that's that's their vision that they they already have So I was
I asked them about it I said so how are these churches doing in these communities
Not very well. They're not really doing very well. So we talked more and I asked well
Why do you think that is never thing? How much training have these people had the missionaries had and so on this really haven't had any training?
So these are people going wanting they're excited Because they want people to understand the gospel they want people to be saved
But they don't have the tools to be able to do it effectively and so they were like can you guys help with that?
It's like we have an open door. We have that same open door in Bolivia This year when
I go to Bolivia, I'll go back out to somewhere with Where they're training indigenous people
For that just for that so we've got that in Paraguay in Bolivia in Peru and Then what we just saw in Colombia.
So it's it's isolated in a sense of These groups don't necessarily know each other
Yeah, but obviously God is doing something and beginning, you know to bring something together
Yeah, any other questions?
They're indigenous So they're they're not like Americans or Brits or yeah, but they are from there
They're asking for training. Yeah Yeah, not me particularly but as the organization.
Yeah Ah Ten Right now we have a ten.
Elias is ten Isaiah is still seven.
Jai is gonna be six tomorrow Jocelyn is four Alistair is nine.
Randy's seven Hadassah is now six Ruben is gonna be three in July.
Caleb is four months old and Logan is a month Did I pass the grandpa grandpa test
Norman you had a question Yeah Yeah.
Yeah, I'm There's no way I can do that on my own In fact, it's quite possible.
I won't do much of it myself at all There's quite a few people Who are
Interested and we're getting more people who are interested in in doing You know that kind of work.
One of the questions that I put to new missionaries when they're looking for somewhere to work is
Do you want to plant a church? Or do you want to see a church planted?
Yeah, so in other words, do you want to be the one who everybody
Everybody says hey, there's a church planter. There's a mission. That's the that's the real missionary Or are you willing to be the person who?
Helps other people to get there either in a support role in the teaching role at a training role or something like that And if you're willing to do that, then there's no limit, you know to the ways that God can use you
Every situation is different Every context, you know has its Has its challenges
When the Catholic Church is involved there's a lot of antagonism In some communities
And depending where you are, for example, I know there's a there's a community Yaki Indians in northern
Mexico They are very closed. They don't want any outsiders They don't care it's not just about religion they just don't want outsiders there
We want to put missionaries there Now when we do that They won't be missionaries
There'll be something else. They'll have to they'll have to have a profession. They're probably doctors or some sort of a socio -economic
Platform, you know, and they'll do that But then they'll begin to you know be witnesses
You know to be witness with their lives long before They can do that through their words
But yeah in some places in the you know, there are places where the people are open to it very open to it
You know, I don't know if that answers the question Any other questions, yes
It varies again on the situation that we're talking about but for for a
For a church to be healthy then They have to have a
Bible At least the New Testament preferably the
Old Testament all the healthiest churches have a whole Bible go figure You know, so that's that and we're talking a
New Testament project takes a roughly 15 years And so then if you're going to do an
Old Testament project we're talking a lot longer and at this point
Translation is very much limited to people who speak English or Either the first language or as a second language
Because nearly all of the best translation helps are in English or in German funny enough
But you know, we have everything in English, too You may have heard of mother tongue translators
And having teams of mother tongue translators That works when you have somebody who understands exegesis
Who understands how to read what this passage is actually talking about and then how to put that?
those concepts into the other language and then Having a mother tongue or team of mother tongue translators
They help to actually word it and craft it so that meaning is clear in In that language in the target language
So that is that is a massive need Yeah another
Another need is this idea of worldview of teaching in a way that You're targeting the worldview and you're not just The the illustration that I used we're out in Los Angeles Was I said if you imagine you've got a lemon tree because there was one right there so it's kind of handy so it was imagine you have a lemon tree and If you start talking about baptism if you start talking about Living right now tithing, you know about how you ought to behave and so on I said that's like hanging bananas on a lemon tree
Yeah, and you don't change anything because eventually the bananas rot and fall off And it's still a lemon tree
Yeah, if you don't change the roots you're not going to change the tree and so teaching at a worldview level and understanding how to do that and understanding how to Understand somebody else's worldview is again.
It's one of those things that that They need to learn it could be it could be there are a lot of stories that Kind of look like maybe somewhere along the line they were a flood tradition that got
Changed in some way it got morphed There are a lot of I know like in in Panama the
Nassau believe that That they were sent away because God was angry with them and there was sent away and they followed this big eagle
Which eventually turned into their goddess and it turned into this physical rock
Which they still do all of their? sacred practices that that rock Okay.
Well, you can kind of see that link back. Oh, yeah when God got angry with them It's like okay.
This is the rest of the story, you know type of thing And so it could well be that that way and that's where it came from Yeah Any other questions
Yes Yeah, it's a good question.
The simple answer is yes and Just the same as here
Yeah, just the same as you know, if you witness to your average
American Sometimes you'll see a dramatic change. Sometimes you won't Like I say, it's the worldview
Change is where you want to see it first. You don't want somebody to give up smoking
Just because they think oh well Christians don't smoke Yeah, I mean you want there to be a profound change in okay
I'm my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? There's implications to that and it's not just about smoking.
You know, it's about exercise. It's about diet. It's about lots of things so so That worldview change is then going to prove, you know provoke if that's the right word that sounds very
Spanish Bet is not here. She'd defend me You know, but it's going to cause
Behavioral changes, but that's not going to be that shouldn't be the first thing that we look for but sometimes the you know, the they will change very
Quickly and very dramatically a lot of it depends on how they're taught if they're taught
Through the Bible before they're saved and they understand the story. They understand that God Created them for a purpose that was to know him and to glorify him and the sin entered the world and that destroyed if you like that Twisted that out the image of God in us and so God now brings it, you know, you look at the story and you see
Jesus coming and he dies on the cross and he pays for our sin and He gives us an opportunity now to do what we were supposed to do at the beginning
Which is to know him and to glorify him and then we see all the way through this like we're just talking about in Revelation Where we're with him forever and we get to glorify him forever if they understand that flow of the story
Before they get saved when they get saved then you tend to see a much more dramatic change
Yeah, because all of those things the pieces were in place, oh I'm supposed to live a way that is worthy
Of the person who saved me. Okay, my time has gone any other questions?
What if the global partners? average age Around 60,
I would guess Yeah, there's some I know there's one guy that just had his 50th birthday
And there's others who are Getting close to 70 But it's kind of in that rage range
Yeah, because of the experience that they've had and so on and what they've done where they've been working and so on.
Yeah Yeah woke influence.
I don't think so. No Yeah Yeah, I wouldn't say so Well Jonathan Rachel, I know y 'all didn't come
Primarily for us when you know, the grandkids are in the area and we appreciate you making a pit stop
Coming by and spending time with us That was encouraging to hear what the
Lord is doing very encouraging to hear about the indigenous leadership training others and Realizing Their own
Ability and responsibility to cooperate with one another really like to see these generation after generation of Christianity spreading
There was a report not so long ago that encouraged me I think it was a missionary team out of Venezuela that went to North Africa and when we've got
We've got missionary teams going from Venezuela to North Africa to evangelize the the Muslims Praise God, you know praise the
Lord. So that's these are good signs of what the Lord is building and I want to close us now with specially praying for Jonathan and Rachel And for the work that they're doing okay, and it'll be dismissed
Heavenly Father I thank you for the time that we've had tonight And we thank you that you indeed
Do what you do in accordance with your own character all for your own pleasure and we rejoice in The testimony that we've heard tonight to be once again assured that that Jesus is building his church upon the rock of his gospel and the gates of Hades cannot prevail against it and Though there are many challenges and many difficulties
Lord. We know that you are Faithful to your promises and bringing these things to pass and so we pray for Jonathan and Rachel and pray that she would give them encouragement and wisdom and health opportunity and blessing
I pray especially for Rachel's parents that she would bring healing and stability and Everything that they need as you would bless those who are taking care of them and that you would
Help their children to honor their parents in this needy time already do thank you for Jonathan and Rachel pray a special blessing upon their work as They continue to train others that they would be effective in The work that they've been called to do well
We thank you for this time that we've had together tonight. We pray these things in Jesus name Amen All right, we are dismissed