Need God in the Philippines

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Welcome to another edition of the Wrap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rapoport, the

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Executive Director of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member.

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You can check out our over 50 heavily vetted podcasts at christianpodcastcommunity .org.

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Many of you know that you've been listening to older episodes for the past few weeks where I have been interviewed on other shows.

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You know, if you were listening, that I was doing that because, well, I was not around.

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I was not home. I was over in the Philippines, and it was a wonderful time, except for the

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ER visit. Maybe that was not the best time. I will admit that our hosts did warn us not to drink tap water, but I thought if I boiled it, it would be okay.

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I was wrong. And so, yeah, there's two really dumb things that I did on the trip, and we could maybe laugh about them through this episode.

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One was I decided to take some water, boil it, and make tea. Yeah, that ended up landing me in the hospital with dysentery trying to get some medicine.

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The other really dumb thing I did is I went into a sauna and brought my phone, and I was without a cell phone for two weeks.

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In a foreign country, I discovered how much I depend on my phone when

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I travel because I didn't know that I couldn't find out that my flight was canceled until I landed in Atlanta.

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So yeah, traveling home was longer, but it was a wonderful time, and we're going to talk, well, maybe a little bit about that in this episode because what

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I did was I brought on some of the gentlemen from Need God Philippines, and we're going to talk about what

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Need God Philippines, their mission, what they do, and so we might talk a little bit about my trip because we're going to talk about what they do, and it's a lot.

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So I wanted you guys to get to know some of the folks that are part of the team of Need God in there in the

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Philippines. So we have with us Pastor Dennis, and I'm not going to butcher their last names, just if they want to give their last name, that's up to them, but I know better.

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But Pastor Dennis and Nel, so welcome to The Rat Report, gentlemen. Hi, thank you for having us,

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Andrew, and we'll miss you here. Well, I miss you guys.

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Dennis, you weren't part of it. I didn't see you there because you have your own church, but I did get to zoom in, or not zoom in, but video call in with the church where Nel attends and see a lot of the faces there, and of course, a lovely young lady that we'll just call

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Jill. It's not her real name, but it's what she goes by, and she showed me all the food

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I was missing already, because after church, over at Nel's church, they always have lunch, and I was missing the people first and the food second.

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Nel, welcome. Yeah, thank you. It's a privilege for us to be here, Andrew, and again, we do miss you very much.

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And I've told my wife that every single person said that my bride has to join me next time, so I just have to tell her it's a must.

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Not sure if I'm allowed back without her. We would love to meet your wife finally.

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Yeah, well, some folks have because they came here to the States, and so we'll try to figure if we could make that one happen, get her over there.

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So let's talk about Need God. This is an organization you guys have in the

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Philippines. Some people may be familiar, people in the audience, with Need God.

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It sounds familiar. There's a website, needgod .com, that is run by Living Waters, which is a ministry of Ray Comfort.

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Folks here know that name, but it is at least maybe loosely affiliated.

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At least the name comes from there, right? Pastor Dennis, you were involved with Living Waters there in Asia, so maybe that'd be a good place to start with.

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How did Need God Philippines start? Yeah, we owe the name to Living Waters, of course.

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And if you have been acquainted with Need God Philippines, know that Living Waters has such a great influence in the ministry here.

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So a lot of the things that we do, a lot of the things that we believe,

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Living Waters influenced us on that. And we were very thankful that Living Waters allowed us to use the name

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Need God here. And it started way back in preparation for things that we wanted to do.

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And most of the things that we do, Andrew, are similar with what

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Living Waters has been doing. And that is to spread the biblical gospel and teach

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Christians and churches how to share the gospel biblically the way

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Jesus did. So we've been going around the

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Philippines doing seminars, and that has been the main activity in the last almost a decade.

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And of course, we do conferences. I personally, I came from,

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I worked with Living Waters for 13 years, and I represented

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Living Waters here in Asia. But there was a time when things became difficult in terms of dealing with the government.

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If you have this organization, and that's the reason why I said I need to step down as being the representative of Living Waters in Asia, but it's a good thing.

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Need God got me, and I'm so thankful to the Lord that what

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I loved doing when I was with Living Waters, they allowed me to do here in Need God.

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Well, some of what you guys do, and I got the experience of being with you guys as we travel around.

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And I will freely admit, there are not many people that I know who get to handing out tracts faster than me or are more ready than me.

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And I've given up when I go to the Philippines, A, because you guys have tracts in Tagalog, but you have tracts that are more geared toward Filipinos there.

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I told Nell's pastor, Pastor Armand, that Nell and I went into a 7 -Eleven, which it was kind of an interesting one because it was a

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Korean 7 -Eleven. So I wasn't expecting it. Literally, we walked in, everyone there was

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Korean. And I was surprised to find a 7 -Eleven in the Philippines, but it said it was

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Korean for one. Anyway, but Nell, you were just so quick with everybody.

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Here's the thing. Before you explain, because I'm going to be asking you about your evangelism, but this is why

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I said to your pastor, Pastor Armand, I'm just amazed with how you are always sharing the gospel. Here was a lady, picture the scene,

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Pastor Dennis. Here's a woman. She cuts the line. A line of people, everyone's waiting, and it was like, as soon as we left, the line disappeared.

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But everyone was in getting stuff, and there's this longer line. This lady goes right up past the line to the side, and she makes eye contact with Nell, and he does the kind of awkward smile, nods her head like, yes,

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I'm acknowledging I just cut the whole line. And Nell's response was to quickly grab a gospel tract and say, here, here's something for you to read.

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Doesn't sit there, get upset at all, just goes, oh, here's someone that wasn't in front of me in line, so I can now give you a gospel tract.

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Nell, you travel with, you have a bag that you have, that you had everywhere

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I saw you with, with gospel tracts. How, you know, what's, so the question is, what's your role in Need God, and then how important is sharing the gospel with the lost to you?

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And so my role in Need God is one of the many volunteers. We are very homogenous like that.

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So we're all volunteers. And yeah, I do have my backpack with gospel tracts. It's from an example from someone who does not want to be named, but you've named him already several times.

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And whenever, even when I began as a false convert, but even then, whenever we go to restaurants, yeah, that brother, let's call him that name,

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I always have tracts. And his kids love passing tracts. Even when, even when the servers or managers give us a side eye, like, are you soliciting something?

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Because that's usually what usually happens here in the Philippines. They sing gospel songs, and then they ask you for money, and they pray for you and bless you in exchange for money.

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What we're saying is, it's free, it's free, it's good news. Please read this. Have you had this?

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We in Need God are trained to give out gospel tracts. And you'd think it was easy, but you'd be surprised how few

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Christians actually go out and evangelize. And as Pastor Dennis mentioned in somewhere else,

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Need God was born out of a desire to train people in the biblical gospel and to encourage each one to share.

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So it's sharing the real gospel is very important to me, because for what

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I count as four years, five years going, I believe I was clinging to a wrong gospel.

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For the first two years of my encounter with Christianity coming out of Catholicism, I had an altar call where they had me accept

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Jesus. And they said that, yeah, you're now a child of God. Then the next day, the next week,

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I continued in my sin. I was wondering why, but not caring. I just don't know. I just went back to my sins.

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I went back to attending Catholic mass and everything, the whole deal. The next time, after a service,

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I was taken through this booklet. It had four spiritual laws in front. And at the end of the booklet,

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I had a multiple choice question. So the relationship between faith, works, and salvation.

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So at first, I answered wrong. So they had me answer again. You get a second chance, read it again, answer it again.

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And then I answered right. I had a 25 % chance of answering it right. And when

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I answered it right, I was led to a prayer. And being a religious guy,

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I usually lead novenas. And you're praying the prayer to the other Mary. We call it another

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Mary because it's not the real Mary of the Bible. So I'm fine.

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Let me pray. I'm a religious person. I will pray. And I prayed that prayer. As soon as I finished praying that prayer,

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I said, I was told, congratulations. It's your spiritual birthday. Write down the date at the back of this card and remember this.

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You're now a child of God. And that got me to a spiritual high.

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And then months later, I went back to my old sins. And I didn't understand why. After a few years,

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I was confronted with the real gospel, the law of God. It was then that it was clear.

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I was not born again. I just made the decision. I just accepted Jesus. I made the decision to Him.

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Said yes to Him. Prayed to accept Him. It was under the discipleship of our dear brother.

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And pastor that God was pleased to change my heart. And now here

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I am. So I do have this desire for people to learn the real gospel because I've seen some family members, many, many friends who have heard the wrong gospel.

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And it has an inoculating effect for the real gospel.

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It doesn't help them accept the real gospel. It makes them resist it more.

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So I really appreciate what the organization is doing as a whole, what our leaders are training us to do.

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Because if it's only through the sufficient scriptures, the real gospel, people are saved.

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Yeah, I mean, the thing, you're right. And we know that your pastor doesn't want to be mentioned.

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And so yeah, maybe I shouldn't mention his name. But I did say to him, you know, after you and I walked out of the 7 -Eleven,

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I actually said to him, it is because of his training. It is because of not just his training, but he's doing it.

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You mentioned he trains his kids. His kids love every restaurant and store we go into.

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His kids, he just hands them the tracks and they're running around handing out tracks. And it is something

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I was warned the first time I went to the Philippines. Because when I was going to do some open air,

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I was warned that it is common there for people to sing a gospel message, something like that, and then ask for money.

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And Pastor Dennis was the one who said to me, hey, if you're going to do any open air here in the

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Philippines, start off by saying, I don't want any money. And yeah,

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I just want to give gospel tracks or give you a message. And so, yeah, there's differences when you come to other countries that you have to learn.

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And, you know, you guys are, they are soliciting, expecting soliciting using the gospel for obtaining money.

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You guys don't do that. But you're always handing out tracks.

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The entire team from NeedGod .com is doing that.

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And it's, at least here in America, I know evangelists that are in lots of different churches that do that.

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I don't know so many evangelists all grouped together in a few churches that are like that and then come together to do different events and help local churches.

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So, you know, and I want to talk about that, you know, the role you guys have in the local church there in the

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Philippines. For those, you know, most of my audience is American. They may not be familiar with some of what is,

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I mean, the Philippines is dominantly in the North, Roman Catholic in the

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South, Muslim. There are, there's some aspect of Christian thinking.

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It's, I don't want to say a Christian nation, but it's more Christianized in a general sense, obviously not in a specific,

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I mean, not that they're born again, they're Roman Catholic. But there is that notion. But the churches that do claim to be evangelical,

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I'm trying to say maybe not so good, some of them, some of the, especially the bigger ones.

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And we could talk about the conferences and how that has helped. But how does needgod .ph,

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which is actually the website, folks, if I didn't share yet, you can go, they're very active on Facebook.

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You just go to needgod on Facebook and you'll see it. But the website is needgod .ph. So how, what do you guys do to help the local church?

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What are some of the things where God has, you know, puts you guys so that you're a arm of local churches there in the

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Philippines? And help folks here in America understand the differences, you know, what is the church like there in the

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Philippines? Well, churches here are into seeker -sensitive things.

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So they want to be pleased whenever they're in church.

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And that's the reason why needgod does a lot of biblical evangelism seminars.

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So we offer free biblical evangelism seminars to churches.

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And you will, in my years of doing it, Andrew, a lot of churches have turned down my offer to do free biblical evangelism seminars just because they think they know everything in terms of evangelism.

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But praise God, after them hearing us, hearing what we will share to them as what is biblical evangelism, they realize that they had it wrong.

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They have it wrong. How they present the gospel and actually what they understand about the gospel.

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So we do a lot of biblical evangelism seminars. And aside from that, we also offer biblical counseling seminars.

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So we've been going around the Philippines. Whenever someone reaches out to us through Facebook or through our website, and they are interested in us going to their church, we right away coordinate with them and schedule this biblical evangelism seminar.

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So personally, in my case, my doctrines were corrected when my understanding of the gospel was corrected.

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So I believe if you have the gospel correct, then the other things will follow in terms of your wrong understanding of what's in the

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Bible. And it's not unusual, even in America, for churches not to want free training.

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Because I think really what it is, it may be more in America, but it's like people would rather give food to the homeless or clothes to the homeless than actually share the gospel.

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Mm -hmm. So what I see a lot is people don't want to be trained in evangelism.

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Because I think what it is, is that if people get trained, then they're going to feel like they're going to go out and have to actually do it.

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And I think a lot of people know they don't want to do that. So my theory, they want to avoid that guilty feeling.

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Could be wrong. But I've heard several excuses for not sharing the gospel from people here.

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And one common excuse, it's just not their gift.

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I would explain to them, if you are a child of God, you have the gift. Yeah, I think

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I see that verse that says, that only needs to share the gospel if you have the gift.

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That's right between second, not even close to the

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Bible book, verses one and two. I mean, yeah, there's no verse that says that.

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You're right. If we're Christians, I think I could be wrong. I think it's 2 Corinthians 5 that says, basically, if you're a

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Christian, you have a ministry of reconciliation because you've been reconciled. I think

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Paul says all of us should be doing that. Yeah, yeah. So that's sad when they think that you need to have this special anointing before you are able to share the gospel.

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And in my own experience, Andrew, because God had helped me to understand the gospel, and of course,

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God used Ray and Kirk, the Living Waters people, for me to better understand the gospel.

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When I was asked to explain the gospel to someone, because you know it from your heart, you can explain the gospel, right?

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Yeah, yeah. You know, I remember, this is five years ago, you were still with Living Waters back before COVID.

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Philippines didn't have the strict of rules. And for folks to understand, you know, there's rules now that have changed in the

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Philippines when you're part of, you know, you need to be a specific type of, I forget what it's called.

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We would call it a non -profit here, a 501c3 in America. But the same sort of,

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I think you guys call it a foundation, if I remember correctly. Okay. So you have to be a foundation, you know, working with foundation.

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They even have it, you know, getting U .S. dollars, it was explained to me, is really hard now in the

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Philippines. You have to have, you have to travel to be able to convert money to U .S. dollars.

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So it's, so they really have gotten a little harder with that. But back when you were with Living Waters Asia, you went, the

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Olympics were going on, you were doing a training there in Japan in preparation for the

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Olympics to evangelize there. And I know you and I, Pastor Dennis, were talking about maybe doing a bigger, before the

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Olympics, you know, I come out and we were going to do a, you know, training and then try to get people out evangelizing.

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And it was really kind of discouraging. If you remember, you know, what happened, maybe, you know, share what caused so few people to show up to a free training.

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Yeah. You know, on the day of the training that we will do in Japan, my host there told me that there were many commitments to attend the conference, the seminar there.

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But come the day of the seminar, there were very few who were there.

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And one reason they gave was that one church who committed to attend the seminar, they had just, they had this agreement to come together as a church and watch the, showing of Spider -Man in the cinema nearby.

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So that was so discouraging because the organizer, my host there, worked very hard to organize the event.

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And we just really saw how a lot of professing Christians in Japan are not really interested in sharing their faith.

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And I really doubt if many of them are really believers. So yeah,

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I was back there last year, Andrew, and I was invited to do a

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Bible study in the U .S. base there. I got so disappointed because when

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I was already sharing the gospel, the chaplain cut me. And told me, yeah, he cut me and told me that everyone's a

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Christian already here. You don't need to share the gospel anymore. So that's the atmosphere in Japan.

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Yeah, well, if it's a U .S. base, just because they're a chaplain doesn't mean they're evangelical or saved.

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So it could be that they heard the gospel and they just, they wanted to shut it down because they're not saved.

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But yeah, that is one of the things that we see is it is difficult.

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And I don't think people understand this, how difficult it is to train people to evangelize because people look at a ministry like Living Waters and they have videos that go all over the world.

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They've had a worldwide impact and everyone thinks, oh, it's so easy.

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And Living Waters does a lot of work. And they're not going into churches as often as people think and evangelizing or training to evangelize.

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And there's a ministry, a very good ministry called Hearts for the Lost. And they're here in America.

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They take the same training that Living Waters does, just like you guys do there.

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And they go and go to churches for free. That's their big thing. They will come to a church for free.

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And so folks, if you want a free training here in America, go to Hearts for the Lost. I think it's heartsforthelost .com

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or .org, but just search for Hearts for the Lost or contact us at Striving for Eternity and we'll get you in touch with Brian there, who's the head of that ministry.

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But great ministry. We've worked with them before. We do trainings with them and it's like free, but people don't take up on that.

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And it can be discouraging. And people think when they look at Living Waters and its worldwide impact, some people think it's just so easy to do this.

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And it might seem that way, but you guys do a lot more than just...

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I mean, you're going into churches, doing trainings. You guys personally within each of your churches are great examples of people that go and share the gospel.

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The ways that I got to know you guys is through the conferences that you put on. You've been doing it for many years.

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Okay, slight pause during that thing. What was that called? Oh yeah, COVID. Yeah, where the world decided to completely and utterly lose their mind.

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But other than that, I mean, you had a conference with Justin Peters.

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He did his Clouds Without Water. I'm going to say that was probably 2017, 15,

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I'd say 15. And then you guys had Living Waters come out, Emile's Wayne EZ and Mark Spence.

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Yeah, 2017. 17. And then in 19, it was

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Justin and I that came for Snatch Them From The Flames. And then five years later, it was

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Justin, myself and Jim Osmond who came out and we had this Strange Fire Conference Philippines.

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So you mentioned how much goes into organizing things like this.

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People don't realize how much goes into organizing a conference like that. Especially one, you guys do a very large conference.

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I think there was what this time, like 1100 people, 1 ,100 people at the

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Manila. And I think the numbers I heard was three or 400 in Baja.

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So a lot of organizing, a lot of, I told my church when

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I came back, they wanted me to give a report. And I said, like over a thousand people, the air conditioning units weren't working and it was a heat wave and nobody left.

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I mean, this was the same thing in 2019. If you guys remember, Justin started the conference off and in the middle of his message, the air conditioning just went out.

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Now it wasn't a heat wave, but people didn't leave. In America, if there's like the least amount of inconvenience, we're gone.

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You guys had people who were there at five in the morning traveling all night because they wanted to get a seat.

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People who didn't even, there was a couple who didn't even, they were told that they couldn't walk into the conference.

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And yet they were traveling all night, were there at five or six in the morning, waiting to hopefully get to be able to just stand at the conference.

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And I told my church, just the hunger for the word of God, it just seems different than in America.

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I can't picture an American conference where people were going to travel hours knowing that they're probably not gonna get in, but just to be outside in the heat during a heat wave to listen in.

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And so, I wanna talk a bit about the conferences you guys do.

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And I know we got Pastor Cecil who's just joined us so he could talk about a specific conference coming up.

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But before I do that, I do want to give a word to of our sponsors and that is because they kind of help support us here and keep us doing this.

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So, the first is if you're struggling with getting a good night of sleep, which actually

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I was joking before we started with Pastor Dennis, I've done two podcasts in last week with Pastor Dennis, one for a

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Filipino podcast and this one. And both times, I don't know,

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I'm saying the only thing that I know that's consistent is Pastor Dennis, but both times

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I had to get up early to record and both times I could not sleep the night before.

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But I usually have no problem sleeping because I got a wonderful pillow. I got a MyPillow and a

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MyPillow mattress topper. They're great. And while I was there with you guys in the Philippines, at least for most of the trip,

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I had my MyPillow with me. The only time I didn't was when we went to Bajal and I was limited to 22 pounds, 10 kilos that I could take in my luggage.

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And so I had to be, it was either clothes or my MyPillow. And so, yeah, while we were in Bajal, I didn't have

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MyPillow. But the rest of the time I did because it is something where it does help me sleep much better.

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So, even though I don't sleep a lot, it is a wonderful thing to get a good night's sleep.

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And so I have my pillow mattress topper has helped me tremendously. But they got robes, they got, but they have right now a sale going on where everything's $25, it seems.

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But lowest I've seen that they got their slippers. I think their robes were on sale, their bedsheets, their pillows, their 2 .0

32:44

pillows, MyPillow 2 .0s, I think are buy one, get one free. So I have not seen them do a sale like this.

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So if there was ever a time you're thinking of getting a MyPillow product, I encourage you to go to mypillow .com

32:56

right now, use the promo code SFE. It stands for striving for eternity. And that is the promo code to get you your discount.

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But it also is the promo code to let them know you heard about them from here so that they keep supporting us.

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But after a good night of sleep, and what I am going to have right after we're done recording this is

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I'm gonna go get my cup of Squirrelly Joe's coffee to help wake me up. Now, granted, I don't have coffee until 90 minutes after being awake.

33:27

It's a health thing. So for those of you who just have to have that cup of coffee to wake up, it's actually better.

33:33

You really wanna wake up, I'm just telling you, cold plunge. Try it, try it. It will wake you up better than a cup of coffee.

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Get into 50 degree or 45 to 50 degree water for like three to five minutes.

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It will shock your body, wake you up. You'll be wide awake for hours. And then afterwards, after two hours, you go get a cup of Squirrelly Joe's coffee.

33:56

But Squirrelly Joe's coffee is, I forget what I'm drinking right now because I take the bag out.

34:03

I think if I'm not mistaken, I am drinking a bag of kindness. But he's got wonderful names.

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You can get, kindness is a Costa Rican being, but he's got, you can get wisdom, which is from Guatemala.

34:20

He's got honor from Ethiopia. If you want some Brazilian, well, that's integrity. But it's also, you can also get, if you want the

34:29

Brazilian, he's got respect and responsibility. Responsibility somehow is a combination of a

34:35

Brazilian and Colombian because it's half decaf and half regular.

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The one that really puzzles me, and I've talked to Squirrelly Joe, I just don't get it. If you want a

34:47

Colombian decaf, who in the world wants decaf coffee? But if you did, he calls that honesty.

34:54

I call that false advertising. You're calling it honesty when it's fake coffee?

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Come on, we want the real thing. We don't want, you know, come on.

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But they each have different flavors. So when you go out to Squirrelly Joe's coffee, just go to, if you want, just go to strivingforeturnity .org

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slash coffee, strivingforeturnity .org

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slash coffee. That will get you to Squirrelly Joe's, but it lets them know that you found them from us.

35:29

So always reorder through there. But you can check out all their different coffees. The flavors go there.

35:36

And when you do, just remember that there is a spot when you put your order in to put a code

35:42

SFE, stands for striving for eternity. Your first order gets you 20 % off. So if you're like me, you want to make that first order the biggest you can.

35:52

So I ordered one of everything. I should have got the five pound bags actually of everything when

35:57

I did that. But if you want for your church, go and get the five pound bags of Squirrelly Joe's coffee at strivingforeturnity .org

36:04

slash coffee. And you can reorder through there, get your coffee there, and well, keep awake because you need to do that for the day after a good night's sleep.

36:16

So with that, let's talk a bit about some of the conferences that you guys put on.

36:23

I got to attend two of the four. And there was a fifth one coming up that Pastor Cecil is going to mention in a moment.

36:31

But how did you guys start the conferences? More specifically, what

36:37

I would love to hear is some of the impacts. Now, I know Pastor Dennis, you're going to have one about the most recent one.

36:46

So let's hold that because that was a great account that I was able to share with my church.

36:52

But I'll start with Nell and then Pastor Dennis. With the different conferences, whether it was the sermon seminar you did with Clouds Without Water with Justin, the

37:03

Living Waters one on evangelism, Snatching from the Flames, Strange Fire. And they've gotten more specific.

37:12

And Pastor Cecil's holding up a brochure from Snatching from the Flames. So he's held on to that for five years.

37:18

That's the little notebook that you guys get. And I'll say this,

37:25

Nell, I want you to talk about some of the effects of the conference. But I'm going to say as a speaker, you guys put on a great conference, not just for the speakers.

37:36

You take very good care of your speakers, but for the attendees. Like for those who attend the conference, may not realize all the small details that you guys, that's important for you guys.

37:48

You guys could have fit more people in that venue this year, but chose not to because it was important for you guys to make sure that everyone had a table to take notes.

38:00

Because when there's no table, people don't take as much notes. So it impressed upon me that for you guys, it was more important that the audience be taking notes and you guys provide lunch.

38:14

So they have somewhere to eat lunch instead of on their lap. But that there's little things that you guys do. And you guys had a team that was at the event this year, 10 o 'clock

38:27

PM. And I want my audience to listen to the dedication of Need God for their events.

38:33

They had a team of people 10 o 'clock at night that started working and were working until the event.

38:40

They worked all night in getting the event ready because there were things, the people that provide the building, they just don't do.

38:52

And you guys wanted it done a certain way. You had people there all night and then all day working.

38:58

I mean, it was a long day too because it started at nine, went all the way till like six or something.

39:05

And so, but now let me start with you with some of the benefits or the thing, the outcomes of the different conferences that you guys have been putting on.

39:23

Right, so I'll start that. It's incredibly humbling that you mentioned this.

39:29

We are very grateful for the presence of our speakers. So you, for example, you went away from your wife for almost three weeks and that's something that we look up to very highly.

39:42

What we're being taught in the ministries, among many things, one in Philippians where it says to consider others better than ourselves, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

39:58

So in the planning of the conferences, there are great things taken to make sure that we reach out to those who really need to hear this.

40:09

We don't just invite the easy ones, our friends who we know are aligned and would like to hear the same thing.

40:15

But there's a great effort to reach out to the people who do not want to hear these things, to be winsome to them, to be extremely accommodating to them.

40:30

So that they might know that we're not here to bash them, to burn them, to reach out enough because we want them to know the truth.

40:38

So from the conferences in 2015, 2017, 2019, this year, it was all about the scriptures, the sufficiency of scriptures in worship and practice and evangelism and godliness.

40:55

In the Philippines here, we are taken, we are easily distracted by the superstitious, by superstitions, by social clout and social...

41:07

It's not cool to be out there evangelizing. It's not cool to be bringing your Bible and being sold out for Jesus.

41:18

It's not cool to be like that. You're going to be labeled a religious nut. But it's incredibly liberating.

41:27

It's incredibly strengthening, encouraging, and it's incredibly rewarding to follow the

41:34

Lord. And these conferences, the speakers that have graciously come here, you offer, first and foremost, you're not from here.

41:47

So the people cannot accuse you of saying, you're only arranging this conference so that you can promote the church so that people would come to you.

41:56

And second, because you're not from here, you can deal with the controversial things that people don't say out loud, not in social media, not even in the pulpits, or fear or worry of people labeling them, canceling them.

42:16

So yeah, it's already here, social shaming. You speak out against some sacred cows of the

42:24

Filipino culture, or evangelicalism, or even Roman Catholicism, you're out. So those conferences are once in a lifetime.

42:38

We always see this once in a lifetime. 2015 was once in a lifetime for us when it happened.

42:44

That's how we view it. 2017, we were really hoping re -conference would come, but he couldn't travel,

42:51

I believe, too much. But then with Emil and Mark, it's okay. We saw it as once in a lifetime.

42:59

You here, 2019, we saw it as a once in a lifetime opportunity. We had no guarantee you're going to be coming back.

43:06

We had no guarantee we're going to be arranging another conference. And with that, we are urged to give it our best, to lift it up to the

43:19

Lord, deny ourselves, and make sure that we reach out, and that there would be nothing in between the participants and the lessons being taught.

43:28

Not us, not the inconveniences, but it's just, they're going to be there. They're going to listen to the

43:35

Bible opened up to them, and they're going to get out of here equipped, filled to faith alone.

43:46

That has been the driving force for everything. So what have been some of the, I mean, you mentioned some of the sacred cows there in the

43:55

Philippines. Maybe you could talk about what some of those are, what some of the topics that were addressed, but, and then what's some of the outcomes?

44:02

What have you guys seen as a result of the ministryofneedgod .com

44:09

there in the Philippines with these different conferences? This is still my turn.

44:18

I think I would love to defer to Pastor Dennis because he had a wonderful account of that. For this year, he definitely did.

44:25

And even from previous years, I know Pastor Cecil might have something for snatching from the flames.

44:34

Go ahead, Pastor Dennis. Yeah. From the events, conferences of the past, we know that there have been

44:46

Christians who were once part of churches that do not adhere really to the truth that have decided to find churches,

44:57

Bible -believing churches. So we know of specific people who were once members of Pentecostal charismatic churches who are now in biblically sound churches.

45:12

And we know that there are churches that were once not teaching correctly, but now have become reformed in their beliefs.

45:25

And just this conference where you, Andrew, Jim, and Justin were our speakers.

45:34

Two days after the first conference in Manila, Strange Park Conference, I had some fellowship with a pastor who attended the event.

45:47

And he was telling me this story that while he was there in the conference in Manila, he saw this woman who is pastoring a church in their area.

46:00

So he was surprised that that woman pastor was there.

46:06

He was glad that she will get the opportunity to hear the truth from the conference.

46:17

After the conference, he received a text message. I don't know if a text message or Facebook message from her.

46:27

And she was telling this pastor, pastor, I now understand why

46:34

I need to step down from me being the pastor of our church. It's all because of the things that I learned through the conference.

46:43

So these are things that make us praise God so much because it just proved that He was moving throughout the conference.

46:53

And these are the kinds of results that we have seen in the past conferences that Need God has held.

47:03

Yeah, my pastor made the comment when I mentioned that to our congregation how hard it would be for someone to, if you're pastoring a church, especially if you're paid full time, you're giving up your job.

47:22

That speaks to someone that was really struck to the heart with the truth of God's word to say,

47:28

I want to live biblically, and I'm going to do whatever it takes. That's a big commitment. And I know after Snatch Them From The Flames, I got to meet people there who are in churches that were started because of what happened five years ago with Snatch Them From The Flames.

47:48

I've heard countless stories of people who got out of bad churches. In fact, and you all here know this, but for my audience who may not,

47:58

I have someone in my current church here in America, my pastor's daughter -in -law, attended

48:06

Snatch Them From The Flames in the Philippines. And so I joke with her husband that I met her before he did, because it was after Snatch Them From The Flames, she was in a bad church, at one of the mega churches there,

48:22

I'm not going to mention which one, but one that you all know very well, but left that church and ended up coming to a more reformed, more solid church, ended up meeting her now husband, being a missionary to,

48:42

I almost said Guatemala and it's not Guatemala. I forget where they were missionaries there in Asia, because Guatemala is in this side of the world.

48:56

And they'll give me a hard time because I forgot. But yeah, so they had, but then they came here stateside.

49:05

And so she was tremendously blessed. And this go around, I got to meet a friend of hers from the

49:12

Philippines when I was there this time, someone who was with her attending that.

49:18

So there's a lot of stories of people who, because of, it's crazy to think about, but Nell, what you had said, having

49:29

Americans come there, being able to say harder things, it just, there's no, there's,

49:34

I'm not inviting anyone to my church there in the Philippines because the commute is just way too long.

49:41

You can't do that every week. But you guys don't shy away from some of the more difficult things that have to be said.

49:55

Having someone say the harder things that is needed and there's been a lot of reward from that.

50:02

Pastor Cecil, you're here. Let me let you introduce yourself to the audience. You were impacted by the stream, by the flash from the flames in 2019.

50:17

So let folks know how that, who you are, how that impacted you. And then

50:23

I'm going to ask you in a few minutes to talk about the conference that you're now helping to organize there.

50:28

But first, how did snatch them from the flames impact you? And what was the change in your life that occurred from that?

50:35

Thank you for the opportunity. Going back 2019, that's 2019, snatch them from the flames.

50:45

I didn't tell you guys that I brought along with me somewhere around a dozen people.

50:53

And those, a dozen of those also did not return. To the church where they belong.

51:04

Needless to say, they found out that they were in a place where in, they're not growing spiritually.

51:15

They're expanding their vision horizontally, but they've become superficial in the way that they can explain and even articulate the gospel.

51:28

So that said, that was May, May 25, 2019.

51:37

Come July, when I came from the master's university and went back to the

51:44

Philippines, my wife and I were invited to be godfathers and godmother to a couple.

51:53

The couple attended that snatch conference and we were told that after their wedding, wherein their pastor was the officiating minister, they already said goodbye to their pastor.

52:08

And that was the last meeting they had because they can no longer be with them.

52:14

So they had a good parting of ways. There was no resentment.

52:20

There was just a clear explanation of differences in doctrine. So that too,

52:28

I suppose would be an encouragement for you guys because it's been five years before I was able to testify about it.

52:37

Nevertheless, I'm coming in with Need God because they are now in partner with us,

52:47

Overseas Instruction in Counseling, the base of which is also in the US.

52:53

I was referred to by a former school, the master's university, to this group,

53:01

Overseas Instruction in Counseling. And I was drafted to be a coordinator for the entire

53:09

Philippines, having been able to pass through the three gurus training under ACBCS.

53:21

So that's my exposure and that's my connection with Need God. So let's talk about this conference that you're doing in June there in the

53:32

Philippines. So, I mean, there's no rest for the weary. You guys just get done with this, not just one, but two major conferences.

53:43

There was actually three major events, right? Because there was the Manila conference, as I said, over 1 ,100 people there.

53:52

Then a church camp, church retreat. Then the

53:57

Baha 'u'llah conference with 300 -400 people. Tiring. I'm sure everyone was exhausted afterwards.

54:05

And Pastor Cecil, you're giving them no rest, huh? So in June, time to get back at it, trying to get back to work with another conference on the issue of counseling.

54:17

Talk to folks about that, especially because there are many Filipinos that listen.

54:23

So folks that may not be familiar, that aren't aware. And by the way, if you're not, especially if you're from the

54:30

Philippines, you should be following Need God on Facebook, okay?

54:35

Because there you're gonna hear about the different events. Especially, I had a couple of my

54:41

Filipino friends on Facebook that said, hey, I didn't know you were in the Philippines. We missed it. Well, I've been saying it for a while, but yeah,

54:49

Need God would be a place to keep up with that and find out their events, make sure you register.

54:54

I know some people were kind of bummed because registration filled up very quickly. I think it was four days that registration filled and then you guys were able to find some more space there and open it up a bit more.

55:08

But you got this conference on counseling. So talk about what people are gonna learn there.

55:16

Talk about who's coming in. People may, some people here in the States may know the name.

55:24

Maybe you could explain why they might know that name. But if not, I will. But so yeah, what's

55:31

June gonna be about? Well, actually it's not June, it's July 6th. Oh, July.

55:37

July 6th, it's gonna be a one -day event. Eight in the morning up until 3 p .m.

55:44

And the invited guest speaker is Dr. Adam Tyson. Dr.

55:50

Adam Tyson is the senior pastor of Placerita Church there in Santa Clarita, California.

55:57

But he's also a professor in biblical counseling at the Master's University. Aside from being a graduate of MDiv and DMin in the

56:09

Master's Seminary, particularly in expository preaching.

56:16

But he served the time because he was a graduate of, he was a graduate of medical assistance and he practiced that for four years.

56:27

But he felt his calling to be in the ministry where he needed to serve God through the church.

56:33

So we're expecting him in July 5th. All right, so a day before the symposium.

56:43

And then after that, he will be teaching in the seminary for five days straight.

56:49

Eight in the morning up until three in the afternoon, probably five or four. And that's gonna be from July 8th to 12th.

56:59

And then of course, he'll be back July 14th.

57:06

Back there in the U .S. But here's the thing, he's going to tackle biblical counseling and its relationship with medical issues.

57:16

Because right now in the Philippines, that's one of the hottest controversies, if not the biggest predicament of parents, even pastors who do not know what to do with regard to people and even children, teenagers particularly, in the way that they handle anxiety, depression, those diagnoses from the experts, quote, unquote, wherein these people are found to be under PTSD or ADHD.

57:54

So the problem is that there is a deficient understanding of how people change.

58:01

The entire modern church, particularly here in the Philippines, and I guess even in the States, there is a great deception with regard to the idea of integration.

58:15

I think the next greatest heresy, if you can argue with me, and I would welcome that, the next greatest heresy is integration.

58:24

Because we've been talking about the sufficiency of the scripture ever since with regard to conferences.

58:31

And that's the highlight of, I think, every conference, the sufficiency of scripture. And people don't realize the danger of integration within the church.

58:42

Even pastors do not realize that. So we are calling on all pastors, their fellow leaders, their potential leaders, and everyone interested in their church to be aware that there is great danger in giving glory to precepts of men rather than the precepts of God.

59:05

Actually, in a subtle way, the humanistic ideologies have been set high above divine revelation in integration approach.

59:16

And people don't realize that, even pastors. Yep. So we are on a campaign, we call it a rampage if we want to, though we started this by a ripple.

59:30

And now I think we're creating waves and it's not us, it's God creating waves because now we are being heard and somehow they are trying to approach us.

59:43

So that's the scenario here. And yes, you're right. We're not yet over the hump.

59:50

We're still recovering from the exposure of our bodies in a very tiring mode, but God sustains us and that's what we are relying on.

01:00:07

So thank you for being with us. And for folks in America who may know that name or go, why should we know that name?

01:00:15

In America, Adam became well -known because he was the pastor that Kanye West had reached out to.

01:00:24

When Kanye seemed like he was more solid in a faith, it was when he was being discipled by Adam.

01:00:30

And then I think when he stopped being discipled by Adam, well, we see where that goes, when he started being discipled by Joel Olsteen.

01:00:39

But yeah, so this is a neat thing to be able to see how you guys are trying to tackle, again, a difficult topic, one that is not often wanted to be dealt with and one that's so necessary there and everywhere.

01:00:56

And you raised something that you're right. In all the conferences, at least the ones

01:01:02

I know of, sufficiency of scripture was a theme. I know Justin's clouds without water, so I know he deals with it there.

01:01:11

I'm sure that EZ and Mark dealt with it, just knowing them, whether directly or indirectly. But I know that Snatched in Front of Flames and even this last episode, this last conference, we had at Snatched in Front of Flames, Justin did a whole talk on hearing the voice of God and sufficiency of scripture, where I dealt with how to interpret scripture.

01:01:32

I mean, that was the key in almost every single talk was sufficiency of scripture, even though Jim did a whole talk on that,

01:01:40

Jim Osmond. But that was the theme throughout. And so I really think that, and folks have asked, will the videos be available?

01:01:50

Well, if you go to needgod .ph, you can see the videos from the previous conferences.

01:01:58

You could see the Snatched in Front of Flames I know is up there. You can go on their Facebook channel or Facebook page and go look at videos and you might have to scroll back a ways, but they will have them out eventually.

01:02:11

I know people were wanting it live streamed so that they didn't have to go. And one of the things that I'll say that really encouraged me at each of the events was a question

01:02:24

I asked so many of the people is, how long did it take you to get here? How far did you travel?

01:02:30

And so many of the people that were 10, 20 hours, all night long, there are people that because they couldn't afford hotels, just traveled all night and were traveling throughout the night and just camped out at the event.

01:02:47

And then when the event was over, after a very long day in the heat, they turned around and did all that travel back.

01:02:54

And so using boats and buses and different modes of transportations, even jeepneys, which

01:03:02

I have yet to get to ride in a jeepney. And for folks who don't know, go search a jeepney and you'll see it does look like an experience.

01:03:11

I learned more about it this time. But I did. Hey, every time I go to the

01:03:17

Philippines, I do at least get to do something that is authentic to the

01:03:23

Philippines. So the first time I got to enjoy Balut, which I don't know why so many Americans don't want to do that.

01:03:30

If you don't know what Balut is, go look it up. I'll let the pictures do the talking. But I thought it tasted great.

01:03:37

But because of health, I couldn't have Balut this time. And thanks to a young little man, young man named

01:03:43

Zach, I learned about a bootle fight. And so I begged and sure enough, we were able to have a bootle fight.

01:03:50

And I said it because it was, I said, I want to have a bootle fight because it's the only fight against Justin Peters I can guarantee to win.

01:04:00

And so I would just say a bootle fight has nothing to do with actually fighting. It actually had to do with food and a big feast.

01:04:06

And the reason that I knew I could win is because you have to be able to eat with your right hand.

01:04:12

And I know he can't do that. So I have to win. The rules are you take the food, you have all the food on the table, you take it with your left hand, put it in front of you and then eat with your right hand.

01:04:23

But you have to eat with your hands. And Justin just is not capable of doing that.

01:04:28

So I knew I'd win, but it's not that kind of fight. Oh, well, but it was still really good.

01:04:34

I really enjoyed that. So maybe next time I can get a ride in a jeepney, that'll have to be. But people are traveling all different modes.

01:04:43

It really was encouraging to see the heart that people had, the hunger for the word of God that people had there, that this was so important to them.

01:04:54

So I think the work you guys are doing there, strengthening the local churches, whether it be through evangelism training and discipleship through seminars you do, or through the conferences, it is having a huge impact on an entire country.

01:05:12

I don't know too many ministries that have that kind of impact.

01:05:19

You think of some ministries that you mentioned Living Waters and the impact they have around the world.

01:05:25

And a ministry like that is few and far between. To have an impact, especially in the Philippines, where there's so many different islands and islands can be like, almost like completely different countries in a way.

01:05:36

I mean, so different in language and culture. To have an impact,

01:05:42

I mean, from Manila all the way down to Davao. I mean, so many people that were there at the conference and people who went to the ones before and they're just sharing with Justin and I the impact that these conferences had on their lives really showed me how much

01:06:02

Need God Philippines has an impact on the entire country of the

01:06:07

Philippines. So I want to give you guys a chance, any last things that you might want to say. I'll start with Nell.

01:06:14

Pastor Cecil will end with Pastor Dennis. And Pastor Dennis, what I want you to end with, if you wouldn't mind, is give whatever you would like to say.

01:06:22

And then I would like you to share the gospel with our audience, though in English this time.

01:06:27

On last podcast, you did it in Tagalog and I did it in English, but most of my audience probably doesn't know

01:06:33

Tagalog. But if you wouldn't mind closing us with the gospel. So Nell, any last things you'd like to share about the ministry of Need God Philippines?

01:06:44

Well, you have to unmute first, though. That's kind of a rule is unmuting yourself. Not very sure.

01:06:51

There you go. I do have some words to say.

01:06:56

And again, it's incredibly humbling in all phrases to the Lord. I've seen

01:07:01

Need God in its infancy stages. We were just this small group of people in one local church being disciples about hell's best kept secret, true and false conversion, how to give gospel tracts, how to share the gospel with our family and our coworkers.

01:07:20

That's just it. We started in that little rickety group. And now we have known people like you,

01:07:29

Dustin, Jim, Pastor Dennis, Pastor Segal, and so many others just with that little ministry.

01:07:41

You know, it's big now. But just with that little ministry, we started by that peculiar moustached man,

01:07:48

Ray Comfort, and their ministry, Ray, Mark, Evie, and everyone with that.

01:07:56

I understood, Andrew, that you worked with them for a while as well. Just that, the impact of that ministry, which sowed the seeds for what we are right now.

01:08:11

And it's only the Lord who is to be praised. And he knows how far he will take us as we commit to his service.

01:08:20

So praise God. And we praise God for you. We thank the Lord for you,

01:08:26

Andrew. And our dear friends there. Thank you very much. Well, it is something that, yeah, you mentioned,

01:08:34

I used to be kind of like Dennis was in all of Asia. I used to speak for Living Orders on the

01:08:40

East Coast many, many years ago. And so, Pastor Segal, any last comments you have for us?

01:08:47

Okay. I thank God for need God. That coined word is such a powerful thing.

01:08:58

Everybody needs God. But then my thoughts on this is that need

01:09:07

God has become overwhelmingly useful. Why?

01:09:14

Initially, I can see that they are being used in the way that the gospel is being shared and the way that the gospel is being explained and in the way that people has become articulate in the clarity of the gospel.

01:09:30

But now, not only that is happening by way of need God. Now, an extension of that evangelistic ministry comes the edification ministry, the sanctification ministry of the

01:09:44

Holy Spirit, which is now biblical counseling. Biblical counseling has become a buzzword because many would say that they are doing biblical counseling, but actually they're not really able to grasp what biblical counseling is.

01:10:02

I'm speaking from the point of view of my exposure in the many churches locally here in the

01:10:08

Philippines, being a trainer for so many regional denominations here in the

01:10:15

Philippines, only in Luzon. And the last distinct I had was in Palawan, where people are really hungry.

01:10:25

Now that they know that it doesn't end in evangelism, they need to continue on with the

01:10:34

Great Commission that while they are going, they need to make disciples. And discipleship has to do with a counseling approach wherein the goal is to cure the souls and the method is by caring of the souls.

01:10:53

And all of that redounds to the idea of counseling one another, the culture that has been vanishing in the local churches.

01:11:05

So now, thank God for need God, we are now instruments in creating waves.

01:11:12

We've gone past through just creating ripples, but now I think it's becoming a wave because it's reaching far beyond our comfort zone here in Luzon.

01:11:24

It's reached the Visayas and even Mindanao. So thank God, and thank you guys for even giving us the opportunity to share this to everyone out there, practically in the entire world, your viewers are coming from all over the place.

01:11:44

Thank you, Andrew. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Pastor Cecil, and all the work you're doing there with need

01:11:50

God. And then Pastor Dennis, and I just picked up from my desk, which sits right on my desk, and I'll explain to the audience, but I'm showing these guys, is a picture from a river cruise that we did.

01:12:01

And Pastor Dennis, I think you're the one that, I think you might've been the one that provided this photo for me. I forget who purchased it for me.

01:12:08

I think it's Bobby. Oh, is it Bobby? Okay, it might've been Bobby. And so it's all of us that we had lunch on a river cruise.

01:12:16

It sits right on my desk as a reminder to be praying for all the folks of need God. So it sits right here in front of me since I got home to be praying for you guys.

01:12:28

So Pastor Dennis, if you wouldn't mind, any last thoughts you have, and then if you wouldn't mind closing us out with a gospel presentation.

01:12:36

Okay, first of all, we at Need God would like to thank you again,

01:12:42

Andrew, Justin, and Jim for gracing the conference this year.

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You did a great job. And we hope that what you did here would come a long way and influence more people when the videos are out.

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And we'd like to tell everyone that Need God, the goal of Need God is to equip as many

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Christian churches and Christians out there. And our main message is the gospel.

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Now the gospel, the Apostle Paul once said that he's not ashamed of the gospel.

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Why did he say that? The truth is, the reason why he said that is because the gospel would shame people.

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The gospel shames people. And let me prove that to you. The gospel shames people because people would say that they're good people, deserving of heaven.

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But when you deliver the true gospel, when you understand the true gospel, what you realize is that you're not fit for heaven.

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Let me show that to you. Look at the Ten Commandments. Look at the Ten Commandments one by one.

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And I'm sure that you'll come to the conclusion that you have offended all of them.

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These are God's commandments. These are God's directives to us.

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And him being our creator, he gets to say that we must obey all of those.

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And if he calls us to obey his commands, it's because he has the right to do that.

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He is our creator. He keeps on giving us life. He sustains us. But in God's goodness, what do we repay him with?

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We repay him with our offenses to his commandments. And these are sins. And that is the reason why one day when we face

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God for his judgment, the clear verdict is that we will be guilty. And because we're guilty, it's not heaven for us.

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It's gonna be hell. Hell is God's place of judgment. And we truly deserve hell.

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But God is so rich in mercy. He's a God of love and grace.

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That's why 2 ,000 years ago, Jesus, who is God, came down to earth, lived a totally perfect life.

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He never sinned even once. But after 33 years of a perfect life, people hang him on the cross and he went there willingly.

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He did not sin. He is God, but he went to the cross willingly.

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Why? Because the Bible is very clear. The payment for our sin is death.

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What he was doing when he was hanging there on the cross was paying for our sins.

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He is making payment for our sins available. He died on the cross, but after three days, he rose from the grave to prove to us that he is truly

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God and that he truly can help us with our problem, that he truly is the one true savior.

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Now, all we need to do is to respond to his sacrifice with true repentance and faith.

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God wants you, all of us, to acknowledge that we are sinners against him and that it's because of those sins that he died on the cross.

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We must have this shame in our hearts for all of the sins that we have committed against him and this desire to turn away from the sins because we now want to honor

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God in our lives. But most importantly, he wants you to believe that only

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Jesus and what he did on the cross, that's the only thing that can pay for your sins and can save you.

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Trust, put your life on the hands of Christ, believing that his sacrifice is the only thing that you need for the forgiveness of your sins and for your desire to be in heaven someday.

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And God's promise, if you respond to the gospel with true repentance and faith, he tells us that he will forgive our sins and he will grant us eternal life in heaven and he also starts changing us so that slowly but surely we will mirror

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Christ in our lives. There are so many things that this world offers us, but the truth is the only thing that you need is the salvation that Christ alone can give to us.

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I hope that you will give thought on this message and we will pray that you will come to the

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Lord in humble repentance and faith. Thank you for that, Pastor Dennis.

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Thank you guys for coming on. Thank you for Need God Philippines and what you're doing there. And folks,

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I encourage again, you could go to needgod .ph or go on Facebook to search for Need God on Facebook, you'll see that they're there.

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Two ways to get in touch with them. And here's something I want my audience to know. You know, you go to that website, go to the

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Facebook, you know what you can't find? You can't find a way to donate to them. So the reality is they're a bunch of very humble people that they're not doing this for money, even though they're having a huge impact in the entire country of the

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Philippines. So I would like my audience to go out of your way because you're going to have to go out of your way to contact them, maybe through the website or Facebook to see how you might be able to support the work that they're doing there.

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Because for American dollars, it's going to go a lot further there in the Philippines.

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And so I really want to encourage you guys. That's one way you can help them continue having the impact that they have there in the

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Philippines. Have you ever wanted to say, I can make an impact on an entire country, on a couple of thousand islands, because I forget,

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I think there's like 7 ,000 islands. Okay, they're not all inhabitable, but I think it's only like a thousand that are inhabitable.

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But would you want to have that kind of impact? Well, they're not going to ask you for money, but I will,

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I'll ask you to find a way to donate to them. But at a minimum, be praying for them.

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Be praying for their future efforts for this counseling conference coming on in July.

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Be praying for that. If you're from the Philippines, then go attend that. Get involved.

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See how you can volunteer with this organization, because it is a very good organization to volunteer with.

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So just wanted to encourage you that way. And I will see you next week. And folks, that's a wrap.