FBC Adult Bible Study

All right, so as indicated, Scott's gonna come williquette.

Appreciate the opportunity of partnering with them in the work of the ministry overseas,

sometimes, sometimes here.

So I'm just gonna give it to you and let you go from here.

Is it working now?

Now it's working.

Good morning, everyone, how are you?

You can't sit there.

I'm gonna spit all over you, you gotta move.

Yeah, you don't want that much DNA.

It's really nice to be here with you.

We wondered if we were ever gonna get to be in churches again, and we're so glad to be with you.

We've known the Bices for a long time.

We were in Rockford, Illinois.

I pastored First Baptist of Rockford for 19 years and have known the Bices for a long time, and we're

very glad to be part of your ministry and represent you in what we do now,

which is the pet ministry.

So how many of you know what we do?

How many of you don't know what we do?

Okay, maybe just one or two.

All right, good.

Well, then we can just skip the whole presentation then.

So just to remind you what we do, we're with the pet ministry with Baptist admissions.

So PEP is Pastoral Enrichment Program, and bottom line, it's Bible college out of a suitcase

to third world countries.

We go to third world countries and train pastors.

We'll do a week or two meetings with men, men who have little or no education,

who will not get educated any other way.

So think in terms of third world.

Reaching future generations by training God's shepherds.

So we train God's shepherds.

As they're better trained in the Word, they handle the Word better, preach the Word better in their churches, and they train their people who

will then reach those who need Christ.

The most effective tool to reach people for Christ is a mature believer, is you, as you grow, reaching

your friends, neighbors, coworkers.

And the most effective will spread.

People have said, well, Scott, you're really not a missionary because you don't go plant churches and preach the gospel, which is true.

I've had that said to me, not often, but once in a while.

Are you really missionaries?

Missionaries preach the gospel, plant churches.

When we're there, we're preaching.

Every Sunday I'm there, I'm preaching to believers, not necessarily street preaching to unbelievers,

but we are missionaries.

If you think in terms of Paul's second and third missionary journeys, he went back to churches he'd already planted

and he strengthened the disciples.

He trained them better in the Word.

So strengthening, confirming, strengthening.

He went back.

We're basically Paul's second and third missionary journey.

We go back and we train men and believers, equipping them for ministry.

So again, where do we go?

Anyplace third world.

They don't send us to really beautiful, gorgeous first world places.

We go to third world.

So hot, humid, bugs, big bugs, you eat the bugs.

Those are the places that we go.

So if you want that, let me know and you can come with me next time.

If you're really into bug eating, we can arrange that.

So we seek to equip pastors to preach and teach the Word more skillfully so they shepherd

God's people more biblically, reach their own culture more effectively, and equip their people to reach others.

So now it's the advancing of the gospel right here.

So this is us.

When we started this ministry, there've been some changes.

We're older now, but what a handsome couple we used to be.

So teaching trips to Myanmar.

So what I did was I took to, well, my wife still looks fine.

What I did was I took some pictures of trips to Myanmar.

I've been to three different places in Myanmar and I'm scheduled to go to a fourth place in the mountains,

the northern mountains of Myanmar near the China border, but then COVID hit.

So it just so happens that God graciously has connected me enough with different groups in

Myanmar to go to different people groups.

This is from a trip in 2015, 2019, and one of the reasons I'm showing you these, and I may have shown one of these to you

before in the past, but I want you to see the people of Myanmar.

If you know anything about what's going on there, it is turmoil.

It is, I get emails from one of the main leaders in the entire country.

I get an email from him every, once a week normally, sometimes every couple of days.

And it is everything from military just walking up to little children and

shooting them on the street for absolutely no reason.

It's that.

They've got an orphanage, a Christian orphanage, going and dragging leaders out.

You'll never see them again.

I've read numerous emails where they came in, took the husband,

and the next morning the wife was contacted, to come pick up your body, your husband's body.

They can do whatever they want.

They have that kind of ability.

They have live ammo and they have guns, and they literally just start pulling the trigger whenever they want,

on whomever they want, with no repercussions to them.

So that's how it's been.

I don't know what God has planned, but we're praying that God will replace the darkness

with light, with some leaders who will lead this country

in a good direction, a right direction.

There was some amount of freedom there for missionaries.

We hope that that continues in the future.

We just don't know.

So bottom line, I want you to see faces and know who to pray for.

When you're praying for Myanmar, I want you to picture some of the people there, because you'll see believers and unbelievers alike

in this.

So Myanmar's here.

Capital used to be Rangoon, now it's Yangon.

You fly into here, and then I've taken a trip up here to Kalimyor, Kale.

You'll see that, pictures from there.

And then over here to Hakka.

There are mountains right here.

Beautiful six -hour drive.

We flew from here to somewhere over here, and then drove six hours in the beautiful, gorgeous mountains.

And you'll see I ministered there.

I am scheduled to be right up here to teach two different groups of pastors in

two larger towns in this region.

And as of yet, that's been canceled each time because of what's going on now, because of COVID and so forth.

So I'm excited about that opportunity as well, and going back here.

And of course here, there's a Bible college here.

And when we train men there, it's about 50 to 60 pastors and church planters, and there's also

a Bible college students and teachers attend as well.

So that gives you a little bit of a lay of the land.

So the city of Kale, which as I've said, is up in here.

The city of Kale, or Kalimyor.

I just wanna show you just pictures from the street, just to see kind of how they live a little bit.

Dirt roads, everything is dirt and gravel.

These are the people just being shot for no reason, just because someone has a gun

and he can.

Buddhist priest.

This is the market.

I've heard tell that watermelons are great, but you don't wanna drink the water.

Like I never drink the water.

I always have bottled water.

What they do to increase the value of watermelons, they'll inject water into them,

making them heavier, and therefore worth more, and then you can inadvertently be drinking their water,

which you really don't wanna do.

This is actually a refugee camp.

A friend of mine went there while I was there, I couldn't go, and he took some pictures for me.

This is a refugee camp.

Very, very, very difficult.

These are right around the church.

These are the kinds of houses.

And very common on stilts, and they do that because in the hotter months, they'll sleep

below, where there's airflow.

Of course, the animals, the chickens and goats, whatever else, are sleeping with them, but at least it's cooler.

So these are the houses you'll see.

This is Kalimyo.

Very different lifestyle than we live, of course.

I see these and I think of Gilligan's Island.

That's kind of a frame of reference I have.

That right there, that's a Gilligan's Island type thing.

I don't say that humorously, I'm just saying it's what I think of.

Whenever you're tempted to complain about your home or your apartment or whatever, just think about these places.

I was walking around the church one day.

I had finished my session for the morning.

I had a couple hours break.

I had my camera, I'm walking around.

I walk up to a man on the street.

They're all shorter than me, about this tall.

He smiles at me, looked like a hockey player, hardly any teeth, smiles at me.

And friendly as anything, talking to me, and I don't understand a thing, so I'm just doing this and he's doing this and

we're trying to communicate.

And he says, he motions me in.

This is his yard, this is his wife.

They're having lunch.

She's preparing lunch.

This is her kitchen.

And I couldn't stay, but they're very friendly.

Buddhism has kind of a do unto others aspect of their teaching.

So very friendly there, very kind.

And she tried to talk to me too, and of course I couldn't do very well.

But this is where she cooks every day.

Okay, this is another city of Yangon.

This is the capital city.

A little bit different, a little more modern.

This is one of the largest cities.

A little more modern, but still nothing like what we're used to.

Have I told you about this?

Maybe you remember this if I've showed you this before.

This is their version of discount tire.

You all have discount tire around here?

You have discount tire?

Call, set up an appointment.

I got a flat or I got this problem with this.

I got to change my winter tire, I got to do whatever.

So in Yangon, which is a large city, and you're in this city or in the outskirts,

you're driving along and every, I don't know, four or 500 yards, half a mile, I don't know,

you'll see a tent and tires.

And if you look at the tires on their cars, they're basically bald.

They're all just driving on bald tires.

And they're driving along, boom, a tire blows, they pull into one of these places, the three stooges come out,.

Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.

Take off the old tire, slap on a new bald tire, a new bald tire, and he drives away.

I'm serious, that's exactly how it works.

Hopefully they got something close to the tire you need when you arrive.

If not, you hobble down 500, 600 yards to the next place.

But this is really, really common.

It's really interesting.

This is the hospital.

I had a problem while I was there.

This is one of my translators right here.

I had a problem with one of my legs.

I had some infection developing and I had to go to a hospital.

This is the Wesley Hospital, which is nicer than the standard public hospital.

This is the front of it.

This is the main room I met.

As I looked around, I thought it was like, it looked like a mass unit to me when I'm in this hospital.

Very good care.

My doctor was trained in Germany, so Western European education.

He'd help me greatly, provide everything I needed.

I still have the leg, which I'm really happy about.

But interesting, this is probably the nicest toilet I've seen in the countries we go to.

This is a squat toilet.

You all know that, right?

Squat toilet, so whenever you travel, you have hand sanitizer in one pocket and Kleenex

toilet paper in the other pocket.

You do, you do, you do.

If you don't, you're gonna be sorry.

This is a spigot, which is really nice.

Normally, they don't have those.

Sometimes, yes, but often, no.

So when you're in a third -world country, you don't have toilet paper, what do you?

Okay, I won't even go into it, but you never shake with your left hand.

You never shake someone's hand with your left hand.

All these countries, that's the rule.

You never shake with your left hand because that does other things.

So, enough said.

Hand sanitizer, Kleenex with you.

Second largest Buddhist temple in the world is in Yangon, gorgeous.

It's like Great America.

You think a Buddhist temple, you think a building.

Don't think a building.

Think the size of Great America or a theme park where you're walking around for literally hours.

You take your shoes off before you go in.

This, by the way, this is actually gold.

There's actual gold in the paint.

At the very top, there's a diamond.

I didn't have my Zoom to catch it, but there's a diamond on top, I was told.

Just wealthy, wealthy.

Look at the flooring.

You take your shoes off before you ever enter, and this is just very gorgeous tile.

I think it's probably marble.

And you're walking around.

Literally, you can do it all day and not see the same thing twice.

These are pagodas, different prayer areas, rooms for different things, buildings for different things.

This is a ceremonial washing this man's involved in.

These folks are doing something similar.

I think it's so funny, all this Buddhist priest and the guy's talking on his cell phone.

I just think that's interesting.

Anyway, you get a good feel now of just the size of this thing.

These people are enslaved to this.

They are enslaved to this religion.

Okay, the city of Hakka.

So we've seen the city of Kalimyo, another city of Yangon, the largest, very large city, and now Hakka in

the mountains.

So this is the trip into the mountains.

All I have is my camera on this particular trip.

I didn't bring my good camera.

I'll take it next time.

And it's just gorgeous, just gorgeous to drive up there.

Six hours, and not all of it, but a lot of it was this.

See all the cabling.

They have technology in this mountain city.

The internet, no problem.

They've got that all figured out.

Really, really pretty.

This really is a city in the sky, in the mountains, in the clouds.

And anywhere you're building anything, it's pretty much on a hill or a mountain.

Houses on the side of the mountain.

More of the same, really interesting.

See the cloud level, and they're above it.

I love this one.

Where do you live?

The blue house on the side of the mountain.

Oh, that's your place.

Oh, okay, I'll be there at five.

I just think that's so cool.

Here's some of the shops.

I walked around the town.

Of course, every shop is very specific.

It's not like Walmart or Meijer where you can get everything in the world there.

This is kitchen stuff, or this is clothing, or whatever.

Very specific, usually small, fairly small shops.

Again, very friendly.

And again, I want you to realize these people, not just the Christians, certainly the Christians, but not just the Christians, just

normal people trying to make a living are being killed with no regard.

Life means nothing right now in Myanmar.

In fact, it was three weeks ago I got an email.

They're now up in Hakka.

The military's up in Hakka.

They start in the larger cities, and they just keep going, and they're in Hakka, and they were killing people left and right.

A lot of kitchen stuff, plastic stuff.

Okay, now teaching.

So teaching pastors, Bible college, professors and students.

Normally the professors are there, and they're often right in the front because they want to get as much as they can.

So this is in Kalimyo, or Kale,

church building.

Probably we had 40, I think maybe 60 men, if I recall now, thinking about.

We hand out our notes first day of class.

So my notes, about 100 pages, systematic theology, expository preaching, whatever it is,

I hand it to them the first day, all filled in.

Everything I'm gonna say is pretty much there.

And for most of these guys, this will be one of the only books they have in their library.

Your pastor has a few in his library.

I have a few in my library.

Any pastor who's gonna be studying the word has books.

They're teachers.

They're the next batch of teachers you have.

These men, they have nothing printed in Burmese.

Zondervan and Baker and Crossway, they're not translating, printing stuff in Burmese.

So anything we give them in their language, which is what we give them, it becomes a textbook for them to use in

their own study in the future and teaching their people.

You can't go barefoot in Bible colleges here in the States.

They might be coming, but not yet.

I can't imagine Bob Jones ever allowing that.

So there's always Q &A time.

The bottom line is, when you say break time, your 15 -minute break or lunch break, someone's walking up to you asking

questions, which is great.

You're there to serve them.

So you really are talking and teaching most of the time you're there.

We're drinking tea here.

Their tea is just brown water, and then there's sugar here.

You toss in 12 cubes of sugar to make it taste like something.

But every day.

And here's lunch.

Rice and chicken and various spices.

And this guy knows English pretty well.

He does, they're friends.

And so they're both asking me questions.

And I'm not eating because they're asking questions, which is what happens, which is great.

The food's fine, everything's fine.

They really care for us when we're there.

But these guys, they have questions.

These are not, I mean, there are Bible college students there, as I said.

But most of the people, most of the guys are in the ministry.

And they're not well -trained.

The way it works in most places we go, the preaching is allegorical preaching.

So here's how it works.

I'm a pastor with little training.

I preach allegorically.

Allegorically is I read a text and tell stories, or I read a text

and come up with some moralistic lesson, but not from the text.

So here it is.

So I'm pastoring, and Jim Stroop, I begin to minister to him, and

he becomes a Christian.

And he starts serving in my church, and he serves for 10 years.

Under my preaching, he learns the thin amount that he can actually learn under my preaching.

And so we're gonna start our church over here.

These churches, Africa, Chen Africa, Myanmar, the places we go, they plant churches like you wouldn't believe.

In Yangon, in the Bible college, a church meets there.

There's a thing on the wall, a map of all of Myanmar, and there's all these,

there's a dot in Yangon where the church is, and there are red strands.

I'm not kidding.

It's probably 25 or 30 red strands of churches this church is planting.

And every church I've been in, well, every church I've talked to the pastor about,

they're planting one or two churches constantly.

They're always planting churches.

So what happens now, Jim is in my church.

He's been there for 10 years.

He's learned this much under my preaching because I'm a terrible preacher, just I am.

He's been faithful.

He was a Sand School teacher for a while.

Now he's a deacon and loves the Lord, and we're gonna plant a church over there, 10 miles, 15, 20 miles,

and we're looking for a planter.

So we asked Jim, you wanna be a church planter over there?

He has a choice.

I can be poor here with my little farm or my little business and struggle and hardly

survive here, or I can go over there, struggle, barely survive, and invest

my life in the Lord's work and do something of eternal value.

I'll do that.

It's not a matter of I'm gonna lose money if I go.

They're poor no matter where they go.

So he goes over there and starts planting a church with no training.

His only training is me, and I've been an allegorical preacher.

So when we go, this is what we find.

We're teaching men who don't know hermeneutics, how to study the Bible, don't exegete the text, don't preach

well.

This is how it works.

So when these guys are in ministry, when they've got you there, they're asking questions.

They wanna do this well.

A guy was taking extra notes.

Actually, some of this is actually English.

This particular guy, I don't know which one I grabbed, but I saw him taking notes, and they take extra notes too.

Okay, I'll move faster now.

Swear of time.

Okay, so that was in Kalimyo.

This is now in Haka, I think.

Yes, this is in Haka, which is the mountain, the mountain city.

A lot of Bible college students and pastors as well.

It got cold up in the mountains.

One day, I actually put on a long -sleeved shirt, which is rare on these trips.

These are two Bible college professors.

They're sitting in the front row.

They were there every single day because they want more than they have.

They know.

One of these guys, I think it's this one here, we had lunch together one day.

He has an MDiv, a Master of Divinity from, I forget, a seminary in India, I think.

And he said, my education isn't anything close to yours.

And we started comparing notes.

I have so much to learn.

And they were there in the front.

They wanna be better teachers.

So they're not sitting in the back row.

They're sitting in the front row.

This is actually Wednesday night.

The pastor decided, you know what?

We've been teaching Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

Let's just continue the teaching Wednesday night.

My people will come.

They'll get what they can get, which was fine with me.

We got more done.

But their people listened intently, and this is the class

that met in Hakka.

This now is Yangon, the capital city.

This is their chapel, Assembly Hall.

See, some of the letters have fallen off the outside there.

So you have Bible college students on one side and basically pastors, church planters on the other

side.

These men are being persecuted, the pastors of these churches and the Bible college students, by the way.

They had to close the Bible college.

Military came in.

They were scurrying for their lives.

Pastors, I've heard recently that 20 pastors were taken away, and I haven't heard if their

bodies were found later.

I haven't heard that yet.

That's what I'm expecting to hear.

So they're not just, it's not, it is random, but there's also some specific things related to

believers and leaders.

Yes, yes, yep, yes, yeah.

They'll head for the woods.

If there's a woods nearby, they'll just scatter and head for the woods.

Yep, Jim.

I'm the handsome guy right here.

This is Dwight Schultz, Dr. Dwight Schultz.

He was with me on that trip.

Yeah, that's, where, which one?

Oh, okay.

I think they made me say on the front.

Any snide comments, Brian?

You got something there you wanna say?

Right.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's almost every, except for Chad.

Chad Africa, there are some big guys.

My translator, Gideon, is like a linebacker.

I like hanging around him because I feel really safe.

But any place else we go, it's right here.

And often, they're wearing coats.

I'm wearing short -sleeved shirts, and they're wearing coats.

It doesn't matter.

So one day, I wanted some extra notes on the board, and he put them down, seven or eight points in

Burmese.

Again, my notes, they've got them right there, which is really

nice that we were able to get those translated.

I wanna leave time for Q &A here, so I'm not gonna dwell.

Again, Q &A here.

I had a question after class.

He speaks English.

He actually is a Bible College grad, a grad of the college there, and he had some ministry questions.

Okay, that's the group.

That's one group.

Here's, that's another group, different year.

Oh, that's one of my grandkids.

Isn't he adorable?

I thought I'd make sure you all were awake.

That's Barrett.

He is so sweet.

Well, how to pray for us.

Pray for additional partners.

We have full support, but not all of our trips.

We don't have enough money for all the trips that were going on, or have been going on.

Hopefully will be going on again.

So please continue to pray for that.

For overseas trips, they're scheduled.

They're always, they've been scheduled for the last two years but then one at a time they end up being canceled, either because of

military, you know, social unrest, or because of COVID and the ramifications of that.

The places we go, many of them are the last places that are gonna see a vaccine.

The people we go to are living in third world context.

They're not gonna get a vaccination.

They'll be the last ones.

So even if we can get in country, there may be no one there meeting, you know, when we wanna gather with

people.

School church planting is coming up June 7th through the 10th in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

I'm the coordinator of the school church planting.

So I'm just preparing, I've got my own notes I'm writing and finishing up and

gathering other guys' notes and doing all the stuff necessary, making sure there are places for people to stay while they're

there.

It's four days long.

So I appreciate your prayers regarding that.

Let me just say, regarding the future of our ministry, you may

say, well, you're not going anywhere.

We're not right now.

Hopefully, I've got a trip to Myanmar scheduled in August and one scheduled in December.

And we figure those are gonna be canceled unless things change in Myanmar drastically.

So I have a backup trip to India in August and India in December.

And because COVID just spiked in India recently, I don't know what will happen there to those trips.

We have absolutely no control, but God does have absolute control.

So we know there's a reason behind it.

Since we haven't traveled, I've written hermeneutics material.

So that's done now.

I've been involved with Bibles International.

They needed to begin a new department and they needed someone to help with the organizational part of it.

And we live about 15 minutes from Bibles International, which is in Grand Rapids.

You know Bibles International?

You know that ministry?

They translate scriptures.

Think of Wycliffe, okay?

B -I is a tremendous, and their translations are excellent.

So they needed some help.

We live less than an hour away.

We live in Kalamazoo.

They're in Grand Rapids.

So for three months or so, three and a half months, I was involved with them, helping them develop this

new department, writing position descriptions, manager and coordinators and consultants

and all this stuff.

So I was able to help with that.

They've been trying to get there off the ground for almost 20 years.

And their people are so busy.

I mean, they all have too much going on.

They haven't been able to get that going.

Well, now we've had some time.

Now getting ready for the school church planting.

One of the reasons that PEP is more necessary now, probably going forward, than it has been in the

past.

And here's why.

For the last eight to 10 years, India has become more and more stringent

with resident missionaries.

And at this point, they're not letting resident missionaries go back.

So our American missionaries have been ministering in India, various parts of India, can't go back, okay?

To plant churches and provide training and education, anything, can't go back.

Myanmar, we don't know what's gonna happen with Myanmar, there may be something similar, depending on who ends up in power when the dusk

settles.

Our resident missionaries, and we have many in Myanmar, may not be allowed to go back.

But PEP can.

We go in on tourist visas, not resident visas.

And normally, even in restricted access countries,

you can get a tourist visa.

So for us to go in and train men, so if our resident missionaries can't be there working with the people,

we can go and continue to train men.

And that training will be more necessary going forward than it has been even up to this point.

So PEP is necessary, so please keep praying for that.

We have two members of the PEP team who are in their 70s who'll be retiring in the next two, three years.

We need more men, more full -time guys.

So pray for that as well.

All right, any questions?

You wanna be done a quarter after, brother?

Any questions, we have a few minutes, yes.

Yes, uh -huh.

Okay, the school church planting, who attends that?

That's for overseas missionaries going overseas and American church planters.

And it's really tremendous for everyone.

One of our administrators attended the last one, and he said to me afterward, this is so tremendous,

every pastor I know should go.

We're dealing with cross -cultural, multicultural ministry.

How do Hispanics hear the gospel when you say it to them?

How do Asians hear the gospel?

How do people from India hear the gospel?

How do people from shame cultures like China hear the gospel when you say it?

They don't hear it the way you're saying it.

It doesn't connect with them, they think differently.

Where it's all about family honor, all they care about is not disgracing the family, it's all about family honor.

So you're talking about Jesus and heaven and hell and all these things, they don't connect the dots.

You have to connect the gospel, you don't change the gospel's content.

But you have to connect it to the way they think, and we don't do that well.

So, and bottom line is, every place in America is becoming a

foreign mission field.

People are, from different cultures are moving in.

Everywhere.

You go to little bitty Marshall, Minnesota, and there's a huge Karen community.

You go to La Crosse, Wisconsin, there's a huge Hmong community, and it goes on and on.

So pastors and church planters here in the states have got to understand how people from

other cultures think so they can give the gospel to them in a way that they can grab a hold of and understand.

So this really is not just for missionaries and church planters.

In my view, it's for anyone serving the Lord, pastoring, it'll be, it's challenging, it's encouraging.

A lot of stuff that we all understand will be confirmed, will be confirmed in our strong positions regarding

ministry and missions, but there'll be a lot of real learning going on too.

So, yeah.

Other questions?

Jim.

I know China's influencing.

They'd like to just take Myanmar.

So the Chinese army military is supplying arms and such to them

and influence and direction.

Who is at the top right now of the military?

I don't know the answer to that.

I do know that the previous leader was in place for a long time, and he was fairly

moderate.

He's gone.

And this, but the same thing is happening in Chad, very similar.

Chad seems to have settled down, but a real similar situation there.

Yes.

Closed.

Yeah.

I don't know.

No, that's the exact way.

The banks are closed.

You got money in the bank, you can't get it.

The stores are closed.

People are afraid to go on the streets.

They're staying home.

After a while, the food runs out in your home, and so that's why they're running to the woods trying to scrounge up a way to survive.

I don't know how they're surviving.

That's a good question.

I mean, it's not just people pulling the trigger, it's people are so

terrified they can't survive.

They don't go to their jobs.

They don't leave their homes.

Eventually, food runs out.

So yeah, it's really a horrific situation.

All right, well, we'll be here.

Please approach us and ask us any questions you have.

We are so glad to be here, so.

That's true.