October 27 2024 Jim & Joan Hanson Missionary Reprot

Well, first of all, thank you for all being here today we appreciate you spending the morning with us. We have The Hanson's here today with us. So we're blessed to have them here as well. We're just gonna start with some quick announcements.

We have prayer meeting tonight at 6 p .m. So just come back and we'll have that. At at the building we have our praise and worship night on the 31st of this month that's you know, everybody knows that day is Halloween, but we're gonna do our Celebration of the Reformation of the gospel that day in the fellowship hall in the back.

Today we have All month. It's been our missionaries of the month or Jim and John Hanson here. Who are with us? They serve with BMW and they do a deaf and blind ministry in LA so just pray for them as as they prepare to retire from that ministry and.

So we'll just start today in a word of prayer Dear Lord, thank you for today. Thank you for allowing us to gather here this morning Lord and we just pray that as we worship in song Lord and in your word Lord that you would just prepare our hearts Lord to To just receive what you have for us this morning Lord and Lord.

We just pray that we could take what we get from today Lord and and be able to apply that in our lives. And the people that we meet throughout the week Lord, we love you and praise you in Jesus name. Amen.

I'd like to good morning and like to piggyback on to that with just a couple additional announcements. I want to also mention ladies T the first Saturday of December so ladies mark your calendars for that and another.

Just item to look forward to we're getting the outside of the church painted. Yay, it's kind of we knew that that was coming sometime after the re-roof. And so starting on the 9th, it'll be done by the 20th.

So praise God for the means and ability to do that. And so look forward to Seeing a refresh on the church that has been here since just before 1950 and thereabouts late 40s, so God has been faithful to faith Bible Church.

Has he not? Amen. So this morning our first song is is behold our God and this text was taken from Isaiah 40. And one of the familiar verses from 40. It's the last verse in chapter 40, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.

They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. And isn't that an encouragement for the times that we live? To to hold on to that and to behold our God.

Let's stand together as we sing behold our God. Let's turn in God's Word to 2nd Timothy 2.

God's Faithfulness in Ministry

Verses 11 through 13. This is a faithful saying For if we died with him We shall also live with him if we endure. We shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us if we are faithless.

He remains faithful. He can't deny himself. Dear father. Thank you so much for your word. And we know that it does not return void. Help us to live it and grow in you through it in Jesus name Amen.

Our next song is Oh Lord my rock and my Redeemer stand together worship our Lord in song and praise and as I've said before this is just a Precursor a rehearsal for when we get to heaven and it's gonna be so much more glorious and you don't have to listen to me.

Is going to come and give a message and share about their ministry this morning.

And he already baited me a couple hours ago about what's next and I'm anxious to hear that. I've been aware of the Hanson's over 20 years probably now at least and I've always been Appreciative of their ministry and You know, we see it from looking from the outside looking in.

We see the challenges of it all and I'm sure As they are going to speak today and reflect back on that. There are numerous blessings in the midst of it even in the challenge and the difficulty of it so I appreciate them very much in their ministry and where God has brought them in this lifetime and they've been a Just a an encouragement to many so I think you're gonna enjoy brother Jim.

Can you come forward this morning and share with us and and Joe?

Communication With the Deaf and Blind

So The reason she's up here is we've been made aware that you may not understand how to communicate with the people that we've ministered to for 31 years actually more than that 30, 40 years down in Los Angeles with the deaf blind people like Helen Keller they can't see and they can't hear.

So how do you communicate with those people? So she's up here. First let me tell you that all communication with the deaf blind is done tactile. Ok they can't hear they can't see. So they need their other sense that would be the most conducive to give information they need to use their touch to feel.

And when you think of the brain and I've developed this over the years thinking about this when you think of the brain as a computer God gave your brain 5 input devices. Take your computer at home. You have a keyboard you have a mouse you might have a pen you might have your voice you have different input devices but your brain has 5 input devices and the brain is lazy.

So it uses the easiest form. And we're different. So some of us the easiest form is our ears. We're auditory. We pick up information from hearing. Others are visual so they pick up easily from sight. When you lose those two you only have 3 left and one is smell and you can pick up some information from smell but you're not going to get a lot of real clear communication and you have taste and again you can pick up some information but not clearly.

So the third, the other one is touch. It's not that the brain becomes more that touch becomes better. It's that the brain becomes more focused on pulling information from that source. And so that's why they can read braille.

That's why they feel things and know what things are. So communication with deafblind is tackling. If they were born with Usher Syndrome which is the number one cause of deafblindness in the world they were hard of hearing or deaf somewhere in their teens or early twenties they developed retinitis pigmentosa detachment of the retina.

It's a congenital thing. Nothing can stop it. They've lost their sight. But for a good portion of their life they were deaf and they probably learned sign language that would become their first language an American Sign Language which isn't English.

It's closer to French or a Latin language because of how it came to this country and how it was developed than English. So if you can speak French or Spanish or something like that you probably have a better understanding of American Sign Language than English speaking people who try to make it English and it's not so they've learned sign language but now they have to change from visual sign language to tactile so it's tactile.

So Joan is now going to tell you or tell me what I'm saying using my voice. She's going to interpret for me as if I was a deafblind person. I'm going to put my hands on her and I understand what she's saying.

Now maybe they don't know sign language but they've learned another tactile form of communication which is palm printing and so what happens is okay so they can see it. What happens is you print capital letters on the palm of the hand and they pick up on what.

That is another form and I'm going to do this one is the manual alphabet so it's A B C D E F G H I J so you spell everything and it's letter by letter very slow but it's another form. We knew a person who used Morse code and so you get I don't know Morse code.

I do know this dot dot dot but so there are other forms but it's all by touch and so that's how we learn. There's many different ways. There's a thing called Tadoma where you put your fingers here on the throat they can feel the vocal cords and they put their hands on you like this they put their thumb up here and you speak and they can basically read your lips with their hands and feel the vocal cords.

So there's a lot of different ways for us it was there's Braille but it's again tactile and so there's many different ways but for us it was whatever way they used we had to learn that way or develop a way to use that and that's how we communicate with each other.

So hopefully you understand that we understand it's a lot of information but it gives you a visual idea of how you do that. When we would have services either voice and sign at the same time. I'm trying to speak two languages at the same time.

I mess up in both. It's not like I have a voice and then sign. It's that I'm doing both at the same time so I mess up. I try to mess up more in voice than sign language because it's a downturn and they really don't care what I say but the hearing people do.

So anyway that's what happens. I want to correct something. The word retirement came up and so let me make it clear we're not retiring. We're retraining. The lord has brought us to a close of something and he's moving us on to something else.

The Hansons' 48-Year Journey of Faith

I'm going to explain all of that in what I'm going to do now but I just wanted to clarify that point that we are not retiring this church and a few others have been supporting us all this year. We would much appreciate that that continues but if it doesn't the lord has something else to provide for us.

He never failed to provide for us. He never will fail to provide for us. So we're not worried about that. We're not concerned about that. But retirement for me retirement for Joan is when we step into glory and that is the place of our rest although I don't know that we're going to rest when that happens we're safe.

We don't have to talk about that. So the lord has something for us. I don't know what it is but whatever it is it will be different than here. It will be much better. So we're looking forward to that day when it comes when he's given us good help as the ordination continues.

So we're looking forward to that and we're looking forward to when we pass away and normally normally when I get up to speak and I've had the opportunity to preach here before and I love preaching. I'm an expository preacher.

I believe that so it's the best way for me because then you get God's word not my opinion. And if I go any other way you're going to get more of my opinion than God's word. In my opinion it's worth what you paid for.

If you didn't pay anything to get in here then my opinion is worth nothing but God's word is worth everything. So I want to proclaim God's word and so normally I'm an expository preacher. I have an outline keeping it on track normally and that outline allows me to be extemporaneous in my preaching so things come to me.

In fact as I was sitting in the Sunday school class and as I talked to you here I had all sorts of ideas and things I would want to share and bring into a message and bring into what the Lord even wants to do here right now but I can't do that because if I was to preach an expository message trying to do this or an extemporaneous do it in an extemporaneous form where I pull in the thoughts and ideas that the Lord would give me in the middle of the message.

One of the things I love is when I'm preaching I have an outline I have notes and I have an illustration maybe or something and there's sometimes the things I meant to say I never say and things I never meant to say come out not just take that as the Holy Spirit leaving but I love it, it's fun.

I'm glad to be able to proclaim His word let Him do what's needed in your heart by the way, I have no idea what you need. There's a person here who I know that you need God's word, but I don't know even if I know you personally and I know what I think you need, I don't really know what you need but if the Holy Spirit does He's the true teacher here, He's going to teach us but today what I'm going to do is I'm going to read every once in a while I'm going to read to you about God's faithfulness on His way.

I'm going to do it in this form which I don't like because I have to keep on track, otherwise you will be a barrier. I've condensed this down I'm sure you're going to have questions, we're going to stay around after if you have a question you can ask us any question you want, I have an answer to every question most of the time it's I don't know but in spite of that I condensed it down the best I can, my wife can condense a lot into one page I have about six or more part of this, a very small part of this I put a report on and it's 15 pages long so you're getting a condensed form of what God has been doing, but I wanted to show you God's faithfulness on His way and I think this comes out in it as a reading, but I want to also start off with this what God has done in our life in the last, well in the 48 years of our life together as a dating couple and as a husband and wife and especially in the last two years and then really in the last six weeks will seem utterly amazing and you'll think it's a story like Paul on the road to Damascus or Moses before the burning bush it's something that you will never, you couldn't aspire to you couldn't imagine it's just such an amazing thing and that's what missionaries are, we're such amazing we are so special we are spiritual giants so far above we're just people and this is going to come out, but I want you to understand that a lot of what we're sharing we're sharing because we look back and we see what that did we had no clue what was happening and what was happening and most of the time you don't have a clue what God is doing but if you look back and every once in a while just stop and look back where you're at and how you got there and think through the process you're going to go, oh God has been so good God has been so he's been so faithful so that's the thing God's faithfulness comes before we begin.

Father thank you so much for this opportunity I'm so excited to share this with these folks, they've been so faithful not always knowing what to pray, how to pray or what we need but thankful to pray, thankful to support us thankful to allow us to do what you call us to do.

We appreciate that so much and we miss the opportunities of keeping them better aware of what's going on in private letters and private meetings, but we haven't been able to hear personally, and we learned something through that two years of craziness that went on where we were told we couldn't gather together and we shouldn't gather together how important it is for us to gather together.

So thank you for this opportunity, thank you for your word, thank you that the true teacher is here present with us today and he will impart exactly what each of us needs into our lives. The Holy Spirit will lead the teaching.

I'm just going to do the presentation of what he's going to be teaching, how we need to do it clearly how it's going to be well understood and how beautifully glorified in Jesus Christ's name. So this morning I want to start with a passage that we already read, 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 11 -13 by the way, I have my Bible open but I'm not going to be turning the passages if I take the time to turn, we're going to be here a lot longer, so when I'm reading the passage, I will tell you so if you don't see me turning my Bible that's okay.

So 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 11 -13 the statement is trustworthy, for if we die with him we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also break with him, if we deny him, he will also deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself and it is on that verse and I love that they have it up there it is on that verse, verse 13 that our time will be focused.

God is faithful that never changes in this time of sharing, I'm going to introduce ourselves, and then give you a quick history of our past 48 years together. I'm going to introduce the past 48 years lost the line it's on here, but I just lost it then give you a quick history of our past 48 years together with a focus on the past 2 years of ministry.

All of this is going to be done from a Biblical perspective and I'm going to be reading verses that we believe give a clear promises and direction from God to all of us. So I'm going to be making very few comments on these verses.

It is our desire that you follow the example of the Koreans, Luke wrote about in Acts 17 .11 now these people were more noble minded than those of Thessalonica for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

So check us out and see if we're right. So right down the references, we're back home read it, check us out. I have no problem with you doing that. And by the way, if you find out I was wrong let me know, so I don't keep doing it alright we met in 1976 1977 school year at Sacramento Bible Institute.

This is the introduction. I came to school in the fall of 76 at the age of 23. I chose to live first at that time. Psalm 37 .5 commit thy way to the Lord. Trust also in Him and He shall bring you to pass.

Joan came to school in the spring of 1977.

In the spring of 1977 at the age of 17 I really shouldn't just read this. I'm not trying to do it by memory at all.

She chose as her life verses Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 trust in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not into thy own understanding in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths. Joan and I became friends and we started dating the following year in 1982 we graduated in May of 1980 and in September of that year we were married.

We had our first child in 1982. Our second was born in 1984. Both were girls. Then in 1986 our first boy was born and I started what is now the Masters University to finish my degree in Christian Education.

I graduated in 1988. In 1989 our fourth child and final child was born, our second boy. During my years at SBI and following Joan and I have always been involved in ministry in a local church. At first it was as lay people and then in 1986 I became a 4th time senior I .U. pastor at Santa Correa Baptist Church.

I stepped down from this position in 1989 and we started serving in ministries within the church that needed help again as lay people. In 1990 God started the process of making it clear why he had moved us to Southern California.

We became aware of a need in the ministry of Grace Bible Deaf Church. They needed a Bible teacher on Sunday mornings for their worship service so I offered myself as a possible teacher if they desired.

They asked me to come and after preaching in September of that year I was asked to come on a regular basis. We accepted this and for the next 3 years we were there almost every Sunday as a family. After 3 months of being there they started calling me pastor and that became my role.

I'll give you a little side note here to understand. Joan had had some training in sign language. I have had none so I didn't go into this because I got a call from Deaf Ministries or because I thought we always wanted to do this or I even knew what I was doing.

It was all God. We were just taking one step at a time. In 1993 there was a need for more help and commission on compassion also known as COC which are the initials I'll use in the future. It's the 35 unit apartment complex for independent living of DeafBlind that was the main ministry of Biblical Ministries worldwide in Los Angeles.

It was on the property of COC that Grace Bottle Deaf Church met. Our family was asked to move there to assist in any way we could which we did in July of that year. In 1994 Joan and I joined Biblical Ministries worldwide and became missionaries.

It was in this process in the following months that we became aware of what we believed as an absolute truth of the word of God. All believers in Jesus Christ have received a call from God to minister every one of us we were when we joined the mission we were asked to present our call to minister our call to mission and I had none.

So as we were getting ready to come to before the board and I was supposed to tell them what my call to ministry was. Why are you here? How do you know God wants you to do this? And I'm trying to figure it out.

I've been doing it for three years but you know how do I know? So 1 Corinthians 1 26 -30. I read it the day before that morning. I can't remember. But these are what those verses say for. Consider your calling brothers and sisters.

There were not many wise according to the flesh not many mighty not many noble. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong and the insignificant things of the world and that despise.

God has chosen the things that are not so that he may nullify the things that are so that no human may boast before God. But it is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus who came to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

And I read those verses and I said oh that's me weak foolish nothing. You're right. You're right. You're right. So I read those verses and I think that's the call to every one of us. You may not think you're qualified.

You may not think you can do it. You may think you are an option but whatever God's got for you he's prepared you for it or will prepare you for it and don't worry about it. He opens the door, go through it.

Just go through it and see what happens. We have all been sent by Jesus Christ to make disciples. A missionary message is preached from Matthew 28 19 -20. It says go, but it's not saying go. It says as you're going.

Therefore make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to follow all that I commanded you and behold I am with you always to the end of the age and we're all going someplace doing something.

I love talking to teenagers about the Lord and sharing about their opportunities for ministry. I cannot walk onto a school campus and share the Lord. That's their mission. Their neighbors, their friends, their family.

We all have a mission to do. My son-in-law joined the army. God needs missionaries in the army. He needs missionaries in everything. So he didn't send you to the death of death line. I get that, but he sent you someplace just answer the call make disciples.

We are all foreign missionaries as ambassadors of Christ and citizens of heaven. Those of us that have been in the church a long time have heard the difference between home missions and foreign missions, there is no difference.

2 Corinthians 5 -20. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were making an appeal through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. You're an ambassador of Christ you're representing him, that's why you're here otherwise he would have saved you and taken you home.

There was no need for you but he had a need for you to be an ambassador, a representative. You're here to represent him. So you're an ambassador, well usually ambassadors are from foreign places. Right, well Ephesians 2 -19, so then you are no longer strangers and foreigners but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household.

Okay, we're citizens of where? Philippians 3 -20 for our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not your home, now that was hard for me to understand for a long time because I was an American and I lived in a Christian nation.

Really never has been. There's been a lot of things that came from God's word and Christianity and the beginning of this nation. But really those forefathers some of them were believers, some of them most of them were not.

We've not been in a Christian nation, but if you can't understand that you're a citizen of heaven and you don't belong to this world and you don't feel like a foreigner in this day and age whatever they're doing out there doesn't make any sense to me and doesn't feel like home so I don't belong, but I do as a representative of Christ and a citizen of heaven, so we believe this is a clear indication that we're all missionaries so don't look at me in any special way because I'm not for the next 14 years we focused on developing and building the ministry of mission of compassion and grace by the deaf church.

We had many times of encouragement and many times of discouragement in the ministry. We saw all four of our children raise to adulthood and become well prepared to leave our home and be responsible for those.

We had the opportunity to be used in the lives of many deafblind deaf, their families, workers, students and co-workers on this side of heaven. We don't know all that God has done through those years.

We have no clue. In 2008 the focus of our ministry added a new dimension. We started making a concerted effort to recruit the next group of workers for the ministries God had given us. We did that through making the need known where ever God took us and by going through every open door God gave us.

This also became the focus of our co-workers in the ministry and we continued this for the next 14 years experiencing some encouraging responses during that time but in reality no real achievements in attaining any new co-workers.

We also spent that time in preparing for the next group of workers and also sought to build the ministry. This time was made in much prayer requesting God to provide the team members to continue with the work.

Also as a team we continued to get older. A process we couldn't seem to stop. This brings us to 2022. This comes to the decision to close the ministries of commission on compassion and grace by that church.

The Decision to Close the Ministry

The decision was made after prayerful consideration by the board of biblical ministries worldwide. I want to make it very clear. It was a decision that was very hard for them to make. It was not easy.

The decision was accepted by the team of workers at COC and grace by that church. But I also want to make it clear. It was a decision that we could not have made ourselves. It was a decision that we did not like but it was a decision that we realized was right.

The process of closure really had begun a couple of years previously. Well I'm sorry let me go back. The plan for the process of closure was to give the residents time to find new housing. It was believed it could take from two years at the minimum to five or more years possibly most of these people needed low income housing needed government subsidized housing probably.

And the waiting list in Los Angeles and Los Angeles County to stay in that area is way longer than five years and most of them their name wasn't on any list. So it was starting from the beginning. The process of closure really began a couple of years earlier.

We stopped accepting new residents when the apartment became vacated and that was due to the fact that we had no new missionary staff coming on board and we did not want to continue accepting new residents until we knew there would be workers to continue to minister.

It just seemed right. The announcement for the closure happened on September 17th 2022. Now that's an important date as you will come to understand not much happened the remainder of that year. 2023 was a very busy year.

The first resident relocated with the help of his family. It required a one day ground trip flight by me to Portland, Oregon to assist him. I flew up with him and dropped him off at the airport with his sister who was taking him to the place and I got off the plane and flew home.

Then something amazing happened. The Lord relocated our senior missionaries to a new residence. This was Muriel and Diane Grubb. We assumed that they would be the last staff to leave COC and they wound up being the first.

In fact when the announcement was given Muriel physically did not. She had retired, she was not continuing on with any duties but in her mind she could still do everything and wanted to do everything.

So when the announcement was given she said well that's fine, we'll just go someplace else and start over again. That was her attitude. So we knew that was going to be a tough go for her to leave and then the Lord just took them away as the first staff.

Muriel had been there since 1977 and he had come in 1990 so a very long time. Another amazing thing happened in that we learned about a new facility in New Mexico for the independent living of Deaf and DeafBlind.

We had said for years we were the only one in the country and we were, but now the Lord was opening up another place. Now it's an industry, it's a business it's low income housing but it's dedicated to independent living of Deaf and DeafBlind.

They had started planning for this facility about the same time that we had started praying for and recruiting for New York workers 14 years previously after a very interesting and labor intensive process we assisted 9 of our residents from 5 apartments to relocate to POP that's the name of this place POP in Albuquerque.

It was absolutely the work of God. Also a few other residents moved to be closer to family and we were amazed at what God did this year. We couldn't even imagine that it would become more amazing in the future.

Our imagination was very limited. It also became apparent that this closure was God's decision and that it was under His control. It was also clear to Joan and I that God had been answering our prayer for co-workers.

We had just been having a real hard time accepting the answer, sometimes God answers no and that's what had been happening this current year of 2024 we began with 10 occupied apartments and 16 residents including us.

The properties were put on the market about February again another interesting process to go through and soon after this God moved 2 more of our team Bob and Val Hulkslander to a new location leaving only 3 team members on site.

Bob and Val were still in the area so they would come and help us when we had a need. And then the property sold on June 25th of this year the sale was completed it was sold. The process began. It was completed on June 25th for the apartment complexes so all of the apartments that were sold soon after this the Lord took one of the residents that had been in the hospitals and our care providing facility since November 29th of 2023 into eternity.

I had accepted the power of attorney for this guy. He asked me to do that when he went into the hospital in November and I had a lot of responsibilities and I was trying to help through this process and it seemed like it was a long term thing that would go on for years maybe and the Lord started working on that and then one day I got a call from the sheriff and he was gone and the Lord took that responsibility and that need was over another amazing answer to prayer, it was totally unexpected.

Next the Lord provided our next team member a new housing situation, this left only Joan and I to care for the property and the remaining residents. In the middle of July the new owner had a meeting with the remaining residents.

He made it very clear that it was his desire for all of us to leave as soon as possible. In the contract for the sale of the property, BMW leased our apartment at market rate for the next six months making it possible for us to stay there until the end of the year to assist the remaining residents the new owner as needed and to close out the business of COC.

Grace Bible Deaf Church had already been closed out and those that were designed to continue in worship met in our apartment for the Zoom service that I did for Belaya Bible Church have been doing and continue to do since 2020.

We were totally willing to do what was necessary to minister to those in need. The new owners made it very clear they didn't want our help. Five of the residents in three apartments made it very clear they did not want our help.

That left five residents in three apartments that wanted our assistance and it left us within one day of that meeting, that meeting with the new owner, God opened opportunities for four of those five residents that wanted our help to move to a new location.

The first couple moved to Pasadena about five minutes from COC. Our co-worker Bob and myself rented a truck and assisted them in that move on August 15th the second couple found a place in Georgetown, Oregon outside of Portland.

Another friend of mine from our home church and I assisted them in that move on August 19th to the 21st driving their things for them there dropping off the truck the one-way truck Ubering to the airport and flying home that left one more resident who had no place and it left us.

The last resident wanted to relocate their family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Now, I had also accepted many years ago, Gerald Powell turned me for help for this guy and he needed a lot of care and help and I had been providing that for a long time, relocating him to within days of our completing the move to Oregon, the Lord opened a place for him in Milwaukee.

It was going to be a long process of helping the family getting this person set up in Wisconsin or so we thought. In fact God went before us and just a quick story of this. I was going to have to send doctors and insurance and just a myriad of things in Milwaukee and I could do nothing in Milwaukee or Wisconsin and their systems and their laws and anybody who's on Medicare and dealing with all that you know, it's a bummer and so I was going to have to help him with all that and I was thinking, oh this is going to take forever so my birthday is on the 17th of September and my anniversary is on the 28th and I know I'm not going to be there with my wife during those days because I'm going to be in Milwaukee so I we thought it was this long process or so we thought and in fact God went before us and got everything established.