Suffering Well with Joel Tiegreen | Behold Your God Podcast

Welcome to the Behold Your God podcast. I'm John Snyder, and we're doing something a little different today. We're going to be able to interview a man named Joel Tigreen, and Joel is a missionary to Turkey, but he's back home right now, and we're going to get to why he's back home.

So we've been following Joel's story, but really as we follow Joel's story, we've been seeing the activity of the Lord, the faithfulness of God, and the kindness of God in the midst of some pretty difficult circumstances.

So Joel, welcome to the podcast.

Good to be here.

Joel's Testimony and Conversion to Christ

Joel, we have just a few questions that we'd like to ask you, and I know that physically your strength is pretty limited right now, so just say as much as you feel comfortable saying, but why don't you introduce yourself to us and tell us something of your testimony and how the Lord brought you to Himself.

Sure.

Thanks, John. Appreciate you guys having me today. It's a real privilege to get to share. My name's Joel Tigreen, and I'll try to make a long story short. The Lord has just done a mighty work of grace in my life like He's done in yours.

I was raised in a Christian family that was not real grounded in the theology that we would love, but it was Christian, and I did hear the gospel, but it was kind of mixed with quite a bit of superstition and weird things.

And I used that in my childhood as an excuse to reject it or not believe it. I grew up in Kansas until I was about eight years old, and then we moved to Denver and.

Colorado.

I quickly fell in with the neighbor kids and started skateboarding. And that crowd, along with my sinful nature, I fell into smoking marijuana and cigarettes and alcohol and even occasional cocaine use and things like that.

And that was even at 12 or 13 years old when all that started. And my parents had tried to homeschool me up until high school, but I had complained so much and thrown such a fit that they eventually let me go to school.

And I went to Columbine. You might have heard of that high school in Littleton. So I was supposed to be there actually during the shooting. That was my freshman year. But my dad had not let me start that semester because he didn't want me to be in school.

At all.

And I was out working on a deck in the mountains. He was a builder when the shooting happened. But I ended up going to school as soon as they reopened after the shooting. But my life just kept going in a downward spiral of sin.

And my dad and my mom were just at a loss. They didn't know what to do with me and one of my younger sisters. And so they decided to move back to Kansas in order to get us away from our friends, basically, and go back to what they thought was a better environment.

And when they moved, I actually ended up running away from home when I was 17. And they moved to Kansas without me. And it was heartbreaking for them. Really terrible thing to do to my parents. And I was up to no good.

I was stealing from people, lying to people, doing all kinds of scams to make money, working at a skate shop. And as God would have it, I got shingles when I turned 18 and I got really sick. And I ended up calling my grandma.

And she told my dad where I was and he called me from Kansas. And he offered me really good money to come frame houses as a trick to try to get a sinful son back. And I decided to go to Kansas and make some good money because I was sick of being poor.

And so I went back. And when I was there, I immediately fell in with the wrong crowd again. And in fact, my old girlfriend from Kansas followed me to, or from Denver, followed me to Kansas as well. Which that story was interesting too.

She had cheated on me a few times and really broke my heart and I was really sad about it. But then when I kind of gave up on women, I was like, forget it, I'm just going to skateboard and women are dangerous.

And then she showed up again in Kansas. And what's interesting about that story is my parents were praying for me. And one of my childhood friends, David Taylor, you know, the first eight years of my life were in Kansas.

And I had this friend named David Taylor. And he was praying for me as well. And he came and met with me a few times at my work and sometimes afterwards, and would share the gospel with me and talk to me.

And I, you know, I considered it, I thought about it, but I just continued in my own way. Well, make a long story short. One night, this girlfriend, who I hadn't seen in a long time, I actually, ever since she cheated on me the first time, I was kind of, I didn't want to like invest anymore.

And so I didn't care that much. I was like, no way, I'm not letting myself get attached. It'll just, I'll get hurt again. And so I didn't spend time with her really and didn't go. Anyway, I went over to her house one night.

And there was some guy there. And all of a sudden, even though I didn't think I cared, I got really jealous. And I fought the guy.

He was huge.

He totally won. And the police showed up and they told me to leave. And so I left. But then I was so mad, I went back and rang the doorbell and fought him again. Just a stupidity. And the police came back and they're like, well, this time you're going to jail.

And I was like, oh man, I should have gone to jail hundreds of times, but I had never been to jail. I had never actually gotten caught doing something. And I went to jail and it was absolutely humiliating.

They strip you down, at least in Kansas, and they scan your eyes and take pictures of your tattoos and your scars. It's not a good experience. And so I had a phone and they gave it to me to look up phone numbers, although I wasn't.

Able to call with it.

I was able to use my one phone call. And I called several of my friends and it said, this number is no longer in service. It's been disconnected. And I looked over at the police at the kiosk and I was like, are they messing with me?

You know, these are my friends. I just talked to him like a few hours ago. What's going on? And then I had a piece of paper in my pocket with David's phone number and I called him at four in the morning to ask him if he'd bail me out of jail.

And he was awake and he said he was praying. And I was like, what a weirdo. I can't believe he was up at four praying. Well, anyway, he came and bailed me out and he shared the gospel with me again. And I had been really broken since I got in the jail, but not so much about sin, but just my situation in life was bad.

I didn't like it. But what was amazing is when he shared the gospel with me in his car afterwards, I was really cut to the heart. And I saw just how wicked my life was, how foolish it was, how evil it was, and how much.

I needed Christ.

And it was really miraculous. I went to his house, I gave him my cigarettes because he said the gospel can not only free you from sin, but from addiction and all these things. And so I gave him my cigarettes and I never smoked again, never smoked weed again, never.

Did anything again.

And he said, I think it'd be wise if you quit your job, come work with me and live with me for a while. And so for the next couple of years, he discipled me. And every morning we'd wake up at six and read and pray for about an hour and a half before we went to work.

And it was incredible. And I've never really, I've not at all been the same since then. And so that's, I know that was kind of long, but that's the short version.

But it was a beautiful story.

And mercifully, I didn't get convicted of any felonies. The judge actually, the pastor, David's dad, came with me to court and said, Sir, I want to testify that this man has been changed by Jesus Christ.

And he's not the same man who committed those crimes and fought that man. And the judge said, Is that true, son? And I was like, Yes, sir. He said, I actually believe you.

And he let me go. So it's pretty amazing.

And David and I have been friends ever since. And yeah, I can get more to that later. It probably will have to do with some of the other questions. So I'm a grace case. And I'm very, very grateful for it.

How Joel Became a Missionary to Turkey

How did you end up in Turkey as a missionary?

Yeah, so I met my wife. And we decided to go to college. And I wanted to get a Bible degree and she wanted to get a missions degree. And so we did that. Unfortunately, we wound up at a horrible school.

It was terribly liberal.

And we spent the whole time just arguing and fighting with the professors. And I wanted to quit the whole time. But there was actually one good professor that was like, just finish. Already wasted this much money.

Stick it out.

Get the degree.

And I did. But while we were there, we were part of a really good church. It's the church we're part of today. And I actually joined on staff there and worked there for about seven years. It's called Covenant Church now.

Used to be called Harvard Avenue Baptist when I first started there. And so we had a real conviction that we wanted to go and preach the gospel somewhere. I felt that I had a gifting for evangelism. And so did my wife.

We aren't scared of people that are different. We were constantly having homeless people live with us and drug addicts and just lots of things that some people would be nervous about. We were nervous sometimes too, but I don't know.

We kind of liked the adventure and seeing God at work with people that seem hopeless. And so we started to think about Muslim countries and we heard about the need. And my pastor, we went to a T4G conference and we heard this amazing David Platt sermon in like 2012 or 14.

I can't remember. And we were really convicted about it. And I think it was called like the sovereignty of God and death defying missions or something. But it was a good sermon. And I was just even more convinced that I wanted to be a church planner or missionary.

And then we went to a conference at Desiring God and Max Stiles preached another amazing sermon. And we were all in tears. I think about 5 ,000 of us were all in tears. And my pastor leaned over and he said, are you ready to go?

And I said, if you'll send me. And so that's where we decided to start looking around. And we decided to check on the countries that we knew were very needy and that we knew people.

There.

And so I visited Indonesia and Papua. I knew a guy named Phil Fields and Trevor Johnson there. And so I visited there. And then I visited Israel because we knew someone there named Randy Green. And those didn't really end up working out.

And then we visited Turkey, which is where my friend David had ended up moving two years.

Prior.

So David had discipled me. Him and his wife actually ended up going there to be missionaries. And so last of all, we visited Turkey. And I can't give you like a spiritual, amazing, like I had this revelation or feeling.

But I can tell you, I absolutely fell in love with the people and the place. And I just couldn't get it out of my mind. And I knew I just wanted to live there. And I had hoped to die there, too. And so I came back and we made a plan.

And so we decided how we're going to learn the language, how we're going to do all that. And we made a plan and we went to Turkey. So we just made a decision and didn't want to ever turn back. So that's how we wound up in Turkey is we knew David.

And, you know, when I first visited Turkey, I thought they spoke Arabic. I didn't know that they spoke Turkish and Kurdish, some Farsi, a few other small groups have other languages. But I knew literally nothing except that they needed the gospel.

But when I got there, I still to this day don't think there's hardly anywhere in the world that compares to Turkey. They're so hospitable and kind and just the culture, although there's some ugly, horrible things about the culture, there's some beautiful things.

And I just love those people. And I want Christ to be worshipped there. And so I went.

Lessons in Missions and the Need for Biblical Churches

Yeah.

As a missionary, you know, we all have ideas of, you know, growing up in church, hearing about missions. I imagine that we have ideas of what a missionary is or what a missionary's life looks like. But what did the Lord teach you?

You know, valuable lessons about bringing the gospel to other people. What did he teach you in Turkey?

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, this is going to sound a little bit negative, possibly. But when I got to Turkey, I was shocked to find out how many missionaries were there. And sadly, that they weren't sharing the gospel.

They were either not sharing the gospel because they were scared. They were nervous to do it and nervous to get kicked out of the country. Or they weren't taking the time to learn the language. They were learning it enough to buy stuff at the market, but not enough to explain substitutionary atonement.

And so that I saw was one big, big shortcoming. And also there's this, as a missionary, I realized that people, churches want results and they want to hear good newsletters. And so I found out that there's a whole lot of activity.

And kind of, but it's a lot, it's really kind of fluff. So there's like all these things that are going on and that people are busying themselves with that aren't producing. Well, one, I don't think they're obedient to scripture.

And two, that's not even producing fruit anyway. And so I really, by God's grace, through his word and through reading good books and listening to good teachers. I saw the pattern that the scripture has with Paul going all over and preaching.

And God's power through the Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the word, people are being born again. But then Paul doesn't just leave them there. He leaves an elder there. He leaves a Timothy or a Titus there.

And then he tells them to teach, to imitate him and to appoint more elders. And so I came to realize that a lot of people are doing it wrong, basically. And that we need to refocus on making biblical churches that evangelize the center of missions.

Because the people, just like everyone in America needs a solid church that preaches the word, that administers the ordinances, that has church discipline and follows through on it. Just like we need those things here, it's needed just as much or more in foreign countries where they're new believers.

And so that's what we committed ourselves to, is we wanted to preach the word wherever we were and see biblical churches started with men leading those churches who were qualified by the qualifications of scripture.

And so I think that that's what Turkey needs. Right now there is a flurry of activity, but the majority of it is not in line with that. So I think that's one of the things I learned and it's a conviction that I have held since.

Suffering, Cancer, and the School of Christ

Well, Joe, obviously you're wearing oxygen and you're back home. So what happened and what's the Lord been teaching you through that?

Yeah. So actually, what's the date? Exactly a year ago today. So in Turkey, every six months, you have to leave the country and come back for visa purposes and for your driver's license. And there are other ways around it.

And I usually would just take a boat for about an hour to Cyprus or to Rhodes for a day. I know I was really blessed to have some fun. And so I would go over to one of these islands where Paul was and walk around and come back.

And, you know, my visa and driver's license would be renewed. Well, a year ago this week, one of my friends who is a good missionary over there, he said, hey, did you know tickets to Milan, Italy are only like $80 for a plane ticket?

I was like, really? So anyway, we flew over there with our family and went to a Christmas market and saw some old churches. And my arm started hurting while I was carrying. We had four kids at the time, and Emily was eight months pregnant.

She walked like 150 miles while she was like, well, seven and a half months pregnant. Kind of amazing because we walked everywhere. But my arm started hurting really bad. And I carried my three year old son.

He was two at the time. I carried him almost the whole way because we didn't want to. Well, we forgot to bring our stroller, actually. And so and they were so expensive over there. It was like it would have just ruined our budget for the trip.

So I was like, I'm just going to carry him. So I carried him all around Italy and my arm was just killing me. And when I got back to Turkey, we noticed it was swelling up really quickly. Like every day it was getting bigger.

And it was right here, right there. And so I went to the doctor and he said, oh, you must have pulled a muscle. No big deal. It should go away. And then a month later, it was like twice as big. And I was like, this is not looking good.

So I went back to the doctor and he panicked and was like, that's not normal. That's really bad. And they did a CT scan and sure enough, it was a tumor. And they thought that it wasn't cancerous. Hopefully not.

And so they did a big biopsy and the biopsy came back as inconclusive. And so then he's like, well, we have to remove it anyway. Because it's really large and it's cutting off your your vein and your.

Sorry, what's it your nerve? It's pinching your nerve. And so they did this surgery. It took about four hours. When I woke up, it was not good. Did not feel good. The tumor was about 12 centimeters long by six centimeters or seven centimeters wide.

So it grew really fast, although it didn't look that big. So you can't really tell now, but a year and a half ago, I was actually a really big guy. I was lifting weights all the time and running and and pretty healthy.

So even a large tumor in my bicep was not super visible. And so. They cut it out and they sent it off for biopsy, and it came back that 75 percent of the tumor was benign and 25 percent was. Called an undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma.

And they freaked out and were like, this is really, really bad. And they're like, we probably need to cut off your arm and and do all this stuff. And I was like, OK, I think I'm going to go to America.

And partially it was money because Turkey is way cheaper. But my insurance that I bought, my Turkish insurance was a scam and it wasn't working. They wouldn't cover anything. So I was paying cash for my surgeries and all that stuff.

And even though it's way, way, way cheaper, it was still adding up. And I have insurance in the state of Arkansas. So we came back here and they re-looked at the biopsy and the tumor. And I brought, kind of funny, I drove from our city to Ephesus to pick up my tumor the day before I flew back.

And it was a difficult time because Corona had just started. My son was born two days before my surgery on my arm, our fifth child. And his passport had not shown up yet. So Emily had to stay with the five kids while I flew to America.

And then she literally made it out on the very last plane out of the country before they closed it down. And when we got to America, they were like, yeah, this is not good. They said there's about a 60 percent chance it'll spread to your lungs.

And they said sarcomas always spread to the lungs. They said we could amputate your arm, but we think it's too late. We think that should have been done immediately. And by now it's probably already spread.

And so I had two scans on my body that were clear. And then in July I went in for another scan. And the doctor came in and he said, well, Joel, unfortunately your arm doesn't have any more cancer in it.

And I did 35 rounds of radiation on my arm. But we went in and he said there's 25 tumors in your lungs. And he said that there is about a 15 percent survival rate if you have five tumors. A five year survival rate of 15 percent if you have five tumors.

He said if you have more than that, it's just not possible. So he said we're going to do everything we can to extend your life. And so they've done lots of chemo and immunotherapy and other stuff. And so far none of it has done anything.

And the cancer has continued to grow really quickly. And so three months ago he said I would live three months. One other doctor said I could live four or five possibly. So that's where we're at today.

As far as my physical condition. But the Lord has been very faithful through it all. My theology hasn't changed at all. I'm so grateful that God saw fit to teach me what biblical suffering looks like and what its purposes are before we got to this.

And that has been huge. But he's reminded me of it and it's become more precious to me now that we are suffering in this way. And there's many verses that they're cherished verses for all of us. But when you're going through something like this, they're deep and they're close to our hearts.

And, you know, you think of Romans 8, 28. And, you know, all things work together for good for those who love God. You know, I also recently I recommend Thomas Watson's book on that verse. And it is a treasure.

And just how it's not only the good things that happen in our life that work for our good. But when you become a Christian, you're born again, all of life is Christ's school. He's teaching you through everything.

And he only gives you exactly what you need. And that doesn't mean we'll always understand the details of it. You know, I can see because of my sinfulness. You know, some people think I have friends and people that think I'm like a great missionary.

And they're very confused. Just a man was saved by grace. And he saved me. He changed me. He worked in me. And it was a privilege to do anything with him or for him. And even our time in Turkey was a complete privilege.

I never once thought of it as a burden or suffering. The whole entire time, I enjoyed it so much, sometimes I felt bad. It's like, do I really get to do this? Do I really get to be here in this place with these people sharing this good news?

And so, you know, when this cancer hit us and hit our family, those truths have just become more real and precious to us. And there's also one in 1 Peter 1, I think it's in verse 5 and 6. Where he says, if necessary, you've been burdened with various trials.

And I read over that so many times, going, that's a good verse, you know. But if necessary, like if you need it, you've been burdened with various trials. In other words, it all, he has a plan and purpose for it all.

And he's going to give it to you if you need it. But I can see because of my own sinfulness, my own going against conscience, that this very well could be discipline even. But it's because he loves me.

It's because he wanted me to end well. And now I think he has other purposes too. And it might not be discipline, I don't know for sure, but I know that it's humbled me. It's made me think of my sin more than ever.

And it's made me think of Christ more than ever. And that's a thing that I cherish so much. And so just God's purpose in our suffering, and not even extreme suffering, but even in little things, daily things, we should acknowledge that those are part of Christ's school and that he's going to teach us if we'll let him, if we'll pay attention.

And so that's something that my wife and I have been learning through this time. Is that he is good, and that there's purpose in this, and that we know we need it. My cancer is necessary.

Prayer for Peace, Strength, and the Salvation of Their Children

Since some of the people that will be listening to this have access to our God through prayer, through Christ, can you give us some things that you would wish that we would pray for you and your family?

Sure. You know, the actual event of dying isn't real pleasant. I almost died two weeks ago and I wasn't fearful, but it just wasn't pleasant. And so, but my kids were scared. My wife was. And so I just pray, if you guys could pray for peace and trust for my wife and kids.

And that the Lord would help her, you know, if he chooses to take me, which it looks like he will. If the Lord would just give her extra strength to shepherd my kids, our kids, and that he would save our children and use them for his glory.

And, you know, I haven't finished the race yet, so I appreciate prayer to finish full of faith. I haven't doubted or worried or been fearful yet. And I know that's by God's grace and through the prayers of his church.

And, you know, that's actually another thing we've been so blessed by is we have, we're just baffled by the love of God's people for us. We totally don't deserve it. But the church is truly otherworldly.

It's not of this world. It's people are completely different. You know, they would, there are churches and people that have literally no money that have been helping us out financially. And it's just so humbling and so beautiful.

And so we would be grateful for prayers in those areas.

Certainly.

Closing Thanks and Ways to Help

Well, Joel, thank you very much for taking the time to be with us. And just to give us, you know, just a quick panoramic view of the faithfulness of the Lord in your own life. And we will be praying for you.

Well, thank you for joining us for this interview. If you want to know more about Joel and the kindness of the Lord to him and through him, you can find in the show notes a link to his YouTube channel.

Also in the show notes, there'll be a place where if you want to help in concrete ways, it'll direct you toward that.