May and June 2018 Travel Report

Travel to South Africa and Zambia

So I know some of you are probably really excited and we're looking forward to getting into Ulrich Zwingli today and maybe you wore your Swiss lederhosen just simply to celebrate such a wonderful exciting thing as to get started on Zwingli.

But what I thought I would do, it's been a very long time back years ago when I first started doing a fair amount of traveling at least in the United States especially when I'd take a fairly lengthy trip which back then was about 10 days not 20 overseas.

I would frequently give some reports on what's going on elsewhere. It does strike me sometimes that Reformed Baptist can become a little bit insular. We don't necessarily have a lot of contact with other churches and what's going on in the world and of course I certainly have not sought the amount of travel that I do now.

Though I'll have to admit that this year, I don't think I will be next year, but this year I am one world emerald. Now if you, oh so you know what that is, if you're a flyer I'm executive platen on American which is their top tier and that makes me top tier in one world which means like British Airways and stuff like that.

And so when we flew over to this last trip what we did is we went from Phoenix to Heathrow and then more than once I've, I know Heathrow and I don't know why, but the flights that come in from Phoenix go into terminal three but British Airways their home terminal's five so you have to frequently transfer between those two terminals.

And so what you, I've done in the past is you go through all the transfer stuff, you get about a mile and a half's worth of walking in the process, it's amazing how far you go. Now I fly through customs because I'm a registered, I'm a global traveler U .S., registered traveler U .K. which means I just go through the U .K. E .U. lines and just straight on through.

And so man that's, has made things really nice. There are little things you do over the years to make things easier. Anyways what I used to do is you could, if you, you could go into the lounges and you could shower up, change, get some of that wonderful lounge food which sometimes isn't bad but most of the time it's sort of like going to, I don't know, I haven't been to a cafeteria in a long time.

What are those, is hometown buffet, is that a cafeteria type thing? Okay, all right. And so it's edible, but there's some nice restaurants around too, there really is. There's one called Strada in Terminal 3 that's a little Italian place I love, their spaghetti bolognese is wonderful.

Anyway, but then you get out of the plane in the afternoon and you do another 12 hours. So it's about eight hours over, then you piddle around another 12 hours. By the time you get down to Johannesburg you're just sort of like, you know.

London Layover and the First Week in South Africa

So what we decided to do this trip is I spent the night in London. The next morning a brother there that I have met a couple times, I was at his church last time, picked me up and I have my own Oyster card.

I'm one of those travelers that comes, an Oyster card is how you use the public transportation, the tube in London. I have a whole tube thing on my phone. Would never work here because we're far too stretched out and spread out and everything else, but in London it's just wonderful.

And if you ever get a chance to go over there, make sure to hit Angel Station because it has the longest elevator in Europe. And it's steep, I mean it's a little scary to be perfectly honest with you.

You get on that thing and it's just like, how far does this thing go? And you get halfway up and you're looking, whoa, okay, I'm not looking back that way. It's highly impressive, it really is. But anyway, we jumped on the tube and I did a little, you know, I did some lectures for a small group of believers there and then had lunch with one of the pastors and then they took me back to Heathrow for my flight to Joburg.

And so, got down to Johannesburg and we have a lot of, there are a lot of churches that are very similar to us in our beliefs, but it's fascinating to take our body of beliefs and then try to transfer that into very different cultures.

And what I was going to tell you, I forgot to mention this, when I got to Heathrow, that's why I wanted to mention this, when I got to Heathrow for the flight to Johannesburg, I was really early. And so I'm like, you know, they won't take your luggage, you know, if you're too many hours ahead and stuff like that.

So I've got all my, you know, I've got 20 days worth of stuff. I've got my checked luggage and I've got my carry-ons and stuff. And I go up to this British Airways person and I go, hi, I'm flying to Joburg this afternoon, but, you know, I know I'm really, really early.

And I said, but I am emerald. And as soon as I said, I'm emerald, it was almost like, may I shine your shoes and kiss your ring? It was just like, oh, sir, you go down to Jay down there to first class.

And you go in there and it's, you know, you get your own private person, you know, and it's, they've got a little fountain and all this stuff, you know, and there's no lines and you just, they're very friendly and they check you in and you go through the private screening right into the first class lounge, just to sort of like, yeah, yeah, this is worth flying this much.

This is, if you're gonna fly this much, you might as well do it this way. You know, I mean, wow. It was, it was pretty cool. I didn't get quite as good treatment when I left this thing on the flight back from Johannesburg, but I did get it back eventually.

It was, these things are cool by the way, because if you have the find me thing on it, I've never, I had never lost an iPhone, iPad, anything like that before. And so I realized as soon as I got off the plane that I'd left it and still it was already gone.

I'm like, I'll never see that again. But they're like, no, no, no, this is Heathrow. You'll get it back. I'm like, okay, I'm a Calvinist. I don't believe in that. And so, you know, it'll be here tomorrow.

It wasn't there the next day. I'm like, see, see, see. But then I started, then I realized, wait a minute, I wonder how you track these things. I've never done it before. So I finally logged on, found it, and it was at Heathrow.

And I'm like, that's good. And then you can make it make noise. Did you know you can do that? Even if the, like the stuff's off, it still pings out. Big brother always knows where you are. Even if the thing is off, it still knows where you are.

And so, so seven o 'clock in the morning, I make it make this noise. Less than a minute later, my cell phone goes off and it says British Airways, Heathrow on it. And so I pick it up and this is so-and-so from British Airways.

I said, so my iPad's making a terrible noise, isn't it? And he goes, yes, it is. Glad we have it. And, you know, so they, they shipped it to where I was, I was staying and it actually survived. So that's pretty cool.

I'd never had that happen before. But I'm glad to know that it actually works. So anyways, as I was saying, let me, let me just describe for you. I, I had the longest Sunday I had ever had in my life.

The first Sunday out. I got there on Saturday. I preached at Crystal Park Baptist Church in Benoni on Sunday morning. And it's really wonderful because you know, we had baptism afterwards. It was great to see, you know, baptisms taking place and, and the folks are always, especially at Crystal Park, they're very, very focused, very, and an absolutely rainbow, in the good sense, rainbow congregation, in the sense you've got, it's right on the border between different areas in, in that area.

And so you have people from every background, every ethnicity, white and black, you know, right next to each other. And, and it's, it's really, really wonderful to see. It's great. But then when we were done, I was going to be going that night to Davidson.

I've never been to Davidson. It's called a township. Now, if you've not been to South Africa, and most people haven't, if you've seen pictures of Soweto or Tembizi or places like that, these are, as far as the eye can see, massive settlements where you have some actually constructed homes, you know, with normal walls and roofs.

Sometimes it is government constructed homes that are about half the size of this room, maybe, total. Very often intermixed with shacks that are made of corrugated metal with corrugated roofs that are held on by tires.

There is no pavement, there are no sidewalks. It's all dirt. And there's, there's electricity, electricity, mainly. And the largest number of satellite TV dishes I've ever seen in my life. It is amazing.

I mean, people will have nothing else, but they have satellite TV. If you want to see the power of, of media, there, there, there you go. So, I was going that evening to speak at a church, basically in one of the townships, not fully Soweto level, but fairly close.

And I've spoken in Tembizi before, which is just the other part of Soweto. But what happened was the, the pastor of that church wanted me to go to his place first. And so it was like long drive, three o 'clock in the afternoon before I get to his place.

And I haven't had a bite to eat yet. And I got picked up at seven 30 in the morning. So I'm, and I've just been talking constantly, just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And when I get there, what he's done is he's put out an SMS text that I'm there, come on over and ask questions.

So the whole afternoon I had, I had a muffin and I eventually found a bottle of water and a King James only guy showed up with his family. And all the ladies were in really long dresses. It was a really interesting thing.

I don't know how in the world he got there, but he wanted to have a debate. So we had this little impromptu debate in the front room, right up to the time where I'm supposed to be speaking. And then I walk over to the church.

We can't get the presentation working. So I have to just go off top of my head. And you know what I'm, every time I've spoken to the township, you know what they've asked me to speak on? Jehovah's witnesses, Jehovah's witnesses, because they're on every street corner in every township.

They're everywhere in Africa. They're huge. And they're obviously very challenging to deal with. And so again, very, very and I'm not sure the brother fry would flourish in this context, you know, because later on, I think it was, that was, was that was on Monday?

Sometime, no, no, that was the next weekend. Sometime when I was in, in South Africa, I went to another, it was fairly close to a township. And I spoke at a reforming Pentecostal church. And I took a video.

This, this, the pastor of this church had thrown out a library of 800 books, including Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland and everything else. And now he was rebuilding his library with Spurgeon and Edwards and so on and so forth.

And so they're, they're reforming. And so I want to, I want to be as much of encouragement as possible. But I was in the back and I did a little video. I think I sent it to my family of the, the singing, which was significantly more spirited than ours, shall we say.

Textual Criticism and Reformed Baptist Ministry in Zambia

And now what's, what's interesting, though, what's interesting is I went, one of the reasons I went to South Africa is, as most of you know, I'm working on a PhD down there at, it's called Potter's Room.

It's the old Potcher's Room University, now Northwest University, with Dr. Yuri Yordan in textual criticism. And so we met on that following Monday, had a real great discussion about where I am, my research, stuff like that.

But anyway, in the middle of that week, I went to Zambia. I've never been to Zambia before. We sort of have a rule, technically, that I generally don't go places where I can't drink the water. But we broke that rule this time around.

And what is interesting is I spoke at Lusaka Reformed Baptist Church. And then there I spoke at two different Reformed Baptist Churches. Reformed Baptists are big in Zambia. You've heard of Conrad Mbewe.

African Christian University is there. Votie Balcombe is the dean at African Christian University. Lusaka Reformed Baptist Church, 1 ,600 people. 1 ,600 people. I don't think we have any Reformed Baptist churches in the U .S. that's quite that big.

Trinity's fairly large, but I don't think it's 1 ,600. And so what's interesting is, you know, I was at that Pentecostal church, but then I go to the Reformed Baptist churches in Zambia, and we are much more alike.

I even made the comment, it went over like a lead balloon, that we're obviously all Reformed Baptists because even here, the final stanza of the hymn is always 20 slower than the first stanza of the hymn.

Reformed Baptists just drag. Have you ever noticed that? I mean, I try to keep us going. It just doesn't work. You time it sometime. Time the first stanza, and then time the last stanza. It'll be about 20 slower.

It's like the Energizer bunny just isn't going to make it. And it was exactly the same thing there. I mean, in the Reformed Baptist churches. If it's a seven-verse hymn, we're dead. We'll never get through it.

But the other thing was, if you think we don't have reaction and response in Reformed Baptist churches here, this is something you have to get used to. Because if you are hoping for even a smile or a nod or something, you're going to get nothing.

Culturally, you sit down and you listen and you get up and leave. And you can try all you want to get some type of reaction. It's not going to happen. I noticed at African Christian University, there was this one guy.

He would laugh at everything that I said that was funny. And then I made comment about this, and someone said, yeah, well, he's from South Africa. So he was the odd man out. So that's why he was smiling and laughing, because he's from someplace else.

At this one Reformed Baptist church, I asked a question. I dared. I made the big mistake of trying to involve everybody. And you all remember, those of you who were here when I last time I did my New Testament Reliability presentation, I would ask about P46, which is the earliest papyri manuscript we have of Paul's writings.

And I asked the question, so how many of you think that P46 contains the book of Hebrews? Because we don't know who wrote Hebrews, and so it would be interesting if someone writing around the year 200, if it's included, that would seem to indicate they thought that Paul wrote it, and so on and so forth.

And I've asked this question literally all over the world. And normally, what you have is you have about two-thirds of the people that participate on one side or the other. And then one-third of the people are just like, you can't make me vote.

I'm not going to vote. I don't know, so I'm not going to vote. It's just this type of thing. And I've actually sort of made a joke out of it. Some of you are going to disrespect me. You're going to diss me.

You're going to make me sad. You're not going to vote. And I've done this whole thing in Zambia. So how many of you think it contains the book of Hebrews? Nobody. How many of you think it doesn't contain the book of Hebrews?

Nobody. No one. It is just, is he asking us to do something? I don't know. This is weird. Wow. It's just like, well, just preach your heart out, leave it to the Lord, and don't expect any feedback whatsoever.

It's just the culture. It's just the way it is. So that was interesting. The other thing, thankfully, it was not the rainy season. It's the dry season. And after about three days of taking anti-malarial medication, Vody Balkam just looked at me and said, dude, I've been here two and a half years.

He said, I started taking it when I first got here, and I had hallucinations. So I haven't taken it since. So, and I've been fine. And it was the dry season. So I don't even remember necessarily seeing a mosquito.

I did sleep under the netting at night. I did do that just, you know, because I've gotten nailed so many times by mosquitoes otherwise. So, but I stopped taking it. So I had to sort of count seven days after I left Zambia.

If you haven't developed it, you're not going to. So I actually survived that. Because I stopped taking it. I just, it was messing with me. But we have a lot of wonderful things here. We really do. And, you know, like our AC units out.

Well, if this was Zambia, it would be for the next year and a half, probably, just waiting for parts or something along those lines. And we have a wonderful invention here called sidewalks. I mean, you would think that that would not be an invention, but it is.

Paving is nice too. As we were flying in, I was sort of looking down and I was going, hmm, most of those roads are not paved. Most of those are dirt roads. And African Christian University is on a dirt road.

And everyone's got a Land Rover or Range Rover or whatever they call those things. Toyota owns Africa. I think they bought it. I think they actually have the title deed. Toyota or the Land Rover are pretty much everything you see there.

And a couple of times I had to go on that road and my goodness, just threw me all over the place. It did remind me a little bit of the time when I was in Kiev and we were going out to the school in Irpin and we were in a taxi and we were going over a particularly rough section of road, which is not uncommon in Ukraine.

And the taxi driver, the taxi driver is watching me holding on for dear life in the back seat. And he's looking in the rear mirror, big Ukrainian guy. And in his best English, which was really bad, he goes, Ukrainian massage.

Yeah, thank you. That's what it was. Except this is a Zambian massage. It was funny. In both South Africa and Zambia, you have these little buses. And in South Africa, they are deadly. They are absolutely autonomous.

They do not have to follow any of the rules of the road. Just get out of their way. They're just dangerous. In Zambia, Zambia is constitutionally Christian. It is a constitutionally Christian nation. And so all the little buses in Zambia have Christian sayings on them.

Have you been to Zambia? Oh, okay. So you're going, yeah. Did you see the little Christian sayings on it? My favorite, you know, it's, you know, to God be the glory or something like that. My favorite one was the 10 commandment bus.

And even the mud flaps were the 10. And it's not just in white. It's like in flames, the 10 commandments. And it's almost like a talisman. It's almost like a good luck thing. Hey, if I do this, then God will be nice to me.

And I won't get into a wreck or something like that. You know, I mentioned the fact that, you know, it would be a whole lot safer if you had something called sidewalks. And they said, well, if you put sidewalks in, they'd build things on it to sell stuff.

So it still wouldn't work anyways. That's just the culture. It's just the way it is. And so it was, and believe me, there's a hierarchy. Zambia is in a lot better shape than Mozambique is. And the part of Zambia, I was in Lusaka capital, a lot better shape than the mining belt up to the north of that.

I think it's called the copper belt, if I recall. But anyway, so wonderful people there. You know, the African Christian University, they're trying to do something, you know, really important there. But I was really interested to see the Reformed Baptist churches in Lusaka and to see how we're a lot alike.

Whatever context you put us in, I mean, that second Reformed Baptist church I was in, Lusaka Reformed Baptist Church had air conditioning and real nice stuff like that, pretty fancy, relatively speaking.

Plastic chairs, but still had air con. The second Reformed Baptist church I was at, you know, open windows and you could sort of see through the walls a little bit and stuff like that. So they weren't as fancy, but incredibly dedicated folks and really, really, really, I mean, they were very, very interested.

I mean, I could have talked all day, they would have stayed there. Very respectful, very interested, you know, very, very kind in communication. Don't get me wrong, it's just while you're speaking, don't expect to get anything out of anybody because this is just not going to happen.

And so, you know, they want to plant more churches, they want to have more training. It is exciting to see that. But the debate we were supposed to have with the imam, as soon as I landed and I finally got out of the airport, that was a long process.

When I first got to Lusaka, Vodi was waiting for me and he goes, I hate to tell you this, bro, but debates canceled, fell apart within one hour today. And not only did the imam back out, but they had two cars pull up at the African Christian University from the American embassy and had a little discussion about security and Al-Shabaab.

If you know what Al-Shabaab is, that's sort of Al-Qaeda in that part of Africa. And so, there were concerns. So, that ended up not taking place. But it was really neat to see, you know, what the Lord is doing there.

Churches, Ethnicity, and the Lord's Table

Went back to Joburg, spoke at a few more churches in Joburg before heading up to the Midlands in the UK. And you fly into Heathrow and it's about a two and a half hour drive, pretty much northeast-ish, up to a place called Loughborough.

And there's a university there. I got to admit, most of the little towns, once you get into those types, they look very much like red brick homes and stacked on top of each other and, you know, lots of stairs and not a lot of room and very narrow roads.

Everybody has to pull their rear view mirrors or side view mirrors in at night or you're not going to have it in the morning. Not because someone stole it, because it got knocked off, because the roads are so narrow, because they were designed for horse and buggy, not for cars.

There's nothing I can do about that. We are very lucky along those lines. But everybody wanted me to teach for many hours a day. I don't know how many hours it was, but one thing, let me back up before I get to the UK and to Ireland.

I had a lot of conversations with the folks down in South Africa especially. The second weekend I spoke at Antioch Bible Church, which is one of the largest evangelical churches there. I call it my home church in South Africa.

I've spoken there. I've lost track now how many times I've spoken at Antioch. And Tim Crenshaw is the pastor there, and he's a masters guy, and I've got a lot of connections over with Masters of California, which I have to be on the road more than an hour before now tomorrow morning to get over to Southern Cal.

I'm teaching at Masters the whole week next week. But good, good church. Excellent folks. And so I had a number of conversations about what's going on in the U .S. right now. And again, we tend to be somewhat insulated from these things.

And you would think that this would not be an issue amongst Reformed Baptists, but it is becoming an issue amongst Southern Baptists, and so sometimes we have conversations. But I raised the question with a number of brothers down there concerning the issue of ethnicity.

There is an explosion of discussion amongst the Reformed in the United States about racial reconciliation and critical race theory and all sorts of things, especially it just sort of blew up with the MLK 50 stuff that took place just a few months ago.

And it is my concern, obviously, in talking with folks down there was since major figures, major names, and major organizations in the United States are signing on to a perspective that does view racial issues.

I don't like using the term race. There's only one race in the Bible. There may be different ethnicities. There's only one race. There's only one blood. But since they are, we Americans, we export all of our garbage to the rest of the world.

And I was really concerned because it's one thing in the United States where people talk about Jim Crow laws and they talk about the Civil War and they talk about American slavery. It's completely different in the United Kingdom.

They have a completely different history in regards to these things. It's a completely different issue and an explosively different issue in South Africa because it was less than a quarter of a century ago that apartheid ended in South Africa.

And so even the young people, youngish people, middle-aged people, can remember things about that. And it continues to have a huge impact in South Africa. Now, to be honest with you, in reverse. Because the ANC took over after apartheid ended and there are 10 ,000 white South Africans leaving South Africa every month because you're not allowed to have jobs.

Because this BEE, Black Empowerment Law. In fact, last time I was down there, Woolworths had just openly announced, we do not take applications for employment from whites. That's it. We're not going to employ you.

And so it's a really bad situation and the economy is just hurting horribly as a result and it's going to hurt more and more. They have a new president now. At least they got rid of the guy that everybody knew was as crooked as could be.

But still ANC. It's one party rule. You don't have an opposition party in South Africa. White farmers are being murdered at an amazing rate in South Africa. And it's a very, very, very difficult situation.

So if we export our Americanized discussion of race and ethnicity and oppression and white spaces and black spaces and all the rest of the stuff. I mean, some of you know this, but a month ago I made a statement publicly that at the Lord's table, so in the Lord's Supper, there are no white spaces or black spaces.

There is only a Christ space, a mediator space, a redeemer space. Everything is to be focused upon him. And if you drag your ethnicities into the Lord's Supper, you've completely missed how that one event puts us all in the exact same place.

It doesn't matter what our history is. It doesn't matter what color skin we have. We are all at the exact same place at the Lord's table. I thought that was a rather unremarkable and non-controversial thing to say.

Major leaders, Southern Baptist and otherwise, actually called, which I find this is somewhat humorous, for an ecumenical council, as if we've ever had one of them for a long time. But an ecumenical council in Philadelphia to proclaim people like me as heretics, for having said that.

That's here in the United States. So I'm Arius. Hello. So exporting that with all of its cultural stuff into a context like South Africa, extremely damaging. And so I had a number of conversations with people.

And what was fascinating to me, just give you an illustration. I bought two gorgeous African shirts in Johannesburg. I mean, these things are beautiful. They really, really are. I don't know when I could ever wear one because I can't wear a tie, but maybe on, you know, maybe on a Wednesday or something.

But they're beautiful. But the first thing I thought of when I walked out of the shop was cultural appropriation, cultural appropriation. I mentioned that, for example, when I got on my flight from Joburg, the guy in the seat here sort of looks at me while we're talking about stuff about the seat.

And he's like, you're a minister, right? You came to my church last time you're oh, cool. So we're talking back and forth. And so I asked him, I even said, I sort of used that as an illustration. He's like, cultural what?

I had no idea. And he was black. I had no idea. So generally, it hasn't arrived yet, but it's coming through the universities. It's coming through the universities. And the churches down there have wonderful, Christ-based unity and focus upon the faith.

But I can just see importing that kind of stuff could cause serious, serious problems. And it's a shame. It's a shame to think of. But at least for now, everybody that I talked with, it was like, and so I was actually even asked, if you look up the sermon that I gave from Colossians 3 at Antioch Bible Church two weekends ago, that's what I spoke on was our unity in Christ.

And so yeah, we addressed that. And I also addressed it pretty much everywhere I went. There were discussions. They weren't what I was lecturing on, but there were discussions in the UK, Scotland, and Northern Ireland on related issues to that particular subject.

It is ongoing, unfortunately. And I don't see that ending any time in the near future. So anyways, the first half of the trip was in Africa, and it was very encouraging to see our brothers there. I think it's helpful for us to think about the fact that when we gather here and we sing our songs, that there is a common hymnology.

Now, sure, there's sometimes, especially in England, we'll sing songs, I'm just like, I have no idea, because I've told you before, their hymnals are totally different than ours, right? In fact, I remember in 2005, when I first went to England, or maybe the second trip, I grabbed some hymnals, I mean, they gave them to me, I didn't steal them, and brought them back and I passed them around, because they are not what we have.

There is no music in their hymnals. There's no musical notation. It's just words. And so they have 1600 to 2200 hymns in a super thick, very small little volume, with no music. You simply have to know the tunes, which I find interesting, but leaves you completely in the dust for most of them, to be honest with you.

Because I read the music, and nothing you can do about it when you're in a context like that. But still, very often, we're seeing the exact same hymns in different languages. And it was really cool, I've got to admit.

When I was in Davidson, in doing the singing prior to my speaking on Jehovah's Witnesses, they would do hymns, and they'd do one verse in English, and the next verse in Zulu. And, I don't know, it's just beautiful.

I've gotten to hear the saints singing in Zulu, and in Russian. I mean, the first time I heard a big group of men in Ukraine singing a hymn in Russian. I grew up in the 60s, guys. I grew up prepared to dive under your desk from a thermonuclear attack from Russia.

When you hear Russian voices singing, you figure the commies are coming. I mean, that was my background. So, to be in that context, and I'm teaching in Russia in January. I've never been to Russia. This will be new.

I've been to Ukraine, but not to Russia. And they're not exactly on friendly terms at the moment either. But in January, can you imagine how cold it's going to be? I mean, someone else who's taught there during that time said, yeah, it was minus 40 well.

I said, okay, yay. I don't have any coats that can handle that, to be perfectly honest with you here in Phoenix. But we'll see what we can come up with before January. How do you even pack for something like that?

I have no earthly idea. But anyways, the cultural, you know, it does expand your mind a little bit to hear that. And then, for example, since I'm running out of time, the last thing I did on this trip was I spoke, again, my ecumenical streak here, I guess.

I did a debate with Peter D. Williams. And I had been worried about this debate the entire trip because, like an idiot, we scheduled this for the very last night I'm on this trip. The 19th, I have 20 days.

The next morning, I'm on a flight from Belfast to Heathrow, Heathrow back to Phoenix. And so this is, I mean, biggest opportunity of being sick, worn out. Honestly, by the last, about the last four days of this trip, I'd be sitting there lecturing on stuff that I've lectured on for years.

And I was struggling to bring up facts or terminology or something like that because I was just brain fried. I mean, just, you know, I was overworked. We did not do a good job in how many hours per day.

You know, if you just beat someone up mentally day after day after day after day while they're traveling and having to move from one place to another place and packing, unpacking, dragging stuff up elevators and stuff like that, it eventually gets to them.

So I was concerned about that debate. The Lord was very gracious, didn't have any problems with it. And the guy was taking on super sharp. But where was I in Belfast? But at All Saints Church, an Anglican church, a GAFCON Anglican church, which if you know the situation, the Anglican communion, those are the Sydney conservative, inerrancy believing, justification preaching, Ryle, Bishop Ryle style, you know, holiness by Bishop Ryle, that kind of Anglican.

They still exist. There are still solid, believing, wonderful guys. I've worked with them down in Sydney and they're around the world. And so it was a great church. But you look at the context and, you know, it's an old style, you know, flying buttress, stained glass windows type church, just like you see all over the UK going way, way, way, way back.

And here we are. And, you know, you hear them singing hymns. And instead of with a African accent, it's with the lilt of the Irish up there in Belfast, Northern Ireland. And in fact, for those of you who are old enough, I hope you realize how amazing it was that we had a Roman Catholic Protestant debate on indulgences in Belfast, Northern Ireland last week.

They, y 'all know what I'm talking about, right? Those of you older, you remember. If you're younger, you might go, what? They call it the Troubles. They still to this day call it the Troubles. But the bombings and the warfare in Northern Ireland in, especially in the 70s, was just a constant thing in the news.

You know, this car bomb, that car bomb, this person shot down there, this person shot down there. Many, many people lost their lives. And so for us to be able to get together in Belfast and have a knockdown, drag out Roman Catholic Protestant debate, respectful but absolutely firm.

Peter D. Williams and I have an interesting relationship. It really says a lot. I don't know that it says a lot about the advancement of peace as much as it does the advancement of secularization in Ireland, to where just the majority of folks are like, yeah, you know, so what?

Y 'all had, you know, no one, no one kills each other over that stuff anymore. But it was absolutely fascinating. But again, just seeing the church in different places, I got to visit with a Baptist pastor I've known since 2005 in Glasgow, Scotland.