May and June 2018 Travel Report

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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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

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Swiss lederhosen just simply to celebrate such a wonderful exciting thing as to get started on Zwingli.

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But what I thought I would do, it's been a very long time back years ago when

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I first started doing a fair amount of traveling at least in the United States especially when

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I'd take a fairly lengthy trip which back then was about 10 days not 20 overseas.

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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.

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We don't necessarily have a lot of contact with other churches and what's going on in the world and of course

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I certainly have not sought the amount of travel that I do now.

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Though I'll have to admit that this year, I don't think I will be next year, but this year

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I am one world emerald. Now if you, oh so you know what that is, if you're a flyer

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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 like that.

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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

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Heathrow and I don't know why, but the flights that come in from Phoenix go into Terminal 3 but British Airways their home terminal is 5 so you have to frequently transfer between those two terminals.

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So what 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.

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Now I fly through customs because I'm a registered, I'm a global traveler

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US, registered traveler UK which means I just go through the UK EU lines and just straight on through and so man that's has made things really nice.

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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 lounges and 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,

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I don't know, I haven't been to a cafeteria in a long time. What are those, is it a hometown buffet? Is that a cafeteria type thing?

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Somebody, okay all right. And you know so it's it's it's edible, it's you know, but they've got there's some nice restaurants around too.

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There really there is, there's one called Strada in Terminal 3 that's a little Italian place I love. Their spaghetti bolognese is wonderful.

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Anyway but then you get on a plane in the afternoon and you do another 12 hours. So it's about eight hours over then you fiddle around and another 12 hours and by the time you got down to Johannesburg you're just sort of like you know.

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So what we decided to do this trip is I spent the night in in London.

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The next morning a brother there that I have met a couple times,

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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.

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Have a whole tube thing on my 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.

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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.

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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 is this thing going?

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You get halfway up and you're looking whoa okay I'm not looking back that way. It's highly impressive, it really is.

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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 in our beliefs, but it's fascinating to take our body of beliefs and then try to transfer that into very different cultures.

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And what I was going to tell you, I forgot to mention this, when I got to Heathrow, so that's why

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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.

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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

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British Airways person and I go hi I'm flying to Joburg this afternoon but you know

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I know I'm really really early and I said but I am emerald. As soon as I said

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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 to J down there to first class and and you go in there and and it's you get your own private person you know and it's they've got a little fountain all this stuff you know and there's no lines and you just they they're very friendly and they check you in and you go through the private screening right into the first class lounge.

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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

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I mean wow it was it was pretty cool. I didn't get quite as good treatment when

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I left this thing on the flight back from Johannesburg but I did get it back eventually.

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It was these things are cool by the way because if you have the find me thing on it

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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

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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

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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

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I'm like see see see but then I started then I realized wait a minute I wonder how you track these things

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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 the stuff's off it still pings out the 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

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I make it make this noise less than a minute later my cell phone goes off and it says

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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

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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 um let me let me just describe for you um

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I I had the longest

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Sunday I had ever had in my life uh the first Sunday out

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I got there on Saturday I preached at uh

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Crystal Park Baptist Church in on Sunday morning and it's really wonderful because uh you know we had baptism afterwards it was great to see uh you know baptisms taking place and and the folks are always especially at Crystal Park they're very very focused very and an absolutely absolutely rainbow uh in the good sense rainbow congregation 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 uh white and black you know right next to each other and and it's it's really really wonderful to see it's great um but then when we were done uh

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I was going to be going that night to Davyton I've never been to Davyton it's called a township now if you've not been to South Africa and most people haven't um if you've seen uh 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 uh total um 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 um it's all dirt um and there's there's electricity electricity mainly um and the largest number of satellite tv dishes

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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 you go uh so I was going that evening to speak at a church basically in one of the townships not fully

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Soweto level but fairly close and I've spoken in Tembizi before which is just the other part of Soweto um 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 7 30 in the morning so I'm and I've just been talking constantly just talk talk talk talk talk talk when

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I get there what he's done is he's put out an sms text that um I'm there come on over and ask questions so the whole afternoon um

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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

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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 um in the front room right up to the time where I'm supposed to be speaking and then

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I walk over to the church we can't get the presentation working so I have to just go off top my head and you know what

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I'm off every time I've spoken in 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 um and and I'm not sure the brother fry would would flourish in this context uh 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

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I was in uh in South Africa I went to another it was fairly close to a township and I spoke at a reforming

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Pentecostal church and I took a video um this this the pastor of this church had uh thrown out a library of 800 books uh including

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Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland and everything else and now he was rebuilding his library with Spurgeon and Edwards and 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 uh

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I was in the back and I did a little video I think I sent it to my family um of the uh the singing which was significantly more spirited than ours shall we say and uh now what's what's interesting though what's interesting is

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I went one of the reasons I went to South Africa is um as most of you know I'm working on a

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PhD down there at it's called Potter's room sealed Potter's room University now Northwest University with Dr.

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Yuri Yordan and 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 um in the middle of that week

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I went to Zambia I've never been to Zambia before um we sort of have a rule technically that I generally don't go places where I can't drink the water uh but we broke that rule this time around and uh what is interesting is

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I spoke at Lusaka Reformed Baptist Church and then there was a 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

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Bodhi Balcombe is the dean at at African Christian University uh

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Lusaka Reformed Baptist Church 1600 people 1600 people

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I don't think we have any Reformed Baptist Churches in the U .S. it's quite that big uh

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Trinity's fairly large but I don't think it's 1600 and so what's interesting is uh you know

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I was at that Pentecostal Church and but then I then I go to the Reformed Baptist Churches in Zambia and we are much more alike um

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I even made the comment it went over like a lead balloon um that uh we're obviously all

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Reformed Baptists because even here uh the final stanza of the hymn is always 20 percent slower than the first stanza of the hymn

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Reformed Baptists just drag have you ever noticed that I mean I try

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I try to keep us going not it just doesn't work uh you you time it sometime time time the first the first stanza and then time the last stanza it'll be about 20 slower

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I mean just uh it's like the energizer bunny just ain't gonna make it and it was exactly the same thing there

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I mean in the Reformed Baptist Churches like then then then then then then then if it's a seven seven uh verse hymn we're dead uh we'll never never get through it um but uh the other thing was if you think we don't have a reaction and response in Reformed Baptist Churches here you just this is something you have to get used to uh because if you if you are hoping for even a smile or a nod or something you're gonna 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 gonna happen

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I noticed that after Christian University there was this one guy he would laugh at everything that I said that was funny and then

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I made comment about this and someone said yeah well he's from South Africa so yeah so he was he was the odd man out so that's that's why he was uh smiling and laughing because he's from someplace else uh

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I even I at this one Reformed Baptist Church I asked question I dared I made the big mistake of trying to involve everybody and uh you all remember those of you who are here when

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I last time I did my New Testament Reliability presentation I uh 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

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

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I'm not going to vote I don't know so I'm not going to vote you know it's just this type of thing and I've actually sort of made a joke out of it some of you're 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

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I don't know this is weird you know wow it's just like well just preach your heart out leave to the

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Lord and don't expect any feedback whatsoever it's just the culture it's just just the way it is so uh that was uh that was interesting uh the other thing thankfully it was not the rainy season it's the dry season and uh after about three days of taking anti -malarial medication uh

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Vody Balcom just looked at me and said dude I've been here two and a half years he said

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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 I don't even remember necessarily seeing a mosquito

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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 uh but uh

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I stopped taking it so I had to sort of count seven days after I left Zambia uh if you if you haven't developed it you're not going to so uh

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I I actually survived that because I stopped taking it I just it was messing with me um but um we have a lot of wonderful things here we really do um and um you know like our

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AC units out well if this was Zambia it would be for the next year and a half probably just waiting for or something along those lines and um we have a wonderful invention here called sidewalks

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I mean you would think that that would not be an invention but it is uh paving is nice too as we were flying in I was sort of looking down and I was going hmm most those roads are not paved uh most those are dirt roads and African Christian universities on a dirt road and everyone's got a land rover or range rover or whatever they call this thing see the

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Toyota owns Africa I think they bought it I think they actually have the title deed um

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Toyota or or the Land Rover are pretty much everything you see there and a couple times

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I had to go that road and my goodness uh just threw me all over the place it was it did remind me a little bit of the time when

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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

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Ukrainian guy and in his best English which was really bad he goes Ukrainian massage yeah yeah thank you that's that's what it was it was except this is a

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Zambian massage it was it was funny in both South Africa and Zambia you have these uh these uh little buses and in South Africa they are deadly they they are absolutely autonomous they they do not have to follow any of the rules the road just get out of their way they they're just dangerous in Zambia Zambia is constitutionally

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Christian it is a constitutionally Christian nation and so all the little buses in Zambia have

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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 um my favorite what 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 it's like oh it was yeah and it and it's not just in white it's like in flames you know the 10 commandments and you know and this is really you know and it's you know it's it's almost like a talisman it's almost like a good luck thing hey if I do this then then

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God will be nice to me and I won't get into a wreck or something like that um you know I mentioned the fact that you know it'd be a whole lot safer if if you had something called uh 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 uh it's just it's just the culture it's just just the way it is and uh so it was um uh and believe me uh there's a hierarchy

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Zambia is in a lot better shape than Mozambique is uh and the part of Zambia I was in Lusaka capital a lot better shape than the the mining belt up to the north of that I think it's called the copper belt if I recall but anyway um so uh wonderful people there uh you know the

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African Christian university they're they're trying to do something you know really important there but I was really interested to see the reformed baptist churches in uh in Lusaka and to see how um we're a lot alike whatever context you put us in I mean that second reformed baptist church

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I was in Lusaka reformed baptist church had uh air conditioning and real nice stuff like that pretty fancy uh relatively speaking plastic chairs but still uh had aircon um the second reformed baptist church

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I was at you know open windows and could sort of see through the walls a little bit stuff like that so they they weren't as fancy but uh incredibly dedicated folks and uh really really really

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I mean they were very very interested I mean I could have talked all day they would have stayed there very respectful very interested um you know very very kind in in in communication don't get me don't get me wrong it's just while you're speaking don't expect to get anything out of anybody because uh it's just just not going to happen and so you know they want to plant more churches they want to have more more training it is exciting to see uh to see that but the debate we're supposed to have with the imam as soon as I landed

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I finally got out of the airport that was a long process um when I first got to Lusaka uh

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Vodi was waiting for me and he goes 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 there were concerns so that ended up not uh not taking place but uh uh it was uh it was it was really neat to uh to see you know what the lord is is doing there went back to uh to joeberg uh spoke at a few more churches uh in uh in joeberg before heading up to the midlands

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I had never been to the midlands in the uk and you fly into heathrow and it's about two and a half hour drive pretty much north eastish up to a place called loughborough and there's a university there

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I gotta admit most of the little towns once you get into this the into those those types they look very much like uh red brick homes and uh stacked on top of each other and and you know lots of stairs and uh not a lot of room and very narrow roads uh everybody has to pull their rearview 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 uh because the roads are so so narrow because they were designed for horse and buggy not for cars um there's nothing

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I can do about that uh we are very lucky along those lines but uh everybody wanted me to teach for many hours a day uh

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I I don't know how many how many hours it was but um one one thing

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I let me back up before I get to to the uk and to uh ireland I had a lot of conversations with uh the folks down in uh in South Africa especially the the second weekend

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I spoke at Antioch Bible Church which is one of the largest evangelical churches there I call it my home church in in South Africa um

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I've spoken there I've lost track now how many times I've spoken to Antioch and uh

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Tim Cantrell is the pastor there and he's a master's guy and I've got a lot of connections over with Masters of California which is uh

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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 um but uh good good church uh excellent folks and um so I had a number of conversations about what's going on in the

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U .S. right now and again we tend to be somewhat insulated from these things um and you would think that this would not be an issue amongst

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Reformed Baptists but it is becoming an issue amongst Southern Baptists and so you know sometimes we have conversations um but I I raised the question with a number of brothers down there concerning the issue of ethnicity um there is an explosion of discussion amongst the

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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

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MLK 50 stuff that took place just a few months ago and it is uh my my concern obviously in talking with folks down there was since major figures major names and major organizations in the

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United States are signing on to a perspective that uh does view racial issues

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I don't like using the term race there's only one one race in the bible there may be different ethnicities there's only one race there's only one blood um but since they are we

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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

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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

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United Kingdom they have a completely different history in regards to these things um it's a completely different issue and a 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 has continues to have huge impact in in South Africa now to be honest with you in reverse because the

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ANC took over after apartheid ended and there are 10 ,000 white

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African South Africans leaving South Africa every month because you're not allowed to have jobs because this

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BEE black empowerment law in fact last time

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I was down there Woolworths had just openly announced we do not take applications for employment from whites it's just it we're not going to employ it and so it's a 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 is as crooked as could be but still

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ANC it's one party rule you don't have an party uh in in South Africa uh white farmers are being murdered at an amazing rate uh in in South Africa and it's it's a very very very difficult situation so if we export um our

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Americanized discussion of race and ethnicity and oppression and white spaces and black spaces and all the stuff

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I mean I mean some of you know this but a month ago

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I made a statement publicly that at the

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Lord's table so in the Lord's Supper there are no white spaces or black spaces there is only a

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Christ space a mediator space a redeemer space everything is to be focused upon him and if you drag your ethnicities into the

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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 doesn't matter what color skin we have we are all at the exact same place at the

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Lord's table I thought that was a rather unremarkable and non -controversial thing to say uh major leaders uh

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Southern Baptist and otherwise um actually called which

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I find this is this was 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 uh to proclaim people like me as heretics for having said that that's here in the

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United States um 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 I had a number of conversations with people and what was fascinating to me just just give you an illustration

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I bought two gorgeous

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African shirts in Johannesburg I mean these things are beautiful they really really are um

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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

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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

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I mentioned that for example when I when I got 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 here oh oh cool so we're talking back and forth and so I asked him

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I even said I sort of used that as an illustration he's like cultural what I had no idea and he was black

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I had no idea so generally it 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 um but I I I can just see um importing that kind of stuff could cause serious serious problems and it's it's it's a shame it's a shame to think of but at least for now um everybody that I talked with it was like and so I was actually even asked if you if you look up the sermon that I gave from Colossians 3 at Antioch Bible Church two weekends ago that's what

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I spoke on was our unity in Christ and so yeah we we addressed that and I also addressed it pretty much everywhere

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I went there were discussions um they weren't what I was lecturing on but there were discussions in in the

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UK Scotland and Northern Ireland on related issues uh to that that particular subject it is it is ongoing unfortunately um and I don't see that ending anytime in the in the near future so anyways so I the first half of the trip was in Africa and it was very encouraging to see our brothers there

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I think it's helpful for us to think about the fact that you know when we gather here and we we sing our songs um that there is a common hymnology now sure there's sometimes especially in England we'll sing songs

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I'm just like I have no idea because I've told you before their hymnals are totally different than ours right in fact

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I remember in 2005 when I first went to England or maybe the second trip um

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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

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I find interesting but leaves you completely in the dust for for most of them to be honest with you because I read

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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

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I gotta admit when I was in Davidson and in doing the singing prior to my speaking on Jehovah's Witnesses they would do hymns and they do one verse in English and the next verse in Zulu and I don't know this is beautiful you know

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I've gotten to hear the saints singing in Zulu and in Russian I mean the first time

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I heard a big group of men in Ukraine singing a hymn in Russian I grew up in the 60s guys you know

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I grew up prepared to dive under your desk from a thermonuclear attack from Russia you know when you hear

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Russian voices singing you figure the commies are coming you know I mean that was that was my background so so to be in that context and I'm teaching in Russia in in January January January I've never been to Russia this will be new but I'll 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

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I mean someone else who's taught there during that time said yeah it was minus 40 well I said okay yay

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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 the cultural you know it does expand your mind a little bit to hear to hear that and then for example

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I'm since I'm running out of time the last thing I did on this trip was I spoke again my my ecumenical streak here

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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 we scheduled this for the very last night

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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

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I mean biggest opportunity of being sick worn out honestly by the last about the last four days this trip

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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 stuff like that because I was just brain fried

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I mean just you know there's the I was overworked we did not do a good job in in how many hours per day you know you if you make you just beat someone up mentally day after day after day after day while they're traveling and having to move from one place 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

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Lord is very gracious didn't have any problems with it and the guy was taking on super sharp but where was

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I in Belfast but at All Saints Church an Anglican Church a

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GAFCON Anglican Church which if you know the situation the Anglican communion those are the

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Sydney conservative inerrancy believing justification preaching

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Ryle Bishop Ryle style you know holiness by Bishop Ryle that kind of Anglican they still exist there are still solid believing wonderful guys

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I've worked with them down in Sydney and they're they're around the world and so it was a great church but you look at the context and the you know it's it's an old style you know flying buttress stained glass windows type church just like you see all over the

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UK going way way way back and here we are and you know you hear them singing hymns and instead of with a

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African accent it's with a the lilt of the Irish up there in north in Belfast Northern Ireland and in fact for those who are old enough

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I hope you realize how amazing it was that we had a

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Roman Catholic Protestant debate on indulgences in Belfast Northern Ireland last week they y 'all know what

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I'm talking about right those of you are 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's 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

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Roman Catholic Protestant debate respectful but absolutely firm

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Peter Peter D Williams and I have an interesting relationship it really says a lot

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I don't know that it says a lot about the advancement of of peace as much as it does the advancement of secular secularization in Ireland to where just the majority of folks like yeah you know so what you all had you know no one no one kills each other over that stuff anymore but it it it was it was absolutely fascinating but again the just seeing the church in different places

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I got to I got to visit with a form Baptist pastor I've known since 2005 in Glasgow Scotland and he's 88 years old and still going strong and still preaching the word and his name's

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Jim Handyside Jim and Chrissy Handyside what what a wonderful couple what a wonderful testimony in fact he's got a little book on prayer that is it'll knock your socks off but talk about you know you hear about the apostasy in Scotland and the

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Church of Scotland how far left it's gone so like that it's it's nice to see that there are still some some good solid solid folks there and those that attended the lectures there and stuff like that they were really really really wonderful and I really enjoyed the time in amongst my people in in Glasgow as well so seeing the church all around the world it reminds me you know you'll hear when

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I when I pray I often talk about you know I think about the the sun rising and setting on this earth and we're toward the end of the

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Lord's Day when you think about how the earth spins the vast majority of God's people have already met today we're sort of toward the the end of that you know once you get out to Hawaii or something like that then you sort of run out run out of space but but as that has happened to to think about not only the reformed

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Baptist churches but the conservative Anglican churches and the conservative Presbyterian churches and the the community churches and the

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Bible churches and you know Antioch Bible Church and to know that that God's Word has gone forth and is going forth and there are faithful men and women and yes they're fit they're facing serious difficulties but the

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Lord provides and the Lord continues to build his church and it's it's an exciting thing we used to call me the traveling elder back before even became an elder here but I still am doing that and so just I just wanted to encourage you to think beyond our our walls and to be encouraged by the fact of what's going on in in the rest this world