Missionary Report

Bethlehem Bible Church

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May 3, 2009

00:01: I think I'm going to postpone, if that's all right, the talk about what happened with the wreck and who we are till the end.
00:09: I have a little bit of section, pictures of the family, and I think maybe it's the best time to do that at the end.
00:17: Okay? But we're going to start out with just reporting to you the works of God through his word.
00:26: I can be able to see here, aren't I? I can move. I can go over here, I think. The works of God in Puna, through his word, by his spirit, the
00:38: Lord is doing wonderful things, amazing things, and we want to praise him for that.
00:44: The Lord is doing amazing things, he's doing wonderful things right here in your lives, in this church, and I praise the
00:52: Lord for that also, and I'm sure you do as well. Sometimes, when you're so close to it, you can't see it, unless you take the time to really stop and think and look back, and hopefully you do that, but I can just tell you as at least an outsider physically, even though I know in heart that's not the case, it's exciting to me to see the
01:15: Lord working in this church, in your lives. I was telling, who was I telling,
01:21: I think I was telling Dave earlier today as we were driving in the car, you know, even just conversations with people
01:27: I've known a little bit from the past, in the last three years, and a couple years before that, and then now,
01:35: I see growth, I see maturity. I see not just growth numerically, I see the
01:41: Lord working in individual lives, and people loving the Lord more, and serving the
01:46: Lord more, and being more zealous about ministry. So the Lord is working, God is working through his word, by his spirit.
01:54: Here, in Puna, Christ is building his church, right? And he said he'd do that, so we shouldn't be surprised, but we need to praise him and thank him for it.
02:03: And that's what I want us to do tonight, is we consider what God has been doing in the
02:10: Pastoral Training Institute, and Que Russo Bible Church, and I'll tell you a little bit about how he's been working in our family as well, in the last few years, since we were here last.
02:23: But I want to start that whole thing by discussing a little bit from the word of God first. And it's what you saw in the bulletin, the passage of scripture, is 2
02:34: Corinthians 3, verses 5 -9. And I have it here, you can look at it in your
02:40: Bible, feel free to do that if you want, but I've put it on the screen here for you. And just to think for a few minutes, to guide our thoughts, you know we've been talking about this all day, frankly.
02:48: But again, as we come to thinking about what God has been doing,
02:54: I want us to meditate our minds, focus our minds on this for just a minute. Paul wrote the book of 1 Corinthians to what kind of a church?
03:01: What was the Corinthian church like? Disorganized, perhaps? Immature, yes, definitely.
03:10: Paul said so himself. Factious, and this is what this passage is talking about specifically.
03:17: They were selfish, they were immature, they were using the spiritual gifts in chapters 12, 13, and 14, and Paul deals with that, for their own glory, to somehow promote themselves.
03:29: They were all longing and craving after the spectacular gifts, which is of course silly, because God is the one who gives the gifts for the edification of the church.
03:39: But Paul is dealing with them, shepherding them, sometimes very strongly dealing with them, teaching them what it means to be a church, and what your attitude should be in ministry.
03:51: And I want us just to think about that for a few minutes before we look at what the Lord is doing in Pune, in the seminary and the church.
03:59: Let's just read it and then we'll talk about it a little bit. What then is Apollos? And what is
04:04: Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.
04:10: I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.
04:25: Now, he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
04:34: For we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, God's building.
04:41: There's a lot of things we could understand, that we could think about in this passage, but I just want to point out a few points about the identity of the minister, the servant of God.
04:52: Whether it be missionary, pastor, anyone, any believer who is serving in the church is a minister.
04:59: And how should we think of ourselves? Who are we? What is our responsibility?
05:05: How do we fit in? Very important. It's critical that we understand those things.
05:13: Notice what Paul says here. Of course, it's because of division. What were the people doing? Oh, I'm of Paul.
05:19: I'm of Apollos. I'm of Christ, right? They were getting their little evangelical gurus, it's a little
05:27: Indian part there. They're evangelical gurus and saying, you know, I'm of him and I'm of him and the divisions were coming.
05:34: Why were they doing that? Well, pride. And somehow they probably felt, well, I'm not so proud because I'm focusing my devotion to a man.
05:44: Well, they were still, it was still an extension of their pride to someone else.
05:49: And Paul is setting them straight. He said, first of all, who are the ministers? Who are they?
05:57: Notice what it says. What are some of the things? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Good question. We are what?
06:04: Servants. Slaves. So the first thing we understand about who a minister is, is he's a slave.
06:12: You are idolizing, you are following, you are because of your pride being driven to glorify a slave.
06:20: Does that seem right or wrong to you? There's something wrong there, right? Servants through whom you believe, even as the
06:29: Lord gave opportunity to each one. The second one we need to understand about the servant, about the minister is where does his ministry come from?
06:37: This is my ministry. This is my church. This is my gift. Well, okay, but what does the
06:44: Lord say? Where did that opportunity come from? Where did that giftedness come from? It's from the
06:50: Lord. If he hadn't worked in my life, I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't have the ability. And so the opportunity, the ministry, the ability of the minister also is outside of himself.
07:04: Where does the power for the ministry come from? I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.
07:15: What about the significance of the minister? The power is
07:21: God. He is the one that causes the growth, and he deserves the glory for it. What about the significance of the minister?
07:27: Look at verse 7. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is, what, anything.
07:35: He's not anything, but God causes the growth. Do you get the point?
07:41: Paul is saying, Corinthians, and he would say to us today, realize who you are.
07:50: Neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but God who causes the growth.
07:57: But graciously, again, as the theme has been really all weekend, notice how the passage ends.
08:03: Now he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
08:11: For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.
08:18: It's amazing, isn't it? The Lord takes a rebel, a sinner who's running away from God, gives him salvation, gives him a giftedness, gives him or her a nobility, puts them into service.
08:31: They serve doing works that he prepared beforehand that they should walk in them. And then when there's fruit to the glory of God, he rewards them.
08:40: He rewards you. He rewards me. And again, brothers and sisters, that is grace.
08:46: God was causing the growth. Amen? And that's what
08:52: I want us to think about tonight. What has God done? How is he working? And how can we praise him and glorify him for that wonderful work?
09:01: Okay. Well, the first thing I want to show to you and discuss and talk about is our recent graduates.
09:08: Just a month and a half ago, maybe almost two months now, we had our graduation ceremony.
09:16: We graduated these four men. I'm going to introduce them to you. They've just completed their three years.
09:22: They're right now have moved out into their various locations. They're finding places to live.
09:28: They're starting to start Bible studies. And we're praying the
09:34: Lord will use them mightily for his glory. Let me just give you their names, and then I'll talk a little bit about each one.
09:40: From left to right, we have John, Silas, Schroeder, and Rajiv.
09:46: All right? Let me start by talking about Rajiv a little bit. Rajiv George, dear brother, neat guy.
09:51: He was in Disciples Community Church. I think most of you know what that is. It's the church that we were working with originally when we first went eight years ago, seven years ago, to India.
10:02: They were the church that invited us, sponsored us, helped us to get the institute started.
10:08: He was a member of that church for a number of years. He's an architect by training. Had a very good job as an architect, but felt the call of the
10:17: Lord to be involved in ministry. He didn't want to design buildings for the rest of his life.
10:23: He just had a heart to be in pastoral ministry, and so he joined PTI three years ago. And he's just finished now, and he's gone out to plant a church in Bombay.
10:33: His wife, Reshmi, and he has three boys, Samuel, Joel, and Daniel. Joel and Daniel are twins, identical twins.
10:40: Even today, I have a hard time telling the difference between them. Although now they're older, it's a little easier to see.
10:46: But Rajiv has just moved to Bombay. They're trying to find a home. He's trying to figure out how he's going to support his family, probably do some work as an architect on the side.
10:56: For the last year, he's been working in Bombay, starting a
11:01: Bible study. He has a few people who are coming, and Lord willing, that will develop into a church in the coming years very soon.
11:08: So if you remember to pray for them, please do. Maybe write their names down and pray for them.
11:14: Pray especially for Rajiv and Reshmi. Reshmi, you know how it would be.
11:19: Where is the money going to come from? Where are we going to live? What about the schooling for the children? There's a lot of issues floating around in their minds right now.
11:27: So just pray the Lord would give them strength and courage as they're relocating now and getting involved in ministry.
11:34: That's Rajiv and Reshmi George. Next we have Shridhar. Shridhar is a neat guy.
11:42: He and his wife, Jareena, the woman in the middle is his mother.
11:48: But both Shridhar and Jareena are born again out of unbelieving families.
11:56: Shridhar's family is strongly Hindu, and Jareena's family is strongly
12:01: Muslim. And interesting, if you know about the cultures in India, that would not have worked for marriage.
12:08: But they were born again, and their families were not happy about it, but they got married, and now they came to PTI.
12:18: Actually, I should have said this earlier, but you notice it's the Pastoral Training Seminary. I'll just interject here, we changed the name just to represent the institution better.
12:30: PTS, by the way, doesn't sound nearly as good as PTI. We understand that, just so you don't think we realize that.
12:37: It just doesn't flow. But it is a better name, I think, ultimately. Anyway, back to Shridhar and Jareena.
12:44: He was born again out of a Hindu family. His family largely, since he was born again, were very upset about that, not happy about it.
12:55: Jareena, the same thing, Muslim family. But they love the Lord. They have a son, now they have two children.
13:01: After we came here to the U .S., she gave birth to their second child. His mother has been born again, and I believe one of his aunts also has been born again since he has come to Christ.
13:13: So we praise the Lord for that. But Shridhar and Jareena have moved now into his father's home. Joint families is very normal in India, so he's moved with his family into his father's home, which is going to be a challenge for them.
13:26: So if you want to pray for Shridhar and Jareena, just pray for their courage, their parenting, with his father and his mother.
13:37: There's going to be possibly some issues, conflicts. Why do you do it that way? You're spanking your children. What are you doing?
13:42: Hitting your child. There's going to be some difficulty that way, so just pray for them, for courage and grace as they're living in that situation.
13:51: What Shridhar is going to be doing is teaching in a Bible institute. He already has a position in a Bible training institute in his native language, not in English, but in his own language.
14:02: And he's also going to be working to plant a church. So evangelism, start a Bible study, plant a church as well, at the same time working in that Bible institute to support his family.
14:13: So this is Shridhar and Jareena. Thirdly, we have
14:19: Silas. Silas is not an Indian. He is a Burmese, or from the country of Myanmar, which is to the east of India.
14:30: I don't know how many of you know about Burma. It's been in the news in the past year or so. Silas came to the
14:37: U .S. a number of years before he came to PTI. But then he came to PTI, and his heart has always been to go back to Burma to plant a church there.
14:47: The church there, there's several large Baptist denominations, but they're going very, very liberal.
14:55: They had been started by, I think, American missionaries years ago, Baptist missionaries. But now they're quite liberal and not very many truly born -again people.
15:07: And so his heart is to go back to start a church, to have a biblical, godly, true gospel witness in his homeland.
15:15: So he's there now. He's traveled back. And he's going to work, I think, with his home church for some time.
15:21: Then his desire is to go out and plant a church. Silas has been part of Kerusa Bible Church for his entire time in PTI, so we've got to know him quite well.
15:32: And he's just a servant. He's a humble guy. He serves. He can teach. He's zealous. We have great, great hopes for Silas.
15:41: We have other Burmese students in our institute, and perhaps you've heard some of that from our reports and Sammy and Nicole's communication.
15:49: I'll tell you about that a little bit later, an exciting opportunity with these other Burmese men. Please pray for Silas.
15:57: Then finally we have John, John Sundar. It's kind of funny. We laugh sometimes because his last name
16:04: Sundar means beautiful. In Hindi, I think it is.
16:10: So John Beautiful. That's okay for men, I guess. Can men be beautiful? Sure, okay.
16:16: So anyway, John, he's a precious brother. He's a fairly young man.
16:22: He's unmarried, as is Silas. There's Silas. But he comes from, unlike Sridhar, he comes from a long line of Christian, good
16:31: Christian, biblical family line.
16:37: His father's a pastor. His grandfather's a pastor. They've planted churches, several churches, in his home area in southern
16:43: India. And so his plan is to go back down there, live in his hometown, get a wife, hopefully, and to begin pastoring in one of those churches.
16:56: And so, again, pray for him for a wife. Pray for him for courage, especially as a young man.
17:01: A young man in India without a wife, without children, he would need the exhortation of Paul to Timothy.
17:10: Don't let anyone look down on your youth. Because people do. Age is an important thing in Indian culture, especially.
17:17: And if you don't have a wife, you're kind of even more... you haven't really come of age yet.
17:22: So just pray for his courage, that he'd be godly, that he'd be humble, that he wouldn't feel the need to overpower and somehow push himself ahead.
17:34: But he will probably have a church pretty soon that's already planted and going, that he'll be pastoring in.
17:40: So these are our graduates. We're excited about these men, because we've seen the Lord grow in them.
17:45: They're by no means perfect or where they ought to be, which one of us is, right?
17:53: But we're excited. We love them, and we're excited what the Lord's going to do through them. Until now, you might just be interested to know, we have, let's see, four or four...
18:05: we have about ten graduate students from PTI. From the time PTI started until now, we have about ten,
18:13: I think it is, men who've gone out and have begun to plant churches to preach and teach the
18:19: Word of God. And so it's exciting how the Lord is using each of these men to plant the church.
18:28: The Lord's using them. All right, now a little bit about our current students. Last year, and we've just finished our academic year in March, we're in the summer break.
18:38: It's summer in India right now, like 100 degrees in Pune. Pray for Nicole Williams, by the way.
18:44: She's eight, nine months pregnant and 100 degrees. And the air conditioning sometimes works.
18:50: So she's struggling. So please pray for her. But last year, we had 19 students.
18:58: That's the most students we've ever had in PTI. So we thank and praise the Lord for that. A large portion of that is the
19:06: Burmese students. We had 11 Burmese students came.
19:13: Two of them had to return after a few months because of health reasons. But we had 11 Burmese students come, and then, of course, the rest are
19:19: Indian students in various years in PTI. But we're thanking the Lord for a larger group.
19:30: You know, I could talk all night about these guys and their individual stories and who they are, but we don't have the time to do that.
19:37: Suffice it to say, the Lord is working wonderfully in their lives.
19:42: It's the neatest thing in the world, and I think you probably know this. To be able to get to know, to spend time every day loving them, confronting them, teaching them, helping them to grow, to see their hunger for the
20:00: Word of God grow, to see them come and be kind of, well, you know, why? You know, what's the importance?
20:07: And then to see them realize how far they need to grow, and their hunger just grows, and their desire for the
20:16: Word of God increases. One of the neat things about PTI, and I guess you know this, but let me just share it, is it's small enough that we can know each individual student, and we're with them every single day.
20:30: And we have discipleship labs, and we pray with them. And when they fail a quiz, or two, or three, it's not just a matter of, well, you're going to get an
20:39: F. It's what's going on in your life, man. You know, what are the issues?
20:45: What does this mean for your future ministry? And we can help them, we can shepherd them, we can love them.
20:53: We can see how they treat their children. Here we have a brand new baby was just born.
20:59: He missed the last week of seminary because he went to be with his wife when she gave birth.
21:07: But we can shepherd them through that. And how do you train your kids? And how do you love your wife? Why is that important for a pastor?
21:15: That his home is a godly place, and that he's shepherding his children.
21:23: And so it's wonderful to be able to be with them, loving them, shepherding them.
21:28: We had in our new batch, our new group, I should say, in American English, in our new group this year, several, you know, nine
21:39: Burmese men, and then we had three very promising
21:44: Indian men who came this year. We're thanking the Lord for them. Here's one of them. His name's Rudolph.
21:50: His wife's name is Regini. They have a little daughter, Ruth. Vivek, he was the last one, the last picture with the baby.
22:00: These are just humble, zealous young men. They're very good in English.
22:06: They're very sharp mentally. They're already fairly good preachers and teachers. And so we're excited with how the
22:13: Lord might use them in the future. On the next slide here, no, it's not this one.
22:22: In one more slide, I'll tell you about, his name is Dinesh Pinjwani. He's an
22:28: Indian man. He's married to Shannon, who is an American. They have two kids,
22:36: Hannah Grace and Samuel, I believe, if I'm remembering right.
22:43: But his name is Dinesh Pinjwani. He's a surgeon. He's a medical doctor, trained in India. Went to America for some time, married
22:50: Shannon. He began seminary in the Expositors Seminary. He did several classes there with Dr.
23:00: Zemeck and some of the other teachers. But he just had a desire.
23:06: He had a heart to go back to India. And he wanted to use his medical abilities. He wanted to pastor. He wanted to train. And so he went to eastern part of India a few years ago.
23:16: He was ministering. He was working with a hospital doing ministry. But he realized, if I'm going to be a pastor,
23:21: I need to finish. I need to finish the training. I don't have the tools. I want to equip men. I want to train men.
23:28: I want to do leadership training. And so he hooked up through Grace Community Church and some of those contacts with our seminary, the
23:35: Pastoral Training Seminary. And we took him. He's able to audit or get credit for some of the courses he's taken.
23:42: But again, just a humble, godly guy who's got the ability, the
23:48: English ability, to really do a powerful job in preaching and teaching the word. So we're, again, excited about this couple.
23:56: He's just finished his first year. And in two more years, he's going to be out in the eastern part of India doing medical missions and leadership training, perhaps a small pastoral training institute on that side of the country.
24:12: So praise the Lord for the new men we've just received. All right.
24:18: Let me tell you about the Burmese students. I was saying I was going to talk about this. Silas, who you saw before, he's not part of this group from Burma.
24:27: He's from the same country, of course. But he's not from the same group. We received, well, we began a relationship through God's providence, through Pastor Chris Williams and some contacts in Burma.
24:40: We began to build a relationship with the leader. His name is
24:45: Paul Naotong, the leader of one of the large Baptist denominations in Myanmar.
24:52: It's called the Kachin Baptist Convention. They have a conference every year.
25:00: And Pastor Chris Williams was invited to go there. And Tom Shuck, our fellow faculty member, also went.
25:07: This must be two years ago now, to go and teach in their pastor's conference.
25:14: I think they had about 5 ,000 pastors from all over their country come together for teaching, for training, for fellowship.
25:21: And through discussion, Pastor Chris and Tom, through discussion with Paul Naotong, Pastor Paul Naotong said to them, our denomination is dying.
25:34: We understand your teaching. We know what it is. We know it's coming from the Bible. But we have, our seminaries are teaching.
25:40: And the teaching we have is liberal. The teaching we have, and our pastors have been trained for years now, that the word of God has errors.
25:50: We don't understand the basics of soteriology. And just the teaching is very, very shallow.
25:58: And because of this, and he was realizing the deadness that that kind of teaching brought to these hundreds of churches, thousands of churches,
26:08: I think, in their country. And they said, will you help us? Is there anything you can do to teach us?
26:13: Will you come back and teach us and help our men each year? And so in the last year or two, we've worked with them and made a plan, devised a plan for our faculty members, myself and Sammy and Tom, to take turns going to Myanmar with pastors from the
26:31: U .S., joining together and doing twice a year intensive training courses for all of their pastors.
26:40: And so by God's grace, he just dropped this in our lap, we have the opportunity to impact this denomination, this
26:47: Baptist denomination in Myanmar, perhaps in amazing ways, to turn them back to biblical truth.
26:55: The leader of the denomination is saying, help us. And to know what
27:02: I've learned about the Myanmar culture is, if the leader does it, everybody has to do it, or at least everybody comes on board.
27:10: That's the way they operate. Even in their little group in PTI, that's the way it is. If Bok Son, who is this guy, he's the leader, and if he says yes, everybody says yes, let's do it.
27:23: And so it's just an exciting ministry. It's an exciting opportunity, I should say, to impact an entire denomination, perhaps make an impact on this small, very oppressed nation in Southeast Asia.
27:39: You know, we went to India thinking we want to impact India, and that's great. We still have that as our main focus and vision and goal.
27:45: But the Lord said, well, how about Burma? And so now we have a chance to do that.
27:51: Part of the plan to help this denomination is, they said, can we send some of our men, our best men, to Pune to be trained in your institute for three years?
28:01: And then they can come back and teach others and lead and pastor in churches. And so we said, yes, if they know
28:08: English, they can come. And so they sent a delegation, again, of 11 men.
28:14: Now it's down to nine because two had to return because of health reasons. And so now they're studying.
28:22: They've just finished their first year, and they're really struggling. Again, a prayer request for them is pray for them in a few ways.
28:32: Number one, for their English, just the simple ability to learn English more quickly. They've struggled to do well academically because their
28:41: English is not so good. It's one thing to try to learn English, right? It's another thing to try to learn English and Greek through English while you're trying to learn
28:50: English. So they're really struggling. But they've been learning all kinds of things immensely.
28:58: Again, what I said before about seeing their hunger grow, that applies in a big way to these men.
29:07: Because they were struggling, because they were having a hard time, some of them were failing courses, we sat down with Baksan at the end of the year.
29:15: This was just maybe a month or two ago now. And we said, you know, give us a feel for where the men are at.
29:22: Because we thought we could sit down with all of them, but maybe just talk to Baksan. And we said, where are they at? Do they want to come back?
29:29: Do each one of you have the desire to continue? Because it's hard, you're away from your families, away from your churches, from your culture, from your food, and you're struggling.
29:39: Do you want to come back? And it was so neat to hear him say, you know what, when we first came, it was hard.
29:45: And we were discouraged, and we didn't understand, we didn't get it. And I'm translating into American here.
29:55: Basically what he said was, we didn't understand the theology, we didn't understand your method of teaching.
30:02: We'd never heard this kind of thing before. What is expository preaching? Why are you talking about it all the time?
30:08: Why do you make such a big deal about justification and all these things that you keep talking about?
30:14: And he said, at first, it was foreign. We didn't understand, it didn't make sense. We didn't want it.
30:22: We wanted to go home to our families and our homes. But they stayed, and we kept them there, and Pao Nal Tong kept them there.
30:32: And they continued, and they struggled, and they worked, and some of them cried, and just had a really hard time.
30:40: And he said, you know, at the end, right now, and this was in the last week or so of the classes, he said, what happened to that whole process?
30:47: We couldn't argue with you, because it was just coming out of the Bible. And you showed us where it came from the Bible. And so he said, yes, this is true, this is
30:56: God's Word. And suddenly, the fog was clearing, is what he was describing. They had seen this much, because the fog and the cloud was all here.
31:06: But as the Word of God was working in their lives, as they were convicted by it, as they saw it, and it illuminated their minds, as the
31:13: Holy Spirit worked in their hearts, the fog was clearing. And suddenly they could see the mountain, the glorious mountain of truth, at least begin to see it, what's in God's Word.
31:23: And he said, now we want it. There was a hunger building, there was a hunger growing in their hearts.
31:31: And he said, we all want to come back, every single one of us, to a man. I know we're struggling,
31:36: I know we're doing badly, but we want to come back. And so we told him, okay, we will let you come back.
31:45: We will take you back again. You have to do better. You have to work on your
31:50: English. You need to excel, you need to work hard, you need to trust the Lord and do excellently, as best as you can.
31:57: But we will take you back. And Baksan said, thank you. We were worried you wouldn't take us back, because we know we're doing so badly.
32:06: And so I just tell you that to give you a little picture into how the
32:12: Lord is working in these men's hearts. He is causing the growth in them, in their hearts, in their minds, in their ways of thinking and how they approach the
32:24: Word of God, how they understand their salvation. One of the neatest things, just another story about the
32:32: Burmese guys. Because we couldn't understand them well, because we knew they couldn't understand us, we were starting to wonder, do you understand the gospel?
32:40: Do you really know what salvation is? Because there was a struggle in communication. And so we had a course for them just on soteriology, kind of special for the
32:50: Burmese men. And the Indian guys went and did some preaching class. But we just wanted to make sure they understood the gospel and the foundations and the basics.
32:58: And it was wonderful to see them grasping in a deeper way, perhaps in a new light, the glories of salvation.
33:08: And for about a week or two weeks, and then continuing on to the end of the year, they couldn't stop talking about their depravity.
33:17: They couldn't stop talking about their sin. Because we laid it out really bold, really straight.
33:26: And they said, we've never been taught it this way before. Yeah, we're sinners. But everything, every thought and intention, and every, you know, there is nothing
33:36: I can do, and every bit of righteousness is a filthy rag, and we're sinners. And their appreciation and their glory and the salvation they have in Christ and their forgiveness of sin was so much greater because they now had seen it in the
33:50: Word of God. And they just couldn't get over it. In prayer times, in the worship times, in class, they would keep talking about, yeah, we're sinners, but Christ has saved us from that sin.
34:02: It's just wonderful to see them growing in that appreciation and the truth of God doing that work in their lives.
34:09: So praise the Lord. He is working in these men. We have great hopes that the
34:14: Lord will do wonderful things as they come back, as they continue to excel and learn. The potential is amazing for their church and their denomination.
34:28: So we thank the Lord for them. I was going to highlight also one of the men.
34:34: His name is Brang Ong. And really what I've said about everyone really applies to him, so there's maybe not a whole lot more to say, but Brang Ong is a neat guy.
34:44: He's humble. He's quiet. He doesn't say a lot. He doesn't ask a lot of questions, but he is trying hard.
34:51: He's a jolly guy. I know that's a funny picture, but I debated whether or not to put it in, but I said, hey, he enjoys life, so put it in.
35:01: But he's humble. He's quiet. He doesn't say a lot in class. I remember there were a few times,
35:08: I think it was in Greek class, probably, but I could just see the strain in his eyes, starting to water, starting to tear up.
35:18: I mean, he's just, you know, and you don't expect it because he doesn't say much.
35:24: He doesn't express it, but he is just laboring in his heart and his soul, away from his family and all that.
35:30: And then in the last, oh, I'd say maybe month of the whole year, I'd seen him kind of progressing, and he's working hard.
35:36: He's not stopping. He's going. He knows the Lord. He loves the Lord. And in the last month, he started to surge.
35:42: I was saying, yes, he's seeing some payoff. He started to do better on the tests.
35:50: He started to do better on the quizzes. He was excelling, and he's coming back again as well.
35:56: So the Lord, he's trusting in the Lord, giving him grace, as all these guys are, and just praise the
36:04: Lord for how he's working in these men's lives. So this is the end of the section talking about the seminary.
36:16: This is what it's all about. The things you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
36:28: As I said this morning, thank you for helping us to train these faithful men.
36:35: We're a team. You understand that, right? Maybe I don't need to say it, but maybe I do. You are supporting.
36:43: You are praying. You are giving. We are going. One plants, one waters, one gives, one teaches.
36:50: We all pray, and God is causing the growth. So these are the fruits of your labors with us, our labors together with God for his glory, right?
37:01: And it's all of his grace, of course. But let's together give him praise for what he's doing.
37:10: Okay. I don't think I'll stop for questions now. Let me finish and then write down any questions you have.
37:17: I want to talk about Caruso Bible Church. We've just completed about four years since we planted the church.
37:24: And again, God is causing the growth in Caruso Bible Church. This last year,
37:30: I'd say year to year and a half, has been a time of unusual growth. I think both in sanctification and spiritually and maturity as well as in numbers.
37:41: We're bursting the little room we've been meeting in. We're running maybe 60 people a
37:47: Sunday are coming. A lot of young people have started to come to the church recently.
37:53: This was kind of our three -year anniversary celebration
37:58: Sunday morning. And you can see some people in there you recognize, right? There's Sammy and Nicole.
38:05: And here's our family, of course, and Tom and Lisa. There's Nathaniel, Andrea, Abby, and Jeremy.
38:13: And as usual, the Williams children are everywhere. All right?
38:20: There's Caleb. Here is Micah. And here's
38:27: Hannah, right? Yeah. And so anyway, I'll show you some pictures.
38:33: It's been wonderful to see how the Lord has worked in the church. Again, like I said, we need to find a new place to meet because, similar to you, we're packed out.
38:42: And there's no more room really to grow. We have people sometimes on a big Sunday sitting outside looking in.
38:50: But the Lord has really been working. I think a few weeks ago, I wasn't there, of course, but a few weeks ago we had a baptism.
38:57: Some young people who were saved and want to profess their faith through baptism.
39:04: Vineet down here, he's a graduate from a couple of years ago. He's been interning in the church now for a year and a half, a couple of years, helping us out, preaching sometimes, getting ministry experience.
39:18: Sometimes we have a student that is up to the task. We'll take him and let him intern with us.
39:27: We've just finished preaching through Nehemiah. They've just moved on now to a series through the
39:34: Psalms, I believe, is what Sammy and Tom decided to do. We have two weekly
39:40: Bible studies, which are great times. We're going through the book of Ephesians right now. Just finished the first half of the book.
39:46: Now we're going on to the second half. So two groups are there. We had our first evangelistic outreach program a few months ago.
39:56: It was a great time, a Christmas outreach. And it was neat the way the Lord worked.
40:01: A lot of foreign students came. We kind of focused on foreign workers, foreign students, a lot of Muslims, people from Iran came.
40:09: And we built some relationships with them. And we met in that whole process a young lady who had come to Pune to study, had been born again, not through contact with us but through some other people.
40:25: And now she's afraid to go back to her country of Iran because of what her family might do to her.
40:32: And so she's trying to figure out what to do, try to get a job or keep studying. And so we've built a relationship with her, trying to encourage her, give her advice.
40:44: Again, this church is the Lord's church, but we love them like family.
40:50: Really close relationships with these people. As you can see, a lot of young people are coming to the church as well.
41:06: Here's some of the young men in our Bible study, our Friday night Bible study. This was at, you see a lot of the pictures kind of with tents and in a foresty area.
41:20: This was our church camp, which we had not long before we came here. The theme of the church camp was living out the gospel, the gospel in the church, the gospel before the world, and the fundamentals of the gospel.
41:34: It was a great time, the fellowship. This is in our favorite coffee shop.
41:42: It's owned by a believing man, a good friend of ours. We love to go down there. Andrea and Naisha is her name.
41:52: Okay, so praise the Lord for what he's doing in Jerusalem Bible Church. Continue to pray for them.
41:59: I'm going to tell you in a few minutes about our plans to move the seminary to another state in the southern part of Goa, in the southern part of India called
42:10: Goa. I'll tell you a little bit about that when I give the prayer request. But just pray for the church because it's going to be a fairly large change for them.
42:22: Two of the pastors are going. Tom is going to stay. Tom Schuck is going to stay for at least a year to shepherd the church, to lead them through this transition.
42:31: But a large portion of the church is leaving because the students, our family, the
42:36: Williams family, are going. We're doing the move, we're making the move, mainly for long -term planning reasons and for financial reasons.
42:44: We need a campus -type setup. As it is now, we just rent another building, rent another building as the institute grows, and you can only do that so long.
42:53: The price goes through the roof. And so we need a place where we can expand, where we can grow, and the
42:58: Lord brought that to us in this three -and -a -half -acre property down in Goa.
43:04: If you look on Google Maps, you could find it. I'll show you a map in just a minute. But just pray for the church, that they'll be strong.
43:12: Change is always hard. And so the Lord will lead them through that. I'll show you some pictures of my family.
43:19: I didn't bring them with me, but I brought them on my computer. So here's a little bit about them. Those of you who don't know us, haven't met us before, this is
43:27: Andrea, my wife. We've been married for a little over 13 years. Jeremy Jr.,
43:32: he's 11. Abigail, she's 9 years old. And Nathaniel is just turned 4 earlier this year.
43:42: I'll just show you some pictures. This is Nathaniel with his second best friend.
43:48: His name's Gimli, for all you LOTR fans. He's very dwarf -like, actually.
43:56: He's a pug. Anyway, we love him, and Gimli loves Nathan. Here's Nathan's, I think it's safe to say, his very best friend.
44:04: Her name is Sophie. And they love playing together and with the dog. Here's Jeremy Jr.,
44:16: typical 11 -year -old boy. You'll see a picture of him here. We homeschool the children, and so we look for other activities for them.
44:26: He's been taking karate for a number of months now, has now achieved, here's the father bragging, his yellow belt, his yellow senior belt.
44:36: And here he's receiving his belt for that. So it's a neat opportunity for him to be with other kids and learn some discipline and get some exercise.
44:53: Abigail has been taking ballet. Some of you know
44:59: Abigail. This is Abigail. This is Abigail all over. She is extrovert extraordinaire.
45:06: I don't think it's genetic, personally, but I don't think how it could be.
45:12: But she just loves people, and she's bouncing off the wall. She'll talk to anybody. Somebody suggested this morning we ought to lock her up when she turns 12.
45:20: We're considering that option. Anyway, just pray for our family.
45:28: Pray, please, for the salvation of our children. They would grow up to know and love the Lord, and the
45:34: Lord give us wisdom as we train them. All right.
45:42: Well, I have seven minutes to talk about the car wreck and the prayer request.
45:49: Do I go, or do I... I'll do the fast way? Okay. The Lord has been incredibly gracious to us in many, many ways, but let me just share with you about the wreck.
46:02: Three years ago, we were on furlough. We were here. We were doing the regular furlough thing, and we had just finished a conference, a
46:11: Bible conference in San Diego, and we were on our way back to Puna. Tom and Lisa and Sammy and Nicole had just come, and so the plan was we go back, get ready for the
46:21: National Expositors Conference. Anyway, we're driving from Bombay to Puna, and in the sovereignty of God, in the providence of God, we were involved in a very serious car wreck.
46:33: We don't call it an accident, because there are no accidents with God. He planned for us to have a very serious car wreck.
46:43: October, I don't remember what it was, 17th or 18th, something like that, 2006. We don't remember the accident, so I can't really tell you much about that, but we heard reports from our friends who eventually found out what happened.
46:56: I'll tell you a little bit about what happened. We were in something like an SUV vehicle, a Jeep, big size.
47:02: Andrea and the three kids were in the back seat. I was in the front seat with the driver, and apparently what happened, there was a large kind of a, we call them lorries, a large truck sitting on the side of the road.
47:15: A couple guys were working on it underneath, and our vehicle slammed into the back of the truck.
47:22: We don't know if it was the driver who fell asleep. Maybe that he did. Maybe he made a bad judgment call trying to pass, and a car was coming, and what do you do to avoid a head -on?
47:32: We don't know exactly how it happened, but at pretty high speed, we slammed into the back, crushed the whole front of the car, and of course,
47:40: I was in the left side, because you're right -hand driving in India, right at the truck side, and so I had a massive cranium fracture, cracks in the skull, broke the eye socket on three sides, broke my femur completely, and what was the other thing
48:04: I was going to say? Oh, the brain, there was brain damage as well, so I have the privilege of saying I have brain damage, or I did at one time.
48:12: The dura of the brain, the lining of the brain was torn, and they were just shattered, and so it's an amazing grace of God that I survived.
48:22: If it had happened, it happened just on the outskirts of the city of Pune. If it had been out, away from town, it's about a three -hour drive, it was in there somewhere,
48:30: I almost definitely would not have survived, because there would have been no way to get it, but of course, God and His providence had it happen there.
48:37: Andrea had a very serious concussion. She had no fractures, nothing, but she hit her head really hard, sideways, as far as we can tell, because she had some soreness on this side.
48:49: Very serious concussion, a lot of swelling, and she sustained, she had quite a while, for about a year afterwards, you know, dizziness, difficulty with focusing, difficulty concentrating as well.
49:02: Jeremy Jr. had some, you can't really see it in this picture, had some, had a very slight skull fracture, and just surface cuts on his forehead and down his chin and his neck.
49:14: It looks like glass got him there. Abigail had very minor injuries, a crack in her hand, a crack in her foot, she had a cast for a couple of weeks, no problem.
49:25: And Nathaniel, precious Nathaniel, he was about one and a half at the time, he had absolutely no injuries, at all, for which we thank the
49:34: Lord very much. He was in his baby car seat, but of course, being the smallest one, he would have the greatest risk.
49:41: But of course, a very serious, very serious injury. A little bit about what happened that day, and we see the
49:47: Lord's hand and His goodness in this. Nobody knew, of course, from Puna, anybody who loves us, our family or friends, knew what had happened.
49:57: And there's a neat story I can tell you about what happened at that time, the way the Lord allowed our church and our friends to know what happened.
50:06: As soon as the wreck happened, of course, people all over who were around came up to see what happened, to try to help.
50:13: And one man came up who was not trying to help, he was a thief. He took the cell phone of the driver and ran off.
50:22: And there's chaos and whatnot. But he took the cell phone and he goes. Well, again, in the providence of God, this was the way that He allowed our friends and family to find out what had happened to us, because a friend of ours from DCC, his name's
50:38: Bibby, called that man's cell phone for a different piece of business, to rectify a bill or to discuss some other driving that he had done for them.
50:50: And he called the phone, and lo and behold, the thief answers the phone. Which, if I was stealing a phone,
51:00: I wouldn't answer it, but he did. I don't know, he maybe felt guilty. In any case, he answers the phone and tells our friend from DCC, you know, there's been a terrible accident and everybody's hurt and, you know, this, this, and this, on this side of town.
51:18: And so Bibby's in shock, you know. Oh, no, because he knew the Smiths, he knew we were driving back with that driver that day.
51:25: And so he's, oh, my goodness, you know, but the thief hangs up the phone. And so Bibby's, oh, no, so he calls the phone back again and again and again, and he doesn't answer the phone again.
51:34: So all he knows is, we've been in a serious car wreck, there may be injuries, we're going to go to the hospital, but he doesn't know where.
51:41: So he gets a friend, he starts calling hospitals. Do you have any Americans, any Americans? No, no, no. Looking, looking, looking.
51:47: Finally, they call one hospital and say, do you have any Americans? And he says, well, we have this one
51:53: Nepal, Nepalese boy, which ended up being Jeremy, Jr. So, so, and so they get on their motorcycles, they call all the people from the church, and they start flooding that side of town, looking in all the different hospitals.
52:08: Finally, they find each one of us, and start staying with us, caring for us, getting our things, dealing with the police, all of these things.
52:17: It's just, you know, the Lord's care and kindness to, through those circumstances, to allow the body of Christ to help us out.
52:26: Another kind of interesting note on this, the Lord's goodness and care for us, is as soon as the people gathered around and saw the injuries, they took
52:34: Jeremy, one man, a Sikh man with a turban, a young man, came and took
52:40: Jeremy, and he must have been bleeding quite a bit from the scalp and the chin. And he said he needs to get to a hospital.
52:47: And he took him, put him in his car, and drove him away to the hospital. And of course, we were unable to care for them.
52:55: We had no idea. Take him away to a hospital. They were unable to get the doors open in the front, which
53:01: I was in, so I sat there, they say, for about a half an hour, as they're prying the door open.
53:09: Again, the grace and mercy of God that I didn't bleed to death because of the femur.
53:16: But, and then finally by that time, an ambulance comes, and they take us to a different hospital. And so Jeremy is being cared for in that hospital, we're in this hospital, and they're trying to find everybody.
53:27: But again, in all of that, of course it was terrifying, when Andrew and I woke up a week later, a week and a half later, and realized our children had been spread by strangers throughout the, you know, that's just for a parent a very terrifying thing.
53:40: But you know what? What Andrew and I both realized through the whole thing, you know, you want to, I want to take care of my kids.
53:45: I want to be there. I am the one that God has given to care for them. But we came face to face with the reality that, you know what?
53:54: The Lord is caring for my children, and he is taking care of them far better than I ever could.
54:01: And we saw him doing that through these strangers who were caring and protecting.
54:09: There's a lot of stories like that I could tell, but glory to God, praise the
54:15: Lord, and the way he has worked through us. Again, if we had died, and I said this the other day, if we had died, if we had been maimed beyond recognition, if I could never do ministry again, he would be, he is still good.
54:27: That's the truth. That's the reality. But we praise him for what he has done, right?
54:33: And he has taught us wonderful things about trusting in him, about the body of Christ working together.
54:39: That's the thing I think that was maybe the most impactful to me. Strangers, thousands of people around the world, people
54:44: I don't even know, are praying and giving and loving, brothers and sisters in Christ.
54:52: Can I just tell one more story? Because this is kind of neat. The way the body of Christ works together. A few months after we came back to the
54:58: U .S., because after they patched us up, we came back to the U .S. to have the eye socket repaired. And I receive an email.
55:07: I'm living at my parents' house, waiting for the surgery and all the different complications that happen. I receive an email from a pastor somewhere in Africa.
55:17: I forget now where in Africa he was. But he says, we've been praying for you, and we want to find out how you're doing, and how the
55:27: Lord's working. How in the world did a pastor in Nigeria, if that's where it was, find out about this?
55:35: And he explained in the email, he said, I was sitting on the airplane when your father was flying back from Russia.
55:42: My father was in eastern Russia on a short -term mission trip when the wreck happened. And again, by the providence of God, they were able to contact him.
55:50: He was in between village visits. And he was there on that day, again, in God's providence, and they were able to contact him.
55:57: He hopped on a plane and flew back 20 hours to America, only hearing that Jeremy and Andrew are on the edge.
56:07: And so my father was quite distressed. He sits next to this
56:13: African pastor and tells him about what's gone on. And the pastor says, we'll pray for you.
56:20: Anyway, he gets to Africa. He begins praying. He doesn't have any of my contact information. He writes in the email,
56:25: I didn't have your email. All I had was your name. So I googled your name. And I got your email address.
56:35: And our church has been praying for you for the last two months. And we want to know how you're doing.
56:40: How is God working in your life? We want to praise God. How are you feeling? And I'm thinking, my goodness, this is the body of Christ.
56:50: Strangers, but not strangers. Brothers and sisters who love each other, who have the bond, who have the same
56:57: Lord, the same Spirit, the same baptism, the same Word of God. We are one in Christ.
57:04: Praise the Lord for His church. And we praise the
57:10: Lord for you and for many people who've been praying and loving and giving.
57:17: It's glory to God. And it's just, we've never been on that side of it. But it's wonderful to see
57:25: God glorifying Himself through the proper operation of His church. Praise the
57:30: Lord for that. If you want to know more, there's more stories, come and talk to me afterwards.
57:37: We can stay all night if you want. And we can talk about those things. Let me just give you a few prayer requests. And then we can have communion together.
57:47: First of all, pray for that move to Goa, please. Probably going to happen in August, late
57:52: August. We'll be moving the entire seminary, the Williams and the Smiths, we'll be moving down there, all the students and their families.
58:00: It's going to be a big move. So just pray for wisdom about how to do it, when to do it, for the logistics and all of those things.
58:11: I'll just show you where it is. And this really isn't the best map, but here is Pune. Bombay or Mumbai is a three -hour drive here.
58:23: Panji is the name, that yellow spot there, that's Goa. That's the state of Goa, known kind of as a resort community down there.
58:33: A lot of foreigners, primarily Europeans and Israelis, for some reason, come to Goa.
58:40: A lot hotter down there, by the way, and a lot more humid. It's about eight kilometers.
58:46: The property we're renting is about eight kilometers from the beach. So anybody here like to surf? Come on down.
58:54: There's surfing in Goa. Okay, so Panji, Panji is how they say it.
59:00: That's the capital city. The property is in a town called Mapusa. They say it
59:05: Mapusa. It's Map USA. So we're saying Mapusa.
59:10: Mapusa. We go down there and say, oh, we're going to Mapusa. And the guy says, whoa, whoa, no. It's Mapusa.
59:16: So anyway, but that's where the property is. We'll probably be living in Panji there.
59:23: Okay? It's about a seven -hour drive from Puna. Okay? So that's going to be a big move for us.
59:29: Pray for us. Pray for KBC as all that change takes place. A couple other prayer requests.
59:35: The growth of Que Russo Bible Church. Wisdom for Tom, especially as he takes over the primary role of pastoring there.
59:42: Just pray that we could find a better place, a larger place for the right amount of money.
59:50: We'll just do that whole transition. Pray for the Burmese men. Just pray for their hearts mainly and their perseverance, but also for their growth and for their continued spiritual growth and academic growth as well.
01:00:07: Again, remember that great potential that's there. And then finally, we are raising support during the largest financial crisis in recent memory.
01:00:17: So just pray we need to raise some more money for the Lord to bring some new contacts and churches for us.
01:00:24: Okay? We're still short by quite a bit per month. We know you guys pray.
01:00:30: We know you do. And so please continue to pray. Pick up a prayer card. They'll just be here or wherever I should put them.
01:00:37: Where should I put them? On the table? They'll be on the table over here. So please pick up an updated one.
01:00:43: You can toss the other one if you want. I don't mind. But thank you for your prayers. Keep on praying for us.
01:00:53: Mike, there's probably not time for Q &A, but I'll leave that up to you. I went a little long, so I apologize.
01:01:03: Are there any burning questions? We can take some now. Yes. Yeah, that's a great question.
01:01:23: How has God's working and his providence through the wreck and everything, how has that impacted the unbelievers around us, particularly
01:01:31: Andrea's mother, who's not a believer? I would say, first of all, generally, there were many opportunities, especially in India after the wreck, to share the gospel.
01:01:41: There were several opportunities with a young man who picked up Jeremy and took him. I believe we were unconscious at the time, but the owner of the driving company, he came and saw me in the hospital.
01:01:54: There was an opportunity for Pastor Chris to talk with him. So there were those opportunities to share the gospel.
01:02:00: The operation of the church was a wonderful testimony. Andrea's mom, she came.
01:02:07: Her father, Andrea's father also came. He's not a believer. You know, there was no obvious overpowering impact.
01:02:16: I believe that the love of our brothers and sisters in the church was obvious to them, and they really understood that it's what the body of Christ is about.
01:02:28: But as far as movement towards salvation, something like that, that's hard to say.
01:02:33: We don't really know what goes on in the heart. She never expressed any of that to us. So we need to keep praying for her salvation.
01:02:41: I believe it made an impact, but she never really expressed much of that. Yeah, good question.
01:02:49: Anything else? Yes. Yeah, we just had heard of, we found out about the property, went and saw it, and it seemed almost ideal for our situation.
01:03:07: Three acres, room to expand, owned by a believer, a third of the price of what we're paying right now for facilities, long -term possibilities for growth.
01:03:17: Those were the reasons. As far as the training of the seminary goes, it doesn't matter a whole lot where we do it, frankly, because men come from all over the country to PTS to be trained.
01:03:34: So it doesn't really matter where we do it, but as long as it's fairly accessible.
01:03:41: So the main reason, as I said before, was it's a much better use of the finances, so better stewardship, and it gives something of a campus for long -term growth.
01:03:51: Yeah, okay. One more? Burning?
01:04:00: Oh, go ahead. Right, good question.
01:04:16: Persecution. There's quite a bit of persecution in India. Do we face that? Do we know anybody who does? We personally don't face it.
01:04:24: Most of that persecution is in rural areas where the police cannot respond so quickly, or the police are in with the government, and they aren't going to do much of anything anyway because they're
01:04:36: Hindus. Largely it's the Hindus opposing Christians is what the persecution is, and they'll look for almost any reason to do that.
01:04:46: Sometimes there'll be beatings. We have had some of our students who have been pretty close to that because they'll go out and minister in rural areas.
01:04:56: There was one of our students that came back pretty shaken, or he called us pretty shaken, and he had been in a gospel meeting out in the open, and right at the end some
01:05:06: Hindu radicals came in and started dispersing the crowd and beating people and, you need to stop preaching.
01:05:13: They took the preacher and beat him up pretty bad. And our student, he ran. He was afraid.
01:05:20: And he was feeling convicted about that, like somehow he hadn't honored the Lord. So he was pretty close to it.
01:05:28: And that can happen when you get out in the rural areas. The Hindus generally see conversions as a social, political attack.
01:05:43: The Indian Constitution allows freedom of religion, but when it comes right down to it, to local politics, when somebody converts, they're going to vote for the other party.
01:05:53: And so their power base is being threatened, and that's really what happens. And so they send out the mobs and the gundas to put fear into people so they won't do that.
01:06:04: So, yeah, it happens quite a bit in India, but it's usually in the rural areas, so we personally don't come across it that much.
01:06:12: For a foreigner to be attacked would be highly unusual. You remember the stains, you know, eight years ago.
01:06:20: The Australian missionaries, the man and his two boys who were burned, that's highly unusual. And he was out in a rural area.
01:06:26: They could get away with it, was the idea. But no, we don't face that too much.
01:06:32: In Goa, where we're going, I'll just say this one thing and be done. In Goa, it's highly
01:06:37: Catholic, and so that's going to be an interesting dynamic for living there.
01:06:42: Very strongly Catholic down there. Sometimes militantly Catholic. So it's going to be interesting.
01:06:51: You might pray for wisdom for that as well. Okay, that's really all we have time for. Thank you so much.
01:06:56: Remember, praise the Lord for what he's doing, because he is causing the growth.