God Knows No Borders. Gott Kennt Keinen Harten Boden (German) — George Verwer

Thank you. What a joy to be back in Switzerland again. I must be getting near my one hundredth visit to Switzerland. And that's quite embarrassing now because I still don't speak any of these languages.

I do speak Spanish, as I lived in Spain when I first came to Europe, and when I first visited Switzerland I was living in Spain. Thank you for coming to this seminar. It is impossible to express how strong this burden is on my heart that I'm about to share with you.

A Lifelong Burden for the Unreached

And it has been on my heart almost every single day for forty-three years. Tomorrow night when I speak to the whole group I may share about my conversion through the ministry of Billy Graham in New York City.

Even before my conversion I started to be interested in those people that had never had the Bible. I thought everybody should at least have a Bible. I was not yet a true believer in Jesus, but I thought everybody should have a Bible.

And so I started to raise money for the Pocket Testament League, an organization distributing scriptures by the millions across the world. And through the prayers of an old lady who sent me a Gospel of John through the mail, and then through a Billy Graham meeting in New York City I came to true faith in Jesus Christ and was born again.

That's about forty-four years ago. And by the grace of God that has been a powerful reality every single day ever since. One of the secrets of living the victorious life is just live one day at a time.

Don't try to think of a whole year or a whole month, I've got to live all out for Jesus. But today, let God's Spirit fill you and let God motivate you in the work. We know it was the Lord Jesus who told us to go into all the world very, very clear and preach the Gospel to every person.

Here we are about to celebrate two thousand years since the birth of Jesus Christ. And yet as God's people we have to be honest. We have failed. We have failed to do what the Lord Jesus told us to do.

Now we have done part of it. So the body of Christ is very good in what's called partial obedience. Now when you get married I hope that you will not have just partial love for your wife. Because if you do, you're going to have a big problem.

Don't tell your wife that ninety percent of your love is for her and you've only reserved ten percent for other women. So though we praise God for all that has been done these two thousand years, and there is much to thank God for, and we have all of our wonderful stories, and we have all of our wonderful books, and I'll mention these in just a moment, but the truth is we have failed.

Repentance for the Church's Failure

Now I was in a meeting with some Christian leaders once, and when I said, you know, we need to acknowledge that we have failed, this guy got very, he got very upset. He said, I don't believe in failure.

I just couldn't believe what I was listening to. The Bible is a very realistic book. David failed. You know, he was a wonderful guy, but he failed. He committed immorality. Then he committed murder. So do you think David would say, I don't believe in failure?

Is that what we read in the 51st Psalm when David is praying his prayer of repentance? He acknowledged his sin. He acknowledged his failure. And I believe as we go into this new millennium, it's a time for repentance.

Now, you're mainly young people, so you haven't failed that much yet. It's my generation. It's my generation that needs to acknowledge more wholeheartedly, we have failed to do what the Lord told us to do.

Some of you may be part of the Campus Crusade staff, and as someone who's watched from the outside Campus Crusade, I would say they have done more than their share to reach the world with the gospel. So I'm not sure I want to walk up to my friend Bill Bright or Paul Esherman and say, hey, you guys have failed.

I don't feel too happy about that. Because if the body of Christ had listened to these people and others, and had responded, then everybody in the world would have received the gospel, at least once by now.

From Local Evangelism to a Global Vision

When I was first going into missions, I first went to Mexico and then Spain, I read and heard that 50 of the people in the world had not heard the gospel. Many people believed it was more than that.

That really gripped my heart. I wrote a book about evangelism, and I put that statistic in my book. How many of you, by the way, are into email? You're into email. That is good, because if you email me after this seminar, you are going to get blessed in a big way.

I'm not going to say this tomorrow night to all these thousands of people. You are the elite group. Most people at 2 o 'clock in the afternoon anyway are sleeping. So you shall be rewarded for coming here.

All you have to do is send me an email, and I will send you free book or books. I will also send you a free CD by Bill Drake, a professional musician who I work together with. I will be giving out my email address at the end of the meeting, and other material, including a list of 40 cassette tapes you can get absolutely free of charge.

So we hope at the end of the seminar you will not walk out the door, but you'll walk up and get this free list of cassettes, get this email, and there's other material here if you're interested. I have a new book coming out next summer.

It's called Vision, Grace, Action. So if you write those words down next summer, I'll send you that book. It is a problem if you don't read English, because most of my books are in English. But if on your email you say German only, then we will somehow get something to you.

Of course, in German. This is only one little seminar. But there's potential in this room to shake the world for Jesus Christ. Just in this one room. And I hope you'll take this time seriously. I hope you'll write some of these things down.

So when I launched into missions, 50 had never heard. Now, I'm purposely not using the word evangelized, because mission leaders cannot get agreement as to what that means. So if someone sees a Jesus film or gets a New Testament, I am not saying they are now evangelized.

We know hearing the gospel once is not enough. This is why most all the Christian workers in the world, 90 are working where the church already is. Even if you're in Switzerland, one of the more evangelized countries in the whole world, there are still so many non-Christians.

There's so many people don't even know what the Bible hardly is. Young people. The need just seems so great here. And the British think the same way about Britain. And the Canadians, I was just in Canada speaking to 11 ,000 young people.

Their whole focus is Canada. And I can understand that. Because they see these people around them. And when I was first saved, my main burden was my own drunken high school. 95 of the people in my high school were on the road to hell.

How can I think about other places? It's only as I got more into the word of God, and read more carefully verses like Acts 1 .8, you shall be my witnesses, it says. You shall be my witnesses. In Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost part of the earth.

That was declared 2 ,000 years ago. And then I discovered verses like this verse in Romans. Bear with me to Romans chapter 15. The apocryphal Paul is pouring out his heart. What does he say? This is almost 2 ,000 years ago.

He says, it's always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known. He wanted to be a pioneer for Jesus Christ. That is what this particular seminar is about. Because today, 1999, on the edge of the year 2000, we still need men and women as Paul, who are willing to be pioneers for Jesus Christ.

There's a similar verse in Corinthians where Paul again expresses he wants to go to the unreached people. I wonder if you've ever seen these verses. Maybe that's why you're here. And so, in English we have this expression, you know, I'm preaching to the choir.

I'm preaching to those who are already convinced. If that is your situation, I hope you'll receive something in this seminar that will help you be able to convince other people concerning this important vision.

Jesus' Compassion and the Harvest

Because we know this is on the heart. We know this is on the heart of our Lord Jesus Christ. We can see this also in Matthew chapter 9. Turn in your Bible to Matthew chapter 9. A familiar passage. The last few verses.

Jesus went through, verse 35, all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, healing every disease and sickness. Wow! Jesus zog durch alle Städte und Dörfer, er lehrte in den Synagogen und verkündete die gute Nachricht, dass Gott jetzt seine Herrschaft aufrichten und sein Werk vollenden werde.

Er heilte alle Krankheiten und Leiden. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Als er die vielen Menschen sah, bekam er Mitleid mit ihnen, weil sie so hilflos und verängstigt waren wie Schafe, die keinen Hirten haben.

Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. And this is one of the points we want to drive across this afternoon. The workers are few. Now let's try to look at this objectively.

We can't say the workers are few in Southern California. We can't really say the workers are few even in London, England, where I live. We have thousands of churches in London. We have thousands of workers.

Well, of course, I'm sure we need more. Of course, great workers go to heaven and people need to step into their shoes. I am not judging someone. I am not judging someone for staying in California or staying in London.

Though I lived in India and lived in Nepal and worked as a missionary, I ended up in London. I never dreamed as a young missionary starting out that that operation mobilization would grow so big. And after it became so big, I had to get some kind of international offices and we ended up in London.

And we are overwhelmed by the number of lost people. But we have enough churches and we have enough workers to reach them all with the gospel. Whereas other parts of the world that we're going to talk about in a few minutes is completely different.

We're going to be talking about places like Tibet where there is no church. Some of you are probably from Zurich. And you probably think that's a pretty needy city. What would Zurich be like if there was no church whatsoever?

Just try to imagine no church. There you have Tibet. There you have Afghanistan. There is no church in Afghanistan. There are a few workers helping people in their physical needs. Because of the wonderful relief and the holistic work they do, they're allowed in the country.

Two days ago I talked to a worker by satellite telephone in Afghanistan. It is very difficult even to talk about Jesus Christ in Afghanistan. Let us continue to pray for that hijacked aircraft in Kandahar that that situation would be resolved without all those people being killed.

In the latter part of this seminar we're going to have an opportunity to pray and then an opportunity for you to ask questions. So don't worry, you're not going to have to sit there and listen to me all this time.

Churches, Peoples, and Pioneer Mission

We have a lot to thank God for as we look back over the last years. There have been many great massive angelistic campaigns. The Campus Crusade Jesus Project has been one of the greatest. And we in OM very much work in partnership with that.

I think of the ministry that Billy Graham has had through television and films and the meetings. And as I calculated all the groups or most of the groups in the world that were reaching the masses. Every group I looked at was reaching millions.

Once the church is big, like say Brazil, it's easy to reach another million people. That's nothing. It's when the church doesn't exist that we need pioneer missionaries or otherwise the people will never hear the gospel.

To compare a place like Turkey with Brazil is like comparing dinosaurs with chickens. And this is one of the reasons I bring this globe with me. We want to think about some of these countries of the world.

And we want to develop more wisdom and discernment about some of these countries. So we can understand there are so many different kinds of countries. Every country is different. Many countries have many different people's groups.

Afghanistan would have Tajik people, it has Pashtun people, it has different people's groups, one country. Some of the countries in Africa have over 100 people's groups in one country. And missiologists and missionary leaders today, we don't only speak about nations, we speak about people's groups.

Like somebody may refer to a church in Libya. It may be an Anglican church being attended by English people who are working in the oil industry. And we thank God for that. But that is not going to reach the Libyan people with the gospel.

And so, as we look at the countries of the world, that is, we hear, oh, there's so many churches in this country. We want them to understand what kind of churches. And are they pioneering? Are they reaching the unreached people?

Think with me for a moment, for example, about the nations in the Gulf area. Dubai. Dubai. Kuwait. These countries have churches. But all of those churches are for minority people who are working there from other countries.

Filipino churches. Indian churches. In all the Gulf area, there's only tiny numbers, tiny numbers of the people's groups of the area, the indigenous people, that go to any church whatsoever. So, if you hear that expression, well, the church now exists in almost every nation in the world.

In some nations, that does not mean a thing. And some of the churches in some of the nations are actually doing more harm than good in terms of reaching the people with the gospel. And some of them, yes, Christian churches, don't even believe we should bother these people because all religion leads to God.

That's what they teach. A few months ago, everybody was looking at the Pope's visit to India. India, a land of a billion people. And there's persecution now of the Christian church. There have been martyrs.

There have been people killed. Now, the Catholics were very worried about the visit of their Pope. Because many of the Catholics in India are very liberal. They don't believe in winning Hindus to Jesus Christ.

But the Pope is quite conservative. So, the Pope comes into India and gives this speech that all of Asia needs to be evangelized. I tell you, was he in trouble. But since he is the Pope, he doesn't need to worry about that too much.

We live in days of tremendous confusion. And, of course, when it comes to pioneer mission work, people who are liberal in their theology do not believe in this unless you're just going to help people physically.

But we believe according to God's word that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. And there is no other way to God except through him. We will not compromise on this because to compromise on this would be compromise the word of God and the teaching of Jesus.

Turn to John 14 and verse 6. Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one, no one comes to the Father except through him. Now, let me say something that may surprise some of you. It may help some, it may hinder others.

This is a problem when I speak. I don't find it easy to accept this teaching. And I know there are Swiss young people. Because I've been corresponding with wonderful Swiss people for 38 years. Who love the Lord and they believe the Bible.

But they find it difficult to believe in hell. They find it difficult to believe that Jesus is the only way. And wanting to be sort of big hearted and open minded. Part of them wants to believe, yes, that all roads somehow with this loving God will get to heaven.

And when I was a university student struggling and battling with many doubts about my Christian faith. In a college situation where anybody who believed the Bible was mocked and laughed at. I really had to wrestle with this issue.

And I studied the scriptures and I read books. And I went through tremendous agony. Don't worry if you go through a little agony in your heart as you become stronger in Christ. Don't be surprised. Remember this little expression from a Scottish theologian that really helped me.

He said, great faith is not in the absence of doubt. Great faith is often created as we're struggling with doubt. And I believe one of the reasons my faith is strong 44 years after my conversion is because I've struggled with so much doubt.

And I'm here to say with all my heart, Jesus is the only way. There are many things we can admire in other religions and other cultures. We can learn some things from all of that. I read many different religious books.

But when it comes to eternal life. When it comes to getting into heaven for eternity. Jesus is the only way. And that's one of the reasons we must have a movement of pioneer missionaries. And pioneer movements that will take the gospel to the unreached people regardless of their religion.

The 10/40 Window

Now 90 of the more unreached people in the world are living in what's called the 10 -40 window. Most of you have heard about that. If you mention on your email that you'd like a video about the 10 -40 window.

I will send you a powerful 7 minute song video by Bill Drake in which he sings about this needy part of the world. I was in Korea five years ago when we premiered that video. And those leaders who were gathered in Korea took copies of that all over the world.

But many of you young people perhaps have not yet seen that. So where is this 10 -40 window? 10 degrees north of the equator to 40 degrees north is actually just the span of my hand. Starting over here in Mauritania and in Morocco and Algeria.

Going through places like Libya and Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Right on through Iran and Iraq and Afghanistan. Right through Pakistan and Nepal and North India and Tibet on out toward Japan. 90 of the more unreached people in the world approximately live in that mega zone.

I want to ask you. Does that mean anything to you? Today because of all the great work of evangelism. Many of us feel that probably only 25 of the people in the world have never heard at all. So immediately we praise God that in the past even 40 years there have been so many evangelists.

That at least have had a chance. It's not enough. It's not enough. But they've at least had an opportunity. There are many other things we could say about these nations that show that there is at least a beachhead.

There's at least a beginning stage ministry in some of these more difficult places. For example the land of Turkey. There are now a few millions in Turkey who have heard the gospel. The New Testament is being distributed.

I am not sure if it's got to one million copies yet. In a land of 70 million. They don't have a proper bible yet. They have an old bible with many mistakes in it. But a few people, praise God, have a bible.

And there's a little bit of radio work. And probably there may be a few hundred thousand who have seen a Jesus film. And there may be a couple million that have possibly picked up something about Jesus through some television thing or some kind of satellite thing that's taken.

But most people would say that at least 75 of all Turks have never yet heard or read the gospel. This was the priority country God put on my heart when I was only a baby Christian. I had never been there.

I had only been to Mexico. I left university to go to bible college and study how to be a missionary. And in the library I read about Turkey. It changed the course of my life. As I realized Turkey at that time 95 had never heard the gospel.

I immediately in that year went out to Wheaton College and met with my old friend Dale Roton. Some of you know Dale Roton. He was preparing to work among the tribes with the Wycliffe Bible Translators.

I was a little more blunt in those days than I am today. I said, Dale, forget those little tribes. Here's Turkey with 35 million. I want you to go there. And one of the most great things in OM's history was Dale Roton who had gone to Mexico with me originally rejoined me and went to Turkey and started OM's work in Turkey when there was almost no missionaries in the country.

I was just in Turkey a couple years ago. I had the joy of speaking to Christian workers from almost all the different agencies.

I interviewed Swiss missionaries.

Case Studies: Turkey, North Africa, and the Middle East

So there is a beachhead in Turkey. There are now Turkish churches. Some of them led by Turkish believers. And we thank God for this. We could talk about other countries. Iran, of course, there is a beachhead.

Iraq, the beachhead. The beginning of the work we mean by beachhead is much smaller. Jordan is a strong place of Christian witness. Egypt has some churches and many, many, many believers. But as soon as we move out of Egypt going west, we hit Libya where there's less than 12 indigenous believers in the nation.

Tunisia is a little better with maybe now some dozens of believers. In fact, this year there have been a few breakthroughs in Tunisia. There have been a handful of believers. Algeria has had some breakthroughs among the Kabbalah people who do not like the Arabs.

So the Kabbalah people have been coming to Christ. There are thousands of Kabbalah believers. Again, they are a minority, small people's group. The masses of Arab people of Algeria are outside the gospel and many of them have never once heard or seen a Bible.

Many never had anything. We may ask, why are there not more people going to these places? There's 200 ,000 missionaries in the world. Why are so few today pioneer missionaries? Most are what I call maintenance missionaries.

There's two kinds of maintenance missionaries according to me. Those who God has put there and they're doing a good work. And then those, they are just there because they're basically ignorant. They didn't know anything else.

They heard that there was a need to go help the church in Kenya so without examining the rest of the world, they went to Kenya. Now, don't misunderstand me. God is sovereign. I'm not going to walk up to someone in Kenya.

I'd like to, but I'm not going to do it and say, you're out of the will of God, you poor soul. Go back to the start. If I didn't believe God could overrule our weaknesses and our mistakes, I don't know what I would do.

But at the same time, you're young people. You don't want to make the same mistakes. You don't want to only consider maintenance missionary work going where the church already exists. Now, if you want to hear something really funny, listen to this.

Some American mission societies where they pay their missionaries big salaries I'm not saying that's wrong. They go to countries where the church already exists and they do the same work that you can hire somebody to do for one-tenth as much money.

But of course, we know they couldn't do it as good as the Americans are doing it. No wonder there are now whole books written against this kind of missionary work. The majority of missionaries today should be going where the church does not exist or is very, very weak.

I don't think American missionaries need to go to some of these countries. At the same time, when the Lord sends someone working through their cultural baggage I want to be very careful in saying any judgmental thing about a particular individual.

I'm talking overall concepts and strategies. And I know in my own life when I was young and to this day there were blind spots. There was ignorance. I made mistakes and yet God didn't leave me. He somehow worked through my mistakes and my humanity to accomplish His purposes.

Blessed be the name of the living God of grace and mercy. What about some of these other countries? And I just sort of mention like Tibet here to the north of Nepal. I used to live in Nepal and minister a little among the Tibetans.

I've seen two mega blockbuster films about Tibet lately. I'm sure I know there's an infatuation with Tibet in Switzerland. I'm sure you've seen those films. I believe you have Tibetans living in Switzerland but there is no church in Tibet.

What a wonderful strategy to reach these people when they're in our own country. That's a good idea, isn't it? It's not my idea. It's an old idea. But very few people are doing it. How many of you are working among minority groups like Tibetans or other refugees in Switzerland?

Raise your hand. Come on, don't be shy. All Swiss people are shy. Don't be shy, raise your hand. Not too many of you. Maybe the rest here, you ought to just pray about that a little more. But I don't like these people.

They're living over on that other side of the town. They're speaking some funny languages. They're also eating this strange food. I think I like to work among proper Swiss people. By the way, what is a proper Swiss person?

I've never had that explained. At least everybody who names the name of Jesus should attempt to show some love to these people. You don't have to have a special calling into a special ministry to show love for the immigrant people who are here in the midst and often treated as second and third class citizens.

Maybe as a result of this seminar some of us could start praying for Tibet. Some workers are getting some short term visits there. Shouldn't the whole body of Christ be concerned about Tibet? It doesn't mean we all go there.

It doesn't mean we all even give our money there. You can only give your money.

To so many different things. But we can all be concerned. I pray for almost every nation in the world. It's no big deal. You just get a copy of Operation World.

Or you get prayer partners living in all these different countries. And I've gone through this book two or three times. You can get it in your official book stall. And it's helped me so much. And Patrick Johnson, the author of that book, has come out with a new book.

The new edition of this book will come in about one more year. Meanwhile he's come out with this book The Church is Bigger Than You Think. And it's an excellent book to see what God has been doing. But he also points out the remaining work, the remaining pioneer mission work that yet must be done.

And it's a book that shows where work is still necessary. Now we cannot finish a time like this without talking about China and about India. Very different countries. China has proven to be easier for the growth of the gospel.

Because communism destroyed a lot of the religion that had much in its place. And through all the suffering and bloodshed, the church may have grown in China to 60 or 70 millions of people. This only took place because of great pioneer missionaries a hundred or so years ago.

Many of them gave their blood once the church is established. Once the church begins to grow you don't need as many missionaries. Unless of course it's a huge, you know, extra huge country where there are pockets of unreached people that the churches refuse to talk, do anything.

So then you need specialists. You often need for instance Muslim specialists to go in and work among the people that the other people in the church they don't like those people. And brothers and sisters that's exactly what we have in India.

India and the Unreached Muslim Population

India doesn't have 10 as many believers as China. Less than 10%. Now that's still a few million people. And the Indian church I believe has the capacity to reach their whole nation. They're not doing it but they have the capacity to do it.

Therefore when we went to India way back in the 60s we felt our work must be training and discipling Indians to take care of their own country. And 15 years later when it was getting harder and harder to get a visa we knew we had made that right decision.

And today in OM India we have 700 Indian workers. They're reaching 10 million people a year on the average 10 million with the gospel. But if I'm honest we have been able to do very little among the Muslims.

Very little among the upper caste Hindus. And those two groups represent as many people almost as live in the whole of the United States. And so we know probably 25 or more of all the people of India a billion people have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So many people. 125 million in India you may want to write this down are Muslims. I don't think you're ever going to forget what I tell you right now. There is almost no church whatsoever among those Muslims.

And the Indian church whose roots are mainly in Hinduism the Indian church does not easily relate to Muslim people. There are some beautiful exceptions. And we are trying to encourage praying for the finance to see these changes.

125 million Muslims in India. Look across the border to Bangladesh another 125 or more millions. Go to the west and you have Pakistan with another 130 million. That area is often referred to as the Indian subcontinent.

There it is. My hand is covering the Indian subcontinent. Way more than 25 have never heard of Jesus Christ. Pakistan is still granting missionary visas. Pakistan is allowing some work among the Afghan refugees there along the border by Peshawar.

God has set before us an open door among the unreached people of the world. We don't have time to talk much about the Central Asian area. All new open doors since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some missionaries have gone.

Some from Switzerland. So few compared to the need. Brothers and sisters the day of pioneer missions is not over. Because the population exploded. Because 90 of all missionaries are working where the church already exists.

The pioneer mission task in some ways is as great as ever. And I hope you will make this a priority. I hope you will get a copy of this cassette and give it to people. I hope you will email me for this free material and this Bill Drake video and share it with people.

You will become what I call a mission mobilizer. I have a cassette tape. I'd be happy to send you how to be a mission mobilizer. In fact, if you pick up this paper you will discover cassettes available on subjects where probably you never listened to a full message in your life.

Let me take a survey. How many of you have listened to a tape on the subject of fundraising? How to raise money for the kingdom of God? Raise your hand. Oh, we do have a few. Campus Crusade is one of the most gifted fundraising organizations in the history of the planet.

In OM, we follow a long way behind just gasping for breath as we see Bill Bright raise another hundred million. By the way, that's not going to help you much as you go as a missionary to Tibet. Bill will just tell you to go out and raise your own.

But, at least write him and ask him to send you a little bit. And the brand new tape I've just done on that subject is called Fundraising is Teamwork and it's one of the most exciting aspects of Christian ministry I've ever had the privilege to be involved in.

So I hope you'll come up and let me and my partner, Kyle, here give you a copy of that. And I hope that you'll visit the tremendous book exhibit and all the other exhibits and especially try to find out what's going on in pioneer situations around the globe.

Unity and Cross-Cultural Mission

And remember, you can be in a country where the church exists and still be pioneering among the unreached people of that country. And some probably would say at this point in another seminar that the teenagers of Switzerland are rapidly becoming an unreached people's group with their own culture.

So if you go to Tibet or Turkey or Afghanistan I hope you will love and appreciate the brother or sister who stays in Switzerland because we need one another and we need that unity and it comes from Philippians esteeming others better than yourself.

I want to take a little time now to give you an opportunity to ask questions. I have the ability when I speak to create misunderstandings. My wife has been telling me that for 40 years. So in this time of question and answers this is an opportunity to somehow sort out something that maybe is miscommunicated.

Learning Languages and Entering New Cultures

So who is going to ask the first question? I prefer that you ask in German than she can interpret it in English otherwise if you ask in English she has to say it in German because we want everybody to get in on the blessing or the confusion.

So who asked the first question? It's very hard to get the first question. Okay, good for you. Very good question. Are you Swiss? German, okay. Swiss and German people I think generally European people have more ability to learn languages than say Americans.

How many of you already speak two languages? So you're half way there. You're half way to Arabic. If you mix these two languages together basically it will be Arabic. No, that's not true but it does mean that you will be able to learn a third or fourth language easier.

The best thing of course is to get into one of those countries and live there as soon as possible. And I'm amazed that the people in our own ministry who are speaking fluent Arabic today I mean it is very encouraging from all over the world.

But in some of these situations they also need short term helpers and people who may not know the language because everywhere in the world including the Arab world they're learning English and that's the way we even get in some of these countries by teaching English as a second language.