Iris After Hours - Episode 17 - "D"

welcome to iris after hours casual conversations with inspirational speakers off the clock guys welcome back to iris after hours it literally is after hours here in our studios in pasadena and tonight we are going undercover no names no places we have a good friend here i'm who i'm going to refer to as d um as in the letter d um he is an iris missionary um has an iris base in central asia um and we can't mention names or places but we're going to talk about life and mission work with dee welcome dee thanks man so to be here yeah i am um this is i've been looking forward to talking to you about your life and all the crazy stuff that's happening cool um now you're in a you're a missionary how long have you been a missionary well my first mission trip was actually with my younger brother m yes um which started out in 1991. oh my god we went to india wow and we applied to with ywam yeah and yum you know just basically makes you do your dts in america yeah and then do your outreach overseas but we felt we really wanted to do the full deal in india come on so why wait mandy is like you know we're gonna have to pray about it and they said okay holy spirit said yes so they accepted us we went to india first time is you know 20 something and uh it was wild you know um so we did six full months of six wildlands and where brass were you in india we were based in the city was called madras at the time but now it's called chennai i didn't know it changed like madras is in the curry madras curry yeah yeah you know so those were the old english names uh okay and then india kind of reclaimed some of their historic names yeah and um so then we did outreach and then we went up to kathmandu nepal and we were trying to get in into tibet at that time um but it was very restricted very closed uh but we were working with uh actually a a good friend of ours that we had met over there paul haddaway ah and paul uh wrote the book operation china right you know and the operation mobilization um was it that came out of this area right here where we're sitting really that was on my tongue so much tonight operation mobilization so um he wrote he did an extensive research in china and um wrote about all the different people groups and you know i mean there's just so many unreached throughout asia so yeah we um and then we kind of worked with uh dennis balcom's ministry oh yes his dentist came to the harvard school we were in the hospital was that right yes yes so actually emma and i uh helped his family move apartments when we were in hong kong oh i know we did some some real covert smuggling bibles into china at that time wow so this is like are we back on this spanish tree back in 1990 1990 this is crazy yeah so it was almost 30 years ago look i'm just going to rap for a minute but have you seen the trailer for mel gibson's new film no hacksaw ridge no it's about because you i don't know if you know dennis's dennis balcom story yeah about he when he went to vietnam he had to carry a gun but he said but i'm not having bullets in it oh really he said he had a gun with no bullets and they couldn't penalize him for it but he got persecuted but this hacksaw ridge film mel gives his latest film hacksaw ridge is about the first violent guy he actually petitions for the right to not carry a gun oh wow so this is a story in war about what happened to this guy and he ends up going and saving a lot of people because he has to go with the battle yeah i did see that the other night i couldn't believe it the dennis balcom has a similar story in the vietnam war of where because he was so protected by god yeah because it didn't say that all the guys in battle would stay with him because they knew he would survive and he was safe so i think that was how you know yeah story about him did yeah he told it in the in the harvard school fantastic yeah so just a little note to yourself when you're watching the new mel gibson film yeah he's kind of one of my heroes you know by the faith he's just amazing he has had to be did he no story where he had to pretend to be dead in a coffin yeah to get through a province he had to play dead and be in a coffin because he would have been persecuted yeah yeah that's cool so yeah started out you know um and then um came home went to bible school which one uh christ for the nations where's that that's in dallas texas right i thought sorry it's kind of one of the largest kind of charismatic full gospel bible schools where are you from where we were born and raised i was born in the midwest in the united states yeah and um so that wasn't too far dallas wasn't too far just a bit south yeah yeah i mean just maybe a thousand miles or so it's a big country it is a big country so then after bible school i really felt called long term in the missions and listen at this time was that a calling that a lot of your friends had or was this just something on you or were you around a lot of other missionaries or was it running into other missionaries was like rare you know there was some missions kind of focus in the little church that we went to but um it was really when i got saved just reading the word just you know jesus's commands to sending the 70 out and sending the 120 out and the great commission those just resignated that this was a mandate for all believers like you know we weren't just saved to have a good comfortable life but to actually be proactive in our faith to touch the world yes so um early on the holy spirit just kept prompting you know go go go wow and uh and it's never left from you know the time that i got saved it was you know a little bit extreme than most people you know uh because really uh bible-based yeah very very biblical you know it's kind of like keith green you know he would say um 90 should go 10 should stay yes yes something like that yeah right he really you know had a real strong mandate for the nations yeah um but listen tell us about while we're here tell us about how you got saved were you brought up in a christian home i was brought up in a christian home but i came brought up in a broken home where um my father made some mistakes and my parents were divorced um and my mother was trying to raise three wild young boys uh three boys yeah three boys come on i'm just about to have my third boy we have an older brother ah um come on so you know as a working mom and that was hard so of course we all kind of became products of our culture late 60s early 70s kind of post you know hippie that whole stage right a lot of drugs and counter culture and so we got wrapped up in you know that lifestyle of i was a drug addict i was a deadhead i followed the grateful dead i mean i was at bob dylan concerts whenever i could get there i mean i was you know pretty full on out there and then my mother started to go these full gospel kind of conferences and holy spirit just kept doing stuff in her life and it's kind of it's kind of weird um i kind of had this experience with a demon and it really shook me wow and kind of drove me to read the whole book of revelations in one night and that's gonna mess you up that's so powerful i love reading revelations so then i had this catholic neighbor invite me to a crusade at ohio state stadium and it was a tony campolo crusade no way tony campolo is the bomb i remember yeah so it was packed it was like 80 90 000 people wasn't he it wasn't he was amazing he was a great speaker oh fantastic speaker so i went it's friday but it's like you know you know catholic neighbor i was like yeah i'll go to this event i didn't really know what i was getting into oh my gosh and when he gave the altar call i found myself standing and i'm looking around and all the catholics are sitting looking up at me and he said come on down and i found myself floating down to the stadium floor it's like holy spirit stood me up and just floated me down i don't even know how i got down to the bottom it was like a really weird experience and i prayed with you know one of the prayer counselors gave my life to christ um it wasn't perfect after that but it was a full surrender when i was 16 years old this is 16 16. wow and you know i had a lot of troubles and drug addiction you know after that but uh but the seed had been planted seed had been planted and then you know as a young man i went into the us armed forces no way yeah so i'm kind of a veteran you know of what what was your military i was in the air force ah wow yeah we just showed a podcast here tonight with that oh really a guy who was a colonel in the usa horse yeah oh yeah so um then god really got a hold of me more and i kind of started bible studies and um um and then while you're in the military this is why i was in the military were you stationed here or you were overseas uh i was stationed here yeah so it was kind of uh i was in college and it was kind of part time it was in the in the guard yeah yeah yeah um so yeah during that period um you know god kept speaking to me to go into the nations and uh while i was actually in in kind of i wasn't active duty but i was legitimately signed up in serving you know in in the us military um god said with with my my brother to go over to india and this was during the gulf war and they you know they kind of suspend all retirements all leave of absences all resignations you you don't get out during life during a war in case you need it of course exactly and and i was in a civil engineering unit so my specialty was water for purification and during a desert war they were having to purify a lot of water for these troops or fly water in from europe and i i requested a leave of absence to go overseas as a missionary and i went to my commanding officer wrote a letter turned it in and he said god's calling you overseas so um actually i'm requesting a full honorable discharge so you can go overseas oh my goodness and they would never do that no and so guys he must have been a christian he must have been well god must have spoken to him in that moment yeah so that released us to go on our first missions trip oh my god to india it's a miracle it was a miracle i just couldn't believe it you know people said you're crazy you can't write that letter you can't turn that letter into your commanding officer exactly and as if it would happen ever and not just a leave of absence but a full honorable discharge you're free to go go go follow god's leading yeah that's pretty amazing that is incredible yeah so that was the first step um and then really kind of the the full kind of like if you will career missionary step after bible school is i was newly married we had a little baby our first child uh she was just seven months old and we went left for india we packed our bags and shipped off to india and that's where we started and that was uh 20 years ago wow and so we've we um we left with her when she was seven months old and we came back to the united states when she was 17. oh so that was three years ago so we came we did full 17 almost 18 years full time in in central asia oh my goodness yeah so you've mainly been in the under undisclosed location you were long in india before you went to central asia uh we were a year in india yeah then after india we moved up to kathmandu nepal yeah and did some studies did some research did some outreach yeah and um i leave i fly to there in november so that's my i've gotta do some purchasing there right if you will and um um and then and then we you know kind of got our our bearings for the people group the unreached people group that god was sending us to um in in a a very restrictive part of central asia yeah and uh unreached people groups there's still quite a few 6 688 his current yeah but when ralph winter started this year yeah there was 14 000 exactly 40 years ago so there's a lot of people going and risking a lot to to see every tribe language nation ethnic group saved yeah right yeah and paul said how can they believe unless somebody goes and how can they hear unless somebody preaches the gospel to them right so the church has the responsibility come on to go yeah and wow and it's it's not always easy there's a lot of sacrifices there's um great sacrifices yeah which you would have experienced yeah yeah leaving family and and culture and everything you know to go um so listen then tell what what were some of the costs immediately when you when you were there like in the early days of of being a missionary long term well you give up security you give uh familiarity you give up all the comforts that you commonly just take for granted in in your home culture your home language yeah being misunderstood not understanding cultural norms and having to learn a new language making a lot of mistakes with cultural norms yeah so um you know not having your parents know their grandkids right so your kids are growing up away from cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles and yeah so there's i went to a conference once and i didn't really realize that the price that we were paying um but it was it was a big missions conference and i think the organization was send and they did a a a bit on interpersonal relationships and most missionaries kind of leave the field for two reasons number one is conflict within your own team wow number one that's sad and two is health reasons so it was how to build team dynamics how to communicate and and talk to one another and not be inner fighting yes and they did a list of all the the things that you had to sacrifice going to the mission field and there must have been over a hundred things listed so yeah it's uh most most people don't have a clue yeah and most people when we come home they can't even begin to relate to our life and our experience yes so they don't even know the questions to ask or right um but that's just they've never been there they've never done that yeah you know and so you just have to extend a lot of grace but even coming home you're misunderstood you go you're misunderstood you come home you're misunderstood so yeah yeah is it because there's a lot of transformation that's happened internally with well yeah and you have a lot of stories and you have a lot of experiences and most people don't really have they're out of the bounds of this culture here that's right yeah yeah and and most people haven't traveled international um depending on the church you're from there's a lot of support to take missions trips overseas and and that helps yes um you know people to have a attention span to say you know oh could you come and share or could you show us some of your pictures most people have one or two questions and they've moved on right so wow wow now listen part of part of how you went as a missionary was did you do you have a trade you took a trade and did you start businesses or anything like that well initially i went and i taught in a local bible school and i did some kind of crusade ministry and we would take the the young graduates from that local bible school and they would go to their home villages and we would do kind of a spring campaign where we would kind of hold a crusade for them and we would try to do church planting through crusade ministry um somewhere from very restrictive dark areas that were really opposed to the gospel yeah um and then you know we uh we moved into another more highly restrictive area and uh which is just full out opposed to any christian presence so you can't get like the old missionary visas in the past like 40 years ago you the countries would issue you a missionary visa yeah um today that none of these countries want christian missionaries so you have to go in under a different creative platform right whether it's a teacher teaching english as a second language whether it's going in as working for an ngo that's doing good humanitarian work or you go in and you start a business right and so i chose because i had a lot of business in my background to set up a company and go in under the platform of kind of helping the whole man spirit soul and body okay and so providing jobs um providing you know a company culture that was christian where we showed love and training and it wasn't top-down leadership where it's just harsh and insensitive yeah right you're beating them over the head and belittling them and shaming them into submission um it's like loving them and caring for them and when they make a mistake it's like oh well that's good because we learn from our mistakes i don't want to crush you because of your mistake yeah you know um and and that's just promoting the gospel um kind of like um a famous missionary um in the catholic faith a um saint francis of assisi one of his famous saying was preach the gospel always and if necessary use words come on right so your life is a testimony wow and the we carry the presence we carry kingdom yeah right we carry an atmosphere of holy spirit and people are attracted to what's good to to love and uh hopefully our lives are drawing them to ask the question you know why do you do what you do what do you believe yeah why are you so different or what have you got i want what you've got that's right exactly um wow so we found that the business platform gets you into closed countries and you have to be very careful how you present the gospel a lot of the time it's really underground sort of relationship building even the church planting is is very covert very secretive meetings are always held in different locations wow everywhere it's really clandestine huh yeah and you have to do podcasts without using your name that's right oh where you're a missionary yeah exactly um but listen tell me also how did it work with your wife like well she called to missions because i'm sure this is a question on a lot of people's minds you know i want to go i want to reach one of those 6 688 you know people groups that haven't heard the gospel you know honestly how do you did your partner did your wife want to come how did it work out you had a calling did you marry her because she did as well or tell us that story that's cause that's a difficult one that is a difficult one and you know most people want a perfect little cookie cutter answer um like oh yeah she was called and she was passionate to reach the laws and so was i no [Laughter] she was not and but coming from a very kind of conservative background it was the right thing to do and i think god honored that in her you know um because we are called to take the gospel but she didn't have that personal call like i did yeah and uh that's a real clear confirmation that's right from the holy spirit um but when we were called to this particular unreached people group when we were based in india god spoke to each of us independently the people group that he called us to oh that's cool so i was up in north india traveling with with one of my indian pastor brothers and she was in south india pregnant with our second child and as i was kind of praying and seeking which people group because there's just thousands in central asia that that need the gospel uh we wanted a specific word from holy spirit which people group he was calling us to and this was pre kind of pre-computer pre-cell phone and we hadn't spoken in three weeks as i was on this journey and i got a clear word of the people group that we were called to and she did too and when we met up after three weeks of traveling we both said out of 5 000 people groups what did you get and we both got the exact same people praise the lord so that's god that's god when it got really hard we all we had that foundation to stand on yeah that this was shared it was it wasn't just you it was both of you clearly right independently even though she didn't have a direct call kind of during those college bible school years um she was obedient and went and she was doing it and she was doing it and she was building relationships she was learning language how funny he's actually gone and was doing it then got the call and confirmation that's right on the journey like you know i think god steers a moving car don't just do nothing that's right do something and god will guide you you know yeah that's that's so many people have that question what's the will of god for me and they don't do anything waiting to hear some spoken word of god yeah when really god has given us deity inside of us to be creative and whatever it's you know bill johnson says god is dreaming with us whatever you can dream up god says go for it come on right and that's just the creativity of the kingdom because god wants to partner with us to take the gospel and he empowers us then when we go come on take the step go and there's grace and power um so i'll let that from heidi too so much that heidi will just let's get go do it and then things will happen and go to moon things will work out yeah that's right so um she's she's an incredible woman and she's done amazing when you were a missionary in this undisclosed location that you heard about heidi baker or iris ministries or yeah actually it was um back in the day or we would need to take breaks out of this fairly restricted area so sometimes we would fly to thailand and take a vacation in thailand go to a conference love thailand but another location was always kathmandu nepal okay so we hooked up some really good friends of ours and um i won't share their names but they're also base leaders in in kathmandu okay and they happen to be iris and so we were learning about the organization there with and then one christmas when we were there and all our kids were really good friends and hanging out um pamela and tony showed up with a team yes and so we got to know pamela and tony and we're all hanging out for christmas around the christmas tree and kathmandu nepal right come on and then we started to find out more and more of our friends started to go to this conference in mozambique and we learned like oh well we know people from iris and they're going to iris and we're seeing their lives powerfully changed and then there's all these conferences from bethel coming into these restricted areas and then i started to take my kids to some of these bethel conferences and other people going to iris and and we're like dude we need to jump on board and um so we signed up and um amazing heidi gave us a 100 scholarship to to go to harvest school wow so we just needed to get there which was very expensive from our location because we're a family of six on one okay so we flew from this 6a phase undisclosed remote location all the way to mozambique which was also a very remote location um and and that was a great experience doing harvest school it would just you know rocked our world and come home you know did you do that we did that in 2010 i believe it was at the school yeah you were you were our leaders of the school right um so it was really it was really fun super fun come on you know so yeah we've uh we've had some pretty crazy experiences you know with the people group that yeah tell us about something and i'll actually shame some persecution as well yeah there is a lot of persecution um the government that's over that region's heavily oppressive um yeah and and uh it's um another ruling religion over that area is is buddhism so you know buddhists are wonderful people and we love them a lot and they're really passionate about seeking kind of like the right path of life and in a sense holiness and and want to see their life refined to almost become god in nirvana yes right and we see a lot of spiritual truth in that but it's a little misguided you know um so we we share with them that you know the price that that god paid for us to reach heaven not from our own works but from his works wow and they're very devout and we respect that in them um but you know it's not the whole truth and we want them to to really receive the whole truth which is salvation in christ yeah and um and there's a number of ways that you can do that and because it's so highly restrictive and it's very difficult to preach the gospel um it's against the law to hand out tracts or any form of written literature there's no public speaking no public sector there's no no street preaching there's no public churches no no mosey big outrageous no no show the jesus film that's right bring the sick people forward so we need to rely on loving people into the kingdom wow um praying for revelation praying for healings and miracles to awaken them to the goodness of god come on and uh one time you know we just we just pray for just divine appointments that we can't schedule we can't set up of course that's right but it's obvious it's god or doing something that's right all the forces to be are bringing something to pass that's right so come on jesus i get i get a phone call from one of my staff in my company and she said uh dee could you please help me and i said yeah of course what's the problem and she said my husband is on his deathbed he's deathly ill i've been to four hospitals they've all rejected us because they don't want him dying in their hospital so the only hospital was the military hospital would accept him and i need this sum of money to secure his hospital bed otherwise they're going to kick us out on the street so i said no problem my my 10 year old son was with me at the time and my buddhist manager and we raced up to the military hospital and he had tubes coming out of him he was unconscious and i said you know how much money do you need and she needed a few hundred dollars so i handed her the money and she handed it to the grandmother and she put it in her apron and his hospital bed was secure so i said what's wrong with him and she said both of his lungs were full of tuberculosis tb oh my goodness and he was in a sense drowning dying from both lungs being restricted and cut off it was very dangerous and i said how this was about five in the evening i said how long has he been unconscious and she said since two in the morning that's when we rushed him to the first hospital so almost you know 15 16 hours she was gone and the whole family was there crying it was very emotional and i was feeling emotion and i said would it be okay if i prayed for him and she said what does that mean and i said well i believe that i'm a son of god and that your husband is also a son but he doesn't know it yet and because i do know who i am in god i have the right to cast out this sickness over his body and claim health and restoration and long life and so all i'm going to do is ask my heavenly father to restore his son your husband to new life and so i'm just going to lay my hands on him this is fantastic right and she said okay i need to ask the matriarch because the grandmother is the ruling because that's her son that's her no it's her daughter oh it's her daughter right but it's it's a matriarchal society okay so the wife can't make that decision she has to go to the elders of the family to make that decision so the grandmother said it might have helped that i gave him money right and that's a sacrifice and that's a risk that we all take right is to be benevolent not just in our words but on our deeds yeah come on so it's taking something out of my pocket and giving it put it in your pocket because i care and care has actions right come on itself looks like something exactly um so the the grandmother says whatever d wants he can have and so i said okay joshua my son i said come with me we're gonna lay hands on him and pray for him and so he goes sure dad so first i just cleansed him of all demonic curses that have been spoken over his life come on cleanse the house and then i just ushered in a spirit of healing and restoration and life and longevity in the in my my buddhist manager stood at the foot of the bed with his folding his arms and was like what is this christian going to do and this young man sat up in the middle of that prayer out of a coma and said what's happening what's going on and everybody was just stunned and shocked right and so i just said oh just calm down just relax lay back down his wife said just praying for you she didn't know what that meant but we demonstrated the kingdom right and so then it alerted the doctors because now he wasn't like wasting away he was actually throwing signs of life wow so i because it was a really restrictive military hospital i said i should probably go now so i pulled away and we left i get a phone call call from her the next morning and she said can i borrow about three thousand dollars for his medical treatment the families raised two thousand dollars but i'm lacking three thousand dollars this is another test of faith oh my gosh it's a lot of money when you're running a lot of money right so my wife and i prayed about it and we said how can we say no god has already raised him up exactly we need to just go the whole mile right god loves to stretch out the situation yeah okay come on so i i brought this big wad of local currency to the hospital the next day that must have been a big one so that's 3 000 u.s big watch 3000 us a local currency and i handed it to the wife and the wife handed it to the grandmother and the grandmother tucked it in her robe right so he was conscious he was awake he still had like some ivs in him but he wasn't like on a respirator breathe he was breathing on his own he was conscious and so i said i'm gonna pray for him again and she said okay but first they she was crying i said why are you crying she goes they want to do an epidural in his back and i'm really fearful because they said all these terrible side effects sticking this huge like 10 inch needle into his spine it can be very painful and very bad side effects and i said don't worry let the let the doctors do it i'll be there and hold his hand and she said okay the military doctor said everybody out everybody out and i just ignored them and they didn't even look at me and i sat with him and held his hand during the epidural and i said if it gets painful just squeeze my hand but i'll be here with you he was peaceful the whole epidural no pain no discomfort just peace wow so then i said praise the lord i'm gonna pray for him and i just prayed another prayer of healing and restoration full you know full restoration come on um then i left got busy with life in business about four days go by i said to my son i said hey let's jump on the motorcycle and go check out our friend in the hospital see how he's doing and we'd go up there and we couldn't find him anywhere and i said where'd this guy go and this guy that his huge bloated stomach i thought he was just overweight but he really his stomach was full of tuberculosis oh my goodness and he said they got on a cell phone and they tracked him down and they said they actually discharged him he went home i said you're kidding and he goes yeah but would you pray for me and so we laid hands on his abdomen and prayed for healing and restoration and so it opened a door to reach out and pray for somebody else and then i went to one of my businesses and talked to his wife and i said what's going on with your husband and she said oh he's better now and the money that you borrowed i have it i can return it i didn't need it and i'm like oh praise the lord oh where is it from the lord so what is that so this is the sad part of the story that's a beautiful part we had them over for dinner to share the whole gospel that jesus healed him and restored him and in the end of the presentation they said yes but we believe in our local deity so healing isn't the end-all but it does open them to experience the kingdom yeah the story's not finished yet we're believing that they they will come into the kingdom yes but um we can't testify that god is good yeah he loves all right even if you're a buddhist absolutely why because that's just a false facade of who they really are exactly and they're really god's key yeah so what they believe we just are praying for more breakthrough and more divine encounters and more you know fruit of the kingdom that shows that that god cares and god's good and god wants you know them to experience his presence wow so that was just uh a little a little taste of you know what he wants to do okay in our region gosh yeah so that was fun and um so but it's it's tough ground and we don't see a lot of fruit and the underground church is very small and struggling but we just keep loving them and keep investing in them and trying to raise them up to be bold to be strong to know their identity yes and kind of take some risks yeah uh it's dangerous for them to take risks yeah have you seen do you have you seen anyone come to salvation and disorder them yeah we have a few and the church is just full that's encouraging right yeah it is i mean and so we invest in the few it's almost like you know a few handfuls because i'm often looking at people preaching like i had george and ben off in here the other day and he told his testimony of being saved up in ohio you know just yeah and they spent months these hippies who would save spent months with georgian and he didn't convert to christianity they were feeding him every day and i'm just saying wow they're investing but look who they were investing in exactly now george and benoff is just pouring holy spirit and god and salvation around the whole globe that's right how do you know what that investment in one person just struck me about georgia the other day that these hippies in the mountains in ohio just loving and feeding him for months literally for months yeah with no sign of fruit faithfully doing it and bang yeah now look at this is george and van off who is yeah this is a global global celebration that's right school in new york school in you know yeah so that's powerful so we we don't know we're not um omnipotent but we can invest in one and who knows what they'll become right let's see powerful evangelists to their own people yeah yeah and even other things you know it's god will use even if that one person's to save one other person who would go on to do something significant you know in really significant for hundreds of thousands of people yeah wow so we're we you know even though it's rough we feel so honored and privileged that yeah we can be there and yeah just love and and invest pretty secretively you know a few yeah and and i think you know all heaven rejoices because their names are written in the lamb's book of life and um they'll be the representation in heaven yeah right so wow that's awesome i know it's such a privilege isn't it that the what we've been invited into with our dad in heaven and what he's done for us it's just like oh my goodness yeah and we've got and we're we're the keepers of this treasure sure that we want to share and what you've been doing is is honoring the treasure that you've been given and wanting to share that yeah that more precious what's more precious what's more precious than knowing god exactly and and knowing him into eternity and yeah it's priceless yeah there's nothing can buy it yeah i mean money all the treasures of the world are what does paul say like yeah yeah it's awful just the worst yeah for knowing him wow so good that's great so now this stage of your life your kids have grown up your kids have said you know how old's your daughter now so my oldest is 20 and you know we saw that this is kind of a a sad story but we saw so many missionary kids just really struggle because you know so much of the church is all performance driven right and you know people don't want to leave their post on the field and they just ship their kids back to the states or wherever their home country is and and they just need to fend for themselves right and so many missionary kids that we call tck's third culture kids i've heard that don't heard that too they don't think there's a popular fit in their home culture because they never grew up in their home culture and they grew up in a foreign culture which isn't really theirs either but they've had to adapt to it so they're kind of a compilation of both yes and so we call them a third culture because it's it's become something different than both it's like a combination culture you know and we found that the missionaries actually brought their children home took a leave from the field and helped plug their kids back into their home culture during those college years they were much more stable and secure and rooted during those transition years and so for us it was very important again to love well and to love our kids well and not just like put this unreached people group in the work of god above our own children and so we actually moved back and uh left the work uh to some other missionaries who work for my company and and then i travel back and forth so our kids have thanked us profusely for the decisions that we made to move back and help them adapt right because the call that i had to take the gospel to this unreached people group wasn't my wife's call and wasn't my children's call they're all unique individuals that have their own identity and own calling yeah right so i can't expect them to adopt that calling it's it wouldn't be appropriate so i needed to release them into life and define their destiny and purpose and calling um and i think that's parental responsibility um every child's different so i don't want to make it a set rule right but it's like you're saying every child's different everyone every one of us is different every child of god is right that's why we all have different callings it's isn't it so amazing how god is so creative with us and so specific yeah to us all that's right because when you're talking i'm just hearing you while you're talking about your kids i'm hearing god talking about all of us kids that's right it's the same deal isn't it same deal so specificity of of what god wants to do with us and we've got to find that path with god yeah and be faithful to it that's right and you did that that is so you were faithful to that no now you're being thankful to release your kids on their callings just so you're being faithful again with that it's not your your calling is not their calling it's it's so and to be sensitive to see their natural giftings and their talents and their passions and their dreams oh i'm so excited about my kids now enjoy this journey with them and it's really fun to see them released into their identity yeah because their dna is their becomes their identity um we're all a mona lisa right yeah we're all not a cookie cutter so um yeah it's really fun to see it's almost like that we had it's a road we have to walk individually with god yeah even though we're in the body and we're part of the body part of our natural family there's still something with just you and god yeah that's specific that we have to walk alone yeah i mean for one of a better word alone with god yeah it's that and it's part of it and i think one of the number one 101 christianity is to develop hearing god's voice right and knowing a an intimate personal relationship not just doing religion not just following a set of doctrine or even just following great print really good biblical principles right which are great yeah but not but in a situation god might want to tell you something in a situation that's right that's not specific to a principle that's what they that's what they say when you study world religions what separates christianity from all other religions is god wants a personal relationship with his children and and that relationship requires words it requires communication and so we've really helped our children to know how to worship god in spirit and in truth and to walk with him personally to hear his voice so the prophetic has become kind of commonplace in my household yeah because the prophetic is hearing god yeah just naturally and being able to hear god for somebody else and share what they're going through and bring a word of encouragement so paul said yeah speak in tongues but i wish all of you would prophesy more than speak in tongues why because it's speaking of word of god for somebody else to bring lift them up to encourage them yes so yeah so they're all thriving and growing and excelling in life and uh you know they they had some rough patches coming back to their home culture but we were there to help walk them through to have a shoulder for them to cry on wow you know and to be there to laugh with them and celebrate you know um it wasn't just drop them off and go back and do the work of god you know yeah now also d i'm really interested just how things work financially like you went out did you have supporters did you raise your own support were you a tent maker was it money coming in from the business because people thinking of this are becoming missionaries especially long-term missionaries that you know obviously there's a walk of faith with finances yeah have you walked that walk yeah it's um we tended to lean more on like extreme faith where we didn't write like push people with newsletters and needed to raise a certain amount of dollar before we could go come on um so we really left for the field with very little money and my father-in-law saw the money the little bit of money that would come in our first year and thought we were starving to death and we would have starved to death but the indian ministry that took us on basically fed us they cared for us and they cooked for us that's making yourself vulnerable isn't it yeah and there you go because there's a vulnerability about that's right so we we learned to just live with whatever came in and we never really had a lot i've learned to be content with much yeah i've learned to be content with little yeah paul i love how paul says that so you know you see people with you know that are really good at fundraising or really charismatic and really good at writing newsletters and you know but we weren't good at all those things and we didn't really want to do that kind of marketing approach to missions yeah we just really wanted god to like we would share stories when we would come home or having a small speaking engagement at a church um just trust god that the right people would come on board and and god always met our needs come on he's like that isn't he i've got so many personal testimonies myself of god just really coming and meeting those needs and yeah he can do it he's jehovah's sneaky i mean he can do it any way he wants and that's often go around the bend and over the hill around the corner to give you something rather than just directly it's you know someone's at that meeting and they they just get a clear word yeah we're going to give that guy that money yeah and they do and it's like wow yeah so it's been really awesome you know to see his faithfulness as we try to be faithful yeah you know and he's just good right um uh sometimes people wanna be fearful or um think ahead of like what if but i think you know as people just step out in faith yes then god does meet you where you're at and he's always been there for every airline ticket every medical emergency everything you know see god meeting you where you're at it's so interesting because my wife sarah you know she had this crazy insight from god because she would get worried about the what ifs what if this happened what has happened and because she's so imaginative she would go there in her mind and be freaking out what if this bad situation happened you know and then she wrote and then god showed i said yeah but you're in your imagination you're going there i'm not there but if that was to really happen i would be there with you right and it would be completely different you wouldn't have that it wouldn't be that you're going there without me of course it's going to freak you out even if it's a freaky situation you go this place like that with me i'm with you it's going to be way different i understand what i said very good yeah yep so don't go to those places in your what ifs without gold because he's not there he's not there that's right he's in the present with you here now and you walk and you go he comes with you as you do it yeah yeah and he's not with your fear either yes fear isn't of him it's it's spirit of peace you know and rest um so uh any advice for people who are thinking about missions especially long-term missions um or just feeling that stirring of the great commission you know in their hearts or that stirring to go what would you what would you say you know i think a great first step is to go with an established group that is seeing incredible stuff happen yeah randy clark would be a good example he's he's taking teams all over the world and they just see phenomenal results yeah that kind of gets people's feet wet they kind of can experience another culture in a structured environment that is planned people feel safe uh they're in a fellowship of believers sometimes people's home churches have scheduled outreaches to missionaries that they they support um that's a good first step and then you know as as people pray right god responds and and we prayed and asked for a very specific people group right we could have like said okay we're just gonna like pick one out of our own intellect maybe god would have still honored that but we really wanted god to speak personally into our situation um i'm not going to judge people's choosing or how they come up to with that decision but i think it's important to to go and sometimes you can go with the backing of your home church you can go with an established mission organization that has a lot of the structure built into it and and sometimes people go to say hey i'm an airplane mechanic and i want to go where there's airplanes so they find out mission aviation and they go where there is mission airplanes and they get plugged into an organization that uses their skills their gifting their you know and then they go come on and god uses all sorts of people to go um in different roles so i think it's important to get involved yeah you know start with supporting a missionary and then go on a small trip and then maybe you'll find yourself full-time on the mission field come on it's beautiful so exciting and that's how we reach fulfill the great commission come on you know prizes um and and sometimes it's it's not safe and it's not easy and there's hardships but there's so many incredible spiritual principles of leaning into the father when you do have a rough time people have rough times here in america yeah right and what who do they lean on are they trying to lean on a bank account but there's no money in it they can't do that right exactly so we live under an open heaven where god is a god of abundance and you either gonna believe it or not yeah so we choose to to believe that you know we're his kids and the heavens are open come on whatever whatever we ask for he'll give to us yeah and he looks after his kids he does like a good dad like you are to your can i try to be you are yeah goodness that's a great it's just how you've come back to be with them in this in this critical time yeah yeah who knows what the future holds for you and your calling's not over who knows what fruit you're going to see yeah in your in your in your work in central asia in the future who knows that's right something could break open in the future you know yeah so it's exciting it's it's been sowing in who knows when this bang the harvest could just explode exactly so we just keep believing yeah and keep walking by faith keep walking by faith keep sewing and you know the the little results that we have seen are results they may be not you know billy graham results but i'm not billy graham but you've been faithful that's right to god and he's calling on you sorry you know i mean i'm sure there's people that have seen some people saw no fruit exactly and they're still there still faithful it's like it's it's um yeah but if it's because our audience of one is just so important hey the audience have one just been faithful to god and he's calling yeah but he knows we're weak and human so he loves to give us a little bit of fruit to encourage that's right otherwise yeah otherwise the flesh starts screaming too loud that's right yeah we we have to battle discouragement but yeah it's uh it's like it's very good that's discouragement he's only temporary that's right it's him who does the fruit yeah we just kind of bring his word and believe him to change hearts and bring revelation and open minds and eyes to to see him and he sees it all yes he knows it all we could we see such a small part don't we that's right it's like we in realistic we could we could never be discouraged because we because we're only seeing getting discouraged in the small part we see we're not even aware i bet you when we get to heaven there's so much going on that we weren't aware of we're like oh my gosh this was amazing the whole time i should never have been despairing or worrying over this yeah a little part because all this was happening and i just thought it was all falling down here but it was actually growing all around me isn't that amazing come on it is yeah now listen there's a few questions with that we ask at the end of each podcast okay um crystalline is not with me because i usually do this with crystalline okay so i'm flying solo as the host so hopefully i can remember this question first one is um what's your favorite movie first one that comes to mind is braveheart snap snap stop stop me too i just love the courageous standing against the nobility for freedom you know and he was willing to pay a huge price for you know that freedom and you know as missionaries we have to do the same especially in really closed restricted countries where you know death is an option it's it's real yeah right and um and imprisonment so um yeah jesus paid that price he gave it all up he's our our example of of what we should follow and uh yeah that's that's one big one come on i love that also um if you could have an another occupation besides what you're doing now what would it be you know as um i bought a house in america and um i mean i'm really good at construction i do a lot of remodeling and have transformed my whole house but what i need you to come over to my house but really what i really love is gardening i mean i just love being in my garden and pruning and and you know jesus is like that right he's a vine dresser and he's got vineyards and ah so i'd probably be a farmer come on and you know work with plants and i don't know i just love flowers and cactus and so i'm always fiddling and my daughter's like dad your cactus gardens are so cool we could sell these on ebay i'm like are you serious she goes she goes i need you to build like five or six of them and i'm going to photograph them and sell them for you because i designed these real pots with these amazing cactus and rocks and and so i did i did i built like you know 20 of them before i left on this trip and she's like cool dad i'm going to photograph them and sell them all for you so that's fun it's kind of a new hobby you know because i never really had time to do anything like that being overseas yeah i was just always so busy and now you know between my trips to asia and back i have a little bit of time on my mind so when the kids grow up you do find a little bit of time eh right i'm not in that place at the moment yeah well when you get out of that diaper stage i'm squeezing yeah and listen we did cloth diapers in the day where you had to wash them all yeah so you should be thankful yes thank you god small mercies disposable divers yes for decades we were using cloth diapers do you have a favorite sound it doesn't have to be music it could be musical or just any sound the first thing that comes to my mind is the shofar that's a beautiful sound you know you know it's a biblical sound that you know is just um i've been trekking a lot through some really wild places and i'm always collecting horns big sheep horns or some other animals that distinguish actually where we live so i have a large collection of blue sheep horns and great ram horns and i'm always collecting cool horns so um and then sometimes i i cut them up and i carve them i've kind of i'm a jeweler in my background no way yeah so i like all of this i design all of this different kind of antique jewelry and you know like this is a thousand-year-old bead i don't really want to tell you what it is because it might tell you where i'm from or worse but but some of these other ones are like hundreds of years old bone and ivory and right and glass and so um yeah take some of those really cool horns and then carve a really cool cross out of it and then give it as a gift for somebody and you know i just love to bless people and design for them and yeah so that's fantastic now i'm trying to think of this last question is there two more questions or one more i think i'm going to the last question i'm just trying to think through if there's any other ones i think i've got them all done the movie okay ready d when it's all over said and done and you're at the pearl gates and jesus comes out to greet you what words do you want to hear him say about you from the day i became a christian i have always seen these words highlighted in the bible good and faithful servant well done so you know i'm probably more critical on myself for kind of the lack of fruit in the people group that we work with but he always kind of reassures me but nobody else went so thank you for going right and the ground is softer because you are there yeah it's hard ground it is hardcore and it's still high ground but it's softer yeah that's right so yeah i hope i hope to hear you know that i just had a friend i was talking to talking through a real dark path that he's gone down recently and counseling and kind of life coaching him and yeah and i was just kind of like you know just talking and i said i'm sorry i'm preaching oh no no you're not preaching to me this is really good stuff and i just mentioned you know you know the angels record everything that we do you know and he's like is that really did they really do that like i said yeah you're accountable for all your actions and i said paul talked about is your life gonna be full of wood hay and stubble or gold precious stones and pearls what's gonna survive the refining fire of the judgment of believers tony can paulo yeah and he's like is that really in the bible and i said yeah dude i mean i wouldn't want to take my life and then have to stand before god whoa and i said you're responsible for your your actions your words your actions your you know it's good so we're i want to watch how i live my life so that glorifies him yeah and in word indeed and uh and you know grace is huge and powerful but it doesn't give us a license to sin come on right he does want us to live holy because he is holy yeah and uh you know are we perfect no but we're being made perfect day by day okay come on paul says we're you know it's a it's a walk of salvation being saved day by day yeah wow yeah dee thank you so much for coming in and a pleasure you've been laboring all day working until what time do you knock off work tonight 6 30 almost seven oh my gosh did you drive all the way from toronto to pasadena and you come and do a podcast thank you so much and you've been working pretty flat out for the last two weeks yeah two four weeks and then you're off to hawaii to do another contract yeah so when you yeah then i get back from hawaii i guess like get on a plane back to asia this is very creative it's very creative tent making you're doing too at the moment yeah it is but listen maybe i just started i just had the feeling that maybe just pray for those listeners who are really feeling cool yeah do you feel maybe haven't activated that or done anything yet do you want to release a blessing over those who have been stirred by listening to this yeah for sure yeah jesus we just honor you and each one that's listening that uh you've prompted their heart and i just pray that they would trust those heart promptings as as they they they get a people or a culture or or just a desire to go that you would lead them that you would give them the right group or the right person um to direct their path um and uh to come alongside them so give them the courage and the boldness yeah and just help them to be an integral part of seeing the great commission fulfilled in in our day and age so we would just release them through the power of your kingdom and your presence and we just say your will be done jesus name amen amen yeah i just saw a picture of some of you probably being surrounded by his presence to help guide you to a group or a calling or a person or people you're called to he's going to surround you and you'll feel his presence to confirm that thank you laura come on he's good he's great um guys i hope you enjoyed our first in the vault clandestine undisclosed location no names no places well general area places podcast here on after hours d has been fantastic thanks for coming in and sharing and you want to leave any comments leave some comments and we'll see you next time god bless you guys this podcast is presented by iris global for more information or to support the work of iris global please visit us online at irisglobal.org

Channel: Iris Global

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Id: V2hxAJZbks0

Length: 75min 13sec (4513 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 04 2017