#6 - Ps Dave Smith - Inside indigenous missions: Building faith in the world’s forgotten places.

Believe it or not, it actually got worse. I have this conversation that I'll never forget and I said wow Did you see anything supernatural? Deathly ill multiple times before Wheeler accident flipped over landed on top of me multiple broken ribs How do people know that they're called somewhere? That's a great question and they were able to purchase a building that years ago belong to the king who tried to stamp out Christianity. What are some goals that missionaries usually set? Welcome to the Christian Ambition podcast and today's guest is pastor Dave Smith. He's the current director for ODBM. Emissions agency. He grew up and popped into Guinea and we're going to talk about what is BAM. If that's something you haven't heard about, I'm sure this will be interesting. Business as missions and other cool things. I'm glad to have you here just thinking I'd be fun to start with kind of your a little mini biography and where did you go up? Yeah, well first of all, thanks for the opportunity. Really appreciate it. So I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but I didn't stay there very long. So my parents answer God's call for missions literally right after I was born. So they went into missionary training and back in that day. So this was like 1970. The mission that they were with, you had to go through like two years of specific missionary training. And one of the things they had to do was to live up in the mountains. This is in central western Pennsylvania where they were at and literally cut down tree limbs, build your own like pretending you're in the jungle. So I was just a baby at the time. They had to build a crib for me and they didn't live there very long. I think it was just a matter of a couple of weeks, but it was part of their training. So my first two years of my life were my parents going through the missionary training and then I was three years old when we moved to poppah, New Guinea. So my earliest childhood memories are in the country of poppah, New Guinea, growing up as a missionary kid and from then all the way through high school. So we would come back occasionally for furloughs, things like that, but my growing up years were there in that country, which was pretty amazing. That is really cool. So how many years was that then? Well, from three until 17, which is when I graduated. So 14 years with some furloughs mixed in. But yeah, from first grade through 12th grade. And then I went to a MK boarding school, which was kind of the thing you did back then in poppah, New Guinea in poppah, New Guinea. Now my early years, my parents served at the school. So I was with them and then my high school years, I was in a boarding dorm with other MKs and my parents were in a different location. And probably like a lot of just kids that grow up in a Christian home. I was a pretty good kid, but apathetic and kind of just going through the motions. I was pretty happy with my life there. I had my MK friends, had my poppah, New Guinea and friends. Just a typical kid, enjoyed sports and different stuff. And there in New Guinea, you're swimming in the rivers, your climbing mountains, going down waterfalls, dirt bikes was a big part of the MK culture, loved riding dirt bikes. So it was a good life, if you will. My junior year of high school, God started working in my heart. It's like, okay, what am I really living for? And I had, I believe I was genuinely converted, came to Christ around the age of five, but I'd never been baptized. And so as my junior year that I got serious, it's like, I want to live for Christ. And remember working through that decision started being serious about my walk with God, devotional, prayer life, got baptized in a national church, in a river. And I just really started being serious about I want to live for Jesus. And then my senior year was this huge trial. And you know, sometimes God allows that is you'd work through the process of the decision, I want to live for Christ. And then God allows things to test your faith. So my senior year, I'm in the boarding school, my parents are working in a different location. They're driving to the coast and they're in a terrible accident. Car accident. And my mom was killed instantly. My dad was fine. So that shock just came out of nowhere. So literally, they were at the boarding school the day of the accident and that morning, you know, a typical senior in high school. I'm just like, yeah, goodbye. See you. I'll see you in a couple of days type of thing. And then that night I find out she's, she's gone. So that that really stretched my faith. And like, God, I don't get this. My parents have sacrificed to serve you. I'm trying to serve you. I'm trying to be serious and about my walk with you. And now all this has happened. And then believe it or not, it actually got worse. So we had the funeral there. And my mom is buried in Papua New Guinea. And the accident happened by another vehicle coming the opposite direction. And later we found out that vehicle was driven by a government official. And a lot of times in third world countries, well, it's everywhere. You have corruption. Sure. So he caused the accident. He forced my dad off the road. But because he was a government official, the police, after the funeral and everything told my dad, come down. We need you to file these reports. Well, when he did, when he went back to where everything happened to file the reports, they arrested him and charged him for manslaughter. Now other missionaries helped pay the bail to get him out. But my dad had to stand trial. Yeah. And I'm a senior in high school. And I actually sat in the courtroom for one of the hearings. And I'm watching my dad on, on trial. And just bitterness just started welling up. And it's like, God, I don't understand what you're doing. And I was just months away from my graduation. And I remember thinking after I graduate from high school, I'm going to leave this place. And I never want to come back again. God intervened to make a long story short, the magistrate, the judge over the case. I don't know if he was a Christian or not, but he was a man of integrity. And he could see the police brought just all kinds of false evidence. And that my dad hadn't done anything wrong. It was just a terrible accident. And if anybody was at fault, it was the other driver. So he dismissed the case through the case out of court. And my dad was set free. So shortly after that happens, I'm done. I assume my dad is done. And I have this conversation that I'll never forget. And I said, you know, after I graduate, my older brother and older sister were already in the States. My younger brother was just 10 years old. And I just assumed we're all going back to the States. We're done. And my dad said, no, you go back to go to college. But I'm going to stay because God's calling on my life hasn't changed. And that kind of just hit me between the eyes. And I'm like, what do you mean? And again, growing up in a Christian home, I'd been in Bible class all my life. I had heard about faith all my life, heard about walking by faith, you know, Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, Trust in the Lord with all your heart. I knew all that. But through this trial, I'm watching my dad show me how to actually walk and live that way. And his testimony had a huge impact on me. And he said, you know, your mom and I talked about this. We knew something like this could happen. And yet we were so convinced, this is what God had called us to do. And he says, I'm still convinced. And so he actually stayed a mission team from Australia came up. He met a single lady on that team. They end up writing letters, dating back and forth. Then he goes to Australia. They kind of date there, get married, and then came back and served as missionaries in Papa New Guinea for many more years. So that was my growing up years right at the end was a critical point in my walk with Christ. So I remember after I graduated getting on the airplane in that little town in Papa New Guinea to come back to the States, go into college, looking out the window and praying and telling the Lord that if you want me to come back in missions, I'm willing to do it. So That was just a huge critical point spiritually for me and my walk with the Lord. Sorry, it kinda got long there, but those years and PNG were very formative for me spiritually. - Well, maybe go back a little bit growing up in PNG, were you mostly in like, I guess a bigger city or did you then eventually go in to more the village's type thing? - Well, Papua New Guinea is unlike a lot of countries where you don't have the mass urbanization there. So the majority of the population is still rural. So I grew up around a small town that was a provincial capital. So province would be like similar to a state. And so this town would be like the fifth or sixth largest town in the country, but it's downtown would be like the size of a small college campus. - Okay. - So it's a small town. - What is the name of it? - Garoka. - Garoka, okay. - So anybody out there that knows PNG, Garoka is kinda like this little town up in the mountains they call it the Highlands. And it's kind of a hub for that middle mountainous region and that's where I grew up. Now at different times we would go out to like deep bush into tribal areas. I learned to drive in a particular tribal area further up in the mountains, growing up there visiting other MK friends, flying in, you know, bush plains, missionary pilots in really remote areas, seeing where other missionaries were working. So I got a good dose of seeing the different facets of a missionary team all working together. - Who were you sent under what mission agency? - My parents were with new tribes mission, which is what was called for many years. Today it's called ethnos 360. - They were the ones operating the plains? - Yes. - Obviously. - So they, well, when I was young, they got their first plane, then their second plane today. They've got planes, helicopters. So they would fly their own missionaries and then M.A.F. missionary aviation fellowship, which is pretty well known. They also operate in the country. So growing up, I'd fly with both. And then later as my wife and I went back as missionaries have flown with both. - That is really cool. That is really cool. I think it'd be fun to do some bush flying. - It is. It's amazing. If you like flying in those small aircraft is a lot of fun. And get a little nervous until it's a little airy. That's a blast. - That is really fun. - Missionary bush pilots are really gifted. What they do is pretty incredible. - Wow. What was, maybe tell a story of going really deep into the jungle or whatever. It's called, is it called jungle? Is that one or woods? - In New York. - Getting they typically call it bush. - Bush, the bush. Deep into the bush. - Deep into the bush. And in Australia, they'll often call it that as well, like out back and stuff like that. So I don't know if it was kind of adopted. And it's different from like the Amazon or others. There are parts that are very similar to like a tropical rainforest. But overall they call it the bush. So probably some of the best stories are my wife and I when we went back as missionaries, we moved into a region called Simbi. And this is a Kalam language group, a language group of about 30,000 people. So from Garoka, you get in one of these little mission airplanes. It's about a 40 to 45 minute flight. And you're basically in the middle of nowhere. There are no roads that connect a town with that area. So the only way in and out is flying in an airplane or walking for two to three days to get to a road to eventually get to a town. So very remote. And what we did is we lived near an airstrip. So we could fly supplies and everything has to be flown in. From fuel to food to toothpaste to light bulbs, a printer, anything you're gonna use, it's gotta be flown in. And then I had, at one point, I had three four wheelers. So we would use four wheelers to get around to the different villages. So we were working in multiple villages at the same time. And the four wheelers were an amazing tool that you could go most places. So there were trails. And then sometimes you could only go so far, park the four wheeler and then hike to get to where you're going. Very mountainous, very up and down, very rainy, rained most of the year. So it's muddy. And that's where the four wheelers would come in handy. But yeah, it's working with these churches. Everybody lives in grass huts. They completely live off of the land, growing crops, raising pigs, chickens, hunting with bows and arrows. One of the nicknames for Papua New Guinea is the land that time forgot. And you kind of feel it when you're there, like you're just in the middle of nowhere. So it's fascinating and then doing ministry in that context. Learning the language, learning the worldview, the culture of the people, just sitting in the grass huts around the little fires with them, building relationships, doing Bible studies. And then we really focused on training national leaders and helping them to plant new churches and new villages and actually helping them to start their own little mission agency and do missions to other tribal groups that different language but other tribal groups. And to do that, some of their missionaries would literally have to walk a day or two to go. But it's just a different life. But being with people like that, you learn so much, you're humbled, you see God at work through them. I was just there last year and they held a missions conference at the first church. So the first church was the host church and there were over 900 believers coming from 30 churches and they're all walking to come to this missions conference. And so flew in on the plane. I've got this amazing video where I'm sitting up front with the pilot coming into this bush air strip and then worshipping together with all these believers and with the heart for spreading the gospel. So even though they're poor, they're in a primitive remote context, grasping that great commission and it's like, what can we do to spread the gospel further out? So it's amazing and I love going back there. What do they have electricity and things like that in some of those towns? - So the main towns have electricity but once you get out, most don't. So then you're using a generator or you're using solar and like for us as missionaries, we use both. So we started out using generators a lot and then as price of fuel started going up, we invested in solar panels, inverters. So you just live differently. You catch your rain water off your roof, store it in water tanks or sisters, have a filtration system for your water and because we had so much rainfall there, that worked well. So you kinda have to just adapt to your context of not having regular electricity, not having running water but we would catch the water in sisters, use gravity to feed into our house with solar panels to eat the water. Once you learn how to adjust, it's not too hard and you get used to it but it's just different than how we do it here. - Why is it a country that was that time forgot? Like is it 'cause there's no natural resources so nobody wanted to develop it or it? - That's a great question. So James Cook discovered it when he discovered Australia. So he was a British explorer. Sorry, I can't remember what year. So Australia was discovered and it's bigger and New Guinea is just north of Australia. So Australia becomes a penal colony of England and that's how it gets like Papa, New Guinea and a lot of the other South Pacific islands were just kinda forgotten. You also have all these tribal groups and many of them were cannibals. So that discouraged foreigners. - Yeah, they have winners coming in. - So John Peyton, if you ever read his missionary biography, he's known as the Scottish missionary to the South seas. He faced cannibals and other missionaries that were contemporaries with him lost their lives. So he was there in that same area of the South Pacific, I think modern day, Vanuatu today. So that was one reason why you didn't. And Papa New Guinea, once you get interior, it's very mountainous, very rugged. So I mean, it's just hard. Well, I think some of the earliest British European explorers were like the early notes. So very little even in the 17 and 1800s. So then you come up to War War II. And I would say prior to War War II, it was mostly unknown from Western world. Well, War War II, the Japanese are advancing across the South Pacific and they're headed to Australia. So they were stopped in New Guinea. And by this is after Pearl Harbor, the Americans joined forces with the Australians. And there was a lot of fighting in New Guinea. My uncle actually fought in War War II in New Guinea. Wow. So that was pretty amazing. And it was very difficult. So the allies really depended upon the Papa New Guinea to help them in many respects, just curing supplies, things like that. But they stopped the Japanese there and then pushed them back through the Philippines and back to Japan. So then after War War II, that's when things start because they became a colony of Australia. Australia starts to set up infrastructure. And that's when things really start gaining traction. So even jellical missions, you really don't see a significant start until the nice and then get some momentum in the 60s, 70s. And then by the 80s, you got a lot of missionaries there. There were Darlene Debler Rose wrote a book. She and her husband were on the island of New Guinea prior to War War II. They were captured by the Japanese. He died sadly in the camp. She survived. And she wrote a book, Evidence Not Seen. But she and her husband were one of the very few that I know of that were prior to War War II. Very interesting. What do the natives think when they see a missionary show off? How do you start that relationship? And what are they usually thinking? Like, what are the more do you came from? And I would say that that's changed over the years. I would say back in the 70s and 80s, very favorable to foreigners. Unfortunately, being under Australia, they gained their independence in 1975. So this year, they celebrated their 50th anniversary. So if you study countries that have gone through colonial periods, there's a lot of good, bad, and ugly. And so that happened in PNG, probably not as severe as what you see in other countries. But Australia did a good job of setting up some initial infrastructure. But over time, like, after they gained independence, there was a little bit of, you know, we want to be on our own. And so coming in as an American, because we were not the colonial country that was in charge, but we were outsiders. They were a little more receptive to us. And then I would say-- and this is probably the case worldwide. But in urban environments, people are a little more close and restricted. You have a lot more people there. But people are busy. They're just trying to make a life for themselves in the city. And so it's often harder. You get out to the rural areas, the bush, as I called it. Generally, and in Papua New Guinea, this was the case. People were much more receptive and happy that you're there. Because they know it took effort to get there. So like our Simbai people overall were very warm, very friendly, very receptive. And of course, when we went in, we were past the era of the tribal fighting and the cannibals. But even growing up, when there was a lot of tribal fighting, as long as missionaries, we didn't stick our nose in, where it didn't belong, we were fine. And I never felt like my life was significantly at risk. I remember as a kid watching multiple tribal fights, where you're watching the arrows flying back and forth. And that was pretty wild. And it could be potentially dangerous. But I would say generally, they were happy that we're there as long as we stay to ourselves and didn't stick our nose into their tribal issues and frictions. Now, the towns today, and in recent years, you have crime issues. So you have people from the tribes coming to the towns struggling to get jobs, struggling to make a living. So you have a lot more crime, you have gangs. So even now, going back to Papa New Guinea, when I'm in the towns, you got to keep your head on a swivel and be aware of your surroundings. When I'm in the bush, I'm relaxed, I'm comfortable, hanging out and join the fellowship with old friends. Is there an honor system in the bush? Is that why you feel safe? It's just some areas, it could be more potentially dangerous. But it's, again, they're just thankful that you're there and they understand it took the effort to get there generally. Now, symbol, they know me. And so because of the relationship, we were there for 10 years and able to build relationships. So it's like going home. And even those that aren't believers, that aren't in the churches that we ministered with are always very friendly and happy that we're there. They have their own tribal authority kind of system and they do have an honor system, especially for elders and what they call the poppas or the village leaders, things like that. So they have their own system of authority and structure and how things operate. So sometimes missionaries can come in and they will give you a tribal name. They'll kind of give you a tribal. This is your identity and how we fit with us. Sometimes it's more of, we just appreciate that you're here. And like we were there for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of seeing indigenous churches planted. But we helped out in medicine. My wife treated more people than we could count. We would help with education. When the airstrip was from rain or pigs, we would help fix it. We tried to be very involved in the community and participate and help however we could. And that really helped to build bridges with the people. And they appreciated that. Even though we're obviously outsiders, we're different, they really embraced us. And so that was a huge blessing. Did you see anything supernatural for cancer? Anything happened that was like that, that was definitely. - That's a fascinating question because the people there are animus, so very much spiritus. And then when they come to Christ and are being discipled, they're adopting a biblical worldview. But even as they adopt a biblical worldview, when I'm talking about pastors and church leaders, we still look at things differently. And to give you an example, one time a pastor and a church leader came to our place. And their church was about 20 minutes away by four wheeler. They said we've got a young lady like a teen, maybe early 20s that was attacked. And we're like, wow, my wife and I go to see her and to help. And so my wife is examining her and can't see anything. So we start asking questions like, so somebody came and attacked her. And the more we talked with them, they're like, no, it was a spirit that came and attacked. And so as missionaries, we're listening, trying to understand. And my wife, although not a lot of medical training, she got some bush medical training. So she's trying to, is there a medical issue? And she talked a lot about her stomach. And my wife's one is an ulcer, is it something like this? So, and the church leaders were convinced, no, this is spiritual. And we just need to pray and ask God to defeat the demonic forces. And so as a missionary, you know, you're wrestling with all of this. And I'm like, well, definitely pray. So let's pray. And you know, for all I know, there could be, they're definitely more sensitive to that side of spiritual warfare than honestly I am. So I'm like, I don't want to just say no to that. I want to listen to that. But then let's also look at some medical things too. So in these things, I often try to both end approach. And as I was trying to understand, many of the pastors, their dads practice witchcraft regularly. So let's, let's see. So they grew up and the stories they would tell me would make the hairs on my neck stand up. Now, some of the things that they talked about and demonic activity in witchcraft, I never saw specifically. I remember one time I was in a church teaching, I had a young man with me, I was teaching late. So we had to hike 30 minutes to get back to the four wheeler and then it's like an hour ride on the four wheeler. So the sun's going down by time we get to the four wheeler and it's getting dark. And the guy, the young guy that's with me, he's riding behind me on the four wheeler, all of a sudden he just grabs me and he says, did you see that? I'm like, what? He said that was a St. Guma, which is like a spirit, it could be a witch doctor, it could be an evil spirit. And I'm like, where, where, where? Because, you know, I'm having grown up there, I know this world is real. So I had many situations where I didn't exactly see some of these things, but I believe that a lot of it is thwarted by the presence of the gospel and by the churches that were established. I believe shortly, well, years before we were there, Satan and his forces ruled. So there was so much demonic activity. So a lot of those things, I've seen God answer prayer in healing and protecting. I had a situation where another young man and I were hiking Sunday morning to go to a village to preach and it was early in the morning and this warrior, he's all dressed up, he's got his face painted, he's got the feather sticking out of his hair, he's got this huge bow and arrow. He's coming down the mountain, down the trail towards me and he's actually doing a war hoop like they would do when they're ready and fighting each other. And I'm like, this is so bizarre because you'd never see just one guy and it was just, he stops probably 15, 20 feet away from us. We stop, we're just looking at each other. He puts the bow and his arrow and points it straight at my chest and I'm just there freezing, praying like, I don't know what's gonna happen. He snaps the bow string but holds on to the arrow and turns around and just runs off. The young guy that was with me starts laughing. I said, why are you laughing? This isn't funny. And he's like, Dave, they're just trying to intimidate you. So we'd see a lot of things like that. I got sick, deathly ill multiple times where it was just God protecting me. I was in a really bad four wheeler accident where it flipped over, landed on top of me. I had multiple broken ribs. So we've seen God intervene and work in people's hearts. And so I've heard countless stories of pretty spirit world types of things. I can't say that I've personally seen a lot of those. And so as a missionary, just kind of navigating that was always interesting and challenging at times. - Interesting for sure. - Yeah. - Very cool. I guess continuing on your story, so you go to college, where did you go to college? - So my undergrad, I went to Pensacola Christian college. - Oh no. I'm a Bob Jones guy. - Oh no. (laughing) - Yeah, that's kind of hard being here in Greenville. - And I had a couple other MK friends that went to Pensacola. Nobody in my class was going to B.J. for whatever reason. Had some that went to Cedarville, Masters, Houghton College up in New York. But when you're at an MK school, we're all from different parts of the country. And so after graduation, it's pretty emotional 'cause you know the likelihood of seeing each other again is hard. But there were a few of us that went to Pensacola. And honestly, the big magnet, if you will, was they offered really good scholarships for MK's. And I think pastors' kids as well. And with the work program, and it was already lower costs. So my parents weren't able to help me at all, but through those scholarships, through those programs and working on campus, I could just go through school without any debt. So honestly, that was the big attraction for me, which led me down there. - Sense. - But where did you go from there? - So after I graduated, I majored in business and computers. I had a heart for missions. And like every missions conference, I'd go forward, but I didn't know. Is God really calling me into missions? There's that, the only thing that I know because of growing up. So I was pretty good in math. I liked math. At that time, I started college in '87. So computers were just blowing up. - Okay. - PC's and all that were just blowing up. And I knew computers were gonna change everything. And I had done a little bit of like basic programming in high school. And I thought, okay, I'm gonna focus on computers and business. And however God uses it. So then after I graduated, I got a job here in Greenville, South Carolina. So that's what brought me to Greenville. I really didn't know a lot of people here. I knew about Bob Jones, obviously, with the fun rivalry between the two schools. So, and then one guy that I knew from Pennsylvania, which is where I was originally from, went to BJ was here in the area. And we became roommates, shared an apartment. And he went to Morningside Baptist Church. So I started going to Morningside. And I loved the mission's emphasis there. And they had a thriving young adult career group. And that's where I met my wife, Sean. So things just kind of clicked pretty quickly. Got the job. Had a friend went and started going to Morningside. Sean and I didn't start dating right away. It was several months, but and kind of the rest is history. Yeah, yes. And so you got a job doing computers and things? Yeah, software. So my company sold a software package for small to medium-sized distributors. So it handled inventory, sales, receivables, all your accounting. So it was like the package for a distributorship. And what I did was when a company would buy the package, they would have customization stuff that they needed done. So I was a programmer, software designer, that did those customized things. And I really enjoyed it because even though I was doing programming, I was working for different companies. So one was an electrical distributor. One was a plumbing distributor. One was parts for garbage trucks. One was perception kayak that makes kayak. So I learned all different kinds of businesses through working with the guys and modifying their software for them. So it was interesting to me. I really liked the job. I really enjoyed doing that. And so what was the next stage of life then? Because you end up on the field again. Right. How did that happen? So Sean and I met. We dated for about a year and a half, got married. And so I'm working for that software company. And she's working. And we're serving in our church at Morningside. And all that was really good. And from the time we were dating, we talked about missions and just prayed honestly about it. And I didn't want to put a ton of pressure on her. Her dad was a pastor. So she grew up in a pastor's home and really had a heart for ministry. So we just prayed about it together. And then a year after we were married, we did a survey trip to New Guinea. And my dad and my stepmom, at that time, they weren't able to come to the states for our wedding. So we go there. And that was the first time for them to meet her for her to meet them. My older brother and his wife had already returned to Papa New Guinea and they were serving as missionaries. So we visited in different areas with different mission agencies. And we're just praying, God, if you want us here, show us where and what capacity and what do you want us to do. So we talked with multiple mission leaders about different ministries, different ways we could serve. But I was talking with my brother and he was ministering at a Bible college. And that's when we heard the Simba's story for the first time. So even though I had grown up there, I knew nothing about this people. And the gospel had gone in through one of their men who had gone to the coast, heard the gospel, come back. He's just telling the gospel message just as simply as he can. And I'm not sure that he was ever a true believer. And that's another discussion. But he's just telling the gospel. telling God sent his son who came to this earth, died on the cross, rose again, that to take our sin. And it was just the Holy Spirit at work where people are believing. And I believe there was genuine conversions. And they knew they needed help. So they elected two guys who hiked for two days at found a Baptist missionary in another area. And they're like, we've heard this gospel message, we believe, but we need somebody to come teach us. I mean, it's just, yeah, that story. And the missionary was like, wow, you know, I'd love to help, but he had his full ministry. So he tells them about the Bible college where my brother was at. So those two go back, meet with the other group of believers, they elect five men to send those five men to go to Bible college. So my brothers telling me about it. And then another missionary couple that were working at the Bible college, they meet these students. So they start flying in. I think it was with M.A.F. on the weekends to start meeting with these believers. So then we meet with this couple and they're like, you know, after our youngest daughter because they were older than us, graduates from high school, we want to move in there. But we want another family to move in with us. So on the long flight across the Pacific coming back, my wife, Sean and I, you know, are just talking about this. And we were both 100% convinced that the Holy Spirit wanted us to go into Symba. And from then on, it's like, this is what we're going to do. So we started that path. I remember talking with my boss and this is mid to late 90. So we're hitting Y2K. That then was a huge thing. Everybody was petrified because all the computer software was just going to blow up. It didn't happen. But like our software, it only had two digits for the year. So he was like, all of our clients, we've got to update. But he was a believer and he worked out an amazing deal. He's like, hey, if you work with me, I'm going to support you guys. I'm going to help you with your startup funds. And so God just worked through all of that. That even when we were on our, what we call, deputation ministry going around, I could work whenever I was in town. And so he was so good to me and just an incredible relationship through that company that helped us get started that then launched us to go as missionaries. Yeah. So you said the calling was really clear. And what does that look like? What does that feel like? How do people know that they're called somewhere? That's a great question. And I know many struggle with that. And I said the calling was really clear. But that was at that moment. After that trip. The years before that. So from college to after college, and there was, there was one year after college where I was kind of floating around a little bit and I just didn't know. I mean, I would pray and say, God, I don't know where you want me to be or what you want me to do. And I'm just looking for his leading. And it was tough. So we went through, I would say a few years of where we're looking and it wasn't clear. And we just kept serving where God had us, taking baby steps, just continuing to pray. I remember when I was single before I met Sean, you know, I was considering missions. I was talking with new tribes who my parents were with. I didn't feel peace about it. And then I'm like, am I wimping out? Am I not willing to obey God? Or is this just not the right time? And it wasn't the right time. And so I try to encourage a lot of younger people that are going through that process. Don't get discouraged because I believe it is a process. And there is a point where the Holy Spirit will make it clear. But it doesn't happen fast usually. It does, but usually it doesn't and it didn't for us. So but as we just continue to work through that process to be patient, to serve in our church here at home, we get both of us got heavily involved in serving, then taking the survey trip and leading up to that survey trip. I mean, we were praying like crazy. We could only because to get time off of work, my boss gave me three weeks off, which was a lot from this end. But just traveling there and back is like three to four days. So we had like two and a half weeks. And I'm like, I don't know that's enough time to really survey different ministries. And so we were just praying. And God answered our prayer in a way that we never expected through some college students hearing about what God is doing in Simba. And Sean and I were so busy that while we were there, we didn't have a lot of time to talk with each other. And you know, we're just thinking about it, praying about it. But on that long, quantous flight across the Pacific, we were just both like, yeah, this is what God wants us to do. And then we got back. Remember meeting with our pastor in his office. And I got maps. I got pictures. You know, we were just so excited because it was like, okay, now the Lord is making clear. So it happens, but it is, is a process. And so sometimes you just got to work through that process and be faithful in the little steps until the Lord kind of brings it into focus and makes it clear. Yeah. Stay faithful. Be doing things and through those doing things, opportunities. Yeah. So we're just going to stop up and then you can look at it and like, well, we'll try this opportunity. No, well, this one's actually really exciting. But for one of the reason I have a desire, a feeling that must be from God. I really want to chase after this. That's kind of how it works. Is that right? Some realization. Yeah. And I agree with your point of, you've got to be willing to pursue open doors. And we hear the whole analogy. You can't drive a parked car. That's true. You got to be active. If you're just sitting in the pew, so to speak, or sitting on the couch and just waiting for God to give you some massive vision or something, that could happen. Probably not. But if you're active and you're serving and you're pursuing opportunities and if it's missions going on mission trips and there may be some things where it's a closed door. But the next one, maybe the open door. So I totally agree with your point. Be active. Be knocking on doors, figuratively checking out different things and then see how God leads. So you talked about a little bit of that time while you both were serving there. And I guess I don't know how long ago that would be from today when you came back. So we served in Simbae from 2000 to 2010 and then we've been back here in the States and my role as director of open door for the past 15 years. And then a lot of that time, I also served as the missions pastor at morning side. So there was like the 90s of working, serving in the church, survey 2000 to 2010, popping again, the last 15 years here in the States. Okay. And so what does mission director entail of an agency? So our agency open door Baptist missions is a small one. It's a ministry of a local church morning side that our church started in 1990. So we've had in the neighborhood of like around 40 missionary units, which would be a family or a single. So we're smaller compared to other larger agencies. So for me, what that means is you wear a lot of hats. Sure. So we have a great staff and of love serving with our staff. But in my role as director, you're preaching and teaching on missions. You're meeting with young people, students, college, seminary, young adults that are interested in missions, doing teams, helping those that are interested kind of work through the process. We're doing admin stuff for missionaries that are on the field. Sometimes is helping them through government paperwork. Sometimes it's like we need a letter from our agency saying this. So we can get the visa or the qualifications or whatever. So it's just handling all kinds of things. It's just being a listening ear. Sometimes it's giving counsel. It could be a family situation. It could be a ministry situation. It's developing new things like BAM, but we'll probably talk about later. So it's just a lot of different things. And I've enjoyed it because it doesn't get boring and you never know what you're going to do in a day or a week. It's just always different stuff. My favorite part is actually going to the field visiting the missionaries or working with national partners, helping in different ways, whether it's teaching, training, coaching, just encouraging. So that's always been my favorite part is getting out of the office, going to the fields. And for me, growing up and serving in New Guinea, the opportunities to go to Africa, to go to Cuba, to go to all different parts of Asia. I just love that. So that is really cool. So that's been amazing. Is there a specific mission of Open Door Baptist missions or between agencies? Is it usually the same mission, support missionaries, or is there like a specific differentiator? I guess. I would say different agencies can have different focus, like some agencies will focus on a particular geographical area. Some will focus like on South America or Africa. Even though Open Door is smaller, we're kind of spread out. So we've had two primary focuses. One is church planning out west. So we've been engaged in planning churches in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Washington State, and then planning churches globally. So the mission started in 1990 when the iron curtain came down. And the idea was God's opening doors in Russia and Eastern Europe at that time that had been previously closed. So for me and my role as director, trying to find ways, being creative to find ways to get into tougher areas. Now we serve missionaries all around the globe in some restricted areas and some that aren't that restricted. But we've tried to keep that as a thruster focus. Okay, maybe we can't do this, but what can we do? Maybe it's partnering with national partners. Maybe it's helping some get into really difficult countries in Asia where they're kind of going undercover. They're using business to get in there. So for me, that's been kind of a thrust of especially the difficult, the 1040 window, the unreached areas. What can we do? It's slow going. Sometimes it gets discouraging. Sometimes there's setbacks, but we've tried to be consistent in what can we do? Our most of your missionaries from Morningside or do they come from other places? It's a mix. So we do have quite a bit from Morningside, but I would say the majority are from other like-minded churches. And what does partnering with national partners in town? Who are the national partners? What does that mean? So and a lot is happening with that, and I'll try not to get too long. So many times my answers are too long. So a typical model in the past that we've seen with nationals is those from foreign countries come to the states, go to Bible College like BJU's had the Timothy program. They finish, maybe go to seminary, then they'll join a US agency, and that's happened with open doors, happened with other agencies, and churches will support them here in the states and they go back. So that's a model that has been helpful and useful, especially in countries where it's really hard to send Americans or other Western missionaries. Another model that I'm really excited about is because while that model's good, it has limitations. You can't send everyone here and a lot of times those that come here decide not to go back. They get settled here, they marry here, get involved in work, church, life here, and don't go back. So what I've been involved with with open door, we've used that model, but use that model to springboard helping them to start their own mission movements. So in these countries within the 1040 window in Asia, coming alongside that churches that are there, a lot of them have started their own Bible colleges, so help those Bible colleges to improve. They do, they're training their own young people in country, now help the pastors, church leaders, let's start your own mission agency. And at first that idea kind of blows them away a little bit because only model, no, go to the states, join with a US agency, they're the experts, which is kind of true. America borrowed off of England, England did all the mission stuff, but then we needed to do our own and add an iron judson and others kind of birth that. So that's what we're trying to do in Asia, help them take those next steps. And that's what I've been really excited about is coming alongside and saying, we'll help you, you can do this. And now there are training and sending their own, you can answer to your question. Partnership is happening in two different models. I think both are good, both are helpful. What I would say is use this earlier model to build on this new model because this new model doesn't have the same limitations. It's sustainable. They're sending their own missionaries to some of these really remote regions. And I go there and I feel like I'm back in Simbae, but they're there living among the people, reaching them with the gospel. And it's just really exciting to me. This also helped because those people know all the geopolytics in a way, like the local, like also just the intercultural aspects, just naturally that they've grown up in there so that probably helps with reaching in more natural way, maybe. And what I've seen over the last 10 years is I've been partnering with them is initially you've got believers from one part of an Asian country going to another part. So you've got some cross-cultural stuff happening there. So sometimes maybe it's the same national language that they can use, which is really helpful because they know the national language in American typically doesn't. But they're learning some culture stuff. But then what we've seen in recent years is with these mission efforts, kind of the second model B is as they're reaching these tribal people and these unreached people, they've developed a discipleship program where they disciple them intently and then training them to be missionaries. So now they're going back to their own people. And what you're talking about, they know not only the national language, they know the mother tongue, the tribal language, they know all the politics, the worldview, all the stuff that's that's going on. So we're seeing these different phases and national partnership where our role is we're encouraging, we're equipping, sometimes we're helping with projects, whether it's they've established a campus to do all this training. So we've helped with projects with the campus, projects with one people group, had 10 families come to Christ, but they were rejected by their relatives. So we helped them buy a land of property that they've started their own Christian village. We sent them like these little tractors and agricultural stuff and seeds to plant. So they can provide for themselves. We've helped them start like laundry businesses, car wash businesses, small schools. So trying to help them in multiple ways. And we've just seen it explode in all kinds of different models and ways that it's happening. So it's it's pretty cool in the many different ways that we can partner with them and see them develop and expand the missions work that they're doing. That is really really exciting. That is fun to hear how things are multiplying. There are more. What is the worst about we need more workers in the harvest and multipliers. How do it seems like especially growing up in America and during a church and then usually that church is connected to one agency a lot of times it seems or at least that's my experience. I don't know if that's universal. A lot of times only see that segment. Those missionaries are just exciting to hear. There's other mission agencies and other. There's a much bigger picture that a lot of times we don't see. Is there a lot of between agency collaboration? Is that I guess necessarily? Is that helpful? Is it good that everybody has their own? I don't know. Now you're asking great questions. I would say that is growing and developing. So it used not to be and I'm not saying that as a negative but growing up and even our years of service thinking back these early thousands each agency did their thing. Growing up in Papua New Guinea I was with new tribes. There was a Baptist mission in town, ABWE, that had the Bible College, who my brother was with. Well, their MKs would come to our school. And so we would have fellowship, interaction, maybe a little bit of partnership, but it was pretty rare. And so that's pretty normal, that you join a US agency and for a lot of missionaries, you go through your candidate school training, you pick your field, you fly to your field, and here's your team. And sometimes that works well, sometimes it doesn't work well. And you've probably heard one of the greatest reasons for missionary attrition, missionaries coming off the field is interpersonal relationships because it's and it's similar when you work for a company, that team is there and you're joining it, but missions it's ramped up a lot more because it's not just work. It's your passion, it's your conviction. And then depending on the country and the setting, a lot of times you're living almost with each other. So like our partners, their house was just a stone throw from our house. We could hear our partner when he sneeze. I mean, you become family and we spend a lot of time talking with each other before to say, "Hit, how compatible are we?" So a lot of that happened. So to your point, there's a group called Fellowship of Missions. So for our Circle of Mission agencies, more conservative, independent Baptist. So I'm with Open Door Baptist Missions. You got Gospel Fellowship Association in town. You got Baptist Mid Missions. You got IBM Global, Biblical Ministries worldwide, Gospel Mission for South America, EMU. So we're all part of this group called the Fellowship of Missions. And it's just that. It's a fellowship. We get together for what you could call a conference once a year in September, but it's around fellowship. But what that has developed, which I think is really good, is a camaraderie and appreciation. And even here in Greenville, there's like four of us that we would get together for lunch occasionally, just to pray together. And I found that what has started to develop is a real camaraderie, especially young people that may be talking to me. And I can tell, okay, you may not be the best fit for us, but you'd be a great fit for EMU. Jeff Davis is a great friend of mine or Mark Bittori or now John Crockett with GFA. So when I started the GFA guys were a big help to me when Jeff came to EMU. So we've been really intentional through the FOM to build relationships. And some of the partnerships as far as working together, some of that is starting slowly. And I think each agency has to work through that. For us at Open Door because we're smaller, a lot of our missionaries serve on teams with missionaries of other agencies. Interesting. Now they're like-minded and sometimes they're on teams with national partners too. So even within the FOM, I can think of three or four other agencies that we either have missionaries currently partnering with some of other missionaries or have had partnerships in the past. So where we didn't use to see as much of that, we're seeing more of that. And when you talk about BAM, because I know the mission leaders have had these discussions. So to do BAM, it's better with the team, but to find a team and build a team completely within your own mission is hard to do. You're seeing team formation happen more at seminary level or training like through radius or program like that. Radical has won in the country of Georgia where you're going through intense missionary training for six months, nine months. You're seeing team formation happen. You're through who you like to work with and same vision and you're like- It's more organic. It's not- Here you go here, show up, find out. Then and those training, they're just training. So then a lot of times these teams will decide together the agency. But we've also talked about would it be possible to develop BAM teams with interagency teammates? And I'd say that's probably still being worked through. And some agencies will feel more comfortable with it. We feel more comfortable with it because we've been doing it for a while. Other agencies are like, they're not close to it, but you know, you have to establish ground rules for some agencies. It's kind of new. What are those considerations? What are the topics that you're having to talk through people are thinking about what is currently preventing that from happening? Well, within the FOM, we're all working off the same doctrinal statement and coming from the same hermeneutic philosophy, more dispensational approach. So all that groundwork is there. But then you get into the nuts and bolts. So if you're talking about a BAM team, a church planning team, on music and those practical aspects, you've got to work through. How important is it to mastering the local language? For some, that's like, yeah, that's really important. For some, it's like, well, what if we do this? We use English ESL classes. So it's just things like that. You've got to talk through. And then what I've done in past years and my roles director when our missionaries would form teams with others is what's our ground rules? How is this going to work? And then make sure you got an exit strategy. So if things go south, how is this going to work? So the missionaries that are involved, they've got to be on the same page, think through the entrance strategy, think through the exit strategy. And then their mission leaders and me, we've got to be on the same page. So I've been through some of that. What I found works better is if there's one mission agency that's clearly the lead. So maybe it's like, I can think of one example. We have a single lady working in South America in a college ministry. That college is a ministry of another mission in FOM, really good mission. So they're the lead. They're the clear lead. Our missionary is working with them. And as long as everything's going good, and I remember talking with one of their leaders a couple of years back, they're like, yeah, she's great. Our missionaries love her. Everything's good. Yeah. Well, if things would go south, it's obvious. This is their ministry. Our mission area is going to have to leave. Our missionary knows it. I know it. This is how it works. We're clear on that because what you don't want is something blows up and then everybody it falls apart. And then the nationals are just left like when they're all there. We had a reverse scenario where it was our team and it was our property, our campus. We had a church, small, a Christian school. And there was a couple with another agency that wanted to come. And thankfully, there was like an apartment already on campus. And I said, I advise them, don't build your own house. Because if there's a problem, then that makes things really difficult. So they just stayed in an apartment that was already on campus. And then we had our exit strategy. Yeah. So as director, I'm thinking I'm all four partnerships as long as, you know, we talk through things. And then if something does go south, we can pull apart without, with still being friends, without causing any problems and make it a Paul and Barnabas thing where God still blesses and uses both. So I think it's possible. I think it's growing. I think we're going to see more of this kind of thing happening. You just got to do your due diligence. Yeah. That's really cool. Do you want to take like a short break? And then we'll talk about bam. All right. Sounds good. Cool. Ready? Yeah. All right. We're back again. So we've mentioned bam a few times and a little, I guess, story on my experience. And then we'll define it. So I went to Bob Jones. And then there's an organization called Missions Advance. And that's how I heard of this bam retreat. And that's when we'll talk more about what that is, but that's where I met you. And then found out about this really cool thing. Something that I was, I was looking for because I'm like, I'm business. I don't feel called to Missions, but I still feel that the great missions for all of us. How does this work? So please, please tell us what is bam. Yeah. So kind of the principles of business's mission or bam, we can say has been around since the possible Paul. And probably like back in the he's tent making, that was kind of the key buzzword. I don't know. that BAM was used much back then. BAM was kind of developed later. But of course we see the Apostle Paul along with Aquila and Priscilla. They were tip makers. And I don't know where or how he learned that trade. It's kind of fascinating. But he depended upon it as he was traveling as a missionary. And sometimes he was supported by other churches. But a lot of times he wasn't. So he used this trade to kind of support himself. And then he connects with Aquila and Priscilla. And they're in the same trade. And they become believers. And so they become these incredible partners. It also builds upon the theology of God created work. God created wealth creation. And you know, just you think about wealth creation. That's a pretty amazing. There is no limit to the possibility of wealth. And that happens through business and good entrepreneurship and things like that. And this is a God thing. And so many times in our traditional Christianity, we've put this wall between what we deem sacred and what we deem secular. And when we talk about occupations, it's a lot of times that way. And so what I think the business is mission's movement, if you will, does is try to remove that and say, no, like you're talking about, we all need to be on mission for Christ. We all need to be concerned with our neighbors and with the nations. And it's all ultimately for the glory of God. And as a disciple of Christ, if my primary focus is to glorify God and everything that I do, the nations are a part of that. And so using business, using my career, using the things that I'm passionate about, how God has gifted me and made me and what I'm good at, whether it's accounting, engineering, medical, culinary arts, whatever it is, using that not only to provide for my family, but using it for the furtherance of the gospel. I really think we see that in Scripture. I really think that was God's intention. So then when you start thinking strategically about missions, then you think about close countries and the 1040 window. And sometimes that's kind of skewed things a bit because what happened for quite a while, then it was like, well, I'm a missionary going to this country, but I'm going to use this as my platform. And I get it, but I think in some ways it may have hurt things a bit because it pulls away from this theology that was just talking about. And now you're just using it as a platform and you don't want to go into a country of where you're being somewhat deceptive almost. It's more like business as a loophole. Yes, instead of the actual mission. And so then that just causes all kinds of, but if you go into country genuinely for business with your career, it may be working for a company there. A lot of times we'll call that bivocational. It may be starting a business in that particular country. And then you're serving in that capacity, but you're serving as an ambassador for Christ. And plus it just makes sense. If if you're in North Africa and a local guy comes up to you and introduces himself and you're having a conversation and he asks you, what do you do? And you say, I'm a missionary from America that's using this platform. You're probably not going to say that, but if he picks up on that, I mean, that's a barrier right away. But if you say, I'm an engineer or I'm an entrepreneur and I've started this business and I've been fascinated with your country. And he may suspect already because you're an American that you might be a Christian. And most governments don't have a problem with that. Governments that we usually think of opposed to Christianity. Sometimes they're flat out opposed to all Christianity. But a lot of times it's, are you saying who you are? Are you coming in to proselytize? Which we are coming to share the gospel and make disciples? But bam done well is is a way it's a good theology and it's a good way to to be on mission for Christ. One of the reasons why we started the retreats is as I felt many college students were like, like you said, I'm not a missionary. When we started the retreats and started talking about business and how you could use a chocolate business to help advance the gospel or start your own gym. And we try to talk about many different examples of many different kinds of businesses. How it's a win-win. It's a good business. Your passion is fulfilled, but you're also advancing the gospel. I just see it as an amazing tool, an amazing win-win. And I've seen it with yourself and many other college students where it's just like it just starts to open the eyes a little bit and expand the thinking because of these ideas that have been out there. And so really wanted to open something up for students of all majors. Definitely we love missions majors, Bible majors, but of all majors to just talk about how we can develop our skills and develop our passion for Christ and talk about creative ways that those can come together for the advance of the gospel and to declare God's glory to the nation. So I enjoyed it. My own experience in business. I learned a lot from it. And even though as missionaries, we were in more of a traditional role. Now in what we're doing with our national partnerships, we're seeing more of this business's mission or now some are calling it CAM, career's missions. Yes. Yes. And I'm seeing a lot of our missionaries are in that bivocational role where they're teaching at a university or they're working in a particular context or they're using their expertise. It may be music, it may be language, maybe leadership to serve overseas and to partner. So I've seen God use people and multiple facets of this BAM world. And there's a lot of different ways you can define it and slice it and use it, but I've seen God use it. And with the BAM retreat, it's been a blessing to me to see how it's been a help and blessing to students. What is the history of the BAM retreat? It started with discussions at Morningside and Open Door. So Pastor Josh Crockett, who's been heavily involved at B.J. and then a Dr. Nathan Crockett, he's a theology professor, but an extraordinary entrepreneur. And we were just talking about, you know, because we would be on campus during missions week or each week. And we love that, but it's like we need to find another opportunity to connect better with students. We wanted to build relationships with students, find out where they're at, how we can help and then help them to expand their horizons. So I had known about BAM for a long time, kind of fascinated with it, read a lot about it. And so through those discussions, we came up with the idea. And our first one was in 21, well, we were going to try to do it in 20 and COVID squashed it in 21. It was still challenging with COVID. And Dr. Nathan Crockett has been a huge help. And in most of the years, we've done it at a largest harbor in Tennessee, which he owns. And that's been an incredible blessing. So it's kind of developed this conversation of, okay, what can we do? We got the idea. Let's try it. And the first year was rough because of COVID. But after the second year, I mean, it just started getting momentum. We kind of maxed out at this point. Yeah. Can't really take many more people. And I think we've got a pretty good group because if you have too many, it's hard to have the interaction which you've seen and experienced. So I think we're kind of in a sweet spot, but maybe the way to grow would be to start more retreats. So that's something that you and I have talked about. That'd be really, really exciting. So we'll see. Yeah. So this year, this, well, this coming years would be the fifth, would it be the fifth or is sixth? No. 21, 20, so the fifth, right? It'll be the sixth. Six. So we'll be in 20, 26. And one was our first. I'm coming to the math here. It's 2021 to 20, 26. That should be five, right? 2021, 22, 23, 24 this year was 25. It would be six. Oh, yeah, that works out. Because you're taking with one and adding five. And I think I've been a part of three last three. Yeah, and to return. Yeah, it's always it's always so good. Have about 40 to 50 participants and then anywhere from what is it six four to six speakers. Some of that. Yeah, we've I think the most we've had has been like seven or eight. Yeah. So it's we've had a good diversity good group good interaction. So this year it'll be that last weekend in February. So Pastor Jiro Antoy is taking the lead and I know you've been a big help to him. So I'm excited to see this transist transition and see how God blesses. Yeah, and one of the we're trying to rebranded to Camry Tree right from some feedback from from last year. We were able to invite some other majors that just missions and business majors and there was some pre-med and some engineering and on the on the ride back I was talking to them and they're like well we we see that this this is for us but coming to it they didn't think it was for them. So like well not a business. I'm not missions. I'm interested in missions but I'm not and and so I was like well right it's business is the vehicle. It actually doesn't matter what your career is or your major but business is the vehicle that takes whatever that that career is if it's baking. Okay, your career might be culinary but you start a business. Business is the vehicle and I'm like why is this not clear? It's like right where I weigh when it's business business like oh not me. I'm like no that's so anyway so we're trying career so hopefully is is a more open so people don't immediately be like shrink away from it like no I don't do business. Yeah what I've found over the past five years is it is a new concept for most college students so it kind of attracts their attention you know using the bam you know just the acro bam you know it does sound cool yeah I think as the movement the movement should stay bam but maybe the retreat cam I don't know and I think I think cam can have the same impact and we wanted to make it a weekend retreat to be appealing and we want it to be enjoyable we want it you know for the students to have a weekend to get away and the live just harbors been perfect really good food you know a lot of fun interaction and then you know have really good compelling sessions to introduce it and then I love the shark tank things that we do and even the formation of teams where we try to balance different majors and so they can see the value that each one of them can bring to a team so it's going in they're like well the sounds like fun I don't really know what it is but okay I'll sign up and then you see them get more engaged and we've had many like yourself that have come back and so that was encouraging to me to to see students come back and then tell other students and that's been the best thing is once you get students that get it then they can tell other students and it's so much better for students to hear about it from their peers and say yeah you got to come let's check it out so God has been good and and that's worked pretty well and you've been a key part of that as a student leader in the entrepreneurial network and so and that's helped as well the entrepreneurial network and the missions advanced two student groups at BJU have been really helpful and that generates awareness and interest with the students recruitment and everything and it's an interesting thing because it's like you almost have to go go and experience the whole thing it's hard to just like explain the whole thing right um and it's like no it's like it is transformative and I really some of the speakers are just so really good they they all are and some um just show that okay maybe I I don't necessarily even go to a field necessarily with this but the whole idea of use whatever your work is to build redemptive relationships with co-workers employees with your customers and those those are relationships that you can build off of and framing it that way it is so cool because that I can do that right now in America yeah I don't have to necessarily take this business and career to a field like this can happen here and I'll I'll jump off of that um the whole national partnership that I was talking about see I think that with BAM and what you're talking about really dovetails well because I agree with you and our intent from the very beginning was we knew probably most of these students will live in the U.S. and work in professional but if we can start to stir their hearts for the nations and think biblically about the nations and biblically about living a mission for Christ then as they're serving in their professional capacity and maybe some of them are starting businesses and those seeds have been planted the potential for partnership with missionaries partnership with nationals who are on the front lines doing incredible things and using business like you're talking about even those that are here in the states can pour into them through training through helping with projects through even using their business as a tool to help you know Asian start similar businesses yeah I think there's just so much potential there yeah and we're just trying to lay the foundation plant the seeds it's really the Holy Spirit which to me is exciting how he works in each individual because God created every one of us he gave us that gifting that passion whether it's for engineering or being a chef or medical or being an entrepreneur and allowing God to orchestrate that and develop that so I see the retreat being able to produce fruit now you have to be patient with it because it's with college students and it takes time you know to graduate whether they go to grad school or get their career started it takes time but I'm excited to see how God uses it yeah do you know H.H. Charian yeah have you read yeah so he was a second podcast actually okay and we were talking about how India is self-proclaimed Hindu nationalists though they want to become the first Hindu nationalist country and how they're closing their doors to emissions and specifically funding from like Europe or America going into a directly to a mission like a Bible college or something yeah they're closing that off they can just cut it off at any time business wide open super super want that because they want to continue your GDP growth all that stuff yeah and so that's a specific way how you can get money into the country because once it's in the country it's it's going to a business that's creating true value it's getting paid for that value but then it can then gift you know money to mission missions inside the country so that that's one really cool model and then there's some other models but what are some some stories or yeah stories of of bam in action oh there's there's so many to go back to AJ real quick yeah his story is fascinating because his grandfather started the large Bible college and seminary there kind of in the traditional role but it's fascinating to see AJ's perspective and I've been over there and it's it's closing up fast even a month ago I experienced some things that I probably shouldn't share public with the backpack podcast but it's changing fast and I've I've talked with leaders there that share AJ's perspective and it's neat him as young as he is to understand it but they've said India's close to missions but it's wide open to business and so understanding these things is is really helpful you may remember one of our speakers at the Bam retreat was in Albania and which was Muslim close country and he started the Lincoln Center which is adult education and it's just blown up and grown and they were able to purchase a building that had been previously years and years ago belong to the king or ruler who was opposed to Christianity and tried to stamp out Christianity that today is this adult education center called the Lincoln Center who I'll just, well, I probably, I'll call him Rod, that's not his real name, but he went in for the purposes of the gospel and using bam thinking of starting the school. Another one that you know well that I'll protect their identity was on an island, heavily Muslim country started a gym and I knew them and I remember they were planning to go to that place and they had the idea of starting a gym but because it was a Muslim country they didn't know if it would work. Well, I knew of a missions pastor of another church here in town who had some connections in the Middle East where they had started a gym in a Muslim country in the Middle East and it worked pretty well. So we start networking and then another gym here in town owned by Christians who's also come to the Bay Area 3. They started donating equipment and talking with this missionary couple how to start a gym, everything they learned from their business. So then they started a gym business in that country and they've had to since leave the country but they were able to plant a church through the connections there that's still going today. So and the thing I love about bam is there's just so many examples of so many different fields and somebody will come up with an idea like I never thought of but God wired them that way. And God uses it and blesses it and it's so cool and amazing. The opportunities are endless and I love creative thinking we want to stay within the boundaries of good doctrine of the gospel of scripture but within those boundaries that scripture gives us there's just so much creativity and options. So that that's what I like about Bay Area. It is cool and like the way business works is you're able to if it's done well it can grow exponentially a lot of times you're reinvesting the profits and you can grow your impact and the people you're interact with at a really fast scale. And remember last year we were talking with with the croquettes and business done well in of itself without having to give them a track along with the coffee or whatever or nothing like that. It business done by itself is in a general revelation right yeah general revelation way proclaiming God's glory. The same way the creation is business was created by God. That was a really cool way to think of it too. It's like just running a business well in a foreign country we'll get people being like they're doing it differently they're not doing the bribes and whatnot so the corruption what is different about this and um anyway so that that's a really really cool aspect to to business as missions and the whole idea of you can give somebody a fish or you can teach them how to fish and so being able to be more independent maybe maybe get missionaries to the field faster because they don't have to raise as much money um and the church the community can be supported by a lot of different cool things that can happen with with that. Yeah and it's it's like with any ministry there there can be potential ditches or sidetracks that pull you off and there have been those that have attacked or been negative on bam and I understand that I understand where you can find concern but to your point it provides wonderful opportunities through doing business well for the glory of God that opens up relationships that opens up community connection to your point of seeing good testimony because so much business is corrupt and then now if if we stop there then I think you're you're losing out on the ultimate value so use that relationship use that community impact to help with food needs in the community and then take those next steps for the gospel and sharing the gospel leading to Bible studies and eventually what we want to see is people becoming disciples and indigenous churches planted but I think bam provides that wonderful foundation for everything that you said to take those next steps and and build off of that and I was chuckling because I was thinking the same thing and even in the bam retreat we talk about you can give a man a fish which feeds him for a day you can teach him to fish which feeds him for a lifetime and then we've had the next step you can start a fishing business that can impact the community be instrumental in planning a church you know a lot of different things like that so it's it's fun to brainstorm and think creatively of how we can apply gospel truth and great commission in creative ways to have an incredible impact in dark areas around the world. I know one one I guess negative some some people say like well you don't want the church that you're trying to plant to become dependent on the business or on the missionary because the mission is like oh I'm so funded I don't need you to be giving one again other things like that can you talk to what what are some of the things people might be wary of and and be cautious about and yeah what are some of those things. Yeah with church planning we use the term indigenous because we want it to be self-supporting self-governing self-propagating and I think that's what we see the New Testament example of churches being established becoming healthy and making disciples and then reproducing the New Testament Paul's models amazing the short time the relatively short time that he was in areas and he made disciples he trained them he established leaders indigenous you know local leaders and then he moved on and then those churches you think of Ephesus he was there for two years and then it says throughout all Asia Minor modern Turkey the gospel permeated that area and then Revelation 2 and 3 I believe the seven churches there were probably part of that coming out of Ephesus so that's what we want to see and we want to think about our models even the traditional model of a foreign missionary so American missionary going evangelizing planning a church turning it over to a national pastor that has challenges and I've seen that growing up of you know sometimes when the missionary is there everything's good when the missionary leaves sometimes it gets dicey so any model that you use you've got to think about that indigenous philosophy and and protect against that because I believe the indigenous philosophy is biblical we want to see that so whether you're using a traditional model partnering model a band model so I would just say be aware of those things and be creative in establishing but also be creative of what's sustaining and you know if all your members are working in the same business something happens to that business that's going to be a huge economic impact but so you know you're you're thinking through that diversity is always a good thing when you think of financial investments you want to diversify so even in what's sustaining things economically diversify so for our symbi churches that were very poor the people were all sustenance farmers so their offerings might involve a little bit of money but it involved more bananas and sweet potatoes and chickens you know that they could give and even tithing and giving work to help their pastor put the fence around his garden so in contexts like that as we serve there is okay how can they be indigenous how can they support their church it's going to look totally different than the way we do it in America and how we tithe and give and even in missions so most of our pastors had their own gardens some of them you know would start and try little different businesses and things like that but we were very big on teaching the people you need to be giving and giving may look differently in your context so working with them through that so that's where establishing the church you're not so business focused you've got to focus on good church planning good ecclesiology teaching through the doctrines making sure all those things are set up and a huge thing is teaching your people in the church to be actively serving in the church and to be giving to be participating. If you have that then that goes a long way to the church becoming a healthy church. You just have to be aware of the long-term consequences in a way. Yeah. Well what are the outcroppings and you have to be aware and everything that there's things to be cautious about? Because I grew up there and I saw what happened unfortunately a lot of times when missionaries left. A question that was always nagging me was okay when I leave what's gonna happen and we were only there for 10 years we expected to be there a lot longer but I had really bad health and got to a point to where we had to leave. A lot of things that we did in starting ministries and how we set stuff up constantly tried to put things through the grid okay if I'm gone in a year what's gonna happen. So that impacted the ministries that we started how we started them. A lot of times we would be involved in casting vision and maybe we thought there was a need for a youth ministry but we wouldn't start it. So we would talk about it and pray and then a lot of times what happened God would put it on the heart of a young pastor or somebody in the church that would come and share that and then boom we're on that. We're investing in them because if we started and whether we got to go on furlough or whatever happens so many times it falls apart but if we can be patient and not get out in front of the Holy Spirit and see a local believer and we start pouring into them and encouraging them and maybe provide training and coaching and help them get started but it's it's their ministry then when we leave it can go forward and then even the economics of it like we would do camp but how we did camp and how ministries did camp in the town was very different campers are in big grass huts you know some of the town camps were more Americanized where they're eating hamburgers and it's all bush food you know it's all your spinach greens your sweet potatoes so thinking through things like that now that's more in a missions context but I would say the same would happen in a business context of where you're thinking through indigenous contextualize for that business for the church in the ministry and for us our ultimate focus is that church planning okay how can we do things with the business that's not gonna interfere or hinder the church planning so I think different models can be used you're gonna have similar challenges it's just thinking through that evaluating it being willing to to make changes sometimes you just try things see how it go I would always say if you got a punt you punt to use a football analogy so there's some things we tried for a while all right the same working so let's let's look at some other possibilities so I think in using businesses mission or career as mission to do church planning yeah that that's cool pivoting a little bit it's it's the new year in two days and a lot of people are doing resolutions and goals settings and in a question popped into my mind what are some goals that missionaries usually set because we all know that you can't promise you can't force souls to be saved wow another great question all of us should want to be faithful and being faithful I think is really important but then I think it's helpful to ask the question faithful at what and so I think in any field including missions accountability is helpful so for our mission you know we're interacting with our missionaries one of the things we ask them to do what sometimes they're not a big fan of is we do an annual report and I've started working on mine so I usually some will do them in the middle of the year we allow flexibility I do mine you know at this time of year and we ask them to have ministry goals for the year so typically like five to eight key ministry goals and then personal goals and then they report well so like for me I pulled up looking at mine these were my goals for 2025 how did I do so I rate I accomplished the goal I've made some progress but still got work to do or that one just fell flat and then also ministry I mean personal goals so personal goals of spiritual growth it could be health goals it could be continuing education it might be if you know if you're learning language that that could go either way it could be goals for your family things that that you want to do it could be I want to read so many books this year I want to be more disciplined in that area I want to be more disciplined and exercise in my physical health ministry goals take a lot of forms based upon the ministry context itself it could be a numerical goal of whether you're in a school ministry of so many students or a church as far as like measuring success that that's delicate because fields vary if you're in a heavy Muslim context and and we see this from the missionaries of the past the William Carries at an iron judge and the Hudson tailors that you know just really tough but the foundation they laid was just so critical for missions going forward so in my role I think as director one it's very important for me to know my missionaries to not just look things on paper but to know them and I tried to make an intent of visiting them in person that always helps you you understand their context better you're hanging out with their family I would always ask for time to spend time with their disciples and I love doing that so those that they're pouring and sometimes there was a language barrier but a lot of times my missionaries would let me spend time with their disciples and I'm asking them but the experience that I had and missions really helped me to know okay what's what's surface what gets a little deeper and are they being faithful in digging the soil knowing the language understanding the worldview understanding the culture putting in the hard work of evangelism one of our missionaries called it dog it evangelism you just got a plow and yeah and be thinking if you're using one method and you're just banging your head against the wall do you have the ability to think critically and biblically to say okay what are some other good biblical approaches and methods that that we can try so seeing that kind of faithfulness of not just being there and being present and again growing up I've been in missions my entire life and I've seen it when missionaries have checked out and sadly that that does happen and where they're they're just basically kind of punched into time clock so you don't want that if they're engaged in plugging away and doing the things that they need to be doing and making changes to try different things and certainly we want to help with that that that's what I'm looking for and and then balancing that with understanding okay this is the context there yeah to use a US context you know planning a church in the southeast is going to be different than planning the church in the northwest you know very very different world different soils and sometimes you've got to dig up that soil and cultivate that soil before it's ready for seed yeah to produce some bear fruit so those are the things that that I look at but as mission leaders you've got to take the time to know your missionaries understand where they're at and sometimes they may be struggling and they just need encouraged so they haven't given up they haven't checked out but they're going through some tough times and you face a lot of failure you face a lot of no and opposition and so sometimes they're really down but I can see positive things and part of it is I'm not there in the grind week after week and sometimes I try to encourage them and like man I get it and man I'm gonna pray for you but I see this and I see this so you're doing fine just just keep doing what you're doing keep plugging away and God is is that work it just is going to take time so sometimes trying to encourage them in those ways so but in my role over the last 15 years when people would ask you know how can we pray for you I would say usually my top prayer request was for wisdom and because I love working with with missionaries, I love working with national partners, but need wisdom and how to help them and not to miss things, to be a blessing encouragement to them. And sometimes, you know, I felt so inadequate. And so the wisdom for them, the wisdom for me and the different roles that we play is so critical and helpful. Now, in closing, we'll move towards closing this podcast. What is a favorite book of yours outside the Bible? Oh, wow. So I love missions books. Robert Coleman's master plan of evangelism is a classic on making disciples and he just goes through Jesus' studying Jesus and how he made disciples. So that had a huge impact on me as a missionary. Biographies of Adoniram Judson to the golden shore. And because I've been in that country a lot, I love that Paul Schleyline, one of our open-doored missionaries in Africa, wrote a biography on John Peyton, who I've mentioned about being in the South Pacific ministry to the cannibals. And that's a newer book. And I'm biased because I love Paul, but he did a great job with that. The first half is a short biography of Peyton. The second half is Mission Principles. Piper has some classics on Let the Nations be glad and sometimes I'll read those again and just to continue to get a good biblical foundation and perspective on missions. But I love missiology. I love mission biographies. So those are always my go-to. This is really cool. What is your favorite Bible verse? Proverbs 35 and 6. And because it's a verse I'm always learning and growing in to trust in Lord with all my heart and that all, that hundred percent continuing to grow in that and to not lean on my own understanding, but to completely acknowledge him, trust him, follow him, let him direct my pass. Seeing him do it throughout my life and continuing to learn and apply that biblical truth as well. That is really cool. The society I was a part of at Bob Jones, the Cavaliers, our theme verse is Proverbs 35 and 6. So yeah, it's a good one. It's a good one. Good, well, that is what we're going to conclude it right there. I hope you really enjoyed this. If you got all the way here, please follow, please share this with a friend or somebody who you might be talking about, like missions and biblical things. And somebody who you think would get value out of this. And yeah, thank you. Oh, thank you. It's been a blast. Fun. All right.