Latest / Missions & Miles | Mission Trips, Group Travel, Missionary Stories, Travel Tips / Mission Work Among Unreached People Groups | Brad Mills, AFM
Transcript
- Joy Owens: Hello and welcome to Missions and Miles. I'm your host Joy. Today on the show I have the privilege of speaking with Brad Mills, the president of Aventus Frontier Missions. Brad and his family have also served as missionaries in South America and the Middle East. Welcome to the show. Brad: Thank you, Joy. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Joy Owens: To get started, would you introduce yourself and share what first drew you to mission work? Brad: Yeah, absolutely. So as you mentioned, my name is Brad. my wife's name is Lena, and we have two boys, Levi and Lucas. And since we were married, we've spent 19 years living overseas in four different countries on several different continents. I think what actually got me interested in mission work was reading mission stories as a little kid. my mom read us mission stories when we were just little, and those stories really encouraged me and I think planted ideas in my mind of a desire to be a cross cultural missionary specifically, somebody who went to a different culture and learned a new language and was able to share the Lord's love with people. Joy Owens: Nice. How what four countries have you lived in? Brad: So my wife and I spent a year in Bolivia when we first got married. We went as volunteers and we did that really to confirm in our minds that God was calling us. We wanted to have a short-term experience. We knew it was going to be short-term term, we were gonna come back and continue our education, but we said, hey, why don't we just go overseas and see if can we really do this as a as a couple? So we spent a year in Bolivia. Came back to the US, we did our education and finished our education, got our master's degrees, and then we were in Brazil for 13 years working in the Amazon area. And then we went over to the Middle East. I prefer not to say the names of the places in in that area. Yeah, but then Joy Owens: That's fine, yeah. Brad: we spent about five years over in the Middle East working in some more creative access countries. Joy Owens: How did you know that it was time since you've lived in several places, like how did you know it was time to move on to a different mission? Brad: Yeah, that's a good question. think in our case, I don't know if I really felt when I when I moved from Bolivia, like I said, we were there knowing that we were gonna be there for just a year. that was our intention is going like as a one year volunteer and get an experience and say, Joy Owens: Mm-hmm. Brad: so when we came to the end of that year, it was pretty clear. When we moved to Brazil, we moved there with the intent to spend the rest of our lives there. I mean, we were basically like wherever God calls us, we're gonna go and and we did. we moved there and we moved in with the intent of life service. I think as we worked in the in Brazil, so we worked with an old project that the church had had for so many decades called the Luceto Boats, which were medical missionary. boats that took doctors, dentists, church planners, education, up and down the Amazon River and its tributaries into really isolated jungle villages. And we loved that. We really enjoyed our our time there, our service. We made so many good friends. Our youngest son was born there in the Amazon. Our oldest son was a year when we moved there. And That was life. We could just be there and be happy. There's so many villages that still need really all the different kinds of stuff that our organization was offering at that time, whether it was education or, like I said, medical dental. We had groups coming in and doing all kinds of community service opportunities and sharing Jesus with people. As I was working in that capacity. I did lots and lots of travel through Brazil speaking at mission organization, mission events, mission conferences, mission rallies. And as I was there sharing about these isolated jungle villages, never fails, there was somebody there talking about the 1040 window and this Joy Owens: Mm. Brad: area of the world where there was no Christians and no Adventists. And I would share about where God had called us. And you know, Joy, it was very clear the Lord had called us there. And we were so happy working with the for the Lord. But when I would hear these people speaking, I'm like, man, how is it possible? There's a whole region of the world where there's absolutely no Christians or no Adventists. Like Joy Owens: Yeah. Brad: it's hard to even imagine. And for me, you know, I had been a missionary in Bolivia, I'd been a missionary in Brazil. I had done lots of short term missions and I had traveled to almost every single country in Central and South America and that's mission work, no question about it. but they're not considered unreached countries. These are countries that have Christian presence all through them. And I would be meeting these people that would tell me our whole country that we're in has no Christians. None. I'm like, how's that even possible? You're talking about millions and yet billions of people. And as I heard these stories over and over and over, I would come home and I'd say to my wife, you know, I don't know. Maybe we should think about going to the 1040 window. And my wife would be like, I don't know. We have little kids. I mean, you know, I Joy Owens: Mm-hmm. Brad: don't think most of those places are even safe. don't think we'd want to raise our kids there. And we're like, Yeah, okay, well, we would just pray about it and we would continue doing this and I'd continue hearing these voices and we'd come home and we'd talk about it and we'd pray about it. And I think eventually we came to the conclusion that we were willing. If God wanted us to go even to the most dangerous parts of the world, we were willing. But at that point you're like, you know what, we already have a call. We're already actively serving God. So we're just going to put this on him We just turn that responsibility back over to God in the sense of saying, God, if you want us to go, we're more than happy to go. But you need to make that call because we are actively working for you here. And then the call came. you know. Yeah. Joy Owens: It's funny how that happens when you say, Okay God, if you want me the and then the call comes Brad: Exactly. Exactly. It really took us a long time to work through this and feel like, yes, we would be willing to do this. you know, in our defense of that time, it was it was like every time we talk about it, we we would both my wife and I agree, well, it's not like we're not being missionaries. We are. We're actively dedicating our whole life to sharing Jesus with people also that don't know him in the jungle. But God eventually convinced us that there were so many, Brazilian Seventh-day Adventists, there's over a million in the country that could more easily continue to do what we were doing. in some countries there's none. So once we finally came to terms and and surrender that to God, then didn't it wasn't much longer after that. And finally somebody in the church in the Middle East reached out to us and said, We really need help in this area and somebody has suggested her name and we'd like to know, would you consider something like this? And so begin our journey of is this what God's calling us to do? And finally our move. Joy Owens: Yeah. So I'm assuming that you spoke Portuguese and Spanish pretty fluently how did that like moving to a new country, completely different language and like base, Brad: Yeah. Joy Owens: like they're not similar at all. How did that impact your ability to serve? Brad: Yeah, that is a really good question. so I grew up in Tennessee. I grew up very monocultural and speaking just English and good old Southern English at that. And Joy Owens: Ha ha Brad: it wasn't until I went on my first mission trip in Academy. We went on a a short-term mission trip. That I already had realized my call to serve cross-culturally as a a kid. But then I realized, hey, I gotta speak another language if I'm gonna do this. Joy Owens: Ha ha Brad: And I began studying Spanish in Academy. You know, everybody does their two years of Spanish and comes out saying, like, hola, como estás? Joy Owens: Yep. Brad: And I did my two years and I came out speaking Spanish because I was so convinced this is what God wanted me to do. So I did learn Spanish. Then when we lived in Bolivia, it was, you know, a a year of actually using every day the language I'd learned. When we moved to Brazil, we did not speak Portuguese, but Spanish and Portuguese have enough similarities that we could get by until we could really learn the language. It wasn't until we moved to the Middle East and we were faced with a language that we had absolutely nothing in common with, you know. The Arabic language you write from right to left. They are letters and and numbers, really just squiggles that make no sense. Joy Owens: Yes, quiggles, Brad: Imagine you go into a grocery store and you're like, okay, I can just go buy groceries. I don't need to speak to anybody. You just look at the thing on the shelf and you pick up. Well, but what if there's three and they all have different prices? And by the way, you don't even know what those numbers are. And so At the beginning, we took a little piece of paper with us and we'd have written down on the paper like one and under it the squiggle for one and two and you know, this kind of thing. And man, what a life challenge. But I would say for someone who really wants to share the love of God, it absolutely positively has to be done in the language that people speak, their heart language. So my wife and I made a tremendous effort. And we learned Arabic and and that's not you know, that's not to be said lightly. We studied for three years to be able to speak the language and and really effectively communicate with people. Joy Owens: that's that's awesome in three years that you were able to learn that combo and it's like so different from as you said, from any other language that usually we encounter. since you were in this setting where it wasn't dangerous, people are open, receptive, you're going to these villages on these boats, you're doing a lot of medical work. then you're moving to the Middle East. How did your view of successful mission work change when you were in this completely different cultural setting? Brad: That's a great question. You know, I think in Brazil and in Latin America in general, we often see people that are pretty receptive to the gospel. And we can share and see what we consider fruit. And oftentimes we measure success or fruit in those who accept Jesus and want to be baptized. And it's easy when you want to count. or report to count baptisms because that's a tangible number you can, you know, work with. when you move to the Middle East and you're looking at sharing Jesus with someone who has an absolute different worldview, and in many countries where it's actually completely illegal for a person to even change their religion, that's not something that happens and people don't consider it. It's kind of like this. crazy as it sounds, like you and I don't wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and say, today I think I'd like to be brown or I'd like to be Joy Owens: Mm. Brad: yellow, you know, and change your skin color. We never even have those thoughts because it's not something that happens or could happen. And I would say a change in religion in many countries in the 1040 window is the same thing. It's not something that can or does happen. So that's never even been thought about. so you're looking at a worldview change, and there are a lot of general Christian studies that have been done with, for example, Muslims that have come to accept Jesus. And a lot of the studies suggest that that can that is a process of oftentimes eight years in the in the making. Joy Owens: Mm. Brad: So when you're working in an area like that, The question you asked is so fundamentally important because it's like, then how do you measure success? What if you're there for only eight years and you don't see this fruit? So I've come in my own personal walk with the Lord and my understanding of missions to say success is faithfulness. The greatest measure of success in missions is faithfulness. And really, That sounds like, well, then you mean you can have no results? Well, actually in the Bible, we understand some are called to plant, some are called to cultivate the soil, some are watering, some are harvesting. So what if somebody's planting? How would you measure the success? Well, what if they're cultivating the sus the soil? All of these are going to have different parameters to measure. So I feel like the Best measurement of success is really saying faithfulness. It's you maintained an active walk with the Lord. You heard his voice and you did what he told you to do while you were there. You might not have the fruit. You might not have the numbers of baptisms. Maybe the Lord had you there to water. Maybe he had you there preparing the soil, but you were faithful. Joy Owens: I like that. I like that. your successfulness is based on like how well you maintain God's calling, not actually what happened, that you can visually see. Brad: That's right. And and that also recognizes that while we as humans can do our part and should do our part, and there's nothing that saying faithfulness then gives you a permission to do nothing. Absolutely not. But it recognizes that ultimately mission belongs to God and it's the Holy Spirit that's going to be working and bringing results. Joy Owens: So on this podcast we like to talk about missions. We also like to talk about travel and you lived on a boat, which it's not something that at Butler Travel we normally book unless you're going on a cruise. and I'm sure Brad: Right. Joy Owens: your boat that you lived on did not look anything like that. Brad: Right, absolutely. Joy Owens: So share what it was like to live on a boat and any stories of like, did you get broken down some place and get stranded or Brad: my. Yeah. Joy Owens: anything like that. Brad: Yeah. Yeah. So travel, let me just say before I answer that question, the Lord has blessed and I think in all of our service, the God has blessed me so much. I've I've been to fifty four countries, which is a lot of really fun cultural exposure. And my wife Joy Owens: Mm-hmm. Brad: and I have lived on a boat. In a jungle hut with a dirt floor and thatched roof. We've slept in hammocks. We have been and done so many different varieties of things from jungle to major urban dwelling. but definitely the boat was one of those more unique situations. We lived on a boat for many years. And I will tell you, once you've lived on a boat and you've had the stresses of boat living, you know, of course, like you said, if you're on a on a cruise, you just go and you have all your food prepared and it's wonderful. When Joy Owens: Hm yeah. Brad: you're on the Amazon and you have swift rivers and you have floating logs and you have all kinds of unexpected things from sandbars to rocks to tropical storms, you know, you have a whole new appreciation for what it means to navigate. And Lay down at night and and pray that as you're sleeping, you won't have anything go wrong, like, you know, a leak in the bottom and a sump pump that doesn't turn on and all these things and all of those, you name it, we have lived it. Yes, I've been in a boat that that flipped and sank. I've got stuck in Joy Owens: boy. Brad: a boat that went underwater. We had a boat in a storm that almost filled and we had a boat with a group that, as I said, we were driving down the river at night and We heard some change in the noise in the motor room and we ran in and the motor room was almost underwater. It had been taken under in water water and the sump pump hadn't turned on. I mean, we've had all kinds of crazy experiences. One time we were boating in the the rainy season because this the river goes up and down and it changes by about 60 feet in Joy Owens: wow. Brad: during the rainy and the dry season. And we went right over the land and you wouldn't have known it was land. It looked like it was this big, you know, river, but it was this field. And our boat got stuck. And we tried and tried for hours to get our boat off of that that land. We couldn't get it. And the the locals were helping us and they said, if we don't get it off today, you're gonna be stuck because the river's drying up and it can dry up quickly by day. And then if it's stuck out of water, you're done. We had several boats come all you know, hook up their all these ropes and all at the same time pull and we finally got our boat back on the river. I mean, we've had all kinds of crazy, crazy situations. Joy Owens: So, my husband and I bought a sailboat, a very cheap one, and every single time that we went out, something happened, like the motor fell off. Actually the motor died Brad: Boom. Joy Owens: several times. Anyways, it was such a stressful situation with our two kids and we were just going out for like a couple of hours. I can't imagine living on a boat and with your kids and all that. Brad: Right. Yes. No, no, no. That's right. I met somebody like a couple weeks ago that said, I just bought a boat and I said, I'm sorry. That's all I all I can say is I'm sorry. Joy Owens: So you're you're now the president of Amctus Frontier Missions. What does your mission work look like now? Brad: Yeah, yeah. So Adventist Frontier Missions is an organization that specifically has a real special calling, and that is establishing indigenous Seventh day Adventist church planting movements among unreached people groups. So we're very specific. While I will tell you that I believe everything, there's so many ways you can do mission, whether that's education or healthcare or you name it. AFM, Adventist Frontier Missions, is very specific about going to unreach people groups. So this is countries and cities where there's no Adventist presence or the number is so small that it is not able to share Jesus with the demands of the region. And so we are bringing in missionaries because there's not locals and they need to then do cultural and language acquisition so they can ask the questions of how do you present Jesus to this group? And what would a worshiping group look like in this cultural reality? And so as president, I'm you know overseeing administration and trying to set the tone, working with a great group of directors as we ask those hard questions and continue to strategize ways to get into new unentered areas. Joy Owens: So as part of your job responsibility are you going and visiting the different missionaries? Brad: Yeah, absolutely. I'm doing quite a bit of travel now visiting missionaries in the countries and going to countries where we don't have people yet, but we'd like to open up. Joy Owens: Awesome. So I'm assuming you since you're traveling a lot, you might have had some issues with flights and different c misconnections. what has been your worst travel experience so far? Brad: That's good question. You know, travel sometimes can go so seamlessly and everything just seems like it works right out. and sometimes not. I actually was on a trip in a pretty isolated area. I started having some abdominal pain and I just thought, I must have eaten something. And I'm just like, at any time, I'm sure it's gonna come out both ends, but it didn't. It just I just kept feeling sicker and sicker, but I wasn't actually doing anything. And I ended Joy Owens: Ha ha ha. Brad: up going to the hospital and got diagnosed with appendicitis. And I'm like, no, Joy Owens: wow. Brad: I'm an adult. I'm way too old for this. Like this is like usually not in my age bracket. And they said, Yeah, you need to have surgery right away. Well, my flight was the next day out of the country. So I had to cancel my flight. I had surgery. The doctor said, I don't want you to fly for a week. I'd like you to stay here. So I ended up trying to get that flight rebooked. Okay. A week later, I now go to the airport and the doctor said you can fly, but you can't pick up your luggage. So I got to the airport. I said, you know, Could you pick up my luggage for me and put it on? They checked me in. and I'm kind of distended and not feeling so well. We wait and we wait. And then they're like, okay, the plane's been canceled. So sorry. Well, this was my first connection to like four more flights. So then they put us back in a room. And by this time I've missed my second flight. And then they're like, we're just going to have to cancel the whole flight. So everybody go back to check-in and get, you know, rebooked. Well, for the person who's going to just do one leg, it's just one leg. But then you have to go get your luggage, which I'm not supposed to lift. And then I had to go with sit in line for two hours. And then they finally got to me and they're like, you've got all kinds of flights. Well, we can't help you with that. And I'm like, no, you can help me with that. You don't have Joy Owens: Ha ha Brad: a you don't have a choice to not help me with that. Well, you know, we only do this one flight. You know, you need to call. And so it was literally hours to get them to rebook me on the next flight, which then was gonna be like six hours later. So now I was like, I don't know, 12, 13 hours in the same airport before I got my first flight. Which then got me to the next airport and I had to spend another day. Everything was out of whack at that point. And here I am, not able to lift my luggage and supposed to be resting. It was a really stressful situation. But I finally made it home. Joy Owens: man, I I feel like just having surgery and I mean, depending on the country that you're in, that could just be really scary as well. Brad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is. Well, one one other story that, you know, about a month ago I was in the country of Turkey visiting and I was four hours before my international flight, literally just called my Uber to head to the airport because it's giving enough time that I get there three hours before in Istanbul and I get attacked by a street cat. Like no out of nowhere, this street cat jumps me and like calls me up and draws blood. And then they're like, well, in the in this city, rabies is endemic. You need to go to the hospital and get a rabies vaccine. And I'm like, I don't have time for that. I've got to get my flight. So at that point, you've got to decide. Do you go to the airport or you go to the hospital? And I was like, man. I said a prayer and I'm like, Lord, give me wisdom. And I'm like, well, I mean, I guess out of the two, it's best to risk missing a flight than dying of rabies. So I cancel my Uber, call another, rush to the airport, I mean to the hospital, and you know, using Google Translator, tell the doctor, I've got a flight in three hours. Is there any way you can get me my rabies vaccine, get me treated and in and out as soon as possible? And the hospital worked with me. I made it to the airport in about an hour and 50 minutes before my flight was supposed to take off. And I just ran like crazy and I got checked in, I got my bag, I got the immigration, I got through customs, I made it to my gate. It is big, it is big. Yep. Yeah, one one more story. So Joy Owens: Yeah, and that airport is very big too. So that's awesome. Okay. Brad: I was with my wife and kids. We were all in the city of Beirut a couple years ago when bombs started falling in Beirut. And I said, I got to get my kids out of here before something happens and this airport closes. So we tried to call and get our tickets changed. And you know, as soon as people try to get out and in the city of Beirut is a small airport. It's the only airport for the country. And once you try, everybody's wanting to get out at the same time. Tickets go from like what could be a $200 ticket to like a $5,000 ticket. And we were trying our best to get our kids. We got to the airport. There was lines like I'd never seen before. There were luggage everywhere, but the airlines was helping everybody. We were able to get our tickets changed, get our kids on a flight, get out, you know, but it was a crazy situation I'd never seen in an airport. Joy Owens: Yeah, I can imagine because I I remember that there was definitely worry that the airport was gonna close and people were gonna be stuck there for a while. Well Brad: Yeah. Joy Owens: thank you so much for talking with me and sharing your experience. I just have a couple of rapid fire questions. so the first one is when you fly window or ILC? Brad: I'll see. Joy Owens: What is one item you never travel without not counting your passport? Brad: Mm. my neck pillow? Joy Owens: Nice. Do you take snacks or airplane food? Brad: I'm a big airplane food guy. Joy Owens: Okay. And lastly, what is one thing you would like to share with someone thinking about taking a mission trip or moving to the mission field? Brad: yeah, I would say absolutely do it. There is nothing more exciting, but remember when you go to someone else's culture that you're there to learn, first of all, and just really go as a learner really soak in and appreciate the amazing things that other cultures can teach you. then you find how can you also be able to share Jesus and that and that's just living a life that loves the Lord. But do it. What an amazing opportunity. Joy Owens: Where can our listeners find you? Brad: yeah, probably on a plane. If you get on a plane, Joy Owens: Ha ha Brad: you'll find me. otherwise I'm kind of hard to find, to be truthful, Joy. I have Instagram and Facebook and they're both private accounts. I don't usually accept people that I don't know Joy Owens: Mm. Brad: just because I've lived in so many countries that I'm afraid if somebody is trying to figure out things about me that they shouldn't. only accept followers of people I know, so Joy Owens: That th that's true. If you're if you are in a missionary in certain countries you don't want to be found. But we can send people Brad: Right, exactly. Joy Owens: to Avent AFM's website. Brad: Yep. If they go to yes, AFMonline.org, they will see our website. And I'm pretty sure my work email is there as well. And people could send me an email. Absolutely. Be more than happy to respond. Joy Owens: Awesome. Thank you again for sharing with us. Brad: Yes, thank you. God bless you.