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What A Blessing To Invest In The Next Generation · Bible Tract Echoes Podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey friend, welcome back to Bible Tract Echoes.
• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Mike McCurray, your host.
• 0:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for taking your time and joining me right here today.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm blessed in the position that God has placed me as the director of BTI.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of the greatest things about being a part of this ministry is the people that I get to work with and the people I get to meet.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: People like you.
• 0:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So many of you have told me already that you're planning on coming to our open house here in Odell, Illinois.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to tell you more about that.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's coming up on Saturday, October fourth, but before I do that, I'm going to tell you a little bit about some young men I got to spend some time with over this summer.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: In late June, we had some interns that had the opportunity to join us on a mission strip that stretched across thousands of miles.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: This was the kickoff to eight weeks of these interns being with us.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this particular trip, the first week and half, resulted in many great memories.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: We traveled from the Midwest to Arizona and New Mexico, worked alongside several faithful ministries reaching the Navajo Nation with the gospel.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And these men and women, they're in the Navajo Nation.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: They serve in some of the most remote and rugged places in America.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they do it with grace, with grit, and a genuine love for their people.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our interns jumped in with both feet.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is Isaac.
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was, I think the oldest.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: He had just graduated from Bible College and good young man.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Then there was Gilbert and Weston.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're the same age, Weston.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: You may have heard me say his name before.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: He works on staff here at BTI, but he's about twenty years older, so he's in by my college who works remotely from he goes to class in the morning.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: He works in the afternoon.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Many of you will, if you call into BTI, West and maybe the guy you talk to.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you call in the afternoon or if he returns a call, good young man, I'm a good family.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Gilbert, he's from a church done in Texas and he's actually in his sanctular third year of Bible College now.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And good guy, he has a great eye with a camera.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: He enjoys taking pictures and many of the pictures we have from the intern project and also from the Panama trip.
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll talk about that more in just a moment.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: They are from Gilbert.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Then there's Andre and Noah.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Andre and Noah, along with Isaac, they're all from Ohio.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Those three guys, but Andre and Noah, they're still in high school.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: But they are both very mature young men.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: They did a great job.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: My goal with this internship was to have some young men.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: that we're between about sixteen and twenty two and that's exactly what we got.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: We got some good guys.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't supposed to be a reform school type thing like, no, we can't help this kid let's send him to BTI for a week.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's not what it was.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: These guys were phenomenal.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were sharp and we got to go to this Navajo Nation to Navajo Nation.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: On this trip and they jumped in with both feet all of them.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: They assisted with them track distribution, helped with clean up after a week of summer camp, supported two filming projects that will be released soon.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: The guys did a phenomenal job.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Their spirit, flexibility, and willingness to serve made the long hours and desert heat a joy to endure.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Watching them work reminded me why multiplicity is one of our core values and investing in these young men is a blessing and seeing them begin investing in others is even more powerful.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can read more about the interns and their summer experience with BTI.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: In our newsletter on our website, go to bibletracksink.org and you'll see I think a tab for media or updates or something like that about our quarterly newsletter.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you'd like to know more about what these guys did, you can go there and read that.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I'd like to encourage you to invest in young people around you.
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's never too early to start looking for a Timothy.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I realize I am no Paul by any stretch of the imagination, but what a joy it is to have spent some time with these guys and some questions just talk to them and they're such good guys.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, we spent, we spent that first week and a half.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: We were in the motorhome and that's seven guys.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was me, Cameron, and then those five guys, Western, Isaac Gilbert, Andre, Noah.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was close quarters.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the brothers, Isaac and Noah, their brothers, they shared the bed in the back.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were lucky ducks.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Got the nice bed.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I and the camera, and we shared the bunks that my girls normally sleep on.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thankfully, they're just big enough for a guy of my stature, and then we brought cuts with us.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: So let's see Gilbert slept on the couch in the motorhome and then the two other guys had his mammoth right.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the two other guys stayed on cuts when we put the slide out and when we stopped and it was it was an experience to say the least it was a lot of people and only one shower of course, but on the guys did a phenomenal job.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not even afraid for them to hear me say it.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: They did a very good job.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm thankful for them and I encourage to see and thankful to see, excited to see what God continues to do through those young men and their work for him.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not long after the internet project ended or right as the internet project ended, we ended with the Midwest Christian Boys football camp and maybe we'll talk about that more another time.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right after that, it's very busy week of the year that runs basically Sunday through Friday, essentially, then a whole lot of clean up and all that, but then the Tuesday after that in the mid-August myself, let's see Gilbert, a Western, and then three other people, Cameron.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: His wife and child named Caden, Megan and Caden, they what we all took off six of us took off four Panama.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we got to work with some good missionaries down there.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Isaiah and Shereth Hansen, good folks and they took such wonderful care of us.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: We would down there from
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: We took off, let's see, six o'clock, six thirty in the morning, I think.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry, eight o'clock in the morning.
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry, from O'Hare and on Tuesday, and then we got back late late at night, Tuesday the next week.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was quite the experience.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: We greatly enjoyed what God let us do.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: We got to shoot an update video for the hand-sense and Adobe coming back on furlough here in the near future.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think March, they're about to next year.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then we also got to shoot a Spanish language gospel film.
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is the first foreign language gospel film that we've had the chance to do.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was such a fun thing, such an encouraging thing to have the opportunity to spend some time.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: with Isaiah and Cherith, but also to spend some time with the young men that were on camera.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we had native, penimanian guys that were on camera for this.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so they did a great job acting.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of a narrative, a little bit more than a instead of testimony documentary, tech thing.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: This was a little bit more of a narrative
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: some cinematic elements and things like that telling a story of a young man that was without Christ and for whom Catholicism was the backbone of his life and he thought that that that that that really deosity would take him to heaven and he thought if he just did the sacraments and that's what it was all about.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: But he realized that was not going to save him.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he came to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and a gospel tract actually played a part, a role in that.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: A gospel tract titled The New Birth.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: What a blessing it is to be able to feature.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: That gospel tract, the very first gospel tract, to my knowledge that ever came off the presses for BTI, the ministry that would become BTI, Paul Levine wrote that gospel tract, the new birth in English, of course.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: All the way back in nineteen thirty seven nineteen thirty eight and people asked could you print that could we have it as a gospel track and so he did and what a blessing it is to now make a gospel film featuring that gospel track it's an awesome thing
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to encourage you as we conclude today's broadcast.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have one more day of radio for this week tomorrow.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Got a special thing that I want to highlight for you.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to tell you about it now, but you're going to need to tune in.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me encourage you to come to our open house Saturday October fourth.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you need more information, you can visit bibletracksink.org.
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm excited for the fact that we have a couple of the goodly heritage guys that are coming in and we'll be singing with us on that day.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: When we sing in, let me think, I'm looking at the schedule.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we sing and then one, two, three, four different times.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're probably going to sing a couple of each one.
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're probably going to sing eight.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: or maybe more songs or so.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's going to be a good time.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mark Smith, my predecessor, many of you remember Mark Smith.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you have a guy, if it's by some chance you're not able to make it to the open house, shame on you.
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, no, I understand.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you can make it to Odele, Illinois, I'll give you the address in just a moment here.
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you can make it
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Make sure you RSVP.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if you can't make it, if you want to send a note, if you remember Mark Smith, and you remember him fondly as everyone does, because Mark Smith's awesome.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Shoot me a text.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love to share some kind of notes with him.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Text me at three, zero nine, three, one, six, seven, two, four, zero.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's three, zero nine.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Three, one, six, seven, two, four, zero, but if you are planning on coming, I need you to RSVP.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, going in, you text me as well.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll give that number one more time.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Then I'll give the address so that you can know where you are going.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can plug it in your GPS, maybe just save it in your contacts or something like that.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Text me if you're coming.
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you need the link to be able to RSVP.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have a lot of food and things.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're planning on having extra but just in case.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're Lord of willing.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to have hundreds of people here and I want you to be one of them.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to take time to meet all of you.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our staff's going to be here.
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a wonderful, wonderful thing, Pastor Joey Watt, Sherry Rodman.
• 10:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was a longtime secretary for Paul Levine towards End of his life and to a large degree.
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was a big part of the reason the Ministry of BTI, don't you think about this?
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Without this dear lady, the Ministry of BTI might not exist today.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: She helped keep the wheels turning after Paul of Impast away.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: For about the five years after Paul of Impast, Sherry Rodman was a huge part of this ministry continuing to function.
• 11:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this dear lady, I want to celebrate her and I want you to come and help celebrate her.
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate her so much.
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Text me if you need the link.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Three one six seven two four zero and let me give you the address for our building.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll give it to twice it's six zero three West Prairie Street
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's Odell, O-D-E-L-L.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Illinois, six-O-four, six-O.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Give that one more time.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Six-zero, three, West Prairie Street.
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's Odell, Illinois, six-O-four, six-zero.
• 11:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we're right across the street from a BP gas station.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can't miss us.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a big sign.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Out of front says Bible, Tracks, Incorporated.
• 11:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just make sure your RSVP though.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let us know you're coming.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: As I look at our latest newsletter, we had some folks give mortals, they gave a gift in memory of someone else.
• 12:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there is this dear folks, a Joanne Huit.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: She, her husband was saved through Paul Lavigne's ministries.
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what a joy it is to know that so many were saved as a result of the man that was the founder, the foundation of our ministry.
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: But as we look back, and we revel in the fact that we get to celebrate this man, we look forward to the future.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me encourage you to come out for our open house.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you can't make it shoot me or no, let me know why.
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's your, what's your excuse?
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, in all seriousness, let me know.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you can't make it, I'd still over here for you.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Text me, three, zero, nine, three, one, six, seven, two, four, zero.
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: As we sign off the day, my prayer is always as oblivious.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: That you have a great day for His glory.
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll plan on talking to you very soon.
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: God bless me.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for tuning in to Bible Tract Echoes, the radio ministry of Bible Tracts Incorporated.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Want to see our gospel tracks and other resources?
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Visit us online at BibleTracksInk.org.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's BibleTracksInk.org or follow us on social media to learn how you can partner with this ministry.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks again for listening.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: May the Lord richly bless you as you live for him.