Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / November 22, 2020 | Thanksgiving Service Of Praise - Blessings During A Pandemic

Transcript

November 22, 2020 | Thanksgiving Service Of Praise - Blessings During A Pandemic · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: So happy for those of you who are here.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: So happy for those of you who are watching online.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good to have you.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: This is our annual Thanksgiving service of praise, which we have.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is a tradition.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of traditions have crumbled around us this year.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is one we're defiantly keeping our Thanksgiving service of praise.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: And over my 40 plus years, many of my very favorite Sundays here at Topeka Bible Church have been Thanksgiving services of praise.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Many of them in the early uh decades consisted of carrying around microphones.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Any of you remember that?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And having people stand up and share, and then we got too large for that.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Most of them have included the smells of turkey wafting up from downstairs, as Doug Stanley and Melody and others have fixed meals, but obviously can't do that this year.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: But um this Thanksgiving service of praise, I predict, will rank right up there with some of the very best.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: So stay tuned to that channel if you're watching online.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Channel?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: So um the Thanksgiving of praise is always the Sunday just before Thanksgiving, and we devote it to extra music and to special uh reasons for praise and Thanksgiving.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: In some years it's been harder than others, as Teresa said.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: I remember back in 1988, we held the Thanksgiving service of praise the very Sunday after a tornado had raged through town and hit my house, uh, among many others.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Or in 1901, we celebrated a Thanksgiving service of praise.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Remember just two months after a 9-11 terrorist attack upon uh New York City and other places that killed thousands and has changed our life in significant ways ever since.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that 2020 may rank as the single hardest year ever to feel gratitude, and Thanksgiving is just the feeling of gratitude expressed out loud, and and to go ahead and praise, express it in Thanksgiving.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: So if I were to ask you, can you think of any reasons to feel ungrateful and unhappy this Thanksgiving, don't I see those hands?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: But um I mean, just to if you happen to be one of those really positive people, can I puncture that for just a moment?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's a worldwide pandemic, in case you didn't know, that has claimed nearly a million and a half lives across the world and over 260,000 lives right here in America.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: It has ruined businesses that have taken lifetimes to build up.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: It has shut down in-school education, it has pulled the plug on weddings and on funerals, and at the same time, there has been in some of our major cities rioting and looting and actual killing.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's been fire in the night.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then for the first time in my lifetime, there has been the unthinkable.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: We have had a concerted effort to tell us to turn against our own country, national heroes being pulled down from pedestals.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: We're told we should think of our country not as a land of the free and a home of the brave, but as a land of sin and oppression.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And midst all of this, a national election, no one has ever come apart, come away from an election feeling completely happy.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: At least some of their candidates have lost, right?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm confident that just listing all of the things we can feel unhappy and ungrateful about has made you a little unhappier than you were just a moment ago.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's my job.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: But we're not gonna let no pandemic or anything else stop us from our traditional Thanksgiving service of praise.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, I promise you, or at least I predict, that when you close down your computer in half an hour or walk out of here, you're gonna be filled with gratitude.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Our mind-bending title is Blessings during a pandemic.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: And you ask me, how do you do Thanksgiving during a worldwide pandemic?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And if I'm trying to be funny, I just say, Well, you do what you always do.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: You buy a turkey and you cook it, and you make dressing and mashed potatoes and loads and loads and loads, please, of gravy.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't care about my arteries and pumpkin pie and whipped cream, and you invite your family over, and you eat yourself happy, and then you eat yourself past happy into complete agony, and then you go watch the cowboys lose, and that's how you do Thanksgiving.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, you say, I don't mean that.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean how do you do Thanksgiving when it's not when it's not as easy to be happy as it is to be unhappy during this pandemic with the stress and the uncertainty of it all, and the disagreements and the angry feelings and the split families and so forth.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the simple answer I am gonna offer you this morning is you look at the example of others, the example of others before us and those today who celebrated Thanksgiving in the midst of terrible times, in the midst of disease and death.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And when as a pastor, now I am tempted to be ungrateful because everything is overturned and we have to cancel this and cancel that.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: We can't all gather the way we used to.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking back to the 17th century.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking back to a 31-year-old pastor whose name was Martin, who'd come to his town there in Germany to take over a church that he'd been refused from pastoring just a few years before when he had applied.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: But now he takes over, Martin Rinkart does, he takes over his little church, but in the same year he takes over his church, and that same year war breaks out, the Swedes invade, and for the next 30 years, called the 30 Years' War.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, it's often thought that it was Catholics versus Protestants and so forth, but but it became far more than that.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Just like just like what we have in our country.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's not as simple anytime you try to nail it down.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: It just grew into something just awful.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: And as a result, there were loads of refugees, you know, coming across the border.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And Martin and his young wife had refugees in their house, and then the worst happened: disaster, famine, and plague.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: A pandemic swept the country, disaster.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: 20% of Germany died.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Six million people died.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: A cow died in the streets, and 30 or 40 starving people would run out in his town and start fighting over it.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: And Martin would go out and try to separate friends as they were fighting over dead animals or fighting over any little scrap of food.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other four pastors in town died, and so he was in charge of burying everybody, sometimes 40 or 50 people a day, totally ruining his church schedule.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Worse than mine is ruined, you know, and then his own wife dies that very first year, along with so many other people.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes home and he writes a song.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: In the midst of this darkness and depression, he writes it for his children, and he writes it for his church.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Nundunkit vir.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now thank we all us got now, thank we, all our God, with hearts and hands and voices, who wondrous things have done, in whom this world rejoices, who from his mother's arms hath led us on our way with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I say, if that man with that broken heart can defiantly praise and thank God in the midst of something worse than what we're going through today.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: That kind of plague, that kind of famine, that kind of war, those refugees, that sickness, the death of his own wife, if he can do that, if he can write that song for his children and his church.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I say we can do the same thing, and then I think back to just 15 years before.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: For it was just 15 years before that 103 freedom-loving people who called themselves later pilgrims escaped from the old world but left every left family, left friends, everything they knew, and boarded a ship, the Mayflower.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know the story, and they came, took them two months over storm-tossed Atlantic Ocean with people getting sick and people dying.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: And they come and they land on the East Coast in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of that first cold, freezing winter, sick people dying, they'd lost half.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: They only had 50 people left.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yet they still determined at the end of that first harvest, as they read their Bibles, they would celebrate Thanksgiving anyway.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they opened their Bibles.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: They said, How do we celebrate Thanksgiving at such a time?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And they're, oh, they opened their Bibles.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: They said, The truth is, and and and and their pastor said, I left my Bible on my pew.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's what he said.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's what he said.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: He honestly did.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and he said, Well, you know what?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're come to a new world like this.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Let's look at what Israel did when it came to a new world, when it came into Canaan.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he found this passage in Deuteronomy chapter 16, where God said, You are to celebrate a festival of shelters.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, That's us.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: We only have these temporary households.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: We're just staying in shelters.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, When you've gathered things from your threshing floor and wine press, they said, That's what we're doing.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: This is a this is our first harvest.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, said, rejoice during your festival.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, Wow, only 52 or 3 of us here.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to rejoice.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Rejoice during your festival, you, your son and daughter, male and female, slave, Levite, alien, fatherless, widow.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: We've got widows, they said.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says, You're to hold a festival.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because God's going to bless you and all your produce and the work of your hands, and you will have abundant joy.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, That's the second time he's mentioned joy.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then he said, Not only that, no one has appeared to appear before the Lord empty-handed.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone must appear with a gift suited to his means according to the blessing the Lord your God has given you.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so they got a gift.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: They came with a bit of produce and they offered it to the Lord.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Joy and a gift.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I can too.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we have an example of that this morning.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we want to show you their story on video.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: This morning when I woke up, the Lord impressed on me.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: I should call Sam at O Dark Dirty and say, Sam, I want you to add to this video, this other video, okay, of the kids singing.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're going to watch that right now.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be 10, 12, 14 minutes.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is an example of what God's calling you and me to do in the midst of difficult times, in the midst of hard times, you can still, with a broken heart, you can still praise God.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Without a doubt, the year 2020 will have more than its share of stories.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Stories about cancellations and disappointments, and stories about overcoming challenges.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: But for Debbie Nigus and her family, 2020 brought about a different kind of story about a bittersweet blessing in the midst of a global pandemic.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Darren and Debbie Nigus moved their young, growing family to Topeka in 1999 when Darren, an anesthesiologist, took a position at St.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Francis Hospital.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: The family of seven attended TBC, the church in which Debbie had grown up.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_07: Well, Darren was always very active.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_07: He grew up playing lots of sports, especially football.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_07: He was at the gym a lot.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_07: He continued staying in shape after he graduated from high school and college and enjoyed getting the kids into sports too, baseball and football.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_07: The change was pretty gradual.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_07: So at first it was just every once in a while he would say something kind of strange and the kids would laugh about it, and we would have these jokes about what dad said, and they would repeat it.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_07: But it started to get to be a little more frequent.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_07: And I noticed at one point that Leah, when she was seven or eight years old, she would know that there were certain things you didn't ask Dad, you would ask mom because dad would give you a strange answer.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_07: So I at some point started to kind of make a mental list of things that I thought were unusual because I couldn't figure out if it was me or if he'd always been that way or what was going on.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_07: But then he started to say things that really didn't make sense, and he would say the opposite of what he meant what he meant.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_07: He would use the wrong pronoun or say something happened when he meant to say it didn't happen.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_07: So there was a point when I realized that there really was something wrong, and I wasn't just imagining it.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: These changes became more noticeable over the next couple of years, to the point where co-workers became concerned.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Debbie wondered if Darren was having difficulty hearing, which sometimes affects speech.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: However, the ENT specialists they saw found no evidence of hearing loss and suggested that the problem might be a cognitive one.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_07: So Darren started went to a neurologist in May of 2013 and had some tests done and went back a couple times, and then in the middle of June we went back for some test results, and the doctor said that he had primary progressive aphasia, which is a form of frontemporal degeneration, and it's a neurodegenerative disease that causes dementia, and his particular variant started in the language portion of his brain, so it was going to take his language first.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_07: Um there are currently no treatments, there's no cure, it's just something that you um have to wait through until the end.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_07: So that's kind of the day that our world changed.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_07: After we left the doctor's office, we decided to drive over to Doug Will's office.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_07: Um Darren and Doug were really good friends.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_07: Um so we we got to the church, and um, before we got out of the car, I just started crying.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_07: Um, and Darren reached over and gave me a hug, and then he got out of the car.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_07: He wasn't emotional at all.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_07: He wasn't crying.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_07: Um wait for me to get out of the car, he just went on into the church.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_07: And I realized at that point that there was a lot of him that was already gone, that he wasn't really engaging emotionally the way that I was.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_07: And I didn't really know if he understood completely what the diagnosis meant, but it was obvious that he wasn't feeling it the same way that I was.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: As traumatic as the diagnosis was, the family managed to settle into life the way it used to be.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_07: Uh, Darren had to quit his job immediately since he was a doctor.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_07: So he was at home all the time, and um he would do um a lot of the housework, he'd do all the dishes, uh, he would drive the kids anywhere they needed to go.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_07: And so that part of it was kind of nice.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_07: Um, and he was obviously at home all the time, and Micah even said at one point that he this wasn't so bad because dad was always around and he kind of enjoyed that, and um and Darren was um available always to interact with the kids.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: About a year after his diagnosis, Darren lost his driver's license.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Within another year, he'd lost most of his speech, and his judgment began to decline.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he would wander away from the house on foot or on his bike.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Darren started attending adult daycare, but in 2019, his need to become such that Debbie placed him in a nursing home.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: By February of 2020, hospice started providing additional care, and Debbie knew the end was coming soon.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_07: I had been praying from the very beginning that um I would be able to be with Darren when he died.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_07: That was something that was really important to me.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_07: Um so when hospice became involved, I told um the doctor that I would really like to have him home with me for about a month before he passed away, knowing that that was kind of impossible to really figure out, but that was um kind of what I had in mind.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Soon the nursing home began to issue COVID restrictions.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_07: At the beginning of April, I decided to bring Darren home.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_07: And also about that time Micah lost his job because of COVID, so he was home.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_07: And uh Leah was in high school, so um, she was home doing school at home at that point.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_07: So the three of us were there all the time with Darren, and also during the summer, Jesse moved home.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_07: He was still working, but he was living at home at that point.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_07: So we had a lot of time together.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_07: I didn't feel the pull of a lot of other duties and activities, um, and I didn't feel like I was locked at home because of Darren.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_07: We were just all there together, and it was just really, in some ways, relaxing and uh a huge blessing to have that time with him.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Darren's condition continued to decline through the summer.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: One day in late August, Darren's doctor visited and told Debbie that Darren would pass soon.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: That night, Debbie got Darren ready for bed, his hospital bed right beside her own.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_07: I had rolled him over, trying to get him comfortable before I went to bed, and he started coughing.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_07: And I worked for quite a while, um, doing all the little tricks that I knew to try to get him calmed down.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_07: It took me quite a while to do that.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_07: In fact, he he never really seemed like he completely calmed down, but he got his breathing became very mechanical.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_07: Um, and I was trying to decide what to do, if I should sit up with him or um, you know, call somebody, a nurse to come, you know, stay with me.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_07: And I finally decided that I would just set my phone alarm for every hour.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_07: And um, so I pushed his bed right up next to my bed and just lay there with him.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_07: And every hour my phone would wake me up and I would check on him, and he was kind of the same through the night.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_07: And at some point in the middle of the night, Micah came down and sat with us in our room.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_07: And at six in the morning, my phone woke me up again, and I checked on Darren, and he was still kind of the same.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_07: He had his eyes open, he was still kind of doing that mechanical breathing.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_07: And I um I was trying to decide if I should set my alarm for another hour or if I should go ahead and get up.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_07: And I was um just laying there with him, and then all of a sudden his breathing changed, and I told Micah to quickly go get Jesse, who was out in the kitchen getting ready for work, and Jesse came in.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_07: So the three of us were sitting there with Darren, and it wasn't more than probably three, four minutes, um, and he passed away.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_07: So we were um we were there with him.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_07: I could have very easily slept through that time, but I um I was awake and holding him, and the kids, a couple of our kids were there with us too.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_07: Um, so that was an answer to prayer.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Nearly a week after Darren's passing on August 27th, family and friends celebrated his life with a memorial service at TBC.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Amanda, Jesse, and Micah spoke of their dad's memorial, each spending time sharing their and their dad's faith and their trust in God.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: They even showed a music video of all the siblings singing, Whatever My God Ordains is right.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_07: When I think back over the summer, I have really warm memories of that time with Darren.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_07: And I am so thankful that we had five months together instead of just one month.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_07: I was able to get into the routine of taking care of him.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_07: And that was a very satisfying way for me to be able to show my love for him because we really couldn't have much of a relationship other than that.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_07: Um, and if it hadn't been for COVID, we would not have had all that time together.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_07: You know, if I had only had a month, I would have, it would have been kind of a whirlwind of getting him home and situated and figuring out how to take care of him, and then he would have been gone and there wouldn't have been all that time to really sit and relax and enjoy him.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_07: So I'm really thankful for the way it turned out.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_07: Even though I was very frustrated when all of the COVID things started, it turned out to bring a really good blessing in our lives.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_05: Whatever is right only his will ab I will be still whatever he does and follow where he got it.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: He is my God who dark my role He holds me that I shall not fall Wherefore to him I did all Whatever my God is right Whatever my God James He never will taste me by I can stop And patiently I wait Whatever my God is Whate my God ordains is right though now this cup in Trink May better seem to my fate touch I take it all the dream I got it to be a shot Whatever my God is when you and I miss Thanksgiving celebrate our heart of gratitude and speak out our Thanksgiving and praise to God.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: We are continuing a long line of fervent saints.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're standing in the place of Martin Rinkart.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: When he wrote, Now thank we all our God in the midst of horrible disease, a pandemic, a war, the death of his life.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: We're following this year in the line of the pilgrims who, amidst the loss of half of their people, yet defiantly celebrated at Thanksgiving, and opened the Bible and saw that they were to celebrate with joy and bring a gift.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: We are joining the Nigas family, the kids and Debbie, as they celebrate blessings during a pandemic.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you're doing this year when you celebrate Thanksgiving.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: You speak out your thanks and praise to God.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the other half, remember, that the pilgrims noticed was not just the joy, thanks, praise, the heart of gratitude that leads to voiced Thanksgiving, but it's uh in every hand a gift.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: In every heart gratitude, but in every hand a gift.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the Sunday, Thanksgiving service of praise, in which we annually unveil our Christmas project.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And in recent years, we've split it up among a number of things.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: Some of our favorite things are Trash Mountain Project and Haiti Lifeline.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: And for some years we've had a heart for victims of human trafficking.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't remember, I know Janet would, how long ago it was that Terry Thompson went over to Cambodia to work with victims of human trafficking over there.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: But then here at home, our rescue mission got deeply involved in that.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And we have been a significant uh partner with the rescue mission here in town.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and most human trafficking here in the States, first of all, starts by trying to get people to realize this is not just something that happens in Thailand.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: These are the pictures we've seen on television.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just overseas, it's here at home where a hundred and thousand thousand young people are trafficked every year.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so we need to rescue them.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's usually been the point.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: We need to get them out of that as quickly as possible.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so we focused on rescuing, but then we've realized just lately we need to take it farther than that, because if you pull them off the streets, if you get them away from their pimps and so forth, that just doesn't do it.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's like it's like giving a homeless person a handout.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: What they really need is something more comprehensive.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we've got this year, because God has laid this passion on the hearts of a few people in town, and especially one of our own people, Angie Bowles, to uh, Angie, come on up here.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so our project, and I hope that um did you guys does everybody wave your card?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Did everybody get a card at the door?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um Angie, would you take that stool right there?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for coming.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: So this is where we're we're ratcheting everything up a level, is what I was about to say to them, because we really want to do that sort of be the really hard thing, which is take the people we've rescued and then help them restore for them their entire lives.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: But of course, that's really a big job.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: But let me just start.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so happy uh that you're involved in this because I don't know if you know Brent and Angie Bowles, but you've probably seen their names around.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: They are involved in so much in town.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I found out that uh that Angie had a passion for this, I think of you guys as juggling so many balls already.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so would you mind sharing how in the world did the Lord zap you with this passion for restoring people like this?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_06: Well, let's see.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_06: Um two and a half years ago, I God laid it on my heart or just through probably something here that happened here at our church to do something more for victims who were sexually exploited and vulnerable, and led me to a project called the open which is now called the open door project, and I started uh working um volunteering, mostly praying or um doing care packages or and you know, just running errands and that kind of thing for victims um that were being that had been rescued.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_06: So we our open door project was part of crisis intervention, which is just one of the kind of steps along the road to what we will what we're looking for is uh restoration.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_06: So I j I really just felt like um over and over God just kept giving me this vision that there was more that needed to be done and I just couldn't break it.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_06: And or as much as I tried, God would just keep putting pieces together that would ultimately uh be his vision for a restoration home for victims of um sexual horror of sex trafficking.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well this is so I never thought that Topeka would be, you know, a significant problem town.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then of course police told me different, and then I was on sickling clay once in a little store and and and a woman actually came up to me and asked me for my help, who was who had who was getting trafficked.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I suddenly thought, yeah, this is a this is a problem.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is what what some of the you know Barry Fieker and some others had been telling me.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: This is a real issue in our town.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: So last year we made Open Door one of our four uh recipients of our Christmas project.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I happen to know that you've got a really a bigger vision that goes beyond Open Door.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: And Open Door is so happy for this, and Rescue Mission is so happy for this vision that you and some others have.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Would you can you paint a picture of uh project to restore for us and what this restoration house is is all about?
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, first of all, I guess I'd like to say that really I think God calls us um when you look out at what's happening in our culture as far as sexual trafficking, it's a it's a m it's all across the United States.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_06: It's not just here in Topeko or you know anywhere, but it's it's something that uh I kind of look toward look at it towards as I prayed, you know, Nehemiah.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_06: There was the ruins of the city, and uh God led Nehemiah to um rebuild those ruins.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_06: And I think that as a church um God is just calling us to do more.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_06: And uh that's part of the the that's that's part of the vision.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_06: What I saw, the system doesn't really work um all the time.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_06: I wouldn't say it doesn't work all the way, um but it's it just there just needs to be more than that.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_06: And I think that um the crisis intervention is a great piece, but they really need more than that.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_06: Or when you have um a drug addiction, you have trauma, you have a lifetime, maybe their lives don't look like many of ours.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_06: And how do how do you get them to a place where they can receive the gospel and or love Jesus and know that Jesus is there for them when they really just don't know where what to do next.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_06: They don't it's not just their basic needs, it's their mental needs, theirs are so much more.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_06: And that's really what a restoration home would be.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_06: It would be a place where they could go and live, they would be safe and um they would be taken care of for 24-7 or so that they can make those small deaths or um to grow spiritually and to grow in a place where they can be members of a of a the community and uh and be free.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_06: And um so that's uh that's really um the more I saw, the more I knew about victims, the more I prayed about victims, um and even met them.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_06: I I just knew that how can they grow spiritually when they just they need they need help more than that.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: So two months ago, I think it was, you either maybe you called me, emailed me, but you said, Jim, there's this organization that I found called Samaritan Woman, women, uh like on the East Coast, and they do this and they do this professionally and they have experience and so forth.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is that I'd love to get accepted into their program.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're very, you know, restricted.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: They only let a few uh get into their program each year.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: It involves monthly training, it involves, I mean, but by the end, and but we've passed that deadline.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, pray about that.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna apply anyway.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um I know that's when I when I I knew God had his hand on us as I followed that, and as uh as I found out we got accepted.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, the God has really put this together.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_06: There are so many miracles that have happened.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_06: He's already put together parts of our team and he has um yeah, the mentorship program at the Samaritan Woman is uh a huge blessing.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_06: We will um they're gonna teach us everything we need to know from A to Z.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_06: You know, if you know me or um personally, you you probably are thinking to yourself, okay, what are we doing for the right?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_06: Um and I do feel like that.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_06: I do feel that um but I just I've I know enough uh and I've God has shown up so many times that I know that he's in this and that he will equip us or and um we are the hands and feet of Jesus and so um whether you're called to be um I think each of us has a part to play.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_06: Um and maybe not specifically in this restoration house.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_06: Um but right now, you know, financially we could use uh your support.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_06: Uh and maybe later you'll be a mentor or a volunteer, or you'll provide a meal, or you'll uh paint a wall.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_06: You know, there's just so many parts of uh ways that we can be the hands and feet of Jesus, and that's uh really I think the vision that God's given me to lead.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you made a video.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: Do we have a video of this?
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, and we have a video.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: All right, let's show that video and and wrap this up.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is great.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_08: I think the first time I remember getting any attention from a man, or really anyone, was when I was 14.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_08: My cousin invited me over to hang out with him and his friends.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_08: We were all drinking.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_08: I just wanted to fit in, really.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_08: In a blur, my cousin's friends surrounded me, and afterwards, I felt this unbearable emptiness.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_08: I saw money pass between my cousin and his friends, and then before I knew it, years had passed of the same thing.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_08: I wanted out.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_08: I cried to my cousin, but he told me if I ever left or told my family he would kill us.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_08: I believed the lie that it was my fault and my parents would not believe me.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_08: I felt ugly, dirty, unwanted.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_08: I thought of running, escaping, I dreamt of a new life, only to be awoken by my painful and overwhelming reality of shame.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_08: In the beginning, the drugs were not my choice, but they ended up being the best escape I knew.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_08: Eventually, my parents packed up and moved us, and I thought it'd mean a fresh start.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_08: I wanted out so bad.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_08: But soon, in a new place, addicted to drugs, I felt even more helpless and lost than before.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_08: Somehow I found my way back into that awful life and whatever comfort it offered me.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_08: When I thought of leaving, I knew I couldn't.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, where else would I go?
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_08: Eventually, one of the guys hurt me so bad that I ended up in the hospital.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_08: Away from it all, yet still heavy from it, a nurse came in and asked me the question that would change my life.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_08: Do you need help?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_08: She prayed with me, and for the first time in a long time, I felt hope of something different.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_08: I'm now living at this restoration house.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_08: I'm learning about how to break addictions and normal stuff, like how to clean, or cook, or make a budget.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_08: But even more, I'm learning about God.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_08: When I first heard about Him, something in me opened up that hadn't in a long time.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_08: I wanted that kind of love.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_08: I felt belonging.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_08: Now I feel something more.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_08: To think even in my shame, brokenness, and past, I can be loved.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_08: It's made me feel free.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, I'm still getting there, but I'm finally free.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's our project.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, um, like the pilgrims, two things.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: We we're going to, out of with broken, with hurting hearts in the midst of a pandemic, we are going to have Thanksgiving on our lips this year, and we're going to come with a gift in our hand.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to challenge us as a church.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: I realize it's completely ridiculous to even think we can do this, but since we want to have a property with a large house that has at least five bedrooms, a place for training, a place for all that stuff, we're going to eventually need a half a million, but I'm going to challenge us to try to raise$250,000 this Christmas.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe we can't do it, but I'm going to pray that we can because that's part of what I think Thanksgiving means this year.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thanksgiving on our lips and a gift in our hand.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a final word?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_06: I think I got most of that in.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_06: Are we going to is Jeremiah gonna get to sing a song?
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I you know what I'll do?
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh let me pray, have Jeremiah come out.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell us about the song that you've chosen?
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: And listen, you guys online, I know your tendency is to push that computer screen down as soon as the talking stops.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to hear this song.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_06: As part I think many times when I would be doing care packages or or I don't I uh I didn't meet a lot of these victims.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_06: I prayed we met our prayer team, we prayed about over them.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_06: Uh-huh.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_06: Um, but I may not ever got didn't see their face.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_06: And so I would wonder what I would write to them.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_06: And so many times I would hear a song and I would send that the lyrics to those the s the song.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_06: And this was the one of the care packages, this was one of the songs.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_06: So I I knew that um or that this would be a part of our project.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_06: So I asked Jeremy.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then listen to the song, and then we're done.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: Father, uh, this is our Thanksgiving service of praise to you.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's not an easy time to say thank you, but we do anyway, because we have seen that people, great saints down through the years, have in the midst of darkness, called out with thanksgiving on their lips and a gift in their hand, and that's what we're doing today.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: We commit ourselves, we commit this thanksgiving to you.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: Bring us together as a church, bring us together as families.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_03: This world drives you to the knees.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_03: You think you're never gonna get back to the used bear heart to beat again, close your eyes and breathe in.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_03: Let the shadows fall away.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_03: Step into the light of grace.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, you did, close your door.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_03: You don't live there anymore.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: Say goodbye to where you've been until your heart beat again.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_03: Just let the word wash over you.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's all right now.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_03: Love's healing hands pull you through.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: So get back up, take step one, leave the darkness, feel the sun.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_03: Because your story's far from over, and your journey's just because your heart's big shadows far away, step into the line of face.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_03: Everything for your God.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_03: Tell your heart beat.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_03: Close your eyes, breathe.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_03: Let the shadows fall away.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_03: Step into the light of place.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_03: Happy Thanksgiving.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: We'll see you next week.