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The Fire That Opened Hearts · The Ethnos360 Podcast

• speaker-0: Welcome friends to the Ethnos 360 Podcast, where we talk about vital topics, have honest conversations, and unpack the Great Commission. This episode is part of the series we call Real People, Real Stories. We hope you can see and hear your own story in today's conversation and be reminded that God is going to be as faithful with you as He has been with our guests. speaker-1: Jodi, thank you for being here. I would love for you to start off just by introducing yourself and what your role is right now in Ethnos360. speaker-0: Fiper. I'm Jody Crane and I grew up an hour and forty-five minutes north of Sanford in a little town called actually Hollister. I grew up in a family of six kids and a cousin. ⁓ his parents passed away, and so we were seven. ⁓ out of my siblings, four of us have ended up in missions. Wow. And that's related to my dad making a trip. with a missionary that our church supported to Jamaica. Okay. And he got down there and saw that there were just thousands of people who had never heard the gospel and God just put it on his heart. And he never moved to a foreign country, but our family became so mission oriented. ⁓ our home was just always filled with evangelists and missionaries coming through, telling God stories from all over the world. And like I said earlier, our communities, 350. Now this is back in you know in the 70s. But our little Baptist church ended up being a spot for missions. ⁓ in the most you know you you wouldn't expect you'd think of a mega church that's gonna take on this passion for the world and yet ⁓ the thing that changed my family dynamic the most was on a Wednesday night in nineteen sixty four four men in ethnos new tribes at the time were traveling from I'm not sure where they were coming from, but they came by and it was time for our midweek service. They stopped and joined ⁓ our service. My brother-in-law was the song director and my sister was the pianist. And after the service was over, they invited him home for coffee, which is like two minutes away. Okay. Six weeks later they were in Ovito in the missionary training. Huh. ⁓ and that started a trajectory with new tribes that changed our family. So ⁓ Elaine and John went through the training, ⁓ build their support base, and moved to Thailand. Okay. John did not have the ability to learn the language, he was dyslexic. He It's a tonal, yeah. Language there is tonal, and he heard everything opposite. It was higher tones were low and lower tones were high, and couldn't hear the in-between. So it was a struggle for ⁓ a few years of them trying to learn the language. And eventually they moved to the Philippines. Okay. And it was at that time they were in the Philippines that ⁓ I was in my first year of college and I was playing basketball. ⁓ my dad wasn't really excited that I was in college because we the farm's 30,000 layers and about 50 head of cattle, and so there's a lot of work on the farm. And ⁓ so he never paid for college. He didn't discourage me, but you know, you're gonna have to figure out if you're gonna do it. And so my ⁓ there was ⁓ a missions conference taking place at the training center here in Oviedo and ⁓ my brother-in-law said, Joe, you ought to come down at least for a couple of days. So I went down and God really challenged my heart. So I went back, ⁓ told my coach, I think the Lord was leading me to to head toward missions and that I was going to leave college and go into to Bible training. And he said, let me give you a scholarship so you'll stay. And I said speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: I think I gotta go. So I I left in January and then I was dating my wife now, Barbara, at the time, and she came up when she graduated from high school. She was a year behind me. And so we went through Bible school together. And then it was I I knew God wanted me in ministry. I wasn't sure that He wanted me to be in tribal or ethnic missions, you know, reaching unreached ethnic groups. Yeah. ⁓ And it was during the first couple of months of the missionary training. I felt like God wanted us there, even though I wasn't totally convinced that we would be going into ⁓ this type of church planning ministry. But God used two passages of scripture from a missionary that came through ⁓ to really redirect my understanding of what God really wanted it out of my life. And ⁓ Romans ⁓ let's see ⁓ fifteen twenty, Paul says, Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel not where Christ has been named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation. And then First Corinthians ⁓ fifteen thirty four, Paul writes, Awake to righteousness and sin not, for some have not the knowledge of God, and I speak this to your shame. ⁓ That biblical truth with the context of at the time they were saying like about 8,000 ⁓ ethnic groups are still without the gospel. And God brought those together and that became ⁓ a very clear ⁓ direction of what we what I should say I felt like God had for us. That ⁓ interaction with that particular missionary was what gave clarity for. To this day, ⁓ that would have been forty nine years ago. It is totally amazing. speaker-1: amazing. Okay, so you felt the pull towards missions in college. Can you tell me though, like when did Christ, you grew up in a Christian family, very missions minded family, but when did your relationship with Christ become that, become a relationship versus, you know, a religion? No, that's okay. speaker-0: Of course. I was ten years old. We had a visiting ⁓ that was back during the days of revivals. So we had a revival in our church and ⁓ I don't know, it's probably Thursday, Friday night. ⁓ there was a very powerful message of ⁓ sin A broken relationship with God and the hope of redemption through Christ. And when ⁓ I didn't respond during the service, but when we got home, my mom she said, Seems like God's doing something in your heart. What's going on? And I told her that I felt like ⁓ the pastor was talking to me. And she said, Well, ⁓ Let's talk about that. And she actually walked me through the fact of my broken relationship and and God's provision through Jesus Christ. And I accepted the Lord that evening. The end of my bunk bed with my mom. ⁓ it is. I my mom and dad were just awesome. ⁓ we grew up, daddy was a hard worker. speaker-1: that's so special. speaker-0: But the priorities were God and our interaction with the body of Christ and our church, the farm, and had to keep the chickens and cows alive to produce and then school. Yeah. And so those those were the priorities and we always did what was going to be that the priority at the time. And ⁓ God used that to establish a ⁓ I I feel like a relaxed way of looking at the Christian life and just enjoying God. You know, it's I I we did didn't feel compelled out of ⁓ some responsibility. It was we enjoyed God. We loved God, we want to please Him and to benefit yeah ⁓ from the body of Christ. So yeah. Barbara and I both ⁓ our dads were deacons in their in the church churches that they were in. And so we both grew up with that kind of influence in our lives. speaker-1: That's awesome. What a powerful story. Okay, so then you stepped into training with your wife. You were already married when you started training in Bible school, or did you? speaker-0: We when we left Bible school we got married and we went to Haiti on our aunt. or ⁓ what do you call it? A honeymoon. Our honeymoon, yeah. Okay. I I have to give my wife credit. She she really trusted the Lord in in everything. And ⁓ even though that was so hard, she still was willing to just trust the Lord and go into missionary training. Yeah. ⁓ after that. Yeah. ⁓ but It it's amazing how God can use ⁓ challenging, difficult situations and experiences to encourage you to do the hard thing. Yeah. And I would say that is that was how God had worked even through that. speaker-1: You see him bring you through one thing, so why not trust him to keep going and keep bringing you through? speaker-0: So we went into ⁓ the missionary training ⁓ here in Oveda. And it was a year. ⁓ our first son was born in the middle of ⁓ that year. Okay. And of course, he was six weeks old when we went out to jungle camp. Had to build our house. it was on Duder Ranch on the St. John's River. We killed 32 poisonous snakes in the six weeks we were out there. ⁓ gosh. on the hike, ⁓ they did a an all day let's see. An all day hike and an overnight canoe trip. and on the all day hike, it's hiking through the pines and everything. We are in a line of probably about twenty-five people, maybe thirty actually. I don't remember how many exactly. And there was a an MK from Colombia or Venezuela, a single gal. And we were hik hiking along this trail through pines and palmettos and ⁓ Lacey, she's turned around talking to the gal behind her, and there's a break in the line that's about a twenty-five feet. And when she turns back around, there's a diamond back. And I'm not exaggerating, it's about that big around. Okay. ⁓ gosh. It was so long that you couldn't see the head or tail. And you don't mess with them when you don't know what and ⁓ so our leader, he speaker-1: Which I do, which, yep, ⁓ huh. speaker-0: You know, ⁓ the we had one in the front, one in the back. she screamed, turned around, ran backwards, plowed over about three people. They all end up on the ground. But it was it was funny, but not a and ⁓ even though he he had a gun, he could have shot him, I wouldn't have done anything if you didn't know where to hit him. Right. But he apparently had just eaten, so he was real lethargic. He was moving real, real slow. speaker-1: Bye. speaker-0: So we cut a new trail and we had a totally ⁓ different route to get to where we're going. But those were those were meaningful times for Barbara. Now I grew up on a farm. So it Barbara, she grew up in town and her mom and dad, you know, they were he was an engineer. Many of the roads around here we drive on, he oversaw building them. And ⁓ He he would tell his girls at Christmas, Okay, I've put some money in the bank if you know, for Christmas gifts. You need more, just let me know. Well, it was the opposite with us, you know. We can scrap together is what we had. Yeah, it's yeah, very different. And yet it's so beautiful to see how God blended our lives, our families. Our families became very close. My dad and her dad became good friends. ⁓ So anyway, we went through ⁓ missionary training and I we had gone through Jackson Bible Institute whenever we went to Bible school. Okay. And that was in the old Otsego Hotel. Well, by the time we got in through the missionary training center, we headed up to language school. The first semester of language school was in Jackson now at the high school. Okay. And a summer team had come in, ⁓ volunteers, to rework the whole steam system. And so when the winter hit, they turned it on and had somewhere around five or six hundred leaks in the system. ⁓ gosh. And volunteers not realizing, you know, sweating some of the fittings, a lot of the fittings. So my work detail, every afternoon evening after class was underneath the basement resweating all of those fittings and Joey by that time is probably about eight months old. Okay. ⁓ his room, you know, it's an old school building. And ⁓ they had they had heaters that were underneath the windows, but the windows were probably about 10 or 12 feet by Probably eight or ten feet. And the ice was like that thick on it. It was crazy. But all of that was just a part of God prepping us for what we had to look forward to in the future. And you never know what it's gonna be like. And so no matter who you are, where you are in your walk, it is a walk of faith. And that's what God is wanting from us is to trust Him. No matter what our situation is. Yeah. And ⁓ our neighbors, ⁓ the walls at that point, you know, ⁓ they had these drop ceilings. So if you remove the drop ceiling, the ceiling only goes up about ten feet and there's about three, two and a half, three feet that they're not connected. Okay. And ⁓ so our neighbors would do some friendly ⁓ couples counseling. over the wall to help us get through some of our 'cause you know, we're struggling trying to figure out, you know, with a an eight month old and you know, all the different challenges. But yeah, as we look back, we are so grateful for the discipleship and the involvement that our leaders have had down through the years and our coworkers. To minister to us ⁓ and encourage us and bless us in our walk with the Lord. And that started in the training and continued even to this day. Many of my coworkers still continue to be a great source of encouragement for us. So we were, we did our first semester up in Jackson and then speaker-1: That's wonderful. speaker-0: We moved down for the second semester to Camdenton. that was the language school also at that time, which later was all combined. ⁓ We moved down there and that's where we started working on the skills of how to learn a foreign language and build relationships cross-culturally. And my leaders they thought Barbara would do great. Yeah. She's very analytical and she learned the language quite well, even though she didn't spend as much time working on it as I did. ⁓ but That's where they told me, I'm not sure you're gonna be able to get a language. But you know, God has a way of helping us if we're willing to trust him and keep walking with him. And I realized there, like my brother-in-law, he actually had some disabilities that made it very difficult. I think in time he could have eventually learned well enough to be able to build relationships. I'm not sure how deeply he could minister ⁓ you know, the word of God, but The thing is, are we willing to to trust the Lord and and walk with Him even whenever it doesn't look like you got what it takes? Yeah. And that's what I'd I would say to young folks. You look at your life and you go, I don't think God can use me. I mean, what have I got to offer? And I mean, I'm a chicken farmer. What do I have to offer? You know? Yeah. And yet that's not what God's looking at. He knows. the potential that you have if you're just willing to trust him and allow him to work. And yeah. So we continued to have people that would encourage us ⁓ in each stage of the training. And ⁓ so we we completed the training there in Camton. We were accepted into the mission and then the process of how are we gonna build Coworkers that are going to be partners with us. So I did what everybody else did, you know. You everybody you know, you write to them. And I we wrote probably about 200 letters. I think I got maybe two responses. One was no, and the other one was a maybe or something. And you know, the interesting thing is that God has He he's at work in other people's lives just like he's at work in your life, and he brings us together so that he can accomplish in both of us what he wants to do. Yeah. We have people that back in that first year, before that we were preparing to go out to the field that are still partners with us today. And it just amazes me. Yeah. how God uses the body of Christ to build his kingdom. And we can be used in many different ways. And when we're willing to just allow him to use us, we get to be partners and co-labours together with him and with each other and benefit from the work that's accomplished. Yeah. And ⁓ then we got So we got a number of folks that have been with us almost fifty years. speaker-1: That's amazing. That's so great. So you are raising support, you're raising your financial support. Did they, ⁓ at that time, did they ask that you have a certain amount or was it just you're going, you go? speaker-0: ⁓ they recommended when we left for the field, and the field said, okay, we'll we'll give it a shot. You know. We left for the field. We had $365 of promise support. Wow. And ⁓ we did ⁓ God provided the money, you know, for our tickets over and for the equipment and stuff that we needed. But ⁓ our flight over. was it's the worst flight I've had my whole life and I've traveled to Asia more times than I can remember. We got on the plane in in Jacksonville, Florida. We flew to Atlanta. We flew from Atlanta to I think it was Seattle. Seattle to Alaska well I guess I should back up. Jacksonville to Seattle and we got there late and missed our flight. Okay. So they put us on another flight. We ended up on five different airlines by the time we actually got to the Philippines. The people on the the on the Philippines in the Philippines didn't know where we were because they had they'd lost track of all these different flight changes. So we go to Alaska, Alaska to Japan, Japan to Taiwan, Taiwan. ⁓ where's that other place in Asia? ⁓ my goodness. ⁓ one other place in Asia and then down to Manila. Okay. So by the time we got there, our all of our luggage had beat us there by almost 12 hours. Because we had gotten so and it was nighttime. We come out of the airport. ⁓ or no, we pick up our stuff and we're missing a bag. Okay. And ⁓ it was a small briefcase that had two recorders for helping to learn language. You could slow it down, speed it up. They were pretty expensive recorders. And that was the piece that was missing. Okay. ⁓ we you know how I mean I could tell you the the little nitty-gritty things. The airport was an old airport. ⁓ the bathroom. ⁓ they didn't have toilet seats on the bathroom and I needed to use the restroom. Everybody else stood up on the toilet, so I didn't realize how all that worked. ⁓ I'm in a leisure suit, you know, tr trying to travel dress properly. ⁓ it was it was a nightmare. But anyway, I come out and we we are nearly one of the last ones of everybody from ⁓ the the group we kind of stayed together. We were all headed to the Philippines and they kept moving us. We were probably about fifteen people and they kept moving us to other other airlines to try to get us there. And but anyway, we noticed on another cart that that briefcase and it was on a Filipino lady's an older lady. She had lots of gold and very well off. Of course she didn't speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: anything about it. It was the the ⁓ the attendant guys that had put it on there and anyway. So it was a big deal to because she was embarrassed. ⁓ and it's a shame culture you gotta be really careful. ⁓ so anyway we we finally got it we after some real embarrassing interactions and stuff ⁓ we get outside and there are about 30 cab drivers there. speaker-1: anyway. Okay. speaker-0: And about four of ⁓ all grabbed one of our bags and started loading them into their their trunks. So that took us about a half an hour to get all of our luggage back. And we had an address, but it was on a little side street up ⁓ the alley. And it took us about two hours for him to find that little alley. So we thought we were we would never get there. Right. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: We finally got there and everybody's real happy. So that was our introduction to Manila. speaker-1: That was speaker-0: April the fourth, ⁓ 1978. And we had a a little guy that was just a little bit, I think he was about 12 months ⁓ he's about 15 months old. But ⁓ those were some challenging days, and yet we saw God show up every time. Yeah. That's as I look back, I just see how faithful God has been. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: The circumstances create this anxiety and tension. Yeah. And God's wanting us to relax. He's got it all under control. ⁓ just grow through it. Just enjoy it. Enjoy the challenge and the difficulty. ⁓ so it was a wonderful sight to see a couple of people's faces that we had pictures of, ⁓ the guest house hostess and host. speaker-1: Hmm. speaker-0: And ⁓ one of the guys on the leadership team, they were there. It was late at night, but they were they were there. That's wonderful. And ⁓ so that that got us in country. Yep. And on the ground. And ⁓ and had you already did you know already what people group that you would be going to when you arrived, or was that all figured out once you were in country? It's during the ⁓ speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: the year to year and a half of your culture and language study for the country, ⁓ the national language, that you begin to go out, do some surveys and the leadership team would present the different areas where ⁓ there were needs and the teams that they were trying to build or fill out. And ⁓ so I I I had an interest in the island of Palawan because ⁓ when we were in language school we had heard that there was a missionary down there that needed a partner who had some mechanical ability because he lived on an island off of of the ⁓ main island of Palauan. And he was always making trips by pum boat. They're like about three feet wide and about twenty five, thirty feet long with big outriggers. And ⁓ he He was a translator. He was not mechanically inclined. And so he told all these stories of floating out there for hours when his motor would quit and he couldn't figure out how to get it going. And so I thought, now that's a team I can join. I may not be able to learn a language, but I can fix motors. So I overhauled my first ⁓ small engine at twelve and my first car at sixteen. So I I figured, okay, God can use me here. So that kind of directed our attention. Well, when it was time to start doing surveying, ⁓ they were actually home on furlough, and ⁓ leadership said, you know, there's a a work down here that we've been invited by SIL to join them. They've got translation is just starting to get underway, and but they'd like to have church planners partner with them. So we ⁓ I I speaker-1: Hmm. speaker-0: thought I would do a survey and I went down with a missionary that was based in the capital of Palawan and he traveled with me. And it seems like I or no, he put me on a bus. And it seems like every single little jaunt ⁓ step naturally had some kind of hiccup or something. So ⁓ Nick was was the missionary's name. He ⁓ he took me to the bus stop and we get there. It's in the capital city, and ⁓ the whole front of the bus is laying on the ground. They've just taken it apart to put a new water pump on it. And Nick asks the driver, he goes, ⁓ do you guys have another bus? He said, ⁓ no, no, we're this is the bus we're taking. He said speaker-1: to... speaker-0: Any idea? ⁓ probably only about a half an hour. It ended up being about three hours. Yep. So I get on the bus and then the bus starts driving around town for an hour. It stops in the market, picks up ⁓ some chickens and some rice and a passenger, and then goes to a hardware store and picks up another passenger and cement. speaker-1: Sure. ⁓ speaker-0: So we drive around, pick up all these people with all their stuff. And I mean, it's loaded to the gill. We head out of town. You get out off of the cement or the asphalt, and you're out the dusty, dirty road. And we're heading off into the wild blue yonder. And ⁓ the conductor in that was in the back of the bus started hollering at the driver, stop, stop. Finds out that. Somebody's suitcase had fallen off the top of it. It was probably about a hundred yards back. ⁓ so anyway, that trip from there to our flight base that was down in the southern part of the island should have taken about eight hours. ⁓ we had seven flat tires. Part of the luggage on top was, I think, ⁓ about four spares. So they knew they were gonna have flats. So we went through those, had to stop at a vulcanizing shop so that they could fix the four flats and have them for the rest of the trip. So we get halfway down and stop in a it's almost dark in a little town called Nata, which ironically became the largest town to where we ended up ⁓ getting ⁓ established in the The Tugban will work. So we had to spend the night. So we don't know. We don't speak the language. Right. ⁓ he stops on the side of the road in this little town, and ⁓ everybody gets up and starts getting off. And I I asked the driver, I said, I have to go to Lada. He said, ⁓ no, we're gonna spend the night here. I said, Where do we sleep? So He says, ⁓ if you go just a little further up, turn left, there's a place down there. so I go down there and sure enough, there's this little I don't know, lodging house, I guess you could call it. I'm 6'3. The bed is about five. So probably about that much of my feet are hanging off. Mosquitoes are thick. speaker-1: Five, eight. speaker-0: ⁓ my god, the mosquito net only went to here. So I wrapped my my ⁓ feet. ⁓ but in the night there was this little break between the towel and the mosquito net, and so I had this band of just zillions of mosquitoes. But anyway, next morning the buses all they had to stop because they didn't have any real lights. speaker-1: on the bus. speaker-0: So couldn't drive at night. Sure. So anyway, finally get down to and I I didn't know where the flight center was. You would have never seen it. ⁓ but they knew the bus drivers knew. So dropped us and then Perry ⁓ or not Perry, I'm sorry, Rod, flew us into ⁓ or flew me in to to the village where ⁓ Peter and Chris were working. So speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: This survey or kind of checking this out. So I asked Peter, I said, So Peter, how did you guys learn the Tugbanwa language? And he goes, Chris, how did we learn Tugbanwa? He he's brilliant. If you go to SIL's Trans Translators Place, his back translation is the example of speaker-1: Thank speaker-0: what they teach all of their people what to do. So he he was amazing. They were British, ⁓ born in England, grew up in Canada, and ⁓ that was a cross-cultural experience there, but it was fun. ⁓ they were great, great. ⁓ she was ⁓ a nurse, ⁓ she taught literacy and anyway, ⁓ so we visited he The language just jumps on him. He c kinda like my coworker now, Bill Davis. ⁓ he's ⁓ I don't think he can remember how he learned Palawano because it it it just can't he never forgets anything when it comes to language and culture. But that was the way Peter and Chris were. ⁓ they they had a good relationship with the people 'cause they were ⁓ They spoke so well, they understood what was going on. So we went back to the language school and it was a little over a year to complete that. Okay. And ⁓ we felt like the Lord was leading us down there because there was an open invitation. We wanted to do church planning. Yeah. So Peter and Chris went home on furlough and they said, You can use our house to move in and build your house while we're gone. Well, by the time we got down there, they had been gone maybe three or four months. It moving into the tribe was interesting too. ⁓ we had three crates and seven drums, and ⁓ they were sent on a ship down to the capital island and then trucked down to the end of the road, K Zone, which was on our side of the island. It was ⁓ about a three and a half hour trip by boat to get up to the beach where we were gonna live. speaker-1: Yeah. Okay. speaker-0: And ⁓ nobody wanted to go up there. They said that ⁓ there were stories that the people up there would poison you. So we couldn't find anybody that that would take us up there. They were afraid of the tribal people that were up there. And ⁓ So I visited a church. ⁓ I don't know if it was a weekend or a midweek service, and I met Pastor Dignadisi, and he actually had a member in his church that was a Christian. He said, ⁓ it and his was a fishing boat, so he said he'd be glad to take me up. So the guys actually couldn't get everything on it, so he put the barrels on it. And he said, We'll make a trip today or take the barrels and then come back, and then tomorrow we'll get the crates. So we we get there and it's kind of wavy. It's a long beach, about maybe two or three hundred yards. And on the edges there were coral reefs, so the waves weren't quite as bad around there that would break it up. And so they pulled in and they would take the drums and set them down in the water, float them up. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: to the beach and then lay ⁓ over and roll ⁓ up. But that's as far as they would go. They were afraid of the the people who actually were running the boat were afraid of that area. So I had to roll them down the beach and to Peter and Chris's yard. And I so I was rolling the last drum, I hear a motor. And these guys, it was after three, they were afraid of pirates because we had pirates out there. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: south of Kesson where where we were ⁓ where the end of the road was and they left me. So I'm there. There was only one man in the village because he was old and all of the other men had gone to a northern village where there is a a ⁓ lake that twice a year the tide gets high enough that it washes in speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: When the shrimp are running and they tie their mosquito nets together, walk through this thing that's about ⁓ five feet deep and get thousands and thousands of shrimp. So everybody's up there shrimping, and the women were afraid of me. Some of them had seen me when I came to visit Peter and Chris, but they they're real skittish. Kids would kind of run up and play and skirt off, but so speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: that at night. ⁓ I I'm in Peter's house. It's a jungle outside his I mean in three, four months of rain in the tropics, the weeds are four feet high. So I get into finally get into the house and man. It's it's crazy. ⁓ I didn't plan to overnight and so one drum I had a two kilos speaker-1: sure. speaker-0: about a five pound lump of quick melt cheese. And so that's what I had for dinner. ⁓ the wind was is kind of windy. And so I found a candle. Wind kept blowing the candle out. I think I did have a little flashlight. No, I didn't. No, I only had the candles. And I finally gave up. ⁓ couldn't keep it. So they had speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: Two bedrooms and mosquito nets were set up in them. And so I picked the one with the biggest bed and ⁓ I went in with a candle. Right. ⁓ it's been four months. Right. Nobody's been in there. So So the bed's been made. ⁓ I mean, and that's the way we always leave our houses. ⁓ you'll have little ⁓ stuff from the thatched roof that'll fall. ⁓ So mosquito net keeps most of that out. Sure. So I I get in fully clothed, ⁓ lay on top of the sheets. I grab the pillow to adjust it and it starts moving. And I've already tucked in the mosquito net. I don't have a flashlight. And I hear this squeaking. And it is a rat's nest. speaker-1: always. speaker-0: That a mama has, I don't know how many babies and they are running all over the place. They're they're trying to get away from me and they're stuck. They can't get out. Your adrenaline is just pumping and it's dark. You can't see. And ⁓ I finally get out of it and I tear the bed completely apart. You know, I want to make sure there's nothing else in there. They're running, they disappear into the house and under the house. And it's ⁓ bamboo walls, a thatched roof, bamboo floor with cracks and everything. So I finally get it all put back together. I get back in and I lay there and I cannot go to sleep. You know, you're you're laying there and you're hearing sounds and you're still trying to get calm from those rats running all over the place. And then It's windy but the moon comes out and there are two ⁓ Plexiglass things that he had put in for sunlight coming in, which actually is something I had recommended that he do. And ⁓ so I'm laying there, and you can see the ⁓ the moon kind of get brighter and darker as clouds would go by, and it opens up and the moon comes through, and I see something crawling on a rafter all the way up there, and it's It's long. Yeah. It gets it starts I can't really tell the head or the tail and it keeps crawling and crawling and it's probably about maybe this big. Okay. Found out later it was a a lizard like an iguana. Okay. But you're laying there and you're trying to go to sleep and you go, Lord, man, you hear all these noises like this. Boom. And you're going, what in the world? I and I had read a lot about the island. Finally, I just said, Lord, I can't, I can't go to sleep. You're gonna have to make me go to sleep. And he eventually I did. I found out that that shimmering noise and the cracking and the thump were all the coconut palms that were around. The wind would work those dead branches until they would fall. And you know, some of the trees are like. 35, 40 feet high. And as they're coming down, they're doing this. And if they hit on in, it breaks the the stem in about four or five places. So that's the cracking noise. And then the coconut it was supporting gets dislodged. Yep. And it falls. So So it was all just the tree. All of the it was just the tree. But there's these noises that you can't identify because you're not familiar with them. And and you're all alone. All alone. I should be in town. Yep. But the next morning I awakened to ⁓ a voice outside saying Uno. Well, coughing, and that's the way they knock on the doors, they cough and clear their throat. ⁓ Uno, my thalnaga, which means is there somebody up there in the house? And so I I go outside on the porch and look down on the ground, and here's a gentleman who becomes one of my dearest friends. He's actually a believer. speaker-1: Okay. Okay. speaker-0: ⁓ from another village who ⁓ back in the 60s there were two single missionaries that had started to work in another area and ⁓ they both ⁓ got married and ended up in other other parts of the world or part one's in another part of the Philippines another part of the world ended up in Japan actually and speaker-1: ⁓ speaker-0: I'm a I called him Uncle. ⁓ he said, I want you to read this, and he handed me a letter from Bob Guseson. Bob was the field chairman back in the 60s, and he had written a letter requesting a missionary. They were there were probably about eight or ten believers from the the two single. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: ladies ⁓ ministry and they said we we need a missionary to come teach us the word of god and he handed it to me and in Tagalog which I could understand a little bit he said you are an answer to our prayer and all of last night he's completely forgotten you just realize you know God knows what he's up to and he knows how he's gonna work ⁓ so there are lots of firsts that you go through. Yeah. You know, our first flight to the Philippines, our first, you know, time in the airport in Manila, our first every you know. Yeah. And yet each of those are another opportunity for us to trust God and believe He really is in control. Yeah. And He knows what He's doing. So So after you guys moved in, after you get your house built and you move in, how well how long did it take you to build your house and and all that? I left Barbara in in the capital city in Port Puerto Princesa. And I went in and started building another missionary on the island, helped me a little bit. Okay and we got started on it. And Barbara became ill. ⁓ she had a pre cancer condition of the uterus and we had to had to come home. And she had to have surgery. So we weren't we weren't there but about maybe ⁓ I don't know about six or eight months almost 10 months and then we had to come back to the US. And ⁓ again, you know, you would say, Lord, wow and yet he knows what he's doing because he was he was actually slowing us down so that speaker-1: Okay. Okay. Why? speaker-0: We would partner with Tim and Karen, who actually joined our team. And we ended up being three families, Peter and Chris with SIO, and Tim and Karen and us. And Tim actually ⁓ was responsible for building most of our house while we were while you were okay. Courtland had surgery and I mean Barbara had surgery and we ⁓ were getting recovering, getting ready to come back. So when we get back. We are ⁓ Moving into the tribe and ⁓ Tim and Karen said, you know, it's been, you know, it's been a year, a little over a year. Let's ⁓ we were spending the night with them and kind of getting our house set up and everything and spend one more night. So we did. Karen was a great baker and we love the sweets. So we spent one more night and about two o'clock in the morning. This was on a Saturday night, ⁓ it would have been Sunday morning. ⁓ the neighbor, a daughter of our neighbor where our house was, came running over and hollering, Uncle, Uncle, your house is on fire. And so we just looked out and sure enough, ⁓ you could see the sky lit up. It's about ⁓ a 20-second run, sure. Maybe 30-second run from Tim's house to where our house was. But when we when we went to bed, the routine is you just drop your shorts right outside where the mosquito net is and get in bed. Then when you get out, because if you have to get up in the night, you can't always see, you know right where it is. Well Barbara had was the last one to get in and Karen was the last one to get both of us. They had folded them up, put ⁓ away. ⁓ no. So we're trying to find our clothes so that we can get out and to to go. So anyway, we get over there and here is our house. It's built seven feet off the ground. It's bamboo. by then we'd moved to bamboo roof, bamboo walls, bamboo floor. And it is burning green coconuts 35, 40 feet up in these coconut trees. Those were challenging days. ⁓ that that speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: in the beginning because we had spent a number of years in preparation for ministry and then you know it speaker-1: It's like. speaker-0: God slowed it down. And you don't always understand why. ⁓ by daybreak there were probably eighty hundred people on the porch and all around the house just sitting. They're real morbid. They're very sad. They're saying things like, We're really gonna miss you guys. They assumed you were gone. They just well speaker-1: Yeah. Okay. speaker-0: We said, Well, what do you mean? And they said, Well, you've got to move. The spirits are upset with you that you built there. And if you stay, somebody in your family or someone's gonna die. And so Tim and Karen and Barbara and I go back in the house and we go, Man, what are we gonna do? speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: And we decided we would rebuild in the same place. We dig up the old post, put new posts in. That was easier said than done because we couldn't get people to help us. Yeah. There weren't probably three, maybe three or four people in the village that would even work on that property because they were afraid. So it took us about six months to rebuild. It was at the beginning of rainy season to get the hardwood for our main posts was a ton of work to get it down the slippery mountains and stuff. speaker-1: Boom. speaker-0: Was there ever a point through all this that you were just thought, let's throw in the towel, like let's this is we're ready to give up, we're ready to go. ⁓ or if not this point, was there another point? Well, there are many points. Okay. That the thro the thought crosses your mind because you think, well, you don't say it, but this is a surprise to God. It's definitely a surprise to us. Uh-huh. This is not this isn't what we were anticipating or how our training didn't prepare us for all of these unexpected ⁓ snags. And I would I'd have to say no, we won't just throw the towel in for that, but the your heart is just going. speaker-1: you speaker-0: Is this really worth it? Yeah. Is is this this is more work than we thought it would be. And the the beautiful thing is that when we can trust God in it, that God is working in other people to accomplish what He's wanting to do, and you don't realize you are the tool he's using to to do that. Let me fast forward to two thousand. speaker-1: It's gonna be. speaker-0: ⁓ our communications director here at Ethnos traveled with me, Rosie, and she she interviewed a whole bunch of people. But she asked one of our elders, she said speaker-1: Thank speaker-0: When is the time that God just began to open up the hearts of the people and the work just began to flourish and blossom? And Amailimboan, he didn't miss a beat. He said it was when Barbara and Jody's house burned down. And he goes back and he he says For about three or four months, we were scared to death that somebody was gonna die on that property. And so we actually I'm speaking for Ami Limbwan, we actually cut a new trail around the clearing where their house was to the ocean because everybody would go fishing at night. We didn't even want to walk through their yard. Yeah. And when we saw that God protected them and nothing happened to them and nothing happened to anybody that walked through their yard. We realize their God is more powerful than the 84 spirits that we sacrifice to and that we live in fear of. And we didn't know that. We didn't know that that was the major thing that had started a whole process of opening people up to realize that there's a a message that will change their lives that God wants them to hear. And they actually were willing to hear it because of what we had gone through and God had protected us. speaker-1: you speaker-0: Another aspect of culture that changed through that fire was they have ⁓ when their their women get pregnant and are ready to give birth, they build a little house off of their main house. And it's it's it's a birthing house, but they call it a sakitan, which means a house of pain. And the reason is if the baby dies or the mother dies. They have to burn the house down, and they didn't want to burn their major house down. Well, when that fire took place and God protected us, and nobody died, they began to quit building. We saw them begin to decrease in the number of people that were doing that, but we didn't know why. He said God used his protection on Jody and Barbara that. speaker-1: Okay. Okay. speaker-0: ⁓ we realized we don't have to do this. And so God uses the difficulties we go through to soften the hearts of others so that ⁓ he can do a work in their lives. So yeah, ⁓ there are lots of discouraging times, and yet there is no comparison to the joy of presenting the gospel for the first time and seeing. you know, we teach chronologically through scripture. It takes us about three months, three and a half months to teach, ⁓ laying a foundation from Genesis 1 through Acts chapter 1. And when we presented the gospel in our second village, we already had a a few believers there. We we taught chronologically there also, but we ended up moving on to the other side of the mountain, starting in a brand new area. And when we shared the gospel after teaching chronologically through scripture, ⁓ the tribal chief, Amayan Song, he he stood up and he declared to his people, he said, today we've heard the truth. He said, we thought we were following the truth that our ancestors passed down to us, but what what the Bible has said about Jesus is our only hope. For having a a repaired relationship with with God, our Creator. And he sticks his lip out to the next guy and he says, Hugo, how about you? And Hugo says, All my life I've mugged, which is to grope. He said, I could see with my physical eyes, but in my my spirit, my kiaruruwa, I just was wondering. ⁓ I didn't know who I was, I don't even know why I'm here. And he said, Now I know that Jesus is my only hope to be able to have a relationship with God and to be in a right relationship with him. So when you look at that, the privilege of seeing ⁓ people that live in fear of just dozens and dozens of evil spirits, and they wouldn't even go out at night. Now you can hear them singing and you look out and they've taken bamboo shoots and beat them and Set them on fire so they're torches and they're walking midnight, one o'clock in the morning singing scripture and coming back from a Bible study. And you just go, Wow. All of the, you know, the misflights and the house burning down, all those things just fade into ⁓ just little faith points. that God was wanting to use them in our lives to develop us, but in others' lives. And I I'm learning that more and more. How I respond to things creates the opportunity for God to work freely in other people's lives. And so I really need to keep my focus and my attention on him so that he can use me how he wants to. If there was any I could we could talk forever. You're fantastic. ⁓ and your stories are amazing. If there was anything that you could challenge ⁓ the next generation or somebody who maybe feels a pull towards missions or, you know, is thinking like, ⁓ I, you know, I I have this passion, I have this desire, but I couldn't I couldn't do this or God couldn't possibly use me for maybe things they've gone through or Whatever their situation may maybe they're just a chicken farmer. ⁓ how would you how would you encourage ⁓ either the next generation or just people now who, you know, who are feeling that tug? ⁓ I guess first thing that I would say is we have a self perception of who I am, who you are, and how God can use me. And I'll tell you that's very limiting. What I'm doing today as the international coordinator for CLA was the furthest thing from my mind that I had a skill set that that could do that. And when when I depend on my self-perception, I will limit God's ability to be able to use me because I'm not available. I don't think I can do that. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And to this day, I'm not near the language learner. I understand culture well, but not the the ability to speak in comparison to Tim or to Peter. I remember Peter was visiting, and we've already got a church established, and I'm getting ready to teach in Acts. And the challenges that I was going to give the church was. Jesus left an unfinished job and gave us the commission to take it to the end of the, you know, the end of the world. And so I asked Peter, I said, ⁓ this is how I'm gonna say it. And he left and he goes, the the verbs are really complicated in in Philippine languages, because ⁓ that's where a lot of your grammar is is in the conjugation. For example, the word to buy has 132. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: Conjugations. It's a incredible. So he laughed and he said, What you said was Jesus left an unfinished job that he was supposed to do, and you gotta come do the cleanup for him. And I said, No, that's not what I'm I'm in. God uses, and of course, if Peter hadn't been there, the tribal people would eventually have realized that I was off base because Jesus is not limited, and anyway, yeah. But ⁓ my challenge is this God wants to use you, but you're not even at the place he can use you the way he wants to, because it's gonna he's gonna have to take you through a whole series of things, and it will take many years because he'll use you all along the way to encourage and build into other people's lives. And but right now there are speaker-1: you speaker-0: maybe four or five missionaries that are out on the field that were students at one of our supporting churches in South Korea that came into our work on a team. They their school requires their their ⁓ high schoolers to make a missions trip every year. And ⁓ the missions pastor and he was the track ⁓ coach ⁓ became real good friends of ours and they We've had 20 teams come in, and we have missionaries now that are out from that. And a lot of times it's just a matter of allowing yourself to be exposed to the opportunities that God has out there for you. And if you're willing to walk in faith, he's willing to walk you through what's necessary to get you to where you need to be. And don't limit him by thinking, I can't. Language. I can't deal with cross-cultural situations. My wife looked like she belonged on Vogue, not in a tribal house. And she hated to travel. ⁓ been out of Florida once before we married, and only 40 miles over the line. Never had any desire to travel around the world and has lost count how many times we've been around the world. God has used her an incredible way. speaker-1: ⁓ speaker-0: But she would have never seen herself as being a frontier missionary, you know, of getting out there and beating the bushes, like because that's that's how we perceive ourselves, but God has such a big a big view of his kingdom and how he can use all of us if we're just willing to say yes, Lord, yeah and walk in faith. Awesome. What a great way to end. Thank you so much for being here with us. ⁓ my privilege. I love challenging other people to enjoy what we've had the privilege of seeing God do in and through us over these last almost fifty years. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for investing the time to listen to today's episode. It's our prayer that what you heard causes you to think more about your next step as a believer who understands the Great Commission. If this was encouraging to you, please take a moment to subscribe. speaker-1: Amazing. speaker-0: Rate and review the podcast. We don't take the privilege of your time lightly, and if we can help answer any questions this episode may have raised in your minds, feel free to reach out to us at podcast at ntm.org or you can contact us via our socials. And finally, this podcast is a production of Ethnos 360, all rights reserved.