Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Elijah Abraham: Global Need For The Gospel & Godly Men

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Elijah Abraham: Global Need For The Gospel & Godly Men · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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  defending biblical Christianity, no topic, off limits.
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  And now, here's your host, David Fierazzo.
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  Friends and family in Christ, thank you so much for tuning in, we've got another special
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  guest that's going to be in Green Bay, wow, in a few weeks, at the World View Matters Conference,
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  and let's bring him in right now, brother Elijah Abraham, as always, if you've been following
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  this podcast for years, we do not show his picture for security reasons.
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  So you'll hear his voice, and those who attend the conference may first and second will
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  be able to see him in person, but no one will be able to take any video or photographs there,
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  but so let's bring up the conference schedule, because we've got Elijah speaking on Friday afternoon,
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  and also Saturday, late afternoon, we're also going to have a Q&A each night, 7.15 pm,
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  we're going to try to hold it to an hour with as many speakers as are available each night to
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  do your questions, not an agenda, just whatever you want to ask each speaker that you would like
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  to talk to. So we're doing that, and we are planning on live streaming, because praise God,
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  we've sold out, no more tickets, I just, Elijah, I'll just bring any Elijah, I've got to tell him
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  this story, brother, good to see you, I know you've had a long trip, we're going to talk about it.
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  Thank you so much for being on. I got my first email. Good to have you. I got my first email,
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  just a little bit ago after it sold out, and someone said, hey, I just went to the conference website
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  and tried to buy tickets, and I couldn't get through, because there are no more tickets, no more seats.
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  Yeah, I wish the hotel could squeeze in some more chairs, but I'm not going to push it
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  for this one. But anyway, brother, I can't wait to have you in Green Bay, and I know a lot of people
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  are going to be blessed, not just by your story and what you've been doing all these years,
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  but just to hear some boots on the ground reports from Ukraine and Romania and all these different
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  places you've been on recently. So let's, let's just hear about your recent trip, brother,
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  welcome back. You just got back a few days ago. Let's hear about it. Go ahead.
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  Yeah, I got back late Monday night. It was an amazing trip. I was gone for six weeks
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  to seven countries, 19 flights. So it's praise the Lord for that. He opened the
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  opportunities on the doors, and I conducted many conferences, a lot of house groups, a lot of
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  counseling. So let me tell you the countries I've been in, I went to Poland, Romania, Bulgaria.
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  Bulgaria, I went there twice in an out in different parts of Bulgaria, Ukraine, United Kingdom,
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  and Wales, Turkey. So it was really amazing. The topics ranges anywhere from apologetics and
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  Muslim evangelism to biblical counseling, to biblical theology or biblical foundations,
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  but in that part of the world, it's a desperately neat counseling. They have a lot of issues with
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  depression, with suicide, with the addiction, anger, fear, all the things that human nature deals
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  with. But as Christians, they know the answers is in the scripture, but the church leaders are
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  ill equipped. They don't know how to search the scripture to deal with these issues. To be
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  honest with you, even here in America, when I went to seminary, they did not teach me that,
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  unless you have a specific degree on biblical counseling. Well, I wanted to learn theology,
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  at least you guys show me how to use the Bible to counsel people if we're going to do
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  minister to people, to God's people. So that was a big need, and we're going to continue doing that.
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  Also, the apologetics and Muslim evangelism is huge, especially. I went to the lions
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  din to Birmingham, England, and I used to live there in back in the 80s for seven years or so,
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  and I'm telling you, it's a different country, spiritually very oppressive, very darnly. You could
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  feel it in the air, and it's a third world country because the majority of Muslims in Birmingham
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  area now, and at the time they just finished Ramadan, so the celebration of Ramadan everywhere,
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  and those kind of immigrants, they brought third world country mindset and culture into that region.
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  So the streets were in deterioration, potholes everywhere, trash, garbage everywhere,
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  and the church that I did a conference for, they are self censored. They are afraid to say things,
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  especially not to get attacked by Muslims, but also from their own government, the British
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  government, because they silenced the population to say anything against Islam. You'll be in trouble,
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  or even post on Facebook that people get arrested. So it's really, really broke my heart for that,
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  but even with all of that, when they see the scripture and that they look at what's going on
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  in their own community as an opportunity. God brought these Muslims into England,
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  yeah, the Islamic agenda has its own agenda, but I tried to help God's people look at, they need
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  to separate Islam from the Muslim. The Lord Jesus did not die for Islam. He died for the Muslim,
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  just like he died for me. So they saw that and they are encouraged and they are equipped. We did
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  very great intensive teaching, overcome Muslim objections, some of the questions that usually
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  Muslims ask Christians to trap the Christians, to defeat the Christians, how to answer those
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  publicly. So we had a great, great time doing it. This is my second year going to that particular
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  region. First time I was there last June and again this year and they invited me to go back
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  again, more dwelling next year, but it was really unpleasant to be there. I just felt oppressed.
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  As far as a Romania, I've been going to Eastern Europe, Romania and Moldova for at least seven
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  times since 2019, every year except 2020 and it's been a blessing and a lot of young people
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  who are now born again, but they grew up either as orphans or abandoned and they really don't
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  know how to be men of God or women of God. And especially the ladies, they don't know how to be
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  a godly wife. Some of them have little kids. They don't know how to raise children. They have no
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  reference. They grew up as abandoned or orphans. So the Lord used me to do that, but also while I was
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  there in the week, week number five, my wife joined me and actually I left her there so she's still
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  back over there in Romania. And this is a new ministry we are looking into developing is
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  for my wife to launch and lead counseling nutrition because of her background medical background
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  and nutrition background. So she already I talked to her this morning. She already the Lord
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  is using it in a mighty way. Actually, one of the passes in Bulgaria dealing with cancer,
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  he is driving tomorrow morning to meet with her for her to put a protocol together because she
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  deals a lot with cancer patients for dealing with alternative medicine, not just chemotherapy and
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  radiation, but what else? What else that God has available that can be used to deal with these
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  issues? So it's been it's been interesting. I also had the privilege and meet one of the ladies,
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  the Romanian ladies, she works with a Tunisian Muslim. So she set up a lunch meeting and met with
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  him and when that was an interesting conversation and God gave me grace to plant a seed and
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  overcome some of his typical objections and we'll see where that goes. And his another beautiful
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  opportunity, all of these countries that I've been in 51 countries, all of them God opened the door.
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  So while I was my wife and I were in Moldova, I got invited to go to Central Asia country of
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  Gertricks, Kurgistan and also combined with Kazakhstan. So we are talking and if that happened,
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  it looks like I'm going to be going there early December of this year. So he's God.
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  Yeah, yeah, he's God. So you've been in 51 countries, but can I just just kind of take the
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  interview in a little slightly different direction by saying, but a lot of churches in America won't let
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  you in. Yeah, I overseas. Exactly. Exactly. In that crazy. And it's not like I have not been
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  available for them. To be honest with you, when we launched our ministry back in 20 2006,
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  so actually next month will be our 20th anniversary. Oh, great. Congratulations. Yeah.
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  By the way, I didn't give the website guys, living oasis.org living oasis.org. All right.
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  So the first eight years when we first launched our ministry, I I traveled throughout the United
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  States to 30 states across the nomination lines. And after eight years, everybody went back
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  to sleep and now no one is interested. Very few that know me and they keep inviting me, but I speak
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  and pass us conferences. I remember one time I spoke in passes conference about 250 passes in
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  Turkey. And after the conference, everybody asking for my brochure contact, we want to come to
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  our church. And guess how many invitations I received after that? Two zero zero. So let me ask you
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  this Elijah, I don't think I've ever asked you this because I don't remember your ministry going
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  back that far. When you were getting all those opportunities to speak in a lot of churches,
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  that was, you know, five, six, seven years or more after 9, 11. Is it because churches wanted
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  to understand Islam more at that time? And they were not sure how to respond to Muslims in America?
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  Was that one of the reasons you were able to speak more or what? Well, I mean, I've been,
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  I was already speaking around the country since 2000.
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  Actually, let's go back. I would say before 9, 11, since 1997, I was learning about jihad,
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  about on Pride and everything. Nobody wants to listen. 9, 11 happened. I got busy for six months
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  and everybody went back to sleep. So what's happening in American churches goes in waves.
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  Okay, whatever's happening in the news, then they call, hey, they panic. Come and talk to us.
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  What's going on? What is jihad? What is Islam? This and that. But once I turn into evangelism,
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  death ears. So right now, Islam is in the news. Sharia law, you know, enclaves and so on.
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  So now everybody wants to talk to me. What I mean, everybody in my state and some other states,
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  you know, nearby, but not nationally. I have not had that opportunity. Maybe after they
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  listened to you, maybe that will say, hey, come and talk to us. But the problem is Christians
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  in America, they look at themselves. And again, I'm not saying everybody, but the majority,
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  they look at themselves. I'm an American first. Christian second. Oh, okay. So what I mean,
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  Christian second, their mindset is not about the heavenly kingdom. That's not about evangelism.
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  It's not about the mission, a great commission. It's about my citizenship, my constitution,
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  my America. And I see there is a threat. Come and talk to us. But once I switch and try and say,
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  look, yes, here's a danger. But God brought the mission field to your doorstep. And here's how
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  you could do this. Hardly any interest. And that's it's sad. It's hard breaker. But there's
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  nothing I can do about it. It's God's church. It's not my church. Okay. All right. Back to, I
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  do want to hear more about these other countries, especially Ukraine. But just on the UK and Birmingham,
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  England for a minute, in your speculation, how far is America behind where they're at as far as
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  falling away from God, church is closing down, Muslim population growing? Can you give just your
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  quick thoughts on that? And then we'll get back to your recent trip. If the church does not get
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  on the ball and getting engaged, they were looking about 10 years, maybe 15, not even that.
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  That's sobering. Yeah. I mean, look at Canada. Yeah. Canada, they are right alongside with the
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  European mindset. And it's sad. And the United States, it depends which state you're at.
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  I mean, you don't dare to go to Derbal Michigan and do evangelism, even though on ministry,
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  we support a missionary there. And you know, like Rhode Islands or San Diego or some other states
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  that are heavily populated with Muslims. And of course, Somalia, a little Somalia in many
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  apolis, Minnesota. But the beautiful thing got open the door for me internationally where pastors
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  and seminary students are begging for teaching. And that blesses me. You know, that encourages me a
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  whole lot more than going to American church and tell them about Islam. And they don't do anything
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  about it. Right. So as I get older, I just feel like my time is valuable and here on earth. And I
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  want to use it for the Lord. And I want to go where people are teachable. And they are interested
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  in doing the great commission. Okay. All right, brother. This is going by fast. Let's go to the
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  Ukraine before we talk about Turkey and Poland because a lot of people, we're not hearing as much
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  in the headlines in the news about the war there with Ukraine and Russia anymore. Is it still
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  going on? What's going on there? It's still going on. And it's interesting. The media does not
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  talk about it. Where in there's a policy in Ukraine when a young man turned 25, they'll snatch him
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  out of the street out of their home and forcibly put them in boot camp to send them to the war.
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  So you see a lot of young people left. It was smuggled themselves out of the country. Now they live
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  away from their families in Western Europe and other countries. And I preached there at a church.
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  All I saw is women, children, elderly women, elderly men, no young men. And as I'm preaching, brother
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  David, as I'm preaching, I see nothing but sobbing. These women that kept wiping their tears and
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  just sobbing. And all I can do is encourage them from God's word from that. Also in our ministry,
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  we've been doing this actually since the war started. We established in eastern Ukraine a bakery
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  where we average about 15,000 loves a bread a month. And we sent about three tons of food every
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  month. And now also we've been helping with orphanages because of the war. So it's been a great
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  blessing. And I'm hopeful that the war will be over soon because I'm ministry, then it shifts
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  from humanitarian into this apple making and equipping young leaders to take care of the church
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  because most of the passes either left or the churches are burned or got bombed and so forth.
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  And there's a war between the Orthodox and the Ukrainians and all of that. Russian Orthodox,
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  of course, the churches they they attacked and demolished. And I'm talking about the Ukrainians
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  did that. So there are a lot of things happening. But as my surprise, there's a lot of money in
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  Ukraine. People driving incredible high end vehicles. And when I traveled to Moldova,
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  Kishina, which is a capital city at the airport, almost all of them are Ukrainians going in vacation.
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  And yeah, or Bucharest, Romania, a lot of Ukrainians going to Turkey to the beaches or go to
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  other places or North Africa to Egypt. And they're just going on vacation on to Italy. So where's
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  the money coming from? So yeah, there's a huge operation of money laundering going on there.
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  Of course, your tax money and my tax money. But yeah, a lot of corruption. And it's really
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  sickening. And the people are paying for it. It's really sad. It's had going on. So what I did
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  over there, the conference, I taught biblical counseling. And they desperately need that.
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  Well, let's go to Turkey next because this is prophetic. This is one of the nations.
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  Isn't it mentioned in the Bible? Yeah. So let's talk about Turkey. I tell us about that, Elijah.
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  The church, the city I went to, it's a city of about one million. And there's only one thousand
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  Christians. Yeah. And the church, I went to the doors locked. And if to get any, I have to push
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  up the doorbell and they look at you in the camera making sure this is church member and Christians
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  coming in. So what we did, the conference, we had to have be very alert and secure about this.
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  They excited at the and there were some Iranians in the in the conference and in the congregation.
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  And this is a beautiful thing. There were two sisters, Iranian sisters when they
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  they asked me around from, also from the United States. And they shabbard in top of their lung.
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  We love America. We love Trump. We're happy to have him take care of this mafia in Iran. The
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  I told us they killed out people in January, which is something else we don't hear in the news.
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  In January, when they went to the streets protesting in a peacefully, the Iranian government
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  executed or killed about 44,000 of their own people. You don't hear that in the news. So
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  so Turkey is an interesting place. Yes, churches are allowed to be visible or be there,
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  but the government definitely don't like them. They there's some harassment and they did kick out
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  a lot of missionaries. I met some American missionaries in Eastern Europe that were living in Turkey.
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  So now they minister to Turkish people in those in that region.
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  Wow, so much. And I know you've got a lot more to share. You mentioned Bulgaria, but I don't
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  remember if you wanted to detail. Do you want to go there? You want to tell us about Poland?
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  Well, Bulgaria is they have a huge population of left over from the Ottoman Empire. So they are
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  Turk Bulgarians. So they speak Turkish. They also speak Bulgaria. And of course in the mix of that,
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  they've got Turkish gypsies who live in Bulgaria, who are porous of a poor. So there's a huge
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  opportunity for that. And the church there, they know they need to witness their own people to the
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  Turks, but they just don't know how. One, theologically, they are weak. So we had to teach a lot of
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  theology, but also how to overcome Muslim objections, how to witness. They are really excited about.
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  So I got invited to go back in that region, that country. So I went there twice, one cross a
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  border from Romania. The other place was by the Black Sea. And the Lord really blessed our
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  effort there. Awesome. Praise God. And since it's, yes, since it's going by very fast, I'm very curious
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  about the spiritual environment or the conditions in Poland. Poland, the Christians, especially the
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  evangelicals are minority. Probably, if I say about 500, 600,000 out of the whole country, probably
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  that would be too much or too many. The evangelicals there, the ones that I work with are the
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  brethren community. And theologically, they're, they're good. No problem. So all they wanted is
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  biblical counseling, actually. But three weeks before I departed, the church, I was supposed to do
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  the conference caught on fire. And 300,000 dollars worth of damage. So we, the conference was cancelled,
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  but there was another conference with their leadership of the denomination that they wanted
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  me to come and do some teaching. But they want to, they want to, they want me to come back in
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  next year and Lord willing, the church will be up and running. So they are meeting at a high
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  school gymnasium right now. Our ministry, we raised a little bit of money for them and sent it
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  to them. So we're praying for the Lord to send more people to help our brothers and sisters in
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  Poland. And they do a wonderful job. That that church reaching out to the drug addict, the alcoholics,
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  the abandoned people. So, and they're growing. So it's really good. But overall, as a country,
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  very much secular, or you got the Catholic church is predominant, and then you got the
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  orthodox, Eastern orthodox. So you've been to a lot of these countries before.
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  Any surprising things that happen, anything that was extremely different from your previous
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  trips or something that, yeah, go ahead and share. I think you're. The church feels what's
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  going on in the global events. Because, like, for example, the Iran war, that's the first thing
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  they asked me. What do you thought, what I thought about the Iran war? How's that? What is it?
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  What do I, when do I think is going to be over? And the reason for that, because they've been,
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  they're feeling it. The gasoline there, it's about anywhere between six to eight dollars a gallon.
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  Wow. Yeah. So they're feeling it. The price is going up. Their wages are very low.
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  Like, for example, in Moldova, the average wage a month, about $350 a month, $400 a month. But
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  everything else, everything is high, sky high. Romania's same thing. So Eastern Europe, they're not as
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  rich as Western Europe as far as financially. And that's the problem. The church also feels that
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  all the young men are not home. They're on Western Europe work and send in money to support
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  the families. So that separation is really, it's breaking their hearts. The kids growing up
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  without their dads. So it's been, it's been really, that's what I see more and more every time I go
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  back. But they're faithful. I mean, they trust the Lord and they're praising God. They are doing what
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  they can to reach the community. But it's been very hard. The new generation, the young people
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  who grew up as orphans and abandoned when they were little kids, that's been a challenge. So
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  my wife and I were trying to help in that end. So we'll, we'll see how that goes.
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  Okay. So Elijah Abraham, you will be coming to Green Bay. I know you've got to talk about some
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  of this, especially Ukraine. I think a lot of people aren't aware of when you just explained
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  that, just picturing all these women, young women, older women, and hardly any young men,
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  that's just heartbreaking. But anyway, you're going to be speaking twice at the conference,
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  and you've got so much to try to condense into, into two sessions, but we're really looking
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  forward to having you in Green Bay, May 1st and 2nd. Brother, can't wait to see you. Any closing
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  thoughts to encourage the body of Christ? Just have a sense of urgency and redeem the time.
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  Yeah, it's really, it's a Christian right now in the day of age. If they are not feeling that
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  sense of urgency, they're not in their scripture, and they're not paying attention to global events
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  and what's happening. What I see around the world, and I do travel around the world literally,
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  and when I see here in the United States, yeah, to a certain, from a human perspective,
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  concerning, oh, we don't know how it's going to be when it's going to end. But ultimately,
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  from a scripture point of view, man, I'm excited. I truly believe that the Old Testament
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  prophets and the New Testament apostles dreamed of the day that we are living in today,
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  because we are seeing it unfold before our eyes. If you're a student of the scripture,
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  you will see the signs. So I encourage God's people. Don't focus on the hearing now, and
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  it's just around you. Look at the big picture. Look at God's plan from Genesis to Revelation,
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  and see where you are in that timeline. And believe me, we are very close to the Lord's coming
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  than we think. So, and he is. Yes, brother, thank you. That's a great perspective to end with,
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  because yes, we are in amazing times. But thanks again for your time. We will see you in just
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  a few weeks, brother. I'm looking forward to it. God bless you. Thank you.
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  God bless you. Elijah Abraham, that's living oasis.org. Thank you, friends. God bless you,
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  and as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter. See you next time.