Latest / Mission SONlight CHATT / Mission SONlight Chatt Ep.3 with Serena VanFossen

Transcript

Mission SONlight Chatt Ep.3 with Serena VanFossen · Mission SONlight CHATT

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  Music
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  Welcome to Mission Sunlight Chat from the Media Missionaries of Network 7 Media Center.
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  We are in our world headquarters studio located in Chattanooga, Tennessee in the United States
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  of America, wherever you are.
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  Welcome to our program.
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  My name is Christopher Beeson and our director of production and engineering today is Jordan
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  Wagner.
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  Our guest today is Serena Van Fossen.
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  Serena, welcome to the studio.
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  Thank you.
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  I'm going to share with the folks at home a little bit about our program and then we'll
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  come back and start a conversation, a chat, if you will.
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  Mission Sunlight Chat is a non-profit Christian media organization, media production.
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  So if you'd like to know more, visit us at missionsunlight.org.
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  That's missionsunlight.org.
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  And if you want to give, you can click donate there.
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  Thank you in advance for whatever you might be led to give, including your prayers or
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  money or a combination of both of these.
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  We're truly grateful for you.
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  We appreciate whatever you would like to do for this work.
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  Now just one more thing before we get into today's program.
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  We need to grow to touch more lives for Jesus, to share the story of Jesus, to spread the
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  truth as it is in Jesus.
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  So please, if you can't give your time, you can't give your prayers, you can't give
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  monies, would you please, please share this link to today's program with a friend or
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  even an enemy?
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  Post it on your social media, text it to a friend now, even snail mail it if you want.
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  Share mission sunlight chat today.
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  Thank you.
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  Thank you.
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  Thank you.
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  Serena, we want to thank you for joining us today in our studio.
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  We're glad you're here.
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  You have a bit of a mission background and we're going to talk about the history of that,
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  but tell us who you are.
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  What are you doing now for, whether it's school, work, play, family, just tell us a little
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  bit about yourself.
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  Not a little bit.
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  Some family history.
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  My family is Adventist for several generations.
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  So I grew up Adventist.
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  My parents grew up Adventist.
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  Some of my grandparents grew up Adventist.
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  So there's some background and some groundwork that has been laid generationally in my family.
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  Kind of runs in your blood.
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  Yeah, on some level.
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  My parents, when I was 11 or 10, decided to, they felt called to move to the mission field
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  to South America and God opened the doors when we needed to walk through them.
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  And they just kept opening and my dad would pray, God, if you want us to go, open the
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  doors and don't just open them.
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  Put a vacuum on the other side.
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  And God did that and we kind of got pulled along into this mission field in Guyana and
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  we were there for about five years.
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  All right.
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  For those who aren't global or for those who may not know, where is Guyana?
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  It is along the Northern coast of South America.
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  It's just above Brazil.
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  And then to the East, there's Suriname and French Guyana.
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  And then to the West, there's Venezuela.
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  So out in the Caribbean to the North would be what?
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  Trinidad and Tobago?
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  Trinidad and Tobago.
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  Yep.
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  Okay.
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  All right.
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  Keep going.
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  My family was there for five years.
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  My parents felt led that it was time to move back to the States when my brother and I were
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  about the age to be halfway or most of the way through high school.
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  And my parents wanted to make sure that my brother and I had some experience in attending
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  formal education before we went to college.
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  And I have found that very helpful.
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  But also at that time, my parents had had one church plant and then a local person was
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  working on another church plant.
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  And that church plant was at the point where we really needed to step out.
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  And they were ready to take lead.
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  And we slowly stepped out during that last year that we were there.
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  And we were putting the local leaders in position and giving them guidance for how to lead and
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  how to do Bible studies and how to do sermons.
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  And granted, throughout our time there, we were kind of teaching that through our example.
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  So that is the biblical process of discipleship, making disciples.
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  So here today, what are you doing?
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  It's summer.
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  So right now I've found a summer job.
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  But I'm working on completing my bachelor's in science of engineering at Walla Walla University.
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  And I'm about, I would be considered a senior now, at least with regards to how far I am
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  through the program, but I completed two years of student mission work in Cambodia.
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  So that has shifted my coursework a little bit.
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  Okay, how has that, what you're doing in your coursework, affected your summer job?
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  So the summer job that I got is really cool.
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  I just started today.
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  I'm working at Southern Adventist University as kind of an assistant to help them start
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  their new engineering program there, and they're having me utilize some of the skills and knowledge
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  that I've developed in my coursework.
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  Okay, so how is that?
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  You're a female in the engineering program.
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  Are there a lot of females in engineering there?
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  I can't speak on behalf of Southern because I haven't attended and they're just starting
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  their actual accredited program this year.
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  But at Walla Walla my freshman year, it's still majority guys.
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  The discipline that you're in really changes the proportion of female to male students.
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  The majority of the female students are in civil engineering and bioengineering because
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  those, I'm guessing those two are more viewed as service oriented, whereas courses like
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  mechanical engineering and computer engineering and electrical engineering aren't seen to
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  have as much human to human interactions.
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  And in my class with the students that would be graduating with me right now, there are
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  eight of us and I'm the only female in that group.
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  Does that gender disparity affect you much or do you feel like you're just running with
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  the program with everybody else?
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  After spending some time in a culture where I had to be very acutely aware of if I was
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  in a room by myself with a guy or how much interaction I had with a guy because of the
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  way they culturally viewed things in Asia.
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  Yeah, it has taken me a little bit to adjust again to being in an all male environment
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  essentially.
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  Where it's less noticed?
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  Yeah, where it's not, we don't care so much if, oh, you were seen walking down the street
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  with someone else that's of the opposite gender.
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  If somebody's tuning in, they may not know Walla Walla and Southern are both Christian
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  educational institutions of higher learning.
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  So we'd like to think that the culture on those campuses is maybe more inclusive and
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  more supportive of Christian behavior.
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  I didn't mean to sound hesitant on that, I was just trying to think of the proper way
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  to say it.
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  I have close affinity with Southern and feel like they do have that culture on campus and
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  I'm happy to be a part of the community of Southern too.
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  I haven't felt any, I don't know, sexism towards me from any of the other students or the faculty.
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  At most I've only felt like-
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  And that's at Walla Walla where you've been educating.
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  Yeah.
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  I've only felt like some of them feel inferior so they've kind of let that out a little bit
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  towards me and that could just be because I'm older than them.
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  I haven't been with them since their freshman year, just a variety of different things.
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  And it could just be my perception of it.
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  It could be a variety of things.
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  Well I'm glad you're comfortable.
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  What else is going on?
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  Do you have any hobbies?
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  Tell us about your family, your parents, your brother.
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  I'm giving it away, you have a brother.
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  I'm a first born daughter.
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  I have an older brother.
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  He's about 18 months older than I am.
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  So we've had that competitive sibling rivalry.
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  Since I came home the first day, that's what I've been told.
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  Well I've got two older sisters, one one year, one two years.
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  I'll be in trouble for announcing that on this podcast.
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  Tell us about your folks.
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  My brother just graduated from Southern with a BA in business.
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  And my parents are working in kind of the medical field.
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  My mom works as a medical technician at a pediatric clinic.
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  And my dad works as an nurse practitioner at a pain management clinic.
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  So we brought you on the program to share a little bit about your story of being a missionary.
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  And so we're going to take a break.
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  But when we come back, I want you to share a bit about where you have been, both in your
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  youth, you talked about serving in Guyana, but also where you've just been most recently.
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  How long were you there?
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  Were you there a year, year and a half, two years during COVID?
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  I was in Cambodia for two years.
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  Okay.
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  And the majority of that was during COVID, wasn't it?
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  Yes.
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  Okay.
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  We're going to talk about that when we come back.
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  All right.
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  You ready for that?
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  We're going to take a break here for about 60 seconds or so.
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  Just a reminder, missionsunlight.org is a place where you can learn more and you can
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  give there too.
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  Please share the link to today's program or the entire show podcast platform with a friend
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  by text, by social media, or even by email.
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  Take a moment right now during the break, share it with someone.
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  We'll be back with more Mission Sunlight Chat.
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  Welcome back to Mission Sunlight Chat.
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  Our guest, Serena Van Fossen.
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  Serena, as we began the program today, we like to begin with prayer and you're going
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  to share some stories.
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  Before you do that, we missed having prayer in our first segment.
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  I want to pause and invite you to pray with us and for our time together.
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  Go ahead.
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  Heavenly Father, thank you for today.
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  Thank you for this opportunity for me to share my story with other people.
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  I ask that you cause this to bless them and help them to grow towards you because of it.
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  Please help us to be able to speak clearly so that the people that hear this podcast
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  would be able to understand and would also be able to share it, whether it just be word
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  of mouth or through actually sharing the podcast.
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  Thank you in the Jesus name.
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  Amen.
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  Amen.
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  Tell us a little of your story, the mission experiences you've had.
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  My family moved to Guyana in, I want to say 2011.
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  Before we moved down, we did a, we call it a survey trip.
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  You go down, you spend like a week or two checking out the scene, what's going on there,
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  kind of where you might be moving in.
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  If you really want to move in and actually work the mission, is this a project you want
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  to work on?
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  Is this people that you want to work with?
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  Because if the people aren't people you want to work with, it makes a lot of conflict.
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  So a lot of data gathering.
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  Yeah.
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  That's what the survey trip is for.
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  So my family spent about a week doing a survey trip and we decided that we were going to
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  move forward with this.
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  So my family went back to the States and we did training at Adventist Frontier Missions
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  through their formal training program, which they do culture training, like how do you
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  study a culture?
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  In essence, it's you look at their culture, how they behave, how they interact with each
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  other and you live as one of them among them so they see that you're like them and you're
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  trying to reduce the number of differences between you and the other people.
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  And so my parents went through that training.
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  The training also included some leadership training and some Bible study training and
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  some other training that's necessary for working with groups of people and in those types of
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  positions.
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  And then we went around the States doing some, a bunch of traveling and we did fundraising
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  towards our goal because a missionary can't live in the mission field without some form
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  of income and dedicating that much time to mission work requires a source of income that
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  you're not able to provide for yourself while you're in the field because you're doing all
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  of this social interaction.
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  So we had to go do all of that fundraising and after the fundraising was done, we launched,
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  we spent those five years in Guyana, which because of my age and the age of my peers
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  that were there, the local peers that I would have had, my parents weren't comfortable with
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  my brother and I going and hanging out with them off our land because here's part of the
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  culture of Guyana.
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  The kids, 12, 10, all the way up, they'll start hanging out at the bars.
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  They call it liming in Guyana where they'll go and hang out and they'll just chill with
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  the adults and partake.
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  And from what I understand, there weren't really any drinking laws in Guyana.
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  So the adult would, you know, I bought the beer, here you want some kind of a thing.
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  My parents just didn't want my brother and I interacting in that environment and really
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  as a Christian, that's not a good environment to be in because I mean, you don't really
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  know what's happening or what could happen because people's judgment is impaired.
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  And then we had, we worked our way into getting to know the locals and as part of AFM's training,
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  they suggest that you spend the first year or two doing that culture study and language
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  learning.
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  But because Guyana is an English speaking country, we didn't have to devote a large
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  amount of time.
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  Right.
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  More culture, less language.
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  And though there was less language, they speak pidgin English, not what they call proper
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  English like what you and I speak.
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  They speak, I mean, think about how some of the Caribbean people speak a little bit and
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  then combine that with a heavier accent and some like.
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  Can you give us an example of what that sounds like or has it been too long?
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  It's hard to get into it because I'm speaking with someone who speaks proper English and
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  I definitely can't do it as well as they can by this point, but.
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  All right, we'll let you off the hook.
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  I can try if you want.
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  It's okay.
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  Everybody at home is going, make her do it, make her do it.
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  No, no, we won't do that to you.
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  So we had this and the dialect that they speak is different enough that if I was speaking
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  like I am to you, some of them wouldn't be able to understand it.
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  Even though they have a lot of the movies we watch in the TV shows and stuff that they
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  get through pirating stuff.
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  But after we within the first year we were there, we had a family come to us and ask
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  us to do Bible studies.
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  And I mean, what do you do?
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  I mean, God's brought them to you.
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  You can't say no.
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  Friendship, evangelism and the Holy Spirit working.
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  Yeah.
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  So my parents started doing Bible studies with them and the group slowly grew.
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  And at one point they were like, hey, can we keep like what do you do for like keeping
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  Sabbath or keeping Sunday or like what do you do with regards to that?
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  And they were kind of asking for like a sermon and some they want a church.
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  They want a church.
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  And my parents were like, well, we're Seventh-day Adventists, so we keep Sabbath holy.
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  But we understand that out of the market days that you have.
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  That's a big day.
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  Saturday is a huge day.
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  Saturdays and Tuesdays in Guyana were their market days.
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  And if you didn't go to market when market was open, you didn't have food.
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  So it was very important for them to be able to go to market.
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  And they're like, yeah, we need to be able to do that.
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  So let's have church start at 10.
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  And so we were like, OK, but we need a building.
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  And we're like, because our house wasn't big enough.
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  And my dad was the way we got the building, one of the wheels on our vehicle needed to
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  be fixed.
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  And my dad was trying to get the wheel off and he broke his tool for getting it off.
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  And he was asking around who has this type of tool that I can borrow.
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  And he got word that brother so-and-so lives down over so.
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  That's the directions.
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  He lives over so.
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  Yeah, very, very descriptive to our minds.
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  So you went over so and found the tool and what happened?
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  Yeah.
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  They're like, hey, we heard that you're doing Bible studies.
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  Would you start the church here?
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  Kind of thing.
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  And my parents are like, yeah, we need to pray about this.
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  But that's not the response they gave him.
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  They were like, yeah.
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  Sure.
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  Let's talk about this, figure it out, see how things work.
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  The building had to be cleaned out and benches had to be put in so that people had places
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  to sit during church.
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  And that happened.
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  And later my parents found out that in their culture, in order to start a church, you have
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  to have approval from the village chief.
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  Uh-oh.
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  Yeah, uh-oh.
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  And in Guyana, you have two village chiefs.
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  You have the elected village chief for government work.
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  And then you have the social village chief who's in charge of like, he's chief because
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  the community has put him in that position.
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  And that's the guy that you really need to have that in order, that approval from in
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  order to be able to start your church.
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  So even in the far flung regions, there is layers of bureaucracy.
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  Yes, yes.
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  Anyway, go ahead.
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  How did the approval go?
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  It went well, seeing as the guy who asked us to start the church in that building was
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  the village chief.
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  Oh, that worked out very well.
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  Amen.
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  Did.
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  Wow, praise the Lord.
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  So that's kind of how the church there started, a small group that grew to a larger group
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  that needed an actual building.
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  And the chief was the one that offered the building.
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  All right.
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  I don't know if you have more you want to add to that, but I'm interested in jumping
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  over to Cambodia when you're ready.
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  Tell us what you were doing in Cambodia and what that work was like.
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  I went through Adventist Frontier Missions as a student missionary, which is the same
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  organization my parents trained with.
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  So I got similar training to what they got, but instead of training for three months,
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  like my parents did, I only trained for about a month, which shortens a lot of the training.
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  You don't need as much because you're going for a short period of time.
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  You're going in a supporting role.
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  The career missionaries are looking out for you.
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  You don't need to have as much in-depth culture study.
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  But they provided us with some with some expectations as far as like you're going to get culture
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  shock.
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  You're going to have to readjust.
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  You need to do language learning.
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  Here's some ideas on how to do that.
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  And they gave us these these sets of tools to be able to use towards the ministry that
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  we were there to support.
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  I'm going to lean past you before you continue and look over at Jordan.
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  Jordan worked with young adult missionary service in Jordan.
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  You were in Thailand.
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  Am I correct with that?
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  Yeah, that's correct.
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  OK.
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  And before that, as a much younger person, where were you?
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  We were in the Congo.
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  OK.
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  So your experiences in Africa and in Asia and your experience, you know, was in South
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  America and Asia.
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  So I wonder, I wonder, Jordan, as we talk, maybe there are some comparisons to be made
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  between the two countries being pretty much side by side, right?
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  Cambodia and Thailand?
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  Yeah, that's correct.
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  OK.
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  Cambodia and Thailand are right by each other.
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  They share a border.
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  Yeah.
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  So you guys can dialogue a little bit in this segment, too, about being similar ages in
• 23:53
  in those countries.
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  But go ahead, Serena.
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  And like I said, Jordan, feel free to jump in here.
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  So after completing the training, I had about a month to.
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  Hmm.
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  Yeah, about a month to prepare to actually launch.
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  And I didn't know where I was going initially because of covid.
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  The training and the fundraising that I had to do had all kind of shifted on what it looked
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  like.
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  And I had to have my fundraising and mostly by the time training started, I had to have
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  a certain amount more for training to start.
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  Right.
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  For me to be able to go to training.
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  And training had changed because of covid.
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  And normally the student missionaries that were training, they were able to go out into
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  the community and interact with the people in the training, you know, the training facility
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  and build relationships with them.
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  But because of covid, we weren't able to leave.
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  We were actually quarantined to the facility for two weeks before we were able to leave
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  and do shopping and stuff.
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  What a tough orientation.
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  Oh, man.
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  All right.
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  So go on.
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  So we trained and then I launched in September of 2020.
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  And I had to get Cambodia required certain things in order to enter the country, one
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  of those being a document from a doctor that had done a covid test, a specific type of
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  covid test they were very picky on, which one it was.
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  And this document had to have a stamp and a signature on the stamp from the doctor.
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  And that's not something we do here.
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  So the doctors don't have those types of stamps.
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  And luckily, one of the student missionaries that was going to Cambodia with me, her mother
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  is a doctor and she was able to find a company that makes what do you call it?
• 26:06
  Custom stamps.
• 26:08
  And we were able to get one of those.
• 26:10
  She was able to do the documentation.
• 26:14
  And she could have been in high demand after that.
• 26:17
  Yeah.
• 26:18
  All right.
• 26:19
  So they accepted that they accepted that.
• 26:21
  And when we got to Cambodia, we had to quarantine for two weeks.
• 26:25
  But when I arrived at that point, covid wasn't super scary in Cambodia.
• 26:32
  So we only had to quarantine for three days at the hotel before we were allowed to go
• 26:40
  over to the province that we were going to be working out of.
• 26:44
  And then we finished up our 14 day quarantine in the province that we were working in.
• 26:53
  And that was a little bit rough because it was just me and three other girls in a facility.
• 27:01
  We're actually at in the living quarters of the school.
• 27:04
  And then the one guy, student missionary ended up being by himself in a little house for
• 27:11
  the rest of those two weeks.
• 27:14
  And we weren't allowed outside because the locals had told the principal of the school
• 27:19
  that if we walked around and stuff and spread covid around, they blame the school for it.
• 27:25
  So they told the career missionaries told us not to leave the building itself.
• 27:30
  But when school was closed for the day, we were allowed to walk around and the whole
• 27:34
  building, but we just couldn't leave the building.
• 27:37
  It's a tough quarantine.
• 27:39
  Yeah.
• 27:40
  Is there any specific story or blessing from your experience here in Cambodia?
• 27:47
  Two years is a lot to summarize into one short little blip.
• 27:51
  But maybe just give us one story.
• 27:53
  Let me think.
• 27:58
  One of my second year, I was there with two of the other missionaries that I launched
• 28:03
  with and we had a couple of other missionaries come down.
• 28:07
  But myself and one of the missionaries that stayed with me, she and I moved out to a village
• 28:15
  that we were working in.
• 28:16
  It was only like eight, ten minutes away from the actual city.
• 28:22
  If you want to call it a city, it's like a small town.
• 28:26
  But we moved there and the time to travel changed depending on what it was throughout
• 28:33
  the year because that road was made out of mud clay mixture.
• 28:37
  So when it rained, it really wasn't nice to drive on.
• 28:43
  Because we were living there, we had a lot of the village kids come and play with us
• 28:50
  and we kind of entertained them on some level, made friends with them.
• 28:55
  And one of the local women who was living by herself with her children, she started
• 29:04
  doing Bible studies because she saw that we cared for her kids.
• 29:08
  And she was very impressed with how we actually cared for them and how we interacted with
• 29:13
  them and all of that.
• 29:15
  And that opened the doors for her to do Bible studies with the current missionaries.
• 29:20
  And we started doing those Bible studies with her while I was still there.
• 29:26
  And from what I know, by this point, she's been baptized.
• 29:30
  Amen.
• 29:31
  So that was really cool to see.
• 29:33
  Yeah, that's a neat story to be a part of that experience.
• 29:37
  Wow.
• 29:38
  Okay.
• 29:39
  So we're going to take another break and come back.
• 29:43
  Kind of tell us about future plans and any of this we've talked about that you want to
• 29:49
  add to or informs that future, you can share that as well.
• 29:53
  We certainly hope you've been encouraged and been blessed by the program today.
• 29:58
  We have more to come, but we need to take a break.
• 30:01
  So remember, you can give at missionsunlight.org or you can share this program with anyone
• 30:06
  right now.
• 30:07
  Thank you for doing both or either.
• 30:09
  We'll be back with more Mission Sunlight Chat.
• 30:22
  Our salvation is a day to day matter, isn't it?
• 30:27
  The real principle of the Sabbath is reconnecting ourselves with the Creator.
• 30:36
  We must learn to abide in Jesus' name.
• 30:40
  We move ahead with our mission objectives, recognizing that we are serving together the
• 30:45
  Most High God.
• 30:59
  Welcome back to Mission Sunlight.
• 31:00
  Our guest, Serena Van Fossen and our engineer, Jordan Wagner.
• 31:06
  Jordan, Serena, if you will, let's get the camera over to Jordan.
• 31:09
  Jordan, as you listen to some of those experiences from Cambodia, any of that reminiscent of
• 31:15
  your experience in Thailand, the culture or just watching people's lives change, any of
• 31:20
  that you recall from your experience?
• 31:21
  Yeah.
• 31:22
  I mean, the culture in Thailand, they've got differences, but they're very similar as well.
• 31:28
  When I was there, I just enjoyed being in that culture.
• 31:31
  I guess my question for Serena is how have you found that this has impacted your life
• 31:36
  for what you want to do in your future?
• 31:38
  Because I know my mission experience growing up and once I was in college has made a big
• 31:44
  impact on my life and kind of changed what I plan to do in post collegiate time.
• 31:54
  Yeah.
• 31:56
  This has impacted me because in and I'll get into that.
• 32:01
  When I was there, we had a very diverse team of missionaries that, I mean, diverse as in
• 32:11
  a couple from South America.
• 32:13
  So one was from Ecuador and the other one was from Chile.
• 32:19
  No.
• 32:20
  Anyway.
• 32:22
  And then we had two career missionaries from South Africa and then two families from the
• 32:26
  United States.
• 32:27
  So we had this mesh of different cultures within the team itself and that created some
• 32:36
  conflict because of cultural differences.
• 32:40
  And I think there was this concept of we're the career missionaries and we all kind of
• 32:46
  have the same culture.
• 32:49
  And that created some conflict because someone would do something and they're like, oh, I
• 32:56
  think this is what I'm supposed to do because that's what I'm used to doing.
• 32:59
  And then the other person would be like, why did you do that?
• 33:01
  That's not the way it works.
• 33:03
  So there's this level of conflict that happened within the team.
• 33:06
  And I found that to be a valuable experience because that helped me grow my conflict resolution
• 33:12
  skills.
• 33:14
  And going into engineering as a mechanical engineer, I would like to be able to use those
• 33:20
  skills to be able to work with the people that I'll be working with as a mechanical
• 33:25
  engineer.
• 33:26
  And what I want to do with the mechanical engineering is somehow use that for mission
• 33:33
  work, whether that be in the States or in another country.
• 33:38
  And well, in the States, it would look like working with people that you can't normally
• 33:44
  access because the people that I would have access to are more upper class because engineers
• 33:52
  are in that group of makes who knows how much a year because they design the super fancy
• 33:59
  things that go to the moon and back.
• 34:03
  That's kind of where I've come from this is not just the people in the third world countries
• 34:13
  that we advertise so much here in America of Africa needs missionaries because they're
• 34:19
  they're poor and lowly and look, they're dying from starvation.
• 34:25
  And that's true in parts.
• 34:28
  But there are also some parts of Africa which are very wealthy.
• 34:31
  And there's just this large gap of income that happens in America or not America, well,
• 34:38
  in America, too, but in Africa.
• 34:41
  And I want to be able to reach either or and I think engineering provides me a good outlet
• 34:48
  for that.
• 34:49
  I love that you have thought about something that is not mainstream, if you will, to the
• 34:57
  missionary movement and found a way to still apply it for the kingdom that is really that's
• 35:04
  a great vision.
• 35:06
  I admire that.
• 35:07
  Jordan, I don't want to take away from any of the question you have, but I just wanted
• 35:10
  to comment that if you have anything else.
• 35:12
  I think I was.
• 35:15
  Yeah.
• 35:16
  Anything else you want to share about where you're headed?
• 35:20
  I mean, I think what you're laying out is really cool vision.
• 35:24
  Anything else on that or?
• 35:25
  I can't think of anything.
• 35:27
  Okay.
• 35:28
  Well, maybe just share a last word with our audience.
• 35:33
  It's important to be able to see not just who you are, but who you're trying to reach.
• 35:40
  And if you're trying, maybe you're trying to reach yourself.
• 35:46
  What we're spending our time with.
• 35:48
  By that, do you mean, I'm just going to interrupt, but by that, do you mean when you think of
• 35:53
  reaching yourself, just finding your place in ministry, finding what God wants you to
• 35:57
  do?
• 35:58
  Is that what you mean?
• 35:59
  Yeah, partly.
• 36:00
  Okay.
• 36:01
  Yeah.
• 36:02
  And sometimes we're in the spot where we're like, I want God, but I don't want to put
• 36:08
  that work in to sacrifice the things that I enjoy, maybe.
• 36:13
  And I mean, we could look to Moses.
• 36:18
  He set aside the pleasures of sin to endure affliction with the children of Israel, knowing
• 36:23
  that God would bring them out of Egypt to a better place.
• 36:27
  And he chose that relationship with God over those things that Egypt had to offer as the
• 36:33
  world's leading technological society, leading society of, I mean, they were rulers of the
• 36:43
  world at the time that Moses was in that position.
• 36:48
  So he had access to things that nobody else in his time period would have had.
• 36:54
  And in America, we have kind of the same thing, and we need to be able to look at the things
• 37:02
  that we're doing and see what we can sacrifice.
• 37:06
  And maybe some of those things that we could sacrifice, I would say the things that we
• 37:10
  should sacrifice are the things that aren't bringing us closer to God, because what's
• 37:14
  not bringing us closer to God is pushing us away from him.
• 37:18
  And in finding where we're supposed to go, we can't do that if we're clinging onto the
• 37:25
  things from our past that are true for all of us, are keeping us from God.
• 37:32
  And we need to be able to give those to God and be like, hey, I know this is something
• 37:36
  you don't want me to do.
• 37:38
  And I'm struggling with setting this aside.
• 37:42
  Help me to recognize that in the moment that I'm tempted to do that, or that I'm tempted
• 37:49
  to think that way, or that I'm tempted to act, or an attitude that I have, or something,
• 37:56
  that we would be able to leave that aside and be like, God, I want you over this.
• 38:04
  Let me move closer to you.
• 38:06
  And to not get caught in the moment, but to think to the future.
• 38:10
  Kind of a Proverbs one approach, make my will your will.
• 38:14
  Or make your will what I will.
• 38:19
  Transform me into your character kind of thing.
• 38:23
  And Ecclesiastes comes to mind too.
• 38:26
  This is the whole duty of man to love God and keep his commandments.
• 38:33
  And I realized that in that verse it says fear, but I feel like love God is a better
• 38:41
  description of that.
• 38:42
  At least to respect him in when we respect.
• 38:45
  Yeah.
• 38:46
  Because love and fear, the fear I feel like is a bad translation of that word there.
• 38:51
  Because perfect love casts out fear.
• 38:53
  And if God is love, how can he be fear?
• 38:57
  But yes, there's this form of respect to that.
• 38:59
  Yeah, I think the translation probably should have been respecting the awesomeness of God.
• 39:04
  And when you respect, when you get to know someone, love is the natural response.
• 39:09
  And he's all powerful.
• 39:11
  So there is a certain amount of fear that would probably be entailed with that as far
• 39:16
  as.
• 39:17
  And that was probably the approach of the translators back then.
• 39:19
  Yeah.
• 39:20
  Yeah.
• 39:21
  So anything else in your final thought, I kind of cut you off there.
• 39:25
  That we would let go of those things and move closer to him, even if in the moment we're
• 39:32
  like, oh, I like this.
• 39:34
  But.
• 39:35
  Total surrender.
• 39:36
  Yeah, total surrender.
• 39:37
  Absolutely.
• 39:38
  Wow.
• 39:39
  Thank you.
• 39:40
  Thanks for sharing today.
• 39:41
  Yeah.
• 39:42
  We're going to wrap up the program, but let's have a word of prayer together.
• 39:47
  Father in heaven, thank you so much for this time with Serena and Jordan.
• 39:50
  Lord, I pray your blessings on these words as they go out, whoever they touch, whoever
• 39:55
  might be listening right now, that they would know that Jesus is their very best friend,
• 40:00
  that he longs to spend time with them, that he longs to help improve and increase and
• 40:05
  bless their life through a connection with him.
• 40:12
  And if anything we have said has been useful for your kingdom, Lord, let it flourish and
• 40:17
  let it ripple out to anyone and everyone that it can be a blessing.
• 40:22
  Thank you for this time with Serena.
• 40:24
  Please continue her with her on her journey.
• 40:27
  That is she takes this unique approach to missionary service that you and your kingdom
• 40:33
  will be honored.
• 40:34
  Thank you for this time.
• 40:35
  Put it in your hands in Jesus name.
• 40:37
  Amen.
• 40:38
  Again, thank you, Serena.
• 40:40
  That is today's program from the Media Missionaries of Network 7 Media Center.
• 40:45
  This has been Mission Sunlight Chat with our guest Serena van Fossen.
• 40:49
  I'm Christopher Beeson, your host and today's engineer, our director of production, Jordan
• 40:53
  Wagner.
• 40:54
  We thank you for joining us.
• 40:55
  We thank you for sharing our show with your friends via text or email or on your social
• 41:02
  media platforms, whatever way you want to tell others about Mission Sunlight Chat.
• 41:06
  We also thank you for your gifts and your prayers, especially, especially your prayers.
• 41:13
  That's all today from our studios in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
• 41:15
  This is Mission Sunlight Chat.