From Every Nation
The From Every Nation Podcast is designed to encourage and equip the next generation of missionaries to take the gospel into the world. Join us as we interview missionaries to hear first hand about their life and ministry. Learn firsthand what strategies, barriers, and opportunities they faced on the field. The FEN podcast also equips you today, for the missionary work the Lord has planned for your life. The FEN podcast is the official podcast of the Tom Elliff Center for Missions at Oklahoma Baptist University
From Every Nation
The Manns: Obedience Leading to Gospel Transformation Pt. 1
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What happens when two college sweethearts leave behind a thriving American ministry to reach an unreached people group in Southeast Asia? Greg and Sarah’s journey to the remote mountains of Thailand began with a quiet, persistent conviction from Scripture.
Through tearful prayers, hard questions, and a willingness to obey, they followed God’s call to the Palong. From creating solar-powered audio Bibles for an illiterate population to discipling a former drug addict whose family helped turn a Buddhist temple into a church, their story is a powerful example of how God works through ordinary people in extraordinary ways.
This episode offers honest insight into the joys and struggles of pioneer missions, and a compelling invitation to step into God’s global mission today.
Episode Introduction and Guest Welcome
Speaker 1Perfect, Okay, Good morning everyone. We're glad you're here with us for another episode of the From Every Nation podcast. I've got a great couple here today. We're going to interview the man's. They're the parents of a couple of our students and we're pretty excited to get to interview them and so we'll jump on in and I'll let them introduce themselves. So I've got Greg and Sarah here and so if y'all could go ahead and just give a brief introduction where you're from, and then we'll jump into kind of talking about early life and how y'all came to know Christ here pretty quickly, Okay.
Speaker 2Excellent.
Speaker 1Well.
Speaker 2I. We are both natives of Oklahoma, so we grew up here. My father was in the military and so we jumped around a couple of different states early on but landed here at Tinker Air Force Base, and I grew up in Midwest City, Oklahoma, and then Sarah.
Speaker 3Yes, I came here when I was in fifth grade. My father was a pastor at First Southern and grew up here and came to OBU, was a student at OBU and graduated from OBU. And yeah, those are our early years. We met actually when we were pretty young and got married right about well, got engaged about a week before we graduated from OBU.
Speaker 1Wow, wow.
Speaker 3Okay.
Speaker 1And then got married. How quickly.
Speaker 3Three months later. Wow, yeah, okay Three months later.
Speaker 2Move fast from that point. So we dated Firm believers in short engagements. That's right, me too, me too.
Speaker 3I was just telling a bunch of college students that at the beginning of the semester yeah, yeah, dated all the way, all through college, all through college years and um yeah, so we were ready to get married right after college oh, that's great, that's great.
Speaker 1So both you might have just said this both of you are from oklahoma yes, right, okay, I grew up in oklahoma since the third grade. Okay, okay, where were you at before Oklahoma?
Speaker 2Yeah, parents were. My dad was in the military, and so we were in New York and Florida and Guam and North Carolina that's where I was born but then landed in Oklahoma at third grade and spent the rest of my time here growing up, all through college.
Speaker 1Okaycha, what was your family like growing up? Were you raised in a Christian household?
Speaker 2My father was actually a first-generation Christian and so before him, before he came to faith in Christ, he was a pretty worldly man, but he had a radical transformation, had a good friend who was persistent in sharing the gospel with him and he came to faith probably in his I'm going to say 30s, mid-30s or so, and when he did, again, just a radical transformation began taking our family to church and, uh, that's where I was introduced to the gospel for the first time, of course, in a church setting, and he took us every time the doors were open and it was an amazing opportunity to see a life that went from darkness to light and the way that he just allowed the Lord to transform his life was just an opportunity, really a joy just to see, as a young kid, growing up in that environment and so how old were you when your dad came to?
Speaker 2faith. Uh, I was probably. I want to say maybe eight or so oh yeah, definitely old enough to yeah see the difference and know what's going on. Yeah yeah, because I remember uh distinctively just him with various friends and party scenes kind of out on the back lawn and different you know. But then you know, then all of a sudden we were going to church and you know around just Christians and various people like that, and so anyway, it was definitely noticeable as a young man.
Speaker 1Yeah. So then, when did you come to know the Lord?
Speaker 2I was 14 years old and actually I grew up at First Southern Baptist Church of Dell City. That's where my dad came to faith in Christ and continually took us to church, and so I had listened to the gospel, as a matter of fact, several times I had walked the aisle previously because I was just scared A lot of sermons that different preachers had preached. And yet, at the age of 14, I can remember distinctively listening to a sermon and just acknowledging that I was tired. I always felt like I had made a decision before, but it felt like it just didn't stick, you know. But I can remember a certain occasion when I just came to the end of myself and just said, lord, I either believe what you said or I don't, and just come to the realization that, god, by faith, I just trust in your words and what you did on the cross. I acknowledge that I'm a sinner and put my faith and trust.
Speaker 2And I can remember driving away from that church service, as a matter of fact, just thinking in my heart. One, just feeling a sense of relief, just a big burden lifting, and two, just saying to myself Lord, thank you for saving me. And you know, from that time on it was not just a trust in works which had kind of defined and characterized my life up to that point. If I can just be good enough and that was always my thought God surely would accept me, you know. And then just come to the truth of just hey, I'm not good enough, you know, all my righteousness is as filthy rags and just trusting in the Lord's goodness in saving me, and so that was the best good news I could hear, and having that sense of relief, yeah.
Speaker 1Sarah, what about you? What was life like growing up for you? What was your household like?
Speaker 3Yes, so my father was pastor, and so I was very, very grateful to be able to grow up in a home with parents that loved the Lord and gave me a wonderful example. I would see my parents, you know, praying together. I'd see both of them reading, you know, in different places in the house just having their time with the Lord, and that was a real encouragement to me. But it wasn't until I was 13 that I knew that there was something radically different about their lives in comparison to my life.
Speaker 1What was the telltale there?
Speaker 3Yeah. So it ended up being around my mom's birthday. We all decided to just sit around the table celebrate her birthday, and I was about 13 years old and my dad said, hey, assuming that I had already made a decision. He said, hey, let's go around the table and let's share, each one of us, how we came to know Christ. And so, at age 13, I sat there and I listened one by one, to each of my family members sharing how they came to know Christ, and as they shared their testimonies, I knew in that moment I knew that there was something different about them and I knew that I did not have the relationship that they had and I wanted that. And so my dad encouraged me to go to my room and to read the book of 1 John, and so I did that.
Speaker 3I went to my room at age 13 and read through the book of 1 John, and as I read through that, it became abundantly clear that I just did not have a relationship with the Lord. And so I just got down on my knees in my room and I put my faith in Christ and I wanted, from that moment on, I had a desire to follow Christ and I was excited. I was so excited about being a new believer and, of course, followed up in baptism, but for my family having the privilege of growing up in a Christian home. But I'm thankful for that moment in time when my dad, you know, asked us all to share our testimonies, because it was in that moment that I realized I really didn't have that relationship with the Lord. So very thankful for that time yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1And so you mentioned Greg first, southern Del City. Is that where you two met?
Speaker 2yes it was yeah, I always claimed to have been there before her. Her dad actually came to serve as pastor there, and then we grew up in the same student ministry, junior high, and really didn't get to know one another until it was a little bit later on in high school. I guess it was where we became kind of had the same friend group and then it was a fairly large church and so it was a large student ministry.
Speaker 1But yeah, high school we began hanging out with some of the similar friends, and uh got to know each other during that time, okay very cool lots of mission trips, lots of choir trips it was it was a.
Speaker 3It was lots of good memories, yeah, okay and so then both of you started.
Speaker 2You started dating when I was a senior actually, I had just graduated and sarah was a senior in high school, and then we dated all throughout college, five years may 9th 1992 was our first date.
Speaker 3Bam okay, could you rattle?
Speaker 2that I could rattle 1992 will forever be etched in our minds.
Speaker 1Yeah, oh, I think I've heard that story.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3Yeah, what a good one.
Speaker 1Yeah, so then, when did missions come up on the radar for you all?
Speaker 3For me, our family actually served on the mission field for a few years in Africa and after about two years we were involved in a serious car accident and my oldest sister was burned and that brought us back to the states and so, but during that time, afterwards, Afterwards in my heart as a young girl third, fourth, fifth grader, and on into high school, I certainly wanted to go back to the field.
Speaker 3I know we walked through that difficult time but I had seen how the Lord had used that in our family's life and it didn't deter me at the time and I can share my testimony later about that but at the time I was so set through my high school years to going back to the mission field. I wanted to go back to the mission field. I loved Africa. The years that we spent there were very meaningful to me as a young girl and I had always dreamed of being a missionary and so, anyway, but yeah, that was our, that was our some of our earlier years, and then, of course, moved to Oklahoma and my father became a pastor, you know, in Oklahoma.
Speaker 2Yeah, for me I missions was not on my radar at all. Actually, after I got saved, of course, I grew up in a Christian environment, was really nurtured in that environment, discipled in that environment and so living the Christian life and wanting to reach out to friends and things like that in a missional way. But missions overseas missions was never on my heart Until college actually, sarah and I had been dating about two and a half three years. At that point I was actually going the medical route and into physical therapy. I was kind of pursuing that occupation and our church, first Southern at the time had a joint program with Oklahoma Baptist University. I wasn't going to Oklahoma Baptist University at that time, but they were having a mission trip basically to Africa. Sarah and I were walking through a little bit difficult time. We were becoming consumed with one another at that time, and so her dad put the brakes on the relationship and consumed with one another at that time, and so her dad put the brakes on the relationship.
Speaker 2And so, not out of the purest of motives, I thought, you know, africa would be a great place to escape to. And so that was a trip to Zimbabwe Africa, actually, where her family had served on the mission field and so I took a trip with eight other guys to. We were in two different locations, bulawayo and Gweru, zimbabwe, and I was in Gweru with just one other guy. But it was during that time where the Lord really transformed my heart. It was the first time I preached a message, it was the first time I discipled folks in a really formal kind of way and so really just being fully involved in ministry and I'd never done that before. And when I came back, I was actually in line registering for school and the Lord just really burdened my heart and convicted my heart and said Greg, I don't think you need to pursue the medical field, I'm calling you to ministry. And I didn't know what to do with that. But I felt this strong urge. I was in line and I thought, god, I don't know what to do, so I'm just going to go talk to my dad. He was there in Norman, oklahoma. And so I got out of line, went to my dad's office. I said, dad, you're going to think I'm crazy, but I think the Lord's calling me into ministry. And he said well, if the Lord and you feel strongly about it, the Lord's calling you into ministry, there's only one thing to do let's just pray right now, commit your life to ministry and pursue it. And so we dropped to the floor on our knees together in his office and just committed my life to ministry.
Speaker 2And at that point it was already kind of past registration at OBU. But I got up from my knees and I said, dad, what do I do with school? It just changes everything. And he said well, let's call OBU and see if you can start a degree there and learn more about the Bible and about ministry. And so he did. He called and he said I've got my son here. He just committed his life to ministry. Can you guys still take him? And they said bring him on uh. And so there began my my journey at oklahoma baptist university. And uh and ministry. And so I got a departmental uh religion degree and uh, just yeah, was better prepared for ministry in that in that sense.
Speaker 1So okay, you know, if there's anything I've learned about higher ed, though, there's always room doesn't matter what institution that's right that's right so, sarah, you were mentioning it sounds like a career in missions was on your radar sooner than you, greg, but you guys are already dating. What were those conversations like? I know that's a really important thing. That we talk about a lot with our students, with our high school students, is the importance of being in unity with one another and calling.
Speaker 2Absolutely.
Speaker 1As you're thinking about dating, and that's one thing that can quickly hinder or delay people's obedience to the Lord's call in their life. So, what were those conversations like for you all?
Speaker 3At the time we talked a lot about missions, mission trips.
Speaker 3We did some mission trips separately, like Greg mentioned his trip to Africa, and because we were not as far along in our relationship at the time, I felt like I could just, and I should just, allow the Holy Spirit to do that work in his life.
Speaker 3And it wasn't something that I could manufacture and try to conform him into a person who wanted to go to the mission field. It was something that the Holy Spirit had to do, and so at that time I just felt like I needed to release that and let that be the Holy Spirit's job. And so I prayed be the Holy Spirit's job. And so I prayed. I prayed that the Lord would lead him while we were dating, in the right way, and naturally I had a desire to do missions at that time. But, yeah, just allowing and releasing the Lord to do that work instead of me trying to to do all of these things to get him to want to do missions. So, yeah, that was that was a good, that was a good thing for me to be able to let the Lord do that.
Speaker 2And at that point it wasn't necessarily missions actually. We had a heart for missions, for sure, but didn't quite know how ministry would look. Moving forward, we just knew I wanted to serve the Lord in some capacity and even as it got closer to graduation, in our senior year, you know, just trying to discern Lord, what are the next steps for the calling that you've placed on my life in ministry? And so pursuing that direction. And it really wasn't until about six years later I had pursued a degree at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary after graduating from OBU, sarah and I had gotten married. We were starting new ministry and then I started at a church as a student pastor at Hillcrest Baptist Church. And so we spent the first six years really at that church. We went to school, got better prepared for ministry.
Speaker 2God did some amazing things just at the church through students' lives. Even now just looking back on all the ways that God has used our relationships with students there and seeing them go on to ministry and missions and being able to marry some of them and so on and so forth. But it's just a real rich time. But during that time we took several other mission trips as well. One particular, egypt that you know it.
Speaker 2Just you see things, you experience things, and the Lord burns those things into your heart and shapes you in many ways as a young minister, and so certainly my mind and my heart was beginning to look at those things and say, okay, god, how do we make sense of it?
Speaker 2And there was this growing sense of disparity between all that God had entrusted to me, to us as a couple, and the need that we saw for the gospel overseas. And so when I say growing, I mean the gap seemed like it was ever widening. But that gap caused such a restlessness in our hearts and for me specifically, as I was reading scripture, as Sarah was reading scripture and as we were looking at just different passages, the Lord would just highlight things. It seemed just to illuminate things in Scripture about gospel need, global gospel need, and just the things that he has entrusted to us by way of gospel resources. And so we had to wrestle through that. We had to wrestle with what God was doing in our hearts, and so we had to wrestle through that. We had to wrestle with what God was doing in our hearts, and it ultimately brought us to a point where we had to talk about it, and it was about six years after we were married.
Speaker 2Both of us were 28 years old and I had finished seminary already and God was doing some amazing things in the student ministry. I thought, well, we're going to be here for life. You know, maybe the next step's pastor, I don't know. But we're content, we're happy, and we remember during that time that the Lord was beginning to. You know, different opportunities were coming along and we would bring these opportunities with other churches or other ministries and bring them before the Lord and say, god, is this something you want us to do? No, god, is this something you want? No, and just through the word, he would just lovingly lead us. And um, but there there came a time where, um, where, through scripture, we were just reading things, uh, about getting the gospel not building upon another man's foundation, about taking the gospel to the edges, those least reached peoples, and 1040 window was a big point of conversation in the missiological world, and so we were hearing things like that, and Sarah and I were sitting one day, as a matter of fact, on the couch in our home in Dallas, texas.
Speaker 3And before you share that, I need to share what's been going on in my heart all of this time. So you know, I grew up, went to the field as a missionary kid I was a missionary kid for some years on the field Grew up having this passion and desire to go back to the field. So I get married to Greg after we graduate from OBU and my older sister goes off to the field. I'm super excited to watch her go to the field. She's on the field and through those six years while Greg was student pastor at a church in Texas, I saw and watched my sister walk through some really, really hard things and we began having kids right off the bat. We had dated for five years. We were ready to start a family, had kids right off the bat. We had dated for five years. We were ready to start a family, had kids right off the bat and at the time we had four children.
Speaker 3And as I watched my sister on the field walk through some difficult times, my heart began to close and become very fearful and I came to a point in my life, a season in my life, where I was like, yeah, I don't think going to the mission field is for me anymore and I was worried.
Speaker 3I didn't want to take all four kids to a foreign country. I became anxious about different things and I just closed my heart to the idea of going to missions. And so, for me, I got to that point and so when, as Greg mentioned, you know, we had different churches reaching out to us he had graduated from seminary and reaching out to us about different job opportunities, and we began praying about those things and just felt like the Lord was saying no, but through our time, our daily time in the Word, we sensed both of us separately, independently, that the Lord was wanting us to go to the field. But because of my fear and because of my worry, I didn't tell Greg, I kept it to myself and I just thought you know, maybe I'm just crazy, but I feel like the Lord is calling us to the field, but I don't want to go to the field. I don't want to take all my. I'm watching my sister over there.
Speaker 3She's walking through hard times, but I don't know if I want to do this and I can remember this as clear as day, and this is one of the times in my life where I'm very thankful for just a moment with the Lord. And I decided just to to find a place in the house, cause when you have four kids, it's a hard time to have a moment alone.
Speaker 3So it's a hard time to have a moment alone. So I decided, okay, I'm going to go sit. We had at the time we had a writing lawnmower. I'm going to go crack the door open to the garage, leave it open so I can hear if anything happens in the house with the kids. And I'm going to sit on that riding lawnmower and I'm going to have my devotions and I am going to just cry out to the Lord.
Choosing Thailand and the Palong People
Speaker 3And I did. I just said, lord, my heart is so fearful and I just don't want to go to the field. I just don't want to go to the field. And I sat down on that riding lawnmower and I opened my Bible to my daily reading, what I was supposed to be reading for that day. And the Lord brought me to a passage in Romans for this very purpose, I've raised you up so that my name may be declared in all the earth and several verses after that. And I sat down on that lawnmower, so fearful. But when I had closed my Bible and the Lord had given me that passage of scripture, I stood up and all of the fear and all the worry was completely gone and I was so excited to go. Now I knew was it going to be easy? Of course not. I had been watching my sister.
Speaker 3There's always difficult times when you're on the field, but I knew that God would be with me, because he promises that, and so it was in that time that I, you know, spent with the Lord, and so anyway. So a few days later, as Greg mentioned, we're sitting on the couch.
Speaker 2I jokingly tell people that if you ever struggle with your call to missions, go to a guy by the name of John Deere. John Deere is the best counselor ever.
Speaker 3You know, he'll coach you through your missionary calling you know.
Speaker 2But she did. She got on that riding lawnmower and, uh, one person and got up a different person at the same time. I was reading, and again just our walk with with christ and our time with him ezekiel, and ezekiel 33, the lord was indicting the shepherds of israel for looking unto themselves right, feeding themselves and neglecting the sheep, and again I felt this growing disparity, you know, between the things that I had and the global gospel need.
Speaker 2that was out there but I was kind of hesitant to bring it up with Sarah, you know again knowing all that we've watched her sister walk through and their family on the field and the struggles, and a little bit hesitant, reticent as well with it. But we were sitting on the couch and I just looked over to Sarah and I said, sarah, do you think that God may be calling us to missions?
Speaker 3And I just burst into tears when I said that she burst into tears.
Speaker 2Now I'm dense, but I'm not that dense. I knew that we needed to take this to the Lord and begin praying about just saying God, you know, with the balance of our lives, how do we need to steward it, and if it's to be used for your kingdom and your glory overseas, then, god, we're happy to do that, we want to do that and, of course, following that time, sarah and I just began praying more and more and, during which time, reached out to the International Mission Board and just began that application process, wanting to be obedient to the call we felt God was placing on our lives during that time and relatively easy process, but really roughly about a year later after that, going with the board for the first time in our married life overseas and really going in pretty ignorant and not fully realizing all that God had in store, both by way of successes and challenges, and what a glorious life it's been. For the past, that's 2003,.
Speaker 3So for the past 21 years, yeah, 21 years. But isn't it so amazing to see how God brings independently through your time in the Word? And that's for Greg and I if there's anything we could encourage our students in is that daily time spent in the Word, and that's how he speaks and, through the body of Christ, that affirmation that you receive through the peace that you have in your heart, but most importantly, through his words to you every day as you open the word.
Speaker 2And in that sense it truly is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. It provides both clarity and confidence moving forward, that you're indeed on the right path, right.
Speaker 3Because in those hard times, when you have stepped out in faith and in obedience, in those hard times you can go back to what he promised you and what he showed you through the word.
Speaker 2That's right. Not emotions, not circumstances, not what other people think or what you seem good at or anything like that, but it's just rooted in the call of God through his word, with crystal clarity.
Speaker 1Yeah, sarah, I'm so glad you brought up the importance of being in the works. I'm just sitting here thinking about it and just hoping our listeners were catching it. But we may as well dive into it a little bit, because there's hearing you all talk and realizing. There's not been an interview that I've done with different couples who are serving overseas where a part of the confirmation of their call or their call didn't come from. Oh yeah, we were reading Romans 10 together and we all know what's in Romans 10. Or they're reading some part of Scripture and the Lord just confirmed that calling for them and how important that is. But I also know we live in such a distracting world that it's really hard for my college students to really learn the discipline of getting in the work. So how did you all develop that discipline and how would you encourage our college students or our just listeners likewise to do the same?
Speaker 2For me it was a gentleman who had a vested interest in students and who wanted to lovingly disciple and lead us along and give us a love for the word. And that guy in my life was a guy by the name of Malcolm Myers and he just was a part of our college ministry but he took us aside. He fed me you know, pizza Hut pizza and Dr Pepper and Chick-fil-A, you know but then just brought the Word and helped me, gave me the resources and helped me study the Word, and that began a journey in my own life where I began to have a passion for the Word as well, wanting and having this appetite to understand more and more about God, his ways, his works, his purposes. And so that was something that began in college and just kind of continued on as God called me into ministry and as we got married and as we started early, started our seminary experience, and so that was invaluable just to my walk with Christ, even extending on even to today. So that's how it began for me anyway.
Speaker 1One thing I hear from our students is just that life's too busy, it's hard to get in the Word and there's not enough personal ownership of their time to to do that and to learn to say no to things. And so I want to ask you a question I already know the answer to but does life ever get, uh, less busy?
Speaker 3after college do you ever?
Speaker 1have more time to get in the word yeah, no, I mean life does.
Speaker 2Life is is busy and it's busy and it's busy. You know just whatever stage of life you're at yeah, I mean you're you're swamped with various things and um, and so it never gets any freer, uh, as far as time. But you know, you're, I think it's you're driven by a sense of despair. You know, I see that in my own walk with Christ there's this desperation that says, god, if I'm ever to do anything worthwhile in this life, it's going to come through the power of your spirit. And, of course, everything about the Christian life is done of faith.
Speaker 2Whatever is not of faith, it doesn't please God. Right, he says we please God by our faith, through our faith, and in order to develop that faith, just knowing him more and understanding again just how he works and why God sent his son, and you know just the whole, the whole gamut of scripture. And so, the more you understand, of course, the more uh, you, just you just gain this awareness of God. It's nothing of me and it's all of you. And, uh, I need you, I need your power, I need your uh, I need your wisdom, I need your direction, and that has been just one invaluable thing just all. Throughout our journey with Christ is just that less of me and more of him. He must increase, we must decrease, right.
Speaker 3I think it's important to, no matter the season of life that you're in, as a believer, you don't allow your relationship with Christ to be driven by emotion. With any spiritual discipline, it takes discipline. You've got to make time right If you want to get more fit. You are going to make time and be disciplined. To get more fit. You're going to go to the gym, you're going to work out, you're going to run, and sometimes you get up and you don't feel like going to the gym, but you do it anyway. And that is the same with the discipline of reading scripture.
Speaker 3It is so important, whether you feel like emotionally or not, whether you feel like it or not, to open the word day in and day out, and beginning your day and ending your day with just crying out to the Lord, spending time in prayer, opening up the word, even if it's a verse or two that you're reading at the end of the day. Um, god always has something to say to us if we will just take the time to listen and um, the time to listen. And so just, you know making that time. If you need to set an alarm, you know figuring out in your busy schedule.
Speaker 3I've talked with our kids. You know, okay, if you've got eight o'clock, 8 am classes and you stayed out till 2 am, then what time during the day? And naturally, yes, I love to encourage people to start their day with Christ, but better to spend time with Christ than not spend time with Christ at all. And so what time in your day as a student is the most likely time for you to be able to go to your room, just pause in your day and spend time with the Lord? Set your alarm for that time Is it after lunch, before your afternoon class? When is it? And set that alarm and make it a discipline in your life, whether you feel like it or not, because the more you read the Word, the greater your love for the Word will become and will grow in your heart, because His Word will not return void.
Speaker 1Amen, Amen. That's great. So I want We'll need to wrap this conversation up pretty quickly here and then we'll jump back in and do another segment. But as we're doing that, I want to give you the opportunity unless we've already covered it kind of talk about your testimony that you mentioned from your time time in africa, and kind of what, what comes of that and then we'll wrap up our conversation. I want to hear how you all ended up selecting Thailand to go with the IMB and then we'll pick up again with your time there.
Speaker 1So have we already covered kind of what you had mentioned earlier about your time in Africa and related to that?
Speaker 3So, but well, what was your question?
Speaker 1Well, earlier you had mentioned that just kind of a testimony of your time in either in Africa or as a result of having been. And you said we can kind of cover that later. So I didn't know if we'd already done that.
Speaker 3Yes, that was just me wanting to share how I began to have fear.
Speaker 1Perfect got it.
Speaker 3And some of that fear probably also derived from the accident that we had in Africa. It was a serious car accident and, um, I mean watching my oldest sister go through excruciating pain, you know, and getting in an ambulance and ending up in a place out in the middle of nowhere, you know, and, um, that place actually saved her life. Um, it was just by the grace of God. It was my mom and we were all headed. It was my mom and all of us kids. We were headed to mission meeting, what we called mission meeting back then, and where all of our missionaries gathered together. And, yeah, there was just a. I don't know if you want me to go into the details.
Speaker 1Oh, that's fine yeah there was just a.
Speaker 3I don't know if you want me to go into the details. Yeah, so anyway, but yeah, just yeah, I just wanted. Yeah, I was referring to just the fears that I had.
Speaker 1Okay, perfect. So then you all decide international missions is for us. You're applying for the IMB. How did you all land on where you all ended up?
Speaker 2I think that's a very good question, you know, because one of the most difficult questions to answer is Lord, where do you want me to go in this world? And as God begins to open up your eyes to the reality of need globally, you just realize, man, that's a hard decision. Like, how do I say no to one people group and say yes to another people group, or no to one location or city and yes to another city? And so it is the more difficult question. Sometimes the easier question is God, am I called to missions? The harder question is God, where am I called to missions?
Speaker 2And so, for Sarah and I, even as we began to process with the International Mission Board, you know, we received all sorts of job requests to look through. And these job requests were requests, you know, made from the field, for people to come in response to, and it would always be geared towards people, groups or places or in this kind of urban settings or things like that. And so we looked through a number of those and we refined it. I mean just naturally, because of our desire to go to the unreached, the unengaged, not building upon another man's foundation, you know, going to where the gospel is least known where there may not be existing work going on, and that's not always the case. But for us that's where our hearts were kind of leaning towards and so it kind of filtered out those job requests that we were looking at that weren't that maybe didn't fit that kind of setting, and a number of different job requests that we were looking at, but among those was a request to serve as team leaders for an unengaged, unreached people group called the Palong People. And as we were reading through this particular job request again, it was among dozens of job requests, but this one particular statement made in that job request at the time was that this was a people group scattered through the mountains of Burma, thailand and China and currently there is no one engaging them with a church planting strategy. Currently there is no one engaging them with a church planting strategy. So that just kind of stuck with us and I was reading, particularly in continuing my journey, in the book of Ezekiel and came across a phrase in there that just leaped off the page and reminded me of this job request, because it said that my sheep have wandered through the mountains and the hills, yet no one has gone looking for them.
Speaker 2No one has gone searching for them and my mind went back to that job request. Here's a people group scattered across the mountains and the hills of Thailand, myanmar, china. Nobody is currently engaging them with a church planning strategy and almost immediately and again it goes back to what Sarah and I were talking about just your time in the Word. God does lead you through His Word, by His Spirit, right With everything going on around you, the circumstances, the people you're engaging with, the job requests that you look at. God knows these things and he's leading you like a good shepherd through the pages of Scripture and helping you see things that you don't normally see. And for us, it was this particular people in this particular place, and so we pursued that.
Speaker 3That's awesome. So for 15 years we focused on the Palong. We focused on the Palong and in turn, as Palong came to know Christ, we encouraged them to open their eyes to the other hill tribes that were near them. And so it wasn't just the Palong. It was other hill tribes that were in those areas and the greatest years of our life. I'm telling you so hard but so good, kyle. I mean we look back and it's just yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll jump in and we're going to talk about those years, okay?
Speaker 2Sounds good.
First Days in Thailand
Speaker 1Okay, everyone, thanks for tuning into this episode. We're going to jump right back in so we'll catch you on the next episode when you, when we wrap up our interview with Greg and Sarah. Thanks for listening. Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the From Every Nation podcast. We're so glad you're joining us again. I've got Greg and Sarah here with me again. If you didn't catch the first part of our interview, make sure you hit pause, jump back, catch that interview. Really great conversations about how they came to know the Lord, their call to missions and kind of how they ended up in Thailand, where we're going to jump in right now and start talking about your first years and your first 15 years kind of on the field, where you were there doing church planting. So you're in the States, you apply with the IMB, you get appointed, they give you a one-way plane ticket you land, what's day one like?
Speaker 1And kind of start walking us through the story oh my goodness day one was not what we expected.
Speaker 3For sure it never is right oh, I don't even know if we should share this story, greg, should we? Absolutely, absolutely so we went with four kids ages what? Five, four, three, one and a half and one and a half
Speaker 2yeah. So we were the family that got on the plane and everybody was scratching their head thinking, lord, don't sit thinking Lord, don't sit next to me and actually our kids did awesome.
Speaker 3They were fantastic, I was loaded with suckers and Benadryl. That's right, we got.
Speaker 2We got a couple of good, good compliments afterwards, you know, from folks on the plane. But we landed in Thailand and and just being in Thailand was in and of itself, you know, driven by the Lord. Of course our people group was primarily in Myanmar, which was formerly called Burma, in China, and of course, in the northern part of Thailand. Well, they were in the northern part of Thailand because of all the conflict happening in the country of Myanmar, all the longest-running civil war, and so lots of conflict, a lot of blacklisted areas, and so foreigners couldn't even live in those areas at the time. But people were coming across the border with the hopes of finding a better life on this side. So that gave us access. So we landed in the northern part of Thailand, there and in the city of Chiang Mai, and, interestingly enough, we were in a hotel, while, you know, we were doing some house hunting there, but landed in a hotel, got there that evening. This is the first day, day one right on the ground.
Speaker 3Of course the kids had slept a lot of the plane flight, but we had not, because you know some of the kids, yeah, we were keeping an eye on them, that's right.
Speaker 2And so we were just whipped, I mean exhausted, and so we were in the hotel room we had connecting rooms, you know and about 2, 3 o'clock in the morning I'd say we get a call from the front desk and you know, one of the folks down there, the hotel staff, just called, said uh, mr man, you're, you're two boy. They go up and down elevator and we're like why do you know, we're scrambling out of bed, you know, just trying to think, oh, what the world's happening. So we run over there. Sure enough, the boys had somehow and this is a, it's a four-year-old and a three-year-old somehow gotten out of the room.
Speaker 1Of course yeah.
Speaker 2Going up and down the elevator with you know, and of course you hear all sorts of things that just cause fear in your heart. You know about things happening overseas, and so we were already on high alert, you know. But to know that our boys were going up and down the elevator in the middle of the night, that just took it all to a whole new level.
Speaker 2What legends, yes, and you know, come to find out that god had placed us in a country where, uh, the thai people just absolutely love kids, yes and uh, and so that was a blessing on in hindsight, you know, to know that they really do just this love uh, love family, love kids yeah, so first night for day one.
Speaker 3So you know that first week we're like what were we thinking?
Speaker 2what did we get ourselves into? What have?
Speaker 3we gotten ourselves into like and we didn't have a home and we're in this hotel we had gotten sick.
Speaker 2You know, it was just all the change and transition, food and new things, and you just push through that.
Speaker 3We had to learn to laugh. That was our thing. You had to learn to laugh about things when you first arrive on the field. So we always had, you know, things that would frustrate us or annoy us about the culture, and we'd just look at each other and be like welcome to Thailand.
Speaker 2Then we'd just laugh and just go on. Welcome to Thailand.
Speaker 3Then we just laugh and just go on, and it was good to be able to just have things like that just to help us to get through those tough early days.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's funny, I'm glad y'all shared that Day one. Yeah, yeah, I can imagine them just having a blast.
Learning Language and Meeting Jomsang
Speaker 2Oh yes, they got there on top of the world, they did At the same time.
Speaker 3We, the elevator was a glass elevator, so they could see. So they could see. That's what they were so excited about.
Speaker 2Mind you, we went to bed that night, you know, hearing a Thai impersonation of Elvis down in the lobby.
Speaker 3Yes, yes, and so it was very surreal.
Speaker 2Here we have this Thai Elvis down there, you know, singing Blue Suede Shoes, you know, and then we have our kids going up and down. I guess they wanted to hear Elvis, I don't know why not While looking on from a glass elevator. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1What better thing could you possibly imagine as a?
Speaker 2four or three-year-old, that's great.
Speaker 1So tell us, walk us through the story then, of those first couple terms it sounds like in Thailand and how you were able to get the gospel to those lost, hidden peoples in the hills.
Speaker 2Absolutely. We started out, of course, your first term is just focused on language and culture, and so we were committed to that, our organization's committed to that. We wanted to learn it. We are very relational people, and so we wanted to talk to people and get into their lives, and, of course, our greatest intent and heart was just to communicate the gospel. We wanted them to know the best news on earth. And so lots of time and lots of patience, lots of learning, as Sarah mentioned, just to laugh at yourself and to be okay with that and understand that it's a time of learning and that you really wanted to go deep in your understanding of culture and of religion and of the people themselves and, of course, of the language.
Speaker 2So we began that journey, and all the while, we began making trips up to one of the closest areas where we could engage. Our people Went to some of the villages and just began forming relationships, and that was about two hours north of Chiang Mai. There was only a couple of different locations in the northern part of Thailand where the king had given them land where they could grow crops and build their lives and their families, and so we began doing that, and so it was a really good time of just learning and observation and studying their culture and learning how just to be there and maintain and have a presence there, which meant your identity as a person inside that country, a foreigner there. Which meant your identity as a as a person inside that country, a foreigner, and, uh that, everything from visas and um, and you know how, how am I going to stay here to? Um, how are the? How am I going to be perceived by the people and how am I going to communicate to them what I am doing here and why I'm so interested in being in your village and talking to you and so on and so forth. So that was part of the learning curve as well.
Speaker 2Sarah and I, we were part of a foundation there where we could be a part of community development and projects, things like that, and so that was our ability to be in some of those villages and was a wonderful, wonderful opportunity, just not only to meet human needs but also, you know, be about the missionary task there or in the villages there, working with helping getting clean water for the schools, doing different wells, building bridges into villages that would flood and they couldn't leave the village when the rainy season came All sorts of construction projects and really utilize a lot of volunteer teams who shared the passion of getting the gospel to this particular people group as we began making it known who they were and what their needs were.
Speaker 3But it was teaching English in a village called Mejon Village, where we met a young man named Jomsang, and that's where it all pretty much began.
Speaker 2And even one step prior to that meeting a guy by the name of Atit and Atit was a guy who was interested in English and we began sharing the gospel with this young man and he actually put his faith in Christ as well. But he had been drafted into the Royal Thai Army and shortly after he became a believer he was deployed down to southern part of Thailand, and so we didn't get a chance to disciple him. We were like, oh, our first believer here. But just before he left he introduced us to Jamsang, and this was the young man whom God used in incredible ways, just in the life of his family and his village, his community, other Pelong villages and really just among his people group as a whole, both inside the country of Burma and outside. And so we met Jomsang again, got to share the gospel with him.
Speaker 2He was a guy that the Lord had prepared and was eager to accept Christ. His life was on the verge. He was married, but his marriage was on the verge of divorce. He was still addicted to drugs. That was an area of the world known as the Golden Triangle, so it was 360,000 square miles of overlapping mountain ranges where there were lots of drug refineries and the drug trade was just rampant in the area, and so very few people did we meet that wasn't somehow affected by the drug trade in that part of the world.
Speaker 2So a lot of brokenness, as you can imagine. But in the middle of all this, God chose to see this young man come to faith and began using him in an incredible way.
Speaker 1So how did that start unfolding? So you all are discipling. Remind me his name. Jomsang, jomsang, jomsang and began kind of starting to plant churches. How, where? What does that look like?
Speaker 2We just began in a pattern of Matthew 10, you know, just going and he was very favorable to our message, of course and just rooting ourselves in his village and not trying to not trying we did have relationships in all the different villages but really focusing and honing in on his level of interest in spiritual things.
Speaker 2And so, as we began discipling him and just seeing his love for the word, his hunger for it, teaching him, we'd just go up, drive to his village.
Speaker 2There was an agrarian society and so they would have fields that they would plow and harvest and till and plant seed, and so they have these little rest homes on the side of their hills, and it was always in the mountains, they're a mountainous people and we'd just go up there midday, just as he was taking breaks, and take the Word and drive our four-by-four up there and just sit down, open the Word, study it together.
Speaker 2And from there he just began having a desire just to take the gospel to his people and, beginning with his family, his, his, oikos, he began sharing the gospel and just miraculous story after miraculous story of people being saved, beginning with his, his, his wife had previously had an encounter with Christ. She went into the city to study and and yet was, it was kind of a dormant faith and uh, and yet, um, yeah, so she, she became, uh, she began to express her faith in a more open way and rededicated her life and followed up in believers baptism, really kind of sealing her, uh, her walk with Christ. But then, um, his father, amazing story of just deliverance and during this time we were creating resources and for, in their heart, language and maybe yeah, so the Palong people do not have a written language.
Speaker 3Okay, so what we felt like the Lord was leading us to do was to get the Bible in an audio format for the people, so that those who could not read could hear the word of God. So for about eight months, we worked with a company called Faith Comes by Hearing, and we gathered together about how many people, would you say, we got.
Speaker 2Well, we were supposed to have 25 readers people who could read their language there and using Thai script, you know, but we couldn't find that many people, so I think it ended up being about 12 people, um, and from eight in the morning to sometimes eight at night.
Speaker 3They worked so diligently and for about eight months we worked on that recording of the New Testament and, by God's grace, about eight months into it we've completed that and we were able to put the New Testament in the Palaung language on solar devices that we would take into the mountains of Burma, which is now called Myanmar, and we would trek to these villages give the scripture. And it just opened a wide, wide door for the gospel for the Pohang people. And, as a matter of fact, those solar-paneled little devices, one of those was given to Jomsang's father.
Speaker 2And Jomsang's father was formerly a Buddhist monk, and so he had learned how to read Pali script, but he couldn't read his own language, which was using Thai characters, and so Jomsang began teaching his father how to read Thai script.
Speaker 2At the same time, he took this solar-powered device, this MP3 player, and every day he would go out to the fields and he would begin tilling and harvesting, planting seed. But he would take that device and he would put it in the front pocket of his shirt and he would listen to it, day after day after day, and really for months, didn't hear anything from him, didn't know what he was doing, didn't even know he was listening to it as frequently as he was. But he would go out and particularly had a fondness for the gospel of Mark, because Mark demonstrated Jesus's power over sickness and disease and death, and so he was listening to these stories. Well, one day I was discipling Jomsang in his home and sitting in his living room, and then his father comes in the room, he hangs up his bag like he usually did, he walked into his little bedroom there and then he came back out and he said Today, I want you to know, I put my faith in Jesus and we were like what, what?
Speaker 2just happened. You know what, what do you mean? And he said you know, I was alone in the field listening to the word of God, and and if Jesus, that Jesus, had power over all of these different things, then that was a Jesus that I wanted to follow. And he knelt down there, right right on his own right, alone with the Holy Spirit, put his faith and trust in Jesus and, from that day forward, again, radical transformation in his life. This was a man who would walk around the villages in a drunken stupor, half-dressed, he would beat his wife and then he would pray and have the witch doctor come and seek her healing. And so it was an amazing transformation.
Speaker 2And as the village began watching this transformation happen, of course persecution began, and they began so much so that they wanted to kick his entire family out of the village. At this time, his wife was not yet a believer, and so they had these. They had all these different amulets and charms and spirit houses still in their home because of the wife. And I remember Nam-Na, the father, coming to me one day and he said, greg, last night I had a dream. He said I need you to help me make sense of it. I was like I don't know if I can do that or not.
Speaker 2I said, but let me hear the dream you know, and and so he shares this dream and and he tells the story of him feeling like he was hovering above his home in the village. And it was. It was bright, it was shiny, it was almost glittery, and and he felt this warm feeling come over him. And he then he said, I stooped down in my dream and I was looking at my house and I got a closer look and I noticed all this trash just around the house. And he said I don't know what to make of it all. And I said, well, what do you think it means? And he says well, he says, ever since we have put our faith and trust in Christ, he says it has been a testimony throughout all the village. He says, but because my wife has not yet believed, we still have all of these different amulets and charms and spirit houses. He says I think we need to get rid of them. I said, well, I think that would be a great idea.
Buddhist Father's Radical Transformation
Speaker 2And during that time the Lord was convicting his wife as well, and his wife came to faith and put their faith and trust in Jesus. And I can remember them calling us one day you remember Sarah up to the village and they said Greg, we want to get rid of all this stuff and we backed our 4x4 pickup truck up to their house and literally carried their spirit house from the side of the house, put it in the back of the truck, all these different amulets and charms, and we went down to the local dump and just dumped it there. And that's not typically what they would do. But they didn't want to give it to somebody else, they didn't want somebody else to utilize it, they just wanted to throw it away. And it was a very I can just remember villagers looking at this take place in the village and again persecution began to arise and again wanted to kick them out of the village. They called at one point an elders meeting, so all the village elders were gathered together and the topic was should we kick them out of the village? Topic was should we kick them out of the village?
Speaker 2And uh, john saying said he was so angry when they even mentioned the idea of it because of all the benefit that he was providing to the community. And he said that through his daily time with the Lord, the Lord told him just to sit still and I will act on your behalf. And John was saying couldn't understand it. He says. But in the meeting he said I wanted to say this and say that and justify. You know this and that. And and I can remember the night of the meeting afterwards, john saying came to me. He says, greg, you'll never believe what happened in that meeting. I said, well, what happened?
Speaker 2And he said you know, yeah, he said the Lord, you know, I told you. He said the Lord told me just to sit still. And he said that's exactly what I did. He said I wanted to talk. He said I just sat still.
Speaker 2He said during the course of the meeting. He said everybody was just saying all these, all these untrue things about us and how we've caused disruption, how we did this and that and you know how we don't deserve to be here and we're not prolonged and we don't belong in this community. And he said during the middle of the meeting. He said one of the elders of the village stood up in the back of the room, a Buddhist man, and began to recount how the king of Thailand had let this people group come and live in their country, as different as they were, and gave us land and gave us the ability to live within his country. And he said if the King of Thailand can do that for us, shouldn't we give the same allowance for this family to come and live and stay in this community?
Speaker 2And through a Buddhist man, the Christian family was allowed to stay in the village and of course, god began to do amazing things through that one family. Now you had a son and a wife and a father and a mother, all of which were believers and a shining light in the community. And one by one, we began to see just gospel transformation take place in other people's lives, their family members, and then it spread to other villages and um and of course, ultimately, as we began gathering together the believers, we began to see church take place and they began to identify as a church within this community. And right in the heart of the village there was a, a temple, a Buddhist temple, and now it's a church.
Speaker 3Amen.
Speaker 2And so God began to displace just traditional religion and their family and the hearts of some other people with just the glorious gospel of Jesus.
Speaker 3And you know as missionaries church planning, evangelism it's messy work, it's hard work. Sometimes you share Christ and you see some fall away. Sometimes you see that seed planted and you see growth. But just as a missionary, you just have to be faithful, just like Jesus here in the States when you share the gospel. Be faithful to share it and allow God to deal with the results of that. But just the faithful planting of the seed is so important. We're just so very blessed when I mentioned earlier just some of the greatest years of our lives. When you see lives transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit, it's a miracle and it has nothing to do with us. It is all to do with the Holy Spirit's work in their lives.
Village Persecution and God's Protection
Speaker 1That's great. So two things I want to touch on. First, I don't want our listeners to miss I think we've said it, but I want it to be clear. We've already talked about the importance of the Word of God in our lives and your lives is getting called. But that's exactly what happened here with Jomsang and his family is the Word of God changed a lot.
Speaker 2That's right Amen.
Speaker 1It wasn't, wasn't you all, wasn't what you all were saying or doing, but he's sitting in his field just listening.
Speaker 2That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1And it is powerful enough and sufficient to change the lives in the hearts of men.
Speaker 2Amen Right Amen.
Speaker 1And through that the Holy spirit comes and convicts, and they took hold of what sounds like the Great Commission.
Speaker 2That's right they started sharing. Amen.
Speaker 1Because you don't turn a Buddhist temple in a village to a church overnight. Yeah, that's right, that's right and so there had to be ownership of the gospel and broad seed sowing and people coming to faith. What a powerful testimony. Praise to the Lord.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah. So that was the first thing. The second thing I think I got ahead of ourselves just a little bit. Tell our listeners about the demographic of the people. What is their world religion, what do they practice, what are their cultural beliefs? We've touched on it, we've talked about Buddhism, these amulets and things. But help our listeners know a little bit more about that.
Speaker 2Yeah, the Palaung people are a number of about 1.1 million people. Again, they live in southwestern Yunnan province, china, shan state, myanmar, primarily in the northern part of Thailand, and historically animistic, which means that they believe in the spirit world. Everything is inhabited by spirits, and so animism really hinges upon their appeasement of these spirits. You have good or benevolent spirits, and you have these evil, malevolent spirits, both of which you have to appease. So I want to please, or appease, the good spirits, because I want them to continue blessing my family, and that realizes itself in very practical ways. You know, I got good crops, we have good health, our family is still intact, right, we're making money, and so I want those spirits to continue blessing me. But at the same time, I want to keep the evil spirits from hurting me, and so I appease them as well by making sacrifices and various things like that. And so the animism is at the heart, but they have this veneer of just Buddhism, because many of them live in the country of Myanmar, which predominantly is Buddhist, or Thailand, which is predominantly Buddhist, and so you have all of these different celebrations and festivals and rituals that they do as a part of that, but at the heart of it. They're controlled by these animistic beliefs, and so that is the.
Temple Becomes Church Community
Speaker 2That is the context, the spiritual context in which the Palong people.
Speaker 2They're rich in culture, they maintain their own distinct language and dress. As a people, they're an agrarian society, and so they work in the fields, primarily growing all sorts of different things corn and beans and tea. They're traditionally known as tea growers in Myanmar and have some wonderful black tea, and so that's the Plong people in general. And again, they came into the northern part of Thailand because of all the fighting and conflict taking place in the country of Myanmar, and so a lot of horrific stories, a lot of painful stories of people coming across the border and fleeing the military. They would often be drafted, you know, as porters or forced to serve as porters in various military, and if they didn't comply, then all sorts of evil things would take place just to their village, to the women, forcing them to flee, and so just a lot of brokenness in that part of the world, and certainly among them. They're traditionally illiterate people and so low education, poor, impoverished situations, and yet for all of those different things, they maintain a level of joy that is just infectious.
Speaker 3They maintain a level of joy that is just infectious. Yeah, the poorest of the poor in all of the hill tribes of Myanmar, I would say there's 135, wouldn't that be right? 135 different ethnic minority groups 135 different ethnic minority groups in Myanmar alone, and they are known to be the poorest of the poor.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, so are the Palaung still in unreached people?
Understanding Palong Culture and Animism
Speaker 2Yeah, I would say they're still unreached Again 1.1 million people, but I think we could say right now that there's probably close to 2,000 or so believers. And so still unreached, but gospel progress and so a lot of work being done, uh, not only by uh even folks continuing our organization, but also by other hill tribes who have now caught a vision for reaching out to the palong uh people who for the most part, were in their backyard and they didn't even know they were lost Hill tribes that were traditionally Christian. You know longstanding work from people like JO Frazier and Adoniram Judson, and so even some of the Lisu people carrying a burden now for the Palong people and reaching into places, pockets of lostness, all throughout the country of Myanmar and Shan State. So it's exciting work, but, yes, I would still classify them as an unreached people but where significant gospel progress is being made.
Speaker 1Amen, that's great. So I want to wrap up our time and give you an opportunity to kind of talk about South Asia in general. So you spent 15 years in Thailand church planting among the Palang, but your role's different now, and so you're the affinity leader for all of South Asia. I want to give you an opportunity to kind of talk to our listeners about what is South Asia, what are the statistical realities of South Asia and how can they get involved.
Current Work in Asia Pacific Region
Speaker 2Yeah, sarah and I serve as the AGLs for the Asia Pacific region of the world, and within that region there's 2.4 billion people and lots of diversity, lots of religious diversity, but also just in terms of ethnic makeup, and so you have everything from Mongolia in the north, all the way down to Indonesia in the south, from Myanmar in the west all the way out to the South Pacific Islands in the east, and so large area, geographical coverage. I mean it makes up a significant population in the world, but you have everything from the heights of an ultra-wealthy, tooverished, poor like the Palong and everything in between, and so mega cities. You know, you have, you have.
Speaker 3Tokyo yeah.
Speaker 2Top 10 of the world's largest cities in that part of the world, and yet you've got some of the most impoverished villages in that part of the world as well.
Speaker 2Some of the most impoverished villages in that part of the world as well. You have everything from mountains to deserts, to hot to cold, to islands and lots of water, to large bodies of water, and so a very diverse region of the world, and yet, in the middle of that, we have somewhere over 1, thousand unreached people groups and about 480 or so unengaged unreached people groups, and so the work is still large, and but just to think, I mean part of the. This part of the world has some of the most difficult to access places like China and North Korea, and and those are places that we don't have access to, but those two countries alone make up two-thirds of our entire population, wow, and so when you think of places like this, it takes very creative means to be able to engage places like this, and so you think of non-residential missionary engagement strategies, or you think of digital engagement strategies, and so the challenges are numerous in this part of the world, and yet the gospel continues to go forward.
Speaker 1So how can listeners get involved? How can they learn more? Where can they go to get involved in your part of the world?
Speaker 2Absolutely Well. Number one. I mean, if you have contacts with missionaries over in that part of the world, best possible people to talk to just you can talk to with assessment and deployment who highlight both the job opportunities and some of the needs that are current among those countries in Asia Pacific and certainly among those thousand unreached people groups and unengaged unreached people groups as well. And so I would encourage them to start just by contacting the International Mission Board and getting a feel for those job opportunities. And again, those job opportunities are all driven by the field needs and so, as missionaries serving on the ground and researchers on the ground recognize and do these profiles on these different people groups it highlights the needs among these people. We send those back to our home office in Richmond Virginia. It's a great place, a great starting point for people who are interested in serving in that part of the world.
Speaker 3Yeah, as Greg mentioned a few minutes ago, we have over 480 unengaged, unreached people groups and it's just, it's so exciting for me to think even now, for some students that may be listening, that they may be the ones that are called to one of these unengaged, unreached people groups.
Speaker 3And so, yeah, just like Greg said, reach out to the International Mission Board. We have many different pathways to come and serve short-term, long-term, mid-term and you'll be partnered with other missionaries on the field that can support you and walk alongside you so you don't feel alone. And, yeah, we would be thrilled. We need people to come.
Getting Involved with IMB and P3000
Speaker 2Amen, lots of people, I think one example of that is a current initiative that we have as part of the International Mission Board called P3000. And so focusing on those 3,000 plus people groups in the world that are still unengaged and unreached with the gospel. And so having a concerted effort and this is just a short two-year program where we want 300 what we call missionary explorers to take initial steps to engage these unengaged, unreached people groups. And uh and so um, that's on the IMB website as well, imborg, and just encourage you to um, if God may be prompting you as you're spending time in the Lord, in the word, and the Lord has convicted your heart with the call he's placed on your life, and the Lord has convicted your heart with the call he's placed on your life.
Speaker 1Take those first steps. Yeah, and a lot of our listeners know. But just in case somebody's listening and they don't, unreached meaning less than 2% of the people group population are believers and unengaged meaning there are no evangelical believers, engaging them with the gospel, so they have no access to be able to get the gospel. They're not like us in the States where they can walk down the street and run into four different evangelical churches within four blocks, but there's nobody there who has the gospel that can share them, so that they can know Jesus that's exactly right so that's why these projects like p3000 are so important word.
Speaker 1The IMB is finding, finding students, finding young 20s and sending them to these people to find them right and gather data.
Speaker 2Amen and report back and create strategies to absolutely, absolutely an awesome, awesome opportunity, and those are all over the world amen, that's right, not just in asia, pacific, that's exactly right all over the world yeah, so that's great.
Speaker 1So I really appreciate you all taking the time to come and such a joy it's been a lot of fun. I know our listeners are going to be so encouraged by the conversation and we look forward to staying in touch and seeing you all around, and so again, just thank you so much and we appreciate it.
Speaker 3Thank you Kyle. Thank you Kyle.
Speaker 1So that'll do it for today's episode. We're excited to wrap this up. I can't wait for you all to listen to it and hear the feedback from what you all learned and picked up as you all listened to the man's interview today. So we'll see y'all next time. Bye.