The Kunis's: From OBU to the Unreached Pt. 1

What happens when God redirects the comfortable path you've planned? For Justin and Wynonna Kunis, it meant trading Oklahoma youth ministry for leading mission work in Asia and North Africa—a transformation neither could have imagined when they met at Oklahoma Baptist University in the 1990s.

"If you had told one or both of us that we were going to spend most of our adult lives overseas, one or both of us would have turned and walked down the aisle the other way," Wynonna confesses. Their journey reveals how God often works gradually in hearts that are willing, even reluctant at first.

Their story powerfully demonstrates that ministry isn't about our plans but about service. As Justin taught his youth group: "We don't come to be served, but to serve." This principle has guided them through eighteen years of cross-cultural ministry and countless lives transformed by the gospel.

What unexpected journey might God be preparing for you? Sometimes the greatest adventures begin with the plans we never imagined for ourselves.

Transcript

Kyle 0:00

All right, everybody. Thanks for joining in today on our episode of the From Every Nation podcast. I've got some good friends with me today Justin and Wynonna Kunis. We're very excited for them to come. They're living right now in North Africa and have been on the field in various places for majority of your adult lives right 18 years now.

Kyle 0:22

Yeah, so very excited for you all to meet them. So I'm going to let them kind of do a brief introduction of themselves and then we're going to jump in and let you all get to know them. So, Justin, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit and we'll start from there?

Justin 0:34

Yeah, I'm Justin. I came to OBU here back in the 90s and that's where I met Winona and we really didn't have any idea that we would spend most of our adult life overseas while we were here, in fact had no real clear desire or even understanding about the nations when we arrived when we were here. But yeah, as the Lord in his providence has allowed, we've spent most again 18 years overseas serving Him among the nations. We really, coming right out of OBU, we took a youth ministry role in Oklahoma City and we were on staff there in Oklahoma City for 12 years we can go into more of that later if you want to and then we went from that role where the Lord, during that role, the Lord kind of captured our heart for the nations and we ended up spending almost 14 years in East Asia. And then we sort of got invited not to return to East Asia, to the country we were in in East Asia.

Kyle 1:39

Clever wording got invited to not.

Justin 1:42

Yeah, invited not to return. Yeah, that's right. So and then we, yeah, came back. We were in the States for a couple of years during COVID and then really felt the Lord pulling in our hearts through a lot of other stories we can get into if you want, yeah, to go back overseas and where we found ourselves in North Africa now, where we actually, for the organization, for the International Mission Board, we lead the work across five countries of North Africa now. So that's a quick introduction you can tell all that.

Winona 2:08

So I would say this about Justin and I when we got married right after we finished at OBU if you had told one or both of us that we were going to spend most of our adult lives overseas, one or both of us would have turned and walked down the aisle. The other way. This was not on our radar at all. So, really honestly, the Lord changed our hearts and really opened our eyes to His desire and His love for the nations, in adults, like as adults, young adults, young adults.

Kyle 2:39

We were young adults, that's right. Yeah, that was awesome. I'm really excited to get into all that. But first let's start with just kind of where you all grew up, what your families were like. Did you all grow up in Christian homes, did you not? How did you come to know Jesus?

Winona 2:54

Yeah, so I grew up in a Christian home. In fact, my parents met at OBU, in fact.

Kyle 2:59

Oh, wow.

Winona 2:59

And my dad is a music minister all through Oklahoma, arkansas and Texas, and so we served as a family. My dad served in churches for many, many years, and so I did grow up in a Christian home. I would say personally I had a culture of Christianity. I had a lot of knowledge about Christ. However, I always had this nagging thought in my mind, in my heart why don't I experience Christ, or why don't I know Him like everybody else does? Am I really following Him? And so I was 21 years old already, married to Justin as a youth pastor's wife, and when the Lord really got a hold of my life and said I choose Christ, to follow Christ for myself, not as part of what my family does, not as part of this culture of Christianity that I'd grown up in, but I really chose Christ for myself and recognize my sin and my need for a savior. And so, at 21 years old, a pastor's wife, I gave my whole life to Christ, and then I was baptized by Justin. Nice, yeah, nice.

Justin 4:06

Yeah, unexpected, but really the Lord did. You could see a transformation in her life even at that point in time. We trust that God was working in her life all through her life, but definitely at that point in time God really did some work in her heart and she's changed. She was definitely different.

Justin 4:22

I grew up in a Christian home as well. I actually grew up in the Church of the Nazarene, not Southern Baptist Church. So I grew up my whole life on the northwest side of Oklahoma City, which is kind of Nazarene country there, and, yeah, grew up in the church my whole life. My parents were not in the ministry, but we were that kind of family that kind of opened the doors of the church, shut the doors. We might have been at the church more than the staff at the church. You know we were involved and engaged in everything that we did.

Justin 4:52

I think one thing that's really just central, I think, to my family Christ and who he was was always more important than even church, and so I grew up in a very Christ-centric family, and so I'm thankful for that. That. You really praise God for that. I remember when I was, yeah, six years old, with my mom and dad in my bedroom talking to me about my need for a Savior and that Christ was the only way to salvation. And truly, with all the faith that a six-year-old can have, I knew that I needed a Savior and asked Christ to forgive me and gave my life to Him at that point in time. So I came to Christ at a very early age and I think, like most people who come to Christ at an early age, certainly as I got older, into college, certainly I had moments said, oh, was that enough? You know, was that enough to really save me? Did I need? I saw the people with some bigger, seemingly more, I don't know more dramatic yeah, more dramatic.

Justin 5:56

you know conversion story and I thought, oh, is that enough? Did I really know? And you know, I really worked through the scripture on that and really Lord helped me to recognize that he can save a child and he can save an adult on their deathbed. You know he can, he can work all throughout the night. So I truly trust that at that moment God worked, did a work of regeneration in my heart and changed me from that point on. So, yeah, I came to have faith at a very early age. But what was interesting, I think both of us, even though we were in church from all of our lives and kind of in the trappings of the church and did all the things around the church, neither of us had ever heard about God's heart for the nations until actually after we finished at OBU.

Justin 6:47

Once we, after we finished at OBU. It was only really at that point in time that God began to open up our heart, to understand His desire, for, you know, a people made up from every tongue, tribe and nation.

Kyle 6:59

Yeah, so you all met at OBU. We did Okay, how'd that go?

Winona 7:04

It was really good. Well, it went well. We've been married for almost 30 years. I think we met through mutual friends. One of my best friends was his roommate and he was friends with my roommate.

Kyle 7:15

So there's a little debate. There's a little debate, let's have it, let's have the debate. There's a little debate on yeah, it's true.

Justin 7:21

But I come out smelling like a rose. Let's just let me tell you so the there's a little debate on this. She says that you know we had mutual friends and so she knew who I was. I don't remember knowing who she was our freshman year. She says we were walking across campus between freshman year and she passed me on the on the sidewalk there and she said, hey, justin. And she says I ignored her completely.

Winona 7:48

I don't think that's true.

Justin 7:50

I don't.

Winona 7:51

I don't remember that moment, and so I don't think she's thinking of some other, justin, we actually met because we were both in choirs I was in Corral, he was in Glee Club and it was it was homecoming weekend, and so you kind of have those special get-togethers, and afterwards we ended up in the GC together with some other friends and sat at the same table and just started talking and we talked for several hours and both of us walked away from that.

Justin 8:16

No, both of us walked away from that.

Winona 8:17

He walked away from that. She was dating someone else at that point in time. Oh yeah, that's right, that's right.

Justin 8:23

So she was dating someone else who was also a friend of mine at that point in time, but my roommate and I we were walking back. It was called AG Dorm, is that right?

Kyle 8:33

What do we used to call it Brotherhood?

Justin 8:34

It was called Brotherhood back in those days. So AG Dorm walking back to AG and I told him, I remember telling him. I said hey, chris, you know, if Winona ever breaks up with our buddy there, I think I might need to.

Kyle 8:50

Yeah, see if she might want to date. Get to know her a little better.

Winona 8:53

I can't remember exactly the terms I used. I still don't belong in those slides. Yeah, yeah, and sure enough, that's what happened.

Justin 8:59

Yeah, what was it Four months later? Yeah, yeah, I got dumped.

Kyle 9:03

Which year in school was this?

Winona 9:06

this is our sophomore year. We didn't start dating till our junior year, but that was our sophomore year.

Kyle 9:10

Okay, okay, that's funny. You know, I hear from my wife regularly about how we had sieved together and I was completely oblivious to the fact that we were across from each other for the whole semester. And she texted me happy birthday on my birthday one day and I ghosted her. I didn't even respond.

Justin 9:30

But, I don't respond to a lot of those.

Kyle 9:32

She reminds me about a lot of those similar conversations. It's like, yeah, we talked. I don't know that we did.

Justin 9:40

I don't think she really remembers correctly. I think she's thinking of somebody else.

Kyle 9:43

You know, you did come out looking like a rose though.

Justin 9:46

Yeah, yeah, it was good it worked out. I carried her through it, that's right, you know anyway. So we were engaged our senior year and got married right out of school Got married right out of school.

Kyle 9:59

So you graduate college. What were your plans perceived at that point?

Justin 10:06

So when I came to OBU I know this sounds kind of crazy, but I came to OBU out of high school thinking that I wanted to make movies Okay, yeah, I was a telecommunications major at that point in time. I'm not sure if they even still have a telecommunications major or what they call it nowadays, but I spent all my time in Sarkies and I really thought that that's what I wanted to do. I love the idea of storytelling and production and all the things. But really, while we were here, god really captured my heart in a new way and kind of drew me into just a desire for the ministry. I wasn't a ministry major, I never was a ministry major, but really do in that time, yeah, god called me into the ministry Like, uh, I wasn't a ministry major, I never was a ministry major, and uh, but really do in that time, yeah, god called me into the ministry.

Justin 10:49

I remember, actually, a summer when I was working as an intern at a church in Oklahoma city, as a youth intern. That would have been the summer between my junior and senior year. Yeah, the Lord had been working on my heart about did I really want to pursue Him or did I really want to pursue something else, you know, and honestly, I really had kind of walked through several stages with that. I think the first stage I walked through was okay, the Lord is coming alive in my heart. So now I want to make movies for Jesus, you know. And I felt like, oh well, really, I want to take what my desires are and I'd really kind of just repackage them to give them back to God. You know, I think that's what I was doing. He convicted me about that and actually he said no, I want all of you, I want your whole heart. I may let you make movies, but I may not let you make movies Right. And so I think it was through a process of that and learning to be what it looked like to serve in the local church Actually, I grew up in the local church like serving in the local church and like pouring my heart out into particularly young people junior high students at that point in time Like really kind of transformed my understanding of the church, what God's calling looked like and some things like that.

Justin 12:08

And I remember the summer between my junior and senior year here at OBU being out at a youth camp and reading through the scripture in the morning and I got to the end of the book of John. There, when Jesus is sitting with John the disciple, who he loved, and sitting there by the Sea of Galilee, and they're having a conversation, and he says, you know, he says to Peter I guess this is what he says to Peter. He says to Peter Peter, do you love me? You know, then, feed my sheep, peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me, feed my sheep. He said that to him three times and yeah, I think, as I was reading that I began, I just looked up from where I was at and and I was surrounded like, oh, like the Lord was saying to me in that moment like these are my sheep, feed my sheep.

Justin 12:56

This is what I want for you, and are you willing to lay down your desires to fulfill my desires? And really I think that was a watershed moment in my life. Really, at that point I kind of laid down that desire to make movies and said, okay, lord, if this is what you want, I'll go all in, fully. So after OBU, when we left OBU, I went into the youth ministry and I ended up being at a local church in Oklahoma City for 12 years Started as the youth minister. God captured our heart for missions and we moved and I spent the first seven as youth pastor and the last five as missions pastor at that church before we went to the field. So we can get into that later if you want?

Kyle 13:39

Yeah, what did you think y'all were going to do?

Winona 13:41

Yeah, for me. I was a music education major here at OBU and I wanted to be able to teach school and I wanted to serve in local church through music and through worship, and help my husband, however I could, and so, as we, I also was an intern for several summers, every summer that I was here at OBU at different churches, and so I knew I wanted to serve the Lord, however he would allow me. So I I had that on my heart. Um, so as we, as we got married, finished OBU, got married, um, I thought I'll teach and then I'll help serve in student ministry with, with young ladies, and I'll love that and I'll do that, we'll do that forever. And so that was really I think that's really what I wanted to do.

Justin 14:21

There's another element to our story here. Okay, that, uh, for a long time she wouldn't date me, like even after she broke up with her boyfriend and I was there to pick up the pieces, she, she, uh she would not date me for I think about almost a year at that point in time after before we actually kind of fully started dating. So really all through our sophomore year and into our junior year she didn't really want to date me.

Winona 14:45

Why was that? Because I really wanted to marry somebody who was going into the ministry. I really wanted to serve the Lord to the church. That and and he was a Nazarene.

Kyle 14:56

Okay, so I was a— you had to convert him, so I was not a.

Justin 15:00

Baptist and I wasn't going into the ministry.

Winona 15:05

Yeah, so I wouldn't do it, which in her mind she's like oh no, this is what I'm not doing.

Kyle 15:06

I felt pretty strongly about both of those things. That's a really healthy belief to have when you know you have your own conviction from the Lord. Hey, I think the Lord wants me to do this with my life. That's a really healthy thing that we would have conversations with our students all the time was guard the Lord's call on your life with who you put in your life.

Justin 15:26

Yeah, yeah Well, she wins in the end because now. I'm a Baptist and I'm like a minister.

Kyle 15:31

So she kind of knew I didn't convince her, did she Did somebody else? How did you know the?

Justin 15:36

Lord was at work, the Lord was genuinely at work.

Winona 15:39

We both just kept walking and sought wise counsel and actually it was my mom. My mom said that God calls you to someone and that, as we continued to walk together, that my mom said you know, just walk, consider and seek the Lord.

Justin 15:55

Well, honestly, there's this whole process that I thought I wanted to make movies, and of course I wasn't a Baptist.

Winona 16:00

But this was all happening at the same time.

Justin 16:03

Kind of concurrently, these things were going, that the Lord was drawing me to himself, to his calling, to understand his calling, discern it, to lay down my desires, like, yeah, all that was happening while she was wrestling with man. I think I really like this guy and I think there's a lot about him I do like and I want to be with him, while in those days where she wouldn't date me, it's like one of those things I don't know. This probably happens around campus all the time where you know a couple are spending all their time together but they're not dating. Right, that was what we were doing, yeah yeah.

Justin 16:32

And so it was this time where we were growing together, like our hearts were growing closer together. We really enjoyed each other. But actually the Lord was working in my heart, the Lord was working in her heart to kind of define those things as we moved down the road. And honestly I look back at all that and really thankful that the Lord maybe slowed us down in our relationship a little bit, really allowed us to, because we didn't date immediately, uh, we weren't actually together fairly quickly. He really allowed us to get to know one another um much better and we were really um, deep level heart friends by the time uh, we actually started dating and uh, yeah, remain to this day Like, like we can't think of doing much of anything without the other.

Kyle 17:17

So, yeah, as it should be, yeah, yeah. So you move into being a youth pastor and were you on staff at the church or where?

Winona 17:27

No, I taught at a school for the first couple of years.

Justin 17:30

Okay.

Winona 17:30

And then I just helped out with the ministry.

Justin 17:31

Yeah, she was an integral part of his youth ministry, you know. So it's that kind of youth pastor and his wife you know sort of role. She was actually integral to everything that we did. We were doing youth choirs in those days back in those days.

Winona 17:51

She led our youth choirs.

Justin 17:58

She mentored and led Bible studies with girls, with ladies, all the time you know. So she was an integral part of the mission. I can say with confidence that I wouldn't have gotten the job if it weren't for her. So I can say that with confidence. Yeah.

Kyle 18:06

Yeah. So what were some of the biggest lessons that you all learned in that time? That 12 year ish time where you were a youth pastor and pastor, that 12-year-ish time where you were a youth pastor and pastor working in the church, that helped prepare you for your time on the field.

Winona 18:20

I would say, boy, I really feel like the Lord taught us about who he was in those 12 years we grew up a lot. We learned how to serve Him as adults. We learned how to love the church and really feel a part and to serve the local church, the Big C Church, as well as our local church, and so I think we really learned how to love the church well. But I also think, more than anything else, the Lord just grew us in maturity in relationship with Him and to understand and to know His heart for the nations and to know that he loves people of every tongue, tribe and nation all over the world. I don't think either one of us had any concept of that, as when we got married, and I think the Lord just began to show us that more and more.

Justin 19:13

Yeah, I'd say probably three things. My answer would probably be three major things that the Lord did.

Justin 19:17

The first one is just opening our hearts to His desire for the nations, and we can unpack that more later if you'd like to, I think the other two were more about who he was and who we were and how we related to ministry, and I think those two things were first just the essential nature of prayer. The Lord was doing things in my life prayer and drawing us into deeper levels of prayer. At that point in time we're just really just an interesting thing he was doing in our lives. And so actually very early on in our youth ministry we started like a Monday evening prayer meeting for the youth group and like every Monday night, whoever would come would come, and we sometimes have 20 or 30 people gathered just to pray Students, students.

Kyle 20:03

Yeah, wow, on a Monday night.

Justin 20:06

In fact other people from the church adults started coming to our youth prayer meeting and it lasted for maybe two and a half three years, something like that, that we kind of kept this thing going. It had its season, like a lot of things, but in that season the Lord did so much in our hearts in that season and I think a lot of it, if I trace it back, it was this impulse to just quiet ourself before Him and cry out to him and ask him for what he wanted. What do you want, god? And then as he begins to lay those things on our heart, we see those things and we just hold them back up to him in prayer, like actually, I think I learned in that season an essential thing we still do now and that's to just quiet ourselves, hear what God wants. And if we believe we see what God wants, then we ask God for that Right and then we begin to do that and he did that in just incredible ways in that season.

Justin 21:02

So I think you know, other than understanding his heart for the nations, kind of him deepening and kind of giving us a bedrock of prayer, just through that season of youth ministry, sort of our mantra in our youth ministry just grew out over those times that we come to serve and not be served. I literally, with our youth group at that point in time, we started doing a lot of projects, service projects, mission trips, all kinds of different things, and I could literally say to them, I could call out like we don't come to serve, we don't come to be served but to serve, and they'd all yell out but to serve. And so this idea of we pour out ourselves we don't come to serve but to, we don't come to be served but to serve. Yeah, that was. I think that was just a real special thing. That again, I think, and it was a carry on of like the Lord calling me away from making movies, you know, laying that down you know, this thing that I thought I wanted and actually laying that down and picking up, what he wanted, you know

Justin 22:07

is just an extension of that really is that all my life is a pattern of service. It's not about me, I must decrease, he must increase. Yeah Right, john the Baptist and this whole patterns that that's what it's about. So our youth ministry became like dominated by that. I'll still get together with, like now, like adults and parents and people overseas, you know, from our youth mission those days and they'll say, oh man, I remember man, justin, you taught us, you taught us that we're not to be served but we're to serve others, and that's been a dominating factor in their lives now and that's just a really cool thing. So I think, heart for the Nations, the centrality of prayer and our need for prayer and discerning God's voice and then holding that back to Him, and then just this life of service, that life and ministry flows out of service. Yeah, there are a lot of leadership things he taught me too. That's for probably a different podcast.

Kyle 23:02

Fair. So let's unpack the Lord's drawing you all to the nations and beginning to understand that.

Winona 23:10

I'd say we both have our own stories, but it all started in 1997.

Justin 23:16

We'd been on staff at this church For a couple of years. We got married in 96 and started at this church a month after we got married.

Winona 23:22

Yeah, so somewhere in 1997, about a year after we'd been at this church, we began to hear about the unreached and actually Justin's accountability partner. He began to tell him hey, you know, have you thought about the unreached?

Justin 23:39

And Justin said I keep using this term, the unreached. I don't know what that meant. He told me what it meant, of course, but yeah.

Winona 23:45

Yeah.

Justin 23:45

Wow OK.

Winona 23:47

We said look at all the look at all the people here in Oklahoma City that are unreached. And he said well, it's a little bit different, different meaning, it's about access.

Justin 23:54

I learned at that point in time, like in those days oh, it's not only about whether you're lost or saved, it's about the access you have to the gospel.

Kyle 24:02

To the news that can save you. That's right. That's right, yeah.

Justin 24:05

So it's an issue of access, not just an issue of like have I given my heart to the gospel or not? But what access do I have to the gospel? That, but what access do I have to the gospel? That's right. So we had to learn about what the unreached was.

Winona 24:15

So as we, as Justin and his accountability partner, continue to talk about this, they kind of begin to pray about whether or not we could take a vision trip to go see this unreached this so-called unreached?

Justin 24:26

Where would you take us?

Winona 24:27

So Justin came home one day and said hey, I think the Lord may be leading us to take a group of students overseas to see the unreached. And I said you are crazy. I said we are 22 and 23 years old. Who? In their right mind is going to let their high schooler go with us.

Justin 24:45

At this point in time, like our church had done nothing.

Winona 24:47

Nothing. Yeah, our church had done nothing.

Justin 24:49

I've had any engagement among the nations.

Winona 24:51

No, no. So he said well, will you pray about it? And I was like, of course I'll pray about it. But you know, I'm just telling you, the reality is nobody's going to let us take their kids. So as we prayed about it, we just kept moving forward, and so we ended up taking a group of 10, I believe 10 students 11. 11 students to Taiwan in East Asia.

Kyle 25:12

And was this you all's first time? This was also our first time.

Winona 25:16

Yes, Everyone, including us, and we took some juniors and seniors.

Justin 25:21

And a couple of college students.

Winona 25:22

And a couple of college students.

Justin 25:23

Yeah, juniors and college students. We ended up going to Taiwan in summer 1998. But really backing up from that, like we've kind of built this team and did really nine months of discipleship with those students before we ended up on ground in Taiwan in the summer of 99. So really towards the fall of 97, we started doing this process of discipleship and team building discipleship and what we found out was that we were the ones being discipled as young people at that point in time and had some people come in and just took us through the scriptures over really what it was amounted to about three months, just slowly walked through the scriptures with us revealing God's heart from the very beginning until the very end.

Justin 26:07

For the nations, this metanarrative that is in the scripture that I think that, above all other things, has radically changed my life. How could we have been in the church for all of our lives 20 plus years at that point in time and never heard that before? But it was true, man, I'd been to every VBS and all the Bible camps and I had memorized my scriptures as a kid and all the things, but I never saw the whole metanarrative of God building up people for himself from the very beginning to the very end. And as we began to see that like, I think that began to change our hearts and our minds. That was the first key thing, just seeing his heart for the nations in all the scripture. But then we got to Taiwan and God gave us, each individually, like some, almost like a capstone to that Like. Now I'm going to show you that and I'm going to reveal myself through that.

Winona 27:00

So for me, once we got to Taiwan, I had no idea that there were still people that worshiped and bowed down to idols, golden statues, like I had. I knew that that was in the Old Testament Right, and I felt like the Old Testament was coming alive in front of my eyes as I saw the high places, these temples that were lifted up high you know Old Testament talks about, but they didn't tear down the high places. There are high places because the enemy can't be exalted of his own. He has to exalt himself and set him physically at a high place. And so we would see these places and we would walk into these temples. We had memorized quite a bit of scripture because we, on this trip, we were going to prayer, walk through temples. And so we would, man, we would walk in these temples and we would just begin to pray and just begin to watch what all was happening around us and just ask the Lord.

Winona 27:48

For me personally, growing up in a Christian home of a music minister, and worship was a big part of what we did I'll never forget being in a temple one day and seeing a family of four walk in the temple a mom and dad and two little children, and this mom and dad began to teach their children how to worship in front of these idols. They would taught their children how to bow down correctly, how to place their hands together, how to put their heads down to the ground over and over again before the idol. They would give them incense sticks and they would teach them how to wave the incense in front of the idols, and I watched as they moved from idol to idol to idol for almost an hour. They worked their way through the whole temple and my heart was broken because these children were. They were going to be another generation of worshipers that were not going to be worship, worshiping Jesus Christ. They were going to be worshiping this false idea.

Justin 28:51

Bound from their creator.

Winona 28:52

Yeah, they were, and it was going to keep them from knowing Jesus. And so I, just I just began to cry out to the Lord. How long, how long, the Lord, who will ever?

Kyle 29:04

who will?

Winona 29:04

help them to know the truth. And I just remember thinking the Lord just kept saying why not you, why not you? And I'd never had that thought before in my life and it was just very. I think the Lord used worship because that was such a part of who I who I am and what my family is, my background, my upbringing and I and just really brought it forefront in my mind, um, and I wanted to see worshipers worshiping Jesus.

Kyle 29:30

That's a powerful, powerful story to sit, because I can picture it. Having been in some temples like that, I can picture that. It's a powerful testimony, like just knowing that's the next generation that's going to continue to be bound in lostness.

Justin 29:46

Yeah, yeah.

Kyle 29:47

That's hard yeah.

Justin 29:49

Yeah, for me, while we went to Taiwan, we'd been there on the island for, I think, 20 days or something like that, and it was the last day before we were about to leave the island and God had been doing a lot already. So it was kind of like a buildup, like a slow burn, you know to this thing.

Justin 30:10

But I'll never forget, on the last day we were there, we were in a fairly small area in Taichung, which is a large city in Taiwan, A small area, but this area had, like I think, six or seven different temples or shrines and at that point in time, man, we were like the SEAL Team 6 of prayer walking.

Justin 30:28

At that time, I mean seriously, my team, we would go and we knew what we were doing and we would go into these temples and we'd just spread out and we'd just pray in these temples.

Justin 30:39

And so we walked into the biggest and what we were going to do is we were going to go to all six of these just before we got on a van to go to the airport, to get on an airplane to come home, Our last thing we were going to do is just pray and be in that place.

Justin 30:55

And we walked into the first one, the biggest one, the main one in this area, and it was what you would imagine a big courtyard with, you know God, buildings, with gods in each, you know idols in the on the left, right and the back of the courtyard, lots of people milling about the team. I remember we stepped into the courtyard and we split up and they started praying and I was kind of sort of standing to the back of the courtyard and I remember we stepped into the courtyard and we split up and they started praying and I was kind of sort of standing to the back of the courtyard and I remember somewhere pretty soon after we got there, I remember this man emerging from like the corner of the courtyard, between two of the buildings, he emerges from the corner and he kind of comes out and he just catches my eye and I catch his eye, One of those things.

Justin 31:31

We're a long way apart from he catching me. He just kind of watches me a little bit and I, you know, I keep held the gaze a little too long, right, you know, and so we keep kind of milling about and going about, but he keeps his eyes on me and eventually he walks up to me in the courtyard, across the courtyard, kind of meanders his way, and walks up to me and kind of introduces himself, sort of says something to me my translators I didn't really understand him, Our translators there. She didn't actually speak his language, she only spoke Mandarin, Chinese and he spoke like Hokkien or a language on the island. So she couldn't understand much, but we just kind of introduced ourselves. And then he turns and and walks away from me and I recognize oh, this is who this guy is. He was a temple servant there and they had these sort of monks. They didn't really have monks, but these guys who live at the temple and on really holy days we'd studied this actually before we went to Taiwan On really holy days like, say, the birthday of the idol or something like that.

Justin 32:35

They do these celebrations where these men would invoke demons to possess their body. And then they would tie a sash around their waist and they would literally do like bloodletting exercises. They would take a sharp kind of short sticks with sharp points on the stick and they'd beat themselves on the head so that blood would like just flow down their head. They would take those sticks or even knives, and kind of slash themselves across the chest or beat themselves on the back so blood would actually flow out of their body and and flow down their torso and soak into that sash that they tied around their waist. And then they would take that sash and they would offer it to the idol as a special sacrifice. Right, it wasn't common, but they did this with regularity, you know on a high or holy day for that particular idol, that particular God. And as he turned and walked away from us I saw scars up and down his back.

Winona 33:35

I was like oh, you should mention he was not wearing a shirt. He was not wearing a shirt, that's how you saw the scars on his back.

Justin 33:42

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Justin 33:44

Okay, all right, he wasn't wearing a shirt and I saw these scars up and down his back and man, I was like, wow, that's one of these guys. So I just started praying for him, started praying just specifically for that guy. He walked away out of sight, went back behind the thing, so we prayed for about I don't know 45 minutes or an hour in that temple and then we collected our SEAL Team 6 and we left that temple and we went just down a few blocks from there, turned a corner and went to this little roadside shrine, because they have temples of all sizes right there, and so this little roadside shrine had apparently been really well known in the neighborhood because a lot of people had had their prayers answered there. And so in this little roadside shrine, literally there's a small courtyard there, and my whole team is like packed into this little roadside, this courtyard in front of the shrine, and we're praying together there and I'm standing at the back, maybe even just outside the courtyard, in the alleyway there, and out of the corner of my eye, I see a bicycle turn the corner and ride toward us and it's that guy.

Justin 34:47

Yeah, it's that guy from the temple we were just at. Yeah, and I'll never forget this. My whole life. This image burned in my mind Still shirtless.

Kyle 34:55

He's still shirtless. Oh good, Still shirtless.

Justin 34:57

That's right. And he rides up probably 10 feet from me, he puts his bicycle down on the ground and he walks straight up to me. He walks straight up to me and I was like, wow, this is kind of weird. But I was like, wow, this is kind of weird. But you know, I was kind of learning to be a Baptist pastor at that point in time. So what does the pastor do? He sticks out his hand to shake their hand. You know, as I stick out my hand to shake his hand, he grabs my hand with both his hands and begins to touch my hand to his forehead and almost like, not really bow to me, but touch his hand to my forehead and I'm like, okay, I don't know what's happening here. And so I actually asked. Our translator said, hey, can you help me here? And she comes over and she didn't speak Hokkien, she only spoke Mandarin. She spoke Mandarin and Hokkien and English. She spoke Mandarin and English. He spoke Hokkien and a little bit of broken Mandarin and I only spoke English.

Justin 35:53

And I never really wanted to learn any other language at this point in my life, and so all she could understand from him she talked to him for a bit. All she could understand from him was that he recognized authority in me and was asking me to help him. Would you help me? And right there at that moment, my whole small Oklahoma City you know, never been much, never really been outside Oklahoma city my whole little world kind of got blown apart in that moment. We'd been reading and studying and understanding that God's vision of the world and the people that he wants to create for himself is far bigger than anything we can imagine, right, anything I ever imagined as a kid growing up in Oklahoma. And in that moment this guy is sitting there asking me for help, and I was helpless to help him. I didn't speak his language. I wanted more than anything to open my mouth and share the good news of Christ as the only thing that can help him. With him at that moment, I did my best to muddle through the gospel with our translator, but she didn't speak his language right. And so here was this guy who had no ability to hear the gospel, even though there were two believers close to him, actually a whole host of believers, because the whole team was there, right and so, and yet he, he could not hear the gospel. And so we the gospel. And I remember that day, holding his hand, I shared what I could of the gospel through this broken translation and I prayed for him in English and I remember he dropped my hand and looked at me and then just turned around and got on his bicycle and rode away. I remember that guy to this day. Tell him the story again. I can see it and I'll still pray for that guy when I think about him because I don't know where the Lord's taking him. I pray that he has.

Justin 37:39

Someone else came along and spoke the gospel in his language to allow him to hear the good news and believe right, but that day he rode away and I was completely unequipped to share the good news with him and that really wrecked my heart. We went back, we got on the van, we went back to the airport, got on the airplane, had this long airplane ride all the way back, thinking about that and going, wow, lord, what are you doing and what do you want us to do? So Winona and I came back from that trip and we just really I always say we were kind of wrecked for the ordinary and we couldn't just do ministry in the same way anymore. We're two years into this youth ministry gig and we're like, okay, lord, she was pregnant with our oldest, our daughter. At that point in time we said, do you want us to sell everything Like we don't have very much? We'll go right now Like we'll go right now Like we don't have very much.

Winona 38:29

We'll go right now. We'll go right now.

Justin 38:31

We'll go right now and we really prayed about that for a good period of time, Really felt like the Lord said not yet You're not ready.

Kyle 38:41

You need to learn, you need to learn.

Justin 38:42

Learn about the world we had financial things we needed to put in order. I had education things we needed to put in order, like there was a whole lot that the Lord needed to do in us. At that point in time we really just felt like the Lord said no, not yet we were ready, the yes is on the table, but really the Lord wouldn't allow us to go at that point in time. So we stayed for another 10 years at that church and but what we started doing was okay, if we're not going now, this thing that God's done in our heart, we got to tell somebody and we started mobilizing the church.

Winona 39:13

At that point, yeah, we knew that, coming back from that trip, we were going to be about the nations. Whether we were going to go ourselves, we were going to take people with us, we were going to tell as many people as we could about the need, about the unreached, and that's what our lives were going to be about. And if the Lord chose for us to go, we would be ready. And if the Lord chose for us to go, we would be ready and we would go whenever he told us to. So we began. I mean Justin, I mean both of us.

Justin 39:36

Justin had never been on an airplane until his senior year of college I believe I think the trip we took to Taiwan was my second time to be on an airplane.

Winona 39:44

Yeah, so I mean that's just think about that Like that. The world was an unknown to us, and so one of the first things Justin did was he put a map of the world on the wall and then subscribed to all these different pray for the nations kinds of things so that he would get an email every day and then find that place on the map and pray over that place. And so he just began to do that and we began to talk about the nations, we began to watch the news in different ways to learn about what was happening and what God was doing where. Before we just kind of glossed over that, we just ignored it, we didn't understand it, we just didn't see it at all.

Winona 40:19

No, we didn't see it at all, yeah, so we just began to see.

Justin 40:21

Okay, god, if you see the world this way, like, how do I need to see the world Again? Like my life continually changing to be more like his perspective, how do you see the world? And now that just slowly, radically changed our life. I ended up changing the life of our church Over that 10 years. Again, we continued in the youth ministry position for another five, but the missions part of our church began to take so much gain, so much traction during that time that eventually we hired a new youth pastor and I moved over just to missions pastor fully. I started taking trips all over the world at that point in time but we started doing heavy partnerships into East Asia, where we would eventually go to and just really end up in that season, sent a lot of people out to the nations, began doing partnerships with the nations. It was really a sweet time.

Winona 41:13

The Lord taught us a lot. We saw families go overseas. We saw young people give two years to overseas. We saw the Lord just do a lot of things in many hearts that we're so thankful for that we got to just even be part of that.

Justin 41:27

Yeah, and so even from that first group of 11 students that went to Taiwan that summer of 1998, I think at least four, if not five, families have ended up on the field out of that group.

Kyle 41:41

You took 10, right, yeah, you took 11 students, 50% of that group.

Justin 41:46

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it was amazing what God was doing, and we were actually the last ones to go out of that group Of all of them.

Winona 41:51

we were the last ones to go out of that group Of all of them.

Kyle 41:53

we were the last ones to go. Yeah, that's encouraging. So you moved into a missions pastor position. You start sending people all over the world. Did you all start learning Mandarin Chinese at that point? No, or did you start learning language at?

Justin 42:11

all we started taking I think it was 2001, was our first time, my first time to go into mainland China and we began to engage there. We began learning how to engage China from the church position I was still the youth pastor at that point in time and just slowly kind of building projects. We did some in some different areas. Eventually we kind of landed on an unreached people group in the Southern part of China and we began to take multiple trips over there. And so during that season, yeah, we learned some basic Chinese.

Winona 42:45

During that season, we learned how to say where's the bathroom and where's McDonald's.

Kyle 42:48

Okay, Okay, to be honest.

Winona 42:50

To be fair.

Justin 42:51

Winona is a much better language learner than I am, and so she began to learn a lot more language along the way. I learned a little basic greetings, you know simple things. She began to learn a lot more. She was always she always is several steps ahead of me on that. So, but in that season I wouldn't say we learned a lot.

Justin 43:12

I wouldn't say we learned a lot, but what we did do is we began to understand, kind of the lay land, who this people group was like, what their culture was, what their kind of, what the issues were with gospel access towards them. We actually began to meet all of the workers from multiple different agencies who were working among them and we, as as a church, adopted that people group and then we began to uh take multiple trips over there. We actually started a company over there. Uh, during that time, while we were in the, in the, in the church Uh, cause that's what the field said they needed. They said, oh, we need a company like as a platform to keep us in this area. So we said, okay, we'll start it. Never did we really imagine that we would actually be the ones on that platform when we went. But so we did a lot of things, really understood the ground there. I think we probably took dozens of trips to that area during those few years, and so we were really very prepared to go.

Kyle 44:10

I think when we went and so we were really very prepared to go, I think, when we went. So when did the time come for you all to make the decision? Okay, the Lord's saying now is the time. He said wait 10 years ago, but now he's saying it's time for you all to go.

Justin 44:24

Yeah, we were in this missions pastor role and things were really rolling and we were sending a bunch of people overseas, these deep level partnerships, even as, from my position, like people were actually coming to me to ask me how to oh, can you help us start a missions program in our church and so, like I was fully engaged, was flying all around the world. We were doing partnerships in Chile to send people out from South America to the 1040 window, deep partnerships in East Asia already and other churches asking for help on all these things. We were increasing what we were doing in the city as well, so all kinds of things like it was rolling. I felt like we were actually doing a whole lot of things.

Winona 45:05

And then Winona, she comes to me and she says I think the Lord might be saying something. So somewhere around eight or nine years in, I began to say to him you know, I think the Lord is, I think he's preparing us, I think he's telling me it's about time for us to go. So I don't know what you think about that, but I'm just telling you what the Lord's kind of speaking to me.

Justin 45:23

And my first response was are you kidding me? Like do you see what we're doing for the at this point in time, and I was, like we're doing all this stuff, like why would we leave now, man, things are rolling and we're multiplying our efforts. That was my attitude.

Winona 45:37

So I said, okay, okay, I'm just letting you know, just letting you know what I'm hearing. So probably six months, nine months later I went back to you again and I think I said I said, man, the Lord just is not letting up in my time with Him and just really helping me see that it's almost time for us to go overseas ourselves.

Justin 45:56

I think I didn't agree with her at that point in time, but I said I'd pray about it. Yeah, right. It's a classic answer yeah Well, I didn't pray for it the first time. Now I'll pray about it.

Winona 46:04

So I think it was probably another five or six months later that I came back a third time and you said, yeah, I think you're right, I think it's time and, honestly, I think it's the grace of the Lord that I, that the Lord spoke to me even first. Um, as a wife, as a mother of two little ones. My kids were seven and nine years old, first and third grade at the time. Um, actually, they were probably a little younger than that, but they, I was going to have to do a lot and and sometimes you know, you have, you have a husband who's really like I'm going to, we're going to go overseas, and the wife's like, okay, but the Lord really called me and helped me to know this is what we're doing for a family, because it was going to be hard to take my first and third grader overseas, leaving America, leaving grandparents, cousins, family, friends, all of that.

Winona 46:50

That was going to be hard. That was going to be hard. That was going to be hard for me as we learned as a family how to live in a culture where, you know, we didn't speak the language, my kids didn't have any friends, Like that was going to be hard and fall as someone who helped and, you know, kept the house, like that was going to be hard. And what I didn't realize was just God's kindness in making sure I was confident that we were called and it was time for us to go. So I don't know. I'm always thankful for that that the Lord was very generous to say, hey, this is what's next and this is what's coming.

Justin 47:22

And I don't, I don't. I feel like during that season I was not very responsive, you know, I think, to what the Lord was leading you to do. But eventually it became apparent that it was almost like a continuation of this same theme in our lives, that like he must increase and we must decrease, and like, just like I'd wanted to make movies and kind of repackage that and said, how about this God? Now, here I was actually serving in ministry, doing the things that he clearly wanted to do, but he was actually pushing us towards something else, something different than that, not necessarily more than that or greater than that, but something different than that. And I was just saying, well, how about you take what I want to give you, lord?

Justin 47:59

And the Lord, through just different ways, just revealed to us, no, no, revealed to me that no, actually, I actually want this is not about you. You're not the center of this story. And what you're doing and mobilizing people and multiplying effect and and all the stuff you're doing that's not the story. Like it's who I am and who, what I'm calling you to is the center of the story, and I think I had to surrender to that again. And and then the and then we uh, yeah, I think it was the yeah, uh, early, uh early spring of 2008 when we actually left the States and went kind of our first time to live what we would say when we went overseas for real.

Winona 48:39

You know when you go. I've been on a mission trip for two or three weeks and I know I have a plane ticket to come back. It's like for real is like when you know the granola bars are going to run out of your bag and you don't have a return ticket. Got that?

Kyle 48:51

one-way ticket. That's right and so it's a different feeling. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Well, let's take a break here and then I think we'll just come back and we'll jump right in to moving overseas with a one-way ticket and see where we go from there. So everybody thanks for tuning in to this episode.