UNREACHED
In Revelation 7, John shares his vision of heaven with members from every tribe, tongue, people and language standing in the throne room before the Lamb.
Yet today there are still over 7,000 unreached people groups around the world.
For the last six years, my family and friends have been on a journey to find, vet and fund the task remaining.
Come journey with us to the ends of the earth as we share the supernatural stories of God at work through the men and women he has called to reach the UNREACHED.
UNREACHED
Student Mobilization and Unexpected Challenges with Jason Kuhlman
Can a high school challenge change the trajectory of your entire life? Jason Kuhlman, a passionate leader from STUMO (Student Mobilization), shares how a simple nudge from a friend in Oklahoma set him on a path of profound faith and global mission work. From his pivotal college years at the University of Oklahoma to his current leadership role, Jason sheds light on how college ministries can shape future missionaries and marketplace leaders, underscoring the transformative power of reaching students during their most formative years. He also touches on the critical importance of the 1040 window and STUMO's expansive global outreach.
When COVID-19 upended plans, the story took an unexpected turn. Jason recounts the dramatic evacuation from China to Japan amidst a burgeoning pandemic, sharing the logistical and emotional trials faced while navigating parenthood and leadership in a foreign land. This chapter is a testament to the resilience and faith required during life's most unforeseen changes. Through heartfelt prayers, we offer solace and encouragement to listeners navigating their own uncertainties, reinforcing the belief that God's plan is always at work, even in the most chaotic times. Join us for an episode filled with inspiration, faith, and unwavering trust in God's guidance.
Follow @unreachedpodcast on Instagram for more!
In Revelation 7, john shares his vision of heaven with members from every tribe, tongue, people and language standing in the throne room before the Lamb. Yet today there are still over 7,000 unreached people groups around the world. For the last six years, my family and friends have been on a journey to find, vet and fund the task remaining. Come journey with us to the ends of the earth as we share the supernatural stories of God at work for the men and women he has called to reach the unreached. Hello friends, dustin Elliott here, your host for the Unreached podcast.
Speaker 1:We are back with another really good friend of mine, jason Kuhlman. Jason is a leader within the organization of STUMO Student Mobilization. He and his wife have committed their lives to mobilizing college students to the nations, helping college students understand and process what it's like to go into the marketplace as a Christ follower. He's also been a missionary himself and has been out in the field, and I'm so fired up. Friends, help me welcome Jason Kuhlman. Hey, dustin, thanks for that introduction. Listen, we're in Austin and, my Longhorn friends, we got a Sooner in the house today. Okay, clint's over here with his horns up. It is football season, we just kicked off, but there's mission fields in Oklahoma too, give us your story downtown Austin, you know.
Speaker 2:Growing up, you know we went to church, but I really had a hard time connecting what we were doing on Sundays to life. And so I was the youngest of three. I had an older brother, older sister, and you know they were popular and great at sports and social, and so as I watched them growing up as the youngest, I really thought to myself well, I want to be that, that's what brings fulfillment. So I just dumped myself into all those things and just found it really unsatisfying. I had a buddy who actually, late in high school, he came to me and he said hey, a guy like you, if you came to Christ, you could really influence people towards Jesus. And I thought to myself well, what do you mean? Come to Christ? I grew, I grew up in Oklahoma Like, of course I'm a Christian, and it really challenged me to open the Bible for the first time. And I started reading the book of John and I'm reading what Jesus says about what it looks like to follow him. And it's like a mirror, you know it's. I'm just seeing myself in this story and I'm not seeing myself as a follower of Christ. And it really flipped my world upside down and I uh, ended up deciding, hey, I want to follow Jesus for a lifetime. And I use that, that phrase, follow Jesus. I think you know, in evangelical America, the idea of commit your life to Christ or pray a prayer. You know Jesus doesn't really use that language. You know he uses the language of follow me. It is a one-time decision that you make. That should influence every decision thereafter, and not that we do it perfectly. And certainly I'm, you know, as the apostle Paul says, the chief of sinners. But there's been the ongoing desire to continue to follow the Lord till the end.
Speaker 2:And so I went to college, played sports originally, ended up transferring to the University of Oklahoma after, you know, my freshman year, and I rushed to fraternity and a guy came and knocked on the door and he said, hey, you know, I'm here to help guys grow in their faith and do Bible studies, and. And I said, hey, man, this is a fraternity, like that's not really why we joined these places. And uh, he said, yeah, you know, but there might be some guys. And I said, well, you know, I recently came to know Jesus and decided to follow him. And, and I would, I would love to help you do that. And uh, and that was really formative for me in my college years, and so he became a huge mentor to me and a guide in the faith and helped me navigate a lot of different seasons. That was how I got involved with Stumo Through. Stumo is where I heard about the 1040 window. It's where I heard about missions. Uh, I took the perspectives class in college, which is a phenomenal class on the history of missions and what's left to be done in regards to the Great Commission, and that's where I heard Todd Aaron speak about the biblical basis for missions and the importance of the college campus, and my heart just became engulfed with this idea that the future of missions tomorrow is the college campus.
Speaker 2:Today the listeners might be wondering well, how does college ministry have anything to do with missions? You know every church wants more missionaries, but few people ask the question of where do missionaries come from? Right, where do pastors come from? Where do marketplace leaders that love the Lord come from? And generally you can trace those steps back to the college campus, something that the Lord did in the college years, and I think that's generally consistent with the Bible.
Speaker 2:You look at who Jesus spent time with. He did not necessarily. You know. He was open to everyone but the 12 people closest to him were college age kids, before they had responsibility. You know, they had the time and Jesus could give them the intention to disciple them and help them see the kingdom of God both in the world and in their own heart. And and then they raised up and became the first missionaries to the world place in the entire world. When we talk about the 1040 window, when we talk about missions, when we talk about even just the evangelization of our own cities and states and nation, if you win the college campus today, I think you win the world tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Another thing, too you're not only talking about now. You cover Texas, but we're not only talking about the West and American colleges and colleges here you're talking about. I mean, y'all are working in a lot of colleges around the world. Okay, so let's just state that as well. It's a global program. Let's also not miss the fact that students from all over the world come here to be educated, no doubt, and so these students are getting to encounter someone from a different culture that they've committed several years of their life to, who has an opportunity to speak truth to them, to love them, to show them a way of living that they may not have ever been exposed to and, lord willing, it's his job, not ours he may bring them on the team, and if he does and they get educated and they get their heart motivated as well, they may go back and change the course of their family, community, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and I think we've seen that happen. You know the kickoff of the semester on the college campus is happening now and you know I just got a text last week of an event that we hosted. We run a program for a six month. Six month program for college graduates that want to go be missionaries in the world and they work in Austin but we're training them to be missionaries. They move into apartments where international students come and we teach them how. What does it actually look like to build relationship and engage somebody from a different context? And I got this picture and you know there's 20 students in it and I'm like, where's this guy from? And they're like, oh, he's from Turkey. You know, he's from Morocco, this guy's from China, uh, you know, and everybody was from all over the world. And here they all are in Austin looking for friends, wanting to understand American culture, and it's such a, it's such a layup whenever it comes to the gospel to be able to invite in the foreigner which is really part of the entire world except America.
Speaker 2:I remember being in Asia and I was lost. I was just lost out in the city and I was trying to get to this one specific location. I stopped this man and I said hey, man, could you give me directions here? And he didn't speak perfect English, but he spoke enough that we could communicate. And you know, in America what would we do? We'd say, hey, you know you go down there, you take a right and then you take a left, and you know you walk 100 yards and it'll be right there and then we rush about our day.
Speaker 2:But this man stopped and he said, hey, can I just take you? Yeah, and, and I'm thinking, man, what would it be like as a follower of Jesus in America? Uh, when you see the foreigner you know in our city for us to stop and say, hey, let me just go with, let me help you, let me help you figure this out, because you know, growing up in America it's amazing. You know everything is easy, you know accessible, but for somebody that did not grow up in this context, it's very overwhelming. You know Costco overwhelming, right, you know it's just, it's big. You know how do you get in? I got to be a member. How do I even become a member? And I just find that the foreigner, on their own soil, is extremely servant-hearted and inviting and wants to be very hospitable.
Speaker 1:And sometimes the opposite of that being, we're very busy and caught up in our own rat race and we are just getting to our next destination and you are keeping us from getting there. So, as quick as I can, reroute you to wherever it is you need to go and get you out of my path. Totally Right Versus no, what's most important is God just brought this person into my life and I need to stop and I need to pause and have a quick moment, a quick prayer. Okay, god, what's this about? Let's just be open-minded.
Speaker 2:Let's be open-handed. Yeah, I mean, that's it. And you know, even just as you comb through the new Testament and you look at Jesus's interactions with people, Jesus was a phenomenal question asker. He was the best question asker. His interaction with the woman at the well he's just asking questions as he does that it causes this spiritual reflection of this woman and and the outpouring of what was really going on inside of her comes to the outside with her words and and I think it's a beautiful picture of of how believers should engage the world, how we should be inquisitive and how, uh, there's brokenness inside of every person.
Speaker 2:You know, I always tell our staff find their brokenness and then you just got to tap dance on it. Most people would say, hey, man, you know how's it been, How's it been your first week of school? It's like, well, you know it wasn't great. You know I had an experience, you know, downtown, that you know didn't end up the way that I would, and most people would say, oh man, that stinks, no-transcript. People are harassed and helpless and if you can become inquisitive into that, regardless of culture, man, the gospel becomes really dynamic and easily flows.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's pivot, because I love that we started on the college campus and we can come back there if we need to. But through your work with Stumo, you ended up getting called to go to the mission field. I'm going to just kind of turn this over to you for a few minutes to tell this story. For the listeners who are missionaries, have been missionaries. This one's going to be hard for you. This one's going to hit home. I get emotional with this story and if this story didn't go down the way it did, I don't know if I'd ever met you. So I have some gratitude for it, but I have some major empathy and hurt for it as well. Connect to this story If you've been in the field. If you've never been in the field, just try to empathize with what this had to feel like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know, we started Sumo at University of Texas in 2011. In 2019, we'd just been building relationships and sharing the gospel with college students. By God's grace, people were coming to faith, and you know the students that were coming to faith. We started to disciple, and you know the way that I view discipleship, or the way that I see it in the scriptures, is it's to learn from Jesus, to become like Jesus. So we were helping these students to learn from Jesus, become like Jesus, and it was an invitation to college students not to say, hey, come, learn all these things that I have. It's hey, come and learn what Jesus has for you in life.
Speaker 2:The reason I went to University of Texas is because what I would say that we do is that we raise up leaders in the kingdom, and just on paper you know, as a Sooner, it's tough to admit, but just on paper. When you look at what University of Texas does, you know they say top 10%, but it's probably more like top 6% of the classes. And so, man, these students are intellectually smart, they're socially competent, they could go on to do anything, and if some of those people came to know the Lord and caught a vision for their life to make it about the Great Commission wherever the Lord takes them. I felt like it would be really dynamic. And so, over those, you know, 2011 to 2019, that's what we did. We just, you know, invested in college students and, by God's grace, you know, there was a large group of college students from UT and other Texas schools that had a huge heart for the mission field. They said, hey, we want to go overseas. Well, stumo, we have a lot of teams overseas, but at the time, you know, we didn't have one team that could receive all of these graduates.
Speaker 2:And so I was talking to my boss and I said, hey, man, you know, like this is why we came here, uh, not exclusively for the mission field, you know, for for the marketplace and ministries in the states as well, but this is a component, and it feels like it would be a massive miss for us just to say, well, you know, sorry, you know, you guys can't go together. You know we don't have a place for you. And and he called me and he said, well, what if you? What if you just took them? Oh, and he called me and he said, well, what if you just took them? Oh, boy, yeah, and I said I'm about it, let's do it.
Speaker 2:Yes, my life is aligned with the Lord and the Great Commission and whatever opportunities that he presents, and I want to do that. And maybe this is just a side note, but that's just how I view life. And following the Lord's will Rarely does it feel like the Lord's will is like undiscoverable. It's like, hey, I don't know what the next, until you jump to that one and what I find is generally that the Lord's will, the Lord, has been preparing you on the first lily pad and then, once you're on it, he says OK, now that you're here, what makes sense to go to the next lily pad?
Speaker 1:As if he's ordering your steps.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as if he's ordering.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as if he's ordering us out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, I just find that people get in trouble missionaries, ministry leaders when they just want to make a complete jump off of the lily pad. They're like, hey, the next step doesn't make any sense, so I'm just going to figure out my next step. So just a little side note there. So for us, we we were like, hey, this seems like the next step, it seems in sync with the vision of our life and what we want to do. And so we recruited those people to a team and we assess the areas of the world where we wanted to go and why. One of them is, you know strictly population size. You know 1.34 billion people at the time. That's a large part too is it's heavily in the 1040 window. Western influence when was the last time you heard a college student say, yeah, I studied abroad in China? Never. No one wants no, nobody. And they all go to Europe. And so a Westerner on the college campus in China has so much influence, unlike anything I've ever seen. And God is just doing something very, very unique there.
Speaker 1:That's an important point. That's a really important point. A Westerner on a college campus in China has more influence than anywhere else you've seen. Just wanted to hit that again for everybody to think about and process.
Speaker 2:Totally, and they want it. And that's the other thing is, you know, when China decided to go the communist route you know, historically a Buddhist country, you know Mao, the leader at China at the time, basically said hey, we're going to whitewash this country of religion, and so it became illegal to proselytize, even within your, the context of your own family. So you have these generational families who have been Buddhist, who one day are said have been Buddhist, who one day are said you can't be or you can be, but you can't pass that on. And then they started, you know, deconstructing religion a lot in the educational system and so, as a by-product, when we showed up in 2019, the average college student had never talked to anybody about God. God was not a part of their worldview and it was fascinating, you know, to be able to walk on those campuses.
Speaker 2:And you know, I remember I was sitting down with a guy and I said I said, hey, you know there's this festival coming up in China. Do you celebrate? He's like, yeah, you know, everybody celebrates it. And I was like, well, are you Buddhist? And he said, no, you know, like I don't believe in anything. And I said, well, you, you know that that's a that's a Buddhist festival. And he had no idea. And I said you know, are you religious, are your family religious? And he's like no, you know, like like, we don't believe in anything, we believe in self. You know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you make your own destiny. And inside, you know, that just breaks my heart because that's a hard way to go through the world.
Speaker 2:And so I just started pressing a little bit and I said well, you know, could you be ever open to the idea that there is a God? And he said he said I don't. I don't think so, man. And I said okay, so if we walked out of this cafeteria and there is a five course meal with the best food that you've ever seen candles, great dessert a table is set, the silverware is out and you walk out and you see that, do you think to yourself, hey, that just happened by chance. Like, you know, it just is what it is. He's like no, somebody prepared that. I said, yeah, you can look at a meal and recognize that somebody prepared that, but you can't look at the order of the world and say somebody did this and he goes. I'll never forget it. He said that's a good point, I can believe in God now.
Speaker 1:It just took a five course meal.
Speaker 2:But it's, you know, in a lot of these communist countries, you know, very appealing to them. And so so we go to China and we start doing what we do and we start building relationships with college students and start talking to them about who Jesus is. And you know, for the listeners you know China, you know as a communist country people are like, hey, is that risky for you? Of course my family's like hey, you know, like, are you going to end up in a jail cell somewhere? And certainly that could be the case for our brothers and sisters that are native to that country advancing the kingdom are brothers and sisters that are native to that country advancing the kingdom, um, but for for the, for the Westerner, reasonably, the worst thing that could happen to me is that I would be sent back to the United States. And so I was like man, you know China's not going to be open like this forever. We're not going to carry this influence forever. So how do we enter into that and pour gasoline on the church? And you know there's churches in China.
Speaker 2:Satan has historically done that. He runs the same plays throughout history. And so if you read Bonhoeffer highlighting the church during the Nazi regime, what you'll see, is not that the Nazi regime was anti-church. They were pro the Nazi agenda and they were going to use whatever means possible to advance their propaganda. And the church became a means into culture and society. If you go to, you know, uh, the Soviet union, same thing. There's an amazing book called the persecutor, about a man named Sergio Korbikoff, and it's it's the same thing. Is that, uh, they're not anti God as much as they're pro using the church as a means to propagate this message. Well, the same thing happened in China. They have the three-self church where you can go and, depending on the church, it may preach the gospel, but you'll definitely hear the propagation of the Communist Party of China.
Speaker 2:So when we talk about underground, all this is context. When we talk about underground churches, depending on the context, they're not necessarily unknown by the government. They are churches where men basically said, hey, the church has been taken over by a political system and we are going to now. We are going to now go underground and have our own church services that probably are known about, you know, they're probably known about by the government. And so with that, you know, there's this dynamic underground church in China, but one of the hard components of that church is a lot of those churches can be older in age, because sharing your faith is a huge offense and they're putting their lives on the line.
Speaker 2:And so whenever I'm thinking about why go to China, I'm thinking, man, I know how to share the gospel. If I see young, dynamic leaders come to know the Lord, they can become part of these house churches and future leaders for generations. And the risk for me is there, but relatively low compared to the risk of my Chinese brothers and sisters. And so that's what took us there. As we were there, we started seeing the Lord do what the Lord does and people were coming to know the Lord and it was dynamic and community was starting to form and we started discipling them. And all this was in eight months. Like we saw more happen in eight months on the college campuses of China than what I see in eight years on the college campuses of America.
Speaker 1:There's a hunger there's a desire, there's a search, there's a void right, and it's so profound We've talked about it before where I think a lot of our framework gets to be that they don't want the gospel because it's a hostile territory, enemy lines, et cetera, and so many guests over the last year have taken us through this like no, there's just such a hunger, there's such a thirst, there's such a want and a desire and a need, and look at that.
Speaker 2:Totally so. We start sharing the gospel. People are coming to know Christ. You know, communities being forward, people are throwing their arms around their friend and saying, man, you know, like this Jesus guy, like he's changing my life and we're just living like in the book of acts. It's just like it's exploding.
Speaker 2:And January of 2020, I start following a thing called COVID. You know, we're five and a half hours away from Wuhan and I'm watching cities with millions of people start to get shut down and I start asking myself the question of like, hey, like, what is the ramifications of this going to be on the work and on our believers and our friends? And and I remember my boss calling me and he said, hey, what's going on? I said, hey, I don't. We didn't know what it was, it wasn't called COVID at the time. And he said, hey, what's going on? I said, hey, we didn't know, it wasn't called COVID at the time. I said, hey, man, there's something going on that is being very secretive, but it's happening and I'm starting to see it. And I don't have a waffle component in my brain for global pandemic, but if I did, I think it would feel like this and you know, all of our staff were all over. They were visiting, you know, our new Chinese believers, friends, that they were going to their hometowns with them, all over China, and so we were spread out all over this massive country. At this, at this point and I remember texting him I said, hey, I need you guys all to come back to our city and we need to meet. And I started calling other missions agencies and I said hey, you know, are you monitoring this? What's? What do you think is going to happen? Are you going to pull people out of the? And we had a meeting and I said hey, guys, a city with millions of people an hour away from us just got shut down, nobody in, nobody out.
Speaker 2:And I, at this point and I didn't tell this part of the story, but we moved to China with a three month old, um, our first child. It was funny when we were raising funds, you know we're asking people hey, you know, would you come on? And they're looking at my wife and she's pregnant. And, uh, you know, would you support our work? And, and some of them you know we had multiple say, hey, we're not at a place financially where we can do that, but we just want to, we just want to follow along because you're taking a baby to China, like, like, why would you do that? Like we just want to keep up with the story.
Speaker 2:And uh, you know, you don't know what you don't know and we didn't know what it was like to become parents and, um, but certainly adjustment to learn to become parents in a foreign context, learn to become parents in a foreign context.
Speaker 2:So I'm over there now, you know, with my 10 month old. I have this team of people who they are all adults, they're all graduates from college, but their parents expect a level of wisdom in how you take care of them. And so I met with our team and I said hey guys, in the next 24 hours we're going to leave China, we're going to go to Japan. You know, it's better healthcare system, we have teams in Japan that can help us calibrate and we're just, we're just going to wait for a couple of weeks and just see what is happening in China. We bought round trip tickets and we left China and we spent those two weeks in Japan and our flight kept getting canceled and every time we rebooked it it kept getting canceled. And uh, that's when China basically said, hey, no one in, no one out, and so now we're just stuck it was.
Speaker 1:It was days, though, within days, of you not making that decision. You would have been, we would, we would have been stuck, stuck in China, and locked down, and locked down, and it's not like.
Speaker 2:Not like that decision you would have been, we would have been stuck, Stuck in China and locked down and locked down.
Speaker 1:It's not like stuck there, just out living your life there.
Speaker 2:Sure, and these are all real world situations. We have a baby that I always tell people they're like. What was it like being in China? When that happened, I was like, hey, you remember when we couldn't get toilet paper? Okay, now be in a city with 13 million people. They generally try and not use preservatives in their food. Their local markets are fresh, so food does not last, and you have 13 million people coming out to stock up, hungry On food. Yeah, there's no clean drinking water. You can't get drinking water from the sink.
Speaker 2:And I'm like man, you know this could be really bad and I felt as the leader, I had a responsibility to protect the people that came with me, but never in a million years would I have anticipated not being able to go back. Would I have anticipated not being able to go back? And that was the hardest part was the holistic disappointment that I felt of the whole situation. Here I am the leader, I'm the visionary, I'm sitting down with donors and I'm saying, hey, we're going to, we're going to do this, you know, we're going to take the gospel to these people. And then I no one else I made the decision to leave, not being able to get back for all these people. And so now I'm stuck in Japan, I'm having all the emotions, but what about these new believers that we just saw come to know the Lord? You know, I'm seeing faces, I'm seeing their futures, and I always saw us as a part of that and in a matter of weeks, the disappointment of that set in. Like, what does it look like to love someone so much and not be able to take the gospel to them? Like, like, you cannot, you physically cannot, politically, you cannot. I'd never experienced that before. I'd never experienced that before. Like, anytime I want to love on somebody, engage them, generally I can do that, but in this moment I couldn't. And that's whenever I came across 1 Thessalonians, I think, chapter 2, when Paul says you know, hey, I long to come to you, but Satan blocked the way. And I think you know the context of it is more probably persecution for Paul, but for us it was COVID.
Speaker 2:So we stayed in Japan for a month trying to get back into China, and we couldn't get back in and, uh, we decided to come back to the States and get calibrated, which was also a horrible, you know, a horrible decision to have to make as a leader, you know, because I had people saying, no, you should go to Thailand. You know, stay in Thailand. You know, as soon as China opens back up, you can get in, you know. You know, uh, you know, stay in these other places. And for me I said, man, you know, I hope that we come back, I hope that door opens, but right now it is not, and and we have to figure out what's next.
Speaker 2:So we brought all those team members back to the States and, uh, it's wild. It's wild to go back and think about. You know, I haven't really thought about it in a few years, but I remember that time and the uncertainty and it was really hard for me on a emotional level and with the Lord, and this is, I guess, maybe for the missionary that had a plan A that turned into a plan B. I found a lot of solace in that this was always the Lord's plan A. He always knew this was going to happen Right, and he allowed it to happen. And so what are the lessons? You know, because simultaneously, as a minister of the gospel, you are always engaged in doing something in the world for Jesus, but Jesus is simultaneously doing something in your own heart, and so, entering into that journey of hey why, why did this all happen?
Speaker 2:What is the Lord trying to teach each of us? And as we entered into that, man, we could go through team member after team member and I said, man, you know, the Lord did this in my life for this. And they kind of had their own Joseph moment. You know, when Joseph is with his brothers and you know they don't know it's him, and then they find out it's him and they're all afraid. And you know, joseph says, hey, what you meant to harm me, the Lord meant for good. Yeah, and it was a perspective shift. And that's kind of how it felt at the time is like, why is why? Why is this happening? And it's like, man, the Lord was meaning it for good and still continues to mean it for good and even today, you know, looking back, the further away that we get from that moment, the more we realize that the Lord was doing something that we could have never planned or foreseen, or hoped or dreamed. Uh, he was directing our steps, you know, or dreamed, he was directing our steps. We're back in the States and we're asking ourselves, hey, what is it that we're going to do now? And so you have these staff that fundraise to spread the word of God and they got taken out of that context. And so we basically said, hey, this doesn't change our mission, this is what we do. We build relationships, we lead people to faith, we disciple them and help them mature in Christ. And so where is the greatest population of college students that we can go to now to now?
Speaker 2:And we were just outside of Austin at the time, and so we decided to go to Texas state and our China team became our Texas state staff team, and so they went there. Uh, they started building relationships the same way that they were doing international, started sharing their faith, started seeing people come to Christ like crazy, and we thought it was just going to be temporary faith started seeing people come to Christ like crazy, and we thought it was just going to be temporary. We were like, hey, this team's going to go back overseas, but man, god just opened avenues for him to do something unique in San Marcos, and so that team is still there today. How many people on that team? We had 11 on our original team, and then two of them went back to the mission field. A couple of them transitioned into the workforce. Four of them became full-time staff at Texas State and they have absolutely crushed it for the Lord. I love it.
Speaker 1:There's a lot more here. The China story I couldn't stop you. We needed to hear all that. You've been back for a few years and I really would like to do justice to what God's done in that few years. Since you've been back a few years, and I really would like to do justice to what God's done in that few years since you've been back, your family's grown, your ministry's grown. A lot of new leaders have been raised up. So I want to tell some more stories, but is it okay if we break this into two episodes? Absolutely Okay. So let's wrap today with guys we'll be back in two weeks. And why don't you pray for the listeners who've just probably pulled their car over and sat on the side of the road alone and listened to that and processed that story of trusting God through? We all lived through COVID, but none of us lived through COVID like you lived through COVID, dude. So would you pray for us?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, father, god, we come before you. Um, we just thank you that you are directing our steps, god, that our plan a that becomes plan B was never your plan B. And I just pray for all the listeners that just feel that. They just feel that in their life, they feel that in their ministry, they feel that on the mission field, that that the plan isn't going according to plan, but that it is going according to your plan, and that they can trust you, knowing that you are good, that you are for them and that you are moving the message of the kingdom of God and Jesus forward through their experience. And so we love you and pray that in Jesus' name. Amen and amen.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to unreached. Our sincere desire is that what you've heard today will cause you to see the mission of God differently and your role in it more clearly. If this adds value for you and we hope it does would you please rate and review the podcast wherever you listen. Also, share with your family, your friends, your, your church, your life group, small group, dgroup, wherever you do life, and if you want to connect with us, find us on Instagram at unreachedpodcast, or email us at unreachedpodcast at gmailcom.
