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
Wantakia Within Reach! - Jack & Lael Crabtree
A mountain village with no written language now reads Scripture, forms elders, resolves conflict biblically, and plans outreach to nearby villages. We share how literacy, translation, discipleship, and tested leadership turned an unreached people into a sending church.
• creating an alphabet and literacy from field linguistics
• translating Scripture and building a full curriculum
• Junior and Jess’s conversion and contagious witness
• joy and sorrow as fuel for mission
• women launching and stewarding kids’ ministry
• conflict resolved by Ephesians 4, not custom
• preparing elders through counseling and peacemaking
• guarding against false teaching with open Bibles
• six-month service before titles for new elders
• missionaries transitioning to itinerant support and consulting
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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 land. Yet today, there are still over 7,000 unreached people troops around the world. For the last six years, my family and friends have been on a journey of high death and fun that has remained. Hello, friends. Welcome back to the Unreach Podcast. Dustin Elliott here, your host, and today we have a very special update episode on the Wantakea tribe. If you remember episode one, the first one we did after the setup episode with Todd Arend was Jack Crabtree. Jack and Lale Crabtree have been serving in the Wantakea tribe. It was at nine years at that point. I believe it's 11 years today. Through Bless and other means, we've been supporting their work since, I believe, 2018. So seven years of our involvement, eleven years of theirs, and we get to hear, like today, y'all haven't heard an episode like this yet. We've talked a lot about getting to the field and being in the field, but today we get to celebrate with the crab trees and with the global church a people group actually being reached. And what happens next. So if you go back to the scale, the within reach scale, okay? So the 10 steps, and it's on the blessed.world website. You got mobilization and training in step one. You learn the majority language in step two. You learn the minority language in step three. So think trade language and then the specific language to the to the tribe or people group you're in. Step four, translating scripture, which kind of coincides with some of the other steps as you're going. Step five, actually sharing the gospel. Step six, discipling new believers. Step seven, new believers are now making disciples. Step eight, equipping the indigenous leaders. Step nine, the indigenous leaders are now leading their church. And step ten, the church is thriving. And praise the Lord. We get to talk about steps eight and nine and ten today. So, Jack, welcome back. Lail, so glad to have you here. Let's start with you. Give us an update on what's going on.
SPEAKER_00:All right. Um, well, like you said, we're kind of in that step, eight, nine, ten. I feel like we've been ministering out there for a long time, just kind of pouring out our lives in a way. And I think it's like we're seeing the fruit now. Um, just really just seeing God at work. We've been there, we've been being used by God, but God has been doing some amazing things out there. And we're excited to just share like where the church is at. There is a thriving church in Wantaquia.
SPEAKER_02:Amen.
SPEAKER_00:Um, we're excited to share like what's next for the church as far as there's outreach on the horizon. The church is just praying how to reach the villages around them. Oh, that's good. Um, they have a huge heart for just reaching un unreached lost family in the community still. They're pumped up about that. And um, as we are stepping out of the tribe in in the coming years, um the Wantikey leaders are stepping up, so it's exciting.
SPEAKER_02:That's it. That's so beautiful. Jack, recap for us in the first episode. We talked about the size of the tribe. Kind of give us uh some data here. So eight or ten thousand folks, ten kind of villages along a river. Give us kind of an update.
SPEAKER_01:I think you've got a good memory. Yeah. It's uh yeah, we're about 7,000 feet elevation, it's three-season weather. You know, we sleep in beanies because it gets down in the forties in your house at night. But it's like an alpine rainforest, and we're up on top of this mountain in this village called Pingey, and we're at one end of the language group. Maybe in about five hours you could hike to the other end of the Wantequia people group, and you would go through about ten villages. And uh the gospel has got a foothold in the village of Pinji, but it's wanting to break out now.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. Uh give us an update, Jack. I mean, we've met through the pod some of your key language uh helpers, right? And then some of your kind of first uh believers and and now disciple makers, and tell us about your friends.
SPEAKER_01:Oh man. Uh yeah, the last few years since we told, you know, kind of what God had done at Wantakea on on this show, man, got God hasn't been slowing down. He's been doing some amazing things out there. Uh and you know, early on we started giving work over to our guys, like training them how to teach the church. How do you teach God's word effectively and accurately? And man, they took that responsibility and they've been doing amazing with it. And as we've gotten closer to going, man, these guys are becoming leaders, they're Bible teachers, but what else do they need? We started realizing, man, we as the missionaries have been the acting elders in this church out in the village of Pinji. But for these guys to become elders, they've got to grow in shepherding. Whereas we missionaries have been going and helping with marriage counseling, or someone got in a fight, or there was some issue, some dispute to settle, we would be the ones going and sitting down and working with our believers through those issues. But now it's like, no, we need to be taking these guys with us and helping them grow as shepherds. And it's been so cool to like bring them with us on on these little counseling sessions or whatever it is in our village and see them grow as shepherds now. And so that's been a huge focus is kind of preparing them to become elders, and uh, it's been awesome to see them uh just jump into that and they're and they know their culture better than we do. We spend a lot of time learning the Wantakean culture, but it's their culture, and so watching them navigate some of these tricky situations, it's like it's awesome. It's so much better. The more it gets put into their hands, it just the better it is.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and in the past, I would say they looked at us like, oh, you guys do things a certain way, and it's different from us, you know, you guys are kind of outsiders in our culture, but now that there's believers, it's like, well, this is the biblical way, this is God's way, and this is how we can resolve conflict or um resolve issues in the church, there is a biblical way, and it's universal for all of us. So that's been kind of a cool uniting factor as there's believers out there.
SPEAKER_02:Can you tell us about some of your closest friends and who you're you're really working with?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. I would say Tylisi is my very dearest best friend out there, and she's been through a lot. I feel like she's always just had a heart. Ever since we moved out there, she has had a hunger to just know what what is this truth you guys came here to teach. And so she latched on early on, was one of my just sharpest, best language helpers. Um, but she's been through it. This is a sad part of the Wantiquia culture, but um like men will just marry multiple women, and it's kind of a sign of status. But she kind of married her high school, they don't she didn't go to school, but it's the equivalent of like her teenage sweetheart, which a lot of times they do arrange marriages out there, and so that her family allowed her to marry this guy, you know, she really liked him and they got married, and shortly after we moved out there, um, he got a second wife. And so that was just really heartbreaking for her. And at that time, she put one of her kids up for adoption, she was just so upset. And at this time, she didn't know the Lord yet either. And so she was going through that. You know, I feel like in some ways I was helping her walk through that. Well, shortly before we preached the gospel, he got a third wife and he basically divorced her. And this is like where her life was at when the gospel was coming. And so I feel like as we came and taught through God's word, it was like hope for her in her life. And I feel like it was almost like, man, my husband has left me. Um, and when you don't, when you're a woman out there and you don't have your husband to take care of you, you're kind of down and out. Thankfully, it is a village, so her family was caring for her, but she didn't really have her own gardens to garden food for her family as easily anymore. So as she heard the gospel, it was like, man, Jesus. I mean, I don't have my husband, but Jesus will take care of me. He will, God will be my provider. I have hope. Like she knew the Lord. I feel like that was very life-changing for her, but it's just seeing her story unfold and just even as more things came up as she was a believer and being able to encourage her from scripture and having her come to me with scripture that the Lord was encouraging her with. I feel like um it's just kind of cool, a cool. I read this.
SPEAKER_02:Let's talk about this. Hey, let's rewind for a second because uh maybe some of the listeners didn't hear the first episode, but the but the Wantachians did not have an alphabet or a written language.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And you were kind of a key part in creating their alphabet and teaching them to read and write. Tell us how in the world did you accomplish that? What was that like?
SPEAKER_00:By God's grace, Dustin. Um well, we stuck around for some extra training, some linguistic training. Like after our missionary training was done, we stayed in the States for another semester of linguistic training for me to get trained up in that. And thankfully, bec because I didn't know that, you know, I was maybe kind of gifted that way. But man, Ethnos is amazing. They know you're going to an unreached people group without a written language, and so they train you in these things.
SPEAKER_01:So first they give you an aptitude test to see like can you even do this? Okay. And Leo got a perfect on the aptitude test.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, all right. She's being humble. You're the best at being humble.
SPEAKER_01:And I got like a score where they're like, well, Jack, if you really want to like tough it out, maybe you could do this, or you could just support your wife. So I opted for the latter.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, man. Smart man. Support you support me, you did in that time. Um, the kids were little, Ren was a baby, Nora was a toddler. So we went and did this practicum with the Cherokee Indians in Tallequa, Oklahoma, where we kind of practiced it. We didn't, I didn't learn the Cherokee language, but we met with a language helper, this old sweet woman named Lucille, got all these words in Cherokee, looked at how the different, you know, we learned the phonetic alphabet, every sound your mouth makes, you can write it with a character. And so we were writing these Cherokee words out phonetically, learning how to break it all down. And so that was like our practice. And I remember thinking, man, Cherokee, these words are complicated. There's tone. This is so hard. I hope I'm not in a language this hard. Uh-oh. And little did I know we would be in like the hardest language in Papua New Guinea, practically. But the Lord was preparing us, you know. Um, so I feel like that was kind of a role that I had on the team that the Lord gave me to do. And it wasn't easy, I would say, having two small children at that time and just meeting with language helpers, getting all this data, trying to sift through it all. Um, but by God's grace and the help of Jack's mom, she flew over to help out for a season while I was really hammering that out. Uh, because you spend a lot of time collecting the words, the data, checking it with helpers. We developed a really strong relationship with this one family who was helping us kind of check, making sure we were hearing everything correctly, writing everything correctly. So that was really sweet.
SPEAKER_02:So I just I envision you with like a notepad walking around with people and just listening to them point at trees and bushes and animals and things, and you're just writing down, okay, that's this word, and this is kind of what it sounds like. Is that kind of how it went?
SPEAKER_00:Kind of, except think iPhone. You're recording people because you know, that way you can hear it over and over. So we would get a lot of information on our phones, recordings. Um, we were writing it all out phonetically, collecting all this data. And then we did, we typed it all up and we'd check it with Wantakea speakers, make sure we were hearing it correctly. Uh and then it really the process of creating the alphabet didn't take a crazy long time. About six weeks, I was kind of in in the office, on the computer. There's a program where you can just look at all the environments and all the ways the sounds fit together. I know that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, let's go. Let's keep going. I love it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but we wanted to have like accurate data for that process. So that's why we spent time on the front end checking it. But um, Jack's mom came over during that time, spent a lot of time with our girls, and I just hammered out like, okay, you know, we're gonna create a workable alphabet that the Wantecans can read and write with. Because, you know, you don't want all the phonetic symbols there. So my job was kind of combining all that into a workable alphabet. So I spent several weeks working on that. And once it was completed, um, thankfully in PNG we have a great support system. I kind of submitted my report, my write-up to another lady who's like just amazing with linguistics, and she checked over it, said, Yeah, this looks good. And then that was when we started our like developing our literacy program.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And so so the next step from there was teaching them to read and write. And this was before I guess translation is just ready to get started as you're kind of getting to a place where you can. The listeners may have heard me say this, but y'all, y'all brought back a copy of kind of the first go of the Wantakean Bible, and I have it on my desk at home. And it's it's interesting, I mean, because you can you can tell what some of the words are.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Like, how do you spell Isaiah?
SPEAKER_00:A-Y-E-S- Here, Jack, I'll I'll punt that one to you.
SPEAKER_01:I think you're on the right track. That sounds pretty bad. Keep going.
SPEAKER_02:Um, but you could read, you could see what some of the words were. How long did it take to what'd you get? Like 10 or 15 or 20 volunteers that wanted to learn to read and write and kind of set them up at the in school. And here's I mean, that is that right? Is that how it went down? Well, I mean, first it's it's not like you had other books you could teach them from. No, yeah. It's not like you're reading them other books.
SPEAKER_01:No, I mean it's it's pretty great. Like we have this custom software that basically helps you create a literacy course from scratch. So you plug in all this like a huge word bank of several thousand words, and then it it scans all those and says, Well, these symbols are the most frequently used in the language, so you should start with these three symbols, and then it gives you a word bank of here's all the words that just use those three symbols. So you write stories just with those three symbols, like a little kid's book. This is like learning to play guitar, and it just builds and builds and builds, and you write the stories like it tells you to, and by the end it it spits out a fully uh formatted literacy course for you. And so it's it's pretty incredible. Like Ethnos was like, we need custom software that can help us do this because we do this in every language group we're in. So they got with some software developers and said, We need it to do this, and now we have that tool. So it's just awesome. Like when you're with an organization that's very focused on this is the job that we're doing, and we want to do it with excellence, then you can iterate and and develop and create tools that help you just keep getting better and better at staying in your wheelhouse.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, love.
SPEAKER_01:And so that's been really helpful to have that kind of support, you know, where we're not trying to recreate the wheel. It's like you have an organization backing you, helping you do the ministry that that they sent you there to do. I love that.
SPEAKER_02:So you you you had mentioned a couple of your friends last time. Kind of give us an update on on your guys.
SPEAKER_01:Oh man. I'm thinking of someone that I didn't mention last time, uh kind of a power couple. So, you know, last time I talked about how when we first shared the gospel, and we had about a hundred believers in that initial time of teaching. But as time went on and the church was maybe a year and a half old, the outsiders who who didn't believe initially were seeing this change in all their friends and family who were in the church and started getting interested, like, man, I think I missed out on something here. Like, I w I want to hear this again. And some people had been like out of the village when we taught, and so they missed it. And it was like there was a lot of interest in like, can you guys teach again through this this initial teaching, creation to Christ? Can you guys teach that again? So we're like, okay, we'll do it, we'll we'll teach again. And in that time, there is a guy named Junior and his wife Jess. And Jess had family members who were in that initial batch of believers, and she was getting very interested. And we had this Bible study going on, and she was like praying, like, Lord, I just want to. She's like, I God, I don't know who you are. I don't, but I I want to know. And she tagged along to our Bible study. She wasn't a believer, and we happened to be talking about I'm the way, the truth, and the life. And that was the verse she heard that night at a Bible study, and she's like, Oh, it's Jesus. And she was like, Okay, I've got to come to this teaching when they start it in a few weeks. So we do this teaching again. Junior and Jess come like to every single lesson, they become believers, and they are just like this rock star power couple in the church. They have just taken off, and uh just recently, Junior's one of our elders that that you know that's leading the church now, and just an amazing leader. But when he heard the gospel and became a believer, he just wanted to start telling everyone. It was just like he he couldn't keep it to himself. He had this sister named Soy. He was trying to witness to her, and she was like still thinking about it, right? He's sharing with her, but you know how it is sometimes, like people are they're they're thinking through things. Well, she gets pregnant with it with her first child. It was time for the baby to come, and she started having issues. And you can jump in, Lil if you want to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, out there there's not really great medical care, especially for pregnant moms going into labor. There's just nothing, no emergency care whatsoever. And so they come to us when there's problems, um, when women are having issues in childbirth. But what happens is when a woman starts to feel contractions, she has to go outside the village to like a little hut, kind of like clean, unclean. It's like if men are exposed to that, they're gonna lose all their strength. Just old spiritual beliefs they have around that. So she is out at her birthing hut. There's tons of women out there. They come, her her aunt comes and gets me saying, Lale, there's there's problems, things are not looking good. And so, you know, I'm not a nurse, I'm not a doctor, and we're the only ones out there at that time. We don't really have the support of our coworkers out there with us at that time. So I'm like, okay, we just got this new blood pressure cuff that's like automatic. I've never used it before, but I'm like, okay, I got to figure it out. So I head out to the birthing head. I've got, you know, all the materials I have that I can to check her vitals. Um, and I put this blood pressure cuff on her and it's not giving me a reading. And I'm like, what's going on? You know, she doesn't look too bad. She's just kind of staring off into space, not being real responsive, but she looks okay. And so I'm trying and it's not giving a reading. And so I try it on her other ant and it works fine. And it gives a good reading. And I'm like, what's going on? So then I put the blood oxygen reader on her finger, and it's giving this really low reading, like in the 60s, and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna write our doctor. I don't really know what that means. I don't know what it's supposed to be. So I take all these readings, I'm checking her out. I go back, I c we call up our mission doctor who's out in Garoka, out in town, and he's like, uh, that does not sound good. We need to get her out. You're supposed to do a million dollars. We're supposed to have a in the upper 90s reading. And I did not know that. I learned that that day. He's like, that's not good. You need to, we need to get a Medavec moving for her. She she may not last long. We may not even have time to get the chopper out there for her. And so I go back, and we don't have cell service in the village. We have satellite, internet like on our area where our houses are. But when you're out in the village, you don't have any cell service. So I would have to sprint out to the birthing hut and then run back to contact the doctor at our house. Um, so I hear this from the doctor, and I'm like, oh my gosh, okay, I gotta get back there. He's like, give me some updated readings. I think her her blood pressure is just so bad, she you're not getting reading with the cuff. So go try again, see. And I tried again, same thing, same readings. And then Soy starts to have a seizure and like she's shaking and her body's gone rigid. So the family is like, her husband's not here. We need to go get her brother and and ask her brother what we need to do. And meanwhile, Jack's like back at our house getting the Medevac in motion. So we're there with Soy trying to get her stable, but it's not looking good. And around this time, her brother Junior, who is a believer, who who Jack just shared about, he comes down to the birthing hut. Men, men don't do that. Men do not come to the birthing hut. But he's a believer. He knows those old spiritual things aren't true. He comes straight to his sister, he scoops her up in his arms, and he just starts praying out loud over her in front of all these women. Um, he's just hugging her, holding her tight, praying over her, Lord, please save my sister. Please, I know that you are the healer, you can heal her. Please save my sister's life. And he takes her back into the village to a house where they can kind of care for her a little bit better. And meanwhile, we've got a chopper ready to leave Garoca coming to pick her up. So I run back to the house to get the update from Jack, how the Medevac's going. And he's like, Yeah, they're ready to go. And around this time, a group of men come and they're like, Hey, we need you guys to come. Thing things don't look good. We need you guys to come.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So, yeah, Junior comes to our house and he's like, Hey, you need to come back with me uh to where Soy is at the house. Uh so so I go with him and I and I walk into the hut where Soy's laying on the ground, and everyone's sitting around and they're just staring at me expectantly, and so I I start trying to like check her vitals and I can't find a pulse. And then I like try and shine a light in her eyes and her pupils aren't reacting, and try to feel breath, try to hear a heartbeat, and it's like nothing, nothing, nothing. And everyone's just staring at me, and and finally I I basically just have to look up and like actually pronounce her dead, like to the family. And uh Junior's in there, and you know, like over the years we've heard the Wantiquia death whale um a lot out there. Um usually, you know, we're at the house and then we hear it and we go and find out oh what's happened. Um and this is the first time I was there just when it started. And so Junior leaves the house and I follow him outside the hut, and uh he just starts wailing and sobbing and shaking, and so I'm just holding him and praying with him and just trying to be there for him. And um it was it was just one of those moments where um that's all you can do is just just be there with him. And he had been sharing with his sister, faithfully sharing the gospel with her with Soy, and uh but it never heard like did she believe, did she not believe? Just a few months ago, we were um we're in a section on hope with the church. And uh so we're in uh first and second Thessalonians. There's a lot of great stuff in there about Christ coming back and us being with him, and uh there's a part in Second Thessalonians where it really gets into what's the fate of the lost, like what happens at the end uh for people who haven't believed. And in our language, we have this word called yedaya, which is like happiness, joy, and we have cuth, which is the word for your liver, but it also means sadness. And we're just talking like, man, you gotta have that yedaya cut a life, you gotta have that happy, sad, the joyful sorrow, in the sense that you're so joyful about what you have because of Christ and who you are in Christ, and you're joined with the Father now. You're a child or a daughter of the king, and you can have such joy in that. But you've got to have your father's heart, which is the sorrow that he feels for the lost. And you've got to live in that tension. And so Junior's helping me with this passage in Thessalonians and our little translation office there. And he said, Well, you know, that was the moment when I got that cut-day, I got that sorrow in my Christian life. I had the joy before that, but I didn't know what it was to feel the sorrow until um until I lost Soy, my sister. And he's like, I don't know if I'm gonna see her again in heaven. I hope I do. But he said, I told myself that day, no one else, no one in my family is gonna pass away without having had multiple chances to hear the gospel. It's my mission uh to share with everyone. And and he's made good on that uh that vow that he made to himself. He's he and his wife Jess are faithfully teaching all their unsaved friends, family, all the cousins, even the uh the village shaman is like his uncle, like the witch doctor out there. He's faithfully teaching them in his house through all our uh Bible lessons, and several have become believers, and now he's taking them on through Acts to talk about what the church is, and he's letting that drive him. But it's that that joy and sadness that yet I cut a life of living in that tension, not just celebrating what I have in Christ, but going, No, my father is so heartbroken over the state of the lost. I've got to share in that heartbreak, and I gotta keep that kind of at the forefront of my mind because that's gotta sort of drive the choices I make in life. And so it's been cool to see um it's a sad situation, but to see how the Lord use that in Junior's life to kind of propel him to go, nope, I'm gonna be serious about my faith and the urgency of eternity. I mean, that's my message to anyone anyone who's listening to this is no matter where you are, you can live that life. Like you can live in that tension and just be faithful with whatever opportunities the Lord gives you. Like it doesn't matter geographically where you're at. Um He wants us to live in that tension of celebrating the joy you have, but it's a there's a real problem in the world, and the Lord has designed it where he wants to work through the church to bring people to reconciliation with him. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Amen. Okay, so Soy's story was literally right when you got back to the tribe after we recorded the first podcast a couple years ago. So it's been about two years since then. And uh maybe give us a you know, get us up to date to today, like we talked about steps eight, nine, and ten and kind of where we are here, what does the current leadership structure of the church look like, and then let's take that forward to what's what's coming up.
SPEAKER_01:I mentioned, you know, recently we've been in this section about hope with the church. And when we started getting into epistles with the church, with Romans and Ephesians, uh, we don't do that in this haphazard way. It's very thought out, and we think of it as like faith, love, and hope, these three major sections of the Christian life. And so initially we got into this faith section where we were in Ephesians and Romans, and it's like re-teaching ourselves the gospel from maybe a different angle, but they're really getting solid on the gospel, and that's when we were really teaching our guys to teach, right? Teaching them to be Bible teachers, how to handle the word well. Then we got into this love section where we were in 1 Corinthians, where you're talking about body life, all these problems that the Corinthian church had, and like we're trying to help them see like, man, how do we function as this new family? How do we deal with issues? And we got into First Timothy and Titus with what are elders? How are they qualified? How do they do that job? How do they, you know, protect the flock? How do they shepherd the flock? How do they feed the flock? And so um, those were amazing epistles to be going through and seeing the church really start to grow in man, how can we love each other? And and that's when we started bringing those guys with us, uh, you know, to handle issues that are coming up in the church. You know, there there's no perfect sinless church anywhere, right? We're all sinners saved by grace, and so you're out there with these believers, and some of them are a couple years old in their faith, some maybe just a few months, and it's been awesome to watch these guys uh grow in their ability uh to handle these situations.
SPEAKER_00:Jack sharing the men are growing in this. Um, I feel like the avenue for the women is um we started the kids' ministry out there a couple years ago, and it started pretty small. You know, my friend Tilesio, it was just me and her going, sharing scripture from the course one, sharing chronologically the gospel with the kids. But over time, um, as more and more kids start coming, more and more women are like, oh man, I want to be a part of that. I want to be doing the Lord's work. Um, what can I do to help? And so it was perfect. Some of them could read, and so they would come and read scripture. Um, some couldn't read, so they would come and and just pray or kind of, you know, look over the wild boys in the back who were just wanting to waller around, you know, sitting with them, keeping the peace, you know. So this group of women was growing and it became a really cool discipleship opportunity because we would um get together before we we meet together on Saturdays to teach the kids because the women just were like, Man, we want this to be open to the whole village. We want all these kids to come, whether they come to church with us or not. We don't want, you know, the unsaved parents to be like, oh, we don't want our kids to go to church, but they'll send them on Saturday. Don't they they wouldn't come on Sunday morning, but they would send their kids on a Saturday to go um hear God's talk. And so we meet on Saturdays, but it just as we would get together before Saturday and just talk through what we're teaching, the women would come with scripture and encourage each other. And it was just really sweet. So the women have been growing in that way, but you know, with growth, uh attacks from the enemy come too. And um, as this ministry was starting to flourish, you know, there was starting to become some conflict among the women, even like some jealousy about different things. And so there's this one particular woman, she had just this sin in her life that she's been struggling with. Um, gambling is a problem out there. People play cards, put down money. It causes a lot of issues out there, but she is kind of addicted to gambling. And as she's become a believer, been doing the Lord's work, she's been trying to pull away from that just to protect her testimony, um, just to take care of her family better. She was just, it was consuming her time and energy. But she had been coming to help with the kids' ministry, but she was still being pulled by the sin in her life. And you could tell she just felt so convicted about it. So one week we were just together as women, just sharing scripture. And one of the other women in the group was just sharing a scripture about being holy, being called to be righteous as believers, not targeting this other woman, but just talking about in her own life, just how God really wants us to walk in the spirit and live righteously. And so this woman who's been struggling with gambling was like, oh, she was saying that to attack me. She knows that I've been struggling with this sin issue. Oh man, she was calling me out in front of the group by saying that scripture. So she got really upset. And the one to key a cultural way to deal with conflict is not to go directly to that person necessarily. Um, you might go to the top of the airstrip and and shout to the community what someone did to wrong you, or you'll go around in other groups and and talk about this wrong that's been done to you. And so that's kind of what was happening is this woman got really upset and she just started going out to all her family and being like, oh man, man, you know, he who is without sin cast the first stone, basically. Like they're throwing stones at me, but they've all got sin in their life too.
SPEAKER_02:And yeah, what about that log in their lives?
SPEAKER_00:Like, yeah, exactly. And she used that scripture specifically about the log in the killer. I get it. Yeah. And it's true. We don't need to be living that way as believers, but um, it was very unfounded. There was a lot of miscommunication going on, um, and it was causing a lot of drama and it was affecting the ministry. And so um I feel like just being in that role of discipling these women, um, it was uh kind of intimidating for me. Like, okay, you know, culturally, like I was saying, they see us as different. Like, well, you guys can do it your way where it's peaceful, but that's just not how we do things. And kind of being like, okay, I need to enter into their world, their culture, and show them what God's way is, and how can I do that humbly? And it was so amazing. I was able to meet with my friend who had been kind of stirring the pot, stirring up the drama. And I feel like as I prayed and just asked the Lord to guide me as the church, we'd been going through Ephesians, we'd been revisiting, going through that book. And so I was going through Ephesians. And in Ephesians 4, I opened up my Bible that morning to read. And the first thing I read was be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love, make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. I was like, wow, that's exactly what we're going through. And I kept reading, and it was like, oh man, everything was just perfect to just sit down with my friend and and walk her through just godly conflict resolution. So I just went to her hut, sat down with her, and just read scripture with her. Like, hey, let's go to God's word together. You know, I know you've been hurt. Um, there's some stuff going on. Let's just go to God's word together. And as we read through it, you could just see her heart was changing and she was just switching from pride to humility, just there. It's just the Holy Spirit working through scripture to just change hearts, you know.
SPEAKER_02:The living word. Yes. You could have you could have in your own way given her good advice.
SPEAKER_00:For sure.
SPEAKER_02:But it pales in comparison to go into the word.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And so uh we decided like, man, we need to get together. All the women involved in kids' ministry, let's just get together. We need to go directly to each other and just talk about this as a team. And so that that following Sunday after church, we all got together and talked about it. Just, you know, there had been some miscommunication. We just laid out the situation. And what was really sweet, the woman that had shared the scripture just about being righteous, and she was the first one to apologize. She was so quick, like, I did not mean for that to sound like I was accusing you. I love you. I just want to apologize. That that hurt you. She was the first one to be able to apologize. And it was just cool to see, man, the spirit is at work in these hearts and lives. Um, and you know, for my friend, it was hard for her. It took a long time for her to humble herself and actually face to face to someone apologize because there's a lot of honor and shame wrapped up in the Wantiquia culture. It's just really hard to go to someone and really apologize. But that's God's word wants us to be quick to forgive each other and quick to apologize. And um, as we were there together in the church building, as everyone was just forgiving and apologizing, finally my friend was like, you know what? I was wrong. I was, I was gossiping, I was saying things about you guys, and I'm just really sorry. And one of the women could not believe it, just my friend Elise, she jumped up and she was like, Pauline, I'm just so happy you said that. And she runs over and she gives her a huge hug. And the other woman just jumps up and they're like in this group hug. And it's like they'd never seen conflict resolved this way, where you're truly kind of laying out reconciled your grievances and then reconciling. And it was just a really cool situation to see, man, culturally, that's not how they they do things. I think in all of us, in our sinful flesh, that's not what we want to do, but just by the power of God's word and the Holy Spirit, are you suggesting that we don't like to admit when we're wrong? No, I mean Really I don't. No, if Jack knows. Yeah, I have a question.
SPEAKER_02:I have a question, and this might be a segue into kind of the next steps. But having having been such a significant part of planting a church and this this whole concept, and then you you keep referencing Paul's letters. How do you feel differently or more connected to Paul as a guy who planted churches and then went to the next town and then found out heresy and problems were going on in his baby church and he couldn't fly back. There was no helicopter back into the tribe, right? He could only write a letter back, and so he wrote these letters back to correct right what was going on. I try to tell people when you're reading the New Testament, the next time you read it, like read this and experience his pastoral heart for his baby churches. Like that's that's what's going on there. Like we we get all these gifts from God through those letters that we can use, and you're referencing them and using them in real time in 2025. How does your relationship with Paul change, having gone through this?
SPEAKER_01:Oh man, it's it's changed dramatically. I mean, I always think of uh the verse where he says, And daily I feel like the anxiety for the church, like he just feels that weight of responsibility. And when that church was born out there, that was the first time where I was like, Oh, like I'm the shepherd here, I'm one of the shepherds, and and there is a real responsibility for like people's lives, and ultimately it's the Lord, he's the He's the Good Shepherd, I'm just an under-shepherd, but he's asking me to take part in that responsibility, and it's it's serious, you know, and you care about these people, they're like your best friends. Uh, but then translating his words too, it drives you deeper where you're like getting into his mind, and it's like just seeing his drive and his passion. Uh yeah, it's it's uh I mean you get to feel the feels appalled.
SPEAKER_02:Do you realize how special that is and how unique that is? Uh yeah. Most people will never experience that that feeling.
SPEAKER_00:Well, the the things he shares that he was worried about on for the churches he was ministering to, like reading in 2 Thessalonians, he talks about how, man, I came and I shared your very lives with you. I feel sometimes like that whole letter to the Thessalonian church is like us with the Wantikeans and the struggles that the Wantikea church is going through. Um, just anytime he talks about just false teaching coming in, I feel like I feel that for them. We're not always there with them. And we're training them to decipher what is true and what is a lie. Um, because there are people that come through our village pre preaching falsehoods and trying to pull people back to their old ways. And we're not, we're in this season, we're not on the ground with them and we're trusting the the leaders in Wantiquia, the men and women out there leading the flock. Man, you guys have to protect them. And like that's like Paul, he wasn't always there. And man, I just I do. I feel the feels with Paul when he's writing about these churches that he cares about. It's like that's want to kea for us.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and uh God's been so good these last few years giving us chances to help them walk through some of these things before we kind of move out of the tribe full time. Like one, uh, for example, there was this Christian cult that was gonna come in uh to our village and do like a week-long conference, and no one in the village really wanted them there, but they're like, We're coming, we're gonna do this thing. Well, all of us in the village, especially in the church there, uh, we knew like what kind of heresy they were gonna be teaching about. So we called all the Bible teachers together and we're like, hey, this conference is coming. We can't stop it, but let's go ahead and today it's Saturday, tomorrow's Sunday. Let's just sit down, let's create a lesson where we go through all the heresy they're gonna preach next week, and let's be like good Bereans and let's hold it up to scripture and analyze it and go, is this scriptural or not? So, right there we created this lesson the next day. Our Bible teachers got up, taught the whole church, and the whole church is like, Yeah, all that stuff's false. And then they got so excited, they're like, When they come here, we're gonna invite them into our house so we can talk to them about this heresy. Because that's what they did. This this conference kicked off, and our believers weren't led astray, but instead they were inviting all these other people into their house and lovingly walking them through scriptures.
SPEAKER_00:And so it's just Yeah, my friend Noylan was like, Hey, we need to be hospitable. The Bible says we have to be hospitable. We're gonna let them sleep in our houses, and it'll be an opportunity to share the gospel.
SPEAKER_01:Whoa.
SPEAKER_00:Like, wow.
SPEAKER_01:So just these cool chances to like walk with these guys and help them grow. You know, you talking about gambling made me think of another gambling story uh recently, uh just in regard to helping our guys grow as as shepherds. So one of our young believers, his name's Bonis, uh, he's been growing like crazy, but he needed uh some money, so he went to the nearest town, worked as a security guard for a little trade store for like six months, saved up this money. He hikes all the way back to our village with the money. He gets back. His wife, who's also a believer, that night takes all the money, steals it, goes up on the airstrip, and gambles it all away. Every every bit of it. He wakes up the next morning, like, where's the money? Uh, it's gone, and just gets super angry, tears the door off their house, and then this fight erupts between him and his siblings and his dad, and some of them are believers and some of them aren't, and so it's this mixed group.
SPEAKER_00:And again, this is Wantikea culture in action. When you're mad, you show it outwardly in big ways, like tearing the door off your house. Like it's a little bit more.
SPEAKER_01:I want you to know, I'm serious. I'm I'm upset.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I think there's some of that in the Elliot bloodline as well.
SPEAKER_01:A little bit in all of us, I think. But uh so me and BG are like literally down there, like bear hugging guys, like trying to like stop them with their machetes, and eventually it's like, okay, we just gotta get out of here, let them calm down. Uh well, that afternoon it was like our elder meeting where we meet every week and we pray through every single thing that the church is doing. And in that time, we are like, are there any problems in the church that need to be addressed? And everyone's like, Yeah, I think we heard about one today. Yeah, and so it's like, okay, who's gonna go and and help them walk through that? And Top Man, if you listen to the other. I've been wondering if you were gonna bring up Top Man the whole time. All right, Top Man, Top Man, let's go, Top Man. Top Man was a hero of a runway story. Top Man is doing phenomenally well. He is just he he's just a natural leader and he's growing so much. He's like, I'll go. And so he goes down there to their area, gathers the whole family. All right, have you guys told the Lord that you're sorry for what happened? Each of you. Yeah, yeah, we've done that. Okay. Have you told each other? Okay, yep, okay, good. Now, what about the family around here? How's that gone? Have you guys made it right with them? Like, well, we're working on it, you know, and and just shepherded them through that whole process and helped them basically be at peace again. And it's like these guys are just going and doing that now, and they're so effective at it. And uh, it's just been a joy, like seeing these guys mature and these women, you know, they're man, they're all growing and they're all just taking leadership roles. And so as we were going along, we're like, we taught through 1 Timothy and Titus, and we see these are the qualifications for elders. And then we look at Acts 20, the only spot in scripture where you can see what do elders actually do. We go through that, and everyone's clear on this, and we're like, well, you know what? Let's just ask the church. One Sunday we get up and we say, Hey, this week we want everyone here to just pray and ask the Lord to show you who among us is already fit to be an elder, who is already doing that work. Pray and ask the Lord to show you, and then come tell us, and we'll come find you and we'll visit. And we just want to hear from all of you all this week. I love that. I love that posture. And so we had been praying about as missionaries. We had like four people we were thinking of. Like, okay, these are the four. This seems like what the Lord's showing us.
SPEAKER_00:But we didn't want to make that decision as missionaries, like this is who it should be. It's like, no, this decision's gonna come from the body.
SPEAKER_01:And so that week every single person said the same four names. They said Keiko, Topman, Junior, Oxton, Keiko, Topman, Junior, Oxton, over and over, and we're like, man, those are the four.
SPEAKER_00:It was actually really fun. We just would take these walks around the village, visit with the believers, and it was so cool to hear people say why they thought these men uh were ready for this work. It was just super encouraging that the church was behind them, you know, and they respected these men as leaders.
SPEAKER_01:And also all of them said one name, like, hey, don't pick this guy. And we were praying that way too, and it's Yados. And if you listen to the other episode, super gifted, amazing believer. Amazingly gifted teacher, anti-teacher, oh an incredible dude. But at that time, he was distracted. He he basically was distracted by politics. He had this childhood dream of wanting to be essentially the mayor, they call it the council of our ward area out there. There's local level government in our area, and he wanted to run for election, and he was just consumed with chasing this dream, and he wasn't involved in the church. He got in sidetracked, and everyone that came and talked to us said, Hey, Yados could do this work, but his mind's divided right now. Please, please, please do not pick him for this. His his head's not in the game, basically.
SPEAKER_00:Not that he can't still serve the church, obviously, he can still teach, be part of the ministry. But as far as being an elder, they were like, he's just really consumed with things of the world right now.
SPEAKER_01:And and I will say, like, this was probably about five months ago. Now he's come back and he's jumped back in with both feet and he's doing well. So keep praying for Yados if you're listening to this.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and maybe maybe some lessons there for for Yados and for the whole body to see a guy that looked very promising to be one of the main, if not the main guy, and could get sidetracked because you know, we we all get sidetracked and we all are gonna deal with that.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, the Lord doesn't waste anything in our lives or lives of others. And he was the youngest of the group, too. And I think the Lord's just growing him. You know, he's he's living life, and the Lord's gonna grow all of us.
SPEAKER_00:What was interesting is we visited him and his wife, and I was sitting kind of aside with his wife in the house while she was preparing the meal, and um she was like, you know, I think she said the names of the other four guys, and she was like, But I love my husband, but I don't think he's in a place right now to be an elder. And she was like, I I I sat with him the other night and I told him, Yados, I really want to do the Lord's work, and I feel like that's not your focus and priority right now. And they had they they used to fight pretty big in their early years of marriage, like many of us do, and and they've matured a lot, but just to hear that she could calmly and from God's word sit down with her husband and and speak that into his life, and he was able to receive it was pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and um he was still my wife would probably like him to call me and talk about that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, you know, it's a growing process for all of us.
SPEAKER_01:Here, let me let me just finish with the elders. So the church said these same four names, so then we went and talked to those four guys and we're like, hey, this is uh this is a family decision for each of you. Like, you want to step into this role of being an elder or a deacon. And so we had dinner with all four of their families, and we talked about what this would look like, and they just started looking around, going, as Top Man, he's like, Hey, we're the ones doing it. If we don't do it, who's gonna do it? Of course we're gonna do this. And so we were able to present them in front of the body and say, hey, these are the guys that are gonna be stepping into this role, but in their humility, all of them said, Hey, don't give us the actual title yet. We don't want the official title, we want to function uh in this role and do the work in front of the body for six months at least, and let them just watch us do this, uh, and then you can give us the title, but don't just give it to us right away. And so that they're in that six-month window right now. So you can be praying for these guys. They're doing phenomenally well. It's just awesome to see the Lord working in and through them, but be praying for them, they've got a target on their backs.
SPEAKER_02:Man, I tell you, that's just uh that's just the bride of Christ, that's the global church. I mean, when we commission and appoint new elders at our church, Brad stands in front of everybody and says, Hey, we talk to their wives, we talk to their kids, we talk to their friends, we talk to we interview. And you are doing the same thing in Wantaquia. And and and here's a wife who's standing up and being honest about the current state of her husband and his heart. And man, that is just that's so encouraging. And that leads to kind of what's going to happen next, because now you're seeing the church thriving under its own local leadership, and God's now kind of saying this door may be pushing closed, not closed, but somewhat narrowing the gap. And here's some windows of opportunity. So take us through where what we're what we're dealing with now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's it's really special. I think, you know, we're gonna be involved in Wanta Kia until the Lord takes us home, I think. But our role should shift. Like we shouldn't stay at the forefront. Like that would just be a sign of, I don't know, an unhealthy ministry, I think. Uh we're shifting more toward the background. And so what that means is we've been living full-time in this tribal village for the last 11 years. But when we go back to the field, we're in the States right now, when we go back to Papua New Guinea, we're gonna be itinerant, meaning we're gonna be living at a mission center, we'll be making trips into the tribe to continue translating and discipling, but we're trying to give space to the church to be on their own. It's kind of like dropping your kid off at college, right? It's like, man, you're mature enough to handle this, but you're you're gonna go to Parents' Weekend and we're gonna go, yeah, check out a couple games. Uh yeah, it it's like that. And so that's kind of the phase that we're entering into. But that also means that like for Layla and I and everyone on our team, our time over there is gonna look a little differently. We're still discipling, we're still translating scripture, but we're probably gonna be doing more language and culture consulting with other missionaries that are in other language groups and trying to help them out because we got helped out by other missionaries doing that for us.
SPEAKER_00:Um, we're gonna be man, we had couples coming out to the bush, like guiding us through the process, and times were hard when we first moved out there, some of the hardest times of our whole lives, and to have those married couples that were our consultants coming out and guiding us through, but also checking on us as how life was going, how we're doing, it was amazing, and we want to do that for other people now.
SPEAKER_02:I gotta tell you, listener, if you could see the look on Lil's face as Jack was talking about this next season of transition, it would freeze you in your tracks. You were teary-eyed. It was it really was it was like looking at that Paul, like at the face of of Paul and what he experienced and what he felt, and just like what this journey has been for your family, what it's meant to you, what you know your girls are here, and your youngest has really lived in the jungle her whole life, and I just got to interact with her and talk with her about her chickens and our chickens, and it's just so special, and some things are similar, and some things are not at all similar. But just thank you. I think just let me hear let me say that. Thank you for this commitment. Thank you for letting my wife and I partner with you and several of our other friends in in you know support of this work. Um, you know, heaven's gonna be crowded with Wantians, and we're gonna get to enjoy that for all of eternity, and you had such a critical role in it. And I think that man, just the verse on my heart as you share this next chapter is just 2 Timothy 2 2. Right? You've heard you've heard these truths, you know, they've been verified. Now you've taught them to other trustworthy people who can teach them to others. So so someone with more experience in the field came and helped you out when you were early on. That was rewarding. And now you don't know exactly where or exactly what, but you know you're gonna continue to help, you know, one foot in the in the tribe when they need it, and then this other foot kind of in this ecosystem of supporting the next goers and what their challenges that they're gonna face. Our support of the crab trees is steadfast, and we're excited for whatever comes next. I maybe shouldn't say this live on a pod, but I'm gonna say it. I think we should write a book.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:I've got it on my heart to write a book of the within reach, like the scale, and maybe call it within reach. Dude. And to describe each of the ten steps, and so like maybe like the biblical basis for each step, and then stories from y'all's experience of each step. Oh man, I'm down. That'd be awesome. I think that could be a really cool thing to do, and I know you're a very gifted journalist in your past as well. Um, but I think that just getting the story out there beyond uh podcast form, and I know you're gonna travel and you're gonna people are gonna have you come talk at their churches and you're gonna get to tell the story in different ways, but yours is special. It it really is. It means a lot to us. So thank you. Any final thoughts?
SPEAKER_00:Well, thanks. Thanks for all the love and support and prayers over many years. Um, we're just so grateful. And just one last thought. I just the Lord has just been so sweet and kind. I feel like we consider it all joy what you're talking about from James. We have that plastered on our wall, actually, huge letters in our living room wall, because um just seeing God's faithfulness in hard things has just been so real in our lives over the years. I feel like it's a joy to pass off this work to the Wantakeans, this Yeraya Kare Jack was talking about, but we're also kind of in grieving mode. I feel like our kids are grieving, we're grieving. Um, this has been their childhood home, like you were saying. Um, this has been our life where we've raised our family. We've raised our our physical kids, our family, and then our Wantakea church family. And I think when we left Wantakea to come back to America this last time, it was just a serious time of transition like we've never had before. Just walking our kids through that and walking through that as a couple and saying some goodbyes, knowing we'll be back, but it's just not gonna be full time, it's not gonna be the same. But just God has been so sweet to meet us where we're at, to have these men and women ready to be elders, um just other leaders in the church taking on roles in ministry, just feeling like, wow, Lord, you've done so much in these people's lives and they're ready. And we can we can move to this next stage, knowing anything can happen. Satan can attack, anything can happen, but just knowing that they're ready and and our kids are ready like socially, they're becoming teenagers, it's very isolated in the bush. They're they're ready to be in town and be around um other kids their age of their own culture too. And so it's just cool how that's all coinciding together. We're grieving, but we're also excited and just so just thankful for what God has done.
SPEAKER_02:Can you I'm gonna ask Layle to pray for everyone at the end, but before I do, can you just give a word to everyone that hears this that's either thinking about going to the field, thinking about supporting someone in the field, thinking about leveling up their standard of giving and getting more serious about like, look, the Great Commission was not a suggestion. It's real. We got to get Jesus' name where he's not yet named, like this is the task remaining. Other other things are good. Supporting other charitable causes are are good, and and and I'm not saying they're not, and people are called to different things, but this particular task where the harvest is great and the workers are few, give them Jack Crabtree's take on what it's like to have given your life to this and to see the fruit of God's faithfulness at this point.
SPEAKER_01:Well, the thought that comes to my mind is you know, when you hear about the state of the world, how many people are unreached, you hear that staggering need. You can get really excited about going. Like, I've gotta go, I've gotta do something, and that's kind of how it was for us. And to actually go and to leave your own culture, it takes total trust in the Lord to do that. You gotta just completely trust him. But to actually stay, what it what it really takes is daily dependence on him. Total trust to go and leave, but daily dependence to stay. I think the Lord has just helped us to try to just walk with him daily and be faithful with what he gives us. And what I would say is a lot of times when we talk about going to the unreached or being a world Christian in the sense that these habits of going, welcoming, giving, praying, sending, we start taking those on as our identity. I'm a goer, I'm a sender. But really, your identity isn't what you do for God, it's who you are because of Christ. And if you are in Christ, you're a child of the Father. And because you're a child of the Father, all of those other things are just a part of the family business that you need to be about. So I would say you need to hold your life with open hands to the Lord if you're his kid and say, Father, how do I join you in what you're doing? It doesn't matter what your job is, it doesn't matter your socioeconomic status, none of those things matter, but we're all called to be having a ministry of reconciliation with those around us. We're all called to be giving generously. If you look at the New Testament, we're all called to be givers. We're all called to be welcoming. You know, all of these world Christian habits, uh, that can't be your identity, but out of your identity as a son or a daughter of the king, those have all those habits should be evidenced in our lives. And if we faithfully just walk each day with him with the opportunities he gives us, it's just like he says, you were faithful with little, I'm gonna set you over much. And I know that's eschatological, that's that's you know, talking about the future, but it's true today too in our Christian lives. As we grow and we're faithful, he's gonna give us more. And you might find yourself in the middle of the jungle one day, going, How did I end up here? It was a lot of small steps of obedience. That's the answer. We sow the seed, we water, but God gives the growth. And you just have to rest in that. That my identity isn't in the results of a ministry. It my identity is in Christ. And if you can rest in that and just be faithful, uh you're gonna have a very fulfilling Christian life.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Would you pray first and want to kein and then translate to English? I think it'd be fun for everybody to hear from the woman God used to create an alphabet and teach a people to read and write so they could experience his word personally in their lives.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I would love to do that. Yeah. Oh, nina mangy, yatmonamware ki suya nange bo ketama no. Come uh, woe we tragin njegin yeah. Yantin y ginero. Uh, please. Tanege kaimono. Yatmona mwari gi. Saray Kuraba. Yeah, wo we such uh kama yantiny gignero suyavo. Just Lord, Heavenly Father, um, just thank you. You have all the strength. You're the one who's able to do anything, you're the one that can help us. Um, please just work in and through us, Lord. Amen. Um, but I just want to keep praying, Lord. I just pray um just in my own heart language, Lord, for all these listeners, God. I just thank you so much for this opportunity to just share what you've been doing among the Wantekia people. Um, it's just been a privilege to get to do your work and allow you to work in and through our family. Um, but Lord, wherever we're at in this world, you can use us for your greater purpose. Um, and you want to use each one of us. And I just pray for every person listening today that you would show them how they can be involved in all these ways. Um, just help them to be generous, um, to be bold and welcoming as as people come and into their lives and help them to be bold to share the gospel. Um, there's so many ways that we can be involved and just help us to just honor you, Lord. The harvest is plentiful. We say that all the time, but the workers really are few. And I just pray, God, that you would move in people's hearts and lives and just prompt them to step into what you're already doing all over the world, Lord. It truly is just such a privilege, and we just thank you for being a good father, for being so faithful. You won't leave us or forsake us. You ask us to do these things, Lord, but you're right there with us in the midst of hard things on the mountaintops and the valleys, Lord, you're with us, and just thank you so, so much for that. Um, we just love you and praise you, God, in Jesus' name. Amen.
SPEAKER_02:And amen. 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 church, your life group, small group, D group, wherever you do life. And if you want to connect with us, find us on Instagram at Unreach Podcast or email us at unreachpodcast at gmail.com.
