you
you you
you
amen
alright at this time
we will get ready for the sermon
and so lets turn in our bibles
where are we turning this morning
1st Samuel chapter number 17
1st Samuel chapter number 17 in our bibles
looks like brother Nick is going to be reading for us this morning
so follow along silently with brother Nick as he reads
1st Samuel 17 beginning verse number 1
1st Samuel 17
the Bible reads
1st Samuel 17
I want to preach about our trip to Fiji and Tuvalu
at first I was going to preach on
Vanuatu but then I ended up
changing my mind because I thought it was going to
take a little bit longer to preach this
so I was going to preach in the evening
but anyway I changed my mind so a double minded man
is unstable in all his ways
so I am going to preach about this today
so for anyone who's asking
because I know in the passport it has
Vanuatu first and then it has
Fiji so
just you'll figure it out with the stamping
alright so just as a way of
introduction we're here in 1st Samuel chapter number
17 and look down at verse 4
where the Bible reads and says
and there went out a champion out of the camp of the
Philistines named Goliath of Gath
whose height was six cubits and a span
and he stood and cried
unto the armies of Israel
and said unto them
oh sorry verse 8 jumped a little ahead of myself
so verse 4 and then
look at verse 8 now it says
he cried unto the armies of Israel
and said unto them
why are you come out to set your battle in array
and am not I a Philistine
and ye servants to Saul
choose you a man
for you and let him come down
to me verse 9 it says
if he be able to fight with
me and to kill me
then will we be your servants
but if I prevail against him
and kill him then
shall ye be our servants
and serve us
and the Philistines said
I defy the armies of Israel
this day
give me a man
that we may fight together
when Saul and all Israel
heard those words
of the Philistine
they were dismayed and greatly afraid
so we see here in this passage
this is the famous story of David and Goliath
where you know many of us are familiar
about what's going on in the story
what's going on is that the Philistines
they are going to battle
the Israelites
under the leadership of King Saul
so it gets to the point
that they send out their strongest warrior
which is Goliath
and he is out there trying to
find someone who he can fight
and it's going to be a one on one battle
and whoever wins then that's going to be
the one that wins that battle
or wins that battle
so
but the problem is is that
the Philistines they have Goliath
and you know he's just like calling all
these Philistines out trying to get them to battle
but the problem with the Israelites is that
they don't have anyone who wants to fight
now look down at verse 22
of 1 Samuel
17 the Bible reads and it says
and David left his carriage in the hand
of the keeper of the carriage and ran
into the army and came and saluted
his brethren and as he talked
with them behold there came
up the champion the Philistine
of Gath Goliath by name
out of the armies of the Philistines and
spake according to the same words
and David heard them and
all the men of Israel when they
saw the man
fled from him and were sore afraid
and the men of Israel
said have you seen this
man that has come up
surely to defy Israel
is he come up and it
shall be that the man who killeth him
the king will enrich him
with great riches and will give
him his daughter and
make his father's house free
in Israel so what's going
on here in this part of the passage is that
David ends
up going to the armies and he sees what's
going on and then they tell him about
what's going on with Goliath that Goliath
is looking for someone to fight but
the problem with Israel is that no one
wants to fight Goliath and
David ends up
making inquiry about the situation
and then look down at verse
32 where the Bible reads and
says in 1 Samuel 17 32
and David said
to Saul let no man's heart
fail because of him thy servant
will go and fight with the
Philistines so long story short
what's going on is that David ends up
deciding to go and fight with the
Philistines and or fight with Goliath
and spoiler alert he wins he beats
Goliath you need to read your Bible if you haven't
read what happens in this part of the story
because it's a good story but
he ends up winning and beating
Goliath now
from this story because now I'm going
to get to the point of me even bringing all this up
because I know people are probably wondering okay
what does this have to do with missions well
from this story oftentimes people
they see a problem but they don't
want to be the ones who end up actually
taking on that task or actually putting
or giving a solution and
what I mean by that is this is that
you see how the Philistines
they knew they know someone had to fight
Goliath but no one was willing to fight him
even Saul, Saul was as the Bible
said that he was head and shoulders
above all the other children
of Israel and you would think he would be
the best candidate to go fight against
Goliath the giant but he didn't
even want to do it and it ended up being
some small ruddy boy
you know shepherd boy that was willing
to take on that challenge of fighting
Goliath so David's a prime
example of someone who's able to
take initiative and do
a good work of God and
we should have that same
aspect in our life now the
problem is is that when it comes to missions
there's a void of people that
really want to do that want to do real
missions work and I'm going to give an example
in a second and actually get people safe
I've been to I used to go to old
IFB churches before moving here and attending
faithful word Baptist church but oftentimes
when you would have missionaries that
would come to the church and present
their work what would they do they would often
say hey we're building houses
we're making roads we're building schools
we're building you know all
these different things they have all these different projects
going on but the problem is they're not
actually getting anyone safe they're just
doing all this work
but people aren't getting saved in the process
and you'll even have people that
serve as a full-time church planner
or a missionary and what ends up
happening with these people is that
they you know they're they're on the
field they have the opportunity
to go and do a great work for God but then
you know a lot of it is that they're lacking
and they're not really actually doing anything
when the rubber actually meets the road
so I respect what missionaries do
I think missionaries you know they're
making a lot of sacrifice in their lives they're
leaving the creature comforts of America
and going to a foreign field where
oftentimes they spend the rest of their life there
trying to build churches and
serve God so there's a lot of good missionaries
out there but then on the other hand
there's a lot of bad missionaries out there
and what I want to
do is this is that
I want to go over just a few
quick
stories from
missionaries I met in my life and I am
going to get to Fiji and Tuvalu it's all just
introduction and so you can understand
the state of missions in
2024 well and some
of the stuff I'm bringing up happened way back when
but this is the state of missions more or less
than the old IFB so you can understand
what's going on when it comes to mission
work and what why we
have the principle at our church of doing
your own missions and that's the point of the
sermon today is that hey if you can't find
someone else to do it right then you know what
you just got to do it yourself and that's the time my
sermon today is just got to do it yourself
and I'm talking about doing your own
missions now
I was going to a church where
they had a bunch of missionaries that would
come in and they would present their
work and one of the big things and anyone who's
went to an old IFB church you've probably heard of
this the 1040 window and what
the 1040 window is is that
you have this part of
the world where it has like two thirds
of the population in that part
of the world but like 99% of them
are Muslim and they're saying hey this
person these are unreached people
group and because they're an unreached people
group you know we need to send someone
to go there and
witness to them and are you going to
be that person that goes there well
the problem with that is is that Muslims
are not receptive to the gospel
second another problem is
a lot of the time in those countries that they're
saying are the 1040 window
soul winning is illegal so
it makes no sense to go to places
like that but you'll have these
missionaries get up and they'll start
guilt tripping you saying are you going to
be the one who goes or are you going to be the one who
goes or are you going to be the one who goes
on the mission field when
it's like why am I going to go and
try to and beat my head against the wall
trying to reach Muslims
you know it doesn't really make any sense
I'm all for reaching Muslims we
reach Muslims on previous
trips so many trips that we had
in Sierra Leone we got many
Muslims saved there but we're not beating
our head against the wall going to places
where it's 99% Muslim
and another principle we have is we go
soul winning or we go
to places where soul winning is legal
you know first of all and I just
mentioned that but yeah we go to places where soul winning
is safe and legal and obviously
receptive now another thing
I want to bring up is that you have faith
promised missions I don't know if anyone who
has heard of that our church really does
we don't do it but faith promised missions
is another way that churches
guilt trip you into
giving your money
to mission to missionaries
for works that may
not be that great and I'm going to go over
a missionary that my
church supported back in the day
and you're going to see
what these missionaries are doing and you're going to
well I'll let you be the judge
after we're done with that but anyway
what faith promised missions
is for those who don't know is that
faith promised missions is just where
you have like
they have like a missions conference similar
to what we're having now and during the missions
conference they give you a paper and
that paper has like different
amounts that you can be able that
you as an individual
would donate to missions
and how that works is that for the whole
week you have all these missionaries come
up they'll present their work they'll tell
you different stories about what's going on
and then what they would say is that
what we want to happen is that
God's going to lay an amount on your heart
to donate to missions
and that once God lays this amount on
your heart you know it's going to be private
we're not going to know about it
but then you're going to write that amount down
and that's the amount that you're going to give
more or less above your tithes and offering
to missions
for that year so
you know what they'll do is they'll say
hey it's between you and God but
then the whole time they're pressuring you saying
hey did you turn in your faith promised missions card
because they did that to me a lot where
I'm like I didn't really want
to participate in it because I thought it was dumb
but they're like constantly pressuring
you to turn in your faith promised
missions card and I'm like
I don't want to do it
but they ended up just pressuring me
anyway so anyway
but I'm getting at that
is that's what you have to deal with
in a lot of old IFB
churches and again there are a lot of great missionaries
out there who are actually doing the work of God
who are actually serving God who are actually doing
doing you know a lot around
the world but then you have a lot of
missionaries that let's just face it they're lacking
now I keep bringing this up because I
want to read a few quick missionary letters
and then again I will get into Fiji and Tuvalu
but I just want you to understand the
state of missions so you can understand
why our church participates
in do your own missions
or DYI missions trips
where we just end up doing our own missions
because let's just face it a lot of
people are not doing a lot of
great works for God when it comes to missions
so now this is a
just to give you some background of what's going
on is that back when I was going
to an old IFB church
we had a missionary that came in
pastors actually preached against him
like a long time ago it was a guy
to Morocco while he's no longer
a missionary and you'll probably see
why after I read these missions letters
but he ended up getting into real estate
so I'm not ripping on anyone
I'm not
ripping on anyone that's like
you know that's
currently an evangelist or a missionary or anything
this guy is not in the ministry at all
anymore and it's not because he was just a
bozo or anything he just ended up
he had some his church had
some church split or whatever and then he ended up
just going to a different like missions
board and then I don't know what happened from there
but I just happened to be on his email list
okay that's why I have all the updates that's why
I know what's going on with him but
anyway he came to our church
and then you know he presented his work
and then I signed up for his emails because
I actually like missionaries and I'm not
just here trying to rip on missionaries I'm
just showing you that hey this is what
you're going to get sometimes when
you're talking to missionaries and
the guy he ended up I signed up for his
missionary updates as well as
you know whenever other missionaries would come in
I would sign up just to read it and see what they're doing
and pray for them and stuff so I didn't have any bad
intentions but then this guy is
like constantly just sending out
missionary updates and it got to the point he was
sending them out like every week and then
someone on the email list was like
hey you're sending too many updates so then he
sent an email saying hey I'm going to send
less updates now but again let me
just give you some of these so you'll know
what's going on so
this is dated from November 8th
2016 it says
Dear Pastor and Praying Friends, Just this morning
I was speaking to our security guard
who watches over our neighborhood and we
exchanged greetings. I asked how
he was doing and he said
Allah al-Hamud
lila praise to God and
al-Hafmed
1,000 praises. I've included a
picture at the bottom of what the
saying looks like. Here in Morocco
it is normal to hear spiritual references
to God come up very
often in daily conversations.
God protect you. God complete goodness
to you. God be merciful to your
parents. God provide
for you. God help you.
Even though they talk about God often
throughout their day and pray multiple
times per day, they do not
know the true God. They do not
know the God of the Bible. Thank you
for praying for us as we
continue learning Arabic, the Arabic
language and that God would
help these people know
the forgiveness, love, and grace
that God freely
that God freely offers through Jesus
Christ. Your soul's in Morocco
and this guy was a missionary to Morocco
and that was the ministry update.
He's telling us about different
greetings that people say
in a foreign field
and this is the guy that they're forcing
you to put faith promise missions
and pay for him to do
you know work missionary
work out in Morocco and he's literally
sending you an update about how he said
hi to a security guard. I mean
it's like come on.
On top of that, this
is from February so this is two years
later. You would think things may improve
but this is two years later
in 2018. He
says this, please dear
pastor and praying friends
please pray for our brother in Christ
Simo. I just heard
that his parents found out what he was doing with
us. I need to talk
with him to get more details. It sounds
like he may have gotten kicked out of his house.
Please pray
the Lord works in his family
in this situation.
Praise the Lord. Simo told
me that he is not afraid of
his parents anymore and that
they needed to find
out. Please pray to God
to encourage him for his
family to get saved.
This past Sunday
Zakiri's friend Muhammad came back
to visit for the second time.
Please pray the Lord continues
to work in his heart and that
he trusts Christ as Savior.
This week our language school
semester finishes and we
get a little break to set
up our new home which is
closer to our language school.
We are planning some
outreach evangelism activities
in the area around the church.
Please pray that many
people hear the gospel, trust Christ
as their Savior and get discipled
in church. Thank you for
your prayers. We hope you have a great week.
Your soul's in North Africa.
And that was his missionary letter, his missionary
update. Do you really see any work
being done?
According to this guy. He's just telling us
about some drama that's going on in
some Muslim guy's house that he got
kicked out of his house. It's like
you know, is that what you really want
to be spending your money on
when you're giving to faith promise
missions or giving to churches where you're
getting like really bad
updates from someone
who's supposed to be a missionary?
On top of that, I'm going to just read, I have a few
and I didn't even, I'm just
going to read one more just for sake of time, but I
have a few and I didn't even cherry pick these.
I literally just typed in the guy's name
scroll through some
emails and then just clicked on it
and then read it. I'm like, okay, I'm just going to use
that. And that's how
most of his things are. It's just like
a whole lot of nothing. That's the
easiest way to describe what this guy's
doing. He's doing a whole lot of nothing.
And this
is his prayer letter
from January
of 2019. So this is one
year later. So let's see if this guy got
better.
No, I'll just give you the answer. He didn't
get any better. But it says,
Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,
We praise the Lord for all He did
in 2018. God allowed us to serve
in the city of Fess
for the first half of the year and the second
half of the year in a
new city, Tunis.
Through
teaching and preaching every week, God allowed
us to baptize two new believers
in Fess and we're going to baptize
two more before we got banned from
re-entering in July. We set
up our home and have been
working hard at learning the
new dialect of Arabic spoken
here in North Africa. We are
learning and serving
in an established church until
we finish language school.
And then his goal is for
2019
at the time. He says, We are
taking language classes
and focusing on learning
the language well so that
we can take a short furlough
starting in December 2019.
Please pray for us
as we learn from
and serve under
a veteran missionary
family. As we return from our
furlough, we are looking forward to starting a new
church in a needy area
of this large Muslim city
where 99% of the people are
Muslim. Please continue to pray for
many in
North Africa to put their faith and
trust in the Lord Jesus Christ,
your souls in North Africa.
So that was his missionary
update and this is all he did.
He had three bullet points for all the
stuff that he did in 2018.
I think that is
embarrassing. He got two people
saved, which praise God, you know,
getting two people, sorry, getting two people saved
and baptized is a good thing. But the guy
had literally three bullet points
for all the stuff he did
in Morocco
for the year of 2018.
Now I bring all that up because
what I want to do today is preach
to you about what we did in
two weeks in
Fiji and Tuvalu
and let's just compare
what some of these missionaries who are
out in the field are doing and what
our church is doing when we're
doing our own DYI
missions. Now
go ahead and turn with me in your Bible to
Acts chapter number 13,
Acts chapter number 13.
Again, the sermon title
today is this,
you just got to do it yourself.
And we see that these missionaries
are not really doing a great work for God.
I remember when I was, this is
over a decade ago, and I was
graduating from college. So then
we had a missionary come to our church
and I'm talking to the missionary. He's
presenting his work and I'm like, you
know what, since I'm graduating from college,
I might as well just go
and do, like, some short-term
mission work before I, like, start my career
or start my life. I was single, so I didn't
really, at that point, it didn't really matter.
So then the missionary comes, he
presents his work, and then he gives
us his email address. So then I get his email
address, I email him, and then I'm
like, hey, I want to do some short-term
missions work. So then the guy ends up
replying back to me. He tells me to
fill out all this information,
and then I fill out all the information
and then explain that, hey, I just want to
do some short-term, like, I like
what he was saying, I like that he was
doing missions work in a foreign field.
I want to do the same thing just for a short
amount of time. Can I do it?
He said, no. He said the only way
you can do it is if you do one year of Bible
college. I'm like, I'm not doing one year
of Bible college, so I didn't end
up going on, doing any missions work
with that church. And it wasn't until
Faithful Word had the missions trip
to Botswana
and South Africa a few years ago,
that was the first time I was actually
able to get on the field and do some
real missions work. So you have all these
churches, you have bad missionaries
that are doing nothing for God, but then
on top of you having these bad missionaries
that are doing nothing for God, you have
people that are hindering people who want
to serve God and actually do real missions
work from actually going out on the field.
They're putting all these borders and barriers
so that you can't even do any real missions
work yourself. So that's why I
believe in the mentality of, you know what,
if you can't find someone else to
do it, then you just got to do it yourself.
And I had you turn to
Acts chapter number 13.
Now my first point is this, and I'm just
going to tie in some of the principles
from
pretty much
like the common sense missions
ideology
or teachings that our church has, where hey, if
you're going to go to a place, let it be a place
that's receptive. Let it be a place that they
speak English. Let soul winning be safe
and legal. Just I wanted to kind of go
over those things, but just show you
how we use a lot of those principles in
our trip to
Ephesians 2
this year. Now
in Mark 16
15, the Bible reads and says, and he said
unto them, go ye into all the world
and preach the gospel of every creature. That's the great
commission is that we need to go out and
preach the gospel to everyone
to preach the gospel of every creature and we need
to go into the world to do it.
Not only that, it says in Acts
13, look at verse 45
is that we want to go to
places where the people
are receptive to the gospel.
And it says in Acts 13 45
when the Jews saw the multitudes, they
were filled with envy and spake
against those things which were spoken
by Paul, contradicting and
blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas
waxed bold and said it was necessary
that the word of God should
be spoken, should
have been, should have been
spoken, sorry, should
first have been spoken to you
but seeing you put it from you and judge
yourselves unworthy of
everlasting life, lo we go
we turn to the Gentiles.
For so
had the Lord commanded
us saying, I have set thee
to be a light of the Gentiles
that thou shouldest be
for salvation unto the ends of
the earth. And when the Gentiles
heard this, they were glad and glorified
the word of the Lord and as many
as were ordained to eternal life
believed. So we see here in this passage
that the Jews weren't receptive to the gospel
so what did Paul and Barnabas
do? They ended up just going to the people
who were receptive which were
the Gentiles. And
go turn with me to
Matthew chapter number 10, Matthew chapter
number 10. So even God
makes it where hey if people don't want to
listen to you, if people don't want to have anything to do
with the gospel, then go find people
who do or go find people who are
receptive and don't sit there and waste time
trying to talk to people who are not
receptive to the gospel. Now
it says in Matthew chapter number 10
look at verse 11, Matthew 10
11 it says, And into whatsoever
city or town ye shall enter
inquire who in
it is worthy
and thereby till ye go
thence. And when ye come
into an house salute it
and if the house be worthy let your
peace come upon it, but
if it be not worthy let your peace return
to you. And
whosoever shall not
receive you nor hear your words
when ye depart out of that house or city
shake the dust off your feet.
Verily
I say unto you it shall be
more tolerable for the land of Sodom
and Gomorrah in the day of judgment
than for that city. So
Jesus is saying the
same principle, hey if you're going to go to a
place then let that place be
a place that is receptive, let that
place be a place that wants to listen to the
gospel and if there's a place that
is hindering people from preaching the
gospel or hindering people from being able to
listen to the gospel then don't go to
that place, you know, shake your feet if you go
there and they don't want to listen, shake your feet off
and go to a place that is receptive and
it's not your problem because Jesus even says that
hey in the day of judgment
it's going to be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah
than for that city, so that city is going to be
destroyed but it's not your fault, it's
their fault because they don't want to listen.
Now I bring that up because
when we choose
places and when we plan different
mission trips to go, we choose
places that are receptive.
Now when it comes to both Fiji and Tuvalu
they're receptive. For instance
in Tuvalu, or in Fiji
we're able to collectively get
2,115 people saved
in the course of about a little bit over a week.
Just going to Tuvalu
or just Fiji alone and then
in Tuvalu we're able to get
207 people saved in the course of
about a week. So we went to places
that were really receptive
and we were talking and
when it comes to the planning I was talking to someone
about going to Fiji
or they actually asked me and
this is like towards the end of 2023
so then
I believe in earlier this year, so I think it was
January of this year,
Pastor Shelley ended up going to
Fiji and then
when he went to Fiji, him and
another guy, they were able to get
23 people saved in the course of
like two hours. So it wasn't like,
or not two hours, but a few hours. So it was just
him and another guy, they were soloing in a city
called Nandi and that's where we did some of our
soloing, but they were able to get 23 people
saved in the course of only a few hours.
So to me that's receptive.
If it's two people
getting that many people saved in the course
of a few hours. Not only that,
Pastor Sepulveda, a while back,
he had some people from his church
they ended up going to another place that
we were soloing at called Suva
and when they went to Suva, they said it was
super receptive there. So because
we heard these stories, we saw Pastor
Shelley put out a video about how receptive
Fiji was, we were like, you know what,
let's do it. Let's go to Fiji because
this place seems like it's going to be receptive
and lo and behold, when we got there
we found out that it was and
since we were already on that part
of, or in that part of the world,
we ended up just saying, you know what,
might as well just go to Tuvalu while we're at it and
we ended up making, you know, killing two birds
and one stone with that trip by going to both
Fiji and Tuvalu at the same
time and as a result, what we ended
up doing was we planned the trip
around Labor Day, or sorry, Memorial
Day because a lot of people have
Memorial Day off so it was just a lot easier
to accommodate some
people's schedules that way as well
as that the
plane tickets were actually cheap
during that time to go to Fiji to
around
Memorial Day so it made it a lot easier
for people to end up going to go
soul winning there and what our church
was able to do was that the church was able
to cover the
hotels and
the
transportation
for everyone who ended
up going on the trip that came from our
church. So
now while just
talking about Fiji, let me give you some
quick fun facts about it because people are like, what's
Fiji or what is a Fiji? Fiji is
a country so that's the first thing you
got to know. Fiji is not a person
or a thing. It's a place.
It's a country.
And it's what's called
a Melanesian country so Melanesia
is just, Melanesia
is, it's an area
close to Australia like in
Oceania so it makes
this square that
if I remember correctly, it goes as far out
as Papua New Guinea and then it goes
as far out as, like as far out
east as Papua New Guinea and then it goes
as far west as Fiji so it's like this
big part of the South
Pacific right by Australia. On
top of that, they were under British rule
up until 1970
and that's when they gained their independence.
Yes, that is where Fiji
water was created and
no, I did not drink Fiji water while I was there
because I just don't really care that much
about Fiji water. Now one cool
thing we learned on this
trip was that
if you're in the US, you can go
to, or when we were planning this trip is that
you can go out to your local
bank and they
before, if you want to get some cash
before you go on the trip, they will give
you, you could do some exchange
here in the US and it's a lot cheaper than
going to like a money exchanger
when you get to like the airport
or in the foreign country that you're
at and get their local currency there
so that's just a travel tip
for any future missions trip is that
you can just get your currency here in the US
and then take that
to whichever country and we did that
when we were in Fiji. Now
just to give you an idea of Fiji's
geography, it consists of 330
islands and we were on the main island
of Viti
Vua which is
is where we did most of our
soul winning at and that's where
we went soul winning in Nandi which
that is where our plane landed and
we did some soul winning there and then we also
went to a place called Suva and that's
what we did the majority of our soul winning
when we were in
Fiji and then we also on Sunday
because we went to church in Latoko
we ended up doing some soul winning there
so we went to those three places all on
the same island and
like to me and
forgive me for those who like Fiji
Fiji was kind of hit or miss for me I really
wasn't super impressed with it compared
to like other people I know a lot of
people like Fiji but and you know it's
like the tourist destination but I just
really I think because it was raining
a lot there I just wasn't really
like super jazzed about it
and then on top of that just the scenery wasn't
really that like
breathtaking now maybe it was just where we're
at maybe maybe
I don't know because we drove literally
like from one part of the island
all the way to the other part of the island
and there were some nice things but overall
it was just like eh I don't know
and again some people may feel
different than I do but
I just wasn't really that impressed
with Fiji like all the hype that people
have about Fiji now in
Fiji there's about 900,000 people
57% of them are native
there's a lot of Indians in there
so there's about 33% Indian
and then more or less like
6% other so we actually
preached to a lot of Indians
and we actually got a few Hindus
saved while we were there on the trip
and then at one
point in time or here so
in Fiji they drive on the left
side of the road so that
happens in different countries that you visit
but what's a little interesting
with our story is that we ended up renting
a manual 15 passenger
van or two actually three
manual 15 passenger vans
so if anyone who knows
how to drive a manual the shifter
is on the opposite side so
instead of shifting on your right hand side
like you do in the US you're actually
shifting with your left hand and then
as well as the clutch is on the opposite side
so it was not easy for some
more than others
but I still thought it was fun
I really enjoyed driving that
on the other side of the road and just everything's
like completely backwards I thought I was like warped
in some time
another dimension just because
it's like oh this is cool everything's like
the opposite of the US
but anyway another thing is that
in Fiji there
a lot of the people
they used to be cannibals and I don't know
exactly when they stopped being cannibals
but they weren't cannibals when we
were there I can say that
but they were
cannibals at one point in time and then
I guess they stopped being cannibals praise
god because if they were cannibals
I probably would not win that's another
thing we should add to common sense missions
is don't go
to a place that
that you have cannibals okay
that's another pro tip
don't go to a cannibal eating
or people eating country
so in
Melanesia so and what it
means to be Melanesian is that you have
people that pretty much like various
shades of brown or you know black
but some of those people
are able to grow blonde hair so that's
one thing that makes a lot of these Melanesians
Melanesian is that they are able to
grow blonde hair so they'll be
as black as me and maybe even darker
but then they'll have blonde hair but
usually that's only when they're a kid and then
as they grow older the pigments go
away because they have some specific gene
that gives them blonde hair
another thing is to say hello
in Fiji
or in the Fijian language you say
bulla so and then
if you want to say thank you
you say venaka I'm not saying
either one of those for the rest of the sermon
because I was on the plane and I just
got so tired of hearing that they just like
every time they talk they're just like bulla
bulla venaka bulla venaka bulla venaka
I'm just like alright it just it got old
like it was cool the first like
20 times you heard it and then after that it's
just like alright I'm done
on top of that the food was
good and we ended
up going to a market while we were there
and they had a lot of fruits and vegetables so the
food I would say out of all a lot of the
countries I've been to so far in the South Pacific
Fiji has the best food
on top of that there are many tourists
from Australia and New Zealand that end up
going there the three main
languages are Fijian
English and Hindi and
what we did before we went on
the trip is that we made some custom YouTube
cards that had those languages on there
so if we did speak with
someone that didn't
necessarily speak that great of an
English or didn't speak English at all then
we would give them that card
and then they would be able to scan that
card and it'll take them to
the Bible Way to Heaven video in that
language on top of that
the people were really friendly there they had
really good manners they would
whenever you would talk to them
like whenever you would preach to them and they were eating
they would just stop what they were doing
and then let you speak with them
and then after that
once you're done preaching to them the Gospel
then they would bring the food out
or they would start eating again
and when I was there I felt extremely
safe like it's a super safe country
like
hands down like
you do not feel like you're going to die
at all while you're there unlike
South Africa where is he
I don't see him
he's here oh he's right there yeah
unlike South Africa
so anyway it's a great country and
South Africa is cool I mean as long
as you have Pastor Bogart there then
you're good you'll be safe so
you don't have to worry about that and
one big problem I do have with Fiji
it was a great country I really like Fiji
I just am not too
jazzed about just like I
wanted better scenery but other than that
it was a good country the only thing
one big problem I do not like about Fiji
is that in Fiji a lot of the men
wear skirts so they have these
things called Sulas and you'll
literally I don't know if we I gave some pictures
out to that you may be able to
see but you'll see a lot of us
preaching the gospel to guys in skirts and
it's just some cultural thing that I think
is horrible and wrong and that
they shouldn't have but that's something
that's really popular in Fiji for some reasons
that a lot of the guys wear skirts
there and same with Tuvalu a lot of
the guys just ended up wearing skirts in Tuvalu
too I did not see that in Banoa
too so I was like praise God
for that so anyway
when it comes to religion
it's 64% Christianity
around 30% Hindu
and then 6-7%
Islam and so on
and so forth so now
for my next point is this
go to Philippians chapter number 3
sorry Philippians chapter number 4
Philippians chapter number 4
verse 3 so that just gives
you an idea of why we chose
to go to
Fiji is that it was receptive
the people were friendly it was a safe place to go
it was a good place to go for
soul winning so we use
that common sense principle in
Fiji for that or when planning
the trip to Fiji second thing
is this is that anyone can participate
we were able to have 57
people show up to this trip
33 of them were with
Pastor Sepulveda's church or with his group
and then we had 24 soul winners
with our group and it
says in Philippians 4 verse 3
and I entreat thee also
true yoke fellow help those women
which labored with me in the gospel
with Clement also and with
other my fellow laborers
whose names
are in the book of life so
one great thing about this trip is we had
a good turn out of both women
men and then we had some children
on the trip so we made this trip
open to anybody who
especially from our church that was able to
make it and go now
this goes contrary to the
old IFE where they say you have to have a
Bible degree college before you can do some
short term missions trip which I still
understand you know if someone wants to serve
God just let them serve God but
we're able to accommodate
people and bring them on those trips
so they can have that experience of
going out and getting people saved in a foreign
field now turn with me to
Acts chapter number 18
now while we were in Fiji or what ended
up happening while we were
kind of getting everything going and setting
up the trip was that
someone made a pretty misleading
video and what I mean by misleading
was that they had a video
like while we were planning the trip we were
trying to get as much participation even around the
world so we sent out an email
about hey our church is going to Fiji
if anyone wants to participate you know
just let us know and we'll try
to we'll give you more details
and then on top of that we had
a video that was kind of
and why I say it was a little bit misleading is that
it was just like the video said
hey we only have a few
slots left so for
people to come on this trip and if you don't
sign up then
you know these slots are going to be filled up and you may not be
able to go well people took that
as hey
we're going to pay for your whole trip and they thought
we were going to pay for their plane tickets and all this other
stuff when that wasn't necessarily
the case and you know that was a
problem on my part because I didn't
catch that I just the person sent me the video I was just like
yeah it looks good and then brother Segura
he said hey this video
is pretty misleading and once after he posted
up he watched and he's just like this video
is pretty misleading so he's just like any emails
that come in I'm sending them straight to you
so I'm like answering all
these emails about like
people thinking that we're paying for like
like people in different countries thinking that we're paying
for their plane tickets to
Fiji when that wasn't necessarily the case we were trying
to like at least just get more
participation from people that
you know that are in that area and
that are able to try to make it
but what ended up happening was this after
sifting through all those emails and I got a lot of emails
about that we had one
guy that was living in Papa
New Guinea at the time
and he saw the email or he saw the video
and his name was Rafa
and he ended up saying
hey I was originally born in
Fiji and I see that you guys are
doing a soul winning marathon you're doing
a missions trip there I want to join up
with you so then I eventually
got in contact with him on WhatsApp
and then we started talking
and then he ended up confirming
that he was going to be able to take some time off
go to Fiji to visit his family
and then come on the trip so
that's where we get into
Acts chapter number 18 because I think
his story is really good
I feel like it ties in really well
with the Bible character
Apollos where it says in Acts
18 verse 24
and a certain Jew named Apollos
born at Alexandria
an eloquent man and mighty
in the scriptures came to Ephesus
this man was instructed in the way of the Lord
and being fervent in the spirit he
spake and taught diligently
the things of the Lord knowing only the baptism
of John and he
began to speak boldly in the synagogue
whom when Aquila and Priscilla
had heard they took him
they took him onto them and expounded
onto him the way of
God more perfectly
so this is a perfect example
of kind of what happened with Rafa
was that Rafa never
he was saved but he never
went out soul winning so then when he actually
came to Fiji
and then ended up going on the trip
with us and meeting us in Suva he was
actually able to go soul winning with a lot of the guys
Rob ended up going I believe you
went soul winning with him
either when we were in Nandi
and you guys were in Suva so
Rob ended up going soul winning with him
Pastor Sepulveda ended up going soul winning with him
so he was able to learn how to go
soul winning as well as on the trip
he ended up getting baptized while he was there
so we were able to help
this guy grow in the Lord
teach him the Bible, help him so that
he could be a lifelong soul winner
if I remember correctly because I saw a picture of him
preaching to someone towards the end of the trip
so even by the end of the trip
this guy is already starting to try to preach the gospel
and I think that's another good thing
with these trips is that
because we have the
do it yourself missions
mentality is that you can try to get
other people who may not necessarily
be in church
or serving God but they're saved
and they want to be a part of these types of trips
so that they can be able to serve
God better. Now go with
me to
Matthew chapter number
five, Matthew chapter number five
so Matthew
in Matthew 5, 15
when you get there, what I want to just quickly do
is go over a few stories that we have
of things that happen in
in Fiji
and just a few highlights just because
a lot happened while we were there
but I do want to give you a few quick things that I think are
are really good but
in Matthew 5, 15
the Bible says, or the Bible reads and says
neither do men
sorry, neither do men light
a candle and put it under a bushel
but on a candlestick
and it giveth light
unto all those that are in the house
let your light so shine before men
that they may see your good works
and glorify your Father which is in heaven
so I bring that up not
just because I'm trying to say hey look at all the stuff
we did while we were in
Fiji but I bring that up because I want to glorify
God and just show how God can work
with just a handful of people
in a foreign field where they're able to get
many different people saved
so again, just to give you
the soul winning numbers
in that week, or a little bit over a week
while we were in
Fiji, we were able to get
2,115 people
saved when we partnered up with
Pastor Sepulveda's group
now when it comes to the soul winners of Faithful Word
we were able to get 750
people saved during that time
and then on the trip
we were able to get two people baptized
so we were able to do more in these
two weeks that we were there
than a lot of missionaries do
in a year while they're out on the field
now one cool thing
is that we were preached to a lot of big groups
while we were there, for instance
Pastor Sepulveda, he ended up preaching to a group
of like 18 people
and then one, like
I don't remember exactly which day
but one of the days we were there
we had 500 people saved in one day
with 57 soul winners, I believe
that was the Wednesday if I remember correctly
while we were there
another cool thing was that
we did a lot of soul winning on
what's called the University of South Pacific's
campus
and there I believe it was the
most receptive place
in Fiji, just because we had
a lot of people, or a lot of
students that their English was good
on top of their English was good, they were super receptive
to the gospel, it was just really easy
to get a lot of those guys saved
and on top of that you ended up winning a lot
of people of Christ that were just visiting
Fiji but they were from other countries
just like Raymond was saying
yesterday that he had some guys
that we talked to in Fiji
ended up going back to Samoa
that's kind of how it was at the University of South Pacific
it was a big melting pot
of just a lot of different people that you're able to
talk to and we had people
talk to people from countries like
Samoa, Tonga,
Tuvalu, the Solomon Islands
and it was extremely receptive
on top of that
if we weren't at the college a lot of our soul winning
ended up happening at a mall
and the mall was kind of like, it seemed like
the big central hub of the city
so at the mall
to me it wasn't
that great because I didn't really have a
good, too many
success stories there, but I know a lot of the
ladies on our trip, they hung out
at the mall and they were soul winning at the mall
and then it got to the point that at a certain time
I think it was like 2 or 3 o'clock
a lot of the school aged kids started getting out of school
so then they were able to preach to a lot of them
and get a lot of them saved
on top of that, even though the mall was hit or miss
for me, I was able to get some
government officials saved while I was there
because, and this guy
was low hanging fruit, super receptive
I started talking to him
he was just like, I don't know if I'm going to heaven
I'm preaching to him in the gospel
everything is just clicking, clicking, clicking
it was a really
low hanging fruit, and then after I'm done
preaching to him, he's just like, hey do you mind
coming and preaching to all my government friends
because he was asking how long we were there for
and I was just like, well unfortunately I'm not going to be able to
because it was a Friday night
when I was preaching, or a Friday evening when I was
preaching to him, and then we were leaving
that next day to go back to
this was in Suva when we were leaving the next day
to go to Nandi, so
we weren't able to talk to, I
I wasn't going to be able to do that, but I did get his
contact information, so if we do go back
and we happen to be in Suva, you know
we have that opportunity to go preach to his government
buddies in
Fiji, and then
Pastor Sepulveda, while we were there, he ended up
preaching an evening service
sermon, and at
that sermon, that's where
everyone who was on the trip, so the
57 Soul Winners, we ended up meeting at like an
Indian restaurant, Pastor Sepulveda
preached there, and then on top
of him preaching there, we ended up
disfellowshipping and
eating really good food and so on and so
forth, but while he was preaching
like first of all, we were singing in
the Indian restaurant
and we were singing loud, and
we thought they had it closed off to everybody
but that was not the case
like some, just a few people started
walking in, and then
we're still just like
singing as, I mean we were, the
place was, I don't know if it was really shaking, but that's
how I felt, like just because we were singing
that loud at this restaurant
well come to find out, one
of the people at the
that was in the restaurant was the
Vice Prime Minister of Fiji
so he heard the sermon
he saw us singing, so I thought
that was cool that that guy ended up coming in
and just at least seeing how Christians
do, you know how Christians
do it right, or Baptists do it, amen
now
several people ended up on this
trip, they ended up getting Hindu saved, they got
Buddhist saved, they got Muslim saved
Rob talked to some demon-possessed
guy, but
like some demon-possessed
guy was trying to like
not let Rob talk to someone
and then Rob, I guess his partner
your soul-winning partner was able to deflect the guy
so the guy, the person you were
talking to was able to get saved
and then again we went soul-winning in three different places
the majority of the time we were in
Suva, so that was for probably about
four or five of the days
but we did do some soul-winning in Nandi
and then we also did some soul-winning
in Latoka and I'll go over
that in a little bit
and one cool thing was
Ms. Jennifer Johnson, she went to
Fiji and then she ended up getting
a guy from Eloi
Arizona saved, so I thought that was cool
so
she leaves Arizona
to go across the
world and then she's able to get someone
saved that lives here in Arizona
so I thought
that was cool but
and then on top of that we ended up going
to like just different bus
stops and stuff and getting a lot of people saved
there, like the bus stops seem to
be super receptive there for some
reason, like we went there
the first day we arrived, so it was me
Heather, Michelle and someone else
and we ended up going soul-winning at like
a little bus station and within two
hours we ended
up getting 16 people saved
in two hours, just the four of us
and then the
rest of the team there arrived the next
day and
I was telling people, like so half of the
group ended up just going straight to Suva
as soon as they got there, I mean
we're on Fijian time so they had to wait a little
bit but anyway they ended up going straight
to Suva and then you had
another group
that was in my van and I said, hey, anyone
who wants to go soul-winning before
we go to Suva, you guys, because I know
pretty much to
Fiji it's a red-eye flight, so
it's like you leave
LAX at like almost one in
the morning and then you get to Fiji at
like two days later at five in the
morning or five or almost six in the
morning, so it's a red-eye flight
some people can't sleep on planes, I
sleep like a baby on a plane, I have no
issues sleeping on planes at all
but some people do so that's why I
gave some people the opportunity of going straight
to Suva and you
know, not doing any soul-winning but I'm like, hey, anyone
who is able to sleep on a plane
or who wants to go soul-winning
then they're able to go, so anyway
they can go with my group and then we would go
to Suva later on
well, anyway, I was
telling people that, because it was really early
in the morning, this is like, by the time
we kind of got settled down, it was like eight in
the morning and
the first group that was going
straight to Suva already left and
I took everyone back to our hotel and I'm just like
hey, if you just want to rest and relax
and then we can go soul-winning at like
you know, 10.30 or something at a
more reasonable time, you can
but the thing is, I like leave for a second
because I had to drop off some
people somewhere and then
I come back and like, everyone's gone
and I'm like, I don't know where everyone's at
so then, this is, well, I'll leave
them alone because the people
know who I'm talking about but anyway
but
so then I leave and then I come back
and then they're all gone
so I'm like, what happened to everybody?
so then I start like driving around
trying to see where everyone's at and they're literally like
down the street at a bus stop
and they're just like, preaching the gospel
this is like 8.30 in the morning
and they're just preaching the gospel to all these people
I'm like, I'm like, hey, you guys know you don't have
to do that but I guess, you know, these are
super soul-winners where even at 8.30
in the morning, they still want to go
soul-winning, I'm like, hey, more power to you
so they ended up doing that and
I don't remember exactly how much we got saved
but we got a lot, I think we, if I remember correctly
it was like, by the time we were done and we ended
up heading back to Suva, we got like 40
people saved so it was
a pretty good, good morning for us
that day. Now,
last thing I want to bring up for
Fiji, just because I'm kind of going in order
chronological order of what happened and then
I'll go into Tuvalu and then shouldn't take
too long with Tuvalu but turn with me
to Romans chapter number 8, Romans chapter
number 8. So, while we were there
we ended up visiting another church
and, or
visiting a church in the country
and I didn't really
know exactly what we were going to do for church
I was debating on whether or not we wanted to have our own
service or we wanted to just
go to another church, like visit
a church and more or less be a blessing to that church
to see how it is, see if it's a good
church that we can recommend people to.
Well, anyway, I didn't know
exactly how we were going to do it and on
Saturday, we were
soul winning in the mall area
and that Saturday
was when we were going to head back from
Suva back to, back up to
Nandi to be able to,
because we were going to, everyone was leaving
everyone's flight left from Nandi
back to the US, so we ended up
just leaving Suva on Saturday
because everyone's flight was leaving Monday night
so that they can be able
to, you know, we could have enough time for people
to get settled down in Nandi so we wouldn't be too
far from the hotel instead of like rushing
down to Suva, from
Suva to Nandi because it was like a three and a half
four hour drive to Nandi
so we didn't want people having to
rush to catch their flight and stuff so
I said, hey, let's just leave on
Saturday and then we get to Suva
spend the night in Suva for the next two days and then
everyone else, everyone who's leaving to go to
Fiji, or go back to the US from Fiji
they'll be able to leave on Monday.
Well, anyway, while we're, so that
morning, that Saturday morning we ended up doing like
three hours of soul winning and while we're soul winning
Alex is talking
to a guy and let me read
the verse and then I'll explain
what's going on. Let's just, we'll go for
Bible first then I'll explain what's going on but in
Romans, I don't want to get too ahead of myself
but in Romans 8 26 the Bible says,
likewise the Spirit also helpeth our
infirmities
for we know not what we should
pray for as we ought
but the Spirit itself maketh
intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered
and he that searcheth the hearts knoweth
what is the mind of the Spirit
because he maketh intercession for the
saints according to the will of God
and we know that all things work
together for good to them that love
God and to them who are
called according to his purpose.
Now, I bring that up is that when you love
God a lot of things
are going to happen that you're going to be like
hey, I'm surprised this happened. So
anyway, and this is where I want to get
into was that while Alex was
soul winning, he's talking
to a guy and come to find out it was a guy
and a husband and a wife and come to find
out the guy was a pastor of a church.
Now, he was newly ordained
to be the pastor of a church called Solid
Rock Baptist Church and it was in a
different town but he was saying
that his sending church was in a place
called Latoka and
the guy was saved. He gave when Alex
talked to him, he gave all the right answers about salvation.
So, we're like
well, maybe we should just go to church there
and want to go back to
Nandi. So, we looked it up and it was only like
a 40 minute ride from
our hotel to that church. So, we're
like you know what, let's just do it. So, I think
God was able to work it out in
that circumstance that
Alex just happened to talk to a guy
that happened to be at that mall
that happened to be in Suva that had a
church that was actually close to where we were at
and we were able to go to that church
and the service
like on that Sunday
the guy, the
pastor seemed like a nice guy.
I do think he may have been possibly dispensationalist
because on his, he had a wall
and it had like the seven dispensations
or no sorry, it had the seven
church ages. So, I don't know if he
we didn't ask questions, we just went.
So, you know
my thing is sometimes it's just like best
not to know just hopefully the guy's
like a good guy. So, I didn't
ask too many questions but he did preach
against, he kind of was like
while he was preaching and he preached a good
a pretty good sermon. He just was preaching
that salvation was by faith.
So, he had a lot of things right and he was even
saying that, you know, the Jews have to
get saved just like anyone else. So,
to this day I don't know exactly where he stands
on
dispensationalism and I don't really
care either because I don't know the next time
I'm going to visit this church but I hope he's a good
guy, you know what I'm saying? So, anyway
we ended up going to that church. The church was a
good service and then after we ended up going
to that church we ended up
going
soul winning at a mall that was in the area
and I don't remember the
exact number of how many people we got saved
but it was
decently receptive while we were there.
One funny thing that happened
I mean it may not be that funny but anyway
one thing that happened to me while I was there was that
I'm preaching the gospel to this lady
and then next thing I know
like all these people
just start running up to
one another and then they start fighting.
Now, I thought someone got shot
so then I was
like thinking about running while I was preaching
also to the lady but I was just like wait
no one else is running so maybe no one else
got shot. So, then come to find out I guess
these guys are just fighting and then
you know that was kind of it but
that was like the only time I've
seen something like that happen in Fiji so I was actually
surprised because I was just like Fiji is supposed to be
such a nice country but like
because they're super friendly there but I'm
like really surprised to see that
you know these guys are just fighting for no reason
or whatever but anyway so
that kind of sums up everything we did in
in Fiji so after we went to church
I left that Monday
to go to Tuvalu
and then the rest of the guys who were
leaving to go back to the U.S. they ended
up staying so on the last
day that they were there, there was eight
soul winners and they were able to get
112 people saved you know
for that day, the day that they left to go
back to the U.S. so I thought that was a really
great accomplishment. So that's
it for Fiji, that's kind of everything that happened
there's a lot more stories that we can tell
but I want to kind of jump into
Tuvalu because I think
some of the things that happened in Tuvalu were really
really cool too while we were there.
So now just to explain what was going on
in Tuvalu was that in Tuvalu
Tuvalu's
like, it's like a two and a half
hour flight north
to get to Tuvalu from Fiji
and while we're in, so
what ended up happening is like while we're planning the
trip they ended up canceling
our flights to
Tuvalu so we thought we were going to get there
on a Saturday but then come to find out
we ended up, they canceled that Saturday
flight so then we had to rearrange a bunch of
stuff so we ended up
having some guys leave to Tuvalu
on a Thursday
and then I just stayed with the rest
of the group and then I left to go to
Tuvalu that following
Monday so while
I was still in Fiji we already had
some people doing some soul winning in
Tuvalu and the cool thing about the
soul winning in Tuvalu was that
it was receptive there too
I know Rob had a really good time
out soul winning when we were
in Tuvalu
and a lot of the other people that were on that trip
had a really good time so I didn't know
all this was going on but we did
have a WhatsApp group and they told us kind of
like kind of how
kind of just to tell us like
more or less what, they gave us a
briefing on what was going on in Tuvalu
so I kind of had an idea but I wasn't
fully aware but what ended up happening
was that in Tuvalu
they ended up that Sunday they ended up
visiting a Baptist church and this
Baptist church was a pretty good Baptist
church I enjoyed that church
a lot when I was there in
Tuvalu because they gave, when I was there
they gave me the opportunity to preach twice
there but what's funny is
Quinn from our church he was
talking to me about
when he found out we were going to Tuvalu
he started talking to me and he was like, hey
I heard you were going to Tuvalu and there was a
pastor I knew back
in I believe
in Iowa and the guy's name I think
was Steve, or a missionary I think
his name was Steve Larson and he said
that he was supposed to be
a pastor in Tuvalu
so he was just like hey if you go there
or when you go to Tuvalu try to find that
church and if you can find that church just
let me know so I was just like yeah
I'll do it so when we get to
Tuvalu come to find out
the pastor or that guy that Quinn
was talking about was actually there
and it was the only Baptist
church on the island but the problem was
was that during COVID he ended up
leaving he ended up going back
to the US and then the people
of that church just kind of ended up taking
like the locals ended up taking over that
church and then
running it
so by the time we got there they
were you know
it was the locals running the church so
that just kind of
gives you an idea of what was going on
prior to me getting there
so when I got there then
you know the fun really started right the party
really happened I'm just joking
but
I do want to stop right there
just to say some
fun facts about Tuvalu because
I'll be honest prior to
earlier this year I didn't even know Tuvalu
existed so I do want to just
at least talk about I like to give a little
fun facts for you nerds out there that
like those type of things so you understand
what Tuvalu
is all about but Tuvalu
it means eight standing
together that's what the word means and
why it means that is because Tuvalu consists of
eight islands it's a
Polynesian island so Fiji
and Vanuatu they're Melanesian
islands but we want
but Tuvalu is actually part of Polynesia
and Polynesia is a stretch from
like Tuvalu to Hawaii
and then to the Easter Island so it makes like this
triangle so it's still in that
South Pacific area but
it's just
more or less different
people group that's there
so it has a population of about 12,000
people and it makes that's
that makes it the third smallest
country in the world and then on top of that
it's made up of six
coral reef atolls which those are just
kind of like things standing
outside the water and then
the inhabited islands
are three coral reef islands and that's where
we were at so the capital
is Funafuti and that's where we did most
of our soul winning at
there's not a lot of when I was
when I actually arrived there there's not a lot of
people that's just like
you know how in other countries
you have like just parks where
you just have tons and tons of people
just congregated there it wasn't like
that inside of Tuvalu
you really other than whenever an
airplane landed and
you know people are picking up or
getting their friends and family from the airport
and stuff you didn't really have just like these
big pockets of people
congregating so when I was there
and I know with some of the other guys in the group
we ended up just doing some we did a
mix of just hey talk to anybody you see on the street
and then on top of talking to
anyone you see on the street doing some door to door soul winning
and then later on towards the end of the trip
we ended up going to some
schools to do some soul winning there
now one interesting thing about Tuvalu
is that there's only five miles
of paved roads so
it's a really really small island
they let you rent motorcycles
there so I ended up renting a motorcycle
and I ended up just driving
across the whole island it takes like 40
minutes to drive like from
one end of the island to the other so
it was pretty cool and when it comes to renting the motorcycle
they don't ask any questions
and I thought that was like like literally
they don't ask any questions the only
question they ask was what's your
name and what hotel are you staying at
and that was it they didn't take my license they didn't
do anything they just
gave me I'm like do you need any more information
the guy was like nope and I was
just like alright and I just got on the motorcycle
revved it up and then drove on
just cause I'm like okay
whatever cause I guess they're really trusting
there and then everybody knows since it's
such a small island everyone knows
everyone there so it wasn't like that big of a deal
now another interesting thing there's only
one hotel on the island
and on top of that there only being
one hotel there's three guest houses
so there's not really a lot
of people there on the island
on top of that for you conspiracy theorists
out there that
are scared of the cashless society
in Tuvalu they only take cash
so that's one thing
about that is that they only take cash
but the problem is there's no ATM
so I don't know
how you're gonna do it but they do have a bank that
does exchange money so it's
not that big of a deal on top
of that it is a really poor country
so you don't get a lot
of the creature comforts that you get in the US
like for instance the showers had
they were not there was no hot water
and a lot of the water that you use in
Tuvalu is just rainwater
so they just reuse a lot of rainwater
on top of that they only have one national
TV channel, no national newspaper
one radio station
and one fully functional
hospital so again it's a really
really poor country and how they make
a lot of their money is through internet
royalties because they have
domain rights to the
.tv domain
of a URL so that's how they make
a lot of their money as well as they let
people from other countries come in
and fish so I
saw lots of animals
outside the island because we went to
on one of the I guess
more or less wreck days we ended up
visiting a few different islands
so I was able to see a lot of just
animals I'm surprised
that exist in the wild but I was able to see sharks
just there's like these sharks
that are about that big they're called
black tip reef sharks so
I saw several of those I saw
some flounders so I saw a lot of
animals and then they have a lot
of stray dogs there so Raymond
would not like it if he was in
Tuvalu because they have a lot of stray
dogs but the cool thing about it is the dogs
are like super chill they do not
bother people at all like I went
to go check out the beach and then I
saw a dog literally just like
go into the water and then it went swimming
for a little bit and then it just like got out of the water
shook itself off and then like started laying
on the beach and it did that for like the rest of
the time I was on the beach just chilling
I was just like alright man
more power to you
on top of that in
Tuvalu they only take
Tuvaluan dollars and then they also
take Australian dollars
so we don't know how to get
Tuvaluan dollars but we were able to get Australian
dollars and that's how we were able to
function while we were on the trip they also
let you they drive on the left side of the road
so similar to
Fiji and then the two main
languages are Tuvaluan and
English and then
technically they're still part of
like the British colonies because I don't think they
have their independence yet but they
deal with everything all the stuff locally
and on top of that you have
chiefs on the island that kind
of dictate what people could do to a
certain extent there
and then one very interesting thing
was that there I don't
so I don't remember seeing any
cemeteries so I do not believe there are any
cemeteries there in Tuvalu
so how they do it is that in front of
buildings you'll have like a coffin
in front of the house or in
front of a building so like where our hotel was
at you had like you had
like a coffin and I guess that's where
they put their dead you know
relatives there so you know grandma's always
watching you literally
wherever you're at so
and what you would see people do
is it's like it's really weird but they
would start they would either lay and
sleep on these coffins or
if they're not laying and sleeping on the coffins
they're like I like I remember
seeing one lady just crying on it she's like
sleeping on it and crying on it and sleeping on it so I'm
just like okay
I mean whatever so
anyway that just gives you an idea of
Tuvalu and one another
thing is that when it comes to religion
it's 94% Christian
so the
biggest church is called the Church of Tuvalu
and they're Calvinists I ran into a few
of the people that go to that church while
I was there it seemed like some people were
saved some people are not just
dependent on who you talk to
and then
but you know the majority of
of Tuvalu is Christian and they have
a few other religions or people
are not religious at all so like
2% is like Baha
Faith and then the rest is either other
or no religion so we
did see as much as it
stinks is that we did see
all your cults on
Tuvalu for it to be such a small island
there was still
there was a bunch of Seventh-day Adventists
Mormons and SDAs
sorry and Jehovah's Witnesses
on the island so you had both
of those or all three of those cults
had buildings on the island and
I didn't really see any Mormons
but I know they had a building on that island
so you know that's kind of a bummer that
even a small country
like that you still have
false religions trying to
infiltrate that so
getting back to the story when I got
to Fiji or sorry
when I left Fiji and got to Tuvalu
I ended up going soloing as soon as I got
there so I got to Fiji
roughly at like noon so
the airport
and the hotel we stayed
at are literally from where this pulpit
is at to that wall where the clock is at
that's how close they are so I
literally got off the flight
went through immigration and then just walked
straight to my hotel room
put my stuff down and then ended up going
going soloing as soon as
I got there and when I went soloing
I liked it a little bit better than
Fiji
for the reason that in Fiji
a lot of the people I talked to
they would kind of string you along
whenever you would try to preach to them the gospel
some people it happened more than others
like I know for instance Nick told me
that happened to him every now and then
Alex seemed like he had more success
that didn't happen that much but
I would literally give the gospel to someone
and I would spend
15-20 minutes
talking to someone trying to give them the gospel
and they would
they would seem like
they're agreeing they would give you
all the right answers but at the end
you kind of just ask them some more questions
you say hey what does it take to be saved
and they'll just give you all the wrong answers
again and you're just like am I doing something wrong
but it's either that they just really didn't
care what you had to say they were kind of
stringing you along or they just really didn't understand
so that was the problem in Tuvalu
what I liked was and another thing in
Fiji they it was hard for people to
say no and I think that was one reason why
people would just listen to the gospel
even though they didn't believe it and in
Tuvalu it was a different story in Tuvalu
if someone didn't want to listen to the gospel
they'll just tell you no I'm not interested
I don't want to listen and I actually
liked that a little bit more just because at least the person's
up straight it's like hey I'm not going to waste
your time you're not going to waste my time it's a mutual
agreement there and in Tuvalu
it was like that Fiji I guess
it was hit or miss with that
but when I got there
it was a little rough at the
beginning when I was going soloing
because I saw Rob's post in our other
WhatsApp group and it seemed like
he was having a bunch of success anyone who
seen some of Rob's Facebook posts
you know he was taking pictures of all these
kids and you know it seemed like
he was having a good time but it was kind of rough for me
at the beginning but then
after that I ended up getting
my like within maybe an hour, hour and a half
I was able to get my first the first person
saved and another thing
there is that I ended up going
door to door soloing just
because I couldn't find any real people on the road
but what was kind of weird about
Tuvalu was that
you'll knock on a door and either
the door would already be open or
people if it's already open then what
you'll do is you'll see people just laying on the floor
because I guess they didn't have any
furniture there a lot of time
because it's such a poor country so you'll just see
people literally laying on the floor
I thought some people were dead at the time
like I was just like man is this guy dead
I was like man I guess I caught you at a bad time
but I literally thought some people were dead but I was
just like oh they're sleeping so then
that made sense I was just like okay
I would either knock louder or try to get
their attention but that happened to the first
guy I was preaching to was that he was just
laying on the floor knocked on his door
kind of got him I woke him up and then
I ended up preaching to him and he was super
receptive his English was great
and he ended up getting saved and even there
the English was not bad like for
there are some people who spoke English rather
than others I didn't have a lot of success with
kids it seemed like kids didn't speak English
that well like kids under 10
but kids above 10
their English was great like you couldn't preach to
a bunch of kids they were able to get saved
so another thing
was this is that
I had the opportunity to preach at
the church that they
visited it was called Grace Bible Baptist
Church and that's in Tuvalu
and what ended up happening was this is when
I landed and
we started talking they were like hey Caleb we want
you know the church wants us to
preach on Tuesday night
and I was just like okay
and they're like we want you to preach
I'm like me to preach and at
this time I was sick like the whole
trip I was sick and
like I had that
everlasting cough like
where I just could not stop coughing
it sounded like you know a bunch of bullfrogs
like mating that's how bad my cough
was and I was just constantly
coughing and then it got to
the point because we were singing
at church the day before
I was singing so loud that I was
losing my voice so by the time I got
to Tuvalu my voice
was pretty much just completely shot so
I'm like I don't know if I want to preach
just because I can't I'm not feeling that
great and then my voice
isn't really there but then I
just decided to preach anyway so
that Tuesday night I ended up
preaching at the church and
what they like the group
that was already there they kind of told
me what was going on they said the church
wasn't doing a lot of soul winning
so they said it would be good
to preach a message that like kind of motivates
them to go soul winning because they said
their idea of soul winning was that they would pass
out tracts and they
would only give tracts to people who wanted
them so if someone didn't want a tract
they wouldn't even give it to them and on top of that
you know they weren't really bold in how they preached
so then I just preached a sermon
about confrontational
evangelism so I just showed them
why we do confrontational evangelism
why we present the gospel
the way we do where we ask people if they know
for sure they're going to heaven and if they're not
sure then we preach them the gospel and then
hopefully that person is able to get saved so
I was able to do that
or able to preach that sermon just show
people show them you know
what you know our method of soul winning
and how it works so then after
I was done preaching Rob he ended
up him and someone else they ended
up doing a soul winning presentation
just so that they can understand
how to preach the gospel so
then the next
so after the service was done
I ended up saying
I asked the congregation I was just like
hey we're going to be soul winning all day tomorrow so
if any of you guys want to join up with us
you know feel free to so
a lot of the guys said hey we have to work
we don't get off at five but we do want
you guys to come back tomorrow for their
midweek service on Wednesday and
preach so I was just like
okay so then they're asking us if we
can preach again so I was just like yeah
you know that would be great so
but we did have
one of the people from the church
actually go out soul winning
with us after you know that Wednesday
morning I guess they heard that
we were soul winning they got in contact with
us and then they said hey you know what
I'm willing to go out with you guys for a few hours
to go soul winning to see how you guys do it
so we took one of the church members
out soul winning she was able to see how
we do our soul winning
and we were able to be a blessing to her
in that way so that she could be able
to preach the gospel there because the
thing is Tuvalu is small and you can
talk to a lot of people in
a short amount of time it's only 12,000
people so I believe if someone
just spent a few months in Tuvalu
you can probably get that whole
country reached with the gospel
in a really short amount of time I
don't think it would take it would take that long
well anyway
so when it comes to the preaching on the
Wednesday night I decided
I was just like you know what I wanted to give
some of the guys the opportunity to preach
just so you could know that hey
if you visit a different church
than or sorry if you go and do
missions trips or missions works
outside of
you know you go to another country and do missions work
there may be chances or times
where you're going to have to get in front of a church
and preach to them so
and you're not going to know when that's going to happen
but sometimes they'll just you go visit
a church and they're like hey oh you're a missionary
hey come and preach for us and they'll just
do that so I said I just want
to give the guys who are on the trip the opportunity
to preach since that happened
to me like the day before that I didn't
know I was going to preach and I ended up having to preach
so I just said this I said
my rule and I think this is
this lines up with the church rule is like if you're going
to preach at someone else's church
do not preach stuff
that's contrary to their beliefs
so even if the church is pre-trib
don't preach
a sermon about the pre-trib rapture
or you know a sermon against the pre-trib
rapture you know it's their church
respect their church so
so just preach a normal message
that has nothing to do with whatever
doctrines we disagree with that was kind of my
rule and that's what I told them so
anyway Rob ended up preaching
that Wednesday night and he preached about soul winning
I preached the sermon just about how
a church should look like and I was just trying to
encourage the people of the church so they
understand that you know just different
like what we do at our church
and you know how we believe a lot of the stuff
we do at our church is biblical
such as like congregational singing
you know church discipline things like that
so I just explained those things
in the sermon just so they can understand
you know what is a biblical church and what a biblical
church looks like that they have hard preaching
against sin and so on and so forth
now last
thing I want to bring up is this and
that you know that's kind of the gist of that
so we ended up going soul winning on Wednesday
and then we went to the, we preached on Wednesday night
and then Thursday was the day we left
so I just want to wrap up with what happened
on the last day and then we'll be done
so go with me to Acts chapter number 28
Acts chapter number 28 so
one thing I really liked about Tuvalu
and this just kind of wraps it
up in a nutshell is that
in Tuvalu they give you the
you have the freedom to preach the gospel
and sin is going to stop you from preaching the gospel
except for one guy and I'll get to that
but
literally one guy is the only one
that's going to stop you from preaching the gospel
I'm not joking about that there's only one guy
so the Bible reads in Acts 28 verse 30
it says, and Paul dwelt
two whole years in his
own hired house and received
all that came in onto him
preaching the kingdom of God and teaching those things
which concern the Lord Jesus Christ
with all confidence
no man forbidding him
so towards the end of Paul's life
he had the opportunity of being able to preach to different people
and no man stopped him from preaching
well anyway
we had the same thing happen to us
where Rob, he ended up
while we were on the trip
he ended up preaching to three kids
and then the group grew larger and larger and larger
so then a police
while Rob is preaching to these kids
a police officer comes up to him
and he's like, hey, excuse me
can you move these kids off the road
and move them onto the sidewalk
because it's safer there
so the guy was really nice
he just was like, hey, I don't want the kids in the road
but you can still preach to them
another thing was that the last day
the Wednesday
the Wednesday we were there
before we left
we ended up going soul winning
at a school
and I said this
we got there roughly like 9, 30, 10 o'clock
and kids were still going into class
and I said my rule
about
when kids are going to class
I just said I've been to other countries
other countries take education serious
so I said, hey
for right now until the kids
actually get out of class and they're on their own
I said, let's just
not preach to any kids
let them go to class first and then we'll wait a few hours
once they get out of class
then we'll preach to them because I know
adults get really mad, especially in other countries
when you stop kids from
getting their education or whatever
so I said that and did anyone
listen to me? Some people did
but not everyone listened to me
so as soon as I said that
we dispersed and we started going soul winning
and then we had people talking to kids
even though I said, don't talk to any of the kids
right now because I know you're going to get
rebuked for it by one of the adults
well, lo and behold, exactly what I said
happened
so someone's preaching to some of the kids
and then an adult comes up to them
and tells them, hey
you can't preach to the kids right now
but once they get out of school
then you can preach to them
so we were still able to preach to the kids
it was just that, don't preach to them while they're in class
and on top of that, we ended
up getting the opportunity to
preach to that school the day
we left, so we left on a Thursday
and we worked out some stuff to be able to preach
in some of the classes, so
three of the guys that were on the trip
or three of the men that were on the trip, we ended up
preaching in the classrooms
to a lot of the students
on top of that, there was another time
where, this is when I first landed
and then I was soul winning
and when it came to Rob
in Tuvalu, you never knew where Rob was at
the only way you can figure out where Rob was at
is if you check Facebook
and he would like post
like pictures of what was going on, you're like
oh, I know where Rob's at now, that's how you would
figure out where Rob is at, you would not know
where he's at just because he would disappear
and then he would just show up on Facebook
but anyway, I was
I was out, I was soul
winning and then I ended up running out of materials
so then, I'm
walking back to the hotel and then
I see Rob preaching to some
kids, so then I'm like waiting
while Rob is preaching to
the kids, so then this lady
ends up calling me over and she's just
like, hey, come here, come here, I want to talk to
you, I'm like, oh man, because you know in the US
if you're talking to little kids, people
are going to get really mad at you and the kids are just
outside like just walking or playing or whatever
but I'm like, oh, she's going to
she's going to get on this for this, so then
I start talking to the lady and
then she's just like, oh, is he with you? I'm like
yeah, he's with me and then she's just like
oh, I'm so thankful that he's preaching to
them right now and then I was just like, huh?
and she was just like, yeah, I'm so thankful
that he's preaching to them because
a lot of the parents don't preach to the kids here
in Tuvalu, so then
I'm glad that he's taken the time
to preach to them about Jesus Christ
so then I talked to the lady, come to find out she was
already saved and she wasn't stopping
us from preaching the gospel, she was happy that
we were preaching the gospel to the people
and to the kids in Tuvalu
now, last thing I want to bring up
is just that we had some opposition
while we were there, now
I was going to go over a story but I feel like
I don't want to take too much time
but like go
over the Bible story but I'll just skip to
the story with that but
while we were in Tuvalu, we were soul winning at a school
and then some guy ends up
following us
to different places while we were soul winning
so we were soul winning roughly at like an elementary slash middle school
and this guy ends up coming up
to us and saying, hey, you
guys shouldn't be preaching here
and then we're like, we have permission from
the school to preach here because this was after the kids
got out of class and
the administrator said, we can preach there
you know, they told two different people
that we can preach there
with no problem, so
the guy was just being a jerk
trying to get us to stop preaching
so then anyway, the kids, a lot of the
elementary school students ended up
leaving, so then we went to a
high school and then we started preaching to the high
school student, while the same bozo
ended up coming and following us
to the high school
and then I literally just
finished preaching the gospel to like five
high school students and then
once we were done
the guy just comes up to us and
then he just tells me, he's just like, you need to go to
Papua New Guinea, I was just like, yeah, we're planning
on that soon, that's what I literally told him
and then he was just like, because I don't want you
here in Tuvalu, I was just like, okay
I was just like, okay
I was just like, so the guy was just like
yeah, I don't like that you guys are here
you need to go take this, your
stuff somewhere else, so I was just like
are you a Christian, I asked him, I was like, are you a Christian
and he was just like, yeah, I'm a Christian, so I'm like
so what's the deal, so he's just like
yeah, I just don't want you guys here, so
then I literally just finished
preaching to those students and then
I turned to them, I'm like, hey, I don't want you guys
to be rude to an adult, but I was just
like, before I got here, did
you guys know if you were going to heaven
and then the kids were like, no
I said, after
I talked to you, now do you know for sure
you're going to heaven and then they were like,
yes, I was like, if I
did not come here and preach to you,
would you have known that you were going to heaven
or where would you be going, and they were like, hell
so I was just like, okay, so I turned back
to the guy, I'm like, so it seems
like there are people here in
Tuvalu that don't know the
gospel, that want to get saved
and you're sitting there telling me to go to
another country, I'm like, dude, you're
making no sense, so then the guy just
yaps off at me and then walks away, so
it's just like, come on, you know, but
anywhere you go, you're always going to have weird
people like that, that just
want to give you
trouble when you're out soul and you're doing a good work
for God, so, anyway, that's our story
with Tuvalu, after we went soul winning
there on the Thursday, we went soul winning Thursday
morning, got on the airplane, went back to
Fiji and then flew back to the
US, so
it was a really good trip, again, we had
200 in Tuvalu, we ended up having
207 people saved
and
we want to go there
again, like, I would love to go back to
Tuvalu, just especially to see, because we had such
great fellowship at the church, I
wanted to be able to see what that church is doing
so
as a conclusion, just to wrap everything
up is this, I know the sermon was long
so
and I didn't even get to every story, so
I'm glad you guys bore with
me, but I just wanted
to help you understand what a successful
mission trip looks like and that I
believe this trip that we went to
Fiji and Tuvalu
was a successful mission trip, it went
pretty smooth, we had some hiccups on the way
and while we were there we had a few hiccups
but it was nothing that was too major that
you know, we couldn't deal with, but
I'm glad we took this trip there, it was a
great trip, super receptive, the people
were great and you can just see how
just the principles of common sense
missions goes with
do it yourself missions, you know, you go to a place
where you know the language, so it's easier
to preach to people who are receptive, you go
to a place that's receptive, safe and
legal so that you'll enjoy the
soul winning and that you're not going to be hindered
by preaching the gospel and then
you know, with do it
DYI missions, you have the opportunity of
going anywhere you choose that fits
that criteria and you can
be able to go preach the gospel there
and have a great time doing it, so
this is, you know,
with the choice or with do it yourself
missions, then you have the choice of
where you want to go as long as you
have all the right principles to do a great work
of God, so let's pray, Lord, I thank you for all you've done
thank you for giving us the opportunity to go to
Ephesia to Tuvalu earlier this year
to be able to serve you and do a great work
I just pray that you can help continue
to let us have more and more missions trips
and that you continue to
bless our lives as we serve you, I thank you for all you've
done, Lord, and I pray in Jesus' name I pray, amen
Alright,
we're going to go and get the song, but
we'll be dismissed now
if you didn't catch the announcement earlier
there's a pass
you