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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Until some deed of greatness you may do is how this begins right in the corner. Let's sing it out together now. Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do. Do not wait to shed your light afar. To the many duties ever near you now be true. Right in the corner where you are. Right in the corner where you are. Right in the corner where you are. Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar. Right in the corner where you are. Just above our clouded skies that you may help to clear. Let a narrow self your way depart. Go into an art song of cheer. Right in the corner where you are. Right in the corner where you are. Right in the corner where you are. Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar. Right in the corner where you are. Here for all your talent you may surely find a need. Here we thread the bright and morning star. Even from your humble hand the bread of life may feed. Right in the corner where you are. Right in the corner where you are. Right in the corner where you are. Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar. Right in the corner where you are. Amen. Good things tonight. Alright at this time please turn to Bibles chapter 8 in the book of Acts. Acts chapter number 8. Once again please turn to Bibles to Acts chapter number 8. Acts chapter number 8 the Bible reads And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul he made havoc of the church entering into every house and hailing men and women committed them to prison. Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them. And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits crying with loud voice came out of many that were possessed with them and many taken with palsies and that were lame were healed. And there was great joy in that city. But there was a certain man called Simon which before time in the same city used sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria giving out that he himself was some great one to whom they all gave heed from the least to the greatest saying this man is the great power of God. And to him they had regard because that of a long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ they were baptized both men and women. Then Simon himself believed also and when he was baptized he continued with Philip and wondered beholding the miracles and signs which were done. Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God they sent unto them Peter and John who when they were come down prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost. For as yet he was fallen upon none of them only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then laid they hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost. And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles hands the Holy Ghost was given he offered them money saying give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him thy money perish with thee because thou has thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou has neither part nor lot in this matter for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. Then answered Simon and said pray ye to the Lord for me that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me. And they when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord returned to Jerusalem and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans. And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip saying rise and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza which is desert. And he arose and went and behold a man of Ethiopia and Eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians who had the charge of all her treasure and had come to Jerusalem for to worship was returning and sitting in his chariot read Isaiah the prophet then the spirit said unto Philip go near and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah and said understandest thou what thou readest and he said how can I accept some man should guide me. And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture which he read was this he was led as a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb done before his shearer so opened he not his mouth and his humiliation his judgment was taken away and who shall declare his generation for his life is taken from the earth. And the Eunuch answered Philip and said I pray thee of whom speakest the prophet this of himself or of some other man. Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. And as they went on their way they came unto a certain water and the Eunuch said see here's water what doth hinder me to be baptized. And Philip said if thou believeth with all thine heart thou mayest. And he answered and said I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still and they went down both into the water both Philip and the Eunuch and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water the spirit of the Lord called away Philip that the Eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus and passing through he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea. Dear Heavenly Father thank you for this opportunity to gather here tonight and thank you for this missions conference. Lord I pray that you just open up our ears to hear and to receive the message that is going to be preached to us by brother Caleb. In the name of prayer Amen. Amen. Alright so I want to thank everyone for being here tonight. I also want to thank Pastor Anderson for giving me the opportunity to preach about Vanuatu today. So if you're here in Acts chapter number 8 and look down at verse 36 where the Bible reads, went on their way they came unto a certain water and the Eunuch said see here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized and Philip said if thou believeth with all thine heart thou mayest and he answered and said I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and he commanded the chariot to stand still and they went down both into the water both Philip and the Eunuch and he baptized him. So the title of my sermon comes from verse number 36 where it says see here is water and it's just more or less a play on words of a recent trip that we took to the island country of Vanuatu. So in Vanuatu we had three soul winners and we were able to get 127 people saved in the course of about a week. So what I want to do is use this story here in the book of Acts in Acts chapter number 8 to talk about the trip and just describe some of the things that happened on the trips that we took about two months ago. Now keep your place here in Acts chapter number 8 because we're going to go back and forth through it so maybe just keep like a paper or something in there but just as a way of introduction Acts chapter number 1 verse 8 says this but ye shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you and ye shall be both you should be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in Judea in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the other most part of the earth. Now the principle we find here in Acts chapter number 1 is this is that you first start preaching the gospel in your local area and then you go global kind of what Raymond constantly talks about just you reach your local area first and then you're able to go and reach the rest of the world and that's the principle that the disciples used they preach the gospel in their local area first in Jerusalem and then they eventually spread out to different parts of the world and for instance here like in Phoenix we've knocked a lot of doors I would say probably all the doors within a 20 mile radius other than like new builds have been knocked by or not 20 mile 20 minute radius have been knocked by our church also you know for instance South Phoenix I personally have probably knocked different parts of South Phoenix maybe 5 to even 7 times since I've been here and our church has probably knocked it between like 12 to 15 times so we've been doing a lot of soul winning in this local area and I believe because of that God's opening up doors to be able to preach the gospel in places around the world now we don't just even reach all the poor areas either we've reached people in more or less the rich areas what we consider the rich areas or the middle class upper middle class areas here in Phoenix like parts of Allatookee where you know the houses are expensive there we actually knocked out most of the houses or a lot of the neighborhoods in Allatookee or different parts of Scottsdale and Arcadia we've knocked out a lot of those parts of that area so I believe because we've been faithful to preaching the word of God, God has opened those doors for us to be able to preach in foreign countries now turn back to or you should be in Acts look at Acts 8 5 the Bible reads in Acts 8 5 then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ onto them and the people with one accord Acts 8 6 and the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake hearing and seeing the miracles which he did for unclean spirits crying with loud voice came out of many that were possessed with them many taken with palsies and that were lame were healed and there was great joy in that city so we see here in Acts chapter number 8 before he even runs into the Ethiopian eunuch Philip is already preaching the gospel in Samaria and how do we know it was the gospel? Well look at Acts 8 12 the Bible reads and says but when they believe Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ they were baptized both men and women then Simon himself also sorry then Simon himself believed also and when he was baptized he continued with Philip and wondered beholding the miracles and signs which were done so we see in Acts 8 12 and 13 that many of the people that Philip was preaching to that they ended up believing in Christ they put their faith in Christ and then they were also baptized and then even Simon the former sorcerer because I don't believe he was a sorcerer after he got saved but you know we often call him Simon the sorcerer he ended up getting saved he ended up putting his faith in Christ and then he ended up getting baptized now look at Acts 8 25 the Bible reads in Acts 8 25 and they when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord returned to Jerusalem and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans and the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip saying arise and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza which is desert so God gives Philip the opportunity to go to a not too far but it's a foreign field not close to Jerusalem to be able to go preach there and it says in Acts 8 30 8 27 and he arose and went and behold a man of Ethiopia a eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians who had the charge of all her treasure and had came to and had come to Jerusalem for to worship whereas returning and sitting in this chariot reading and in his chariot read Isaias the prophet then the spirit said unto Philip go near and join thyself to this chariot so I believe that since Philip was already preaching in his local area already doing soul winning already reaching the loss in his local area then God gave him the opportunity to be able to preach to the low hanging fruit that we know as the Ethiopian eunuch as he was going down to Gaza or Gaza and just like Philip was doing a lot of soul winning in his day you know again our church has done a lot of soul winning here in the Phoenix area as well as Arizona and then even just different parts of the country and around the world so I believe because of that God has given us like he's opened doors and just other places for us to be able to preach now this leads me to the reason why we chose to do some soul winning in Vanuatu and I'll get to what a Vanuatu is in a moment but before going to Vanuatu I would say maybe earlier this year when we were planning our trip to Fiji I heard about Vanuatu we were in a group chat on WhatsApp and someone was like hey after we're done soul winning in Fiji maybe we should go to Vanuatu so that was the most I knew about Vanuatu I just heard it in a chat so then after that it was around July a lot of people have you know obviously have labor day off so someone came up to me and they were like hey we should probably plan another trip to to do another to do another missions trip somewhere I was just like yeah that's a great idea so at first what we were thinking of doing is we thought we were going to go to Africa but the problem with going to Africa was the tickets were just way too expensive at that time for some reason so then because of that we were thinking well maybe we can go somewhere in the South Pacific again but I didn't necessarily want to go back to Fiji since we were already in Fiji a few months ago so because of that what was going on was there was a deal on Fiji Airways where you can get from or airlines whatever you call it but you can get a ticket for $700 that would get you from LAX to Fiji so we're like okay so we definitely we can at least get to Fiji so now we got to figure out what country we can go to in the South Pacific so Raymond was already planning on going to Samoa at the at somewhere in September but we didn't have the dates settled on when he was going and then on top of not having the dates settled on when he was going we didn't know if you know he can take other people because at the time it was just supposed to be Raymond and Alex that were going so we didn't know if he was going to be able to have a bigger group that went with him so anyway what ended up happening was this was that I was talking to the person I said well this is my these are my three criteria for going to another country it was this it was that if I'm going to go to Fiji first of all it's only going to be a layover I did again I just didn't want to go back to Fiji since we were already there and we did missions earlier that year my second criteria was this since we were trying to go the week of Labor Day was that I wanted to go somewhere that had flights like to another country that because let me back up a little bit Fiji is a pretty big hub for getting to other countries in the South Pacific so because of that I was just like hey I want to have a go to a place that has multiple flights back and forth to Fiji at least one flight a day so just in case we miss one flight or something happens then we only have to wait 24 hours to get the next flight rather than having to wait a few days because for instance with Tuvalu the only way we can get to Tuvalu was that they only had two flights a week and those flights were on Monday and Thursday so I just wanted to make sure that we had a place that we can get to you know we can get flights every day so in case something happens then it would make it easier to be able to get back to the US and then I didn't want to go somewhere that was too expensive now the problem with that was that many of the places in the South Pacific they were just really expensive to get to or they didn't meet that criteria of having multiple flights per day so that was the big problem we faced so while we were just checking all these different countries the only two countries that met those criteria that criteria was either Samoa or Vanuatu so because of that we were just like you know what let's just go check out Vanuatu and see how it is and I believe it was a great choice for us because of that now I'm going to have you turn to just to get you somewhere it's fine so anyway because of that that's all we ended up choosing Vanuatu for our missions trip so while we were planning out the trip what's funny is that we're on someone's on Facebook and they sent like a video of a Baptist pastor inside of Vanuatu literally praying for missionaries to come so he's like hey I I'm praying that some guys will come to Vanuatu you know that are missionaries and do a missions trip there and I see the video I'm like well his prayers been answered because we're going to Vanuatu so we ended up buying our tickets and then you know I'll go into some detail of what happened while we were there so that gives you an idea of just why we chose Vanuatu it wasn't anything special the Holy Ghost didn't come in my bedroom after I finished reading the Bible in the morning and said hey you're going to Vanuatu now it was just that we had different criteria that we wanted to meet before we ended up going so anyway just to give you an idea or just again some fun facts about Vanuatu so you'll know a little bit more about it is that it's another Melanesian country it's about 500 miles east of Fiji so you have Fiji here and then Vanuatu is 500 miles away from that and then if you're still not familiar with where Fiji is then it's roughly about if you know where Australia is it's about 1100 miles away from Australia west so 1100 miles west of Australia you'll find Vanuatu on top of that it's again a Melanesian island so with Melanesia earlier I said in my earlier term I said Papua New Guinea that's where it kind of the borderline but it's actually Indonesia too so Indonesia and Papua New Guinea they share like a border so it goes as far out as Indonesia and then far out west as Indonesia and then as far out east as Fiji so that's that Melanesia area Melanesians again they are as like a people group they're dark skinned people that have the ability of growing blonde hair especially as young children I mentioned that this morning just for people who weren't here this morning or didn't hear the sermon this morning but Melanesians are darker their dark skin so sometimes my complexion lighter darker it varies but they they can grow blonde hair as a child and then as they grow older the blonde hair goes away so that's just something interesting about them on top of that the country is made of 82 islands and out of those 82 islands 65 of those islands are inhabited and only 14 of those islands have a surface area of 100 square kilometers that doesn't really matter to us in the US because we don't use the metric system so anyway all the islands are part of this thing called the Ring of Fire and what the Ring of Fire is it's just this it's a part of the it's a part of the South Pacific that has a lot of volcanic activity so you'll have a lot of places in that area where you'll see a lot of volcanoes and they believe that's how a lot of these islands were formed in that area is because the Ring of Fire and even in Vanuatu there's an island with an active volcano where people go and you can actually see it spewing out lava on top of that Vanuatu pretty much any natural disaster can be found in Vanuatu they get cyclones on a regular basis tsunamis earthquakes mudslides pretty much most things most natural disasters you can find in Vanuatu and then on top of that they have about 200 earthquakes a year but the thing is is most of the earthquakes are like less than five like a magnitude five so it's not as that big of a deal the three largest islands are Espiritu Santo which that sounds familiar if you know a little Spanish the other one is Malakula and then where we were at is an island called Afate so that's where the capital is and where we did most of the soul winning which is Port Vila and that island itself has a population of about 50,000 people now if you want to go to any of the other islands that are in Vanuatu then you have to take either a boat or a ferry now the problem is before we I think earlier this year they had an airline that actually went to every single island or at least most of the major islands that had runways but the problem is I guess through some corruption and just other things that were going on the airline ended up closing down and it just became a big disaster over there so then because of that they just there's no airline that takes you to the other islands so the only way you can get there is by taking a boat or a ferry and it can take between a day and up to maybe even a week to get to certain islands depending on where you're trying to go on top of that they have a normal parliamentary system and what that means just like a normal government like how we do here in the US but you do have chiefs that rule certain parts and areas of Vanuatu so in some certain cases you may have to get a permission from a chief to be able to do things in a certain area which I'll explain that a little bit later it was ruled by it was one of the few countries that was ruled by both the French and British at the same time for until its independence in 1980 so some of the languages that are spoken there are obviously English and then French and then they have another language called Bislama which is kind of like a pidgin English so if you know if you hear Bislama because we went to a church and the church they're preaching in Bislama for the Sunday service you would probably understand about 50% of what they're saying like I understood that they were preaching on Father's Day but I didn't know like every single detail what they were saying but you can under you can kind of pick up some of the things that they were saying now when it comes to the food the food was okay for the most part I say it like that just because the food was really expensive so I wasn't really able to enjoy anything that was that may have tasted a lot better and we got a lot of our food from a market so like at the market they sold like fresh fruits and vegetables and stuff like that but then they also had people kind of like cooking at a restaurant type style place but the only thing is I know for a fact they were putting MSG in the food like there's no doubt about it but to me MSG stands for mmm so good so so didn't really matter you gotta you gotta take what you gotta take when you're or eat whenever you're in a foreign country so when it comes to animals I didn't really see too many animals other than the there's a banded iguana there so it's like an iguana that like at the place we stayed at I guess there was a wild iguana that came by and it was like it's green and like kind of like a bluish color so it has different stripes on it but outside of that you have really huge spiders I mean the spiders are probably about that big and you just see them all over the place but the cool thing about is none of those spiders are venomous the only ones that are venomous are the only animal that's venomous there is that they have some centipedes that are venomous and then while we were snorkeling there is a we saw something in the water and the guy was telling us it was an eel but I have kids and they love animals so I kind of know a little bit about animals and I saw it and I was like that ain't no eel what it was was it was a banded sea snake and sea snakes are one of the most venomous snakes in the world so we ended up staying in the water but it was more afraid of us than we were of it so it wasn't really that big of a deal but we did see that and then we went to a snorkeling spot and we were able to see like different species of fish and stuff so it was really cool there and it's a really nice place I was just telling Raymond this a little bit earlier if you want to kind of figure out a country that you know some people have been to it's like a mix if Hawaii and St. Thomas you know they ended up getting married and they had a child then that would be Vanuatu so that's how I would describe it because it's like it has some touristy stuff that you can do there but it's not as touristy as you know somewhere like Hawaii but it's still really nice it's a really nice place I would say it's like a little it's a step above St. Thomas but not quite at Hawaii level but the water is like really nice there it's like that really nice blue color like the sky blue color in certain areas and then depending on where you go you'll see the water the different colors of the water change so you'll see like a really light blue color a sky blue color and then it'll kind of go into like a navy blue color so it's really nice there on top of that there's about 350 million people and then you have obviously a lot of the people are locals but then they do have an Asian population there so there's a lot of people from Vietnam that ended up moving to Vanuatu and then there's a lot of Australians and how that works is that if you go to Vanuatu and you stay there long enough then you can become a citizen I think they charge something for it but you can become a citizen of Vanuatu if you stay there for long enough and I've seen other countries do that too I think Ghana does the same thing they drive on the right side of the road which is contrary to most of the countries in that region because in Fiji and Tuvalu we're driving on the left side of the road but there we're actually driving on the right side of the road just like here in the US so there's no difference between driving here or there and the only other place in that area that's like that is New Caledonia on top of that I spoke about the languages but Bislama is one of the big languages that's spoken there on top of that the people were very nice they were very humble the people were really friendly not everyone I talked to or we talked to got saved but most of them they would listen to the gospel whenever they had time and then one interesting thing is that everything is closed down on Saturday so there's a lot of 7-Day Adventists there so because there's a lot of 7-Day Adventists in Vanuatu everything's closed down on a lot of things are closed down on Saturday but then Sunday things were even worse it was just empty because Vanuatu is supposed to be a Christian nation now on top of that let me just go over some quick highlights and then I'll get into some more verses in Acts chapter number 8 but one cool thing is that how getting to Vanuatu works is that you literally can get on a flight and I was talking about this earlier you can get on a flight at around midnight 1 AM in the morning from LAX and then within 10 hours you'll be in Fiji and all you have to do is just wait for you have like maybe an 8 to 9 hour layover and then you can take a daily flight to Vanuatu so they have a flight that leaves every day at around 2.30 PM and then you can get to Vanuatu that way so what we ended up doing is that once we got to Fiji that morning we got there at like 6 in the morning and then after we got through immigration stuff we left the airport and then literally if you walk 20 minutes down the road there's a university where we did some soul winning there on our first trip in Fiji called Fiji National University or FNU so we ended up going there doing some soul winning and within like an hour and a half or two hours we were able to get like 6 people saved just on a layover because it's so easy to leave the airport and then just walk back and then catch our flight so that's what we ended up doing now one of the places we stayed at they said that you need we need to get to the, because it was at like a guest house Airbnb type place they said we need to get there before things get dark if it gets dark then you're not going to be able to navigate to be able to get to to the house so our flight didn't get in until like 3.15 3.30 so we had to rush through immigration and after we rushed through immigration we ended up getting the rental car so the thing is in Banwa too the sun starts setting around 5 o'clock similar to here you know during the winter so at that time we're like rushing to the place and the place is like about 40 minutes from the airport so by the time we got there we actually went the wrong way so then we had to turn around and then get to the place and then by the time we got to the place it was 5 the sun started setting and then they already closed their office so we couldn't find anybody the only people that were there were not people unless you're a weirdo they were dogs there was just a bunch of dogs there and then we we like were trying to find how to get into the guest house and then luckily the person who owned the guest house ended up coming and then giving us the key and then we were able to get in so it wasn't that big of a deal but one cool thing was is that where we were staying was right on a river you literally just had to walk down the hill and then you're right by by this river and we have pictures of it back there so you can see it whenever you get a chance but it was a really really nice place and then one cool thing was was that about the place we were staying was just that because it was kind of a little far out from the city there was no light pollution so if you're someone who's kind of into astronomy you can see like so many stars when you were there and what I learned how to do while I was on the trip was that I learned how to do astrophotography with my phone as long as you have a tripod and a decent enough phone and the right app you can take pictures of like the sky at night and they look really really really cool and I think I'm pretty sure we have a picture of that in the back also so if you want to take a look at it just to see how it is. So now on this trip because it was self funded we only did like roughly two or three hours of soul winning so we didn't really do a lot of soul winning just because we wanted to enjoy our time there so we wanted to you know like the church's standard when it comes to you know if the church pays for some of the things on the trip then it's you know you do five hours of soul winning roughly so we did roughly about three hours of soul winning just because the sun set so early so so it wasn't easy for us to and where we were staying at was just so far off from the university that we were doing most of our soul winning at so because of that it just made it easier if we ended up just doing a shorter amount of time soul winning and then just you know got to see around the island and just enjoy it. One thing we ended up doing is that we drove around the whole island so I brought this you're probably not going to see it unless you're in the front but this is something they give you at the airport and it's just like a map of the country and again you're probably not going to be able to see it but this kind of gives you an idea of how the country or at least the island that we were on look and where we were staying again you're probably not going to be able to see it especially if you're in the back we were staying here and then where we ended up going what was I going to say so we ended up staying here and we ended up just driving around this whole island it's like maybe I'd say an hour and fifteen minute drive but once we it wasn't that long but we were able to see everything and it was a really really really nice scenic drive so we did go to church there there was a Baptist church it was called Grace Bible Baptist Church the people were really nice we ended up going there because they only had two services they had a Wednesday service and a Sunday service so for their Wednesday service they happened to speak English that like they when they do their preaching it's typically in Bislama that's the native language there but they ended up doing they ended up having some services that were in English like they have like I think three Wednesday night services that are in Bislama and then one service that's in English a month so we just happened to come when they had that one English service that month so we were able to hear the preaching in English the people were really nice and then on Sunday we went back and then they ended up giving us like a small little thing of honey for some reason I don't know why but they're like hey it's sweet that you stop that's what it said on it was like it's sweet that you stop by here's a little honey so I was just like alright so they gave us that but again they're really friendly I don't have a good idea of like exactly their beliefs but they were really nice it was a really nice church to visit they talked to us and you know so on and so forth so I have nothing bad to say about them another funny thing is is that when I was there people would say whenever I would talk to someone they would say hey you're African and technically I'm African yes I mean I was born here but my parents are African and I'm just like how do you know so because these guys they just somehow knew that I was African because most other places they just think I'm American even in Africa the times I've been to Africa they think I'm American they don't think I'm African so I was surprised but I guess what's going on is that in those countries you know if you're black then you're probably from Africa they don't think that maybe a lot of black people come to visit from the US or something I don't know exactly why but I was just like hey they're right um I mean I don't know what to say but I just thought that was interesting that they were able to peg it and they were like hey this guy's an African so I was like hey um another funny thing was that when people would walk around they would have machetes like a bunch of people just had machetes so you'll just see guys walking around with a machete the whole time you're there and it was kind of sketchy because you would like walk to different places and the guys would literally just they'll have like a really how should I put it just they look like they're gonna rob you so they have this like really bad look on their face just like and they just have a machete in their hand just walking around like that so then the way I figured out how to like fix that if I just didn't trust the guy I would just say hi and then their whole demeanor would just change it's like the guy has a machete he's just looking all rough and tough and all this stuff and I'm like hi he's just like oh hi and then that was it that's how I fixed that just by saying hi to the guy so I don't know it just worked for me but that's literally how they were there it's just that I don't know why then I even asked them hey why do you guys walk around with machetes and they're just like to cut things down that's what they literally told me I was just like alright good answer so another cool thing is and you'll probably see a picture of that they had a really really nice waterfall and that's where I asked them about the machetes because there was like so walking to the waterfall was just kind of it was really nice because there's like these different pools of water and they're really blue as you walk to it but then the problem was was that you had to pay twice so they had like an entrance fee that was like 20 US dollars and then they had another fee that was like 15 dollars and how they how they did it was they had like they're currently having some land dispute to get to the waterfall so like some Chinese guys bought part of the waterfall so because of that they you can you pay in you pay to like the natives to get on the property and then you pay again after you walk maybe like half a mile and then you have to pay another time because that's where that's the part of the land that the Chinese own so it was just I mean it was a really nice waterfall when I got there but it was just you know that was kind of an issue so they're saying they're trying to fix that and figure out what's going on with that and get that settled but you know it's just it's just one of those things just trying to think of anything else I wanted to say before I move on oh one cool thing is they had this really really nice place that we went snorkeling at and it's called the Blue Lagoon and this water was like super blue and on top of it being super blue like no one was there so like I would say cause you know like if you've ever been to Hawaii like just a lot of things are super crowded in Hawaii but there nobody was there it was just like I would say at the peak time we went at like 2.30 pm and there was like at one day it was like 15 people there and then the next day it was like less than 10 people there the whole time so I thought that was cool and then even walking to the waterfall there was like only there was no one at the waterfall when I walked there it was just people like a lot of the locals just doing work like around the waterfall like digging holes and cutting down trees and stuff like that so anyway let's go back to some Bibles that just gives you an idea of kind of what we did while we were there a little bit just gives you more insight on Vanuatu and just to help you understand just kind of how the culture is and just things in Vanuatu cause I'm sure many of you didn't have not heard about it before now I'm gonna talk about I'm just gonna go ahead and start talking about a lot of the soul winning that we did there inside of Vanuatu so my first point was was this and I gotta remember it I've been talking so long about so much about Vanuatu my first point is just that oh yeah God's gonna open doors if you're soul winning here in the US God's gonna make sure he opens doors in other places so that you can reach people globally but my second point is this is just because someone says that they're a Christian doesn't mean that they're saved I know that's a simple principle it's something we all know but we use the term Christian very loosely in 2024 and even Catholics if you ask a Catholic are they a Christian the Catholics often get to say no they're not but then they still group Catholics into Christianity when they do all their statistics and stuff and the Bible says in Matthew 7 13 enter ye at the straight gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in there at because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few be there that find it now Vanuatu is considered to be a Christian nation so some of the stats on that it's roughly 93-94% Christian and then it's roughly 5% animism and if you're familiar with that it's just like the worship of animals and then it's 1.4% Baha'i faith and then it's about .6% other so and then when it comes to Christianity there is a lot of Protestants there and specifically Presbyterians we ran into a lot of Presbyterians while we were there Seventh-day Adventists we ran into a lot of Seventh-day Adventists not that many Jovis witnesses and ironically we ran into a lot of Mormons there were a bunch of Mormons there we counted probably for the time we were there there was probably like eight pairs of Mormons so like around 16 Mormons like just out walking about trying to preach their false gospel and stuff so yeah so that was something that I found interesting there that there like there's a lot of Mormons there even more than I saw in Tuvalu and Fiji like there was a lot of Mormons now in Acts chapter 8 verse 30 the Bible reads and says even he not his mouth in his humiliation his judgment was taken away and who shall declare his generation for his life is taken from the earth now in Vanuatu out soul winning I don't think I met anyone who was saved and we did a lot of soul winning at the university because again there there was another university of South Pacific which is all over the South Pacific like that's where we did a lot of soul winning in Fiji and also Raymond and Alex did some soul winning there in Samoa so that's where we did a good chunk of our soul winning and we didn't the reason why we did a lot of our soul winning there is that we didn't know how people's English was gonna be so when in doubt if you don't know how well someone's English is gonna be in a country the best thing to do is try to go to a university and at the university their English was great and I don't think I necessarily taught too fast but I didn't really have to slow down the way I spoke to them they understood everything I said you know as I talked to them now we did meet some guys from Fiji from what's called the campus crusade and I remember campus crusade when I was in college and typically they don't really have the right gospel here however when we were in Vanuatu there were some guys from Fiji that ended up coming from the campus crusade that happened to be I guess evangelizing there while we were in we were on the university of South Pacific campus so I ended up running into a few of them and when I talked to them they actually gave me the right answers when it came to salvation like at least I taught the two I taught the three different people that happened to be with the campus crusade and I would say two gave me a solid answer on salvation one I think he was saved but his response wasn't that great but those are the only saved people I can think of that we met out solely I'm not saying there weren't any saved people there it's just there weren't that many that we met even on the college campus or when we actually did some soul winning out and about and again most of the people we talked to were like Presbyterians, Catholics Seventh Day Adventists and again we did talk to some Mormons while we were on the trip one cool thing is we went to and you're not going to see this but I'm just going to point in the direction maybe after service I could show you on this map but we went to this little island so it's called Pele Island on a Saturday and what I thought when it when it came to going to Pele Island we were going to do some soul winning there as well as a little recreation so it's a place where you just go swimming and what ended up happening was I thought the island literally only had like ten houses there so we took we went to a wharf and then we ended up taking about a twenty minute boat ride to twenty to thirty minute boat ride to Pele Island and when we got there what ended up happening was that as soon as we got on the island they said that we needed to have the chief's permission to be able to preach there but then the problem was that as soon as we got there the chief was literally getting on a boat to leave the island so we're like well how can we get the permission of the chief if he's getting on a boat and leaving the island well his brother happened to be there and I guess he's like second in command once the chief is gone so what ended up happening was that Rob ended up talking to the chief's brother and then he ended up preaching to him the gospel and he ended up getting him saved so then after Rob got him saved the guy was like you guys can preach to anyone you want on this island so we were like perfect but the problem was we were already while Rob was preaching to the chief we already started preaching to other people so it didn't really matter but but we did have permission so we were like okay this is great so when we got to the island we went soul winning for probably about two hours and within those two hours we were able to get about thirteen people saved and it wasn't like we were putting that much effort into like trying to preach to people because a lot of the time I was just walking around the island looking at it and then just going up to people and just you know making small talk with them Rob on the other hand he was talking to he ended up giving the gospel to this lady named Janet and then the cool thing is that after you gave the lady this lady the gospel she like became his silent partner out soul winning so then what she would do is she would give she would like take him to different family members so she took him to her aunt and then Rob ended up preaching the gospel to her aunt and then he ended up getting her aunt saved and then he ended up she ended up taking him to other people and then he just was like getting the people saved that she brought him to that she was bringing him to so I thought that was really cool and then for it to be like a remote island I was surprised that their English was pretty decent like you could communicate with these people with no problem like I remember talking to some an older lady and she was just telling me how she's been on the island her whole life I'm like how'd you learn the English you know your English you know since I'm speaking to you in English and she was just like well how I learned it is just that we have a school here and then in the school they actually teach them English so English was not an issue on that island so I thought that was something that was pretty cool now and one cool thing about this island is that it only has 500 people so say if we were to go back I think it would be a good place to do like a soul winning marathon to try to knock out that whole island because it's not really that big and they only have we only knock pretty much one village but they have four villages on the island and I think it's something that we can probably in a week we could probably get that whole island knocked out in uh of Pele um my next point is this third point is that you need a believer to expound the Bible to the lost now why I bring that up is that while we were in Vanuatu we met a lot of people that were quote unquote Christians and even trying to quote unquote serve God and read the Bible but these people were not saved I again I didn't meet when I was in Vanuatu I think I didn't meet any people out soul winning that were saved but it was good because a lot of the people were low hanging fruits and we were able to preach to them and get them saved in a pretty relatively short amount of time now Acts 8 uh 34 says this and the eunuch answered and answered Philip and said I pray thee of whom speakest thou of whom speakest the prophet this of himself or of of some other man then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached onto him Jesus so we see in this passage that again the Ethiopian eunuch he had the Bible he didn't really understand what was going on in the Bible and he needed Philip to expound the scripture to him so he can understand how to be saved and same thing goes on in our day and age is that unsaved people are not going to be able to read the Bible on their own or uh have some another unsaved person talk to him and then that person gets saved they need someone who is saved to be able to preach the gospel to them and I strongly believe that because to me it doesn't really make that much sense how an unsaved person that doesn't understand the Bible that's going to hell can preach to someone and get that person saved and I think Acts chapter number 8 is a very good text verse from the Bible that kind of explains that that hey we have an unsaved we have an example of an unsaved person that didn't know the Bible or that's trying to read the Bible but can't understand it and then you needed someone who was saved to expound that to them the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 1 18 for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness unto us which are saved as the power of God so the preaching of the cross according to the Bible to unsaved people it's foolishness it's dumb so how can someone who thinks the things that are in the Bible you know are dumb or they don't make sense how can they expound the word of God to someone else and get them saved to me it doesn't really make that much sense and then on top of that 1 Corinthians 2 14 says this but the natural man receiveth the things not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can they know them because they are spiritually discerned so unsaved people are spiritually discerned they can't rightly divide the word of God so again how can they be able to get someone saved if they really don't even understand what the Bible is saying now I want you to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter number 3 keep your place in Acts 8 but 1 Corinthians chapter number 3 and when you get there look at verse 3 1 Corinthians 3 verse 3 now what's the solution the solution is this is that we need to go out and preach to these people who are lost and get them saved and then have other believers expound the Bible to to unsaved people so that these people can let other unsaved people can get saved you know the Bible says faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God now the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 3 verse 3 it says for ye are yet carnal for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are ye not carnal and walk as men for while one sayeth I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos are ye not carnal who then is Paul and who is Apollos but ministers by whom ye believe even as the Lord gave to every man I've planted Apollos water but God gave the increase the Bible says that you know Paul and Apollos they're ministers so other people can believe and you can be that too if you're saved if you you you know understand salvation you believe in Christ then you can be able to expound the word of God to other people so that they can get saved and that's our goal is to try to reach as many lost people as we can so and every man has that it's just are those people because you know there's people in my life that you're probably never going to see or talk to that it's my responsibility to give them the gospel and then there's people in your life that I'm never going to talk to and it's your responsibility to give them the gospel and that's why God puts them in our lives so you need to just take the time and try to you know preach that person the gospel and that's how those people are going to get saved now I bring that up because in when we were in Vanuatu we had a lot of people that were like that where for instance Rob he was talking to a seven-day Adventist lady and the seven-day Adventist she was actually receptive to the gospel but she was with her friend and her friend kept trying to pull her away so that she couldn't listen to Rob but the lady kept listening and Rob and her were talking for a pretty long time I think it was like almost 45 minutes and eventually at the end Rob got her to denounce you know seven-day Adventism I don't know how you put it but he ended up getting her to denounce seven-day being a seven-day Adventist and she ended up putting her faith in Christ and same thing with me while I was on the college campus soul winning I was talking to I talked to a lot of seven-day Adventists and I had I'll be honest they had my head they had me scratching my head because I was talking to one guy in particular and this happened twice while I was there but I know enough about the seven-day Adventist doctrine that I'm like when people tell me they believe something I'm kind of like skeptical for instance like when seven-day Adventists they believe in a thing called annihilation so they first of all they believe in soul sleep and what that means is that as soon as someone dies then their soul just rests in the earth until the great white throne judgment got then after the great right throne judgment God ends up judging them and then he cast them into the lake of fire and then they're annihilated so they believe in those two doctrines of soul sleep where a person if they die they don't go straight to heaven or hell they just sleep in the ground until Jesus comes back and then the great white throne judgment and so on and so forth and then they get annihilated so they don't necessarily they don't really believe in hell and then on top of that I remember seeing this in the past and I had to check like the internet to see but I remember seven-day Adventists thinking that Jesus Christ was Archangel Michael so a lot of them did not believe that Jesus Christ was God they say he's like Archangel Michael and then they had a lot of just other weird and false doctrine but I'm talking to this guy like I'm preaching to this guy and I ask him about hell and what I've been doing lately is when I talk to people about hell I'll say things like hey do you believe hell is a literal place of fire and torment and he was telling me yes because what goes on is that I've knocked a lot of doors in Mesa and the thing is Mormons in Mesa do not believe or just Mormons in general do not believe in hell so they think that hell is just a place where you kind of get reformed if you're not like an ex-Mormon so sorry Rob you know but if you're not an ex-Mormon then you're not going to you know if you're an ex-Mormon you're doomed but if you're not an ex-Mormon but you're bad then you know God's going to reform you and then eventually you'll go to one of the three you know heavens or whatever probably the lowest one so that's what they believe so they don't think hell is an actual place of fire and torment so because of that since I know seven-day Adventists don't believe hell is a place of fire and torment then I would often ask them that too because they believe in annihilation so I'm talking to this guy and then he's saying that I'm like hey do you believe hell is a place of fire and torment he's like yes I'm like are you sure because I was like seven-day Adventists don't believe that and he's just like yeah I believe that so I was just like okay and I was just like well do you believe Jesus Christ the dark angel Michael and he was just like no I believe Jesus is the son of God so I was just like something's wrong with this because I'm like this is a little too easy for the God of like give me all the right answers because I'm like I know for I'm in my head I'm like I know for a fact seven-day Adventists don't believe that so it got to the point why like while I'm talking to the guy I'm like look I said I'm glad you believe that but that's not what seven-day Adventists believe and I literally pulled out my phone and then I like went on the seven-day Adventists website to make sure that's what they believe but then I was confused because it was just like I couldn't find it like they were saying the stuff I thought that seven-day Adventists believe was not what they were actually saying on the website so I was just like whatever so I just kept preaching the gospel to the guy and then after that I was just like well I said I kept talking to him about it and another thing I was pretty sure that seven-day Adventists believe is that if you don't keep the Sabbath day then you're not going to be able to be saved you know they'll say they'll sometimes give salvation by they'll say salvation's by faith but then they're really hard they're really adamant that you have to keep the Sabbath so I'm like as I'm giving him my you know as I'm preaching to him the gospel I'm just like hey do you have to keep the Sabbath to be saved he's constantly saying no so I'll be honest I was kind of confused that this guy was just like getting like he wasn't he's saying he's seven-day Adventists he said he was a seven-day Adventist for a really long time but he's giving me all the right answers or at least he's not giving me the seven-day Adventist doctrine so after I gave him the gospel I just got to the end and I was just like I don't really know what to do so I just was like alright this is what I'm going to tell him I said hey look man I said I'm not a seven-day Adventist I'm never going to be a seven-day Adventist I said I don't believe you have to keep the Sabbath day I believe that was done away with in Christ so I was like if I was to work every Saturday or Sunday or whatever you believe about the Sabbath and you know not take any rest and not regard the Sabbath where would I go and he was like you would go to heaven I was just like okay let's pray so then I was just like whatever because at that point it's like what else can you ask the guy it's like I don't know you know I just threw my hands up on that another one and I think this is a really good story was that I was talking to a Mormon guy so we were soul winning on the campus and then I was talking to a Mormon and the guy he ended up happy and sitting on a bench and I ended up trying to preach them the gospel and the same thing since I knew Mormons like whenever I talk to Mormons just to kind of make sure like I know what they like just to not waste too much time on them I just make sure to see what they believe about hell because if they start saying hell is not what you know what the Bible says hell is then I'm not going to waste that much time trying to preach to a person who doesn't believe in hell because if you don't believe in hell then do you really you know what's the need of the savior if you can't if you're not going to be believe in hell but anyway so I ended up talking to him and it was kind of the same thing with him and the Seventh-day Adventist some of the stuff that I'm thinking he was supposed to give me some pushback on some of the questions he wasn't giving me pushback on I asked him about hell he's actually agreeing with me on hell even though he told me it was a Mormon Mormons don't believe that Jesus Christ is God so I was telling him hey the Bible says Jesus Christ is God showing him verses he wasn't really giving me that much pushback on that so with Mormons anyone who's been soul winning in places like Mesa and talked to Mormons you know that Mormons are extremely deceptive so what they'll do is they'll agree with everything you're saying and then just to waste your time and then towards the end let's say you talk to them for about 15 minutes towards the end they're going to say oh yeah we're just like you I believe the same thing you believe and then what are they going to say faith without works is dead I know I'm sure every person that's taught to a Mormon and who's been soul winning for long enough has seen that so anyway I'm just like I didn't trust the guy I'll be honest so because I didn't trust the guy I just was like I don't know what got me but I was just like I feel like this guy is just like pulling my chain so I was just like you know what I'm just going to go off on Mormonism and just see what he says so I just literally went off on Mormonism I was saying like as much bad stuff as I could about Mormonism just to see what he said so I was just like you're a Mormon huh I was like you know Mormonism is a cult I said you know every Mormon is going to hell I was like you know they don't believe the Bible I was like you know what Mormons believe and this is what I'm telling them I'm like you know what Mormons believe they believe that God is on a planet called Kolob and he's sleeping with all these different women populating planets I was like did you know Mormons believe that and then the guy's just like no I didn't so I was just like well that's what they believe so I'm like preaching to him and then I'm like just getting really passionate about it so then I'm like you know what because he was black so I was just like and with I don't use the race card much but when I do I use it with Mormons so so anyway because he was black I'm just like you know what I'm going off so I was just like hey I'm like what's in your book bag I'm like you have a Book of Mormon in your book bag right now don't you because I was like pull that Book of Mormon out and low and behold he had a Book of Mormon in his book bag and then he ended up pulling it out so then I'm like let me show you something so the problem was was this so it was all good up until this point because I know in the Book of Mormon I'm going to read the verses out it says that pretty much if you have dark skin that you have a curse so I was just like I know it says it in there but the problem is the Book of Mormon is a big book of a bunch of garbage so the problem is I don't remember where it was so I'm like sitting there trying to turn and find the pages of where it's at and I just couldn't find the page of where it said like you know people with dark skin or curse so I'm like sitting there for like ten minutes just like hey hold on just be patient just wait just be patient with me I'll find what I'm trying I'll find what I'm trying to show you just give me a few minutes so that got to the point I was just like you know what I'm going on the internet so then I pulled out my phone I was just like where do Mormons believe or where is it saying in the Book of Mormons that black people are going to hell so then I found the verses or that they're cursed so I was just like okay so I was like let me show you this so then I ended up showing them this so actually there's three verses that in the Book of Mormon that say that people with dark skinned or cursed and I'll just quickly read about to you it says in Alma and this is not Bible so bear with me I'm just they try to make it sound like the Bible but it's not but it says Alma 3 6 it says and the skins of the Lamanites were dark according to the mark which was set upon their fathers which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and rebellion against their brethren who consisted of Nephi and don't name your child Nephi because we know you're you're a Mormon so but anyway Nephi Jacob and Joseph and Sam who was just who were just and holy men so also in 3rd Nephi chapter number 2 verse 15 it says and their curse was taken from them and their skin became white like the Nephites so once you're the curse is taken away from you you know what you become white it's like and that's what it says in the Book of Mormon so if you want if you want if you're a true racist then you know what you do you go become a Mormon that's that's what I believe about that but but this is the big one is second Nephi 521 or 520 22 through 23 so just bear with me it says wherefore the word of the Lord was fulfilled which he spake unto me saying that in so in as much as they will will not hearken unto the words they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord and behold they were cut off from his presence and he had caused the cursing to come upon them yea even a sore cursing because of their iniquity for behold they had hardened their hearts against him that they became like unto a flint wherefore as they were white and exceeding fair and delightsome that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them and thus saith the Lord I will cause I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people save they shall repent of their iniquities and the curse shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing and the Lord spake it and it was done so you can clearly see from the Book of Mormon they say hey if these guys are getting cursed so their skin is no longer going to be white but it's going to be a skin of blackness and it's going to be loathsome so I showed this guy this and I'm like you know Mormons and I guess I have the dates wrong but I'm like you know Mormons didn't allow black people to join Mormonism until like the 1960s but I think it wasn't even until the 1970s when they actually let black people join Mormonism where they said oh blacks can join the Mormon church at that point so I'm telling them all this and I can see you know he's opening up and things are making sense to him so then I also told them and this is something I know about Mormons is that they teach that marriage is eternal so if you're having problems with your spouse now don't become a Mormon because you have problems for all eternity so but but these Mormons they believe that you have to get married in the temple and then once you get married in the temple then you become you know you have this eternal marriage and then you're with your spouse for all eternity so I'm like that contradicts the Bible and I'll just quickly read these verses but if you're familiar I'm not going to have you turn there just for sake of time but in Matthew 22 they the some guys come to try to tempt Jesus and they give this elaborate story about a woman that or a man he's married to this woman he dies and then his wife dies or sorry that man dies so then his brother is supposed to take her to be his wife the brother takes her to be his wife and then he dies and it gets to the point that seven brothers do this so they're giving Jesus this weird scenario and then they said hey the woman dies also so in heaven who's this woman's husband going to be? So then Jesus answers in Matthew 22 29 it says Jesus answered and said to them ye do err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the angels of God in heaven but as touching the resurrection of the dead have you not read which was spoken unto you by God saying I'm the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob God's not the God of the dead but the living so we have clear scripture from the Bible that says hey when people die you're no longer married you know you're gonna be like angels where angels are not given into marriage so we're not gonna be given into marriage either so I showed them all these verses and I was just like hey I'm like I just kept emphasizing that Mormons are evil and wicked and and you know they're going to hell they have really bad doctrine and the guy eventually was just like yeah you're right I see what you're saying and then he started opening up and he was just like well he was searching like he went to many different churches in his life and he just never felt like he like knew what the truth was so then because of that that's why he ended up just going to the Mormon church I was like well now I'm showing you the truth that salvation is my faith you know that you can't lose it and now you know this so now at least you have that truth and you can you know live your Christian life from there so one other thing I did was that because I was like I didn't want the Mormons like influencing the guy I said hey what I'll do is this I'll give you my number and I said what I'll do is that if you have any questions feel free to contact me because I just didn't want him like the Mormons like let's say he gets saved and the Mormons start talking to him and start trying to like subvert him again and all this stuff so I said hey I'm going to give you my number and then I said if you have any questions just you know feel free to send me a text message I said I may not answer right away but I'll try my best to answer you if you have any questions so I think because I said that he was able to open up more and then he was able to get saved so then after he got saved what's funny is this is that was it was our last day soul winning so what I ended up doing was this I ended up I had two New Testaments and then he had his Book of Mormon so I was just like hey you know what let's do a two for one trade I said I'm going to give you two Bibles if you give me that Book of Mormon so that he was just like okay so I was just like perfect so then I gave him two New Testaments he gave me the Book of Mormon and I gave it to the ex-Mormon there Rob so he has it still I don't have it because it's evil whatever it's probably filled with demons or something but anyway you know so that was I think a really good success story when it came to preaching to someone who was lost who they were seeking to try to get saved and understand the Bible but they're going in all the wrong directions and you know what I was there to help preach the Gospel to that guy so that he was able to get saved and that's what we do when we go on these mission trips is I'm sure other people have stories like that of different places they've been or different people they've talked to about soul winning where you're that person's you know that person's I guess the way that person can understand what the Bible says about salvation and you'll be that person that leads that person to Christ so that they can get saved you know there's a lot of people how should I put it there's sometimes you just need a specific person to talk to someone and then that person can help open that person's eyes and that person can be able to get saved and you know what that person's you that person's you when you go out and go soul winning I think of just many different stories of people saying like I know recently Ramon we were out soul winning here in Phoenix and we were knocking an apartment complex and then some lady was contemplating suicide and Ramon ended up preaching to her the gospel and then she ended up getting saved and Ramon was just at the right place at the right time to be able to preach to that lady so that we can so that she could get saved and same thing with us hey we when we go out on the foreign mission field we're at the right place at the right time to preach to the right people so those people can be able to get saved now last thing I want to get to is this or two more things and I'll be done but look at acts 836 acts 836 it says in acts 836 as they went on their way they came onto a certain water and the eunuch said see here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized and Philip said if thou believeth with all thine heart thou mayest and he answered and said I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and he commanded the chariot to stand still and they both went down and they went down both into the water both Philip and the eunuch and he baptized him so one cool thing about this trip in Banoi too was that after we got people saved we ended up talking to the people I would say on average for like 10 to 20 minutes after they got saved and what we were doing is we were trying to get the people to live for God you know we see here the eunuch wants to get baptized because baptism is the first step of obedience into serving God after you get saved obviously we didn't baptize anyone on that trip but we tried to point people in the right direction we pointed people to the Baptist church that we went to and said hey if you want to serve what we would say is hey try to go to this Baptist church so you can be able to serve God on top of that we would give them a lot of material we gave them Bibles we gave them our custom YouTube cards with different videos and stuff on it and then we had a QR code which they can scan and then get on our email list for the church and we just took extra time in talking to them about the Bible what I often did was after I got someone saved kind of as a test but then a way to encourage them to keep serving God is I would take them here to Acts 16 or sorry Acts 8 verse 36 and I would tell them about you know the how a lot of these false modern Bible versions take out Acts 8 37 so I read the verses out and say this is why I'm giving you a King James Bible is so you'll know that it has everything you need in here unlike all these other modern Bible versions they take out verses they remove things and they change things so now you have the truth and all you have to do now that you're saved is just read the truth and that's going to help you grow as a Christian so I would take the time to try to edify them and and just you know help them where that they would be able to kind of get get on their feet as a new believer to be able to serve God so that's one thing I really liked about Vanuatu the people were extremely friendly whenever you would preach to them they were extremely thankful they loved that we were there so it was a really good place to go soul winning for the short time we were there now last last thing I want to talk about is this look at Acts 8 39 where the Bible reads and it says and when they were come out of the water the spirit of the Lord caught away Philip that the eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing but Philip was found at Aztos and passing through he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea so what ends up happening this later with Philip and the eunuch is that after the eunuch gets baptized Philip just disappears and the eunuch sees him no more and unfortunately just because of how the trips go we're not church planting or anything but a lot of these places that we go soul winning they already have a good church where they have a church there so the best thing we can do is try to point them to that church so that they can serve God you know we're going there to get people saved and we can even see here in this passage that that's what Philip did he got the eunuch saved and then what did he do? He just disappeared and went somewhere else and unfortunately that's just kind of how life leads that's the things that happen in life where we may go to one place and go soul winning there and do a great work for God and then once we're done with that place we may end up going somewhere else later to try to be a blessing to some new country and see how that new country is when it comes to receiving the gospel so you know but in 2024 there's a lot of ways you can follow up with people especially since you have things like WhatsApp where you can talk to people around the world for free so there's still ways where you can encourage people to try to serve God and serve the Lord it's not like you know here where they don't really have any you know ways of communicating in 2024 we do have ways of communicating via email WhatsApp just different things Facebook so there's ways you can keep in contact with your converts if you need to to be able to serve God but with these missions trips that's not necessarily the you know the we want to do that but our goal is just to try to get as many people saved as we can in different places because some of these places are not reached with the gospel at all I mean we saw that in Vanuatu where again we talked to a lot of people and I did not meet any people who were saved there so there's obviously a need for people to go preach the gospel in Vanuatu but then there are other countries that we want to visit that we want to go and preach the gospel to the people as well now I'll have you turn to Matthew chapter number nine and that'll be it but Matthew chapter number nine chapter number nine and last thing I want to say is this in Matthew nine verse thirty-five when you get there Matthew nine thirty-five the Bible reads and it says and Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people but when he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd then saith he unto his disciples the harvest truly is plenteous but the labors are few pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth labors into his harvest so I bring all that up to say this is that I don't know the next time we'll be going to Vanuatu I would love to go back because I think it's a really nice place I think it's receptive to the gospel again their English was better than I thought it was going to be for talking to people because we actually talked to people who were not just on the college campus we actually talked to just local people and their English seemed to be okay like I remember preaching to a few people and their English was fine same with we went to like an island over there and their English was good too so I think it's a good place where we could definitely go back but we just need laborers we just need people who are willing to take that time out of their schedule and out of the day to be able to go to these foreign fields so that we could be able to spread the gospel and preach the gospel and get many people saved and I pray that we can find more hidden gems like Vanuatu because I believe it was a hidden gem again I didn't know about Vanuatu until like a few months ago and I think it's a hidden gem and I'm sure there are other hidden gems like that around the world and I think that's that's something that we can strive to do is try to find these hidden gems where we can preach and evangelize and get many people saved let's pray Lord I thank you for all you've done thank you for giving us the opportunity to preach in Vanuatu and just learn more about the people and be able to to make an impact there I just pray that you can keep blessing our church and blessing just soul winners around the world as they try to preach preach preach the gospel and get many many people saved I thank you for all you've done Lord and I praise you in Jesus name I pray Amen Amen Amen Before we sing our last song this evening if you would like to help take down decorations or anything don't take all of them down meet with Mrs. Ball right here in front of the pulpit after we sing the last song so take her song of us go to him 315 we'll get we'll be dismissed and singing 315 take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee 315 315 sing the sounds together now 315 lift the voice on that first now take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to me take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love at the impulse of thy love take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee take my voice and let me sing always only for my King always only for my King take my silver and my gold not my blood I withhold take my moments and my days let them flow in ceaseless rays let them flow in ceaseless rays take my will and make it mine it shall be no longer mine take my heart it is mine own it shall be my royal throne it shall be my royal throne bring things down we don't want to lose any decorations some stuff belongs to people hopefully everybody can hear me I don't know where the mic is at but other than that you're dismissed but if you want to help out please come up here as soon as you can come up here as soon as you can