(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let's give you all a second to turn to that page. 258 begins, Sinners Jesus will receive number 258. Let's receive us as we are. 258. Left your voice on that first now. Sinners Jesus will receive sound this word of grace to all through the heavenly path with me. All who live for all who love sing it all and more again. Christ receive a simple man. Make the message clear and plain. Christ receive a simple man. Come and he will give you rest. Trust him for his word is clear and plain. He will take the simple land. Christ receive a simple man. Sing it all and more again. Christ receive a simple man. Make the message clear and plain. Christ receive a simple man. Now my heart condemns me not. You're the Lord though I stand. He who plants me from our sky. Satisfied in everlasting land. Sing it all and more again. Christ receive a simple man. Make the message clear and plain. Christ receive a simple man. Christ receive a simple man. Even me with all my sin purge from every sudden sin. Heaven with him I enter in. Sing it all and more again. Christ receive a simple man. Make the message clear and plain. Christ receive a simple man. Amen. Great start to our singing tonight. We want to go and ask the Lord's blessing on the service. Good to have Pastor Aaron Thompson here with us. Your heavenly Father and Lord we thank you so much for this great missions conference and Lord we just ask that you bless the services tonight. Brother Chris with your Holy Spirit Lord we pray that you just bless all the rest of the events and all the rest of the preaching that happens and Lord we're so thankful for this great church here Lord. We pray that you just bless the service now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Back a few pages. 253. He must be born again. Him 253 begins the ruler once came to Jesus by night. Number 253 might be unfamiliar to some of you but if you know it let's sing it out together. Him number 253. Sing it out now. A ruler once came to Jesus by night to ask in the way of salvation and light. The Master made answer in words true and plain. He must be born again. He must be born again. He must be born again. I verily, verily say unto thee He must be born again. Ye children of men attend to the word so solemnly uttered by Jesus the Lord and let not the message to you be in vain. Ye must be born again. Ye must be born again. Ye must be born again. I verily, verily say unto thee He must be born again. Oh ye who would enter the glorious rest and sing with the ransom the song of the blessed the life everlasting if you would obtain ye must be born again. Ye must be born again. Ye must be born again. I verily, verily say unto thee ye must be born again. A dear one in heaven thy heart can see see at the beautiful game may be watching for thee then listen to the note of this solemn refrain. Ye must be born again. Ye must be born again. Ye must be born again. I verily, verily say unto thee He must be born again. Good singing. Alright, this time we'll just quickly go through a couple of announcements. If you don't have a bulletin, put up your hand if you don't have a bulletin, the one that has the schedule on the back. I'm going to borrow yours, sorry. But if you need a, now you need one, so put up your hand. So put up your hand if you need a bulletin that has the schedule on the back. This is the most important thing. Don't look at the soul winning times like inside the bulletin. That's on a normal typical week. During the conference, the only stuff that's happening during the conference is just what you see here on the back. So this schedule supersedes the normal soul winning schedule. And of course we've got the service tonight and we're going to hear from Brother Chris Segura once again about Columbia tonight. And then after the service, if a few people want to stick around, help out, tearing down direct, tearing down decorations and putting up the decorations for tomorrow for Germany Day. And I believe that Mrs. Madison, are you in charge of, who's doing Germany Day? Who is it? Catherine Dickin. Okay, so Catherine Dickin is the one to see here. And so after the service, she can give instructions and help you out. We're going to be taking down the old decorations, putting up the Germany stuff. So tomorrow, we're going to have the morning service right here, 10 30 a.m. And we're going to have Brother Dylan Oz preaching. Soon to be Pastor Dylan Oz. Okay, so it's just a couple weeks, folks. He's practically a pastor. And so it's going to be great. He's going to get ordained in about two weeks and two days, I think, something like that. And he's going to be pastoring in Oklahoma City. And so we're excited about that. I believe it's going to be called Anchor Baptist Church. And so praise God for that. He's going to be preaching tomorrow morning because he actually did missions in Germany. So he's going to preach about his trip to Germany and the soul winning that he did over there. And then we're going to have a little bit of a different schedule because we're going to have a soul winning time at one o'clock right here. So you can go get lunch, whatever. Soul winning time meets at one o'clock. And then after soul winning, we're going to be going to Papago Park for the church picnic. So this is the same location for those of you faithful word people, you know where this is because it's where we always go for the church picnic. College and Curry. So if you're an out of towner, you might want to write this down. The corner of College and Curry is where you're going because if you just type in Papago Park, sometimes it can take you to other parts of Papago Park because it's like a huge park. So you want to make sure that you're on the corner of College and Curry. All right. Just remember College and then Pastor Shelley's favorite spice. And you're good to go. OK. College and Curry. Easy to remember. And then that it says three o'clock. But here's the thing. You can get there early for that. You can get there late for that. That's just kind of a rough time when people are probably going to start ending up over there. But you can go there before that. You can get there after that. The food is actually going to start being served more like four thirty or five. Actual like a dinner time. So expect the food to start happening at four thirty because we want to make sure that we can get everybody served the food and fed and everything and then back here for church at seven tomorrow night. And let me tell you something. This German picnic is going to be something special. OK. This is really high quality stuff. OK. Lola I don't know why you laugh because you helped make some of the food. So you know she's just excited. She just can't contain the joy over there. OK. That's how I'm going to interpret that. But let me tell you something. This food is going to be really really high end stuff like like if we put you on a plane and sent you to Germany what you're going to eat tomorrow is going to be better. And I'm not exaggerating. OK. So these are going to be like super duper ridiculously authentic high quality German pretzels. OK. So this is probably going to be the best pretzel you've ever had. Not to build it up too much or anything but it's true. And then also we're going to have bratwurst and other stuff. A lot of cool German stuff. I think we're going to be having some of the what are they are they called Gibbrandt Mandel? Is that right? Yeah. So which translates literally as burnt almonds but they're not burnt. OK. They're just like roasted candied almonds. So we're going to have like some desserts. We're going to have pretzels. We're going to have bratwurst. It's going to be really cool. And so you're in for a treat tomorrow with that. And then we're going to be hearing in the evening service from brother Anselm Urban of course about Germany and the things that have happened over there and the trials and tribulations as well as the successes. OK. But tonight we got something really cool before the sermon. I've asked brother Kevin Rowe to come at this time and I've got your microphone Kevin if that's what you're looking for. I'm just going to wire you up with this. But brother Kevin Rowe has come up with this idea. It's such a cool idea. I thought it was cool when I first heard about it. He successfully executed it with several other church members. So he's going to teach us about this thing of cruise ship soul winning. OK. It's going to be good. Here we go. Just go ahead and stick that in your pocket. All right. So I want to just talk briefly about a Caribbean cruise mission trip that I led last month. I think they handed out an insert that basically shows the itinerary and some of the pictures from that. But basically this idea came to me because I have a desire to get someone to save as many countries as I can and cruises are a cost effective way to do that. And right now there are cruises that you know there's thousands of cruise itineraries that are available and they go to all American continents including every country at this year's conference excluding Armenia. And they even have cruises that loop around the entire world you know if you had so much time to do that. But basically for the North American cruises there's basically four options and I want to kind of show you on the map here. But basically there's you know because you have a hub where the cruise sends out from. Basically there's one option where you can start from California side and basically do you know Baja California Mexico somewhat of Central America within a week. But since that speaks Spanish and I don't speak Spanish I didn't do that one. The other option is basically Texas or Louisiana a lot of those cruises go to Mexico Belize a little bit of Central America again I didn't choose that one. The other option is pretty much Florida which mostly will do these upper islands you know Bahamas Jamaica and some of the ones you can go a little farther down with those cruises but then you wind up having at least one day of just on the sea travel on the sea back so within one week you would probably only see maybe three islands and so we went with option four where if you actually fly in to Puerto Rico which is very good because it's an American territory you can fly there cheaply for about three hundred dollars and now you're surrounded by all these countries and all these islands and you can basically do many islands in one week with very little down time. Of course if you had the time to do two week mission trips you can do a lot of other cool things for instance you can actually go from California all the way to Florida through the Panama Canal and do these really elaborate things but we were just trying to do a one week cruise and we were trying to do it you know as many countries as possible for as cheap as possible so you know with my pretty much ideal itinerary found which is the one that I chose here's how it went down so you know the first day we flew into San Juan Puerto Rico we got there about two o'clock and we Ubered from the airport to the cruise terminal and what's nice is that Puerto Rico is pretty much the only you know Caribbean country that even has Uber access so it's real cheap real easy to do that we boarded the boat pretty much like going through the TSA a second time we put our bags in the room and then we basically had one of our first buffets and so the big part about the cruise is really the food right so how the buffet works is basically there's a buffet area on the boat that's open from sunrise to sunset and they have distinct menus for like breakfast lunch dinner and then kind of snack times in between and they have a bunch of different stations for different types of food right there's like a Mexican Indian Italian British you know it's massive everything you could want is there and then they also have like you know a salad bar ice cream you know shop bread place drink thing and everything's free right all you can eat at all times of the day everything's free except for like cans and bottles you know you have to pay extra for that and also every day everything is new right there's never the same thing twice so after we ate we left the boat cause this was like our first day we went to a local mall called Plaza Las Americas which happens to be the largest mall in all of the Caribbean it's the second largest mall in the Latin American speaking world we figured that'd be a good place to find some English speaking people just cause it was a big mall right it still wasn't that easy though but we did get one person saved in English and one person saved in Spanish we only had a couple hours till the boat had to leave so we went back to the boat and had our first dinner and so there's a separate outside of the buffet system there's a separate kind of fancy dinner system where you know once per night you can sign up to this fancy have reservations and you're basically you know you're given a menu that has like starters, entrees, desserts and you can order as much as you want cause again everything's free and you know some of the things we ate were steak, lobster, prime ribs salmon, beef wellington and we all pretty much ate an absurd amount of ice cream but I have no regrets so the basic itinerary for the boat, the boat's basically at each island from 8 am to 6 pm which leaves about 9 hours per day during the day and then overnight is when the boat's going to the next one so pretty much you wake up every morning and you're in a new country so the itinerary that I set was pretty much from 8 to 9 we'd eat breakfast while it's arriving at port and then we'd walk or taxi to town 9 to 12 we'd go soloing for about 3 hours 12 to 2 we'd go back to the boat and cool off we'd eat lunch and then we'd go back out 2 to 4 we'd go out soloing for another 2 hours and then you know 4 to 5 we'd go back to the boat leaving a little time you know you want to leave a little buffer in there and then normally from there you know we'd pretty much shower we'd eat at the dinner buffet then we'd relax or do maybe a recreation then we'd go to the fancy dinner like a second dinner right then you'd eat like your dessert at the fancy place then you'd go back to the buffet for the post dessert dessert and yeah so we ate a lot it was great but because we split the day in half like that we were able to you know as needed kind of take a half day off like oh I'm not feeling good I'm going to sleep in and I'm going to start soloing after lunch this or that and so we kind of alternated that so we didn't go ultra hardcore in this thing we probably did about 3 or 4 hours of soloing per day you definitely could do more like I said you have over 9 hours on the island every day but the thing is right the boat everything's free so at any point you can just go back and you don't really have to spend money in a country you can just go get it all free at the boat which is nice so the next thing I want to describe is pretty much how a port city works there's always going to be like a tourist area which is going to be like a few blocks or streets that are just you know where everyone is trying to sell you stuff so it's not a very good idea to preach there just because all they want to do is sell you things but outside of that you're pretty much going to have a business area for all the locals where they shop and then outside of that it's probably going to be the residential area and either of those would be great for soloing and now the ship can dock either directly in the tourist area or in like an industrial area where you'll have to either walk for a half hour or take a taxi a taxi is definitely the better option once you're in that tourist area you pretty much just have to walk a few blocks in any direction and you'll find great people to preach to and obviously if you're organizing the map you should plan all that on Google My Maps so the second day was our first port which was Phillipsburg St. Martin and since it was our first day we made a couple mistakes we tried to stay out all day we didn't kind of use that free lunch system so we learned and the second thing is we did walk we did the far walk, we got blisters so that's how running a mission trip is you have to kind of be adaptable and learn on the fly and the other downside though is that because this was a Sunday pretty much everything was closed and I was really looking forward to St. Martin too because like right a couple blocks from the boardwalk is their main university but it was all closed we actually went and talked to like a security guard but weren't able to really preach to anybody but we did some soloing in the business and residential areas and we got 16 people saved there and you know so we got better on a weekday and I think this country still has a great opportunity there so I definitely want to come back and we wound up hanging out just on the boardwalk and the beach, you know, tourist area and they were both very nice day three we went to St. John's in Tigua and unlike St. Martin here, you know, once you're off the boat you're right in the action so in the morning we went soloing in a residential area but it was pretty much raining the whole time so we were walking around with umbrellas we got a few salvations in English, a few in Spanish but after lunch, though, we went soloing you know, just like right off the boat just a couple blocks away and they were just surrounded by what was apparently when all the school kids got off their school so everyone was just the streets were packed with students and kind of like what Caleb said, you know preaching to the students is really like a cheat code for missions, right, it's just like you're going to get a bunch of salvations so because of that, you know, most of us thought this was the best island on the trip right, Brother Mark said it felt like he was back in Fiji a total of 26 salvations, most of which were in the afternoon so on day four, we went to Castori St. Lucia now this is another one where you want to taxi to the city, it's pretty far we started off in the morning the same spot the previous faithful word trip went to was Derek Walcott Square and a little background, you know, I had my honeymoon this year in St. Lucia, and while I thought the country was beautiful, you know, I personally thought the soloing was kind of awful while we were there, you know, we had a lot of people get really confrontational about us and yell at us about eternal security so I was kind of curious to see is it going to be better this second time around unfortunately it really wasn't we had the same issues at this square and, you know, this square had like two different Jehovah's Witness stands set up you know, it had a lot of like 17 Adventists we met and just a lot of like Rastas I kept running into that I was sure were demon possessed and in my opinion, the Rastas are the worst of the three but despite all that we were still able to get a couple people saved including a bus driver who gave us a free ride back to our ship and then after that, you know, we tried different tactics again, you gotta, if it's not working, you gotta change right, so, tried a different tactic we went to like a covered market where people were just like selling produce, and we were pretty much just selling to the stall people because there wasn't that many people buying stuff, and so we had really good success there, you know, there weren't really I guess heretics buying produce, so so we got a lot of salvations are taking our total up to 21 but, you know, despite kind of a good number of salvations, most of us kind of ranked it pretty low because we all had pretty bad experience at some point or another just people being mean to us but the next day though, we were in Bridgetown, Barbados you know, and here we took the just $2 shuttle to the city and you know, there's large parks, a lot of people around and unlike St. Lucia, you know, everyone's super friendly and we had some really easy salvations and we also walked a few blocks to just like a public beach, and it was really like a lot of us said, it was one of the best beaches we've ever been to, you know, the water was really clear, the sand was really fine, it was really warm but because we did that you know, kind of on the fly we kind of stayed out long so we, you know, had a late lunch, we went back and then afterward, you know, it was kind of too late to go back out to the city with the bus so then we just tried, we were in the industrial area, we were like, let's just try you know, going around to these businesses and just reaching the industrial area, and we had a couple of salvations there too, so even that worked out well so, I think I'd rank Barbados as the second best island, we didn't run into all the school, you know, kids in Antigua, this would probably be the best island certainly it was, you know, the prettiest as well so day six you know, it was kind of our last country, was Rosio Dominica, I don't know how to pronounce it this place, you know, was pretty rough in general I think also we were, you know with all these days in a row, pretty long days, we were pretty worn out so we didn't really stray super far this day either, we stayed pretty much on the main street, which was just like packed full of people but because of that, everyone was really busy, no one really wanted to listen to you and, you know, I had a lot of people that were like heckling me from across the street I had a lot of like Rosses would come up and break up conversations and kind of ruin ruin it, but we went up the street, we visited this botanical garden and saw some nature as our recreation, but because it was like you know, not very receptive and also it was like incredibly hot we didn't stay off the boat for very long, it was one of the few days we actually went to the boat like three times, it was just so hot we needed AC, so most of us would pretty much rank Dominica as our worst island but we still had six salvations and our last salvation today was kind of a really sweet woman who was just like crying the whole time so it was definitely worth it to us, you know we still enjoyed it day seven was basically the one day that we had that was at sea, so we weren't on a country at all but we tried to do some of the things on the boat, the boat has like tons of stuff to do and we didn't utilize even a fraction of it, but we tried to find some of it so we watched a few live shows we played pickleball, we did axe throwing, we had an archery competition and obviously there's like ungodly things to do on the boat, there's like a casino but the boat's laid out in such a way that you could pretty much spend the whole week and never even see that stuff we didn't even go near the pool or the bars and stuff, so we didn't see really anything that we shouldn't and honestly you're going to see more bad stuff just on the Caribbean island than you are on the boat just because the Caribbean is known for just kind of pot smoking and drunkenness and everything else, so guess you have to take that how you will one of the things that I enjoyed on the boat though is that all the workers had name tags and the name tag said, obviously their name, but it said like what country they're from and pretty much the main countries they're from were India Indonesia, Philippines, Zimbabwe Kenya, and South Africa so pretty all receptive countries we didn't really do any preaching on them on the boat because they're all working but at the last day we didn't hand out a bunch of YouTube cards, but one of the things I was trying to do on the boat was pretty much be able to greet everyone in their own language I would just try to see their name tag and try to greet them and I have a whole list on them, but the funniest I thought was Indonesian, you know, to say what's up you say apa kebab, and the answer is bike bike, so I thought that was fun but anyway, day 8 was our last day we got back from the San Juan Puerto Rico this time we had to actually have all of our bags so we just went to the same same mall again and we pretty much just like sat down at a table with all of our bags around, and we tried a kind of new strategy, you know, I can only speak three sentences in Spanish, but I would pretty much go up and use those three sentences with somebody if they kind of answered them right I'd kind of point them over and they'd basically sit down at a table with us you know, Lolo would preach to them and then they'd get saved, so we actually had two salvations entirely in Spanish like that, so it was a good system, we got a few more salvations there so just as an overview you could see some of the countries we visited were great, some, you know, not so much but what's great about this format is that you kind of get a little sample of each island, right and if it's not receptive, well, you know, the next day everything resets, you don't have to go there again, and of course obviously if you find a hidden gem, then a church can transition and be like, hey, let's do a full week long mission trip there and I believe, you know, cruise is a great first time mission trip, either as a participant or as an organizer because, you know, one of the key metrics that we look for is just enjoyability you know, we don't want people to come get work to the ground and then never come again, right, we want people to become lifelong lovers of missions and you know, this was easily like one of our most enjoyable and kind of luxurious mission trips, you know, we're we all definitely want to go on a cruise again and a little bit, you know, just kind of the background, like finances, right you know, this is really a very cost effective way, for the cruise itself, you know, I paid $1300 for my wife and I our flights were $300 each and paid about $100 extra on like Ubers and taxis, so pretty much it was $1000 per person, Johnson family also paid the same and, you know, I should note obviously, like it's a little more expensive if you try to have a single cabin, they'll charge you more, so you pretty much need to book with at least two people, but that's really as many people as you need and as brother Sigur alluded to earlier, you know, a lot of people don't really realize how expensive some of these trips can be especially in the Caribbean, it's a very expensive place especially with like food, but here, you know, the best food that you can get, it's all free and you can easily spend, you know, $1500, $2000 if you had to pay for everything yourself but, you know, here you know, and even if you pay that $1500 you're probably in an Airbnb and you're probably eating you know, ham sandwiches, you're not eating, you know, steak, lobster and ice cream, so but, you know, obviously we're blessed to have such a generous church who on a lot of these trips has paid a lot of those expenses but without their help, you know, some of those trips wouldn't be financially viable just as like a solo person or two people right, so maybe you go to a church that can't do all that supporting or maybe you just want to run a trip on your own, you know a cruise is a great, you know, alternate for that because it's all paid for just for one flat fee, so even you know, whether it's two people or 20 people, you know it's all the same price and pretty much the same way to organize it, and not to mention you know, I think we all personally paid for our ticket just with the food that we ate so, um the final thing is basically, you know, I think the best thing about the cruise is that it's like, it's very scalable, um you know, I talk a lot with Raymond over the years about just running trips and how this works and you know, if I was running a cruise trip and 100 people sign up, like I'd hardly have to plan, but if 100 people signed up for a traditional trip, you know, it's kind of a logistical nightmare, right, there's like things like lodging, you know, like yeah, there's hotels or Airbnbs and while Airbnbs are cheaper, you know Raymond's found out that if you just book too many at once they just ban you for life, like, you know so, it's kind of dangerous in that regard um, and then also for instance rental cars, you know, normally with a trip like this, you know, if you're all driving around, you need to have one out of five people more or less sign up to be a driver, and you know, that sometimes they might have to put their credit card on the line, their insurance policy on the line and then they're driving in an unfamiliar and maybe stressful environment and you know, and I've done that in the past and I've enjoyed it, like I enjoy driving, you know left hand stick shift and Nagaland, you know, on the left side of the road and up, you know, that was all fun, but now obviously not everyone, you know, may enjoy that and uh, many people really don't want to be pressured in driving, so, you know, a trip with no cars is great and what's nice is that, you know they drive you for you right on the boat and you know, finally, you know, obviously food's a big thing, you know, I know you know, Raymond for instance, you know on a couple of trips has kind of spent like a whole trip just buying food and transporting it to all the different Airbnbs and hotels and stuff and I never really had a good chance to go soul winning and you know, I think that's that's not ideal, I like just leaving all the logistics to the cruise line and just enjoying kind of a stress free, but fruitful mission trip and obviously it's not going to replace traditional missions, but I think it's a it's a good way, especially uh, if you're just starting out or you just want to try something and have very stress free you know, and not have to deal with all the kind of admin work that sometimes running a mission trip does because there's a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that you don't really see um, so kind of in closing right, I think that uh, you know I just hope you guys would consider you know, this kind of new style of mission trip you know, obviously I'm going to keep doing them probably the Johnson's are going to keep doing them uh, so hopefully you guys will come with us so otherwise, thanks, God bless, right yeah, I think it's such a great idea uh, you know, it just it's, it's tailor made for our philosophy around here of common sense missions and just the way the way it works out and I mean the price I mean a thousand bucks a person it's pretty hard to plan a mission trip for less than a thousand bucks, I mean, and so that's incredible and I mean, do the math, they got like what, 80 some people saved, right five people go out there for a week get 80 some people saved, that's incredible results and I like the idea of kind of sampling all the different mission fields and then later you can send a big group to the good ones and whatever and I really love what he said about how you know, people that are in say an old IFB church where, you know, you're buying tracts to hand out even locally they're selling you the tracts, you know nothing's free with the old IFB, you know if there's ice cream after the service, you're paying for it, you know and so the thing is you know, if you're going to that type of a church where, let's say you're going to an old IFB church, you could literally just get together with a buddy, you and one just a couple of dudes could just be like hey, let's get a week off from work, we both got a thousand bucks, you could do this and it's like no excuse not to do a DIY mission trip, I think it's great and you could get four people, two people six people, it's scalable like he said, you're not going to be like whoa there's too many people coming and I've been to these ports, I've never been on a cruise, you know, full disclosure so I don't know what that's like, sounds great though but I've never done it, but I have definitely been to these port cities, because I've been on so many trips where the ship is right there and I see the people kind of getting off the ship and getting on the ship and so I know exactly how these cities work and like he said, you literally walk like ten minutes and you're out of the tourist area and you are in that country and you are deep into that country after walking for ten, fifteen minutes and it's like two different worlds where everybody's poor it's all the locals and whatever you just get out of that tourist zone but 99% of the people on the cruise they're staying in that tourist zone I've always found that getting out of the tourist areas is a more authentic experience anyway, like whenever I travel to other countries I'm actually more interested in kind of getting the real life than just seeing a bunch of like, um, I want to say, I never can think of a good word for that in English uh, you know, the sights I guess you could say, and so I always want to you know, see the real stuff I, for me it's so much more fun to go sit in someone's living room in a foreign country and kind of experience their house and their life and their family and eat a home cooked meal is way cooler than just hey, let's go look at, you know, Mount Rushmore or, you know, the pyramids or whatever and so I love this idea I hope that people online are listening to this I hope that you guys are listening to this and realizing how this is something you could probably successfully execute with a week off work and, you know, a thousand bucks maybe fifteen hundred bucks, and you could really have a lot of fun and probably get a bunch of people saved and do valuable recon that you can then tell us about, and tell other soul winning churches about, and tell us which islands are good which ones are dead, that information is gold, so thank you very much, brother Rowe, really appreciate that, let's just sing one more song, and then let's go ahead and get into the brother Sigur's sermon, do we have one more song? Yeah, we can tally up the soul winning quickly as well, any soul winning to report from today that I could tally up quickly? Alright, let me just mount this Alright, yeah, boom boom, boom, did you have something? Okay Okay, okay, I see that, alright anything, oh, gotcha Okay, gotcha Alright Got it Alright, anything else from today? Alright, very good, let's sing one more song and then we will read our scripture and hear from brother Sigur Alright, you should find the insert in front of your hymnal with the hymn entitled We Have a Story to Tell to the Nations So we'll sing this out together We have a story to tell to the nations that shall turn their hearts to the right We have a story to tell to the nations that shall turn their hearts to the right A story of truth and sweetness A story of peace and light A story of peace and light For the darkness shall turn to dawning And with dawning to new and bright And Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth The kingdom of love and life We have a song to be sung to the nations that shall lift their hearts to the Lord A song that shall conquer evil And shatter the spear and sword And shatter the spear and sword For the darkness shall turn to dawning And with dawning to new and bright And Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth The kingdom of love and life We have a message to give to the nations that the Lord the rain and the mud has sent us the sun to save us And show us that God is love And show us that God is love For the darkness shall turn to dawning And with dawning to new and bright And Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth The kingdom of love and life We have a Savior to show to the nations who the path of sorrow has run That all of the world's great peoples might come to the truth of God Might come to the truth of God For the darkness shall turn to dawning And with dawning to new and bright And Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth The kingdom of love and life This time we're going to read our scripture Sounds like it's Matthew chapter 9 Matthew chapter number 9 It's not Mark 9? Matthew 9, alright Matthew chapter number 9 and brother Nick will read you follow along silently as he reads Matthew chapter 9 starting in verse number 1 Matthew chapter 9 the Bible reads And he entered into a ship and passed over and came into his own city and behold they brought to him a man sick of the palsy lying on a bed and Jesus seeing their faith said under the sick of the palsy son be of good cheer thy sins be forgiven thee and behold certain of the scribes said within themselves this man blasphemeth and Jesus knowing their thoughts said wherefore think ye evil in your hearts for whether is easier to say thy sins be forgiven thee or to say arise and walk but that ye may know that the son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins then saith he to the sick of the palsy arise take up thy bed and go unto thine house and he arose and departed to his house but when the multitudes saw it they marveled and glorified God which had given such power unto men and as Jesus passed forth from thence he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom and he saith unto him follow me and he arose and followed him and it came to pass as Jesus sat at me in the house behold many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples and when the Pharisees saw it they said unto his disciples why eateth your master with publicans and sinners but when Jesus heard that he said unto them they that behold need not a physician but they that are sick but go ye and learn what that meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice for I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance then came unto him the disciples of John saying why do we and the Pharisees fast off but thy disciples fast not and Jesus said unto them can the children of the bride chamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them but the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken from them and then shall they fast no man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment and the rent is made worse neither do men put new wine into old bottles else the bottles break and the wine runneth out and the bottles perish but they put new wine into new bottles and both are preserved while he spake these things unto them behold there came a certain ruler and worshiped him saying my daughter is even now dead but come and lay thy hand upon her and she shall live and Jesus arose and followed him and so did his disciples and behold a woman which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years came behind him and touched the hem of his garment for she said within herself if I may but touch his garment I shall behold but Jesus turned him about and when he saw her he said daughter be of good comfort thy faith hath made thee whole and the woman was made whole from that hour and when Jesus came into the ruler's house and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise he said unto them give place for the maid is not dead but sleepeth and they laughed him to scorn but when the people were put forth he went in and took her by the hand and the maid arose and the fame thereof went abroad into all that land and when Jesus departed thence two blind men followed him crying and saying thou son of David have mercy on us and when he was come into the house the blind men came to him and Jesus saith unto them believe ye that I am able to do this they said unto him yea Lord then touched he their eyes saying according to your faith be it unto you and their eyes were opened and Jesus straightly charged them saying see that no man know it know it but they when they were departed spread abroad his fame in all that country as they went on behold they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil and when the devil was cast out the dumb spake and the multitudes marveled saying it was never so seen in Israel but the Pharisees said he casteth out devils through the prince of the devils and Jesus went about all the city 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 laborers are few pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest Dear heavenly father, Lord, thank you so much for today. Lord, thank you for all the souls that were one Lord, just please just be with us and fill Pastor Brother Segura with the Holy Spirit. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen. So while I'm walking up here just want to say once again thank you to everyone that's here your support means a lot. Thank you to Pastor Anderson again for having a vision for missions a missions conference. I believe it's well needed I think once again to all the workers that have sacrificed all the way to two in the morning and I can't thank you guys enough Desiree I cannot thank you enough. Mrs. Madison I cannot thank you enough. Everybody who's helped I cannot thank you enough. I really do appreciate you guys and it's amazing to see you guys work. Amen. Alright so right now Matthew chapter number nine I want you to meet me in verse number thirty-five and don't worry I got thirty minutes amen. Thirty minutes. Matthew nine verse thirty-five says in Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom healing every sickness and every disease among the people but when he saw the motus he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd they say he unto his disciples that harvest truly is plenteous but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into the harvest. And the title of my sermon is this Prayer and Fasting Prayer and Fasting Soul Winning and Medellin Columbia Soul Winning and Medellin Columbia So this is not a sermon that's going to be telling you to go fasting before or during or even after you do a missions trip. Amen. So you can relax alright. Because one of the most important things of a missions trip is not to fast. Enjoy the trip enjoy the ice cream, the lobster and the steak and all that good stuff that brother Ro mentioned but in regards to this verse the reason I wanted to start out with this verse is because this is the verse that I thought of when I saw the multitudes and one of the things that missions will help you it will help you get compassion it will help you with humility, it will help you to appreciate life. If you're going through a hard time or you become an individual that constantly complains and this seems to come out of your mouth every week man this sucks man this sucks you might be thinking too much of yourself and get your eyes off yourself and let's put on the multitude amen and that's one of the things that when I went soul winning in South Africa happened to one of the soul winners you know they were in that mood where it's like man work sucks, work sucks, I got to get out of here I need a break. I'm like let's go to South Africa I don't know man I don't know if I need that right about now well let me just fast forward we went to South Africa, we started helping people and sure enough he had to swim around the corner and walk away from us because he broke down in tears yeah we saw him he's crying you know when he saw the young kids, the unsaved man it was a blessing for him to feel like he's finally doing something and he realizes true purpose of being here on this planet and that's to preach the gospel to every creature amen you know but as you see right there it says that Jesus saw the multitudes and he was moved with compassion and I know there's a lot of people that are probably listening online even people here that are thinking man I would love to do these missions trips I really want to go and save people, I really want to go on these things it's just the budget, it's just this, it's just that, it's just whatever you know but all I can tell you is hey you know what pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send four laborers into the harvest what am I saying? I'm saying if you can't go physically how about by praying, by praying and saying hey Lord send people you know out there if you can't send me or if I'm not the one to go send people, raise up people give people money tax refunds, whatever rich billionaire that gets saved, donates a billion dollars to pay for word, we got you hey I just want to make sure that if it never happens it ain't because of my unbelief right? make sure it ain't you when we get to heaven Lord what happened with that billion dollar prayer? I kept asking well it's because of him, because of him, her, him in the back with the arms all crossed what am I saying? let it not be you right? but you don't have to go on a missions trip you know just go to Luke 15 if you can if you can get there really quickly if not stay where you're at in fact if you have your Bible go to Matthew 17 go to Matthew 17 wait for me at verse number 14 but for the rest of you guys that are fast enough to go to Luke 15 10 this is what it says likewise I say unto you there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over how many sinners? one one sinner that repenteth not believe this is talking about salvation not just sin amen because yes we love people getting right with the Lord by man rejoicing in the presence of God who are those people doing the rejoicing? well we know it ain't the angels and I highly doubt it's the devils or the devil so the only people that are left are who? God the Father God the Son, God the Holy Ghost and those have gone before us amen hey this is how we keep heaven happy keep winning souls you don't have to be in the mission strip win them here and hey they'll be rejoicing in the presence of heaven that's what you should be doing and not worrying too much about what you can't do and worry about what you can do but in the same time hey pray for people to go pray Lord raise up these people hey send them out there I would love to go but if not me send someone because this world is huge and it hit me hard when I was in my hotel and I believe we were like maybe on the ninth floor I went to get breakfast and they had breakfast on the ninth floor and obviously they have like a big opening where you can see the city and I've seen pictures of Medellin before I went there and they were cool until I got there then it was really cool seeing how crazy and I cannot describe it I thought Dubai looked awesome when I was staring out the window with all these fancy buildings all these amazing looking buildings I was like wow that's insane what man can do but when I got to Medellin and I was looking all over the place I was unbelievably impressed just how many buildings are just in this small valley so many buildings it just blew my mind and I was thinking Lord, how in the world are we going to reach all these people look how many houses are out there look how many buildings are out there and I was moved with compassion I was just like wow it just woke me up that we have a big job to do there's so many people on this planet we don't have time to waste on silly stuff let's get refocused recharge and go out there and reach Amen? I'll get into why it's called prayer and fasting in a second don't worry but if you're right there in Matthew 17 because maybe you are staying out there in YouTube land or even here you know what I am praying brother Segura you know I am asking God to send me on this planet because we know that God wants elders in every city yeah I am doing those things well yeah well great you know then I guess the only thing I can say is just keep doing it but I also want to talk about something else that we may have to do if praying doesn't seem to be getting the job done Matthew 17 14 says this and it will come to the multitude that came to him and certain men kneeling down to him and saying Lord, have mercy on my son for he is a lunatic sword begs for oft times he fall into the fire and oft into the water Jesus rebuked the devil and he departed out of him and the child was cured from that very hour then came the disciples to Jesus apart and said, why could not we cast him out and Jesus said unto them because of your unbelief so maybe you are praying I am just doing a quick spot check maybe you should ask yourself if you are praying with maybe even anything if you are praying if you are praying if you are praying if you are praying with maybe even anything in your life and nothing seems to be moving maybe you should ask yourself are you just praying or do you have an issue of unbelief unbelief because that is more than one time where Jesus said hey listen according to your faith according to what you believe I am going to do this are you telling me right now that you believe I am able to do this yes Lord I believe you are able to do it and sometimes I do pray because I need to slap myself man do I even believe that God can do this or it is going to do it because I need to slap myself and realize that God can do anything but sometimes we get in those moments where it is like man I just don't know if God would do this or even worse could he do this that is even worse to say that but let's just get refocused and maybe you are thinking to yourself well I do pray because that is what I am thinking to every nation and I am wondering if they are thinking that man should we even try to get the gospel to all of Medellin I mean it is huge just from that hotel just looking I was just blown away took my breath away I saw the multitudes and I realized wow what a big job and I am thinking man it is going to take a miracle to reach everybody in this city yet the world is not a big part of the world but still it is a big job when you are just able to look at everything all at once see here we are just here on the ground we don't really see the homes or anything like that but here you can see them just about everywhere it was just unbelievable but maybe you are saying to yourself well I am praying I know for a fact I am praying and I do believe God can do it well that is great but then if you want me to bring up something else I am just going to bring it up because this could be the issue and it could be what? you know you could have some sin because you know sin does hinder our prayers and really quickly let me just go over some one of the things that God obviously tells us will hinder our prayers clearly is in Psalm 66 18 it says this if I regard iniquity what is iniquity? in simple words iniquity means sin or wrongdoing it is when someone does something morally wrong especially if they know it is wrong but choose to do it anyways any questions? we need to make sure we are not that person we need to make sure we are not that person that says yeah I know it is wrong but I am still going to put on a dress and tell my brother to put on a dress so I can go piss off my church that did happen in case you are wondering I just heard that from somebody that doesn't like the church anymore pretending like he liked being here and then he does an interview and says yeah I know it is wrong but I was thinking of putting on a dress and walking around Walmart with a dress just to piss off Faithful Word Baptist Church haha yeah that is an example of iniquity right there knowing it is wrong and spending God's money because every penny has a purpose to go to Walmart and buy a dress and you and your brother are going to put them on and you are going to walk around in front of Faithful Word Baptist Church just to piss us off that is some iniquity right there good night but what does it say if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me so maybe you are praying well are you doing something you know it is wrong but you refuse to get it right if so you need to get rid of it it is not worth it it is not worth hindering your prayers the Bible says this he that covereth his sins shall not prosper and forsaketh them shall have mercy let me just explain what it is saying saying sorry is not enough that is confessing your sins it says clearly and forsaketh them they are going to have mercy so maybe you live in Medellin you are like man look at this city we need to reach our people but there is no way I can do it all by myself well first thing you need to start out is start praying start praying and say God we need hope send forth the laborers into the harvest it is a big city and I can't do it all by myself we just can't we can have so many missions trips down there and we are not even going to come close to knocking out that city we are just not and maybe you are saying well I am praying but nothing seems to be happening well let's do a sin check let's make sure it is not that and one of the things once again is iniquity another thing is being an unforgiving person let me just read really quickly let them pray and forgive if you have ought against any that your father also which is in heaven may forgive your trespasses but if you do not forgive neither will your father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses simple enough if you don't forgive don't bother praying I can't forgive this person I have heard people say that I can forgive but I can't forgive you for what you did and I have heard people say if you do this I will never forgive you and I will hate you forever well God will never forgive them and probably hate them forever and plus this person that said that I don't believe is safe and another one that we kind of maybe forget about is an improper husband wife relationship 1 Peter 3 says likewise your husband dwell with them according to knowledge giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life your prayers be not hindered be not hindered and it just blows me away it blows me away when people can say hey I know this person he ain't having a good relationship with his wife he ain't having a good time in his marriage but the guy seems to be prospering I'm going to be thinking no it's kind of hard it's kind of hard for you to say that this man ain't prospering or he has an improper relationship with his wife but yet we see a lot of prospering and hey listen I just confirmed that he canceled the red hot preaching alright he just canceled it but never fear my dear brother Segura is here let me just let me just tell you what's better than a red hot preaching conference our red hot missions conference okay and let me just explain this little verse because this is one of the reasons why I know there's nothing wrong with Pastor Anderson this is why I can stand tall and say that his marriage is doing phenomenal phenomenal and it's doing great it's been perfect and guess what I found out a long time that his marriage wasn't perfect you know who told me? you know who actually told us? it was Pastor Anderson who told us he told us behind this pulpit and said listen don't have this crazy fantasy that your marriage is going to be picture perfect if you marry the perfect guy bad things are going to happen but don't be a quitter and fix it don't make excuses fix it but I didn't need Pastor Anderson and Mrs. Anderson to tell me hey our marriage is doing better than ever you know it's doing awesome it's doing phenomenal he didn't need to tell me that you know why? because of this verse because of this verse because it says if you have an improper relationship with your wife God's not going to hear you your purse is going to be hindered you're not going to prosper it's just not going to happen and when I look at his life I'm thinking man if there's one person that's prospering in this world is that man over there but that would be impossible if he had a super bad relationship with his wife it would be impossible to do that and the stuff that I've seen is simple this is stuff that happened while he's married well let's start off before he got married if he's such a horrible person before he got married then why does the Bible say that he will give you the desires of your heart? and I know Pastor Anderson he wanted to marry a woman that's smart loves God works hard serves God and that's what he got amen I guess God must love him to answer that prayer okay how about this one? he wanted to start a church and I've said are we doing good or what? I think God answered that prayer didn't he? and when did he start it? at what age? does anybody know? 24 can you confirm back there? 24 huh? how long have you been married by the time it was 24? 4 years let's just say 4 he got married in 19 alright he got married in 19 didn't I say he's not perfect? I just wanted to prove it alright I just proved it in case you were wondering if I thought it was perfect but all I'm trying to say is simple he said Lord I want to start a church because there's a need he didn't just get a church he got the best church on the planet you think that's going to happen if his prayers are being hindered? you think that's going to happen if he has an improper relationship like everybody's crying about? sorry Robinson I think you have an improper relationship sorry McMurtry I think you have an improper relationship sorry all you bunch of losers like Matt first I think you have an improper relationship right? because you guys don't seem to prosper no matter how hard you try I think your marriage is screwed up I think you and your wife need to talk I think y'all need to get right with the Lord because McMurtry likes to flex and be like how long has I been in this ministry brother let me tell you some stuff that I know that's not a flex that's a red flag I think you should know better but you ain't prospering nobody even knows who you are you suck at YouTube, you suck at Rumble do you prosper in anything? don't even give me Omar first does that guy even know where his church is at? does anybody know if he even has soul winning? last time I was trying to look up does he have any soul winning videos? any soul winning, I'll guarantee it amen, you heard that? zero soul winning no organized soul winning programs amen? hey, I'm not gonna let you miss the Red Hot Preaching Conference alright, it's about to get hot so this bozo Mark first I'm trying to figure out does he have any Bible Way to Heaven videos? does he have anything out there? you know the only video I found? this video was labeled Mark first soul winning versus NIFB and it was him telling the story how he went to the supermarket who's heard this story? he goes to the supermarket and the guy behind the register is a man in a dress it's a tranny so that motivates him to get him saved he goes to his car and gets a track and he's praying Lord, I don't want to get this person but if I do, I'm gonna be ready or something like that so he ends up getting this tranny to take care of his groceries or whatever and he's like, hey do that when you get a chance, okay? I'll help you amen and he leaves and here's his story there are some people out there you guys who believe these people reprobate I don't know if he's reprobating only God knows because I never read Romans 1 well he didn't say Romans 1 I added that part but that's what he says I don't know if he's reprobating I can't figure it out I don't know what this NIV crowd is talking about I'm gonna tell you right now God is the only one who knows he's reprobating and you know what, let's just say he is reprobating, right? okay, well let's just say yes, he never gets saved hey, the only thing that it cost me was a piece of paper but I did so with him, baby I did so with him woo, let's put that man on the cruise and get him out there right, baby let's do this, that guy belongs on a cruise for six months so you're insane I get these emails oh, Pastor Anderson, you should step down Pastor Anderson, you're a great man of God for many years Pastor Anderson, I've listened to you for many, many years, you're a great man of God but you have failed to whatever, rule your house but that's impossible, have you not read? if you can't rule your own house you won't be able to take care of the church of God and that's he taking care of the church of God very well it's impossible, you have a higher chance of finding the Loch Ness Monster than you do a great man of God who sucks at parenting it's just facts, suck it up buttercup that's what the Bible says but the fact that he's prospering in many areas hey, he wanted to be a good pastor well, guess what I'm going to answer that and then some because he's the best pastor you're like, that's how you feel you stinking Kool-Aid drinker well, let me tell you the facts, homie everything he does seems to prosper we just started rumble and I'm not trying to say that these other churches suck at rumble but he surpassed these other churches and we're late to the rumble game facts our worst channel is our YouTube channel that we create whenever there's that channel in 24 hours a throwaway channel, a channel we don't care about a channel we create just because people love YouTube that thing gives more views than people that have been on the internet with their channels our crappiest throwaway channel beats all these guys I think they're having memory problems Robin said how many views do you get? how many views do you get how many views do you get what's the guy? are you my friend? well that depends okay Jones Jones only gets views because guess what pastor Anderson prospers so much other people prosper off of him but you want me to think that he has this horrific, terrible marriage but yet God has allowed him to start a great church God answered his prayer to have a smart a wife that loves God works hard, serves God he wanted to be a good preacher, God took it to the next level he's the best preacher if he ain't, show me who is sorry pastor manager, great preacher, but no sorry bro, I'll be honest with you sorry, no great preacher, you're right there he's a 10, you're a 9.5 I do love you man hey he wanted to get one person saved he gets people saved now in his sleep who got saved from a video from pastor Anderson? look at that pastor Anderson was sleeping with his lovely wife these people are getting saved and he's just snoring when he gets to heaven, everybody's going to be like that's your mansion? yeah, how come it grows every day? social media he's going to tell the apostle Paul youtube, he's like, youtube? he knows what youtube is, I'm sure somebody told him by now he wanted to destroy the preacher of rapture enough said, right? but but God ain't allowing God is hindering his prayers he wanted to start a great soul winning movement somebody almost got killed in the Bahamas trying to copy our soul winning movement copy on there's nothing wrong with having role models copy on, do your thing he wanted to start a great missions movement what do we have here now? the Red Hot it was just born tonight we're taking it to the next level we're doing missions trips on cruises baby cruises have existed since I've known them but yet the other guys did nothing with it yes man, we're doing something with it oh, but God is hindering his prayers improper happens right relationship whatever believe what you want, it's going to be my next youtube channel name facts right? listen if you are an unforgiving person God won't hear you if you have iniquity in your heart, God won't hear you if you have an improper husband wife relationship God won't hear you and if you're cold towards the Bible, God won't hear you Proverbs 29 he that turneth away his ear from hearing the law even his prayer shall be abomination notice it says here here, you're coming to church but you're not here to hear that's an abomination I don't care how many of our haters claim well God's answering my prayer I just don't like listening to the NIB I don't like listening to this and that no, he ain't listening to you because you don't want to hear God's word you don't want to hear his law, amen? let me just finish up what Jesus said hey, how about this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting so a city like Medellin or any other city that's huge that's like, it's going to take a miracle to reach all these people how about your sin? then you know what? there's only one thing left and I hate to bring it up but it's fasting it's fasting, let's take a look at an example go to Jonah 3 I have to confess my sin so the Lord can continue to help me I am not going to make my 30 minute challenge but I'm going for 35 so I'm going to quickly get to where I want to be Jonah 3 obviously that's where Jonah preaches and sure enough, he says hey, it's going to get destroyed the king hears about it he's like hey, this is what I want he said that it caused it to be proclaimed you know, throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles saying let neither man nor beast herd nor flock taste anything let them not feed nor drink water but let man and beast be covered with cloth and cry mightily unto God let them turn everyone from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands who can tell God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not and God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil that he said that he would do unto them and he did it not now I don't know how long they fasted but let's just call it a day, this is one day fasting right? I'm not saying that God commands you to do this I'm not even saying for sure that I know that this is why God answered their prayer because they were fasting but I'll tell you one thing, God did answer their prayer because they weren't just saying I'm sorry they actually turned from their sins and were serious and were serious and when you fast, hey, it makes you a little humble doesn't it? maybe that's what they did, they're like hey, we're about to all die it's worth a try and those people that are in Medellin, you know what? pray, you know what, get the sinner in life but at the end of the day, if you fast, nothing works you know what, it's better to try than to die, just give it a shot because if I were you, that's what I would do if I was that broken and I just took a look at your city just for one second I was like, wow, look at all these people the Bible was like, wow, look at all these buildings but there it was, wow, look at all these people good night, I feel bad for them you know, they have no shepherd they have no Pastor Anderson for them good night I'm like, what are we going to do? but another person I want you guys to look at is Esther, if you can't go to Esther 4 I'll just get to the part that I want to get to if you can, go ahead and go to 16 there's a story of Esther, Mordecai says hey, there's been an order, we're all going to die Haman's trying to kill us all then Esther says, hey listen, this is what I want you to do go gather all the Jews that are present in Shushan and fast ye for me, neither eat nor drink three days, you know, three days night or day I also, my maidens will fast likewise, and so will I go unto the king which is not according to the law and if I perish, I perish and you know the story God said to them, God answered her prayer but she showed God she was serious and she showed God she was serious well not just fasting, but good night fasting three days and three nights I'll just read from Samuel 30.11 well it ain't funny, but it's an interesting story it's about this guy that gets brought to David that was captured, it was an Egyptian and it said this, that they gave him a piece of cake and figs, two clusters of raisins and when he had eaten, his spirit came again to him for he had eaten no bread and drunk any water three days and three nights and we know that David sometimes you know, represents Jesus and it almost reminds me of the story of Nineveh, where you got this guy who's literally not eating or drinking anything for three days and three nights and then comes David and saves him I don't know if it's related but it's an interesting story, I'm just throwing it out there for you to look at and obviously the person that fasted for sure no food, no water for three days and three nights I didn't know for sure he wasn't having fun and it was super painful, that was the Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights, where was he? exactly, we know that hell is not a fun place because look what it says in Luke 16 it says simply, Father, you may have mercy on me and last word that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I'm tormented in this flame hey, it's not fun to be tormented especially when you just want to cool your tongue and you're dying of thirst but let's get into some fun facts about Medellin, amen? alright, enough about fasting just throwing it out there, let's send everybody out there if you're praying and you're right with the Lord who knows, it doesn't hurt to at least try a day of fasting 7am to 7pm, I don't know or 7am to 7am, I don't know but if I was in that country, if I was in that city and no one's turning up a church no man of God is stepping up you know what, I'm just going to take it to the Lord and be like, Lord, I'm going to pray and you know what? I'm going to fast, but please don't tell no one because he ain't going to hear it that's just facts, but hey, Medellin I'm going to start with the things that I like I think these are things that we all should know about and number one, starting with the weather Medellin, Colombia, often referred to as La Ciudad de la Iterna primavera which means the city of eternal springs enjoys mild, spring-like climate throughout the year the average annual temperature in Medellin is around 73 degrees Fahrenheit hey, that was awesome when we were there but, there is a problem they have some pretty good storms down there and we got soaked we got soaked like jumping in the pool-type soap it was really bad when it came to the rain so this period is from April to May where it rains really bad and they can make someone in really hard because nobody wants to talk to you when it's pouring cold, you know, water from the sky so avoid those months April through May, please avoid them don't go there if you're going to go that is not the time to go we went around June, I believe, and man were we soaked so the weather is awesome just don't go between April and May, amen as far as religion, according to a 2020 survey Roman Catholicism rules 57% but it's not a whole bad thing because they are easy to get saved evangelical Christianity is about 50% other religions about 3.4 that's seven day event, Jehovah's Witnesses etc, etc and like I like to mention the cost was similar to going to Santo Domingo it's about the same, 650 or something like that for the flight hotels, obviously we stayed at a really nice hotel and we did that for safety and we did that because they served breakfast so it kind of saved a little bit of money so we're going to have to go out there and buy it and we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Suites de Medellin why? Because it's really easy to get there and I recommend this hotel all day every day because it's safe, it's clean you know, I don't know if they provide breakfast oh they do, I was already on top looking at the whole city, you know, it has a great view and also at the restaurant at the base there's restaurants you can just go and eat so it's making life easy for me because I don't really know much or I didn't know much about the country, barely nothing I barely even knew how to say the name I kept saying Medellin, you know, next thing you know it's Medellin, now it's Medellin is it the last one Evelyn? okay finally got it right Medellin and so when it comes to what we did is the first day we just got there, went to eat pretty much went to the hotel because it was dark so we kind of figured okay let's go somewhere popular some place that people like to check out when they come to Colombia so there was this place called Pueblo Escobar and so we went there and obviously it was a big thing about Pueblo Escobar now here's the thing about Pueblo Escobar not everybody likes them over there so I was afraid to even mention them it was just a popular area that people like to go to sure why not, let's go check it out obviously if he's building this town for people that are poor poor people usually mean receptive so we decided to go check it out sure enough that was day one the next day I just left it up to Dustin Dustin kind of did a quick recon as best he could but I knew hey this place we don't really know anything about it and what I like to do, I like to take people to places that I kind of know where we can get something to eat kind of know where we can go to the bathroom but in this case I left it off to Dustin he did the recon, he's like hey man I think I found a place this park, I think it would be good, I'm like alright let's go and it was what it was, all we can do is pray but the one thing he felt to tell me was that it was 30 minutes away from the hotel and I was like hey 28 right, if I would have known that I kind of asked him 20 minutes into the ride like man how far is this place he said 30 minutes, I'm like bro I don't feel comfortable going 30 minutes away from the hotel because this is Columbia and it's not exactly the safest place in the world but oh well, we're 10 minutes away let's see what you got, so we started going to this area this park that he found, and while we're like going there, we ended up seeing a school so we saw this school and we're like whoa they're just getting out, and I just said it yo man, you can leave us here so the taxi driver's like whoa, but that place is like 7 minutes away so we're good, we're good, stop the car right here, no big deal hey just let us out, here's the money, whatever trying to pay him, get him to stop, so he stops, we get out and I'm thinking hopefully these guys forgive me so being the people that were with me being the people that they are as soon as we get out, I'm like yo guys, sorry but I think this is a good spot, they were thinking hey we're about to tell you to stop right here too, let's go to work boom, everybody starts attacking all the students and we pretty much were there from like 11 am all the way to 5 pm so we got some people saved, so it was so good next day it was like hey where do you guys want to go let's go back there, and the reason we decided to go back there is because they did have a little strip where they were like places to get something to eat, and those places where you buy something, we'll let you use the bathroom but the other thing that I also liked, it was the school and another thing that I really liked is the school had a police department right across it so there were cops all over the place, and I was happy with that because I don't know if this area was safe or not, so I'm like hey this is a perfect spot, we got police, ain't nobody gonna mess with us, and we got a school, plenty of kids to talk to, and it's a busy street so we were just going up to everybody that was just passed by us and see if they wanted to get saved, and sure enough that worked very well, it worked so good that they wanted to go back to third day, I'm like alright let's go back to third day, you know so we went back to third day, from there 11 to 7 pm same thing, kids get out, we started talking to the kids but the principal was kind of getting a little bit upset because we were just going up to the kids with no permission and I could understand them, so we really weren't too mad at them, but he told us hey I don't mind you guys talking to the kids, but please do it off property because the parents are getting mad, they're like hey these random kids are just being approached by these people with bibles, we don't even know who they are well fair is fair, no problem, so we stayed out there and he didn't tell us not to talk to the kids, he just said no doing it on property because I'm getting in trouble so it worked so well, it was what it was, we decided to stay there again, so we didn't really go anywhere and I'm thinking well do you guys want to do some recreation I mean there's not really anything that I know of except going to see some scumbag you know dead billionaires ex-mansion where there's a bunch of hippos and they're like nah we gotta get people saved, no hippos? man I really wanted to see a hippo but according to Netflix hippos don't like Mexicans so I'm like nah I don't really like them some of you may know what I'm talking about some of you may not come ask me and I'll tell you so anyways that's what our trip was so we went there and that's kind of how it went, we just did that then Saturday came and we all went home and we lived happily ever after, so the bad here's the bad, that place is dangerous and it's getting worse, the reason I like this versus with Nineveh is because last year in 2023 they averaged a murder every 10 days every 10 days 2024 right now from different reports they averaged a murder every 6 days 6 days and guess who it is Gringos, they don't like Gringos down there and here's the other thing that I might as well bring up Columbia is known as the world's largest, I guess we can say it whorehouse prostitution is big down there and that is not good so the reason I wanted to use Nineveh or Jonah's story is because that place kind of made me think of Nineveh where it's violent sin, I don't know I didn't say anything about prostitutes but you can probably take it to the bank that Nineveh probably had a lot of crime and that was probably part of it but the formula is there to try to save that city and anybody that's in that city just look at Jonah, you might want to learn from him to do something about your high crime getting worse city because it ain't going to get better from what they think because everybody's going there to commit crimes and a lot of it is obviously crimes of fornication, prostitution boredom, all that stuff but would I recommend it? I guess my answer is this no if you don't love souls, I don't recommend it I don't recommend it praise God, anybody that would want to go there probably loves souls because the reason that these people are getting killed a lot of them is because they love cocaine and they love prostitutes and guess what we don't love cocaine and we don't love prostitutes so you shouldn't be afraid to go there unless you're going there for the wrong reasons because if you love Christians and you love people, you're the perfect person to go to Medellin and you will love it and you'll get a lot of people saved now how many salvations did you get brother Chris? I don't know, I stopped counting but all I can tell you is that there was a cool little idea of bringing one of their national flags and every time we got somebody saved, we had a runner that would keep an eye on all the soul winners, like oh man they're bowing their heads boom, just take off over there get them saved and ask them for a favor and we would just tell all these people hey can you do me a favor, can you sign my flag because I'm having a missions conference I mean a red hot missions conference and I would love to have something to remember you guys by and that's what we decided to do, to run around get all these people saved and there's about 90 names on here I don't know how many if you want to clap, clap, I've never had nobody clap before yeah, sure, sorry Eric did the old am I doing that good of a job? alright, clap but it is what it is, this is why I recommend you go there's not going to be cool activities out there, it's too dangerous for you to be doing anything out there if you're a gringo, you're a target, I'm just telling you that right now if you have an Apple Watch, oh you're going to get robbed you better take it to the bank and you might as well show up looking presentable because if you show up looking sloppy and you're a foreigner, they don't really like you over there, they kind of have that national pride where they want to look good, smell good, so if some sweaty American shows up with shorts and flip flops oh, you ain't going to have an easy time I'm just warning you they have a little too much pride in their hearts and I'm not attacking anybody here if you're going flip flops, I'm just telling you to them it's not a cool thing, they think that's for children that's the way they see us so be careful going down to Columbia but if you do I believe you're going to love it and I'm just telling you, do what I did go to the same hotel, you'll love it, take a cab we'll figure out where that place was that has a school and the police right across from it and we thought about knocking doors I thought about just walking a street or so we did that and then we saw a bunch of young guys in a group drinking, we're like, we're out because that's the one thing they tell you, watch out for watch out for young people in groups and if you're a gringo you don't want them to see you so we went back to the police area and increased our chances of surviving so the thing about Columbia or Medellin is it is a high crime area but we didn't really see anything and I guess if there's anything else that's dangerous, it's man if you get a taxi driver and he thinks he's Vin Diesel in Fast and Furious just close your eyes and enjoy the ride because that's exactly what happened to us and I always wondered how cool it would have been to be in that patrol vehicle where the pastor was being hauled off to get deported because he's talking about they were driving super fast I don't need to wonder anymore he thought it was cool because he's rolling with 5-0, he's rolling with a po-po with the police, I got this crazy cab driver that thinks he's Vin Diesel and that's probably why he shaved his head and I'm like, this dude is going to kill us, bro, and I'm just like, oh man, he's like swerving, gonna live from this guy's insane, he's honking at people my my time, my my time he's like, oh, good night, bro he's coming like centimeters from hitting people's side mirrors, I'm like, this guy is crazy, he must be high off that coca did we get that coca cab driver? hey, prayer and fasting definitely comes in in that situation because he made me so nervous I didn't want to eat for the rest of the day but these missions trips are great if you can do them, do them come to Faithful Word you donate to Faithful Word your money is going to these these people, hands down you know, we're not a bunch of nobodies that talk a big game but do nothing we're the real deal we're the real stinking deal always have been and always will amen, let's pray, dear Father we thank you so much for all that you've done, Lord we cannot thank you enough for such a great pastor such a great family, Lord, you are the best and we want to just do our best to please you, Lord, and we ask you, Father to just help everybody do missions in their lives before the life is over here, Lord it's just a great blessing to be able to go to these different countries and get people saved and rescue the parishion pull them out of the fire and we ask you, Lord to do this for everyone who's your children in their lifetime, in Jesus' precious name, amen Amen, let's sing our psalms together go to hymn 390, number 390 and we'll sing together have I done my best for Jesus? number 390 begins I wonder have I done my best for Jesus? hymn 390 lift your voice on that verse together now number 390 I wonder have I done my best for Jesus who died upon the brutal tree to think of his great sacrifice at Calvary I know my Lord expects the best from me how many are the lost that I have lifted how many are the chained I vow to free I wonder have I done my best for Jesus when he has done so much for me the hours that I have wasted are so many the hours I've spent for Christ so few because of all my lack of love for Jesus I wonder if his heart is breaking too how many are the lost that I have lifted how many are the chained I vow to free I wonder have I done my best for Jesus when he has done so much for me I wonder have I cared enough for others or have I let them die alone I might have helped a wonder to the Savior the seed of precious life I might have sown how many are the lost that I have lifted how many are the chained I vow to free I wonder have I done my best for Jesus when he has done so much for me no longer will I stay within the valley I'll climb to mountain heights above the world is coming now for want of someone to tell them of the Savior's matchless love how many are the lost that I have lifted how many are the chained I vow to free I wonder have I done my best for Jesus when he has done so much for me Amen. Excellent. Sing tonight. We are dismissed. Amen. Amen.