Scripture referenced 2 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Colossians 1:19-20 quoted directly to show Christ reconciling all things through his blood shed on the cross
19 For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him;
20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself, by him, whether things on the earth, or things in the heavens, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Keep this verse
Matthew 25:34-36
quoted to show the king welcoming those who fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed strangers, clothed the needy, and visited the sick and imprisoned
34 Then the King will tell those on his right hand, ‘Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;
35 for I was hungry, and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in.
36 I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.’
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This Sunday's message came from Ted Ravenold, a missionary supported by First Baptist Jackson who has served in Tanzania with his wife Kim for 33 years. Ted shared what their discipleship team is doing in East Africa and connected that work to a broader understanding of what Christ's blood accomplished on the cross. The message closed with a challenge about how every believer can see their ordinary daily work as spiritual service.
What was said
Ted opened by describing what most Christians would say if asked what Christ's death on the cross accomplished: that the wall of sin is broken down and we can have communion with the Father. He said that answer is only one third of what actually happened. Drawing on Colossians 1:19-20, he pointed to three relationships that Christ's blood reconciles: man to God, man to man, and man to creation. All three were present in the Garden of Eden before the fall, and all three are addressed in what Christ did.
The man-to-man dimension, Ted said, has direct consequences for how believers live among their neighbors. Because Christ loved us while we were unlovable, we can now love the neighbor who is difficult or even hostile. For the Tanzanian disciples on Ted's team, this is not a small thing. They live in a society shaped by witchcraft, fatalism, and a zero-sum understanding of the world, where a neighbor's prosperity is seen as a threat. Faith in Christ frees them from that fear, and people around them notice the difference.
Ted described the practical work the team carries out: fish farming, beekeeping, horticulture, papaya and coconut cultivation, pine seedling nurseries, Hass avocado orchards, and a new stoneware pottery studio. He was careful to say that he and Kim are the conduit, not the source. The team of 18 Tanzanian disciples does the work together, and the goal of the farming is eventually to generate enough income to pay those team members' wages without relying on outside support for their salaries.
He introduced a concept from a discipleship course that changed the way he thinks about evangelism: a line running from negative ten to positive ten, with zero as the point where someone crosses from unbelief into faith. That crossing, he said, is the Holy Spirit's work, not ours. Our work is to move people along the line, so that after spending time with us someone is a little closer to Christ than they were before. The same movement continues after conversion, as newer believers are built up toward maturity.
Ted then challenged the congregation on how we divide the spiritual from the secular. He argued that Scripture makes no such division, and that the reason our churches are not full is partly because believers have accepted the idea that sharing the gospel is someone else's job. He cited Martin Luther's point that even a milkmaid serves God by providing milk and butter to people made in God's image.
He closed with the example of Saint Patrick, who after being enslaved by Celtic pirates returned to Ireland as a believer and taught his communities to pray through every physical act of the day, from making the morning fire to filling the water cistern to lying down at night. Ted connected this to the command to pray without ceasing and to Matthew 25, where the King commends those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited the prisoner. The physical and the spiritual are not separate, and every daily act is an opportunity to serve Christ and move the people around us closer to Him.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Ted described three relationships that Christ's blood restores: our relationship with God, with other people, and with creation. Which of those three feels most real or alive to you right now, and which one feels hardest to live out?
- Ted talked about a linear scale from negative ten to positive ten, where our job is to move people closer to Christ rather than to force a decision. Who in your life are you influencing along that scale, and what does that look like day to day?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 10,752 words
Speaker 2Good morning, everybody. How are y'all this morning? Good. Alright. Good.
Let's sing them in from the vestibule. How about that? Okay? Would you stand with me? We're gonna sing there's power in the blood.
Saw some folks back there visiting and some folks that come in from time to time. Glad to have you back. We're gonna sing There's Power in the Blood, and join us.
Speaker 3There is power, power, wonder working power in the precious blood of the lamb. Would you be free from your passion and pride?
Speaker 2How How about redeemed how I love to proclaim it? Redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Lot about the blood this morning.
Speaker 3Redeemed how I love to proclaim it. Redeemed by the blood of the lamb, redeemed through his infinite mercy, his child and forever I am. Redeemed, redeemed, his Redeemed and so happy in Jesus. No language my rapture can tell. I know that the light of his presence with me doth continually dwell.
Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed, redeemed his child and forever I am. I think of my blessed redeemer. I think of him all the day long. I sing for I cannot be silent.
His love is the theme of my song. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed, redeemed redeemed his child and forever Amen.
Speaker 2Y'all can have a seat. I've got a few announcements. Actually, few more than a few. We've got Awana happening tomorrow night. Awana is a kids club.
Approved workmen are not ashamed. Awana starts off in this room right here. There's a big circle or an oval on the floor. That's the game oval. It's where the red, yellow, blue, and green team get together.
We start off the evening in this room, and then they spread out. What we're trying to do is get scripture into the minds of the kids to reach the hearts of the kids, the next generation. So that's the way we go forward. Precept Bible study is happening every Thursday in the Fellowship Hall, 9AM. You can contact Heidi.
She's right over here. That's her number if you wanna know more about it. But it is an inductive Bible study using scripture to interpret scripture, and they're working their way through the book of Mark. There is a Sunday school group that meets at 09:00. If this is your preferred service and you like coming to the 11:00 service and you don't have another small group, you might wanna join the Sunday school group that meets in the fellowship hall at the 9AM service.
That is what those folks are down there doing at nine on Sunday mornings. JH Women's Community Bible Study is happening. Also starting out in this room right here on Wednesdays from 10AM to noon. This is a great cross section of the churches of the Valley, ministries in The Valley. So there are women that gather from 10AM to noon.
They start out in here, and then they break up into small groups. Jhwomen'sbiblestudy.com to know more or to sign up, but you don't have to sign up. You can come on. Also, this little QR code, this is to get you to a place on our website that will help you to get hooked up with a small group. So if you're starting a group or you have a group that needs members, you can fill out the survey on your website.
I had two different people come to my office this week that said, hey, we're starting a study and I need to get ahead of the crowd because I'm gonna be leading the first couple of them. Do you have a study you'd recommend? Or do you have a book on the book of John or on the book of whatever? So it's happening, but the code is only gonna work till October 13. If you wanna do it that way, that's a way to do it.
Discovery class. We have not announced this in a while, but it's still happening. So the discovery class is if one of y'all or some of y'all, a family of y'all wanted to become members of church, you can come in to the discovery class, which is happens on the third Sunday each month. It's in my office whether I'm in there or not. Usually, there'll be an elder or two.
Gary Geek for years has been the guy who can answer the questions about the church and answer the questions about philosophy of ministry and just get to know you. So the discovery classes for y'all to discover more about what you need to know, asking questions about the church. It's also for us to get to know you too. So discovery class, third Sunday of the month in my office down the hall, second door on the left, third Sunday. This is not the third Sunday.
You don't have to worry about it. And it's after it would have been over anyway. So tribe tribe church here in Jackson has been helping out up on the Wind River Reservation. We have been up, Tanya and Pascal and I have also been up with the missionaries that they work with on the Wind River Reservation. Alyssa contacted me and asked me.
They said that they're going October 10 through the twelfth. They're going up to help with sort of a fall festival, a harvest festival on the res, and volunteers are needed. I don't have all of the specifics about it, but if you wanna know, we'll hook you into this group that's going. She said earlier in the week they had 10 spots left on their bus. And if you want to go and there are more than 10 of you that want to go, we will send our bus.
You know, our hours will get you up there too. So, tribe church, fall festival. Brian also wait a second. Oh, this is another one. So 10:15.
Do all remember the ads in the eighties that said it's 10:00. Do you know where your kids are? Do all remember that? That says something, doesn't it? I was one of those kids.
We love kids. We love having kids. I think the the sounds of life are so much fun. Just to hear what's going on in the patter of feet when we send them down to children's church in the first service. And to see Crystal ministering down there is fantastic.
To see the kids on Monday nights here is wonderful. At 10:15AM, when the connect hour is going on, there's all the pandemonium between services. We had an outage, a power outage a couple weeks ago, a few weeks ago. And we were like all the lights went off in every room except for this one for some reason. And when we were investigating afterwards, there was the little stool that you use to get to the water fountain when you're a little person.
Sorry. I didn't little person. When it was moved away from the water fountain and to the electrical panels downstairs. And somebody one of the kids had just flipped all the breakers off. So it's an easy solution.
No problem. But, hey, let's keep an eye on the young'uns between service, I guess, would be what I'm saying. Do you see that they're carrying firecrackers into the church right there on the picture? So we love having them. It's the sounds of life.
I'm not making any complaints, but let's let's let's keep an eye on them. The church directory is gonna be coming out again soon. We are looking for a high quality horizontal photo with more of your face than anything else in it. So the picture up top is a good picture. The picture down below where you cannot tell who the people are, you can just tell where the people are.
That's not a good example. So go with a horizontal picture of you or you and your family. If you can give us your name and addresses and phone number and all that sort of stuff, to assistant@firstbjackson.org. If you want to, Nick will take a good picture of you and put it in there. He'll even let you have editorial approval about the pictures.
If you don't like it, he won't use it. Okay? That's it. One more. So so Lisa contacted me about helping out on the res, and Brian Hunter at Tribe contacted me about Rabbi Mendelson had always also asked me.
It's at the same time as I wanna. It's 05:00 tomorrow night. There's a Unite for Israel event. So standing in solidarity with other communities of faith in the valley, it's gonna be on the Town Square tomorrow evening starting at 5PM. Rabbi Mendelson mentioned it.
Brian mentioned it. Another pastor in town mentioned it. We're doing Awana at the same time, but if you are able to go show your support, there you are. Connect hour. This is for volunteers.
This morning, you all deserve your own announcement. That was fantastic. That breakfast was fantastic. So and I skipped breakfast on the way out of the house this morning. I was so thankful for it.
Connect hour and Monday nights for Awana volunteers. Awana volunteers have access to a supper at 05:15 on Monday evenings. And we do that by the church pays for the food, but the volunteers make the food and set it up. There are sign ups in the fellowship hall if you wanna be a part of that. Ted, I listened to your first service.
I feel like I'm talking faster than I ever have. The the drawl is coming closer together these days. Can I pray for us? And then we'll would you stand with me right now? We'll sing the old rugged cross.
Lord, thank you. There's so many songs this morning about your blood and you, Lord, on the cross, shedding your blood, reconciled us to God and us to one another and all things you said are for you and your glory. Lord God almighty, I pray that you would allow us to see things differently this morning in a more divine light. In Jesus name, we thank you for the old rugged cross. Amen.
Would you stand with
Speaker 3On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame. I will cling to the all rugged cross and exchange it someday for a crown. I will cling to the old rugged and exchange it someday for a crown. To the old rugged cross, I will ever be true. It's shame and reproach gladly bear.
Then he'll call me someday to my home far away where is glory forever I'll share. So I'll cherish the old rugged cross
Speaker 2Amen. Amen. Worthy of worship. Worthy of praise.
Speaker 3Glory, worthy of all the gladsongs we can sing, worthy of all of the offerings we bring. Worthy You are worthy. Father, creator, you are worthy. Savior, sustainer, you are
Speaker 2You're have a seat, I'm gonna invite the ushers to come forward. I have an announcement sorta that I didn't hit in the announcements, but it kinda bears on what we're about to do. So we are taking up two offerings again today. We usually strive to do this once per quarter. Now Dave Hatfield, who is serving in Kenya, not far from Tanzania actually, was here a few weeks ago and we did a second offering for the Hatfields.
We're gonna do that again today for the Ravenolds. We wanna give you a chance to hear them too first. So we're doing our normal general offering offering right now, but we also are gonna do one at the end of the service for the Raybronolds Ministry, Grace Ministries International in in Tanzania. But you'll hear more about that. If you brought just one check today and you're planning on putting in the church offering, hold on to it and put it in the second offering for the missionaries.
Okay? Thank God we have a very generous congregation who has given and wants to see God work in this community, in this church, and to the very uttermost parts. A fairly significant percentage of our budget is missions, and we want to be a blessing always for that. We have a long list actually of missionaries. If you don't have a small group or if you do and would like another, we have a very small group of people who get together each week at 07:30AM on Wednesday mornings, and they pray together primarily for all the missionaries that we support here and anybody else that we have close contact that we know needs God's help.
Would you pray with me? Lord God Almighty, I thank you for the missionary heart that beats in this community, in this place, not just in this church, but in the others too. Lord, I pray that we would be a launching pad into the mission field, that every one of us when we walk out the back door would feel it, but Lord, we'd also have our prayers and meditations of our heart that are focused on you and your good gospel. That it would advance because we are humble and obedient servants and you say, you will grow your church. Would you help us, Lord, in moving people along?
In Jesus' name, we ask that you would help us prioritize the proclamation of your word and the end of human suffering. In Jesus' name, would you help marry those two together in each one of us. Amen. Thank you, Judy. So this is our friend, Ted, and I'll let him introduce himself.
There's your clicker. He he you'll you'll see.
Ted RavenoldThank Thank appreciate it. Good morning, everybody. It's great to see you all. It's our pleasure to be here. My name is Ted Ravenold.
This is my wife, Kim, and maybe I'll give them a wave. We haven't been here for four four years now. We we work in East Africa and Tanzania. You guys have sent us out. You might some of you might not know that, but you've sent us out to Tanzania to serve.
We really are blessed to be able to kinda feel like we're kind of full circle. We've been sent out by you guys. We're working in the field, and then we're back again to give give you an update on what you've been doing in Africa. And when I say you, I I Kim and I often feel like conduits. We talk about conduits.
There's a light switch, and there's a light, and in between the wire, we're just a wire. You guys are the switch. The Lights Africa and the people there that are on our discipleship team that are reaching others for the gospel. We're just great we're grateful for your interest in what's going on there, as well as those souls that are being touched and saved and impacted on a daily basis because of the group of disciples, Tanzanian disciples that are working there. We really believe Africa is best discipled and and evangelized by Africans, And so, our goal is really, you know, for years, missionary study, mission philosophy, and what it means to serve, and how how can you be the best missionary, but in the end, we always seem to come back to what Jesus Christ did, just building disciples and encouraging them, pouring into them, helping them be the best people they can be, so that they can share the the gospel with others.
And so, we really feel as westerners working in Africa, we have a core group. Right now, we have 18 people on our discipleship team. We're working in two different areas. We have low elevation area that's semi arid. It's really it's got a lot of foreign trees and acacia trees and mopane bush is what it is.
It's at 2,400 feet above sea level. Then we have a high elevation area that's a mile high, 7,220 feet above sea level. Totally different agricultural work takes place in both of those areas. We work with farmers, you know. 9095% of the people we're working with are farming, and so we really believe that we need to encourage farmers and work work discipling people to disciple and build up farmers, for the gospel.
And so we're doing everything we can to get involved in farming, as well as utilization of resources, in such ways that we we glorify the Lord and build up a team. So I'm gonna try and do two things today. I'm gonna go through I'm gonna show you some of the work we're involved in, as well as I'm gonna share share some scripture with you about what God's doing in our hearts as well, the hearts of our team. A lot of the things you're gonna see here, people think, oh, wow, Ted and Kim, you're doing so much in Africa. We have 18 people we're working with.
And so, you can do a lot with 18 people, and so when you see all this stuff, remember it's a great team that we're working with together, we're all doing this together for the glory of the Lord. Tanzania, you see the arrow there? That's that's East Africa. We're South Of Kenya, North Of Mozambique and Zambia. And so in Malawi, we're North of those countries, so they border us.
It's a it's an interesting country. There are a 120 different people groups in the country, and each one has their own language. Okay? So, it is a hodgepodge of people that build differently, have different customs and mores and all the things. Every tribe has its own way of of of doing things from building homes to making vessels for home use and all that.
It's very, very different. But the country is united under the language of Swahili. And so we speak Swahili. So so talking the I He said, praise the Lord, you know. But but, you know, I just wanted you to hear a little bit what the language sounds like, where we work.
I just say, you know, in Tanzania, we speak the language of Swahili. Our children have learned Swahili growing up there, and that's the language and mode of of communication we we we use when we share with people and build up disciples. This is a discipleship team. Some of the guys that we have right now, not only a team of them are there, but we're these are the guys that work in the valley. We have a a village agricultural venue in a in a village called Nsanga, and every one of these guys involved in a different aspect of that agricultural venue from raising pigs to fish farming to beekeeping to horticulture, grafting and budding of citrus and avocado to composting to environmental training.
We were involved in all these different aspects of work, and the reason we can do it all is because these guys are together with us. We really believe that, you know, know, we think about the gospel, we think about, how how God has has given us a special privilege and gift through the blood of Jesus Christ. And we we if I were to ask you, you know, what what what happened when Christ died on the cross for you? You know, you have to think about it. What what what do you really get?
What what do you receive upon his sacrifice that he made upon the upon his blood shed on the cross? And if you think about it, of you would probably answer because I've asked a lot of people this question. Most of you would probably answer, oh, you know, we're we're the wall of sin has been broken down. Now we can have communion with the father. Right?
That's what you would you would probably answer. But that's one third of the answer, and that's the amazing thing. It's really mobilized us and mobilized our team because there's two other parts of the answer of what Christ's blood did. If you ask yourself, when did humans truly thrive on this earth? When do we thrive?
There's not much thriving going on right now. I'll tell you that. You know? And I think you'd have to agree with me when you look at the world and you look at some of the struggles even our country is in right now. But when did humans truly thrive?
They they humans thrive before the fall in the Garden of Eden. There was a perfect relationship between Adam and Eve and God. They commune with him as friends. They walked in the morning and evening as friends, and they they they spoke and they they shared together. There's another relationship between Adam and Eve that was was unique at that time and true love.
They were enveloped in true love and and and encouragement and mutual blessing to each other as people, as well as Adam and Eve in creation. They experienced unparalleled joy with the beauty that God gave them. He told them to tend the garden, and he gave them beautiful fruit that sustained their bodies and gave them everything they needed. And so these free relationships were there. When Christ died on the cross for us, he almost brought us back to the Garden of Eden in so many ways in those free relationship.
So it's not just a relationship of man and God that's restored and and reconciled, but rather the man to man relationship is also restored. And this should bring great joy to us because of the fact that it makes my makes me able to love that unlovable neighbor right now. Okay? I can love the one that's next door to me. I can love him, and I can forgive him, and I can accept him even though he's unlovable, and he might hate you.
He might hate you. He might might not like you at all. He be almost in some ways an enemy of yours, but you can love him because why? Christ loved you, And you're unlovable, and I'm unlovable. But because of his love, we are now and the blood that Christ shed, we can now love and forgive our neighbors in an unparalleled way as believers in Christ.
And then we can also receive the good thing, whether it be pigs, chickens, whatever the aspect of creation that you're working with on a daily basis, you can use those things to impact those people in that horizontal relationship that Christ has bought back through his blood. And so these three relationships extend to us. We build that into our men. They live in a hard society. They live in a society dominated by witchcraft.
There's three different facets of the society that they they live in. African people in our area, they utilize witchcraft to gain control of the world around them. Okay? Everybody wants control. Every American that I know, most Americans they want control.
They want a measure of control about their environment. And so in in America what do we use? The US dollar. Okay? If I have enough money I can control my surroundings, you know.
I can make the temperature of my house a certain temperature. I can, you know, go to a certain school. I can have certain privileges. We use US dollar to get control. Okay.
In Africa, with the way Africa, they don't have money, not the degree of money that we have. People there make about $400 a year and they they want to gain control just as much as we do of the environment that that they live in. They don't know Jesus Christ. Same with us in America. Many of us don't know Christ, and we're looking for this control.
But where we are working with the Tanzanian people we're working with, they seek to get control through witchcraft. They believe that you that a shaman can manipulate the spiritual realm, provide a fetish, a charm, an incantation, something for them, so that when he manipulates the spiritual realm, that can then come down and give them what they're seeking in the physical realm. So, they'll pay him, they'll give him a goat, a chicken, two chickens, an axe head, a hoe, they'll give these things to him, and after that receiving that payment, he'll provide a fetish, a charm, an incantation, something to sew into their pants, something to plant in their cornfield to help them get what they're seeking. They might be looking for a certain woman to be their wife, they might be looking for political power in the village, they'll seek to get that through witchcraft. Okay?
And so these guys live in this environment. The the there's some things that that really define the the worldview that they're in. One of them is fatalism. Okay? Fatalism meaning my grandfather was poor, my father was poor and therefore I too will be poor.
I can't get out of it. Okay? That's the way they believe. That's the way many of them think. That's not biblical.
Okay? They also believe that there is something called zero sum. That means that my gains are directly balanced by your losses. Okay? So that means if I am am being very blessed, I've taken something from you.
That guy will think, you know, how he has so he's been blessed, he's been given something, and he's actually robbed me from it, he's taken it from me, and I'm justified getting it back any way possible. Because even if I steal from him, it's not wrong for me to steal because he's spiritually manipulated the world, so he so I have more than he had, and so he can therefore come after me, you know. They believe in limited good good. A limited good, that means that the the world is a pie and it's broken up into slices, and if my slice is big and his slice is small, therefore, I have somehow manipulated the spiritual realm to get a bigger piece of the pie, and and that's not right. And so, he'll bear a grudge against me, if not outwardly, he'll bear a grudge inside.
And so, sometimes African people in the morning time, they they love greetings. They'll greet each other. They'll say, you know, how is the morning? How is your wife? How are your children?
He'll greet they'll greet each other in the morning time, but in reality, many of them are deathly afraid of that person they're talking to. Because they're afraid that they'll utilize the spiritual realm to hurt them if they step out of line. Okay? And so, this is a world that they live in. These guys now recognize they're reunited through the blood of Christ.
Okay? Through this through through the relationship to God and through that neighbor that in the past they've been afraid of, they now can love that guy. Because they don't believe that he has that power of witchcraft to hurt him. They've trusted in the blood of Christ. They're not afraid of witchcraft anymore, you know?
And so they can love that guy and therefore they in an unparalleled way, people look at them and they think what who are these guys? They're not afraid. They're joyful even though people people, you know, some people target them or despise them. They're joyful and they believe that Christ is in charge of their future and their destiny. And so it's really great working with them.
And then they utilize all the good things God's given them. Juvi there does our fish farming. Boaz does the horticulture work, and they're involved in working with people on a daily basis. This is our training center in the Ruqua Valley. Those bigger trees you see there are hybrid lime trees called Tahiti lime.
We do papayas, red lady papayas. We have coconuts. We do a banana called grand grand name bananas that we bring in. They're they're they're clean bananas. When I say they're clean, they're tissue they're they're cultivated through tissue culture, and that means that they don't have nematodes or banana weevils.
They come in totally clean as clean stock. Local people need to get banana starts. They can get them from us, and they can plant them for their for their gardens and for their family. We have schools come all the time. We have primary schools.
We have secondary schools. We have the Boy Scouts come, the Boy Scouts of Tanzania. You get to spend time with them. We butcher a goat together, and we chop it up, and we eat it, and they they love that. They get so happy about that, You know, like any Boy Scouts would, butchering a goat and eating it.
And so, but you get to share your faith with the guys and say, you know what, we're farming here and most farms don't receive big groups of people because they're too busy, they're farming. But we love Jesus Christ first. That's why we're here. And so, we want you to know about all these good things. And, you know what the people say in the area about our team of guys?
They say, what we love about you is you give us free knowledge. Free knowledge. And, when I when I say that, what I mean by that is, you know, in in in knowledge there's power. If you know how to fish farm and nobody else knows how to fish farm, you just tell them, you know what, you can make this much money if you fish farm. Or this, you can get this much protein from a fish pond.
And then you should let it go a little bit. And the guy comes and says, really? How can I do it? Well, if you give me a little money, I'll tell you. And they that's how they make money there.
But for us, we say Christ has freely given us all things. We want you to come in, we'll spend time with you, teach you how to do what we're doing here. And we spend time with the guys. I said the guys that come in the door, they're the change agents in our in our community. Spend time with them.
Don't just build up the fish ponds and the pig pens every spend time with people coming in. Help them know everything that we know so that they can glorify God like we do. And they're amazed. They say, you give us free knowledge. We don't know anybody that does that, and so it's a way of shining for Christ in our area.
These are the red lady papayas I was telling you about. These have never these were never planted in the Rukua Valley until 2002. Now if you see them in the valleys because people are buying fruit from us, they're drying the seeds and planting them themselves. It takes it takes twelve months to get a tree that looks like the one behind Boaz or me here in this picture, and so it really doesn't take a long time to be able to get that fruit. It takes eight months for the tree to grow, they put out flowers and they start to produce all these fruits.
Papayas are extremely nutritious, very full of vitamins, and and very good for your skin, as well as your eyes and and your whole body. Even the seeds are good. We do coconuts. We we bought a property in 2009 in a village called Llanza, and we realized there's lots of minerals in the soil, and we thought it might be a detriment to farming. We dug some holes for test testing the soil, and we noticed that on the top of the ground, as the water dried in the soil, it produced a white crust, and that white crust actually had chlorine and a bunch of other stuff in it, a lot of minerals that we found in the soil.
I started to I mean, think about the Babylonians in the Bible talks about when they go through and decimate an area, they would sow salt into the soil. So I'm thinking, what kind of land for farming did I get did I get here? Well, we thought, what grows in mineral rich soil? And, we just, I, you know, was thinking coconuts grow in it. Yeah.
They're right they're right on the beach in salt water. And, so, planted coconut trees. And, guys, those trees, if you're a tree hugger, you will never get your arms around that tree. Those bad boys are so fat, fat and sassy, those trees. And they produce, so many beautiful coconuts.
We have our beehives with them. The bees, pollinate the inflorescences, which are male and female flowers, and they help good pollination to happen, so you see clusters of fruit like you see in that picture. These are the bananas, the grand name bananas I was telling you about. We have people every single day show up at our base, they have baskets on their head, they have baskets on their bike, they have baskets on their motorcycle, a big long line of people, they buy our fruit, and then they sell it for a markup. So they're middlemen or middle women.
They come and they're able to purchase from us, they take it out, and then they sell it. And our goal is through our farming to pay the wages of all the guys on our discipleship team. Because the guys that work for us, we don't give them money. They work for their money, and while they're working, they learn about the things that they're doing. And so it's it's really fun for us to be able to think of how can we bring in enough enough of an income through these farms that can actually take care of the guys on the team, and build up the team, and also help them have something.
If I ever have to leave Tanzania, I want something going on there. You know, I want I want them to be able to continue to derive an income as opposed to having and you guys honestly shouldn't be paying their wages. You can pay my wage. Okay? Because I live in the middle of nowhere.
But paying their wages, you that should that should be part of the farming we're doing. You know? And so so this is fish farming. We we work on symbiotic relationships, teaching symbiotic relationships, and it's an interesting thing. The the young people that come I don't know if you're on a class trip when you were younger.
We we went on a class trip, and honestly, I never took notes on my trip to Washington DC or whatever that we went on as a class when I was in school. But when we have groups of kids like you saw earlier, those kids come with notepads and they're writing stuff down the whole time because, you know, most of them are going be farmers. They're going need to learn how to utilize the land to make a living. And so, we teach them about, it's like a biological thing, but it has to do with symbiotic relationship, and that means the relationship of how, in this case, what we do is we have livestock like pigs. You can use pigs, cows, chickens, but we use the the refuse.
I won't elaborate on the refuse of the pig pens, but we use a refuse, from the pig pens to add nitrogen to our fish ponds. Okay? And so we'll take a bucket of some of the refuse from our pig pen, we'll mix it up and put with water, we'll throw it right into our fish pond. Now, a cutthroat trout wouldn't thrive in that kind of an environment. Okay?
But, a Nile tilapia does. Okay? And so, these Nile tilapias, they love algae laden water, it produces a secondary fish food called phytoplankton and zooplankton, is in in that water. The fish eat that and they grow twice as fast as if they were in clean water. And so, produces helps local people taking from the first thing, which is pigs in this case, building up their fish ponds, and then when the dissolved oxygen levels in the pond get to be too low, we then run water off of that fish pond onto our papaya trees and to our lime trees.
And then when that fruit, some of it will fall and won't get sold, that goes in right back to our pigs. And so, you know, it's this one thing feeding the second thing that feeds the third thing, that then goes and feeds the first thing. And so, it's a way for farmers to do three things instead of one for the same cost, you know. And so it's just something that we like to do and work with people in training them. We do beekeeper training.
That's the one thing that I train. All the other training we do, we bring in people, Tanzanian people that have their degree in whatever the teaching is that that goes on. I love connectivity, so I meet somebody. I said, get out of here. You're a horticulturist.
What do you think about coming to a remote area of your country and training local people there? And the guy's like, yeah, I've always wanted to go to that area, and so we'll host him for a week or whatever when he'll come and do training. But beekeeper training is one thing that I do do. I enjoy very much working with beekeepers. The end of May, beginning of June, we receive all of our trainees.
They come. The first day is theory, talking about what happens in a beehive. What's the brood the, you know, the brood chamber, the honey chamber. We use top bar beehives. They're hives that have bars in them instead of levels, you know, these levels that Langstroth beehives have.
And then helping local people, learn how to keep bees to produce higher amounts of honey as well as wax. African farmers need to be diversifiers. Most farmers here are as well. You can't count on one thing to make a living. If something fails, you have to rely on something else.
And so, this is one way local people can make a living and add to their diversification scheme by keeping bees. It also improves the pollination of whatever they're farming. This is the second day we do practical. There's a honeycomb on the right and the guys are pulling honeycomb out of that out of that hive there. That's Jericho holding the honeycomb.
I call him my honey badger. He's something that guy. I mean, is a real dynamo and he can explain and and he talks to the guys that come to our training. So, he really works with the teams of of trainees that we have. And so, we're we're going through a beehive there, looking for the queen in the hive as well as we teach the guys on the day of the practical how to make foundation.
The bees pull their comb on foundation, on wax foundation. Then the next day we go through and we do processing and packaging of honey so that it has a good market value. We run another I told you guys we have two stations, one lower elevation, one upper elevation. This is the upper elevation station. It's a plateau training center.
These are our pine seedlings here. At this point, when we had this parliament representative come, we have 40,000 seedlings in that we call it a kitalo, a nursery there. And then people local people come and purchase seedlings from us, these pine seedlings, and we plant them as well on our on our the properties that we have there. So we we we are involved doing apples there. These are varieties that come from Uganda as well as avocados.
These are Hass avocados that thrive on the plateau, but not in the valley. So we have two acres of these now, but we're expanding. We hope to get to 10 acres. Like I said, we want to bring enough of an income in that we can carry our entire team, with what we're doing. So these Hass avocados grow very well on that plateau training center.
You it's amazing. You grow a mile high. These this fruit grows, and it really and, you know, local people are corn farmers. They walk in and they scratch their heads. They're like, what?
Apples and avocados? We can't imagine they grow here. And so just spending time with them. And that's the fun thing about the group of guys we work with. They build relationship.
They go to their homes. They meet their family. They go to their gardens. They they naturally share their faith by befriending people, and and we're we're excited about that opportunity. We've we're we set up a stoneware studio where we're training local people how to do high fired clay, making stoneware.
That's where, you know, there there's a terracotta low fired type clay, and then there's a high fired clay where the molecules vitrify harder, and it makes a really hard ware. So in other words, if you're making mugs or plates or bowls, you want to have a stoneware, mugs, plates, and bowls. And so, we found, clay near us. Looking at resources that God had made has made, we found clay near us that goes to high temperatures. So, I was able, in a couple years, to buy that clay pit, and so we utilized that clay in making our pottery.
This is a brand new project. We've only fired the kiln three times now. Okay? But these are the guys quarrying the clay on the left to throw into my old Land Cruiser to take back to our base, and that's what the clay looks like. I made a ball of it with my thumb imprint in it, And this is one of the guys, his name's Dragon.
Dragon, what a name. His name's Dragon, but he's dumping a bucket of clay slurry through those filters. So there's a rough filter on the top, like a of a fly screen filter in the middle, then we have a piece of cloth now that's not in this picture, we have a piece of cloth under that, and then we have an 80 grit filter on the very bottom. And the clay then runs through all three of the top filters and through the 80 grit filter, and it's then ready to put out in the sun. It dries on a on a on a flat or, it's like a big tray that we've made, a rectangular tray, and as it dries and it starts to get more firm, then we put it in the sun, and then the guys knead it, they wrap it in plastic, and they put it in buckets for throwing on the potter's wheel.
This is you see Eliamu up on the left there with Alan. Alan is not a believer, but he's a very gifted potter. He's learning how to do pottery. Eliamu spends the whole day he's a pastor, great guy, real heart for people. He spends the whole day working without any.
I mean, talk about natural ability to share your faith with other people, you know. Pottery provides that kind of a of a of an environment where people spend time together. And so, spending time without any there, then you see this guy in the middle here, Paul. He came from The US with his wife. We befriended them while Paul was just in ninth grade.
I was his mentor at Riff Valley Academy, and he put himself through university by making pots and selling them online in The United States here. He came out with his wife to help with the training. That's Joeli, another guy that's really gifted, we're just working with and spending time with trying to teach him how to make some some pot. These are from the first three firings, some of these pieces. The mug on the left, there's a glass or a goblet in the middle, and then a bowl on the right.
And it's the the clay body is red because there's iron as well as other minerals in it, So, the clay body is red. That's been fired to cone six, which is 2,225 degrees Celsius is what it's been fired to. And so, it is interesting, to to think about pottery and the ability it has to impact local people. Once again, a resource that can help people make an income. We have a lot of safari camps saying, we want your stuff.
Okay? We want to sell your stuff. We want our logo for our safari camp on it, and then somebody buys a piece like a a mug, and they're leaving the country with a piece of Africa. Think about that. It's not just a mug, it's a piece of the place you've gone to.
And so for us, it's exciting thinking about local people being able to do that. We have, two wheelchairs distributions a year in which 10 wheelchairs are distributed to people. The wheelchairs are kind of fun. They you you you pedal them with your hands because they're they have withered legs, and so you have to have mobility in both your arms to do it. And so, we we have an organization we work with that lives in town, or that operates in town, called GCDE.
Those guys vet the people that are coming to be sure that they're able to use a wheelchair because we had in the past, we had a few palsied people come that really couldn't use a chair, so we want to be sure that people have the ability to use those chairs. And so it's fun for us. You spend time there, but traffic policeman comes. I mean, think about this. Here's somebody that can't walk, and you're putting them on the road.
Okay? It's it's a little crazy. It's a little bit daunting. So they get in a wheelchair, they get on the road, and so we have a traffic policeman. He talks for an hour and a half about the road rules and how they have to be careful.
And so you go through and then takes time, spending time, really loves the people. It just pours into them as well. Even though he's not coming to do it for spiritual reasons, we we appreciate the government being involved in helping with that. So so it's been fun being involved in that project. Kim is amazing.
She works with the wives and the children of our discipleship team, always with them, always spending time with them, teaching them skills and crafts, and and just helping them as women who live in this this environment, that can be quite depressing and quite quite enslaving to help them, live what does it mean to live as a child of God? And and so, you know, and and live above some of the fear and some of the things that are generated, through Africa and what Africa does. This is our kids. If you have question about those guys, our family, we have two children living in Tanzania that have married and live out there, and then we have a daughter in New Jersey who's works in ICU ward for a children's hospital. Our our other kids, our son runs a coffee farm on the foothills of Kilimanjaro, and our youngest daughter married a third generation dairy a British dairy farmer who lives in Central Tanzania in a town called Eringa.
And so we had Christmas together last year, and this is a picture from Christmas. So so so yeah, let me just let me just share a little bit about just want you guys to realize a few things that that God encourages us within his word. Okay? First off, for years, I always felt defeated because I wanted people to understand the gospel and often after spending time with somebody, I didn't feel they they they didn't make a decision for Christ. And so I'm thinking, just poured my heart and my ability, you know, I wanted to be persuasive and encourage them to see who Christ is and what he's done for them, and in the end I felt because he didn't come to Christ that I failed somehow.
But then I'd taken I after that I took a a discipleship course at a local seminary, and in the discipleship course I was taught something that transformed the way I looked at life. And in that course they taught me about a linear line. Okay? And on that linear line you have a negative 10 here, you have a positive 10 here, and you have a zero in the middle. And the guy that talked about it said, everybody lives on that line.
Every single person. You're on that line somewhere. You're one of those numbers on that line. I'm one of those numbers on that line. Anybody's one of everybody in the world, no matter what country they're in, they're on that line.
A negative 10 is somebody that thinks Christianity is foolishness. It doesn't make any sense. There may be atheistic or agnostic. They have they want nothing to do with Christianity. The zero is the step over line from the negative one to a positive one, where somebody the Holy Spirit this is the Holy Spirit that changes a heart.
Somebody goes from a negative one to a positive one, they realize, you know what? Christianity, it is it's true. Jesus Christ is the son of God. He did die on the cross for me. His blood was shed on my behalf as a as a as a from a negative one to be a positive one or to somehow coerce them or persuade them.
That's the Holy Spirit's job. That's the Holy Spirit's job. But your job, brothers and sister, is to move people on the line. Okay? That means in other words, after they spent time with you, maybe they were a negative seven, but you spent time pouring into their lives and and they got to know you, whether it be an hour or a week or three years, at the end of the time they spent with you, they should think, you know what?
This guy this guy, he's a cool guy. He he he he he's not a jerk. How do you want to put it? You know what I mean? There's something this guy is exuding that is is desirable.
He he he has a hope. He has a a joy in life when the rest of us don't have it, and we want what he had. And somehow that person should move from a negative five to a negative four because of your influence in their life as well as others. It's not just you, but others influence as well. They're moving.
You're helping move people closer and closer to that to that point where they step over, and they trust in Jesus Christ. And then we're not done. First off, you also need how to how to know how to share your faith and say, you know what? You're at the point where you're ready to trust in Christ. Let me spend time with you and pray with you right now.
We're not exempt from that. Okay? We need to be able to do that, but then also helping people grow on that spectrum. Taking a new Christian under your wing. Let me spend time with you.
Let's disciple. You know, you don't say let's disciple, but you're discipling that person. You're building that person up in Christ, so they get closer and closer to the goal of being a 10 when the Lord calls them. And so so that is really evangelism and discipleship is moving people on the line. Okay?
And I think that's something so important for us to to remember. Now, I wanna share a a verse, with you here. It's, sorry. Right here. It's in Colossians.
Colossians one nineteen through 20. Colossians one nineteen through 20. It says here, let me give you a little more time if you're looking for it. Colossians one nineteen through 20. It says here, for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.
So he reconciled all things through the blood of Christ. We talked about the blood of Christ, the reconciliation of of man to God and God to man, the reconciliation of man to man, the reconciliation of man to creation. He reconciled all things, things on heaven or things in on earth. Now, I wanna I wanna tell you guys something. Most of us love to divide the spiritual from the secular.
We see there's a divide there. They're not we see them as two separate things, but that's not taught in scripture. That's not taught in scripture. I don't know what you do for a profession, but most people say, oh, pastors, missionaries, evangelists, they're doing spiritual work. I'm a plumber, or I'm a I'm an educator, or you might even think I'm a housewife, what can I be doing?
That's never taught in scripture. Okay? We divide it in our minds. We divide those things. The reason our churches aren't chock full of people is because we live in our minds with this division always in front of us.
We see this division. We feel that it's not our job really to carry the gospel to people as as lay people. But, that's not what Christ says. Martin Luther himself said it perfectly. He said, even the common or the humble milkmaid provides service to God in providing butter and milk for all.
All those that are made in God's image. She milks cows, she provides butter, she provides milk to people, and she in so doing is providing service to God in heaven. And so, I want to ask you, how do you wake up in the morning? Do you wake up realizing I'm going forth to serve God? Because if you do, it will it will energize you.
It will revolutionize the way that you reach the people around you, and people will be touched by it in such a way that they're moved on the scale, that they're moved on that scale. So remember, there's no division between the secular and the spiritual. They are it's all spiritual, the work that we do. It's all spiritual. The guy that I think really, touched my heart in regards to this, is is somebody we're all familiar with.
His name is is Saint Patrick. Okay? Saint Patrick was captured as a young man, 16 years old. He was enslaved by Celtic pirates. Okay?
Irish pirates caught Saint Patrick, and he served as a slave, was enslaved in Ireland for for eight years, was was enslaved by the the Celtic people, and then was able to escape and went to England. When he got to England, he had a conversion experience in his life. He he became a Christ follower, and he studied theology. He learned about God. And then, what did he do?
He said, I wanna go back to the Celtic people that enslaved me. Think about that. Slave, a slave enslaved, and he went back to the people that enslaved him. And when he got there, he he realized that people were so pagan in the way that they looked at life. He formed enclaves of small communities of people, and he taught them to be spiritual in their lives and not get caught into the pagan practices of the local people.
And so he taught them as people believers and followers of Christ, when you wake up in the morning, start your day by by by devoting everything you do to Christ. So he taught them when you make your fire, as you make your fire to start your morning, as you make your fire say Christ, create a fire in me. A fire in me as they make their fire. A fire for my family, a fire for my friends, and a fire for my foe. Let me be on fire for the people in my life, a spiritual fire for them, and and and fan the flame, your flames in their hearts.
And so, as he went through the day, as he they would go and gather their water, as they would fill their water cistern, as they filled it, they say, as you fill the cistern, fill me with your spirit that I might go forth and and and love the people that you put around me. When they lay down at night, you know, I empty now. I empty myself to you. I empty my my my my anxieties, my worries, my fears. I empty it to you, father, son, and and Holy Spirit.
He he he took his the the day was all about praying. And you know when I when I read the Bible, when you read verses that that say pray without ceasing. I always thought that's such pie in the sky stuff. Who can pray without ceasing? But that's exactly what he taught them.
He taught them as you wake up, there's a way that you can devote your morning to God, your day to God. And as you go through the day, Christ is continually in your mind as you work your way through your day. The physical things that you're doing become spiritual. They become spiritual, and we become more spiritual people for it because we we then recognize these things that we're doing physically as part of of the the extension of God's kingdom amongst us. And and I think that's something that I would like to really leave you with is thinking about what does it look like?
What does it look like to take our day? First off, to remember when you wake up that God has called you to serve him in a spiritual way, not a physical way. A physical way as well because physical are renewed, but to see the work that you do as spiritual work, and then to go forth and then take that day and for the glory of Christ and every activity you're involved in, say Christ and I don't know what it will look like looks like to push the button on the microwave instead of lighting a fire, but there there must be a way that we can turn that into a prayer to ask God to be with us in in those daily activities that we do. So so may God encourage you. May God strengthen you.
I know I have a lot more to say. I have lot more to talk about, but I know I don't have the time to do it. So if you if you like to talk more after the service, I'd love to meet with you. There's even some maybe I'll close you with close with one verse. I'd like to close with before we finish here.
That's in Matthew Matthew 25 verses 34 through 36. And I want you to think about this. Think about your the way that you impact people on a daily basis. He says here, then the king will say to those on his right side, come you who are blessed by my father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you closed me. I was ill and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me.
The people that that are being, you know, is sharing about here are people that are living in a physical world and thinking how can I do these physical things in a spiritual with the spiritual ramification? And so, we leave, whether you're going to visit people in prison or whether you're just going to help people, you work on a closed closed store and you're helping people be clothed, know, or giving someone a cold glass of water, God will use that to encourage and build people up in the world that you live in. So, let me pray for you as a church. Lord, I thank you so much for this day. I thank you for the ability to be here and to share about what you're doing, Lord, in the world, as well as to think about our own hearts, Lord God.
Where are our hearts? How can we be used by you? How can we go forth, Lord Jesus, and and in a in a way which is humble hearted and loving, move people on that scale, Lord God, so they might come closer and closer to Jesus Christ? And if they're saved, Lord, how can we build up those believers around us, and be used by you, Lord, in the short life that we have, Lord. I don't know if we have seventy years, eighty years.
I don't know if it's shorter than that, Lord, but I do pray that we would use those those lives and burn these fires for you. We pray this in Jesus Christ's holy and precious name. Amen. You're welcome. You're welcome.
Thank you, brother. Thank you. So
Speaker 2we're gonna sing a song, and I'm gonna ask the ushers if they come back forward. If Barry, if we could grab Carl and couple of together, maybe Tim. We're gonna take up another offering here during the during the song. But thank you. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3We've been in a
Speaker 2continuing study about the 12 steps of recovery, and we got up to tenth last week. And this week, everything you said fits into step 11.
Speaker 3Mhmm.
Speaker 2And it says, we have sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God. That's exactly what you're talking about Saint Patrick teaching people. Yeah. We have sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God. Praying only for his will for my life and the power to carry that out.
Ted and Kim, y'all are doing exactly what God has called you to do. Thirty three years. Yeah. Thirty three years there. What's going on?
God, would you bless Tim? Tim. Ted and Kim, would you bless them lord? Here in this time of service here but lord, as they go back, we pray that you would just make everything fruitful to see things flower. We appreciate it and we want to be a part of it.
Lord, would you do your will in us and through us right now? Amen.
Speaker 3I love you lord. You can stand and I lift my voice to worship you
Speaker 2As a blessing, I wanna continue. Y'all can just be silent. Holy
Speaker 3spirit. Sweet heavenly love, stay right here with us, filling us with your love. And for these blessings, we lift our hearts in praise. Without a doubt, we'll know that we have been revived when we shall leave this place.
Speaker 2Amen. And now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and present you blameless before God Almighty. Jesus Christ our Lord, both now and forever. Be the glory, dominion, power, and all authority. Amen and amen.
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