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Be Not Deceived Far Reaching Ministries pt1
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Welcome back to Be Not Deceived. We are so thankful that we have some special guests today. My name is Vicky Wiederich and I'm the host hostess and I have pastor Rick Baudry here again. Thank you. And I have a special guest, Edward Amaya and he is from far reaching ministries. And we are so happy that that he has come and joined us today. And we're gonna talk about so many amazing things that we don't always get to hear about and he's gonna let us know what's going on in the world today that is somewhat emotional because evil is out there and we in America don't often get to see it in our everyday life. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you pastor for being here. Thank you, Edward for joining us and our podcast is Be Not Deceived. And we like to look in the Word of God to see what the truth is compared to what the lies are out there. With the far reaching ministries, I'd like to know where you started, how did this ministry begin, a little bit about yourself, and and then I wanna go to the scriptures to see how God sees evil. How does he look on the evil that has been going on for a very long time, we can read that in Genesis, we can read it all the way to Revelation, and then what's happening today in our world. Amen. Yeah. That's a really good question. I I think that the world has changed a little bit. How we got started, it was honestly, it's just based out of obedience. You know, Wes, became a Christian through the Calvary Chapel movement, and the way that the Lord got him is that when you are called, everything becomes yes after that. And Wes, has this heart about what do I have? You know, Wes says, don't have a lot of things. You know, I didn't go to the right school. I didn't do this, but what do I have? And Wes was a former marine, and so he was brave. And the Lord used his bravery to go into Russia in the early days and start to bring Jesus when those walls came down and to go into prisons. And and then we ended up in Sudan, what we're mostly known for, West being a a marine, and somebody called him and said, hey. You're a marine. You're the most qualified. Will you go into a war zone and find out where the enemy's in camp so we can fly in and see what what a response should be? And because he's a marine, he just said yes, and he went, and that's how we became a ministry. Awesome. I have, my son, Brandon Wiederich, is a marine and and has, now works in the shipyard, but I also have a son-in-law who is a former Marine, so they are dear to my heart. And what's so funny is my grandchildren, I have six of them from my daughter, Brittany and Hunter, and they come and they eat with us when we get to have them stay the night, and they pray for the soldiers in Sudan every single time. That just blesses my heart to have you here then, to have them be a part of this upholding your ministry, and they always pray for Musa that he might not die anymore, and I thought, when I first heard them say that, I thought, who is Musa and why are we praying for him? And now I realize after I've studied a little bit and looked into your ministry that even my grandchildren are apart. So isn't that wonderful? So you have how many ministries out there? Well, we were in, so we have a lot of ministries. I think those are probably I don't think we could count how many ministries are going on, but, we're actually in 39 countries now. We usually say above 30. We're in five active war zones, and we're nine of the 10 most dangerous Islamic nations. And the reason we're there is it doesn't make us special, but that just makes us obedient to what God has called us to. And that's what I wanna bring. You know, the stories that we'll probably talk about Yeah. They're not normal. And I wanna be able to bring those, but to give the listeners the courage, the encouragement that when God puts a call in their life, no matter what that is, it doesn't matter. When that call's there, that comes without repentance, and we are to embrace that. Our happens to be war zones, but for other people, it might be being the best mom they can be while they're raising children, the best grandmother. Yeah. That's their ministry for sure. Kinds of callings are difficult. It's not easy. I had looked into a couple of the ones that are in Sudan and wow, these ones who are called are called sometimes unto death. And these are serious things. These are war torn areas that you're going to. And I thank you for doing that and being obedient unto the Lord. And God is watching and I'm sure intervening in some moments, but then there are are ones that are dying in their call. And is that is that biblical? Hold on. Is that biblical that we we should suffer? What do you what do you say pastor? We're already dead. We're already dead. I know pastor teaches us that all the time. That that when God calls us Yeah. Yeah. I'm crucified with Christ. Right. Nevertheless, I live. Yeah. I'm a Christ living baby. So we're really not. Live. See, Christ living through us. So we're already dead. I've I've mentioned I watched a show called Band of Brothers. Oh, yeah. And they had a coward, a guy that was a coward. And a lot of times, we're overwhelmed with fear, paralyzed in our cowardice, afraid of all sorts of things. But anyway, the one guy in the show, he said the secret of soldiering is to see yourself as already dead. Oh, wow. So Right. When you go into it, you're already dead. You're a soldier. And but if you're afraid of dying, you said, except a man lose his life, he's not gonna find it. So if we take our cross and follow him, we're already dead. That's him living through us. But if we're coward in fear of what might happen, we're never gonna get out of the gate. We're never gonna do anything. Right. So keep your time. America is kind of that way. We we our churches today or through the last decades have been kind of the prosperity gospel and we've talked about this a lot. But in reality, all of the disciples and the apostles, they all died except for John, died, a brutal death. Martyrdom. Yep, Martyrdom and, our rewards are in heaven, where where our home is. So our hearts are always should be set Yeah. There. And then we can go into these places and see these horrific things that happen. But but I wanted to go to a scripture that is talking about what how does God feel about certain things that are evil in the world? He says in Psalms Psalms 10 I was gonna look up Psalms 10. Hold on. And, Proverbs. Oops. Sorry. So Psalms ten two through nine two through 12. And he says here, in his arrogance, the wicked man hunts down the weak. Mhmm. And that's what we're talking about. They're really they're really going after the most vulnerable, the most weak people, which are children or poverty. Right? Yeah. Unprotected. Unprotected. Same problem with Adam and Eve. You know, the enemy went after Eve. She was unprotected wherever Adam was, and the enemy is gonna go after those that are unprotected, unprotected, the weak, the people that can't stand up for themselves. And that's where we come in as Christians is we stand up for those that can't stand up for themselves, exactly what God called us to. So Yes. Absolutely. That is amazing. And it's true. And that's one thing about being being a wife, you know, the husband is there to be the stronger one, the one that will help us because we're weaker, because we can be manipulated or vulnerable in our world, even in America, of course, and then throughout the world. So, in his arrogance, the wicked man hunts down the weak who are caught in schemes he devises. He boasts about the cravings of his heart. He blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord. In his pride, the wicked man does not seek him in all his thoughts. There is no room for God, so his heart is set in wickedness. His ways are always prosperous, and your laws are rejected by him. He snares at all of his enemies, and he says to himself, nothing will ever shake me. He swears no one will ever do me harm. His mouth is full of lies and threats. Trouble and evil are under his tongue. He lies in wait near the villages. From ambush, he murders the innocent, his eyes watch in secret for his victims. That just makes me so mad. Anyway, like a lion in cover, he lies in wait, he lies in wait to catch the helpless. He catches the helpless and drags them off in his net. And you see that. I mean, you see that actually in action. Absolutely, the globe. Across the globe. And we're not just talking about Sudan, we're talking about Latin America. We're talking about things that are far beyond what we can even imagine. His victims are crushed and they collapse. They fall under his strength. He says to himself, God will never notice. He covers his face and never sees. Arise, Lord, lift up your hand, o God. Do not forget the helpless. Exactly. Right? Yeah. Do not forget the helpless. So God lays on our heart to go to these places and to intervene and spread the gospel, to change the heart from the inside out, to see that that these ones that might be, deceived and doing the wicked could change. Amen. Right? Yeah. And we know in second Chronicles that Manasseh was the most wicked Mhmm. And he changed. Amen. His heart changed when he was presented with being in a difficult situation and but God is so good and so merciful. People who might be out there who might be thinking that I have done too much, I've gone too far, I've done so many wicked things. And there's people in America because the Americans are the ones who are going to these Latin American countries. You have not gone so far that God cannot change your heart. He wants your heart. Amen. And you can be changed. That goes back to scripture. I love scripture because it always is proven true, and it talks about those that are forgiven much love much. Right? Yeah. And we see the same thing where God calls us into some of the most vicious places. We have enemies too. We we could sit there and say we hate our enemies. We wanna kill them. We wanna shoot them in the head. Justice. We need justice. But we have a different attitude about that. We want them to know Jesus. Right? Mhmm. Because we've seen Taliban. We've seen extremist Muslims. We've seen people that have been human traffickers. When they're reached with the gospel, they become as zealous to do the right for for the kingdom of heaven. Wow. And that's the most important thing. You know, one of the things we see about Christianity is we're really blessed to have men like this. We have so much teaching. Yeah. In fact, I would never need to listen to anything else and still not be able to exhaust the rich teaching just online. We don't it's not that we're missing teaching. Mhmm. What we're missing is that application. It's really good to know. It sounds great to have these conversations. Mhmm. But where life gets done is when you go into the field and you see the tears and you see the blood and you see the heartache, and then you pick them up in the love of Jesus and you see transformation, then you see their family transform and then their community. That's what's exciting about Christianity. When I sit at home for a week and I complain about politics and the price of gas, and I understand it. It's what you Yeah. I have to get back out in the field because I don't worry about that stuff when I realize the suffering of humans and that could have been me. Made a difference, yeah. And you know, pastors have taught us so many times that when the river, you get the teaching and you get to not ever again be in an arrested state of development as far as your Christian growth, when you get to tap into the Bible and get it flowing in, but you become stagnant when the water is not flowing out. And that's what you're saying is you can, and that's a part of this ministry that I was learning and growing and becoming more knowledgeable and, but then there's a point where God should call you then to flow out to begin to minister, to share, and that's what's super important. Yeah. The Lord doesn't protect us, and this is one thing you mentioned earlier about being a Christian, the worst message I've ever heard is come to Jesus and all your problems will be fixed. Yep. Know what my world looked like apart from Christ, and I and I know that this love of God who pulled me out of my own muck and mire, who I'd be today would be so different if it weren't for Christ. And because of that, it dry it drives me to wanna go love on the world to get to those people that feel as lost and as hopeless and as I was. I mean, that's what we want to do. That's the excitement about Christianity. But the difference, we've I've been hanging out with this brother. Yeah. When he talks about ministry, he talks about ministry first person. He knows what it's like to see God do big things, and then he knows what it's like to walk in and feel like the world just catches you in a trap. And he knows what it's like to endure through that. And now he's a man of God that I can sit with because he understands endurance. He understands that it's not just that season. And we need more men like this to be preparing more men and women out there because the body in America is too weak. We we got stuck on complaining about our rights instead of understanding that we're ambassadors of heaven with a job to do. So I get a little passionate I that, and that's so true. As we learn and grow and work those muscles, our faith muscle, our understanding of the word of God muscle, become not so weak. Because I remember a day, years ago, that someone asked me, what about this Jesus? And I was like, oh, no. I've been a believer for so long and where are those scriptures? Because I've become so weak. I can tell you that Jesus saves but where is those scriptures? Where are they? I don't want to ever be caught in that place ever again. We shouldn't be in that place where we can't share our faith and how, what is Jesus all about? And where can I find it in the word of God? And, you know, that's where we're going to encourage people to not be complacent in your faith. Ask the Lord, what do you want? Where do you want me to go? Where do you want me to? What do you want me to learn? And then prove the Bible with the Bible. That's what we keep saying. Prove the Bible with the Bible. Will prove it from the Old Testament to the New Testament and so on. So I'm really interested in talking about Latin America. And you said, you just told me that you were Latino, right? So your heart kind of goes that way and what is going on in Latin America that is this part of your ministry and how is this new or what's going on in that realm of the world? Yes. We did get involved in Latin America, and let me step back a little bit to be able to tell you that. Being in, over 30 countries, war zones, the most dangerous countries in the world, we have enough work to do. We don't need more. The one thing that we do seriously have a burden for is that the Bible talks about that the work is so much, but the the workers are so few. Yeah. And even today, we see that, and I see so many Christians kinda going, there's not an a lot to do. Well, there is. There's a lot for us to do, and I forgot why I was saying that. Yeah. What was your question real quick? Have have you you've entered into Latin America. Oh, yeah. And what is what is going on? So the reason we got in there is we got a call from Joe Foshen when it comes to suffering, especially of children of the vulnerable of the weak. You know, Christ wants us to care for those. That's our ministry. We were doing enough work in Afghanistan, enough work in Ukraine, enough work in South Sudan. We're the middle of war zones. We're rescuing. We're feeding 15,000 people. But we got a call from, from Joe, and he introduced us to a guy that we'll call Gabriel. And and Gabriel is down in Latin America, and as a Christian, he's a he uses his skills. What do I have? Well, he's a fourth degree black belt in Krav Maga or, excuse me, in, jujitsu. Oh. And so he uses that to work with the police department because that's all he has. Yeah. And and he has built an incredible relationship with them because he's taught them some really good self defense in case they come up against bad guys. Mhmm. Because of that relationship, it took us into the next part. I won't get into the whole thing, but he was approached by a very, poor indigenous grandfather. You know, we we have grandkids, and this is gonna be hard for us to understand. Mhmm. But this man is with his two little granddaughters. I can't even see on the camera. It's little girls. And he comes up to Gabriel and he offers to sell them to Gabriel. And Gabriel's not used to that. He's from Latin America. And it's like, that was weird even for him because his mind hadn't been open to that. And then so he's as he's investigating Is this a thing? Yeah. Correct. Yeah. And he kind of shoos the guy away. I'll give a little bit more about this tomorrow when I'm teaching at church, but when he shoos the guy away a little bit thinking he's crazy, the community says, no, he's actually a grandfather, but he's a drug dealer too, and he's in trouble with the cartel. He owes money, and so out of desperation, he's selling his own grandchildren. Oh, no. I can't tell the whole story because there's not enough time, but fast forward that, they try to go get the children and to adopt them, and the man had sold the kids in the middle of the night. And so he goes to the chief of police because, again, he's working with them, teaching them self defense. And then they, took him out on a raid to show him what was going on. This is in a tourist attraction. It's one of the number one tourist places for America. A lot of men that look like they come from our neighborhoods and stuff come down and do this, but he took them on to a, to a raid with the SWAT team, and, he had told them about child sexual trafficking, and it didn't really connect with with Gabriel at the time. You know, children, sex, didn't really connect. Yeah. But this really connected. Took him on a raid, it wasn't for, child sexual trafficking. It was for something worse. In in this country, a lot of Americans will go down there, and they'll pay to have sex with younger and younger kids. But there's another culture that is really starting to raise when it comes to income. They're be one of the fastest middle incomes in the world the way that they're growing, but they're a very superstitious culture. Culture. So now they can travel, but they believe in their culture that if you can eat the heart of a child or the kidney, whatever that is, that it can extend your life. And so now cartel members are not only are they buying children from parents for $100 to $200 they're also then buying them, and then they're making up to $25,000 by selling parts. And when he told us this, I remember Wes and I were looking at each other. We're dealing with the effects of war in Afghanistan, the effects of war in Ukraine, we're and looking at each other like, this is unbelievable. Mean, how can that be happening? Yeah. So we jumped on a plane and we went down there, and when we saw this firsthand, we're busy. We have too many countries. I've got life and death. We've had 70 chaplains killed. We had five of our team members in in Burma shot. Four of them killed. One of them survived, was shot in the head. We got enough going on. Yeah. And when Wes saw this, I just remember the look in his face, the agony. He said, Edward, we gotta win this particular country for Christ. We gotta get in there and transform this whole community. And that's how we ended up getting involved in there, and, with as much work as I have going on, we're still actively involved in Afghanistan. The church isn't talking about it, but there's still hundreds of Christians that we have hiding in safe houses because we can't get them out right now. They're hiding because the Taliban's looking for them. Oh, after everybody after we left? Yeah. After we left. We left all these ones behind. I could spend an hour just talking about that and bring some tears, and in the midst of that, we found out about this, and I remember Wes going, we've gotta take care of the war zone, but, Edward, you gotta get down there and take care of these kids. And and that should be the heart of every Christian. You know, my my job is to go there, but what about the children in our own churches? A lot of those children are coming from very broken families here in America, and we get to go into second graders and for one hour a week just breathe the holy spirit and love into them. And and I I get to see the effects down here, but I also get to see the attitude adjustment we could do in the church here because everybody needs Christ. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I was, you know, pastor Rick here, he has been talking to us about pedophilia for quite some time and a lot of the churches and the people are like, that's not that's not a thing because we don't see it. It's it's it's not really going on and we don't want to talk about it because if it's true, we don't want to see it. It's not real but it is real. And then of course then you cross over to the superstition of people. I think these people are coming from America too that are superstitious and really the problem is that they are serving other gods in their heart. They're not trusting in the one and true living God And they're acting out these atrocities upon the most innocent, like we just read in Psalms, the weak. They're preying upon the weak for their own Benefits. Foolishness, foolishness, let's just say, their benefit, which is not really beneficial. It's a lie. Mhmm. So here we are, be not deceived. That's a lie. What's the truth? Yeah. The truth is they need Jesus. Yeah. They need to be transformed, they need to be a brand new creature and trans and and and and let go of those lies. Amen. Stop it. Stop doing that. Rick has more to say than I do about this, so I'm sorry for jumping in, but this is pretty passionate. The the one common theme we have seen for serving in war zones for the last thirty years is that the enemy will take advantage of any bad situation to go after the weak. Want to use the weak for their own advantage. They wanna take something for free and use it and destroy it for their own benefit. And when that's wasted, just like garbage, throw it away. Oh, yeah. That's not what Christ does. Mhmm. So what we have seen, whether it's in war zones or it's down with, the the cartels in Latin America, we see the enemy will target on on children, target on the innocent. We know that everybody's born with a sin, sin nature, but children, we give that we we we have to raise them. Right? We believe in protecting our children. Yeah. But when the enemy will go after the youngest of God's creation to try to destroy them at that age so that their entire life is broken, you know you have an enemy, and you just don't get to play games anymore. You don't you don't get to get upset about the price of gasoline. Yes, it upsets They don't matter anymore because there's life and death and there's the enemy going after people. I'll tell you in the first couple of years of being in ministry, it was hard because a lot of people didn't want to hear my stories and I got frustrated. And I really realized is that it's very hard to hear about a child being molested or a child being killed or a woman being killed. It's really it's dark. But scripture tells us that we're supposed to empathize with those that are suffering, right, if they're in prison for the gospel's sake. And what God has done for us as a ministry is that he has opened our eyes and made us look long enough on the on the depravity going on in the world that we can't act like it's okay. We just can't and I love to go on vacation, but we just can't act like, okay. I need to go on vacation because what we have seen, we carry those babies with us. Right. And I wish that every Christian could get past some of that. I don't want them to carry a weight that they shouldn't carry, but if we can get past the the the complaining, past what we think is important and just see the the amount of life that is at on a critical nature of between life and death. And if we just stood up and cared about that, the church wouldn't be bored. There's so much work to be done. Yeah. And we need to as Christians, we need to be after what God holds as important. Yeah. We need to hold as important. Exactly. And I have another scripture in Proverbs Proverbs six six 16 through 19. I I just I was like, okay, God, what what do you hate? Mhmm. What do you hate? And here is six things that the Lord hates. And this ties right into what we're talking about. There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, that are feet that are wicked to rush into evil, and a false witness who pours out lies, and a person who stirs up conflict in the community. And man, does that that's very much what you're dealing with every day. And we are. And so if God hates these things, we need to hate these things. Yeah. Right? And that's why you go. That's why we care even in our own community and we can't deny even our own community is packed with drugs, is affected by we have murders here too. We have people who are committing suicide because they've been deceived. They're thinking there's no hope out there, but there is hope. And God loves us so much that he wants to draw our hearts to him. And it's amazing that you're out there doing these kind of boots on the ground. And I hope that this podcast will call people into action. Right? Yeah, absolutely. And as we have revealed what God thinks, God, where is his heart and what's actually going on in the world. To save some children. We need to save some children. And we need to save not just children, but also men and women who are out there who are believing a lie and acting out in that lie to take advantage of the weak to take advantage of the ones that are very vulnerable in our world. We have to fight for those that can't fight for themselves. And unfortunately, in a battle, there's going to be some ugliness, there's going be blood, there's going to be loss. And we deal with a tremendous amount and we even deal with loss from our own team members, you know, they get used by the enemy. It is such a messy thing that you've gotta know that you're right where the enemy doesn't want you to be. Yeah. And when you have eternal perspective, where it's messy is where you wanna be. So I wanna be careful with this, but I remember it was pretty cool to be a Christian when I first became a Christian in 1985. Was 19 years old. Ronald Reagan was president. Yep. Was almost Yeah. Cool to be a when you talk to anybody about Jesus, they were at least polite about it. They didn't punch you in the face. We could go down to Ocean Beach in San Diego and tell people about Jesus, even if they're out there bonfire completely drunk, they'd be arm around you talking about Jesus. Huntington Beach too. Yeah, exactly. All the evangelists out there. Yeah. If you go down to Ocean Beach today, really good chance you're gonna get punched in the face. The world But has but what I do know is that when we love our enemies like Christ taught us Yeah. When we quit pointing our finger at them with such hatred, of course, we see their sin. I mean, it's it's clear the whole world sees their sin. Yeah. But when we love on those that are filthy towards Christ. Yeah. And I'm not saying that they shouldn't be held accountable. Yeah. But we wanna bring the love of Christ because that's what Christ did to me. I was completely lost. I showed up at church not because I was really looking for Jesus. I was desperate to not see the dysfunction that I had grown into. So my bring to church is because the pain was too much of my previous life. Whatever brought me there, God was able to transform my life. Yeah. That's what I want to bring to the world, because I should be in prison. I should be dead. A mess. Should be a Mhmm. And yet what God has done is I'm sitting here talking about the things of Christ with these beautiful speakers, with a man that I've I've admired for years. Yeah. That's what Christ does what can do with our life. And it also comes through a lot of tears and a lot of pain and a lot of heartache, but that's where the diamonds are made. Wherever it's the hardest is that's what I've noticed that that is where the glory of God shines the brightest. Exactly. Get a little passionate about this Exactly. In the first Yep. Well, you know, people don't necessarily turn to the Lord, unless they're hurting, they're suffering, they're uncomfortable. When we're cruising and everything's good and we're fat and happy, we don't we don't need the Lord. We don't learn anything in success. God knows exactly what he's doing. He knows that he knows us, he created us, he formed us, he knows that we need some pain. Yeah, amen. And in our America, Christianity, sometimes we're like, I shouldn't be suffering, I should not be. Why, what am I doing wrong? Why isn't everything just going wonderful? Because surely God loves me and I should be blessed. But but but that's not really what the Bible says. No, no, that's not quite right. So when you've been tested by fire like this man, and twenty years later, you everything you can drive down the street with the greatest grin on your face because you know who you belong to. That's the kind of man you want to learn Christ from Right. Because that's the kind of man that didn't buckle. He's not somebody who just read scripture and had a lot of knowledge, but when he got in his first fight, he bailed. He's a man that knew scripture, got in about a thousand fights, missing teeth, missing hair, a couple bruises all over his body, and yet he's still walking with joy. That's what I wanna bring to the world. That's what I wanna bring to the suffering, but that's also wanna bring to those that are causing suffering, cartel members, Taliban. I want them to know Jesus and transform their life because what it did for me. Exactly. God is evil. The key right there. Yeah. As Edward and Wes said, we wanna win this country for Christ Right. Because we can try and elect somebody. We can try and stop the human trafficking and all that. But the clientele base, the customers are Americans. So if I'm talking about pedophilia, I'm trying to warn people that the homosexuality and the changing of marriage has happened. Yeah. They're coming after your kids, and they say you're a whack job, pastor Rick. You're a whack job. And I'm letting them know they're coming after your children Yeah. But they don't listen. Yeah. And then now we see the laws changing, the normalization of pedophilia here in America. But meanwhile, the pedophiles are going to these countries. Yeah. And without their money going on vacation down there, the cartels don't have customers. That's right. Yes. So the root for us is in America is to be salt and light, to expose the evil. Yeah. And down in Latin America or wherever Wes and Edward are going, their vision is to change the hearts of these people, not through legislation. The law's there to protect these kids. Mhmm. But when the law breaks down, you got Sodom and Gomorrah. Yeah. That's a time where God's gonna put the dog down. But until he does, win that continent, win that place for Christ. So they're training indigenous people. They're they're discipling people. They're winning people to Christ, as he said some of the Taliban. Then they will do it in their own neighborhoods. Yeah. So it's not gonna stop unless we're salt and light. Yeah. We stave off the the we're a restraining influence around the world when these guys go. So whatever I've gone through, I hope it's simply been preparation. And I'm apprehensive because I think I'm going to be stretched beyond my comfort zone again. And it's going to rock me. But I know based on the past, the Lord will get me through it. Amen. Kind of like in in Jeremiah 12, Rick, you've been weary in the footmen in Bremerton. Rick, what are you going to do in the swelling of the Jordan and then Sudan and Costa Rica when when they're on their chariots? I mean, the the opposition, the spiritual opposition be so intense that he's gonna have a hard time coming back to America to decompress because of what he's seen Yeah. Of what's happened. It's hard to come back to, quote, unquote, normal Yeah. After you've I've never experienced what he's experienced. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's gonna it's like your son coming back from war. Yeah. You know? It's it's gonna be way way beyond Mhmm. My frame of reference of what is, you know, my comfort zone. Yeah. So I'm excited for the out you know, the the opportunity, but I'm also with fear and trembling approaching it like, you know, I don't know if I can do this. So Lord He's gonna carry you. On you, Lord. I can only do this if I depend on you. And those are the lessons we learn as Christians. All all the way through, we meet opposition that brings us to the end of ourselves, and then now that's when God works. Amen. And and there's that season of preparation, you know. I didn't get to go to the Sudan ten years ago. I wasn't ready. Right. But Wes and Edward were inviting me, and I still don't know if I'm ready. But but we're gonna find out. Yeah. I love it. I love it that you get the opportunity to go. Yeah. Mean, how exciting is that? And he has been preparing you. Well and I I can see you wanna know why he's ready? Why? It's because you just heard that. He doesn't think that he's qualified. Yeah. And we want men that's where you make impact in this world when you don't think you're qualified. When when you go out and you you just pour yourself in Yeah. The other thing he's gonna bring over there is life experience. He knows what it's like to be in the fire and feel like you're gonna die Yeah. And you wanna give up, and yet Christ carries you through that and then put your feet on stable ground. Yeah. He can talk to these guys about it, and he has street cred. Exactly. And and and biblical knowledge. Yeah. And and that is so amazing. I don't know. Children that are abused, I don't know if anybody's ready for that. Yeah. No. Talking about the chaplains you're not yet. Yeah. The chaplains, yeah. The chaplains, they're gonna teach me. Yeah. Yeah. You know, those kind of guys, they teach you. They teach you life lessons that you can imagine, you know? Sharon, about that, about, you know, the the children, I wanted to just tell you this. It's bringing out stuff. I just wanna let you know it's bringing out healing in the church. I had a chance to be at a, a Calvary Chapel Missions Conference down in Peru, and some of the speakers and I was there, and our team lead over our project with the children, some of the worst situation. He also did a breakout group, and there was about 300 people into his breakout group, and he doesn't share this with many people, but the reason he's trying to protect children is because he was unprotected as a child, and he was molested by neighbor boys for years. Oh, yeah. And he never got to talk about it. The reason he got into, jujitsu was because he would never let another boy rape him. Right. And but God now used that. He's protecting children. This is what I wanna share about that. I was down with, some team members, and we were meeting our staff at this one house. There's about 35 young girls, and, we had SWAT there from their country. The the leader of that SWAT is a good one of the good cops. He's an evangelical, and and he's basically telling them, hey. If the cartel comes here, one of you are gonna get raped, and what you gotta do is you gotta ignore that. You get the children, you get out, and these girls are all taking notes like, okay, I'm gonna get raped, and I gotta and I'm looking around going Is this okay? Yeah. And and they're not they're not budging. And so at the very end, I don't know what happened. I don't remember who it was, but it was like, we did a little question, how many of you have been sexually traumatized? Have incest, whatever that is, eighty percent of the girls. So we had them actually do it on a piece of paper so they couldn't tell them. Yeah. And then we took it all back in, when Gabriel counted it all up, eighty percent of the girls in there had been sexually molested. Yeah. And this was what they wanted to do for the next generation because they know that pain. Yeah. And that's what I wanna encourage people. Just because we go through failure and pain and and the things that maybe we haven't wanted to talk about Yeah. Only Christ can take our pain Exactly. And turn those into things that are good for those that love him and are called according to his purpose. Yeah. And so if you have pain in your life Mhmm. That shouldn't cause you to run from Christ. It should cause you to cling to Christ Right. Because he's the only one that can make that pain make sense Amen. To a world that's in pain. Yes. Yes. That's awesome. I know that even in the bible, you look at Mary Magdalene Magdalene and Mhmm. And her suffering and where did Jesus go? You know, straight to her. Just straight to her because that's where his heart lies. He knows he's the answer. Isn't that amazing? That we don't have to try to muster up anything really. We don't have to have all the right answers because Christ has all the right answers. Amen. He does. I love that. And he's coming back on a white horse and he's going to bring judgment, but until then, he's bringing mercy. We have time. We have to go into the world and show mercy to those that have been, that are evil themselves, but have been evil perpetrated on them. It's sin that destroys everybody and the only hope for that is the blood of Christ. Amen. That's it. That's the answer right there. I love that. Well, I want to thank you again for being here. I think we are stirring some hearts out there. We're getting some Christians just we've penetrated some hearts that have been maybe stagnant and not knowing what to do with their lives. But we've shown that the Bible is calling us unto action. No longer can we just be couch potatoes or on the bench. We know, you know, knowledge brings responsibility and as you have grown and are still growing, like pastor Rick here is saying, God is calling him to this opportunity to go to be even more stretched and to go where you have been called to go. God will carry you, he will give you the ability, the Holy Spirit is with us. He is asking us to depend on him. And just as I have started this podcast, the Lord has drawn me to do this and he has carried me through. He will even take you into the next place where God is calling you to go. So reach into to YouTube and look up far reaching ministries, look on on the Internet. If you're being called to to to be a part, then I encourage you to do so. Take the action. Can I share one thing with I that would even encourage a little bit further is just dive into scripture and find out exactly what God is saying for your unique life because you're gonna answer for your life, not for my life, but your life? And God has a call on every child. He wants to use them. Jesus said in greater things than these will you do. And I'm just gonna say that's the love of our life of what God has done is that we can live that love out for others like Christ did for so many people when he was here. Yes, and make a difference. God intervenes, he knows the future, we don't know, we don't have the abilities to know what's going to happen next. He has given each and every one of us a gift, like you said, to be a marine or to be the black belt or to do the things that you can do. I'm not a black belt. I don't have those skills, but God has given us each a talent and an ability and he equips us. So so I think that God is stirring some hearts out there and encouraging others to take action. I want to thank you, Edward, for being here with us today and sharing what you know and what you know what's going on in the world and being obedient unto the Lord. We thank you so much. And you also, Pastor Wadery, who is Calvary Chapel of Bremerton's pastor, and my pastor. And I'm excited for both of you and your abilities and your calling on your life. Thank you. So thank you.
About This Podcast
Be Not Deceived Podcast with Vicki Wiederrich
Be Not Deceived is a podcast dedicated to looking at Biblical truth and comparing it to the lies the world and the devil is telling to cause deception in the church and in our society at large in the present day. The devil is trying to deceive as many as possible, but God always wins!
