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Be Not Deceived Far Reaching Ministries pt 2
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We are Be Not Deceived And I'd like to continue our talk with, Pastor Rick Baudry and Edward Amaya from Far Reaching Ministries. And Pastor Rick is from Calvary Chapel Bremerton in Washington State. But, we did our first episode, our part one, with far reaching ministries, but we wanted to kind of continue on and talk about who West Bentley is, who is the founder, and also go a little bit deeper into some details about some of the stories that we have alluded to and we're going to continue to talk about. So thank you again for joining us in part two, and I would really like to talk about who is Wes Bentley. We kind of talked about who he was a little bit, but not really who he is as far as what does he do with the ministry, where did he come from, who is he, and then we did say, who Edward is, but I'd like to kind of tie that, into, this episode. It's a great question. You know, we don't ever lift up a man to worship a man, right? But I do believe what Paul said, imitate me. And there are some men and women that we can look at their life and they have such a passion or such a gift that it's good to imitate them. Probably the way to introduce Wes is what Wes is all about. And if I could encourage anybody, the one lesson that I've really learned from Wes's life is that you've got to be faithful right where you are at the time. If you're faithful right here, it is always the preparation time for what's next, even if it doesn't look like it is. And and I appreciate Wes for that. Because when I first met Wes, he was my first roommate. Met him in 1985. He's eight years older than I am, but he always seemed like he was a really mature general in the army. I remember back then when I was, looking around the girl looking around church to see if there were any cute girls that maybe I could go out on and and teach in second grade Sunday school. Wes is up on stage on Friday night giving altar calls and hundreds of people are coming forward. Was just the way it was. Wes knew he was called towards ministry, but he didn't know what that looked like. And for Wes's life, what most people don't look like, I like to tease this way a little bit, worked really hard for thirty years to look like an overnight success. Right? People don't see this. They don't see the nights that you've walked through the night and you've you've tears running down your face. Mhmm. But Wes knew that he knew that he knew he was called to go bring the gospel. He just knew that he was created to be a warrior. He's a marine before he became a Christian, really angry, bitter. He wanted to go kill people. He wanted a gun. He was really good with a gun. Coulda went to the Olympics for the marines, and God got radically a hold of his life. And God didn't have to God transformed the man, but he still made him a warrior. Right? So he took him from wanting to kill people to wanting to protect people. When Wes first got involved in missions, he knew he was called. It was where he wanted to go. He loves the cold. He loves the snow. He wants to be 12 feet of snow three sixty five days a year, so he went to Russia. Right after the walls went down and he was able to go from prison to prison, he was leading tens of thousands of people to the Lord, it was amazing. That's where he wanted to be the rest of his life. But because he's a marine, he got a call, and this is you guys know the story. I'm shortening it up a little bit. And basically about a about a tragedy, a human tragedy going on in South Sudan. He didn't even know where it was at the time. And but he does know, the the question the request was, hey. You're a marine. Can you go in there and do some recon, find out where the enemy is, and then we can land in a plane and figure out how do we help the people that are suffering. Again, he doesn't know where Sudan is, but he's a marine. He can do that, so he drops in. That's just his mentality. If he has the the ability and God doesn't stop him, he's going. Spent about a month there, and, it's a it's a couple trips that I'm about to put together, but he walked through fields where he walked through the crunching of bones. You know, hundreds of people had been buried, killed, and buried in mass graves, and, you know, it's weird to be walking and hearing that crunching. He walked through fields where hundreds of people, women and children and, and elderly that were massacred by the enemy. When you see those things, they shake you. They they change you. You can't move. But he went home. He got back to America at one point, and he loves to share the story, and he got alone with the Lord. And he just said, father, it was the most amazing experience of my life. I got to see inside of a horrible war, I got to be effective, and I never want to go to South Sudan again. And now all these years later, I love his attitude. He tells us that story, but he says, But now if God calls us out of South Sudan, I know the voice of my Father, we're gonna be obedient, but he's gonna break my heart. And that's what I wanna encourage people is be faithful right where you are. You think that it's everything, but what God has planned for you is so big and so great, and it's gonna be hard too along the way, but God wants to prepare you. And when I mentioned earlier that if you're called to be a mom, that's your preparation ground. If you're called to lead a business, if you're called to be a pastor, second grade Sunday school, pour yourself in because those are lessons that move ahead. I can even use the example for me, and then we'll get back into West. Again, second grade Sunday school. And I remember when I was teaching at a 19 years old, I was about three, four weeks into it, and I looked at these kids and I realized, just like me, a lot of these kids come from broken families, and the only Jesus they get is for one hour, forty five minutes, on Sunday. And it's not even every Sunday. And we have a chance to speak into the next Chuck Smith or the next Amy Carmichael or something like that, and that meant a lot to me. So, then I looked at these children and said, Wait a minute, I wish somebody would have spoken into my life better, and it could have made my life. Well, God used that because what am I doing now? I'm protecting children that have nobody to protect them. I want to see them to be able to get into a situation where they are rescued, then stabilized, and then become healthy, productive citizens because only Jesus can do that. But back to Wes, we ended up in Sudan. Being a marine, he did what he could do. He got near the army and started bringing Jesus to him, and that led to actually we got written into the constitution for Sudan, South Sudan, that we raise up their chaplains or pastors, Calvary Chapel pastors. We've raised up, almost 500 of them, gone through a Bible college, a Calvary Bible College. But because we're in a war zone, we also know what it feels like to to to experience great loss. In the first sixteen years of ministry, fifteen years of ministry, we had 16 team members killed. That's very hard on us. Wow. These are our brothers. It's like if Rick were to go home, it's gonna bring an emptiness to you because you love the man, you spent time with him. Mhmm. These are my brothers. We've prayed over you, prayed over the church for years. And when they get killed, it's a loss. It was about one a year. It was heavy on the organization, but in the last eight, 56, just in South Sudan. Those numbers Who had passed away? That had been killed. Yeah, by bombs and bullets. We even had a chaplain burnt alive by the Muslims Wow. Because he would not deny his faith. And and we have a hall of remembrance at our office, and we gave him a different one. He's know, it's just it's meant to stand out. Everybody who's died for Christ, that's martyrism, but this man did not deny Christ while he was being burnt alive. Wow. You know? And and that's what we have to suffer. Yeah. A lot of the church in America, they can't even relate with that. But if you look at scripture, that's how Christianity has been since time began, even before Christ, the the Israel was attacked, you know, we see that. And and we got, I think I got, a little bit spoilt. It was cool to be a Christian in the eighties and nineties. Yeah. You could walk around and say, I'm a Christian, and everybody, you know, like, oh. And Yeah. Now when you do that, they're gonna punch you in the face. This is more real to what the world is, that when you bring Christ to a world and they don't belong to Christ, they're going to reject that. And now we're starting to see that, but I'm praying that the body of Christ will see this as an opportunity. Because just like in Wes, there's an opportunity to go to bring the love of Jesus in the darkest area. You don't pray about it forever. You don't whine about it. You go and see what Jesus wants to do, and there's a lot going on. That war zone took us into other war zones. We ended up well, our vision was Africa for Christ for a continent for, for Christ. We thought we'd just be in Africa. Yeah. Well, war started. We ended up in The Middle East. We ended up working in Iran and and Israel and and Afghanistan, and I could talk about all those. Mhmm. Syria, we're there. You know, we've had we have 25 team members in Syria. And so we expanded into more and more war zones, and and because of that, we started getting calls, which is a different war zone, and that is children in sexual trafficking in Latin America with cartels. It's a different war. And so that's where we found ourselves. We kinda went along the way. I'd love to tell some of those stories of what God's done, but let me kinda go back to you. Yeah. So what is the ministry doing in Syria? It's a great question. Most people don't even think about Syria. Thank you for that. We haven't really heard Syria for a while other than lately because Israel's been bombing, because they've been shooting rockets at Israel while Israel's trying to deal with Hamas, for those of you who have been watching this in the future. Get updated. Yeah. So what was the question before I went there? So what what is the ministry doing in Syria? So when we got involved in there years ago, it was a purely Islamic country. Christians were really targeted in Syria. And then when the war broke out, most people don't talk about it. When the war broke out, we had team members there. And I'm gonna tell the story tomorrow, so I won't get into too much today, but one of our leaders, I he told me the story. He when the the war first broke out, he called all of our team together, the other 11 pastors and their families, just the pastors, so there's 12 of them. And, he said, guys, war's coming, and this is gonna be bad. And we need to be asking the Lord what to do because this is gonna be an opportunity in Muslim suffering because they're gonna be killing each other that we can bring the love of Jesus to them. So there is a window of opportunity, but it's also gonna be a bad war zone, and there makes sense if the Lord tells you to get your family into another country. So they agreed that they would pray for a week, fast and pray, and they did. Came back, in a war zone, and bombs are exploding. And they came back a week later. Danny had told me that he expected only maybe a couple guys to stay, and he was okay with that. But all 11 guys showed up plus himself. That made 13, and another 13 pastors found out about it, and we ended up with 25 people plus their families. Thousands of stories. It's a really tough situation. I mean, a hardship everywhere, but there's also the glory of God. And I'll go back to the very early days. In the very early days, we were bringing in parcels of food. We couldn't bring in truckloads because it would be targeted. So just small parcels, just enough to sustain our team. And, our, our team members got what that meant. And one of our guys took his small little parcel of food and divided it up and took part to a local imam. And in that middle of a war, this man had a tender heart. He's being handed food. He realizes, wait, food in a war zone, this is significant. Yeah. And then that mom, he's like, brother, what's this for? And our pastor tells him this is a gift from Jesus. And the man says, Jesus is a great prophet. He says, yes. Invites him in his house, his entire family gives their life to the Lord that night. And today, he's still running an underground seminary in Syria. Wow. And that's what I wanna encourage people. When we look at our country, it's easy to hate the other people on the other side of the political Right. Spectrum or or or atheists or so whatever that is. Yeah. Easy to hate Iran, anything in the world, but scripture tells me exactly what I saw there is exactly what Jesus did, told us to go to our enemies and bless them. It doesn't mean that they're gonna respond. That's a great story. Right? Sometimes it doesn't, but that's the call of a Christian. That's what we do. We go into places that most people are running from not because we're brave. It's because we're just being obedient. We don't think we're cool. We don't we're not heroes. We're just being obedient. But we're going there because Christ told us to take the gospel to all creation. Right. And not everybody can go into a war zone. Wes is a marine. He was qualified for it. And then he's been able to attract other people that can go into those war zones. So that's a little bit about Syria. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Now pastor, you were talking to us about what does the scripture say in for Samuel about, the ones that are called to go, to the war zones, but then there are some that are called to stay behind. So we start with the great commission. Right? They said, going all the world and preach the gospel. Teach them to serve everything that I commanded to do along with you always even the end of the age. We're not at the end of the age yet. So the commission to go, all of us go. We go in our Jerusalem. For us, it's Bremerton. Our Judea, you know, the county. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost. He's inviting us to go to the uttermost. Right? They go to uttermost. Yeah. Yeah. So here is a really, really hard Jerusalem, you know, that you've been very faithful in for many, many years. And so what happens is is you get up at dark thirty and you go to the shipyard and you work and you provide for your family, raise your kids in a place like this, and you try to provide a home bible study and place for people to be built up spiritually, not everybody can quit their jobs Mhmm. And be be supported and go to The Sudan or go to these places. And so it's faithfulness, like Wes was emphasizing, faithfulness in the season you're in. And Mark and Shelley are caregivers for family members and stuff. And so we're faithful right where we're at, right where we're planted, and we do the best we can. And then in David's case, him and his men, 600 mighty men, they when they came back from the area of the Philistines, Ziklag was overrun by the Amalekites, and they took all their wives, children, and everything. And so David and and his men wept till they couldn't weep anymore. So we're talking about courage. These are the mighty men. This is the guy that slew Goliath. All of us can reach a place of weeping and brokenness. Oh, this army dies. No matter how far along we are Yeah. You know, we can have those nights of sleeplessness and just brokenness. And and they wept till they couldn't weep anymore, and then they wanted to stone David. We wanna we wanna kill Moses. He brought us out here. Right? So David met. So Wes had to go and get himself alone with his god. Right? Yeah. Everyone's gonna blame Wes for if there's a failure if somebody dies. Right? So you gotta go get along with the lord. And then the lord speaks to him and tells you, alright. Here's militarily. I want you to do this. And so David's gonna lead him again, but 200 saved with the stuff in first Samuel 30. Staying with the stuff is staying with the camp, with the home. You gotta stay at home. Staying behind. 400 went with David across the brook, Besor, and they found an Amalekite on the way who was left for dead. The devil just leaves those who are wounded for the dead, told them where they were. David and his 400 went and got everything, retreat everything. It's a miracle. They're coming back, and the 400 men said, alright. We'll give them their wives and their children back, but the spoil, the reward We're gonna keep the money. We get to keep it all. And they just get their wives and their kids. And David said, no. And he made a precedent. Those who stay with the stuff and those who go are gonna share in the reward. So when we have the Bema Seat judgment, the Lord Jesus is gonna reward everybody that prayed for far reaching ministry Right. And and worked in the shipyard and send a check-in, you know, contributed financially. Yeah. And those that can go, go. Those that don't, pray and support. Yeah. And so that's that's the look of the great commission. Wes is able to go with his skills. Edward's able to go. Others are able to go. Some aren't able to go. Their health won't allow him to go. Yeah. But they can pray. Yeah. We all have something to contribute. And they can teach Sunday school. They can teach bible studies. Yeah. You know? We do what we can. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Pastor, that's such a great analogy. I'm I'm glad you're saying that you need to do a bible study on that because it sounds selfish when I'm doing that, but I do see that it that we're using the analogy of the body, right, as as Christians, it's the body, and we have different functions, and we love that until it comes down to practical. Yeah. But the truth is that the arm is way more than just the hand, right? The hand is what reaches out. We happen to be reaching out into Syria, Latin America, all that stuff. We're the hand, but it takes an entire arm to help us reach out. And if that arm's not working, the hand doesn't reach out. And that's what I want the body to realize is staying here and being a mom, being a business person, being a pastor, that is an incredibly important calling. Yeah. The reason I'm here, I have enough work to do. I don't need to be here. I need to be, taking a vacation because I'm tired. What we get to see the front lines in other worlds, we're seeing the reality of the church here. We we we feel like we've lost the fight. Yeah. We're never gonna lose the fight. We're promised victory. It may look ugly, but we're promised victory. Yeah. I wanna come back here with a brother like this that gets it and says, yeah, Jerusalem is where we start. I want Jerusalem right here to the holy spirit to overpower this area. And if God is ever gonna give us a a a revival again, I pray it comes out of here, a small group of people being faithful. Yeah. And that's why we're here, to be able to bring the messages from there back here because you guys sent you know, the the church in America sent us out and remind them, you guys sent us out because it's dangerous. Let me tell you what God's doing. Now don't forget about America. Amen. Don't forget. That's right. It's important here too. It might spill over here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. God will lead us and guide us into where we need to be and what we can do, what can we do, if it's behind praying and supporting the ministries that are around us or afar. So it's very important. And I love the scripture from first Samuel that that really shows us that that is the truth that that precedent was laid by David, that we can't neglect the ones who are behind who are supporting the ones who are going. So we all have you know, we're the hands and the feet and and doing what God has called us to do. That's great. We're just gonna teach on that tomorrow. Yeah. Oh, very good. Very good. I'm very excited. So let's look at some stories, some some real life stories of what, what was happening in Afghanistan. Yeah. I'm glad you're bringing that up. That's I was gonna go there, then I was thinking in my head, Afghanistan, Ukraine, we might cover both. Yeah. We had 22 team members in in Afghanistan. America was in Afghanistan for twenty years, and we left in ten days. We had boots on the ground. I don't remember. We got to we not only got to see what everybody was seeing on on the news with the Afghans grabbing on the transport planes and falling to their death. You know, we got to see that, but I have videos and stuff on on my phone what happened on another very faithful day. So we had 22 team members there, in Afghanistan, and it's a tough environment, but it got way tougher. And we were in the office the day. We we had heard what was going on. We're paying attention. We're trying to be in communication, and it was really, really bad. So we pulled together, a team of, Christians, many of them are Calvary Chapel pastors, former, special forces from the intelligence community, FBI, CIA, from different places, and and some pastors, Don McClure came, and we had a big meeting. We just went, what are we gonna do? This is this is not normal church. This is, you know, what is this gonna look like? So we went into wartime planning. Yeah. It was like an emergency. It was emergency. And we had the FBI in there, and and we knew how difficult this was gonna be because the FBI, was already letting us know at the time that the state department was basically trying to shut down anything happened in Afghanistan. They wanted it to collapse. They wanted it to go into well, the reason is they wanted it to become such a broken country that the Taliban would have no real power. Oh. You know, so let it go into back into the, you know, dark ages, if you will. Unfortunately, that sounds really good on paper, but we've got thousands of people that we care about. You're you're causing them to go into dark ages is killing these people. Yeah. Cause and effect. Apart from Christ, they enter into eternity without Christ. And so we knew we had to do something. We knew this was big. We started planning it. We we were really bright that night. We thought, okay. It's gonna cost us about $351,000 to get our team out. We're a nonprofit, you know, like a church. We don't have that money. But we know we we've been in such incredibly hairy situations that we know we can trust Jesus. Mhmm. Long day. Went home that night, and Wes is not a for those of you know Wes, he's not a charismatic person. He's charismatic, but he just doesn't talk this way. And I remember the next morning, he's like, guys, I had a dream last night, and the holy spirit was speaking to me. Well, the whole room went, what? Because Wes doesn't talk that way. That's not the way what he normally would say. And he went into it. He goes, I don't normally do this, but it was an impression from the lord, and this is what I felt like he said. And he said, the Lord came to him in a dream and said, I'm giving you a 2,000 piece puzzle, and it's gonna be incredibly difficult. And I'm only gonna give you one piece at a time, and I need you to trust me. That's a conversation. And then we get a call, that day from one of our that morning from one of our biggest donors who's been faith ful from almost the very beginning, and he said, I feel like the Lord is telling me I'm supposed to give you 400,000 for Afghanistan. Wow. Wow. Lot more to that story. It's with millions of dollars that we're doing, but but let me take you back. We were not ready for Afghanistan twenty years ago because we didn't have the right connections. South Sudan being faithful right there. Yeah. We had people who heard what we're doing, and they're Christians, they're marines, the special forces, CIA, FBI. They're coming to work with us because what we're doing in South Sudan is unique. Fast forward. Now all those people are helping us here, and it opened up other doors. Let me tell you what the Lord has done. It is a very tragic situation in Afghanistan. It is a worst case scenario for everybody in that country. But the Taliban played the long game the entire time. The twenty years were there. They they lived through Russia. Mhmm. They knew that Russia didn't stay. They knew America wouldn't stay. Maybe it's twenty years, fifty years. But if it's a hundred years, they they had made these things called blacklists. And it's everybody that was a Christian that was really bold in their faith, but also what they call SIVs, Muslims that helped America during what they call the American occupation. And those people were on hit list, and they started sending out letters in multiple languages, basically a death sentence. We're coming to get you. We know you're a Christian. We know etcetera. So we had to start moving people around. By the grace of God, God gave us connections. We had to work with mercenaries. God can even do this. We ran into Muslim mercenaries. Of course, you don't wanna get near them, but this guy was trying to let us know, I hate the Taliban because his mom his dad was British. His mom is from Pakistan, but she died under the Taliban. She could not leave the country. She couldn't get out, and so he has a bitterness in his heart towards the Taliban. So he wanted to help us to destroy the Taliban. Only God can do that. Yeah. Motivation. Yeah. So we started moving people around because the Taliban was looking for them. We had, we also were getting calls from Samaritan's Purse, from crew, from all these different ministries saying, our people are being targeted. And that's what changed for us, excuse me. They're on the blacklist, right? They're on the blacklist. Yeah. And that turned into an environment where we just started having to hustle. Okay, Let me tell you the story. So one of the guys on our board, he's a Calvary Chapel pastor, and he was also former FBI, retired two weeks, about two weeks before Afghanistan collapsed. Why does that matter? Because if he was still in the FBI, he couldn't have helped us. Wow. But he had retired, and he was about to go work for a consulting firm in The Middle East because this guy in the FBI was over the horn of Africa. He was responsible for the the terrorist effects that would come out of that place to America, so he was part of a fly team. So he knows that area. And then he spent time in counterterrorism in America, and he worked with, embassies all over the world. He was a legal attache. God did all that. Wow. And so he's out of the FBI. Afghanistan happens, and for the last two years, he's been flying around from country to country because of his reputation, and he's getting meetings with presidents and prime ministers and cabinets, and we've been able to open up the door for thousands of people to get him out of that area, to get him into safe places. So imagine you being taken out of Afghanistan and stuck in Pakistan. You have no family. You have no passport. You're you're basically gonna live a a really bad life. Mhmm. We know that. We know what IDP camps are for indis individually displaced people. They're that's exactly where cartels go to steal kids from. Wow. So we knew we had to do more. We did not want any of our people in an IDP camp. And so because we flew them around, we're able to get them into countries. We're supporting them. We even have some countries that are saying, you take care of them for a first year, connect them with your churches, and we'll take care of them after that. And we have other countries that are saying, hey. Get them connected with your church. Please take care of them for a few years. This is what God's able to do. But, again, being faithful right where you are, if we wouldn't have been faithful in Sudan not looking ahead, we wouldn't have made the connections that helped us here. Let me tell you the other big story. Wow. Miracle. This is all a miracle. This is what I want to encourage the body. This is not us. I'm almost like a child excited. This is what God can do. Yeah. This is what God can do. Wow. I'll tell you the neatest story, two neat stories. We got a call from crew in Afghanistan, and I'll tell the story tomorrow. But we got a call from crew, and their country director was being actively hunted by the Taliban. They didn't just send out two letters in English and in Arabic basically telling them it was a death sentence. They sent it out in multiple languages. When we got a call, they had been watching this man. They were literally going from home to home that he was associated with searching it. And when we got a call, they estimated it'd be about two hours before they found him in the home. They were hiding him. That's not a lot of time in Afghanistan. Yeah. We were able to make some calls, and because of the grace of God, we had people on the boot on the ground, and we were able to drop in an hour, grab them, get them to a safe location. They hit the house an hour later, and he'd have been dead. Wow. But the bigger story. The movie, this is God. This is I want everybody to hear this. This is not us. We're not walking around thinking we did this. Only God can do this because we showed up. Yes. So there's a movie out called 12 strong. It's about the early days of Afghanistan right after nine eleven. We sent in some special forces, and they went in there to try to take out the Taliban to do things like that. The first American killed in the early days of that war was a guy named Mike Spann. He's CIA. Mike Spann was is well, he was an on fire evangelical, crazy in love with Jesus. His wife was also CIA, and her name is Shannon Spann. They both served there. Mike was killed. There was a group of of Afghans that helped him in those early days that America affectionately calls the Alpha Team. But when the Alpha Team was left, they were on the top of the Taliban hit list because they were really well known. America left them, we abandoned them. And Shannon is realizing these are my family, they were there for me, and she's realizing the other side of that, wait a minute, We lied to them kind of thing. No. We didn't lie to them, but we're not taking care of them. Yeah. So she's calling the FBI, the CA, the State Department, anybody she can get through because she was did pretty well in the CIA, and she's getting stonewalled everywhere, and she is now in tears and frustration and bitterness. Like, God, you know, what am I gonna do? And she felt like the Holy Spirit said to her, Shannon, why are you going to the world? Why aren't you going to my people? And she's like, Father, I'm going to the very people that know how to do this, the FBI, CA, what's up? You know? With the skills. But what she knows is the voice of the Lord. So she started making some phone calls, and through a few phone calls, she ended up talking to a person everybody would know. And he said to her, Shannon, don't what to tell you, but, if you are in trouble, you need to call far reaching ministries. Again, this isn't us. It's because God has given us a special favor for that niche. She ends up for calling us, and we met her in Orange County West and us, and and now she's actually part of our staff. We were able to get her Alpha team, into a safe house. The Taliban identified them. We were able to move them. We're able to get them safely to another country, and this is why I'm telling you this story. It's because just a couple months ago, the new director of the CIA called Shannon in and said, Shannon, we weren't able to get the Alpha team out. How were you able to get the Alpha team out? And she was able to say, it's a ministry called Far Reaching Ministries. And he's like, can you give me the the leader of that ministry's name? I wanna know more about him, and that's what God can do. That's not what I'm telling everybody they can do. We're not looking to bring favor to the director of the f or CIA. Mhmm. We're looking to be obedient, but what Christ can do in obedience is even cause leaders in our country to be influenced with the gospel. Exactly. And make an influence. We've gotten 2,000 people out. We have another thousand on the list. The news media isn't paying attention. Nobody cares anymore, but we do. Typical. But we do because we're called, to be ambassadors of Christ. I don't care if the world falls out of favor. We still have to help the suffering. So we're going even if nobody cares. There's a thousand more people we gotta take care of, and we're fighting every day to do it. And that's the heart of of God right there. Yeah. That's the heart of God because he doesn't he's not dependent upon the government or the CIA leaders or he's not he's not dependent upon the world. He knows what's going to happen. He knows the future. He knows what's going on. Just like we've talked about in the past that Jesus didn't run to the Roman leadership to sit at their table and and and to be a part and and rub shoulders with those people. They didn't they didn't like him, and he didn't need them. Yeah. He did he knew what his mission was, and it's to save the world Amen. Through dying on the cross Amen. And rising on the third day, and and and his mission is clear Amen. And so is the mission of believers Amen. To do what he calls us to do. I wish that Christians could remember. I think the enemy has been pretty effective. In fact, I'm gonna say my one charismatic moment here. I I don't get many visions. I'm not gonna act that way at all, but I remember as clear as day, maybe I was tired, but there's a there's a story to this. I was on an airplane. I was exhausted. I'm laying there with my I was sitting there with my eyes closed and just trying to relax, and I remember seeing, like, a a brush fire. It was a huge brush fire, grass fire. I don't know if you've ever been to close to one, but when that smoke gets in your eyes, it really burns. Mhmm. And in my closed eye moment, I remember turning my head. I caught myself like that because it's burning my eyes. And I remember when I was seeing that, I saw these fast moving little black, like, move marks. I even saw a lady in there, and it she wasn't trying to be sexual to me, but I saw a lady in there. And and I remember the holy spirit almost putting on my heart saying, the enemy is gonna bring you a lot of smoke and a lot of, noise. But he's doing that to distract you because what he wants to do is he wants to flank you. Yeah. And I think that's the message for us. Think the last couple years is we got really distracted on some really important things, masks and jabs, and that's really, really important. Distract. But we started to it is a distraction because now we're pulling in, and it's in us versus them. And we were always called to go out into the world. In fact, we were told when you're in Rome to be like the Romans. I I am not a mask mandate fan here. Mhmm. But here's my truth. I wear a mask every day of my life if I can win somebody to Jesus. That's the heart I have because Christ came to me when I was desperate for him. And if I were wearing a mask at that time and a pastor would have saw that and wanted nothing to do with me, I wouldn't know Jesus. But God so loved me so much that Ray Bentley told me about Jesus and it trains me. And I wanna tell all my enemies, even if they are radically different than me, even if they dress like girls, I want them to know the power of Jesus Christ to transform their life because he did it for me. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. You know, I've always said to to my husband in the past that that, the government our government and and scandals and if it was Hillary Clinton or the things that they are doing that are are there must be something up if they're doing the shiny penny over here. Look at the shiny penny because there's something else going on behind the scenes. Slight hand. Yeah. And it's that smoke and mirror kind of effect that goes on a lot, and it's kind of the devil's playbook Yeah. Is to cause a lot of distractions because he's doing something behind the scenes notorious you know that is not good. So we need to you know have the leading of the Holy Spirit to keep us on track and have the most important thing the most important thing is the change lives and not have distractions be the main thing we're looking at. Don't fall for the deception of the devil, you know, is super important. He uses the same tricks on us. He wants to get us distracted with something else. When I was in the 80s as a brand new Christian, remember I the big thing everybody was warning me about was backward masking, you know? Yes. I remember that. All that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember going, oh, that's scary. You know, it's backwards. And and then one day I just I was young. I was dumb. I get I got a lot wrong, but this is when I got right. I remember going, wait a minute. Why am I worried about it being backwards? I can look out in the world, and I can see the devil everywhere. It's a distraction. Yeah. I'm listening to a record backwards. I get what you're trying to say, but it's already obvious. Yeah. And I'd say the same thing today is quit listening to the government saying that or listening to church that the government's backward masking us. Yeah. Of course, they're controlled by We're called to bring light into the world Yeah. Because the world has been salt. Salt. Salt. Exactly. That's what we're called to, and that is the whole world. Yeah. It's so true. I just, remember that for sure that that we can be we can so easily be caught up into the the distractions. And, you know, I've told this to pastor in the past when our and some of the other podcasts that we've had is, you know, the devil is a one trick pony. You know, he does the same trick over and over again, and it might look a little different or or be be labeled a little different, but but he has to work really hard because he's not God. No. But he's he's got a good trick because he keeps using the same one, and he would he would have given it up if it didn't work. So we have to be aware that he's really good at getting us to bark at the, bark at the shadow when the devil's really coming in the back door. Yes. Yeah. We need to remember not to be distracted and tricked. But that's really good. So what are some of the stories that is what's going on in Latin America? You know, I it it breaks my heart because I've heard a couple of them, and and I wanna talk about some of the the you know, and and one of the things that I was told is that the sex trafficking of children there, that they might be taking these kids to waterfalls so that the sound will be drowned out and then thrown into the the river to be eaten by alligators. And these are things that are so horrific, but I really do wanna what is going on? Yeah. Well, we don't have hours to talk about it, so I'll try to condense it, but we got a call. We all know that Latin America is a beautiful place, beautiful people, beautiful culture. We wanna bring Jesus to we also know there's poverty and there's, criminality. Right? And we call them the cartel. And cartels are really known for drugs and guns and money laundering and extortion and all that. But a huge business for them, because they're they're trying to make money, right, is, the reselling of people called human trafficking. Human trafficking has been going on for a long time. We didn't call it that. We call it slavery, but human trafficking has been going on for a while. And and when we got involved in human trafficking, we're busy. We know about it. It bothers us. It's even a big thing in America, but we were distracted until we got a call on this one because it fits in there. And and it's almost it's almost like what the enemy is trying to put on display that I hate God so much that I'm willing to destroy his children. If I can destroy their life and they'd be so dysfunctional, then I, you know, I kinda get even with God kinda thing. That's not what the devil's doing, but when we heard this. And, we we heard that they're targeting little babies, you know, things that we as as humans try to protect. Not only are they targeting them for sexual acts, that's just weird to me. Right? I don't I can't I can't even relate with that. You know? Right. With all the dysfunction I went through, and and there are people listening to this, I'm I'm not being insensitive, but all the dysfunction I went through, I never experienced sexual sin against me that would destroy me. And yet I know the the areas in my life that have been so dysfunctional that God has had a work on me. When you take sexualization in there of children and and that abuse and and adults are supposed to be trustworthy, it is destructive. Right. And when we get to meet these kids, it's not like you just give them a glass of water. The kids that we're rescuing, just in a few stories, there isn't I don't think we have in this one home we have I don't think we have one child that doesn't need reconstructive surgery, both in the rear and in the front because of what's happened. And boys too. We have a a very large contingency from America that is interested in boys, and they're interested in younger and younger boys. They're willing to go down. Their conscience are so seared. They don't even realize if I do this to a two year old, it's not gonna destroy it. And and it's so weird and dark to me, but there's a there's a thirst for younger and younger kids. We've rescued a bunch of children. They many of them have they came to us with STDs. Most of them come needing reconstructive surgery. We have a little girl that's part of our team that, was so abused sexually that she has to wear a catheter the rest of her life because she has kidney and liver damage. We have a little girl that one of her abusers beat her in the head, and she was normal. Now she has mental retardation because she was so beaten. I don't understand this, But you don't go and give them a glass of water and say, Jesus is gonna be okay. Because what we see is these little kids that were living on dirt floors, men coming into them all day long, and at night, they lived in trees. Now they're getting their first bed. We're teaching them how to just integrate things that we take normally. A child goes into a bed. These kids don't understand that. Yeah. And so it takes a lot of love. It's gonna it takes a commitment. It takes this to look at them and say, Jesus loves you. I love you so much. I'm willing to walk with you for twenty years. That's almost a pipe dream, right? That's a lot. God also gave us hope. In another Latin American country, we've met girls that have gone through sexual trafficking, were loved by an evangelical woman, and today they're in law school to become attorneys to fight for those kids, and when you meet them Yeah. You would never know that they were so trafficked that they probably should have been dead, but yet they're so graceful. That's the power of God. Amen. That's also the power of God I wanna bring back to America because we look at people and we just think everybody's broken forever. Yeah. No, they're not. Yes. We get to see God taking a a transformed girl like that, a restored girl like that. He can do that to our hearts when our husbands bro cheated on us, our wives cheated on us. Yeah. Our kids are falling apart. Our kids are turning towards homosexuality. This is the same God that can come in our life and do the miraculous. Yeah. That's what I want the church in America to remember. It doesn't happen every day, but God can still do it. That's the message we have. Yeah. He's a he's a transforming God. He transforms us from from being wounded and and and and, like we were saying, Mary Magdalene, know, that Jesus went straight for that person and said, I'm the answer. I am the answer, and I can transform your life. I know your brokenness. I know you're wounded and and you've been abused and and used and and maybe filled with demons and I can set you free. That's Jesus's heart. That's why he came is to set the captive free. Right? Amen. And where we know God is trying to set us free as the devil doesn't want him to go free. Exactly. The battle is real. The battle is real. And and when you go in and you do something good and these kids, the look of, you know, safety in their eyes for a moment, they don't know what that light like, I can breathe for a second, you would think that everybody both in the seen and unseen world would wanna collab for that. Yeah. But that's not what happens. Yeah. Our home's down there. We're doing the right stuff. We're loving on these kids. We're not just thinking about rescuing them. We want them we want them to feel like this is home. What do we do for if we have a functional family? On Christmas, we get to go home. We want these kids when they're married, they're done with college, to go home and have Christmas and things like that. Well, the government down there, part of them are on our side, but there's a corrupt side that's on the cartel side, so we we've been raided. You know, we gotta make sure we're taking care of these children because they wanna do everything they can. Just because we're doing the right thing, we also are not just fighting against the bad guys who are doing this to the children. We're fighting against the government who doesn't want us to exist. And so at that point, you might have to have your eyes on Christ so much because when you look at these children so they're putting a lot of pressure on us, unrealistic pressure. They want us to fail. We're not going to because we know who God is. And, so so our team leader had called me about 15 boys that needed rescuing. They're in a really bad situation. And in that moment, I'm not with them. I'm trying to I'm in America making these calls going, Gabriel, I understand this is too hard. We you know, if if we take them in and they look at our checking account, we gotta have money there for it. We have to have beds. They would love to find a reason. I'm giving them all this logic, and he's quiet. He's like, okay, Edward. He, you know, he talked to a couple people on staff, talked to Wes too, and and we gave him the same advice. And I showed up down there in Latin America, I walked in, and there's 14 boys there. Not fifteen, fourteen boys And I knew who they were, and Gabriel looked at me, and he looked back at them. He didn't say a word, and I didn't say a word to them either because now I saw them. I touched them. These are little boys that would have died. It was easy when I was in California telling them, no, because it's, you know, it's this. I said there were 15 boys. We only got 14. Because of the delay, the caliban had killed one of those kids, and Gabriel said, Edward, it's never gonna happen again. Unfortunately, we're at war. We were told about three kids. The the the the government was late in rescuing them, and one of the kids was killed. And so two of the kids came to our house. The oldest is nine. He's a little boy, and you would think that he would celebrate being in safety, having in his own bed, but he went into his room after he was introduced. We have bunk beds, took his sheet off. He's desperate, himself, tried to commit suicide. So painful. So painful. The team went in there, and as they're trying to figure out what's going on, the kid is shaking, and he's saying, the Taliban, they told me that if I ever escape, they're gonna find me. They're gonna lock me in a box. They're gonna let all the men rape me, and then they're gonna kill me. And that's all they get. The petrified the the fear over this kid, and we had to hold them and tell them it's okay. We had to take them to government, you know, all that. We had to do all this stuff. That's what the enemy wants to do. Exactly. And we're not gonna let that happen. Yeah. Don't tell, you know, even people who are abused sexually in in America or around the world, they they are threatened, you know, don't tell or, you know, come after you or something bad is gonna happen to you. And, and, and it's, you know, sounds like it's similar, you know, the devil doesn't want to let them go and, and let them not. They didn't want them them to, to stop being there, the money and, and doesn't it say what's the story in the bible where the the the gal who is found out that And Mark. Paul yeah. That he's she's set free and they and no longer are making money for the Oh, different story. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. But I remember reading that. I'll have to find that. 16, I think. Yeah. Yeah. She has a like a serpent type demon in her, and she's making money through sorcery for her masters. Yeah. Paul's letting her fall around a couple days or whatever, and then finally he rebukes the demon, delivers of the demon. Paul does. Yeah. And then the her masters are losing their gain, losing their money from her. So the whole whole thing blows up and Yeah. Yeah. Where is that axe? X 16, I think. X 16. Yeah. Yeah. So same thing happening that they're not making money off of this No. This gal anymore, this boy anymore. And they get really mad. You know, they're for gain. If you took a kilo of Coke from, a cartel or from a gang, they're gonna come get it. If you take a child that they can make $25,000, then you take a 100 of them, that's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. And so I would ask for prayer, right, because it is a very dangerous thing for our team to be involved in this, but we have no choice. We have to go. There's a biblical mandate. We're we we don't get to be afraid. We have to be courageous and go because we have the power of eternity in us. We have Christ in us. Amen. Amen. Wow. And I would also like to tell you too is I wish this were just Latin America, but we got involved in children because of our work out there. It's like the it's it's like the bad guys always target the poor. Oh, yeah. We first had one of our children in in Kenya, part of our church, very poor family. Two girls disappear. This was years ago, and I remember when it happened. David called, and we're trying to figure this out. A ministry showed up in their place saying that they could get these young girls jobs in in Asian or not Asian, in, Arab countries, Emirates, things like that. And so the mom signed up her daughters to go. Well, when they told David what's going, girls did, they won't be at church. David's like, no. It's weird. So found out where this place was, went down there and confronted them. They weren't Christians. They're they're bad guys. Tricking them. Yeah. And so they thought they went back and got the mom not to do it. Well, she let them go in the middle of the night, we never heard from them again, ever heard from them again. And that was our first thing. But in Sudan and and whether it's Nigeria, we're working there, what Boko Haram does and comes to get kids, We have a home with 600 kids in Uganda because they target kids, and they wanna put them you know, it's the enemy goes after children everywhere. And if we just wake up and if we just realize that he hates God that much that he would target that, isn't a Christian should ever be asleep again. There's too much work to do. Yeah. We need to be aware and aware of of the devil's playbook. Amen. Yeah. Well, it is so true. Know, wickedness is is all around the world, all around the world and and there's a lot of work to be done. Amen. Yeah. We have a display at our office. It's not new, but it's one of our newest ones. It's about six years old now, and it's it has a picture of Nazi Germany or a flag of Nazi Germany and of Imperial Japan. And today, Germany and Japan are our friends. We're really close with them. Right? Mhmm. But at one point, they weren't. And in the middle, it has, you know, all the number of the people that were killed during that that time. And in the middle, it just it basically reminds us that this is what happens when godly men don't do something. Exactly. And it's the same thing now. It may not be Nazi Germany, but it is the cartel. It is the Taliban. It is Boko Haram. There are these people that are inflicting evil on others before they get to know Christ. And if if the world can't fix it, Christ sent us to do it. We're called to go into the darkest places Mhmm. To relieve those that are being snatched. Amen. Amen. Well, and I work for the the federal government, and we have training all the time about human trafficking and that it's a real thing and they explain specific countries who it is prominent in. So it's not just Latin America and not just motivated by the different organizations that are out there. Is driven by Demand. Yeah, by demand. And it's very sad and we need to be continue praying for the release of these vulnerable folks. And you know I mean we can even think about abortion in our own country that we are not standing up and saying as a country that this is wrong necessarily killing babies and Baal was sacrificing babies on the arms of of Baal. Baal. And, you know, this is not a new thing. It has been ongoing for a long, long time. So did you have anything you wanted to say, pastor? Well, back in when you asked about Acts 16, Paul and Silas are in Philippi. And like I said, they cast out this demons that were in this woman and then her masters were angry because that's how they got their gain, their money, and all. So they beat him with many stripes like we're talking about. It wasn't easy for Paul and Silas to fulfill their ministry. Yeah. But the victory is seen that that they were thrust in the middle of the Philippian jail. You know that story. Oh, yeah. And at midnight, they're singing. Yeah. They brought the house down. Right? Yeah. And all the prisoners stayed there, you know, watched it. So how many of us would be willing to go to a city like that and be beaten, put in prison? And the net result is the Lord's putting you there And sing. So that you can worship him Yeah. And the Lord bring the house down in the Philippian. All the prisoners stay there. Yeah. So picture the Taliban picture all these really bad dudes, you know, staying there, not fleeing when the shackles come off. Like, something's different going on here. What's going on here? And then the Philippian jailer going to kill himself. And Paul no. No. No. Everyone's saying, what must I do to be saved? Don't kill yourself. What must I do to be saved? Like, described the the friend they have in Syria. You know, once he got saved, became a part of the ministry simply because food is what opened the door to the gospel. So then we go over here in an act 26, the Lord, you know, appeared to Paul. Paul's before king Agrippa and the power of their ministry. Yeah. There's a practical way they're rescuing people. You know, it takes money and marines and strategy Yeah. To help collectively Yeah. Alleviating suffering. But the real mission is the gospel, and they know that that that Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ first, the power of God, and the salvation to everyone that believes, the Jew first and also the Greek. For therein is the rise of god revealed from faith to faith as it written, the just shall live by faith. So the opportunity to share the gospel. So in in acts 26, he says, Paul, I'm gonna send you to open the eyes so their eyes are closed. People are blinded to the gospel. They're blinded to God. They're going to all these countries. They're Islamic belief system. But the gospel is powerful enough to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, the dark continent Yeah. Africa. Mhmm. Kevin Lee one time told me that god's raised up west to change a continent Mhmm. You know, in The Sudan. So to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan so there's a satanic power. We're talking about evil. Mhmm. How do we break that evil? Yeah. How are we gonna strategize to break that evil that the devil has, that foothold he has in these countries? Right? And the gospel. Yeah. He says we're gonna win these this continent to Christ. The solution he's looking at is we're gonna win Latin America for Christ. It's the only way that evil is gonna stop. Yeah. Only way. Right? So you train them up. You make disciples. Those disciples go out. Right? So from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins, like like Edward was saying, God's merciful. He'll forgive these guys of their sins. Forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them who are sanctified. Sanctified means set apart and made holy. By faith it is in me. And so Paul's saying, hey, king Agrippa, was obedient. You know, I was a chief of sinners, blasphemer. I was persecuting Christians. The Lord apprehended me on the road to Damascus. Right? Exactly. And so I've been faithful to the call that he gave me, and it's the power of the gospel. So Jesus Christ and him crucified for the remission of sins. That's the message we have. Transform. That's the that's the beauty. Now Wes and and Edward had to first be taught. When they got saved, they had to first be taught. The local church. Mhmm. The local church. Ray Bentley's church. They're in bible study after bible study bible study. So they're being discipled. They're being built up. And then they start to have opportunities to teach bible study, teach Sunday school, and Wes is sharing the gospel Sharing the gospel there. Right? Getting his feet wet. And so everybody needs to understand the importance of the local church. Amen. Amen. To not neglect the assembling together as a matter of something else. Amen. Especially as you see the day of the Lord approaching. The local church, me sitting under pastor Chuck and being taught, taught, taught, taught, taught the word of God. Yeah. The pastors, your job description, feed the sheep, the word of God. Yeah. When you get healthy, healthy sheep reproduce, and then they get to go out like Edward and Wes and so many others because somebody took the time to consistently equip them Mhmm. For the work of the ministry. Church is essential. You have a whole bible study. It's part of the equipping. Right? Mhmm. Yeah. Like you said, all of us Learning and growing and Right. And and You have to first receive before you can give. Right? You have to. Yeah. You gotta know because it I say this to young people. I get a lot of young guys, pastor, that was should just end it with that, but I'll say this is it kinda tie with that. What we do, Wes and I get a lot of young guys that will come to us afterwards, and you see the desperation in their eyes. So they say things like this, I wanna go to Sudan. I wanna go and deal with cartel. Yeah. And what they're saying is, my life is a mess. I can't figure it out. I have no direction. You seem to have direction, and if I could have direction, then my life will be better. I'll be able to walk with Christ. And what I have to say to him is, no. If you don't learn to be faithful and grow right here Yeah. If I put you in the middle of a war zone, it you feel like you're gonna cling to Christ, but your tail's gonna go between your legs, you're gonna run, and that's not gonna help anybody. God will not put you into a fight you're not ready for. And the last analogy I use is I did MMA, and I did Muay Thai. And I remember, you know, when you're trying to hit the bag, you know, and I'm doing it, and and my sensei at the time, I thought I could punch. Yeah. And he kept telling me, you're you're telegraphing, and I would get so frustrated. It was about ninety days, and I almost quit a thousand times. It's like, oh, but I was just he would embarrass me. Yeah. And then one day he walked up behind me because that's it. And I went, what's it? And then I was watching the mirror, and I could see myself. I was doing it without even thinking. You I know how to do the jab jab. And then I got in my first my first sparring. And I remember thinking, I'm, you know, I'm two hundred and thirty pounds, and I'm I'm pretty tough now. Yeah. So good I do on that bag. I'm good. And I remember this guy who was a little bit smaller than me, and he hit me in the face, got right in there. And I remember in that moment, I mean, he got the first hit, and I just tasted blood, and I saw stars. Uh-oh. And all of a sudden, I'm just going wild. And the fact is is that I had to get hit in the face to understand because I knew how to hit a bag Yeah. And then I had to get hit in the face to realize it's different. And that's the whole thing about growing in Christ and discipleship. That's a bad analogy. But if we're not growing in Christ, we're not gonna be ready to handle. I I we sit with presidents. We and that's not because of me. We sit with congressmen and congresswomen, not because of me. And we sit with people who are being trafficked, not because of me, but you have to have the maturity to be able to talk to a president Yeah. And the love and compassion and spiritual maturity to talk to a victim. That comes with time. It does. It does. Yeah. We need we need to be, equipped. We have to be equipped. If you're not being equipped, you're not ready for battle. You think you are, but you're not. Yeah. So the the prophet Mike Tyson, he once said everybody's got a plan That's right. Till they're hit in the face. That's right. They're hit in the face. Yeah. I remember tasting that blood and seeing the stars. And then, you know, I'm really tight, chin down and all of a sudden like this, you know. Yeah. So you gotta be ready for the battle. And the Lord will throw you in battle, let you get beaten, but I'm still alive today, which is a good thing too. Been beaten, but I'm alive, so I've learned. Why not be beaten again? Exactly. When I quit breathing, then it's over. It's okay. That's right. Absent from Saudi is President of Lord. That's right. That's awesome. You. Well, that's awesome. Thank you so much, Edward and Thanks for having us. It was We love your ministry. A great journey, yeah. It's a great step of faith. Be not deceived. Be not deceived. Thank you so much. Thank you. God is with us. See you in Latin America? Yeah, I'm ready. I don't know if my husband will let me go, but I'm ready. Lord, I'm a little persuasive, I'll take him out for coffee. Yeah. Awesome. I'll record it. There we go. Back the same. Yeah. You transformed. Thank you so much and God is with us and and he will continue to be with us as we are obedient unto him. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Alright.
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!
