August 29, 2024 • 58 mins
In this episode I interview instrument maker and missionary, Caleb Byerly. Caleb's story is one of the most inspiring tales of following God I've ever encountered. I'd describe him as the Indiana Jones of the spirit!
If you've ever wanted to follow God through dreams and visions into the wide unknown, then this story is for you! Hear how an entire people group gets saved through the pursuit of God as he lead Caleb to make an extinct instrument that had been the source of an ancient prophecy from a hidden tribe!
Enjoy!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
Welcome to the Song Lab Podcast. This is Michael Malden. I'm your host today.
I've got an incredible, incredible guest. He's got a story that's one of my
favorite stories I think I've heard of people following God.
His name is Caleb Byerly.
He is a, he's kind of like an Indiana Jones in the spirit, you know.
He's, he makes, he's an instrument maker. He's a missionary.
(00:27):
He's a father of a bazillion kids, you know, and he's a new friend.
And so I'm just honored to have you here today, Caleb. Thanks for coming. Thanks, Michael.
Such an honor. So Caleb lives in Moravian Falls in the world of glory, right?
Is that why people move there, bro? Just to open heavens? Yeah, a lot of people do that.
(00:48):
They move there for that purpose. Yeah. Is that why you moved there or you just
met God? It was purely the leading of the Holy Spirit, the reason why we're there. That's cool.
So you were a missionary to the Philippines for how many years?
Right now it's been 16 years since 2009. Okay.
And you're also an instrument maker, a musician, and part of your mission within
(01:14):
the instrument making is to redeem, explain to me, redeem lost instruments or
ancient instruments or?
Yeah, instruments that have either become extinct or nearly extinct.
So just like languages and tribes go extinct over time, musical instruments do as well.
And so through this crazy journey the Lord has led us through,
(01:37):
we've helped to find instruments that are extinct or nearly extinct and then help redeem them.
Bring them back to life. Yeah, bring them back to life and get them in the right
hands of musicians to play.
I've thought a lot about that, like, you know, what were the sounds and instruments
of just the ancient days?
And even here, I think Ray Hughes talked about a guitar.
(01:58):
He called it a Gittite harp, you know, from Gath, which is where,
you know, Goliath was from, you know?
So it's a sound of that tribal people that has been redeemed,
right, for the Lord's purposes.
And I remember we were talking recently and you
were even mentioning how you were making a harp that would have been what
David would have played what is it a kenner what did he
play well it's to liar it's a liar okay yeah
(02:21):
it's like a we call it a Megiddo style liar and
in Megiddo which is a city in Israel if you go down you dig down there's I think
there's multiple cities on top of each other okay and you can dig down to the
era that King David was alive and they found a liar there and.
(02:43):
Hidden underneath the ground oh no way and so they
say that most likely that's that shape
of instrument was what david would
have played so that's some of the information that we have that's
fascinating so megiddo is where armageddon harman megiddo right yes i've been
there they say there's all the archaeology there's like all those layers there
that's fascinating that they found that instrument and so when you made that
(03:05):
instrument for the first time didn't you it wasn't there a story around you
got a call from the chosen where they were needing an instrument just like that,
authentic or something like that? Yeah, yeah.
So I had built one and I actually had it finished and it was sitting on my computer
desk ready to just be shipped off pretty much.
And then I got a call from The Chosen and they asked me,
(03:28):
hey, we're getting ready to shoot this film where we're gonna be having David
before he became king to play this harp or a lyre.
And so we're trying to find what's an authentic harp to be.
So that's how that worked out. Just the timing of it was perfect.
The timing was crazy. It was completely ready.
(03:49):
Even I was like, well, what kind of strings do you guys want?
Well, I think we were thinking like nylon strings. And I was like,
well, it's got nylon strings on it. So it's all ready.
That's amazing. I love that. So much of your story is just, it's like just about
following God and being in his timing.
And it's so encouraging for me to hear. And that's why I wanted to open up your
(04:11):
story for other people to hear it because it's just so much of the life of Christ
is just all he said was follow me, right?
And it's that, it's the journey of following the voice. And sometimes it's hard
to hear the voice. So we, you know, we see in a glass dimly sometimes,
but to hear other people who've gone before us and are really walking with God
in that way, it's super encouraging.
I think really needed in this hour, because I think we're, we're beyond the
(04:32):
area, era of formulas and this is how you do it.
It's really, man, you follow the voice. And when you look at Jesus's life and
even the miracles that he did, it was always, they were always so unique.
You know, he didn't have a formula. It was like spit in this guy's eye,
you know, poke in this guy's ear, whatever, speak to this thing, you know?
And so anyway, to back up a little bit, I would love for you just to tell people
(04:53):
a little bit about yourself and how you got on this journey of missions,
which led into you making instruments,
and then ultimately the story of this lost instrument that was rediscovered
in a dream, which led to a people group, right? So yeah.
Sure. Well, I grew up in North Carolina and just sort of a country boy.
(05:14):
I grew up in a really good Christian family and really thankful for my parents
who just brought me up in a really good way.
Grew up in a really good, solid Christian community that recognized my gifts
at a young age and really helped me on a really good path.
And I thought that I would probably be going in the direction of either a worship
(05:37):
leader or a pastor. I just kind of felt that leading, like, okay,
I'm probably gonna, I'm going in this direction.
And I also grew up in the arts.
A musician, kind of a craftsman, that world. My dad is a furniture maker.
My mom, she's very artsy. She's really good. She gets something on her mind,
(06:00):
she'll build it. She'll create it.
And so I kind of grew up in that atmosphere.
And then when I was 20, the day I turned 21,
sorry, the day after I turned 21, I flew to Israel because I was invited to
Israel to live there to help build a garden called the Fountain of Tears.
(06:24):
And this was still there. It's in Arad, Israel, and it reflects the suffering
of Christ and the Jews from the Holocaust.
And so it's a garden that you actually walk through.
And it's a full-size live, not live, but full-size sculptures
(06:45):
of the holocaust victims facing
christ and his
crucifixion so it's a communication of suffering so anyway i helped to to finish
that up it was the seventh year where they had finished it up and i helped during
that time just to help them and and so anyway i was i was working on that And all of a sudden,
(07:10):
I was working one day.
And like I said, I grew up in a really good Christian family.
So I was definitely aware of the leading of the Holy Spirit and of God's voice and all that.
And I had had like real encounters with the Lord in previous in my life.
But I was working one day.
(07:31):
I was literally grinding bronze. So bronze dust is all over my face and all over my body.
And right there in that moment, I began to feel like a manifest presence of God.
And I knew that he was there, but all of a sudden it was an overwhelming feeling of his presence.
(07:54):
And it was so strong that I stopped my work and I stepped to the side.
And i was like wow god like what are
you like what are you saying what are you doing i just
this is the middle of you creating yeah right there
in the middle of me just in the studio and so and then i heard it wasn't an
(08:15):
audible voice but it was a the voice from the lord and he spoke to my spirit
man and he actually i heard this word and it came out of nowhere It was, Caleb,
you're going to go to some Pacific Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
And I had never thought about islands in the middle of the Pacific.
(08:37):
I knew that there was Hawaii out there, but that's seriously like all I knew.
And so the Lord said, you're going to go to some islands in the middle of the Pacific.
And so I kind of scrambled around and found a map of the Pacific.
And when I looked at the Pacific, there was these little tiny dots on the map there.
(08:59):
And they kind of like, you know, they jumped out.
And the Lord was like, that's it. Those are the islands.
And it literally was in the middle of the Pacific. And those little islands are called Kitibis.
I right at that moment, I was like, I knew that that was where the Lord was calling me.
And I wasn't sure if he was calling me to go there or if he was calling me to
(09:22):
stand with him in prayer or pray for that nation.
But it what that did is it
started me on this journey of saying yes
to the lord and beginning to surrender everything in
my life and just put everything down like
my future my my whole my hopes my goals and that kind of thing i just began
(09:43):
to put them down and the lord began to give me this passion for the unreached
people groups of the world and the more that i learned about the unreached people
groups and the 1040 window.
Like my heart was just about to blow out of my body for them.
For those who don't know, explain the 1040 window.
So 1040 window is a sort of a section of the world that has the most unreached
(10:10):
people in the world. Between like the 10 and 40th parallel.
Exactly. Yeah. It's kind of like Asia.
Middle East. Pacific Islands, Middle East. Yeah. That whole kind of section. And...
Yeah, there's a lot of these people groups and languages that are still to be reached.
And of course, I would read Jesus saying to his disciples, go into all the world,
(10:36):
you know, from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria, and then to all the ends of the earth.
And then, you know, in Revelation chapter 7, you know, when the vision of at
the end when it says all nations,
all tribes, languages, and people groups are standing before the Lamb of God. Yeah, yeah.
(10:58):
And I would look and I would say, okay, well, all right, well,
maybe all the nations have already been reached because there are Christians
in every nation in the world. Yeah.
But there are tribes with – there are many tribes within each nation.
And then there's many languages and people groups within each nation.
(11:20):
And those are not all reached.
So anyway, that whole thing took me on a journey.
And it was exactly one year later that the Lord, I was actually standing on
those islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
I want you to speak to something real quick, because I think,
you know, first of all, I think it's beautiful that the Lord spoke to you in
(11:40):
the creative process, right?
You weren't like in the church service, in place of worship,
there's something beautiful about creativity.
And the first person filled with the spirit in the Bible was a creator,
right? It was Bezalel, the designer of the temple.
And I love that. But I think that, I know there's people that are listening
that maybe they're newer believers, maybe they're.
(12:00):
They don't, haven't fully surrendered their life to Jesus because there's a
fear of, of if I fully go in with God, he's going to send me to the 1040 window, right?
And it's going to be, I'm going to be a martyr, they kill Christians, yada, yada, yada.
And what I found for me personally, because when I gave my life to the Lord,
(12:21):
I was like, God, I'll go anywhere.
I'll do anything you want, but there's two places on the planet I don't want
to go. I don't want to go to Sudan and I don't want to go to the West Bank of Israel.
And within a year, I was living in the West Bank of Israel, right?
So I was scared to death of something, but I ended up having the most amazing time of my life there.
And so I found that my destiny was on the other side of my fears.
But I don't think that's not everybody's call to go to those places.
(12:44):
So what would you say to someone who's afraid to fully surrender and lay it down and follow God?
Because like you said, you didn't have that desire for that place before.
He put that in you. Was that correct?
Yeah. I never had that desire and it was never even in my mind.
But I think that's what it really comes down to is that, do we really want a life with Jesus?
(13:08):
Do we want a life with God?
Or do we not want a life with God? Yeah.
I have determined in my life that I'm not just going to live for God,
but I'm going to live with God on this side.
And I don't want to live just for God, just do things for God.
Like I'm going to help God.
(13:31):
I'm going to use my gifts for God.
No, like God actually wants to use our gifts in partnership with him,
co-partnering together. And I think that's what it really comes down to.
It's not that God wants to rip us away from all these things that we love.
(13:51):
It's actually that when we lay them down, the Lord finally has room to come
in and pick up those gifts again and say, hey, let's do this together.
And when we do it together, it goes far beyond what we could ever do by ourselves.
That's awesome. I love that.
So you find yourself on this island with God.
(14:14):
Yeah, yeah. So I didn't know anyone from the country, and I didn't know where
I was going to stay the first night.
I didn't know. You literally just went. Yeah, we literally. So I asked one of my best friends.
His name was Joel, and he was— Like, Joel, we're rolling, bro.
You're coming with me. He's like, where are we going? You're like, I don't know.
(14:35):
Yeah, he was like, hey, man. I'll go with you.
And, and we, you know, it, you know, we were two young guys,
so we had to sell everything that we possibly had.
And then we had to work really hard to get there, to get enough money.
We finally, Joel sold his, his Mustang convertible in order to get the ticket to get there.
(14:58):
And then I, I worked really hard.
In helping to install hardwood floors anyway
we we got enough money we just bought plane tickets and we couldn't con we didn't
know how to contact anyone from the country we tried to but during that time
there was no you know there was no technology underground missions organizations
(15:19):
that you were aware of i think there was no you just went yeah so we just went you had your bags Yeah,
little backpacks and took little cooking pots and pans just in case if we were
going to be stranded on the island and stuff.
And we just landed there on the main island. It's called Tarawa.
(15:40):
Okay. Were y'all scared?
I wasn't really scared. I really felt the boldness and confidence from the Lord
that he was going to. I mean, but, you know, of course it was kind of like,
I had no clue where we were going to stay.
So that, that side of it was a little nerve wracked. Yeah.
You know, but we, we landed and everybody got off the plane and they,
(16:05):
there were Kitibis people just all standing there and they, they welcomed the
other people and, and they went off.
But then it was just me and Joel just sort of standing there and everybody,
yeah. Yeah, everybody left, just me and another guy, and we're just standing
there like, well, okay, so that's the point where I was starting to get a little nervous.
(16:29):
This is real now. Yeah, this is really where it got real. Yeah.
Then two people walked up to us and they asked us, they had a piece of paper in their hand.
They said, is your name this person and this person? We said, no, that's not us.
And they were kind of like turning their heads. They're like,
well, we actually were expecting two people to get off this airplane.
(16:55):
We were told, it says it right here, that two people with the same description
as you from the same country as you were supposed to get off of the plane today
and they never got off we've been walking around trying to find them and and
we were told that we were supposed to to,
prepare a home for these two people and so we already prepared a home for them
(17:18):
and so they were like well we have this home on the other side of the island
if you want to go then then you can And the whole time in my mind,
I'm thinking this is the worst scam I've ever heard in my life.
Oh, you're getting set up. I'm getting set up to be kidnapped and put on some
shit to go across the Micronesian Islands.
(17:38):
But no, I stepped to the side with Joel and we said, Lord, is this you?
And we just felt the immense peace of the Lord over it.
And we felt the Lord said, yes, I've prepared a place for you.
I've prepared a place for you. dang he literally did yeah that's incredible
yeah so we got in this little car there's only one road that goes to the whole
(18:00):
island and a few cars kind of go up and down so we got in this car and went
down to the other side of the island and.
They surely did create a little home for us and we
started living with them and before too
long i had learned their language and how
long did i take it took me three months to learn their language okay
(18:20):
that was me totally giving up english
and it was really hard i had to
give everything up at that point i remember
that dignity i heard you have
to be like you're going to be the village idiot for like you know
a year or something like that it's true i mean it really is it's
like you know i was the only you know foreigner on
(18:41):
the island and we're living in this little hut
that doesn't have any walls and so you're exposed i mean everything everything
everything is exposed and and we had to learn the culture and learn the language
and be immersed and so there was a a season of just being immersed into the
(19:02):
culture and life and that was really
hard but it was really really good really good i'm so thankful for that time.
And wait real quick how are the bugs you said you're exposed at
night oh yeah there's so there's the rats the cats and all the other ads you
know they're just all over you yeah and but you know you get used to them you
(19:27):
start you know you start to sleep with them and cuddle up with them at nighttime
is pretty nice. That's hilarious.
You're just like, hey, we're family now. This is island life. Yeah. Dang.
Though we, yeah. So yeah, time went on and I had learned their culture and their language.
And then I began to connect with some believers that had church,
(19:53):
started sort of a church community there. And I,
One thing led to another. And before we knew it, there was just amazing move of God on the island.
And a lot of people were coming to know Jesus and being healed, saved, delivered.
(20:13):
And we began to equip a lot of these believers to be missionaries in other islands.
Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And so that's a long story to go into.
But but what it did is it started this beautiful movement
of the lord and it started from that island
(20:34):
and went to other islands and there were lots of
churches that were planted not just churches but believers and from different
islands that started their own communities and that's cool and how long was
that time frame well it was about five or six years that that that i had I had
lived there as well as the Philippines.
(20:55):
Philippines is a whole different story of how the Lord leading me to the Philippines
and ministering out in the jungles of the southern island called Mindanao.
Okay. But yeah, I was kind of going back and forth for that season before I got married.
But we were, yeah, so I was in Kitibis and I left from Kitibis to go to the
(21:18):
Philippines because I felt like the Philippines, Well, I've just felt the heart
of God over the Philippines.
Did you feel that heart? Was it in the place of prayer? How did you feel that call?
Well, I had met a Filipino pastor.
In israel okay and he was a tribal
leader from a tribe in the philippines okay and
(21:40):
i told him that if
i could ever come to the philippines i'll contact him and
and i could never get
out that off my mind it could never get that off my
heart it was like i had i would travel back to
the states and i traveled to kitabas and the
whole time i'm thinking about this this tribe
(22:01):
this tribe in the philippines you know so yeah my
heart kept being pulled in that direction and i
felt like that was from the lord yeah and so i
love that because i think sometimes there we think that we're supposed
to have this audible voice constantly to direct us
but it was just something as simple as you couldn't get it off your mind on your heart right
so you're like you knew you had to follow that impulse so to
(22:22):
speak yeah you know an anchor pulling
you towards your destiny that wouldn't let go of you right yeah yeah
that's neat yeah i think that's actually a way that the lord speaks in a lot
of times yeah a lot of ways you know is through it not getting off of your mind
yeah it's like the lord plants it and then that that seed continues to grow in your in your heart.
(22:45):
Until finally you're like oh i've got to respond i've
got to respond to this so what was the response point was you
moving there going to visit i went for a
six-week visit okay and i went
there went to that tribe and yeah just
had this wonderful time with this tribe just
beautiful it's just like when you
(23:07):
think of having a tribal experience
it was that times 20 you
know as far as paint the picture for us what does this look like are you
talking about like people in huts you know yeah yeah no clothes
going to yeah going way out in the jungle okay
people living in bamboo huts and they
were they also had some more modern structures as well
(23:29):
there but there was no electricity in the area okay
at that time about how many people in their tribe there
was actually 45 000 people in this particular tribe okay and but it's pretty
spread out okay and so yeah just living with this particular village that had
about a thousand people okay and so they they were actually first-generation.
(23:54):
They were actually... This particular area was second-generation believers. Okay. And so they...
Meaning to say the people that I was spending time with, it was their parents
who were the first believers of their tribe to come to know Jesus.
And so that's what we call second generation believers.
And so I was spending time with them.
(24:17):
And it's fascinating to watch the culture between a first generation believer
and second generation believer.
Because first-generation believer, you're going to have all this like amnestic
stuff that when they come to know Jesus, they're going to have to let go of
like big amnestic beliefs that they had believed in and cultural.
(24:40):
When you say amnestic, so like worshiping animals, that kind of a thing?
Like multiple gods. Multiple gods. Yeah.
And just the whole belief system that goes behind that.
Yeah. So generations, maybe that's all they've ever known. Yeah.
How did they know that? Yeah.
And, you know, that was giving an example, first generation believer,
(25:00):
there was a man, he had two wives and that's normal for their culture to have multiple wives.
So this particular guy had two wives.
When he gave his life to Jesus, he thought that he was a total sinner because
he read the Bible at that point and realized that, you know,
(25:23):
he's got to have one wife.
And so, yeah, so he came to me in tears saying, like, what do I do?
Do I let go of one wife and stick to the other? Or do I love both of them and do my best?
Or do I just let both of them go?
Or how do I do this? And so that's what the challenges that you would have to
(25:47):
face with first-generation believers.
Well, don't move on. How did you navigate that one?
What I said, what I told this particular guy is like, well, this was before you came to know Jesus,
that you had committed to love these two women and to be the father of these beautiful children.
(26:13):
And God recognizes and honors that. So you need to stick with that.
But you need to stick you need to tell your children next generation the next
generation to to have one wife and to follow the biblical.
Ways and he actually honored that and i know all of his children all of his
(26:35):
children have one wife and they have
beautiful big family now it's really beautiful and both of his wives are.
Go to church on Sunday. So it's really interesting.
He comes in with his two wives and all of their children and they all sit down.
They're faithful to the Lord.
(26:56):
And I believe the Lord really has really honored that. I mean, bless that.
What I love about what are you pioneering new things? You know,
we talk about pioneering earlier today. You, you come across things that you don't have.
There's not a rule book for, not a playbook for, right. And,
and so I love those things that are just so unique because then you're like,
all right, God, what do we do here?
Yeah, there was another man who came to me, and he was crying because he didn't know how to read.
(27:24):
And he thought that in order to have salvation, he had to know how to read so
that he could read the Bible. And he's crying.
And he was in his late 60s or 70s.
So there's, I mean, kind of at the end of his days, you know,
he didn't have the mental capacity to learn how to really there's not even a
(27:49):
written language in his in his language.
So he's he's crying, you know, and he's like, I'm not going to be able to go
to heaven because of this.
You know, so that was another example of how how do we walk that out?
And, you know, so we it was the same kind of it was grace. It's the grace of
God that saves us from situations like that.
(28:12):
And so he actually...
Was so faithful to his family and to the Lord.
And it's just so evident in his life that he had a true transformation.
Yeah. Well, even just the fact that he's crying, wanting to know God that much,
right? You can tell he's just a man who really totally is. He loves the Lord.
So you're in the Philippines.
(28:35):
You're seeing a move of God, this new tribe. Tell us about the dream.
Yeah, so this was about, oh, probably six or seven years into to living with
these tribes and I had just gotten married to my beautiful wife and it was our first year of marriage.
(28:55):
And we actually took a six month break from ministry so that we could focus
on our, our, our marriage and getting to know each other.
And right at the end of that That six months, as we were just getting back into
ministry, I had this dream.
And in the dream, I saw a tribe of people.
(29:18):
And I saw the chief of the tribe. And he was carrying a musical instrument.
And this instrument was shaped like a circle.
And at the bottom, it was like a golden bowl.
And at the top, it was flat. and it had 30 strings that went from the outside
(29:40):
ring to the middle and so the chief took this instrument and he put it on this
table and he took two small sticks.
And he began to play the tops of the strings and as he was playing these,
this beautiful sound was released and,
(30:00):
the best way i can explain is a sound that i've
never heard before and i heard it in the dream so it was
really interesting it was a sleeping dream and
so it was sounded like a harp and it also sounded like a drum so imagine an
instrument that sounds like a harp and a drum and and so as he released the
(30:21):
sound this the whole tribe began to worship and then i woke up when i woke up from in the dream,
but I forgot one part of this dream.
I had talked with the tribe and I asked the tribe, I said, so what people are you?
And cause I was interested in the dream. I had looked at their faces and I was
(30:44):
like, what people are you?
And they said, we are the Tinninannan tribe.
And I had never heard that word Tinninannan before. I don't know if you have, but yeah.
So anyway, Anyway, I'd heard that word, then and I know.
And so when I woke up from a dream, I immediately got my journal and, and wrote that out.
Then and I know, I tried to spell it the best as I possibly could.
(31:07):
And I drew pictures of that instrument.
And at that point I had already had started my journey of instrument making.
And so I was really interested in sounds and instruments from around the world and materials.
How to put materials together to make them sound really good and stuff like that.
(31:29):
And so in the dream, I remembered a lot of the details of this instrument.
And so I drew it all out and tried to explain about it.
Did you try to make it right then or just drew it?
I just drew it. And then I was like, well, this could either be a God dream or a pizza dream.
(31:49):
And so I prayed about it. And I felt like the Lord wanted me to take steps towards that.
And so I first just tried to figure out if there was a tribe out there.
So you started looking online?
Yeah, I looked online. I have a lot of anthropologist friends.
And we are connected with these ministries that have recordings of all the different
(32:13):
tribes and languages. Oh, wow. So we contacted them.
And they told me they don't know anything about that name.
Okay. And so I kind of started to give up on that. I thought maybe...
Maybe that was just a little off or whatever and so that i was like well at
least this instrument's really cool idea maybe i'll just get in my shop and
(32:37):
try to make it and so i had a really,
really basic shop in the philippines at that time just a few basic hand tools,
and i i went way up in the mountains got all these materials and tried to put
them together and And I kept breaking things and snapping things,
and it just wasn't really working.
(32:59):
And then about six months had passed, and I was traveling down south.
We were doing a lot of ministry down in the southern part of the Philippines.
And I was going up into the mountain on public transportation.
And as we were traveling there was this man sitting
(33:22):
across the seat from me and and
he kept looking at me and he was like
staring at me and i thought it was maybe because i was a foreigner yeah so i
kind of wanted to like surprise him so i was like okay i'll just start talking
to him so i i speak tagalog which is the national language okay and so i started
(33:43):
to speak tagalog And he was like really surprised,
like, oh, wow, you speak the catalog.
And I was like, yeah, yeah. And so we were talking and that led into me telling
him that, you know, I'm a missionary.
And he was like, oh, I'm a pastor.
I was like, oh, okay. So where are you from?
(34:04):
And he was telling me that he's up from in this one mountain range that I was
kind of unfamiliar with.
And then anyway, right, right there in the middle of that conversation,
I've felt like the Lord, I just heard the Lord say, ask that man about the Tinnin' Annun.
And it was kind of like that, that voice in my head is like,
(34:25):
ask him, ask him. And I was like, all right.
So I was like, well, sir, do you, do you happen to know Tinnin' Annun?
And just kind of spitting it out there, you know?
And when actually when i said that word then
and i know yeah he like stopped and his eyes got big and he leaned in he said
(34:45):
hey how do you know my tribe wow get out of here bro yeah yeah he said how do
you know my people and i was like what do you mean like yeah i was surprised and so,
he had to be freaking out at this point yeah i was
really taken back and he said well yes i'm
from um that then and i don't know i was like well just tell
(35:07):
me about and he's like well so he began to tell
me all all about his his tribe and i i had the journal with me so i showed him
the journal from the previous year
when when i had the dream and he was he began to cry and he he's he was
(35:28):
looking at it and he was saying actually earlier before we had talked I was
looking at you and I said yeah what was that about and he was like I was staring
at you because I've seen you before.
And I was like, no, I don't think we've ever seen each other.
I don't think so. And he was like, no, I've seen you in a dream.
Wow. Yeah. And he said, I've seen you in a dream.
(35:52):
He said, three years ago when God called me back to my tribe,
I came back to preach the gospel and tell people about Jesus.
Wow. And it was really hard. He said I was encountering all this persecution and resistance.
And it was during that time when I had a dream And and he said that you came
(36:16):
in my dream and we joined Together to reach My tribe. Wow.
He's just crying telling you this. Yeah. Yeah so I told him I said well,
how about you just I don't know what you're doing, but just stay with us for
a few days and let's just pray.
Let's just Put this before the lord and dang that had to be a real holy moment.
(36:37):
It was yeah, it really was Sobering, probably.
Yeah, yeah. And so we kind of prayed about it for a few days,
and he invited me to the tribe.
And I thought, well, I want to go to the tribe. I want to visit.
But I would like to get back to the shop first, just to see if I could maybe make this instrument.
(37:01):
Because maybe this instrument has something to do with this tribe or whatever,
since I had seen it in the dream. At the minimum, you can come with a gift.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So anyway, I got back into the shop, and this time I was a little bit smarter.
I asked the Holy Spirit for help.
(37:21):
That always helps.
And I asked my wife to help me. The Holy Spirit, your wife. Yeah,
exactly. Yeah, two best things you can do.
Yeah, so we got in the shop and we figured it out.
It took us another two, two and a half months, but we figured it out. That's cool.
(37:42):
Yeah. And I remember putting the strings on for the first time and tuning it up.
Wow. And, and I remember taking those strings and I began to stroke,
stroke the instrument and it was that same sound. No way.
It was that same sound that I heard from the dream, the harp and the drum.
(38:03):
Up to this point in your life, had you ever had, had you had dreams that have
led you like this, this clearly, or was this kind of like the first real one?
No, I, I had had, yeah, I'd had other similar. Okay. So you've had history with
dreams. Yeah. Yeah. I'd had, but.
Not so much with dreams as much as just like hearing God's voice and responding.
(38:24):
But as far as the dream, like I had had dreams and prophetic dreams before,
but this was. This was another level.
It stirs me because I was, I was just looking this up the other day and I think
it's dream is mentioned 121 times in the Bible.
And I think there's, I think there's 21 dreams in the Bible,
you know, and they were all these significant things, you know,
(38:46):
and it wasn't like it's all the time. Cause I mean, I dream every night.
Yeah. And I realized I've had some dreams that have manifested in the real world
before too. It's like, I've seen this before in my dream and then it plays out.
But I haven't been a good steward of that recently. And I realize,
I feel like part of that, I think, because you had your journal and you're stewarding it.
And I feel like when we steward these things, God's willing to give us more.
(39:07):
Do you find that to be okay? Yeah, very much so. Yeah.
All right. So anyway, back to the, you got the instrument, you made it the same sound.
Yeah, it was the same sound. And at that point, I felt like I was ready.
Okay. And Gladys and I, my wife, we prayed about it and we felt like I needed to go right away.
(39:29):
And keep in mind that we were a year and a half in our marriage and my wife
was eight months pregnant.
And so we decided, okay, we should go now or I should wait.
And I felt like after prayer, we felt like the Lord said, go now.
(39:50):
And so I, I packed up and left my eight month pregnant wife at home.
And then we, I traveled down to this Island and I took this instrument with
me and I asked one of my tribal friends who is from the beginning,
(40:11):
he had been like my travel partner and my ministry partner. And this, he's a tribal man.
He's, he's really good with the mountains. He knows language and culture and all that.
So we went together, which is a key thing to missions. Got to have a man of peace.
And so I went with a man of peace and we...
(40:31):
He jumped on a motorbike with me, and he and I and this instrument,
we were trying to make our way up the mountain.
And we finally got there to this one part, and then we met this man,
Manigos, who I had told you about earlier.
He was the one that was originally from the tribe, and he had the dream about me.
(40:53):
Okay. Okay, so Manigos jumped on the motorbike.
Three of you guys with this little instrument. Yeah, three of us with this instrument.
And so we, then the mountain got really hard.
That's when it turned into a little, pretty much a rabbit trail,
just going up the mountain. And then we had a hard time getting there.
We had a big storm come in and the water was rushing down the mountain.
(41:17):
Yeah. And then we had this kind of drop off cliff where, where there were two
little ropes that went across with boards.
So now you're really Indiana Jones. Yeah, we're Indiana Jones at this point.
And so we decided to go across the bridge on the motorbike.
Was it just one of you on the bike at that point? No, it was all three of us. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
(41:42):
Praise God we made it across. We did get in a wreck right when we got across.
Oh, man. Just lost control. Yeah.
And we hit the ground. Thankfully, it didn't fall off the cliff,
but we hit this really soft grass.
And it was really amazing because, like, it was stones all around us and a drop-off cliff.
(42:04):
But thankfully, we were okay. We got back on and we kept traveling into the tribe.
And just as we were getting into the tribe...
I, again, felt like the Lord spoke to me and told me to take the instrument to the chief.
And so I didn't know where the chief was or even if there was a chief,
(42:29):
but we asked around and it turns out the chief was about three and a half hours
on the other side of the tribe.
Yeah. So we're like, okay. So we just kept going and we finally got there.
And when we got there to to
the the home of this chief and we
were so tired we were you know mud all over us
(42:50):
and exhausted and we
came up and just knocked on his door and he
opened up the door was the chief of the
Thinanan tribe wow and he he
said just kind of looking at us with a confused used face and we were like well
you know we are getting ready to travel to different parts of your tribe and
(43:16):
before we travel to different parts we just wanted to come here to your house.
Because i just wanted to give this as a gift to you and so i just like handed
this instrument to him but it was covered up so he didn't really know what it
was so he brought it in and he put
it on a table and then he kind of
(43:37):
we grabbed that little towel thing and we
took it when we kind of unveiled it and when he saw
it he looked at and he said where did
you get this from and i said well yeah i
just sort of made it and he was like no i want
you to tell me where did you get it from and i kept kind of but you know beating
around the bush or just not telling him the full truth because I wanted to build
(44:00):
a relationship first before I told him everything but he kept asking me and
so finally I said well I said,
last year.
I had this dream, and in the dream, I heard the name of your tribe for the first time.
And I also saw this instrument that I had never seen before.
(44:23):
And I'm an instrument maker, and I believe that my God has just given me this dream for a reason.
And so he kept looking at this instrument, stroking the strings.
And and around that time there
were a number of other elders from the
(44:44):
tribe that walked in the room and when they came
in immediately they came up to started tapping it and they kept saying this
word salimba salimba and they have a separate language that we didn't understand
okay and so they're talking and then they're saying salimba and i was like what's
salimba and then they said we have something to show you.
(45:07):
So they took us down this little path. They took us down to this place called
the Palovaran, which means the house of prayer.
And this is the place where they worship many different gods.
And so they took us in there and there is a place of sacred prayer.
(45:28):
And they have all these all these like ancient articles in there they have old
clothing from their tribe they have metal work they have.
Handmade stuff they have weavings and then they had a whole section of like musical instruments,
and they pointed at this one section
(45:50):
that did not have an instrument okay and they
said they said about a hundred and a hundred
plus years ago they said over a century
ago there was a war and during
that time we had our our sacred instrument
it was called the salimba and our sacred instrument was taken from us and it
(46:16):
was during that time that it it left that we this was the instrument that we
worship the god of all gods with it was our instrument that connected heaven and earth.
And he said, it was taken away from us, but one day it's going to be redeemed back to us.
And when it comes back, it's going to be coming down from heaven.
(46:40):
And it's the vehicle that connects heaven and earth.
And so they said that it's like this vehicle that's going to come down from
heaven and God is going to be resting on the inside of this instrument.
And he's going gonna call all the righteous people to
him wow and so yeah he they they're
this is their prophetic word that's been passed down
(47:01):
through the generations okay i was gonna ask there's a prophecy from yeah
wow yes and and it's it's been passed down through the generations since that
time this is the reason why they know this yeah and anyway they and and they
said the instrument that you brought is the same instrument. It's shaped like a bowl.
(47:22):
At the bottom, it's got a wooden rim that goes around the outside and it's got
strings that go from the outside to the middle.
And they said that this instrument.
They said that when you brought it back today, this is a sign to us that we
need to be ready for God's return, and we need to prepare our hearts. Oh, my gosh.
(47:47):
And so right at that moment, it was late at night.
Yeah. They gathered everyone that they could from their village,
and they dedicated this instrument back to God.
And it was actually i was there
so i it was a really beautiful time of god's
presence i felt god's presence in the room and they
(48:09):
also gave me a headpiece of a chief and they put it on my shoulder which represents
that they give me authority to speak in to their eldership wow And I was really honored by that,
but I also realized that that is a sign of responsibility.
(48:32):
And so when they gave that to me, I knew that that's like their way of saying,
okay, we trust you. Trust you, we honor you.
And we want like friendship. and
so for me that was a real honorable thing
but it also was a responsible thing that
i need to walk this out yeah and so
(48:53):
anyway what what that did it was a amazing amazing thing that happened that
day but that started this relationship that began to grow and before too long
the the chief Steve requested that we would help translate the Bible into their language. Wow.
And so we did that. We started the Bible translation project for their language group in 2015.
(49:22):
And we've been able to already translate portions of the scripture to help give that to the tribe.
And the thing that really made me more excited is that because of this relationship,
they opened the door for the gospel to come to their people group.
And so what we did is instead of doing like a foreign missions group that comes to their people.
(49:49):
What we did is we found indigenous leaders from neighboring tribes and not too far away,
other mountains like that, yeah indigenous leaders and
pastors missionaries that would go in
there and help tell people about jesus and and do it a really grassroots kind
(50:09):
of indigenous missions way of that yeah and so we've been that's actually been
really cool there's been a lot of people that have come to know jesus and grow
in the lord uh last we checked they were.
Over 15 over 15 churches
and communities that have been planted in that tribe wow that's
(50:30):
phenomenal bro you know as you're talking about
this and they had this instrument that's a bull with the
strings that allowed them to connect heaven and earth one yeah
worship the one true god they had this in their language and you look at revelation
and there's these bulls in heaven and harps right yeah this thing is like a
harp and a bull all together in one thing you know yeah have they Have they
(50:54):
read that in Revelation and just thought about that dynamic?
No, I don't think so. Not that I know of.
There was not much influence, Christianity, in this area. Well, I mean like now.
Like now after reading the Bible and seeing that, you know.
Because it's interesting to me how people like these remote places will have
(51:16):
this desire to worship God. Yes. Right?
It's like it's intrinsic built in within us. were made to worship, right?
And how that all these disparate groups all over the world will find instruments
and allow an instrument to help them connect to God.
Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I just think it's beautiful, but it's also like interesting
(51:38):
at the same time. Like how are we wired that way, you know?
Yeah, it's like a, it's hidden in all of our hearts. Yeah.
You know, this deep desire to connect and worship when we were created to worship.
You know, and yeah, it's, I've noticed and I've met people, groups and tribes
(51:59):
that have never had any exposure to the modern world or even Christianity and things like that.
But you hear the common theme of there's a God that we want to connect with.
And we want to worship and so that's actually been the the the gateway the the way that we're able to,
(52:21):
or the way that we really try to connect with
them is is through that sound sound of
worship so interesting because this thing there's this longing we're
made to connect to each other right we're made we desire
to connect to our fathers there's like we have a fatherless generation because
of that there's a lot of brokenness around but there's this longing to connect
to our father and our mother and then jesus came to reveal the father and there's
(52:44):
that ultimate longing for us to connect back home to our heavenly father and
that we all have and how music and instruments,
helps that sound helps provide the connection you
know and and i know because i we we we wrote a book called it's all about worship
you know because worship is the highest expression i believe that we're capable
(53:06):
of because at the end the highest thing that there is is god right and And the
highest expression is to love God and connect to him, right?
And we're all made for it. And so when I've just seen environments where we're
in relationship with God worshiping, people are recklessly abandoned to that.
And the unbeliever walks into that environment, them experiencing God for the first time.
(53:29):
So I don't know, worship is such a powerful tool that we're like ingrained in us.
And I love that you're on this mission to resurrect these ancient instruments.
Yeah you know and and what's the name of your company
it's evergreen evergreen instruments is our
business yeah that's our instrument making business yeah
i'd encourage you to check it out it's evergreen what is it yeah evergreen instruments.com
(53:52):
yeah evergreen.com you can hear caleb's story
there he's got a book he's got different instruments that
you can buy from him or do you take do people like
commission you to make instruments too yeah people commission me to make
instruments yeah i do a lot of custom instruments stringed instruments
woodwind instruments drums
(54:12):
we are our range of instruments pretty wide because we had a lot of experience
in these different materials and things like that so yeah it's kind of what
we do it's amazing well i just i love i just love your willingness to follow
god and say yes you know and and be obedient to the dreams and the words that he gives you.
And, and to me, walking with God is the greatest adventure that,
(54:36):
that we could possibly have.
It's the greatest gift on this side on, of here on earth to be able to walk with God.
It's so awesome. Is there anything you'd like to say as we wrap up just to encourage
people in their journey? We've got a lot of worshipers and musicians.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, like,
We're all in different places in our walk and our journey with the Lord.
(55:00):
But hearing God's voice, I know you can hear a testimony like this and just
be like, oh, man, like, that's what I want, you know.
But at the same time, it's like what God is really wanting, the heart of it.
And I love that we ended with this is that he wants connection.
And that's what it really comes down to, too, is just that we are connected to him.
(55:24):
Abided in him and walking with him through the victories and also like the really
tough struggles that we all face.
So just be encouraged where you are in your journey with the Lord and just know
that the father is there.
Like he is, he's with you. He's chasing after you. He's He's right there with you in your journey.
(55:52):
I think what it really comes down to is being aware of His presence more and more.
Then, yes, we all know that whether I'm in the highest places or in the depths
of the earth or on the far-flung side of the sea, wherever we are, God is with us.
But being aware of his presence and leaning into it, I think it's where the Lord really.
(56:21):
That's where the Lord can come and dance with us. Yeah.
That's when the Lord can come and walk and co-partner with us.
Yeah. I love that. The highest of the highs, the lowest of the lows,
and even circling back to what you said in the beginning about that garden, garden of tears.
Yeah. In the whole place that Jesus, the suffering Savior, he can relate to us in those places too.
(56:44):
So, awesome. Well, why don't you pray for us and pray for those listening? Yeah, certainly.
Awesome. Yeah, Lord, I just want to thank you. Yeah, Father,
thank you so much for your heart and that you want connection with us.
And it's just such an honor.
I just bless every person who is listening that they would lean in to your voice.
(57:08):
And whether that is them
you calling them to the nations or calling
them to this and that or whatever i know that
what it really means is that you're calling them into
a deeper intimacy and so may they embrace that and be abided and connected with
(57:30):
you and everything that they do not just their churchy things or their religious
things or things that people see, but even in their.
Private journey and private time with you.
So bless that, Lord. Thank you for this time to be with Michael.
(57:50):
Just honor him. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.
Amen. Hey, thank you, Caleb, for doing this, sharing your story.
Go check him out online, Caleb Byerly, Evergreen Instruments.
He also has a book out. What's the name of your book? Just Dance. Just Dance.
Just follow him, follow God, just dance. Yeah. All right. Y'all take it easy. Love you guys. Bye.
Welcome to the Song Lab Podcast. This is Michael Malden. I'm your host today.
I've got an incredible, incredible guest. He's got a story that's one of my
favorite stories I think I've heard of people following God.
His name is Caleb Byerly.
He is a, he's kind of like an Indiana Jones in the spirit, you know.
He's, he makes, he's an instrument maker. He's a missionary.
(00:27):
He's a father of a bazillion kids, you know, and he's a new friend.
And so I'm just honored to have you here today, Caleb. Thanks for coming. Thanks, Michael.
Such an honor. So Caleb lives in Moravian Falls in the world of glory, right?
Is that why people move there, bro? Just to open heavens? Yeah, a lot of people do that.
(00:48):
They move there for that purpose. Yeah. Is that why you moved there or you just
met God? It was purely the leading of the Holy Spirit, the reason why we're there. That's cool.
So you were a missionary to the Philippines for how many years?
Right now it's been 16 years since 2009. Okay.
And you're also an instrument maker, a musician, and part of your mission within
(01:14):
the instrument making is to redeem, explain to me, redeem lost instruments or
ancient instruments or?
Yeah, instruments that have either become extinct or nearly extinct.
So just like languages and tribes go extinct over time, musical instruments do as well.
And so through this crazy journey the Lord has led us through,
(01:37):
we've helped to find instruments that are extinct or nearly extinct and then help redeem them.
Bring them back to life. Yeah, bring them back to life and get them in the right
hands of musicians to play.
I've thought a lot about that, like, you know, what were the sounds and instruments
of just the ancient days?
And even here, I think Ray Hughes talked about a guitar.
(01:58):
He called it a Gittite harp, you know, from Gath, which is where,
you know, Goliath was from, you know?
So it's a sound of that tribal people that has been redeemed,
right, for the Lord's purposes.
And I remember we were talking recently and you
were even mentioning how you were making a harp that would have been what
David would have played what is it a kenner what did he
play well it's to liar it's a liar okay yeah
(02:21):
it's like a we call it a Megiddo style liar and
in Megiddo which is a city in Israel if you go down you dig down there's I think
there's multiple cities on top of each other okay and you can dig down to the
era that King David was alive and they found a liar there and.
(02:43):
Hidden underneath the ground oh no way and so they
say that most likely that's that shape
of instrument was what david would
have played so that's some of the information that we have that's
fascinating so megiddo is where armageddon harman megiddo right yes i've been
there they say there's all the archaeology there's like all those layers there
that's fascinating that they found that instrument and so when you made that
(03:05):
instrument for the first time didn't you it wasn't there a story around you
got a call from the chosen where they were needing an instrument just like that,
authentic or something like that? Yeah, yeah.
So I had built one and I actually had it finished and it was sitting on my computer
desk ready to just be shipped off pretty much.
And then I got a call from The Chosen and they asked me,
(03:28):
hey, we're getting ready to shoot this film where we're gonna be having David
before he became king to play this harp or a lyre.
And so we're trying to find what's an authentic harp to be.
So that's how that worked out. Just the timing of it was perfect.
The timing was crazy. It was completely ready.
(03:49):
Even I was like, well, what kind of strings do you guys want?
Well, I think we were thinking like nylon strings. And I was like,
well, it's got nylon strings on it. So it's all ready.
That's amazing. I love that. So much of your story is just, it's like just about
following God and being in his timing.
And it's so encouraging for me to hear. And that's why I wanted to open up your
(04:11):
story for other people to hear it because it's just so much of the life of Christ
is just all he said was follow me, right?
And it's that, it's the journey of following the voice. And sometimes it's hard
to hear the voice. So we, you know, we see in a glass dimly sometimes,
but to hear other people who've gone before us and are really walking with God
in that way, it's super encouraging.
I think really needed in this hour, because I think we're, we're beyond the
(04:32):
area, era of formulas and this is how you do it.
It's really, man, you follow the voice. And when you look at Jesus's life and
even the miracles that he did, it was always, they were always so unique.
You know, he didn't have a formula. It was like spit in this guy's eye,
you know, poke in this guy's ear, whatever, speak to this thing, you know?
And so anyway, to back up a little bit, I would love for you just to tell people
(04:53):
a little bit about yourself and how you got on this journey of missions,
which led into you making instruments,
and then ultimately the story of this lost instrument that was rediscovered
in a dream, which led to a people group, right? So yeah.
Sure. Well, I grew up in North Carolina and just sort of a country boy.
(05:14):
I grew up in a really good Christian family and really thankful for my parents
who just brought me up in a really good way.
Grew up in a really good, solid Christian community that recognized my gifts
at a young age and really helped me on a really good path.
And I thought that I would probably be going in the direction of either a worship
(05:37):
leader or a pastor. I just kind of felt that leading, like, okay,
I'm probably gonna, I'm going in this direction.
And I also grew up in the arts.
A musician, kind of a craftsman, that world. My dad is a furniture maker.
My mom, she's very artsy. She's really good. She gets something on her mind,
(06:00):
she'll build it. She'll create it.
And so I kind of grew up in that atmosphere.
And then when I was 20, the day I turned 21,
sorry, the day after I turned 21, I flew to Israel because I was invited to
Israel to live there to help build a garden called the Fountain of Tears.
(06:24):
And this was still there. It's in Arad, Israel, and it reflects the suffering
of Christ and the Jews from the Holocaust.
And so it's a garden that you actually walk through.
And it's a full-size live, not live, but full-size sculptures
(06:45):
of the holocaust victims facing
christ and his
crucifixion so it's a communication of suffering so anyway i helped to to finish
that up it was the seventh year where they had finished it up and i helped during
that time just to help them and and so anyway i was i was working on that And all of a sudden,
(07:10):
I was working one day.
And like I said, I grew up in a really good Christian family.
So I was definitely aware of the leading of the Holy Spirit and of God's voice and all that.
And I had had like real encounters with the Lord in previous in my life.
But I was working one day.
(07:31):
I was literally grinding bronze. So bronze dust is all over my face and all over my body.
And right there in that moment, I began to feel like a manifest presence of God.
And I knew that he was there, but all of a sudden it was an overwhelming feeling of his presence.
(07:54):
And it was so strong that I stopped my work and I stepped to the side.
And i was like wow god like what are
you like what are you saying what are you doing i just
this is the middle of you creating yeah right there
in the middle of me just in the studio and so and then i heard it wasn't an
(08:15):
audible voice but it was a the voice from the lord and he spoke to my spirit
man and he actually i heard this word and it came out of nowhere It was, Caleb,
you're going to go to some Pacific Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
And I had never thought about islands in the middle of the Pacific.
(08:37):
I knew that there was Hawaii out there, but that's seriously like all I knew.
And so the Lord said, you're going to go to some islands in the middle of the Pacific.
And so I kind of scrambled around and found a map of the Pacific.
And when I looked at the Pacific, there was these little tiny dots on the map there.
(08:59):
And they kind of like, you know, they jumped out.
And the Lord was like, that's it. Those are the islands.
And it literally was in the middle of the Pacific. And those little islands are called Kitibis.
I right at that moment, I was like, I knew that that was where the Lord was calling me.
And I wasn't sure if he was calling me to go there or if he was calling me to
(09:22):
stand with him in prayer or pray for that nation.
But it what that did is it
started me on this journey of saying yes
to the lord and beginning to surrender everything in
my life and just put everything down like
my future my my whole my hopes my goals and that kind of thing i just began
(09:43):
to put them down and the lord began to give me this passion for the unreached
people groups of the world and the more that i learned about the unreached people
groups and the 1040 window.
Like my heart was just about to blow out of my body for them.
For those who don't know, explain the 1040 window.
So 1040 window is a sort of a section of the world that has the most unreached
(10:10):
people in the world. Between like the 10 and 40th parallel.
Exactly. Yeah. It's kind of like Asia.
Middle East. Pacific Islands, Middle East. Yeah. That whole kind of section. And...
Yeah, there's a lot of these people groups and languages that are still to be reached.
And of course, I would read Jesus saying to his disciples, go into all the world,
(10:36):
you know, from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria, and then to all the ends of the earth.
And then, you know, in Revelation chapter 7, you know, when the vision of at
the end when it says all nations,
all tribes, languages, and people groups are standing before the Lamb of God. Yeah, yeah.
(10:58):
And I would look and I would say, okay, well, all right, well,
maybe all the nations have already been reached because there are Christians
in every nation in the world. Yeah.
But there are tribes with – there are many tribes within each nation.
And then there's many languages and people groups within each nation.
(11:20):
And those are not all reached.
So anyway, that whole thing took me on a journey.
And it was exactly one year later that the Lord, I was actually standing on
those islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
I want you to speak to something real quick, because I think,
you know, first of all, I think it's beautiful that the Lord spoke to you in
(11:40):
the creative process, right?
You weren't like in the church service, in place of worship,
there's something beautiful about creativity.
And the first person filled with the spirit in the Bible was a creator,
right? It was Bezalel, the designer of the temple.
And I love that. But I think that, I know there's people that are listening
that maybe they're newer believers, maybe they're.
(12:00):
They don't, haven't fully surrendered their life to Jesus because there's a
fear of, of if I fully go in with God, he's going to send me to the 1040 window, right?
And it's going to be, I'm going to be a martyr, they kill Christians, yada, yada, yada.
And what I found for me personally, because when I gave my life to the Lord,
(12:21):
I was like, God, I'll go anywhere.
I'll do anything you want, but there's two places on the planet I don't want
to go. I don't want to go to Sudan and I don't want to go to the West Bank of Israel.
And within a year, I was living in the West Bank of Israel, right?
So I was scared to death of something, but I ended up having the most amazing time of my life there.
And so I found that my destiny was on the other side of my fears.
But I don't think that's not everybody's call to go to those places.
(12:44):
So what would you say to someone who's afraid to fully surrender and lay it down and follow God?
Because like you said, you didn't have that desire for that place before.
He put that in you. Was that correct?
Yeah. I never had that desire and it was never even in my mind.
But I think that's what it really comes down to is that, do we really want a life with Jesus?
(13:08):
Do we want a life with God?
Or do we not want a life with God? Yeah.
I have determined in my life that I'm not just going to live for God,
but I'm going to live with God on this side.
And I don't want to live just for God, just do things for God.
Like I'm going to help God.
(13:31):
I'm going to use my gifts for God.
No, like God actually wants to use our gifts in partnership with him,
co-partnering together. And I think that's what it really comes down to.
It's not that God wants to rip us away from all these things that we love.
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It's actually that when we lay them down, the Lord finally has room to come
in and pick up those gifts again and say, hey, let's do this together.
And when we do it together, it goes far beyond what we could ever do by ourselves.
That's awesome. I love that.
So you find yourself on this island with God.
(14:14):
Yeah, yeah. So I didn't know anyone from the country, and I didn't know where
I was going to stay the first night.
I didn't know. You literally just went. Yeah, we literally. So I asked one of my best friends.
His name was Joel, and he was— Like, Joel, we're rolling, bro.
You're coming with me. He's like, where are we going? You're like, I don't know.
(14:35):
Yeah, he was like, hey, man. I'll go with you.
And, and we, you know, it, you know, we were two young guys,
so we had to sell everything that we possibly had.
And then we had to work really hard to get there, to get enough money.
We finally, Joel sold his, his Mustang convertible in order to get the ticket to get there.
(14:58):
And then I, I worked really hard.
In helping to install hardwood floors anyway
we we got enough money we just bought plane tickets and we couldn't con we didn't
know how to contact anyone from the country we tried to but during that time
there was no you know there was no technology underground missions organizations
(15:19):
that you were aware of i think there was no you just went yeah so we just went you had your bags Yeah,
little backpacks and took little cooking pots and pans just in case if we were
going to be stranded on the island and stuff.
And we just landed there on the main island. It's called Tarawa.
(15:40):
Okay. Were y'all scared?
I wasn't really scared. I really felt the boldness and confidence from the Lord
that he was going to. I mean, but, you know, of course it was kind of like,
I had no clue where we were going to stay.
So that, that side of it was a little nerve wracked. Yeah.
You know, but we, we landed and everybody got off the plane and they,
(16:05):
there were Kitibis people just all standing there and they, they welcomed the
other people and, and they went off.
But then it was just me and Joel just sort of standing there and everybody,
yeah. Yeah, everybody left, just me and another guy, and we're just standing
there like, well, okay, so that's the point where I was starting to get a little nervous.
(16:29):
This is real now. Yeah, this is really where it got real. Yeah.
Then two people walked up to us and they asked us, they had a piece of paper in their hand.
They said, is your name this person and this person? We said, no, that's not us.
And they were kind of like turning their heads. They're like,
well, we actually were expecting two people to get off this airplane.
(16:55):
We were told, it says it right here, that two people with the same description
as you from the same country as you were supposed to get off of the plane today
and they never got off we've been walking around trying to find them and and
we were told that we were supposed to to,
prepare a home for these two people and so we already prepared a home for them
(17:18):
and so they were like well we have this home on the other side of the island
if you want to go then then you can And the whole time in my mind,
I'm thinking this is the worst scam I've ever heard in my life.
Oh, you're getting set up. I'm getting set up to be kidnapped and put on some
shit to go across the Micronesian Islands.
(17:38):
But no, I stepped to the side with Joel and we said, Lord, is this you?
And we just felt the immense peace of the Lord over it.
And we felt the Lord said, yes, I've prepared a place for you.
I've prepared a place for you. dang he literally did yeah that's incredible
yeah so we got in this little car there's only one road that goes to the whole
(18:00):
island and a few cars kind of go up and down so we got in this car and went
down to the other side of the island and.
They surely did create a little home for us and we
started living with them and before too
long i had learned their language and how
long did i take it took me three months to learn their language okay
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that was me totally giving up english
and it was really hard i had to
give everything up at that point i remember
that dignity i heard you have
to be like you're going to be the village idiot for like you know
a year or something like that it's true i mean it really is it's
like you know i was the only you know foreigner on
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the island and we're living in this little hut
that doesn't have any walls and so you're exposed i mean everything everything
everything is exposed and and we had to learn the culture and learn the language
and be immersed and so there was a a season of just being immersed into the
(19:02):
culture and life and that was really
hard but it was really really good really good i'm so thankful for that time.
And wait real quick how are the bugs you said you're exposed at
night oh yeah there's so there's the rats the cats and all the other ads you
know they're just all over you yeah and but you know you get used to them you
(19:27):
start you know you start to sleep with them and cuddle up with them at nighttime
is pretty nice. That's hilarious.
You're just like, hey, we're family now. This is island life. Yeah. Dang.
Though we, yeah. So yeah, time went on and I had learned their culture and their language.
And then I began to connect with some believers that had church,
(19:53):
started sort of a church community there. And I,
One thing led to another. And before we knew it, there was just amazing move of God on the island.
And a lot of people were coming to know Jesus and being healed, saved, delivered.
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And we began to equip a lot of these believers to be missionaries in other islands.
Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And so that's a long story to go into.
But but what it did is it started this beautiful movement
of the lord and it started from that island
(20:34):
and went to other islands and there were lots of
churches that were planted not just churches but believers and from different
islands that started their own communities and that's cool and how long was
that time frame well it was about five or six years that that that i had I had
lived there as well as the Philippines.
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Philippines is a whole different story of how the Lord leading me to the Philippines
and ministering out in the jungles of the southern island called Mindanao.
Okay. But yeah, I was kind of going back and forth for that season before I got married.
But we were, yeah, so I was in Kitibis and I left from Kitibis to go to the
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Philippines because I felt like the Philippines, Well, I've just felt the heart
of God over the Philippines.
Did you feel that heart? Was it in the place of prayer? How did you feel that call?
Well, I had met a Filipino pastor.
In israel okay and he was a tribal
leader from a tribe in the philippines okay and
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i told him that if
i could ever come to the philippines i'll contact him and
and i could never get
out that off my mind it could never get that off my
heart it was like i had i would travel back to
the states and i traveled to kitabas and the
whole time i'm thinking about this this tribe
(22:01):
this tribe in the philippines you know so yeah my
heart kept being pulled in that direction and i
felt like that was from the lord yeah and so i
love that because i think sometimes there we think that we're supposed
to have this audible voice constantly to direct us
but it was just something as simple as you couldn't get it off your mind on your heart right
so you're like you knew you had to follow that impulse so to
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speak yeah you know an anchor pulling
you towards your destiny that wouldn't let go of you right yeah yeah
that's neat yeah i think that's actually a way that the lord speaks in a lot
of times yeah a lot of ways you know is through it not getting off of your mind
yeah it's like the lord plants it and then that that seed continues to grow in your in your heart.
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Until finally you're like oh i've got to respond i've
got to respond to this so what was the response point was you
moving there going to visit i went for a
six-week visit okay and i went
there went to that tribe and yeah just
had this wonderful time with this tribe just
beautiful it's just like when you
(23:07):
think of having a tribal experience
it was that times 20 you
know as far as paint the picture for us what does this look like are you
talking about like people in huts you know yeah yeah no clothes
going to yeah going way out in the jungle okay
people living in bamboo huts and they
were they also had some more modern structures as well
(23:29):
there but there was no electricity in the area okay
at that time about how many people in their tribe there
was actually 45 000 people in this particular tribe okay and but it's pretty
spread out okay and so yeah just living with this particular village that had
about a thousand people okay and so they they were actually first-generation.
(23:54):
They were actually... This particular area was second-generation believers. Okay. And so they...
Meaning to say the people that I was spending time with, it was their parents
who were the first believers of their tribe to come to know Jesus.
And so that's what we call second generation believers.
And so I was spending time with them.
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And it's fascinating to watch the culture between a first generation believer
and second generation believer.
Because first-generation believer, you're going to have all this like amnestic
stuff that when they come to know Jesus, they're going to have to let go of
like big amnestic beliefs that they had believed in and cultural.
(24:40):
When you say amnestic, so like worshiping animals, that kind of a thing?
Like multiple gods. Multiple gods. Yeah.
And just the whole belief system that goes behind that.
Yeah. So generations, maybe that's all they've ever known. Yeah.
How did they know that? Yeah.
And, you know, that was giving an example, first generation believer,
(25:00):
there was a man, he had two wives and that's normal for their culture to have multiple wives.
So this particular guy had two wives.
When he gave his life to Jesus, he thought that he was a total sinner because
he read the Bible at that point and realized that, you know,
(25:23):
he's got to have one wife.
And so, yeah, so he came to me in tears saying, like, what do I do?
Do I let go of one wife and stick to the other? Or do I love both of them and do my best?
Or do I just let both of them go?
Or how do I do this? And so that's what the challenges that you would have to
(25:47):
face with first-generation believers.
Well, don't move on. How did you navigate that one?
What I said, what I told this particular guy is like, well, this was before you came to know Jesus,
that you had committed to love these two women and to be the father of these beautiful children.
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And God recognizes and honors that. So you need to stick with that.
But you need to stick you need to tell your children next generation the next
generation to to have one wife and to follow the biblical.
Ways and he actually honored that and i know all of his children all of his
(26:35):
children have one wife and they have
beautiful big family now it's really beautiful and both of his wives are.
Go to church on Sunday. So it's really interesting.
He comes in with his two wives and all of their children and they all sit down.
They're faithful to the Lord.
(26:56):
And I believe the Lord really has really honored that. I mean, bless that.
What I love about what are you pioneering new things? You know,
we talk about pioneering earlier today. You, you come across things that you don't have.
There's not a rule book for, not a playbook for, right. And,
and so I love those things that are just so unique because then you're like,
all right, God, what do we do here?
Yeah, there was another man who came to me, and he was crying because he didn't know how to read.
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And he thought that in order to have salvation, he had to know how to read so
that he could read the Bible. And he's crying.
And he was in his late 60s or 70s.
So there's, I mean, kind of at the end of his days, you know,
he didn't have the mental capacity to learn how to really there's not even a
(27:49):
written language in his in his language.
So he's he's crying, you know, and he's like, I'm not going to be able to go
to heaven because of this.
You know, so that was another example of how how do we walk that out?
And, you know, so we it was the same kind of it was grace. It's the grace of
God that saves us from situations like that.
(28:12):
And so he actually...
Was so faithful to his family and to the Lord.
And it's just so evident in his life that he had a true transformation.
Yeah. Well, even just the fact that he's crying, wanting to know God that much,
right? You can tell he's just a man who really totally is. He loves the Lord.
So you're in the Philippines.
(28:35):
You're seeing a move of God, this new tribe. Tell us about the dream.
Yeah, so this was about, oh, probably six or seven years into to living with
these tribes and I had just gotten married to my beautiful wife and it was our first year of marriage.
(28:55):
And we actually took a six month break from ministry so that we could focus
on our, our, our marriage and getting to know each other.
And right at the end of that That six months, as we were just getting back into
ministry, I had this dream.
And in the dream, I saw a tribe of people.
(29:18):
And I saw the chief of the tribe. And he was carrying a musical instrument.
And this instrument was shaped like a circle.
And at the bottom, it was like a golden bowl.
And at the top, it was flat. and it had 30 strings that went from the outside
(29:40):
ring to the middle and so the chief took this instrument and he put it on this
table and he took two small sticks.
And he began to play the tops of the strings and as he was playing these,
this beautiful sound was released and,
(30:00):
the best way i can explain is a sound that i've
never heard before and i heard it in the dream so it was
really interesting it was a sleeping dream and
so it was sounded like a harp and it also sounded like a drum so imagine an
instrument that sounds like a harp and a drum and and so as he released the
(30:21):
sound this the whole tribe began to worship and then i woke up when i woke up from in the dream,
but I forgot one part of this dream.
I had talked with the tribe and I asked the tribe, I said, so what people are you?
And cause I was interested in the dream. I had looked at their faces and I was
(30:44):
like, what people are you?
And they said, we are the Tinninannan tribe.
And I had never heard that word Tinninannan before. I don't know if you have, but yeah.
So anyway, Anyway, I'd heard that word, then and I know.
And so when I woke up from a dream, I immediately got my journal and, and wrote that out.
Then and I know, I tried to spell it the best as I possibly could.
(31:07):
And I drew pictures of that instrument.
And at that point I had already had started my journey of instrument making.
And so I was really interested in sounds and instruments from around the world and materials.
How to put materials together to make them sound really good and stuff like that.
(31:29):
And so in the dream, I remembered a lot of the details of this instrument.
And so I drew it all out and tried to explain about it.
Did you try to make it right then or just drew it?
I just drew it. And then I was like, well, this could either be a God dream or a pizza dream.
(31:49):
And so I prayed about it. And I felt like the Lord wanted me to take steps towards that.
And so I first just tried to figure out if there was a tribe out there.
So you started looking online?
Yeah, I looked online. I have a lot of anthropologist friends.
And we are connected with these ministries that have recordings of all the different
(32:13):
tribes and languages. Oh, wow. So we contacted them.
And they told me they don't know anything about that name.
Okay. And so I kind of started to give up on that. I thought maybe...
Maybe that was just a little off or whatever and so that i was like well at
least this instrument's really cool idea maybe i'll just get in my shop and
(32:37):
try to make it and so i had a really,
really basic shop in the philippines at that time just a few basic hand tools,
and i i went way up in the mountains got all these materials and tried to put
them together and And I kept breaking things and snapping things,
and it just wasn't really working.
(32:59):
And then about six months had passed, and I was traveling down south.
We were doing a lot of ministry down in the southern part of the Philippines.
And I was going up into the mountain on public transportation.
And as we were traveling there was this man sitting
(33:22):
across the seat from me and and
he kept looking at me and he was like
staring at me and i thought it was maybe because i was a foreigner yeah so i
kind of wanted to like surprise him so i was like okay i'll just start talking
to him so i i speak tagalog which is the national language okay and so i started
(33:43):
to speak tagalog And he was like really surprised,
like, oh, wow, you speak the catalog.
And I was like, yeah, yeah. And so we were talking and that led into me telling
him that, you know, I'm a missionary.
And he was like, oh, I'm a pastor.
I was like, oh, okay. So where are you from?
(34:04):
And he was telling me that he's up from in this one mountain range that I was
kind of unfamiliar with.
And then anyway, right, right there in the middle of that conversation,
I've felt like the Lord, I just heard the Lord say, ask that man about the Tinnin' Annun.
And it was kind of like that, that voice in my head is like,
(34:25):
ask him, ask him. And I was like, all right.
So I was like, well, sir, do you, do you happen to know Tinnin' Annun?
And just kind of spitting it out there, you know?
And when actually when i said that word then
and i know yeah he like stopped and his eyes got big and he leaned in he said
(34:45):
hey how do you know my tribe wow get out of here bro yeah yeah he said how do
you know my people and i was like what do you mean like yeah i was surprised and so,
he had to be freaking out at this point yeah i was
really taken back and he said well yes i'm
from um that then and i don't know i was like well just tell
(35:07):
me about and he's like well so he began to tell
me all all about his his tribe and i i had the journal with me so i showed him
the journal from the previous year
when when i had the dream and he was he began to cry and he he's he was
(35:28):
looking at it and he was saying actually earlier before we had talked I was
looking at you and I said yeah what was that about and he was like I was staring
at you because I've seen you before.
And I was like, no, I don't think we've ever seen each other.
I don't think so. And he was like, no, I've seen you in a dream.
Wow. Yeah. And he said, I've seen you in a dream.
(35:52):
He said, three years ago when God called me back to my tribe,
I came back to preach the gospel and tell people about Jesus.
Wow. And it was really hard. He said I was encountering all this persecution and resistance.
And it was during that time when I had a dream And and he said that you came
(36:16):
in my dream and we joined Together to reach My tribe. Wow.
He's just crying telling you this. Yeah. Yeah so I told him I said well,
how about you just I don't know what you're doing, but just stay with us for
a few days and let's just pray.
Let's just Put this before the lord and dang that had to be a real holy moment.
(36:37):
It was yeah, it really was Sobering, probably.
Yeah, yeah. And so we kind of prayed about it for a few days,
and he invited me to the tribe.
And I thought, well, I want to go to the tribe. I want to visit.
But I would like to get back to the shop first, just to see if I could maybe make this instrument.
(37:01):
Because maybe this instrument has something to do with this tribe or whatever,
since I had seen it in the dream. At the minimum, you can come with a gift.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So anyway, I got back into the shop, and this time I was a little bit smarter.
I asked the Holy Spirit for help.
(37:21):
That always helps.
And I asked my wife to help me. The Holy Spirit, your wife. Yeah,
exactly. Yeah, two best things you can do.
Yeah, so we got in the shop and we figured it out.
It took us another two, two and a half months, but we figured it out. That's cool.
(37:42):
Yeah. And I remember putting the strings on for the first time and tuning it up.
Wow. And, and I remember taking those strings and I began to stroke,
stroke the instrument and it was that same sound. No way.
It was that same sound that I heard from the dream, the harp and the drum.
(38:03):
Up to this point in your life, had you ever had, had you had dreams that have
led you like this, this clearly, or was this kind of like the first real one?
No, I, I had had, yeah, I'd had other similar. Okay. So you've had history with
dreams. Yeah. Yeah. I'd had, but.
Not so much with dreams as much as just like hearing God's voice and responding.
(38:24):
But as far as the dream, like I had had dreams and prophetic dreams before,
but this was. This was another level.
It stirs me because I was, I was just looking this up the other day and I think
it's dream is mentioned 121 times in the Bible.
And I think there's, I think there's 21 dreams in the Bible,
you know, and they were all these significant things, you know,
(38:46):
and it wasn't like it's all the time. Cause I mean, I dream every night.
Yeah. And I realized I've had some dreams that have manifested in the real world
before too. It's like, I've seen this before in my dream and then it plays out.
But I haven't been a good steward of that recently. And I realize,
I feel like part of that, I think, because you had your journal and you're stewarding it.
And I feel like when we steward these things, God's willing to give us more.
(39:07):
Do you find that to be okay? Yeah, very much so. Yeah.
All right. So anyway, back to the, you got the instrument, you made it the same sound.
Yeah, it was the same sound. And at that point, I felt like I was ready.
Okay. And Gladys and I, my wife, we prayed about it and we felt like I needed to go right away.
(39:29):
And keep in mind that we were a year and a half in our marriage and my wife
was eight months pregnant.
And so we decided, okay, we should go now or I should wait.
And I felt like after prayer, we felt like the Lord said, go now.
(39:50):
And so I, I packed up and left my eight month pregnant wife at home.
And then we, I traveled down to this Island and I took this instrument with
me and I asked one of my tribal friends who is from the beginning,
(40:11):
he had been like my travel partner and my ministry partner. And this, he's a tribal man.
He's, he's really good with the mountains. He knows language and culture and all that.
So we went together, which is a key thing to missions. Got to have a man of peace.
And so I went with a man of peace and we...
(40:31):
He jumped on a motorbike with me, and he and I and this instrument,
we were trying to make our way up the mountain.
And we finally got there to this one part, and then we met this man,
Manigos, who I had told you about earlier.
He was the one that was originally from the tribe, and he had the dream about me.
(40:53):
Okay. Okay, so Manigos jumped on the motorbike.
Three of you guys with this little instrument. Yeah, three of us with this instrument.
And so we, then the mountain got really hard.
That's when it turned into a little, pretty much a rabbit trail,
just going up the mountain. And then we had a hard time getting there.
We had a big storm come in and the water was rushing down the mountain.
(41:17):
Yeah. And then we had this kind of drop off cliff where, where there were two
little ropes that went across with boards.
So now you're really Indiana Jones. Yeah, we're Indiana Jones at this point.
And so we decided to go across the bridge on the motorbike.
Was it just one of you on the bike at that point? No, it was all three of us. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
(41:42):
Praise God we made it across. We did get in a wreck right when we got across.
Oh, man. Just lost control. Yeah.
And we hit the ground. Thankfully, it didn't fall off the cliff,
but we hit this really soft grass.
And it was really amazing because, like, it was stones all around us and a drop-off cliff.
(42:04):
But thankfully, we were okay. We got back on and we kept traveling into the tribe.
And just as we were getting into the tribe...
I, again, felt like the Lord spoke to me and told me to take the instrument to the chief.
And so I didn't know where the chief was or even if there was a chief,
(42:29):
but we asked around and it turns out the chief was about three and a half hours
on the other side of the tribe.
Yeah. So we're like, okay. So we just kept going and we finally got there.
And when we got there to to
the the home of this chief and we
were so tired we were you know mud all over us
(42:50):
and exhausted and we
came up and just knocked on his door and he
opened up the door was the chief of the
Thinanan tribe wow and he he
said just kind of looking at us with a confused used face and we were like well
you know we are getting ready to travel to different parts of your tribe and
(43:16):
before we travel to different parts we just wanted to come here to your house.
Because i just wanted to give this as a gift to you and so i just like handed
this instrument to him but it was covered up so he didn't really know what it
was so he brought it in and he put
it on a table and then he kind of
(43:37):
we grabbed that little towel thing and we
took it when we kind of unveiled it and when he saw
it he looked at and he said where did
you get this from and i said well yeah i
just sort of made it and he was like no i want
you to tell me where did you get it from and i kept kind of but you know beating
around the bush or just not telling him the full truth because I wanted to build
(44:00):
a relationship first before I told him everything but he kept asking me and
so finally I said well I said,
last year.
I had this dream, and in the dream, I heard the name of your tribe for the first time.
And I also saw this instrument that I had never seen before.
(44:23):
And I'm an instrument maker, and I believe that my God has just given me this dream for a reason.
And so he kept looking at this instrument, stroking the strings.
And and around that time there
were a number of other elders from the
(44:44):
tribe that walked in the room and when they came
in immediately they came up to started tapping it and they kept saying this
word salimba salimba and they have a separate language that we didn't understand
okay and so they're talking and then they're saying salimba and i was like what's
salimba and then they said we have something to show you.
(45:07):
So they took us down this little path. They took us down to this place called
the Palovaran, which means the house of prayer.
And this is the place where they worship many different gods.
And so they took us in there and there is a place of sacred prayer.
(45:28):
And they have all these all these like ancient articles in there they have old
clothing from their tribe they have metal work they have.
Handmade stuff they have weavings and then they had a whole section of like musical instruments,
and they pointed at this one section
(45:50):
that did not have an instrument okay and they
said they said about a hundred and a hundred
plus years ago they said over a century
ago there was a war and during
that time we had our our sacred instrument
it was called the salimba and our sacred instrument was taken from us and it
(46:16):
was during that time that it it left that we this was the instrument that we
worship the god of all gods with it was our instrument that connected heaven and earth.
And he said, it was taken away from us, but one day it's going to be redeemed back to us.
And when it comes back, it's going to be coming down from heaven.
(46:40):
And it's the vehicle that connects heaven and earth.
And so they said that it's like this vehicle that's going to come down from
heaven and God is going to be resting on the inside of this instrument.
And he's going gonna call all the righteous people to
him wow and so yeah he they they're
this is their prophetic word that's been passed down
(47:01):
through the generations okay i was gonna ask there's a prophecy from yeah
wow yes and and it's it's been passed down through the generations since that
time this is the reason why they know this yeah and anyway they and and they
said the instrument that you brought is the same instrument. It's shaped like a bowl.
(47:22):
At the bottom, it's got a wooden rim that goes around the outside and it's got
strings that go from the outside to the middle.
And they said that this instrument.
They said that when you brought it back today, this is a sign to us that we
need to be ready for God's return, and we need to prepare our hearts. Oh, my gosh.
(47:47):
And so right at that moment, it was late at night.
Yeah. They gathered everyone that they could from their village,
and they dedicated this instrument back to God.
And it was actually i was there
so i it was a really beautiful time of god's
presence i felt god's presence in the room and they
(48:09):
also gave me a headpiece of a chief and they put it on my shoulder which represents
that they give me authority to speak in to their eldership wow And I was really honored by that,
but I also realized that that is a sign of responsibility.
(48:32):
And so when they gave that to me, I knew that that's like their way of saying,
okay, we trust you. Trust you, we honor you.
And we want like friendship. and
so for me that was a real honorable thing
but it also was a responsible thing that
i need to walk this out yeah and so
(48:53):
anyway what what that did it was a amazing amazing thing that happened that
day but that started this relationship that began to grow and before too long
the the chief Steve requested that we would help translate the Bible into their language. Wow.
And so we did that. We started the Bible translation project for their language group in 2015.
(49:22):
And we've been able to already translate portions of the scripture to help give that to the tribe.
And the thing that really made me more excited is that because of this relationship,
they opened the door for the gospel to come to their people group.
And so what we did is instead of doing like a foreign missions group that comes to their people.
(49:49):
What we did is we found indigenous leaders from neighboring tribes and not too far away,
other mountains like that, yeah indigenous leaders and
pastors missionaries that would go in
there and help tell people about jesus and and do it a really grassroots kind
(50:09):
of indigenous missions way of that yeah and so we've been that's actually been
really cool there's been a lot of people that have come to know jesus and grow
in the lord uh last we checked they were.
Over 15 over 15 churches
and communities that have been planted in that tribe wow that's
(50:30):
phenomenal bro you know as you're talking about
this and they had this instrument that's a bull with the
strings that allowed them to connect heaven and earth one yeah
worship the one true god they had this in their language and you look at revelation
and there's these bulls in heaven and harps right yeah this thing is like a
harp and a bull all together in one thing you know yeah have they Have they
(50:54):
read that in Revelation and just thought about that dynamic?
No, I don't think so. Not that I know of.
There was not much influence, Christianity, in this area. Well, I mean like now.
Like now after reading the Bible and seeing that, you know.
Because it's interesting to me how people like these remote places will have
(51:16):
this desire to worship God. Yes. Right?
It's like it's intrinsic built in within us. were made to worship, right?
And how that all these disparate groups all over the world will find instruments
and allow an instrument to help them connect to God.
Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I just think it's beautiful, but it's also like interesting
(51:38):
at the same time. Like how are we wired that way, you know?
Yeah, it's like a, it's hidden in all of our hearts. Yeah.
You know, this deep desire to connect and worship when we were created to worship.
You know, and yeah, it's, I've noticed and I've met people, groups and tribes
(51:59):
that have never had any exposure to the modern world or even Christianity and things like that.
But you hear the common theme of there's a God that we want to connect with.
And we want to worship and so that's actually been the the the gateway the the way that we're able to,
(52:21):
or the way that we really try to connect with
them is is through that sound sound of
worship so interesting because this thing there's this longing we're
made to connect to each other right we're made we desire
to connect to our fathers there's like we have a fatherless generation because
of that there's a lot of brokenness around but there's this longing to connect
to our father and our mother and then jesus came to reveal the father and there's
(52:44):
that ultimate longing for us to connect back home to our heavenly father and
that we all have and how music and instruments,
helps that sound helps provide the connection you
know and and i know because i we we we wrote a book called it's all about worship
you know because worship is the highest expression i believe that we're capable
(53:06):
of because at the end the highest thing that there is is god right and And the
highest expression is to love God and connect to him, right?
And we're all made for it. And so when I've just seen environments where we're
in relationship with God worshiping, people are recklessly abandoned to that.
And the unbeliever walks into that environment, them experiencing God for the first time.
(53:29):
So I don't know, worship is such a powerful tool that we're like ingrained in us.
And I love that you're on this mission to resurrect these ancient instruments.
Yeah you know and and what's the name of your company
it's evergreen evergreen instruments is our
business yeah that's our instrument making business yeah
i'd encourage you to check it out it's evergreen what is it yeah evergreen instruments.com
(53:52):
yeah evergreen.com you can hear caleb's story
there he's got a book he's got different instruments that
you can buy from him or do you take do people like
commission you to make instruments too yeah people commission me to make
instruments yeah i do a lot of custom instruments stringed instruments
woodwind instruments drums
(54:12):
we are our range of instruments pretty wide because we had a lot of experience
in these different materials and things like that so yeah it's kind of what
we do it's amazing well i just i love i just love your willingness to follow
god and say yes you know and and be obedient to the dreams and the words that he gives you.
And, and to me, walking with God is the greatest adventure that,
(54:36):
that we could possibly have.
It's the greatest gift on this side on, of here on earth to be able to walk with God.
It's so awesome. Is there anything you'd like to say as we wrap up just to encourage
people in their journey? We've got a lot of worshipers and musicians.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, like,
We're all in different places in our walk and our journey with the Lord.
(55:00):
But hearing God's voice, I know you can hear a testimony like this and just
be like, oh, man, like, that's what I want, you know.
But at the same time, it's like what God is really wanting, the heart of it.
And I love that we ended with this is that he wants connection.
And that's what it really comes down to, too, is just that we are connected to him.
(55:24):
Abided in him and walking with him through the victories and also like the really
tough struggles that we all face.
So just be encouraged where you are in your journey with the Lord and just know
that the father is there.
Like he is, he's with you. He's chasing after you. He's He's right there with you in your journey.
(55:52):
I think what it really comes down to is being aware of His presence more and more.
Then, yes, we all know that whether I'm in the highest places or in the depths
of the earth or on the far-flung side of the sea, wherever we are, God is with us.
But being aware of his presence and leaning into it, I think it's where the Lord really.
(56:21):
That's where the Lord can come and dance with us. Yeah.
That's when the Lord can come and walk and co-partner with us.
Yeah. I love that. The highest of the highs, the lowest of the lows,
and even circling back to what you said in the beginning about that garden, garden of tears.
Yeah. In the whole place that Jesus, the suffering Savior, he can relate to us in those places too.
(56:44):
So, awesome. Well, why don't you pray for us and pray for those listening? Yeah, certainly.
Awesome. Yeah, Lord, I just want to thank you. Yeah, Father,
thank you so much for your heart and that you want connection with us.
And it's just such an honor.
I just bless every person who is listening that they would lean in to your voice.
(57:08):
And whether that is them
you calling them to the nations or calling
them to this and that or whatever i know that
what it really means is that you're calling them into
a deeper intimacy and so may they embrace that and be abided and connected with
(57:30):
you and everything that they do not just their churchy things or their religious
things or things that people see, but even in their.
Private journey and private time with you.
So bless that, Lord. Thank you for this time to be with Michael.
(57:50):
Just honor him. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.
Amen. Hey, thank you, Caleb, for doing this, sharing your story.
Go check him out online, Caleb Byerly, Evergreen Instruments.
He also has a book out. What's the name of your book? Just Dance. Just Dance.
Just follow him, follow God, just dance. Yeah. All right. Y'all take it easy. Love you guys. Bye.
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