June 1, 2025 • 51 mins
Steve Sanford, leader of Ethnos 360, shares his powerful journey of bringing the gospel to the previously uncontacted Joti tribe in South America, and how this isolated people group developed into a mature, evangelistic church community.
• Growing up as a pastor's son, Steve developed a passion for reaching remote tribes
• The Joti were one of the last uncontacted people groups in northern South America
• Despite being feared as "the ha-ha people" who would spear outsiders, the Joti were actually peaceful and likable
• The missionaries had to learn the Joti language without translation aids as they were completely monolingual
• Creating an alphabet and teaching literacy to the entire village became a gateway to Scripture
• The Joti had no word for love in their language, requiring creative translation solutions
• All 150 people in the village embraced the gospel after hearing the complete message
• New believers described Jesus as "like Noah's Ark" and "the stairway man" from their understanding of Old Testament stories
• The Joti developed into evangelists who taught literacy and Scripture to other Joti from surrounding areas
• After six years with the believing community, the missionaries were expelled by the government
• Today's estimate puts Joti believers at approximately 50% of their population
• Ethnos360 works in about 40 countries with strategies for both open and restricted access areas
If you feel called to missions, you don't need to have everything figured out. Start by connecting with your local church, getting Bible training, and reaching out to organizations like Ethnos360 that provide structure, training and experienced mentorship.
Follow @unreachedpodcast on Instagram for more!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
In Revelation 7, john shares his vision of heaven,
with members from every tribe,tongue, people and language
standing in the throne roombefore the Lamb.
Yet today there are still over7,000 unreached people groups
around the world.
For the last six years myfamily and friends have been on
a journey to find, vet and fundthe task remaining.
(00:28):
Come journey with us to theends of the earth as we share
the supernatural stories of Godat work for the men and women he
has called to reach theunreached.
Hello friends, welcome back tothe Unreached Podcast.
Dustin Elliott.
Here today, your host and I havea very special guest.
(00:50):
This is the man leading Ethnos360, one of the missionary
sending organizations that wehave partnered with.
Ethnos is the org that supportsthe Wantekea tribe.
So episode one after we did thelaunch episode with Todd Arendt
going way back to the beginning, was the crab trees and the
Wantekea.
You've also heard the Rimstadsand the Malayali people group
(01:13):
some of the absolute cooleststories that we've ever got to
tell on the pod, and it is so.
I'm so excited to have Stevehere today.
But before I get to Steve, Ijust want to comment real quick.
So a couple weeks ago we did aspecial episode drop.
We had Dr Todd Arend come toour church at Austin Ridge.
He flew in from Arkansas.
We had 180 people come to alunch and it was a lunch on the
(01:37):
mission of God.
Now, if you've heard episodezero of the pod, you've heard
kind of the short version ofTodd give this talk.
Now we have a little bit moreof an enhanced version that he
did in person here at the churchbut it was so moving.
But now we are back to ourregularly scheduled programming
and we are going to featurethree key partners there's
(01:57):
Ethnos 360, there's Pioneers andthere's GSI.
And I'm going to do a summerseries here where we're going to
feature each one, the CEO, theleader of each of those
organizations, and we're goingto get that 30,000 foot view top
down as well as the bottom up,because Steve Sanford, who's
here today, has served in anunreached people group, has been
in the field and is now leadingan organization doing so.
(02:19):
So please help me welcome Steveto the show.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Dustin, thank you very much for having me.
I am super excited about this.
We've run into each other atBless a number of times.
We love Bless.
We are so thankful for whatthey do partnering with us, so
thanks for having me.
I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
So for context, for the listeners, let's just cut a
little background on your story.
So, as I mentioned, you haveserved in a UPG, you've been a
missionary, you're now inleadership, so you've gone from
kind of the star player on thefield to the front office.
So give us just a quick, kindof not too quick but kind of
tell us your story.
How did you know the Lord?
How did you get involved inmissions?
(02:56):
Kind of bring us up to speed.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
So I was born and raised in central Pennsylvania.
I was born and raised incentral Pennsylvania.
My father was a pastor inChicago who was taken on a
missions trip by the thenpresident of New Tribes Mission,
which that's what Ethnos 360used to be called.
For those that might not know,he was taken to South America.
He saw things he did not knowexisted in the world whole
(03:20):
languages that don't have anyaccess to the gospel, and
missionaries out there living inthe jungle, literally risking
their lives for these people,and it so impacted him.
He came home, resigned hischurch, decided to go be a
missionary, joined New TribesMission.
They asked him if he would stayin the US and be a traveling
recruiter.
(03:41):
He was a very good communicatorand we didn't have a lot of
traveling.
We didn't have really anytraveling recruiters back then,
except maybe the leader of theorganization.
So he did that his whole lifeand he visited every people
group that the mission workswith.
It was over 200 at the time.
So I grew up hearing thesestories, seeing pictures of the
jungle, and I was saved prettyearly in life, led to the Lord
(04:04):
by my parents, and then justhearing my dad's stories over
the years, I was hooked.
I knew that's what I wanted tobe.
I wanted to be a missionary.
I wanted to be a missionary inthe jungle, I wanted to be
somewhere where the gospelhadn't been.
And I was particularly drawn toSouth America for some reason,
probably because in the earlydays of our organization that's
(04:24):
where the majority of the sortof really remote works were.
So we ended up.
I met my wife in Bible college.
We ended up in Venezuela, southAmerica, for the first year.
We studied the Spanish languageso that we could get around in
the country, and the leaders ofthe field started to talk to us
(04:45):
about where we might serve andthere were a number of options
where they needed another coupleand the one that they ended up
asking us to consider.
They're called the Hoti, and ifyou look them up on the internet
, that'd be spelled J-O-T-I it'sthe Spanish H you can find them
.
They were, if not the last, oneof the very last uncontacted
(05:11):
people groups, at least innorthern South America.
There's still quite a few inBrazil that are way out there
and uncontacted, but the Hotilived way up in the mountains of
south central Venezuela, aboutan hour and a half in an
airplane from any town, so it'slike way out there.
(05:32):
You couldn't really get outthere without an airplane.
You could, but you wouldn'twant to put it that way.
Right, the way they werediscovered was our mission had a
missionary team working withthe neighboring people group.
They were called the Piedoa.
The Piedoa lived down on thebig rivers, so everybody knew
they existed because anybodytraveling the big rivers you'd
(05:54):
pass Piedoa villages.
Piedoa hunters would go up intothe mountains and they would
encounter Hoti people and theirlanguages.
Though they were neighborsgeographically, their languages
were unrelated.
They started telling theirmissionaries that hey, there's
people up in those mountainsthat we don't know and we can't
talk to them, and they nicknamedthem get this.
(06:15):
This was crazy to think about.
They nicknamed the Hoti theha-ha people, and the reason
they said we call them the ha-hapeople is the sound of their
laughter, is the last thing youwill hear as they drive their
spear through you.
They're killers.
Oh, okay, so that was the rumor.
(06:37):
That's what came out of thejungle.
Wow, the leader of our missiondown there at the time.
His perspective was wow, ifthere's an uncontacted people
group up in those mountains,that's where we're going next.
They just got moved right up tothe top of the list because
clearly they've had no access tothe gospel if nobody even knows
(06:57):
they're up there.
The government of Venezueladidn't even have them on a list
of people groups.
They were so hidden they took ateam up in there.
Have them on a list of peoplegroups.
They were so hidden they took ateam up in there.
It was some missionaries andsome Piroa tribal believers and
they found them and it turnedout that the Hoti were not at
all violent.
That was a complete made-up.
(07:18):
Just that was a jungle rumor.
You know those are prettycommon.
The Hoti are probably the mostnonviolent people group you
could find on the earth.
They didn't even havestoriescloths, I mean they were,
they were kind of what I grewup dreaming about, like they
(07:49):
were the quintessential jungledwelling south american people
group, but they turned out to bethe most likable people I have
ever been around.
Oh, that's awesome and that.
That may sound like you knowthe missionary talking about the
people he lived with andexaggerating, but I'm just
(08:11):
telling you.
I like to tell people, if yougot to know them, the Hoti, and
you didn't like them, you're theproblem.
They're not the problem.
You're the problem theircuriosity about this book that
we had come there.
They were not readers.
They didn't have, you know, analphabet in their language.
(08:32):
They didn't know what readingwas.
But over time, as we learnedtheir language I say we, it was
a team, it wasn't just my wifeand I.
In fact, we joined a team thatwas already there and had a
co-worker who was also namedSteve.
He was the first outsider toever learn the language.
They were monolingual, so youcouldn't ask them any questions
(08:53):
in Spanish or English.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Oh, so they didn't know the trade language or
anything either, right, theydidn't even know they lived in a
country that speaks Spanish.
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So none of them spoke any Spanish.
But my co-worker was extremelygifted in language.
He grew up as a missionary kidin Indonesia and learned.
By the time he got to the Hotihe had learned five languages
fluently, so he was the perfectguy to crack the language.
I would have never cracked itin 10 lifetimes I'm not ashamed
(09:21):
to admit that but with mycoworker's help I was able to
learn it quite fluently.
As we've learned the language,we developed an alphabet for
them.
We taught them how to read.
They really wanted to know howto read.
I mean, they saw the effects ofreading.
You could send a note back toyour wife way out in the jungle
(09:43):
and tell her you're hungry andshe makes a sandwich for you and
sends it back.
And you know, you can predictthat that's exactly what's going
to happen.
If you take this note to mywife, she's going to make a
sandwich and give it to you tobring back to me, and those kind
of things just really created acuriosity about reading, really
(10:08):
created a curiosity aboutreading.
So the whole village it was avillage of about 150 people at
the time, a people group ofabout 2,500, the best we can
guess throughout the jungle butin that village about 150.
They all wanted to learn how toread.
So we picked the 10 bestteachers, taught them how to
read, took about three months togo through the course.
They all became readers.
And then we said you guys, youguys are gonna have to teach
(10:29):
everybody else.
There's only two, two or threeof us.
We can't, you know, teacheverybody.
So they took that on and theystarted teaching everybody else.
So the whole village becameliterate within the space of I
don't know a year, maybe, maybetwo years at the most.
And then, by the time we hadtranslated enough scripture to
(10:51):
start teaching, everybody couldread.
So we could get up front andsay okay, you guys, this isn't
our message, this isn't ouropinion.
We're going to read to you fromthe book that the Creator
authored Everything in.
It is true, it has the answersto every question you've ever
wondered about.
You know, where did the Hoticome from, and why are we here?
(11:11):
And why do our kids get sickand why do they die?
What happens when they die?
All those questions you'vealways wondered.
This book has the answer, andthey were.
So, again, it's going to soundlike I'm exaggerating.
Please, you're going to have totrust me, I'm not.
It's almost impossible tooverstate how much they wanted
(11:31):
to hear what this book says.
So they told us.
One day they came to us theysaid hey, you guys, before you
start teaching, we want threemonths notice because we want
time to build one roof that'sbig enough for everybody to fit
under it in the whole valley,because it rains a lot here and
when it rains we don't want youto stop telling us what this
(11:52):
book says.
So, sure enough, they did that.
And then, you know, everybodycame about.
150 people came every day.
We started.
You know, in the beginning God,they didn't even have a word for
God in their language.
They didn't have a concept ofbeginning God.
They didn't even have a wordfor God in their language.
They didn't have a concept of acreator God.
They knew a lot about thespirit realm.
They interacted with the spiritrealm very actively, believed
(12:14):
they could manipulate it andcontrol it, but a creator.
So we had to come up with aterm for God.
The word for God in Houthi ismukeddeha, that's how you say
God, and the term literallymeans best way.
I guess I could say it inEnglish would be the one who
exceeds all others, the supremeone.
(12:35):
That would be another good wayyou could translate it.
So it's the first time they'veheard his name and we introduced
him.
And then we just startedteaching through Genesis and on
through the scriptures, layingthe foundations of who God is,
what he's like, who man is.
And I got to take a breath hereand stop talking.
(12:56):
I got to let you guys talk alittle bit.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
No, no, no.
Nobody wants to hear me talk.
Nobody wants to hear me talk.
I will say this, though this isa playbook, I'm listening to
you tell this story, and we'veheard the Crabtrees tell this
story, and we've heard theRemstads tell this story, and
those that are serving underyour tutelage and leadership now
, and it's just a process that'sbeen built and refined over
(13:20):
time.
You find these groups.
They don't have a writtenlanguage.
You create, you learn theirlanguage.
You create their language.
You teach them to read andwrite their language.
Just hearing you tell thisstory, I just I'm just like this
is a playbook.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
One day I just went through the first chapter of
Romans and I started writingdown the words in the first
chapter of Romans that did notexist in the Hothi language.
Not because their language wasinferior, trust me, it was not.
They have 50 words for our oneEnglish word it Whoa.
So if you want to say what isit in their language, which is
(13:55):
like the first question you wantto be able to ask, you have to
know which category of theroughly 55 pronouns that that
object you're pointing at fitsinto, or you can't correctly ask
the question.
Whoa, it's not random, it's allprecise.
It has to do with shape ortexture or color perhaps.
So it's a very complex language, but they didn't have words for
(14:16):
love, peace, justification,sanctity, obviously a lot of
those theological words theydidn't have, but even ones they
did not have a word for love.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, you hear that a lot of those theological words
they didn't have, but even ones.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
They did not have a word for love.
Yeah, you hear that a lot.
They did not say I love you.
So here's, here's.
This is how we stumbled on theword for love.
They had a word in theirlanguage that that we would
translate into english lust,because it's the only way they
used the word Got it.
They only used it in a negativecontext of a person wanting
something that's not theirs.
(14:48):
But the literal meaning of theword just means to look upon
with a strong desire, for that'sreally what it literally means.
So one day we asked him.
We said, well, could Godweh-yow somebody that's the word
god weh yow somebody, that'sthe word weh yow could god do
(15:09):
that?
And if so, what would that mean?
They said, oh sure god could doit.
Uh, and and would it be a goodthing or a bad thing?
Well, they said well, god onlydoes good.
So if god weh yow somebody,that that's good.
He just, he just wants them forhimself himself.
He has a strong desire for themfor himself.
And so we discovered that wordcan actually be used for love.
(15:31):
Quite well, it just was neverused that way in their language.
I don't take credit for that.
That was my much smartercoworker that figured all that
out and he was so good atpredicting how the Hoti would
say a new concept likejustification, or a lot of them
that are way more basic thanthat, and that's how the
translation went forward.
(15:54):
You know he would figure outhow they would say it.
Try it out with a few people.
If it works, that's your newterm and on you go.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
So for the listeners, if you do Google the people
group, like he says, the firstthing that pops up, of course,
is the Joshua Project.
And if you don't know about theJoshua Project, that's
basically a database of all thepeople groups on Earth, their
current population, the currentpredominant religion, the
progress of reaching them andjust a little bit about them.
(16:22):
And according to Joshua Project, the Hoti are now 30% Christian
.
Does that sound about right,steve?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Actually it doesn't, because I would put the number
quite a bit higher than thattoday.
And here's why, when we livedwith them, we shared the gospel
with that group of 150.
And here's why, when we livedwith them, we shared the gospel
with that group of 150.
That group embraced the gospel.
At that time we had about 150believers.
Pretty much the whole villageembraced it.
When we finally got through thedeath, burial and resurrection,
(16:55):
we decided you know, let's letthem all go home, think about
what they heard, and we'll justgo around and have conversations
with everybody.
We didn't want to ask for likea collective who believes, raise
your hand type thing Not thatthat would have been wrong.
We just decided let's just haveindividual conversations.
We did that and through that itbecame clear that the gospel
(17:20):
was very clearly understood.
They had collectively embracedit.
There was about 150 believersat that time.
So when we were going aroundhouse to house we'd say so.
So Ralph, you know that was oneof my closest neighbors, ralph.
His Houthi name is Uli alaBalat, but Ralph is easier, so
we'll call him Ralph.
(17:40):
Ralph is the most likable humanbeing, truly, I think I've ever
known in my life.
He was about 55 maybe when heheard the gospel, so we'd go
into his house, or the other guyyou'd say so just tell me what
you think about what you heard.
On Friday, or whatever day thatwas, we shared the gospel
finally, which took about a year, by the way, from Genesis to
(18:02):
the gospel, to get througheverything they needed to
understand and to thetestimonies that I really
remember.
One guy said I'll tell you whatI think.
I think Jesus is just likeNoah's Ark, and he said I'm
getting in the boat.
Okay, so here's a guy who'strying to communicate his faith
(18:25):
in Christ, but he doesn't have aformulaic way to say it that he
knows we're hoping to hear.
So he goes back to an OldTestament story that he knows
was a picture of the comingredeemer, because as we taught
it we, we included thatcomponent.
Look, if you wanted to be safefrom the wrath of god that was
to come, you had to be sealed upinside that ark and god shut
(18:46):
the door.
And once you're shut up insidethere, you're safe, and that's
what that coming redeemer isgoing to be like for us.
We're going to have to, we'regoing to have to get inside Him
somehow if we want to be safe,you know.
And of course, then you buildon all these concepts and you
have the sacrificial system andthe shed blood of the innocent
lamb that's over and over andover through the Old Testament,
(19:07):
by the time you get to the cross.
The Hoti were so well preparedfor that, not because of the
missionaries, but because of theway God's word lays out the
story.
They were so well prepared forthat that it all just came
together and it fit like apuzzle.
So this guy is trying tocommunicate his faith and he
says Noah's ark, that's Jesusand I'm getting inside the boat.
(19:32):
I thought that is a really coolway to say it.
And I remember another guysaying he hearkened back to
Jacob's ladder that story and hesaid I think Jesus is the
stairway man.
That's what he called him.
He's the stairway man and I'mgetting back to God by the
stairway man, which, again, thatwas another picture of Jesus in
(19:53):
the Old Testament.
Jesus even said you know, toNathaniel I think it was you'll
see the angels of heavenascending and descending on the
son of man, and all the Hotiheard that and they're like well
, that's Jacob's ladder, youknow.
What was really exciting, Ithink, as I look back on the
time with them, we had six moreyears after they became
(20:15):
believers.
We had six years with them asmissionaries before we were
expelled by the government.
And we were expelled forreasons that you know.
It was believed that we wereworking for the US government
and that kind of thing.
It wasn't a religiousnecessarily reason, it was more
of a political reason.
But in that six years thosewere my favorite.
(20:39):
Those were my favorite yearswith the Hoti because even
though they embraced the gospelcollectively and they were so
trusting and their faith was sopure and like childlike faith,
it was so fun to see.
But then watching faith it wasso fun to see.
(20:59):
But then watching God's Spiritwho is now living in them start
to work and live out throughthese brand new believers and
you start seeing them doingspiritual work.
And there was a period again Isound like I'm exaggerating but
I'm not there was a period oflike three years in their early
development as a church where asmissionaries you really
(21:20):
couldn't even keep up with sortof following what god was doing
through their group.
It was happening in so manydifferent realms with so many
different people and you, you'djust be hearing.
You know, did you hear whatso-and-so is doing?
No, what's he doing, you know,and you find out he's doing some
(21:41):
Holy Spirit-led, inspired work.
And you hear another one thenext day, and you hear another
one the next day.
And I remember thinking inthose days you know, if we had
50 missionaries here trying tomanipulate this, we could not
manipulate this kind of activity.
This is before our very eyes,god's Spirit doing spiritual
(22:05):
work through the lives of peoplewho didn't even know the gospel
five months ago.
You know that started a periodof growth where they were
growing well as a church.
But the hardest part for them,as I look back, was the notion
(22:25):
of taking the gospel outward toothers.
And it wasn't because theydidn't think that was the right
thing to do, it was because theywere afraid to do that.
They just didn't believe theycould do it.
But over a few years throughthere were some circumstances.
God used some incrediblestories really of what God used
(22:45):
to get them over that fear.
And once they got over thatfear they became avid
evangelists.
And the way it would work backthen Hoti people out in the
surrounding jungle.
They were still very, you know,untouched by the outside world
out there, and they would comeinto the valley at times, you
(23:09):
know, in part, I think, becausethey had heard this God talk
that's going on here like whatis this?
So whenever a new family wouldcome into the valley, one of the
Hutki believers would kind ofput their hand up and say I'll
take them, they're myresponsibility, and they would
(23:30):
invite them into their home.
They'd teach them literacyfirst so they could read, so
that then they could teach themthrough the scriptures, just
like they were taught.
And so there was these littlein-house evangelistic outreaches
going on, and then thatdeveloped into taking the gospel
out to further and furtherlittle villages and ultimately
(23:51):
to the other really big villagein their world, which was a
10-day hike to the north.
There was a lot of resistanceup there to the gospel for a
number of years.
In fact it wasn't until wellafter we were gone that they
finally got access up there.
And we've been able to followthis through bits and pieces.
We get you know of informationfrom the jungle pieces.
(24:13):
We get you know of informationfrom the jungle and okay.
So the best I can calculate andthis is take this with a grain
of salt, because we don't livethere, but with the information
we're getting from the jungle, Iwould estimate that there has
to be well over a thousandbelievers in that language group
today and we don't know thetotal population believers in
(24:35):
that language group today and wedon't know the total population
.
So they say 30% and I'm notsaying their information is
inaccurate, it's just probablywe haven't updated it, you know,
recently.
So I would long answer.
I would put it up more like 50%, maybe, maybe more.
It's hard to say because Ireally do believe that they have
taken the gospel to everycorner of their language group.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
You just went through kind of like the habits of a
global Christian and this tribeis living them out like so
obediently, so well, like I gotthem, I'm going to welcome them
into my home, I'm going to teachthem the language.
I'm going to teach them thescriptures.
Do we do that in Texas?
Do to teach them the scriptures.
Do we do that in Texas?
Do we do that in Florida?
Do we do that in WesternChristianity?
(25:19):
I mean, how often do we openour home?
I mean we have people from allsorts of people, groups around
the world coming over here to goto college and work, and how
often are we doing that?
And I just think of howobedient they're being.
And man, it's veryinspirational right to kind of
check all of our hearts orstomachs, depending on which
tribe you're in, and go like amI living that out?
(25:40):
Could I be doing more Right?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yes, and honestly, I saw a lot of that living with
them.
It wasn't just their sort oftheir evangelism heart sort of
their evangelism heart but, forexample, I heard my whole life
growing up.
You know God's Word is our foodIf we want to grow and mature
(26:05):
in the Lord.
We got to be studying His Wordand it was in living with the
Houthi young church that Irealized I've heard that but I
don't believe it because I don'tdo what they're doing.
There was that whole period ofsix years we had before we had
to leave.
Okay, they were getting moreand more scripture.
My coworker, steve, wastranslating for them.
(26:27):
They were getting more and morescripture.
But those people, when they werenot out and about, you know,
working in their garden orfishing or hunting, when they
were back in the hut thescriptures came out and they'd
be laying in their hut.
You know, and it might just be,you know, they just got chapter
two of Acts or something andit's one page but they're
(26:49):
reading it.
It and what I found kind offunny as I was in that phase
with them walking around thevillage, you know, you'd walk by
a guy's house and you couldhear through the door man, he's
reading.
He's in, he's in Matthew.
I can tell where he's at, youknow, and you walk down the
trail.
Another guy, oh, he's in Acts.
(27:10):
At that stage in theirdevelopment they never read
silently, they always read outloud and their reading voice was
louder than their talking voice.
I think we forgot when we wereteaching literacy.
We forgot to tell them that youknow, you can read silently,
because it took a number ofyears to kind of get to that.
But they're, they're justhunger for the word.
And here's what launched it all, I believe, their hunger for
(27:32):
the word.
When they first becamebelievers, we, we talked to them
about how does a believer grow?
The Bible says you're all babesin Christ.
Do you guys want to stay babesforever?
Do you want to grow up and beadult sons and daughters?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
in a family Eat some steak.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, yeah, you want to have some real food.
Well, we didn't get to the foodyet.
We're just talking about.
You want to be adults?
And yes, of course we do.
And so we talked about you knowhow does a Hoti baby grow up to
be a healthy adult?
He's got to eat the right food.
And we said what food does aChristian eat to grow up to be
(28:08):
an adult?
And honestly, because you and Ihave heard that illustration
our whole life, we immediatelyknow what he's going after.
They had no idea and I think youknow their their wheels were
turning and I I think they weretrying to figure out what food
we fly in on that airplane thatthey haven't had before.
You know, that makes you cropspiritual and and you get to
(28:28):
introduce that concept of youguys have a bunch of god's word
in your language, that's ourfood, and they believed that to
the extent that they fed on itevery day and that, coupled with
another key component, I think,in their early understanding as
believers, we were able tointroduce them to the concept of
(28:50):
the walk of faith and theydidn't have a bunch of Christian
baggage that we had to weed out, a bunch of works Christianity.
They just wanted to know howdoes a believer live in a way
that pleases God?
And we got to introduce theconcept of faith.
It's taught very clearly in theNew Testament.
It's taught very clearly in theOld Testament.
We said you guys, if you willlive by faith and you will trust
(29:13):
God, his Spirit lives in you.
If you'll trust Him to live Hislife out through you and lead
you and guide you, he will doamazing things through you.
And if you'll feed on His Word,you'll grow up, you'll think
more like Him, you'll becomemore of His co-worker.
And they took those two truthsand it launched them on this
(29:35):
trajectory of growth.
That was just amazing to watch.
And again we've been.
You know, we we only had sixmore years with them, so I can't
say for sure how that's stillgoing, but the, the pieces of
information we get from them andpictures we even get show guys
(29:56):
still got their scriptures outin front of them all the time.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Maybe there'll be a reunion one day, we know there
will be in heaven.
That's right, but maybe still onthis side of the grave.
I want to hit on something,though.
You said we didn't tell themthey could read silently, so
they read aloud.
And that takes me to Revelation1.
I'm going to read the beginningof Revelation 1 for everybody
real quick here.
This is a revelation from JesusChrist which God gave him to
(30:22):
show his servants the eventsthat must soon take place.
He sent an angel to presentthis revelation to his servant,
john, who faithfully reportedeverything he saw.
This is his report of the wordof God and the testimony of
Jesus Christ.
And then it says God blessesthe one who reads the words of
this prophecy to the church andhe blesses all who listen to its
(30:43):
message and obey what it says,for the time is near.
You know we do read the Biblesilently in our quiet time, I
think for the majority of ourlives.
And you know, brittany and Iare blessed now with three
children, and now we're readingthe Bible aloud in our home to
our kids.
And I think there's somethingdifferent in that, there's
(31:03):
something very powerful in that,obviously, teaching the Bible
and reading it aloud in a smallgroup D group we do that as well
, but you know what I mean.
It might actually be a bit of ablessing that they didn't know
about reading silently and theywere always reading aloud,
because they were all hearingeach other read aloud and
therefore they were wanting toalso be reading aloud.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
And I kind of think when you read aloud you're
forced to pay more attention towhat you're actually reading.
You know how it is when youread silently, my mind can
wander off and I'm threeparagraphs farther and I don't
even remember what they said,absolutely.
But when you're reading outloud and you're reading kind of
louder than you talk, it's kindof hard to let your mind drift
(31:43):
and, yeah, you might be ontosomething that there's some
value to that.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
That's good.
Okay, let's pivot.
That's wow.
Thank you for that part of theconversation, but let's talk
about Ethnos360, theorganization.
What are your teams lookinglike today?
Where are we working?
Just give us kind of anoverview and an update for the
listeners.
So obviously, some of the folksthat are with you are going to
hear this, and folks that arewith other orgs are going to
hear this, and folks that aren'tengaged yet at all.
(32:10):
So how does it work?
Speaker 2 (32:12):
We've been around for 85 or so years as an
organization and it started inthe early days in the 40s and
50s, more in South America, morewith the jungle dwelling types
of people groups that we've beentalking about, that I got to
live with, but from there it'sspread.
Ethos 360 is a partner in agroup of organizations that we
(32:36):
call global partners, internallysort of, and it's about 28
different countries that make upthis partnership who, just like
here in the US, they mobilizemissionaries, train missionaries
.
Training is a big core valuefor us, like we just really,
(32:58):
because of how difficult we knowit is and the challenges that
we know they're going to face,we really want to train the
missionary well.
So every sending country has atraining program.
We all kind of follow the samemodel of training because we're
training for how do you do aliteracy program?
How do you learn an unwrittenlanguage?
How do you translate thescriptures?
(33:20):
All those things are relevantacross the board.
So out of that collective groupof countries the US, you know
we've been sending them out thelongest, so the majority of the
sent out missionaries are comingfrom the US, but there's other
countries that are reallysending out a lot of
missionaries now, and out ofthat group of sending countries,
(33:46):
we're in, I think, a total ofabout 40 different countries in
the world where we have churchplanting going on Okay,
countries in the world where wehave church planting going on.
So, central and South America,west Africa, south Southern
Africa, trying to get up intosome of the more closed areas of
the world too as well, where wehave a lot of missionaries in
(34:07):
the Asia-Pacific region.
We're trying to get it intoareas in Asia too that have been
closed to the gospel.
That's probably in the last 20years or so has become more of a
focus for us, because werealize there are still, as you
guys know, lots and lots ofunreached people groups that are
(34:30):
in open parts of the worldwhere you can go in as a
messenger of the gospel and evensay that's what you are like,
where we lived.
But the majority of theunreached people groups in the
world live in places where youcan't do that, and so we've
really been working hard todevelop strategies that will
allow us to have access to thoseunreached people groups but
(34:54):
still not have to set aside ourcore methodology and values,
which are we are going to buildrelationships, we're going to
learn language at a very highproficiency level If they don't
have the scriptures in thelanguage.
We're going to put thescriptures in the language and
we're going to teachfoundationally and see a mature,
(35:15):
thriving church before we leave.
So it's you know.
We don't want to shortcut thatprocess just because we have to
use creative ways to get inthere, but those are some of the
challenges.
You know, how do you do allthat, what we just talked about?
For us that was easy in thatsense we could just go in, learn
(35:35):
language and teach the Bibleand everybody came and it was
great.
But we know that's not the casein most places in the world.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
It's just so easy.
Let's just go in and learn alanguage and then create an
alphabet and teach them to readand write and then translate the
Scriptures.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's easy, Okay all right, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I know what you mean.
It's easier when you can do itopenly, without trying to—
Easier, absolutely.
But we're not only called to dowhat's easy, and so you're
trying to find the right methodsto get where it's harder to get
to.
I would argue that that methodis very clear and it's right in
front of us and it's that thegospel is going to travel into
those places on the wings ofbusiness.
(36:17):
And it's Christ followers whorun companies and businesses
that can open offices andbranches and research centers
and farming and things like thatin those parts of the world who
are very welcome by thegovernment because they're
bringing commerce and they'rebringing sustainability to the
people.
And then we know a lot ofbusinesses that are doing this
(36:38):
well and they're not even havingto hide their faith or who they
are, because they're bringing agood that the government can
recognize, not just a good thatthe government doesn't
understand.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yes, Fair, A good or a service.
I think we're finding both ofthose Like.
There are service opportunitiesthat the governments will
welcome that may even provide anaccess that you know if you're
a businessman, obviously youhave that skill set and that's
(37:09):
going to be a natural in for you.
But there are other folks thatmight be able to provide a
service that is also verywelcome in the community but
gives them the same access.
So, yeah, I think all of thoseare kind of the areas that we're
trying to become moreproficient at as we see those
(37:33):
opportunities in front of us.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
So if someone's hearing this and they want to
get involved, so let's just saythat maybe they've been
mobilized in college or at somepoint in their life.
And, by the way, you don't haveto be in your 20s to get
excited about this.
This can be something you dolater in life, at any stage of
life.
We don't really know when wemight be called to be a goer.
We do know for an absolute factthat there's a role to play for
(37:55):
everyone who knows and lovesJesus, and it could be funding,
it could be sending, it could bepraying, it could be welcoming,
it could be any number ofcomponents.
But if you feel like you arebeing called to be a goer or you
have a company that you feellike could be useful in certain
parts of the world and you wantto partner with a trusted
organization that's going toreally handle the word well and
really honor the people groupand learn their language and
(38:17):
learn their culture and be avalue add to them, and not just
come in here like, hey, we haveall the answers and we know how
to do all this, so listen to us.
But come in here and say whoare you and what are you about
and what can we learn from you?
You can partner with Steve andEthnos.
How would they go about that?
Like, talk to their localchurch.
Hopefully their local churchhas somebody in missions,
missions is hopefully going tobe able to help them pray
(38:39):
through and process this, butthey could also engage more
directly, I would assume.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, it's probably going to depend a lot on the
stage of life that the person isat.
The first thing we would say iswhat you just said about being
very engaged in a local church,like.
One of the requirements wewould have as a sending agency
is there has to be a sendingchurch involved, a leadership of
that church that knows you, isbehind you.
Sending you out will be theavenue through which you can go,
(39:07):
but they're your real senders,you might say so.
Establish the local churchconnection.
Again, for the vast majority ofthe people that go out with us,
they're at a stage of lifewhere they're going to need some
Bible training.
We don't really want to sendchurch planters out that don't
know their scriptures very well.
(39:28):
So that can be acquired throughother really good Bible schools
, bible colleges.
We have one of our own.
They could come get their Bibletraining there and then again,
before we send anybody out, wetake them through a pretty
thorough training program that,after the Bible is taken care of
(39:51):
the Bible component, bible istaken care of the Bible
component.
Then we have a training schoolin Missouri that each of our
missionary candidates would gothrough and we get in through
all the nuts and bolts of someof the stuff we just talked
about, so our organization mightbe a little different than some
that you might be familiar with.
In that, again, this would be avalue of ours.
(40:13):
We want to send messengers ofthe gospel into context where we
feel like there's a structurein place that will give them the
best chance of being able tostay there long-term and succeed
in a church plant, and to usthat means there needs to be a
presence there.
(40:34):
And this isn't always true,because when you open a new area
, obviously it's a new area, butfor the most part, we want to
see some established veteranleadership in the area that's
going to help this newmissionary stay on the right
track, not get, you know,carried off into different
tangents.
Track, not get, you know,carried off into different
(40:57):
tangents.
So, all that to say, we wouldsay, okay, here's these regions
of the world where we haveconsultants available to help
you.
We have experiencedmissionaries available to help
coach you when you need it.
Consider these areas with yourskill set and what God's leading
you to do, and decide where youwant to go which one of those
(41:18):
do you want to engage in?
Speaker 1 (41:19):
So you don't have to do it all yourself, you don't
have to know everything.
You really just need a heart formissions, a heart to be a part
of something bigger thanyourself, a heart to be obedient
to God's call and to know thatthere's going to be a member of
every tribe, tongue and languagein heaven and you could play a
part in reaching one of thosegroups.
And so then you sign up, you'regoing to be trained, you're
(41:42):
going to have a community aroundyou, you're going to have a
team around you, you're going tohave people more experienced
than you and, having done thisas long as I have, I cannot
overstate how critical it is tohave those people.
Get a team, get well-trainedright.
Get your tribe and then findyour tribe and then go to your
(42:03):
tribe and do it together, right,steve?
Speaker 2 (42:08):
That's right and that was very well put.
And so since coming back fromthe field, I've been involved in
mobilizing for quite a fewyears before I came to to our
headquarters here.
And one thing I always want totell young people is kind of
exactly what you were saying.
You don't have to have it allfigured out, you don't have to
know how to do what you're goingto do to do.
(42:37):
If you're willing to trust Godand say, hey, I want to be
involved in reaching theunreached peoples of the world,
just like you told us to do,lord, I'll go, that's it.
Then take your first step.
Go get some Bible training andyou're going to have a couple
years in that training for theLord to continue to teach you
and grow you.
And then, if you're stillfeeling like he's directing you
to the mission field, then getthe training you're going to
(42:59):
need.
What I love about how Ethnos 360does it and I hope that doesn't
sound like I don't like howothers do it, because that isn't
how I mean it, but having doneit in this context, what I love
about it is pretty much everystep of the way there are more
experienced missionary churchplanters who are there to help
(43:25):
and guide me.
I look back on you know ourtime with Ahoti and I just am
certain that if we hadn't hadthat kind of guidance and
mentorship and leadership fromthose veterans, there's no way
there's just no way it wouldhave worked.
So the young person I findthat's their biggest fear often
(43:46):
is it sounds really cool.
I would love to do it, but Ihave no idea what that would
look like.
You don't have to.
None of us did.
I have no idea what that wouldlook like.
You don't have to.
None of us did.
None of us did Just start.
It's a very well-defined,well-thought-out process to
equip you, to send you out withwhat you need and to be there
alongside you the whole time.
(44:08):
You're doing this so that youdon't get out there and find out
well, I don't know what I'mdoing and it's way more
structured than most peoplethink.
It's not nearly as nebulous andit's not nearly as scary I want
to end on some encouragementfor you.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
So you started out today by talking about your dad,
and your dad was a pastor invocational ministry and then got
mobilized right.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Yep, that's right.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
A little while back I got reached out to by a pastor
out of California that heard thepodcast and him and his wife
flew to Austin and they met withus and we started to talk with
them and pray with them and thenintroduce them to Todd Arendt.
And Todd flew out to Californiato their church and did a
three-day conference missionweekend with their church
conference mission weekend withtheir church.
(44:51):
And more recently, a couplemonths ago, pastor Matt
Whiteford out of Modesto calledme and said my wife and I have
let our church know that we'regoing to the field and we're
working through how to changesome leadership structure with
our church and get a new leadpastor to teach on Sundays and
(45:12):
we're going to the unreached ourchurch and get a new lead
pastor to teach on Sundays.
And we're going to theunreached and our church is
supporting it.
We're going to come back whenwe can and we're going to get
behind the pulpit and we'regoing to take our church through
the stories of what we're goingto go through and walk through
this with them, with our localchurch.
And that happened not onlybecause of, but partially
because of guests on thispodcast sharing their stories.
(45:33):
And so when you have sharedwhat you've shared.
Today.
I'm going to pray, like thePsalms, that there is going to
be a result of this.
God will answer thisprayerfully.
There will be mobilization fromit.
Ethnos 360, we may have a gueston in a couple of years that
heard this episode, or even afew months, and said I reached
(45:56):
out and we were this close togoing and, by the way, that's
just one of many stories thatthis has happened in but we were
this close to going and then weheard it and we were like, okay
, good, I'm going to get a team,I'm going to get the support I
need.
I want to do something radicaland super cool with my life.
I want to be totally obedientto the Great Commission and
Jesus's last call for what wasmy role in this?
And I think it's without aquestion.
(46:17):
It's going to happen, and so Iwant to thank God today for that
answer already, because we knowthat that prayer will be
answered.
And in that spirit of prayerconversational prayer we'd love
to invite you, steve.
If you have any last thoughts,please share those.
And also, would you pray forour listeners, steve, if you
have any last thoughts.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
please share those.
And also, would you pray forour listeners?
I would love to do that andagain, I just want to say thanks
for having me on, because Iknow that what you just said is
true.
Your podcast is going to reacha lot of ears that may not have
any other opportunity to hearabout the concept of unreached
people, groups and taking thegospel to them, because there
(46:55):
still are so many in our owncountry that don't know that
such a thing exists today.
So thanks for doing what you'redoing for the cause because,
honestly, this is the beginningof the whole process.
It's people hearing about thisfor the first time, or maybe the
50th time, and God uses it tomove them a little farther along
(47:19):
or to kind of make a hugechange, like you just said.
So I really appreciate what youguys are doing and appreciate
being part of this.
I'll close this in prayer.
If you guys don't mind, I thinkI'll pray initially in the Hoti
language and then we'll switchover to English.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Oh, we'd love that.
We'd love for everybody to heara prayer in a language they've
never heard.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Let's pray to the one true God that, in see it, I am
not the only one.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
I am not the only one .
I am not the only one.
I am not the only one.
I am not the only one.
I am not the only one.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Father, thank you for who you are, for the privilege
it is to know you, to have yourword in our language, to be able
to understand what you'verevealed about yourself to us.
Our thoughts are on thoselanguages in the world that do
(48:39):
not have that privilege, whocould not open your word, do not
know your name, maybe stilldon't even have a word for you
in their language.
We lift them up to you and Ipray, especially for everyone
who is going to hear thisconversation.
I pray that you would work intheir heart, in their life, and
(49:04):
guide them into whatever way youwould want them to be involved.
Father, we know that nothing ofany value happens unless you do
it and that you respond to theprayers of your people, and
that's really what moves you todo good things in the hearts of
(49:25):
people.
And so I pray that you wouldraise up prayer warriors, and I
pray that you would raise upgivers who would say and I pray
that you would raise up giverswho would say I want to give
part of my life to make itpossible for other messengers of
the gospel to go, and that theywould provide help to provide
(49:58):
the funds that are needed, getinvolved and follow you to some
part of the world where there isa people group that doesn't
know you yet and that you woulduse them, along with others that
you bring along into that samepeople group to see the gospel
clearly communicated, understoodand a church born.
And Father, our prayer is thatin every people group that you
(50:19):
created on this earth, therewould be a thriving, functioning
, maturing, local church fromwhich the gospel could spread.
That's our prayer.
That's what we all are about,what we want to give our lives
for.
We're just so thankful that yougive us the privilege to be
part of that.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
Amen.
Thank you for listening toUnreached.
Our sincere desire is that whatyou've heard today will cause
you to see the mission of Goddifferently and your role in it
more clearly.
If this adds value for you andwe hope it does would you please
rate and review the podcastwherever you listen.
Also share with your family.
Thank you.
In Revelation 7, john shares his vision of heaven,
with members from every tribe,tongue, people and language
standing in the throne roombefore the Lamb.
Yet today there are still over7,000 unreached people groups
around the world.
For the last six years myfamily and friends have been on
a journey to find, vet and fundthe task remaining.
(00:28):
Come journey with us to theends of the earth as we share
the supernatural stories of Godat work for the men and women he
has called to reach theunreached.
Hello friends, welcome back tothe Unreached Podcast.
Dustin Elliott.
Here today, your host and I havea very special guest.
(00:50):
This is the man leading Ethnos360, one of the missionary
sending organizations that wehave partnered with.
Ethnos is the org that supportsthe Wantekea tribe.
So episode one after we did thelaunch episode with Todd Arendt
going way back to the beginning, was the crab trees and the
Wantekea.
You've also heard the Rimstadsand the Malayali people group
(01:13):
some of the absolute cooleststories that we've ever got to
tell on the pod, and it is so.
I'm so excited to have Stevehere today.
But before I get to Steve, Ijust want to comment real quick.
So a couple weeks ago we did aspecial episode drop.
We had Dr Todd Arend come toour church at Austin Ridge.
He flew in from Arkansas.
We had 180 people come to alunch and it was a lunch on the
(01:37):
mission of God.
Now, if you've heard episodezero of the pod, you've heard
kind of the short version ofTodd give this talk.
Now we have a little bit moreof an enhanced version that he
did in person here at the churchbut it was so moving.
But now we are back to ourregularly scheduled programming
and we are going to featurethree key partners there's
(01:57):
Ethnos 360, there's Pioneers andthere's GSI.
And I'm going to do a summerseries here where we're going to
feature each one, the CEO, theleader of each of those
organizations, and we're goingto get that 30,000 foot view top
down as well as the bottom up,because Steve Sanford, who's
here today, has served in anunreached people group, has been
in the field and is now leadingan organization doing so.
(02:19):
So please help me welcome Steveto the show.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Dustin, thank you very much for having me.
I am super excited about this.
We've run into each other atBless a number of times.
We love Bless.
We are so thankful for whatthey do partnering with us, so
thanks for having me.
I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
So for context, for the listeners, let's just cut a
little background on your story.
So, as I mentioned, you haveserved in a UPG, you've been a
missionary, you're now inleadership, so you've gone from
kind of the star player on thefield to the front office.
So give us just a quick, kindof not too quick but kind of
tell us your story.
How did you know the Lord?
How did you get involved inmissions?
(02:56):
Kind of bring us up to speed.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
So I was born and raised in central Pennsylvania.
I was born and raised incentral Pennsylvania.
My father was a pastor inChicago who was taken on a
missions trip by the thenpresident of New Tribes Mission,
which that's what Ethnos 360used to be called.
For those that might not know,he was taken to South America.
He saw things he did not knowexisted in the world whole
(03:20):
languages that don't have anyaccess to the gospel, and
missionaries out there living inthe jungle, literally risking
their lives for these people,and it so impacted him.
He came home, resigned hischurch, decided to go be a
missionary, joined New TribesMission.
They asked him if he would stayin the US and be a traveling
recruiter.
(03:41):
He was a very good communicatorand we didn't have a lot of
traveling.
We didn't have really anytraveling recruiters back then,
except maybe the leader of theorganization.
So he did that his whole lifeand he visited every people
group that the mission workswith.
It was over 200 at the time.
So I grew up hearing thesestories, seeing pictures of the
jungle, and I was saved prettyearly in life, led to the Lord
(04:04):
by my parents, and then justhearing my dad's stories over
the years, I was hooked.
I knew that's what I wanted tobe.
I wanted to be a missionary.
I wanted to be a missionary inthe jungle, I wanted to be
somewhere where the gospelhadn't been.
And I was particularly drawn toSouth America for some reason,
probably because in the earlydays of our organization that's
(04:24):
where the majority of the sortof really remote works were.
So we ended up.
I met my wife in Bible college.
We ended up in Venezuela, southAmerica, for the first year.
We studied the Spanish languageso that we could get around in
the country, and the leaders ofthe field started to talk to us
(04:45):
about where we might serve andthere were a number of options
where they needed another coupleand the one that they ended up
asking us to consider.
They're called the Hoti, and ifyou look them up on the internet
, that'd be spelled J-O-T-I it'sthe Spanish H you can find them
.
They were, if not the last, oneof the very last uncontacted
(05:11):
people groups, at least innorthern South America.
There's still quite a few inBrazil that are way out there
and uncontacted, but the Hotilived way up in the mountains of
south central Venezuela, aboutan hour and a half in an
airplane from any town, so it'slike way out there.
(05:32):
You couldn't really get outthere without an airplane.
You could, but you wouldn'twant to put it that way.
Right, the way they werediscovered was our mission had a
missionary team working withthe neighboring people group.
They were called the Piedoa.
The Piedoa lived down on thebig rivers, so everybody knew
they existed because anybodytraveling the big rivers you'd
(05:54):
pass Piedoa villages.
Piedoa hunters would go up intothe mountains and they would
encounter Hoti people and theirlanguages.
Though they were neighborsgeographically, their languages
were unrelated.
They started telling theirmissionaries that hey, there's
people up in those mountainsthat we don't know and we can't
talk to them, and they nicknamedthem get this.
(06:15):
This was crazy to think about.
They nicknamed the Hoti theha-ha people, and the reason
they said we call them the ha-hapeople is the sound of their
laughter, is the last thing youwill hear as they drive their
spear through you.
They're killers.
Oh, okay, so that was the rumor.
(06:37):
That's what came out of thejungle.
Wow, the leader of our missiondown there at the time.
His perspective was wow, ifthere's an uncontacted people
group up in those mountains,that's where we're going next.
They just got moved right up tothe top of the list because
clearly they've had no access tothe gospel if nobody even knows
(06:57):
they're up there.
The government of Venezueladidn't even have them on a list
of people groups.
They were so hidden they took ateam up in there.
Have them on a list of peoplegroups.
They were so hidden they took ateam up in there.
It was some missionaries andsome Piroa tribal believers and
they found them and it turnedout that the Hoti were not at
all violent.
That was a complete made-up.
(07:18):
Just that was a jungle rumor.
You know those are prettycommon.
The Hoti are probably the mostnonviolent people group you
could find on the earth.
They didn't even havestoriescloths, I mean they were,
they were kind of what I grewup dreaming about, like they
(07:49):
were the quintessential jungledwelling south american people
group, but they turned out to bethe most likable people I have
ever been around.
Oh, that's awesome and that.
That may sound like you knowthe missionary talking about the
people he lived with andexaggerating, but I'm just
(08:11):
telling you.
I like to tell people, if yougot to know them, the Hoti, and
you didn't like them, you're theproblem.
They're not the problem.
You're the problem theircuriosity about this book that
we had come there.
They were not readers.
They didn't have, you know, analphabet in their language.
(08:32):
They didn't know what readingwas.
But over time, as we learnedtheir language I say we, it was
a team, it wasn't just my wifeand I.
In fact, we joined a team thatwas already there and had a
co-worker who was also namedSteve.
He was the first outsider toever learn the language.
They were monolingual, so youcouldn't ask them any questions
(08:53):
in Spanish or English.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Oh, so they didn't know the trade language or
anything either, right, theydidn't even know they lived in a
country that speaks Spanish.
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So none of them spoke any Spanish.
But my co-worker was extremelygifted in language.
He grew up as a missionary kidin Indonesia and learned.
By the time he got to the Hotihe had learned five languages
fluently, so he was the perfectguy to crack the language.
I would have never cracked itin 10 lifetimes I'm not ashamed
(09:21):
to admit that but with mycoworker's help I was able to
learn it quite fluently.
As we've learned the language,we developed an alphabet for
them.
We taught them how to read.
They really wanted to know howto read.
I mean, they saw the effects ofreading.
You could send a note back toyour wife way out in the jungle
(09:43):
and tell her you're hungry andshe makes a sandwich for you and
sends it back.
And you know, you can predictthat that's exactly what's going
to happen.
If you take this note to mywife, she's going to make a
sandwich and give it to you tobring back to me, and those kind
of things just really created acuriosity about reading, really
(10:08):
created a curiosity aboutreading.
So the whole village it was avillage of about 150 people at
the time, a people group ofabout 2,500, the best we can
guess throughout the jungle butin that village about 150.
They all wanted to learn how toread.
So we picked the 10 bestteachers, taught them how to
read, took about three months togo through the course.
They all became readers.
And then we said you guys, youguys are gonna have to teach
(10:29):
everybody else.
There's only two, two or threeof us.
We can't, you know, teacheverybody.
So they took that on and theystarted teaching everybody else.
So the whole village becameliterate within the space of I
don't know a year, maybe, maybetwo years at the most.
And then, by the time we hadtranslated enough scripture to
(10:51):
start teaching, everybody couldread.
So we could get up front andsay okay, you guys, this isn't
our message, this isn't ouropinion.
We're going to read to you fromthe book that the Creator
authored Everything in.
It is true, it has the answersto every question you've ever
wondered about.
You know, where did the Hoticome from, and why are we here?
(11:11):
And why do our kids get sickand why do they die?
What happens when they die?
All those questions you'vealways wondered.
This book has the answer, andthey were.
So, again, it's going to soundlike I'm exaggerating.
Please, you're going to have totrust me, I'm not.
It's almost impossible tooverstate how much they wanted
(11:31):
to hear what this book says.
So they told us.
One day they came to us theysaid hey, you guys, before you
start teaching, we want threemonths notice because we want
time to build one roof that'sbig enough for everybody to fit
under it in the whole valley,because it rains a lot here and
when it rains we don't want youto stop telling us what this
(11:52):
book says.
So, sure enough, they did that.
And then, you know, everybodycame about.
150 people came every day.
We started.
You know, in the beginning God,they didn't even have a word for
God in their language.
They didn't have a concept ofbeginning God.
They didn't even have a wordfor God in their language.
They didn't have a concept of acreator God.
They knew a lot about thespirit realm.
They interacted with the spiritrealm very actively, believed
(12:14):
they could manipulate it andcontrol it, but a creator.
So we had to come up with aterm for God.
The word for God in Houthi ismukeddeha, that's how you say
God, and the term literallymeans best way.
I guess I could say it inEnglish would be the one who
exceeds all others, the supremeone.
(12:35):
That would be another good wayyou could translate it.
So it's the first time they'veheard his name and we introduced
him.
And then we just startedteaching through Genesis and on
through the scriptures, layingthe foundations of who God is,
what he's like, who man is.
And I got to take a breath hereand stop talking.
(12:56):
I got to let you guys talk alittle bit.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
No, no, no.
Nobody wants to hear me talk.
Nobody wants to hear me talk.
I will say this, though this isa playbook, I'm listening to
you tell this story, and we'veheard the Crabtrees tell this
story, and we've heard theRemstads tell this story, and
those that are serving underyour tutelage and leadership now
, and it's just a process that'sbeen built and refined over
(13:20):
time.
You find these groups.
They don't have a writtenlanguage.
You create, you learn theirlanguage.
You create their language.
You teach them to read andwrite their language.
Just hearing you tell thisstory, I just I'm just like this
is a playbook.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
One day I just went through the first chapter of
Romans and I started writingdown the words in the first
chapter of Romans that did notexist in the Hothi language.
Not because their language wasinferior, trust me, it was not.
They have 50 words for our oneEnglish word it Whoa.
So if you want to say what isit in their language, which is
(13:55):
like the first question you wantto be able to ask, you have to
know which category of theroughly 55 pronouns that that
object you're pointing at fitsinto, or you can't correctly ask
the question.
Whoa, it's not random, it's allprecise.
It has to do with shape ortexture or color perhaps.
So it's a very complex language, but they didn't have words for
(14:16):
love, peace, justification,sanctity, obviously a lot of
those theological words theydidn't have, but even ones they
did not have a word for love.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, you hear that a lot of those theological words
they didn't have, but even ones.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
They did not have a word for love.
Yeah, you hear that a lot.
They did not say I love you.
So here's, here's.
This is how we stumbled on theword for love.
They had a word in theirlanguage that that we would
translate into english lust,because it's the only way they
used the word Got it.
They only used it in a negativecontext of a person wanting
something that's not theirs.
(14:48):
But the literal meaning of theword just means to look upon
with a strong desire, for that'sreally what it literally means.
So one day we asked him.
We said, well, could Godweh-yow somebody that's the word
god weh yow somebody, that'sthe word weh yow could god do
(15:09):
that?
And if so, what would that mean?
They said, oh sure god could doit.
Uh, and and would it be a goodthing or a bad thing?
Well, they said well, god onlydoes good.
So if god weh yow somebody,that that's good.
He just, he just wants them forhimself himself.
He has a strong desire for themfor himself.
And so we discovered that wordcan actually be used for love.
(15:31):
Quite well, it just was neverused that way in their language.
I don't take credit for that.
That was my much smartercoworker that figured all that
out and he was so good atpredicting how the Hoti would
say a new concept likejustification, or a lot of them
that are way more basic thanthat, and that's how the
translation went forward.
(15:54):
You know he would figure outhow they would say it.
Try it out with a few people.
If it works, that's your newterm and on you go.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
So for the listeners, if you do Google the people
group, like he says, the firstthing that pops up, of course,
is the Joshua Project.
And if you don't know about theJoshua Project, that's
basically a database of all thepeople groups on Earth, their
current population, the currentpredominant religion, the
progress of reaching them andjust a little bit about them.
(16:22):
And according to Joshua Project, the Hoti are now 30% Christian
.
Does that sound about right,steve?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Actually it doesn't, because I would put the number
quite a bit higher than thattoday.
And here's why, when we livedwith them, we shared the gospel
with that group of 150.
And here's why, when we livedwith them, we shared the gospel
with that group of 150.
That group embraced the gospel.
At that time we had about 150believers.
Pretty much the whole villageembraced it.
When we finally got through thedeath, burial and resurrection,
(16:55):
we decided you know, let's letthem all go home, think about
what they heard, and we'll justgo around and have conversations
with everybody.
We didn't want to ask for likea collective who believes, raise
your hand type thing Not thatthat would have been wrong.
We just decided let's just haveindividual conversations.
We did that and through that itbecame clear that the gospel
(17:20):
was very clearly understood.
They had collectively embracedit.
There was about 150 believersat that time.
So when we were going aroundhouse to house we'd say so.
So Ralph, you know that was oneof my closest neighbors, ralph.
His Houthi name is Uli alaBalat, but Ralph is easier, so
we'll call him Ralph.
(17:40):
Ralph is the most likable humanbeing, truly, I think I've ever
known in my life.
He was about 55 maybe when heheard the gospel, so we'd go
into his house, or the other guyyou'd say so just tell me what
you think about what you heard.
On Friday, or whatever day thatwas, we shared the gospel
finally, which took about a year, by the way, from Genesis to
(18:02):
the gospel, to get througheverything they needed to
understand and to thetestimonies that I really
remember.
One guy said I'll tell you whatI think.
I think Jesus is just likeNoah's Ark, and he said I'm
getting in the boat.
Okay, so here's a guy who'strying to communicate his faith
(18:25):
in Christ, but he doesn't have aformulaic way to say it that he
knows we're hoping to hear.
So he goes back to an OldTestament story that he knows
was a picture of the comingredeemer, because as we taught
it we, we included thatcomponent.
Look, if you wanted to be safefrom the wrath of god that was
to come, you had to be sealed upinside that ark and god shut
(18:46):
the door.
And once you're shut up insidethere, you're safe, and that's
what that coming redeemer isgoing to be like for us.
We're going to have to, we'regoing to have to get inside Him
somehow if we want to be safe,you know.
And of course, then you buildon all these concepts and you
have the sacrificial system andthe shed blood of the innocent
lamb that's over and over andover through the Old Testament,
(19:07):
by the time you get to the cross.
The Hoti were so well preparedfor that, not because of the
missionaries, but because of theway God's word lays out the
story.
They were so well prepared forthat that it all just came
together and it fit like apuzzle.
So this guy is trying tocommunicate his faith and he
says Noah's ark, that's Jesusand I'm getting inside the boat.
(19:32):
I thought that is a really coolway to say it.
And I remember another guysaying he hearkened back to
Jacob's ladder that story and hesaid I think Jesus is the
stairway man.
That's what he called him.
He's the stairway man and I'mgetting back to God by the
stairway man, which, again, thatwas another picture of Jesus in
(19:53):
the Old Testament.
Jesus even said you know, toNathaniel I think it was you'll
see the angels of heavenascending and descending on the
son of man, and all the Hotiheard that and they're like well
, that's Jacob's ladder, youknow.
What was really exciting, Ithink, as I look back on the
time with them, we had six moreyears after they became
(20:15):
believers.
We had six years with them asmissionaries before we were
expelled by the government.
And we were expelled forreasons that you know.
It was believed that we wereworking for the US government
and that kind of thing.
It wasn't a religiousnecessarily reason, it was more
of a political reason.
But in that six years thosewere my favorite.
(20:39):
Those were my favorite yearswith the Hoti because even
though they embraced the gospelcollectively and they were so
trusting and their faith was sopure and like childlike faith,
it was so fun to see.
But then watching faith it wasso fun to see.
(20:59):
But then watching God's Spiritwho is now living in them start
to work and live out throughthese brand new believers and
you start seeing them doingspiritual work.
And there was a period again Isound like I'm exaggerating but
I'm not there was a period oflike three years in their early
development as a church where asmissionaries you really
(21:20):
couldn't even keep up with sortof following what god was doing
through their group.
It was happening in so manydifferent realms with so many
different people and you, you'djust be hearing.
You know, did you hear whatso-and-so is doing?
No, what's he doing, you know,and you find out he's doing some
(21:41):
Holy Spirit-led, inspired work.
And you hear another one thenext day, and you hear another
one the next day.
And I remember thinking inthose days you know, if we had
50 missionaries here trying tomanipulate this, we could not
manipulate this kind of activity.
This is before our very eyes,god's Spirit doing spiritual
(22:05):
work through the lives of peoplewho didn't even know the gospel
five months ago.
You know that started a periodof growth where they were
growing well as a church.
But the hardest part for them,as I look back, was the notion
(22:25):
of taking the gospel outward toothers.
And it wasn't because theydidn't think that was the right
thing to do, it was because theywere afraid to do that.
They just didn't believe theycould do it.
But over a few years throughthere were some circumstances.
God used some incrediblestories really of what God used
(22:45):
to get them over that fear.
And once they got over thatfear they became avid
evangelists.
And the way it would work backthen Hoti people out in the
surrounding jungle.
They were still very, you know,untouched by the outside world
out there, and they would comeinto the valley at times, you
(23:09):
know, in part, I think, becausethey had heard this God talk
that's going on here like whatis this?
So whenever a new family wouldcome into the valley, one of the
Hutki believers would kind ofput their hand up and say I'll
take them, they're myresponsibility, and they would
(23:30):
invite them into their home.
They'd teach them literacyfirst so they could read, so
that then they could teach themthrough the scriptures, just
like they were taught.
And so there was these littlein-house evangelistic outreaches
going on, and then thatdeveloped into taking the gospel
out to further and furtherlittle villages and ultimately
(23:51):
to the other really big villagein their world, which was a
10-day hike to the north.
There was a lot of resistanceup there to the gospel for a
number of years.
In fact it wasn't until wellafter we were gone that they
finally got access up there.
And we've been able to followthis through bits and pieces.
We get you know of informationfrom the jungle pieces.
(24:13):
We get you know of informationfrom the jungle and okay.
So the best I can calculate andthis is take this with a grain
of salt, because we don't livethere, but with the information
we're getting from the jungle, Iwould estimate that there has
to be well over a thousandbelievers in that language group
today and we don't know thetotal population believers in
(24:35):
that language group today and wedon't know the total population
.
So they say 30% and I'm notsaying their information is
inaccurate, it's just probablywe haven't updated it, you know,
recently.
So I would long answer.
I would put it up more like 50%, maybe, maybe more.
It's hard to say because Ireally do believe that they have
taken the gospel to everycorner of their language group.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
You just went through kind of like the habits of a
global Christian and this tribeis living them out like so
obediently, so well, like I gotthem, I'm going to welcome them
into my home, I'm going to teachthem the language.
I'm going to teach them thescriptures.
Do we do that in Texas?
Do to teach them the scriptures.
Do we do that in Texas?
Do we do that in Florida?
Do we do that in WesternChristianity?
(25:19):
I mean, how often do we openour home?
I mean we have people from allsorts of people, groups around
the world coming over here to goto college and work, and how
often are we doing that?
And I just think of howobedient they're being.
And man, it's veryinspirational right to kind of
check all of our hearts orstomachs, depending on which
tribe you're in, and go like amI living that out?
(25:40):
Could I be doing more Right?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yes, and honestly, I saw a lot of that living with
them.
It wasn't just their sort oftheir evangelism heart sort of
their evangelism heart but, forexample, I heard my whole life
growing up.
You know God's Word is our foodIf we want to grow and mature
(26:05):
in the Lord.
We got to be studying His Wordand it was in living with the
Houthi young church that Irealized I've heard that but I
don't believe it because I don'tdo what they're doing.
There was that whole period ofsix years we had before we had
to leave.
Okay, they were getting moreand more scripture.
My coworker, steve, wastranslating for them.
(26:27):
They were getting more and morescripture.
But those people, when they werenot out and about, you know,
working in their garden orfishing or hunting, when they
were back in the hut thescriptures came out and they'd
be laying in their hut.
You know, and it might just be,you know, they just got chapter
two of Acts or something andit's one page but they're
(26:49):
reading it.
It and what I found kind offunny as I was in that phase
with them walking around thevillage, you know, you'd walk by
a guy's house and you couldhear through the door man, he's
reading.
He's in, he's in Matthew.
I can tell where he's at, youknow, and you walk down the
trail.
Another guy, oh, he's in Acts.
(27:10):
At that stage in theirdevelopment they never read
silently, they always read outloud and their reading voice was
louder than their talking voice.
I think we forgot when we wereteaching literacy.
We forgot to tell them that youknow, you can read silently,
because it took a number ofyears to kind of get to that.
But they're, they're justhunger for the word.
And here's what launched it all, I believe, their hunger for
(27:32):
the word.
When they first becamebelievers, we, we talked to them
about how does a believer grow?
The Bible says you're all babesin Christ.
Do you guys want to stay babesforever?
Do you want to grow up and beadult sons and daughters?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
in a family Eat some steak.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, yeah, you want to have some real food.
Well, we didn't get to the foodyet.
We're just talking about.
You want to be adults?
And yes, of course we do.
And so we talked about you knowhow does a Hoti baby grow up to
be a healthy adult?
He's got to eat the right food.
And we said what food does aChristian eat to grow up to be
(28:08):
an adult?
And honestly, because you and Ihave heard that illustration
our whole life, we immediatelyknow what he's going after.
They had no idea and I think youknow their their wheels were
turning and I I think they weretrying to figure out what food
we fly in on that airplane thatthey haven't had before.
You know, that makes you cropspiritual and and you get to
(28:28):
introduce that concept of youguys have a bunch of god's word
in your language, that's ourfood, and they believed that to
the extent that they fed on itevery day and that, coupled with
another key component, I think,in their early understanding as
believers, we were able tointroduce them to the concept of
(28:50):
the walk of faith and theydidn't have a bunch of Christian
baggage that we had to weed out, a bunch of works Christianity.
They just wanted to know howdoes a believer live in a way
that pleases God?
And we got to introduce theconcept of faith.
It's taught very clearly in theNew Testament.
It's taught very clearly in theOld Testament.
We said you guys, if you willlive by faith and you will trust
(29:13):
God, his Spirit lives in you.
If you'll trust Him to live Hislife out through you and lead
you and guide you, he will doamazing things through you.
And if you'll feed on His Word,you'll grow up, you'll think
more like Him, you'll becomemore of His co-worker.
And they took those two truthsand it launched them on this
(29:35):
trajectory of growth.
That was just amazing to watch.
And again we've been.
You know, we we only had sixmore years with them, so I can't
say for sure how that's stillgoing, but the, the pieces of
information we get from them andpictures we even get show guys
(29:56):
still got their scriptures outin front of them all the time.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Maybe there'll be a reunion one day, we know there
will be in heaven.
That's right, but maybe still onthis side of the grave.
I want to hit on something,though.
You said we didn't tell themthey could read silently, so
they read aloud.
And that takes me to Revelation1.
I'm going to read the beginningof Revelation 1 for everybody
real quick here.
This is a revelation from JesusChrist which God gave him to
(30:22):
show his servants the eventsthat must soon take place.
He sent an angel to presentthis revelation to his servant,
john, who faithfully reportedeverything he saw.
This is his report of the wordof God and the testimony of
Jesus Christ.
And then it says God blessesthe one who reads the words of
this prophecy to the church andhe blesses all who listen to its
(30:43):
message and obey what it says,for the time is near.
You know we do read the Biblesilently in our quiet time, I
think for the majority of ourlives.
And you know, brittany and Iare blessed now with three
children, and now we're readingthe Bible aloud in our home to
our kids.
And I think there's somethingdifferent in that, there's
(31:03):
something very powerful in that,obviously, teaching the Bible
and reading it aloud in a smallgroup D group we do that as well
, but you know what I mean.
It might actually be a bit of ablessing that they didn't know
about reading silently and theywere always reading aloud,
because they were all hearingeach other read aloud and
therefore they were wanting toalso be reading aloud.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
And I kind of think when you read aloud you're
forced to pay more attention towhat you're actually reading.
You know how it is when youread silently, my mind can
wander off and I'm threeparagraphs farther and I don't
even remember what they said,absolutely.
But when you're reading outloud and you're reading kind of
louder than you talk, it's kindof hard to let your mind drift
(31:43):
and, yeah, you might be ontosomething that there's some
value to that.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
That's good.
Okay, let's pivot.
That's wow.
Thank you for that part of theconversation, but let's talk
about Ethnos360, theorganization.
What are your teams lookinglike today?
Where are we working?
Just give us kind of anoverview and an update for the
listeners.
So obviously, some of the folksthat are with you are going to
hear this, and folks that arewith other orgs are going to
hear this, and folks that aren'tengaged yet at all.
(32:10):
So how does it work?
Speaker 2 (32:12):
We've been around for 85 or so years as an
organization and it started inthe early days in the 40s and
50s, more in South America, morewith the jungle dwelling types
of people groups that we've beentalking about, that I got to
live with, but from there it'sspread.
Ethos 360 is a partner in agroup of organizations that we
(32:36):
call global partners, internallysort of, and it's about 28
different countries that make upthis partnership who, just like
here in the US, they mobilizemissionaries, train missionaries
.
Training is a big core valuefor us, like we just really,
(32:58):
because of how difficult we knowit is and the challenges that
we know they're going to face,we really want to train the
missionary well.
So every sending country has atraining program.
We all kind of follow the samemodel of training because we're
training for how do you do aliteracy program?
How do you learn an unwrittenlanguage?
How do you translate thescriptures?
(33:20):
All those things are relevantacross the board.
So out of that collective groupof countries the US, you know
we've been sending them out thelongest, so the majority of the
sent out missionaries are comingfrom the US, but there's other
countries that are reallysending out a lot of
missionaries now, and out ofthat group of sending countries,
(33:46):
we're in, I think, a total ofabout 40 different countries in
the world where we have churchplanting going on Okay,
countries in the world where wehave church planting going on.
So, central and South America,west Africa, south Southern
Africa, trying to get up intosome of the more closed areas of
the world too as well, where wehave a lot of missionaries in
(34:07):
the Asia-Pacific region.
We're trying to get it intoareas in Asia too that have been
closed to the gospel.
That's probably in the last 20years or so has become more of a
focus for us, because werealize there are still, as you
guys know, lots and lots ofunreached people groups that are
(34:30):
in open parts of the worldwhere you can go in as a
messenger of the gospel and evensay that's what you are like,
where we lived.
But the majority of theunreached people groups in the
world live in places where youcan't do that, and so we've
really been working hard todevelop strategies that will
allow us to have access to thoseunreached people groups but
(34:54):
still not have to set aside ourcore methodology and values,
which are we are going to buildrelationships, we're going to
learn language at a very highproficiency level If they don't
have the scriptures in thelanguage.
We're going to put thescriptures in the language and
we're going to teachfoundationally and see a mature,
(35:15):
thriving church before we leave.
So it's you know.
We don't want to shortcut thatprocess just because we have to
use creative ways to get inthere, but those are some of the
challenges.
You know, how do you do allthat, what we just talked about?
For us that was easy in thatsense we could just go in, learn
(35:35):
language and teach the Bibleand everybody came and it was
great.
But we know that's not the casein most places in the world.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
It's just so easy.
Let's just go in and learn alanguage and then create an
alphabet and teach them to readand write and then translate the
Scriptures.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's easy, Okay all right, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I know what you mean.
It's easier when you can do itopenly, without trying to—
Easier, absolutely.
But we're not only called to dowhat's easy, and so you're
trying to find the right methodsto get where it's harder to get
to.
I would argue that that methodis very clear and it's right in
front of us and it's that thegospel is going to travel into
those places on the wings ofbusiness.
(36:17):
And it's Christ followers whorun companies and businesses
that can open offices andbranches and research centers
and farming and things like thatin those parts of the world who
are very welcome by thegovernment because they're
bringing commerce and they'rebringing sustainability to the
people.
And then we know a lot ofbusinesses that are doing this
(36:38):
well and they're not even havingto hide their faith or who they
are, because they're bringing agood that the government can
recognize, not just a good thatthe government doesn't
understand.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yes, Fair, A good or a service.
I think we're finding both ofthose Like.
There are service opportunitiesthat the governments will
welcome that may even provide anaccess that you know if you're
a businessman, obviously youhave that skill set and that's
(37:09):
going to be a natural in for you.
But there are other folks thatmight be able to provide a
service that is also verywelcome in the community but
gives them the same access.
So, yeah, I think all of thoseare kind of the areas that we're
trying to become moreproficient at as we see those
(37:33):
opportunities in front of us.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
So if someone's hearing this and they want to
get involved, so let's just saythat maybe they've been
mobilized in college or at somepoint in their life.
And, by the way, you don't haveto be in your 20s to get
excited about this.
This can be something you dolater in life, at any stage of
life.
We don't really know when wemight be called to be a goer.
We do know for an absolute factthat there's a role to play for
(37:55):
everyone who knows and lovesJesus, and it could be funding,
it could be sending, it could bepraying, it could be welcoming,
it could be any number ofcomponents.
But if you feel like you arebeing called to be a goer or you
have a company that you feellike could be useful in certain
parts of the world and you wantto partner with a trusted
organization that's going toreally handle the word well and
really honor the people groupand learn their language and
(38:17):
learn their culture and be avalue add to them, and not just
come in here like, hey, we haveall the answers and we know how
to do all this, so listen to us.
But come in here and say whoare you and what are you about
and what can we learn from you?
You can partner with Steve andEthnos.
How would they go about that?
Like, talk to their localchurch.
Hopefully their local churchhas somebody in missions,
missions is hopefully going tobe able to help them pray
(38:39):
through and process this, butthey could also engage more
directly, I would assume.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, it's probably going to depend a lot on the
stage of life that the person isat.
The first thing we would say iswhat you just said about being
very engaged in a local church,like.
One of the requirements wewould have as a sending agency
is there has to be a sendingchurch involved, a leadership of
that church that knows you, isbehind you.
Sending you out will be theavenue through which you can go,
(39:07):
but they're your real senders,you might say so.
Establish the local churchconnection.
Again, for the vast majority ofthe people that go out with us,
they're at a stage of lifewhere they're going to need some
Bible training.
We don't really want to sendchurch planters out that don't
know their scriptures very well.
(39:28):
So that can be acquired throughother really good Bible schools
, bible colleges.
We have one of our own.
They could come get their Bibletraining there and then again,
before we send anybody out, wetake them through a pretty
thorough training program that,after the Bible is taken care of
(39:51):
the Bible component, bible istaken care of the Bible
component.
Then we have a training schoolin Missouri that each of our
missionary candidates would gothrough and we get in through
all the nuts and bolts of someof the stuff we just talked
about, so our organization mightbe a little different than some
that you might be familiar with.
In that, again, this would be avalue of ours.
(40:13):
We want to send messengers ofthe gospel into context where we
feel like there's a structurein place that will give them the
best chance of being able tostay there long-term and succeed
in a church plant, and to usthat means there needs to be a
presence there.
(40:34):
And this isn't always true,because when you open a new area
, obviously it's a new area, butfor the most part, we want to
see some established veteranleadership in the area that's
going to help this newmissionary stay on the right
track, not get, you know,carried off into different
tangents.
Track, not get, you know,carried off into different
(40:57):
tangents.
So, all that to say, we wouldsay, okay, here's these regions
of the world where we haveconsultants available to help
you.
We have experiencedmissionaries available to help
coach you when you need it.
Consider these areas with yourskill set and what God's leading
you to do, and decide where youwant to go which one of those
(41:18):
do you want to engage in?
Speaker 1 (41:19):
So you don't have to do it all yourself, you don't
have to know everything.
You really just need a heart formissions, a heart to be a part
of something bigger thanyourself, a heart to be obedient
to God's call and to know thatthere's going to be a member of
every tribe, tongue and languagein heaven and you could play a
part in reaching one of thosegroups.
And so then you sign up, you'regoing to be trained, you're
(41:42):
going to have a community aroundyou, you're going to have a
team around you, you're going tohave people more experienced
than you and, having done thisas long as I have, I cannot
overstate how critical it is tohave those people.
Get a team, get well-trainedright.
Get your tribe and then findyour tribe and then go to your
(42:03):
tribe and do it together, right,steve?
Speaker 2 (42:08):
That's right and that was very well put.
And so since coming back fromthe field, I've been involved in
mobilizing for quite a fewyears before I came to to our
headquarters here.
And one thing I always want totell young people is kind of
exactly what you were saying.
You don't have to have it allfigured out, you don't have to
know how to do what you're goingto do to do.
(42:37):
If you're willing to trust Godand say, hey, I want to be
involved in reaching theunreached peoples of the world,
just like you told us to do,lord, I'll go, that's it.
Then take your first step.
Go get some Bible training andyou're going to have a couple
years in that training for theLord to continue to teach you
and grow you.
And then, if you're stillfeeling like he's directing you
to the mission field, then getthe training you're going to
(42:59):
need.
What I love about how Ethnos 360does it and I hope that doesn't
sound like I don't like howothers do it, because that isn't
how I mean it, but having doneit in this context, what I love
about it is pretty much everystep of the way there are more
experienced missionary churchplanters who are there to help
(43:25):
and guide me.
I look back on you know ourtime with Ahoti and I just am
certain that if we hadn't hadthat kind of guidance and
mentorship and leadership fromthose veterans, there's no way
there's just no way it wouldhave worked.
So the young person I findthat's their biggest fear often
(43:46):
is it sounds really cool.
I would love to do it, but Ihave no idea what that would
look like.
You don't have to.
None of us did.
I have no idea what that wouldlook like.
You don't have to.
None of us did.
None of us did Just start.
It's a very well-defined,well-thought-out process to
equip you, to send you out withwhat you need and to be there
alongside you the whole time.
(44:08):
You're doing this so that youdon't get out there and find out
well, I don't know what I'mdoing and it's way more
structured than most peoplethink.
It's not nearly as nebulous andit's not nearly as scary I want
to end on some encouragementfor you.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
So you started out today by talking about your dad,
and your dad was a pastor invocational ministry and then got
mobilized right.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Yep, that's right.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
A little while back I got reached out to by a pastor
out of California that heard thepodcast and him and his wife
flew to Austin and they met withus and we started to talk with
them and pray with them and thenintroduce them to Todd Arendt.
And Todd flew out to Californiato their church and did a
three-day conference missionweekend with their church
conference mission weekend withtheir church.
(44:51):
And more recently, a couplemonths ago, pastor Matt
Whiteford out of Modesto calledme and said my wife and I have
let our church know that we'regoing to the field and we're
working through how to changesome leadership structure with
our church and get a new leadpastor to teach on Sundays and
(45:12):
we're going to the unreached ourchurch and get a new lead
pastor to teach on Sundays.
And we're going to theunreached and our church is
supporting it.
We're going to come back whenwe can and we're going to get
behind the pulpit and we'regoing to take our church through
the stories of what we're goingto go through and walk through
this with them, with our localchurch.
And that happened not onlybecause of, but partially
because of guests on thispodcast sharing their stories.
(45:33):
And so when you have sharedwhat you've shared.
Today.
I'm going to pray, like thePsalms, that there is going to
be a result of this.
God will answer thisprayerfully.
There will be mobilization fromit.
Ethnos 360, we may have a gueston in a couple of years that
heard this episode, or even afew months, and said I reached
(45:56):
out and we were this close togoing and, by the way, that's
just one of many stories thatthis has happened in but we were
this close to going and then weheard it and we were like, okay
, good, I'm going to get a team,I'm going to get the support I
need.
I want to do something radicaland super cool with my life.
I want to be totally obedientto the Great Commission and
Jesus's last call for what wasmy role in this?
And I think it's without aquestion.
(46:17):
It's going to happen, and so Iwant to thank God today for that
answer already, because we knowthat that prayer will be
answered.
And in that spirit of prayerconversational prayer we'd love
to invite you, steve.
If you have any last thoughts,please share those.
And also, would you pray forour listeners, steve, if you
have any last thoughts.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
please share those.
And also, would you pray forour listeners?
I would love to do that andagain, I just want to say thanks
for having me on, because Iknow that what you just said is
true.
Your podcast is going to reacha lot of ears that may not have
any other opportunity to hearabout the concept of unreached
people, groups and taking thegospel to them, because there
(46:55):
still are so many in our owncountry that don't know that
such a thing exists today.
So thanks for doing what you'redoing for the cause because,
honestly, this is the beginningof the whole process.
It's people hearing about thisfor the first time, or maybe the
50th time, and God uses it tomove them a little farther along
(47:19):
or to kind of make a hugechange, like you just said.
So I really appreciate what youguys are doing and appreciate
being part of this.
I'll close this in prayer.
If you guys don't mind, I thinkI'll pray initially in the Hoti
language and then we'll switchover to English.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Oh, we'd love that.
We'd love for everybody to heara prayer in a language they've
never heard.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Let's pray to the one true God that, in see it, I am
not the only one.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
I am not the only one .
I am not the only one.
I am not the only one.
I am not the only one.
I am not the only one.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Father, thank you for who you are, for the privilege
it is to know you, to have yourword in our language, to be able
to understand what you'verevealed about yourself to us.
Our thoughts are on thoselanguages in the world that do
(48:39):
not have that privilege, whocould not open your word, do not
know your name, maybe stilldon't even have a word for you
in their language.
We lift them up to you and Ipray, especially for everyone
who is going to hear thisconversation.
I pray that you would work intheir heart, in their life, and
(49:04):
guide them into whatever way youwould want them to be involved.
Father, we know that nothing ofany value happens unless you do
it and that you respond to theprayers of your people, and
that's really what moves you todo good things in the hearts of
(49:25):
people.
And so I pray that you wouldraise up prayer warriors, and I
pray that you would raise upgivers who would say and I pray
that you would raise up giverswho would say I want to give
part of my life to make itpossible for other messengers of
the gospel to go, and that theywould provide help to provide
(49:58):
the funds that are needed, getinvolved and follow you to some
part of the world where there isa people group that doesn't
know you yet and that you woulduse them, along with others that
you bring along into that samepeople group to see the gospel
clearly communicated, understoodand a church born.
And Father, our prayer is thatin every people group that you
(50:19):
created on this earth, therewould be a thriving, functioning
, maturing, local church fromwhich the gospel could spread.
That's our prayer.
That's what we all are about,what we want to give our lives
for.
We're just so thankful that yougive us the privilege to be
part of that.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
Amen.
Thank you for listening toUnreached.
Our sincere desire is that whatyou've heard today will cause
you to see the mission of Goddifferently and your role in it
more clearly.
If this adds value for you andwe hope it does would you please
rate and review the podcastwherever you listen.
Also share with your family.
Thank you.
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