September 18, 2024 • 37 mins
Can a high school challenge change the trajectory of your entire life? Jason Kuhlman, a passionate leader from STUMO (Student Mobilization), shares how a simple nudge from a friend in Oklahoma set him on a path of profound faith and global mission work. From his pivotal college years at the University of Oklahoma to his current leadership role, Jason sheds light on how college ministries can shape future missionaries and marketplace leaders, underscoring the transformative power of reaching students during their most formative years. He also touches on the critical importance of the 1040 window and STUMO's expansive global outreach.
When COVID-19 upended plans, the story took an unexpected turn. Jason recounts the dramatic evacuation from China to Japan amidst a burgeoning pandemic, sharing the logistical and emotional trials faced while navigating parenthood and leadership in a foreign land. This chapter is a testament to the resilience and faith required during life's most unforeseen changes. Through heartfelt prayers, we offer solace and encouragement to listeners navigating their own uncertainties, reinforcing the belief that God's plan is always at work, even in the most chaotic times. Join us for an episode filled with inspiration, faith, and unwavering trust in God's guidance.
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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, dustin Elliotthere, your host for the
Unreached podcast.
We are back with another reallygood friend of mine, jason
(00:50):
Kuhlman.
Jason is a leader within theorganization of STUMO Student
Mobilization.
He and his wife have committedtheir lives to mobilizing
college students to the nations,helping college students
understand and process what it'slike to go into the marketplace
as a Christ follower.
He's also been a missionaryhimself and has been out in the
field, and I'm so fired up.
(01:11):
Friends, help me welcome JasonKuhlman.
Hey, dustin, thanks for thatintroduction.
Listen, we're in Austin and, myLonghorn friends, we got a
Sooner in the house today.
Okay, clint's over here withhis horns up.
It is football season, we justkicked off, but there's mission
fields in Oklahoma too, give usyour story downtown Austin, you
know.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Growing up, you know we went to church, but I really
had a hard time connecting whatwe were doing on Sundays to life
(01:52):
.
And so I was the youngest ofthree.
I had an older brother, oldersister, and you know they were
popular and great at sports andsocial, and so as I watched them
growing up as the youngest, Ireally thought to myself well, I
want to be that, that's whatbrings fulfillment.
So I just dumped myself intoall those things and just found
it really unsatisfying.
(02:13):
I had a buddy who actually,late in high school, he came to
me and he said hey, a guy likeyou, if you came to Christ, you
could really influence peopletowards Jesus.
And I thought to myself well,what do you mean?
Come to Christ?
I grew, I grew up in OklahomaLike, of course I'm a Christian,
and it really challenged me toopen the Bible for the first
(02:34):
time.
And I started reading the bookof John and I'm reading what
Jesus says about what it lookslike to follow him.
And it's like a mirror, youknow it's.
I'm just seeing myself in thisstory and I'm not seeing myself
as a follower of Christ.
And it really flipped my worldupside down and I uh, ended up
(02:55):
deciding, hey, I want to followJesus for a lifetime.
And I use that, that phrase,follow Jesus.
I think you know, inevangelical America, the idea of
commit your life to Christ orpray a prayer.
You know Jesus doesn't reallyuse that language.
You know he uses the languageof follow me.
It is a one-time decision thatyou make.
That should influence everydecision thereafter, and not
(03:17):
that we do it perfectly.
And certainly I'm, you know, asthe apostle Paul says, the
chief of sinners.
But there's been the ongoingdesire to continue to follow the
Lord till the end.
And so I went to college, playedsports originally, ended up
transferring to the Universityof Oklahoma after, you know, my
freshman year, and I rushed tofraternity and a guy came and
(03:38):
knocked on the door and he said,hey, you know, I'm here to help
guys grow in their faith and doBible studies, and.
And I said, hey, man, this is afraternity, like that's not
really why we joined theseplaces.
And uh, he said, yeah, you know, but there might be some guys.
And I said, well, you know, Irecently came to know Jesus and
decided to follow him.
And, and I would, I would loveto help you do that.
(04:01):
And uh, and that was reallyformative for me in my college
years, and so he became a hugementor to me and a guide in the
faith and helped me navigate alot of different seasons.
That was how I got involvedwith Stumo Through.
Stumo is where I heard aboutthe 1040 window.
It's where I heard aboutmissions.
Uh, I took the perspectivesclass in college, which is a
(04:21):
phenomenal class on the historyof missions and what's left to
be done in regards to the GreatCommission, and that's where I
heard Todd Aaron speak about thebiblical basis for missions and
the importance of the collegecampus, and my heart just became
engulfed with this idea thatthe future of missions tomorrow
is the college campus.
(04:42):
Today the listeners might bewondering well, how does college
ministry have anything to dowith missions?
You know every church wantsmore missionaries, but few
people ask the question of wheredo missionaries come from?
Right, where do pastors comefrom?
Where do marketplace leadersthat love the Lord come from?
And generally you can tracethose steps back to the college
(05:03):
campus, something that the Lorddid in the college years, and I
think that's generallyconsistent with the Bible.
You look at who Jesus spent timewith.
He did not necessarily.
You know.
He was open to everyone but the12 people closest to him were
college age kids, before theyhad responsibility.
You know, they had the time andJesus could give them the
(05:23):
intention to disciple them andhelp them see the kingdom of God
both in the world and in theirown heart.
And and then they raised up andbecame the first missionaries
to the world place in the entireworld.
When we talk about the 1040window, when we talk about
(05:45):
missions, when we talk abouteven just the evangelization of
our own cities and states andnation, if you win the college
campus today, I think you winthe world tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Another thing, too you're not only talking about
now.
You cover Texas, but we're notonly talking about the West and
American colleges and collegeshere you're talking about.
I mean, y'all are working in alot of colleges around the world
.
Okay, so let's just state thatas well.
It's a global program.
Let's also not miss the factthat students from all over the
world come here to be educated,no doubt, and so these students
are getting to encounter someonefrom a different culture that
(06:21):
they've committed several yearsof their life to, who has an
opportunity to speak truth tothem, to love them, to show them
a way of living that they maynot have ever been exposed to
and, lord willing, it's his job,not ours he may bring them on
the team, and if he does andthey get educated and they get
their heart motivated as well,they may go back and change the
(06:43):
course of their family,community, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Right, yeah, and I think we've seen that happen.
You know the kickoff of thesemester on the college campus
is happening now and you know Ijust got a text last week of an
event that we hosted.
We run a program for a sixmonth.
Six month program for collegegraduates that want to go be
missionaries in the world andthey work in Austin but we're
(07:08):
training them to be missionaries.
They move into apartments whereinternational students come and
we teach them how.
What does it actually look liketo build relationship and
engage somebody from a differentcontext?
And I got this picture and youknow there's 20 students in it
and I'm like, where's this guyfrom?
And they're like, oh, he's fromTurkey.
You know, he's from Morocco,this guy's from China, uh, you
(07:31):
know, and everybody was from allover the world.
And here they all are in Austinlooking for friends, wanting to
understand American culture,and it's such a, it's such a
layup whenever it comes to thegospel to be able to invite in
the foreigner which is reallypart of the entire world except
America.
(07:52):
I remember being in Asia and Iwas lost.
I was just lost out in the cityand I was trying to get to this
one specific location.
I stopped this man and I saidhey, man, could you give me
directions here?
And he didn't speak perfectEnglish, but he spoke enough
that we could communicate.
And you know, in America whatwould we do?
We'd say, hey, you know you godown there, you take a right and
(08:15):
then you take a left, and youknow you walk 100 yards and
it'll be right there and then werush about our day.
But this man stopped and he said, hey, can I just take you?
Yeah, and, and I'm thinking,man, what would it be like as a
follower of Jesus in America?
Uh, when you see the foreigneryou know in our city for us to
(08:39):
stop and say, hey, let me justgo with, let me help you, let me
help you figure this out,because you know, growing up in
America it's amazing.
You know everything is easy,you know accessible, but for
somebody that did not grow up inthis context, it's very
overwhelming.
You know Costco overwhelming,right, you know it's just, it's
big.
(09:00):
You know how do you get in?
I got to be a member.
How do I even become a member?
And I just find that theforeigner, on their own soil, is
extremely servant-hearted andinviting and wants to be very
hospitable.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And sometimes the opposite of that being, we're
very busy and caught up in ourown rat race and we are just
getting to our next destinationand you are keeping us from
getting there.
So, as quick as I can, rerouteyou to wherever it is you need
to go and get you out of my path.
Totally Right Versus no, what'smost important is God just
brought this person into my lifeand I need to stop and I need
(09:35):
to pause and have a quick moment, a quick prayer.
Okay, god, what's this about?
Let's just be open-minded.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Let's be open-handed.
Yeah, I mean, that's it.
And you know, even just as youcomb through the new Testament
and you look at Jesus'sinteractions with people, Jesus
was a phenomenal question asker.
He was the best question asker.
His interaction with the womanat the well he's just asking
questions as he does that itcauses this spiritual reflection
of this woman and and theoutpouring of what was really
(10:07):
going on inside of her comes tothe outside with her words and
and I think it's a beautifulpicture of of how believers
should engage the world, how weshould be inquisitive and how,
uh, there's brokenness inside ofevery person.
You know, I always tell ourstaff find their brokenness and
then you just got to tap danceon it.
Most people would say, hey, man, you know how's it been, How's
(10:28):
it been your first week ofschool?
It's like, well, you know itwasn't great.
You know I had an experience,you know, downtown, that you
know didn't end up the way thatI would, and most people would
say, oh man, that stinks,no-transcript.
(11:11):
People are harassed andhelpless and if you can become
inquisitive into that,regardless of culture, man, the
gospel becomes really dynamicand easily flows.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Okay, let's pivot, because I love that we started
on the college campus and we cancome back there if we need to.
But through your work withStumo, you ended up getting
called to go to the missionfield.
I'm going to just kind of turnthis over to you for a few
minutes to tell this story.
For the listeners who aremissionaries, have been
missionaries.
This one's going to be hard foryou.
(11:45):
This one's going to hit home.
I get emotional with this storyand if this story didn't go
down the way it did, I don'tknow if I'd ever met you.
So I have some gratitude for it, but I have some major empathy
and hurt for it as well.
Connect to this story If you'vebeen in the field.
If you've never been in thefield, just try to empathize
with what this had to feel like.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, so you know, we started Sumo at University of
Texas in 2011.
In 2019, we'd just beenbuilding relationships and
sharing the gospel with collegestudents.
By God's grace, people werecoming to faith, and you know
the students that were coming tofaith.
We started to disciple, and youknow the way that I view
(12:25):
discipleship, or the way that Isee it in the scriptures, is
it's to learn from Jesus, tobecome like Jesus.
So we were helping thesestudents to learn from Jesus,
become like Jesus, and it was aninvitation to college students
not to say, hey, come, learn allthese things that I have.
It's hey, come and learn whatJesus has for you in life.
(12:49):
The reason I went to Universityof Texas is because what I would
say that we do is that we raiseup leaders in the kingdom, and
just on paper you know, as aSooner, it's tough to admit, but
just on paper.
When you look at whatUniversity of Texas does, you
know they say top 10%, but it'sprobably more like top 6% of the
classes.
And so, man, these students areintellectually smart, they're
(13:14):
socially competent, they couldgo on to do anything, and if
some of those people came toknow the Lord and caught a
vision for their life to make itabout the Great Commission
wherever the Lord takes them.
I felt like it would be reallydynamic.
And so, over those, you know,2011 to 2019, that's what we did
(13:40):
.
We just, you know, invested incollege students and, by God's
grace, you know, there was alarge group of college students
from UT and other Texas schoolsthat had a huge heart for the
mission field.
They said, hey, we want to gooverseas.
Well, stumo, we have a lot ofteams overseas, but at the time,
you know, we didn't have oneteam that could receive all of
these graduates.
And so I was talking to my bossand I said, hey, man, you know,
(14:02):
like this is why we came here,uh, not exclusively for the
mission field, you know, for forthe marketplace and ministries
in the states as well, but thisis a component, and it feels
like it would be a massive missfor us just to say, well, you
know, sorry, you know, you guyscan't go together.
You know we don't have a placefor you.
And and he called me and hesaid, well, what if you?
What if you just took them?
(14:22):
Oh, and he called me and hesaid, well, what if you just
took them?
Oh, boy, yeah, and I said I'mabout it, let's do it.
Yes, my life is aligned with theLord and the Great Commission
and whatever opportunities thathe presents, and I want to do
that.
And maybe this is just a sidenote, but that's just how I view
life.
And following the Lord's willRarely does it feel like the
(14:47):
Lord's will is likeundiscoverable.
It's like, hey, I don't knowwhat the next, until you jump to
that one and what I find isgenerally that the Lord's will,
the Lord, has been preparing youon the first lily pad and then,
(15:12):
once you're on it, he says OK,now that you're here, what makes
sense to go to the next lilypad?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
As if he's ordering your steps.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, as if he's ordering.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, as if he's ordering us out.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, and you know, I just find that people get in
trouble missionaries, ministryleaders when they just want to
make a complete jump off of thelily pad.
They're like, hey, the nextstep doesn't make any sense, so
I'm just going to figure out mynext step.
So just a little side notethere.
So for us, we we were like, hey, this seems like the next step,
(15:44):
it seems in sync with thevision of our life and what we
want to do.
And so we recruited thosepeople to a team and we assess
the areas of the world where wewanted to go and why.
One of them is, you knowstrictly population size.
You know 1.34 billion people atthe time.
(16:12):
That's a large part too is it'sheavily in the 1040 window.
Western influence when was thelast time you heard a college
student say, yeah, I studiedabroad in China?
Never.
No one wants no, nobody.
And they all go to Europe.
And so a Westerner on thecollege campus in China has so
(16:35):
much influence, unlike anythingI've ever seen.
And God is just doing somethingvery, very unique there.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
That's an important point.
That's a really important point.
A Westerner on a college campusin China has more influence
than anywhere else you've seen.
Just wanted to hit that againfor everybody to think about and
process.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Totally, and they want it.
And that's the other thing is,you know, when China decided to
go the communist route you know,historically a Buddhist country
, you know Mao, the leader atChina at the time, basically
said hey, we're going towhitewash this country of
religion, and so it becameillegal to proselytize, even
(17:16):
within your, the context of yourown family.
So you have these generationalfamilies who have been Buddhist,
who one day are said have beenBuddhist, who one day are said
you can't be or you can be, butyou can't pass that on.
And then they started, you know, deconstructing religion a lot
(17:37):
in the educational system and so, as a by-product, when we
showed up in 2019, the averagecollege student had never talked
to anybody about God.
God was not a part of theirworldview and it was fascinating
, you know, to be able to walkon those campuses.
And you know, I remember I wassitting down with a guy and I
said I said, hey, you knowthere's this festival coming up
(17:58):
in China.
Do you celebrate?
He's like, yeah, you know,everybody celebrates it.
And I was like, well, are youBuddhist?
And he said, no, you know, likeI don't believe in anything.
And I said, well, you, you knowthat that's a that's a Buddhist
festival.
And he had no idea.
And I said you know, are youreligious, are your family
religious?
And he's like no, you know,like like, we don't believe in
(18:19):
anything, we believe in self.
You know, pull yourself up byyour bootstraps, you make your
own destiny.
And inside, you know, that justbreaks my heart because that's
a hard way to go through theworld.
And so I just started pressing alittle bit and I said well, you
know, could you be ever open tothe idea that there is a God?
And he said he said I don't.
I don't think so, man.
(18:40):
And I said okay, so if wewalked out of this cafeteria and
there is a five course mealwith the best food that you've
ever seen candles, great desserta table is set, the silverware
is out and you walk out and yousee that, do you think to
(19:01):
yourself, hey, that justhappened by chance.
Like, you know, it just is whatit is.
He's like no, somebody preparedthat.
I said, yeah, you can look at ameal and recognize that
somebody prepared that, but youcan't look at the order of the
world and say somebody did thisand he goes.
(19:22):
I'll never forget it.
He said that's a good point, Ican believe in God now.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
It just took a five course meal.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
But it's, you know, in a lot of these communist
countries, you know, veryappealing to them.
And so so we go to China and westart doing what we do and we
start building relationshipswith college students and start
talking to them about who Jesusis.
And you know, for the listenersyou know China, you know as a
communist country people arelike, hey, is that risky for you
(20:13):
?
Of course my family's like hey,you know, like, are you going
to end up in a jail cellsomewhere?
And certainly that could be thecase for our brothers and
sisters that are native to thatcountry advancing the kingdom
are brothers and sisters thatare native to that country
advancing the kingdom, um, butfor for the, for the Westerner,
reasonably, the worst thing thatcould happen to me is that I
would be sent back to the UnitedStates.
(20:34):
And so I was like man, you knowChina's not going to be open
like this forever.
We're not going to carry thisinfluence forever.
So how do we enter into thatand pour gasoline on the church?
And you know there's churchesin China.
Satan has historically done that.
He runs the same playsthroughout history.
(20:56):
And so if you read Bonhoefferhighlighting the church during
the Nazi regime, what you'll see, is not that the Nazi regime
was anti-church.
They were pro the Nazi agendaand they were going to use
(21:17):
whatever means possible toadvance their propaganda.
And the church became a meansinto culture and society.
If you go to, you know, uh, theSoviet union, same thing.
There's an amazing book calledthe persecutor, about a man
named Sergio Korbikoff, and it'sit's the same thing.
(21:37):
Is that, uh, they're not antiGod as much as they're pro using
the church as a means topropagate this message.
Well, the same thing happenedin China.
They have the three-self churchwhere you can go and, depending
on the church, it may preachthe gospel, but you'll
definitely hear the propagationof the Communist Party of China.
(22:01):
So when we talk aboutunderground, all this is context
.
When we talk about undergroundchurches, depending on the
context, they're not necessarilyunknown by the government.
They are churches where menbasically said, hey, the church
has been taken over by apolitical system and we are
going to now.
We are going to now gounderground and have our own
(22:24):
church services that probablyare known about, you know,
they're probably known about bythe government.
And so with that, you know,there's this dynamic underground
church in China, but one of thehard components of that church
is a lot of those churches canbe older in age, because sharing
(22:47):
your faith is a huge offenseand they're putting their lives
on the line.
And so whenever I'm thinkingabout why go to China, I'm
thinking, man, I know how toshare the gospel.
If I see young, dynamic leaderscome to know the Lord, they can
become part of these housechurches and future leaders for
generations.
And the risk for me is there,but relatively low compared to
(23:15):
the risk of my Chinese brothersand sisters.
And so that's what took usthere.
As we were there, we startedseeing the Lord do what the Lord
does and people were coming toknow the Lord and it was dynamic
and community was starting toform and we started discipling
them.
And all this was in eightmonths.
Like we saw more happen ineight months on the college
(23:37):
campuses of China than what Isee in eight years on the
college campuses of America.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
There's a hunger there's a desire, there's a
search, there's a void right,and it's so profound We've
talked about it before where Ithink a lot of our framework
gets to be that they don't wantthe gospel because it's a
hostile territory, enemy lines,et cetera, and so many guests
(24:02):
over the last year have taken usthrough this like no, there's
just such a hunger, there's sucha thirst, there's such a want
and a desire and a need, andlook at that.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Totally so.
We start sharing the gospel.
People are coming to knowChrist.
You know, communities beingforward, people are throwing
their arms around their friendand saying, man, you know, like
this Jesus guy, like he'schanging my life and we're just
living like in the book of acts.
It's just like it's exploding.
And January of 2020, I startfollowing a thing called COVID.
(24:37):
You know, we're five and a halfhours away from Wuhan and I'm
watching cities with millions ofpeople start to get shut down
and I start asking myself thequestion of like, hey, like,
what is the ramifications ofthis going to be on the work and
on our believers and ourfriends?
(24:59):
And and I remember my bosscalling me and he said, hey,
what's going on?
I said, hey, I don't.
We didn't know what it was, itwasn't called COVID at the time.
And he said, hey, what's goingon?
I said, hey, we didn't know, itwasn't called COVID at the time
.
I said, hey, man, there'ssomething going on that is being
very secretive, but it'shappening and I'm starting to
see it.
And I don't have a wafflecomponent in my brain for global
(25:24):
pandemic, but if I did, I thinkit would feel like this and you
know, all of our staff were allover.
They were visiting, you know,our new Chinese believers,
friends, that they were going totheir hometowns with them, all
over China, and so we werespread out all over this massive
(25:46):
country.
At this, at this point and Iremember texting him I said, hey
, I need you guys all to comeback to our city and we need to
meet.
And I started calling othermissions agencies and I said hey
, you know, are you monitoringthis?
What's?
What do you think is going tohappen?
Are you going to pull peopleout of the?
And we had a meeting and I saidhey, guys, a city with millions
(26:22):
of people an hour away from usjust got shut down, nobody in,
nobody out.
And I, at this point and Ididn't tell this part of the
story, but we moved to Chinawith a three month old, um, our
first child.
It was funny when we wereraising funds, you know we're
asking people hey, you know,would you come on?
(26:45):
And they're looking at my wifeand she's pregnant.
And, uh, you know, would yousupport our work?
And, and some of them you knowwe had multiple say, hey, we're
not at a place financially wherewe can do that, but we just
want to, we just want to followalong because you're taking a
baby to China, like, like, whywould you do that?
Like we just want to keep upwith the story.
And uh, you know, you don't knowwhat you don't know and we
(27:07):
didn't know what it was like tobecome parents and, um, but
certainly adjustment to learn tobecome parents in a foreign
context, learn to become parentsin a foreign context.
So I'm over there now, you know,with my 10 month old.
I have this team of people whothey are all adults, they're all
graduates from college, buttheir parents expect a level of
(27:32):
wisdom in how you take care ofthem.
And so I met with our team andI said hey guys, in the next 24
hours we're going to leave China, we're going to go to Japan.
You know, it's betterhealthcare system, we have teams
(27:52):
in Japan that can help uscalibrate and we're just, we're
just going to wait for a coupleof weeks and just see what is
happening in China.
We bought round trip ticketsand we left China and we spent
those two weeks in Japan and ourflight kept getting canceled
(28:18):
and every time we rebooked it itkept getting canceled.
And uh, that's when Chinabasically said, hey, no one in,
no one out, and so now we'rejust stuck it was.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
It was days, though, within days, of you not making
that decision.
You would have been, we would,we would have been stuck, stuck
in China, and locked down, andlocked down, and it's not like.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Not like that decision you would have been, we
would have been stuck, Stuck inChina and locked down and
locked down.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
It's not like stuck there, just out living your life
there.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Sure, and these are all real world situations.
We have a baby that I alwaystell people they're like.
What was it like being in China?
When that happened, I was like,hey, you remember when we
couldn't get toilet paper?
Okay, now be in a city with 13million people.
They generally try and not usepreservatives in their food.
Their local markets are fresh,so food does not last, and you
(29:07):
have 13 million people comingout to stock up, hungry On food.
Yeah, there's no clean drinkingwater.
You can't get drinking waterfrom the sink.
And I'm like man, you know thiscould be really bad and I felt
as the leader, I had aresponsibility to protect the
people that came with me, butnever in a million years would I
(29:32):
have anticipated not being ableto go back.
Would I have anticipated notbeing able to go back?
And that was the hardest partwas the holistic disappointment
that I felt of the wholesituation.
Here I am the leader, I'm thevisionary, I'm sitting down with
(29:56):
donors and I'm saying, hey,we're going to, we're going to
do this, you know, we're goingto take the gospel to these
people.
And then I no one else I madethe decision to leave, not being
able to get back for all thesepeople.
And so now I'm stuck in Japan,I'm having all the emotions, but
(30:19):
what about these new believersthat we just saw come to know
the Lord?
You know, I'm seeing faces, I'mseeing their futures, and I
always saw us as a part of thatand in a matter of weeks, the
disappointment of that set in.
Like, what does it look like tolove someone so much and not be
(30:43):
able to take the gospel to them?
Like, like, you cannot, youphysically cannot, politically,
you cannot.
I'd never experienced thatbefore.
I'd never experienced thatbefore.
Like, anytime I want to love onsomebody, engage them,
generally I can do that, but inthis moment I couldn't.
(31:04):
And that's whenever I cameacross 1 Thessalonians, I think,
chapter 2, when Paul says youknow, hey, I long to come to you
, but Satan blocked the way.
And I think you know thecontext of it is more probably
persecution for Paul, but for usit was COVID.
(31:26):
So we stayed in Japan for amonth trying to get back into
China, and we couldn't get backin and, uh, we decided to come
back to the States and getcalibrated, which was also a
horrible, you know, a horribledecision to have to make as a
leader, you know, because I hadpeople saying, no, you should go
(31:47):
to Thailand.
You know, stay in Thailand.
You know, as soon as Chinaopens back up, you can get in,
you know.
You know, uh, you know, stay inthese other places.
And for me I said, man, youknow, I hope that we come back,
(32:09):
I hope that door opens, butright now it is not, and and we
have to figure out what's next.
So we brought all those teammembers back to the States and,
uh, it's wild.
It's wild to go back and thinkabout.
You know, I haven't reallythought about it in a few years,
but I remember that time andthe uncertainty and it was
(32:32):
really hard for me on aemotional level and with the
Lord, and this is, I guess,maybe for the missionary that
had a plan A that turned into aplan B.
I found a lot of solace in thatthis was always the Lord's plan
(32:54):
A.
He always knew this was goingto happen Right, and he allowed
it to happen.
And so what are the lessons?
You know, becausesimultaneously, as a minister of
the gospel, you are alwaysengaged in doing something in
the world for Jesus, but Jesusis simultaneously doing
(33:14):
something in your own heart, andso, entering into that journey
of hey why, why did this allhappen?
What is the Lord trying to teacheach of us?
And as we entered into that,man, we could go through team
member after team member and Isaid, man, you know, the Lord
did this in my life for this.
And they kind of had their ownJoseph moment.
(33:37):
You know, when Joseph is withhis brothers and you know they
don't know it's him, and thenthey find out it's him and
they're all afraid.
And you know, joseph says, hey,what you meant to harm me, the
Lord meant for good.
Yeah, and it was a perspectiveshift.
And that's kind of how it feltat the time is like, why is why?
Why is this happening?
And it's like, man, the Lordwas meaning it for good and
(34:00):
still continues to mean it forgood and even today, you know,
looking back, the further awaythat we get from that moment,
the more we realize that theLord was doing something that we
could have never planned orforeseen, or hoped or dreamed.
Uh, he was directing our steps,you know, or dreamed, he was
directing our steps.
We're back in the States andwe're asking ourselves, hey,
(34:26):
what is it that we're going todo now?
And so you have these staffthat fundraise to spread the
word of God and they got takenout of that context.
And so we basically said, hey,this doesn't change our mission,
this is what we do.
We build relationships, we leadpeople to faith, we disciple
them and help them mature inChrist.
And so where is the greatestpopulation of college students
(34:50):
that we can go to now to now?
And we were just outside ofAustin at the time, and so we
decided to go to Texas state andour China team became our Texas
state staff team, and so theywent there.
Uh, they started buildingrelationships the same way that
they were doing international,started sharing their faith,
(35:12):
started seeing people come toChrist like crazy, and we
thought it was just going to betemporary faith started seeing
people come to Christ like crazy, and we thought it was just
going to be temporary.
We were like, hey, this team'sgoing to go back overseas, but
man, god just opened avenues forhim to do something unique in
San Marcos, and so that team isstill there today.
How many people on that team?
We had 11 on our original team,and then two of them went back
(35:35):
to the mission field.
A couple of them transitionedinto the workforce.
Four of them became full-timestaff at Texas State and they
have absolutely crushed it forthe Lord.
I love it.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
There's a lot more here.
The China story I couldn't stopyou.
We needed to hear all that.
You've been back for a fewyears and I really would like to
do justice to what God's donein that few years.
Since you've been back a fewyears, and I really would like
to do justice to what God's donein that few years since you've
been back, your family's grown,your ministry's grown.
A lot of new leaders have beenraised up.
So I want to tell some morestories, but is it okay if we
break this into two episodes?
Absolutely Okay.
(36:09):
So let's wrap today with guyswe'll be back in two weeks.
And why don't you pray for thelisteners who've just probably
pulled their car over and sat onthe side of the road alone and
listened to that and processedthat story of trusting God
through?
We all lived through COVID, butnone of us lived through COVID
(36:30):
like you lived through COVID,dude.
So would you pray for us?
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Absolutely, father, god, we come before you.
Um, we just thank you that youare directing our steps, god,
that our plan a that becomesplan B was never your plan B.
And I just pray for all thelisteners that just feel that.
They just feel that in theirlife, they feel that in their
ministry, they feel that on themission field, that that the
(36:55):
plan isn't going according toplan, but that it is going
according to your plan, and thatthey can trust you, knowing
that you are good, that you arefor them and that you are moving
the message of the kingdom ofGod and Jesus forward through
their experience.
And so we love you and praythat in Jesus' name.
Amen and amen.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Thank you for listening to unreached.
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,your friends, your, your church,
your life group, small group,dgroup, wherever you do life,
and if you want to connect withus, find us on Instagram at
unreachedpodcast, or email us atunreachedpodcast at gmailcom.
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, dustin Elliotthere, your host for the
Unreached podcast.
We are back with another reallygood friend of mine, jason
(00:50):
Kuhlman.
Jason is a leader within theorganization of STUMO Student
Mobilization.
He and his wife have committedtheir lives to mobilizing
college students to the nations,helping college students
understand and process what it'slike to go into the marketplace
as a Christ follower.
He's also been a missionaryhimself and has been out in the
field, and I'm so fired up.
(01:11):
Friends, help me welcome JasonKuhlman.
Hey, dustin, thanks for thatintroduction.
Listen, we're in Austin and, myLonghorn friends, we got a
Sooner in the house today.
Okay, clint's over here withhis horns up.
It is football season, we justkicked off, but there's mission
fields in Oklahoma too, give usyour story downtown Austin, you
know.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Growing up, you know we went to church, but I really
had a hard time connecting whatwe were doing on Sundays to life
(01:52):
.
And so I was the youngest ofthree.
I had an older brother, oldersister, and you know they were
popular and great at sports andsocial, and so as I watched them
growing up as the youngest, Ireally thought to myself well, I
want to be that, that's whatbrings fulfillment.
So I just dumped myself intoall those things and just found
it really unsatisfying.
(02:13):
I had a buddy who actually,late in high school, he came to
me and he said hey, a guy likeyou, if you came to Christ, you
could really influence peopletowards Jesus.
And I thought to myself well,what do you mean?
Come to Christ?
I grew, I grew up in OklahomaLike, of course I'm a Christian,
and it really challenged me toopen the Bible for the first
(02:34):
time.
And I started reading the bookof John and I'm reading what
Jesus says about what it lookslike to follow him.
And it's like a mirror, youknow it's.
I'm just seeing myself in thisstory and I'm not seeing myself
as a follower of Christ.
And it really flipped my worldupside down and I uh, ended up
(02:55):
deciding, hey, I want to followJesus for a lifetime.
And I use that, that phrase,follow Jesus.
I think you know, inevangelical America, the idea of
commit your life to Christ orpray a prayer.
You know Jesus doesn't reallyuse that language.
You know he uses the languageof follow me.
It is a one-time decision thatyou make.
That should influence everydecision thereafter, and not
(03:17):
that we do it perfectly.
And certainly I'm, you know, asthe apostle Paul says, the
chief of sinners.
But there's been the ongoingdesire to continue to follow the
Lord till the end.
And so I went to college, playedsports originally, ended up
transferring to the Universityof Oklahoma after, you know, my
freshman year, and I rushed tofraternity and a guy came and
(03:38):
knocked on the door and he said,hey, you know, I'm here to help
guys grow in their faith and doBible studies, and.
And I said, hey, man, this is afraternity, like that's not
really why we joined theseplaces.
And uh, he said, yeah, you know, but there might be some guys.
And I said, well, you know, Irecently came to know Jesus and
decided to follow him.
And, and I would, I would loveto help you do that.
(04:01):
And uh, and that was reallyformative for me in my college
years, and so he became a hugementor to me and a guide in the
faith and helped me navigate alot of different seasons.
That was how I got involvedwith Stumo Through.
Stumo is where I heard aboutthe 1040 window.
It's where I heard aboutmissions.
Uh, I took the perspectivesclass in college, which is a
(04:21):
phenomenal class on the historyof missions and what's left to
be done in regards to the GreatCommission, and that's where I
heard Todd Aaron speak about thebiblical basis for missions and
the importance of the collegecampus, and my heart just became
engulfed with this idea thatthe future of missions tomorrow
is the college campus.
(04:42):
Today the listeners might bewondering well, how does college
ministry have anything to dowith missions?
You know every church wantsmore missionaries, but few
people ask the question of wheredo missionaries come from?
Right, where do pastors comefrom?
Where do marketplace leadersthat love the Lord come from?
And generally you can tracethose steps back to the college
(05:03):
campus, something that the Lorddid in the college years, and I
think that's generallyconsistent with the Bible.
You look at who Jesus spent timewith.
He did not necessarily.
You know.
He was open to everyone but the12 people closest to him were
college age kids, before theyhad responsibility.
You know, they had the time andJesus could give them the
(05:23):
intention to disciple them andhelp them see the kingdom of God
both in the world and in theirown heart.
And and then they raised up andbecame the first missionaries
to the world place in the entireworld.
When we talk about the 1040window, when we talk about
(05:45):
missions, when we talk abouteven just the evangelization of
our own cities and states andnation, if you win the college
campus today, I think you winthe world tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Another thing, too you're not only talking about
now.
You cover Texas, but we're notonly talking about the West and
American colleges and collegeshere you're talking about.
I mean, y'all are working in alot of colleges around the world
.
Okay, so let's just state thatas well.
It's a global program.
Let's also not miss the factthat students from all over the
world come here to be educated,no doubt, and so these students
are getting to encounter someonefrom a different culture that
(06:21):
they've committed several yearsof their life to, who has an
opportunity to speak truth tothem, to love them, to show them
a way of living that they maynot have ever been exposed to
and, lord willing, it's his job,not ours he may bring them on
the team, and if he does andthey get educated and they get
their heart motivated as well,they may go back and change the
(06:43):
course of their family,community, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Right, yeah, and I think we've seen that happen.
You know the kickoff of thesemester on the college campus
is happening now and you know Ijust got a text last week of an
event that we hosted.
We run a program for a sixmonth.
Six month program for collegegraduates that want to go be
missionaries in the world andthey work in Austin but we're
(07:08):
training them to be missionaries.
They move into apartments whereinternational students come and
we teach them how.
What does it actually look liketo build relationship and
engage somebody from a differentcontext?
And I got this picture and youknow there's 20 students in it
and I'm like, where's this guyfrom?
And they're like, oh, he's fromTurkey.
You know, he's from Morocco,this guy's from China, uh, you
(07:31):
know, and everybody was from allover the world.
And here they all are in Austinlooking for friends, wanting to
understand American culture,and it's such a, it's such a
layup whenever it comes to thegospel to be able to invite in
the foreigner which is reallypart of the entire world except
America.
(07:52):
I remember being in Asia and Iwas lost.
I was just lost out in the cityand I was trying to get to this
one specific location.
I stopped this man and I saidhey, man, could you give me
directions here?
And he didn't speak perfectEnglish, but he spoke enough
that we could communicate.
And you know, in America whatwould we do?
We'd say, hey, you know you godown there, you take a right and
(08:15):
then you take a left, and youknow you walk 100 yards and
it'll be right there and then werush about our day.
But this man stopped and he said, hey, can I just take you?
Yeah, and, and I'm thinking,man, what would it be like as a
follower of Jesus in America?
Uh, when you see the foreigneryou know in our city for us to
(08:39):
stop and say, hey, let me justgo with, let me help you, let me
help you figure this out,because you know, growing up in
America it's amazing.
You know everything is easy,you know accessible, but for
somebody that did not grow up inthis context, it's very
overwhelming.
You know Costco overwhelming,right, you know it's just, it's
big.
(09:00):
You know how do you get in?
I got to be a member.
How do I even become a member?
And I just find that theforeigner, on their own soil, is
extremely servant-hearted andinviting and wants to be very
hospitable.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And sometimes the opposite of that being, we're
very busy and caught up in ourown rat race and we are just
getting to our next destinationand you are keeping us from
getting there.
So, as quick as I can, rerouteyou to wherever it is you need
to go and get you out of my path.
Totally Right Versus no, what'smost important is God just
brought this person into my lifeand I need to stop and I need
(09:35):
to pause and have a quick moment, a quick prayer.
Okay, god, what's this about?
Let's just be open-minded.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Let's be open-handed.
Yeah, I mean, that's it.
And you know, even just as youcomb through the new Testament
and you look at Jesus'sinteractions with people, Jesus
was a phenomenal question asker.
He was the best question asker.
His interaction with the womanat the well he's just asking
questions as he does that itcauses this spiritual reflection
of this woman and and theoutpouring of what was really
(10:07):
going on inside of her comes tothe outside with her words and
and I think it's a beautifulpicture of of how believers
should engage the world, how weshould be inquisitive and how,
uh, there's brokenness inside ofevery person.
You know, I always tell ourstaff find their brokenness and
then you just got to tap danceon it.
Most people would say, hey, man, you know how's it been, How's
(10:28):
it been your first week ofschool?
It's like, well, you know itwasn't great.
You know I had an experience,you know, downtown, that you
know didn't end up the way thatI would, and most people would
say, oh man, that stinks,no-transcript.
(11:11):
People are harassed andhelpless and if you can become
inquisitive into that,regardless of culture, man, the
gospel becomes really dynamicand easily flows.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Okay, let's pivot, because I love that we started
on the college campus and we cancome back there if we need to.
But through your work withStumo, you ended up getting
called to go to the missionfield.
I'm going to just kind of turnthis over to you for a few
minutes to tell this story.
For the listeners who aremissionaries, have been
missionaries.
This one's going to be hard foryou.
(11:45):
This one's going to hit home.
I get emotional with this storyand if this story didn't go
down the way it did, I don'tknow if I'd ever met you.
So I have some gratitude for it, but I have some major empathy
and hurt for it as well.
Connect to this story If you'vebeen in the field.
If you've never been in thefield, just try to empathize
with what this had to feel like.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, so you know, we started Sumo at University of
Texas in 2011.
In 2019, we'd just beenbuilding relationships and
sharing the gospel with collegestudents.
By God's grace, people werecoming to faith, and you know
the students that were coming tofaith.
We started to disciple, and youknow the way that I view
(12:25):
discipleship, or the way that Isee it in the scriptures, is
it's to learn from Jesus, tobecome like Jesus.
So we were helping thesestudents to learn from Jesus,
become like Jesus, and it was aninvitation to college students
not to say, hey, come, learn allthese things that I have.
It's hey, come and learn whatJesus has for you in life.
(12:49):
The reason I went to Universityof Texas is because what I would
say that we do is that we raiseup leaders in the kingdom, and
just on paper you know, as aSooner, it's tough to admit, but
just on paper.
When you look at whatUniversity of Texas does, you
know they say top 10%, but it'sprobably more like top 6% of the
classes.
And so, man, these students areintellectually smart, they're
(13:14):
socially competent, they couldgo on to do anything, and if
some of those people came toknow the Lord and caught a
vision for their life to make itabout the Great Commission
wherever the Lord takes them.
I felt like it would be reallydynamic.
And so, over those, you know,2011 to 2019, that's what we did
(13:40):
.
We just, you know, invested incollege students and, by God's
grace, you know, there was alarge group of college students
from UT and other Texas schoolsthat had a huge heart for the
mission field.
They said, hey, we want to gooverseas.
Well, stumo, we have a lot ofteams overseas, but at the time,
you know, we didn't have oneteam that could receive all of
these graduates.
And so I was talking to my bossand I said, hey, man, you know,
(14:02):
like this is why we came here,uh, not exclusively for the
mission field, you know, for forthe marketplace and ministries
in the states as well, but thisis a component, and it feels
like it would be a massive missfor us just to say, well, you
know, sorry, you know, you guyscan't go together.
You know we don't have a placefor you.
And and he called me and hesaid, well, what if you?
What if you just took them?
(14:22):
Oh, and he called me and hesaid, well, what if you just
took them?
Oh, boy, yeah, and I said I'mabout it, let's do it.
Yes, my life is aligned with theLord and the Great Commission
and whatever opportunities thathe presents, and I want to do
that.
And maybe this is just a sidenote, but that's just how I view
life.
And following the Lord's willRarely does it feel like the
(14:47):
Lord's will is likeundiscoverable.
It's like, hey, I don't knowwhat the next, until you jump to
that one and what I find isgenerally that the Lord's will,
the Lord, has been preparing youon the first lily pad and then,
(15:12):
once you're on it, he says OK,now that you're here, what makes
sense to go to the next lilypad?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
As if he's ordering your steps.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, as if he's ordering.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, as if he's ordering us out.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, and you know, I just find that people get in
trouble missionaries, ministryleaders when they just want to
make a complete jump off of thelily pad.
They're like, hey, the nextstep doesn't make any sense, so
I'm just going to figure out mynext step.
So just a little side notethere.
So for us, we we were like, hey, this seems like the next step,
(15:44):
it seems in sync with thevision of our life and what we
want to do.
And so we recruited thosepeople to a team and we assess
the areas of the world where wewanted to go and why.
One of them is, you knowstrictly population size.
You know 1.34 billion people atthe time.
(16:12):
That's a large part too is it'sheavily in the 1040 window.
Western influence when was thelast time you heard a college
student say, yeah, I studiedabroad in China?
Never.
No one wants no, nobody.
And they all go to Europe.
And so a Westerner on thecollege campus in China has so
(16:35):
much influence, unlike anythingI've ever seen.
And God is just doing somethingvery, very unique there.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
That's an important point.
That's a really important point.
A Westerner on a college campusin China has more influence
than anywhere else you've seen.
Just wanted to hit that againfor everybody to think about and
process.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Totally, and they want it.
And that's the other thing is,you know, when China decided to
go the communist route you know,historically a Buddhist country
, you know Mao, the leader atChina at the time, basically
said hey, we're going towhitewash this country of
religion, and so it becameillegal to proselytize, even
(17:16):
within your, the context of yourown family.
So you have these generationalfamilies who have been Buddhist,
who one day are said have beenBuddhist, who one day are said
you can't be or you can be, butyou can't pass that on.
And then they started, you know, deconstructing religion a lot
(17:37):
in the educational system and so, as a by-product, when we
showed up in 2019, the averagecollege student had never talked
to anybody about God.
God was not a part of theirworldview and it was fascinating
, you know, to be able to walkon those campuses.
And you know, I remember I wassitting down with a guy and I
said I said, hey, you knowthere's this festival coming up
(17:58):
in China.
Do you celebrate?
He's like, yeah, you know,everybody celebrates it.
And I was like, well, are youBuddhist?
And he said, no, you know, likeI don't believe in anything.
And I said, well, you, you knowthat that's a that's a Buddhist
festival.
And he had no idea.
And I said you know, are youreligious, are your family
religious?
And he's like no, you know,like like, we don't believe in
(18:19):
anything, we believe in self.
You know, pull yourself up byyour bootstraps, you make your
own destiny.
And inside, you know, that justbreaks my heart because that's
a hard way to go through theworld.
And so I just started pressing alittle bit and I said well, you
know, could you be ever open tothe idea that there is a God?
And he said he said I don't.
I don't think so, man.
(18:40):
And I said okay, so if wewalked out of this cafeteria and
there is a five course mealwith the best food that you've
ever seen candles, great desserta table is set, the silverware
is out and you walk out and yousee that, do you think to
(19:01):
yourself, hey, that justhappened by chance.
Like, you know, it just is whatit is.
He's like no, somebody preparedthat.
I said, yeah, you can look at ameal and recognize that
somebody prepared that, but youcan't look at the order of the
world and say somebody did thisand he goes.
(19:22):
I'll never forget it.
He said that's a good point, Ican believe in God now.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
It just took a five course meal.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
But it's, you know, in a lot of these communist
countries, you know, veryappealing to them.
And so so we go to China and westart doing what we do and we
start building relationshipswith college students and start
talking to them about who Jesusis.
And you know, for the listenersyou know China, you know as a
communist country people arelike, hey, is that risky for you
(20:13):
?
Of course my family's like hey,you know, like, are you going
to end up in a jail cellsomewhere?
And certainly that could be thecase for our brothers and
sisters that are native to thatcountry advancing the kingdom
are brothers and sisters thatare native to that country
advancing the kingdom, um, butfor for the, for the Westerner,
reasonably, the worst thing thatcould happen to me is that I
would be sent back to the UnitedStates.
(20:34):
And so I was like man, you knowChina's not going to be open
like this forever.
We're not going to carry thisinfluence forever.
So how do we enter into thatand pour gasoline on the church?
And you know there's churchesin China.
Satan has historically done that.
He runs the same playsthroughout history.
(20:56):
And so if you read Bonhoefferhighlighting the church during
the Nazi regime, what you'll see, is not that the Nazi regime
was anti-church.
They were pro the Nazi agendaand they were going to use
(21:17):
whatever means possible toadvance their propaganda.
And the church became a meansinto culture and society.
If you go to, you know, uh, theSoviet union, same thing.
There's an amazing book calledthe persecutor, about a man
named Sergio Korbikoff, and it'sit's the same thing.
(21:37):
Is that, uh, they're not antiGod as much as they're pro using
the church as a means topropagate this message.
Well, the same thing happenedin China.
They have the three-self churchwhere you can go and, depending
on the church, it may preachthe gospel, but you'll
definitely hear the propagationof the Communist Party of China.
(22:01):
So when we talk aboutunderground, all this is context
.
When we talk about undergroundchurches, depending on the
context, they're not necessarilyunknown by the government.
They are churches where menbasically said, hey, the church
has been taken over by apolitical system and we are
going to now.
We are going to now gounderground and have our own
(22:24):
church services that probablyare known about, you know,
they're probably known about bythe government.
And so with that, you know,there's this dynamic underground
church in China, but one of thehard components of that church
is a lot of those churches canbe older in age, because sharing
(22:47):
your faith is a huge offenseand they're putting their lives
on the line.
And so whenever I'm thinkingabout why go to China, I'm
thinking, man, I know how toshare the gospel.
If I see young, dynamic leaderscome to know the Lord, they can
become part of these housechurches and future leaders for
generations.
And the risk for me is there,but relatively low compared to
(23:15):
the risk of my Chinese brothersand sisters.
And so that's what took usthere.
As we were there, we startedseeing the Lord do what the Lord
does and people were coming toknow the Lord and it was dynamic
and community was starting toform and we started discipling
them.
And all this was in eightmonths.
Like we saw more happen ineight months on the college
(23:37):
campuses of China than what Isee in eight years on the
college campuses of America.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
There's a hunger there's a desire, there's a
search, there's a void right,and it's so profound We've
talked about it before where Ithink a lot of our framework
gets to be that they don't wantthe gospel because it's a
hostile territory, enemy lines,et cetera, and so many guests
(24:02):
over the last year have taken usthrough this like no, there's
just such a hunger, there's sucha thirst, there's such a want
and a desire and a need, andlook at that.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Totally so.
We start sharing the gospel.
People are coming to knowChrist.
You know, communities beingforward, people are throwing
their arms around their friendand saying, man, you know, like
this Jesus guy, like he'schanging my life and we're just
living like in the book of acts.
It's just like it's exploding.
And January of 2020, I startfollowing a thing called COVID.
(24:37):
You know, we're five and a halfhours away from Wuhan and I'm
watching cities with millions ofpeople start to get shut down
and I start asking myself thequestion of like, hey, like,
what is the ramifications ofthis going to be on the work and
on our believers and ourfriends?
(24:59):
And and I remember my bosscalling me and he said, hey,
what's going on?
I said, hey, I don't.
We didn't know what it was, itwasn't called COVID at the time.
And he said, hey, what's goingon?
I said, hey, we didn't know, itwasn't called COVID at the time
.
I said, hey, man, there'ssomething going on that is being
very secretive, but it'shappening and I'm starting to
see it.
And I don't have a wafflecomponent in my brain for global
(25:24):
pandemic, but if I did, I thinkit would feel like this and you
know, all of our staff were allover.
They were visiting, you know,our new Chinese believers,
friends, that they were going totheir hometowns with them, all
over China, and so we werespread out all over this massive
(25:46):
country.
At this, at this point and Iremember texting him I said, hey
, I need you guys all to comeback to our city and we need to
meet.
And I started calling othermissions agencies and I said hey
, you know, are you monitoringthis?
What's?
What do you think is going tohappen?
Are you going to pull peopleout of the?
And we had a meeting and I saidhey, guys, a city with millions
(26:22):
of people an hour away from usjust got shut down, nobody in,
nobody out.
And I, at this point and Ididn't tell this part of the
story, but we moved to Chinawith a three month old, um, our
first child.
It was funny when we wereraising funds, you know we're
asking people hey, you know,would you come on?
(26:45):
And they're looking at my wifeand she's pregnant.
And, uh, you know, would yousupport our work?
And, and some of them you knowwe had multiple say, hey, we're
not at a place financially wherewe can do that, but we just
want to, we just want to followalong because you're taking a
baby to China, like, like, whywould you do that?
Like we just want to keep upwith the story.
And uh, you know, you don't knowwhat you don't know and we
(27:07):
didn't know what it was like tobecome parents and, um, but
certainly adjustment to learn tobecome parents in a foreign
context, learn to become parentsin a foreign context.
So I'm over there now, you know,with my 10 month old.
I have this team of people whothey are all adults, they're all
graduates from college, buttheir parents expect a level of
(27:32):
wisdom in how you take care ofthem.
And so I met with our team andI said hey guys, in the next 24
hours we're going to leave China, we're going to go to Japan.
You know, it's betterhealthcare system, we have teams
(27:52):
in Japan that can help uscalibrate and we're just, we're
just going to wait for a coupleof weeks and just see what is
happening in China.
We bought round trip ticketsand we left China and we spent
those two weeks in Japan and ourflight kept getting canceled
(28:18):
and every time we rebooked it itkept getting canceled.
And uh, that's when Chinabasically said, hey, no one in,
no one out, and so now we'rejust stuck it was.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
It was days, though, within days, of you not making
that decision.
You would have been, we would,we would have been stuck, stuck
in China, and locked down, andlocked down, and it's not like.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Not like that decision you would have been, we
would have been stuck, Stuck inChina and locked down and
locked down.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
It's not like stuck there, just out living your life
there.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Sure, and these are all real world situations.
We have a baby that I alwaystell people they're like.
What was it like being in China?
When that happened, I was like,hey, you remember when we
couldn't get toilet paper?
Okay, now be in a city with 13million people.
They generally try and not usepreservatives in their food.
Their local markets are fresh,so food does not last, and you
(29:07):
have 13 million people comingout to stock up, hungry On food.
Yeah, there's no clean drinkingwater.
You can't get drinking waterfrom the sink.
And I'm like man, you know thiscould be really bad and I felt
as the leader, I had aresponsibility to protect the
people that came with me, butnever in a million years would I
(29:32):
have anticipated not being ableto go back.
Would I have anticipated notbeing able to go back?
And that was the hardest partwas the holistic disappointment
that I felt of the wholesituation.
Here I am the leader, I'm thevisionary, I'm sitting down with
(29:56):
donors and I'm saying, hey,we're going to, we're going to
do this, you know, we're goingto take the gospel to these
people.
And then I no one else I madethe decision to leave, not being
able to get back for all thesepeople.
And so now I'm stuck in Japan,I'm having all the emotions, but
(30:19):
what about these new believersthat we just saw come to know
the Lord?
You know, I'm seeing faces, I'mseeing their futures, and I
always saw us as a part of thatand in a matter of weeks, the
disappointment of that set in.
Like, what does it look like tolove someone so much and not be
(30:43):
able to take the gospel to them?
Like, like, you cannot, youphysically cannot, politically,
you cannot.
I'd never experienced thatbefore.
I'd never experienced thatbefore.
Like, anytime I want to love onsomebody, engage them,
generally I can do that, but inthis moment I couldn't.
(31:04):
And that's whenever I cameacross 1 Thessalonians, I think,
chapter 2, when Paul says youknow, hey, I long to come to you
, but Satan blocked the way.
And I think you know thecontext of it is more probably
persecution for Paul, but for usit was COVID.
(31:26):
So we stayed in Japan for amonth trying to get back into
China, and we couldn't get backin and, uh, we decided to come
back to the States and getcalibrated, which was also a
horrible, you know, a horribledecision to have to make as a
leader, you know, because I hadpeople saying, no, you should go
(31:47):
to Thailand.
You know, stay in Thailand.
You know, as soon as Chinaopens back up, you can get in,
you know.
You know, uh, you know, stay inthese other places.
And for me I said, man, youknow, I hope that we come back,
(32:09):
I hope that door opens, butright now it is not, and and we
have to figure out what's next.
So we brought all those teammembers back to the States and,
uh, it's wild.
It's wild to go back and thinkabout.
You know, I haven't reallythought about it in a few years,
but I remember that time andthe uncertainty and it was
(32:32):
really hard for me on aemotional level and with the
Lord, and this is, I guess,maybe for the missionary that
had a plan A that turned into aplan B.
I found a lot of solace in thatthis was always the Lord's plan
(32:54):
A.
He always knew this was goingto happen Right, and he allowed
it to happen.
And so what are the lessons?
You know, becausesimultaneously, as a minister of
the gospel, you are alwaysengaged in doing something in
the world for Jesus, but Jesusis simultaneously doing
(33:14):
something in your own heart, andso, entering into that journey
of hey why, why did this allhappen?
What is the Lord trying to teacheach of us?
And as we entered into that,man, we could go through team
member after team member and Isaid, man, you know, the Lord
did this in my life for this.
And they kind of had their ownJoseph moment.
(33:37):
You know, when Joseph is withhis brothers and you know they
don't know it's him, and thenthey find out it's him and
they're all afraid.
And you know, joseph says, hey,what you meant to harm me, the
Lord meant for good.
Yeah, and it was a perspectiveshift.
And that's kind of how it feltat the time is like, why is why?
Why is this happening?
And it's like, man, the Lordwas meaning it for good and
(34:00):
still continues to mean it forgood and even today, you know,
looking back, the further awaythat we get from that moment,
the more we realize that theLord was doing something that we
could have never planned orforeseen, or hoped or dreamed.
Uh, he was directing our steps,you know, or dreamed, he was
directing our steps.
We're back in the States andwe're asking ourselves, hey,
(34:26):
what is it that we're going todo now?
And so you have these staffthat fundraise to spread the
word of God and they got takenout of that context.
And so we basically said, hey,this doesn't change our mission,
this is what we do.
We build relationships, we leadpeople to faith, we disciple
them and help them mature inChrist.
And so where is the greatestpopulation of college students
(34:50):
that we can go to now to now?
And we were just outside ofAustin at the time, and so we
decided to go to Texas state andour China team became our Texas
state staff team, and so theywent there.
Uh, they started buildingrelationships the same way that
they were doing international,started sharing their faith,
(35:12):
started seeing people come toChrist like crazy, and we
thought it was just going to betemporary faith started seeing
people come to Christ like crazy, and we thought it was just
going to be temporary.
We were like, hey, this team'sgoing to go back overseas, but
man, god just opened avenues forhim to do something unique in
San Marcos, and so that team isstill there today.
How many people on that team?
We had 11 on our original team,and then two of them went back
(35:35):
to the mission field.
A couple of them transitionedinto the workforce.
Four of them became full-timestaff at Texas State and they
have absolutely crushed it forthe Lord.
I love it.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
There's a lot more here.
The China story I couldn't stopyou.
We needed to hear all that.
You've been back for a fewyears and I really would like to
do justice to what God's donein that few years.
Since you've been back a fewyears, and I really would like
to do justice to what God's donein that few years since you've
been back, your family's grown,your ministry's grown.
A lot of new leaders have beenraised up.
So I want to tell some morestories, but is it okay if we
break this into two episodes?
Absolutely Okay.
(36:09):
So let's wrap today with guyswe'll be back in two weeks.
And why don't you pray for thelisteners who've just probably
pulled their car over and sat onthe side of the road alone and
listened to that and processedthat story of trusting God
through?
We all lived through COVID, butnone of us lived through COVID
(36:30):
like you lived through COVID,dude.
So would you pray for us?
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Absolutely, father, god, we come before you.
Um, we just thank you that youare directing our steps, god,
that our plan a that becomesplan B was never your plan B.
And I just pray for all thelisteners that just feel that.
They just feel that in theirlife, they feel that in their
ministry, they feel that on themission field, that that the
(36:55):
plan isn't going according toplan, but that it is going
according to your plan, and thatthey can trust you, knowing
that you are good, that you arefor them and that you are moving
the message of the kingdom ofGod and Jesus forward through
their experience.
And so we love you and praythat in Jesus' name.
Amen and amen.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Thank you for listening to unreached.
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,your friends, your, your church,
your life group, small group,dgroup, wherever you do life,
and if you want to connect withus, find us on Instagram at
unreachedpodcast, or email us atunreachedpodcast at gmailcom.
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