Participants: Shelley Quinn (Host), Jeffery Wilson & Rita Westphal
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000234
|
00:31 Hello, I'm Shelley Quinn and welcome again to
00:34 Issues and Answers. Today's issue, we're going to 00:36 be talking about a great need in India and about a woman who 00:40 turned pumpkins into churches 00:42 in India. Now that's a story. 00:45 She reminds me actually of the 00:48 Proverbs 31 wife. Let me read 00:50 you just a little bit about her. In Proverbs 31:10 it says: 00:55 a capable, intelligent and virtuous woman; who is he who 00:59 can find her? Men if you've found her hold onto her. She is 01:02 far more precious than jewels and her value is far above 01:06 rubies or pearls. Then it says in verse 20: She opens her hand 01:11 to the poor. Yes she reaches out her filled hands to the needy. 01:17 And verse 31 says: Give her of the fruit of her hands and let 01:23 her own works praise her in the gates. 01:25 We're going to be telling you her story and unfortunately she 01:29 is not here with us today but we've got someone very special 01:32 returning to visit with us and that is Jeff Wilson. 01:36 Jeff, thank you so much for returning again. Now you've been 01:41 here several times and we're very thrilled. You are the 01:45 director for the planned giving and trust services of the 01:48 General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. 01:51 That's right. I got that all out didn't I? Praise God. 01:55 And we also have with us Rita Westfall. Rita you and your 01:59 husband Leonard... It's wonderful to be here. 02:02 Oh we're glad you're here and you and your husband Leonard 02:06 work with the trust department for 3ABN and do a great work. 02:10 We are going to be talking about something very important but for 02:15 those people who haven't caught some of the earlier shows that 02:19 we've taped to together, Jeff why don't you kind of just tell 02:23 us how did you become interested in trust services? Going from 02:27 being a pastor and a youth director, how did you make that 02:31 segue, the transition, into trust services? 02:34 Well it's something that's always been of interest to me 02:37 is some of these major decisions 02:39 that people make in their lives 02:41 that can carry far beyond their 02:43 lifetime. And I've been impacted 02:45 by some people who were involved 02:47 in trust services through the years who blessed my wife and I 02:51 as a young pastor in helping us through this kind of scary area 02:55 in our lives. When our children were young and we needed help 03:00 on how to choose guardians and all those kinds of issues and 03:04 they've just helped us all along the line and I thought you know 03:08 when I get older I'd like to do that too. The Lord sort of got 03:12 me into it before I was older. I'm older now; when I started I 03:16 wasn't so old. Well then Rita, how did you make 03:20 the transition to come to work with Leonard? 03:24 Well, that was a kind of an unusual situation. I used to be 03:29 teaching, I loved teaching, I loved my job and I never thought 03:34 of being part of the 3ABN trust services. I could see myself 03:39 working for 3ABN in translating, in speaking and doing this or 03:44 doing that, but not trust 03:45 services because I had this idea 03:49 that it was all an area that I 03:52 wasn't really into. Well once I started accompanying Leonard 03:57 here and there I realized that it was a fascinating thing and 04:02 a very important ministry and I got very, very interested in it. 04:07 It's very much a teaching ministry, isn't it? 04:09 It is. I am still teaching the principles of good stewardship. 04:15 I have become more like the telephone person and the person 04:21 who kind of oversees in general what is going on and I keep in 04:27 touch with the people. So I have been very blessed. Very, very 04:32 blessed. We've been very blessed to have 04:34 both of you and I know Leonard is excited that you're working 04:36 alongside him. Yes, it's very wonderful because 04:39 like Leonard used to tell me I talk with the best people in 04:44 the world. They are the best. Now I tell him, yes, you are 04:49 right. We really talk with the wonderful Christian people who 04:54 really want to make a difference in the Lord's work. 04:58 Well we're going to be talking today about someone who's not 05:02 necessarily using trust services but a precious soul that I met 05:06 and interviewed and we're going to be talking about how the Lord 05:10 has actually led her to make a difference in India. But first 05:14 Jeff, why don't you tell us a little bit about the 05:17 demographics of India and what kind of issues that we are 05:21 facing there. India is a very, very 05:23 interesting place. It's as opposite of the west in many 05:28 ways as anyone could ever imagine. It's a country that's 05:33 geographically about one-fourth the size of the United States. 05:37 And yet more than four times as many people live there; 05:41 more than one billion people, one billion with a B live in 05:45 India. So wherever you go we work in evangelism in the small 05:49 villages out in the country, but there are people everywhere. 05:54 For decades and decades our dedicated missionaries worked 05:59 very, very hard in India and found almost no results. 06:03 Then the last decade or so the work there has just virtually 06:08 exploded; it's just amazing what is happening in evangelism. 06:12 We got caught up in it about seven years ago. We were trying 06:16 to get trust services going in that country and we were 06:21 training our local workers and our relationship with Cheryl 06:26 Erickson, the pumpkin lady, who you've interviewed on this 06:30 program. She, by God's grace, sent us some money to build 06:34 a few churches and we built those churches and we dedicated 06:38 those churches and then we got involved in what they call ten 06:43 village evangelism where we have native workers, pastors and 06:48 Bible workers who go from village to village much like 06:51 evangelism was in Jesus' day. They knock on doors and ask 06:54 people if they would like to study the Bible and if they 06:57 wouldn't, they move to another village. But more often than not 07:01 the people say yes we'd like to learn about the Bible. So they 07:04 say do you have a place we can stay and the people are very 07:07 hospitable. They will provide them a bed and food and they 07:12 will study the Bible with the people. Then after about a month 07:16 or a month-and-a-half of that we come, generally in the fall 07:21 of the year in November, pitch a tent out in an open field and 07:25 have a little power plant to power little lights and a 07:32 generator for a projector and we do 15 nights of meetings. 07:38 We use Mark Finley's New Beginnings series. We put a 07:43 sheet between two poles and show a picture up there. 07:47 It's in their native tongue and as many people as we can bring 07:51 come. We hire trucks and tractors pulling trailers and 07:56 they bring the people because the people have no other means 07:59 of transportation. We'll have anywhere from 600 to a couple 08:03 thousand people there every night, many children are there 08:07 and we have baptisms every day of the week through all that 08:12 time. In our little meetings we will have anywhere from 800 to 08:17 a couple of thousand new 7th Day Adventists. What we end up doing 08:22 is establishing a 7th Day Adventist church in that village 08:26 Now that village many times had no religion before at all or 08:30 just a heathen religion. In some villages we were in last year 08:34 there was the hammer and sickle. Actually communism had been the 08:39 religion in those villages. So what we make a commitment to 08:43 do is to build a church for those folk because they could 08:47 never in their lifetime afford to build a church. Most of them 08:50 earn; they work out in the fields in the fields, in the 08:53 cotton fields and the pepper fields and the rice paddies. 08:58 They make about 40 cents a day for working from sun up to sun 09:03 down. So for about $3500, some of them are $5000, we build 09:08 churches for them and the next year we come back and dedicate 09:12 those churches. Well the pumpkin lady, and that was her own name 09:15 for herself, her name is Cheryl Erickson, she's a farmer's wife 09:19 up in North Dakota and we've worked together for seven years 09:23 now and I just met her this past summer at camp meeting, 09:26 interestingly enough. John Turk, the trust services 09:30 director in her conference came to preach one Sabbath and told 09:35 about our India church projects. She has been wanting to do 09:39 something in missions and she said that's my project. So she 09:42 wrote to me and she said I have some money to build two churches 09:46 in India. Well that was a miracle to me because I knew 09:49 they needed churches, they need thousands of churches, and the 09:52 Lord had laid the burden on my heart and I said where can we 09:57 find this. So for the last seven years she's raised enough money 10:01 with her pumpkins to build two or three churches and God has 10:04 sent us money from other places because every year we've built 10:08 at least 10 and sometimes 11 or 12 churches a year. Now I know 10:12 some who do 50 and 100; ours is just a little project. 10:16 When I interviewed Cheryl Erickson. Rita, she was such a 10:19 precious woman. The scripture that comes to my mind is 10:23 Isaiah 48:17 where the Lord said I am the Lord your God who 10:26 teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. 10:30 Because after she heard this story she was praying and asking 10:34 God what can I do. You know I'm just a farmer's wife and she 10:39 went out and asked her husband.. God impressed her to take that 10:43 acre and dedicate it to him. Do you remember the story of the 10:49 miracle of that acre? 10:50 Well there are at least seven miracles that she counts up. 10:54 One was that first year there was a drought and there was no 10:58 rain and she was out pacing in the field, Lord, my pumpkins 11:03 could sure use a drink of water. And she said the Lord said to 11:08 her, Cheryl, if I can make pumpkins out of nothing, I can 11:12 make them with no water. That year she had a beautiful bumper 11:16 crop of pumpkins. She was able to sell every one of them when 11:21 everyone else couldn't. She went to the grocery store chain in 11:26 town to sell pumpkins. Well she found out of course they already 11:30 had a contract with another farmer. But the produce manager 11:34 said, Well I haven't heard from him for a while. Let me get him 11:38 on the phone. Well he called the man and the farmer said I've 11:42 been meaning to call you because none of my pumpkins came up this 11:45 year. I have none. So that was several thousand pumpkins she 11:49 was able to sell there. The bank bought 235 pumpkins because they 11:54 were such perfectly formed pumpkins that they were lovely 11:58 for decoration in the bank branches. But then she said she 12:02 got to her lowest point because she still had thousands of 12:06 pumpkins to sell; the Lord had given her such an abundant 12:09 harvest and she didn't know where to sell them and the phone 12:13 rang and here was a farmer's market in Fargo, North Dakota, 12:17 a person she didn't now, she didn't even know how they got 12:20 her phone number. He said, you know, do you have pumpkins to 12:23 sell and she said, do I have pumpkins. He said, I'll take 12:26 every one you have. She hung up the phone and she said she was 12:31 like the paralytic who was healed. She was dancing around 12:34 and praising God. What a wonderful story. 12:39 You know, this just shows when you dedicate... The Bible says 12:43 commit your way to the Lord and commit your plans to the Lord 12:46 and he'll cause them to succeed and that's what she did. 12:49 And this great work, this great need in India... When you said, 12:54 it just really struck me, that up to 10 years about there 12:58 really much that we were able to do and the explosive growth 13:03 of the last 10 years. Every major religion is represented in 13:09 India. Christianity is still something that many have never 13:13 heard the story of Christ and when they hear they are so 13:18 hungry because many of the poor people have been locked out of 13:21 their temples and their God is not an approachable God, he's 13:26 not a God of love. And I know that between the Nolans and 13:30 Merlyn Farley and the work that they're doing, Maranatha and the 13:35 work that they're doing, it just reminds me of Matthew 24:14. 13:40 God is saying... He promised take this gospel into all the 13:44 ends of the earth and then the end shall come. It just shows 13:47 us that we're getting closer to the end. 13:49 It's really a wonderful time to be involved in evangelism in 13:55 India and I would encourage anyone who wants to have a 13:59 life-changing experience to contact one of these groups. 14:03 There's work for everyone to do. My daughter often goes with me 14:08 and she tells the Bible story but she'll sit with the children 14:12 in the front and visits with the women and the children in the 14:16 villages and just has a wonderful time. But if we go, 14:21 they will come and they will listen and village after village 14:25 will become 7th Day Adventist Christians. It's thrilling. More 14:30 than 100,000 people are being baptized a year right now. 14:34 It has just passed a million 7th Day Adventists, I think, in 14:38 India. And again, it took decades to just get 10,000 14:43 members. You know, 3ABN is on there. 14:45 I remember when we were at the General Conference. You know you 14:48 work for an international ministry. You know it here 14:54 I knew it in my heart at the General Conference when a little 14:58 lady came running down the aisle and she was from India and she 15:02 was going Oh Shelley Quinn, Shelley Quinn, you know. 15:05 And Merlyn Farley, we'd been talking with the Farleys and 15:09 you know they're very connected with Gospel Outreach and they 15:12 have invited us to go with them and I think possibly we're 15:16 trying to arrange this hopefully for the first part of the year 15:19 that J.D. and I and maybe some others from 3ABN... Rita Do you 15:22 and Leonard want to go over and do some campaigns? 15:25 I might. India is very dear to my heart. If there is a country 15:30 that tugs at my heart, it's India. I love the little 15:34 children. The people are so beautiful. They seem to be so 15:38 genuine, they seem to be so needy and willing too. They are 15:44 grasping to be accepted, to be connected to God. It's just 15:49 amazing. It's very, very touching for me the way they 15:54 respond. They're a very loving people. Yes. 15:56 They have deep concerns for their children. The elders will 16:00 come up and ask if we can provide a school, a Christian 16:04 school, for their children. They need pastoral care and that's a 16:09 major challenge. We try to raise money; by God's grace 16:14 we've gotten enough this year to buy a couple of motorcycles 16:19 for some of the area pastors. They have 25-35 churches that 16:23 they have responsibility for and never in their lifetime 16:27 could they afford an automobile. There's a government bus once in 16:31 a while but it may not be going to the village when they need to 16:34 go to conduct a funeral or have a prayer meeting or something. 16:38 So for about $1200 we can get the best Indian-made motorcycle 16:43 and a helmet and some side containers so they can carry 16:48 their Bible and their Bible lessons and provide some wheels 16:53 for some of our pastors and they are so grateful to have a means 16:57 of transportation. What is a pastor's salary in 17:02 India or a Bible Worker's salary in India? 17:05 It's about $300 or $400. 17:08 So for every $300 or $400 a month that we can contribute 17:15 you can have someone who's working full time? 17:18 Yes. One thing that we also do of course, I think most of 17:22 the groups do is provide Bibles for the new converts. They're 17:25 from the Indian Bible Society; they're in Telugu, their native 17:30 language. When they come up out of the watery grave of baptism 17:35 we give them a Bible and they just hug those Bibles they are 17:40 so precious to them. Well many of the adults are illiterate so 17:44 someone says why give them a Bible if they're illiterate? The 17:48 answer is the children are not and the children will teach the 17:52 parents to read and the only book in the home will be a Bible 17:57 Every night at the meetings we'll see people come with 18:01 Bibles and especially the children will turn to the texts 18:05 that we're referring to and it's such a joy to see that. 18:09 These Bibles cost a little less that $2 U.S. each and they're 18:15 just in a little plastic sleeve like we would toss away but the 18:20 people will very carefully slip that sleeve so they can slip 18:25 their Bible back into it to keep it fresh and new. 18:28 That's something that they treasure it quite... It reminds 18:32 me of Jeremiah 15:16: Your words were found and I ate them and 18:36 they were to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. 18:39 Oh that we would treat out Bibles more like that. Now this 18:44 10-village campaign, how long is this? Tell us a little more 18:50 about that. It goes on for 15 nights and 18:55 during the daytime we are visiting in the villages. 18:58 We spend probably anywhere from six to eight hours a day on the 19:04 road. The roads are pretty rough over 19:08 there I understand. Traveling on the roads in India 19:11 is different than other parts of the world. It's an adventure. 19:16 It's a roller coaster ride. There are times when we've spent 19:21 12 hours a day on the road and probably about every minute you 19:25 say this is my last moment on earth. 19:29 Is that because of the condition of the roads or the way they 19:33 drive? It's everything. Everything, all of the above. 19:36 It's everything. The roads generally are not in very good 19:40 condition. They are building some new roads, World Bank has 19:43 provided the funds; nice double- lane roads with an island in the 19:48 middle. But if the people want to go the other way and it's 19:52 more convenient to go the wrong way, they will do so. If there's 19:56 a chug hole on their side of the road, they will whip over to the 20:00 other side of the road and the oncoming traffic will move. 20:05 The road is the habitat of every living thing and some things 20:11 that aren't alive. People will dry their grain on the road. 20:15 People will sleep on the road even at night. Animals will be 20:20 asleep on the road. If your vehicle breaks down, you don't 20:23 pull it to the side of the road, you leave it in the middle of 20:27 the road. At night most of the trucks have no tail lights that 20:31 work and sometimes their head lights don't work and when they 20:35 do work it's worse because for whatever reason when they're 20:39 overtaking and passing they throw their beams up on high 20:43 beam and with all the dust on the wind shield at least I'm 20:47 blinded. I'm hoping that the driver can see something. 20:50 Then there are ox carts on the road. There are people driving 20:54 sheep and goats on the road. There are bicycles on the road. 20:58 There are people walking on the road. There are a few cars. 21:02 In a day's driving we might see five or six automobiles, a 21:06 typical automobile like we are familiar with here. There are 21:10 lots of buses and that's how most people travel and lots of 21:15 trucks. Sort of the rule is, the big guy has the right of way. 21:19 So the trucks and the buses, they go very fast and when they 21:23 want to pass it doesn't matter that cars or motorcycles are 21:26 coming the other way. They will whip over in that lane and the 21:30 people get out of the way if they can. So as I say I've many 21:33 times come right up to a car and then he'll just pull back 21:36 in at the last moment and you think, Lord I don't know, this 21:40 may be it for me. Well it's something that we see 21:46 we see the great need there. How can people become involved 21:49 other than maybe contacting Maranatha or Gospel Outreach and 21:53 going over to do a campaign? How can people become involved 21:57 as Cheryl did? What would they do if they want to help fund 22:01 something like this? Well, there are many 22:03 organizations like you said, the ones that you mentioned, 22:06 ASI and if they're interested in helping us with our little 22:09 projects they can send money to our attention at the General 22:12 Conference. I've had little children in Sabbath School give 22:16 me $2 and say I want one Bible for one little child in India 22:19 and that's been very precious to me. I've just shown a picture 22:23 in Sabbath School of some of the motorcycles. I had these people 22:26 come up to me and they said, we're motorcyclists. And I said, 22:29 I would have never guessed that. We want to help you with a 22:32 motorcycle. I was in a church one day showing about the 22:35 motorcycles and they said do you get helmets for those pastors? 22:38 I said, I never thought of that. They need helmet, absolutely. 22:42 So they said we'll give you money for helmets. So we found 22:45 the best helmets in India, we went and found the very best 22:48 ones. They cost about $20 U.S., with the hood, because you know 22:52 there's lots of rocks that can be thrown up and a person could 22:55 be blinded or killed very easily. As I say, at churches 22:59 a lot of people when they find out you can build a church for 23:05 $3500 or a larger church for $5000, I've had a lot of people 23:10 say I'll write you a check to build a church. These are 23:16 concrete and steel buildings. They are the nicest building 23:20 in the village. Most of the villagers live in mud huts. 23:25 In fact, to walk in a village there I'm often taken aback. 23:29 I've said, I'm walking in the footprints of Jesus. The only 23:34 thing that's different from the time of Jesus is that there is 23:39 in the village a well with a pump handle on it. That's where 23:42 they get their water and it's made out of stainless steel; 23:45 the government's done that so you wouldn't have seen that in 23:49 Jesus' day. Occasionally there will be one electric line to one 23:53 little electric bulb in a home and I have seen a few television 23:58 sets so that's where they're getting 3ABN but not every 24:01 village. But if one person has a television, the whole village 24:05 would come together for it. Usually the villagers will 24:09 often give us the land for the church and they will give us the 24:14 nicest, most prominent spot in the village. That's where they 24:19 want the church. They want the best piece for God. When we 24:25 have the dedication, there will be a call for gifts and one will 24:31 say I will give a clock, I will give a chair, I will give a 24:36 table. Most of the people sit on the floor but they take grain 24:39 sacks and sew them together and they will bring some of those to 24:43 lay on the floor and the children are first and then the 24:46 adults are second. Someone will say I will give an offering 24:50 plate. It's interesting; I have some pictures of offerings in 24:53 India. It's very interesting because people will bring in 24:56 kind gifts. They'll bring their tithe and offerings and it will 25:00 be a little pot of rice or some eggs or some other kinds of food 25:05 and that is because they don't have much money, this is their 25:09 money. I said, how do you deal with that. They said well after 25:13 sundown on Saturday night sometimes the pastor who has 25:16 some income from the conference will buy that or they do an 25:20 auction and they sometimes we get more than face value for the 25:25 rice and the eggs to turn it into cash to send to region 25:30 to the mission office. 25:32 You know one thing, I was 25:33 talking with Merlyn Farley one 25:35 day and, Rita, I asked him 25:37 specifically... They had so many baptisms. I mean the numbers 25:41 from these campaigns were so astronomical and I said, but 25:45 when you go back are these people staying in the church? 25:49 He said, not only are they staying but by the time they 25:52 go back there's no attrition. The churches are actually 25:57 growing because these people are hungry and they really do 26:00 accept the Lord and they go out and share their faith. 26:04 I was impressed when I read that that they really remain faithful 26:10 We go back one year later to dedicate the church. When I do 26:13 a 10-village campaign this year, I will go back to the 10 26:16 villages from last year and dedicate those churches. 26:19 In every case there's 40 or 50 or 60 or 100 more people in the 26:25 church from last year. There's a loud speaker on the outside of 26:29 the church so if you don't come to church, church comes to you. 26:34 Everyone will hear the service and many times the village 26:39 leader, the village elder, will be the first one to be baptized. 26:43 He says, I want to set an example for my people and in 26:47 those cases we know that in time the whole village will be 7th 26:50 Day Adventist Christians. And to think that someone like 26:55 a North Dakota farmer's wife, Cheryl Erickson, could be 27:00 sponsoring these churches. You know, we can do these types of 27:04 things too if we'll just ask the Lord to lead us and show us 27:08 what to do. Well, again, our time has gone by too quickly. 27:11 Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. 27:14 I'm so glad we had the chance to discuss this matter. I wish 27:17 more young people would get involved. 27:19 Oh Amen. It doesn't have to be young people. There's no age 27:25 limit. They've going over that are 87 years old that are 27:31 actually doing campaigns too. So if you're looking for something 27:35 to do for the Lord, pray about this and ask God if he might 27:38 send you or at least in Cheryl's case she couldn't go so she sent 27:42 the money and she's doing a great work. May the grace of our 27:46 Lord Jesus Christ, the love of the Father and the fellowship of 27:49 the Holy Spirit be with you today and every day. 27:52 Thank you for joining us. |
Revised 2014-12-17