Hi, my name is Daniele Kuhn
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and I'm back here in Thailand
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where I grew up as a missionary.
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And today we get
to interview my dad
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and talk about his
mission experience.
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That and much
more coming up next.
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Wait, but I'm gonna
give you the minute.
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Okay. Okay. Okay.
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Here.
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Okay.
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Hi, welcome to Mission 360°.
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My name is Daniele Kuhn.
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And I grew up in
Thailand as a missionary.
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As a kid, and today,
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I'm going to be
interviewing my dad
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about his mission
and his experience
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in this amazing
country of Thailand.
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But first, let's
watch a mission story
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in the southern Asia region.
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All the villagers
raised to the airstrip
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singing and dancing
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when mission pilot Gary
Roberts landed at Suminka,
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a remote village
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in the Indonesian
province of Papua.
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It had taken the
villagers 10 years
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to cut down the trees by hand
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to clear the way for an airstrip
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at their mountainous village.
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And Gary's mission
plane was the first to land.
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This was a big event.
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As Gary stepped
out of the plane,
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the crowd grew silent.
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Their singing
and dancing stopped.
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"Is this a
Seventh-day Adventists plane?"
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a man asked.
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The villagers had
seen the Three Angels logo
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on the airplane's tail.
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Gary was surprised.
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Suminka was the
village previously accessible
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only by a long trek by foot,
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so he hadn't expected villagers
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to have heard about
the Adventist church.
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The villager soon told him
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that many of them
were keeping the Sabbath.
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The reason they said was
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because of a
Seventh-day Adventist dog.
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This story started
several years earlier
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just across the
border in Papua New Guinea
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when an Adventist
pastor named Moses
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and a lay pastor named Darius
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had the same
dream on the same night.
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In the morning, one said,
"I had a dream last night."
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The other said, "I did do
but I didn't want to tell you."
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They both had seen
an angel in the dream
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and the angel
said, "Go to Suminka."
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A few days later,
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the two men set off on a
three day hike to Suminka.
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Arriving at the village,
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they announced
evangelistic meetings
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would be held every
evening for a week under a tree
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on the far side of the village.
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But by the day of
the first meeting,
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Pastor Moses
fell ill with malaria.
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He was terribly sick
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and the villagers
predicted that he would die.
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"But if he gets better
then we will listen to him
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at the meeting," they said.
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All day Pastor Moses was sick.
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But at 5 pm he
suddenly felt better.
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He took a bath and preached.
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Afterward he
fell very ill again.
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This happened all week.
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He was sick
until 5 pm, recovered,
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took a bath and preached,
then, he sank back into bed.
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At the meetings
he told the people
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about the Sabbath
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and cautioned against eating
unclean meat such as pork.
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Wild pigs are a popular
dish in the Papua mountains.
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When the week ended,
Pastor Moses made an appeal,
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but no one came forward.
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Pastor Moses and Darius
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returned home
deeply disappointed.
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They wondered why
they had had the dream
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without any results.
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Back in Suminka,
life resumed as normal
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until Saturday morning,
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the village's best
hunting dog, Dolby,
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got up and
headed down the trail.
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His owner and other villagers
thought he was onto something,
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so they followed.
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Dolby went to the tree
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where the missionary
had spoken and sat down.
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The villagers
thought that was strange.
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The next Saturday,
Dolby did the same thing.
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He got up, walked over
to the tree and sat down.
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He refused to hunt on Saturdays.
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The villagers had noticed
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that Dolby had
stopped eating pork too.
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He refused to hunt for wild pigs
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and other unclean animals.
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"Dolby has become a
Seventh-day Adventist,"
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one villager said.
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"If he worships on Sabbath,
we should too," said another.
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Many villagers
began to keep the Sabbath
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and stopped
eating unclean foods.
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Gary the mission
pilot was so excited
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when he heard the story
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and he later
called Pastor Moses.
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The pastor was some
distance away from Suminka,
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so he contacted Darius
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and told him to
plan on spending a year
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at the village,
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teaching the
people about Bible truths.
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Today about half of the village
of 200 adults and children
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worship on Sabbath
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and 21 people
have been baptized.
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Dolby still
doesn't eat unclean food.
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The villagers say he
is a very healthy dog.
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Hi, welcome to Chiang Mai.
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I'm here with the
most special guest, my dad.
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And this is the
first time in 10 years
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that I've been
back to the territory
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where we used to
serve as missionaries.
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And we have a few
questions for you, Dad, today.
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The first question
we wanna ask you is,
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what are some of the memories
you have serving here in Asia?
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Well, Thailand is a
wonderful place to be.
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There are many, many,
many, many memories, Danny.
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I never forgot that,
you guys went to school,
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you were very small.
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And as you entered there,
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the students would wai
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and lift their
right foot to the teacher.
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That was very
nice and very kind.
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But some of the
highlights for me
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is how kind and respectful
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the Thai people were.
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I must admit that there
has been a big school for me
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a lot of lessons of the kindness
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and respect that
this culture has.
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And they are not
Christians, you know?
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That's an interesting part.
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They are not Christians
and they're very respectful.
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They avoid
problems, they avoid conflict.
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They will go in
extreme lengths sometimes.
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Do you remember you guys forgot
your little teddy bear one time
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with a taxi?
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The taxi driver went all
the way back to our house
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to return that
stuffed animal for us.
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Yeah, those are good memories.
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How has the church done, Dad?
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And what
challenges did you face?
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Well, what my job
was over Asia in general,
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but in Thailand,
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the church was very
diverse with people,
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many refugees,
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not so many real Thai Buddhists,
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with many refugees
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and many immigrants
from different places,
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and also some hill tribe's
people compose the church.
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I don't think we
have grown that much.
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Actually, it's a challenge.
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Real Buddhists, we haven't
really connected with them
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somehow, the church
still need to break through
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on how to connect
with the Buddhists.
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So they see that
the hope of Christ,
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the hope of a God who is alive
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and who is interacting with us,
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can still be something
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for the Thai
people to appreciate,
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the Buddhist
people to appreciate.
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That's true.
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Hopefully new
missionaries will come out
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we can continue the work.
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Can you share, Dad,
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a rewarding
experience you had here?
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My rewarding experience.
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Oh, there are many.
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I remember when you
guys went to school,
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and the first time
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you actually went to school.
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You didn't speak any English
or didn't speak any Thai.
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And mom was very worried
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and actually she
was quite stressed
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because of so many things.
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But eventually she got
together with many friends
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from different
parts of the world.
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They used to study
the Book of John together
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I think once a week or
once, or twice a month.
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And mom made friendships
that lasted until today.
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After 10 years,
she still has friends
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that during a difficult time
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met together
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and they were mothers
stressed with their children
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with travelling spouses,
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and they got together to
pray and study the Bible.
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They were not Adventists.
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And mom made some
friendships for life.
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That was a big lesson for me
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that quite often
somebody in the family
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who is doing something
that could be considered
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more than the mission work,
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the formal mission work
that we are called to do.
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Yeah, I agree.
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I remember those
Bible studies at home
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when I came home from school.
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And I remember that she still
keeps in touch with them today.
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Yeah. It's great, you know.
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So when God calls a family,
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when God calls the missionaries,
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sorry, He calls a family.
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Everybody is part of that call.
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Yeah, I remember even trying
to do the same with my friends.
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Because we see
so many challenges
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and hear different stories.
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What advice
would you give someone
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considering mission work abroad?
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I would say since we
don't have much time,
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the most important
thing is the connection,
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that you adjust to the culture
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that you learn the language.
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Learning the
culture, and the language,
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I would say are the
two most effective way
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and efficient way to penetrate
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in the heart of people.
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And how has the church
developed in this region
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since you left, do you know?
00:11:08.33\00:11:10.03
Well, when I look to
Asia and I see the billions.
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I'm puzzled by the
challenge and by the opportunity
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that we have
much needs to be done.
00:11:21.48\00:11:25.18
Very little growth, I would say.
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Very little growth
actually has happened.
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And we need to pray
that God will open ways
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and means people
to reach other people.
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Since we're
talking about culture, Dad,
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what are the some
things and some values
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we can learn
from the Thai culture?
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Yes, this is a very
interesting question, Danny.
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I quite often thought,
00:11:52.47\00:11:53.91
"What could we learn
from other cultures?"
00:11:53.94\00:11:58.15
And this one
specially has the value
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of respect and honesty.
00:12:01.32\00:12:04.45
The respect for life,
00:12:04.49\00:12:06.72
not only human life but
animals is, it's very high.
00:12:06.76\00:12:11.76
The respect for
other people is very high.
00:12:11.79\00:12:14.26
The respect for children,
for elders, for parents,
00:12:14.30\00:12:18.30
it's very high.
00:12:18.33\00:12:20.00
I wonder if in many ways
sometimes our Christian culture
00:12:20.04\00:12:25.57
has lost some of this
most important aspect of life,
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respect for
other, respect for life,
00:12:30.28\00:12:32.48
for parents, for
elders, for animals.
00:12:32.51\00:12:38.12
I would say, God can teach us
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through many different ways
00:12:41.42\00:12:44.03
and very different
cultures and even religions.
00:12:44.06\00:12:48.33
So we're learning. We
are on journey to learn.
00:12:48.36\00:12:52.27
And before we can
teach, we have to learn.
00:12:52.30\00:12:55.07
Thank you, Dad.
00:12:55.10\00:12:56.44
It was fun being a
missionary kid here in Thailand.
00:12:56.47\00:12:59.21
Stay with us.
00:12:59.24\00:13:00.58
Mission 360° will
continue after the break.
00:13:00.61\00:13:02.84