Participants:
Series Code: MTS
Program Code: MTS002704A
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00:36 Your mission offerings at work in Kinshasa in the Congo,
00:40 the mission field of Maine in the United States, 00:43 and a children's mission story from Europe, 00:45 all this and much more coming up next. 01:20 Hello, and welcome to Mission 360. 01:22 I'm Gary Krause. 01:23 Today's program is coming to you 01:25 from Portland, Maine, in the United States. 01:28 And directly behind me on the street, 01:31 the Bracket Street School was located. 01:34 And in the 1800s 01:35 Ellen White is believed to have attended here 01:38 when she was just a young girl 01:39 because the family live just around the corner 01:42 in Spruce Street. 01:44 When Ellen White was nine years of age, 01:46 another student threw a rock, hit her in the face, 01:50 and Ellen was unconscious 01:51 and then took many months to recover. 01:53 In fact, it's thought 01:55 that perhaps she never really fully recovered 01:56 from that incident. 01:59 Ellen White, of course, 02:00 was the one who talked about Christ method of ministry, 02:03 which is the blueprint for Adventist mission today. 02:06 And on today's program, 02:07 we're going to look at mission all around the world. 02:09 But first up, 02:10 we're going to travel to the Congo 02:12 to the great city of Kinshasa 02:14 to see a children's shelter that was built 02:17 because of your 13th Sabbath Offerings. 02:21 What's the purpose of a lamb shelter? 02:23 It's a safe place for lambs to grow strong and healthy. 02:27 In this Congolese Church, 02:28 children are called lambs 02:30 and have their own lamb shelter, 02:31 where they can worship together on Sabbath. 02:34 Here they are empowered to be young leaders. 02:51 Misbah is the pastor son. 02:53 He was nine years old 02:55 when he and his friends began worshiping 02:56 in this lamb shelter. 02:58 Having a place of their own 02:59 gives the children ownership of the Sabbath School 03:01 and worship service. 03:03 Like his father, 03:04 Misbah happily leads on Sabbath mornings. 03:07 These children are so grateful 03:09 for the gifts they received in 2013 03:11 when a portion of the 13th Sabbath Offering 03:14 was used to build several lamb shelters 03:16 in Kinshasa. 03:17 With this new building, this young group has grown 03:20 and welcomes new faces all the time. 03:30 Next door, membership in the main church 03:32 has also seen growth. 03:33 Misbah's father is the head pastor. 03:36 He welcomes guests and members to church this Sabbath. 03:42 This church 03:43 offers an interpreter for the deaf. 03:45 Thomas gladly uses sign language 03:47 to share the message during Sabbath School 03:49 and the sermon. 03:50 He wants to make sure there are no barriers 03:52 to knowing Jesus 03:54 and being part of their Adventist community. 03:57 Through song and study, they celebrate their blessings, 03:59 and pray for the mission challenges 04:01 of the city of Kinshasa. 04:03 This large city is the capital 04:05 of the Democratic Republic of Congo 04:07 and Adventist Churches are scattered throughout. 04:13 Before the lamb shelter was built, 04:15 children could only meet outside under a tree 04:18 or in the entrance way of the church. 04:20 These areas didn't provide much protection 04:22 from the hot sun or heavy rain. 04:24 So when Adventist members in Kinshasa 04:26 learned of the 13th Sabbath Offering project, 04:29 they were so excited. 04:30 I'm really happy to see that the word church 04:36 is going to give us a support, 04:38 so that we can realize this project. 04:42 Thanks to your generous giving to the offering, 04:44 the project was completed, 04:46 and the children now have a dedicated space 04:48 to worship. 04:50 Please pray for this mission work 04:51 in this city. 04:52 With more than 11 million people, 04:54 there is a great need for Jesus in such a vast urban area. 04:58 Adventist in Kinshasa thank you for your contribution 05:01 to the 13th Sabbath Offering 05:03 and look forward to Jesus' soon return. 05:06 God bless them. This is my wish. 05:09 I think that one day we will meet together 05:13 in the Kingdom of our Father. 05:34 My guest is Scott Christiansen who is the evangelist 05:36 and communication director 05:38 for the Northern New England Conference 05:40 here in the United States. 05:41 Scott, thanks for joining us. It's my pleasure. 05:43 In a former life you were a missionary. 05:45 You served in the country of Mongolia. 05:49 Describe when that was and why it was so important? 05:53 Why it's such a critical time for the Adventist Church? 05:55 Well, you say a former life 05:57 and, you know, I mean it was 25 years ago. 05:59 Oh, wow, 25 years ago, actually, 06:01 that we landed in Mongolia, almost to the day, actually. 06:06 And it was a different world at that time. 06:09 Communism had collapsed, not too long before that. 06:14 And Mongolia was part of the Soviet Union. 06:18 And they were attacked, they were dominated, 06:20 their economy was dominated, 06:21 their government was directed by the Soviet Union. 06:24 They were not actually... 06:27 They still have their own flag, 06:28 they still have their own territory 06:30 because the Soviet Union want another vote in the UN. 06:33 So they were never absorbed by the Soviet Union. 06:35 But other than that, 06:36 the distinction was meaningless 06:38 because they were controlled by the Soviet Union. 06:41 So when the Soviet Union collapsed, 06:43 Mongolia completely pancaked. 06:47 The hospitals stopped working, the schools stopped working, 06:50 the food supply stopped working, 06:51 it was a terrible, terrible time. 06:54 And yet it was, 06:56 in one sense a good time 06:57 because for the first time in over 75 years 07:00 the country was open to people 07:02 coming in missionaries. 07:05 The government wasn't happy to see them necessarily, 07:08 certainly not the secret police, 07:09 because they still had momentum going, you know, 07:12 from the Soviet times, and yet the country opened. 07:15 And that's when ADRA started, 07:17 that's when my family and I went to Mongolia 07:20 with our two little kids to start ADRA. 07:23 And to begin work in a country 07:27 that otherwise 07:28 was just not letting people in it, 07:30 who had no knowledge of Christianity, 07:32 had even lost their own knowledge 07:33 of what of their Buddhist past. 07:35 So it was a blank slate, if you will. 07:37 But full of suspicion, minds full of propaganda, 07:40 that was never true. 07:42 It was troubling. 07:46 And it was difficult, 07:47 and it was full of opportunity at that moment in time. 07:51 And that the Adventist Church 07:53 at that stage numbered in the thousands, I guess? 07:55 Oh, it was huge. 07:57 Yeah, actually, at that point, there was one baptized member. 08:01 Right. 08:02 In fact, Robert Folkenberg, 08:04 there were two AFM missionaries in the country. 08:05 There were... Adventist Frontier Missions. 08:07 Thank you. Adventist Frontier Missions. 08:09 And they were there as stealth missionaries. 08:11 And they were ready to baptize their first member, 08:15 a young woman named Dabahu, 08:16 precious young woman named Dabahu. 08:18 And they invited the church president, 08:20 Bob Folkenberg, 08:21 to the country to do the baptism. 08:23 So while he was there, 08:25 he met with the President of Mongolia 08:27 and said, 08:29 "We're going to start ADRA." 08:30 And that's how ADRA got started. 08:32 We were in there shortly thereafter. 08:34 But when we arrived, still just one member, 08:37 baptized member and five or six young, 08:41 young kid, I mean, we're talking 15, 16, 17 08:44 young, young kids that were curious, 08:48 but certainly hadn't been baptized, 08:50 weren't members, weren't committed. 08:52 And yet, upon those young kids, 08:56 God built the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Mongolia. 08:59 And today, there's thousands and thousands of members. 09:03 You could write a book of your experiences 09:05 in Mongolia, that I'm sure. 09:07 When you look back, 09:08 and you look at the way God has lead. 09:10 Is there something that really stands out 09:12 that you can share with us? 09:14 Well, actually, yeah, and I'll try and do it quickly. 09:16 It's a long story 09:18 that I'm going to try and condense. 09:19 But when we went to Mongolia, 09:23 we were the first international organization 09:25 to sign and I speak of ADRA here. 09:27 ADRA was the first international organization 09:29 to sign an agreement. 09:31 Interestingly enough, 09:33 there, the government had these huge expectations, 09:36 and yet ADRA had very limited capacity 09:38 and no budget 09:39 and it was difficult to get started. 09:42 I had one employee, and his name was Monk Jurgal, 09:47 an avowed atheist 09:48 who later became a Seventh-day Adventist pastor. 09:50 And the Adventist Frontier Mission people, 09:53 they were working very quietly 09:55 and they had a student missionary 09:56 named Tristan. 09:57 And Tristan was there working... 10:00 The government had told me, 10:02 "Scott, you can't render any assistance 10:04 to the street children, 10:05 otherwise we'll throw you out of the country." 10:07 And there were thousands of street children 10:09 in the country who is so very poor. 10:11 And they wrenched my heart. 10:12 I wanted to do something for these street children. 10:15 Well, what I did was, 10:16 I took cases of power bars that had been delivered by ADRA 10:19 and some children's clothing and I gave them to Tristan. 10:22 And he and some of the church members 10:24 were handing out these things to the street children. 10:26 And so all of this was going on. 10:29 And we were making progress. 10:33 And Tristan was doing quite a lot. 10:35 But Tristan was also doing some things 10:36 I didn't know about. 10:38 He was giving English languages 10:40 to members of parliament. 10:41 And he was telling them, 10:43 he was associate director of ADRA. 10:45 And it turns out, this young man 10:47 was fleeing from the FBI 10:49 and had pretended to become an Adventist 10:51 and had pretended to be converted 10:55 and to want to join AFM. 10:58 He had targeted AFM 10:59 as a American organization in a country 11:02 that he could not be extradited from. 11:05 Well, all of this fell apart, the FBI found him. 11:07 The government of Mongolia arrested him. 11:10 And when that happened, 11:11 all the suspicions came out 11:13 that they culturally harbored towards Christians. 11:17 And the news was full of reports. 11:19 ADRA is bringing criminals to the country 11:22 and the Adventist Church is trying to corrupt our youth 11:24 and ADRA is laundering the money. 11:27 Well, I had this one employee Monk Jurgal, 11:29 and he was terrified. 11:32 He knew he was going to be arrested. 11:33 He wanted to flee to the countryside. 11:35 He was telling me, "I was going to be a thrown 11:38 out of the country." 11:39 And the AFM people were... 11:41 You know, their house was on fire. 11:43 Things were just terrible. 11:46 Well, we all went to our knees. 11:48 I was begging Monk Jurgal not to leave 11:50 'cause I couldn't speak Mongolian. 11:51 He was my only link and he knew the government, 11:53 he knew his way out. 11:55 Finally, I told him, "Look, Monk Jurgal, 11:57 if you stay you will see God work a miracle." 11:59 Well, he sent his family to the countryside. 12:01 He stayed. 12:03 We worked our way through it. 12:05 I sent a fax off to ADRA 12:06 because the phone links were so bad. 12:08 I sent a fax off to ADRA saying, 12:09 this is what's happened. 12:11 Everything's collapsing. 12:12 We've only been here a couple months, 12:13 all of this terrible things are happening. 12:15 And almost immediately, 12:16 even though they were 12 hours away, 12:17 almost immediately, I got an answer back saying, 12:22 "You are on the world prayer chain. 12:24 Everyone's praying for you. 12:25 Not only that, but we've swept away 12:26 the budget limits 12:28 and we've sent you $50,000 to begin doing the projects 12:30 you were sent there to do. 12:32 So go to work." 12:35 And we did go to work. 12:36 And we weren't thrown out of the country. 12:39 The whole thing blew over with a lot of ulcers, 12:42 but it blew over. 12:43 Monk Jurgal saw a miracle. 12:45 In fact, it was only three months later 12:48 that the President was on TV thanking ADRA for the work 12:51 that we were doing. 12:52 ADRA really got its start in the middle of catastrophe. 12:56 And the church, that little church 12:57 with those teenagers went through fire, 13:01 but the teenagers who remained became church leaders 13:05 and our church leaders today. 13:07 And Monk Jurgal became 13:08 the first Seventh-day Adventist Mongolian pastor. 13:11 So when everything was falling apart, 13:13 that's when God was bringing it together. 13:15 That is a great story. 13:17 Thanks so much for sharing with us, Scott. 13:19 And when you write that book, 13:20 I'm gonna get the first copy, all right? 13:21 All right, you'll get the first copy. 13:23 Okay, thank you. God bless. 13:24 Viewers at home, 13:25 God still does work miracles 13:27 and frontlines of mission are not easy. 13:29 Scott can detail story after story 13:31 of the hardships of Mongolia, 13:33 but he remembers the miracles that God brought. 13:35 We'll be right back after this break. |
Revised 2020-06-11