Is The Church Hiding Behind The Mask?

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Call 866-WINASIA or to see chickens and other animals to donate, go to CritterCampaign.org. Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Where you hear from ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into kingdom pursuits. Now live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore. I can honestly say it's been few shows in my career that I could anticipate like I did this particular show. And if you've heard the promos, we are going to be talking about something I don't normally do on Kingdom Pursuits. If you're familiar with me, I try to stay away from controversy usually.

But in today's show, we're diving in head first. I am going to try to remain neutral in the midst of all this, but I understand there's already been quite a bit of screaming going on about it. But Larry George, my good friend from Salome Missionary Homes, sent me a text. I got to tell you a little bit of the story.

He helps out missionaries from around the world, and he sent me a text. I think it was actually Thursday morning? That's right.

And it talked about this pastor in Hong Kong who had gone against what the government said and met with his church, and he not only got thrown in jail, he was in solitary confinement for nine months already? Yes. And he talked about, are we hiding behind the mask? Now, he's not saying we're not supposed to wear masks, so let's not get that, but are we—it's the church. That's right. Period. And we're talking about internationally, but, you know, more specifically in America, hiding behind the mask. Right.

And, you know, Larry, I'll let you carve out—of course, we also have some other stuff coming besides Larry today, lots of other stuff, but we got Larry, and I want Larry to get a chance to kind of introduce his topic here. Well, I guess what brought this subject up to me was I was reading about in the Evangelical Focus magazine in Europe about this Chinese man that was arrested in Hong Kong, and the reason he got arrested, he's a Christian, got arrested for congregating with a group of people we don't know how many, and they tried to blame it on COVID, and they put him in prison for 10 months, solitary confinement, lights on him 24-7, every day, to try to break him. They called him an activist is what they did. I started to read that, and then, Robbie, all of a sudden, I received an email about the same time from a friend of mine that's running a ministry in Thailand about the effect of COVID that has had on them being a missionary.

They hardly have the support right now because in America, a lot of times, if we don't go to church, we don't give our offering. If we don't give our offering, people don't get paid, and who's the last one to get paid but a missionary? And I got to looking at that, and the more I was thinking about that, I was thinking, am I hiding behind a mask? Because you know what? Our face expression shows what we think as a person. If I walk into a restaurant, and I see a waitress that looks at me, and she's got this scowl on her face, then I think, well, you know, she's got a problem.

I'm not going to go near her. Or if I see a friend of mine walking down the street, and they're waving, and they've got a big smile on her face, I'm thinking, hey, I need to go talk to them. But if they're wearing a mask, I have no idea that expression, only through their eyes. And Robbie, I can't tell you the number of people I've walked up and said, hey, how are you?

And realized I don't even know who they are. Of course, they look at me and say, I don't know who you are, but that's true. So we want to have a frank discussion along these lines today. And we want to give you, if you're frustrated about the masks, and frustrated about the church's position on not meeting, and frustrated about those kind of things, we want to hear from you.

But also, if you're frustrated by people who are not wearing masks, and not being safe, and those kind of things. And I'm going to do my best to try to stay right in the middle of that, let everybody get a chance to say what they feel, and let's just talk as a church, like friends. Like, I know that Larry loves Christ, and I know a lot of people that dearly love Christ that believe wholeheartedly in the mass.

So, you know, where does God want us to fall in this, and those kind of things? So 866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH. And along those lines, we have with us Brian Keurig, who is with Gospel for Asia. And if you've been listening to Truth Network, you know we've got this Critter campaign going on, Mr. Chicken, and all sorts of stuff. Welcome, Brian. Thanks for having me on the show.

We are so glad, and I've got to tell you that your website and the Critter campaign is like so cool. I mean, you can buy a chicken, you can buy a goat. 65 bucks, Larry, you can get a sheep.

Oh, man. That's cheaper than your sheep, by the way. That's right. Maybe I could buy his and sell him.

That's a good deal. I mean, I'm saying that's not bad for a sheep. So, no doubt, no doubt. Yeah, and it's right there at crittercampaign.org, and I don't know who thought of this that way, but it was really a brilliant strategy, Brian. Yeah, I mean, it's a really effective, tangible way to demonstrate the love of Christ, both to the people who receive it as well as people who are able to provide those for people in desperate need. And for us, you know, we think of a lamb, you know, like a sheep or a goat. I mean, we might think of it as, oh, that's a farm animal or whatever else, or, you know, it's a means to make money. But for a lot of these people, it means the difference between being able to eat or not or being able to send their kids to school or not. Or just, you know, being able to just wake up in the morning and actually look forward to life. And it sounds simple, but they make huge differences in the lives of people who have absolutely nothing. Yeah, and it's that time of year in December, and no matter where you fall in the mask decision, you know we're trying to get the gospel out, and you know we want to share Jesus Christ with these people.

And what a way to do that with a gift that can keep on giving through the Critter Campaign. But I've never had a call in all my years of doing Kingdom Pursuits from British Columbia, but we do have one now. We have Phil, is in British Columbia, so let's go to him. Phil, you're on Kingdom Pursuits, good morning. Good morning, how are you? I am wonderful. So, how are things in British Columbia?

Well, a little frosty this morning, but it's beautiful. I'll bet. Yeah. So you had a view, I guess, on the whole hiding behind the mask idea?

Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the realities for us, and I'm lead pastor of a church here, I also serve with the commission of the World Evangelical Alliance, called Peace and Reconciliation Network, here in North America. And one of the early embraces that our church did here, as COVID emerged, and I'm not sure where restrictions are at in other parts of the United States in the same way here, but in our province, right now, churches are asked not to have in-person gatherings. And there's obviously a number of different views and opinions on that, and that's been very challenging, actually, as pastors and church leaders, and even produced some conflict, unfortunately. Our church very early on discerned, you know what, we could actually, we could either fight this, or we could see this through the lens of a disciple-making opportunity, and the invitation for us as a church to get outside the building. And to say, Lord, have we actually made our building, and the patterns and the ways in which we've been framing ministry and mission, have we actually diminished our capacity to reach people, and to engage people who won't actually come into a building ever? And we were even seeing patterns of Christians meeting less frequently in the ways, you know, on a Sunday morning, you know, instead of, at least here in Canada, instead of, you know, regular attendance has gone over the last five to ten years from, you know, every Sunday to, like, once a month, we're regular. So suddenly our discipleship capacity, and our mission capacity, and as Larry had said earlier, our capacity even to give, is diminished because we see all of Christian life primarily through a lens that's Sunday-centric instead of Jesus and mission-centric. So we reframed our entire church life over these last number of months into essentially a network of small communities, we call them hubs, basically like house churches to a degree, where we bring people together, they're together as a group of people, and they're thinking about what it means to take responsibility for the city and engage their neighbors, to engage different things going on in our city as ambassadors of Christ, and to be both a gospel-ing people, a mission people, and a fellowship people where disciple-making is happening. Wow, that's just an awesome picture, isn't it, Larry?

Yes, it is. It's great, Phil, to see the work that you're doing and God had planned a long time ago before COVID even started. So you can see God's at work for the Gospel of Asia and their Critter Campaign. He's at work whether you've got a mask on or not, and we're going to hear so much more. We've got somebody calling from Ohio, somebody from Raleigh.

Oh wow, they're loaded. And we've got more from Brian from Gospel of Asia, so stay tuned. So much more, Kingdom Pursuits. Oh, I should tell you, 866-348-7884 is the number to call in?

Call in. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom, and today we're so blessed to have with us Brian Keirick from Gospel for Asia's Critter Campaign, which is CritterCampaign.org. It's going on right now across the Truth Network, as well as our good friend Larry George with Slow Missionary Helms, and his friend Mark Defrades, who we haven't heard from at all yet, but we're fixing to, with their topic, Hiding Behind the Mask. And Larry, I love the quote you just gave me from your book. Go ahead and read it.

Well, Vance Havner said this and was really good about it. Missionaries said, You've got to love that, right, Mark? Because you were bound for Africa, and you keep being bound for Africa, but… Absolutely, yes.

I lived there for about eight, nine years in Kenya and worked in many different countries there, South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, DRC. But what you're finding in America on this particular time is… Very interesting to say the least, but I'd like to go back to the guy that called in, I believe, from Canada that was talking about their church and how they were approaching things and how the doors, you know, what they do with their doors open and closed and things like that. One of the things when I got here and the COVID was starting to ramp up was I kept hearing people say, We've got to get our doors open. We've got to get our doors open. I'm thinking, Why do we have to get our doors open? Why can't we go out and talk with people? Why can't we go out and meet with people? Why can't we just go out and speak with people? Why do we have to have our doors open on a church just to do that? And that's one thing that really started striking me and started looking at things in that order with the doors being closed, how we can actually open other doors. Yeah, how cool is that? And Brian, in you guys' situation, I love the way that, you know, you came out with this campaign this year so that those people can, you know, go out and talk to their neighbor with a chicken or a pig or a Bible or a tract.

What you guys are, you know, offering all these things or gifts are just amazing. Yeah, I mean, actually, you think about COVID and the impact that it's having on people and, you know, a lot of countries you work in, people, the breadwinner is what you call a day laborer, meaning like, they don't have any money. And like in the parable of the vineyard that Jesus told where the vineyard owner goes out and he finds people to work. You know, these families, they're dependent upon the man of the house to go out to get, to hopefully get hired that day. And if he doesn't get hired that day, he doesn't eat. Well, with all the lockdowns and everything, that means none of these day laborers, you're talking like literally tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of day laborers who can't get any work, which means they can't get any food. And so, you know, we're trying to get people through these things, but just, you know, making sure they have food and stuff like that. But, you know, you get somebody a goat, it is, or a pair of goats.

It's amazing what happens. I remember one family I met and they had two young kids and they couldn't put them into school because they couldn't afford the school supplies. I'm assuming you're not talking about their goats. I'm sorry, I just had to. Oh no, I fell right into that one. So, but yeah, so they're two children. They couldn't go. And so when we provide them with a pair of goats, and it ended up that their goats had kids, and they were able to sell, like one goat actually was exactly the amount of money it took for them to put their child through school for the entire year.

And otherwise, they would never even have an opportunity for education. That is so awesome, Brian. Just wonderful. Well, we have so many calls from all over the country. We got Dr. Duane Costello, who is on with us. Doctor, you're on. Well, we lost Dr. Duane, but we got Hal, who is calling from Ohio.

So Hal, you're on Kingdom Pursuits. Good morning. Yeah, good morning. I would love to hear your view in Ohio.

You're living in a little colder climate. Yeah, I'm saying hi to Larry, whom we've known for a number of years, and a bit less about knowing his ministries that he enjoys and his family are involved in down there. And Rob, he sounds like you're into many good things. We have been paying attention to some people who have been prophetic voices to the church in general for 30 or 40 years, and what they're saying about the times that we're in are a couple of things that are notable. One is that it's addressed rehearsal.

In other words, this is an opportunity for us to practice some new skills, not waste the opportunity. And the other is the notion of what Ed Stilvoso, an international missionary and revival speaker, calls the Ecclesia Movement, which basically is to foster, he wants us to foster millions of small gatherings of people in our home. And we were in a church, big church, and it closed up, and also our home groups closed up too, and the leaders were not given any guidance on how to handle it. And what we were thinking was, why can't we just gather if people felt they were safe enough to do it, a few people in a home or even out in a backyard to meet, talk, pray, worship the Lord a little bit, and that seems to be what's happened in Iran. Why the church is spreading in Iran, even though they can't gather in any big gatherings. They never could do this, whether there was COVID or not, but what they did is went into small gatherings in homes. They prayed, they witnessed, they shared, and it's grown to a million Christians in Iran. What did the true Christians do in Germany in World War II?

They get into small gatherings in homes to support one another. So it seems like the overall message is, folks, we may be losing an opportunity to learn some new skills in this that we might have to use in other harder times that some of our fellow brethren in other places in the world are already having to learn. Absolutely, Hal.

It seems like any time the wind changes, you've got to reset your sails. And as a sailor, I can just relate to that, and that's absolutely wonderful. Hal, thank you so much for calling in and from here and from Ohio. God bless. Yeah, keep up the good work, folks. Thank you. Thank you. So next up, we've got Dr. Duane.

We're going to try to get him again. Dr. You're on Kingdom Pursuits. Good morning. Good morning. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you great this time.

I'm sorry. Tell us your view on the whole hiding behind the mask concept. Well, I've got great respect for the men who just spoke before.

I see a lot of those things going on, and that's something that we as a church have to be ready for, because part of persecution will drive us to do new things and new avenues, and so I applaud them guys. My take on that from my perspective here in Michigan is hypocrisy to the fullest. We have leaders all around the US. There's the mayor of Houston, Texas. We've got the governor in California. We've got the city mayor in Los Angeles saying, you guys can't do this.

You can't go anywhere for Christmas. They want us to stay at home. But then they're out doing the same thing, and they get busted, and they're getting busted with people around them with no masks. And so what I know is the virus is real, but we also understand that we've never done this before as far as when the flu season comes, and so why now? And I see a different side of this, and again, I applaud everything that the other gentlemen have said, and we need to do those things, but we also have to understand as Americans we have freedom with our Constitution, and that is being attacked over and over. The First Amendment gives us the right to meet, and so it goes back to early on in my view that the government said let's do this for three weeks, four weeks, and this will stop the spread. Okay, so we got together. We prayed, and I was shocked to hear the Spirit tell me do it for a short term, so I did, and I was ready to kind of fight, and so we have to do what the Spirit leads, and I think that's the cue here. The cue here is that everyone, or the key is that the Holy Spirit has to be supreme in our life, and before we do anything, we should be going to him in prayer and scanning scriptures, and so, but for me, it was like let's do this, and after a while, this should lessen the amount of people getting COVID.

It didn't. Long story, I had to drive to Alabama to get my wife because her plane ticket would not allow her to come back because COVID hit during that time. It was right after Easter, and the day after Easter is when we drove back home, but on the way down, I went through major metropolitan cities, and this is when I was hearing on the radio all the way down, hospitals are full, full, full. They're to the brink, and I went by major hospitals, drove around their parking lots, and didn't see anybody there. On the way home, we did the same thing, and we went by one hospital in Kentucky, and they had a huge, we actually made a wrong turn, and we were trying to get something to eat, and we went around this big hospital, and they had a huge tent out there that said COVID testing. Nobody there.

There was two cars in the whole parking lot. So what's going on here is what I think is a greater story, and we all know as Christians one day the Antichrist will come, and we know that in order to get to the point before he comes, no matter what your view is, I'm a pre-trib guy, it doesn't matter your view, we know he's coming. And we know that we don't need to be afraid of that because we're going to be with the Lord, but these things have to start coming into sequence in order for one person to have the ability to run the whole system. I'm not against masks. I'm against the fact that I don't believe, and yet I found any maker of masks. They'll all say that this does not stop viruses. Masks I don't like.

I don't wear them when I don't need to. They are everything that Larry was saying. We lose our intimacy with other people, but we also have to understand that other people don't always view our beliefs. So I think it's a bigger agenda, and the agenda is to shut the church down, shut people down, and to also cause people to start saying, hey, the government knows best, so every time they tell me to do something, we're going to jump at it.

And we have to be careful of that. I hear you completely, and if you have an opposing view, you can call us at 866-348-7884. We really want to have a frank discussion. What do you feel?

Where do you stand on these things? We want to hear what you have to say. So you call us at 866-348-7884. We've got a lot more Critter Campaign coming on with the Gospel for Asia as well as a number of callers trying to get in, so stay tuned. We've got so much more coming on this edition of Kingdom Pursuits.

The number, again, to call in, 866-348-7884. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom today. We are so blessed to have with us Brian Kerik from Gospel for Asia's Critter Campaign, crittercampaign.org, some really, really neat stuff going on there. I personally just, as I mentioned in my promo, you can really sink your teeth into what they're doing.

And we also have, of course, Larry George with his hiding behind the mask. We've got all these callers that we're going to get to in just a minute. But first up, we've got to get Amy Cabo, who's with The Cure. She's got an awesome show coming up today.

So, Amy, you're on Kingdom Pursuits. Good morning. Good morning, Robbie. How are you?

I'm having a wonderful time. We're talking about the mask today, so as you might imagine, we've got plenty of calls. People wanted to talk about that. But you're talking about childhood abuse today on your show.

People will be able to call in at 1. Are you talking about your own story there, Amy? Well, I'm going to mention my own story. I also have a guest who has her own story, and she's also known as the queen activator. She has this really sweet approach. She sees survivors, and she sees them as queens. And she sees the beauty in them and the potential that they have to offer the world for which we're all made for our purpose and we're not defined by our past. So she's made a difference in the world by helping others in similar situations. Oh, I love that.

We are. What an opportunity to see the queen in people that have gotten the short end in so many different ways. Thank you, Amy, for this show and for people who give it a chance to share their own story. I appreciate it so much.

And again, that show comes out at 1 o'clock Eastern on The Truth Network. Thanks, Amy. Thank you, and God bless.

God bless. Well, next up we got Jan has been holding on forever in Raleigh. So, Jan, you're on Kingdom Pursuits. Good morning.

Good morning. This is not Jan. This is Janice Byrd. How you doing, Robbie? It isn't Jan.

It is Janice. I haven't talked to you in a long time. It's good to hear your voice. I know, really. Where have you been? Where have you been? And I'm sitting six feet from these guys, so we're not connected.

I'm really, I'm feeling your pain this morning. All right. I'm going to disagree with this last caller. I don't think this has anything to do with the end times, the Antichrist.

We're throwing the church out down with the bathwater, any of that kind of stuff. This is a public health issue. It is a sad thing that we are having to deal with this. It may be through a mistake. It may be just happened.

Who knows exactly how it started. I'm not blaming anybody. But this is what we've been given to deal with. I am not on the church staff.

I do live with a son who has a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology and also a master's in ministry. So I get both sides of everything that comes through. Now, I'm going to address a couple of things. First of all, I definitely think you should wear a mask. And when the vaccine is available, I think you should get the vaccine. I think that's how we're going to end this personally.

My own opinion. We are stay at home. I have not been to a grocery store since March. I have become a tech savvy shopper. And I'm going to say technology is the church's best friend right now. I have seen some local churches and I've talked with local pastors about how their ministry has changed. Parking lot church will attract people who will not come into a building and they're hearing the gospel. Drive through COVID tests are being offered at churches.

Drive through food boxes have been given away at Thanksgiving. There was a mask ministry that was started at several churches back in the beginning to make masks for people who, oh, I need a mask to go out. But they don't have them. So they made them. Some of those were sent. I know with another ministry to Haiti because the people of Haiti didn't have masks.

OK. There are ministries that have come. There's a church that does a daily devotional every day at noon, five minutes, a daily devotional.

If you go online, you can see just about any church you want to see and their Sunday service. So the use of technology is a gift. Take advantage of it. Do your Zoom Bible studies offer a communion service and allow people in homes who are isolated to participate on their own?

These are all outreach. I hear you. I do. OK. But but I have I have a question. I just have a question. All right.

Bring it. So I teach special needs ministry and I think a lot of people know that at Calvary and I have for a long time. And I teach a zoom class every week and have since the beginning of. However, two thirds of my students can't do that because that technology sends them off an edge. They can't look at a screen. They can't interact with it. That's not possible for them to be involved in that. Right. Right. OK. And so respond to that. Well, I'm just saying I personally would love to love to have a class at Calvary where people would come if they felt they weren't, you know, at risk. Because I would have no problem being there with a mask, you know, and teach the class, at least be able to interact with these people that have been totally isolated.

Number two, correct. I teach I I have done a devotion at a nursing home for 20 years. Really. And of course, they shut me down. However, they let me get my jokes into them. So they're still telling my jokes and they're trying to come up with a sound system so that I could come out in the parking lot and tell my jokes. And I'm trying to figure out how to set the sale.

But I just want to know. From your standpoint, I get where you're coming from and I think you have every right to do what you want. But why don't I have the right to do what I want? OK. First of all, I have a degree in music therapy and I taught special ed. So I'm with you and I worked with the special needs class at a church. Now, I guess my biggest thing about that would be my first reaction.

I've not really thought this through, but just my gut reaction. Gather friends who would be willing to do what you do. Wear the mask and meet one on one. You can find safe places. We have had meetings with people in our carport.

You can find a safe place. I realize winter is coming and people are not quite as excited. I'm with you on that one. I am, Jan. And I hate to. Unfortunately, we got all these other people and I got to get back to my critter campaign. So if you could just wrap up with one more sentence. Oh, OK. All right. What I do, Jan, let me just say that you are a dear, dear friend and I've known you for years and I really, really, really appreciate your calling in and your courage to stand up for what you believe. Thank you, Jan. God bless.

Absolutely. Bye bye. Have a good day. You too. Bye bye.

All right. So we have got Brian. We've got to talk about this critter campaign a little bit more because this is stuff that's going on right now. People that see these promos at the Truth Network.

What would be something, Brian, that you would want to bring to their attention that they may not hear from us? Yeah, I mean, you know, we mentioned different things as far as like different animals, like chickens for 11 bucks and goats, a pair of goats for $140. And, you know, people can get like a water buffalo for somebody or things on those lines. But there's there's a lot of other needs and other ways to give a tangible. I guess, you know, Jesus said, as you did to the least of these, you did to me.

And this is why you can get a Christmas present for Jesus. But, you know, like one of the things like we deal with on the mission field is, for instance, is. Mosquito infested thing called disease called dengue fever. And we actually had one situation where there's this this people group, you know, with the last of a people group, they lived up on a mountain.

And we are workers and not far from them, you know, found out that they they were actually dying off because of mosquito borne disease. And so knowing that, they just they grabbed a mosquito, a bunch of mosquito nets, and they went out there and they distributed them to the people to help them. And, you know, people asked why. And they said, just because Jesus loves you. This is going to look Christ. They didn't necessarily share the gospel necessarily.

They just wanted to help these people. And, you know, it's ten dollars, ten dollars apiece from it. And like, I don't know if you ever had a mosquito in your room when you go to bed.

You know, my wife, my wife and I had one this autumn. And, you know, you just hear the wings buzzing up just one. And you're just like, where is that thing?

And I hate we got to go to a break, Brian. But I did see the mosquito net for ten dollars. It's right there. I mean, you could one hundred dollars.

You get 10 people that would be able to not get. Is it dungy fever, Brian? Denge fever. Denge fever.

Denge. Yeah, I don't want that. Whatever.

It sounds worse in Clover Park. We've got so much more Kingdom Pursuits. You want to call in 866-348-78848. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom. And I am so thrilled just coming out of the break here to have one of my dear, dear friends. If you have been listening to the Truth Network, you would know the name Karen Mulder, Wisdom of the Wounded.

And so it's nice to have Wisdom right in these times. And I know from a lot of experience with Karen, she's been providing us at the Truth Network Wisdom for many years. So, Karen, it's so good to have you back. I haven't talked to you in a long time.

I've got to make sure I get the right lineup. Karen, are you with me? I am. Wonderful. Wonderful. Can you hear me? Yes.

Yes. I finally put the right button. I'm sorry. So, I am grateful for all you have done with the Truth Network and with your nephew, Larry. She's my favorite aunt.

If there's ever a time you're discouraged, I call her. Yeah, absolutely. So, Cher, I'm really curious about your thoughts on this subject.

Okay, now I don't know. Am I on? You are on, and we're ready. Oh, Robbie, it's so good to hear your voice. Yeah, that's me.

It's me. I think she's on the delay. So, yeah, somehow or another, she may be listening to the radio at the same time. So, we apologize for that little bit of dead air that we just had there. We're going to try to rearrange Karen so that she can hear in real time because I can hear the radio kind of going in the background. So, we'll get to that. But while we're doing that, we'll go back to Brian with Gospel for Asia. And you were talking about mosquito nets.

You've got some other really cool stuff on your website. Yeah, I mean, another thing is clean water is something we maybe take for granted. But for a lot of people, I remember going to a village and people just baked some fresh bread and they wanted to give it to us. They wanted us to sit down.

We wanted to eat with them and ask the guy next, who was leading us, spoke the language of the translator, can we eat this? He showed us the water. I grew up along the Mississippi River and it was as brown as the Mississippi River, the water they had in their kitchen. I remember going to a village and we were building a church right in the middle of five villages. It was going to become the center of those five villages.

But the thing that made it the center was we were able to put a well into that, on the property where the church was, and the people were so excited to show us that they actually had clear water. Wow. Imagine that.

Yeah, absolutely. Somebody can help an entire village get clean water. In this case, it was five villages.

It was all in walking space. People never had access to clean water before. And it was for $1,400. And that's a lot. So for a family or for a cluster of homes, people can get a bio-sand water filter for $30.

I remember we had one missionary where he got to a village. That's exactly what he did. He installed these bio-sand water filters. And there was all kinds of sickness and disease because once again, they were just drinking this brown, nasty water. Oh, yeah.

I can imagine. And people began to get healed. And they're like, oh, your God healed us. And he's like, no, the clean water healed us. And these were a group of people that had never been considered human by others because they were considered so subhuman, so, I guess, racist against them. But for them, the miracle was that God loved them so much that he would actually give them these bio-sand water filters. And so they're like, but your God gave us that clean water.

Totally transformed their lives. People will get that. We've got to get Karen in. I'm sorry. We only have about a minute left. So, Karen, I apologize. We got back to you. Can you hear me okay? I can. Okay. So we've got about 50 seconds for you to share.

I hate it's that short. But tell us what your thoughts are. Well, I wear a mask and I social distance. And I'm hoping that it makes a difference because I need to do what I can do. But also, it shouldn't be an excuse for not reaching out this Advent and Christmas season and helping other people. So on my website, Wisdom of the Wounded, you can find ways to still reach out and care. On Wisdom of the Wounded and look for COVID-19, what can I do to help? And full of ideas that we can still reach out and care for those who are lonely and suffering. That's a common thread through all the people that have called in is we can still get somewhere that somebody's hurting and get within six feet of them and still show we care some way. Karen, I love that your website does that. It's wisdomofthewounded.com.

It's just absolutely beautiful. And I imagine you might have some of those Wisdom of the Woundeds coming out this season, right? Yes. Okay.

Well, thank you so much, Karen. I want to give Mark a chance a little bit to respond in Africa, right? You've got this whole situation where you've got to go get with people, right?

Yes, absolutely. And I was listening to the caller before about technology, and that's fine here. And in some of the other Western countries, we can do some of those things. But in some of these other countries, we're not able to do that. And by the way, Brian, thank you for all the things that you're saying about clean water and all that, because that's what we do in all these countries.

In South Sudan, where they get water out of the Nile, and you literally have to take your hand and move the junk off the top in order to get the water, and it's bad anyways. But there's no technology there. We have to go into there personally and meet the people and greet the people. Right. There is no social distancing.

There is none of that stuff. Right. Love's got to move.

It's got to get up, right, Larry? That's right. So we want to thank Alan Saenz, Adam Saenz, excuse me, Adam Saenz that made all this possible for Larry.

We certainly want to thank Gospel for Asia as well. Adam Saenz is there at Kingdom Pursuits. You can see their phone number.

Call them in if you need a sign. Right. They help support the Truth Network as well.

Of course, Gospel for Asia. Don't forget CritterCampaign.org. Thanks, Larry. This is fun. Well, and thank all you people for calling in and keep praying for this country and for each other.