Reaching the Unreached

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.

Stories of hopelessness turned into hope. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just 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. Did you know there are places in this world that it is illegal to share the good news of Jesus Christ? Have you ever been there? Are you interested in going there? Right next to me here in the Truth Booth is a man, we're going to call him Jay, and we're going to call his area of the world Central Asia.

And this place he's going, it's illegal to share the gospel, and it's less than 1% born-again Christian. And Jay, we're just honored to talk to you, man. God bless you. Thanks for coming into our life and for coming on this national radio show. Absolutely, it's good to be able to be a part. Thanks for having me on.

What a cool deal. I really appreciate it. This is also a segment of a very popular thing we're going back to called Truth of the Youth. One of our special hosts is my daughter, Joy Epperson. Joy, good to see you.

Hi, everyone. Last time you were on, do you remember what we were talking about? I think you guys were interviewing me after my mission trip to Alaska. That's exactly right. And we talked about, Jesse, if you're chased by a grizzly bear in Alaska, you really don't have to outrun that grizzly bear.

You just have to run faster than the slowest person. That's exactly right. Unless it's like the guys that were chased by the bear in Alaska.

That's not good. And they were believers, and they were so scared, but they were saying, you know, we're going to trust God. And they just stopped, and they said, we're praying for deliverance. And the bear stopped. And the bear said, well, that's perfect. I'm a Christian bear. Have you heard the story? No, I have not. Yeah, Greg Laurie told it.

It's really powerful and changed my life. And the bear said, you mind if I pray? And the guy said, yes, this bear is going to pray. I can barely believe it.

I don't know if I can... The bear's going to ask God to bear our burden, whatever. And so next thing you know, the bear prays, dear Lord, he folded his paws.

He said, dear Lord, thank you for this meal that I'm about to eat. I'm sorry. But truth is, Joy, you have to be a little human. Great dad joke, dad. Okay, dad joke. I'm sorry.

I've only heard that one four or five times. But I'm telling you what, Jay, not to take away, you know, the humor and all, but what a blessing. And Joy, I think you had an opening question for him to kind of get things going here.

Yeah. So if you could just like, what is your, what was your, the origin story to your whole idea and the mission that you're going on? So my story is actually a huge encouragement to people that are just lay teachers, lay people in the church that are just, you know, good role models or, you know, just speaking at a quick little event that they didn't even know was a big deal.

I grew up in the church, didn't really care about God when I was growing up, said a prayer when I was little, but it was just because of people that had a big influence in my life without even knowing. You know, just, there was a guy who came and spoke at a missions conference. He, you know, he basically impacted me to want to do what he was doing. He only spoke for maybe, you know, 30 minutes, you know, and that was, that was, I was 16 at the time.

I'm 27 now. And, and just hearing that short little, you know, message was enough to, for me to be able to say, you know what, I want to take the gospel over there as well. You know, I just, I looked at these people before as like, you know, these super high spiritual people that I could never do something like that.

I could never, you know, get on a plane and live there for so long and take the gospel to these different people. But after seeing this guy do this and talking about it in such a, you know, he's just an average guy, normal guy, you know, I thought I could do that too. And so that is basically the, the, the initial part of what started me on that journey. I was just hearing a short little message like that. Wow. That's awesome. So you don't have to be like some super Christian to take the gospel too.

And I love your heart. And we were together earlier at our, you know, our men's group and you shared some there very openly. It's called Wednesday in the Word. And a lot of folks hear that some of the content from here, Experience Truth is the teaching. We're going through the book of Acts right now, which really Paul in Acts says, I want to take the gospel where it hasn't been proclaimed. So you're going to go to a place where people have never heard the glorious good news of Jesus. What's that like?

Yeah. And it's, it's, it's, so it's, it's really cool to see people that when you first see them, if you were to just talk about Jesus or, you know, just talk about the message of salvation, they would just look at you with a confused look on their face because they don't, they don't even have that word in their language. Probably like they would just, they would just have this look on their face of like, you know, what are you, what are you talking about? And then, you know, after however long it takes 10 years, more 15, 20 of having the Bible translated into their language. And, you know, the, all of the teaching finished and elders established and mature, you know, believers, they can now look at you and be able to, you know, tell you all about their deliver. As you were talking about this morning, the serpent crusher, you know, the deliverer who came all the way that was promised from the Old Testament and came and was able to deliver them from their sins. So you may have to go back a little farther. You may have to go back to creation to the, you know, like, like where we came from.

Yes, absolutely. You just jump right to Jesus loves you. They're like, all right, who's Jesus?

You see a guy in the town, a couple towns over, like, who are you talking about? But Joy, can you imagine sharing the Lord with someone who's never even heard that? You know, we're, you're around it. You went to Christian school, you know, you're in chapel, and it's kind of assumed everyone, you know, here in North Carolina, the country, we're in the Bible Belt, right? Just to kind of assume, well, everyone's a believer. Yeah, it's scary to go to people who have no idea about any of it.

But it's great that you could have the opportunity to do that and help them. Yeah, Jay, what about the hostility factor? So you're going into an area that is in some ways hostile to the gospel. They, there is a aggressive persecution, even attack on people of faith, people of the Lord, people that love Jesus. It's not, if you go in with just some kind of kumbaya, really, they're not gonna leave you alone. If you go in with atheism or whatever, but if you go in with Jesus, it's a real problem. What are your thoughts going into potentially a danger zone? Like, maybe some of the old, older folks, the mature Christians in your life, are like, is this like a death wish, Jay?

Like, what are you thinking, dude? Like, hey, come work in my corporate office, and, you know, we'll, you'll get a nice 401k and a bunch of good vacation days during the year and some good benefits and, you know, you know, there's a good trek to retirement. Here you are going somewhere where your, your retirement may be to heaven pretty soon, you know.

Hey, that'd be okay. You have to talk about that as a, what, what in your mind, what's the calculus, you know, because we all can hear the stories of Stephen the martyr and Paul who said, for me to live is Christ, to die is gain. I'm crucified with Christ. We can say that, we can listen to the Bible's stories about that, regurgitate that and know it and be familiar with it, but you're taking a real step here.

Tell us what God's done in you to prepare you for that part. Well, so in a lot of the places that we go, it is, and we are moving to different, you know, creative access, you could call, places where it is illegal to proselytize. So it is, you know, something that you have to be pretty, you know, you have to be careful about it, you know, but, with the places that we go, thankfully, and I think this is of the Lord, is that the government allows us to go into these indigenous peoples. They don't allow you to proselytize to where we first go. Where we first go, you know, we just, we're basically just telling them, you know, we're here to support the already established local church. Like we're not, we're not here to, you know, proselytize or anything like that. You can't come out and say it, even though you're not here to say it. Proselytize or anything like that. You can't come out and say it, even though you're intentional about what you're doing, and it's overt versus overt and all that stuff, right?

Yeah. So yeah, at first we're, you know, we're learning the language, we're learning the culture, you know, we're basically figuring out how are we going to build a relationship with somebody who has like a completely different worldview than you. And you grew up in this, like I did as well, in the Bible belt, you know, you just have like this, this built-in worldview that they're, they're totally separate from that.

They have just no understanding of where you're coming from at all. And so it's, it's just, as you're, as you're learning the language, as you're learning the culture, you're getting to know, okay, what am I actually going to need to share? And when I teach the Bible, when I actually talk one-on-one with this person, how am I going to, it's like that, that book, peace child, like, how am I going to be able to talk about the gospel in a way that that's not going to seem so hostile to them, right? Where they're actually going to be like, I could actually see myself changing over to this way of viewing the world and true reality.

Then you kind of get into the gospel and what will you exactly be doing? And, and I do want to make sure our listeners know you are looking for support. I mean, you, you're funded by generous believers. Absolutely.

And that want to help reach the world, the unreached with a gospel. Right. And that's a big deal. And that's, that gets us real excited to hear a truth talk and that's gets us why we want to have more guests like you, Jay, we want to have you back when you come back to the home base here to check up with you, but what will you be doing and how will, how will, if, if anyone out there wants to support you, like a lot of churches and individuals are doing, how does that work? Yeah. So thankfully, from the Lord, I am at 73% of my monthly support and all of the initial, initial support has already come in.

So that is a huge blessing. And so I still have to raise up that, that rest of that 27%. Um, but for most people, when they choose to support, they'll either go to the website that, uh, that either I've created or, uh, that, that is, uh, are we allowed to say that or should we not? No, that's fine. Okay. Uh, the, the, I can, I can say the name of the organization.

Okay. So it's, they would go to, it's on the back of that. It's ethnos360.org.

Ethnos360.org. And they can learn more about your ministry and see cool videos and then, and then there's a donate button there and that sort of thing. Okay, cool. Fantastic. Yeah. Just type by, uh, just go to the missionary page and find my name on there.

Yeah. Look for Jay and just say, he was the crazy guy I heard on Truth Talk Radio. And then they'll, they'll, um, fire you from the organization. Just really cool. So the support goes to you and then, so you're going to be going in, learning, and then what, what exactly, what's a day look like for you over there? Once you get into the area of the unreached people groups that you're going to be communicating with, what's it look like? Yeah, so it starts off, uh, it's, it's, you're just, you're getting to know these people. It's, it's all about, it's all about building relationships really, because like you think about it in the past here, we did a lot of like street witnessing and stuff like that.

And that was very good. But the only thing, the only problem with that is like a lot of the people overseas, if they don't have some kind of well-established relationship with you, they really would not care. They would look at you and they would say, okay, yeah, I accept.

I totally accept. And they would just, and they would say that, but they have no actual heart change. There's no trust. So there's a go in their home, you know, connect with them, be a blessing in their life, eat their food, eat their food, maybe work with them, you know, help them building something. And just like you would build trust with someone here, say you care about them as a person and their culture and this and that.

Yeah. And so you're just, you're actually going to go from hut to hut, whatever, you know, it looks like in their specific people group, whether it's a house or whatever, you'll go, you know, you'll actually learn a language that most people of the world don't even know what it's called. And so you're just, you're, you're going to them, you're saying, what is, you know, what's the word for this?

How do you say this? You know, do that over and over and over and over again with all, all the words of their language. And you're, and, and in the process you're building that relationship, you're learning their culture, you're, you're learning how they think. And so when you finally get, it's, it's actually called pre evangelism because when you get to the teaching, you're, you're going to have known their whole story going all the way. And so that relationship, they're actually going to listen to you because you've shown, Hey, I care enough about you to get to know you. Joy, I think you had a final question as it relates to the youth and kind of maybe a wake up call that you want to ask him to take us out of here.

Yeah. Well, I'm about to embark on a journey at Liberty university as a freshman. And so a lot of my fellow generation people, I guess, are struggling with things and finding, trying to find their identity. And I guess what I have to ask you is, what could you challenge us with, you know, growing up and getting closer to the Lord? Well, what I would say is just like I, when I was a 16 year old and 18 year old, whatever, I didn't think for one second that I was going to be a missionary. I thought I was gonna, you know, work for the railroad or be a mechanic, something like that. It wasn't until I figured out that it wasn't these super high tower, super elite people that were going over and sharing the gospel with these people.

If you're 16, you're 18, whatever, going to college, just know that you can do this too. And actually that's one of the, the, the prayer quest that I've been praying for as I do my support raising process is just with the different, and this could be one of the things where it happens is I've been praying for one missionary to be, you know, influenced or want to become a missionary after some of the things that I've spoken or different places that I've been able to speak to become a missionary because of the different things that I've been able to. Maybe someone here in this segment will be called to the mission field, maybe. Of all the days for her to be host and truth to the youth with us today, it's good to hear, I mean, but every parent like myself, we want, there's this westernized inculcation that parents have that like, well, I want my little girl to go to that school, even a Christian school, like she, you know, she's planning to go to, I want her to get a good education.

Now I want her to get a good job and I want her to, but I want her to be safe. And as soon as she comes home and says, daddy, I'm going to plant churches with Jay over in Asia. I'm like, oh no, you're not.

But, but Jay, there's a real disconnect there because when I look back at her, like for, for example, I'll just, I'll just third party this, or I'll first person this actually. I'm Stu. This is Truth Talk. With us is Jay. Church Planning in Asia, an amazing story.

Thanks for joining us, everyone. We've rolled you over into a whole other segment here because this is just so important, okay. When's the last time you shared Jesus with someone who's never heard of Jesus?

They might hear that name and think, oh, is that a long lost third cousin or is that someone that's, you know, in a village, you know, upstream or whatnot. And so Jay, you're taking the gospel to people who've never heard, building trust, planting churches. It's amazing what you're doing with this great ministry, Ethnos360, and the website's ethnos360.org. And reach out to me, by the way, if you would like to know more about Jay and if you'd like to support him, because you need financial support, correct?

Correct. And you're depending on churches have adopted you. Our dear friend, a fellow friend, Pastor Kivetz, taking over the church I kind of grew up in early on in life. And they actually donated a pew or they gave us one of their pews when they were changing the seating. And so we have a pew here at the Truth Network, so we'll have to sit on that pew. Promise me you'll sit on it before you leave. I will not leave.

We'll have a view on a pew with Stu at Truth. It's one of those dad jokes, I think. There's too many dad jokes. They keep getting better.

They age like fine wine. So Jay, Joy is with me. It's a Truth of Youth segment as well. Joy asked you how you would challenge the young people to really wake up. And you went into your story. So I'd like to ask you, piggybacking on that, how did you come to know Christ? And fast forward that to you literally on your way to embark to a place where it's illegal to share Christ. Yeah, so I grew up in the church and I was one of those kids, you can just think of me as like these kids that, you know, they'd go to the Awana programs and all these different things, but I didn't really have much interest in God. I kind of believed that he was there, guy in the sky kind of thing. But it wasn't until a man named Josh Poindexter, actually, he had a huge impact on my life. He, you know, just and it really wasn't anything crazy. We would, you know, go on hikes.

We would, you know, go to yard sales or different stuff like that. But it just, you know, is more as caught than taught, right? So like, you know, just being able to hang around somebody that had that real joy in Christ, real peace in Christ, and just realizing that it was because of his relationship with Christ that he was able to have these things. And I just started to look at my own life and say, well, I'm a counterfeit Christian. I'm calling my side. When I raised, I raised my hand and all these things where they say, you know, are you saved?

If you were to die tonight, I would always raise my hand because I didn't want them to call me up front. But, you know, at that point, I realized I was just a counterfeit Christian. You know, I wasn't really living according to the Bible or anything like that. So after that, you know, it was just a, that was the catalyst when I was like 14, 15, 16. And then I heard that guy speak when I was 16. He spoke at our church and just a short little missions conference.

It wasn't anything super crazy. You know, he spoke for a little bit and I said, well, I could, I think I could do that. You know, I wasn't thinking I was at the moment, but, you know, years, years past. And, you know, I started talking to my youth pastor. He was like, hey, I think you should do church planning.

I was, I was looking at aviation missions. And he said, I think you should be involved in the church planning process. I said, okay, that's, that's, that's a good, I think I'll move that way.

So someone in your life encouraged you down this track. They didn't just put you in the box of, you need to go be a CPA. You need to go be a doctor and a lawyer.

No, no, not to knock all those things because there are some godly attorneys. Yeah, how do the missionaries get to the field? That's exactly right. Yeah.

And those, and so that's the thing. I think we've got to be very careful to do the, the, the, you know, tit for tat thing or to do the, well, I'm a, you know, I'm a, I'm a missionary over here and you're just a doctor. Well, that doctor is seeing unbelievers all day long. He's working with medical personnel who many have never heard about Christ. So God's using him and their life to be a witness, to let, you know, in, in word and deed. And, you know, missionaries would not be overseas if it wasn't for people like that. And there's people that are listening right now that maybe don't have a passport, don't, maybe they couldn't travel with you to plant churches and to lead people to Christ who've never heard about Jesus and to go into a country that is illegal to share Christ, but they can send you a hundred bucks.

They can support you financially, right? So that's, that's a real, so we can all be a part. We can pray. We can, we can go if we can't go. We can, we can pray if we, you know, and we can always pray, but that's the one we can always do.

I appreciate, my order's probably wrong in sequence, but we can give, right? Amen. Yes. And support that. So we got one more question.

This is Stu Everson. This is Truth Talk. I'm with a church planner going to a very dangerous part of the world that's less than 1% born again.

Huge, hundreds of millions of folks, predominantly Muslim, and he's going there to tell them about Jesus and tell them about a God that came to do what they couldn't do, the gospel, that he earned it for them, right? He did it. Absolutely. So what a good message. Thank you, Jay, for being on Truth Talk. My daughter Joy's here also with us on Truth for the Youth.

Joy, tell us, maybe fire one more question, Adam, as we wrap up. Yeah, so Jay, you have your financial supporters and your friends and family that are supporting you as you go to plant these churches, but how can the listeners and us in this room, how can we pray for you and support you? Yeah, so I actually do a Facebook page, and every week I update it with prayer quests, because I actually would love to have, I'm looking for like a group of 100 people to actually be like official prayer partners. That's easy. Yeah, we can all do that. Can we say it? Can we save the page? Yeah, I mean it's Facebook, and it's called Journey to Indo.

Journey to Indo. Yeah. Okay, cool. Awesome. Yeah. And so go that on Facebook, join the group? Yes, yep. Can you do that, Joy? Yes. If I hand you my light stick here, my smartphone, will you go to that and join it? Okay.

I'm Gen Z. The only thing, here's the only problem, if these prayer warriors really start praying for you and they start sending you money, and then you're going to be able to go over quicker and lead more people to Christ and plant more churches, and the people you bring to Christ, they're going to start bringing other people to Christ, because they're not going to get the memo that they're supposed to sit on their Blessed Assurance, and more churches are going to be planted, and then 2.5 billion people, that number is going to go down that have never heard the Gospel, and then Christ is going to come back. Matthew 24, 14, Jesse, this is dangerous.

And maybe by then your dad jokes will get better. Let's hope so, but what a blessing. Well, pray for this man, guys. Pray for the spread of the Gospel. Be a part of it.

How are you right now, friend? A part, an active, intentional, ambitious part of the spread of the Gospel. A young man could be doing all kinds of things with his life.

Maybe a lot of folks think he's a nut, but he's taking the Gospel to people who've never heard in a country where it's illegal to share Jesus, and God's doing it, and we don't know. You may not come back. Are you prepared for that?

Wow. What would you say to people about, you know, the danger you're facing, about risking, taking a risk for Jesus? What would you say as we wrap up? Well, I would say that, you know, in the past, people would literally put a coffin on a boat, and, you know, they would take the boat wherever they were going, because in their mind, they were going there, and they were going to preach the Gospel, and they were not expecting to be able to come back. So I would say what I'm doing is far, you know, less dangerous than what those people were doing.

So I think it's amazing the amount of technological advances that we've had today to just be able to, you know, do all that we can around the world, and so, yeah. What's the name of the Facebook page one more time? Journey to Endo is what it's called. I am joining it right now, so you get one more person on there. Sweet, and if you're a prayer partner, it's 10 minutes a week.

That's what I ask is 10 minutes a week is for that. Okay, yeah, so that's the way that I would have for those prayer partners. Okay, you tell us which one. We'll join it right now. God bless you. Okay, thank you for being on.

Absolutely. Truthtalk.com, Instagram, Facebook, Stu Epperson, all those places. Connect with me there, and share when this becomes a podcast. Share this with everyone you know to encourage people to take the gospel where Jesus' name has never been proclaimed, and where it's even dangerous and illegal to do so, but watch what God does in a mighty way. This is the Truth Network.