Are You a Missionary or Mission Field?

This is Hans Schile from the Finishing Well Podcast.

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That's where we're going right now on Truth Talk, and I'm in a most interesting spot. It's not like this in Togo, West Africa, is it JJ? No, no it's not.

No it's not. Togo in West Africa, it's a very tropical country. It's a country where it's actually considered to be the 11th poorest nation in the world. A French-speaking people where 70% of the population is under the age of 30.

So really a young people, a very vibrant country, a very kind people group that you have throughout the world. It's also a place that does have its its darkness. It has its place because it's known along with a country right next door to be the birthplace of voodoo for the world. And so it's very dark in a spiritual sense, and we would say in the southern area of where we work, nine out of ten people that we talk to are here in the gospel for the very first time.

They're here in the message of what Jesus did for them 2,000 years ago, and how he wants to have a relationship with them. And so different than here, and yet so many similarities with people. Yeah and people don't know that Togo, Benin, that's the origins. Everyone thinks voodoo, Haiti. It'll, Haiti's was exported from Benin and Togo.

It started there in that part of Africa, and we're with an interesting assembled group here. We're on the porch of a place called Cupcake Cuties, and we're eating these fabulous ooey gooey pumpkin treats and Hershey's cakes. And what did you have? You're digging.

I may have to get a fork in there. Red velvet cake. It's my favorite.

It's amazing. It's Oscar Hobbs coffee, and it's Dave Compton's birthday, which makes it even more special. Dave, could there be a better way to celebrate your birthday than interview a missionary who's taking the gospel to people who've never heard?

Absolutely not. I mean, we're just real privileged to have you, JJ, and to be here with Brad and all the folks at Cupcake Cuties. What a blessing and a beautiful day at a booth. Reverend Jeff Johnson, you opened us in prayer, didn't you?

What are your thoughts? I sure do. I don't know anything about voodoo, but I would love to learn a little bit. What is voodoo? Yeah. What is voodoo?

Take us there. So voodoo is a religion. It's a portion of African traditional religion where you have 41 different deities. And so people worship out of fear. They worship idols that are often represented in each one of their homes. They worship out of fear that their ancestors are going to dictate the present and the future.

And for the majority of people, just like I already mentioned, I go back to just two months ago. Two months ago, I was standing in a village with some believers who had invited me as they were taking the gospel into this community. And as I shared the gospel for about 30 minutes with some people there, 15 people said yes to Jesus. They wanted to turn their back on their ways, their idols, and say yes to Jesus. And a lady stood up and said, I grew up worshiping Satan.

I grew up in that family. We didn't know any better. No one's ever told us any differently, but today I'm deciding to follow God.

And that was the first day that she had heard a clear presentation of the gospel. And so people grow up in the darkness with the oppression, with the lack of hope. And that's where Jesus changes everything. Wow. So JJ, you're in a country where, can you give us the breakdown statistically of the religions? You have some animist, you have some Muslims, obviously some Christians, then you always have nominal Christians who might just be by association through some French background or whatnot, but give us the breakdown of what's this religious landscape of the area of West Africa of Togo where you are.

Yeah. So about 50% of the country actively practices voodoo and African traditional religion. You have 20% that are Muslim and Islam is growing very, very quickly from the North to the South. And then you have about 30% that would claim Christian in some way, shape or form.

But we would say it's fewer than one out of 10 people that have even heard the gospel. Wow. So you're a young man, JJ, and we're sitting here, all of us men of God, the owner of Cupcake Cuties. Brad's here. We got this awesome place here. God bless you, my friend and grateful for our Christian radio partners.

And especially when they got sweet treats like this, I'm telling you what, I'm taking some goodies back to my family, my daughter, Joy's birthday, taking some goodies back to her. But JJ, we were looking at you were saying this young man, he's surely he's an aspiring banker or a real estate investor. But you and your family, which we'd love you to tell us about as much as you'd like to on a national radio show. You just don't be intimidated by the 200 million people.

You can't see them. So just right. Just don't worry about that.

You know, just you just you're doing a great job. Tell us about like, how you got called, how you came to Christ. And now all of a sudden, you're serving the Lord. Maybe not so much the American dream, but the dream of Christ, the vision of Christ to go into all the world.

Acts one eight. Tell us about your part of that narrative. So it actually goes back a generation before my own, when my dad met Jesus down in Jacksonville, Florida, and Jesus changed our family tree. He jumped on a bus where he was invited to go to church. He was actually invited every single Saturday for a year.

And finally, at the end of the year said, Fine, I'll just go if you'll stop inviting me. And he met Jesus there. Jesus changed his family tree. And by team by the time he's in his teenage years, he knew that God wanted him to be a missionary to Africa. He met my mom who also felt called to the mission field same place. And one day they're sitting in a church service where some missionaries come through and say we're praying for pilots and nurses to come join us. And my dad's a pilot, my mom's a nurse. And so he's been a church planting bush pilot for just shy of 40 years now they've done the same thing since I was born. So I met Jesus as just a week before I turned five, and knew that I knew it was clear as could be that I had a relationship with with Jesus never doubted that and had my own aspirations to go fly planes. That's what I wanted to do. My dad flew planes.

He has a plane in West Africa. And I thought I wanted to do the same thing only in the commercial route. And it was one day when I was 17 years old, I was sitting in a in a youth rally. And I knew very clearly the question that I had to ask was when it's all said and done, is it really going to count? And and there are a lot of ways to count success.

And there are a lot of ways to count how you want to stack up your life. But I knew that I had to make mine count for eternity. And so at 17, I said, All right, absolutely. And I wanted to go back to Togo. I love the country that I grew up in. I love the opportunities that I had.

But I love to see the way God's the gospel changed people's lives. I literally grew up where people would knock on the door in the city that I grew up in. And we now live about eight hours away. And they would say, Is this the missionaries home?

Can I talk to him? And as a young fellow, I'd say, Here, go, go sit over here. And let me go get my dad.

That's the missionary. And they'd say, Just tell me, is there really a God? Is there really a heaven?

And how can I get there? And I grew up seeing that. And so when I had to fast forward my life about a decade and ask the question, when it's all said and done, is it really going to count? I didn't know a better way to make it count than that. And that's why we get to do what we do.

And it's a privilege. So I'm there in West Africa with with my wife, who also had aspirations of going abroad before we ever met. We have three little girls, so our family that lives on the field, and we get to walk alongside national believers, and do our best to coach believers, as we're seeing movements come into fruition. Well, JJ, you got us all at a loss for words, even this crazy talk show host here. Any of you guys have a question for JJ? Pastor Jeff, Dave confidence here with us.

We got Dave, the banker, we got Brad, one of the owners, this cupcake cuties in his family, family business here. We're in Wahlberg, North Carolina on the porch talking to a church planter who Matt McCarthy got us connected. He's a pastor of a church, your vertical church here in High Point, just a man of God who just wants to see the gospel go out. I guess the biggest question on my heart is, like this one pastor once said, he said, either you're a mission field or a missionary. And at one point, it's something changed in your life when you went from saying, hey, let me go get the missionary, Allah, your dad, to talk to you about God, to being you, they said to you, hey, tell me about God, take our all of our listeners, everyone listening, take us to the mission field. How would you challenge young and old listening right now to start thinking missionally, and it could just be like across the street, it may not be around the world, like you're there in Africa, how do we get to the point where we're intentionally reaching our world?

Everyone's a mission field that doesn't know Jesus. I think it starts with that understanding that we all have our part. The Great Commission is an invitation for all of us. It's a commission that we get to be a part of and have our part in. And then also to help us understand when we look at believers in West Africa, it's not just about being a receiver, but we either stay and send or we go and send.

We're all senders. So once we receive the gospel, it's our responsibility to continue to send that gospel forward to the next people that haven't yet heard. And so when people in a village, there's a new church that was just planted this summer, and there are about 170 people there worshiping Jesus now that have turned from their idols to follow Jesus in relationship with him. And two villages up the road, this is all in the last about four weeks now, the two villages up the road said something happened, something changed in your village this summer. We don't know what it is, but we've started asking. And we found out you have a church, a new church, the only church that's in this village. And we think that's what it is. So if that's what changed your village, we want you to come to our village as well.

The irony in the situation is that chief of the village is also the witch doctor. He continued on to say, I can tell you right now my children will be able to go to your church, and maybe one day I'll even come myself. And so it's when you live it out, you live out what Christ has done for you. You're praying actively for opportunities to be able to share and look with other people and understand there. It's not just in front of us.

So it is most definitely in front of us, but it's not either or it's a both and it's also to those that are a step removed that are a little farther away that haven't yet heard. Jay Z, how can we pray for you real quick as you wrap up this segment? Would you pray for leaders? Leaders and resources is what we pray for. And and sometimes we feel like we're in a season where it's we have a need for one over the other. And I would most definitely say we need leaders. We need we need God to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send forth labors into his harvest. And so we need leaders to join us. Well, we are sipping our foster Hobbs coffee and join some some sweet treats here on the deck of cupcake cuties in Wahlberg interviewing this guy and not one of us is thinking about the sweet treats of the coffee.

No respect to disrespect to our brother here. We're thinking about going in all the world and praying for him for leaders God would raise up leaders the next generation and quit think quit stereotyping our kids into the American dream and maybe our kids are going to be church planters maybe our kids are going to be like your kids like you were you're an MK that is now following your parents foot you know a nurse and a bush pilot and now look at what you're doing reaching people for Christ so thank you for this wonderful testimony. Hey thank you so much for the opportunity. This is the Truth Network. Say what would you do if you were a new Christian and you didn't have a Bible? It's Michael Woolworth by the way from Bible League International and you'd probably say well I'd hop in my car I'd go to a Christian bookstore or have one shipped to me what if those weren't options you'd say well I'm new to the faith I mean I need to know what it means to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus you know you would pray that someone anyone would bring you a Bible and that's exactly the way it is for literally millions of Christians around the world they're part of our spiritual family they're new to the faith they want to know what it means to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus but God has them planning where it's very difficult to access a Bible and that's why the Truth Network and Bible League have teamed up to send God's Word to 3500 Bibleist believers around the globe.

Our campaign is called The World Needs the Word. Five dollar sends a Bible. One hundred dollar sends twenty. Every gift matched. Make your most generous gift by calling 800 YES WORD. 800 Y E S W O R D. 800 YES WORD or give at truthnetwork.com