Let me know what it feels like to not be enough.
You've been at your wit's end.
You fought the battle, fought all you could, and still victory hadn't showed up.
But he's in this place.
Amen?
Aren't you glad he comes to where we are and not for a minute have we been forsaken?
Amen?
Give the Lord good praise for his promise.
Amen.
You can be seated in the house of the Lord.
We're going to receive the offering at the end.
And I'm going to go ahead and prepare you for that.
If you got that slide, Brother Hunter, of that devastation, would you put that up there?
This is Newport, Tennessee.
Over 20 inches of rain fell in our eastern Tennessee counties and cities.
I don't have to tell you the devastation.
It's horrendous.
I saw one estimate somewhere between $95 and $110 billion of devastation from the Florida
coast until this thing is finished already.
Lives have been lost.
One of our churches, I read where the lady that cleans the church was swept away in the
flood.
To my knowledge, they haven't found her just yet.
Yesterday, our state overseer put out a plea to our churches.
Many of you may have saw the video that they posted on Facebook.
Operation Compassion is moving in full force.
Pastor Kelvin Page is over that.
I mean from the Florida coast with transfer trucks all the way through.
Asheville, North Carolina is still isolated.
The only way in is by air.
But I told a friend of mine this morning, you can't tell me that some redneck in a duck
boat hadn't already been over there checking on folk.
Hello?
Now, I know you can't drive over there, but some redneck in a duck boat's done been over
trying to help somebody.
Hello?
So with that, they can't get the larger trucks to where they need to be dispatched.
So they are sending as many of the U-Haul box trucks as they can load to get relief
up there.
Actually, the overseer drove a truck up yesterday.
It takes $3,500 to fill one of those trucks with aid.
We're going to send at least one of those trucks from our church.
And I know countless churches are doing it across the state, but you and I both know,
we all know that this is not going to be over with Friday.
Amen?
So, but this is how we can help at the front end of this.
We're going to send at least one truck.
If we raise enough money today for a truck, we may match it with a truck.
Send two trucks.
Amen?
Because this is part of today is, today is Mission Sunday.
I know many, many of you have been asking Brother Randy, Brother Brian, and Brother
David, Brother Mills, how the Africa trip went.
I kindly ask them to keep the information down as much as possible for this day.
So they've tried their best not to leak out everything that went on while they were in
Africa.
But I think it's important that we take time to hear.
Amen?
Now, nobody likes to have just throw down church any better than your pastor just likes
to have throw down church.
That's me.
I'm ready to throw down and we'll just have church.
But there's more to it than just throwing down and having church.
It's about being the church and seeing what it means to be the church.
And we have opportunity to do that today.
We're going to, they're going to share with you.
They've got pictures and things.
And at the end of the service is when we'll receive our tithe and offering.
If you have to leave before it's finished, just leave it with a nusher at the back door
or somewhere and whatever the Lord lays on your heart to give toward this mission effort.
But just a quick reminder that our mission statement for the Hopewell Church of God is
adopted out of acts one and eight where is recorded.
And after that, the spirit, the Holy spirit has come upon you.
You shall be witnesses of me.
And then he begins to lay it out.
Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the world.
Our Jerusalem is right here in Cleveland.
Part of our mission is sister Kaylee's efforts with the homeless right here.
And we support a couple of other mission efforts right here in our Jerusalem.
Amen.
And so we're going to stretch on out to Judea.
Now we're going to get on up toward the upper end of our state and we're going to minister.
But what they are going to come and share with you now for the next, whatever the Lord
lays on their heart to share with us.
We're going to see what our efforts have been.
Their efforts have been in the uttermost parts of the world over in Africa, up in the bush
somewhere.
Amen.
And we're going to see how that you, for all of you who have given to help send these missionaries
and our local missionaries over there.
I'm ready to see what happened.
Amen.
And I know only eternity will unfold for us all that took place.
And I'm looking forward to be there and to see that as well.
Amen.
So, Brother David, if you and Brother Brian and Brother Randy, if you guys would just
come on.
I don't know how you've got this laid out to do, but just be praying in the meantime
what the Lord wants you to do at the end of the service and we'll receive our tithe and
offering.
And our offering, we're really going to push toward this relief and aid toward our state.
We've got churches that are devastated.
Amen.
I don't know who's going to win.
Good morning.
Good to see all your bright, sunshiny faces.
Good to be in the house of the Lord today.
And first of all, just let me say thank you for supporting us in the adventure.
And it was an adventure especially for these two.
And I've asked them, since I've been so many times and I can give you the perspective of
somebody that's been there so many times, I've asked each one of them to give you their
perspective as the first time having gone on one of these kinds of trips.
And so they're going to come and share, they're going to share some pictures, they're going
to share some personal feelings and some personal adventures that they had, good and bad I guess,
they will share because there certainly were some bad things, but there were a lot of great
things and then I'll come and wrap it up.
And Pastor, you just about took away everything I was going to say, but that's okay.
We'll figure that one out when the time comes.
Randy, Brian, you come first.
My perspective is going to be a little unique and interesting, but first thing I want to
do is guys, can you give the youth guys a hand clap?
They make me proud every single time.
I get to see them every, I get to hear them and see them every Wednesday, but we didn't
really get a chance to kind of practice or go through some things till this morning,
so I thought they did a phenomenal job as always.
I don't know about you, but I had no problem worshiping this morning.
So just to give you some insight on this trip, so I was kind of the guy who, I hadn't even
been on a plane before, right?
Everybody says, Brian, have you, you know, I guess they expected my response when they
asked me how it was going to be, if I was excited about going, I was like, oh yeah,
tell me no problem.
I hadn't even been on a plane before.
So I was like, we're doing a lot of firsts on this trip, which is exciting.
I enjoy doing things for the first time.
By the way, after just the flight from Chattanooga to Atlanta, I called Eric and I said, we're
never driving to Florida again.
I'm just going to tell you right now.
A 26 minute flight that takes usually two hours, I'm thinking, why would I ever drive
to Florida again?
But it was a, I had an awesome time on the, on the jet and flying for my first experience.
I was very excited about that.
But just to kind of get us started, we kind of prepared a video for you guys to watch
and it's kind of a, I wouldn't call it a summary.
There was a lot more that went on and this video could have been extremely long, but
I tried to keep it short because you guys know just as much as I do, our attention span
is only so far, right?
But I put some highlighted things in there that I think will be really great.
So guys go ahead and play that video.
That's me right there.
One, two, three.
I'm afraid to be surrounded.
This place is the water.
My anointing's drowning.
As long as I'm breathing, I've got a reason to praise the Lord.
Oh, my soul.
Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul.
I praise when I see this, and I praise when I don't.
I praise because I know you're still in control.
My praise is a weapon. It's broken and sound.
Oh, my praise is the shout that brings Jericho down.
As long as I'm breathing, I've got a reason to praise the Lord.
Oh, my soul.
Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul.
I won't be quiet. My heart is alive.
So how could I keep it inside my heart?
Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul.
Praise the Lord.
Come on, we see that dance. Put a dance on his hand.
It's your grace, though. Come on.
Hey, hey.
Come on.
My praise was so strong. Praise because you reign.
Praise because you rose in defeat in the grave.
My praise was so faithful. Praise because you're true.
Praise because there's nobody greater than you.
My praise was so strong. Praise because you reign.
Praise because you rose in defeat in the grave.
My praise was so faithful. Praise because you're true.
Praise because you're true.
Yes, we are true.
And that was the video of our trip to Zambia.
Just a short synopsis there.
Yeah, go ahead. Give the Lord a hand clap of praise.
I mean, it was an awesome trip, an awesome time.
And as David kind of shared, not all things were awesome, right?
There were some things that were.
But the traveling to me was one of the funnest parts
because I'd never been on a plane before.
So I was videoing.
Y'all should see I got almost as many videos of me in the plane
as I do as actual stuff on the trip.
And every time I turn around, David and Randy are like...
And I was like...
Because we weren't sitting like right side by side.
So I turn around and look, David's like, Randy's like, you good? Yeah.
But I had a great time on the plane. I had a great time on the trip.
And the traveling really wasn't the...
The worst part was the vehicle ride.
So we flew from Chattanooga to Atlanta.
And then we went from Atlanta straight to Johannesburg,
which was the real long flight.
And then from Johannesburg, we stayed one night in Johannesburg,
stayed the night at a hotel there, got up the next morning,
and made our way by plane from Johannesburg to Lusaka,
which is the capital of Zambia there.
Now, where we were actually ministering was about seven hours further east.
So we took a vehicle ride, seven hours from Lusaka to a little town called Katete,
which is the video you saw with the dirt roads.
That was the town that we were in, was Katete.
And that was where we saw the green and white church.
That was where we did the ministering and the teaching
while we were there for the short time.
The safari we went on where you saw the zebras and all that,
that was one of the coolest things I've ever done in my entire life.
And if you have not done that, you need to do that, okay?
It was worth all the struggle and the rough stuff, right?
It was worth all that.
But that was a really fun trip, not while we went,
but it was awesome to get to do that.
Seeing the ministry, the school that they have there,
which there was a few pictures of that, and the church there in town,
and that was actually in Lusaka.
But seeing that and seeing what God has done in that town,
and then to hear, obviously I don't have David's perspective
from before the school and the church was there,
but to see what God has done was a very wonderful thing.
And to get to meet some of the men who walked upstairs
and where the school was and the church was,
and there was some meeting, and to hear their, they love David.
They love him to death, and I can see why,
because he was important in getting all the school
and everything going in that community, in that area.
And then they have been able to minister
and reach outside of Lusaka so very far.
So it's just awesome and wonderful to see for myself,
be on the ground and see for myself what God is doing,
not only in Katete, but there in Lusaka and in Zambia as a whole.
That was really powerful.
When we first got to Katete and got where we were staying,
right away there were struggles.
It seems like once we got to Katete,
the enemy really started combating us and things like,
we were all supposed to have our own separate rooms.
Then they put me and Randy in a room together with one bed,
and I thought, this ain't going to work.
What are we going to do?
I looked at Randy, he looked at me, and I'm like, well,
so anyway, they had commented us and put us in a separate room
with two beds, so I was like, thank you, Lord.
Nothing against you, Randy. Love you, man.
But I don't think he'd want to sleep with me either,
so we're going to, you know, got to be careful with that.
But it's not a good look, you know what I'm saying?
It's not a good look.
But that was not the biggest issue.
We got into a room and all that,
and we would make jokes about that.
Y'all can already tell this is going to be the funny part
of the trip, what you're getting from me,
because it's a lot of firsts for me.
I'm like, you know, I've never been, I've never flown,
I've never been outside of the U.S., right?
I've just been a few states over, so.
But they got us in a separate room, we got settled there,
and then we ended up, I think, we let,
we put all our stuff in David's room,
because we were going on the safari,
and we come back, when we got back from the safari,
we didn't have our rooms anymore.
So then it's like, where are we going to stay now?
Anyway, the lodging was up and down.
And, you know, it was, the, where we stayed was fine,
from a perspective, we were only there a short time.
We didn't need all the amenities.
But because of the extreme drought,
because Zambia and Africa has a wet and a dry season, okay?
And during the wet season, they didn't get enough rain.
So during the dry season, they didn't have a lot of water,
and water is how they provide power for everywhere.
So you didn't have power a lot of times in the day,
because of the drought.
It affected crops, it affected food,
it affected all kinds of things.
So we kind of figured out about a few days in,
that we would have electricity from about seven in the morning
to maybe lunchtime, and then they would turn the generators on
at some point throughout the day.
And so you'd have power and electricity for a short time,
and then about 10, 10, 30 at night, they'd turn that off,
and you didn't have any power the rest of the night
until the next morning.
So there's a lot of things that are up and down.
It definitely wasn't a five-star resort, right?
Most people that do ministry, but I didn't expect that,
and that's fine.
I can rough it, I have no problem with that.
But I wouldn't even call it roughing it.
We were literally in the nicest place
that they could have provided us.
I really do believe that.
We were in a really good spot.
David stayed there many a times, so it was safe, right?
We had food there, we had water there, so that part was fine.
Let me get to, let me fast forward a little bit,
because I just want to get to the part where that Thursday night,
when we rolled up to the church,
we were going out there, it was dark,
really didn't know the path we were going.
The overseer in that area kind of picked us up from our rooms each day
and drove us to the church and drove us back for lunch and whatnot.
The first night we pulled up,
at the end of the video when it was dark,
I don't know if you all could have seen it real well,
but they were in there worshiping.
When we first pulled up that night,
they were in the back cooking their meal, they were eating.
There wasn't a lot of them there yet,
but they were in the back cooking their meal and eating.
So we were just there kind of figuring out where do we go,
where do we sit, what are we doing,
and talking to the overseer.
But then they started just randomly.
I don't know that it was queued or orchestrated,
but they just started worshiping.
They just started worshiping like that.
Of course, there's no musician, no music.
They're clapping their hands, they're worshiping God.
Me and Randy and all of us are kind of just video and taken,
but then it's just like something entered the room
is the best way that I could describe it.
And what entered the room was nothing short of the total presence of God.
Amen?
I'm so sorry if I get a little preachy here,
but it impacted me in a way,
and I think it impacted all of us in a way,
but the Holy Spirit fell in that building,
and we hadn't spoken a first word.
Can I tell you that God is the same no matter where you go?
Can I tell you that it doesn't matter how much you have,
how little you have, how you may feel like you're not in the right place,
you may feel out of source,
but can I tell you that God's the same no matter what,
and no matter the situation you're going through,
no matter anything that's happening in your life,
God is the same.
And it was evident in that room because as they began to worship,
I had to put my phone away because all I could do is stand there
and cry at the presence of God.
I had no clue what they were saying.
I didn't understand the language, but it did not matter
because the presence of God is familiar to the saints.
You understand? You hear me when I'm saying,
church, that the presence of God was so powerful.
And that was night one.
We haven't spoken, none of us even spoken yet.
David, I think, got up towards the end of it
and just kind of set the foreground to what we were doing there.
And we came to teach and we came to minister.
That's what we came to do.
So then that next Friday, Brother Randy got up and taught
on the bapses of the Holy Spirit.
I preached that night.
The next day, Saturday, I taught on the gifts of the Spirit.
Randy preached that night.
And then Sunday, David kind of preached that morning
and kicked us off out of there.
I was trying to remember what day was it that we gave out the stuff.
Was that Friday? Saturday.
Saturday is when we presented the food, the meal, the seed,
the hoe for their farming, and then also the Bibles.
And a couple of the things that just impacted me the most
was the one gentleman, I forget his name because I am terrible with names,
but the one gentleman that spoke for the majority of them there
that was receiving the Bibles and the seed and the food.
He kind of stood out and spoke.
They're going through a drought.
Food is scarce.
I have no doubt they leave there wondering themselves,
where am I going to get the next meal to feed my family?
You know, water they had to hike and walk to get.
I have no doubt they were sitting there wondering that,
but they're holding Bibles in their hands to take out to the areas
that they're going to, to give to pastors that don't have one
in their language.
And I remember him speaking.
He was thanking us for the food and thanking us for the seed
and thanking us for the hoe because Brother David asked him
who in here is farmers, and I think every single one of them
raised their hands.
They're pastors and leaders, but they're also farmers.
They work.
They till the ground.
They have to grow their own food, and they all raised their hand.
But what impacted me specifically was they were grateful for the food
and grateful for the seed, but they were grateful for the food
of their spirit more than anything.
It's almost as if they could care less about actual food for the body,
and they were more concerned with the Bibles that we were there
giving them out because they were going to be able to go take those
to their pastors in their areas, and they were going to be able to
read that word and then preach that word to their areas and to their
communities, and it impacted them in mighty, powerful ways, no doubt.
Amen?
God can do that, but it struck me because I'm like, you're probably
hungry sitting here.
Maybe you're not.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I read this thing the whole time, but it was so important
and impactful to me that the Word of God was so, so important to them.
And just to have it in their hands, something tangible to read.
And when we were teaching, you could see them.
The one picture was up there.
They were flipping through.
They were taking notes.
They were absorbing everything that we were saying.
And a lot of that, like what Pastor mentioned earlier, sometimes you
don't feel worthy.
I can tell you, when I got up to preach and speak, I never feel worthy
to do the assignment.
I don't think that I will ever feel worthy, and I think I should never
feel worthy to an extent.
I'm going to do and follow the Lord, but I don't think I should ever
feel worthy.
I want to stay humble always.
But in that moment, and you have a translator, so everything I would
say, it was a different pacing.
I struggled with that badly.
I struggled with the pacing, with the interpreter.
But I would beat myself up after I got done, especially the first night
when I preached.
I beat myself up that night.
I really felt like I didn't really, there was some, it just felt like
there was something fighting against what I felt like the Lord had given
me to preach to him that night.
And I went back to the room, and I think Randy could tell, I was beating
myself up pretty hard that night.
But Randy asked me something, and I don't know why, but it made me snap
out of the mood I was in very quickly.
Maybe this is me.
Maybe none of you have struggled with this.
I hope you don't.
But for me, doubt and discouragement is something that the enemy fights
with me a lot about because I don't feel worthy, and that's okay.
But Randy asked me a question.
He said, Brian, do you feel like the Lord was with you?
And I said, of course I do.
Then what are you worried about?
And it made me realize that as long as I know, no matter where I stand,
no matter how uncomfortable I may be in the moment, no matter how awkward
it feels, no matter if I feel there's something there, distractions,
whatever the case may be, if I know that God is with me, what am I
worried about?
So I sit there and let the doubt.
I let the discouragement.
I let it creep in.
The enemy's just sitting there toiling with my mind because he knew I got
Brian tonight because he struggled.
But it made me snap out of it, and I'm so grateful that Randy was there
with me because he helped coach me through that in a sense.
Of course I know God's with me, but in the moment, it's hard to think
about those type things.
So that was very impactful to me, the fact that I had him, not only him,
but Brother David there because Brian learned a lot on this trip,
not just about flying, not just about Zambia or South Africa or zebras,
right?
But Brian learned a lot about himself on this trip.
And I can sit here and try to describe to you because I'm not going to
take up all the time.
Plus, I don't want to tell everything, right?
But I can describe to you how it was, but it's not going to matter.
You're not going to know unless you go.
Hopefully the videos, hopefully some of the sharing that we're going to
continue to do today will give you some insight as to how it was.
The trip was phenomenal.
I'm so thankful God didn't call me into the missions field on this trip.
I'll go again.
Don't get me wrong.
I enjoyed the trip.
It was great for me.
I cried a lot.
God's presence was there every single time.
It was a phenomenal trip.
And the very first thing they said when we were leaving, we took the pictures
with them that Sunday, a couple pictures with them that Sunday afternoon
before we got in the truck or the vehicle to start heading back.
And they told us, they said, if we don't see you again, we'll see you in eternity.
These folks are going to heaven.
Their minds made up, and they're not going to let anything stop them.
Food, water, distractions, doesn't matter.
They're not going to let anything stop them.
So I'm so thankful for my time.
Hopefully I didn't share too, too much, and you guys have something to share.
But thank you so much.
Oh, also one quick story, then you can stay standing, Randy.
Or sit down.
He's like, there's no way that's short.
Me and Randy stayed up a lot of nights talking, so he knows Brian's long-winded.
He can just talk.
I'm really not.
Y'all know that.
But so on the way back, when we took the car ride, this is just a quick story that happened.
On the way back, we took the vehicle ride from when we were taking the ride from Katete to Lusaka, that seven-hour ride.
The guy who was driving us pulled over to get gas before we headed back.
We all got out, went around, found a restroom, because we were like, we're going to have to use the seven-hour trip.
We're trying not to stop, because we're trying to get back.
At that point, we were all ready to come home.
But we went around the back, used the restroom.
On the way back, I was the first one out and came back, and there was a guy.
Down there, they have attendants at the gas station.
I saw this pretty much at every gas station.
You didn't pump your own gas.
You rolled up, rolled the window down.
The guy was like, what do you need?
And they'll say, fill it up.
And you pay the guy at the window.
You don't have to get out.
One thing they do do that I thought was really weird, we were sitting in the car first.
They did it.
The car just starts doing this.
I'm like, what is happening?
They're out there shaking the car to get every bit of gas they could get in it.
I mean, they got the wheel well.
They're rocking that thing.
Trying to get, we're sitting in the car doing this.
Me and Randy's looking at each other like, what are we doing?
David's like, they're shaking the car.
They're going to get all the gas in it.
I was like, well, that's strange.
You do that in America.
And it's like, your gas hand, your little floater thing will be all messed up.
They're just yanking on the car.
But anyway, so I walk out and him and his attendants yanking on the car.
And I'm like, oh, OK.
Well, they're chit chatting back and forth.
And he mentions to the guy who was working at the gas station that we're from the Church of God.
And we were there doing missions.
And he was like, oh, do you have any Bibles?
Do you have a book?
Do you have anything you can give me?
And I said, well, we already we gave out the Bibles.
I said, and then it hit me, Brian, you got your own personal Bible.
So I said, well, I've got one Bible that I'm more than happy to give you, but it's in English.
He was, oh, this is good. This is good.
I can read English. I mean, you can read English.
He said, yes.
So I reached in and got him.
And then the other attendant at the other gas station heard he's like, he's got a Bible.
And he came running over there.
And I was like, well, I got one Bible.
There's two of y'all.
But I said, I already promised it to him.
So I'm going to give him the Bible.
And I said, here's the beauty of it.
You're here at work.
We only want to this gas station when we leave, read it with each other, figure it out.
So I promised the kid I told him I'd give him my Bible, but I made him promise to read it.
I said, the only thing I want you to do is take a home, share with your family.
Read the book.
It'll change your life.
And he was like, yes, yes, yes, yes.
And he was talking about how his area needed revival.
I forget the name.
Was it Nimbur?
Ninja. Ninja.
I'm sure I pronounced that wrong.
Nanja.
Anyway, he said they need a revival in that town.
And I don't know who he was.
Didn't know.
But it just felt like I needed to give him my Bible.
And I don't know if that Bible is sitting on a bookshelf somewhere.
I don't know.
But I prayed afterwards and I said, Lord, just let that Bible do some good.
Not me, not because it's mine, because it's your word.
And I wanted to transform his life, his family's life, his community's life and that whole area's life.
If he just reads it, I know God will do something with it.
And then my wife is so kind to when I got off the plane when I got back.
She had me a brand new one right there.
I was so excited to go because it was my favorite Bible.
And of course, I thought to myself, don't take your favorite one.
And I sure enough did.
And then giving it away.
But it was the easiest thing I could do.
Giving somebody the word of God is the easiest thing I could do.
He doesn't have the ability to get that Bible.
I could go back and buy one.
No problem.
Right.
So it was one of the easiest things to do.
But I'll let Randy share now.
I don't think there's anything left for me to say at this point.
I would start with saying, Zikomo.
Zikomo is Nanja, the language that they normally speak.
They know English, but they're language they share with each other.
Zikomo is thank you.
In fact, I would say makamaka, Zikomo, which means very, very much.
Thank you. That's a rough translation.
I thought that I was ready psychologically, and I was woefully not.
We got on the plane, and Brian said that he started fighting the devil once we got to Katete.
I think I was fighting the devil before I even left, so to speak.
I remember thinking, Dear God, what am I getting myself into doing this?
The realization for those of you who are Sunday schooled was kind of similar to that.
God didn't need to send me to Africa if he wanted to take me out.
He can do it right here.
We got on the plane, and I started traveling, and I started thinking,
Wow, if I want to go home, this is 16 and a half hours.
Then we took another two-hour flight.
The further we went, the more the hours were stacking up in my mind, more and more.
Finally, at one point when we were there in the middle of nowhere, when we went into the bush,
I was thinking, Okay, it's a two and a half hour ride back to Katete,
a seven-hour ride across to Lusaka, a two-hour flight back to Johannesburg,
and a 16 and a half hour flight back to America, just to get back to America,
and then I've got to get back from there.
The walls started closing in.
We were in the middle of that place in the middle of nowhere where they told us,
You can't leave your room tonight, by the way.
If you want to leave, you've got to go out and shine a flashlight
because elephants and hippos walk through here, and they will attack you.
So you've got to stay where you're at.
I start thinking more and more, Dear God, where am I?
I can tell you this.
I couldn't – I said this to my Wednesday night class.
I couldn't call the pastor, couldn't call my wife, couldn't call my parents.
We're completely isolated.
There's no power, no electricity.
There's nothing.
But then we hit the nail on the head this morning.
Not for a moment was I forsaken.
The Lord was in this place.
We talk so often about, Oh, we can't get away from the presence of God.
I can testify to you, church, I never once left the presence of the Lord.
There was not a place.
And the safari was wonderful.
That was great.
Thank you, Brother David, for taking us.
But I felt – the Bible talks about Jesus saying that he must need to go through Samaria.
I felt a drawing to Katete.
The whole time we were there, we toured the Bible college,
but I felt we've got to get to Katete.
We've got to get to Katete.
There was just a drawing, an urgency.
And we pulled up that first night.
The people were sitting there in the dark under the trees, just eating, just waiting, waiting patiently in the dark.
No lights.
Remember, there's no power.
The city has no power.
And Katete, Brian said he knows, is 300,000 people that live in this town.
And it's just dark as you look across it because there's no power.
And the people were sitting there under the trees waiting for us to arrive.
And when we walk in, the only lights we have are two small lights that are solar lights that they charged up during the day.
And as Brian said, the people came in and they began to pray and they began to worship.
And I began to cry because it broke me, because I could feel the presence of the Lord in such a tangible way.
And this isn't an indictment on anyone, as I say this.
We sometimes come to church and if the air isn't working, we get upset, or if the lights aren't working, we get upset, or if this isn't right, or if the words aren't right on the walls or stuff like that.
They had nothing.
But they praised the Lord God Almighty with such an urgency and intensity.
And there was such a hunger there.
And God moved in such a powerful way.
Folks, there's such a lack.
People are literally committing suicide there because there's no food.
When we left, we saw children selling rats to eat on the sides of the road that they grilled.
But more than the hunger for food and more than the hunger for these things, there was a hunger for the presence of God.
And I will never, ever forget that.
But on top of that, one of those humbling moments was at the very end.
When we had finished everything, we noticed that they were, or at least I noticed that they were passing something through the audience.
At the end, they brought us up and they presented us with an offering.
Those people with such little funds and little things, where we drove to in two and a half hours,
people literally came from those places, pastors riding bicycles.
Two and a half hours by car, they rode bicycles to get to Katete.
They slept on the floor. They had nothing. And they presented us with an offering.
And that's one of the most humbling moments of my entire life.
And I'm so grateful Brother Miller did not ask us. He knew. No prompting.
He said, you have given this to us.
We said, yes. He said, this is ours. We can do with this as we choose. Yes. Yes.
We can do with it however we want it to. We wanted to reiterate it. Yes, yes, you can do it.
And he said, then here. The church there has dug a borehole. It's a well.
They call them boreholes there, trying to find water.
They found water. They built a tower to store the water.
They have all they have a pump. They have all the things, but they need electricity to pull
and run the pump to pull the water up. They're trying to grow food there at the church to feed the people.
But they're unable to connect the electricity because it's six thousand five hundred quacha to do that.
Now, that sounds like a lot of money, but in our money, that's about two hundred dollars.
And that's a fortune for them. And I'm so happy that Brother Miller said, take this money.
We want to give that back to applying that to the borehole project. Get your water going for the people.
Folks, I'll leave you with this. So many thoughts that's racing through my mind.
So many things that I could say.
The most. Awesome aspect of it all. Was to be able to be there.
Second Corinthians, Chapter 11, Paul recounts all the hardships that he endured, all the different things he talks about three times.
He was beaten with rods. He was stoned. He talks about perils of the deep, perils of nakedness, famine, hunger.
The perils that we faced were hardships of no electricity.
There are perils of mosquitoes. Brian, I believe it was divinely appointed that we shared that room that night and several other nights.
One, the mosquitoes loved him more than me. So.
When I shared the room with him, they they flocked him.
I was like, I didn't have anything going on as opposed to other nights.
He was over there. I heard him throughout the night.
Hitting himself. And I'm just like, yes.
That was that was probably the greatest peril that we faced was the mosquitoes.
But. God kept us safe throughout all of it.
There was never any war. There is never anything.
There were psychological aspects that we thought maybe there was hardships that God kept us and he preserved us.
But I can say throughout the whole trip, God had his hand on us.
He orchestrated everything. And please be in prayer for the church of not just the Katete, but not just the eastern province, specifically, but for Zambia.
They endure things that we cannot. And the videos and our stories cannot adequately express and explain what they endure on a daily basis.
It's one of those things that you can't just see it. You need to experience it.
Pray for the church. Pray for the people. They endure a lot, but they are so devoted to God and to serving him.
And I'm so thankful that one of these days, if I don't ever go back, this is Brian said, we'll see them on the other side.
Thank you.
One of the things that. They stated somewhere along with the trip, I'm not sure at what point they stated will never be the same again.
One of the things that I have found over the years that the Lord graciously allowed me to be a missionary.
Was that people would say, I'll never be the same again.
I will tell you that they represented Hopewell Church of God very well.
The. Teaching that was done.
I just got a text from the overseer Emmanuel.
Not Emmanuel, but Ezekiel.
Just got a text yesterday evening.
He said, I can't express. I have no words to express what we are experiencing as a result of your bringing the team with you.
They did a fantastic job.
The intensity with which they received what was being taught was unreal.
Brian did the thing he did this morning about the clapping twice.
He did that when he was teaching in the afternoon and they kind of smiled and they did it.
And then somewhere along in the middle of his his teaching, he would stop me, say, if you hear me clap twice and they would throw their books down and they would start to clap because they were writing down all their notes.
But they had to lay them down real quick so that they could clap.
And so you knew they were listening to what he had to say.
I thought that was very interesting.
Brian, it showed that they were involved in what was going on.
I'm not going to say a whole lot, but let me let me just say this.
The eastern province of Zambia has two, almost two and a half million people in their province.
Very rural, just one or two cities, and they're not what we would call modern cities.
The impact of one hundred and twenty pastors that were registered.
It didn't just impact them alone.
They will go back to their churches.
Some of them were evangelists that will travel around that area and spread the word that they learned from these two guys.
So we're not impacting just one hundred and twenty.
We're impacting thousands.
They have thousands of members in their churches.
I asked the overseer to give me the figures.
I'm not sure he gave me the right figure, so I'm not even going to quote those because they were so large.
But they have influence over thousands of members in their churches and in their communities.
Ezekiel, the overseer, will be reaching out.
He's always looking for another place to plant a church.
So we didn't just influence a few guys and a few ladies.
We're influencing a whole area for Jesus Christ.
You helped do that.
You helped send us so that we could do what God sent us to do.
I'm going to share just a passage of scripture.
It's a scripture I shared before we went.
And as I set the last few days trying to figure out my part in ending this,
I felt like I needed to share the same passage of scripture, not only to begin the journey,
but now as we have completed the journey, what does this scripture mean?
It's the scripture that the pastor mentioned at the beginning.
If you go ahead and put it up.
It says, but ye shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you.
That's what a lot of people want to stop when they want to talk about the power.
They want to talk about all of that kind of thing.
But it goes on.
The power isn't given just so that we can rejoice and jump and shout, run the aisles.
And I'm not knocking that. I believe in that.
When I was younger, when I had some energy, you ought to see me run the aisles.
So I'm not knocking that.
I'm just saying it's more than receiving this thing for ourselves.
And more than enjoying the beautiful sanctuary that we have and the beautiful music that we have
and the great preaching that we receive Sunday in and Sunday out.
That's wonderful. And we need that.
And I'm not knocking that.
I have always despised missionaries that come around and try to put a guilt trip on a congregation.
That's not me. I'm not doing that today.
But the Holy Ghost is not given to us and does not descend upon us in this building
so that we can feel good about it.
The Holy Ghost is given to you and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in Judea
and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
It takes all of it.
It's not just the mission field.
We went, we had a great time both physically and emotionally.
We had some good times and spiritually we had some great times.
But it's not just about us going.
It doesn't end here.
It does not end with this service this morning, the pastor so graciously giving us the whole service
that we could share what God has done.
It continues from this point.
It continues both in what the pastor is going to come in a few minutes and share with you the need
and already has mentioned some of that.
He's going to share some more of that.
It's the Judea.
We're the Jerusalem and we work on that.
I hope we do witness around.
You know, I drive cars all day and I get for about 15 or 20 minutes, I get people in my car
and I turn as much as I can without being too obvious about it to talking about the Lord.
The Lord has given me the fact that I'm a missionary and they ask,
what did you do before you retired?
Well, that just opens the door for me.
And I share.
I plant some seed.
I don't have a chance to see whether that seed grows and gives fruition,
but I'm able to sow some seed.
That's what we are to do right here in Jerusalem.
But then there's Judea.
We've got a whole state here that needs, right now they need some physical help.
Well, that's up to us.
We need to help one another.
And then, of course, we move on to what I talked about in the message before we left
the cross-cultural thing to people maybe we're not comfortable around and so forth.
We need to do that.
And then there is the uttermost.
Today we're going to reach out to Judea, but let's not forget that there's more left to do
in the uttermost as well.
And we as a congregation have been blessed.
We have been blessed.
I want to say that again.
In so many ways, we have been blessed.
You've got a comfortable seat to sit on there.
I'm telling you, I shifted from one hip to the other hip while Randy was doing his teaching.
That board I was sitting on did not help me at all.
I tried to double up some cloth that was there to see if I could get some.
You've got a comfortable seat.
You've been blessed.
You see what I'm saying?
We've been blessed.
I'll share this story, and, Pastor, then you can come.
The central church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
One Sunday evening, the pastor brought up the fact that the church that they had bought the building from,
because that church, Baptist Church, had built a much larger facility.
And so the Church of God had bought this building.
The pastor had heard that that church had gotten into very big trouble financially.
And if they didn't get some help quickly, the bank was going to foreclose on that big, beautiful building.
So the pastor brought that before his congregation, the central church of God.
And on that evening, they raised $25,000.
The next morning, the pastor decided he was going to take the check over to the Baptist Church.
Well, word has spread around town already.
The Baptist pastor said, now when he comes, don't you let him just drop that check off.
I want to talk to him.
I've got to make this real short.
There's a lot to it, but I want to make it short.
He said, I want to understand.
The pastor of the Baptist Church said, I want to understand.
Why did you do this?
He said, because the Lord told us to do it.
$25,000 he handed him the check.
It saved that church.
A few weeks later, a man came, dropped an envelope off at the central church of God,
and left when they opened the envelope off, it was a $125,000 check.
The man had been sitting in a motel room, had a gun laying on the bed beside him,
getting ready to blow his brains out.
The sitting on the table there was an advertisement of the central church of God.
He said, for some reason I got up that Sunday morning and I went to the central church of God.
He said, I was about to lose my family.
Just on the verge of losing my business, everything was gone.
He said, I had no hope.
He said, that morning when the preacher preached, I got hope.
I prayed and accepted Jesus as my Savior.
I went home.
The next Sunday I brought my whole family and they all got saved that Sunday.
He said, I owed God something for saving me.
He wrote the check for $125,000.
What am I saying this morning?
We've been blessed.
There's a need.
The need is in Judea.
I hope as the pastor comes, and come right on pastor,
I hope that we respond because it's what we should do.
Amen.
Well, hallelujah.
Stand with me this morning.
I'm going to add a whole lot more to what you've heard.
As I've been seated this morning and listening and knowing we will continue,
how do we continue?
What do we do next?
I really felt like the Lord spoke to my heart.
We're going to get with the overseer and we'll find out where he needs a church.
We're going to build a church.
Amen.
We can do that.
I don't know what it's going to cost.
We'll figure that out.
We're going to sew a church, a life-giving church.
We're going to begin today with our Judea project.
Don't think we don't have Jerusalem projects as well.
Before it gets cold,
we've got to replace 40 ton of HVAC right here.
40 ton.
God's been good.
They've lasted 20, almost five years.
But they've already turned the gas on them so that they don't kick on
and dump carbon monoxide in here on you.
So before it gets cold, we're going to have to spend roughly 60 grand
right here in the capital of Jerusalem for these units.
But we're going to sew our way out.
Amen.
You can contribute to that a little bit later on.
But Brother David has shared with you, we're blessed.
Five years ago, we couldn't even afford to pay attention.
Five years ago, we were in red figures.
We're not in the red anymore.
Hallelujah.
So I'm not really going to ask you for a special offering for units
that we've already got money set aside to pay for.
But if the Lord so moves you, I'll take it.
Amen.
Because we've got more things going on here at the capital of our Jerusalem.
Those projectors are about, they've about done all they can do.
You notice it's getting harder to read on the wall.
I've got plans for our wall.
Upgrade, update.
They make these nice LED things that you don't have to have a projector for.
You can plug a cord in it.
I'm looking at two of them.
They're roughly 35, 38 grand.
Feel free.
If the Lord moves on you like the guy in the hotel room, I'll take 125K
and have change left for our two projects to go toward the church over there.
We're going to build a church regardless.
You see, I really don't have to ask you for a special offering to replace the screens
because God's been good to the Hopewell Church of God.
We can do that too.
That's how good the Lord's been.
Amen.
Yeah, you ought to praise him.
You ought to praise him.
He's been good to you.
Why?
Because you've been faithful.
You've been faithful.
Every week, I don't have to get up here and beg you.
I pray blessings over you.
Matter of fact, we got another check in the mail.
It was $12.
It's coming on up.
From 8 to 12, I'm looking and I'm going to pray over you again before we leave today.
I'm just saying God's good.
And whatever we do in the uttermost, we're going to reap the benefit right here.
Right here.
We sold our way out of that debt to begin with.
We sold into Samaria five years ago into the state of Illinois, southern Illinois.
State overseer had a need in southern Illinois.
I'm sitting in the state council.
They're talking about what the state's going to do.
And I heard God say, give.
And in my mind, there's nothing to give.
I mean, there was nothing.
Robin, there was nothing.
Nothing to give.
We didn't have it to pay bills.
But God said, give.
So we did.
We had to do it a little bit at a time.
But it's the step of faith that matters.
When God says do, you just step out there.
And we started to give and we need.
We gave out of our need.
We sold out of our need.
And here we stand today.
Blessed.
And so we're going to bless some churches up the road.
Do I need you to give $3,500 today for us to send that truck up there?
Absolutely not.
Because probably what we're going to do, if you give 35, we're going to match you with 35.
We're going to send two trucks.
Why, pastor?
Because we can.
But you've got to take part just because we can.
Doesn't mean we don't get involved.
How does this continue?
How do we continue?
We stay involved.
That's how.
Because you know what?
When you stop, the flow stops.
When we stop being involved, when we stop giving, when we stop reaching out, it all stops.
It backs up.
So we need to keep the pipe clear.
Keep the blessings flowing.
Amen.
We're going to build a church somewhere in Zambia or wherever the overseer feels like has the greatest need.
We're going to build one.
Can we do that?
Yes, we can.
Several years ago, Lord put on my heart to build a high school in the mountains near the Guatemalan border.
In Honduras.
A high school.
In a country where the median age, the school levels, when they get through the sixth grade, they're done.
So what do we do?
We build a $50,000 high school right up in the middle of the mountains.
And I get pictures continually of every graduating class that comes through there.
And every time I see that, see, there you go.
Because they give them the gospel before they get their diploma.
All right.
Enough of that.
Hallelujah.
So we're going to continue.
We're going to send missionaries out.
We're going to see what the next adventure is.
Amen.
And I'm not, unless the Lord makes me, I'm not upping my passport.
So I don't have to go back.
I'm in that.
I'm in that ascending mood.
Amen.
Father, we love you today.
Thank you for the testimony that we've heard of what you're doing in the uttermost parts of the world.
Father, what you're going to use your people to do right here in Tennessee, we're going to give.
We're going to minister.
We're going to do what we can.
We're going to send aid.
And when we find out the local churches of God that have been devastated, we're going to,
we're going to personally do something for them.
We're going to continue.
This is a continual thing.
We're going to continue in the mission mandate that you've given the whole church of God.
So we love you today.
Bless the offering.
Bless your people with jobs and better jobs, increases, checks in the mail, refunds, rebates and any other way.
Inheritance.
Bless your people in Jesus name.
Everybody say amen and amen.
Just bring your offer and put it in the buckets.
I know we do it at the back door sometime, but you can give online as well.
If you want to give to the project, just give online and just just put Tennessee flood and we'll get it done.
God bless you.
That's our dismissal today.
We're dismissing with our offering.
God bless you.
Go in grace.
Go in peace.
Love God and love people.
Witness and tell them about Jesus.
You're dismissed.