Welcome to the God's Goodness podcast where our mission is to encourage and highlight God's
Goodness and modern-day miracles. We are your hosts, Josh and Shelley Hankins. Today we have
with us a special couple once again and you've heard them from them before and they're going to
continue their Jungle Journey series. We have Pastor John Kent and his wife Belinda and they
went on this eight-year mission trip to Papua New Guinea and they have some tales to tell and they
are going to continue their series. This will be a book one day and we just it's like a sneak peek
getting to listen to these and so with us we're going to have Belinda open us up with an opening
prayer and then we'll get into it. Thank you Lord for this opportunity to share your goodness and
your grace and just stories of remembrance of what you've done in our past and that I pray that they
would encourage and bless somebody else and just maybe tweak somebody else to say, yes, I want to
go do this and serve you in this way and just be with us today and we thank you for your Holy Spirit
in us. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you for that. Well thank you so much for inviting us once
again to be part of the God's Goodness podcast. You know it's just pondering coming over the amazing
goodness of God, the way He puts His hand on us and sends us, uses us sometimes in ways that we just
don't anticipate. At our church today we had a little baby dedication and I read from Jeremiah
1.5 where it says, before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I consecrated you
and I appointed you to be my spokesman, my prophet to the nations, he says to Jeremiah,
but I think each of those are just such pivotal parts of all of our lives. He knew us before He
formed us, consecrated us to His purpose and appointed us to a specific mission and I'm just
so grateful for that. Oh yeah, hey, I'm going to share a story, Blin will share a story and then we'll
maybe have another story after that. See how it goes. Sounds good. Maybe just brief recap if you're
joining the podcast, coming in for the first time here, Blin and I spent eight years in Papua New Guinea.
It's by Australia, at least if you don't know. Second largest island in the world, 1500 miles long,
500 miles wide, 20 feet of rain a year. We were 270 miles from the nearest town,
90 by mud road, 180 by long canoe up the river. So we were among this primitive tribal group called
the Iwam people and God planted us there among that tribe for eight years. But they weren't the only
tribe that we ministered to. The Iwam tribe were river-based people. They had permanent villages,
the primary protein was fish from the river and basically anything else that moved, but that fish
was their main food and then lots of foods that they scrounced from the jungle, gathered from
the jungle and a few that they grew. But there were other tribal groups and I want to tell you the
story about the Drupals people. The Drupals people were another hunter-gatherer group. Some time ago,
I told you about the Epamo people where I spent three days without food. We had to track them down
because they were dramatic. Yeah. So the Drupals people were similar living in a different direction
and we had been there at May River a year or two and then I began to get messages coming out of the
jungle from this tribal group saying, we want you to come to see us. And we were just so busy with
so many things and that message just kind of fell to the wayside for some time and
again and then probably a third time this message came, please won't you come see us.
And the problem that we faced was even if we went, what would we do? We just didn't have resources
or people to send. Our Iwam people weren't far enough along in their journey to be missionaries yet
and so what were we going to do? So I put a little word out to a friend of mine, he was actually a
pilot for a mission, you know, a mission pilot ministry there, a mission plane. They would
support missionaries and so I put a word out to him because he also lived right near a little
training school, an indigenous training school where they would train indigenous
Bible workers and church planters. And so I sent a word out to him and said, hey listen man, we need
somebody. We got this tribal group that keeps saying, you know, they want somebody to come.
We don't have anybody to send there. I haven't gone yet, but I'm just, you know, giving you the
word if you come across somebody that might qualify from another tribal group that we could
maybe send back there, you know, let us know. Well, he said, he said, John, he said, you know,
we really don't have anybody that I could think of right off the top of my head. You know, it
could be a little bit before we come up with someone. I said, that's fine, we haven't even been back
to find this tribal group yet. And so literally it was a day or two later that he radioed us on our
radio and said, John, I've got somebody. I've got a young family that they've come through training
and they want a place to go to serve as a missionary. And you know, these are indigenous
New Guineans who love Jesus and you know, just want to share their faith. And so I said, well,
you know, and he said, here's the thing, he said, if you want him, I'm going to bring him tomorrow.
And I said, we haven't even been back to the tribal group yet. I have no idea what the
circumstances are. He said, John, this is the chance if you want him and his wife and his two
children, you know, I can bring him tomorrow. And if you don't take him tomorrow, I don't know.
Yeah, it's kind of take it and leave it. He may go somewhere else. So, you know, we said, okay,
bring him. So we have a little grass airstrip four or five miles upriver. So the next day,
the pilot brought Andrew a coyote and his wife and two children and landed there at that little
airstrip. We went up and picked him up in our log canoe or boat, can't remember, brought him down
and got him settled temporarily and spent a day or two together. And then I said to Andrew one day,
I said, Andrew, I think what we should do is tomorrow, why don't we take an exploratory trip,
you know, just leave your wife here, your kids, and we'll just we'll just take a trip because we
don't know exactly where they live. I've had no personal contact with them. We don't know what
the circumstances are. And I said, I think just you and I and, you know, a couple of my helpers,
we should we should take a trip there. He said, no, I'm not doing that. If I go, I'm taking my
wife and my kids and we're going to go. And I said to him, but Andrew, you know, we have we've just
we don't know the circumstances. There's probably not going to be a house for you. You know, where
are you going to stay? He said, John, I didn't come here to hang out with you was basically what he
said in the language. I came to be a missionary. I came to share Jesus with people that don't know
him. And so I said, well, if that's what you want to do, so that, you know, we pack them up the next
morning, all their bags and billums, you know, string bags of their personal supplies and
put his wife and these two children. And then we began this journey back to this tribal group,
which required going up our river into a tributary, going up this tributary that just got narrow and
narrow until we really couldn't go anymore. Then we had to climb up over a mountain, drop back down
the other side, wade the stream, the river with kids and supplies, kids supplies, everybody carrying
everything in their backs. And yeah, you know, so literally it took like eight hours to get there
from the time we left till we got into the where they're a semi permanent village is. And so,
you know, and I'll never forget it, you guys. So we got there. And what is there? This tribal group
who didn't know Jesus, this tribal group who'd been sending messages that we want to hear about
the Christian God had built a house for someone to come tell them about Jesus.
That's great. It was already built. They built a little bush house for a missionary
to come tell them about Jesus. And not only that, they built a little bush church,
a bush house that they could start worshiping a God that they didn't even know in being taught by
a missionary that they had never met or never seen or never had a promise that they would actually
get one. But they'd done it all in preparation for that. And the story of the, you know, the two
farmers that prayed for rain and one of them planted right and showing their faith in God.
You know, when I speak of that his his signatures and all of creation, right, that you can see God
and everything that they saw God in it enough to build things enough to have faith, which is incredible,
like tremendously incredible. And then God blessed them with what they were longing for,
people to guide them. Yeah, just amazing. You know, I just remember it brought tears to my eyes.
Now, so this family, it reminded me of you because he had two kids and the wife and said,
we're going and then you didn't know what you were going into really. And then you're like,
I'm taking a family anyway. And so it was like them. Like, but different because he knew because
he scouted ahead. He went ahead and then he collected for sure. But and they were just like,
let's do this. So at what were you scared for his kids and his family because there wasn't that
possible. There was no certainty that there is there is an again, unknown area that you're going to
or not well known. And if something happens, you are cut off. Easy.
But it's like, how uneasy that make you feel before you were like, fine, you want to go, let's go.
Well, you know, Andrew and his wife, Anna, right? Anna was his wife, I believe so. It's been a long
time. But yeah, Anna was so and you know, Andrew and Anna were New Guineans used to living at a
village level, used to growing stuff in the jungle. So it wouldn't have been like me going in there.
Right. But still, it was completely unknown because they could have we could have gone there.
There would be nothing for them to live in. Right. But when we got there, there was a house
and a church that they had built for that purpose. So they wouldn't face the same risk that I would.
We knew that the tribal group wanted someone to come. So we kind of expected there would be openness.
We just didn't know the level of preparation. Yeah. You know, but God meant God, he was done.
You know, he was just done, which was amazing. Just like your house. So yeah, exactly. So I'll
never forget that night. You know, I met with a village leader and leaders and I said, listen,
I want you to gather your people tomorrow. Get gather, tell them to come here so that we can
talk about what it means to have this man and his family come be here to tell you about God.
And so they said, okay, and so I'll never forget. I went to bed that night
and get up early the next morning and came down to the river to kind of wash, you know, wash my face
in hands along the edge of the little river there. And as I'm kneeling there, you know,
splashing water in my face and kind of cleaning up a little bit, I look up and come in, you know,
from up the river and coming from down the river and coming from across the river where people
streaming these. I mean, I don't like using the word primitive, primitive by our standards,
but you know, it's just how they live, right? You know, but these men and women coming out of the
jungle, nothing but grass, skirts for the women, mere nakedness for the men, carrying children,
you know, coming streaming together into this place to hear the word of God for the first time
in their lives. It's just amazing, you know. And so we gathered them that morning and, you know,
just, you know, talk to them. I had a little worship with them, you know, began to tell them a
little bit of the story of God. And, you know, we prepped Andrew with the resources he needed.
And you know, just talked what it meant for them to have him there and how they needed to care for
him. And of course, God had already been preparing their heart for that. And so, yeah, Andrew and
Anna moved in with their children. And today, there's a church and Christians, many Christians
that live there at that village because of what Andrew and Anna did. They moved in, they began
sharing, they sacrificed, because it was a sacrifice for them. Eventually, they left and we sent our
first, May River, our first EWAP missionary, went back to continue the work that they did. And
eventually, you remember a session or two ago, we talked about young Jacob, little Jacob with the
wheelbarrow. Jacob and his wife went there to continue that work. And, you know, that was his
first mission venture. And so, yeah, because of the work that Andrew and Mottipus and Jacob,
a church was planted there among that tribal group. And just, just amazing, you know, amazing what God
does. He keeps showing up in these stories over and over. I love it. It would be hard as a Christian
to not see Jesus or God in the story that you just told. And when you consider all of them that you
have shared with us in culmination so far, and every single one of them has, oh my goodness moments,
like, oh praise Jesus moments, every single one, what a blessed encounter that you had. And,
you know, you could easily walk away looking at your eight years as being one holy, perfect,
righteous, touched, amazing, miraculous event. And you would lose sight on all the suffering that
you guys did in order to experience all the same things, right? Because it wasn't, it wasn't a cake
walk. It was not a cake walk. It was, it was nothing but blood, sweat, and tears. Yeah. And
extreme heat. And hunger. And hunger. And malaria. Hepatitis. Crocodiles. Yeah, that's a story for
another time. Well, hey, you know, while God was doing that, Belinda was doing a lot of other things.
And so we're just, Belinda is going to tell the story of her ministry among the women there.
So when we moved there, I was trying to figure out what I could do to reach out to the women.
And quite a few of them, the government there in Papua New Guinea, the language of education was
English. So they had sent out periodically, they'd sent school teachers out to May River.
But the school teachers, it was way too primitive and they could never get them to stay very long.
So the education there, every year, you know, kids would join and get a little bit of schooling.
And then the teacher would leave because they'd go out to get their pay because they didn't have
good support. And then they wouldn't come back. And it just happened year after year. Anyway,
so a few of the women had had schooling and learned how to read English. But English was not
language that most of them were comfortable in. Ben, when we worked with him, he knew English well
and we could speak English until we learned the language. But most of these women didn't know
English well. And so I decided that Wycliffe translators had just gotten the Bible translated
into the trade language, Melanesian talk, Pigeon. When we got there, it had just been printed.
And so we had brought a bunch of Bibles with us. And Melanesian Pigeon is a very simple vocabulary,
I think just 1300 words. And it's a mix of German and English and Spanish and tribal words,
tribal words all put together. But it's very phonetic, very phonetic. And at the same time,
our oldest son, Aaron, I was just trying to teach him how to read. And so I said, you know,
I can use these same principles to teach the women how to read and talk Pigeon. So we got the Bibles
out. I got my phonics cards out in the bowels and started to gather a group of women every afternoon.
I'd homeschool my oldest son, the oldest two in the morning and then in the afternoon while the
kids were playing under the house, I'd get the women together and start teaching them phonics
and different things and how to put words together, how to put the constants together with the words,
the bowels. And anyway, so several of the women started to take off and started to really learn.
And my goal was so that when we gathered for church, they could read the Bible for themselves.
It wasn't just a man thing because a lot of them could read automatically, but the women,
it was they hadn't had nearly as much chance for education. And so several did really well and we
got off really well. But there was one every week, she would come down from another village
upriver and her husband would come and John was actually working with a group of men from that
village to start a church there. And they would come and do Bible studies with John. And so the
women would gather at my house. And this one woman, her name was Leti. And she was just,
they all, when they, a lot of them, when they were little, they had malaria and the malaria,
because if you don't treat it well and stuff, they didn't have all the medicine right away.
I can't even remember the word, but they, their brains were not well. I mean,
super high super high gavers and affected their brains. And so set what, quite a few of them just
struggled, you know, I'm not, I don't want to say they weren't intelligent, but they just had a
harder time because you knew that you saw them and you knew the her brains were burned by
malaria, little fevers, you know, if it just really affected them anyway, Leti just struggled and
she could not get the blending of the vows with the constant soup. You know, when finally the kids
get it, when you blend the constant and the vowel, I can read and put words together, you know,
but she just never got to that point. And every day, every time she came down, we struggled.
And so there was one day she came down and oh, at the same time, we had another couple join us
two years in, they were both nurses and they helped us run the health center that was given to us.
So they lived just, just down the hill from us. We built a house. We were really close.
Anyway, Holly Lackey, she, we had gotten these sewing machines that were just hand crank, hand
crank sewing machines. And she was teaching and you could get both the material quite easily,
quite cheaply in the stores in town, Chinese stuff. And so she would bring back both the
material and then she would have sewing classes for the women to teach them how to
make simple clothing. And she'd actually gotten, we'd gotten money and she'd invested in a few
machines that hand crank machines that she sent out into the villages where women could start
sewing their own clothes. Anyway, so she'd had a sewing class in the morning and then the
Leti and several others came to my house and that, in the afternoon to do it for the reading class.
And so Leti sat there that day and as I held out the flash cards and put the vowels out and the
constant sounds, she got every one of them. She just went through every one of them and she was
kidding it. And so I finally looked at her and I said, Leti, you know, because I had just a
spirit of Leti learning, you know, I just said, she's just not going to be able to learn. And I
looked at her and I said, Leti, what happened? And she said, well, you know, down there at Holly's
class and Holly always started with a Bible study and just praying with them. And Holly was just
an amazing prayer warrior. And Leti said, just Holly just prayed for us. And she said, I know that
my brains, you know, the pigeon term was her brain was closed, my brain's closed and I can't get
anything in. And she said, Holly, just prayed for our brains to be open and for God's light to come
in. And she said, I just felt God coming and opening my brain. And she just picked up after that.
She just picked it up and was able to read. And pretty soon we had a little church going up there.
Her husband was the main leader of our church up there. But it was just an amazing experience to
see these women and most of the women while I was there, were actually what we're able to learn to
read and write and let out in our worships and in the afternoon services. Every Saturday afternoon,
we had a little Vespers and they would lead out and just to see their Bibles open and they could
follow along. And it was just, it was just an amazing experience. It must have been a relief.
Like, Oh, she got it. Yeah. At the same time, though, you know, answered prayer like immediately,
prayed for some healing, prayed for restorative power and see the fruit of it to see like you
knew you knew that she was you couldn't be on your capability and your resources to help her.
And you saw her read. Yeah, that is amazing. Blows me away. Yeah. You mentioned earlier
that a lot of the men could read, but the women couldn't. Is it because they wouldn't
bother sending the girls to school? It wasn't as much of a priority. I think back then. So again,
what would happen every year the government would try and send out a teacher. They would be there
for a few months and the kids, the boys just seemed to get it and the girls just didn't get as much
priority. Yeah, I think they were needed at home to help take care of the younger children or the
babies or, you know, and just not as many wasn't just a priority for them. And so just to continue
real quick after I taught the ladies to read and write, after that there was a group of young people
that I'd worked with. I started our Sabbath school, you know, Sunday school with them and then got
them through all the divisions, got them older and older. And I trained women to take care of the
younger kids. And I kept working with the older ones every week to teach them Bible stories and
stuff. And there was a group of them that had had some schooling too, and we're fairly bright and
we're good at English. And so we decided that they needed more education and our church actually had
a mission school out in a couple hours away. I don't remember where, oh, down. About six or eight
hours. Yeah, so we decided that we'd invest in them and send them out to mission school, but I knew
I had to get them up to par. So I started teaching them so that they could start at sixth grade,
because the mission school started at sixth grade and most of these kids had it. They weren't really
sixth grade equivalents. So I would start working with them to teach them to read and write in English.
I got a bunch of books in English and just up their vocabulary because all that mission school was
going to be in English. And so I taught the math. And so we sent four or five out to the mission
school. And one of them actually, Jacob was one of them. And he's the one that is our leading pastor
there now in the area. And he actually went to the Kameke. And he's quote seminary, you know,
not university, but like a Bible school that just gave him more advanced education and leadership
skills. But it's one of those, I think most of those kids, young kids back then are all still main
leaders in the churches that are there now. That's awesome. All right. You know, the journey there,
Joshua, you referenced earlier, you know, that it wasn't all roses and butterflies. Right.
It wasn't just from one miracle to the next through the next experiencing God's kindness and all
its splendor. Yeah. And so I want to tell a story that kind of goes down that path. There was a man
by the name of Moby who was one of the key elders in the village, village level elders, not church
elder, but he's an elder in the village. The Iwan people didn't have a main leader, but all the old
men were your leaders. You know, they were the ones that they were called the big men. They were
the men that everybody looked to because they knew the history and they knew their people and they
knew the culture and they knew the customs. And so with decisions had to be made, you know, these
were the men you look to. And Moby, he tolerated us, we'll say that's probably the best word.
But as people began to come to Christ, while on the outward side, he was friendly,
he behind the scenes was always working to drag people back into the culture, into the
fear and manipulation of spiritual forces. And so it was always a struggle with Moby and
you always knew that influence was there, you know, keeping him from, I mean, that influence of
trying to keep people from leaning into Jesus. And he was doing it because he's afraid, right?
That's all it was. He was afraid that, you know, if we leave our culture, what's going to happen?
You know, the spirits are going to react. And so, you know, this went on for some time and then
Moby got sick. And coming to our clinic and our flying doctorate program, we eventually found out
he had spinal tuberculosis, which was nothing that could be done for, you know, for that.
And that was in that environment, this primitive, primitive environment. And so, you know, he just
continued to deteriorate. And one Friday, I'll never forget, I was at home and I heard the
wails from across the river. And I knew that Moby must have died. And I knew that that meant that
that evening I was going to need to go down the hill, cross the river, and go over to the village,
and go up into the morning hut with the village. And so after getting our kids to bed that evening,
you know, I did go down the hill, got him my little log canoe, paddled across the river in the dark,
and went up into that hut. And as I go into that hut, you guys, there is, it's a scene that is forever
printed on my mind. I've gone through it several times there, that this was the first. And, you know,
as I climb up into this large, primitive hut, the body is laying in the middle of the floor.
And on that body are probably 10 to 15 men. They're just writhing and screaming and wailing on top of
the dead body. And the truth is, as he near death, they probably actually crushed the life out of them
in those final moments as they pressed onto him. And they're mourning, they're wailing, they're calling
out, you know, oh, Moby, what happened to you? Who killed you? Who cast the spell? Because in the
Iwan imagination, in the Iwan belief system, all death has spiritual causation. All death. You
just don't die. It happens because the spirits of God evolved. You did something wrong, or somebody
cast a spell on you. And the reason they're wanting to know, the reason they're calling out to Moby's
spirit is because if they can find out who did it, then they can revenge. They can get revenge by
casting a spell or just keeping a cycle of pain and trauma going on, you know, in the tribe. And so
these men are on top of this body, and they're just wailing and the nasal mucus is just streaming
down their faces and onto themselves and onto the body. Around the body are probably 15, 20 women
and nothing but grass skirts, and they have sharpened spears and canoe paddles and arrows,
and they're just dancing around the pile of writhing human flesh. And they're dancing around it,
and they're poking the pile. They're just poking the pile, and it's all an attempt to show Moby,
in this case, how sorry they were for his death. They were demonstrating that we were just devastated
by this Moby, because they're also wanting Moby not to be unhappy with them in the end,
and do something that is not favorable to the village or to the community. And so it's a site,
and just imagine, you know, it's probably 95 degrees inside that hut, and the humidity is
near 100%. And you've just, you know, I'm in this large hut, there's probably 50, 60, 70 people in
there. And it's just, it's a shocking site. It's impossible to really describe how shocking it is
to see this. And so I went to the site, and I sat along the outer wall, and I watched, and I sat there
for hour after hour after hour after as they wailed, and they mourned, and they sought spirits
to determine what happened with Moby. And it was finally near midnight when I got up, you know,
I was sitting with some mother-man and talking, trying to discern, you know, learn what's going on.
And finally, about near midnight, I got up to leave. And I said the appropriate words to people,
and then I crossed the hut, and as I went down the notch log ladder, and I made my way toward my
canoe above and beyond the human whales, I heard the voices of demonic beings mixing their whales
with the cries of a lost to deepen their sense of lostness. It was so powerful. It was so overwhelming.
And actually cast me into the bottom of my canoe, every hair on my head, on my body just standing
up, and I just fell on my face in the bottom of that canoe and just began pleading with God,
pleading with God, because I realized, you know, Josh and Shelley in that moment, if ever up to
that point, I ever believed that John Kent could do anything to save the Ewok, it was forever
eliminated in that moment, because I knew in that moment that Jesus and only Jesus could ever deliver
the Ewok people from the power of those demonic forces who were not just ideas, these were real
beings that they interacted with on a daily basis. They interacted with these demonic beings.
And, you know, it just, it really was a place of profound humbling, a profound sense of,
you know, ineptitude, really, inability to do anything at a human level. And, you know,
just part of the journey of learning how to trust Christ more and more and more as we
leaned into the, to the journey of bringing the gospel to the Ewok people.
It's interesting that you said that he openly was friendly. He openly was nice. He openly was kind,
but behind he was trying to drag people back to his way of life, the original way of life.
And at his funeral, that you hear these voices at his funeral, that he is that instrument in
their village, and that's what you hear. I find that very interesting that that was attached to him.
Because you didn't hear that all the time. No, no, no. In fact, it's the first and only time that I,
you know, actually audibly heard the voices of demonic beings. So, yeah, you know, the journey,
it was full of emotional ups and downs and places of amazing miracles, like a village,
you know, building a house and a church for a missionary to teach them about a God they didn't
even know before he ever got there. You know, moments like Leti and God doing a miracle in her
brain at the same time, the constant awareness that we're fighting a spiritual battle that's not
something that we can, you can't just deal with that on human terms, right? Right. In this space,
Jesus and only Jesus can do it. It reminds me of the book I've been listening to,
because reading it is a little too hard. Well, it's an easy book. It's just hard to fit in,
so I listen to it. The Third Heaven Authority, it teaches you how to pray from heaven's perspective.
And so you are at the throne with Christ, and you pray over the situation, not from underneath it.
And then he tells you, take your warfare from here, and you cast confusion among the ranks of
the demons and just break off all opposition and it's just pray over the situation instead of from
your heaven or your earthly perspective. So what went through your mind when they were morning
until midnight, like when you're sitting there, were you praying for these people
in the morning hot? Like what was going through your head? Yeah, so absolutely. I'm just, I'm
there praying. Two things are going on. Number one, I'm observing, just trying to understand,
to observe what they're doing. And because I believe that's really important in missions and
in ministry, we need to be intelligent. So I'm just trying to understand their culture.
I'm just asking a few questions to those around me to help me understand it. But definitely,
you know, the shock of it, again, there's, it's very difficult for anybody not having been there
to actually be able to grasp that picture, right? And the smell and this noise, the sights, the sounds,
the smell, you know, everything about it is just visceral to me today. But yeah, so I'm just praying,
you know, Lord, you know, how do we reach this people? You know, what do we do? How do we continue
to bring the gospel to them? How, you know, and I'm seeing a picture of something that
I hadn't seen before, which only deepens my own sense of need for Jesus and for his power
and his presence as we reach out to the people. Yeah, I believe that's 100% a Jesus thing that
you recognize your need for him, no matter how far advanced you think you are from another person,
you don't consider it. You consider your need for Jesus like anybody else's need for Jesus.
I think that's what separates us from most non-Christians is the way we think of things.
We're willing to put ourselves at the same level as other people and we shouldn't be willing to
laud ourselves above other people in any way and that should be the dividing line.
But also that different perspective, when death comes, you're like celebrating like, hey,
you don't have to deal with this realm anymore. It's good for the one that it's going to Jesus,
not so good for their family. Yeah, the ones that live behind. Well, thank you so much for
sharing these stories. I love how God keeps showing up in the most unexpected ways, like you're
praying with anticipation and faith that things are going to change and then sometimes when you
give up, that's when he shows up. For instance, I had no bookings for a while and it was our move
and all these things were just the schedule wasn't regular because of the move. I couldn't book. I
had a whiteout and I said, I prayed for the bookings but then I said, thank you so much for all my
bookings and once I found the right next person, all the rest fell in line. It's just like when
you surrender and you just you're at the end of your rope that gives God the chance to show up.
Yeah, we were talking about this morning how difficult it is for certain people like my wife
who has this need for controlling every aspect of how she wants to get this done
to have to surrender that to God is very difficult for her. But she did it and look at her go.
And now I have plans because I like going like that. And all it does is for him to teach her
more and more to release that to him more and more and stepping into it and granted giving her
baby steps so she doesn't fight back too much. Well, listen, or if this episode has blessed you,
we ask that you pass it along. Check out the other episodes that the kens have been in and
you will be blessed. I feel that God has a message for everybody in every episode.
And he wants to speak to you. He wants that relationship with you. So call out to him,
reach if you're distant from him. He is just waiting for you and he is, he just can't wait.
And also if you'd like to help us with our little mission, we have links for donations
in the about section of the podcast. So whatever you're comfortable with and whatever the spirit
leads you to, that would be amazing and it would help us a lot. And we'll also take prayers.
And with that, we'll talk to you next time.