LifeTalk Podcast
LifeTalk is the official podcast of LifeHouse Church MOT. Our heart for this podcast is to help our church grow and to go deeper here at LifeHouse. We’ll be interviewing staff members & hearing their testimonies. We’ll be discussing various topics such as parenting, marriage, day-to-day functions of the ministry and so much more from a biblical perspective. Our goal is to help equip our church to glorify JESUS in every area of life.
LifeTalk Podcast
From Corporate Life to Global Mission: One Couple's Journey to Unreached Peoples
What does it truly mean to "go" for the gospel? Eric and Lena Bauer's powerful testimony challenges our comfortable Christianity as they share their remarkable journey from corporate America to international missions. After twenty years in banking, Eric found himself unexpectedly unemployed—a door God deliberately closed like "a bank vault" to redirect his path. Meanwhile, Lena wrestled with a convicting truth: "anything where you are not fully obeying God and putting Him first is sin."
Their transformation didn't happen overnight. Short-term mission experiences became pivotal moments, particularly when Eric shared the gospel with a Muslim cab driver in New York City and later witnessed several people accept Christ during his travels. These divine appointments crystallized their calling, prompting immediate action—they began their application process with the International Mission Board literally the next day. Their three-year journey reveals God's perfect orchestration, as they waited through family caregiving responsibilities while completing seminary training and navigational application hurdles.
Now heading to the Asia Pacific region where 95% of people "live in spiritual darkness," the Bauers will join a missionary team that God assembled from nothing to reach unreached people groups. They'll implement the Core Missionary Task: entering the culture through language learning, sharing the gospel, discipling new believers, forming churches, developing local leadership, and eventually partnering with established congregations to reach even further.
For anyone feeling God's nudge toward missions—whether across the street or across oceans—the Bauers offer practical wisdom: pray sincerely about God's direction, surrender daily to His leading, actively seek opportunities to share Christ, and consider short-term trips as discernment tools. As Eric powerfully reminds us from John 4: "Lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest already." Will you join in the harvest through prayer, giving, or going yourself?
New episodes every Monday
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Intro music by Joey Blair
what's up life talk family. Welcome back to the life talk podcast. Uh, your summer host here, nate, coming back with you. Jarvis, still, he's out there somewhere. We'll find him one of these days, but today we'll be talking about going, so maybe somebody will run Jarvis down and bring him back to the podcast. But I am excited to be joined by two special guests today. I have with us our very own Eric and Lena Bauer.
Speaker 2:Eric and Lena how are you guys doing today? Good morning, we're doing great.
Speaker 1:Thank you Awesome. It's a good morning to be on the podcast, so appreciate you guys taking some time. So for the Life Talk family, remember we are coming through August and our theme for this month has been we go, we go for the gospel and with the gospel and to share the love of Christ. And we're excited. Eric and Lena are formally missionaries, getting ready to go out, getting ready to really truly go, not just go across the street but really go to the other side of the world. So I know you guys have an amazing testimony, really excited for everyone listening to hear more about you. So I always like to kick off just getting to know you a little better, just getting to know you a little better. If you guys want to, eric, go first and share a little bit just your life and journey and getting to know Christ and what we should know about Eric.
Speaker 2:Bauer. So good morning everybody. I was saved at a very young age. One of my earliest memories is asking Christ to be my Savior about the age of five, and I grew up in an independent Baptist church up in the Northeast and God blessed me with faithful parents. We attended church regularly and I had good preaching, biblically-based preaching, and knew many missionaries. Growing up, my parents would host them at our house when they were visiting for missions week at our church and things like that.
Speaker 2:So then fast forward, when I was 12, I started going to a camp Christian camp up in upstate New York and at that camp, uh, one of the counselors, um, was very influential in my life and leading towards missions. I didn't realize it at the time, um, but um, he, he went on and is continuing. He's on the field now and he's been on the field for close to 40 years and with an organization called OMF and God blessed me with. One year he was my counselor and then other times I've run into him over the years going up there to take our son up there for camp and things like that and um just reconnecting with him and his journey over the years, um going from the time he was in his 20s to go and forward. And then, um in 2018, lena and I started attending, attended here and we saw the missional focus at.
Speaker 2:Lifehouse, you know, with the church plants, people going and leaving a church they're comfortable with and going to a new place maybe not too far away, but still it's new and planting. And repeatedly Pastor Mark's messages, the pieces of the Great Commission and other verses just kind of hit me between the eyes. I had been in banking for two decades and God closed that door. I was let go and, um, I tried very hard, prayed very hard for new opportunities in that space and, um, god kind of closed the door, like a bank vault, so to speak, where we're just unintended, no pun intended where it just like was unmovable, like every, every opportunity.
Speaker 2:It's like, oh no, sorry, um, maybe you were under underqualified or overqualified, I don't know, but I truly felt.
Speaker 2:It was now as I reflected as the hand of god saying no, this is not what I want for you. I have better plans for you in the future. Just follow me, like he says in Matthew 4, 19, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. And so, as pastor Mark shares about how, like he felt led to go to seminary before he was even being in the ministry, I started seminary and, thanks to Joel Miller and others like Paul, I was able to go on short-term trips, and some people question short-term trips as a method of going, but I think they're very effective in showing people the opportunities that are out there to experience other cultures, other believers and opportunities to share. People want to talk to Americans and they're very open and happy to see an American. And they're very open and happy to see an American and they want to hear about what Americans have to say. And so what we can say is Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. And that's shocking to many of them because they may think of Jesus as just a guy or maybe a prophet, or they don't even know who he is. And you know, um?
Speaker 2:At one time I did a radical study and that kind of woke me up a lot. Like am I really taking up my cross every day? What am I doing with my life? What? What have I done with my life? My life is finite on this planet. And I did a book study on um the one thing you can't do in heaven and that really said to me hey, you can't. You can't share Jesus in heaven.
Speaker 2:And just learning about UPGs unreached people groups which refers to like two percent of the population Less than 2% of the population is evangelical Christian and just the vast lostness in the world kept pushing me and pushing me. And after six trips to various countries in Africa and the Caribbean and so on, and reading missionary biographies to the Golden Shore, I highly recommend to anyone that's thinking about going just read what our missionary forefathers went through and how easy it is for us today to take a week or two off from our life here in America and take a flight. Maybe it takes a day or two to get someplace, not six months to a year, but just a day or two. And you're there and you are loved by the local body of Christ. When you arrive they are so happy to have someone come and share about their life and your testimony, no matter how small you think your testimony is. It's huge to someone else.
Speaker 1:So that's a bit of it in a nutshell, really amazing process, god bringing you through your secular work and closing that door and working in you spiritually to kind of get you to this point. And so, yeah, some awesome things for reading recommendations, all those good things. Well, lena, how about yourself? How would we understand more of your background and kind of? Especially, this is a joint decision for you guys to really want to hear your side.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. My story is actually sort of similar. I was also raised in a Christian household. I was saved at a very young age. In fact later and I say later relatively in elementary school, I decided I wasn't quite sure if I knew what I was doing the first time around, so I made sure I accepted Jesus again. We met in college, we um.
Speaker 3:When I was young I would tell everybody I wanted to be a missionary doctor. And then by the time we got to college, biology was not my forefront and plans changed. So um shifted my major, shifted direction a little and, like Eric, got more into career and family and pursued that Still. You know, being a Christian but not pursuing God wholeheartedly. And when we started coming to LifeHouse, one of the things that Pastor Mark said was anything where you are not fully obeying God and putting him first is sin. And before that I was thinking you know I'm saved, I know I'm saved, I'm not actively doing horrible things. But that got me really thinking about well, am I really putting God first? So that, combined with short-term mission trips, really put us down the path of okay, where does God want us, what is his plan, where should we be and when? We prayed about that. We ended up on this pathway.
Speaker 1:So it was actually back in 2022 when we first started the application process to become overseas missionaries and kind of seeing that lifelong journey, you know, coming to faith early, but how we continue to grow, how God continues to work in our life. And you know I think something you touched on it's easy to get real comfortable. It's easy to fall into idolatry, like you said, from what Pastor Mark shared of you know, anything else we're setting up over and against God's position in our life can lead us to out of order priorities, not really actualizing who God is. So I'd love to hear you know, especially for you all being married you know you said 2018 coming and what kind of led you all to that point of the application process. How did God really, you know, were there any kind of specific moments for either of you? You know we we're, we are recording this, so you have to be honest, but was somebody like on board and the other, uh, I don't know if I want to do this.
Speaker 1:How did that play out for you, especially since this is an awesome thing that you guys are doing together?
Speaker 3:I mean, I think we were both on the same page.
Speaker 2:He was a little bit more pursuing and I was a bit slower yes, so in november of 22 I came back from a 10-day trip where I had been, not with a team, but working with an organization in africa and um I, from the very moment that trip started, I had a divine appointment. So I took the train to New York City, excuse me, and I hailed a cab and the cab driver got out and he had a long robe and a skull cap and a beard. And I said to myself this guy's a Muslim, I could just tell you know. And so I said to him where are you?
Speaker 2:from and he's like Dakar and of the times I've been in Africa, that was one of the places I had been and I said to him nega def, which is like hey, what's up in his language, and he just was shocked that I knew a few words in his language and with that we had.
Speaker 2:I had the opportunity to share the gospel with him three times on the drive from Manhattan to the JFK and just it placed it on my heart that there's such lostness in the world, that there's such lostness in the world.
Speaker 2:There's a man in New York City hungering for the gospel, because he had a lot of questions about Christianity and I was able to answer some of them well, thanks to the education I received, and just like different denominational questions he had about Christianity as a Muslim, he was kind of confused about that. You know, aren't you all Christians and what's this denomination stuff? And so I was able to go through that with him and still, as part of that conversation, repeatedly share that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that he came and died for him and his blood washes away his sins and that he needs to put his faith and trust in jesus. And he's buried and died, buried and rose again and he's at the right hand of god and he's your savior. You just need to put your faith and trust in him.
Speaker 2:And I was able to do that three times, which I I praise god for, and that just started the trip off in a different way than a lot of other trips I had been on and then throughout that trip we did a lot of evangelism and several people put their faith and trust in Jesus and I just praise the Holy Spirit for moving in their heart. I came home from that trip and I said to Lena I feel like this is what I should do with the rest of our lives and we should do for the rest of our lives Pray about this.
Speaker 2:I really want to make this go forward, and so she prayed.
Speaker 3:And I'd already been praying. I wasn't surprised by that.
Speaker 1:I was going to say. I know you've heard like Joel's testimony to going out like, in your case, sounds like brandy for him. You know like been waiting for you to say something like this. That's amazing, god working in your life and bringing you guys together in that.
Speaker 2:So, like the next day, we just started the application process with the International Mission board, which is the, the mission organization that our church is associated with here, and so no delay in obedience, like next day.
Speaker 1:We're we're doing this.
Speaker 2:Let's get this process going started that's awesome ball rolling and you know, um. One of the first questions that came out of that was does your church affirm your calling to international missions? Karen and I looked, and we looked at each other and said we think so, but we can't just say yes to that question, so that Sunday I spoke to Pastor. Mark and he said I think so, but let's get this affirmed by the elders.
Speaker 2:So we got on the agenda for the elders and that Thursday we met for about about a half hour and they had a bunch of questions for us, a lot of stuff that we couldn't answer because we didn't know yet. Like where, where are you gonna go? What?
Speaker 3:are you gonna?
Speaker 1:do when are?
Speaker 3:you going.
Speaker 1:We had no idea no, we, we've got this calling, we got to go. You know, we don't know where, we don't know when but and was one of the most go.
Speaker 2:You know, we don't know where, we don't know when, but and was one of the most important things that the company likes to be sure is that you were sent by the church, just like we see in acts.
Speaker 3:Barnabas set apart for set apart.
Speaker 2:They weren't just, oh we're gonna go.
Speaker 1:this isn't us, you know, just doing our own thing. We're doing this as part of the body of Christ and being sent out. They're really important, exactly, yep.
Speaker 2:So they affirmed us and we went through a lengthy forms, applications, phone calls.
Speaker 3:So for those who aren't familiar with the International Mission Boards process, so for those who aren't familiar with the International Mission Boards process, in order to make sure that they're sending missionaries that are going to be able to stay on the field, because it doesn't make sense to train somebody only for them to come straight back. They have a lengthy application process and they have financial requirements and emotional requirements and educational requirements and there's a whole long checklist. So even when we were first applying, we're like well, we don't know our timing, we don't know any of this. They said that's okay, it's a multi-year process, you can start now and whenever you get there, you get there. So we started.
Speaker 1:That's the importance of the obedience. We're starting down this path and trusting God for the timing and the direction. How was that journey? Because you said this was 2022, so you're coming up on. It's been about a three-year journey too, so you're coming up on. It's been about a three-year journey. Were there any doubts, any struggles, anything that in that process you felt kind of spiritual warfare-wise or what has God been preparing you? In some ways? I know just my own personal call to ministry, like the day God called me very similar, but I wasn't really ready yet. He needed to teach me some things. Has there been anything through your journey to this point that you think has been really important?
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm a planner, so doing step-by-step is fine with me. Not having anything on the calendar for the foreseeable future is very strange.
Speaker 1:Can create some anxiety when we're trusting God for timing.
Speaker 3:So that's one thing I've just sort of had to, you know, hand over to God. He's got it under control. He knows exactly where we will be and when, even if we don't, I don't know if I'd call it spiritual warfare. Just.
Speaker 1:Some internal refinement and bringing you, helping you grow in your trust and patience. Those things.
Speaker 3:There's been a lot of just trusting God for every step along the way. See what he will reveal.
Speaker 1:I know you've had to do the education.
Speaker 2:I mean, part of the journey was my mother went home in 2019, and then we became caregivers for my father, who had a lot of infirmities for many years and lots of things to deal with with that and the timing like you were talking about timing that you know we were like, well, this is the time we have to care for him and god will make it a time for us to go um and really things, timing have lined up actually kind of perfectly. A lot of things like just as god always does.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say should we be shocked by this?
Speaker 2:you know we are, but we shouldn't be you know, like the divine appointment and with the cab driver and it just other things just fell into place when, like we, as part of that process, you have to go interview, and normally they don't interview people until they're like ready to go, go, go. And we weren't ready to go, go, go, because my father was alive and well and doing great and living life and enjoying church and enjoying time with family and um didn't seem to have anything that would cause him to leave us and go to his savior, and so we just went and we went through the process and they knew I mean there was some good, great flexibility with the company too.
Speaker 2:It's like they knew that we're in a special position and made some slight exceptions for us to go do the interview so that we were approved through that process, so that when, in God's timing, my father went home, then we could apply for opportunities and timing and the company is very structured with their timing to go places and do things because they have, into some fun facts, they have about 15 to 1600 people in what they call the pipeline. These are people that have expressed interest and have started the application process and they're somewhere in that application process. So when you make the hurdles of those different parts of the application process, you move on to the next step and there's things to do at those next steps and those are scheduled and, like we have, that's one of the things that's happening next week for us as we leave for seven weeks of training, and that has to be very scheduled.
Speaker 3:We'll be halfway through our training when this airs. That's right.
Speaker 1:We are pre-recording, since they're heading out.
Speaker 2:We won't see them soon, so when you're listening, just pray for us, as we will be participating in long days. We will be doing a lot of Bible training because what we're doing and how we do it is very much based on Acts and the epistles and we're going to be reviewing those books quite a bit and then just like the day-to-day routine of what it means to be a worker in the harvest fields and the different things that you'll encounter day-to-day.
Speaker 2:But back to timing. I mean, it just amazes me and like you said it shouldn't, but it does, um how his timing has been perfect. And, um, I know that waiting is part of God's timing and we had to wait. You know, um, God blessed me with the opportunity to do my complete seminary, where normally, to go as a full-time worker, you only need four classes, which would be like a New Testament, an Old Testament, a systematic and a hermeneutics and those that don't know. But New Testament is divided into two classes typically. So just one of those two classes, and that 12 credits is all you need to go full time, but then you need an additional 20 to go career. But that's a whole different story, but I have it now because god gave me the time to do it, and praise god able to completely focus on the missionary task and I don't have any of those distractions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just amazing how god works to bring those things together. So I know, maybe you know in this process too, and we won't necessarily talk too much about destination, but how did you kind of follow God's leading and the direction to go? You know we can talk a little bit about the International Mission Board. You know it's an awesome organization where we as Christians and other churches come together, pull resources to spread the gospel. You know, for anybody who's feeling called, I think there's a lot that we could talk about. But just in this process, god's leading you where to go, where to take opportunities, because there's so much need, how would you say God really worked that out for you all?
Speaker 3:So our biggest prayer was to go where the need was greatest. But that's a lot of places. So one of the on the IMB's website, you can actually see a whole lot of data about various areas around the world. We're headed to the Asia Pacific Rim and just within there, 50% of the world's largest cities are there and 95% of them live in spiritual darkness.
Speaker 3:So I mean, you're talking an area of the world where there is a very, very small percentage of people who have heard of Jesus, an even smaller percentage of those who are evangelical Christian, and so they actually have maps where they have like red dots. You can see all the unreached people and stuff, and some areas of the world are bright red. There's nothing else, it's all lostness. So as we were praying for where to go, we wanted to go where the need was greatest, but that didn't narrow it down as much as we would have hoped. But as we were looking at the possibilities, we were leaning between a few different locations and one of them. As you get access, as you get through the application process, you can see the needs, the job postings and one of them was the oldest long-term one on the books and it was just sitting there.
Speaker 1:How long had it been open? Or a need?
Speaker 2:as long as we we're not sure the exact time frame, but what we found out is through the processes. Several people were surprised the job was still there because the person that created the job had left the company several years ago.
Speaker 2:And it was just a kind of a mystery why it didn't poof when they left, because typically when the hiring manager of a particular job goes away, so does the job, but it just stayed out there and it doesn't have a sponsor or a champion at that and one of the things I did is I I used um some research data that you can find on um about the needs, so like numbers of upgs unreached people groups in a country, the number of what's called uupgs, which are unengaged, unreached people groups, which means they've had zero access to the gospel. As far as data collectors are aware, there's no one there to even speak.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like.
Speaker 2:Paul tells us Correct, and those verses in Romans 10 and 15 really have spoken to me throughout this journey. Like that, I need to go somewhere where he hasn't been proclaimed um because how can they hear?
Speaker 3:yeah?
Speaker 2:and so that was one of the things, and the aggregators of data also say how many laborers are needed in a particular country and where we're going. The name number of laborers is in the thousands that are needed to get the gospel moving, because the idea for us is to make a disciple and or disciples that will make disciples, because we can't do it on our own, because there are literally millions of people in the region we're going that have zero access to the gospel and have been stuck in their belief system for centuries, and the community is very associated with that belief system. So when you share it, the the gospel has a lot of resistance because when, when one becomes a believer, you are leaving that community that you were in, that you you have been in.
Speaker 2:And when there is no church to really bring these people in into the new community, it creates obstacles. Now, of course, we know nothing is impossible with God, so we know that this will happen, but we will overcome it through the power of the Holy Spirit moving in people's hearts, because the harvest is plentiful, you know.
Speaker 1:So God's really calling you to go to difficult places and be super uncomfortable, which is amazing, you know he doesn't call us to. You know, just take it easy and maybe just step a little bit outside, stepping way outside of the comfort zone and something clearly it means it'll be all Him we don't get the glory.
Speaker 1:We give Him the glory because it's not happening otherwise. I think another part of your story I know you guys have shared a little bit you're stepping into this position. Like you said, there's zero people, but how God's worked to allow there to be others coming around you. Maybe you can just share a little bit about how God's opened doors and provided some of the support there as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really exciting because, as we said, it was a job that was old. It was on the books. When we applied for it it was yes, we absolutely need people here. We have nobody there and we can't just send brand new missionaries to a city on their own. The IMB is very good about team and support. They're not just going to say good luck.
Speaker 1:We're not called to do this on our own. No, no, we are not.
Speaker 3:And there was another family that had been in the same country for nearly a decade that they thought would be really good as a team lead. So they reached out to them and they went and checked it out and prayed over it and they have actually moved to that city as of April or May of this year and there's another family that will be in the same training as us that's also going to this city. So within a few months God went from zero people in the city to a whole team.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:So it's really amazing just to see God moving and affirming, and he knows the plans.
Speaker 1:Removing those barriers should give you guys confidence in where you're going, you know. God's providing, he's going to work it out and I think that's a great testimony in all of our walks when God calls us to something you know he's going to provide, you know we're going to just become dependent, trust in him and he's going to open that door.
Speaker 3:So we just need to obey, he'll take care of everything, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So what are you guys most excited about? You know you're here getting ready for training, sending out. You know God's really worked. You're seeing amazing things. You know what. What ways are you most looking forward to seeing God work in this new, new time and season for you guys?
Speaker 2:I think me um learning a new language. I'm excited to learn a new language, um I've had some exposure to it, but not a great deal, and um I think that will be another affirmation as we go through this. Like we have a year roughly of language school, where we'll be getting language and culture at um school there and um going out and speaking to people and just becoming part of a new place building relationships yeah, building relationships and, um, yeah, building relationships, and just that's exciting to me.
Speaker 2:A little scary, but knowing that you know the creator of language is my God and he created these languages for confusion, but at the same time he is so powerful and can help us through that and the tough times of long days of class for a year and then taking exams to pass. Because that's one of the stipulations of being there and staying is that the language is learned in a fluency so that you can have conversations with people, because you can't work through translators. You know there's a difference between the short term and the long term. In the short term, you can use translators and it's acceptable and it's fine. But if you're going to be in a location for a long time, you need to speak the language to the people, because it opens them where they're at, just like the man, the cab driver.
Speaker 2:I go back to him. I just said one word to him in his language and it opened up a conversation and just being able to have a complete conversation with someone In their language. In their language, in their language is something I'm excited about.
Speaker 1:Very cool. So, maybe shifting gears a little bit, how would you encourage people who are feeling stirred, who are maybe, like you shared, realizing maybe there's some priorities, maybe God's moving, how would you encourage them to discern that call? How can they follow that call and kind of learn from your journey in that way?
Speaker 3:I mean certainly pray about it. I mean that's number one. If you read the Bible, I mean there's obviously the Great Commission. There's so many passages, but it's not just for missionaries, it's for everybody. And maybe that's across the street, maybe that's on the other side of the world, but you need to talk to God about it. You can't just assume you know where he wants you. So definitely I mean I'd challenge anyone to sincerely ask God what does he want from you? Where does he want you Surrender?
Speaker 2:Many times after the service here. We've gone up front in the past and in the future. Just surrender God. What do you want to do with my life?
Speaker 2:My life is yours. And then every day one of the things in Mark Cahill's book there he talks about every day, when you leave your house, pray for opportunities to share the gospel and God will give you those opportunities. And when you don't I've seen it in my own life If I don't pray that prayer, the opportunities are few and far between. But when I pray that prayer sincerely, either in the morning before or just as I'm leaving, God gives me the chance.
Speaker 2:You know, in the time with my dad, we had so many opportunities at the er or doctor's visits because my, my father just had a positive outlook on life. He counted it all a joy, he was happy. Yet he hadn't walked on his own for for six years without assistance, but he was still happy and pointed to Jesus and everything that he did. And you know, um, we, we need to. We need to look at our lives and say what am I doing with my life? How can I be faithfully different? We are supposed to be set apart from this world, and if we're just going about our humdrum lives here, career is great, but are you using your career to share Jesus? Are you shining the light in the darkness of your corporate world.
Speaker 2:Um yeah, like Lena said, you don't, you don't have to go across the seas, but God can call you to that, and that's where the surrender comes you know, um, hopefully soon we'll have some short term trips planned here and where you can get a taste, and you can even go on the the IMB's website and look up short term trips and you could sign up for a trip for a week or two, even outside of life house and you'll be in good hands because, the, the.
Speaker 2:they come around you and they guide you through it and, um, it's an exciting opportunity and and I just go to philadelphia, even, and walk around with a couple brothers or sisters in christ and just look for people to talk to and just have conversations and I think, like you said, we, we say it, but a lot of times do we understand giving our life to Christ?
Speaker 1:Christ gave his life for us, responding in what the gospel is. We kind of misunderstand the gospel if we're not willing to give and we don't know what he'll ask, we don't know where he'll send. But praying through because he's got something. He doesn't call us out of sin and death to just chill right. Sometimes we think happiness is the ultimate goal. That's something in our book Faithfully Different for this year is how it's viewed. But really we're called to be faithful. Faithfully different.
Speaker 3:But happy is not the same as joy, and true joy is found in Christ.
Speaker 1:If happiness is a byproduct, great, but we're called to be obedient in those ways. Awesome testimony, great, but we're called to be obedient in those ways. So awesome testimony For those who might be interested. Like you said you kind of mentioned, short-term trips are a great way to start living that out. Go and see someplace else and it sounds like it made a real impact in your all's life.
Speaker 3:And there's a variety of trips for all ages too. That's right.
Speaker 1:There's journeymen. I know we've had some from our church who go out. You know, right after high school I know your son has spent a gap year, you know, going and sharing the gospel. So there are many ways. So if you're praying about it and you're like discerning the call, definitely see our church offices here. We have missions and outreach. Pastor Herb, it will be on the podcast next week, but definitely reach out to us as a church family. I think, like you all said when you felt that call the confirming for anyone listening who'd like to learn more, I think your testimony hopefully inspires really some people to move, because we need people to go. We need to be obedient to going in Christ.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. That's what the Bible tells us.
Speaker 1:So, in closing any other exhortations you would give to our listeners in terms of going with the gospel, experiencing that life change, what would you kind of encapsulate what your message would be in your testimony?
Speaker 2:Well, a verse that kept coming back to me throughout my time in seminary and even before seminary, is John 4, 35 through 38. And this is during the time where Jesus meets with the Samaritan woman, and oftentimes we focus on that part of the story and it's a great story and it's a very good example of how to share the gospel and some evangelism tools use that. But there's a great nugget in there these verses that just have come back to me over and over again. And it says do not say, there are yet four months. Then comes the harvest. Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest already.
Speaker 2:The one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that some that the sower and reaper, may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that you, for which, that you did not labor. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor. So, for example, where we're going, the, the bible, has been in the language of the people for century, almost a century, and yet there is little gospel presence. So there there's been sowing and I just pray that we'll be doing some reaping and that God will build his church repeatedly throughout this region and that there will be a movement of people becoming faithful followers of Christ will be a movement of people becoming faithful followers of Christ, and we know.
Speaker 3:Revelation 7, 9 through 10 says After this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the lamb. We know that all nations will worship God, but God wants us to be a part of that, so it's really our joy to help share the gospel.
Speaker 1:Amen. So I guess, as one final thing, how can we support you? I know we've mentioned the IMB. Certainly we encourage people. We talked about it in the episode with Paul, for those who've been listening is you know you all are going, you're on one end of the rope. How can we hold the other end of the rope for you all through either giving to the IMB in some specific way, of course, prayer.
Speaker 3:You know what do you all feel the greatest way that the church can come around you and support you all?
Speaker 2:well, prayer is number one, absolutely, and we'll need prayer every step of the way, but also pray to see if you're led to go yourself I mean um give to the bloody moon, um is 70% of the funds that support the 3,600 people that are on the field today come from the Lottie Moon offering. Every year. So faithful Southern Baptist churches that give at Christmas and or throughout the year to that fund support us. And then the remaining funds come from what's called cooperative money, which is also given by the churches but to the state funds, and then the states divvy it out and the rest come from that. So big praise for us is we're fully funded um that our daily living expenses, um place to live.
Speaker 2:All these things have been graciously provided by God through faithful givers. We will soon, hopefully, have information about giving to our ministry needs. So one of the things that we'll need to raise funds for throughout this journey is ministry needs when we're there. So if we're having a workshop, for example, where some national partners are coming in to learn what's called the core missionary task, which maybe we can briefly talk about the core missionary task before we finish up and so those people are coming from a distance, say, they take a bus or a train or a taxi and there's some lodging expenses or food expenses for them. And these people may be bivocational and not have a lot, but they want to come to the training, but they can't really afford the training. So that's helpful that we have some funds to say, hey, you guys can come to this training, but we're going to pay for your lunch and we're going to pay for your night at the Airbnb or whatever it is you know, and then they don't have to dip into their own money.
Speaker 2:A little bit was given generously. Many churches were very generous to him and supported all his needs, and you know a lot of these places in the world where workers are going out, the cost is very low. You know, $10, $20 really goes a long way. It covers lodging and food and you're like what that's crazy? No, well, it's the expense.
Speaker 1:So I think, supporting you financially you know, and I think everybody knows like you can always do something in going and whether it's support through the church, I think, hopefully, your testimony has been a great one in how gifts, tithing, giving supports people like yourself who the church is sending. It's why, especially as believers, we can give to something greater than ourselves and be provided for. There's so many needs, but the more we pull them together, god takes those and blesses them, no matter what. And then, of course, prayer. I know you guys will have a newsletter, so I encourage people reach out to Lifehouse Church.
Speaker 1:If you're interested in keeping in touch with Eric and Lena and their journey, we will definitely get you hooked up with that, how you can pray for them, how you can keep up to date with where God's working and where they're going. And I know you mentioned the missionary task. Maybe we can just kind of end on that. If you guys want to share, this will be what you guys are doing on the ground and how really God's revealed how we can work. You already mentioned earlier disciples, making disciples, so maybe walk us through that and we'll kind of have a good send off on folks going with the gospel and encourage them to pray over it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's essentially it is disciples making disciples, disciples. But because we're going into a different part of the world, um, there's a few specific ways to approach it to make sure that we can be the most effective and these are things.
Speaker 2:So these specific things. We ask you to pray for us as each step of this, as we engage in these steps in the weeks to come, we'll be learning about these things in depth, but also that we are successful with the power of the Holy spirit behind us in each of these steps. So go ahead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the first is entry. We'll be learning the language, we'll need a reason to be in the country. That's not being missionaries, so we may be doing some vocational work or whatever, but essentially, You're able to get on the ground and get integrated, and that's not always easy.
Speaker 1:We kind of think we just take a plane and land and it's not that easy, right? No?
Speaker 3:there's a little bit more to it than that and of course, language learning is a big part of that, to start as well. And then evangelism, which is what we think of as we understand sharing the gospel. But we don't just stop there, we don't just say yay, you accepted Christ, good luck. There's discipleship, there's building up, there's helping new Christians to understand the Bible, to understand what it means to live for God. It's not just you accepted Christ and get abandoned. So discipleship is a huge part of the core missionary task.
Speaker 3:And just from that, from evangelism, from discipleship, there's a church built just like an ax. We're not talking a building, not a physical church built, but people meeting together on a regular basis, supporting each other, studying the Bible, learning together. And as churches grow and as they're built up and as they continue to study God's word, there needs to be leadership development. Because as well as we learn the language, we're not local. It needs to be a local church. So as the church grows, leadership is developed so that they can be autonomous, they can run their own church, they can choose their own pastors, raise up their own elders, et cetera, which I mean. This is not like a two-week process, this is years.
Speaker 3:But eventually the goal is when there's a healthy church to exit to partnership to allow them to evangelize and make disciples and build up more churches and to exit to a place where maybe there is no church and let the local church do the job. Do the great commission share the gospel? And I mean, obviously every step. We're abiding with Christ throughout this. It's all through prayer, through reading the Bible, through trusting God for every step along the way.
Speaker 1:And all this is based on pretty much exactly how Paul did it right. We're going to go, we're going to pray. God's going to reveal people. We want to establish a people where there was no people. So I think, hopefully for all our listeners kind of help you understand, like they're not going to just like talk to people and you know hope it goes well. But there's a real way that God works to bring people to Christ and and to multiply the gospel and see God bring that harvest.
Speaker 3:So so well as you read Acts. I mean you might have a chapter or two on a particular missionary journey, but those journeys are years.
Speaker 1:Paul didn't just stop in for a week and leave For a weekend trip, you know, weekend getaway to Ephesus or anything like that, of course, and I mean the process is consuming and we're going long term.
Speaker 3:We're not just going to say I am.
Speaker 1:We're not going for a short term vacation. This is long term-term commitment. Warwick and Lena, it's been great hearing your testimony how God's worked for the Life Talk family. We pray. This has been encouraging. We do pray that you are encouraged to go with the gospel, whether it's across the street or God calls us to big things. If you want your life to be meaning something for Him, be willing to go where he goes, be willing to submit your life, and we as a church want to come around and encourage anybody in that way. So thank you so much for taking the time today.
Speaker 3:Thank, you for having us.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much, Of course, Life Talk family. We will see you next time. Thanks for tuning in to the Life Talk podcast. If this episode encouraged you, please be sure to like, comment, subscribe and leave a review so others can find this content as well, and we'll look forward to seeing you next Monday for another great episode.
