Participants:
Series Code: TDY
Program Code: TDY220065A
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00:05 ♪ I want to spend my life mending broken people ♪
00:16 ♪ I want to spend my life removing pain ♪ 00:26 ♪ Lord let my words heal a heart that hurts ♪ 00:36 ♪ I want to spend my life mending broken people ♪ 00:57 ♪ ♪ 01:06 Hello and welcome to another 3ABN Today program. 01:09 I'm Jason Bradley and I'm so glad that you are joining us 01:13 today. We have an exciting, power packed hour in store for 01:17 you and we're going to be going to the mission field. That's 01:20 what we're going to learn about today: Ultimate Mission. And 01:23 here with me to discuss this we have Jim Reynolds. You're the 01:28 president of Ultimate Mission and the founder. (Yes) Yes 01:32 welcome, welcome. It's great to have you here. We've got Dr. 01:37 John Anderson. You're the board chairman of Ultimate Mission. 01:39 It's great to have you here as well. (Thank you) Yes. So before 01:44 we dive into what Ultimate Mission is all about, before we 01:47 go into your background and all of that, we're going to be 01:51 blessed in song and bringing us that song is going to be 01:54 Layke Jones and he'll be singing Follow Me. 01:57 ♪ ♪ 02:12 ♪ I traveled down a lonely road and no one seemed to care ♪ 02:23 ♪ The burden on my weary back had bowed me to despair ♪ 02:34 ♪ I oft complained to Jesus how folks were treating me ♪ 02:43 ♪ and then I heard Him say so tenderly ♪ 02:58 ♪ My feet were also weary upon the Calvary road ♪ 03:08 ♪ The cross became so heavy I fell beneath the load ♪ 03:18 ♪ Oh, be faithful weary pilgrim the morning I can see ♪ 03:29 ♪ Just lift your cross and follow close to me ♪ 03:44 ♪ ♪ 03:46 ♪ Oh Jesus if I die upon a foreign field someday ♪ 03:53 ♪ T 'would be no more than love demands ♪ 03:58 ♪ no less could I repay ♪ 04:03 ♪ No great love hath mortal man than for a friend to die ♪ 04:11 ♪ These are the words He gently spoke to me ♪ 04:24 ♪ If just a cup of water I place within your hands ♪ 04:32 ♪ Then just a cup of water is all that I demand ♪ 04:45 ♪ But if by death to living they can thy glory see ♪ 04:56 ♪ I'll take my cross and follow ♪ 05:12 ♪ I'll Take My Cross and Follow Close to Thee ♪ 05:42 Amen, What a beautiful song with a beautiful message. Take my 05:45 cross and follow. That's wonderful and really that's what 05:50 we're discussing as a mission field and the work that is being 05:54 done in the mission field. Jim I want to come to you because I 05:59 know that you have a story. I know that you have a powerful 06:02 testimony and so I want to dive into your background a little 06:05 bit. And I know Dr. Anderson has a powerful testimony as well. 06:09 And we're going to get to that in just a moment. But Jim tell 06:13 us a little bit about your background. 06:16 (Jim Reynolds) Well I was brought up in the Seventh-day 06:20 Adventist Church but a wonderful Seventh-day Adventist mother 06:23 At 16 I decided it wasn't quite as exciting as I would have 06:28 liked. And so I started going to public schools. I'd gone to 06:32 Adventist schools until that time and then I chose to go to 06:34 public schools and I went the wrong direction, for 26 years 06:39 I went the wrong direction. Well you're going to see a picture of 06:44 me walking around with a prosthetic limb and that 06:47 happened during that time. I was on a motor bike and I got in 06:50 a wreck and had to have a leg amputation. That didn't bring me 06:54 back to God. It took a lot more to come back. And so in 2006 I 06:59 finally decided because of some of the things that were 07:03 happening with my children, some really hard things that 07:06 were happening with my kids, and I finally decided I need Jesus 07:10 again. And so I got on my knees I told God that I would do 07:14 whatever He wanted if He would just help me save my children. 07:17 And so when you tell God you'll do whatever He wants you to do 07:21 You better have your work boots handy because God is going to 07:25 put you to work. And in 2006 I came back into the church right 07:30 in the middle of an evangelism series that was just starting 07:33 and I offered to be part of that evangelism series to help out 07:37 from there and God just put me into one ministry after another. 07:42 And then finally in 2009, I was cofounder for what is now 07:47 Ultimate Mission. 07:48 Ah, that's awesome. I don't want to go that far yet but we're 07:52 going to get into that. But that's incredible. How important 07:56 would you say it is that initial training that you had as a child 08:02 You know the Bible talks about train up a child in the way he 08:04 should go (right). So how important would you say that 08:07 training was because you came back to that. 08:10 Yeah, critical. Because when I came back I already had that 08:14 foundation. And actually through those 26 years I had that 08:18 foundation. Because I got into some things and went some places 08:21 that I shouldn't have gone and the drugs and alcohol and 08:25 different things like that, but my friends, you know, they told 08:27 me later they said there was always a line you wouldn't cross 08:30 You would go so far but you wouldn't go any further. And I 08:34 have friends right now they're basically on their death beds 08:37 and they're my age because of the drugs and alcohol. But 08:41 fortunately God had a hold of me He had a reason for me to 08:45 continue and pulled me back in in time. 08:47 Amen, amen. We have a similar testimony, similar. 08:52 Dr. Anderson, what about you. Were you always in the church? 08:56 Tell us a little bit about your background. 08:59 Well my story's not nearly as interesting. Actually kind of 09:01 boring compared to Jim's. I grew up in the church. I have a 09:05 great Adventist heritage in my family. I'm thankful for that. 09:07 I think I'm a fifth generation Adventist and I pretty much 09:12 stuck with the church throughout For me, it's really been more of 09:14 really a decades-long journey to learn to be less selfish and 09:21 how to surrender and those kind of things that don't come 09:24 naturally for some of us. But, yeah, the church has always been 09:27 a part of my life. 09:29 That's not boring. That's exciting because you stayed the 09:33 course which is a tremendous blessing. 09:37 And I told John trade my testimony for his any day of the 09:42 week. (Yes, yes) I would absolutely trade it because 09:44 it's 20 miles in and 20 miles out. So you go in, you have that 09:48 exciting testimony but you deal with that pain. (Yeah) And so 09:52 yeah I'd trade for your testimony any day of the week. 09:55 It's great to have a not-so- interesting testimony.(Laughter) 10:01 I'm not complaining but and not to give the impression that I've 10:04 always been on the straight and narrow but... 10:07 But now important is your personal devotional life. 10:13 It's critically important. It's something that you know is 10:17 always a struggle in our daily lives to try to set aside that 10:20 time. That's always been a challenge for me, but it makes 10:22 such a difference. And when I'm not doing it faithfully I really 10:26 feel that. 10:27 And you're a doctor. What kind of doctor are you? 10:30 So I'm an orthopedic surgeon, treat bones and joints. 10:32 What made you want to go into that line of work? 10:35 Well, a couple things. Um, I was real interested in sports 10:39 growing up. I liked to play basketball and other sports. 10:42 I'm interested in those kinds of injuries that occur and also 10:45 just have a guess kind of a mechanical mind. I like to fix 10:49 things. I like tangible problems that can be solved and so that 10:53 just...it was really the only thing in medicine that I wanted 10:56 to do. 10:57 Mmm, mhuh, mhuh. So let's transition into Ultimate Mission 11:02 So you said you started that in what year now? 11:04 2009, (2009) Yes. 11:07 And how did that come about? 11:09 Well, as I was saying, when I came back God put me to work 11:13 Because Jim not doing anything is not a good thing, right? You 11:16 need me doing something. So God put me to work and I was out 11:20 helping in this one ministry where we were feeding 300 to 500 11:24 people every Sunday. And a man names Lynn Berlin, he was in his 11:28 80s, came up to me and he said Jim, I'm having a hard time 11:32 getting people out of the pews and into the community trying to 11:35 help out and he said I'm going to start a non-profit 11:40 organization dedicated to getting people out into, out 11:43 into the communities. I said, Lynn, that sounds like a great 11:46 idea. He had started this ministry that had been going for 11:48 17 years but he was over 80. He was in his 80s and you know he 11:53 was all there but it was you know still...a little bit crazy. 11:56 So I said okay...I don't know if I should say that but there it 12:00 is. I says okay Lynn that's fine You start that ministry. That 12:04 sounds like a great idea. The next Sunday I'm out there 12:06 helping him again. And here comes Lynn across the lot at me 12:10 and he's got a piece of paper in his hand. He said, Jim, I did it. 12:13 I go what did you do? He said I started that ministry. He said 12:16 and here's the paper, he said, and I made you president. (Wow) 12:21 That's how Ultimate Mission started. I had no idea what I 12:24 was going to do with this ministry, not a clue. 12:26 Wow. That's incredible. That's incredible. So what was the 12:31 first step after that, like what did you do? 12:34 Well I went to the Oregon Conference and Shawn Boonstra 12:38 had just come in 2007 and so there was that after of that. 12:45 So they had Bible Worker Boot Camp and I thought you know what 12:49 would be cool. Let's get as many church members as we can and 12:53 let's continue what It Is Written did during that time 12:55 and let's start a Bible Worker Boot Camp and just continue it. 12:59 And so I went to the Oregon Conference and worked with the 13:01 Oregon Conference and we started an Ultimate Mission Bible Worker 13:04 Boot Camp and that was our next project. And so from there then 13:10 we were originally going to be in evangelism. Yeah that's what 13:12 we were going to do is evangelism and so we did some 13:15 evangelism series. Matter of fact that's kind of how we ended 13:19 up in India. We were supposed to do an evangelism series. And I 13:24 called Jim Rennie from Child Impact. And I had gone to 13:27 India a couple times and 13:29 once with Jim Rennie and he was going to sponsor me to be an 13:32 evangelist in India. So I got all the sermons together. I even 13:37 did the sermons here at home and then I was going to tweak them a 13:40 little for India. I got them all together and then I was going to 13:43 India. It was just a couple months before we left. Jim calls 13:46 me and he says they're really cracking down on evangelists in 13:49 India so you can't, we can't do this series. And I had just 13:54 started running a program called Healthy Heart in Oregon. So we 13:59 had a deal with Clover Foods where we could take groups of 14:02 church members into Fred Meyer Stores, Clover Food Stores, and 14:06 do blood pressure checks, health risk assessments. So I 14:09 just had that started there and said well what if we did a 14:12 health series instead of an evangelism series? And Jim said 14:15 that sounds good. So we went to India. We did a health series 14:19 and one of the parts of doing the health series was we were 14:24 going to train 30 gospel outreach workers to do medical 14:27 missionary work while we were there. And so we trained these 14:30 30 gospel outreach workers and they went home and they trained 14:35 their wives. And they took this book that we gave them called 14:38 Where There Is No Doctor and they took it home and one man 14:41 trained his wife. And these women were going out on their 14:45 own and doing medical missionary work. So we thought, you know 14:50 what, we may training the wrong people. So in 2014, we came back 14:56 and we started training the wives of gospel outreach workers 14:59 and other Bible workers and other pastors in India and that 15:03 is basically how our ministry started. 15:06 Nice, nice. So what is the mission of Ultimate Missions? 15:10 Hmm. Well you know given our humble beginnings and we're 15:16 still a humble beginning, but our mission in the beginning was 15:20 to get as many people out telling people about Jesus as 15:23 possible. That was our ministry. We wanted to get people out of 15:27 the churches, out of the pews, into the mission fields and 15:30 that's still our mission, but our mission has evolved into 15:34 something where what we do now is we take medical teams in two 15:39 different countries like Ethiopia, the Philippines, India 15:43 and we train Bible worker wives to do medical missionary work. 15:47 So basic public health work. And then we give them a stipend. So 15:52 actually, they still work for the Adventist conference, right? 15:55 They're employees of the Adventist conference. The money 15:57 we send for their stipends goes through the General Conference. 16:01 (Okay, okay) But what we do is we train them and we kind of 16:06 manage them, make sure we're getting all the reports. 16:08 I was just 16:09 looking over some this morning. We get about 1000 reports a week 16:12 Oh yeah. Just pictures and reports by the hundreds all the 16:15 time. And so these women are employees of the conference but 16:23 we give the money so that they have stipends and we do the 16:26 training and then we kind of keep the organization and the 16:32 accountability. 16:33 Gotcha, Gotcha. Yeah that's important. You know we actually 16:35 have a video that kind of highlights a little bit about 16:38 what you do and really shows the need for it. Set that up for us. 16:44 Tell us a little bit about what we're going to see. 16:47 So I have a good friend, Wes Peppers, who's with It Is 16:49 Written. And Wes and I were talking and he was talking about 16:52 him and John doing a program in Ethiopia and they wanted to do 16:56 a medical work in front of their evangelism series and he knew 17:00 what I did with the women so he says well why don't you join up 17:03 with us? Let's go to Ethiopia and you can help us out with the 17:07 medical work in front of the evangelism series. So we brought 17:11 our ladies that we had trained and the Gospel Outreach Workers 17:16 and we all came together with It Is Written and did this 17:21 project in Ethiopia and it was amazing. 17:24 Beautiful, beautiful. Well let's take a look at that video 17:26 right now. 17:29 ♪ ♪ 17:49 For years Ultimate Mission has been hearing a call to go to 17:52 Ethiopia, but every time we made plans God seemed to close the 17:56 door. In 2021 we again made plans but the civil war in the 18:00 country became too intense and we had to cancel just three days 18:04 before we were to fly out. In 2022, It Is Written asked 18:10 Ultimate Mission to partner with them to run the health programs 18:13 in front of the evangelism meetings Wes Peppers and 18:16 John Bradshaw were holding. This time the door stayed open. This 18:20 time God said yes. 18:22 ♪ ♪ 18:34 The first thing you notice is the extreme hardship and need. 18:36 Everywhere you turn you see broken down elderly people and 18:40 mothers desperate to feed and care for their babies. The 18:43 poverty level is very high. Ethiopia runs at about 19 18:47 percent unemployment. Jobs are scarce and pay is very, very low 18:53 Soon however you can't help but notice the beauty of the African 18:58 landscape. The grace and wonder of this ancient civilization, a 19:03 place that can boast one of the first converts to Christianity. 19:06 The people here are tall and gorgeous with chiseled features 19:10 and humble hearts. A handshake almost always includes a hug. 19:15 It does not take long to feel as if you are one of the 19:19 Ethiopian family 19:20 ♪ ♪ Indistinct voices. 20:00 The Ultimate Mission team was tasked to organize the medical 20:02 outreach. People came to us by the hundreds. We tried our best 20:07 to help everyone we could. But the need was too great. At one 20:11 the point I was faced with so many desperate people that all I 20:14 could do was walk away so no one could see me cry. 20:18 ♪ ♪ Indistinct voices 20:29 We sent patients that were critical to the local hospital 20:31 run by Adventists and another medical clinic in the area. 20:35 Patients were admitted, treated, given medicine and released. 20:39 Ultimate Mission covered the full cost, but believe it or not 20:43 the cost of lifesaving treatment only averaged around $25 per 20:49 patient. This shows that even small donations can change 20:53 someone's world. 20:55 ♪ ♪ 21:00 ♪ ♪ Indistinct voices 21:17 Dr. John Anderson is the Ultimate Mission Board Chairman. 21:19 He is also an orthopedic surgeon For the first time Ultimate 21:23 Mission was able to include orthopedic surgery as part of 21:28 our unique program. Dr. Anderson used multiple operations to 21:33 local surgeons in advanced surgical techniques. Looking to 21:37 the future we see countless opportunities through this new 21:41 arm of Ultimate Mission to heal, to train and to love. 21:47 ♪ ♪ 22:33 I am so proud of the Ultimate Mission community health workers 22:35 These ladies are working beside their gospel outreach Bible 22:39 worker husbands to heal the sick and bring souls to the kingdom 22:42 Additionally, it was a privilege to work alongside It Is Written 22:47 and the Ethiopian Adventist Union. We were able to watch 22:50 hundreds of souls baptized into Jesus Christ. Ultimate Mission 22:56 believes that all of us are praying together and working 22:58 together with all our might, God would use us to change the world 23:03 Go to ultimatemission.org and see how you can become part of 23:08 the solution and a member of the Ultimate Mission family. 23:12 ♪ ♪ 23:28 Wow. That was powerful. I mean we're seeing Christ's method of 23:33 evangelism taking place. And that is incredible. Dr. Anderson 23:36 What was your experience like in Ethiopia? 23:39 Well, how much time do you have? Um there were a lot of powerful 23:46 experiences. We just saw the massive baptism, 1700 people. 23:50 That was certainly a high point. But the things that stick in 23:53 my mind are the are the individual interactions with 23:56 patients. So we ran a health clinic during the day, late 23:59 morning and then afternoon up until the meetings and it was 24:02 just an open, walk-in clinic, you know, in a courtyard area 24:06 just inside the street. And so we would have hundreds of people 24:09 just trying to press their way in. We had to use different 24:12 crowd control methods to try to handle things and triage the 24:16 patients and we would see as many as we could, 100, 150 24:18 patients a day. And you know they had a variety of problems. 24:24 Many of them were simple. They needed to eat differently, they 24:26 needed to drink more water. That was a huge problem. But we had 24:29 some also pretty dramatic experiences. One morning I was 24:34 just coming out of the hotel into the courtyard out to the 24:38 van and I saw out on the sidewalk this lady just fell 24:42 head first, just biffed it on the sidewalk and started 24:44 flopping around. She was having a seizure. And so people 24:47 gathered around. She was carrying like a two-year-old 24:50 child, she'd kind of landed on top of. People pulled the child 24:54 out. The kid was okay and you know kind of guarded her while 24:59 the seizure was finishing and then sat her up. It was kind of 25:02 interesting. You know there were 10 of 15 people around. 25:05 Everybody pulled out a little bit of money to give to her and 25:07 we ended up taking her first to our clinic and making 25:12 arrangements for her to get some medication, some transportation 25:15 And we did that with a number of different people that we took 25:17 to the hospital and got them treated for a shockingly small 25:21 among of money. Sometimes $5 We had a patient that we took in 25:26 that spent the night in the hospital for a cardiac workup 25:28 and the whole package, overnight all the tests was like $30. 25:32 That is incredible because when I see a hospital bill that I 25:38 receive that thing's pretty big. Pretty big. 25:41 Make a huge impact for a small amount of money. 25:44 Absolutely, absolutely. And what were some of the responses from 25:47 the people that you helped? 25:49 So they were very grateful obviously. I mean there were 25:53 people you know that had had problems for months and years 25:56 that had not been addressed. These were people that couldn't 26:00 afford to even pay these small amounts that we're talking about 26:02 and so for many of these people it was life-changing. 26:05 And how did you get involved with Ultimate Mission? 26:10 So I think that the way the story went is that I met Jim at 26:13 camp meeting and we kind of had some interests in common and 26:18 ended up getting invited to the fundraising banquet which was 26:23 held that year at the Portland Hospital. The thing that sticks 26:27 out in my mind, I remember the presentations at that banquet 26:30 and at the time Ultimate Mission as an organization didn't even 26:34 have to file a tax return because its total budget was 26:36 less than $50,000. So they presented you know what they'd 26:42 done in the past year with these ladies that had been trained in 26:44 community health work and they had done 88,000 home visits. 26:49 on a budget of less than $50,000 (88,000?) Yeah, 88,000 home 26:54 visits. That's individual homes visits, individual homes visited 26:55 You know, they'd spent half an hour or an hour learning about 26:59 the family, teaching them about their health issues, what they 27:02 can do differently and so to me that really hit me pretty hard 27:07 as far as bang for the buck, as far as what you can accomplish 27:11 with a small investment. 27:12 Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely Who benefits from the work that 27:17 the ladies do? 27:18 Well, there's a lot of benefits. This is the amazing thing. This 27:23 is how we figured that God had given us this idea because 27:29 there's so many different benefits. Number one, of course, 27:31 the people that are being treated benefit because she's 27:34 going out every day and she's visiting the people in the 27:38 villages. And if you've been into some of these villages I 27:41 mean there are people...There's paralyzed people from stroke. 27:46 There's people that have all kinds of diseases and problems, 27:50 just amazing. So these people are benefitting. But also the 27:55 children are benefitting because what she's doing...the thing 27:59 with training women is we say that we teach women to teach 28:03 mothers to keep their babies alive. Because it's one thing as 28:06 a man going into these villages but a man is not going to be 28:10 able to go connect with a woman. Right? It's just taboo in most 28:14 cultures and so a woman connecting with a woman... 28:16 And one of the things that really, that I knew we had it 28:20 going is...we did our first training. So what we do in 28:23 training is we do the work in the mornings and then in the 28:27 afternoons we go out into the field and we kind of do rounds 28:31 in the field. And these women brought their babies with them 28:34 and I was like oh no we forgot to tell the women not to bring 28:38 their kids. They brought their kids. So we have women out there 28:42 holding a baby and visiting in the field. And I thought this 28:45 was going to be a disaster. But it was one of the most powerful 28:48 things I'd ever seen. Because here's a woman holding a baby 28:51 on her hip talking to another woman about keeping her baby 28:55 clean and healthy. And then they're hugging. I mean it was 28:59 just so incredibly powerful. And that first day on that first 29:02 training I go we've got something here. We've got 29:06 something. Also see the pastors...like the Southern Asia 29:10 Division is probably one of the poorest divisions in the world. 29:12 And they really can't pay their pastors as pastors should be 29:18 paid or all the time get all their...Well with Gospel 29:21 Outreach and some of the Bible workers that their money, some 29:23 times, sometimes they may get it a month later or whatever 29:27 So especially during COVID it was really bad so these families 29:34 don't have a whole lot of money coming in and sometimes the 29:37 pastors have to go get another job driving a taxi, working in 29:41 the field but now the wife is now making money so now the 29:46 pastors benefit because they can stick to their job as pastors 29:49 and the family benefits. And we've even watched some of these 29:54 women and some of these children as we've trained them and then 29:57 go back the next year after getting a full time salary and 30:00 they've changed. Their face has changed. They're filled out they 30:05 don't have dark rings under their eyes which you know are a 30:08 sign of malnutrition. The children are not lethargic. The 30:11 children are running around being four-year-olds when the 30:15 a year before we thought they were one-and-a-half or two years old. 30:17 You know because they were so small, they had stunted growth. 30:20 Now having a full-time job, getting a stipend and learning 30:25 about health. When you teach you learn. 30:28 It elevates their status in the community too and in their 30:32 family. And we also have a literacy program that we just 30:35 started too. A lot of women don't have the ability to go to 30:39 school and learn how to read and don't forget about the most 30:42 important downstream effect which is lives are changed for 30:46 the kingdom. People in many of these countries you cannot openly 30:51 evangelize and so this is the way, this is the opening wedge 30:55 of the gospel. And so they can get into homes that way and 30:58 people are converted. 31:00 That was my next question is how is Jesus lifted up in this work? 31:02 Well, that's how it works. They develop relationships in the 31:07 community and over time people develop a trust for them and 31:11 they are...You know stories are told about many of these 31:15 countries have strong religious preferences so in India you know 31:18 maybe the family's Hindu and they will not allow a Christian 31:23 to come in the house. But when that lady has a stethoscope 31:25 around her neck and a blood pressure cuff then everything 31:28 changes and the husband at some point may be able to come in 31:31 with her instead of having to talk outside. So you know the 31:37 conversation starts with health but it ends up with the Bible 31:40 and sharing Christ. 31:42 That's where it goes and a lot of times that's what happens. 31:46 But we go in there just to help people because we're walking in 31:49 a Muslim home, we're walking into Hindu homes and we're 31:53 getting into all these homes right? Because I've been over 31:56 there...Because when I go out I go into the villages. That's one 31:59 of the first things I do when I go into a new country is I go 32:01 out. I take a translator. I go into the villages. I talk to 32:04 people. I want to find out what our baseline is. And there's 32:09 many times I go talk to a Hindu and they don't want anything to 32:12 do with me. Nothing. We know you're a Christian. We don't 32:14 want you here. When I say I'm just here to help. I'm just here 32:19 to check on the health of your children, to check on the health 32:21 of your mother. Oh, come in. They'll let you in. And it is 32:25 the right arm of the ministry for a reason. Because it works. 32:29 It absolutely works. And like I said when we started we were 32:33 going to do an evangelism series but that was shut down. But what 32:35 is not shut down was the health work. Was just going out and 32:39 telling people I love you and I care about you and then letting 32:43 God work from there, and He does 32:46 Amen. So I know you said that you go into the villages. That's 32:49 one of the first things you do. How do you scout out, for lack 32:53 of a better word, how do you figure out what country to go to 32:58 in the first place? 33:00 Well, we are usually requested. So people have found out about 33:04 our program and so they will be requesting us to go into a 33:09 certain country. And so what we do, we've been so incredibly 33:11 blessed. As soon as we've gotten this request we will try to find 33:15 a medical professional in that country that will work as a 33:19 supervisor for us. And as soon as we find that supervisor, then 33:23 we're working with the Adventists...Because the 33:25 Adventist conference, they're the ones that are requesting 33:28 this. Then they're working with the supervisor to find the Bible 33:32 worker wives that qualify and want to be a part of our program 33:35 So it's a very structured process but it's all around the 33:39 Adventist church. Having an Adventist family around the 33:45 world gives you openings to do mission work and all kinds of 33:48 things. Just being part of this church is an amazing opportunity 33:53 to spread Jesus to the world. You couldn't do this on your own 33:56 It would be really, really tough 33:57 Mmm huh, that's a movement, that's a movement. Dr. Anderson 34:01 what type of diseases have you seen with the people? 34:04 Well everything you can imagine and a lot of diseases that we 34:08 don't see at all here in the US So something like elephantiasis 34:12 You know it's a parasite that causes massive swelling of the 34:16 leg. Things that I never saw in medical school, I never saw in 34:21 training. So many of those diseases that are...many of them 34:24 are also very easily preventable too and that's where our model 34:29 comes in in terms of teaching the basics, you know, hand 34:32 washing, clean water. Those kinds of things can be life-changing. 34:36 We take it for granted because we have you know a system of 34:40 clean water here in the US but Yep. 34:44 It was also very good and Dr. Anderson when we were at the 34:50 clinic in Shashimani, he noticed this guy crawling along the 34:54 ground, right? And he realized that maybe this man could be 34:58 helped with a set of crutches. And so, what happened, John? 35:01 Well the crazy thing, he's kind of walking along the ground like 35:04 a crab. You know he's got these two little hand things that are 35:08 about two inches high. They're just little handles to keep his 35:11 knuckles from being on the ground and he scoots around that 35:14 way. And so he climbed up in the chair and had some other 35:16 complaint. I don't know, he had an earache or something. So we 35:19 looked at that. But then I looked at his legs and he'd had 35:22 some either an infection or a tumor so his femur, his thigh 35:25 bone was very short on one side but I kind of checked him out. 35:28 I realized that his other leg was basically fine. And he 35:32 couldn't quite stand up straight all the way because his joints 35:35 had been bent for so long. But I thought you know this guy why 35:39 is he crawling around on the ground. He could benefit from 35:41 some crutches. So I asked Jim, Hey, let's get this guy some 35:45 crutches. He's like okay we'll get him some crutches. So he 35:47 asked around and lo and behold you can't get crutches there. 35:49 You can't just go to the store and buy crutches. They're very 35:51 hard to come by. I don't know why. It seems like that would be 35:55 a relatively straightforward thing to make. People do make 35:57 their own out of wood. So anyway the bottom line is, long story 36:01 short Jim gave the guy his crutches at the end of the trip 36:03 and that's life-changing for this guy. I mean, he can walk 36:07 upright now where he has been scooting around on the ground 36:09 So those are some of the things we saw that just, you would 36:12 never see here. 36:15 Absolutely. What are some of the challenges that you've faced 36:17 over there? 36:21 Well (laughter) so one of the challenges is it's never enough. 36:26 And you notice in the video I talked about walking away in 36:30 tears and that was a true statement. At one point, I lost 36:33 it because my job...I am not a medical person, right? So I'm 36:37 administrative and my job is organization. And so I was 36:41 organizing this program and trying to do crowd control and 36:45 by doing crowd control I made up these papers that we would hand 36:48 out so I would only have so many right? And we had groups in 36:52 front of the place where we were at. I mean just crowds early in 36:55 the morning. People that have walked three days to get there 36:59 because they knew this program was going on. And they're 37:01 sitting out there waiting for us and they're desperate and you 37:06 can tell they're broken and they're hurt and the babies are 37:08 crying and mothers are holding malnourished children and I mean 37:12 you just have all this going on and it was up to me to decide 37:18 who got in. And at one point I was just, I, I, couldn't take it 37:24 John had brought that one lady with the epileptic seizure. We 37:28 had another seven-year-old girl that was a type I diabetic, 37:31 couldn't get her insulin. We had two other little girls that, 37:36 young girls, they were in the same family, they were one year 37:39 apart and they couldn't walk. And nobody was able to figure 37:42 out why all of a sudden these girls couldn't walk. And all of 37:45 this came at once and then all these hundreds of people trying 37:49 to get in and it was too much for me. And I walked away for a 37:53 few minutes, I let it out, and then I came back and I got back 37:57 to work. And that's what you got to do sometimes. A lot of 38:01 the challenges that you can never do enough. But what you 38:05 can do, I mean, like John said for 30 bots you could get 38:09 somebody into a hospital over night. I think in Shashimani we 38:15 sent six people, critical patients to the hospital. I mean 38:18 if these people weren't going to the hospital they were probably 38:20 going to die. Six patients. And they went. They were treated. 38:25 They got medication. They got released. That cost us what, 38:28 $148 to save those six lives. And right now we set up to give 38:35 insulin to that one girl because she's like type I and so we have 38:39 it set up at the pharmacy there. It's $5 a month. 38:43 That's a blessing, that's a huge blessing. 38:46 It is incredible. I mean so the challenge is we want to do more 38:51 but we only have so much. We only have so much money. There's 38:55 only so much manpower, so much time. 39:01 From a larger perspective you know we talk about the 39:04 challenges on this trip but the fact is we can only be there for 39:06 two or three weeks at a time. So you know we talked about 39:09 clean water. I mean, that's a huge problem in many countries 39:12 in the world and it's a huge cause of disease so you know 39:16 we have...There are different methods of dealing with that 39:17 A lot of organizations are drilling wells. In Ethiopia for 39:20 example there was not a stable water supply so you would see 39:24 these donkey carts going down the road with big plastic jugs. 39:27 I thought it was maybe gasoline. Well turns out it was water 39:29 because water would be available in one place one day and a 39:32 couple days later in another place. So they would fill up a 39:34 bunch of jugs, try to transport it around. So we have to address 39:40 the clean water problem we have a device called a ModiDrop. It's 39:43 a and I won't get into the details but the bottom line is 39:44 for a few dollars you can provide a family with clean 39:48 water for a year. So those are some of the things that we can 39:51 do that have a huge impact that don't require you know American 39:56 boots on the ground so to speak. 39:57 And you said it's a ModiDrop? What is that? 40:01 It's a two-ounce ceramic tablet and it was the University of 40:06 Virginia developed this and so we work with the University of 40:10 Virginia and we take thousands of these to the mission field. 40:12 Matter of fact in 2018 we were the mission project for the 40:16 North American Division for VBS. And for everybody out there that 40:20 helped raise money I tell you we were able to help thousands 40:24 of people because you raised that money through VBS program. 40:28 It's diffused with silver ions so you drop it in a 10 or 20 liter 40:32 jug of water and then overnight it purifies the water. And you 40:37 just repeat that for a year. 40:38 Yeah so one tablet will keep a family of five in clean water 40:41 for a year. And a tablet...I buy them by the thousands. So they 40:45 cost me around $8-$10 per tablet depending on what the silver 40:48 market is doing at the time. 40:50 Wow! That's incredible. How has being a part of this 40:54 organization strengthened your faith and this question goes to 40:57 both of you guys. Dr. Anderson let's start with you. 41:00 Well, so many different ways. The main thing is it gives you 41:05 perspective on what's going on in other parts of the world and 41:09 when you see...One thing that was incredible and we saw it as 41:13 soon as we arrived. They had this gigantic parade, a huge 41:16 welcome for us. They have this...We could tell stories of 41:21 faith of the locals of building their church and getting ready 41:24 for the meetings. They prepared for these meetings for three 41:26 months, just praying and fasting The faith of many of these 41:32 people is just so inspiring. That's one thing that really 41:36 hits me every time I go in addition to the physical needs 41:39 and the social problems. 41:41 Yeah absolutely. 41:42 And every time you take one of these trips, like I said before 41:45 in the video, I mean, they had a civil war. We couldn't go the 41:50 time before because of the war. Every time you take these trips 41:53 you put yourself in the hands of God and you plan. I mean you 41:57 plan all these things to happen and they've got to happen right 42:00 in a row and if you know anything about the mission field 42:02 it's crazy; things don't happen as planned. But every single 42:07 time you make these plans, you put this in the hands of God and 42:10 you watch God take your plans and multiply them like loaves 42:15 and fishes. I mean just doing things. And so your faith is 42:18 growing as you're watching what God is doing. You're watching 42:22 1700 baptisms. You know that was so amazing. And you're watching 42:27 these things happen one right after the other. I tell you, I 42:30 couldn't travel during COVID and it was so disappointing and I 42:35 just felt myself becoming desensitized, being in this 42:37 American bubble, you know. We think everything's always like 42:40 this, but it's not. You go out into the rest of the world and 42:44 it's so different and there are so much need. And you get to watch 42:48 God works and that's what it does for my faith is watching...I 42:53 didn't do that, God did that. I didn't figure that out. God 42:56 figured that out. And you watch it over and over and over again. 43:01 And I tell you what, I don't know if I would be able to be 43:05 a Christian if I did not do mission work of some kind. 43:09 Whether here at home or around the world. I've got to be able 43:12 to see God work. And I can see Him every time I go out. 43:16 I think he has a preacher in you (laughter) I think yeah 43:22 absolutely, absolutely. Now that's incredible. I think about 43:24 the illustration that you gave or the story that you told 43:27 earlier where you were talking about how the women brought the 43:30 babies and they weren't supposed to bring the babies but it ended 43:32 up working out. And so that is absolutely incredible. What 43:37 would you say needs to be someone's qualification or 43:41 something along those lines to get involved with this mission 43:46 work? 43:47 Only one. They need to be interested in serving the Lord. 43:49 And that's really it. We have a lot of...You know we obviously 43:52 can use people that have medical training but we need IT people 43:56 One thing that happened with COVID is we could not travel 43:59 to do the teaching in person so we developed an online 44:02 curriculum and some videos and some PowerPoints to do the 44:05 teaching and that's how we... Ethiopia's the first program we 44:07 started without actually going to visit. So we hired a local 44:11 supervisor and we were able to do the teaching basically 44:15 remotely. So we need those kinds of people. We need people to 44:17 review all the reports that come in, do administrative work. 44:23 Yeah, yeah. There's no shortage of work. 44:25 No there's no shortage and of course doctors and nurses are 44:30 you know, women doctors, women nurses and men of course too but 44:34 women teaching women. There's something very powerful with 44:36 that and so it's...Because we take trips. We're going to be 44:40 taking a trip to India. We're going to be going to the 44:43 Philippines next year. And we'll go back to Ethiopia I'm pretty 44:47 sure so. Oh, and then we're probably going to Nepal. So 44:51 we've got trips set up. We've got a lot of work out there and 44:57 you know the only thing that keeps us from going even further 45:01 even faster is resources, that's it. I mean, we've got the 45:06 foundation laid, God has given us the ideas. This is such a 45:09 simple program. I mean you teach women that live on the ground in 45:15 the countries to do medical missionary work, to do public 45:19 health work, to train to do very simple things. And then we are 45:23 even talking about expanding that into an online class and 45:28 maybe John you can tell them a little bit about our thoughts on 45:31 that. 45:32 Well yeah that was actually one of the blessings of COVID is 45:34 kind of developing this remote program. So we can scale things 45:37 out much faster now rather than depend on a group of people 45:39 traveling and doing the teaching in person. But we'd like to 45:43 develop a curriculum that is you know accredited in some way 45:48 and that allows those who pass through it to get some kind 45:51 of a certificate that shows that they have had this type of 45:55 training and that can be valuable in their local 45:57 community but also is just beneficial in terms of the 46:03 education that's provided. 46:04 Absolutely. And the thing that I love about this is that you guys 46:08 are going in and you're equipping the local people so you know 46:14 because they'll be there. They'll remain there and they're 46:17 teaching and leading people to Christ and helping people. I 46:20 mean that's huge, that's huge. 46:23 And like what John said, it raises the ladies' status when 46:27 their doing this. And I've asked them because I'll sit down... 46:29 Well I'll eat with them and I'll talk to them and I ask them what 46:33 do people think of you now that you're a health worker? And 46:37 their faces just light up, they just light up. Their status in 46:41 the community has grown and women in some of these 46:45 communities are second class citizens, right? But when they 46:48 get a job, when they're bringing in an income and when they're 46:51 helping their community and bringing people to Jesus I mean 46:56 it's life-changing for everybody that's involved in it. This is, 47:00 this is God's idea. We didn't come up...we are not smart 47:04 enough to come up with this idea we just are not. And God put 47:08 this out there and He's carrying it further and it's amazing to 47:13 be a part of it and be along for the ride. 47:15 Amen there's so many moving parts. 47:17 For sure. We are developing a program for mental health. 47:22 That's important, yes, yes. 47:26 So yeah, 38 percent of all women that will commit suicide today 47:30 will be in India between the ages of 15 and 35. And so 47:36 there's a lot of depression, there's a lot of anxiety in 47:38 there's countries and so we have a pastor that's with the Oregon 47:43 Conference that also has a PhD in psychology no, yes psychology 47:51 yes Ph.D. in psychology, he's developing this program for us. 47:55 And so I'm very excited about this. Because this will be a big 48:00 part of our training this mental health. And I mean the women are 48:03 already there, they're already visiting, they're already 48:05 comforting people. Now if they can have some listening tools 48:08 Now if they can have some cognitive behavioral tools, I 48:11 mean how much more effective can these people are. We've got a lot 48:17 of plans. We'll just see where God takes us. 48:19 Amen, and I love the literacy component too as well because 48:24 if you can't read how can you read the Bible? You know how can 48:28 you learn about Jesus and study for yourself because you can't 48:31 trust everything that people are saying. You need to be in the 48:34 word for yourself. You know we have a program called 3ABN Today 48:38 Bible Q and A and some of the questions that come in some 48:42 people say that they heard somebody say. But you have 48:46 to study for yourself. You want to make sure that you're in the 48:49 word so you guys teaching literacy is absolutely huge. 48:54 What are some of the needs of your organization? 48:57 Hmm. Well the biggest thing is resources as Jim mentioned 49:03 because we can scale these programs up but you know we need 49:09 help too in some of these different areas, health workers 49:12 and logistics, administrative tasks as well. 49:17 And finances because it's a lot of money to put this together 49:21 I would imagine. 49:23 It is but it's amazingly not as much money as you would think. 49:27 I mean, and that's what we talk about going into orthopedic 49:30 surgery and how much money that costs. You're dragging all kinds 49:33 of equipment with you and everything else where you know 49:35 it's amazingly cheap when you can send somebody to the 49:40 hospital for $25 and save their life. So I mean yes you need a 49:46 lot of funds to do more but a little bit goes a long, long 49:51 ways. So even like $5 donations We don't have anybody that 49:55 wants to become part of the Ultimate Mission family and be 49:58 part of what we do. We are just very happy whatever level that 50:03 is. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah I'm 50:06 excited about this like just hearing our testimonies, seeing 50:10 your excitement for the mission work and watching that video 50:15 that we saw earlier and just knowing how the people are being 50:18 helped, it's inspiring. And I hope that people at home will be 50:22 inspired to go into the mission field and join hands with you 50:26 in doing this wonderful work. I know that you listed some of the 50:30 places that you plan to go, some of the countries. Where are some 50:35 other places that you would like to go in the future. 50:40 (Deep breath) I'd love to go all over the world. 50:42 You know Afghanistan has been one of the places that I'd like 50:47 to go. Really where our program works best is where the infant 50:52 mortality rate is the highest. Because when babies are dying 50:57 something very simple isn't being done, right? Babies are 51:00 very hardy and so places with high infant mortality rates are 51:04 really what I'd be looking to and countries that aren't 51:07 Christian countries that have other influences that need to 51:12 know Jesus. I want to go into unreached places, places where 51:15 people don't know Jesus and places where this health work... 51:18 You know, most places don't know Jesus, bit problem with health. 51:23 And so there's a reason that we have been instructed to do 51:31 medical missionary work is because it works and because 51:35 it's needed. 51:37 Amen, amen, I love it, I love it And we're going to talk a little 51:39 more in just a second. We'll come back for some final 51:43 thoughts. We're going to take a brief break. Let you know how 51:45 you can get in touch with Ultimate Mission. Watch the news 51:47 break. We'll be right back. 51:50 If you would like to contact or know more about Ultimate Mission 51:54 you can do so in the following ways. You can write to them at 51:57 P. O. Box 607, Gladstone, OR 97027. You can call them at 52:04 (503) 451-3743 You can visit their website at 52:13 UltimatMission.org or send them an email at 52:21 Jim@UltimateMission.org |
Revised 2022-12-06