Participants:
Series Code: AWR
Program Code: AWR360001A
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00:01 Find out how God gave a man the vision
00:03 to use a simple cell phone 00:05 to send out over 3,000 Bible studies in a day. 00:09 Stay tuned. 00:10 This is AWR360A°. 00:25 We are at Victoria Falls, 00:27 located on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, 00:30 these are the largest falls in the entire world. 00:46 Over 550 million liters of water 00:49 drop 305 feet over the cliff every minute. 00:54 The spray from the falls typically rises to 1,300 feet, 00:59 sometimes even twice as high, 01:01 allowing the spray to be seen over 30 miles away. 01:07 It's not far from here where our story began. 01:14 The pastors in Lusaka, Zambia had met with Kathy 01:17 and I and Bob Pecan. 01:19 They had decided to have 01:20 a thousand evangelistic meetings, 01:23 all at the same time. 01:24 This was unprecedented and unheard 01:26 of because no one in the world 01:27 has ever had that many meetings in one city at one time. 01:30 The next night we're flying to Victoria Falls, 01:32 so living in Zambia, we need a place to stay. 01:34 I went into the internet looking for a place, 01:35 I couldn't find anything. 01:37 There were no hotels available, 01:38 there were government meetings there 01:39 and nothing was available. 01:41 Finally, I found one way out on the Zambezi 01:44 and I said to Kathy, "Well, we'll go there. 01:45 It's not that far it says, just a few miles outside town." 01:48 When we got there, 01:49 we found it was an hour's drive over terrible roads 01:52 and we kept asking ourselves, 01:53 "Why, why, why, why Lord, why are we here?" 01:56 When we arrived, we were met by very kind face 01:59 and we realized 02:01 why we had gone across that terrible road. 02:04 That kind face was Antoinette. 02:06 Antoinette is the manager of the lodge. 02:09 We decided to meet her for ourselves 02:11 to hear the rest of the story. 02:14 We had to take a jeep 02:15 because the roads were not paved. 02:17 Many times, we drove through water 02:20 and experienced many bumps. 02:24 Along the way, we saw many humbled villages. 02:28 We then reached the Zambezi River. 02:30 And to our surprise, 02:32 we saw boats carved out of logs. 02:34 This type of boat is called a mackerel. 02:37 This was to be our next form of transportation. 02:41 A kind man paddled for us across this great river. 02:45 God really blessed us. 02:47 Along the way, we saw elephants 02:52 and monkeys. 02:55 Traveling along this river was quite a beautiful sight. 03:04 So far from everything else, 03:07 we wondered in what way 03:09 did the Lord reach her out here. 03:14 It wasn't long till we reached the shore 03:16 and I was able to meet Antoinette. 03:18 She was in the middle of preparing a delicious meal. 03:22 So, Antoinette, 03:23 you had two guests coming to your lodge, 03:26 what did you first notice about them? 03:30 That they're Christian. 03:32 And yeah, that's like it seemed to me. 03:38 And that intrigued you? 03:39 Very much. 03:40 Okay. 03:42 Now at that time were you seeking more Bible truth? 03:46 Yes, I was. 03:50 Let me quickly tell you this. 03:51 Yes. 03:53 When I first moved here, my husband said to me, 03:56 Zambia will do two things to you, 03:58 to either move you closer to God 04:02 or you will either forget about God. 04:06 And it moved me closer. 04:10 The McKey's visit to the lodge was not by chance. 04:13 God was setting up something wonderful. 04:16 You see, Antoinette's uncle Karel, 04:19 had just started sharing 04:21 a Bible prophecy series with her on her cell phone. 04:25 Got this message from him when I thought, 04:27 "Why he's sending me a message." 04:29 And I saw it was a voice message. 04:31 And I was listening to it 04:34 and I was so amazed about this because this is Karel, 04:38 you know, it's him telling me about God. 04:44 And when I listened to the first study, it was... 04:48 I just want it more. 04:50 You wanted more? Yeah. 04:52 She would drink her tea, and listen to the message. 04:56 What was said in the series intrigued her. 04:59 It was different, but it came straight from the Bible, 05:03 straight to her heart. 05:05 She was convicted to share this with others. 05:09 I did share that with a lot of my friends 05:11 and lot of my family. 05:13 I did send out to them. 05:15 That's wonderful. Yeah. 05:17 Then came the Sabbath truth. 05:19 Antoinette was convicted. 05:21 She wanted to share with her husband. 05:24 But what would he think? 05:28 I was scared. 05:30 I was really scared to do that and, 05:33 but when I just sat at the table and ask him, 05:39 "Listen, what do you think about the Sabbath? 05:42 What day, I mean it could be any day, you know." 05:48 And he said to me now it's... 05:49 "You think Saturday." 05:51 Here's a lady isolated from the rest of the world, 05:55 yet she learned about the Sabbath. 05:58 Once Dwayne heard 05:59 about how Antoinette studied these Bible truths 06:02 through her cell phone, 06:03 he knew this would be a tool for AWR 06:06 to use around the world. 06:10 After talking with Antoinette, 06:11 we knew cell phone evangelism was important. 06:15 Our stay at this hotel was not random. 06:17 God have been leading us 06:19 and we were not about to let this idea drop. 06:22 Cell phone evangelism was reaching many people. 06:25 Antoinette told us, 06:27 even though Karel sent the messages, 06:29 they originally came from a man named Neville. 06:32 Who was Neville? 06:34 We were able to meet Neville for ourselves. 06:39 As he drove up, I saw the biggest smile on his face. 06:44 Neville! Hi there, Cami. 06:46 So good to see you. 06:47 Yes, good to see you in Africa for a change. 06:50 That's right. 06:51 Oh, a beautiful country. 06:53 Oh, absolutely. Yes. 06:54 Oh, look at your van! 06:56 Yeah, that's an interesting van. 06:58 It was an interesting story. 07:00 One of our congregation members donated that to us, 07:03 and at the same time we thought it'd be a good idea 07:06 to do something evangelistically 07:08 minded witnessing sort of opportunity. 07:12 And we agreed, of course, we think it's good. 07:14 And so we had one of the design people 07:17 that have got some talent in designing in the church 07:19 and they designed it for us and well, there's... 07:22 That's it, that's the result. Excellent. 07:24 I bet a lot of people notice it, don't they? 07:25 Oh, they do. 07:27 When we fill up, the first thing they do 07:28 is they come over 07:30 and they wanna know whether we're Christians. 07:31 Yeah, we are. 07:32 And then, you know what, they ask us, 07:34 "Do you have Bibles?" Oh, amen. 07:36 Wonderful. Absolutely. 07:37 All right, so are you ready? 07:39 Let's go. We're ready. Let's go. 07:40 Good. 07:43 We had a long but fun drive from Zambia to Namibia. 07:48 What amazing sights. 07:51 Many wild animals roam freely along the roads. 07:59 And soon the lush greenery of Zambia 08:02 changed into the dry desert of Namibia. 08:15 During the drive, 08:16 Neville pointed out a large termite mount. 08:19 We had to see this up close. 08:24 Now I'm tall and this mount was much taller. 08:29 Amazingly, 08:31 it is a solid as a brick wall. 08:36 Namibia is one of the least densely populated countries 08:39 of the world, 08:40 with just two people per square kilometer. 08:45 One reason for this is that the average rainfall 08:48 is comparable to some parts of the Sahara. 08:55 It is in one of these desolate areas 08:57 that Neville lives, 09:00 the town of Otjiwarango. 09:04 One of the few areas that has a supply of water 09:07 and oasis in the desert. 09:11 Though he is now doing a mighty work for the Lord, 09:13 years ago, Neville was burdened. 09:17 He loved God and desire to do His will. 09:21 But what could he do? 09:24 The Lord was positioning him to do something great. 09:30 I reckon that takes for sin 09:33 as Achilles probably a good description, 09:35 dry bones, 09:37 because I was only one of three Adventists 09:41 living in all of the North Central Namibia. 09:44 And that number almost became two 09:47 because something dramatic was about to happen. 09:51 Canyon was actually very close to where we are sitting. 09:53 In fact, it's right there on my right and your left. 09:58 That I was walking around one Sunday morning, 10:01 trying to find water leak, 10:03 and I had this really pressing pain in my chest. 10:08 That's when I had the first heart attack. 10:10 Wow. 10:12 Well, my elder son was here at the time 10:14 and he insisted 10:17 that I go down to the local hospital. 10:22 And it's right there in the hospital 10:23 that I had the second heart attack. 10:27 And while lying on the bed, 10:28 waiting for the doctors and the nurses 10:30 to do everything that they needed to do. 10:33 That's when I started thinking, 10:34 "What am I really doing for the Lord?" 10:37 Impressed by the Lord, Neville took action, 10:40 and invited his friend Gideon to preach a series 10:43 at one of the local churches. 10:46 After the meetings, 10:47 they decided to form a small group 10:49 on a cell phone application called WhatsApp. 10:53 This created a way to talk about God 10:56 with one another. 10:58 Well, then something interesting happened 11:01 because Yuan and Petro, 11:04 who happened to be my friends all along. 11:08 I had given them a Great Controversy 11:10 some 20 years ago. 11:12 And we visited them this December, 11:17 and there was this meeting on the neighbor's farm. 11:21 And on the neighbor's farm, 11:23 they showed this DVD of Mark Woodman, 11:26 asking about is the end really that close? 11:30 And in that DVD, they were talking 11:32 about the relevance of the Sabbath. 11:35 And that night Yuan and Petro decided this is the truth, 11:40 and that's where they wanna go. 11:42 And, of course, 11:43 not only did we have a very good discussion 11:46 after our time at the neighbor's farm, 11:50 but they too then went and read the Great Controversy, 11:54 joined the cell phone group 11:56 and very soon afterwards 11:58 we were about 30 plus on that cell phone group. 12:00 Amen. 12:02 With the group's success, 12:04 it was time for their first big step. 12:08 Yuan and Petro, who had just joined the group 12:11 were blessed with a property 12:13 big enough to hold the camp meeting. 12:16 It wasn't a major big camp meeting. 12:18 We were only about 15. 12:20 I think the Sabbath program where the most people, 12:22 I think we were 22. 12:25 But that was a good start 12:27 and it was really a very good place 12:31 because that's where we decided 12:33 evangelism was gonna be our main focus. 12:38 At that camp meeting, 12:39 they were inspired by a story of a church in Russia 12:42 that was dying, 12:44 but because their small congregation 12:46 devoted themselves to the Lord in prayer 12:48 every morning at 5 am, 12:51 their church in Russia is now thriving. 12:55 And that inspired us, and we said then 12:57 and that this is where our whole evangelistic aim started 13:03 and developed and we said, 13:05 "God, we are more or less in the same situation." 13:08 Yes, it's not cold and ice, 13:10 but we have got the same logistical problems 13:13 of distance and being secluded and we said, 13:19 "God, we do not know how to find the people. 13:22 So You find them, You bring us the people, 13:25 and we will be ready." 13:27 So we started praying every morning at 5 o'clock. 13:30 Amen. 13:32 By the time of their next camp meeting, 13:34 86 people had joined. 13:37 This was a huge accomplishment. 13:40 But the Holy Spirit was impressing them 13:42 that they could do even more. 13:45 Their cell phone ministry was about to impact many lives 13:49 across their country. 13:51 But what happened is we started a Sabbath school group 13:56 on WhatsApp. 13:58 And then, a second need arose from that 14:01 which was the evangelistic prayer group. 14:05 So we had a separate WhatsApp group 14:08 for the prayer group, 14:10 which then also became our mid-week prayer meeting. 14:14 So in this way, God was slowly but surely preparing us 14:19 to set up a full digital church, 14:22 doing everything that a normal church would do, 14:26 but digitally. 14:27 Amazing. 14:29 Part of their WhatsApp group 14:31 included two isolated Afrikaans women 14:34 Sally and Nola, 14:36 living on separate farms 14:38 volunteered for leadership roles 14:40 within this new digital church. 14:43 Together they set up a Sabbath school program 14:45 to present an organized message 14:48 for their members every Sabbath. 14:50 The nice part is that whenever you have done your bit 14:54 whether it's Sally and I at Sabbath or Durke and Elise, 14:58 the other Sabbath, there is always feedback. 15:03 And that to us is very important 15:06 because you realize that, 15:07 that message that you have given 15:09 has brought a little bit of hope 15:11 or a little bit of comforts 15:15 or to whoever has listened to that message 15:18 and you can listen to it again and again 15:22 because it only is removed from the cell phone 15:25 when you delete it. 15:27 And it becomes a real blessing to you as a person 15:32 because you sharing this message 15:34 that means so much to you, 15:36 and then it's really wonderful when you get feedback. 15:41 Okay, so our church was growing, Cami, 15:43 and people were being added on a regular basis. 15:47 So that was all fine 15:49 except we decided to do this digital church thing 15:53 because of the logistics. 15:54 Yeah. And that was all working fine. 15:58 But then we had camp meeting. 15:59 And camp meeting 16:00 had its own unique little possibilities and troubles 16:03 and one of them was that we could, 16:05 in this beautiful facility of ours, 16:07 we could really house up to 500 people for preaching. 16:11 That's easy. 16:13 But what we couldn't do is have them here, 16:15 and not have water, toilets, bathrooms, 16:19 kitchen facilities that kind of thing. 16:21 So our next project was physically 16:23 to get those facilities going, 16:26 so that indeed we can grow our camp meeting, 16:28 and make it accessible to much, 16:30 much more people to come and listen to the Word. 16:32 Praise God. 16:35 One of their newly baptized members Marius 16:39 shared his new found joy with his boss, 16:42 who is so impressed. 16:44 He responded by supplying every need for their building. 16:48 Materials, a work team, a full welding team, 16:52 and of course money. 16:54 Quite a bit of it actually. 16:57 So they sent that out there 16:59 and that provided the needed facilities for us. 17:04 Now this is a blessing. 17:07 But we still had one more issue. 17:11 It was dry. 17:14 And without rain, there's no water at Ruppel. 17:17 So that was a big problem. 17:19 Yes. 17:21 We were sitting on the veranda at Ruppel, 17:25 and Petro and Yuan was really depressed. 17:29 It had not rained. 17:30 The animals were not in good shape, 17:35 there's no food, 17:37 and there's this looming camp meeting. 17:39 We've got speakers invited. 17:41 We've got money plant, 17:42 or have already actually spent the money 17:45 on airfare and stuff like that. 17:49 And yet, there is no water. 17:53 And we were actually in a predicament 17:56 because we thought, 17:58 "If there's no water, what are we gonna do? 18:00 Are we going to cancel this camp meeting? 18:03 Are we going to move it? 18:04 How are we gonna go about this?" 18:06 There's a lot of people involved. 18:09 And that's when Heerden and I sat out there on the veranda 18:13 and we said, "Well, let's pray." 18:17 And we prayed 18:19 and the amazing thing is with blue skies, 18:22 all of a sudden there was this cloud coming over. 18:25 It really poured down. 18:28 As it moved over, 18:30 it seemed like the wind turned and God stopped that cloud 18:36 right over Ruppel and it rained over Ruppel. 18:40 Wow. 18:41 Another miracle was about to happen. 18:47 The invited speaker could not come 18:49 and he referred Jonathan Zirkle to us 18:51 which I didn't know from a bar of soap. 18:54 So Jonathan came, 18:56 he did the series of sermons with us, 18:59 and Jonathan and I became good friends. 19:01 Awesome. 19:03 And about a year later, Jonathan called me and said, 19:06 "Don't you wanna come to Georgia with me 19:08 for the Total Member Involvement Project?" 19:12 Well, I just felt that God was starting to do things. 19:20 God had answered Neville's humble prayers in a big way. 19:24 But this was leading to something bigger. 19:28 After leaving the lodge 19:30 and we said goodbyes to Antoinette, 19:31 we immediately called Neville. 19:33 This is when we realized 19:34 God had put everything together, 19:36 He arranged it all. 19:38 AWR360A° is about broadcast to baptism. 19:42 God had already put the pieces of the puzzle together for us. 19:45 In 2017 we held TMI AWR meetings in Georgia, 19:49 the same time we did Eastern Europe and Romania. 19:52 Our coordinator for Georgia was Jonathan Zirkle 19:54 who had invited Neville to be one of the speakers there. 19:58 What timing. 19:59 Neville had already preached a series at AWR meetings. 20:03 He shares the vision of AWR360A°. 20:06 God matched us. 20:08 It was amazing to join Adventist World Radio. 20:14 During Neville's return flight home from Georgia, 20:17 he was reading the depressing news 20:19 on his phone 20:21 and decided more had to be done. 20:25 And I knew the sermons that I had preached 20:28 was the answer, I knew that. 20:31 And I was then struck by this whole idea 20:35 that I actually can, there is a way I can do this. 20:40 In fact, that was my phone. 20:44 That was the way. 20:48 And nearly up to this, 20:50 God had prepared this little church 20:52 to have everything in place, 20:54 that'll be required for this very moment. 20:58 Well, we had a team behind all these presentations 21:02 because remember God had set all this up prior to us 21:05 knowing about all this. 21:07 And they were dedicated, they were taught. 21:11 They knew about evangelism, 21:13 they were evangelistically minded people. 21:16 And that made it all so much easier. 21:20 And so, I had all these members in church 21:22 that could do all these things. 21:24 They were already involved in digital church, 21:27 they all already started playing parts, 21:31 and then we did the 10-Day Prayer series. 21:35 And that's where I picked up that indeed 21:38 they were right for greater things. 21:42 We had a target in mind of 1,000 21:47 and we thought that we would be lucky 21:49 if we got that. 21:50 Five days later, 1,300 people were listening. 21:55 Some were ministers of other religions, 21:58 some non-Adventists and many ex-Adventists. 22:04 With Neville's background in radio and broadcast, 22:07 he discovered a way to send an evangelistic series 22:10 through his cell phone, 22:12 so that others too could replicate this process. 22:16 So because of my background, 22:18 we put these sermons 22:21 into two minute sound bites, 22:25 and I figured out 22:27 that this was the attention span 22:31 that people could handle at any one time. 22:33 And the other important thing about the whole drive 22:39 was that it had to be presented 22:42 as if I was talking to you personally. 22:45 It cannot be presented as a sermon. 22:48 It will not work. 22:50 It had to be a conversation, a one on one conversation. 22:55 You know, we talk about this one soul audience. 23:01 You know Jesus did that? 23:03 He had these one soul audience, 23:04 it was Him talking to the woman at the well, 23:07 Him talking to the leper, 23:09 it was Him talking to the layman, 23:11 it was Him, 23:12 you know, it was this one on one conversation. 23:14 Although there was a lot of other people present, 23:16 it was just this one on one conversation, 23:19 and the cell phone allows for that. 23:22 So we needed to present it in such a way 23:25 that we immediately establish intimacy 23:28 if I can call it that. 23:29 And it's this one on one conversation 23:32 where, in fact it's not me preaching anymore or talking, 23:36 it's actually inviting the person 23:39 into the audience chamber of Jesus. 23:42 And it is the Holy Spirit that is just using my voice 23:46 to talk to the heart of the person. 23:49 That's the idea. 23:51 At one point in time, 23:53 we were already past 10,000 Bible studies per week. 23:57 The first series eventually became 1,800 people 24:02 and of the 1,800 people, we baptized 350. 24:07 Because we had people in South America, 24:09 people in England, people in Canada, 24:11 the USA, Australia, Korea, South Korea, 24:16 all over Europe. 24:18 We had people listening that could speak the language 24:21 or understand the language. 24:22 The language was the only limiting factor. 24:24 They had to understand Afrikaans 24:27 because that was the language I presented in initially. 24:29 We also now present in English, of course, 24:32 because the team also consists of Gideon 24:35 which is doing the English sermons. 24:39 So now, we really have a situation 24:44 where we actually don't quite know anymore 24:48 because the bit of research that we did, 24:51 we found that people pass these massages 24:54 onto at least five levels down. 24:56 We get responses, we get people coming back to us, 25:00 and we just don't even have the foggiest idea 25:03 where they get it from. 25:04 But obviously from somebody who passed it onto somebody 25:08 who passed it onto somebody. 25:10 It just moves extremely fast and it never dies 25:14 unlike in another evangelistic series 25:17 where it's finished, it's finished. 25:19 This thing is never finished 25:20 because the materials out there, 25:22 you can't stop it of going on and on and on and on. 25:25 It just continues. 25:27 So it's a massive evangelistic tool in the end. 25:33 While we getting the responses daily of people say, 25:36 they wanna be baptized. 25:37 Or people say, "Oh, we're going to be baptized this week. 25:40 We already joined the church." Amen. 25:42 You know, sometimes we actually get them to churches, 25:45 sometimes we don't. 25:46 Sometimes they join the digital church, 25:48 and then eventually we move them 25:50 over to the church closest to them. 25:52 Other times, we find out 25:54 they've already been to the church, 25:57 they've already made arrangements. 25:58 We just hear, that's it, we're being baptized, 26:00 thanks for the lectures. 26:04 One of the first people to send out a series was Karel. 26:08 Then Neville's thought of the cell phone evangelism 26:11 and I wanted to get involved through this. 26:14 So we started with it and we started sending it out. 26:17 And eventually for me to do that was a bit of a mission 26:23 because I'm dyslexic. 26:25 So I need to read through the mission story, 26:31 and memorize it as far as possible, 26:34 because I find it difficult to read. 26:36 It doesn't come easy, 26:37 it's really hard to do this and to read, 26:40 and then to, you now, to send it over. 26:43 And it takes a lot of time. 26:47 The first person he shared the series 26:49 with was his sweet niece Antoinette, 26:52 living on a remote island. 26:54 It is the same Antoinette 26:56 that smiled at the McKey's that fateful night. 27:01 It's a God thing! 27:02 You see, Antoinette is preparing to be baptized. 27:06 She's also preparing 27:07 and working on starting a new church 27:09 there in the village near her hotel on the Zambezi River 27:13 just above Victoria Falls. 27:15 The interesting thing about this is that 27:17 people are not only receiving the truth 27:21 but say, they're so fired up 27:23 that they immediately start becoming 27:26 cell phone evangelists almost automatically. 27:29 Awesome. 27:31 This story does not have to end here. 27:34 It's waiting for you 27:35 to be a part of cell phone evangelism. 27:38 People around the world 27:39 are joining AWR cell phone evangelism. 27:43 No matter your age, 27:44 whether you're visually impaired 27:46 or the shyest guy in the room, 27:48 you too can win souls for the kingdom. 27:52 Remember, there are no starless crowns in heaven. 27:56 Go to awr.org, 27:58 where you can watch simple how to videos, 28:01 download materials and join us in spreading the gospel. 28:05 No walls, no borders, no limits. 28:10 Join us next time. 28:11 This is AWR360A°. |
Revised 2020-03-02