At Risk Radio | Interview w/David Witt (Pilot Episode #1)

this is atrisk Radio welcome to atrisk radio where we talk about leadership in the persecuted Church internationally I'm your host and my name is Mark Stafford and I'm here with David wit from s so International and David you and I go back quite a long ways now and we've been working together we've been uh you know working with the persecuted Church we've been raising awareness raising resources for them so it's been a pleasure for many many years we've been working together and what a great format we have here to not just write about the persecuted church but to but to talk about it and even to interact with people I'm excited about what the Lord might do with atrisk radio and the plans that we have moving forward so uh David I thought I'd have you start out by just talking a little bit about where did s so come from I mean Spirit of martyrdom that's an unusual name so tell us a little bit about yourself and about Spirit of martyrdom and your vision your passion for starting this kind of ministry well Mark you know they say that if the walls could speak right our history that you're talking about and so much context is involved and hopefully this podcast is going to help bring out those stories of the many things that we've seen God do and expand this to a global work and and I'm glad to bring this out with you because I think both of us can bring perspective and hopefully encouragement uh stories of Faith um through this podcast and yeah Mark Spirit of marom is a history ultimately in my life of the God's faithfulness of showing me the true exchange Life of Christ we've been crucified Christ we no longer live but Christ lives through us and talking about Christ uh calling scripturally of spirit of marom of that we're called to lay down our lives uh for Christ I mean in the and the the contrast was there because in Islam the ultimate deed is to lose your life at the destruction and um diig gration of your enemies but Christ of course says that we're to lay our lives down for enemies I mean return a better good for evil and so the believer gives his life at the blessing and at the you know benefit of their enemies so it's an antithesis and so that was a journey in 2007 we came up with the book called Spirit of marom and God LED ultimately voice of Martyrs gave a blessing and their leadership to start this ministry and it was a Ministry focused on not only having a voice but having the spirit of marom the Spirit of Courage and Faith Of Life a lot of people see it as death but it's really life because where you've been through the Crucified Life right you come out with the Life of Christ and he is life and and so there's so many of these Believers around the world who are risking their lives they're they're willing to pay the price but lack the tools so we've built these strategic relationships with Believers in the heart of the restricted hostile and persecuted areas of the world um where they're being effective and they just need a little encouragement sometimes training tools funds and so if we develop these people who have a true Spirit of marom who live by faith not by fear um we've been able to leverage an incredible amount of work and that started in 2008 it's just been amazing history we've seen Miracle after Miracle after Miracle uh Mark of of God's provision and so in a nutshell to to Really conclude that first question here then is we like to say our mission statement is internationally serving leaders who risk much for Jesus you know what I'm looking forward to in the and next many well we hope are dozens of podcasts are those stories coming out it it's one thing to say that there are Bibles being dropped into a jungle but it's another thing to hear the story of the man who gets that Bible and who has their life transformed by the Bible and sometimes between the Bible they get in the galcom radio and the radio broadcast that goes into a jungle a church is started and a congregation begins and the gospel starts to go out into other Villages and it's exciting to hear those kind of stories or a story like what we're hearing out of India where there's not just a few Church planners but right now hundreds and hundreds of church planners going out starting literally tens of thousands of churches it's incredible just incredible the stories that are coming out of um of s so International and the kind of work that we get to be a part of and when we get back from our break what I want to do is I want to start unpacking each part of that mission statement what does it mean to be a leader in the church a leader in the persecuted Church um what does it mean that you're serving internationally what places are you going to Let's unpack that a little bit and tie that back to scripture so when we get back we'll be back more with David Whit and with the uh he's a founder of s International and we'll be talking more about what the Lord is doing through S and the ministry there we'll be right back can you imagine trying to disciple a church with only one Bible this is Mark Stafford from at risk radio and our contacts and Venezuela are telling us incredible stories about people coming to know Jesus all the while pastors are missing Bibles for their people after receiving a Bible from our ministry one man said with tears in his eyes no one has ever given me such a beautiful gift at risk radio in our partnership with s so International is working to bring 2 million Bibles into Venezuela for more information about how you can help go to atrisk radio.com welcome back to atrisk radi I'm here with David wit and David wit is is the CEO of s International now David tell me again what is the mission statement of s Soom International yeah thanks Mark because this is going to really lead our focus our passion as people want to hopefully tune in our podcast uh and the podcast is all going to be around this Mission purpose which is internationally serving leaders who risk much for Jesus that mission purpose means a lot to us and so each word uh breaks down our heart internationally as uh Mark you know well we're in a lot of Nations around the world and strategic relationships so we want people to know that it is international but that includes Global in the sense in United States too we want to impact the courageous witness of Believers here in the United States through the collaboration of intimate relationships with boots on the ground in these areas of the world and so that hopefully one of the things that you and I Mark are going to be able to bring is uh updates of really what God's doing God stories things that people aren't going to get in the regular media um in these restricted and unreached areas so okay now one thing that's unique about s so International is that you're really talking about leadership I mean there's a lot of different things you could do that' be really helpful for the gospel but you're not just going out and doing clean water projects or giving food to the hungry or or shoes to people who need shoes you're you're doing it really in the context of developing leaders in each one of these countries so talk a little bit more about what you're doing with leadership development yeah leadership is the key in our our heart and I think it's the Heart of Jesus because when Jesus comes into our heart you know he's the creator of the universe he is the ultimate leader he makes every disciple a leader so that's part of our passion is help people grow in their leadership potential and their design by God and uh and so and and but the first word before it's key too let me mention internationally serving you know God put upon my heart when we were first putting the ministry together is not use the word ministry Ministry of course means s serving but the Lord really showed me how Ministry conies Authority and you know the believer we we go in the authority of Christ so it's Christ's Authority in us and Christ came to uh not to be served but to serve and so that's why we love putting that out their servant leadership is serving leaders and those are the leaders that God has set apart full of the fruit of the holy spirit so they're credible Witnesses um and and we can just funnel resources through them and it's leverage because they're going to use those resources being spirit-led to bring forth much Harvest and much return for the investment well the next part of it is I appreciate you saying that because it really is we're not trying to take over for them and there's no there's no Fame to be made here it really is truly having a servant's heart and serving those who are risking much well let's talk about that people who risk much for Jesus in our culture there's not much risk uh for serving Jesus what kind of persecution what kind of risk are these people facing for the gospel yeah Mark and that's what we want to bring the American Church to is in the fellowship of suffering and risk because in that Fellowship there's Mutual encouragement but you know and what do we get out we get the courage and the faith so like in India we've even had two House Church pastors leaders uh be killed for their faith they're they're the conventional definition of a martyr faithful unto death and we've had you know Believers put in prison around the world uh even our director in South America has been held captive six times even uh jailed one time uh by the government with false accusations and false charges and that was later overturned and God continues to provide for him miraculously we just last month had some Believers bringing in uh Bibles uh into Venezuela and um and they were held for 14 days in in jail so you know again again we see difficulties trials uh threats all of our leaders have been threatened at times uh with difficulty with their lives uh some have been beaten so it's across the board uh certainly we've seen their children in schools discriminate against some lose their jobs uh many of them kicked out of their homes uh lot you know refugees from their Villages so the so the risk is across the board Mind Body Soul and Spirit but by their obedience they're worshiping Christ because they're saying he is worthy and he's worth it and that's the U the example I think we need in the church today of the life over faith that there are seasons that we go through suffer there are seasons of difficulty but those seasons in obedience always lead to abundance and and breakthrough well one of the most important scriptures that you come back to over and over again is acts 18 and in our last few minutes here talk a little bit about acts 18 and the Greek word martus and what that means to Spirit of martydom yeah yeah great that is our text verse and passion for our ministry so Christ as he's ascending you know in the last words of certainly the great leader always held onto and looked at and this is God himself in flesh and he says to his disciples when the power of the Holy Spirit comes you shall be my Witnesses in Jerusalem dudea Samaria and the most parts of the earth and that word witness in the Greek comes directly from the word martus which most listeners are going to hear that ring it's where we get our direct word martyr for it's used 35 times Mark in the New Testament and um and most of the the time interesting enough it's actually used for living guys not di not dead guys um so it's a it's a spirit of life it's a spirit of Christ Christ of course identifies himself as the Marty you know Revelation 15 people can look it up God identifies himself a few times as a mar martyr for his people his church the Holy Spirit identifies himself as a martus um so that's the spirit that we're given and when we understand that identity I think it it deepens and gives a greater confidence to our walk with Christ now if somebody wanted to get connected with Spirit of martyrdom and the larger Ministry involved there's a lot of pieces that are going out all the time there's uh resources going out to people who are on the field there's there's prayer networks that are being started and are formed there's literature that is provided for folks there are books for sale in your bookstore if somebody wants to get connected with Spirit of mar International how would they go about doing that well first of all I guess we'd love for them to subscribe we we want God to start using and multiplying certainly this podcast but we we love relationships and that relationship isn't going to grow very far unless we also have get your name and email address contact information because we we have updates that we send out to our beded friends and partners that you're not going to get any place else we promis that it's inside scoop inside stories uh miraculous of what God is doing in these unrestricted and unreached areas and we want to find those Kindred hearts that want to join us in prayer and serving and giving to those areas so if this is just tugs at your heart this something you want to be involved with again start subscribing to this uh you this web um or podcast and then also go to atrisk Radio and give us your contact information and we pray and well we're confident you're going to be blessed because you're going to hear some incredible stories well to be kept up to date about what God's doing within the church at risk all over the world go to atrisk radio.com and make sure you sign up for the newsletter I'm Mark Stafford I'm here with David Whit and this has been atrisk radio you've been listening to atrisk radi for more go to atrisk radio.com at risk radio is a production of s International [Music]