How The Gospel Transforms Latin American Villages | Interview w/David Witt & Russell Stendal (Epi...

this is atrisk Radio welcome to atrisk radio where we talk about leadership in the persecuted Church internationally I'm your host Mark Stafford and today I'm here with Russell stendall Russell is a missionary in Latin America and he's the director of s International in Latin America now Russell you were telling me that you've been working with the tribal people in Latin America for many many years the cois the pasaz and dozens of other tribes what does it look like for a tribal person to get the gospel for the first time how does that transform their Village well it won't start by transforming The Village it will start though by maybe transforming a family and uh then what happens is everybody else gangs up on him and tries to kick him out of the village because um it threatens the status quo and that's where the person tion comes from that's where the persecution comes from it it used to be you know that maybe they'd get their house burned down maybe they still would or maybe they get taken and put into a torture chamber with stocks and the equivalent of the old Spanish Inquisition machines to pull your arms and legs out of their sockets they still do that in places so it's dangerous it's literally dangerous become a Christian in in these areas and you're putting your not just your life at risk but even being uh intimidated with a threat of torture with these middle AG devices and stocks you know that are designed to like crush your ankle bones it's hard to find Christians that don't have a lot of scars physical scars so persecution seems becoming more intense in these areas so so give us an example of a tribe that's been utterly transformed by the gospel is there one of the tribes that you've worked with that you've seen them go from being a very secular kind of uh culture to being transformed by the gospel and then uh see the fruit from the gospel in their Village well a lot of tribes have at least you know 10% Christians which is a huge turning point but some of them are starting to have like 25 or 30% which means that you're actually going to have Christians in the government like in one of these tribes U you they went under just about continual persecution of every kind of persecution you can imagine not just from within but also from all kinds of outside factors for over 80 years until the vice governor of the tribe got converted and then that's what ended the persecution 80 years of persecution and uh and I think there has to be other tribes that are also suffering from Decades of persecution like that and they need encouragement they need somebody to come alongside them and tell them to keep their eyes focused on Christ and to keep moving forward and what kind of tools are you guys helping them with and see it would be good you know if all of the stories were positive but they're not all positive you know there's cases where somebody went in there and made uh boarding school in the name of God and ended up um abusing kids and uh you know stuff like that comes out and causes um and rightfully so causes a lot of rejection and so um the the footprint of um missions and missionaries has not always been squeaky clean and so um but there are a few PES places in the world and one of them is among the pious Indians in uh Southwestern Colombia where I haven't been able to find you know any serious mistakes that were made by the missionaries that went ahead of us and one of those reasons for that is that the persecution was so intense that even the missionaries themselves couldn't spend very long in there among the people you know they might have got been able to get in there for a year or two or three and then would always be forced out because of all of the overwhelming violence that was going on in the middle of a multi-sided civil war plus other factors including the narcotics industry and and U many many many other things and so Latin America has always had a lot of polarizing factors and politics has not been um you know um an easy thing politics is in most in a lot of countries is a blood sport and um you can wander in there as a foreigner and and make some friends you know that are political and not realize that yeah you just made some really good friends but now all their enemies are your enemies and they're going to be very very ruthless enemies so tell me this Russell um a lot of our listen are supporting missionaries in various places in the world how would they find a missionary in Latin America that they could trust that isn't going to go in and do something that is um against the gospel but that's going to come in with really a true pure message of the Gospel how do they find those kind of missionaries well Jesus said you know them by the fruit and the fruit he's talking about is Godly character and so you know when when you find um organizations that are project oriented results oriented and they're defining the results in an impersonal manner um we got to take a step back and and look and see how are they treating individuals you know because Jesus focused on people and that's where he wants us to focus uh you know we're not there to impose a a a given U theology or or a given um even though those things may may be important and have their place but when we go as missionaries we're there to reach people and to touch Hearts so you want to go there and love people reach people show people the love of Christ and when we get back after this break we're going to talk about more about how uh some of the efforts ofm International and others are uh taking the gospel into places like Colombia and Venezuela and Beyond and using it to not just plant programs not just do projects to reach the heart of people with the [Music] gospel can you imagine trying to disciple a church with only one Bible this is Mark Stafford from atrisk radio and our contacts in 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 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 radio I'm in the studio with David Whit now David Whit is a CEO of s International s International's vision is to serve leaders who are risking much for Jesus so David tell me a little bit about your heart for those who are risking much for the sake of the Gospel yeah it's always great to come right after Russell and spend time with him because he exemplifies so much of our heart and what we're doing the our mission statement way we like to State it is internationally serving leaders who risk much for Jesus and so as we just heard uh you know what Russell's doing going into the tribal people what he's specifically talking about and and how much they've suffered for the Lord he's talked about people his age really that'd be 50 and above who have scars from the days when they first came to Christ I mean that was seen as an threat to the Native American belief system down there and the politics and so they were tortured and suffered great loss and uh it reminds me of Paul talking about for I bear the marks of Christ on my body or the scars of Christ on my body I thought it was unbelievable what he was saying that people are being tortured with like these medieval Dei devices that just blows my mind it doesn't seem like something that's really real in this day and age but it's real down there and people are really risking much for the gospel yeah that's right and that so that's our heart around the world that we're focused on the areas that are restricted and the 40% of the world that's unreached by the gospel a lot of people are aware of that so 40% of the world is unreached by the gospel tell me more about that because I keep hearing that most of the world is reached we only have a a couple of pockets left 40% seems an like an incredible number I know it is it's we're so unaware because this is so christianized and United States North America and Europe but the Joshua Project that's their Ministry and focus is kind of following those numbers and they've looked in the areas that they that is under 5% would identify it all as Christians under 2% evangelicals they have really looked at it and been a to determined by many different factors that that's just not enough to have a witness and a presence and access to the gospel so there's there might be a few Christians in those Nations but nobody could get the Bible they've never heard the gospel there's not radio broadcast in their own language you can't necessarily go on the internet and hear the gospel so you can just multiply the problem there and that's where our heart is and so as we brought up we look for leaders that God has qualified they've grown up in these nations and they've experienced the uh persecution for their faith God's refined them and the Lord has supernaturally connected us with key leaders around the world they're Nation Changers because God's given them a vision to bring the gospel bring transformation uh but that just starts at obedience to Christ and Rich again Russell actually brought up uh well it starts with one person and then it changes a family and that family then begins to bring transformation to the village and the village to the state state to the nation and then we see a culture change and and that's our you know if we really want to even U come beside and really stop persecution what do we have to do we have to just change the heart of the persecutor and and Jesus is the great physician he's a heart surgeon he changes a Heart of Stone into a heart of Flesh and that's why this is just so beautiful this work we get to do with these leaders who are seeing uh you know transformation uh across the board as they just simply are faithful in the work and taking risk which is living by a great faith and those are the kind of people we get behind so how do you find those people I mean you called them a nation changer how do you go about finding somebody who has the connections who has the heart to transform an entire nation for the gospel and then get behind them and serve them what does that look like for you guys mark my confidence in this whole thing is I didn't find him I could truly say that I every person every leader and there's basically seven key leaders we work with around the world God found them and put them on my path in my life and all the guys I work with I mean we agree with this we try to just go down the path of Christ we're just heading towards Christ all the time in obedience and trust and faith and then the Lord will bring people alongside of us and as I've been serving the lord for many decades now I uh have had God just direct those paths and grown in that and and so Russell stood I wasn't looking for Russell Stell uh God had me go down there many years ago on a trip I was visiting different leaders he was one of them but he and I connected very quickly and he had a need he was basically out there on his own in manyways and didn't have representation in the United States and doing a fantastic work he's the poster child of spirit of marm certainly just his his faith of trusting God and taking daily risk and and so he immediately came part of the work and and and then I could tell a story and made with future radio broadcasts I could tell more detail about each of the leaders that is a part of our Network because their lives itself a testimony is faith building and really exemplifies our heart of networking having these Intimate Relationships for very credible and effective work in these difficult and restricted Nations your heart's really for leaders for coming alongside leaders there's a lot of different kind of uh missionary works out there but specifically you're trying to find the leader that can gather people Underneath Him can disciple others and then push the gospel forward so why did that become part of your heart for these unreached areas well that's God's heart because every ultimately every disciple is a a leader right discipleship is leadership and uh and then God gives certain measure of leadership for people so uh we we look when we find leaders that are truly cleanheart13 transformation and works in these difficult areas all right so there are some people who are listening out there who have heard these stories that we've heard from Russell that have heard about these leaders who are Nation uh Nation Changers and they're wondering how can they get involved how can they get involved with actually supporting those who are risking much for Jesus and so if somebody wanted to get involved with s so International what would be their first step well go to atrisk Radio uh and then there's a place they can sign up for the newsletter get updates I mean we consider all our partners as part of the family but we we want people to respond by the Holy Spirit uh what God speaking to their heart so that the first step is obviously becoming informed and then they can begin to pray about different things that God's doing and how they want to be involved there's three ways people can always be involved it's prayer serving and and giving and so people just need to connect with us and and see where they fit and um take a step of faith well to be kept up today about what God is doing within the church at risk all over the world as you heard David say go to atrisk radio.com and sign up for the newsletter with that newsletter you'll be getting updates from those who are in the church at risk people who have been transformed by those who are sharing the gospel in these very high-risk areas and you also learn about some ways that you can give you can give Bibles you can give um uh bicycles uh you could give uh sewing machines there's a number of tools that these these church leaders and church Planters need in order to help them get the gospel out I'm Mark Stafford and this is Ben at risk radio you've been listening to atrisk radi for more go to atrisk radio.com atrisk radio is a production of s International [Music]