The Heart and Sacrifice of GFA World Missionaries

SPEAKER 01 : 0:00

We are joined by Bishop Daniel Yohannan with GFA World. Bishop Daniel, we’re talking about missionaries and what we can do to help GFA World missionaries that are ready to go get out in the field. So thanks for taking the time with us. Hey, really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Always a joy to have you on. And in this case, I want to talk through some of the things that people wouldn’t necessarily think about when it comes to these missionaries. For example… what their motivations are, what many of them you find hope to do with their service, and the fact that they’re right now, they’re on the sidelines, they need the funding to be able to go forward.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:38

Yeah, you know, over the last 45 years, you know, GFA World has really focused on four main areas. Of course, national missionaries, assisting children, disaster relief, and then transforming communities through Christ’s love. But when we talk about national missionaries, we’re literally talking about people who are carrying the passion and burden of Christ to their own people, to their communities, to places that very often people maybe haven’t even heard about Jesus. And so, you know, sometimes we’ll go to a village and we’ll tell people, you know, do you know Jesus? And the response will come back something like this. You know, I’ve lived here my whole life. My friends are here. My family’s here. Your friend Jesus is not here. Maybe check the next village down that road and you’ll find your friend Jesus. And so, you know, the heart and passion that burns within these national missionaries is really that they themselves have experienced their life in Christ and they truly, truly want to their own people to experience the same hope and love that they have found in Christ. And so that is kind of what drives them. That’s the motivation behind what’s in their hearts as they go out day after day to give out gospel tracts or visit the houses or pray for the sick. They truly want people to experience the life of God in them as they have experienced it. And someone at one point faithfully shared their the gospel with them, and their life was never the same.

SPEAKER 01 : 2:07

Right. And Bishop, this is not a lightweight commitment, is it? Talk about what these people are signing up for when they say, I’m going to be a missionary for GFA World.

SPEAKER 02 : 2:18

You know, when I had the privilege to visit one of our missionaries in Nepal, through some of my travels up into the mountains, into the Himalayas, one of our missionaries, Brother Manja, I mean, he literally spent 12 years in prison on false charges because he was sharing the love of Christ with people. And so someone didn’t like that. And so they kind of like, you know, what you read about Daniel in the Bible, where, you know, they came up with false charges and put him in prison. So he spent 12 years in prison while his wife was raising the kids outside of prison. Now, while he was inside prison, he led about 70 people to Christ, literally having a prison ministry inside the prison. But the level of commitment and the challenges that they face is very often persecution, sometimes threatening of death, sometimes it’s imprisonment. Two of our missionaries just a few months ago, their legs were broken because the people that they were ministering among, some of them didn’t like that they brought Christ to that village. And so it’s a daily self-sacrifice, just like what Christ said. If you want to follow me, you must deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me. Our national missionaries literally are picking up the cross daily in order to bring the hope of Christ to these communities. So sometimes it’s long days of work. Sometimes it’s traveling endless hours up in the mountains. Sometimes it’s persecution. Sometimes it’s the imprisonment or beatings that they face. But also their families have to face the same challenges where they also have to endure the difficulties in the communities too. So the wife and the kids also endure these things.

SPEAKER 01 : 4:03

But through God’s grace, they’re able to go forward. It’s so good. And it’s living alongside people locally, right? Because I think that’s important distinction from missionaries that go out, do great work, but they’re there for a couple of weeks and they come back to wherever home is. They’re kind of outsiders. And I’m guessing looked at a little bit differently by people that are in those villages.

SPEAKER 02 : 4:25

You know, where GFA World mainly focuses on, on the mission field, when you look at the map, it’s the 1040 window. So you look at the lines, latitude 10 and 40, it’s kind of a rectangular block from North Africa all the way up into parts of Russia, to Japan, all the way past places like India, Southeast Asia. It’s just kind of a general designation of these are some of the most unreached places on earth in terms of the gospel. Now, many of these nations, over 80% of these nations are closed for outsiders to come in as missionaries. Now, people can go in as a doctor or an engineer or help in some way. But when we talk about some of the really remote areas in these places, The people who are most effective are the national missionaries because they live with the people. They are among the people. They know the language. They like the culture. They like the bugs. They can easily connect with the heart language of the people. And so, you know, we’ve always been so excited for anyone to go, for anyone to be involved in missions. But our focus has always been to connect. empower and equip the nationals, those who are from their own country, who know their own people. It’s more of an incarnational kind of ministry where the missionaries are living among the same people that they’re reaching out to because they love the people and they see everyone in the community as someone that needs Christ’s love.

SPEAKER 01 : 5:53

Now, we’ve made it easy for you to be a part of this and help us give to support these missionaries. You can go to the KLTT website. So go to 670KLTT.com. And there’s a banner that pops up right there in the beginning, just last couple seconds. But it gives you a very clear path for clicking on that. And then you can also just call us here at the station. We’re happy to help you. 303-481-1800. 303-481-1800. 1-800 for people that want to give by phone. So either way that it works, we’ll get you connected with the right people at GFA World. It’s better if you go through us rather than to go to the general website. That way they know, oh, this is somebody from KLTT. Great. We want to make sure that we recognize that and help you. Bishop, tell me about some of the hardships that these people might face. You talked about a few of those things and also to some of the opportunities they get to speak about Christ to someone because they’re getting water or they’re gathering food, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER 02 : 7:00

Yeah, you know, in many of these nations, to be a Christian is considered to, you know, not really to be the most prestigious thing. You know, I have some friends that once they became a Christian in their community, their family said, please never come home again. It’s a shame to have you in our home. You’re not our child anymore. And please don’t ever come back. And so you literally have some of these young men and women who have made enormous sacrifices, not only to follow Christ, but now to commit their life to to serve Him full time. And again, the passion that drives them is they themselves have experienced God’s love and life in them, and they want everyone around them to experience the same thing. But the cost is very high. You know, this is where you see that Jesus would have, you know, had another follower. When the rich young ruler came, Jesus told him, you know, sell everything you have, give to the poor, come follow me. And it says the guy left sad. because he had a lot of things. And for these national missionaries, the cost is very, very high. Sometimes it literally costs them their life. The sacrifices that they have to make on a daily basis is traveling, sometimes by walk, like in the mountains of Nepal. I remember we traveled seven hours to get to one church up in the mountains of Nepal to reach one small village. Sometimes it could take a whole day’s journey. Some of our national missionaries have bicycles, and they drive 20 to 30 miles to reach far villages. Many of our national missionaries are in places where it’s very, very dangerous. They could be kidnapped or be killed. Many of our national missionaries face sicknesses like malaria. One of my friends, he got malaria 15 times, and the doctor said, if you get malaria one more time, it may permanently damage you. And yet these national missionaries, they are tirelessly going forth to bring the gospel to their own people. But they face the same challenges that we face. They face discouragement. They face, you know, hardships. They face, you know, times that just no one is responding to them. And so they also need our love and encouragement and prayer. One of the greatest things that we can do is, yes, financially support them, but also to pray for them because they face the same challenges that we face on top of everything else that they have to do on a daily basis.

SPEAKER 01 : 9:39

Bishop Daniel, we had, as an aside, a friend in Arkansas that somehow contracted malaria. And he had not traveled, but he got malaria and almost killed him. So that’s a name that gets thrown out there a lot of a disease. And I don’t know if our listeners really realize how serious that is. And these folks brave that with mosquitoes everywhere saying, you know what? It’s for the gospel. It’s for Christ. So I’m going to do it.

SPEAKER 02 : 10:05

Yeah, exactly. I think one of the number one killers in the world is actually malaria carried typically by mosquitoes. In many of these tropical places, malaria or dengue fever or some of these other diseases are common. very, very serious. This is one of the reasons why GFA World, we give out lots of mosquito nets because it is one of the only ways to kind of curve the infection spread. But, you know, some of our missionaries are working in places where there’s, you know, there’s wild tigers. And so they have to be actually careful as they walk through the jungles, but they see it as worth bringing the gospel to people. If Christ gave His life for us, then there’s nothing that is too much for us to give in order to bring God’s love to people who have never heard before. I remember hearing the story of a national missionary that went to a village, and there was an old grandmother, 102 years old, and she was so excited. She said, I’ve waited my whole life to hear about this Jesus. And she gave her life to Christ at 102 years old. She’s hearing about Christ for the very first time. This is what drives our national missionaries. This is what burns in their hearts. And this is the very heart passion of GFA World.

SPEAKER 01 : 11:26

These stories. Wow. I imagine there’s more than you could possibly tell us and count on. It’s just amazing. You know, every year there are new stories and you hear different things from your people out in the field or when you go out there. It’s just amazing to us. Let’s do this. My last thing I’ll ask you to do is let’s pray. I think it’s good to model what that prayer might look like for these missionaries and those that might be willing to sponsor or come alongside them and help them get out there in the field to do that work. So would you pray with and for them with us? Absolutely.

SPEAKER 02 : 12:03

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we ask for your grace and your mercy for all these missionaries that are serving so tirelessly on the mission field. We pray for their physical strength, their encouragement, that you would keep them physically safe from disease and from harm and danger while they travel in the bus, while they travel in the mountains, while they travel on bicycles, that you would keep your angels of protection around them. We pray for their families, their wives, and their children, that you would keep them safe and encouraged, that you would provide all their needs, that you would be with them as they go door to door sharing the gospel with people, that people’s hearts would be open, and that they also would receive Christ as their Savior. We give you all the praise and all the glory. We thank you for this and our privilege to be able to partner with them. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER 01 : 12:57

Amen. Amen. Bishop Daniel, thank you. It’s Bishop Daniel Yohannan, and we’re talking about GFA World, our missionary work with them, and our commitment through the next probably about nine or ten months now, at least, is to support these missionaries, and of course, We need you to support them on an ongoing basis, to really put your arms around someone that’s willing to serve in the mission field. You heard Bishop Daniel. This is not easy work. This is not a cushy missionary position, if that makes any sense. And cushy is maybe not the best word, but still, it’s really hard work. go to 670KLTT.com. There’s a banner right there. You cannot miss it. Or just call us 303-481-1800. Bishop Daniel, thank you so much for the time with us. Thank you so much, Mike. I really appreciate it.