I just would like to share with y'all, I'm going to read out of Acts right quick, Acts 14, 27. And when they were come and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with him and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles. And so, I know you all are getting ready to have your missions, conference and so forth. And I won't be there, but I appreciate giving me an open door tonight to share. And then jump over to Romans 1, and I'd like to share 3 verses out of Romans, 3 or 4 verses that have been a blessing to me. And it shows the heart of the Apostle Paul, and not just Paul's heart, but God's heart. And so Romans 1, and let's look at verse 5. By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name. Now, I don't understand a Christian who has no vision for the lost, or getting the gospel around the world. That is, should be a, every believer should have a heart that God has. every one of us. Now, I don't mean we all just drop ourselves and go, but it does mean that you can have a heart whether you pray, and there's a lot of little old ladies who've prayed for us over the years who couldn't go, but they prayed, and God has moved and worked in mighty ways because of their prayers. And so, if you can't go and you can't give, you can pray, you know, and there are those that the Holy Spirit will touch and raise up to go. I never thought I'd be a missionary. I mean, I grew up here in East Flat Rock and we had a little farm and I just never could see myself, you know, leaving the country and especially not here. I thought this was the prettiest place in the world, you know, and born here in Hendersonville. I didn't want to leave, but the Lord said, if you'll just be like that grain of wheat and fall on the ground and die, if you'll die to what you want to do, I'll produce some fruit with your life that you won't believe. And so, that's what God is desiring to do. Have you come to the place in your life where you've died to what you want to do? If you don't, if we don't come to that place, young folks, You can spend 40 years in the wilderness doing 360s and never go anywhere, never hit anybody, and never get hit shadowboxing and playing at Christianity. But if you want to get in the warfare, if you want to get hit and take some hits and give some hits to the enemy, it requires death to ourselves. and to what we want to do in order for Christ to do in us what only He can do. You know, all I can do is wood, hay, and stubble. But God produces precious stones from our lives. And so, what would it cost to send a couple to the mission field? You know, there's Adon and Maribel. They've young believers and they're stepping out and willing to leave their family and Guachuchi and the fellowship of our church. You know, she taught in school last year and go to a place where they don't know, where they have no certain income and where there's rattlesnakes. They already killed two. And I told them, watch that little Isaiah. I said, you watch him like a hawk and rattlesnakes there. And sure enough, they killed two in a week and a half they were there. So, you know, we don't have that in town in Wachuchi, so they don't have that problem. But, oh, they're excited. So we sent them up there for a couple weeks saying, now you pray about this. If God wants you to be there, you'll have peace in your hearts. And with the rattlesnakes and all, they're going back. How about that? Isn't that something? And only God can do that, and we're so thrilled. For the last two years, they've lived underneath us in the apartment complex there in Guachoche. And they would come up each night to pray with us, and us give them counsel. So we've had one-on-one discipling with him, and we just look forward to what God's going to do with our lives. They both have talents that I think God is going to use. Okay, in Romans 15, let's read verse 18. Romans 15, 18. For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed. Now this is interesting. You know, Paul's not no pushover. He's not looking for people to follow him just verbally. that are going to say, yeah, yeah, we'll come to your Bible study, or we'll whatever, you know. He wants to see action out of their lives. He wants to see an obedience to the faith. And so, as missionaries, we're not content to just say, hey, this few folks come together, let's have a Bible study, and then they go out and forget the Lord the rest of the week. No. We want to see an obedience. We want to see in their lives a submission to Christ as King and Lord of our lives. And so, you know, I'm not willing to leave North Carolina and my country and live in Mexico all these years to just have chocolate soldiers. No, we want people who are willing to go up against the enemy and do battle. They're not playing at Christianity. They're serious about doing battle. And so Paul, he wanted the Gentiles who were basically the uncircumcised, those who worshiped false gods and deities and so forth and did not know the truth, he wanted to see these people brought from that ignorance to a knowledge of the truth to where they surrendered and submitted their lives to true God, to Jesus Christ. And out of that relationship pours forth the beauty of Christ in us, doing His work in our lives. And so here in Romans 16 now, finishing up the book of Romans, we're just, verse 25. Now to Him that is of power to establish you. We're not going out with some measly little message that is weak and decrepit and can't transform. We're going out with a gospel that's powerful and can turn people's lives around. I mean, that's the God we serve. And if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't stay in Mexico another day. Hey, I'm going back. I'm going back. Why? Because we love to work, you know, with the Lord and see His power manifest and the fact that He does miracles on our behalf. Tony and I left out a few months ago, that big building you saw, the white tent on the outside, we buy that in Koltamik. It takes us a 250 mile drive to drive up there five hours and buy that from Mennonite Germans. who sell that chute metal. And then we bring it back. And it takes us, sometimes it's two days, or if we get a good day and we can load quick, we can get back the same day. But it's all day. And so he and I went with money that we received to buy materials for the school. And I had in the van probably over $4,000 in cash. And I'm driving 250 miles. And we get about an hour out of town. And here's a suburban on the side of the road with these grown men standing there. And I know that's not a good sign. Right? That's not a good sign. But it was early because we left at 6. And so these guys hadn't set up yet. But I told Tony, I said, you know, I don't like the looks of those guys. I just don't like the looks of them. They were on a lonely stretch of the highway where there's no houses, no nothing. And I just don't like the looks of that. So we go on down the highway, we get to Quilt Hammock, and about two hours later we get a phone call. Guess what? What? They've been a big holdup on the highway. Y'all just went over. Are y'all okay? I said, yeah, we're fine. He said, well, the narcos are taking vehicles from people. They're stopping the vehicles at gunpoint, making the people get out. And then they take their vehicle and off the way they go. So if we had been stopped, we possibly could have lost all that money that we were going to buy materials for the school. Huh? Now I'm not trying to scare you to not come visit. You come visit. Come on. And two weeks later, outside of Kualtama, there was a big shootout of the cartel members. And they killed, I talked to the military friend of mine who's there in Kualtama. They said they went out and picked up 62 bodies on the highway. Over 20 vehicles that were shot up. And the gunfire was going on for over three hours. Now, I'm telling you this not to scare you, OK? We never hear about killings in Mexico like took place in Las Vegas. We don't hear about that. I mean, the kind of things going on in Mexico are between cartel members. And the military guy, he told me, he says, Ed, don't travel that highway right now. It's dangerous. I said, OK, well, thanks for the heads up. They know what's going on. He said, they're driving up and down the highways, and the same cartel is killing each other. because they have disagreements within the cartel and somebody don't like this pay or that or whatever and they're going to kill somebody over it inside the cartel. We never felt our lives were in danger, but the cartel people wiped out 62 men, just like that. And so I'm going right back. We don't have the fear to just go down there And all these groups you saw up here that came down to help us this year, not one person was in danger. All the trips I made in, and for each trip we make in and out of Mexico to bring folks, it's 1,000 miles for me to drive. And we're on that highway for 20 hours in and out of the country. So, I'm just saying this, don't be afraid. The safest place is in the center of what? God's will. Right? And the Lord allowed us to get through there before they set up the roadblock. And our money was, we were able to spend it, get the sheet metal, come back. What we did, we went a longer way back. When we found out they were doing that on the highway, we chose another road. There's three ways we can go. And so we took a road that was an hour and a half longer to get back to Guachochi, but we got back safe, okay? So, here in Romans 15, the Lord has the power to establish us according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began. But now is made manifest by the scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting God made known to all nations for what? The obedience of faith. The obedience of faith. Paul kind of starts Romans with the vision of the obedience of faith amongst all nations. And he ends Romans the same way. And his heart in chapter, you know, 15 there is the Gentiles would be obedient. Isn't that great? And, you know, I'll just tell about Nicky. I told you part of his story. Real blessing, he walks into our church a few weeks ago, and he says, well, he gives his testimony. And I'm thinking, who is this guy off the street? Who is he? I've never seen him before. And then he comes over after the service. He says, are you the gringo? Are you the American? They use the gringo when we're not there, but when we're there, they say American. But he says, are you the American that had the Ford, 75 Ford pickup, he says, with a white and brown color, with a diesel engine, and a cab over a camper on that truck? And I said, that's me. That's who I was in 79. He says, well, I remember your truck very well. And we were the only Americans in Guachocho at the time. And he said, you don't know how many years I've sat in prison and thought about you. I go, what? You know? He left Guachoche when he was eight years old and made his way to Juarez. When he was 11, he rode a train across into the United States, worked in Fort Worth and then Odessa, and then got involved with the Mexican mafia cartel selling drugs. apparently was involved with other guys in a killing in the United States and the members of the group he was with were all older than him and they said, you're going to take the rap for this or else we're going to kill you. So he went to Colorado State Prison, maximum security, 31 years and a week. After three years of being in prison, he said, well, the chaplain, whoever that was, he didn't know what a chaplain was, but he said, the chaplain invited us to come to some meeting that's going to give us coffee and cookies. So he went. and heard the gospel of Christ for the first time. Because when I met him in 79, I couldn't speak to him. I didn't speak enough Spanish to talk with the boy. And so he says, you don't know how many times I've thought about you. He said, I thought maybe you as an American had come to Guachoche hiding out from the law of the United States. Maybe you had killed somebody in the States and you fled to Mexico, because that's real common in Mexico. Somebody gets killed down there and they flee across to the United States. And so he said, I thought you either had killed somebody and were living in our town, or else you might be a missionary. Because he found out in prison, I guess, what a missionary was. And he went through seminary and prison after he was saved, baptized there. And he got a life in prison. Life. That means you don't get out. Right? They let him out. And I got a call from the chaplain, Jerry Briggs, in Colorado. He says, he says, I just would like to talk to you about Nicky. He said, in the prison here of a thousand men, he said, he's a legend in our prison. He said, there's not a man in here he hasn't witnessed to. You know? I sat there and I was talking with Nick. It was kind of funny. He speaks English, you know. And I said, he says, well, let me tell you about George Whitefield or Charles Spurgeon or Moody, you know. And he started, he said, I had a lot of hours in prison to study and read books. He says, I've got the whole seminary right here, you know, all his books. And so we just, praise the Lord, we just kind of really, he says, you know, I didn't know you, but I know you now. And when we lived there, our street was dirt in front of the church, and we bought that. It was a cornfield. We bought that and built the church on. He came back, and first thing, he comes into our church, and here's the church where Cornfield was when he was there last, at eight years old. And since he's joined the church, and our pastor, Antonio, he says, well, you're my right-hand man. How about that? He's only been there two weeks. You're going to be my right-hand man. So he's already been in prison in Guachuchi. We took him down there and he met with the prison officials. Our prison changed from being a state prison to a federal prison. And so the rules changed who could actually go in there. And we took him in there. He met the guy. He liked Nicky. He says, I'll give you an hour and a half every Sunday with these prisoners, 276 men in our prison in town. And Nicky's already been in there and preached to over 60 of them who would come hear him. And today, I haven't talked to him today, this afternoon, but he was going back in and says, this time, they don't have big enough room for us, he says, for us all to meet. So we're going to meet on the basketball court inside the prison. So we're going to preach to everybody that will come, OK? And he went to preach at the hospital on Fridays to the Tatamanas and the Marco Antonio that's in charge of the hospital ministry. He works in the hospital. So he has an open door to have services right in the hospital with all these Indians. And Mark says, hey, I'm going where you're going. I want to be with you. How about that? Here's a prisoner that had been in prison in the U.S. for 31 years, and I want to be with you. Our guys, younger guys, want to be with him. What a testimony. And in such a short period of time, these guys want to be with him and learn from him. Isn't that something? I was just blown away. And Nicky, he just sits there and cries. has such a tender heart for the Lord. So, how much time do we have left till the Lord comes? We don't know. You know how long a million seconds are? Twelve days. Twelve days. A billion seconds. How about that? A billion. Hey, 32 years. How about a trillion seconds? A trillion seconds. You're not going to outlive a trillion seconds. And how much is our debt? It's in the trillions. A trillion seconds is 32,000 years. Time's running out. But hey, God's always on time, right? He's always on time. And the Lord was, even though we couldn't speak the language, even though we couldn't influence this young boy, something about our presence affected this guy. And all those years, 38 years went by before he ever returned to Gwachechi as a believer and a modern Apostle Paul, really. So, that's what God does. I had very little to do with it, if anything. It's other people who sowed in his life and ministered to him in the states that he came to Christ and began loving the Lord Jesus Christ. And God put it in his heart. They said, you can stay here in the states. When I let him out, you can stay in the states. How about that? But you have to report to the parole officer every, I don't know how often. And we have to know everything about you, where you're at and all of what you're doing. But if you go to Mexico, you're on your own. You're free to go. How about that? He chose to go to Guachuchi, where he hadn't been for 38 years. And now he's a member of our church. Isn't that something? Hey, that blew me away. And I thought, man, here's a guy I don't even have to disciple. The Lord's already done it for us in prison there. Other people worked with him. Another fellow called me from Colorado. And he said, I'm calling you on behalf of Nicky. I said, really? Oh, OK. And Nicky shared with me this is a brain surgeon who is very busy. He says, Joe, he's very busy. And he calls me up and he says, I just want you to know I led Nikki to Christ and the prison. And we want to do something for Nicky. And so here's these guys in the States that have been impressed with his life that want to help him to get established, to become part of a local church and be involved. And they said, we don't want Nicky falling through the slats. after we've invested years into this guy. So, praise the Lord. The Lord is doing the work and our church has just embraced this guy. He's living in our church building, living there. He has no money that he's earning. He says, I want to serve Christ. He says, that's all I want to do. I don't want to do anything else but preach the gospel. and share my testimony with my people. And so, we'd appreciate your prayers if you'd pray for him and the ministry. He's having a real impact on our church as well as the community. So we have Bible Institute this year. It started last week. Eight students in our church are studying the scriptures and four pastors are teaching. So that's how we're raising up leadership and people that are willing to step up for Christ and serve Him. I don't teach in the Bible Institute unless I'm asked. Because I'm on the road all the time. If you want to live out of a suitcase, just travel with me. And see how that feels. You know, I know others have done that. So it's really... The Lord has allowed us, because our people don't have passports, can't come to the states, we're their mouth. We're trying to share with you what they're doing and they're excited about what the Lord's doing.