So we're going to start a two-part series tonight dealing with security and survival in missions. Often we have to go behind enemy lines for Christ. So what could possibly go wrong? What kind of emergencies and crisis situations could you expect in a field? Well, first of all, expect delays. Very little happens on time and on schedule. There's often the unexpected. There's some strange things you will see on the road that could delay you. There are some amazing sights that you will see on the road. And there's definite overloading. There are vehicles that are overloaded and if you're travelling by bus expect serious delays. I remember travelling by bus across Malawi and I was sitting on the highest place so I could get a bit of fresh air because it was very crowded. So I was sitting over where the seat is, you know, that part of the bus. And some huge woman came and sat next to me and I was pushed against the window. Next thing I knew the whole window disappeared. It was, you know, below my seat and so I'm hanging on for dear life, dust billowing in, buses are passing by and trucks. And this was hours in the dark, travelling. without a window on the whole side. I mean, literally, you know, you couldn't sleep on that bus. Some people don't know what the maximum load is and how much is too much. So yes, you do see overloading and how much space, how many people can you fit on one of these lorries? There's always space for another one. And this is why we have limits to how much you can put on a vehicle. You wonder why these vehicles broke down. And yes, this even happens to our vehicles, not that this has won them, but expect wild life on the road. There is wild life out there and I was taught the first rule of the road back in primary school in Rhodesia. Elephants have right of way. And rhinos have right of way. And never cross a solid white line in the road. And that's a good principle. Don't cross a yellow line. Lines have right of way. I mean, you know, they're the king. It's their territory, so behave yourself when you're in their territory. Expect bad roads. This happens. There are potholes in Africa. And we have had to dig our vehicles out and this is a road. And that is a river. and this is also a road. Notice the difference, that's a river, this is a road. And that's why we need snorkels on the side of our vehicles, so that the engine can breathe underwater. Which is also why you practice on keeping your literature dry, which means we pack our literature in plastic, we put them in boxes, we put them in crates, we duct tape the crates, and before crossing a river you've got to reseal those duct taped crates because the juggling of the corrugated roads all kinds of bumps and puddles could have dislodged your duct tape and your waterproof crates. You can get wet but the literature cannot and so that's an important principle that we've got to stress. Sorry it's not raining right now. We love it when we go on night hikes and it's pouring with rain because if it's raining then you're really training. But just remember literature must stay dry. Expect challenges which could include aerial bombardments long roads with next petrol station 1,200 kilometres. Hmm. Which is why we need extra fuel tanks. This was the border post going in sedan at one time. I think it looks a bit more fancy now. And yes, Ambush Alley. And we came across 12 shutout vehicles in the space of one kilometre. Which should radically improve your pre-life. If you really want to improve your pre-life, go on a mission. Hard-skinned vehicles didn't make it. Tanks got destroyed. So you begin to wonder, then what chance did my soft-skinned vehicle have if the tank didn't make it? And that's, you know, according to your faith. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a calm of love and a sound mind. We were driving with the windows up, air conditioners on, listening to some music tape, when suddenly the car was rocked, and then we heard the explosion, and then we heard the afterburners of a MIG. You don't travel with your windows up and the music on in a war zone because you can't even hear the plane come. Although to be honest in this occasion we might not have because supersonic jet fighters can go faster than the speed of sound so you can feel explosion before you actually hear the jet that dropped the bomb, which happened on this occasion. But they missed, well, almost. They didn't miss this one, but that fortunately wasn't our vehicle. Expect illness. You do get ill. There are sometimes lack of hygiene facilities and the food and the water can get you sick. Expect opposition. If you are doing your work, you will be criticized. If you're not being criticized, you're not doing your job. Expect persecution. Islam hates Christianity. Communism hates Christianity. Secular humanism hates Christianity. Evolutionism hates Christianity. Richard Dawkins hates Christianity. God does not exist and he hates it, and everyone who represents it, even though he doesn't exist. Did we mention he doesn't exist? But Richard Dawkins still hates God. And we have been in villages that have been bombed, and we've ended up in prison, like the Osaka Central Prison back in 1987, and accommodation was not good, not even in the presidential detainee section. And so yes, you can get locked up and that's happened to us a few times. There are storms, there are dust storms, there are floods, famines, bad roads, all kinds of things can happen. And who knows, there's sometimes some of the wildlife that knocks on the back door and it's wise to check before you open the door. As for scorpions, we came across quite a few just hiking on Lion's Head the other day. We've come across many in Sudan. Now, you will notice they're the big scorpions with the big clippers and the small tail. Not a problem. It stings but doesn't kill you. These characters, big clippers on, not a problem. This chap, the light ones, with the small clippers and the big tail, deadly. I've been bitten by one of those. Absolutely dreadful characters. I was showering, well when you say showering you mean you've got a little bit of a bucket and you've got a cup and you're bouncing on a rock and trying to wet your hair and rinse and so on and I reached out for my towel which was dangling over the reeds and so on there and I got bitten in my left hand by one of these white little yellow scorpions and I felt the poison go straight up my arm and I felt the paralysis coming over and what can you do? five hours flying time from Kenya in the Nuba Mountains, not that a plane was nearby. There was no hospital for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. That's the time when you call the elders to pray. And that's what we did. And I did feel that poison literally go out of my arms and out of my fingertips. So, you know, if anyone wants to tell you the day of miracles is over and those pastors in Mark 16 about you will tread on scorpions and snakes and you will not be harmed, well, In the frontiers of missions where the gospel is advancing, it can happen. It's never outright, you can't demand it, you can't ask for it. You certainly can't expect God to act on cue, on the stage, in front of the cameras, because somebody's advertised a healing crusade. I don't believe any of those things are genuine at all. But we have seen God heal in the field, in mission situations. Ambushes take place. This is in Sudan, traveling from Kenya into Sudan and you can see the bullet holes and the glass shot out and yep, that's what happens. Mines, they're all mines. You've got to know where to find them. But Psalm 23 says, The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, When my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear. Though war breaks out against me, even then will I be confident." Just before my first prison experience and arrest in 1987, we read this psalm that morning, Psalm 27. And then our Bibles were taken and we had nothing but what was in our memory for the next weeks in prison. Interestingly enough, when we had Heather Mercer, was one of the two American missionaries arrested in Afghanistan and sentenced to death for showing the Jesus form on their laptop to four Muslims. 2001. They were waiting to be executed by the Taliban in Afghanistan when 9-11 occurred and the Americans then launched an offensive against Afghanistan and the Navy SEALs rescued these two missionaries. And Heather Mercer came here, spoke at our devotions in this boardroom, was at our dinner table and so on. And I read Psalm 27 at the dinner table and she got so excited as I started to read that that's the chapter God gave us while we were in prison, because they didn't have their Bibles either. But that was the chapter that sustained them in those months of hideous mistreatment by the Taliban. A lot of problems happen because of carelessness, thoughtlessness, forgetting something. Hmm, where did I put my handbag? You know, these sort of things happen. Sometimes people don't think things out. You may wonder why we reverse in here at the mission. It's a good idea to reverse, especially if you have a trailer boat. The correct way is not to drive in. But what happens when a front vehicle stops? You've got to think ahead. There's some strange things that happen on the road, and yes, duct tape can fix a lot of things, but this is maybe overdoing it. And this is cruelty to animals, because some people cannot... You know, we did blocks when we were kids, and jigsaw puzzles, and this is obviously the idiocy that happens when people don't understand when too much is... when enough is too much. And this is why we play with blocks as kids. because some people just can't seem to balance things and this is a mess. You can imagine somebody's container coming along and yep. This we have seen on the road from Cape Town up to Sudan. These are the kind of wrecks you see, there are people who drive in these Pentecnicans, they are the most dangerous animal in Africa. They can cause vast amounts of damage and not to mention the kinds of problems that come from trailers designed for rugged Africa which break on their first mission because the manufacturers and this was taken as evidence for the manufacturer to see how inadequate his workmanship was. to his credit. He repaired and replaced everything at his cost when the team got back but in the meantime you've got to make a plan in the field. And Joseph will tell you some of the things that can go wrong vehicle wise and I hope he won't have any new stories to tell off the Overland mission but he had enough just going around South Africa. Okay how does the tank end up upside down? That's got to be an interesting story. The Bible records and warns of many crisis situations, natural disasters and man-made threats. Think what you read about in the Bible. What can go wrong? Floods, famines, fires, earthquakes, epidemics, plagues, persecution, riots, theft, wars. It wasn't raining when Noah started to build the ark. You've got to start your preparation before the day of crisis occurred. When it came time for an evacuation of Lot and his wicked wife and his not so good daughters either, the angels came and gave them warning and told them to leave and not to look back. And when the time comes when you've got to move, you've got to move. And there's no time to look back. In fact, Lot's wife didn't make it for that reason. God gave Joseph a dream to warn that there was going to be seven years of plenty in Egypt, followed by seven years of famine. And they need to use the seven years of plenty to prepare for the seven years of famine. And he used the storehouses and he prepared. And he didn't just save the people of Egypt, but his own people, his father's family in the Promised Land too. You think of what God did to destroy Egypt with a mighty hand that they would let his people go. Marching on Jericho, seeing the walls come down, But God warned His people that He would destroy them if they continued to commit idolatry and rebel against Him. And so, Israel fell, Samaria. Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. Twice, twice God brought foreigners. First the Babylonians and then the Romans to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple. Showing that nobody gets a blank check. God does not give anybody a blank check to do what they want. Everything is conditional. And the fact that the greatest building in the world at that time, the temple, was ransacked and destroyed, not a pillow left upon another. The church went through persecution. The first three centuries of the Christian church, persecution was the norm. Yet Psalm 46 says, God is our refuge and strength, and ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way. And the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its water roars and foams, and the mountains quake with their surging. This psalm inspired Martin Luther's A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. So, principles for biblical preparedness. The Bible warns us to be prepared. Proverbs 22 verse 3. The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. Now, simple in English is not always a bad term, but in Afrikaans, simple is always a bad word, right? When you call a person simple, it's an insult in Afrikaans because it's saying he's simple to the point of not being prudent, not having foresight. And this is the way the Bible is referring to simple here in Proverbs 22. It is stupid to see danger coming and to make no precautions. Proverbs 3.25-26 have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked for the Lord will be of confidence so while we should be prepared we shouldn't be afraid we shouldn't be panic stricken we shouldn't allow paralysis to take over because what good is that going to do and then Proverbs 6.6-8 says go to the ant you sluggard consider its ways and be wise it stores its provisions in summer it gathers its food at harvest I trust you've heard the story of the ant and the grasshopper. How the ant was preparing for winter and the grasshopper was bouncing around and having fun. By the time winter came the grasshopper was wanting the ant to provide for him because he never made provision. When it was summer and there was abundant provisions, he made no preparations. And as winter comes, and for us it's not quite so serious, but for those who come from the Snowbelt, like Coral and Geron, they will tell you that when the snow comes you've got to have got your act together, right? You'd better have the hay in the barn and everything organised and you know more about this than I do because I have not lived in the Snowbelt. But the Northern Hemisphere people, they have to work super hard in the summer to be ready for the winter, because when the winter comes, there's a lot of things you just cannot do. And people living in the Pacific on the equator, they probably don't have to do much provision. So they can lie under the coconut tree and pick a banana and get some fish and lie up there. And they don't even have to worry about clothes because, gee, it's the same temperature all year round. But if you're in a severe alternate climate situation, then provision becomes even more important. In some countries, this may not be as obvious, but the idea of summer and harvest, you've got to be prepared, and the ant is prepared, they're organized, they work hard. Noah and his three sons are a tremendous example of provision and foresight. Think of the hard work, and they didn't just prepare a boat big enough for themselves and their domestic animals. God wanted an aircraft carrier sized ark that could accommodate all species. And so thousands of animals in the ark. That's a lot of hard work they had to do. And they might have thought, you know, I can see why we need a cow and chickens and goats, but do we really need the platypus, duck and the giraffe? But yes, God wanted them all in there. And Noah's hard work should remind us of the fact that all of creation has their place. But think of the ingenuity. And they had to get it right. There was only one ark. and there was no second plan B backup. This had to be waterproof, it had to float, it had to survive the storm, and it had to have enough provisions for a year. That's a phenomenal amount of logistics. You think of a plane that goes into one mission, even for just a month, think of the logistics it goes into providing for thousands of animals and your family for a year in the midst of a storm. And they did it and they managed and so Noah's Ark is a great example of biblical preparedness. It wasn't raining when Noah began to build the Ark. Has anyone here had a chance to see the Ark Encounter of Creation Museum up in Kentucky? I'm looking forward to getting there one of these days. I think that's just a tremendous event at the Creation Museum, but of course not the Arkham County yet. So Christians are to wisely anticipate danger and to make provision in times of scarcity. We are not to fear the future. We are to fear God alone. But we are warned to plan for the future and to prepare ourselves for adversity. Job 5.7, man is born to trouble as surely as the sparks fly upwards. mean problems. And as somebody said, the Lord's work is great, it's just the people. I mean, that's true, actually. And that includes ourselves, because what complicates everything? Sinfulness of man. I mean, middlelets of sin, I. If you fault in times of trouble, how small is your strength? How do you know how strong something is when you put it under stress? How do you know what flavor a teabag is when you put it into hot water? How well do you know that the kite works? Well, under the adverse winds, it will show whether it's capable of being a good kite or not. And so, in times of trouble, we see what a personal strength is. Which is one of the reasons why a key part of a Great Commission course is to put people under some stress. Stress, time. sleep deprivation, pressure, pressure of multiple things to be done, you've got to decide how to do it, how to do it best, how to do it, making best use of time, and there's a whole lot of things to show us. We can endure more than we can, than we think we can, we can go further than we think we can, we can go higher than we think we can, we can keep going longer than we think we can, We can achieve more in a given time period than we thought possible. And often our stands are very low. Because I'm afraid we're living in a very soft, sloppy society where they're trying to encourage us to be the least you can be, in so many ways. But we can do better than that. And for centuries, Christians have attained to higher standards than is being expected of average Christians today. Which is why... was the Harris... which brothers brought out the book, The Do Hard Things? Yes. OK. The Harris boys. Do hard things. Why is it that so little is expected of young people today? When I was 19, they were expecting me to make decisions in which my life and the lives of other people depended, and the army, and we'd been thrown in the border, and we'd been thrown across the border to fight the Cubans. And they expected 18, 19 year olds to be able to do that. And for centuries that wasn't unusual. But an 18 or 19 year old boy was expected to be able to go to war. And now, they can be in their 30s and 40s playing video games at home with mommy doing the washing and daddy paying his bills. And they still haven't grown up. They haven't got a life and they haven't got anything. It's shameful. We must go through many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God, we read in Acts 14.22. It's part of God's expectations, part of the training. 2 Corinthians 4, we are hard pressed on every side but we're not crushed. We're perplexed but we're not in despair. We're persecuted but we're not abandoned. We're struck down but we're not knocked out. And that's what's so important. Yes, Islam is on the rise. Violent revolutionaries are in the streets and in the universities. Be on your guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be men of courage. Be strong. I'm afraid these days it's not just the men who've got to be courageous and be strong, the women have to be too, because most of the men are wimps. Wets, weeds, drips, disaster areas. And so many women now have to do a lot of things that the men used to do as protectors. But there have been times like this in the past, when the women had to be strong in persecution, strong looking after the farms, while the men were off to war. We know that this happened even with the Fortreckers and others, where sometimes women have been called to do things that most men have never even attempted to do. What are the practical principles for protection? Well, in fact, even before we get to physical preparation, there's the mental, there's the emotional, and there's the spiritual. We're dealing with the mental preparation right here. you know, intellectual, scripture, facts, challenging our minds to think of can I be prepared for this, what can I do to make this situation, how can I survive that better, what do I need to pack in my kit or in my vehicle to be able to manage if I get caught in the mud and how do we dig ourselves out and all these sort of things you've got to think about. But before that there's the mental preparation. And this course is also trying to prepare for the emotional preparation, but there's also got to be spiritual preparation. The day came when I was arrested, imprisoned, thrown into soldier confines, taken off to interrogations, and I needed to be spiritually prepared at that point. And then all the books I'd read by Richard Wormbrant, Brother Andrew, Tortured for Christ, When Hell Was in Session by the Alabama senator, well he wasn't sent to then, sent to Jeremiah Denton. In fact, he supported us and sent a whole lot of his books and even the secretary came to work for our mission at one stage back in the 80s. Sent to Jeremiah Denton's book. I read that book just before I went into prison and the insights of how they survived imprisonment and torture was just at the right time. It was really important. Because up till then I'd always thought in terms of fighting, winning, never thought that I'd ever be a helpless victim defenseless, handcuffed, chained, hooded and thrown into stinking cells and waterboard and all that. I wasn't mentally prepared for that because I always thought I'll never be captured. What happened to me? I'll fight. But I got caught in a position where I had no options And then all of those experiences of others suddenly came to the fore to enable me to handle something I never had considered that I might need to be prepared for. Philippians 4, 12-13, the Apostle Paul says, I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That means even what you think you cannot do. Now God won't give you the grace for something you don't need before you need it. He gives you the grace when you need it. I did not have the grace to be a prisoner a moment before I was. But when I was, God gave the grace. For that matter, I didn't feel very ready for being a parent. In fact, I was very unprepared. I'm the youngest in my family. There was no one younger than me. My oldest sister's 17 years older than me and my other sister's 10 years older than me. I'm the light blomicky. My brother's five years older than me. I never had a younger anything to care for. So when it came to parenthood, I was in a state of almost paralysis and shock like a rabbit caught in the headlights. I didn't feel ready. I was convinced I'd be a terrible parent because I felt nothing. towards my coming child yet. My wife is all exuberant looking forward to this and I'm just feeling so guilty because I'm just feeling nothing but dread. But the second Andrea was born and I held in my arms all her love poured in and God gave me the grace when I needed it. He didn't give it to me beforehand, but he gave it to me when I needed it. And Corrie Tenbrough speaks about the fact that her father gave her the ticket for the train just before she boarded the train. before, and that's true. God gives us what we need when we need it. So don't worry about, will I have what it takes? Yes you will, but if you can do more mental and emotional spiritual preparation beforehand, it'll help. But God is sufficient for every circumstance. The will to win, the determination and resilience and fighting spirit is basic to survival. Examples. There are cases of, for example, a US Air Force fighter pilot who through an air accident had to use his ejector seat and he was in the Arctic Circle area so he was in really, really, really cold conditions and he landed but he's got the protective gear, yes he landed in the water but they've got the inflatable raft, he had all the tools on him, they knew his position, help was 20 minutes away and he shot himself. couldn't in his mind cope with the idea of being... he just had to survive 20 minutes in his freezing cold conditions. It wasn't impossible. And yet he didn't have the will to win. That's somebody who's had how many millions invested in him to be a fighter pilot. You can have people who've got the best of everything and they give up. I've seen it. And then you've got other people who think he doesn't have a chance. And that's a person who often succeeds. You can't predict just from outward things. But the will to win is more important than the tools and the technology and having the right things on your belt. I mean, that's not as important as the right attitude, the survival instinct and the fighting instinct. Romans 8, 35-37. The Apostle Paul says, neither trouble, nor hardship, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor dangerous thought. In all these things we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus who loved us. So it doesn't matter what is thrown at us. He covers just about everything. We can be more than conquerors. We don't. And that's the title of General Sean Mulder's book, Mir As Orvinos, More Than Conquerors. More than conquerors. Think of this, David, the shepherd, King was a conqueror. He could take down Goliath and a few thousand Philistines. But Jesus is more than a conqueror. He doesn't just kill his enemies. He can convert his enemy like Saul of Tarsus, but persecute and turn them into Paul the Apostle. That's more than a conqueror, when you can turn your enemies into your friends and your advocates. And we can do that. In our mission, we have a people trained in Patrish Lumumba University in Moscow, how to be terrorists, Thelimo terrorists, communists. converted to Christ and become field evangelists, couriers, smugglers for our mission. So, we've had the experience of seeing our enemies become our friends and allies. So, some of the security principles for missionary field workers. My first mission field was Mozambique, communist country. Here's Zhao, our top man in Mozambique during that time, a person who'd gone to Patricia Lumumba University, did a lot of our work behind the lines there. We equipped nobody under 18 allowed in the churches, they said, but as you can see, we had a few under 18s in the church. We had to walk long distances, bring the gospel to enemies, communists by the T-34s, and to friends like Ranaama, the anti-communist guerrillas in the killing fields of Mozambique. Going into Gola, which was often dug out canoe. Now that's not for us. It's a very narrow canoe. The canoe gets filled with the World Missionary Press, All Nations Gospel Publishers, Bibles. We swam alongside and saw that these got in the other side. And of course there are flat dogs around, mobile handbags. These crocs, they were there patrolling just to make sure that we all behaved ourselves. You've got to be very alert. Let me tell you, when you go into the water and you know there are crocodiles around there, it does make your skin tingle. And then there's marshes where we get lost and funnily enough this canoe came along and said, are you missionaries, can we help you? I mean who else would be wandering around the marshes trying to find out where we were meant to be going? This was actually frustrating because the marsh wasn't that big but we must have been going in circles because we weren't getting out of it. Hubie traps, landmines, To determine the level of threat, you must first gain the knowledge of your region's history and culture and build up relationships with the people. So what would we do before we were going to Mozambique, Angola, Sudan, war zones, communist or Muslim countries? First of all, of course, you read Operation World. about the country. Then you meet everyone you can possibly find who's been to that country. Speak to refugees, speak to missionaries who've been there. Sometimes I was going to an old age home, speaking to old missionaries who were there decades before, but that's information. And then I personally, because I'm comfortable doing it and I know the people in many cases. I'd always seek the military tasha of the local British or South African embassy in New York. So I'd go down to an embassy. You may think this is a bit strange but I think you as an American citizen or Canadian citizen might find you could do that too. I'd go along and I'd ask at the desk, can I speak to the Military Attaché please? And they'd never ask why because, you know, it's kind of, who wants to see the Military Attaché? They'd always come down a bit puzzled because it's rare as anything that the Military Attaché gets a visitor. And then he'd come down and I'd exchange a few names, you know, do you know so-and-so and so-and-so, oh yeah, Colonel van der Riet and Colonel Breitmark, yes, and so on. Before you know it, sitting down having tea, chatting to them. And then I'm going into sedan and What do you know about incidents? Pulls out his map, incident sheet. Well, there have been bombings here, and there have been ambushes there, and this road is definitely closed, and that bridge is out. You could get mountains of information for the military attaché. Why is he doing this? Just because, I mean, he doesn't get that much fellowship than normal day. And the military attachés are probably the loneliest people in any country, because there's almost nobody that even talks to them. They know what's going on in these countries. They keep up to date. And I'm a citizen, and if they feel some kind of link, because I know a lot of the same military people they do, and at any rate, I've got a lot of useful information that's saved a lot of time and lives. But then there's other things. Like when we had to go to Angola and Mozambique, we had to swim rivers. From southwest Africa into Angola, from Malawi into Mozambique, got to get across rivers. So position ourselves camouflaged up in the bush, binoculars and watch for a couple of days. The more days the better. And what we're doing around Newlands Forest is giving you a bit of an idea, but it's rushed. Correctly speaking, you'd spend not just hours, you'd spend days watching what's happening, who patrols, when do they patrol, what's on the other side, what movements is there, and you must move so they don't see you, so that you know the best time to go, which is always middle of the night, when everyone's sleeping, when even the guards are sleeping, when the patrols aren't working. So you've got to find information. Now, we've also got our contacts often from refugees. You go to a refugee camp, I do evangelism in refugee camps. The last place I went in Kenya, before I went into Sudan, was the Red Cross Hospital in Noka Chokya. 280 patients all came from all over Sudan. They'd lost legs and so on and come in for different operations. And these people, new people, they all came from different places and all had information. And some of them had come just a week before. So they could get very up-to-date information, what was going on where. And of course, they would then say, if you get to this village, speak to Sansei, he's my uncle, and my cousin's the mayor, and my uncle or cousin is the pastor, and all of this helps. Big questions you've got to ask. Who might want to mount an attack against our mission? long list actually, Muslims, Communists, Pimps, KGB, Pinker position. Why am I to do it? Some people do it for robbery, sometimes retaliation, sometimes it's riots, ransom, faction fighting, tribal fighting. We've got into trouble simply for supporting one tribe. Not that we mean to. You go into South Sudan, you work amongst the Moro people, you work amongst the Bari people, you work amongst the Zandi people, and we think we're helping the South Sudanese. But the Dinka at one point had us arrested. We're saying, well what are you doing for us? And he told them, that's for the buddies, the Zandi and the Moro. What are you doing for us Dinka? Well we hadn't been in Dinka land before. We didn't have any friends in Dinka land. And so the Dinkas saw us as enemies because we were helping other Trumps, we weren't helping them. I mean, you may not think this sounds too believable, but there's 27 tribes in South Sudan. There's 50 tribes in the Nuba Mountains. There's 144 language groups in the Sudan. This is complex. There's over 480 in Nigeria. This makes things very complex. Indonesia is worse. There's 1,300 tribes and language groups in Indonesia. So, you know, when people say we have a mystery in Indonesia, that doesn't necessarily solve the problem. So tribal infection fighting, you can get caught up in it. We, myself and the bishop we supported, ended up locked up by the Dinka, with them threatening to have us shot, because they saw us as supporting their tribal enemies. Even though they were all on the safe side fighting the Arabs. You can read some of that in the Arrested and Gay chapter in Faith and Defiance in the Handbook. So what are the likely targets of attack? Your supplies, they want your food, they want your fuel, they want the medicines, there's a whole lot of things they want. Your vehicles, yes, we've had vehicles stolen. Personnel, sometimes they want to get at some of your personnel because they're the wrong tribe, just to kill or kidnap them for different reasons. So, there's all sorts of problems. You might think, I'm going there to help the people, that doesn't mean you're not a target. So how might the attack be carried out? Well, as it happens, the most dangerous time for any missionary is when he's travelling. The only death we've ever had in our mission, in our 35 years of operations, is on the road. Anthony Duncan's picture is on the wall. He's a brave, hard-working missionary. He was only 28 years old when he died. He succeeded in smuggling Bibles and medicines across the border into Angola during the war there, helping the persecuted Christians in free Angola in the south. And the team was arrested, ambushed, captured, vehicle destroyed. They were locked up. And we had to put pressure on the Zambian government to put pressure on the Angolan government to put pressure on the Namibian government to let them out. And praise God, all that did happen. And then he died in a head-on collision on the way back. exhausted, sick, coming back from prison experience and travelling through the night. You're most vulnerable when you're travelling. At one point the entire operation mobilisation team, the leader and the entire mission team for Sudan died in a vehicle accident on the mountains, the Jebels, in Sudan. A Kombi went over the edge of the cliff and in it was OM's total knowledge and information and context and experience of Sudan in one vehicle. That happens. One of the greatest Muslim evangelists I know of, Uli Lehman, he died driving through the night from Zimbabwe, had an accident on the road in Zimbabwe, late at night, he shouldn't have been driving through the night, it's dangerous roads, and the man was in his forties. Wife and children back at home, It wasn't wise but vehicle accidents account for most missionary losses. We lose far more missionaries to vehicle accidents than we do to persecution, bombing, terrorism, Islam and so on. And you know that was true in the South African army too. Colonel Breitenbach said he lost more reconnaissance commando soldiers, that's the top special forces, best of the best of South African army. He lost more of them to vehicle accidents off duty, going home and passing and so on than he did to enemy action. And they were involved in the heaviest of the heaviest attacks. Make no mistake, travelling by vehicle is when you're most vulnerable, including to ambush, but accidents as well. Armed robbery, hostage taking, most likely when you're travelling. They prefer to get you when you're out of your mission station. Where you're most vulnerable? In your vehicle. When you're most vulnerable? When you're travelling. Always true. So SWOT analysis. Determine your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. SWOT. We do it regularly in our mission. You should do it personally. You should do it in any mission or operational church. What are your strengths? Build on them. What are your weaknesses? Strengthen them. What are your opportunities? Use them. What are your threats? Make provisions to counter. Be aware of threat indicators, cold harsh stares from military or local population indicates something's wrong here. Hostile graffiti, you know, death to all Americans written on the side of your mission compound would not be a good sign. Harassment at the border posts, hmm. why they're harassing at the checkpoints and so on. Open anger, pilfering and theft by staff could be because they know your base is going to go soon, they're going to lose their job anyway so they're starting to pilfer now because when the soldiers come and take everything there won't be much left for them so they're starting to get their hands on your equipment. Suddenly you see a whole lot of equipment missing. That's happened. We've seen all this happen as well. Exterior decorating by Mohammed and Sons. Your home too can look like this. RPG's make those big holes, 8K's make these small holes and then the 12.7mm's make the big holes. Travelling in the bush, often all you've got is a sleeping bag, ground sheets to keep the dual fuel, the rain if it's there, ration packs, backpack and so on. And that's the way I travelled in and out of the border areas and in Shangri-La and working with the United Freedom Fighters, that was home. So security when you're traveling. Most security incidents happen during travel. Always know exactly where you're going and plan accordingly. Radiate confidence but be discreet and unassuming. Don't be provocative when you confront with hostility. We've had some people with us. Be super aggressive. I mean my own brother I saw him headbutt people several times in Sudan and Kenya who caused trouble and sort of wham, knock the guy to the ground and punch people to the ground because of them being rude or aggressive in some ways. Whereas I never found the need to do it, you can normally talk your way out of these situations. Sometimes we have some people being really bad. One of our chaps, he came from Brittany, he's a British SAS character and he was aggro. He was in prison with us up in Zambia and Why was he bad? And he caused so much trouble, and we praise God that they separate him. They assumed he was the leader, thankfully, and they put him in a different prison. So Rob, an Australian SAS chap, and another chap from Britain, Chris and I, we were on one group, and this other Brit was thrown into another prison, which was just as well, because he would be every day doing his karate kata moves, and everyone could just see this guy's military. He was not giving the right impression of the team. We were preaching, we were evangelizing, we were counseling, and the message from three of us on the team was one message, and the message from the other chap was just, this man's aggressive. That's not good, because a soft answer turns away a lot. Violence isn't the answer to most situations. Sometimes it's the only answer. But most times you can talk your way out of it with a calm demeanor. Be alert to the possibility of confrontation with individuals or groups. It's what you call situational awareness. You're meant to be aware of what's going on around you to 360 degrees. You should know what's going on. The people in the Air Force speak about your six. Watch your six. What does that mean? If you think of an old clock, forget the digital ones, and you've got right in front of you is your twelve. Twelve o'clock, one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock. Six is your So, watch your six means watch your back. And, you know, they might say, in fact, I've done combat shooting with a blind man, Brent Noble, and we'd go through combat range, and my job was, you know, as we were going along, you know, ten o'clock low, five o'clock high, and so on, and he'd swivel and take out those targets at the... I must say, going through combat sequence with a blind chap is quite a challenge, but he was good. I mean, he knew what he was doing. He was excellent. But you must be alert to what's going on around you. Is that person a potential threat? What's going on? You've got to continually be aware of what's happening around you. Keep your valuables out of sight. If they see, and what do they want mostly? Phones. People who walk around on a cell phone are asking to be attacked. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. One IT person a couple of years ago, Brendan, was stabbed 15 or was it 16 times in the neck with a screwdriver? and he was on his phone at Musenberg station waiting for what was surely a set-up. Somebody had organised it because he's looking for a house and he's meant to meet the person on the railway and he's trying to get hold of the person but he doesn't have his back against the wall, he's not aware of what's behind him and this person comes up right behind, stabs him multiple times. And that wasn't even necessary. You know, Brendan, you could have just said, hand over your phone, he would have handed over the phone. He wasn't going to fight them. It was totally malicious. but that can happen. People on their cell phone are zoned out of what's going on and they're vulnerable and there's noise and if you've got your earphones in then you're totally zoned out and completely vulnerable to someone coming up from behind you won't even hear them and they'll take you down, steal, whatever. So keep your valuables out of sight, and that especially includes your phone. If you've ever got to answer your phone in public, move to a position where at least your back's against the wall. Don't stand in the middle of a marketplace or railway station while you're talking on the phone. And never, ever, ever, ever, ever go outside with earphones and listening to something. Then you're completely and utterly vulnerable to anything. Generally make copies of your passport, driver's license, identity documents, air tickets, things like that that you might need, including cards that you might have if it gets stolen, that you know the numbers when you phone them to cancel or put a hold on them. File a copy at head office, I mean this has happened before, people have been in this field, they've lost everything, problem there, and we could organise things sent, we could provide information and backup. When I was captured, On both occasions, in Mozambique and in Zambia back in the 80s, our mission was able to, within hours of our arrest, be mobilizing not just the embassies, but mobilizing the media in order to get pressure to prepare that we would ultimately be released. I mean, all of these things are important. Also, when we went out on dangerous particular things like Malawi, we were going from a common mission station into Mozambique for day missions, and so we said to them, if we're not back by nightfall, then we've been captured from Mr Lotar Mission Headquarters. We were captured for a couple of days before they alerted our mission base. They should have done it and my instructions were explicit. If we're not back as the sun sets, then we are captured. must immediately activate our contingency plans. They thought oh well maybe they've had a breakdown and they waited days and every day was desperate. I mean it got worse and worse that scenario so unfortunately our hosts didn't take us seriously enough and they took too many delays in signing along. Fortunately our first arrest in Zambia our people knew within somewhere four hours You should carry your original documents on your person. You can't afford to lose them. You've got to have them on your person. When you go in the shower in your campsite or whatever, you have got to have your identity documents on with you on the inside of the shower. You don't leave them in your tent or under your sleeping bag or anything like that. It's important to always be conscious that there are a lot of thieves out there and they seek targets. Anybody travelling, missionaries are targets. They love to steal from us. If you're travelling on taxis, trains, buses, decide on a fare before you get in, because otherwise they can charge you anything when you get off. You can negotiate before you get onto the bus or taxi, you can't negotiate once you've gotten off. Then, I mean, they can make the price whatever they want. So, get that clear. If you are in a place you don't know, like John was up in Egypt recently, and you need the taxi or whatever to get you someplace, it's good to have written on a card your address and so on in the language, which in that case is Arabic, and if you don't speak Arabic you need at least French or Portuguese as the case may be, wherever you are, so that somebody can guide you there and help you. Don't accept sweets or food from strangers, you will wake up with all your possessions gone. In Lonely Planet, which is one of the travel document things that you look through, it's a secular group but they have it somewhere in every country, and they've got an interesting story there in Sudan on these folks who knew that it was dangerous in Sudan, a lot of theft, talking about northern Sudan in particular, and so they slept inside their Land Rover, with the windows slightly open, because they knew it was a bit too dangerous to put tents out here. They woke up with the sun high in the air and they had a headache. Next thing you saw, everything's gone. All their clothes, backpacks, everything. Money, shoes, whatever, what they were sleeping on, everything's gone. They literally have underwear and that's it. They were stripped. What happened was the Arabs pumped gas into their vehicle through the open window so that they'd be totally unconscious and then they literally could take everything and these people were completely zoned out. That happens. It really does. And being offered sweets and so on, it can be drugged so that you're knocked out again so that they can do what they want. So in any hostel, hotel, guest room, secure the doors. If it doesn't have locks, use a chair, suitcase, whatever you can, but I mean, you can't have it that you wake up with a knife at your throat. You want to have security in your place. It happens. If you're in a high-rise building, it's best not to be on the first floor because it's too easy to access. It's best not to be above the seventh floor because the fire brigade can't help you on the seventh floor. They don't have a ladder going that high. So anywhere between second and seventh floor is best. Be alert to the possibility of being followed to your room. I've had this a number of times. Hungary, Nigeria, had these people follow me to the rooms and they are wanting to try and grab you in different ways. They're looking for a foreigner. They think, you know, easy money. They'll steal your passports, whatever. So, on all of these routes, when we're going into Angola, This was the Land Rover that got wiped out in 1994 with Anthony Duncan's team on the way back and ambushing. There's a lot of things you can say about what's gone there but let me move into Q&A time. Tomorrow night I'll continue with security and survival but as we're approaching our departure time for the radio we have a few minutes. Any questions on security, survival, preparedness? Preparing for the unexpected. Is it good to, for instance, you're heading towards someone, is it good to tell them I'm coming, expect me from so-to-so time? That is good. If they're trusted people, they're your hosts, your contacts, fellow missionaries, evangelists, local church leaders, yes, it helps. In fact, they might even tell you, well, whatever, you don't come down that route, you know, rather use the alternative, because they know what's going on. That definitely helps. John, anything you'd add on some of these points? A few things. It's helpful if you're in a country where you don't know the local language to have the phone number of somebody who can translate for you over the phone. Like when I was in an Arabic-speaking country, I was riding in a taxi and the taxi driver didn't understand a word of English. I was trying to I told him where I wanted to go, I thought I knew the Arabic word, but obviously I didn't. And so I just phoned up somebody who understood English and Arabic, and I got a letter. I said, please tell the taxi driver ABCD, and she spoke to him on the phone. And he looked at me and, yes, okay. So that's helpful. And it's always helpful to have as many contact details as you can of of your host, whether it's their cell phone numbers and email addresses and all these things. One guy, I didn't have his cell phone number, but I had his email address, which also happened to be his Apple ID. Because I had an iPhone, I could phone him using his email address, and I could actually get out of a Not a dangerous situation, but an awkward situation. So you're having lots of contact details of people that should be very, very helpful. We did not have anything resembling any of that when we started. Satellite phones came about at some point which became very useful and we carried a satellite phone which got us out of some monumentally serious situations. We once organised a rescue when we were imprisoned and in a rainstorm, missionary aviation flew in a rainstorm, landed through puddles in the airstrip and we escaped in the middle of a monsoon type rain. They flew us out where the bishop and I were meant to be shot in the morning. Our satellite phone, which they hadn't found, made all the difference. We couldn't have organised our escape without the satellite phone. Now you can have roving on your cell phones and we've had missionaries in Sudan even having enough cell phone connection to be able to work. So that of course needs a better kind of phone than the average one that I'm carrying. but now we've got a lot better communication systems. We use shortwave radio quite a lot in the field, a lot, and in fact we had a system where you could send emails by shortwave radio, and that's a very good system too. you need to have multiple levels of communication. We'd have walkie-talkies between our team in the same area, we'd have shortwave radio between the vehicles and the bases, and then you'd need satellite phones to be able to communicate also with the flights to get you in and out. When we're in an Uber, we need both shortwave and satellite phones, because sometimes one was better than the other. But communications is critical. In some of these places without communications, you're really just up to your own devices and wires. So if you want outside help, hot extraction, you've got to be able to give them, and we were able to give GPS's and all that, to get people like Missionary Aviation Fellowship willing to come in and fly you out. They come in with their little six-seater and four-seater planes. They can land in a football field size. And it's very, very nice to know that you've got support like that. Another thing is not to be too trusting, even with your hosts. Don't share information that you don't need to. Like when we're in Zimbabwe, we don't even tell our hosts really where the next place and next place and next place is going to be. Even if we trust our hosts, they might They might announce, oh we have John Clifford and let's pray for him because he's going to this place, that place, the next place. He might just slit his tongue. And you really don't want that. I showed the video clip of the deliverance, and we confronted that situation in a face-to-face kind of way, but we didn't know who was in the congregation. All you need is somebody with friends in high places to make your life a living hell in a place like Zimbabwe. I could have trusted them beforehand and said, I'm going to this place, before I even knew that they were into sketchy practices and we confronted them. So just be careful with the kind of information that you're sharing. You've got some trouble with people leaking information quite a few times. Seriously. Bill Bathman, who spent over 67 years as a missionary, most of that to Eastern Europe, helping persecuted churches, communist world. Bill Bathman explains how they had to communicate to protect the persecuted church in Europe. And he mentions, for example, how When he started, even before he was East European, he was smuggling Bibles to Spain, which in the 1950s, Catholic country, concordat with Vatican, no Bibles allowed. Christians were getting murdered. I mean, the Inquisition was still operational in Spain in the 1950s. And he saw people killed there. So, they were having a report back on a mission to Spain in some out of the way little, who knows what, Swindon or something, some little place in England. The military attache of the Spanish Embassy in England drove all the way there, somehow found out about this, and sitting at the back, took all the details down and managed to identify Christians and Protestants in an underground church in Spain and got them arrested. The Spanish Secret Service was brilliant. And then there was a time, Bill Baffin and several of the, there were a whole lot of missions to Persky Church, you know, Richard Gormbrandt's group, Brother Andrew and so on, They were all working together, and Bill Bethlen actually provided the support base for many of them, if not all of them, they all came through Salzburg at some stage, and they were a key part of the network. In one year, eight vehicles were intercepted and confiscated, and the Bibles confiscated. Eight in one year. And as they did their, what do you call it, your debrief post-mortem of what went wrong, they came out that all of those vehicles had been used to pick up the Bibles at the London British and Foreign Bible Society office. And there was a very helpful young man who would help them carry out the materials to the vehicle and see them off. And an investigation found that that chap was a KGB agent working for the British and Foreign Bible Society, which is intelligent. If you want to catch Bible smugglers, what do you do? You have some... Who does security clearance at a Bible Society? I had the Bible Society in Blantyne betray my key contact into Malawi because he came with and when the CIO were looking after me, looking to catch us, they went to the Bible Society, has a Peter Hammond coming? Yes, in fact these days. What do you order? Oh, well, you know, and I came up with so many of this. So they knew the languages, they knew where I was going and who was with them? Do you have his address? Yes. Well, let's look this up. When I came back, this poor man who had done several missions with me, he wouldn't even come to the door. His wife had to go to tell me he couldn't see any more people who had come to see him from Zimbabwe. He threatened his life. He can't have anything more to do with us. That came from the Bible study. So I've had that, Bill Bathurst has had that, Open Doors has had that. Don't think that even the Bible study can't be infiltrated. I mean, think of how strategic that was. and they nailed and they crippled. Most missions can't afford losing a vehicle. Eight vehicles lost amongst multiple missions in one year.