Welcome back to the Word for Life broadcast. I'm Pastor Ken Keltner and filling in for Pastor Greg who's not with us today. And in our studio we have a wonderful guest who's part of our missionary family at Brookside, Pastor Keith South, his wife Donna, they've been with us ministering to us and been part of our missionary family here at Brookside for for some time, and we're just delighted to have you, Keith, and thanks for taking a little time to share your heart a little bit here on the radio, and we talked last time about how God was working in your life to draw you to Himself, and we kind of left off about family, so why don't you just tell us a little bit about your family right now? Well, Donna and I, we were blessed with four boys, and ranges from now about 30 to 21. And it was probably about when our oldest boy, Glenn, was 14, and I think it went down to about six. We'd been in the ministry there for about five years in Nephi and just wasn't seeing anything take place. It was cold, it was unresponsive, but the Lord did a great work in my heart by striking my wife with breast cancer, stage four. The doc didn't give us a whole lot of hope. And so I had the privilege of going back home and telling our boys about their mom. And we have our second son, Jeff, who's in the ministry with us now out there in Nephi. And I just basically told them that the doc said mom was really sick and it didn't look really good. And there was a possibility that she might have to go see Jesus. And my son, Jeff, said, well, then we need to pray. And from that point on, we gave that over to God, and the ministry began to really pop. It was an amazing thing to see, but I think it was mainly my heart. I was probably trying it all on my own, and my own strength and abilities. When that challenge came into our lives, I backed way off and concentrated on her and her needs and the boys, and God did the rest. And He basically taught me, look, you do your part, which isn't very much, and I'll do the heavy lifting, and I'll take it. And you know, a lot of times people think, well, if you're in ministry or you're a pastor, surely you might go through trials with people. some of those personal, deep struggles like that, you know, sometimes you're not that familiar with. But really, I remember what A.W. Tozer said, he said, God doesn't use a man until he breaks him deeply. And it sounds like, you know, through Donna, that that's what God was doing there in your life. How's Donna doing now? Well, her oncologist, based on her prognosis from the very beginning, was one of a very straightforward shooter, which we appreciated. And he basically told her and I that he would never call her cured, but that we would continue to check. And so far, you know, she's 15 years out now, and there has not been any blips on the radar, so to speak, since then. I can only imagine, you know, even with the boys there going through that time of struggle and, God, how are you working? What are you doing in my life? Was there a passage of Scripture or was there anything there, you know, that you picked up from the Lord besides the fact when you said, I think I was trying to do ministry out of my own flesh and I had to rely upon God and let Him do the heavy lifting? Anything that comes to your mind that you can think of that was a passage that God was using in your life? You quoted it in your message. Job 23.10. Yes, where he knows the way we take, and when he has tried us, when he has brought us to the point where he wants us, then we shall come forth as gold. You know, a lot of people look at that story of Job and think, how could a man who had all of that happen to him just, you remember, it was just a succession of boom, boom, you know, your family's gone, your livelihood's gone, you know, your health is gone, you've lost your kids. And he said, the Lord gives and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord. And people think, man, he didn't have any emotion through that. Well, you keep reading for seven days and nights, he wept his eyes out. And there is heavy emotion in those times and a total dependence and a trust on God. I mean, he's the only one that we can lean on in those times. And I'm sure when you say God did some heavy lifting for you, we probably don't have enough time to even go through all of the situations where you saw God doing something to help you get through the next day. It was completely miraculous. Donna was such a trooper, and she is definitely today, if you ask our boys, she's our hero, because she was always there and trying to encourage and turn our eyes and hearts to the Lord and trusting in Him. And that's not to say there weren't times we cried ourselves to sleep and, you know, wept and tried to plan for if she wasn't going to be there. And so it was definitely a difficult time in our lives, but it was a time that we really, as we look back, we thank the Lord for it because we really needed it. And she is an upbeat person. I mean, I guess I could be safe to say you didn't marry Milk Toast. I mean, she is a go-getter as a go-getter can be. And I talked to ladies who are mothers of boys and Kathy and Donna, the mother of four boys, they have a little bit of the same personality. They are go-getters. I always look at mothers of boys, and I said, man, you're tough. And they always look at me and go, we're tough, but we're tired. Boys can worry you out. So when you got this news, I guess my question would be, how did the boys respond to that? Well, the younger two were just that. They were pretty young, six and eight. And they knew what sick meant, and they both at that point had trusted Jesus for their salvation, and so they knew that if Mom went to see Jesus, that meant she wasn't going to be in the home. But I think that was probably about the extent. Our kids left it, but now the older two were more concerned, were more apt to check on Mom and, how are you doing? and try to help serve her. You know, during the chemo and the radiation, the doctors were wonderful. They took an extremely aggressive path. So she was on that 21-day regimen, and the boys, they would wait on Mom, and they would thank her for taking care of them, and they saw it as just a great thing to do. And so it was good to see them respond that way. You're listening to the Word for Life broadcast, and I'm Pastor Ken Keltner with Brookside Baptist Church, and we have Keith South with us. He's part of our missionary family here at Brookside. Let me just say, if you don't have a church family, we'd love for you to come by and visit with us here at Brookside, but Keith and Donna South, part of our mission's family, we had him in to share about the ministry there in Nephi, Utah. He's the pastor of First Baptist Church in Nephi, been there 20 years, sharing with us this morning more of the personal nature with his family and Donna coming down with cancer and the battle through that and that was 15 years ago and how the boys, a mother of four boys, and responded and how the boys responded to that. Why don't you, here in the time we have left, Keith, just tell us a little bit about what the boys are doing and what God's been doing there in their life. Well, we have our oldest son, Glenn. He struggles with some mental illness issues, and appreciate you praying for him. He has these ups and down days, and again, this is something the Lord's decided to take us through, that He's teaching us a lot about that. But he is able to live somewhat independently on his own, not fully, but he's doing pretty good right now. Jeff, our next boy, he's in the ministry with us. He's our associate pastor for a little while longer anyway. He's way too smart to stick with us. So there'll be a church grab him one of these days. God'll lead them to somewhere. And then Bradley, he is over in South Carolina, married a wonderful girl, as did Jeff. And Jeff has given us three beautiful grandbabies. But Brad and his wife Blair, Blair's finishing one more year at BJ. for a nursing degree, and he's studying, and on his path is orthopedic surgery. So he's studying for his MCATs right now. And then our youngest son, Doug, he is getting ready to graduate from Clearwater Christian College, and he's in athletic training, and he wants to go into a doctor of physical therapy, sports rehab. So I've got the best of both worlds as I get older. I've got one boy that's going to fix me and the other one's going to rehab me back to health. And I told them they owed me. Yeah, I'm sure you had plenty of black and blue love marks growing up because they were all boys. And Doug, as we were talking, I guess Doug's been even doing some things with the Tampa Bay football team there. What an opportunity God's given him. And he has been on the training staff with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the last year. It was just going to be a summer worth of OTAs and rookie camp, but that's turned into several contract re-ups, and he's been able to stay there for a year now. Now, I know you have a camp outside of Nephi. Camp Utipica. Camp Utipica. I've been up there several times with you. And would you say that getting the boys, I mean, they were right there with you in ministry all the way through. And then when you went up to camp, you would stay up there kind of almost a whole month of July, wouldn't you? Yes. That's camp month. That's camp month. And I know the boys jumped in there and helped. And Jeff, I think, has even been the camp director. Yes. As they were able to get involved, I mean, did you watch them really grow through that process, you know, spiritually in their own life as they're ministering and serving? It was an amazing thing to see what God did in their lives on the mission field. You know, on our mission field, we're in the extreme minority in our town, and there's just no close friends they ever had. It was just themselves. And as they grew older, it became more frequent. So through high school, it was almost a daily or weekly basis where they were just explaining and defending their faith. Yeah, because they were at the public high school, right? Right. We homeschooled them, but they played public high school sports and had football players and wrestlers. And it was just a unique opportunity. But it was an opportunity where it actually drew them closer to one another. They're each other's best friends because of that. And, you know, we knew that when they grew up and left, that they would probably you know, say sayonara to the mission field, but one of the biggest blessings we've had since they've all got up and got busy was every one of them wants to come back home. And we are stunned, but we are very, very thankful that Lord has knit those hearts together with ours and with just that love and just burden for that area. You know, we might have some listeners who might be saying, oh man, I have boys and we're going through a rough time with them right now. You know, my advice would be, hey, get in church, be faithful in church, and when you have opportunities, send them to camp, retreats, missions, trips, let them get involved with that. I mean, let them get to a place where they're serving. I mean, would you have any other advice you might give to, you know, a dad or a mom listening today going, oh man, I'm struggling with my boys. Without knowing the exact situation, I would just really encourage mom and dad to be the Christian God saved them to be, and just be that example, and be consistent, and no compromise, you know, where you have to stand firm. But just love them and let them know that, and let them know you're fallible. And you know, teens, the one thing teens really don't respect is when they see hypocrisy in the home, and it's hard to live the Christian life at home. Yes. Keith, good to have you with us again. I'm Pastor Ken Keltner with Brookside Baptist Church, and we'll have another opportunity to spend some time with our missionary Keith South, so please tune in and finish listening to our broadcast with Keith.