Welcome to Always Abounding. This podcast will encourage you as a believer to continue on and always abound in the work of the Lord. Now your host, Keith Stensis. And welcome once again to our podcast, Always Abounding. This is your host, Brother Keith Stensis, here in Eaton, Ohio. We've been here for the last couple of weeks enjoying the holidays with our family, and what a joy and blessing it has been being able to do that, spending some time with my parents. as well as my brother and his family, as well as our son and daughter-in-law, Shane and Rachel, and our wonderful, beautiful, amazing grandchildren. We're so excited to be around here with them and just spending some time with them. This will be actually the last time that we're with them before we go back to Uganda. So we're trying to take advantage of the time and opportunities we have here with them And but it has just been a joy and blessing to be able to be here. It's amazing. I'm so excited to see what God is doing through my younger brother Andrew and the ministry that is going along here and how this church is growing and They're in their new building and already their building is getting full. And so I am excited about how things are abounding here at the First Baptist Church in Eaton, Ohio. And by the way, last report I got, there was some misunderstanding. You know, in our last podcast, I had mentioned that that my brother Andrew and his wife Jackie were pastoring the church here, and then I apologized for that, and that she was not pastoring. And then she informed me the other day that she really is one of the co-pastors here, and so pray for Pastor Jackie and Pastor Andrew as they lead the church here in Eaton, Ohio. I'm joking, I'm joking, that is not really the truth. Thank you, Jackie, for listening to the podcast. If there's no other reason for you to listen, it's just to give you a hard time, amen? But anyway, no, we've had a great time here and just had a good Christmas holiday and spending time with friends and family here. And it has just been a blessing. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse number 58, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." And for sure it is not in vain. I'm so grateful, I'm so thankful for what God is doing and the opportunities that are just endless that we have to serve the Lord and have a great opportunity to please Him. him. Boy I tell you the weather has been just wonderful here in Ohio. We've been the last few days it has been up in the 50s and so it has been a heat wave up here and they tell me that this coming weekend it is supposed to snow and so that is code for it is time to get out of Dodge and so we are leaving Not because of that, it just, the timing was perfect, but we are leaving and going, of all places, we are going down to Florida. And so we'll be in Florida for the first couple of weeks there in January. So we got some meetings down there. Then Lord willing, we'll be heading up to Missouri and Nebraska. We'll be up at Brother Mark Bentley's there in Omaha, Nebraska, Midwestern Baptist Church. And then we'll be heading back down the end of January to Texas, and we'll be in Texas until we leave out of the United States in March. And so your prayers on our behalf would be greatly, greatly appreciated. as we finalize this furlough. And so I am sitting here drinking a nice cup of coffee and really, really enjoying it. I had a great time with my oldest son, Shane. We took him out for coffee this morning, had a great talk together and so appreciate him and what he's doing here. It is just amazing and again when I when I see my son and I see what he's doing here at the church as far as leading songs and leading choir and and Doing all the sound system and and all the media and the IT stuff that's going on here I just sit back and say you know what that's God's grace because he did not get any of that from his dad I don't know where he got that from But that is God's grace in his life. And so it is a blessing to be able to see him and just spend some time with him. And so I am in the offices here at the First Baptist Church and getting ready to do this podcast. And so I'm excited about that. Just to give you an update on what is happening in Uganda, this last week has been busy. I've been on the phone pretty much nonstop and things are moving along very, very well there in Uganda in regards to a few of our churches. And again, just because we're on furlough does not mean the work does not continue there in Uganda. And God has just blessed me with some great men in Uganda that are helping me do the work. And two of those men, Brother Dungu Charles and Brother Wambale Robert, I tell you, they are just phenomenal men and helping me out tremendously doing the work there. And Brother Robert Wambale has just been a tremendous asset to the ministry. But so I've been back and forth on the phone with him this week because we have finally got things settled as far as our church in Lucaya regarding the land situation there. Remember that we were praying about the land and God provided the money for it and we were able to sell the piece of land that we were on and combine that with an offering that was given by one of our churches there in Modesto, California, Pastor Tim Benefield, and their church gave us an offering towards that land. And so we were finally able to get all of that finalized. The land is ours. And so we praise the Lord for that. And of course I was here, but they were able to send me some WhatsApp pictures and videos of what is going on there. And so we're excited about that. And the owner of the, and this is another blessing, the owner of the existing place where we've been meeting, has given us six months before we have to vacate the property. And so that gives us some time to start digging the pit latrine on the new property and start collecting bricks and things of that nature so that we can start putting up a new building on that new property there in Lukaia, Word of Life Baptist Church. And so that is a great praise to the Lord. I'm so thankful, so thankful for what God has provided there. And pray for Pastor Biaquaso. Anytime you start into a new phase of ministry like this, a building program or whatever it might be, a lot of wisdom is needed. And so just pray for Pastor Robert Biaquaso and his family as we start developing this land and look to putting a new church building on that piece of land. Also, we've been able to find a piece of land out in Metete. And so Brother Robert went out there to look at that. And so we're continuing to pray that God will provide for that piece of land. It's a great piece of land we found out there. And so we're excited about that and excited about what God's gonna open up the door there. And so pray for Pastor Sebanja Henry as he gets ready to work with that. And as we finalize things on that, we found the land, it's all there. We're finalizing the paperwork on that and so pray for the church out there in Metete. And then also pray for our churches in Chasenia and also Chivunza, as those two churches in Chasenia, they need a piece of land. And again, the owner of that land is kind of waffling, if that is a good word for it, on the price. And so pray that he settles on a price so we might be able to get a piece of land for our church there in Chasenia. And then lastly, just pray for the paperwork to be finalized on the church land that we bought there on the islands, in the Sese Islands there in Chivunza. And so pray that God gives us provision and wisdom there as well. So things are happening there and continuing to, we're getting ready to have our Triennial Bible Institute there. So pray for Pastor Paul Saranjogi. As he leads that, all of our men, leaders from our different churches in the villages will be coming in for the Tri-New Bible Institute and so excited about that. They're continuing their series of lessons on ministry preparation and so pray about that if you would as it continues to move along there. Well, let's get right into the lesson today. And if you remember, and by the way, I've had lots of comments, positive comments, about the last podcast. We started this series, actually it's just a two-part series, on 10 Reasons Why Missionaries Leave the Field. And this was a lecture that was given by Brother Matt and Kathy Stallman, who is the director of Reading Beyond Borders, or Reaching Beyond Borders. there in Greenville, Missouri, and he gave this lecture at the Faith Baptist Church in Spring City, Tennessee, and I contacted him and asked for permission to put this on my podcast. I think there's just a lot of good truth, a lot of good principles that I think is a benefit to our pastors that are listening, church members that are listening, just trying to see the raw truth and the raw background that missionaries many times don't wanna talk about. And some things that churches and pastors need to be aware of as they work with, as they send out missionaries. And these things are just great, great Bible principles. And so I want to thank Brother Matt Stallman for giving me the permission to be able to do this. And so we're going to go to that today. And we looked at the first half of those in our last podcast. And by the way, if you have not listened to the last podcast, I would encourage you to stop this one right now. Go back and listen to the one right before this one. and then it will go right into the podcast that we have for today. And so let's get right into that. I'll be right back after he finishes up this lecture. And just to give you some final parting comments before we leave this podcast today. And so once again, here is Brother Matt and Kathy Stallman giving a lecture at the Faith Baptist Church, Spring City, Tennessee, and they're talking about 10 reasons why missionaries leave the field. Let's listen as they finish this lecture today. you get to the mission field, you're going to have to find a family and say, look, let's drop the pretense. We don't agree on everything, but I need you. And take a humble position and just say, let's let our families love and fellowship with each other and to be able to come back from the battle and have a rest together. Missionary conflict has to be dealt with. We're trying our best to deal with that, but it's still a major, major issue that we're dealing with. Anything on that? All right, so number six would be this, marriage problems. Now, I already talked about moral failure, moral problems. That's not what I'm talking about here. Moral failures might be a byproduct of marriage problems, but marriage problems is something completely different as far as everyone has marriage problems. I hate to break that news to you single people. Everyone has marriage trouble. So, everyone has trouble with everything. I don't know if you've ever noticed that. You ever have trouble on the job? You ever have trouble at church? You have trouble with children? You have trouble at marriage? Does the Bible not say, a spark flies upwards so man is born into trouble? When we said, I do, we invited a lot of trouble. I tell you, there's one thing the devil hates. He hates our marriage. He hates us loving each other. Out of all of the pictures of Christ I see in the scripture, the most The greatest expression of that is Ephesians chapter number five, as Christ loved the church, right? So love your wives as Christ loved the church. If the devil can drive a wedge between us and I'm not demonstrating love and nobody can see that love, then it blinds people to the love of Christ because it's one of the greatest expressions I have. So don't be shocked when a missionary has marriage problems. Don't be shocked by that. I wouldn't be shocked if the best pastor I know in the world has marriage problems. So let's define this. What happens in our marriage? What happens in our marriage? Brother Dave and I were just talking about this. Only by pride come with contention. Only by pride come with contention. Guess what happens? One of us, or both of us, won't practice humility. You say, well, where does that humility start? Well, Christ loved the church, gave himself for it, right? Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the church. Who started the process of reconciliation? Who went looking for Adam in the garden? Who went to the cross? Why do you love him? Because he what? Because, all right, who started the process of reconciliation? This, I'm not giving you no blame ever, I'm just saying it's a man problem. It's my responsibility, I believe this, my responsibility to pursue reconciliation when things go wrong. So what did Christ do? Philippians chapter number two, he humbled himself. So if I have swelled up with pride, and I'm like, well, that woman needs to get right. Look, it might, there's times maybe it was her. Very few times probably that it was her. But there might be something that she did. But you know what? Who starts reconciliation? Look, she could do it, but I'm going to go after her. You know why? I got one shot at this, guys. I love her. I've got one marriage, one wife, one life. I'm going to have a blast. We're gonna make this thing happen. You see yeah, but she I know yeah He ever you ever walk out on Christ you ever do anything to hurt him you ever disappoint him You ever say something you ought not to have said to him. What did he do to you? Did he shut you off close you off emotionally or did he pursue you and reconcile you again? It's the ministry of reconciliation. There's this cycle where I Not gonna let the devil or something else ruined my home over my pride, I'm gonna go back and just keep pursuing. Now, can one person make a marriage work? Not really, not really. I can do my best, but she's gonna have to humble herself too. She's gonna have to forgive me when I hurt her. All right, so again, you guys know what I'm talking about, and you're living in a land of light. You're living in the land of amazing grace. You're living in a land where everybody at Walmart wearing a skirt, man. I mean, you're living in a land of Christians. Remove yourself and plant yourself in the darkest place and see what marriage problems come. The statistics will probably blow our mind, the amount of marriages on the mission field that are breaking apart. So when you talk to your missionaries, and you say, how you doing? And they're like, brother, it's great. We had three saved last week, and it's been good. Sunday school was good. Okay, but how you really doing? How can I pray for you? How's your kids doing? How's your wife? You guys, how is life for real? See, we're good with the facade. We can paint a really good picture, and here's why. And this is part of the failure of where we're at in missions. Do you understand our livelihood is completely linked to how good we look? Not physically, because we'd be broke. But we're counting on the fact that when you look at us, you're like, man, their marriage is pretty good, and their kids are pretty good. Our livelihood is linked to that. So am I going to tell you, Brother Caleb, I've got a problem in our marriage? I ain't going to tell nobody. It costs me money. It'll cost me preaching opportunities. Anybody gonna call me to preach if they know that we're struggling at home? They're not gonna call me. So my calling and my livelihood are directly linked to how successful my marriage and my children are, so I have to cover it up. So unless you know your missionary well and love him sincerely, he will never tell you this. So 50% maybe of our missionaries are struggling, have those ups and downs in their marriage, and we'll never know. Because you don't love them enough to where they trust you to guard that information. So we have marriage problems in the mission field. If you're getting ready to go to the mission field, there's at least three or four couples in here that are praying that direction, you better start working on your marriage right now. Because I guarantee you, those difficult days are coming. I'm gonna kind of step back like before problems on the field but of before you go before you publicly surrender make sure you're on the same page and Since I'm not gonna tell men what to do. I'm just gonna share a testimony if that's okay I'm not When Matt and I were engaged, I lived in Missouri, he lived in Iowa, and he called me and he said, Kathy, I surrendered to the mission field tonight. And he said, I don't know if the Lord will ever send me, but if he does, I'm going, and how do you feel about that? And I was honest with him, and I said, I have never felt like the Lord would use me in missions, but I know the Lord told me to marry you, and if you go, I'll go. And that sounds great, until he surrenders to Malawi. And he says, hey, what do you think? And I was the honest truth. He asked me every day for three months how I felt about Malawi. And every day I said, it makes me sick to think about it. I don't want to talk about it. And he didn't push me. And he didn't say, hey, lady, you said before we got married you'd go, so we're going. And I was so thankful for his patience with me and for him waiting for God to tell me instead of just Matt telling me. And when we got over to Malawi, we were there 10 days when my babies, literal babies, had malaria. And I knew, had I just gone with Matt because he said he was going, that I would have blamed him for my children being sick instead. I was like, OK, God has this. He sent us here, and there's a reason. And I just want to say I'm thankful for his patience with me, just letting the Lord speak to me in that time. If you're married, you do not go to the mission field by yourself. It's a joint effort. But Tim, I don't see how you can go unless you both see the need and the calling. I would not ordain, send a missionary whose wife sat there and said, I don't think this is a good idea. You can't do that. And that's not even on our list, except we just put it under this marriage. You have to be agreed. You have to be agreed. Sometimes you have to be patient, and I know a lot of ladies who feel like they should go do something, and their husbands aren't hearing it. Well, you've got to be patient, too, in the same way. We taught this yesterday. It took Paul about 13 years to get into missions. Don't be afraid when God says, hold on, just stay here and work. Don't be afraid of that. I mean, that's a great thing. If God told me and my wife right now, hey, why don't you just buy a little house next to your local church, go in there and just help out, we'd throw a party. Whatever the Lord, it makes no difference to me. I mean, is the clay going to say to the thing that formed it, why have you formed me this way? A janitor or missionary makes no difference to me. She'd choose the janitor. She'd be like, yes. So let God in his time put you on the same path so that you can fight together instead of fight each other. All right. Marriage. Another reason why missionaries come home and this happens to a lot of missionaries is problems with children, especially as children get into the teenage years, 16, 17, 18 years old. This is a major problem because there, I'll let you tell the green and your green and yellow blue, your blue man. All right, so you're raising these children in this environment, and they lose their identity. So we've had kids come home from the mission field before, families will come in, they come to our house, and our kids will be playing ping pong, and the missionary kids are like, what is that? Our kids are like, are you stupid? It's ping pong. But they don't, they are, yeah, it was Ben said that. No, our kids didn't say that. But they are an outcast in both worlds. They don't blend in in Africa. They're not black. They don't speak the language properly. They didn't go to the public school. They can't still play football like the other kids. They don't fit there. They come home and guess what? They don't fit here. They have a different vocabulary. They have a different a different sense of what things are worth as far as the way they spend their time. We've had kids come to our house that have never seen a movie, a movie, never seen a single movie. And I applaud that, but yet then when they sit down in a church with other kids, especially from a lot of churches, these kids look at them like they're strange, the strangest thing they've ever seen. So when they come home, they find that they're not welcome here. When they go over there, they're not welcome there, right? So how are parents bridging the gap and how are churches bridging the gap when you send these missionaries? How are you going to help the bridge the gap for those kids to either stay in Africa or to return home? And there are some ministries been started the last few years specifically to missionary kids. One of them is called the heirloom project. So heirloom seed, you know, continually reproduces. And the point is this, our missionary kids ought to be primed for ministry. They've already know it forward and backwards. They're bilingual. They know how to drive on the wrong side of the road. They should be the next generation of missionaries, but they're not because They're looking at the mission field as though that's what took me away from what I loved. It took me from my friends. It made my mom and dad go through these battles, I mean, constant battles. And so there's a huge ministry to be had to missionary kids. Well I read this illustration years ago and I thought it was beautiful and it tells the story of a blue man who lived in the land of blue with everything was blue, houses, cars, stores, games, food, everything was blue and one day God calls him to the land of yellow and he's so excited to go and tell all these people about Christ and all that he's done and give him the gospel and he gets over to the yellow world and he is so out of touch. He cannot fit in at all. And so he begins to learn the language, learn the culture, speak to the people, cook the foods they cook. And so one day he looks in the mirror and he's so excited because he's green. And so while he's not blue, he's closer to yellow and he's so excited. And then the Lord asks him to go back to the States. So when he gets back here, or to their home, he gets back And now he doesn't fit in here because he's no longer blue. And I just think that fits the life of a missionary exactly, because they go over, they don't fit in there, but then they need to come back, and then they don't quite fit in here either. And I would just say, this is separate from that thought, but encourage mamas to listen to their children. in life, but on the mission field, on deputation, it's hard to go in a new church every week. It's hard to go in a church where people aren't like you on the field, or if they haven't learned the language yet, that's very hard to sit in the service and not have any friends. And when your children speak to you, their feelings are valid. And they may not even be correct. Maybe they're not thinking correctly, but that's still their feelings. And yes, we need to help them think correctly and see things correctly. But we need to make sure that we're listening to them and that we're encouraging them through those feelings all the way through the field. If we don't listen to them, they're going to find someone else who will. And then they may not be getting the godly counsel that they need. All right, so number eight, poor character. There has been a big shift in character in the last two generations. Anytime you talk to somebody in their 70s or 80s, the first thing they're going to say is kids these days, you know, and they got a point. My dad will be like, when I was five years old, I was driving a tractor, you know, pulling a, you know, wagons, you know, my uncle was running the combine and I was pulling wagons, you know, at five years old, and he probably was. And then my generation, we had some hard days, you know, we didn't have air conditioning. Can you believe that? We didn't have colored television, that's how old I am. Or poor, I don't know. I may not be that old, I might have been that poor. But we were raised a little bit different. And then now we're coming into a new generation, and this is not just a rant against young people, but there's a shift in character from Hudson Taylor to Jim Elliott to today. It's a big difference in character. And so we're sending a generation of missionaries to the mission field who have never had a job. Never. They went to Bible college, passed with C's, and we're giving them $10,000 a month to go to the mission field. And they have, listen to me, they've never had a job. Do you understand how insane that sounds? They don't know how to write a check. They've never done a budget, and we're throwing money at them. Do you think that they are so hyper spiritual that they will automatically pop up out of bed in Africa and go to work hard every day and be frugal with that money. No, they're not. It's not even their fault. I'm not even blaming them. I'm coming back to a local church issue, pastoral issue. So we have an issue with character. So we've got to deal with those issues in adolescence. Or we've got to deal with them if people get saved later. We've got to deal with them before we send them. And people got to be able, if I was sending a missionary today, you would not want to probably be sent out of my church. I would want to see your budget, and I want to see your family, how you're living. I want to see how's things working for you today. Because it's not like you're going to take a magic pill and wake up with character when you get there. That's not the way it works. In fact, the truth is this. Your character flaws are magnified now, because you have no accountability. No accountability. More money than you've ever had, less accountability than you've ever had. Who knows when I go to work? But Tim, I may not have worked two days this year, and you wouldn't know. Because all I got to do is embellish a letter, and everybody would think I'm doing pretty good. Now, I'm not saying everybody's doing that, but I'm saying you got to be careful. If you're a missionary going to the mission field, you better be a self-starter. You better know how to get up in the morning and go to work and get work done. Now, let me say this. There are some guys who will just work themselves to death and neglect their family. That's just as wicked on the other side. If you're going to work hard, you better play hard too. So, but this is, this is a real issue. Character issues are bringing missionaries home, all right? So, um, I said character and I also, because I didn't want to go to 17, I said also on the same, on the same line, carnal. I, the two go hand in hand. The two go hand in hand. You see a character flaw and David turns into a carnal flaw. when Kings go out to battle, but he didn't go, right? So character flaws turn into very carnal things. Money misspent ends up misspent on the wrong things. Time wasted ends up wasted on the wrong things. So be careful that you're not starting off on the wrong foot, going to the mission field without character in a carnal place. Number nine is spiritual warfare. I hate even using the word because It has so many charismatic connotations to it. And I'm not talking about some weird spooky feeling you got and somebody choked you through you down the stairs and you got goosebumps. I'm talking about literally invading the devil's land. Like, think about this, for millennia, not decades, millennia, Satan has owned that village like a puppet master. And you're going to go and kick the door in and say, not today. Today, Jesus is going to reign in this place. Do you think that the enemy will be disturbed by your presence? He better be. He better be. If you're the real thing, he better be disturbed. Do you think that he has power to intervene in your life? You better think so. I first got to Africa, and I kind of thought the witch doctors were a joke, like they practice this trickery, like magicians, sleight of hand. I found out, Brother Tim, it's not sleight of hand. I found out that when someone says they're a witch doctor, that means they work for the devil. That means the devil's power is channeled through them as God's power is channeled through us, and it's the real thing. We had no idea. One of my first encounters with the witch doctor, I walked up to the witch doctor, had four pastors with me, African pastors. I walked up, and I'm like, I'm going to get this witch doctor, you know? I mean, the gospel's got power. And I go up to him. I start talking to him. I confront him with the gospel. I turn around. All four preachers are gone, gone. Not like they step back. They're gone. They're not even in the market. I was the only one stupid enough to walk up to the witch doctors. There's spiritual warfare. And then this is linked to this, is discouragement and depression. Those are spiritual things. Now, caveat to that, there are medical issues that affect sometimes the way you feel. I'm not saying that's not real. But I'm saying primarily on the mission field, a lot of what we're dealing with is there is a spiritual cloud that can hover over you. And when you talk to missionaries and you can tell they're putting it on, they're faking their way through it, there is some deep spiritual war they're in And it results in some really bad emotions. They feel things that are not true. You can wake up in the morning and think, man, my wife has never loved me. Why am I even here? Why am I going to stay with her now? You all know my wife a little bit. Is there anything that she's ever exhibited that would make you think that that's a true statement? No, but it's a true feeling. It's a true I'm telling you, when the devil gets all your mind, it's a true feeling. It's just as real as if it was real. There's no difference. And missionaries are under extreme warfare. It results in depression, anxiety, discouragement, and it's something you gotta spot. I call it this, reading between the lines in a prayer letter. to be able to see that manifested and say, man, somebody needs to step in on this. This guy's bought into a lie. Something's going wrong here. And I would say that it happens to women more than men. So I think it's something that men need to be able to spot in their wives and women need to be able to spot in their husbands. Pastors need to be able to spot in their missionaries. Laymen need to be able to spot when missionaries come through because it is a real issue that we're dealing with. I was just going to say be the person that the missionary can call and talk to and that you won't. that you'll give them good godly counsel and you're not going to blab it everywhere. I had a lady call me last year asking for counsel to share with someone, and I made the comment to her, well, everybody needs someone that they can call and talk to, that they can be truthful with and not feel judged and not be blabbed about. And she was quiet for a second, and then she said, I don't have that. And I thought, shame on me that I wasn't that person for her. I told her I would be now, but be the person that the missionary can talk to. So this is another subject for another day, but coming out of that, if you've ever spiraled into depression, anxiety, discouragement, um, and it is grasp you, it's very hard to come out of that alone. I'm not saying that's impossible, but I'm saying that there should be a brotherhood among us where we can reach out to brother and say, man, I got to talk to you openly and honestly, because again, this leads all of this stuff is so closely linked. Moral failure and financial infidelity and all of this stuff is all, these things are tied so closely together. One can initiate the next. Discouragement can initiate moral failure or moral failure can initiate discouragement. And there's no way I'm getting through this life without somebody helping me through. It's just, that is impossible. I'm not getting through without somebody. So I've got to be able to call and cry on somebody's shoulder. And men don't like to do it and you don't think you should do it and churches don't like to hear about it. But if you're not doing it, if there's not somebody that you can cry to. you're going to end up in a dark place, a broken place. I would say this. For 40 years of my life, I lived my life, I would see somebody discouraged or depressed. I was like, dude, get right. What's wrong with you? And then I went through a time of, I would almost say depression. I don't know. I call it my midlife crisis. I don't know what it was. I was never diagnosed. But when I went through it, I'm like, oh my word. I don't know that I'll live through it. I didn't know if our marriage would make it through it. I was just, and it didn't last very long, thank the Lord, but you go so low so fast, you're like, what has happened to me? And there was a couple people that I could reach out to and hear me through that. And she heard me through that. And if you don't have it, well, I'll tell you this, that's a lie, because you do have it. Somebody cares enough to hear ya. Somebody cares enough. I know because I care enough. So, Ken and I extend that invitation. And when you extend this invitation of grace to missionaries, they'll call you. They will call you. All right, so, I don't even know what that was. Spiritual warfare, discouragement, anxiety, depression. See how we had to get to 10? We just lumping them all together. All right, number 10. They don't know their Bibles. Missionaries quit because they got there and it was too hard, theologically. The Catholics, the Seventh-day Adventists, the Muslims, they didn't know their Bibles. They got caught way off guard, got challenged on some of the hard subjects of the Bible, of Calvinism, King James Bible translation. They got challenged on things and they folded. That's why we don't ordain novices. We ordained men have already been in the fight. They've already went a few rounds and got their teeth knocked out, and they've been through some of that, and they got some conviction. So I am all for young men going to experience. I'm all for young men going out and trying. But before you say, God has put his hand on me and this church is sending me to go into that dark place to establish church, I'm the man, make sure that you've got a good working knowledge of the Bible. Because it's amazing how many missionaries are out there, they're just grasping, trying to get the Bible figured out. I would say with that too, see how we're going to have to cheat these, is they've never been discipled. They've never been under the wing of a man and watched that man deal with problems. They've never seen him deal with those questions. They've never seen him fight that fight. They've never stood alongside of that man. Be scripturally discipled, not from the book necessarily, although there's nothing wrong with a book, but see a man go to war and see the way he does it. So make sure make sure before you call yourself a missionary and go to the mission field that you're ready for the difficulties and challenges that are theological. Number 11, I tell you 16 and I tried, number 11 is missionaries return home from the mission field because they're very poor communicators. Let's add one to that, they're poor administrators too. You might be the best worker this church has ever seen, but you might be the worst administrator this church has ever seen. Guess who administrates on the mission field? You do. Guess who has to write prayer letters? Chat GPT. Just saying, it can help. The idea that the success of your mission field will be with how well you communicate to your sending church, to your supporting churches, and to your men on the field. If you can't communicate, I'm not even talking about if you're a gifted preacher, like, man, you know when to raise and lower your voice, and you know when to put, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about taking a truth and clarifying that truth to where the people just know what you said. Writing a letter to your churches to where those churches say, man, we caught the vision. We know what that guy's up to. There are some people that really struggle with communication, and you need to work this out. Now, I struggle with communication. Every time I preach, you're going to catch me saying something crazy, just because my brain and my mouth don't always get along. All right. They don't. I don't spell well. I don't do grammar very well. It's hard for me to tell a church my vision. It's hard for me to communicate. I have to practice that. I have to write it, she reads it, and she says, I think maybe you need to correct something. And then I send it to my son, he reads it, and he says, it sounds a little better like this. Then I send it to ChatGPT and say, fix this. It's hard. You have to become a student and learn to communicate. Because a missionary who has poor communication is also going to have poor support. He's also going to have poor disciples on the mission field. So practice at communication. You don't know how to spell, learn to spell. You don't know grammar, learn grammar. Get somebody to help you. Take your vision statement and rewrite it six or eight times until everybody reads it, they know what it says. Learn to communicate, because communication, poor communication skills, poor administration skills will send you home from the mission field. You won't make it. All right, number 12. And now I'm getting to the climax here, the best of the best. Number 12 is health. And if Chris was here, he would mock me. Chris and I have a unusual relationship. Mostly we mock each other. All right, so I'm not talking about living on kale and smoothies. but your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit of God, and the only way the gospel will be communicated is if you live long enough to get it where you're going, and if you're strong enough to get it there. And so, if we came across missionaries who had no regard for their health, I would probably not support them. Amen. I need Brother Chris for that amen right there. I'm not talking about guys who drink an occasional amount and do an E-McDonald's. Because that would be me. I'm talking about somebody who has no regard for their health. They're going to be a poor investment. All right, if you were running a construction company, a guy came up and you could tell this dude he doesn't sleep right, eat right, he doesn't work out, he's never spent a day in the gym, he probably can't get that sack of two-by-fours to that hill. You're not going to hire him. Why? He would be a bad investment. So at this point, you say, brother Matt, I'm not very healthy. I'm not talking about inherited disease. I'm not talking about crippling illnesses. I'm talking about the character to say, I better take better care of myself because I want to be a long-term investment for God and for the church. And for the people in the mission field who need to hear the gospel, I have to live long enough to get the gospel to them. Health is a primary concern. This starts in childhood. If all your children eat is chicken nuggets, Chicken Nug Nugs, whatever you want to call them, you better stop it. They better be able to recognize the importance of living healthy and long because they're the temple of the Holy Spirit of God. They're the ambassador of Christ. They have the ministry of reconciliation. They represent somebody. So we got to get this whole thing straightened out. That's not what I was talking about. That's for free. But what I'm talking about is the health crisis is faced on the mission field and in midlife and older life. We're coming home from the mission field because we are struggling with malaria and dengue fever. We're struggling with yellow fever. And we're struggling with things in Africa where there are parasites. We're struggling with fibromyalgia. We're struggling with thyroid disease. We're struggling with things that not necessarily our own doing, but they are being heaped on us in the mission field. And we're struggling with those things. How do you show missionaries grace during those times? You have to understand that if they don't come apart for healing, they're finished. So you say, yeah, but we're going to have to pay them through that. So let me ask you a question. We send a military man. We send him into Syria. He goes in. He trains for six months. He's deployed for six months. He comes back, and he has problems with his back because of the weight that he was under, because of the stress that he was under. He comes back, and he's not able to work. Do you pay him the rest of his life? Send him to his doctors, and with no complaints? We do that. Zero complaints. Nobody's out there picketing. Stop paying for broken veterans. Dude, that dude would get hit by a car in 10 minutes. No one's picketing that. But when a missionary goes to the mission field, they come back with tropical diseases. C.T. Studd, they said this of C.T. Studd, they said he was a museum of tropical diseases. When we come back sick, everybody's like, how long are you going to support that guy? I don't know how long you want your teeth, right? Because I'm about to knock them out your head. How long are you going to support that guy? You sent him there? You sent him there with no regard for his life, and now he's come home broken, and you're the first one who wants to drop him. You think God is going to give you more missionaries? You think he's going to give you more missions money? You're the worst of the worst. No one would do that with their own child. No one would do it with a veteran. But you're so quick, I don't mean you, I mean you to the world, to the broad sense of guys who might accidentally be listening in. You're the worst of the worst, because you kick a man when he's down, the man you sent and said that you'd have his back. And don't think they're not coming home sick, because they are. Everyone, the darkest places of the earth, the darkest continents, the places you would never go on vacation, That's where you're going to send them. And you'll be shocked when they come home sick. Why? What surprises? Why are we surprised? All right, so health needs. I'm not upset that missionaries get sick. We embrace that. I have videos of my kids throwing up on six continents, you know? I mean, we embrace that. What disturbs me is the reaction of churches when missionaries get sick. Surprised by it. And I've had missionary, I've had pastors who I'm good friends with, who will probably watch this, who will ask those questions. How long we got to support them? They've been home three months. You know the missionary pastors who get it right is the pastors who send their kids. They get it right. They get it right. Because they in the back of their mind say, well, if it was my son, I know what I'd do. So they get it right. Number 107 number 13 finances. We discovered this yesterday. Missionaries are under supported. I know it's hard for us to reconcile because we live in the middle of nowhere. Our property taxes are low. Our houses are paid off or paid down. We drive 75 miles a week. Our cars don't get wore out. That is not the life of a missionary. We're cutting edge. We're always on the road. We're always breaking something. We're always in the middle of whatever could go wrong. And our missionaries are undersupported by probably 50 to 75%. And so there's a financial strain upon them. I read this years ago, and this is well known, but I fought it for a long time, all right? So marriages end over finances. I said, that's not right. In my naivety, in our marriage as young people, there's only one thing married couples fight about. I'm not going to say it. Finances. And you say, it's not finances. It is. Because the stress of constantly fighting to catch back up, and her looking and saying, well, what are we going to do about this? I'm going to say, you're just going to have to trust me. And then I don't pay it. And she's like, you said I could trust you. I was like, I didn't mean it. We're undersupported. Now, that's our fault. But again, that's not your fault. We're the ones who made the budget. I made the budget to torture my family. The church asked me what I need, I told them, and I didn't tell them enough. It's my fault. If I went in with a vision and said, look at this vision, this is going to be fantastic. All it's going to cost is $12,000 a month. We're going to go change the whole world. I can take care of my family. Churches would buy it. But I go in and say, I'm the cheapest investment you've ever made. Anybody buy stuff off of like Timu or all this Wish? Anybody buying this stuff, you know? You buy that and you, I know. You buy that stuff and you think, this is gonna be the best thing. You get it and it's the worst thing you ever bought in your life. You got a deal on it, but you got what you paid for. Can I tell you something? You can't over support a good missionary. because they will print tracts, and they will order Bibles, and they will put out street preachers, and they will help national pastors get set up. You cannot over-support them. Why? Because their budget's their budget. You can't change it. My budget doesn't inflate. Okay, well, if we pay him more, he's just gonna make more money. No, I don't. My budget is the budget. It is what it is. And you can't underpay it either, because it won't work. So we send them under supported and then we complain when they come home. But I will tell you this, it's their fault. We need to be talking about the right numbers and we need to be honest with what it cost us. When he did those numbers on the board yesterday, it makes my stomach sick because I hate to ask a church for that much money. But I also know my boys make that cutting grass. Guys at our town, we live in a little town, 1,700 people, that's how much they make building cabinets. So I'm embarrassed to ask for as much money as the 20-year-olds in our church are making. And we've been at this 25 years. So I have to flip a switch. A missionary's got to flip the switch and say, OK, why are we putting our families under this incredible amount of stress? when I could just get honest with myself and say, my wife needs some things. And God ordained. I didn't make this up. God ordained that the churches pay for that. I'm telling you, I did not make it up. You think the Levites walked around in the Old Testament apologizing to every Jew they met? Guys, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That whole tithe thing and all of those, I'm sorry. God didn't know what he was doing when he did that. I ate you guys' crops. Ah, man. Do you think for a moment that ever crossed a Jew or a Levite's mind? God said what to do. God ordained they that preach the gospel live of the gospel. You don't muzzle the ox that treads out the corn. Does any man go to warfare at his own charge? So I have, this is my, Confession, I put my wife under a ton of stress for 25 years because I didn't do the budget and go to the churches and say, here's what it's going to cost. That's my fault. So if you are 25 years old and you take two years of your life to get your budget right and get your funds raised, you will be 27 years old. You're going to do missions till you're 67. For 40 years, your family just gets to love missions. But if you do that budget wrong and you get it wrong, you're going to have 40 years trying to get this thing figured out. You'll be flipping flapjacks trying to sell them on the street, making funnel cakes. Look, we had done everything, auctions and Ebays and car washes. And if I had it to do again, I would settle in for two years and just say, I'm going to get this thing right. because our missionaries are returning home because they don't have the money. That's their fault. Now, maybe somebody didn't counsel them, didn't tell them, maybe the pastors didn't help them, but they could have fixed that one right there. No comments? I'm sorry for making you live poor for so long. All right, so that's 13 with some add-ons, some extras in there. there's enough missionary families in here tonight. Maybe some of these things you're thinking, okay, I've already experienced that. Or maybe at least you're thinking, I better prepare for that. Or maybe you're thinking, there's somebody who's been through this and I can talk to them about that. So this is not uncommon. This is just normal. This is, when you embrace missions, this is what you embrace. These kind of problems. You'll never eradicate them, but you can mitigate them. You understand the difference? Mitigation means I know how to deal with that. The emergency fund that we talked about yesterday is so important. You know why? I constantly have emergencies. I don't think we have hardly a week without some emergency. Somebody will get up and take an offering. You know what I mean? Always living in an emergency. So we mitigate these things. What do you do about the health issues? Well, you try to eat better, you try to sleep better, and then you have money. Money mitigates problems. I didn't make that up. That's just the way it works. I could go into some Bible on that, but money mitigates some of those problems. All right. Let's, here's what I'm gonna do. This is not a preaching service. This is not a testimony service. This is an unnamed, unknown service. But here's what I do want to do. I want to give you an opportunity to respond to the Lord tonight. If you're on the side of this saying, brother Matt, I'm experiencing and living through this, I'm preparing for this, my heart, I just need to pour my heart out to the Lord. Or maybe you're saying, I have not done my part to minister to the missionaries who are in this. However the Lord has spoken to you tonight, let's do this. Let's have a word of prayer and no piano or anything. Just if God spoke to your heart, why don't you find a place to seek the Lord? I'm just gonna pray. And once again, I wanna thank Brother Matt and Kathy Stallman for that great, great lecture on reasons why missionaries leave the field. And I hope that was a sure help and a blessing to you. I know it was to me, and I'm gonna be listening to that again and again because there are some great, great points there, great principles that I think every missionary ought to listen to this series, and I think every pastor ought to listen to this series. And just to give us some fresh insight and some fresh wisdom and principles and perspectives on the relationship between missionaries and their field, the missionaries and their home church, missionaries and their home pastor, just some great stuff there. So once again, Matt and Kathy Stallman, thank you so much for allowing us to have the permission to be able to repodcast this. And once again, I hope it's been a help and a blessing to you. Well, thank you once again for tuning in to the Always Abounding podcast. Don't forget the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse number 58, therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. I do want to give a shout out to my mom and my dad, Brian and Sherry Stensis. and just thank them again for allowing us to stay in their home for the last two and a half weeks and it's just been a joy and a blessing. I thank God for my parents and thank God for the influence that they had in my life and just forging principles and a foundation for loving the Word of God, loving the ministry, and I'm so, so grateful for my parents. And I pray for them each and every day that God will continue to use them, even in their final years. Not final years, they're not dying. I mean their upper years, I should have said. but in their upper years that continuing to serve the Lord, teaching and influencing people, influencing students for the cause of Jesus Christ. And so I'm so, so thankful for them. And I'm so thankful for the impact they're having, not only in my life and my family, but also in the lives of those here at the First Baptist Church of Eaton, Ohio. And I do want to just give you one final prayer request, if you would, just to continue to pray as we get ready to go back to Uganda. As I said before, we'll be leaving, we already have our tickets purchased, and we'll be returning in March. And so your prayers for that on our behalf would be greatly appreciated. And then, you know, as you do things, I'm reading a book right now called Leadership by John Maxwell. And again, take what you want from a lot of his books, but he's written some very good books on leadership. But I'm reading a book called Leadership and just talking about changes in life, changes in your business, changes in ministry, and a lot of times the necessity of being willing to change in order to better be productive and to be more frugal with what God has given to you and so we're going to be making quite a few changes as we go back to Uganda and personnel changes and not necessarily removing people but just putting people in different key positions around the country and trying to make better use of God's money and One of the things that I'm asking you to pray for we've been taking up our ministry truck every month as we go up to the north in our northern ministries up there in Caledo and we've been taking that truck up there and it's it's been useful and it's been quite effective and But it is expensive driving that truck all the way up there Because not only do we have to I have to because you have to have a special license to drive trucks there I'm the only one who has that plus I have to drive my family so I have to hire a driver and so that takes money and plus we have to put fuel in it, and that's a lot of money for the truck. And so we're praying that God would provide the money for a pickup truck. And we want to have a pickup truck so that we can put that up in the ministry and just leave it up there in Caledo with our men up there that is going to be ministering up there and kind of being my right-hand man up there. And that way all the food and supplies and things of that nature can be gotten with that truck. And that way we can, again, just save resources and definitely will save a lot of wear and tear on the truck that God's given us as well. And so we'll just continue to use that truck in the South. And then up in the North, we would have this pickup truck. And so just pray about that. These trucks will cost between eight to $10,000. to purchase and anytime, even here in America, but especially in Uganda, when you try to get a pickup truck, they're expensive. And usually the ones you can get to afford, they are of an older model and things of that nature. So just wisdom that God will give us wisdom to know what to purchase, when to purchase. Pray that God will provide the money that is needed to purchase that pickup truck. And once again, that will be a great asset to our ministry and one that will really, really help us to be able to do the work there in Carlito. And so just again, just pray a lot of things on my mind, a lot of things on my heart. As far as continuing this thought of leaving a legacy, leaving a lasting legacy in our churches. Pardon me, I need a cup of coffee or a sip of coffee here. There we go. Maybe that'll help my voice a little bit more. But anyway, just leaving that legacy of independent Baptist churches that are on their own Pastors that are settled in their beliefs and their doctrines and that is our goal for this next term and I don't know what God has for us and In the future, I'm prepared at this time to stay for 28 more years in Uganda, if that's what God wants for us to do. But I really believe that our ministry is reaching a point right now where we need to be backing off. And whether that means going to a different place in Uganda, or whether that means going to a different country, or whether it means I don't know what that means, but really, really emphasizing as we come into this next term, just really emphasizing the leaving of a legacy in these guys, making sure that they're settled, their marriages are right, making sure they've got structures, if their churches are organized. And so a lot of things happening and really every single morning, I just simply ask God for wisdom. I need wisdom to know how to spend the money that we've raised for these church buildings. I need wisdom to know how to teach these men how much time to put into each of these men. I just need wisdom more than anything else. If you could really, really pray for me about that, that God would just give me the wisdom that I need. And I've got my wife and my daughter will be with me. And so I need wisdom as to how to involve them and how much to involve them. And so a lot of things going on. Again, when you've got 32 churches that you're responsible for, it's a lot of time and a lot of traveling and a lot of things that we need to accomplish. And so if we don't have wisdom, then we will waste time, we will waste money, we'll waste resources, and we definitely, definitely do not want to do that. And so if you could pray with me about that, that God would give me the wisdom that I need as a leader, as a missionary, as a pastor, to be able to help our people and help to leave a legacy. of independent Baptist churches in Uganda. And so I really, really appreciate that so much. Well, again, if you have not done so already, let me encourage you to subscribe to this podcast and just simply go to Always Abounding at your podcast platform of choice and either choose the Always Abounding name or type in my name, Keith Stensis, and it should come up every Friday. We upload a new podcast to encourage you and your family and the Lord. Encouraging you to always abound in the work of the Lord as well as bringing you up to date on our ministries and our family and what we're doing and so that you can follow us on a weekly basis instead of waiting for our bi-monthly prayer letter and so Again, thank you so much for that. If you would like, and again, this is not for everybody, but if you'd like a weekly reminder, just simply email me and let me know, and I'll add your phone number to our text messages, and every Friday receive a text message just reminding you to tune in to the Always Abounding podcast for that week. If you're not getting our prayer letters and you'd like to get our prayer letters, again, just go to our website, kstensisfamily.com, kstensisfamily.com. and just hit the subscribe button and we'll put you right on our prayer letter list. And every other month, every two months, we send out a prayer letter to bring you up to date on what is going on. And the good thing about prayer letters, and this is what I've really been trying to do with the podcast, I'm able to give a lot of details as to what is going on there. With a prayer letter, I can put pictures and things of that nature so that you can see what we're talking about. And so that is also an added blessing there. And so once again, thank you so much for tuning in today. I sure appreciate you. Thank you so much for your prayers and your financial support. Continue to keep those text messages coming in, those emails coming in. I sure enjoy hearing from you and hearing how God is using you. Maybe you've got a testimony about how God has blessed and God has done great things for you. And so once again, thank you so much. And I wish and pray that you have a happy, happy new year. It's hard to believe we're already in 2025. Man, I remember, it's just like it was yesterday. I remember everyone was so afraid of Y2K. Man, that was just the end of the world and it's hard to believe that that was 25 years ago. But anyway, I'm just so glad the Lord's in control, and we're just gonna trust Him, rely upon Him for our future, and know that He is the one that controls everything. And so, we're just gonna trust Him, amen? Well, the Lord may come today, so keep your eyes looking up in the skies, and keep faithfully serving the Lord, keep always abounding in the work of the Lord. God bless you so much. Have a wonderful day. We will see you next week. We want to thank you for listening today. We trust that this podcast was an encouragement to you to always abound in the work of the Lord. 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