You don't change a nation with outside resources. You you change a nation by changing the people and you change the people by changing their mindset
Hi Friends Welcome to Ideas have consequences the podcasts of the disciple nations Alliance, where we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nations, but our mission also includes to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected the second part of our mission. And today, most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
Well, welcome again, everybody to another episode of ideas have consequences. This is the podcast of the disciple nations Alliance. And once again, I'm your host today Scott Allen, president of the DNA and joined today by my colleagues Luke Allen Darrow, Miller, Dwight VOGT And today
our special guest and dear friend is Randy Hogue. Randy is a former colleague of ours from you years ago at food for the hungry. Presently he is the president of vision of a Community Fellowship. And he is also president of food for the hungry international federation. Before that, he was the president of food for Hungary International, which is really significant Christian relief and development organization very similar to Compassion International or World Vision, some of these types of organizations. Randy has a lifetime of experience in Christian Community Development, he worked for many years, not just leading organizations, but at the grassroots kind of practitioner level, he led the work of food for the hungry in Bolivia for many years. And later, he launched the work of vision of Community Fellowship, and I just wanted to read something. Randy, before we get into questions from the website, I was on it today. And I really enjoyed looking at some of the things that you have on the site there. From the website, it says vision of community fellowships ultimate goal are communities that can grow towards their God given potential without reliance on outsiders. To do this, the vision of Community Fellowship dares to use unconventional principles and processes, such as the power of new mindsets, and equipping local leaders. From day one, I thought that was well said, Randy. And that sure resonates with our heart, you know, here at the DNA. Randy, you spend, I believe most of your time really working around the world training others. And your training focuses on personal and leadership and community transformation. And I really just want to let our listeners know, Randy, that the DNA really would not exist without you. When I think of the work that God's called all of us into here are really our life ministry. You played such an integral part in that Randy and I were so grateful to you for that. It was really under Landy, Randy's leadership many years ago that he challenged and I remember this very clearly it was in the Philippines, Philippines. Yep. He challenged Darrow and to really begin something new that eventually grew into the disciple nations Alliance. And it kind of revolved around three things as I recall it. Number one was, Randy, you challenging Darrow to take the things that Darrow had been teaching on biblical worldview are the power of biblical principles to help broken communities move from poverty to flourishing, and to apply that teaching to local churches, so that they could catch a vision, and that they could become the catalysts or the facilitators for the transformation of their communities. That idea came from you, they're out of your heart, God speaking to you. And then the one that just really touches me the most, Randy and I think we've tried to stay really true to this. This is the seed that you planted, was to do all of that in a way that could be spread organically to others without it being heavily branded or without having people have to join an organization that they could just take these ideas and adapt them and spread them with the idea that we want to kind of see a movement kind of get started here that went beyond the scope of an organization. Again, that was a seed you planted. And I don't know what else to say except God, you know, God really use that. You know, and we, it's continuing to bear fruit around the world today, Randy. So I just want to thank you for all all that you've done in our lives and and to start this ministry.
Thank you so much, Scott, for that, that introduction, I have to consider it probably one of my best decisions I ever made as President to create really space for Darryl and Bob Moffitt and Scott and White and others. To launch the DNA. I sometimes jokingly said, All I really did was with CreateSpace, and then duck. But it's, it was a God given decision. And I I'm really blessed by your opening words.
Well, it's such an honor and blessing to have you with us today. I can't tell you how much you're in our heart and how much we love and appreciate you and the work you've done and the wisdom you have. Randy, I would love to share with our listeners, I just love to glean the wisdom that you have, in terms of this. And as you say, this unconventional approach to community development or community transformation that focuses on the empowerment of local leaders and mindset shift. But I'd like to, I'd like to start by having you share kind of how you arrived there. Randy, go back and tell us a little bit about your own journey. The the How did you get these ideas? Where, you know, what were these aha cars that came to you. And I'll let you start anywhere you want. You know, you can start? Maybe when God calls you into the work with the poor. Birth birth, yeah. Wherever you wherever you want to start, Randy So, but I'd love to just hear kind of a bit about your journey. And, and we'll kind of we'll ask some questions around that.
Now, just for a little bit of context, I I started with food for the hungry in 1983. I know I look too young for that. But I really just started in 1983, I was working with a financial company and a CPA firm in Seattle, having graduated from business school, after a couple of years, but I felt God's calling to, to go into holistic missions around the world, I had literally hardly been outside of the United States I had been to Canada, I've been to the border just to cross into Mexico. And that was about it. So I was in green and green could be as far as relief and development. So my my understanding was very limited on relief and development, let alone biblical worldview or the kingdom of God. But I was a Christian, and I did read my Bible. So that was my saving grace that many times during my life. I went to food for the hungry training in September of 83. And I met Darrow Miller at that time. In Darrow Miller was leading the hunger Corps program. And I vividly recalled listening with admiration to Darrow. And just kind of wondering, could I ever be like him, it was just amazing his teaching, while I'm still working on that, but I was so so impressed with, with the the knowledge and depth of what Darrow was teaching. I arrived in Bolivia. And at the time, Bolivia was one of the largest programs and food for the hungry and one of the first to have government funding. So it was considered a very professional and an important program and food for the hungry. But it didn't take long for me to begin to see some cracks in relief and development, that just having something big doesn't necessarily mean having something good and I'm not wanting this to sound critical. This is true of any organization trying to do relief and development it's not easy to change people it's hard enough just to change myself right let alone changing somebody in another nation. So you know, I quickly realize some of the challenges and the difficulties and you know, one of the principles I think in teaching it's a sometimes we learn more from mistakes than we do from successes and and learning from errors. Oftentimes pick Thanks very vivid. So let me let me just share one I'll try to pepper this with a few stories. And this is not actually from food for the hungry, but it could well has happened from food for the hungry at the time, we had a an expert in our organization named Jaime, I make Husi conky. And he shared a story about a work that another organization was doing, trying to help Bolivians improve their income, through improving sheep and marketing of sheep, and so forth. And it was a very successful project, and the incoming priest in the community and the organization had a big celebration. And they inaugurated the project in any organization left. And about two years later, Jaime had the presence of mind to go visit that community again. And as he was entering the community, he saw one of the community leaders that he had spent a lot of time training. But he noticed something was wrong. The the community leader was stumbling towards him. And climate quickly realized the community leader was drunk. And the community leader walked up to Jaime and he took his finger and pushed it into Jaime's chest. And he said, Jaime, you did this to us. You did this to us. And he gave a curse to Jaime. And Jaime was shocked. He didn't. He thought he had done something good for the community. But what happened was that the community's income did go up. But their worldview and their mindset did not change. So all it did was inflame the the root causes that were already still there. And then I could share many, many stories like this, where just trying to address the root cause or I'm sorry, the surface cause can actually destroy a community. And and, again, maybe it'll come up later out there, there'll be other stories that I can share. But it's just one example. And that that really opened my eyes to the need for something deeper in food for the hungry. I later went to headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona, and in 1993 and 1994, food for the hungry began to try to define what is the we're aiming for? What what is the definition of success. And we came up with what was called Vision of community, which was in short that we wanted to see in a community three things. One was churches, increasingly reaching out, in other words, a local body of believers in every community we worked in. And we wanted to see local leaders who could solve their own problems. And we wanted to see families who could meet your own needs. So the three key words for churches, leaders and families, and by by combining those that really put us on a collision course with the kingdom of God, and biblical worldview. And I have to say something about Darrell here, I even though I we all admire DeRose teaching, Darrell was speaking into an industry, I would call the relief and development industry, that primarily based on technology, and professionalism and experts. And that's not an easy environment to be speaking into. And I think they're right. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure at times you felt like, like a voice in the wilderness. And to your credit, you You never gave up. And in the mid 1990s Darrow encouraged us to invite another speaker, Vishal Mangalwadi, to speak at one of our international conferences. And at that time, I think people lightbulb started to go off and one of the reasons was it because he was sharing an actual national story of India and it took the principles and made them kind of put them on the ground. But that that was really a watershed moment in food for the hungry so You know, since then I have just been increasingly convinced that the kingdom of God in the biblical worldview is the way to go my story of it probably more of a story of trial and error. And and I believe that if you're honest in trial and error, it eventually leads you to the kingdom of God and the biblical worldview. Now, I've got a lot more to say. But I know you've got other questions. So I'll, I'll just stop there for a moment.
Randy, I wouldn't mind going back, do your time in Bolivia, you shared that powerful story of the community leader who was drawn coming up and saying you did this to us. And you talked about how the money and the projects that you had invested or food for the hungry and invested in trying to raise that community out of poverty had actually only inflamed? What was already there. Could you speak a little bit more to that? What what what help our listeners understand what what what are you talking about? What was that culture, those views that that were the subterranean level that didn't get touched by the project level?
Well, in in Bolivia, we, like I said, we have large government funding. We were doing technological projects, we focused on greenhouses, wells, different kinds of health care, we had child sponsorship. But we weren't addressing the questions of why. In other words, why don't people have food? Or why don't people have water? And and it was more just engineering responses. I recall one time a report that one of our engineers did regarding the greenhouse projects. And there were all these pictures of the beautiful greenhouses sometimes lit with sunlight, almost a rainbow going over them. But there were no people. There was just a beautiful greenhouse with think growing in it. But but there were no people. And and honestly speaking, if you were to go back now to those communities, you would not see one greenhouse, let alone one well, because it was good at the time. But the real test of a project is not what it looks like, on inauguration day. The real tough to what, what does it look like two years later, or three years later, especially after the organization, the outside money or the outside expertise leads. So everything looked good on inauguration day. But but that's not the real test.
And as I recall, at that time, Randy, the work that food for the hungry was doing was model work for USA ID. And they would say if you want to see a good project, come here and look at food for the hungry in Bolivia. But yet you are processing things in your own mind at a deeper level. And realizing this was not going to be sustainable because it was technological, dealing with the surface issues, rather than the deep issues.
Yeah, it was held up with the modeling. USAID was also held up as a model and food for the hungry. and I recall, my my, my boss at the time would would call me forward in front of the other country directors and you know, promote the work we were doing. And I would silently grimace because I knew, I knew that the challenge is at the local level, not only for the community, but also for our staff. One of my one of my saddest moments was and I don't want to go into too much detail, but I got a midnight phone call. One time, again, we had over a couple 100 staff like I got a midnight phone call to one of our staff had been in an accident on a motorcycle and had been brought into La Paz for hospital care. What I didn't know is that that this particular staff person was having mental problems. And he basically tried to commit suicide by running the motorcycle, you know, into a wall. And I'll never forget going to the court corner place and praying that God would somehow raise him from the dead and he didn't. But I called I called back to Phoenix, the Next day, and I just told my boss something's wrong. Something Something is wrong with all of this. And and be Pete call me down to, you know to continue. But it's it's an industry that is touching surface causes oftentimes, but it's not sustainable neither for the staff nor the nor the the communities if it doesn't teach touch the root causes
Darrow had his hand up. I'm just but at that time I also remember you took some risks and said, we can train differently or we can you you inspire some staff you train some staff because I remember them starting to talk about mindset early on. And you lead that thinking, how did that happen? Or what prompted you?
Well, we, one of the challenges, we had an in food for the hungry Bolivia because there were so many staff was that not all the staff were committed Christians. And so that was a very delicate time. And so we decided to begin to disciple our staff. And and then when hiring opportunities came, we were very careful on who we hired. For example, one of the people that we hired that that you know, very well or Patricia, in our total Kuba. So every time we had a hiring opportunity we were we were very careful. But but we also were quietly discipling people and God, for fruit for that. The other thing we did was we had about 150 communities that we were working in, and it was impossible to change all of those, those community, Project mentalities. But what we did is we picked out 15 model cases, to do what we really wanted things to look like. And that's where we began to teach more about fishing of community. We were still learning honestly, speaking about biblical worldview. We hadn't really heard too much this was in the 1980s. So we were, we were learning as we went at that time, but but we were promoting the Bible. And I think like I say, that was kind of our saving grace, even though we were inexperienced, and and humble, in many ways, because of the problems that the Bible was guided of one way or another. There were many many good testimonies. I, you know, I share some of the the difficulty, but there were good testimonies also.
Hi, friends, thank you so much for joining us today. And a special thanks to Scott from up in Seattle who reached out to us and asked us to have Randy on, to hear more about the application and the effects of a biblical worldview on individuals, communities, and this today's episode, even a nation. These testimonies of transformation give us such a clear look at how the biblical worldview or mindset doesn't just make sense on a theoretical level, but it actually works, and has the power to help us live out every area of our lives. Coram Dale, which means before the face of God, if any of you have a specific guest you'd like us to invite on the show, please don't hesitate to reach out and let us know. The best way to reach us is by commenting on the episode page, which you'll see linked in the description to this episode. Or you can message us on social media. We are the disciple nations on Instagram and the disciple nations Alliance on Facebook. If you're enjoying this discussion, don't let the learning stop with you. Please consider sending this episode to a friend. And after that, we'd appreciate it if you'd leave us a rating and review on Apple podcast or wherever you're listening. Thanks again for joining us here on ideas have consequences.
A few minutes ago, Randy you use the word industry, the relief and development industry. And I just like to take a moment to focus on that word. Culture is upstream from social, economic and political institutions something we say all the time. And so you have an industry. You have people who have a good intention to help the poor and the hungry and they create organizations To do that, but those organizations are born out of a culture, a cultural mindset. And in the west today, that cultural mindset has been an atheistic understanding of reality. So you think of hunger and poverty. What is needed to solve that problem is money and technology. And so, relief and development industry focuses on raising money sending that money overseas. Putting in technology, and those things will solve the problem. But the problem is not analyzed deep enough, as you're saying, down to the root causes. And that's where a biblical worldview helps us to understand on a deeper level, what the real causes are be behind underneath hunger and poverty.
And I want to just because I'm sure our listeners are we talked about this a lot, but they're probably wondering now. So what exactly are these deeper causes that are causing hunger and poverty in a place like Bolivia? What are these mindsets that are preventing people from developing? And what may be on the other side of it? Are the biblical truths that counter those that lead them out? To into or into a place where they can begin to flourish? Randy, could you speak to that a little bit just, I'm just mindful of people that probably don't know what we're talking about in places like Bolivia, or, you know, anywhere?
Yeah, well, let me let me try to respond to both of those questions or comments. I do believe there is an industry and of relief and development. And it's it is really based on world systems. And, and yet, it very much economically driven. So you hit it very much one way when one way in terms of their asking for money, and then kind of a top down system of helping countries to try to rise up out of poverty. But it's not, it's not a two way system. In the industry, relief and development industry is nothing not very old. It's it really started after World War Two was when most of the large relief and development organization began that there were organizations before World War Two, but it was after then, that the United Nations World Health Organization, World Food Program, and the the big organization began to expand. So we don't actually have a very long history, which should make us a little more humble, in terms of of our solutions. So for the last 5000 years, there weren't any NGOs. This is really a pretty recent concept, which, like I say, should should make a pretty humble regarding Scott's comment when I refer to mindset or worldview, which to me is basically the same thing. I'm referring to ways of thinking. And in in Bolivia, that can be a poverty mindset, where you think that you cannot progress without somebody else helping you. And I'm sad to say that, that sometimes our own program can contribute to that kind of dependency. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So you know, when you go in with big programs, if you go in with a, with a water program, and you ask the community, what's your number one felt need? If what their answer is going to be going to be water, they're, they're not dumb. And, and, and, and you're in you're also not only putting, putting them into a mindset of, of needing you, you're also putting yourself in the mindset of being the savior for the community, which is another big problem. It's not just the mindset of the community. It's our own mindset that needs to be changed. There's many mindsets in in Bolivia, mindsets about leadership, mindsets about their colonial mindsets that still exist their mindsets about men and women. You know, the patriarchal Families. I like their deep set spiritual mindset from pagan beliefs and so forth. worshipping the Pachamama. And and believing that you're not really in control of your future, what's really in control are the spirits and Pachamama. So I could go on and on.
No, thanks, Randy. I think I think that just gives people an idea of what we're talking about specifically. And so if you have those ideas in your head, you know, we're poor, there's nothing we can really do to improve our situation until somebody comes from the outside with money or whatever it is. Or, you know, the God's the Pachamama, you know, is all powerful and controls our destiny. And we're kind of helpless. If you have, if that's your worldview, if that's your mindset, and then a relief and development organization comes in with a project or a program to improve water. But doesn't touch that mindset that really is, is we're saying, kind of at the foundation of the of the problems in the community, you can see, I think it's clear for people to see why we're not having a lot of good fruit, you know, from that. So you began to see that Randian and began to see the power of ideas, of of worldviews of belief systems that just come through culture and how that has to be changed. And, you know, this isn't something. I mean, this is, in some ways, we all have to have our mindsets renewed. Right? The Bible talks about this, right? We have fallen worldly mindsets, and ways of thinking that have to be changed and renewed and it's part of discipleship. But in my experience, Randy discipleship is kind of it's viewed as something that we do over here in this corner. And relief and development is something wholly different that you do over here in this corner, they don't connect. But what what I hear you saying is no, they have to, they have to connect, they're kind of one in the same in some ways. So
yeah, I'm not saying that technology is bad. It just that it just it just if it only touches the surface, if doctor is likely to last,
yeah, yeah.
Well, and technology is born out of an inquisitive mind. Right. And that's, that's the part that's missing. Because human beings have the ability, the God given ability to be inquisitive. And that's the root level, how do you cultivate in an inquisitiveness, so that people who are in poverty can begin to dream dreams, and figure out how to use the resources in their own community, to create technology, to improve their crops, they have the ability to do that, because they're made in the image of God. But that's the message that we have to get to.
That's correct. Another way to say that is also to teach people to innovate. As you've taught Pharaoh, we have a creative God. And he has given us the ability to be creative. And one of the best things you can teach farmers, if not a new technique, if to teach them to experiment, to to every year, dedicate a little part of their, their land, to something new just to change one variable, and then just share results then, and I can share a case study we're just doing that alone, has has tripled, farming production. So well, yeah, if we can empower community to do their own innovation, own experimentation is very, very powerful. But that's not that's a mindset issue.
And it's a worldview issue, too. Because you know, and I think not all worldviews foster this kind of spirit of innovation. And I think that's many people don't understand that we kind of think, oh, everyone's the same as I am. You know, I, especially in the West, because we've been deeply shaped over, you know, centuries by a by the Bible. And so it's shaped the way we think about ourselves and things like innovation, creativity, the formation of technologies. A lot of that is fruit of biblical thinking, and we tend to think, oh, everyone else thinks like me, but it's not the case. Not all worldviews lead to that kind of spirit of innovation. Just like we were saying, you know, if you're in an animistic worldview, The kind of the dominant idea is this this fatalism? You know, I'm poor, my grandparents were poor, my great grandparents were poor, and my children will be poor too. You know, that's just the way it is. And the gods control things. So why would I innovate? Why would I be creative? But the biblical worldview there, Darrell, maybe you could even speak a little bit to this. I mean, it's so powerful is that you get this idea of creativity, innovation uniquely from from kind of biblical truth.
I remember you mentioned Arturo, Kuba a few minutes ago, and Patricia, Kuba are people that you were involved with in Peru. And Patricia became the country director for food for the hungry in Guatemala. And our turtle began working with pastors in some of the communities where food for the hungry was working. And I recall, you know, most of these pastors were non literate. But Arturo would do Bible studies with them. And he'd read the scriptures and then explain the Scriptures. And he did a lot of work in Genesis one. And he talked about how God has made us to have dominion over creation. And that was a principle, a biblical principle on a worldview level that he taught these
farmers, they hadn't had that idea in their minds of demand that idea
in their minds, right. And he tells tells the story of going into one farmer pastor's home, very poor home dirt floor, the stove was three stones. The fire, the wife would build the fire in the middle of this one room, dirt floor at home. And when they harvested the corn, they put the corn in the corner of the of the house, and the rats lived in the corn. You probably remember this story, Randy and our turtle went to visit this pasture farmer and saw these fat rats and the children were hungry. And he asked the farmer who's smarter you are the rats and the farmer looked at the fat rats and said, well, the the rats are, are smarter. And he laughed. And our turtle said, Well, who is smarter? Who is to have dominion here? You are the rats. And all of a sudden this principle from the Scripture came alive in the mind of this pasture farmer that I'm to have dominion over the rats, as a new thought it was a new thought. But it was at the level of mindset. And the way Arturo tells his story. Now there's a space in that farmer's mind. What question Can he now answer? What do I do about the rats because I am to have dominion over them. And now he can begin to think of ways of keeping the corn away from the rats. And that's, that's at the level of mindset where you can begin to see things at a different level and then begin to innovate from that to solve a
problem. And that's exactly what they did. Dara, they created they themselves created the corn cribs and the ways of protecting their corn crop. They like you said, Randy, they weren't dumb. They're very intelligent. It's just they didn't have the space in their mind because of their worldview. And if an outsider a Westerner came in, they could immediately say, oh, you know, I know what your problem is. The rats are eating your corn here. Let me build you some corn cribs, right. But how much better would it be for them to come up with that idea themselves? And why aren't they coming up with that idea? What is going on that they are not?
Well, I think those are great. I definitely recall that that great story. And I also recall our turtle jokingly and not jokingly asking them who has a bigger brain or, or ourselves and I think there's a couple of interesting additional lessons from that story. And one is I think the Bible teaches us not only about message or truth, it also teaches us about methodology. And and Arturo was mostly asking questions during that story. He wasn't and you know, when we have We're so called experts, we have a tendency to tell people what the answer is. And maybe we already know what the answer is. But but our turtle was asking question which withdrawing out their own wisdom. And, and, exactly, and even Jesus, it's amazing how often he asked questions. I think it's in Mark chapter eight, where he asks like 15 questions in one chapter. And, you know, he, he knew all the answers, but he was drawing out the people and making them think and making them reflect on their own worldview. So that's one of the probably one of the keys to actually help people change their worldview. I think another unsaid aspect of that story about Arturo was another key for changing people's worldview is to see a model. And I know that that are true. And Patricia, were models of what they were talking about. They weren't just telling people what to do, but they were incarnational models that were inspiring to those pastors. Yep.
Take us to the next chapter for you, Randy. You had these ideas, that food for the hungry and then you moved on from food for hungry and you've worked with this group in the Philippines. What was Korea? I believe Korea, I'm sorry, yeah.
Sorry. Kanan, Kenan,
Kenan, Kenan global leadership. I think it is Randy Yeah. Todd, kind of Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Let's let's fast forward a little bit to kind of more of what you're doing right now. Yeah.
Yeah, well, I ended up leaving food for the hungry in 2006. And, but prior to that, I had met the the leaders of what would call Kanaan pharma school at the time. And whenever I visited Korea, we had a partner office in Korea. I was always curious, how did three arise up from poverty from being one of the poorest countries in the world? In the 1950s, after the Korean War, to one of the largest economies today, it's actually the 11th largest economy in the world in just a relatively short span. And I would always hear similar answers I would hear strong leadership, spiritual renewal, I would hear about education, exports, but it also hears something about the what was called the new village movement, or in Korean, it's called St. malloon. Dome. And one time in my visit our partner officer, why don't we go and meet the family. That was the inspiration behind the new village movement. So we went and I met a gentleman named Kim by mill. And I my mouth just dropped his eye is I listened to his story. And the connection, what really connected us was a mutual love for the kingdom of God. And in his case, he had a story of taking, essentially biblical worldview, KINGDOM OF GOD worldview, and inspiring a whole nation. On the flip side, I had a story of trial and error, which eventually led me to the kingdom of God. And that that mutual principle connected us the theme Bible verse, or the Canaan school is Matthew 633, which of course is seek first, the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. Well, I came back all excited about what we learned and in the new village movement was sort of embodying everything we were trying to do in food for the hungry. But not everybody was really convinced by by this, some some people said it was really just a cultural thing that only could happen in Korea. And it met a lot of resistance, to be quite honest. But I didn't let go of it in when I left food for the hungry in 2006. They contacted me a little bit later in 2008 and asked if I would become the international director for the Kanaan Global Leadership Center. And what they wanted to do was take their training, which previously had been internal to Korea, so over 700,000 people in Korea have gone to this farm, including leader from Samsung Yong chi In the military, government, you name it to learn, learn from the school and now they wanted to take what they have learned to the world and it big for they asked me to help them do that. So I became the international director. Since then, over 80 countries have come with vice presidents, MPs, mayors, you name it from around the world to learn basically how to create a transform itself. And what was the what was the story behind it? So I'm, I'm still the international director, but I spend most of my time out doing online training. I'm as we speak, I'm giving training to boot from knee shear, Burkina Faso, Mozambique and quinine. And basically the story of Kanaan and the story of Korea. So that's, that's sort of in it really, the story didn't change anything that I learned from food for the hungry, it just reaffirmed everything, it just made me dig even deeper into the belief of a biblical worldview, the kingdom of God, and mindset being the root cause the main root cause of poverty.
Randy, give us a little taste of, of what what was discovered there at that Canaan farm and what what those principles are that that that kind of comprise that the things that you teach, when people come to learn, you know, what, what, what are some of the key lessons, they're free?
Well, the essential message of Kanaan is that you don't change a nation with outside resources. You you change a nation by changing the people. And you change the people by changing their mindsets. That that's the essential message. If you ask most Koreans, how did how did you transform yourself? They will not talk about NGOs. And and I you know, I want to be careful. I'm not trying to be critical of NGOs. I've worked in NGOs, basically all my career.
Yeah. For those listeners who NGOs, a non governmental organization, that would be something like food for the hungry World Vision, these kinds of organizations. Yeah, that's correct.
Thank you for thank you for clarifying that. Boy, it's an industry, there's all kinds of acronyms. But so I'm not trying to be critical. It's just that we do need to be humble. And if you ask most Koreans, how did you change, they will say we did it ourselves. And and we changed from the inside out. So the essential message of of cayenne is you change by changing the people. And you change by by changing mindsets. And maybe, maybe I should just share your pass on a little bit about the story of cannon because I think that will make it easier to understand the principles. And I can I'll summarize it and if you want more details I can give an hour later. But as I mentioned, Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world in the 1950s. They come out of the Korean War, basically devastated. Many Western experts thought the Korea was was basically a lost cause. But there was a farmer named Kim Yong Ki, who was a Christian. And he believed that if he lived according to biblical principles, if he worked hard, and he prayed that there could be paradise on earth in Korea that the God's kingdom could advance in his family in his village. There could be heaven on earth. And at first people laughed at him, even his own family that were ashamed that you have the Kim name. You're a crazy man. But but he believed that if he did those three things to think was start to grow and ensure enough his little farm and then the families around him began to prosper. They have fruit trees, they had bees, they had different kinds of crops. And little by little people began to notice and other villages began to come. In basically what he taught them was we need to change from the inside out. We need to change your mindset. I'll share in just a moment. Some of the elements of that, in more and more people began to come now with villages from all over Korea began to come to this little farm. And in the early 1960s, the president of Korea, who was desperate to help Korea rise up, heard about this, this humble farmer. And he came and and he took a three hour tour with his his cabinet and military officials. And at the end of the three hours, he pounded his fist on the table. And he said, what this man has the spirit to send this man and his family is what all of Korea needs. If we would have this spirit. Bria would rise up out of poverty. And in another interesting story that I glossed over that I need to mention. After the bream war ended, the humanitarian organization began to arrive. And one organization arrived at his village and began to distribute bags of food, which which, by the way, is what we did in Bolivia. After their drought and in Bolivia, anywhere they arrived in in his village. And, and they began to hand out food and and Mr. Kim said, We don't want your if if you give us your food, our children will never learn how to transform themselves. Now, I'm not sure what Mrs. Kim was saying at the time. But Mr. Kim was saying we're not going to take your food and they were hungry. They were definitely hungry. But but that's a shocking model that he was to his family and to his his, into his neighbors. Well, the the president of Korea was so inspired, that he began the what's now called the new village movement. And that's Fred. And in basically what the new village movement was an emphasis on on mindset. Now, I don't know if he was a Christian, my guess is he probably was not. But he tapped into the ways of the kingdom. And that this is an interesting element that even if you're not a Christian, if you if you if you tap into the ways of the kingdom, there's a blessing. Maybe not the full blessing, but there's the blessing. And and the essential message, elements of the new village movement were first of all, self initiative. You don't wait for somebody else, you take initiative yourself in each village. The second was with diligence. You you work hard, you persevere. And the third was cooperation, which was working together but they were all elements of mindset. And they were all counteracting a negative mindset that was pervasive inquiry at the time. They were coming from a serfdom culture. And so he was counteracting lots of, of mindsets. And that in that mindset, and those that training Fred to all 33,000 villages of Korea. And it wasn't big money. They they gave gave our little bags of cement to each village. They gave the training to one man and one woman from each village. And that's basically all was to begin with. And then the the villages that did well, God more, but it was an inside out, mindset change process. That was all inspired by this little this little humble farming family. So that's the background of of the keynote on farm. Well that that farm, as I mentioned grew. As I said, over 700,000 friends have gone there. People from over 70 nations now have gone to the training and I'll just share just a few key messages and then a little bit on the methodology. One of the first things that people learn, when they come are certain slogans that that are based on a biblical worldview. So for example, when they sit down to eat, eat in they come from all religion. They come they're Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, and we asked them to reflect before they ate, and to bow their heads. And we do a slogan which is do not eat to eat. But he to work. If you don't like to work, do not eat, work at least four hours for each meal. And they repeat this for every meal. Now, they don't know that some of that is coming from the book of Thessalonians. But, but if you don't want to work, you don't eat. And they repeat that and they don't rebel, they know deep in their heart, that that's true. They also learn some other key Flocon, one of which have changed myself first. You know, don't change my boss First, don't change my spouse First, don't change my neighbor, first, don't change my government first. Change myself first. Change here, first change, small thing first, change now. First, they repeat the every day. And these are all based on biblical thinking. Another key slogan is, I work first, I serve first I sacrifice first. And in again, it's not I don't wait for somebody else to pick up the garbage that I see laying in the street. If I don't pick it up, who's going to pick it up? Now, mind you, these are government officials. These are high level people coming in for this training. So this is pretty, pretty radical training but deep in their heart. They they know what's true. They also learn about the importance of farming. I'm not going to go into depth on that now. But we have a great concern that the world's heading for some serious problems with food supply. They learn about frugality. Not to waste anything. Churches, Jesus when he fed the 5000 he collected that the baskets afterwards. So they learn about all the principles. But the other interesting thing is they it's not just principles, they also, there's also a method that's different. So they come thinking that they're going to be kind of in a posh training, like usually happened with a nice hotel and seven hours of nice lectures.
The first day, the basically the way the training day, it looks like when they come you wake up at 5am. You you go outside in the dark and the cold, you say the slogans that are all based on a biblical worldview. You exercise because this is not just about mind, but it's also about body and spirit. You sang the national anthem, because it's also about patriotism, to your nation. And then you do farming practice, this is all before breakfast, then you go to some lectures on different aspects of creative transformation. So again, it's not that technology is bad, or or academic theories are bad, but it has to be based in mindset first. And then And then finally, at the end of the day, you you do clean up so you you clean up the floor. The again, these are government leaders. Now the teachers, for example, myself, have to be models of all of those. So if they get up at five, we get up at 430 If they do cleaning of the floors, we do cleaning of the toilets. And and so they see this, they not only hear about the difference of mindset, they see it in demonstration. So you know like I said, we we have people of all levels of authority. Come but there are many interesting testimonies. I'll just give you two quick ones right now. One Muslim man I recall at the end of four weeks of training, he said you know, I've I've heard what it is to be a Christian. But this is the first time I've seen what it looks like to be a Christian. And he said he was going to go home and and actually hire Christians in his country to be part of his office. Another Lady from the Philippines. She had gone through the whole training. In this case, it was three months of training. And she said, You know what, what really impacted me was not the lectures, including yours truly lectures. So what really impressed me was one day at five o'clock in the morning, I looked out our window, and this was in the dead of winter. There was snow all over the ground. And she said she thought the president if was Kim by mail, who at the time was about 78 years old. And she said I saw him all alone. out shoveling snow. He was he was shoveling a path between the sleeping quarters of the students and the dining hall. So that nobody was flipped. And she said, I thought what it means what it really means I work first, I serve first, I sacrifice first. So these are just just a couple of little stories, but it's a powerful examples of of the training and we have a little joke that when you come to the training and Kanaan, you cry your first week because you were expecting you know this easy training you get a very difficult training but you also cry your last week because now you have your heart been touched. You're beginning to experience transformation but what they'll what they will say is the main thing is I'm experiencing transformation of my mindset. They they don't talk about transformation of techniques, they talk about truth for information of their mind.
Randy I can I love those stories but I'm just thinking of some folks in our audience no doubt who maybe kind of their their antennas are going up and they're you know, they're getting concerned about some of this talk about transformation apart from Christ or apart from the gospel. You know, just kind of this idea that if we just shift our mindsets, everything will be good. What how would you respond to those kinds of concerns? Because I'm sure people are thinking that and I know that even when you talk about the kingdom coming on earth you know, we can have the Kingdom Come on earth that that also is like a an area where people you know, their their hackles can kind of go up and you know, so I you know what I'm talking about Randy, but how do you respond to some of those concerns that people have Christians evangelicals particularly?
Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you for asking that Scott aid. First of all, I just want to be clear that my heart and the heart of everybody and Kanaan and, and is we want people to come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. When when people come to Kanaan, they we don't hide the fact that we're Christian. They know we're Christian, Kim Yong Ki, the original founder of Fanon, he was he was a man of faith. In fact, he would pray, two to four hours every day, every day two to four hours. And he was mainly praying for his nation. One of the incredible things is he didn't even pray for himself until the last phrase, which was, he asked he would ask Jesus to be for him to be a martyr for the sake of His kingdom, so he I, everybody, and Kanaan who, for the hungry Federation, we want people to come to know Jesus. I think understanding the kingdom of God really helped open my eyes to this is that Jesus is the King of everything. Yes, he's the king of the spiritual realm, but he's also the king of government, the schools, the military, health, education, and so on. So we want Jesus to be king of everything. But we try to be, you know, salt and light. And, and we also wants to strategically work with the local church. So, you know, one of the things we believe is the best way to help God's kingdom, expand in another country, is to help empower the local church with these ideas and to integrate the local church into the life of the community. I'm a foreigner, and I'm always going to be an outsider, though there's a limit And in what I can do, but but if I can just quietly help the local church get these ideas, there's no limit. And, and there's a limit on how long I'm going to be there. But there are no limit on a local church church. So strategically speaking, the key is to helping a local body of believers catch these ideas. I'll share one, one story. This is a nice share, and he share 99% Muslim 1% other religion, Christian, and I was in a small community, in the share. And in by the way, when I, I teach people the ball religion, the these ideas and and teach the need for sacrifice and, and people of all religions except them. They don't resist biblical concept because I think deep in our hearts, deep in our souls, we know that it's the truth. So anyway, I was teaching all the things in, in the sheriff. And we met a two leaders in a village. One was the Muslim chief. And the other was a man with a giant cross a big prominent cross on his chest. And, and they were arm and arm. And I asked them, Tell me your story. And basically, they said, We're not enemies with one another. If not Muslim, first Christians or Christians versus Muslims. That's not to say we agree from a theological standpoint, but as community members, we're not enemies. The enemy is hunger in our community. And the interesting so they were working together and the church was being salt and light, just as I just shared naturally integrated into the community life. Now, I'll let you guess what percent of Christians there were in this community? Well, he would 25%. And that's just an example of when you're natural salt and light, you don't have to force them. You just have to be models. You have to pray like Kim Yong Ki, you have to ask questions like Jesus, and the fruit comes. And I can share many other stories like that. So that's a long answer to your questions, God, but we definitely want people to come to know Jesus as their king.
Let me just tack on something there to what you said, Randy. So often in the church, we we think that we need to begin by evangelizing. But you don't need to begin by evangelize and you can begin by discipling. And that's what you have been doing. That's when you share biblical principles. Or you tell biblical stories without saying where they're from. You are bringing the nature of the kingdom of God to a person or to a community in a pre evangelistic form, but it's very powerful.
Randy de, the principles that you shared with us, and I like the methodology of using the slogans or mottos, the sayings, you know, because they're easy to kind of memorize, and it's quite powerful. But I'm just trying to imagine if you tried to bring those models or sayings into you live in Seattle, and, you know, Seattle, like a lot of our West Coast cities is really struggling right now. And especially the inner cities, you know, there's just huge homeless camps. What are your thoughts on that? Could people here in the United States, could Christians apply those principles in our cities here? Do you think it have that kind of result? What are your thoughts on then?
Oh, boy, absolutely. Scott. i It's sad to see what's happening and there's been I forget what year it started, but I want to say 2008 There was a 10 year Campaign to End Homelessness, homelessness, of course, that's long forgotten. Now. Now there's new campaigns through to raise money through and hopeless homelessness in the province. keeps getting worse and worse. And it for all the reasons that we, we talk about in this conversation of trying to fix things with top down, essentially outside resources, but not addressing root causes. You know, it's interesting, I was in a trip to West Africa, in November to Sierra Leone, Gambia in Ghana. And you don't see many homeless people in Africa. And when you do see homeless people, which is very rare, it's usually part of some sort of a racket where where somebody else is trying to get money, and taking advantage of maybe some immigrants. But But essentially, you You don't see many. And in the reason, there's a couple of reasons for that. One is that families take care of their own. There is a kind of a safety net, where families still take responsibility for their family members. And the other is that they're not the social net that we have here. So they still live, for better or for worse, by the principle of if you don't work, you don't eat.
Because just because they don't they don't have things like Yeah, our social safety net, you know, exactly, yeah.
It sounds cold. But but it just a truth that been a truth for 5000 years, and you really didn't change until the last 30 or 40 years. So So in Seattle, basically, you have, you know, a lot of, of governmental programs, essentially trying to solve things with with governmental programs, you don't you have broken families. So that's not that's, that's one of the root causes. You have people trying to sell drug addiction, with with giving more drugs? And I mean, it's a complicated problem. I don't want to so
would I be correct, Randy, to say you almost have to deal with those problems. Like I'm trying to think about the Korean situation, the, you know, the cane and the model farm, you didn't have broken families there. You had poverty, but you didn't have broken families, let's say, you know, so. So they had that advantage that you don't have in downtown Seattle with with broken families, you almost have to, would you agree you have to deal with some of these more fundamental problems, even before those principles can be can kind of gain traction and begin to apply. But yeah,
in the States, you're creating more broken families, by government policies. The state becomes the husband and the father.
Yeah, there's almost, and you policy use
throw money at something. And it creates more of that very thing. A few years ago, the we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Johnson's War on Poverty. And during the 50 years of the war on poverty, the United States spent 21 trillion trillion dollars on poverty programs at the federal, state and local level.
I mean, the Nothing like this has ever been done in human history. No, not on that scale.
I'm saying on this scale and the amount of money that would have meant for every person in the country and did it in poverty. No, the rate of poverty was virtually the same as when Johnson declared the war on poverty. And the reason is that you are trying to solve the problem with money when the root of the problem was not money. And people say today, well, if we just had more money, if we just put more money at the problem, we'd solve it. No, because the root of the problem is a mindset. And if you don't attack it at that level, deal with it at that level, you won't solve the problem.
Okay, then I want to go back to Randy. Randy, can we do the Kanaan farm system in the US? I mean, is there a transfer in here is there's some principles that can crossover
well I you know, I agree that I'm really concerned about the the direction So things are going and I'll just, I'll just speak for Seattle. But I also see hope. And, and I think that the, the hope goes, it really just going back to the basics. And and so for example in my life, I'm part of the homeowners association board in my community. And my community is made up of people from just about every nation, my next door neighbor from Cambodia, my other next door neighbor from India, across the street, Zambia, I'm literally the minority in my, my my community. But, you know, at this level, you don't hear some of the political rhetoric and stuff, we're just a bunch of neighbors. And one of the problems that reached recently happening, whole bunch of crime, right and left of our home, homes are being broken into. And, and so this is an opportunity for, for me, and my family to try to help our neighbors be safer. So we've reached out to the police, we've reached out to one another, to you know, to do Neighborhood Watch, we've shared ideas. Now, I've had the opportunity to invite our next door neighbor to church. So it leads to just very natural opportunity to be built in light. So I think sometimes we can be overwhelmed when we look at the national level. But when we get down to the grassroots level, there's a lot of hope. And that's the message of cannon is change myself first, change my family first, change my community first. And and if we all did that, eventually the United United States would would change. I love that random work
four hours before you eat.
To work for hours, I think that's very empowering. Because we can be overwhelmed when we look at the direction and the problems that are around us in the United States. Not to mention around the world. But but it becomes Yeah, when you begin to limit the scope to your own family or your neighbors, Randy just like you did right there. What can I do to help my neighbors and to make kind of the kingdom of God come in on my street, you know, then it's something you feel like you feel empowered, like, oh, maybe there's some things I can do. There's some practical steps I can take. And so I love that.
That's, you know, the big the big trend now and in relief and development is systemic change, which, which I totally agree with. However, we've been trying to do systemic change for a long time in the United States, and we're still struggling with it. So that doesn't give a community much hope for today, if you have to wait for systemic change, to actually make any progress. But if you if you can change your mindsets, at the local level in your family level, nobody can stop you from doing that. So that's a very freeing message. And that's not to downplay all the other issues we have. But But I can start tomorrow or today at at my own level.
That's great, Randy. Randy, as we wrap up here, I'd love to, you know, tell us ways that we can our listeners or we can can rally behind you and the work of vision of Community Fellowship or the training that you're doing through through Kanaan. What are some ways that people can reach out to you support you? Or maybe get some resources from you if they want to learn more and begin to apply this themselves?
Yeah, well, we've done just a brief thought on that on the training. Basically, we have a four week training. It covers all the elements of canon and the story of Korea, but also other nations with inspiring stories of how they rose from the inside out. We do it through WhatsApp. One of my lessons learned is to be use a method that basically everybody can access easily, even by cell phone. So you get three chapters each week, then you answer a couple questions for WhatsApp. And then at the end of the four weeks you get a certificate.
How do you if people wanted to get plugged into that Randy where would they go?
Maybe the simplest thing I can just say right? You can either say write to info Am I N fo? At Bo CF dot orgy, that vision of Community Fellowship V O C F dot orgy? Or you can just write to my personal email randall.code@gmail.com Wow,
good for you to give out your personal email here to our 6 billion listeners on the podcast. That's great. Randy. Well, I'm so glad that you've got some practical resources like that, that people can, you know, can take advantage of and learn and begin to apply. So listen, Randy, it has been just terrific to catch up with you. I'm just so blessed. Randy, that you are what I hear you talk today i It brings back so many memories of the very similar kind of passion, similar kind of philosophy from when we were working together and just to see your steadfast perseverance in those basic core truths. It blesses my heart, Randy. So keep up the great work. We're honored to call you friends.
Well, let me just say thank you for giving me the opportunity and the feeling of mutual I often say that I don't think the world needs more big programs. I think the world needs inspiration. And I think that that DNA is doing exactly that. You're You're inspiring the world. And I'm I'm just humbled to have been a small part in that. So thank you, Darrell, Dwight, and Scott.
Thank you, Randy. And good being with you today. I remember we were together a couple years ago for something for food for the hungry. And it was just so good being with you at that time. And it's wonderful being with you today. Thank you.
And thank you guys for listening to another episode of ideas have consequences. This is the podcast of the disciple nations Alliance.
Hi, friends. Thank you so much for listening to this episode with Randy Hogue. As always, you can find all of the resources that we mentioned in this episode, including more stories about the Canaan farm on the episode landing page. If you want to begin your journey of changing your mindset or worldview, and start seeing poverty and really every area of life in a biblical way. I want to highlight for you one of the bedrock training resources besides the Bible behind everything that we do here at the disciple nations Alliance and it is the development ethic Bible study, which is an in depth study into 13 truths that transform individuals and cultures. As a creator of the universe and of mankind, God established natural laws, moral laws, and a framework in his word to guide us and fulfilling the creation mandate to fill and rule the earth. As image bearers of God, we must discover and apply these laws. This is the focus of the development ethic Bible study, which I would recommend to any Christian. The truths in this study provided the outline for Darrow Miller's book discipling nations, which in turn provided the content for the quorum do basics course which is our flagship biblical worldview online training course. And by the way, all of our courses and Bible studies on our website are completely free to use. To find them head over to the episode landing page, which you'll see linked in the description to this episode. Ideas have consequences is brought to you by the disciple nations alliance to learn more about our ministry. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, or on our website, which is disciple nations.org. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next week.
