Healing the Poverty Mindset pt. 1 with Tim and Terry Andrews

10:17PM Mar 10, 2023

Speakers:

Scott

Luke

Tim Andrews

Terry Andrews

Keywords:

tim

worldview

africa

terry

children

god

missions

mozambique

muslim

people

felt

countries

sierra leone

kids

story

christ

world

years

ministry

muslims

That thing was a turning point in my spiritual life. And I remember just say saying to myself as the bullets kept coming, I kept saying, "Not one bullet will hit me unless God allows it, and then who am I to stop?" He was just in such complete control.

Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance, a show where we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nations, but to also 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 her mission, and today, 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 to another episode of Ideas Have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. And my name is Scott Allen. I'm the president of the DNA. And I'm joined here today by my colleagues, Shawn Carson and Tim Williams. And we are blessed to have as our guest today, Tim and Terry Andrews. Hi, you guys. Good to have you with us.

Great to be here.

And you're joining all the way from a Kenya I believe.

Timhat's right.

What a blessing that we can be connecting like this. Tim and Terry are essentially, correct me if I'm wrong in this characterization, I would say career missionaries, career missionary relief and development workers, they've worked for many, many years in this field, primarily in Africa, with World Vision, and also now with a ministry called Route To Fruit which we would like to hear more of later, but we got to know Tim and Terry several years ago, through a mutual friend named Dennis Tongoi, who helped to lead the training of the DNA in Africa. And Dennis and Tim and Terry got to know one another through training, and maybe you guys can share a little bit more about that story. But that's how we were introduced, and it's just been such a thrilling thing to know you guys, and just to get to know your heart, and just the incredible things that God has done through your ministry. And so I would just love to hear more from you guys about your life and about your ministry and what it means to do ministry missions work in Africa. And particularly the area that we cross-pollinate in if you will, the whole area of worldview, a biblical worldview based approach to missions and transformation. But why don't you Tim and Terry, I'll let you guys decide who wants to start. But with that, I'd love to hear your background and just where do you come from. And then if you could also just share a little bit about how you got called, how did you sense calling into this type of work? I'd love to hear that just as we get started.

Okay, I am Tennessee boy. I'm actually from Signal Mountain. That's right outside of Chattanooga, and we were talking earlier, it's across from Lookout Mountain and very beautiful area. I grew up there for 20 years in the same house and then moved out to California and went to UC Berkeley where I was an English major. And then later I got a MBA at San Francisco State, and then I started working with Deloitte, an accounting and consultancy firm there in San Francisco. So I'll tell you how I had the call to missions. And then I'll let Terry tell up to the point where we met, because we met out in California. But when I was working at Deloitte, I think my call to missions was more when I had progressed to the point after four years of this sort of "up or out" culture where there were 45 of us that were all hired at the same time, and every year you had to be promoted or you had to leave. And after four years there were about three or four of us left, and a partner was assigned to me to explain how the partner track works. And it was during that meeting that I just felt physically ill at the thought of a career in San Francisco in an accounting/consulting firm, and it didn't feel at all aligned with my sense of wanting to follow Jesus and serve other people and show the love of God to people. And this is all pre-internet. I had no way of searching, "where are these mission opportunities", but I just knew that it was it was time for a transition. So I looked for a mission course and you're probably familiar with the Ralph Winters perspective courses?

Absolutely. Yes. It was life changing for me? Yeah.

Okay. So I found one of those in Oakland, and ended up going over there on on the weekends. And that's where I met Terry.

No kidding! At a perspectives course. Yes, that's so interesting. I actually, I would love to just follow up just a little bit with Terry before we let you in, just with Tim, because I this is a part of your story I hadn't heard before. So that's a big jump all the way from Tennessee to Berkeley, California. When was this, I don't mean to kind of peg you on your age or anything like that. But we talked about the 70s was, where was this relationship to all the action happening in Berkeley?

It was, I think it's about 1979,1978 actually when I went out. And so Berkeley had gone through a swing of extremely radical, and it was swinging back to almost conservative kind of business, sort of.

No kidding, I hadn't heard that. Okay.

But it was swinging the pendulum. So it was kind of a balance of the radical and more conservative.

I see. Did you grew up in a Christian household Tim? Tell us a little bit about your faith journey.

Yeah. So my parents were probably almost the initial founders in the Chattanooga area of the Charismatic movement. And my dad was in charge of the full gospel businessman, that that was very popular in those days, and he would have speakers from all over the United States that he would he would bring in. And that particular movement at that time, meant that we would move from church to church because there was a sort of an awakening, maybe, a Holy Spirit awakening, happening in various churches. So I actually grew up in a lot of different churches. But it was part of the kind of the charismatic movement of that time. But my dad and my mom, they were both incredible role models of what it looked like to be followers of Jesus. And my dad in particular, was always reaching out to needy people and kids that had been maybe kicked out of their homes or drug addicts. And we always had someone in our home other than his five children. And so I just had a sense of being able to show God's love to others was sort of stamped on my life from from early childhood, and I became through my, actually, my dad led me to the Lord through bedtime stories when I was a child. And I never deviated from that.

Wow. That's beautiful. Well, Terry, yeah, tell us your journey up to the point that your guys' path intersected in that perspectives class in Oakland.

Yeah. So I was not born into a Christian household, although it was a good household, but born actually in Germany on a military base. I lived in Massachusetts for a while with my family and back and forth to Germany and Austria a little bit because my father was a university professor interested in medieval history. So went into the Austrian School System speak German, so lots of cultural back and forth. But at age 11, we moved from Massachusetts down to the South. And so in Massachusetts, not so many people went to church, or at least that was my parents perspective.

Pretty secondary.

Yeah. But down in Virginia, everybody went to church. And so two things happened. I think, yeah, it was around seven years old. I'm not sure if we'd started the church thing yet. But I do remember by sixth grade teacher showing a video of the Peace Corps. And basically some Peace Corps workers working with African mothers to kind of reestablish breastfeeding as more important than formula because Nestle's had becoming a formula that mothers thought was a life saving thing for their kids, they would do it to save money, and their kids would end up starving. And I just remember watching them, basically reteach breastfeeding, which is what African mothers do anyway. And I remember just thinking at age 11, it's like, I don't know if I could do a lot or help a lot, but I think I might be able to really help in Africa, that was just my child like thinking, and I never forgot that, and I always just felt a draw to Africa. And so in high school, without getting into too much detail, well, I had a great uncle that we would visit in Virginia, and he was a believer, and he would share little stories and bring us to church, and I got so interested. And finally, but still no background really in Christ or Christianity. And I just thought, whatever it takes, I'm going to become a Christian. I thought maybe it takes 20, 30, 40, 50 years. But finally, in I think, my junior year of high school, he was called a Jesus freak, but he transferred into our high school. And I remember just approaching him saying, how do you become a Christian? So he went, rather dryly, through the four spiritual laws, honestly, that didn't speak to me a whole lot initially. It's like so I'm a sinner. And I asked Jesus, why is Jesus so important? What happened after that was I made a commitment to read the Bible, and God actually just spoke through the Bible to me, and maybe that's why I love the truth of the Word. And I feel like it applies to every aspect of life. But just one day, the verse from a 2 Corinthians 5:21 that says, "He made Him who knew no sin to be made sin for us so that we could be the righteousness of Christ." That just suddenly clicked. It's like, oh, okay, that's what Jesus did. And so I had some pretty good fellowship in high school. It was a bit of a shallow rebirth still. And without going to detail unless you're interested, I had a lot of ups and downs in college and in my mid 20s, and I even went to a point of just choosing not to believe in God. But it was due to some things that happened, mostly a couple that had mentored me, just fell away from Christ completely and engaged in some horrible things.

Oh, that's really tough.

But maybe it was, God uses all these things. And so I just started from the beginning, like, by that time I was in medical school, because I'd still wanted to go to Africa no matter what. And wanted to be a doctor in Africa. And so I remember just gathering fellow students, and we studied a book called "More Than a Carpenter." I don't know if any of you are old enough to remember that.

Josh McDowell!

Yes, okay. You got it.

And I remember just sitting with him, and I'm saying, "I don't know if it's true. I don't know if he is the Son of God, I don't know all these things, but let's just figure it out together." And it was through that, that I just became deeply convicted that Jesus was the Son of God, and that He rose from the dead and that the Holy Spirit empowered boldness and those disciples. And yeah, and that was a turning point for me. And my life wasn't perfect, even for some years to come, but God is so merciful. And maybe the last thing I'll say before meeting, Tim is, I think the thing that really drew me back to him totally in the end was, in my fourth year of medical school, I did an internship in the country of Nepal, which at that time, Christians were under serious persecution. In fact, it was forbidden to convert. And it was a jailable offense, and it was a jailable offense to actually speak to, be responsible for someone's conversion. And I remember just seeing these former Hindus that had lost everything because by coming to Christ, their family rejected them, their friends rejected them, all their inheritance was gone. But the joy in their eyes is like, you couldn't deny it! There was so much joy. It's a funny way to be drawn back. But there was just something about their joy and God's love sort of plated the circle for me. And yeah, I think that was in my late 20s. And yeah, I never went back after that.

Where were you still in Europe Terry, at that time, or where were you now?

No, I went to Medical College in Virginia.

Okay. Okay. Virginia. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

And so I went to Nepal just for that mission trip for three months. But yeah, the Europe time was as a baby, and then at age 7-8. And then in my teens, I did several trips and just worked in restaurants. And I hiked around, that kind of thing. Yeah. And so finally, I wanted to do medical residency in California or the West. Because there, you still got really hands on training, family practice and this is what I wanted to pursue, family practitioners on the East Coast are just more gatekeepers, and so on. And I kind of wanted to get out of the conservative culture of the, I'm not there now, my head isn't there now. But at the time, the East Coast felt too conservative. And so which is a little bit what Tim was doing to is like, let's get out of the East, and head west. We didn't know each other. And it was only after meeting and this missions class that we realized, for two years, we'd been living just a block away or a few blocks away in Berkeley. And I think the final thing I just want to say is how moving that missions class was to me and Ralph Winter in particular, and his passion for the Muslims was so infectious. And yeah, and the last thing I'll say is that in Berkeley, I was meeting a number of Muslims, and I was just so overwhelmed by their spirituality, and their strong interest in God and prayer. And there's a part of me is thinking, you guys are more interested in pursuing God than a lot of Christians I know. And so Ralph Winter, he just brought it all together for me. And I believe that was a big part of my own call to work with Muslims.

Did Ralph Winter teach the class? Was he the facilitator?

I don't know if he taught the whole class, but he definitely was there for some of those sessions.

Okay. Well, for our listeners who aren't familiar with Roth Winter, how would you describe him? He set up the US Center for World Missions in Pasadena, which for many years, was really the headquarters of Evangelical missions in the United States. I don't know what to say about it. But he was really a founding father in some ways of American Evangelical missions. I mean, for our generation. And he's passed away, but he had a huge influence on so many of us. So that's really wonderful that you guys got to spend time with him like that. What For both of you guys before we go from the class, I'm just curious, just kind of briefly, what were some of those aha 's or takeaways from that time? In that class?

Yeah. I think, it's hard to verbalize because to me, there was just a great sense of excitement about missions. But I think one of the things that Ralph Weiner conveyed to me was he, first of all, for my own sense of how spiritual Muslims are, and how much they're really seeking the one true God, they're not necessarily, they've been taught perhaps to be against Christians in the infidels, but in their heart, there's a purity of seeking God and I think there's another thing he imparted to me, that is sort of similar. Especially once we ended up in Guinea, which is too much of a fast forward right now, which was 96% Muslim, is that we can view Muslims is hard and impossible to reach and build a wall in our thinking and mindset becomes the worldview really, that will make it impossible to reach but really, they're just people like we are, they're just lost like we are, and we were. And just take down that name Muslim because it makes it makes a dividing wall. Yeah, he had a lot of also approaches to Islam. And I also understood what some. through him. understood what some of the differences are between Christians and Muslims in their view of the Father and their view of the deity of Jesus. But I think the biggest thing was probably more, but not realizing it now, sort of the worldview towards Muslims or my mindset towards Muslims, needed to change if I was really going to reach them, and that they're just people, just like us.

So Scott, I'm amazed at what she can remember from over 30 years ago. But the only aha moment I remember is the cute medical doctor sitting on the other side of the wing.

Okay. It was life changing.

Definetly a life changing moment.

That's great. Well, go on from there, guys. How long was it until you were married, and then you got into full time Christian ministry and missions work?

Well, so right in that timeframe when we were in that perspectives course, that was when I was having, and I won't go into it, but I was having a series of recruiters calling me when I was in Deloitte, trying to recruit me into other organizations, into CFO positions, some kind of finance, director kinds of roles. And I was literally, I was getting sick, I literally, I felt like I was going to throw up every time they would call. And that was, for me, that was the Holy Spirit saying, it's time to move. I even had one recruiter that kept talking to me, and I said, I have to hang up, or I am going to vomit, and I hung up the phone. And during that time, I got connected to World Vision through my brother, who happened to be a supporter of theirs and followed the ministry. And they're out there in the LA area, Monrovia when I was up in San Francisco, so it was kind of easy for me to connect there with them. And I had started an interview process, it was happening at the same time as the perspectives course. And at the same time, I was getting to know Terry, and I ended up getting a job with with World Vision that took me to Mozambique. And I think I was there about a year before we actually got married. So we would snail mail letters back and forth, with weeks and weeks of delay in between. And then I was back for a short period of time. And we kind of figured out if we're going to get married, we had to do it real fast. So in between the time that I proposed and we got married, because she came down to visit me, and while she was down there, she got offered a job to run the Medical program in Mozambique. Yeah. And so then we were back home and we realized if we're going to get married, we either have to do it really fast because we have to go back to Mozambique, or we have to have all our family come to Mozambique, which it was a warzone. So from between the time I proposed and we got married, it was three weeks.

Oh my gosh.

So it kind of got the attention of parents and friends and all kinds of consequences from that but it was fantastic. Every one of those days of those three weeks leading up to that everything just fell in the place like clockwork. Terry went and even had to rent a wedding gown and there wasn't time to do anything else. But the wedding gown that she found fits fit her imagination of what she would want a dress to look like when she got married and it was just right there. They put it on her and it fit her perfect, it fit her absolutely perfectly. So God just put all the little little pieces together, and then we're off to Mozambique. And I think maybe what I could do is just kind of give you, I mean, our stories could go on really long. Just kind of squeezed down the journey through Africa over most of the last 30 years. And you can kind of, our first 10 years of Africa were warzones. And out of the warzone experience, there was a ministry, Children In Christ, got birthed through Terry as a result of those experiences. And that's a whole story in and of itself, which I'll let her tell that in just a minute. And then the last 20 years were more in a development context. And that's where the biblically empowered worldview understanding came to me in the midst of of just really difficult development work, and I could tell tell you a story about that. And so we've lived together for a long time, but the trajectory of our ministry has actually been quite different. But all in Sub-Saharan Africa. Go ahead.

Well, it's just you guys have really been in Africa, since you were married then, more or less.

After 10 years there were about three and a half, four years, we were back in the States for a short period of time, but most of that in Africa starting in 1989. That's when I first came and went to Mozambique. And so that civil war there, lots of suffering. Yeah, it's part of Terry story, she can come back to that. From there, we went over to Zaire, and Zaire at the time, the DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo now, it was in an ethnic conflict situation. And from there we went to Sierra Leone, and we were in Sierra Leone during the blood diamonds Civil War there. So it was it was 10 years of really intense war zones where through World Vision, we were delivering emergency food relief and emergency medical assistance, emergency nutrition for under five children that needed therapeutic feeding. And so it was difficult. I mean, in Sierra Leone, we even got there was a coup. And during the coup, we got caught in crossfire. The rebels joined the military, but part of the coup was they had been fighting these rebels but part of the coup agreement was that the rebels would join the the soldiers and throw out the President, so there was just pandemonium, chaos, shooting all through the streets, looting consecutive houses around, coming down to us, miraculous delivery, the Lord just delivered us from the jaws of the lion their, and we ended up having to, I had to add to organize my all the international staff that were there and their children, it was about 35-40 people, get a helicopter come in, land on a tennis court and evacuate us to Conakry, Guinea.

Oh my god.

So those are 10 years. And after that, we were short period in the US when I was working with World Vision US. And then back in Kenya, and from Kenya, over to Tanzania. And when I was in Kenya, I actually had responsibility for all of the countries in Africa, under under World Vision. And it was during that time where we were in that development context is is where I just had my personal sort of existential crisis that the unintended consequences of much of what we do is actually hurting it. It's increasing dependencies. And so and I can tell that story

Yeah, but I do want to put a pin on that Tim, cuz it kind of maybe Terry could catch us up to that point. Maybe we could use that as a point of kind of jumping off because that you know, this existential crisis that you're talking about but just just for our listeners, I think most people are familiar with World Vision, but it's probably the largest. What is it the largest Christian relief and development organization in the world, isn't it? But by far, yeah, by far, so. So you and you guys have worked for many years or you worked for many years then and in various positions. Were you mostly in country director level positions, or just just a variety of positions? Yeah,

I was mostly in country director roles. And then I was the chief operating officer for the 26 countries in Africa for a period of time.

So you were really high up in management then for the for the continent of Africa. That's impressive, Tim? Yeah. Because that's that's just, I have a sense of the scope of that. It's math. That's a big, that's a big scope, big budget, lots of people so very complex to given. All that's going on in Africa. Yeah.

Yeah, probably about 20,000. At that time, around 20,000. Staff. And probably around a billion dollars worth of annual funding. Wow. So something, something like that.

And then to just, yeah, you talked about relief and development. And I think that's also good to just kind of clarify relief, when we talk about that, you know, we're talking about, you know, just a response in an emergency situation. So like, you were saying so many war zones, and so much conflict, and a lot of refugees and people literally starving, you know, and just need a very basic food and clothing and shelter. And so relief is the response to that. And you did a lot of that work, it sounds like, but then when you're into Kenya, now, it's a little bit different. It's not a crisis situation. But people are still living in very impoverished conditions, high infant mortality rates are malnourishment and things like that. So how do we help improve the light the living of you know, the basic kind of living of these people? That's more of the development side of things. Yeah.

Right. That's where my story will pick up from there. But I thought Terry could could talk about what came out of the those war years.

Is that okay, or? Yeah, okay. Yeah, so I'm just picking up on the Mozambique time. My job was mostly just to deal with severely malnourished children that had been isolated by the war. Basically, the Rebels would put landmines around villages so that nobody could farm their farms. And they would just slowly starve to death. And I, I still remember the first time landing in the first village, Milla volley, and I just saw a very thin woman within children on their backs, just picking leaves off bushes, you know, trying to eat something. And, and I remember, you know, our first job was to do a nutrition survey, you know, a height for weight survey, and, you know, walking from house to house with this little handheld scale, and just weighing really skeletons of children. You know, it was, you know, I remember pictures that Ethiopian family feminine and this, you know, this was it all over again. And I just remember, you know, weighing some children, you know, going throughout to the other end of the village and on returning, you know, some of those children would have already died, you know, there were just so many of them at death's door. I just, I read nothing.

Yeah, I am stunned by the you guys jumped into Mozambique, even today is a real difficult country to live in. It's one of the poorest countries in Africa that you know, you guys, were there at a time when it was in crisis because of famine and war, right out of the United States newly married, I'm like, How in the world did you guys manage? It must have been incredible transition. Anyways, I

just couldn't recommend anything. Not jumping into Mozambique. I know, it was God's path for us, you know, and then what nice thing, you know, there was a lot of trauma, but we really, we had a strong friendship before we were married. So you know, I think we really support each other. And yeah, and as it turned out, because we were both in leadership positions, you know, a lot of times we could fly together to different parts of Mozambique. And it was it was actually a lot of togetherness. Stressful, you know, rather stressful circumstances. But, you know, we could debrief together and learn together. Yeah. And it was, yeah, but yeah, it's not what I would recommend, but I really think it keeps your

attention off of petty differences,

ya know, when you're Yeah, no, it's and I don't mean to make light of it. I mean, you're dealing like, it's just heartbreaking things you're talking.

Yeah. But um, yeah, so, yeah, I just, yeah, it was a little bit numbing, and also, yeah, well, you know, my medical education didn't really prepare me for that. So it was, it was a challenging, difficult time. But we also, I mean, there were some really cool things because, you know, my faith was just growing, growing stronger. And we had found, although Mozambique at that time was a fairly communist country, we found Mozambique and Christians, and our work was funded by USA ID and we were given the mandate not to share our face, but in our own mind. And we thought, okay, well, our workday is from nine to five. So you know, before nine, and after five, our work is done, we can do what we want. And of course, you know, it's almost 24 hour 24/7 work, you know, for, for the emergency stuff. So, we've found ways to kind of share, you know, share Christ's and tell Bible stories in law lines, or in the feeding centers, or hold little churches and some other villages. And it was a really, we really felt God's presence and felt him directing us and it was just, you know, that was the light, you know, the, the good, bright and encouraging side of all that work. And, but I think we, I joined later than Tim, so probably, I think it was just from 91 to 93. I worked there 91 to 94. In 1993, a peace accord was signed, and the piece actually held, which you know, is not to be taken for granted. And our work shifted to, you know, from feeding centers to vaccinations, et cetera. But the other thing that happened is because Tim and I were on the relief branch, we were no longer really needed in Mozambique. And so we were to turn everything over back to the government. And they had already found a posting for us in Zaire. But I think what changed my life actually was turning things back over to the government, the government, still was had a heavy communist influence, which to me, is expressed by apathy, I just felt such apathy from the nurses and the doctors and these kids that we'd been playing with and singing with, you know, now they were standing in line and all the nurse cared about was abroad, you know, I could just see him holding up the hand, if the, if the mother child didn't have the money, they were turned away. And, you know, no, no attempt to build them up in any way. And actually, there are horrible things that happened in clinics and hospitals, by nurses, at the hands of nurses that do not care. And I was really kind of hard. It was sort of a real downer, actually, as we departed Mozambique. And I just remember, being on the plane to Zaire and thinking, man, you know, I, I've been working on kind of the, the outside of the body. Like I'm making sure they don't starve, you know, taking care of infections and that kind of thing. But it's meaningless if the inside isn't changed. And, you know, and I think that was maybe the beginning of God, speaking to me about two things I, I knew somehow, rather than fixing the outside of the kids, he wanted me to do something on the inside. And without knowing the term worldview, you know, I knew that something had to change there. You know, the worldview of our nurses and the worldview of the government nurses were like, night and day. Yes. And so. Yeah, just sort of,

yeah. What causes that? What causes people to have concern for other people? You know, what is it? Is it? Is it inherent into human nature? Or is it a set of ideas, this set of beliefs that get worked out? Yeah, I can see you asking those questions.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, it was a big question. And I still, I'm not necessarily the deep strategic thinker, but what I am absolutely convinced of is that, you know, communism, and atheism just dulls your mind towards caring, you know, because there's no, yeah, there's no reason to care, you know, and there's no reason to even try, you know,

I'm reading a book right now, Terry, that is, is it's just really quick. You know, it's a story of a refugee from North Korea, who's over the age of my daughter, which is part of what makes it gripping for me, my daughter is in her late 20s, one of my daughters and so she talks about growing up in North Korea, and it's probably the on the far end of the extreme of a kind of a Marxist Stalinist totalitarian kind of situation. And what she's saying is exactly what you're saying just just so there's so much inhumanity it's just incredible. It's it's mind blowing to me, I'm like, How in the world is a place like this even exist in the world today? So anyways, I just settled.

How are humans capable of this? Yes, yeah, yes. It's important here, the title of that book. It sounds really, really interesting. Anyway, I'll maybe I'll speed up on the Zaire and Sierra Leone part, which Tim already talked about. God blessed us with a son towards the end of Mozambique. And he was with us in a year. And then Sierra Leone, and I, I was feeling call to children ministry, but not necessarily acting on it in Sierra Leone, I actually was getting distracted with other things. I, yeah, I don't know that I need to go there right now. But all I can say is that coup was a huge wake up call to me. And I just, I went, I went from being scared to death as we were watching, you know, outside our kitchen window rebels firing into houses and And

how old is your son at this point, Terry? He was three years old, oh, my gosh, I must have spent horrifying I can't imagine being a mom with a three year old.

So it was really, yeah. Freetown was considered a family posting, they never expected, you know, the Ring of Protection around Freetown to be broken. So it was a surprise to everybody. But yeah, it was really hard. And I know a lot of our you know, work, if you want to say our role, you know, was to try to tell Joseph that it was fireworks and stay as calm as possible. But I was I won't tell the whole story. But I was extremely scared and shaking. And but something really did happen. A missionary called and reminded us to read Psalm 91, I'm not sure if you're familiar with that one. But it's He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, well rested the shadow of the Almighty. So when the says 1000 will fall on one side, 10,000 at the other, but it won't come near you. He will give His angels charge concerning you to guard you and all your steps. Bless you strike your foot against a stone. And, you know, when she told us to read it at the time, I thought, you know, what good is that gonna do? When there's bullets flying through our window, you know, but something happened, you know, Tim, and I just read it, I think three times, and we really felt God's presence, it was just surrounded by us. It's thick, like a blanket is all I can say. And suddenly, it just didn't matter. It didn't matter if we lived or died, you know, because Jesus was there with us. That's all I can say. And that thing was a turning point in my spiritual life. And I remember just say, saying to myself, you know, as, as the bullets kept coming, I kept saying, you know, those bullet not one bullet will hit me unless God allows it, you know, and then who am I to stop was sort of like, he was just in such complete control. And the fast forward there has actually gotten sent, sent a Muslim men to our home, who was friends with some of the military and when he saw our situation, we had been good friends for a year or so. He brought some soldiers that were friends of his to protect us. And that's one of the reasons that we were never, we had very close call, but there was a shootout in our yard and our soldiers won. And, yeah, but it was life changing for me in God was suddenly real at a whole new level. And we were evacuated then to Guinea Conakry, that was just the closest place that was still somewhat safe. And, and that's where we'll vision wanted to set up operations for Sierra Leone. All NGOs were had left. It's one of the few times that I think 100% of NGOs left the country. You know, there were a few Catholics and a few renegade NGO members that stayed but as a whole, they were out. And so Tim was running the operations from Sierra Leone. And I was there in Guinea, kind of like, recuperating from shock and being with Joe. And just, you know, my worldview journey really began in Guinea, so I hope I'm not jumping the gun on that. But yeah, I started walking around Conakry, Guinea, which was very Muslim, you know, we were actually on the same block as the largest mosque in the nation. And so there was, you know, huge calls to prayer. Lots of people in the robes and hats and lots of prayer, you know, every, you know, five times a day that prayer, and I remember walking around and just looking at the kids, you know, and thinking, not one of them is going to get a chance, you know, to hear about God's love or Christ, you know, at all. There's nobody to tell them. And, and that's where the Ralph Winter thing came back, you know, because I was asking the Lord, you know, how am I going to how can I possibly reach these kids? They're so Muslim. And the Lord reminded me you know, don't call them Muslim because they're lost, you know, just like you were lost and they're people just like you are people. And so out of that I made well, whether out of that or not anyway, I made friends with our neighbor who was a man, Mr. Bangura, who was politically fairly well connected in that part of Conakry. And he started coming over for tea, and we would talk about, I would talk about Christianity, and he would talk about Islam, you know, mostly from the perspective of just understand each other, and he was very fascinated with Christianity, et cetera. And then I had so many children in his yard just running around, and I, one day, I just got the idea. I said, you know, Joseph, my son, Joseph was four by that, and there's no place for him to go to Sunday school, you know, or learn about God with others, you know, I'd like to teach him and with some of your kids, Mr. banger like to come and join. You know, I'm Christian, but you know, I could teach from Genesis and, you know, it's except if that's acceptable to you, let's, let's give it a try. And he was very pleased with the idea of getting Yeah, yeah, it was, it was fascinating. And so I gathered, you know, they speak mostly susu language, which I knew nothing about, but, and there weren't Guinea and Sue Sue's that were Christians. But there were a number of refugees, you know, from Sierra Leone, and from Liberia that were Christian, and still spoke Susu, and English and French. So I gathered a few of those. And it took us a couple of weeks, but we put together a lesson, you know, from Genesis, and we bought, you know, a bench or two for the kids to sit on and a chalkboard, you know, and we invited him that for it was a Sunday evening in October 1997. I'll never forget it. And I just remember opening the gate at five and seeing, you know, these line of little children all dressed in their Sunday best, you know, because they were visiting. And, you know, the 10, we were counting on came, and then another 10, and then another 10, until finally, there were like, 60 kids just filing into our little driveway. We didn't have a yard, you know, we had a gravel patch that could fit a car, which we didn't have a car at the time. And that was it. And so you were running around trying to get blankets and things for them to sit on. And I asked Mr. Bankura, you know, I said, I, you know, I had meant that you just bring your own children, you know. And he said, and this is how I can tell you, God can use us even in our ignorance, because it didn't occur to me, but what he said is, these are my children, you know, I have four wives and 20 kids, and you know, X number of grandkids. So, so that's really how something started, you know, something small, you know, started, but it was turning into something very big. And next week, you know, because they wanted to meet next week, the kids invited their friends. And so we were, you know, we quickly grew to like, over 100 kids, and we're trying to fit them in rooms in the house and, you know, parts of the yard. And, um, and Tim was, you know, this was our disconnect, you know, he was going back and forth to Sierra Leone, and I didn't even really have a chance to tell him everything that was happening, but he's a bit of an introvert and he would get back to our house. And

yeah, I need a little peace and quiet, right. Yeah.

The problem was when I couldn't get to the toilet, because there were so many kids. The straw that broke the camel's back.

Oh, man, money.

Yeah. And that's, yeah, and that's where I just had to explain to him what was going on, but it felt like a miracle. And 1997 was the first year that what was the 1040 movement prayer was happening. And so there was actually prayer from all around the world focused on the gateway cities of which Conakry was one and I tell you, you feel it, you could just feel it in spite of the fact that it was so Muslim, and they were just such openness and so many open doors, but I'll just fast forward a little bit and give you one worldview story and then you know, we can go over to to you but the, as things grew a door. I really feel it was miraculous doors were opening and we had met a Muslim headmistress That offered us her school. And she, for some reason started telling other Muslim headmaster's about our program of teaching about God So more schools were opening. And what was happening, you know, it was understood that we were teaching the Bible from Genesis. And I kept wondering, you know, when we would get some pushback, and there was a little bit of pushback, you could see some parents yanking their kids out of these Bible clubs. But on the whole, a lot of parents would come to visit, and I would expect them to want to shut us down. But they said, they wouldn't - and just to backup, you know, when you teach from creation, you really teach the creation of man, you know, that you're made in God's image, you know, that you're fearfully and wonderfully made. That, you know, the characteristics of God were meant to be in you, that you have a purpose and a destiny. And that's all we were teaching, which is really kind of a worldview. And it's different from the Muslim worldview, really, which is, you know, there's, there is a God up there, but he's constantly angry at you, and you know, your sin. And if you and I watched some of the Koran classes, where people just have quips over the kids, if they don't recite the verses correctly, so it's a very different worldview. And so, circling back to these parents that would visit us, most of them would say, you know, we know what you're doing, and we know you're a Christian, but we are not going to stop you. Because we're seeing changes in our kids. I have Wow. Three, yeah, the three big changes were that the children were obeying, the more now that's a very big Muslim value. But but, you know, it comes I'm sure also out of Adam and Eve's disobedience and the consequences, the children were getting along with their siblings better, have better communication. But the last one really surprised me is that the children were consistently doing better in school. And the parents would say, you know, when they started the club, he was this rank when they, you know, now a few months later, he's this. And I kept thinking, you know, how can that be, because we're not teaching them English, or you know, any of the school subjects, you know, but I really believe that, that, you know, the self worth the value in of themselves of knowing that they have a purpose and a destiny, and actually a God that watches over them, I think, I believe that made a difference in their schooling. And so I didn't know the term worldview or mindset at that time, but I didn't know you know, that when they understood who they were, what their identity was in Christ, that changed their behavior, and even their school performance. So

I think Terry I think, you know, growing up in the West, and in Christian homes, like you did, Tim, you know, we take these ideas for granted, you know, we just kind of always known them or that, you know, it's always part of our mental makeup. But then you run into people that don't have this. And you begin to see just how powerful these ideas are for changing not just lives, but whole communities. You know, these ideas that come from the Bible. Yeah.

Really does. Yeah.

But you you didn't end up in the reach that CIC reach.

Yeah. Okay, so so just to over those next 10 years, I guess, us Yeah, well, maybe it was more yet anyway, over that next period of time, before we ended up in development. These refugees that were helping me teach started going back to their countries of like Liberia, and Sierra Leone, and someone to Senegal, somewhat to Mali, and they all started, they understood in their hearts that like, hey, I can reach Muslim kids, you know, it's not impossible. It can be done, you know, if it's done, discreetly done with the Old Testament done, you know, by talking with the parents, and including them and not trying to do anything in secret. And you know, this, this can't be used in every Muslim country, but where we happen to be, it was on the 10th parallel of the 1040 window. So it was really right, where Muslims were North Christians were south and the Muslims there are just much more open. And so it actually these, these refugees that come back, go to their countries, and they would, you know, write me at that time email was just starting, you know, and say, Wow, we're doing it here. And it's working, you know, we're doing it over here in Mali, and it's working and so it just started spreading. And Tim, is that you know, I'm kind of more the person that's out there in the moment, you know, making things happen I do have a sense of structure and organization but Tim was really the one that was that started saying hey, you know, we need to really this is starting to spread you know, there are some finances needed in terms of just people traveling, doing trainings and things like that, and, and we started a 501 C three 2002 And but from there essentially over the next, let's say 10 years. The, the thing spread to that I think about 15 or 17 countries right now we're in 23. But

so this is an organization that still exists today.

It is Yes, it's called children in Christ. In some of the heavier, you know, now that we're in a few of the more restricted areas, the CIC becomes children of character. Gotcha. But,

yeah, Terry, that's, that's a remarkable story that, you know, God started something with just a few kids and your faithfulness in this kind of refugee setting there and then grew into, you know, hundreds of children in many countries in our organization that span many years. Is there a place people can learn more about that organizations or website?

Yes. Its children, the word children that I and then see.com and they can they can talk about? Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it has been just amazing growth. And I'm so thankful. And you know, another lady Jen Merryman took over, I think about eight years ago. And Tim and I are still on the board. I came close to burnout. And to tell you the truth in 2012 2013. And

I can imagine, yeah, yeah.

It's crazy, you know, sort of fundraising and managing the

well. It's not like you got your own children you're trying to raise to and you Tim's got some massive business that he's trying to run ministry he's trying to run as well. So yeah, well,

yeah. No, it's fine balance

had very patient kids. So it's, it's really an incredible ministry, it's about 225,000 children are meeting under trees in 23 countries. And I, in the last I looked, I think there were about 18,000 volunteers that keep the thing running. So just incredible. That's just super amazing thing to be a part of. So you really have two very different stories. Do you do you want do you have time for another if you run out of time now.

Guys, this is so rich, and so interesting. We are at, we're just over an hour, we'd like to normally keep it around an hour. We are happy to continue. I think Tim and Shawn Are you guys? Okay? What we would probably do just is break it into a couple of episodes, which you know, so it's no problem on our side. So but I just want to how are you guys doing? Do you want to continue? Because

that would be fine. Okay. All right.

Hi, friends. Thank you so much for listening. We did decide to break up this episode into two, because the amazing stories and lessons kept on coming for more than an hour or more, but I am so sorry to break this session off here because I'm sure like me, you are deeply invested in these guys's stories and don't want them to end. But for the sake of time, we will have to wait until next week's episode for that. Over the last few weeks a few of our listeners have shared that they enjoy our discussions on the power of biblical worldview and understand it on a personal level. But they really want to hear more stories about how and where we have seen actually transform communities in nations. This is a very valid and important question and I'm so glad you guys asked. on next week's episode with Tim and Terry Andrews, you will hear the answer to that question about how an understanding of the biblical worldview completely transformed their lives and the communities they served in. Join us next Tuesday and hear about boots on the ground examples of how an application of the biblical worldview and its principles have the power to heal impoverished communities and bring freedom to minds in bondage to animism and fatalism. Grasping a biblical worldview will change your life in the lives of those around you and can even heal nations. If you have not heard about our flagship resource at the disciple nations Alliance, a training program that the Andrews have taken as well as over a million others around the world. We have recently compiled it into a simple to use free biblical worldview video training program called the kingdom miser training program that is available on our website. To learn more about it, just visit this episode's landing page, which is linked down in the description below. Ideas have consequences is a podcast of 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 joining us today and I hope you have a great rest of your week.