Participants:
Series Code: OTG
Program Code: OTG000016
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01:08 We are standing on the shores of the main island here in Palawan
01:13 My mind drifts back in time when Jesus called His disciples 01:17 to become fishers of men. Mark chapter 1 verse 17 says 01:25 Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. 01:29 On the island of Palawan here there is a good portion of the 01:32 population that survives off of fishing. 01:35 The rest is agricultural. 01:36 So when we are talking about seed sowing and fishing, 01:39 the people know exactly what we are talking about. 01:42 and it means something to them. So when we come here, and we 01:47 share the verse that Jesus said in Mark chapter 1 verse 17 01:51 He says, come follow me and I will make you fishers of men. 01:54 it resonates with them. 01:56 You know it is important to lead souls to Christ, 01:59 but it is also important to let them know, that there are others 02:03 out there, who love them, in fact the only way to lead a soul 02:06 to Christ is by letting them know that there are others 02:09 that care. That surrendering to Jesus Christ isn't something 02:13 that's just about theology, or about learning the Bible. 02:17 Anybody can learn verses in the Bible, but to show 02:23 the love of Christ, that is where the rubber meets the road. 02:26 That is what really means something to everyone everywhere 02:30 So here at Adventist World Aviation we've come down 02:33 here to Palawan to show them the love of Christ. 02:35 Adventist World Aviation does it in a variety of different ways 02:38 We do it through medical services, delivering goods 02:42 products, medical supplies, air dropping things in 02:47 that are needed on a daily basis 02:50 But the thing that the people come away with, they watch us 02:53 and they say, wow why would you want to help us? 02:56 The answer to that question is that because we love you, 02:59 because you are a son or a daughter of Jesus Christ. 03:02 That's what we are doing here right now. 03:04 Adventist World Aviation was invited to Palawan 03:07 by our mission president here not too long ago and asked us 03:11 if we would consider doing evangelistic efforts here. 03:14 The idea was to reach the unreached. 03:16 Not everybody in our team is an evangelist, but there are 03:19 those of us, that have done that and we are willing to share 03:23 the work experience that we have with the folks in Palawan. 03:27 Adventist World Aviation typically is a vehicle to get 03:31 the evangelists there. But we are also willing to do the work 03:34 of an evangelist as Paul told Timothy. 03:36 So we come in, we work, we love people, we share the gospel 03:41 message with them. We go into areas that under normal 03:45 circumstances you just couldn't reach. 03:47 Adventist World Aviation's primary focus is to reach the 03:51 unreached in this world with the love of God 03:54 and the gospel message. 03:57 One of the many ways they do this is by holding evangelistic 04:00 meetings, both domestically and internationally. 04:04 On today's episode of Off the Grid, we travel with an AWA 04:10 evangelistic team to the Philippine island of Palawan. 04:26 My name is Delmar Austin. I am ministerial director 04:29 for the Illinois conference. I got a call from Ric Swaningson 04:33 to come and participate in this. I was just really pleased. 04:38 I felt that God was giving me a call and an opportunity to come 04:42 and be active in the great harvest, that is taking place. 04:46 For the next 2 weeks, this team of 7 evangelists will spread out 04:51 each hold meetings every night all across the area of Narra. 04:56 Each nights, there will be 7 meetings held simultaneously. 05:00 We have the privilege of working with the Narra church, 05:04 the church that is downtown in the town of Narra. 05:08 We had good attendance from church members 05:12 and interest alike. 05:13 We probably had 70 to 80 people that were coming 05:17 on a regular basis, to our meetings - and probably 20 to 25 05:23 interest, or visitors, that were part of that group. 05:27 The people seem to be very open and responsive to the preaching 05:34 of each Bible presentation. 05:37 The laymen in the church of Narra just did an outstanding 05:41 job, a spectacular job of working with the people there, 05:46 but also in the programming, the music every night 05:50 was well coordinated. The prayers, the introductions 05:55 just seem to be a really good part of the service 06:00 and it kept the whole program flowing very well. 06:02 I was really blessed to be in the Narra Church. 06:07 Evangelism and soul winning is the focus of each of the 06:10 Adventist World Aviation Evangelists. 06:13 They have each been called here to be "Fishers of Men" 06:17 just as Jesus instructed us in the Bible. 06:22 Pastor Delmar is been in ministry for many years now. 06:26 He is a seasoned evangelist and is continually looking for 06:30 opportunities where he can use his gifts of evangelism. 06:35 I was drawn here by the fact to because it gave me 06:41 an opportunity to personally do some evangelism. 06:45 Many of my duties have to do with working with pastors 06:50 and working with churches. Sometimes I don't have a lot 06:54 of time to do more personal direct work with people. 06:57 So that gave me an opportunity again to get my feet wet 07:03 doing public evangelism and also doing personal work with people, 07:08 which is required in making connections. 07:12 That's the work that God called us to, 07:14 to try to reach others and to tell them of the goodness of God 07:19 And so we do evangelism in many different ways. 07:23 The evangelism of course is not just public evangelism 07:26 Evangelism is witnessing to people around us. 07:29 It's showing them God's love. It's ministering to the needs 07:34 of people, then it's taking the opportunity 07:39 to bid them to follow Jesus Christ. 07:42 We do that when we preach and teach the word of God. 07:46 Here in Palawan we had the opportunity of doing evangelism, 07:51 public evangelism. We had the opportunity every night 07:56 of preaching Biblical messages and making calls 07:59 and seeing people respond to the bidding of the Holy Spirit. 08:04 We've been very pleased with the results that we've 08:08 seen from that. But evangelism has to do with the whole way 08:12 that we live. It has to do with the way that we relate to people 08:16 We need to have the Spirit of Jesus in everything that we do. 08:21 We need to be concerned about the world and about reaching 08:24 out to them and connecting with them 08:27 in practical and helpful ways. 08:30 Each of the AWA evangelists is partnered 08:33 with a local Bible worker. 08:35 The local pastors and Bible workers have been working 08:39 diligently for the past few months 08:42 preparing these Evangelistic meetings. 08:44 Pastor Delmar is partnered up with Mar and they will both be 08:49 working in the Narra church. They unite their efforts and 08:54 work well together to reach the people of Narra. 08:57 Evangelism is not just preaching certain doctrines. 09:01 It is coming close to people, relating to people, caring about 09:07 their needs. Understanding them. And by doing that, having the 09:12 opportunity of leading them to Jesus. 09:14 Showing them what Jesus is like. I think we had the chance 09:19 to do that we've taken time almost every day. 09:23 To go out to someone's home and to sit down with them, 09:29 talk with them and open the Bible with them. 09:31 And of course pray with them. Just these short times that we 09:36 had together with them has helped to create 09:39 a very important bond. 09:41 It's quite clear that evangelism is Pastor Delmar's passion, 09:45 and he whole heartedly devotes himself to soul winning 09:49 here on the Palawan Island. 09:51 Pastor Delmar's ministry is not limited to his nightly meetings. 09:55 In fact, he dedicates the entire day to evangelism 10:00 while he is here on the Palawan Island. 10:03 His interactions with the native people extend far beyond the 10:07 evening church meetings. Pastor Delmar and Mar 10:11 schedule daily home visitations to reach people that might 10:15 need some special ministry. 10:17 We are doing home visits because we want to 10:20 get to know the people the we are preaching to every night. 10:23 If we want to get to know them better, we want to 10:24 get to know them on a personal basis. We want to sort of 10:28 evaluate where they are in their spiritual life. 10:30 What kind of level of interest that they have 10:34 in following Christ. And where they are in their understanding 10:38 of Bible truths. Because then we can be more helpful to them 10:42 We can know where to share certain truth with them. 10:46 But also we can connect better with them. 10:50 One of the things that we were trying to do, in our visitation 10:54 was to visit church members, that had not attended 10:59 church for some time. And we got the name of a couple 11:04 the wife was a church member, but has not been to church 11:08 in several months. Her husband is an agnostic, 11:13 doesn't believe in God. And that always creates 11:17 a lot of difficulty for a believer to be living 11:21 in that kind of environment. 11:23 It's easy to become discouraged spiritually in your own life. 11:26 But we wanted to go by and encourage her and if possible 11:30 have the opportunity of talking with her husband. 11:33 So we stopped by one day and asked to visit 11:38 and meet her husband. So she graciously let us come 11:42 into her home. We talked for a while 11:45 and then her husband joined us. And we talked with him 11:50 and asked a little bit about his interest. 11:53 Well interestingly enough he had some interest in Bible prophecy. 11:58 And that actually opened the opportunity for us than to give 12:02 a full presentation about Bible prophecy. 12:06 So we took our projector and computer along and were able to 12:10 open up one of the presentations that we have given 12:13 at the meetings, and go through this study about Bible prophecy. 12:20 A Biblical perspective of why Bible prophecy 12:25 is important and necessary. 12:26 The gentlemen, his name is Bob, was very intelligent man 12:32 quite knowledgeable about many different topics. 12:35 He had read a lot in Bible prophecy. 12:38 So he had a lot of questions. He was coming from a perspective 12:44 of not being a believer, but believing that there must be 12:48 some truth in what he is reading So mainly what we wanted to do 12:54 was to give him some confidence and assurance in the Word of God 12:58 We wanted to help him to understand that Bible prophecy 13:03 does tell us about, not only about the future, 13:07 but there is a reason behind Bible prophecy, that helps to 13:12 remind us of the importance of knowing God and living for Him. 13:16 Bob had several questions about current world events 13:21 and how they fit into the picture. 13:22 And we had some good discussion about how that goes along with 13:27 what Jesus has said about the last days. 13:30 At the end of his 2 week outreach in the Narra area, 13:34 Pastor Delmar makes a call for baptism. 13:37 The church comes alive and people stand to their feet and 13:41 choose to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. 13:44 It is very clear that these meetings here in Narra 13:48 have had an eternal impact. 13:51 This area, this church and these people are changed forever. 13:57 Reaching the unreached is the Adventist World Aviation's 14:00 primary goal; to deliver hope and love to those on this planet 14:05 that are not easily reached for Jesus. 14:08 I feel that we had in a special way, an opportunity to come 14:14 and be fishers of man here in Palawan. And to be part 14:18 of the harvest that is taking place. We had the opportunity 14:22 visiting men and women. We had the opportunity of talking 14:26 to them about Jesus. We had the opportunity of giving them 14:31 calls to surrender their lives to Christ and to be baptized. 14:35 And we've just rejoiced at the numbers that have responded. 14:43 and of the large harvest that we see that is taking place. 14:47 So we just praise the Lord that God called us here to Palawan. 14:51 To be a part of this work. We are just excited about 14:54 being a part of this effort. And I want to thank Adventist World 14:58 Aviation for planning this project and making it possible 15:03 to bring all these people together for this event. 15:14 We're down here now sharing the gospel message of Jesus Christ. 15:18 Making people not only drawing fish in, and drawing them closer 15:23 to the throne of Christ, but the idea is also that once we 15:26 baptized them, led them to the throne of grace, than also 15:30 teaching them too, to become fishers of men. 15:34 It was once said that you do not have to be an expert to 15:37 show the love of Jesus Christ. You just have to be kind 15:39 and loving and know that Jesus died on the cross for us. 15:42 Really that's all it takes, that's all it's necessary. 15:46 If you show the love of Christ sincerely to somebody, 15:49 they can see it, they can see it in your eyes, 15:51 and in the sparkle of your smile 15:53 And so we are here to share the love of Christ in our smile, 15:57 in our friendliness, in our kindness 15:59 and in the generosity of folks at home, who made this possible. 16:04 We've invited laymen, professional evangelists, 16:07 ministerial directors. People of all shapes, sizes, intellect. 16:13 And we are doing just what the Bible commission says 16:16 Come, I will make you fishers of men. 16:19 Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20 said 16:22 Go ye therefore into all the world, teaching them, baptizing 16:27 them in the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit. 16:29 and teaching them to observe all things. 16:31 So we go, we teach, we baptize and then we teach them 16:35 to observe all things. The idea is to lead souls to Christ. 16:39 Reach the unreached and we are doing that today. 16:43 The Adventist World Aviation evangelistic team came 16:46 to Palawan to reach the unreached; 16:48 To be fishers of men. 16:50 However not everyone can be reached the same way. 16:55 People are in different walks of life, and therefore must be 16:59 approached by different methods. 17:02 Pastor Ric Swaningson president of Adventist World Aviation 17:06 is one of the evangelists conducting meetings 17:10 here in Palawan. 17:11 However his evangelistic meetings are somewhat 17:14 more none traditional than the rest of the teams. 17:18 The local church leaders and AWA board members agreed 17:22 to hold meetings that were geared towards the influential, 17:27 the leaders of the community. 17:29 Pastor Ric agreed to focus his meetings on what the Filipino's 17:34 refer to as "type A" people: 17:37 The leaders, the professionals of the community. 17:41 In Puerto Princesa we are going to be holding 17:44 a little bit of different type of meetings. 17:46 I don't think I have ever done a series of meetings 17:48 quite like this before. 17:50 Dr. Marvie and Namy are board of directors as well 17:55 as pastor Bautista approached me along with 17:58 the mission president, elder Melobad asked if I would 18:01 consider doing something a little bit unusual. 18:04 That unusual series of meetings would include what Dr. Marvie 18:10 calls type A interests. The idea is to attract the professional. 18:16 I was a little bit reticent at first to accept such a calling. 18:21 I have never really have done anything quite like it before. 18:23 Of course in our ministry we've baptized many doctors, and 18:27 lawyers and engineers throughout the years 18:29 in traditional evangelism, but I got to thinking, you know 18:33 she is right. It doesn't attract them on a mass scale. 18:38 If we can get 25 professionals out to listen to the Word of God 18:43 and present it in such a way, that they will be attracted 18:49 to the intellectual intelligents of the Word of God 18:52 And so interestingly enough as I started out the meetings 18:55 I stated out the meetings with the genius of God's Word 18:58 as not in it's complexities, but in it's simplicity. 19:02 That statement alone intrigued the ears of the listener. 19:06 The goal of pastor Ric's meetings is to present 19:09 the word of God to the leaders of society and in turn helping 19:14 transform the communities in which they govern. 19:17 I am here with our board chair Namy Marcelo. Namy tell us what 19:23 You had a vision, this is different here. 19:25 You had a vision for something different. Now our Adventist 19:29 World Aviation team came down here. We have a team of 6 or 7 19:33 other evangelists that are here working in the town of Narra 19:37 We are holding traditional evangelism down here 19:40 This is something different. 19:41 Tell us what your vision was here. 19:44 There have been several crusades done by westerners, 19:51 who come over to Philippines and there are less and less baptisms 19:56 But the problem is, we are not able to reach the upper class. 20:02 There is a chapter in "Ministry of Healing" that says 20:06 "Ministry to the Rich" and it's an opportunity 20:10 and lot's of people, who are here tonight are thankful. 20:14 for this opportunity to hear the gospel in a different way. 20:20 This rich segment of the population of Puerto Princesa. 20:24 And we are so happy that they responded. 20:28 Curious intellectual minds came to listen as they weighed the 20:33 messages coming from Pastor Ric. 20:35 Night after night, he unpacks the mysteries of the Bible. 20:39 The audience consists of doctors, lawyers, ministers, 20:45 and local government leaders. 20:47 Unarguably, everyone is equal in the eyes of God, 20:52 the rich or poor, master or servant. 20:56 The goal of these meetings isn't to elevate one group of people, 21:00 above another, but instead to reach a group 21:03 that is traditionally not attracted 21:05 by traditional style evangelistic meetings. 21:09 By holding these meetings geared towards professionals, 21:13 Adventist World Aviation hopes to greatly influence 21:16 this community by reaching the decision makers, the leaders; 21:21 then it's more likely, there will be change. 21:25 The idea for these meetings stemmed from the AWA 21:29 Philippine Board members. 21:30 They saw a great need for change in their society 21:34 and focused their efforts on reaching the catalyst for change 21:38 the leaders. 21:41 Dr. Marvie is on the AWA board here in Palawan. 21:46 She is a dentist using her dental chair 21:49 as a ministry platform. 21:51 It was while she was working in her office, that the vision of 21:56 reaching the "type A" people of the Filipino society 22:00 came to her. 22:01 In my practice I have a lot of patients. Most of them belong 22:07 to the "type A" in the society. I am thinking of how to give 22:15 them, or to disseminate to them the good news of salvation. 22:18 So first I though of giving them the Desire of Ages, 22:23 the Great Controversy and the rest of the religious books 22:27 written by E. G. White and that is where I started. 22:30 The goal of all Adventist World Aviation projects is 22:34 build the kingdom of God in the hearts of the people. 22:38 Sometimes this is done in partnership 22:41 with other organizations. 22:42 Adventist World Aviation is a strong supporter 22:46 of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church. 22:50 Here in the Philippines, it is no different. 22:53 Adventist World Aviation works closely with the local Palawan 22:57 church leaders. 22:58 The Palawan Mission President and Pastor Ric partnered 23:03 to bring these meetings to a reality. 23:05 Adventist World Aviation, we are a self supporting ministry. 23:09 but we are not an independent ministry. We are not here 23:11 to serve the desires of our board of directors. 23:14 We are here to serve the Lord and our church 23:16 that we love so dearly. And we are very happy to be part 23:22 of Luzon and of course Palawan here specifically where our 23:28 airbase is here. We are happy to be part of that 23:30 and we appreciate you inviting us to work with you. 23:34 Yes, that is the reason why we extended our invitation to you. 23:39 because we want to work hand in hand with you. 23:44 We know that you have lots of committed Christians, 23:50 Adventist Christians in your area, who are very much willing 23:54 to come and help to support the work especially 23:57 in the soul winning program of the mission here. 24:01 Thank you so much and we appreciate that! 24:04 For 2 weeks, Pastor Ric shared the treasures of God's word. 24:08 Night after night, professionals with many different 24:12 belief systems came to listen. 24:14 Pastors from other denominations came regularly. 24:18 and listened attentively. 24:20 It was very evident that Pastor Ric was sharing a message 24:25 that most of them had never heard before. 24:28 Even the hotel service staff stopped and listened 24:32 to the message being presented. 24:34 All seemed captivated by the biblical truths being shared. 24:41 One of the audience was a pastor of another denomination. 24:46 After attending these meetings, his heart was convicted 24:49 of the Sabbath truth. 24:51 He declared that from here on, he would keep the Sabbath 24:56 and teach his congregation to do the same. 24:59 These meetings were a huge success. And we praise God! 25:05 Jesus said, Go ye therefore into all the world. Amen? 25:11 So He says go into all the world and teach about Jesus Christ. 25:16 By reaching the leaders, entire communities, 25:19 churches and regions will be changed. 25:21 The commission to be fishers of men was lived out 25:25 here in Palawan. By all team members called to fish. 25:30 As a result of 7 evangelistic meetings held simultaneously 25:35 in Palawan, more than 150 people gave their lives to Jesus Christ 25:42 Although the meeting styles were different the message 25:46 of the Bible touched people, young and old; rich and poor. 25:50 At the foot of the cross, everyone is the same; 25:55 A loved child of God. This is the goal of Adventist 26:01 World Aviation: to help reach those not yet reached 26:05 by the gospel message and bring them 26:08 to know and love Jesus Christ as Savior. 26:19 Jesus told us, come I will make you fishers of men. 26:22 Jesus wants us to understand that He gives us a food 26:26 that will cause us to live for ever. 26:28 And so by following Jesus' directive, we are enabling 26:34 life eternal. 26:36 John chapter 3:16 is probably the world's most famous verse. 26:41 In John chapter 3 verse 16 the Bible says, 26:44 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son 26:48 that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, 26:50 but have everlasting life." 26:53 In that one verse there is a declarative statement that 26:58 Jesus is our life giver, He is our sustainer. 27:00 And as fisherman they understand the need for sustenance. 27:04 So Christ wants to sustain us for all eternity. 27:08 But the commission is given, not only in Mark, but it's also 27:12 given in Matthew 28:19-20, where Jesus says: 27:15 Go ye therefore, into all the world 27:17 So here we're at the Philippines right now, today, leading souls 27:22 to Jesus. Teaching them about Jesus, baptizing them 27:27 in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 27:30 Then our job is to teach them to observe all things, 27:34 which includes the great Gospel commission. 27:37 Won't you join us in sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ! 27:41 Won't you join us in prayer in helping us get this message out! 27:46 There are some 7 billion people that live on planet earth. 27:50 Really, of those 7 billion people, two billion of them, 27:54 have never heard of Jesus before. 27:56 Somehow we have to get to those 2 billion. 28:00 It's easy enough to say we'll go out and reach men 28:03 but there are people, who we can't reach under normal means. 28:07 800 million of them can only be reached by means of 28:10 either boat or aviation. 28:12 Aviation is the most efficient way to reach them. 28:15 And we need to reach these people. If we don't reach out 28:20 to all the people throughout all the world. 28:23 Reaching the seemingly unreachable. 28:26 How can Jesus come? How could you as a parent leave 28:31 for vacation knowing that one of your children is missing. 28:35 How could you leave anywhere knowing that your child is lost. 28:40 When Jesus and our Father, Who is in Heaven 28:42 and He wants to save every one of us. 28:45 We recognize that not everyone will accept His salvation. 28:48 But we need to get the message out to those, 28:50 who are willing to listen. So we here at Adventist World Aviation 28:54 we're doing just that. 28:55 We ask you to come and join us, help us reach the unreached. 29:00 If you like more information about joining us 29:02 at Adventist World Aviation call your local 29:04 3 Angels Broadcasting Network. Call this station, 29:08 call your local station. Ask - how can I get involved 29:10 with Adventist World Aviation? |
Revised 2015-01-27