Hey, Stone Oak Bible Church. Welcome to the Stone Oak Bible Pod. This is Craig. And today, we have two exciting guests with us. Something that I've been really looking forward to is is talking with these two individuals.

This podcast is an extension of the ministries of Snow Oak Bible Church in San Antonio, Texas. And today, we're go joined by Jacob and Sophia. Jacob, Sophia, say hi.

Hey. How are you guys? Stone Oak Bible Church. Amazing.

Awesome. Jacob and Sophia, if if you don't know them, would you guys just introduce yourselves to our congregation?

Yeah. So I'm Sophia, and Jacob is my husband. We married for about nine years coming up in August. We have one baby right now. We have a little girl who's Brooke.

She's a year two months old. Wow. We I know the time was my social

It's it's amazing that she's a year old already, by the way.

It really is. It's insane.

That tapes are long and the hips are short.

Yeah. You hear that as parents. You're like, okay. You're just old. And then you actually have a kid, and you're like, okay.

And you were telling the truth.

Yeah. Right. And now I feel old.

Yeah. It's amazing, though, that you kept the child alive, by the way, for a full year. Well done. It's success.

It's a miracle. It really is.

Take full credit. You

got it. Sophia said, take full credit.

Alright. I'm sorry. Continue.

Yeah. I'm from San Antonio. I was born in. Jacob and I met when his family came to San Antonio when we were in middle school, and our families got close through churches and different things going on in San Antonio, then we went to Texas A and M together and through that process got married and started looking at what God wanted to do with our lives. That led us to missionary work, and then there was a period when back to Texas, started living in San Antonio again.

We were looking for a home church that would fit like, desires someone that or a church home that was focused on making disciples, bringing people to Christ, discipling people in the bible, and really preaching the good news of the gospel. Again, our families are in Saint John, so we got connected to Stonewall Bible Church from family. Really resonated with the message of. Intentionally simple. Gospel focused.

And it was a really comfortable place for us to land

between some time we had in the mission field

and going back to the mission field.

Yeah. We were only in San Antonio for about a year in between our our different mission stops. Yeah. And so we were wondering, like, man, we don't have a church home in San Antonio. How are we gonna get rooted in such a short amount of time?

And it it really felt like a miracle just finding Stone Oak and being so quickly rooted, Just finding family church family so, so quickly. Yeah. Stone Oak holds a very special place in our hearts.

Yeah. And and you hold a very special place in ours as well. So you mentioned you're you're missionaries, and you've been on a couple of kind of mission stents. What are you guys currently doing? Where are you?

What's life looking like for you? How are you fulfilling the Great Commission?

Yeah. So we started thinking about missions and Jacob did a church. And through that, we learned about, different access to the. And we learned about the. And this is the is it longitude or latitude, Jacob?

Latitude.

These are the latitudes north and south, where there's the least amount of Christian Yeah. Populations. It's the least reach for the gospel. And, there's a reason that it's the least reach. It's the hardest places to go.

Uh-huh.

And a lot of these places are not very friendly to mission workers, Exangelism efforts, preaching the gospel is not something we can do openly. Yeah. So Jacob and I had the opportunity to kind of partner with different organizations to go to those least reach places. Yeah. And so just to protect our ability to stay and contribute with, we don't say anything, but you can know that it's more than 99% not Christian.

It's another world religion can say what religion it is. I didn't

even say it's North Africa as well.

We live in North Africa. Our country is

Well, the secure phrase that is for our location is North Africa. Yeah.

Yeah.

And there's 99% Muslim population in our country.

Yeah. And so we it was 2020 before COVID, and we learned about this opportunity in North Africa through Crew, the Campus Prison for Christ.

Yeah.

We've been partnering to send people to this place in North Africa for, what, fifteen years now, something like that. Well, over a decade. Okay. Mhmm. And the special thing about it is if people like these people aren't if they're not sharing the gospel with people in North Africa, people in North Africa are not going to hear the gospel.

Because like Sophia said, it's over 99% Muslim. It's yeah. So we just saw this great need and this opportunity that we had to be able to go. And because it's Campus Crusade for Christ, it's primarily student ministry. Okay.

And we're just thinking back to when we were in college. It was such an impactful and influential time in our lives as it is for many people. Yeah. It was not gonna be a good influence or a bad influence. Right?

Absolutely.

I mean, it's a time it's a time where you are finding newfound independence, you know, you're making a lot of decisions, good and bad, for yourself for the first time. It's interesting about how impactful that was for us and seeing about, man, okay, targeting college students in North Africa, how impactful it's been on their lives, how impactful it's been in starting movements there. Yeah. I mean, we're talking about movements. We're talking about, you know, movements of new people coming to Christ.

Disciples making disciples Exactly. Vacation, thinking about two times two is four, four times four is 16. Just thinking about how the church grows and multiplies.

And so when the the ministry first started there, like I said, fifteen years ago, there was no Christians that they knew. I mean, I'm sure there was some little pockets here and there, but they weren't connected to any Christians until eventually they found, you know, their first disciple, which brought forth their second and their third and so on and so forth. And now we are one of the very few locations in the whole Muslim region where there is Muslim background Christians who are full time staff with Canterbury Shaper Christ.

Okay.

And so there's more than a couple dozen staff members and volunteers that work with us that are all Muslim background believers, which is absolutely unique to our our region Yeah. To our country rather. And so, yeah, we saw all this happening. Like, man, we can be a part of this amazing thing that God is doing in North Africa. And it's really just there's a need, and someone needs to say yes.

So we said yes in 2020.

Okay.

We've been there since 2020. And like I said, we came back for a year at one point between joining from internship to full time staff.

Okay.

And we come back every once in a while to visit. Like, we came back to have our have our daughter. But Yeah. Primarily, we are in North Africa.

And so you guys are in a closed country right now. It's it's one of the reasons that the call sounds different in our podcast here because you guys are literally on a phone call with me, which again, I said this before we hopped on, the technology makes things just incredible that I can sit here and have a live conversation with you guys. They're eight hours ahead of me. You guys are time traveling. It will be tomorrow for you before it's

Yeah.

Tomorrow for me. Being in a closed country, though, I'm sure it presents different challenges. What does it look like for you guys to proclaim the gospel in a closed country? Then kind of a follow-up with that is, do you feel safe doing this?

Yeah. So we feel safe.

Okay.

Where we live, it's not illegal for us to be Christian.

Okay.

What's illegal is for us to have an organized effort to evangelize and have a Christian ministry. And so

So let me just pause right there. So that that gives you freedom then to, like, proclaim the gospel, but you can't be kind of organized in in any kind of form or fashion?

We are allowed to make friends with locals Okay. And freely talk about our beliefs, whether they're political, religious, etcetera. Okay. So naturally, we go around making friends, and we share about what's important in our lives.

Yeah.

And, of course, that's the gospel. Uh-huh. So we have a lot of freedom, especially compared to a lot of other Muslim countries where we can freely talk about the gospel. We can't stand on the corner preaching. But Okay.

We can, through forming relationships, openly share the gospel, with our friends.

We can carry our bible in our backpack

Right. Right.

At a coffee shop. But I can't go to a coffee shop and meet six people and have a Bible study. That's way too organized. Exactly what Jacob was saying, most of what our work is, making organic relationships and just sharing with people, like, what's what the Lord has done in our lives, how we've seen Jesus transform communities, the promises of the Bible. Mhmm.

And just share those truths openly and give direct invitation to people, saying like, is this something that you want to accept as true in your life? And that's most of what we do is make relationships, share the gospel, and ask people if they wanna make a decision. Mhmm. We get rejected a lot. And then when people accept, we really have a lot of reliance on the Holy Spirit to grow disciples and lead them into deep faith because I think that's something that I'll share.

It's really bizarre not having generational knowledge about the God of the Bible.

Uh-huh.

Most people in Texas come from Christian families or they've seen Christian traditions around them at the very minimum. But, very, very, very few people understand, like, what it's like to live a Christian life Mhmm. Or what it's like to, say that you're a Jesus. Yep. And so

Most of people are the first Christians that they've met.

Yeah. And so building people up in their faith is a challenge, a unique challenge.

Yeah. Yeah. Are there any

And it looks

Go ahead, Jacob. Are are there any Protestant churches around you guys at all?

It's an interesting question to answer. There are, but they're very much targeted for international people

Okay.

Which

is a very small population. Mhmm. Yeah. I think that's a good way to answer it.

Yeah. So you guys are are kind of almost trying to do an underground church in some ways to where you're

Oh, yeah.

Building relationship, you're proclaiming the gospel, and then as best you can, discipling from that point forward.

That's exactly what it is. Mhmm. And we say, like, technically, we're not in church planting. Like, we're we're what we call student led movements, not church planting movement. But we end up triplicating churches because the whole idea is we want to win people to Christ.

We want to build them in their faith through discipleship, biblical discipleship, and then we want to send them out into their communities to be multiplying disciples. We call it win, build, send. Well, obviously, a big important part of building is having a church community. So when you win someone with Christ and there's no church community, we sound like, alright. Well, we're just gonna start the church then.

Yeah.

And so now, thankfully, within the last few years, there has been a a church that is organically grown, in our in our city, that is all local it's all completely locals in us.

Wow.

And so there's, I think, like, probably 10 to 15 regular members now.

That's fantastic.

But it's it's all underground, eating in houses and our office building that we have for our our business.

Yeah. That's that's kind of the

business. Underground.

So you guys have have been working on this for a while. Let me hear a story. Give me give me a story of, you know, the the founder of Modern Missions, William Carey, a guy that we look at as kind of the founder of what we think of whenever we think of Modern Missions. The guy goes to India and he sees very little fruit in the first kind of stint of work that he's doing. Yet the impact he had, he got to, experience much later in life.

And then those that went behind him got to see so much of an impact of of what he was doing. Have you guys been able to see the impact of of being boots on the ground of proclaiming the gospel through relational evangelism? If so, let me hear about it. Give me a story.

Yeah. We've definitely seen a lot of the impacts. It's I think still a little bit is the impact that we are doing. You know, we're the the buds, sweat, and tears that we're putting into the ministry.

Yeah.

We don't see that as much as we just see the impact of what God has been doing in the hearts of these people for years and years before we were ever there. One of my favorite stories that I like to share is it was was that the end of our first year? Or No. Yeah. Okay.

It's the end of our first year. So, you know, like Sophia said, you get rejected a lot. So we've been rejected, you know, dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of times our first year. One of the last weeks, Sophia is sharing the gospel with one of her girlfriends who just happened to bring this guy along with him just because he I mean, he was like, he speaks English a lot better than she did. So, you know, just happens to be this guy.

Sophia shares the gospel with the to them. Girl's not not that interested. The guy is just, you know, absorbed in what Sophia is saying.

Mhmm.

And we've been using this app that helps consider the gospel and also kinda helps with language translation, especially during our first year. That was really important.

Yeah. Absolutely.

But at the end, it it, you know, talks about a prayer of salvation and, like, here's how you can become a Christian. Here's what that means. And he is just reading the prayer over and over again and just seems he's seems amazed by it. So if you ask him, do you wanna become a Christian? He goes, I've been thinking about it for a while now.

Yeah. Really? That's just never heard that before here, but that's okay. That's crazy. Uh-huh.

He's, yeah, I've been kinda reading the bible because I just realized I don't really know much about it. I've said I'm not a Muslim anymore, but I don't really know what what truth is. So he just kinda started picked up a bible and started from Genesis, started reading, and said he's, you know, been exploring Christianity. And so, you know, they talk more about it, and they end the meeting with praying that, you know, God would just show this guy we call him Fred. It's the

Yes.

Secure Americanized name.

Yeah. Absolutely.

God would just show God would just show Fred who he is, what the truth is. And then, like, about a week later this is, like, a week before we're heading back to Texas for the summer.

Yeah.

Like, a week later, he calls Sophia and says, hey. We need to meet up again. I need to meet your husband and talk to him because I just had a dream about Jesus last night.

Wow.

And so I get to meet with him, and he's telling me about his dream. And he says, I so I saw Jesus dressed white. He approaches me, and he doesn't even say anything to me. He just looks at me. And I don't know how to explain it, but when he looked at me, I just understood.

Yeah.

I just understood in my heart that this is God. What the Bible says about Jesus is true. And so he's like, I know from this point on that what the Bible says is the truth. What like, what Christianity says is the truth. I'm quite ready to become a Christian yet because I really this is a big decision.

I wanna make sure I understand what this means. And so, you know, I just kept in touch with them all summer, and he became a Christian the day we got back. Wow. And so, like, okay. That was just so amazing.

The the wind part happens. The wind part of wind builds in. Yeah. And so then you we got to build him in his faith over the next coming years. He eventually led his girlfriend to Christ.

Oh my goodness.

His girlfriend is now they're not together anymore. It's a whole different story.

But Yeah.

The cool part is the girlfriend is now actually an intern on our team.

Wow.

So she's actually become a very important part of the movement. Yeah. And I just love that story because it's we had so little to do with that. Whatever evangelism gifts or training or whatever we have, it just God didn't need any of that. Yeah.

God had been working at Fred's life for years at this point. He just needed one of us to be there sharing the gospel with him. Yeah. And then God gave him the dream. You know, we just had to be there to to do the work.

Yeah. But it was really all God.

That is that's beautiful. That's one of those things where it's one of those, like, prayers that you would have of let us see let let us see the impact of of God working in hearts. And if if we get to see that, praise God. If we don't get to see that, we're gonna be faithful with what God has called us to do. But it's moments like that where, you know, you just get to stand back and be like, okay, God has worked and we just get to observe it and be just so thankful for just his working through us and letting us be a part of that.

That's wonderful.

Yeah.

Absolutely. So you guys have been in the Missions Field for quite a while now.

Yeah. Almost six years, I think.

Yeah. That's incredible. What's what's been give us the greatest challenge, the the greatest unexpected or expected challenge that you've seen being missionaries in a foreign country. I know before you guys left, you had to do a bunch of language studies and you guys had to do so much work on this end of things. And then you get out there and you're now in it.

And there's there's no real lifeline of, oh, yeah, we can just go next door and things will be back to an American way. You guys are living in country and dealing with all the challenges of that. If you have to look back on the past few years of just life and ministry as foreign missionaries, what would you say has been the greatest challenge for you guys so far?

It's hard to choose just one, Frank. No. I think the, the first thing that came to my mind was the fact that North Africa is our home now. Yeah. It genuinely feels like home.

That's

fantastic. Time, Texas Texas it is it's a huge blessing. Yeah. But at the same time, Texas is also absolutely a 100% our home. And so regardless of which place we're in, we're always homesick.

Yeah.

We're always missing our our church family and our our friends in North Africa Yeah. Or vice versa, missing our church family and our actual family in Texas.

Mhmm.

So it's it's very much a blessing that it is that way, but it's it's also very bittersweet.

Are you guys living in, like, a a home right now? Are living in an apartment?

Our house in North Africa is more like a house than an apartment.

So you get to you get to customize it and kind of make it your own in some ways, though?

In a lot of ways. Yeah.

Okay. Exactly.

That can be helpful. But still, it's it's it's different, I'm sure.

Yeah. We have Americanized it in a lot of ways. Like, there's a little garden area. We put in grass, which is not something they really do there. Our landlord is very confused about it.

Okay. So we're like, oh, we want grass. We want something green to look at. It's not very green in our city.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sophia, what would you say has been the greatest challenge for you so far?

I think it is related to culture, just having to kind of constantly try to explain, like, what we're used to and then learn what isn't more normal in our culture. And I think especially to having, like, daughter again is a year old.

Yeah.

Like, there's a lot of like, the first time I brought my daughter out in public, it was a, like, cold and rainy day. And this woman goes up to her and says, oh, your mom doesn't love you. She brought you out in the cold and the rain. She wants you to get sick. And, I just stood there and smiled at her.

And I, like, prayed to the Lord, and I was like, Lord, I understand what this woman is saying. She's saying, what a precious child that is given to this woman. May she love her well and care for her well. Just understanding, like, what I can see so easily is, like, a judgment against me is just the way that this culture shows that they care about kids deeply. Just having to constantly make those decisions every day of, I'm going to see the best in people no matter if they say something that I might traditionally find insulting.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. What's it been like raising a child, as missionaries in a foreign country? Has that been, just what's it what's been like?

Oh gosh. Really fun and also kind of a test in boundaries, I would say. Mhmm. Yeah. Like, learning when, like, we have to say, like, this isn't gonna work for our family, but, you guys can go ahead and do that or anything like that.

Would you add to that, Jacob?

Right. I mean, small things, maybe it's not small, but things like people strangers coming up and kissing your baby and things like that. It's like, alright. How how much do we really wanna embrace the culture right here? Do we wanna allow this to happen, or are we gonna make this a boundary?

I think for the most part, it's been really positive experience. Thankfully, we know several different American families in our community that are have already had kids or have raised babies there. And so they've it's been amazing to have them showing us the ropes and helping, you know, connect us to the right people and doctors and all that.

Yeah.

So that helps, you know, prevent a lot of challenges from happening.

Yeah.

But for the most part, it's been very, very positive. They absolutely love babies there. And so I feel like she is just the the star of the show wherever we bring her. She's probably disappointed whenever she we go back to America, and

she just

doesn't get nearly as much attention as she does there. But

Oh, yeah.

Don't let my mom hear you.

That's true. Yeah. Within the family, she gets plenty of attention. That's very

true. Yeah. I'm sure you come back home, and families will love all over her.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Another challenge, Craig, is we kind of move around a lot. Okay. We have, like, we have a really good, strong, stable house that we like is our home.

Mhmm.

But we're probably leaving our house once a month for different trips to visit other people in our ministry to give assistance or to

Sometimes there's, like, a conference or a seminar for new believers or something.

Okay.

And so, like, those transitions can be really hard, especially harder now with the baby. Yeah. We're actually going through that right now.

Okay.

At the February, we came to a conference where we were meeting other people. Mhmm. And through that work with Muslim countries and work in Muslim countries. And it was Jacob and I going to attend the conference, and we brought our daughter with us because she kinda goes everywhere with us Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Right now. And she was hospitalized while we were here with a really bad case of pneumonia.

Oh, man.

So she spent two two weeks in the hospital

Mhmm.

As, her doctors were trying to find, like, the right antibiotic that she needed. And then she had some tissue death in her lungs.

Okay. Yeah. It turned into what they call necrotizing pneumonia. Wow. Yeah.

Literal necrosis within the lungs.

That was a very unexpected but also unique missionary challenge of going to a conference outside of the country, someone you hadn't been before with your child, they get hospitalized. And then specifically with pneumonia, flying is a risk. So we've been here for almost seven weeks.

You can say where here is. We're in Kenya. It's not a separate location, so it's okay. That's why we came here. They're having a conference in an open country, non sister place.

We ended up here and then got stuck here, so it's been almost two months now.

Yeah. But we are going home tomorrow.

Oh my goodness.

And we're super excited.

I'm sure. Determined that her lungs her lungs have healed enough to be able to fly. That the that was the big hold up was Yeah. Not wanting her to, like, have an issue with her lungs while we're flying. Yeah.

Yeah.

Man, that is that's scary stuff, guys. That's that's difficult. You guys presented some real challenges and the aspect of having a kid and being a part of kind of the mission field, and then she you're going to a fun conference and get to see some some people doing ministry, and she comes down with this really tough sickness. Is it working for you?

It was.

You guys have have been in North Africa. There's lots of challenges. Looking at it just from the lens that you're sitting in right now, the seat you're in, is it worth it?

He is worthy.

He's worth it. Yeah. Calling is worth it. I wish I could honestly say day to day, I feel like it's worth it.

Yeah.

But I'll you know, again, be completely honest and transparent. There are absolutely days where we're sitting here wondering, like, is this really, like, what is our calling? Why are we here? Is this really worth it?

And what keeps you going?

Have a better answer than me. Jacob's giving me this real knowing look. But

I ask

him more often.

Think I've given you a good answer in the past.

Maybe. That the Lord has been so give us clear calling.

Yeah. Yeah.

And he accepts our ups and downs no matter where we are. Yeah. He doesn't need us to do what we're doing, but he invites us into it, and that's a blessing where we can bless others. And so ultimately, our goal in, like, our marriage is how can we bring the most glory to the Lord.

Yeah.

And right now, the most glory to the Lord is in ministry, in missions in North Africa with crew.

Absolutely. I also just think back to I mean, one, just the amazing stories that we've been blessed to experience or amazing things that God has done in North Africa. I just kinda remind myself of the highlights of the, you know, the days where I'm so, so thankful that that God has sent us here. And then two, just kind of looking at different biblical examples of I think just, like, looking at biblical characters after Lois in their story. Mhmm.

I don't know. David hiding and running from Saul or Yeah. Even, John the Baptist writing Jesus and asking, like, is this is this worth it? Like, what is going on? This is not how I envision this going.

Absolutely.

Just kind of seeing, like, man, when you zoom out and see the full story, like, of course, it's worth it. Of course, you're a part of something incredible. This is absolutely worth giving the low points.

It's it's

Even if, you know, zooming into that one moment, man, it doesn't feel like it.

Stories like Fred that I think keep you going. Absolutely. You get to see the fruit. You get to see an individual that was dead and trespasses and sin made alive together with Christ. And it's not your own work, but it's the work of God.

And you just get to be a part of it and hold on. And that's, I think, the beauty of it. On this side from the American side, well done, guys. I am proud of you. You guys have experienced a lot of challenge and struggle and yet to hear of God's faithfulness even in the midst of challenge and struggle.

Well done. With this, if there's anybody that's interested in foreign missions, you guys have been on the field for a while now, where would they begin? What would you suggest for someone that's like, Hey, you know what? Maybe that could be me in two years or five years or ten years.

Where

would you suggest they begin? What what would you suggest they do?

Start making disciples now.

Yeah.

Like, try to share the gospel with people, especially if they're completely different than you. Like, that's the beauty of living in San Antonio. It's an international place. Like, try to see if you can meet someone living in the medical center who's from The Middle East and see what their favorite thing to do is and then tell them what your favorite thing

to do is.

Yeah. Start a relationship. And you can do that where you live, work, and play. And so there's not a lot of barriers in The US are just in your mind. Uh-huh.

You have so many opportunities, and it shows so much love to share the gospel with someone. And then that's what I would say. And I would also say start learning about foreign missions. You talked about William Carey. Mhmm.

I'm sure there's some classes going on in San Antonio. We took the prospectus course.

Yeah. Yeah.

Fine. Changed our lives. I know there might be some opportunities in San Antonio soon to take that course.

Yeah.

Yeah. I can't vouch for perspectives enough. Like, it is an awesome, awesome class. I recommend it to everybody.

Yeah.

It kinda goes through, like, the biblical mandate of missions and the history of missions Mhmm. And what it looks like in modern day and the different, you know, strategies, and it's this is all incredible. Yeah. Like, it's you give a huge credit to that as to why we are overseas.

Yeah. Sophia, I think what you said is is beautiful and it's simple. What what you said is be a missionary in your current context. That's really what you're saying is fulfill the great commission. It's what Christ has called each of us to do is to go and make disciples.

And your suggestion is go and make disciples. And then if God opens up an opportunity for you to change the location of where you are choosing to make disciples, then praise God. But in the meantime, be a missionary in your neighborhood, be a missionary at work. And that's, I think the beauty of the gospel is the simplicity of it. Oftentimes we can overcomplicate it, and we can look at missions as something that happens over there.

And really missions, because of the the access of our world, specifically here in San Antonio, the world is no longer out there. The world is coming to us in many respects, and we have an opportunity to proclaim the gospel to friends and coworkers and neighbors that are from all over the world. It's, I think, the beauty of it. So, hey, guys, how can we how can we specifically be praying for you guys in this current season?

Yeah. We're gone from our home unexpectedly for about seven weeks.

Yeah.

And so just pray for our transition back. Mhmm. That we're able to if we need to take time as a fan, that we're able to kind of take time and process. Mhmm. But more importantly, like, we really wanna get back into, sharing the gospel, discipling students, and, seeing more people follow Jesus.

Yep. So prayed for our transition specifically, to see how the Lord can get us back into ministry as soon as possible in North Africa.

Yeah. And also just for the little logistical things of transitioning back. I'm trying right now, I'm trying to not think about all the overdue bills and rent and everything

Oh, yeah.

That we're get to take care of when we get back. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. It turns out you don't have You pay for that and stuff. Spiritual things too. You don't have a place to pay all of your your rent and facilities and all that online as as you do here in The States. A little bit different, I'm sure, in many concepts and ways.

No. And I'm and I'm looking. I'm like, okay. We're gonna be back late Friday, and then it's the weekend. And so Yeah.

I can't do anything all weekend as far as paying bills and what Which is a blessing. Which is probably a blessing, but I'd like to check that off my to do list.

Yeah. I'm sure.

Then She is right. It's a blessing.

Mhmm. Part of an exciting thing that we have coming up in the next two or three months is with crew, we have an opportunity to accept short term trips.

Okay.

And we'll have two or three short term trips from different places. And we're hoping that these tips can kind of really get more people hearing the gospel and finding more people that the Lord has chosen. Yeah. To follow him, to make multiplying disciples, and, you know, replace me and Jacob down the line.

Yeah. Trying to work ourselves out of a job.

Yeah. That's beautiful, guys.

Team has been changing even while we've been here. There's been a couple of new volunteers that have joined. Yeah. And then we'll be also be absorbing a new team that has been evacuated from their country recently.

Yeah.

And so it's all very exciting. Well, not the evacuation part. It's exciting that we get them. Yeah. But it's going to be very different from when we left.

Yeah.

So definitely pray that we're able to handle that, all these changes very well, that they all go smoothly and that they lead to more people hearing the gospel. Yeah.

Yeah. And Jacob and I will be leading all of that. So just wisdom and kind of putting all these and big pieces together and seeing what's gonna be best for our city. Mhmm.

Yeah.

And I'll also say real quick, just thank you to everybody in Sun Oak that has been praying for Brooke's health and for our family. Mhmm. She has recovered miraculously. She's doing very, very well. She's completed herself again, playing and talking and laughing.

Good. So thank you so much for your prayers on that front.

And napping. And napping, thankfully.

That's great. Beyond prayer support, what can we do to support you guys? What does that look like financially? Is there a way that we can support you financially?

Absolutely. So everybody in crew, from the president to the interns, they all raise their own supports.

Yeah.

So all of the money that they use for their ministry, for their salary, for retirement, or anything you can think of that any costs of doing business or living life, they all raise that money through concerned individuals and churches.

Yeah.

So we are always in a process of, support raising, and we really call this is developing ministry partners.

Yeah.

Because the way we do it is that you guys are effectively going overseas with us, whether you're partnering financially or prayerfully. It could not be done without you guys.

Yeah.

So we're always in the process of trying to find new partners that are either looking to partner partner with us prayerfully or financially. Yeah. And so people partner with us either through one time guests or even through monthly guests

Mhmm.

Or yearly guests, like regular reoccurring guests That helps pay for our salaries and just ministry and everything it takes to live overseas and do what we do. Yeah. And so if if anybody is willing to give or once we add it to our prayer letter, unless we send out a monthly prayer letter, please email Craig about it, or you said you're gonna put a link to it in the podcast description?

Absolutely. You can email me Craig at Right.

Show notes.

You can email me Craig@Stonoakbible.com. Also, if you look in the show notes, I'll have link to the giving link for Jacob and Sophia, as well as if you're interested in joining their emails. It's private emails and they are wonderful. I love receiving them, guys. Well done, by the way, on the formatting of those, of how you tell the stories.

I love the

aspect of it.

It's it's fantastic. Let me end with this. I went to a crew gala last weekend, and they presented this beautiful imagery that I just love to leave our listeners with is the aspect of you guys are currently climbing on the rope and you are ascending and descending on the side of a mountain. And our role here in The States is to hold that rope. And we hold that rope through prayer, through financial giving, through support of you.

And while you guys are doing most of the work, we have the opportunity to do our part, which is to hold that rope for you guys in the midst of ministry. So Jacob and Sophia, thank you guys so much for hopping on. I have enjoyed our time together. Son of Baptist Church, thank you for listening, and we will see you next time we

can Thanks, gather

Craig.