WEBVTT

NOTE Automatic audio transcript; may contain errors.

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it is incredible when I look back. I mean, it's just monstrous how you

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can see God's hand in.

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I mean, I'm no special. I mean, I remember coming down here and wanting to connect

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up with a group and a big organization.

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You know, they basically, you know, wanted to know what seminary school I'd gone

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to, none.

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You know, what training have I had, none.

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You know well how many mission trips I've been on none, you know, well, so you see

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where this is going, you know

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So so we came down here, you know our our big plan was just to serve

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the Guami people find out what their needs were and

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It just took off like a rocket sled. I mean the needs were huge and

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We spent the first, you know like I talked earlier trying to figure out what would

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work best and you know when things didn't work

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We started in another program and we did have family move down for a while and

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stay with us

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You know and Halef and Ron have been coming out every single year

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You know that we've been here and that's been just a monstrous support

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So anyway, the faith thing is is you could just looking back you can see God's hand

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Moving in this and the property that we found we couldn't afford the property

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But the guy sitting in the boat next to me, he was going to look at another one and

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said,

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well, I'll buy the other half.

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That's just the start of it.

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I had to sell my business and my home, and there were one unit, because I was a

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coffee

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roaster on a acreage in Arlington, and I had to sell it without a real estate

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person,

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and so I started just kind of talking word-of-the-mouth, and I told guys that

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this needs to be in

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your will you know so bring me a buyer in 30 days we had three

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buyers for the

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place you know and it just goes on and on I mean because

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you can my feeling here

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is that the whole time I've been here is I've been so busy trying to keep our

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head above the water fixing things building things creating things stuff

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that you stop and there's this and you see God working all around us

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you

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you know, bringing teams and, or getting to Iran and Aleph here, you know, and

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that support

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that was there that I took for granted, you know, then, but looking back, you know,

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that's

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what helped us survive, you know, for a long time.

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Because when we first moved here, you know, we land on this beach and we were met

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by

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six Indians that, you know, we didn't speak their language, we didn't have any

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water,

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we didn't have any shelter, we didn't know if they wanted us here, you know, it

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It was pretty intense, you know, and we just left everything.

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We'd sold our home, our business, left our family, you know.

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What we had was in six plastic totes that were at our feet here, you know.

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So, God's been faithful.

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And you were in a small group.

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Yeah, right. That's where we met Alif and Ron, was in a small group.

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And later they told us when they learned, you know, because they were the ultimate

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missionaries, right?

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You know, and they were like, you know, they're true brothers.

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They just looked at us and knew we were totally crazy and this was loony and we

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didn't stand a chance,

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but they also knew that God was involved, you know, and thank God God was involved.

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Yeah, they acted years later, right?

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Yeah, right.

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you know and that's the other thing is five years past and the economy shifted

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things went really bad for us I mean we ended up losing most of our income in

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town we're barely so barely sustaining ourselves we had bought some investment

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properties that weren't paying off and this was a great

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success here but it

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was constant the Indians were here all the time we had no privacy we had no

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you

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You know, we tried to create barriers and that didn't work, you know.

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Anyway, Joellen had just recovered from dengue and

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we're just trashed.

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And again, through a set of miracles, we were going home for a while, you know.

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And then this property sold because Bruce and Donna heard that there was going to

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be a resort built here.

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I don't know where that came from, but God, you know.

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And so they bought this property from us.

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That gave us enough to re-stabilize it back in the states,

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you know, we bought an apartment building.

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So the story is that we basically got

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thrown off a horse.

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We weren't going back.

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I mean, we weren't going back.

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And Alif, he was tenacity, wasn't listening to me,

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you know, and I told him no three or four times.

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He should have known better, you know.

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Then he's got a ticket bought for us and it was fabulous, and

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I really appreciate ALF for getting us back on the horse

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Because you know been back every single year

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It's been great. It's been great. Yeah, it could be a little bit hard-headed

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sometimes.

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That's just an understatement. Yeah, but that's that's as great as yeah.

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Yeah, I won't make you talk anymore.

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Oh, right.