TV Program

Current Episode

To the Regions Beyond

2008-06-22

PRODUCTION #: 1141

SPEAKER: Shawn Boonstra

GUEST: Sebastian Tirtirau

SHAWN BOONSTRA: There comes a point in everybody’s life where you sense that your time on Earth is supposed to mean something. I mean, if you think about this, it bothers us when we see somebody wasting their life, just watching TV all day or maybe doing foolish things with the time they have. Why do we have that sense?

Is it possible that God put us here for a reason? And if we follow God in faith, accepting that He has a plan for our lives, and that He might want us to do something great for the kingdom of God, what will happen? Well, keep reading. In a moment you are going to hear a story that will boggle the imagination, and you’ll come away with faith knowing that if you follow God, He’s got something for you.

One of the most remarkable stories found in the Bible is in Numbers chapters 13 and 14, where the children of Israel were right up against the border of the Promised Land. They had a promise from God through their great-great-great grandfather Abraham, several generations back, that they were going to inherit God’s promise. Yet in Numbers chapters 13 and 14, God’s people hesitate. They don’t quite go into the Promised Land.

The Bible says in the book of Hebrews that they didn’t have the faith to go in. And the shameful part of it, the real tragedy in it, is that God himself was in the Promised Land waiting for His people to come. He declares His intention in Numbers 14:21. Listen to what God says (Numbers 14:21):

“But truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.”

God had huge plans, and he was just waiting for his people to step out in faith.

What I find really interesting about this story is that you see a parallel to it over in the book of Revelation, chapter 18. Here you see that God still has the same dream for planet Earth. He wants to see the whole world lighted up with His glory. Listen to this in Revelation 18:1 (Revelation 18:1-2):

“After these things, I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the Earth was illuminated with His Glory. And he cried mightily with a loud voice…”

It says in the beginning of verse two that God’s dream is the same. He wants the message of His love to spread to the entire world. And as you read through the gospels and you read through the rest of the book of Revelation, it becomes abundantly clear that God’s dream before Jesus comes is for every last people group on Earth to hear the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.

In Revelation 14, he says that every tribe and every language is going to hear it.

We live in a remarkably exciting period of history, because we are now seeing the fulfillment of those prophecies. The last people on earth—the last people in the remotest places—are hearing the gospel.

Sebastian Tirtirau has been on the program many times and he is a friend of It Is Written. We’ve worked together all over the world, and for years he has been ministering to the remotest people on the face of the earth. And Sebastian, I’m glad you are with us again today.

SEBASTIAN TIRTIRAU: Nice to see you, Shawn.

SB: Sebastian, you’ve been in the Kalahari Desert a few times now, haven’t you? And I know that we’ve talked about this on other programs, but for those who might be tuning in for the first time today, catch us up in two minutes or less. What has been going on in the Kalahari Desert?

ST: I started a mission in the Kalahari Desert in 1996, among the remote San tribe, also known as the Bushman tribe of the Kalahari. I have returned to their desert 30 times since that first contact...

SB: You’ve been 30 times into the Kalahari.

ST: That is right. And we’ve been working there installing water systems, giving them the gospel, giving them the Bible in their own language, preaching the Truth to the villages, delivering blankets, food and equipment, and so forth.

SB: Now, I know that in previous episodes of It Is Written as we’ve been together, we talked about the unique way that the gospel message, the Bible itself, is going to the San tribesmen of the Kalahari Desert. Let us catch some people up on that, because then we are going to move to some of the things that are happening in the rest of the world. But how is it again that the gospel is going to these people?

ST: Well the Bible was never written in their language due to the difficulty of their writing and their spelling. So we have the Bible translated into the Bushman language, or “San” language, on tape, then transferred onto digital equipment.

SB: So, originally, it was on cassette tapes.

ST: On cassette tapes.

SB: How many cassette tapes?

ST: Ninety-nine from Genesis to Revelation.

SB: So to get the whole Bible in their language, in an audio format, took 99 cassette tapes.

ST: Ninety-nine cassette tapes, which required a tape player and batteries, and it was very hard work to do that. Then we had an opportunity to discover this solar-powered audio player—or GodPod as they call it now around the world—onto which we put the whole Bible as well as Bible studies, and a beautiful book called “Steps to Christ.” We translated each item and have been distributing the GodPods to the people of the Kalahari.

SB: Fantastic. A lot of people who are watching the program today helped get those GodPods out to the Kalahari Desert. The people there are really using them, aren’t they?

ST: That is right.

SB: I understand they are even memorizing, right?

ST: They are, and these units are solar-powered, so they don’t need batteries or electricity. You charge them six hours in the sun and then you can listen to the Bible for six hours. And they are very popular, especially after we put the Bible studies in, as well as the book. They love the voice of our translator, Kambathi, who translated the whole thing.

SB: For those who are perhaps joining our telecast for the first time, let us very quickly review some of the places around the world that this work has expanded. It went from the Kalahari to other places. What are some of those places?

ST: After the Kalahari, I went to the Amazon forest in South America and Brazil, Guyana and Venezuela, where I worked with several tribes down there for a while. Then after that I moved back north, into the Arctic region, where we started work with the Inuit people of the Arctic. Then after that, we went into the Congo, where we are starting work with the Pygmies and a new tribe there…and recently we entered Vanuatu.

SB: In Vanuatu, as I understand, is a tribe living in the mountains there, living on terraces that are virtually untouched by western...

ST: Undocumented, that is right.

SB: It is amazing to me how God has taken your journey of faith, all those years ago, walking into the Kalahari Desert, having no idea what was going to happen, and now it has expanded to a global outreach, bringing the gospel of Christ to some of the remotest people groups on earth. It’s remarkable to me, Sebastian, and what you’ve discovered is that one or two people can’t cover all of this.

ST: No, the work became so complex, and once you realize that this is God is calling, you realize that you need to do something that will stay behind you. And you need, of course, to spread the workforce everywhere. So about three years ago I had this strong desire and passion in my heart to open a mission school—a mission school that is designed to train young people solely for remote tribes, to go to remote tribes, become missionaries and work there.

So we were looking for a place, we had no idea where to go, and I was discussing this plan of mine with friends from Romania, my country. This family, this wonderful family that is doing a lot for the Lord, they said, “Listen, we have a property in the mountain, 10 hectares. We’d like to donate it for this work.”

SB: Amazing.

ST: And not only did they put up the property, but they also built the school. And we have already been through the first generation of our students.

SB: It is a six-month course of study, correct?

ST: That is right.

SB: So they learn the practices of sharing their faith with people who have never heard the name of Jesus. They are taught practical skills for surviving in the harshest environments on the planet, and out of that first class of young people, you found 11 who would answer the call of God and help you in these places. It was 11, correct?

SB: Eleven people, yes.

ST: They are now working in different places. Let us go now to the places where these young missionaries have been sent to continue the work that has begun in these places, and develop a long-lasting approach to these tribes. I know a number of remarkable things have been happening as these young people go out. We have a number who have gone back now to where you started.

ST: That is right. We start with the Kalahari, because this is our most complex work and the most developed. And there we sent five missionaries, three boys and two young ladies, to help the work in the Kalahari with the San people, with the Bushmen. They have had tremendous results already. They have been installing water systems, they have been preaching to villages, they have been making a lot of friends...

SB: Now let me pause with you just for a moment. Installing water systems. Somebody who is joining us for the first time might not realize just how essential that is. The Kalahari is one of the driest places on earth. People die of thirst there. And yet, as I understand it, there is fresh water below them.

ST: There is the largest underground lake in the Kalahari, called the Dragon’s Breath. And we manage to tap into that resource and give them solar-powered water systems with submersible pumps for the villages. In the past, some of them had to walk 20 miles to get two gallons of water!

SB: That is one of the It Is Written projects in the Kalahari. I wanted to back up and mention this because a lot of people—instead of just watching—have been supporting this. A village can have water for life for $4,500 dollars. The solar-powered system tracks the sun all day and it brings this life-giving water up from just a few hundred feet down. And I wanted to push the pause button before we continued.

Now let us go back. We have missionaries there and there are remarkable stories taking place in the Kalahari Desert. God just keeps blessing the work and prospering it and growing it. I’m thinking of one man in particular who had been praying. He had come to Christ. What was his name again?

ST: You’re talking about Chungura, yes, he became a Christian in 2001.

SB: In 2001, gave his heart to Christ. But struggled with his tribesmen.

ST: Yes. He is Herero. He comes from the Herero tribe and Herero people are very unique in their own culture. They believe in a lot of superstitions, and their tradition is very complex. So Chungura had been working with them for a few years and he had no results. They would not have any interest in Christianity.

So one night, depressed, disappointed and discouraged, he went to bed and he said, “Tomorrow I’m going to go to other tribes and preach, and I leave my tribe alone.” But he had a dream that night in which he had a big pick hammer in his hand, and he was hitting a rock for many years with no results.

He wanted to drop the axe, and he said, “I’m not going to do this anymore.”

Then an angel came to him and said, “Keep hitting the rock, because soon there will be many pieces for the kingdom of God.”

So he woke up in the morning, a little bit encouraged by this, and as he went to the village, the village that rejected him many times, he saw a few men coming out with spears, very angry.

And he said, “What is going on?”

And a man said, “The leopard came last night into our village and took a calf. So we want to go find him and kill him.”

He said, “I want to come with you.” So they went together. You have to remember, he is a 64-year-old man. No weapon. Barefoot.

SB: He joins the hunting party.

ST: He joins the hunting party. And as they go into the bush, very close to the village, they see the leopard in the tree eating the calf. As the leopard sees the hunting party, he jumps down from the tree and runs after the people. All the men leave Chungura alone and they all disappear in the bush. And the leopard comes from behind him, jumps on his back—that’s what they do to break your spine—and then he said that in that moment something happened to him.

He felt such strength in his arms and in his body. He picked up the leopard, threw him down and suffocated him with his bare hands, in front of the spectators watching from their hiding places. And they were so shocked by this experience that he instantly became a hero in the Kalahari.

SB: I guess so!

ST: He, of course, credited this to the Holy Spirit, and he said, “I couldn’t have done it myself.” This was the door that God had to enter into that tribe. And now he has more than 60 people who came to Christ in the village, and he is working with another 80 in another village. So it is an amazing experience to see how God already had a plan to work with these people.

SB: A lot of people would have given up before that dream, saying, “Nobody is listening, let’s move on.” He gets a dream, he persists and now he is working with 140 decisions.

ST: That is right.

SB: Tell me about the decisions for Christ in the Kalahari, and then we are going to move to another part of the world. We have a lot of new Christians out there.

ST: Yes, in the last few years we’ve been seeing close to 2,500 San people making decisions for Christ. Then of course, we have to start building churches and the eco-infrastructure to support them. They’re on fire for Christ!

SB: Now, of course, we’ve already built one church in Tsumkwe.

ST: That is right.

SB: And as I understand it, it is the tallest church. Not only the tallest church, it is the tallest building in that area. Unbelievable.

ST: Absolutely. The government is now setting it as a standard for everything else.

SB: Amazing. But there it is, a house of God out in the Kalahari Desert.

Let’s go now to the opposite. It is another desert, really, it is the Arctic and people don’t think of it as a desert. But it is dry. It is barren and it is just cold.

ST: That is right, and in the Arctic we have two students who attended the courses in Romania, two very strong, very mature, very experienced people, and we really enjoy seeing their results there. The Arctic was a shock for them. But they are having tremendous experiences with God, and the faith experience is excellent there because of the situation they are in. When they came in, of course, they couldn’t find any accommodations. We were trying to look for a good place for them to stay.

SB: There is no youth hostel. There is nowhere to stay in these places.

ST: The Inuit people often share their homes because there are not enough buildings.

As they were going around town talking to anybody, introducing themselves, they met this lady. She’d had a very negative experience in her life. Her husband committed suicide and she was very down.

SB: Now, that was a rough experience for her, wasn’t it?

ST: Very rough.

SB: Tell me a little bit about what actually happened to her.

ST: Well, there is a lot of depression in the Arctic, and her husband went to a depressing low, and he tried to shoot her. But the gun would not work when he would point it at her. Then there was an accident and he shot himself with the same gun. She was very depressed about this. She was, of course, scared and saddened by the situation. And she started to pray, which is very strange in the Arctic, because they are mostly Shaman up there.

SB: Right.

ST: But she started to pray. And then she got one of our Bibles that were delivered in the Arctic previously. We delivered 5,000 Bibles to the Arctic, in the Inuktitut language, and she got one of these Bibles. She opened in the New Testament about a week before the boys arrived, and she was reading about the “two witnesses” in Revelation 11.

Of course, it is a different story there. But for her, what was shocking is that she was walking on the street and she saw these two Europeans, and she asked them, “What are you doing here?”

SB: Now, those were the missionaries from the school.

ST: That is right.

She asked them, “What are you doing here?”

And they said, “We are missionaries.”

She replied, “You know, I’ve been reading about the two witnesses that came to our town.”

SB: So in her mind...

ST: So the whole village got hold of this news. Of course, they helped a lot of people, they introduced themselves, and they are so loved right now in the village that the village doesn’t want them to leave. They requested me to keep them there for another year.

SB: So they’ve now stayed because we found a place...

ST: That kind lady took them into her home, and she said, “I want this home to be yours,” and they are staying there now. She has four children.

The two boys do a lot of stuff. One of them is involved in sculpting and making stone sculptures with the Inuit, which they love a lot, and the second one is with the young people, trying to encourage them to work with sports out there and also get together for Bible studies.

SB: You know what is amazing to me? Again, it is the fact that all those years ago, you followed God in faith, not knowing where you were going to end up.

It starts in the Kalahari, and now it moves to the Arctic. Thousands of people are being touched with the gospel of Christ in fulfillment of the Bible prophecies that say the whole world will be lit up with the glory of Christ—every tribe and every language. Five thousand copies of the Scriptures in the Inuktitut language go up there. The people are reading them in advance of the missionaries, and God is using every moment to just expand the work. Remarkable story.

ST: That is right. We can go now down south, into South America, into the Amazon forest, where we have three students from Romania, three students who are now in Peru, in a very remote village, and this is a miracle in itself because we didn’t know exactly where they would go.

But we’ve been working with some local people there, and they went there two days with a dugout canoe, then they walked for two days or three days in the jungle, and they reached this village deep in the jungle next to this river. And as they walked in, the witch doctor, the chief of the village, stood up and very happily came to them, shook their hands, and said, “I’m so happy you came; we’ve been waiting for you.”

And they were very shocked to hear this, and they found out later that this chief, this witch doctor, had previously been a Christian. And a night before the boys came in, he had a dream, and he was chased by these three large insects. They were hitting him on the head. He got very angry, he turned around to destroy this insect, and when he turned around, there was this man, this apparition in his dream, who said, “Don’t worry about it. These three insects are coming from me to teach you my ways.”

And he was very upset, he woke up and he told this dream to his wife. And his wife said, “That means God has a plan with our village. He is going to send somebody to teach us His ways.”

The next morning the three boys walk in.

SB: The very next morning.

ST: And the witch doctor, this man who is very happy, comes to them and says, “Hey, we’ve been waiting for you.” And they were shocked to hear that God already sent His Spirit ahead to open up the door for the missionaries.

SB: It is remarkable again. The whole plan is God’s. He’s looking at the whole planet, saying, “I’m going to light it up.” When we move forward in faith, He lines everything up ahead of these missionaries.

ST: Absolutely.

SB: Now the Kalahari up to the Arctic, down to South America—now let’s go back to Africa and complete that triangle, because there has been another experience in Congo.

ST: Yeah, we go back now to Central Africa, where we are just starting work with the Bambuti pygmies in northeast Congo. And we also encountered and approached a very new tribe that, personally, I had never heard of. And this particular tribe we met in the northeast Congo is called the Lugbara. They are very tall people. And they were extremely excited about our arrival there because this particular tribe had never seen a white person before.

SB: Tell me just a little bit about the situation in the Congo and why this is so unique that we got an opening to go in.

ST: Well, the Congo has been involved for many years in a civil war. First of all, it is a tribal rivalry and of course, it is a political war because of the diamonds and the gold and so forth. So it has been so hard to get in, not only with the gospel, but as a physical person, because of the unrest. Now, we found a window this past summer in which we could get in to reach these Bambuti pygmies that are in the middle of the war-torn zone, as well as the Lugbara tribe.

When we got there, we established contact with them. We left two students from our school to continue the work there. Right now they are spread between three pygmy camps and the Lugbara tribe. They have motorcycles—dirt bikes—so they can go deep into the jungle. They established clinics, schools, distributed the Bible in their language, and they preached the gospel. And we are infiltrating into the pygmy tribes that live on the outskirts of the jungle, so they can go deep into the jungle and tell the other pygmies to come out, and we can help them with medicine and equipment and Bibles, and so forth.

SB: Now this is remarkable. We have all these missionaries posted around the world, and yet the work keeps growing faster and faster. There are a couple of challenges. One is the speed with which the work grows. We need more help. The other one is that these are the harshest environments on earth, and once in a while you are going to have to swap out a missionary. They can’t survive forever in some of these environments, and so in January we had another class go in.

ST: Every January, we start a new class in which we train new young missionaries for six months, and then we start rotating after a year or so with the other fields and the other missionaries. So we protect them. It is a very harsh environment, and after a year it will take a toll on your body as well.

SB: You know, I’ve got to share with you how much I love being at that school, because the young people who come there have this burning passion in their heart. You can tell that God has spoken to them and it underlines the fact for me that God is in charge of it all.

ST: That is right.

SB: He knows where the need is in the planet, and He knows who to send, and He lines it all up if we would just step out in faith.

ST: That is right.

SB: It is remarkable. It is just remarkable how God is blessing this work all over the world. And you know, God will do the same thing in your life. If you will answer His call, He is waiting. He has something great in mind for you. His dream is to light up the whole world with His glory, to bring the hope of the gospel to everybody.

At the beginning of the show, I mentioned that story in Numbers 13 and 14, and the tragedy of that story is that people didn’t answer the call of God. They were turned back into the desert, the Bible says, for 40 years, because of their lack of faith in His promise. God says He is going to do great things in this world. He says that He has a plan for your life.

Listen to this. After 40 years, the Israelites are on their way back into the Promised Land. They are now ready to move by faith, and here is what happens in Joshua 5:13. The Bible says (Joshua 5:13-14):

“And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, ‘Are you for us or our adversaries?’ So he said, ‘No, but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.’ And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, ‘What does my Lord say to His servant?’”

I want you to think about what is happening here. The first time Israel got turned back, because they didn’t believe God’s promise and they didn’t move forward in faith. But now that they are ready, 40 years later, to follow God, they are ready to cross into the Promised Land.

All of a sudden, God shows up to lead the charge with His sword drawn. He is leading Israel into the Promised Land, and the same thing happens in our lives. As you’ve heard a number of times on this program, when you step out in faith and answer the call of God, even though you don’t know exactly what to do or exactly where you are going to go, God smiles, because He knows that through you, He’s going to light up the whole world with His glory.

Sebastian, I know that in the moments we’ve got left, somebody’s watching. They have always wanted to do something great for the kingdom of God and today they are ready to step out in faith. I’m going to ask, would you pray for that person right now?

ST: Absolutely, Shawn.

SB: Let’s pray together.

PRAYER:
Father, we thank you for your will and your plan for the whole world, and your love and your sacrifice for everybody. We thank you that you give us the privilege of working with you, and we pray today for those people who are listening to this program and want to be involved in your work. Please, Father, strengthen them, encourage them, and help them to go by faith in your Word. We praise you and we love you, and we thank you for everything you have in plan for us from now on. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

SB: Amen.

We have a lot of dreams to help the people of the Kalahari Desert and one day we dream of a mission station out there. But you know, I have an immediate need. Something I need your help with right now. The needs in the Kalahari Desert are far from met, and today I’d like to offer you a chance to get involved. It Is Written is bringing a number of very important things to the San people—a chance to hear the story of Jesus, a chance to pump fresh water up out of the ground, a chance to grow vegetables, a chance, well, a chance, really just to live, and I need your help.

Right now we are committed to providing water to every village, and for about $4,500, you can bring water to a whole village for life. Now I know that in the past, we said we can do it for $3,000. This is why I really need your help at this moment. The United States dollar has gone down, the economy in Europe has changed, and it now costs us $4,500 to bring water to a village, but still for $4,500 a whole village has water for life. In some parts of this country—$4,500—that is the water bill just for a neighborhood for a year!

I know somebody watching today could afford to give a well. Others could afford to share part of a well with a village. But we can all be involved in doing something for the least of these. So I'm asking today, please help. (If you'd prefer to mail your donation, please send it to: It Is Written, Box O, Thousand Oaks, CA 91359.)

SB: Sebastian, it is always a treat to be together on the program. I know that traveling in different parts of the world, we don’t run into each other everyday, and it is just a real privilege to have you again on It Is Written.

ST: It has been a pleasure.

SB: And thank you for joining us. It is hard to believe we are out of time, but I want you to remember this as you wait for next week’s program (Matthew 4:4):

“It is written: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”

Scriptures Used in “To the Regions Beyond”

“But truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.”
—Numbers 14:21

“After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, ‘Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird!’”
—Revelation 18:1-2

“And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, ‘Are you for us or our adversaries?’ So he said, “No, but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.’ And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, ‘What does my Lord say to His servant?’”
—Joshua 5:13-14