1 877-431-4276Rick Willison | Even the Blind Can See Miracles
Rick Willison, founder of Team Jesus Ministries Incorporated and the Extreme Team, joins Daniel King on the Evangelism Podcast. Despite being blind, Rick travels internationally on mission trips and uses feats of strength to share the gospel message. He explains the spiritual meaning behind each feat, such as breaking a baseball bat to represent breaking the devil’s grip and stacking and breaking walls of bricks to symbolize breaking down barriers between people and God. Rick encourages those with disabilities to focus on their spirit and soul and not let their limitations stop them from fulfilling God’s calling. He shares stories of miracles he has witnessed, including the healing of a paralyzed woman in India and the subsequent salvation of her entire village.
Learn More About Team Jesus: http://tjmi.net/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I have a very special guest with me, Rick Willison from the Extreme Team. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Rick Willison (00:13):
Hey, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on there,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:15):
Daniel. Now we are here in Cambodia together. Yes, and we have been together for the last few days. We first went to Thailand and did a music festival there, and then we were in Laos together. And yesterday we had a seven hour, well, we had a one hour plane ride and then a seven hour van drive here. And it’s absolutely amazing that you are on a mission trip like this because you are blind, you can’t see.
Rick Willison (00:46):
That’s correct.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:49):
Tell me a little bit about your extreme team ministry and what you do. Okay,
Rick Willison (00:56):
It’s pretty simple really. About 25 years ago we started a ministry. I used to be a youth pastor and an associate pastor, and then my cousin Taylor Michaels passed away. She ran all of Magic Johnson’s companies and we saw the legacy she left behind and it was amazing because she would go on to South Central Los Angeles, find good kids and say, listen, if you will just pull straight A’s, I’ll put you through any college you want. And she did that over and over and over again. Hundreds of kids, she’s put through college and even to this day, magic Johnson has a Taylor Michaels Foundation where they use utilize that to put kids through college. And so it’s amazing. At her funeral, over 1200 people were there and they got up and they just spoke about her and how they spoke into her life. And magic actually was the one who oversaw her funeral that day.
(01:45):
Off of that, my brother and I at the same time, his name is Tim T Dog, we called him. We had this idea that we really need to do more. We need to leave some sort of legacy behind. I mean, I was in church ministry and I enjoyed that, but I was always very evangelistic. I wanted people to really own their relationship with Jesus, not just say, well, I’m a Christian because I’m an American, or, Hey, my parents go to church, so I’m a Christian, or I’ve been in church my whole life, so I’m a Christian. I want ’em to have a clear understanding of that. And so I started a ministry called Team Jesus Ministries Incorporated. And the team is an acronym, I’m a big acronym. You’re the Daniel King. I’m the king of acronym, so it’s an acronym, TEAM stands for Tell everyone about my and then Jesus Ministries.
(02:35):
And so we began to start that. We became a nonprofit, and from that we started our Extreme team. And the reason we started the Extreme team was because I was in church one Sunday, the pastor was preaching, this is all coming together as we’re God’s speaking to my heart about going to beside the church instead of in the church and working and helping the church from the outside instead of just inside. And he said, if you knew you could do anything and know you wouldn’t fail, what would you be doing? And for me, because of my background in athletics and martial arts and the things I’ve done, I thought, well, I’d be breaking things and showing God’s power of sin and it means more than just breaking things. Everything I do has an object lesson involved and everything represents something. And at the same time, my brother was calling me and saying, what do you think about these strength teams?
(03:25):
We’ve seen ’em around the power team, different teams like this. And I said, I’ve been having the same ideas. And we came up with the extreme team and it’s very purposeful because we’ve seen the other teams, but we want it to be a little bit more purposeful even in what we did. And so even when you look at the name on my shirt, the Extreme Team, the X is a cross, and the message of the cross is that Jesus died for our sins, was laid to rest, raised three days later has gone and is preparing a place for us in heaven. And all those who call upon his name shall be saved. And so that’s a really radical message. People are either drawn to it or repelled away from it. And so the T-R-E-M-E and then TEAM, it’s an acronym. It stands for taking a radical evangelistic message everywhere to equip all mankind. And then Daniel, even how long
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:17):
Did it take you to come up with that? About
Rick Willison (04:20):
Five seconds. I mean, seriously, God just gave it to us. And that’s how acronyms work in my head. It’s like I hear something I almost said, I see something, I hear something. And immediately even when I’m preaching, I’ll come up, my wife will come up afterwards and go, oh, I really like that acronym. And I’ll go, what acronym? And she’s like, when you said hope holding on praying, I said, oh, I didn’t even know I said that. And so it’s like these things come to me and I just spew ’em out. But even that, Daniel, you look at our colors and when we have our full outfit on, it makes a big X on us because we believe we’re a target and we’re going to show people how to get to Christ and the colors, the red, the black and the white and all that, that stands for something.
(05:03):
The black represents sin, the darkness of our hearts. The red is the blood of Christ, and the white is what he makes us. When we put our faith in him, if he makes us a new creation, white is snow. And so everything we do, we do with a purpose. You’ve seen me do some of this stuff. I let a baseball bat represent the devil’s arm and the grip he has on humanity. But we know through what Jesus did, the Devil’s grip was broken. And so I’ll snap that bat and then what do I do with it? Immediately I hold it up into a cross because that’s how Jesus did it with what he did on a cross. And so walls of bricks represent walls of sin like fear, pornography and morality, hatred, disobedience, whatever it is. And so we’re bringing down those walls. The same with boards, phone books can represent, materialism, can represent the devil’s book and how he wants to destroy everybody’s name in it.
(05:54):
So everything has purpose and reason behind it because just to go and break things and bend things and do that kind of stuff, that’s useless. That’s just foolishness, right? But what we do is we realize, God just put in our heart that if we can show people the gospel, and this is kind of funny because I’m a blind guy, but I’m very visual in the things I do. And so I thought, man, if we could just show people the gospel message, maybe that would help them understand it better. So they would hear it and see it as well, something here. So they see it as well. And what we found is because we’re able to do that and because we’re very purposeful that people when they go, wow, when they see these feats of strength, whether it’s breaking ice or if you bricks on fire and breaking ’em or just snapping aboard over your head or something, right? They’ll go, wow. And then we can just slip in the gospel message into their life and they can taste and see that the Lord is really good.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:53):
Let’s talk about excuses because people often have a lot of excuses and Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And some people feel they’re too old. Some people think they’re too young. Some people think that they don’t like being in a hot country and they don’t want to get sweaty, but they have all these excuses and you have an excuse that a lot of people think, oh, that’s a pretty good excuse. If anyone’s accepted from the Great Commission, it would be the blind guy. I mean, how can he travel internationally? But here you are, you’re not letting that be an excuse that keeps you from doing what God wants. But how do you manage to navigate being blind and coming to different countries around the world?
Rick Willison (07:39):
Well, I love what you said because one of the things we use the phone book for is excuses. And I tell people, you might think you can’t see, I can’t hear, I don’t know enough theology. I’m afraid they just have so many excuses. And even when we started this ministry and I started, I had a lot of people say to me, Rick, what if you get lost? Or what if you fall off a stage? Or what if you get arrested or what if this or it’s, it’s like the chicken little right? The sky is falling, the sky is falling. And I thought, what if we take the what ifs and we change it to? So if SOIF, right? And so if is an acronym that hit me as well, because, so if I do God’s will for my life, I’ll receive blessings from God and I’ll be able to help people come to the Lord.
(08:26):
And so if stands for stepping out in faith, and so we say, so if I go instead of what if this happens, I go, so if I go, good things can happen. And so it’s very interesting because as I travel around the world, God just travels with me. And even when I go through airports, they have a program meet and assist. You see people being pushed around in wheelchairs. There’s people who will walk with me or now I’m with my good friends on the same flight. So we just walk and I’ll put my hand with you. You’ve helped me a lot. So I put my hand on your shoulder, you just walk. I follow you. I’m a step behind you. I can feel everything you’re doing. We walk along and it works out perfectly. When I’m on stage, I’ll usually have somebody like you or Daniel’s been up there with me and others and they’ll stand beside me kind of back or whatever.
(09:15):
And even if I’m doing stuff, I can get moving around. If I kind of get turned away from the crowd, they just kind of give me a little nudge or a little turn and I’m back on track. And so I utilize, I mean, I know blind people that are blind out here watching us. They’re going, you’re supposed to be independent. It’s like you are. But I also believe we have to be part of a team. And so I have no problem utilizing my friends around me to help me be effective with how I speak, what I do, how I get places. And I don’t take the chances where I can get lost, get hurt, or anything like that. As you’ve seen, I’ll wait on people. It’s not a problem. I’m not willing to walk out into traffic just because I got to get there first or prove my point. So it’s really just being a part of a team and utilizing each other and whether you can’t see good or whatever it is, I still think Jesus sent ’em out two by two. I don’t think there’s a problem with this being together and walking and doing stuff together.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:09):
Let’s talk about some of the feats of strength that you do and describe the feat for me and then tell me what the spiritual meaning is that you communicate to the crowd.
Rick Willison (10:23):
Okay, so the first one we already said a little bit about, but let’s just throw it back out. There is a baseball bat, American baseball bat. And what I do is I let that represent the devil of the arm, the devil of the arm, the arm of the devil. I can almost speak today. I let that represent the arm of the devil, and then I’ll show it by putting it around. You saw that, I think I choked you with it. You put it around the arm and you say, oh, people think that the devil wants to be their friend. It’s no big deal. Going to point out fun things to do. And I have the bat with my arm around the person, but then I show him, because my job is to show you in a physical way what’s going on around you spiritually. So I pull that bat around your neck and I start choking you.
(11:02):
I’ll lay on the ground, I’m going to beat you with it and all that, but it would stand for the devil’s arm. And then I show what Jesus did on that cross snap the devil’s grip, the arm of the devil off our life, and I’ll press it on my leg and I’ll press it until it breaks, and then I’ll hold it up as a cross. There’s other things. You look at all those walls we talked about, I’ll stack up walls of brick, and honestly, if they want to see some of this, they can go on our Facebook page and they can go just do a search for TJMI. That’s the team Jesus Ministries incorporated the number nine, the number eight, the year we started. So TJMI 98. And it will put you onto that page and there’s videos and all kinds of stuff, pictures even from this trip are up there.
(11:49):
And you can also go to tj mi.net on the, and there’s a bunch of stuff on there as well, and you can see who we are, but everything has to have a specific reason. So the walls, we stack up big walls of bricks and we break ’em. It could be a wall between you and God that maybe you are struggling with addictions or you’re relationship issues or fear or pornography, sexual immorality or disobedience. I mean, any and every sin can go into those walls. Now what’s interesting is when we go places, even here, I’m not just demonstrating how to break and bend things. I’ve picked a fight with the devil and I have people back home praying for us constantly because we go in specifically to destroy what the devil is doing to people. That whole, he is come to kill, steal, and destroy. And so when we do that, the devil fights back and you saw it because you brought it up to me the other day.
(12:46):
You’re like, well, that bat took longer. That’s because we were in front of a crowd that doesn’t know who Jesus is. And the devil doesn’t want them to think that God’s got any kind of power. And it really is a spiritual battle. You’ve seen some bats, bam, they snap, right? Others are a lot harder. Bricks, I’ve broken, and my guys too, we’ll hit a wall of bricks and they’ll all break except for the bottom one. And then we will clear it out. We want the whole wall done. The most phenomenal thing I’ve ever seen, well, a couple things, but I’ll just share. One is we were in South Africa, we were doing our outreach, and one of the guys, boom man, he hit a stack of bricks and it went all the way down to one brick. And a friend of mine, Brad, he happened to be preaching that night and that was left up for some reason.
(13:40):
We always normally take ’em all the way down, but it was left up. And so you have nine bricks broken, one not broken, and it’s way up above where there’s scaffolding to get to it and all that, and it’s sitting there. Most phenomenal thing is he spoke about how the devil thinks he has power. And he said, you know what? And he said, God wants to destroy the whole wall of sin out of your life and God will bring those walls down. And he said, even that wall over there, God could bring it down. He goes, that wall right there. And he pointed at it and that bottom brick broke and the whole thing fell to the ground. And it was amazing because it shows what’s going on spiritually around us. And so you look at everything we do aboard is barriers between us and God. Hot water bottle is persevering as you put your faith in Christ because they’re super hard to blow up until they explode. And the steel is bars of steel that people are behind in jail and how Jesus took care of that. And we bend them into the Christian fish. So everything is very representative.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:41):
One of the things I’ve loved hanging out with you is you have a nonstop store of jokes. Yes, sir. So give us a really good joke.
Rick Willison (14:50):
Oh, okay. Let’s just put me on the spot. That’s awesome. Okay, so that’s kind of funny. I’ll just give you a good, they’re dad jokes and some say bad jokes, but they’re dad jokes. Okay, so what would you call a line of 100 rabbits walking backwards?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:09):
What
Rick Willison (15:10):
A receding hairline. And for some guys out there going, that was more painful than funny, but it’s true.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:18):
Yeah. Alright, speak to people who maybe feel like they have some sort of disability in life that maybe someone’s blind, maybe they have some other disability, maybe it’s just a mental thing. What would you say to encourage them and to help them to achieve everything God’s called them to do?
Rick Willison (15:40):
I think that’s the key right there is where’s your focus, right? Is it on you? Because we can all have something. I mean, as handsome as Daniel is and talented, I’ve seen this guy, you
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:52):
Don’t know whether I’m handsome
Rick Willison (15:53):
Or not. I don’t know any ugly people either. So it’s all good. But as talented as he is and all that, there’s still things that you deal with and maybe nobody knows about it, maybe only your wife, whatever ministry partners, but there’s things you deal with and we all deal with something. Now, I don’t see well, and I often tell people, I’ve learned that some people are blind, some people are ugly. What do you get? I always make fun of my eyes. I always have fun with my eyes. I have a friend that he got in a surfing accident. He’s crippled from the neck down and yet the things he’s done in life, he’s gotten his bachelor’s degree, his master’s degree, he has a camp for disabled kids. He travels all over. Nick Voce is another one born with no arms, no legs, wanted to die, tried to drown himself.
(16:40):
And God pulled him out of that and said, no, the guy travels all over the world. Everybody listens to him because any child born like that in most countries is going to be snuffed out. They’re going to be put to death, right? Because it’s a terrible way to live, they think. But see, God still created us, and you have to get beyond the body and get to your spirit. Get to your soul and go, I am a man of God. I’m a woman of God. I can do great things. And so you can’t let eyes or hearing or being in a wheelchair or anything else stop you because you can still do something for God. Because God created Daniel, each and every one of us with a destiny and a purpose. God does not make any junk. He doesn’t make any garbage. He doesn’t make any throwaways, he doesn’t make any mistakes.
(17:27):
And it’s because of sin in the world that we have disease and sickness and all that. And it wasn’t of God’s doing, it was of man’s doing, deciding that we’d have sin in the world when Adam and Eve wanted to be like God. And so we struggle with that. We suffer with that sometimes, but we should never, ever let it stop us because even with me, when I go into other countries and people find out I’m blind, they don’t know what to do with me. They’re like, how can you be blind and do what you do? How can you be blind? It’s like I’m blind. My mind’s not broken. My mouth works. And even if you can’t speak or you struggle, man, you can write. There’s some way God wants to use you. And so you just dig in deep and you go, you know what?
(18:14):
I’m not a loser. I’m not a piece of garbage. I’m not a piece of trash. I was created with a dessan purpose. I’m going to figure out what that is. I’m going to pray. I’m going to fast. I’m going to talk to God and I’m going to let him open the doors to what he wants me to do, and then I’m going to step into it because if I listen to the world, I’m sitting at home, I’m collecting a government check, I’m eating Twinkies and getting fat and sassy, that’s my life. Instead, I’m out. Over the last 25 years, I’ve traveled around this world. I’ve been in a lot of countries, a lot of places I’ve been a part of leading over 300,000 people to the Lord just through our ministry, not including all these with you and collaborating with others and what goes on there. And if God I figured can use a blind guy like me, he can use everybody. Nothing special about it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:01):
And so in all these years of ministry, I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of miracles, a lot of testimonies. Let’s finish with a story, something amazing that you’ve seen God do.
Rick Willison (19:14):
Oh my goodness, so many. But let’s go back to 2008. Okay, we’ll just jump back there. This was an amazing trip. We were in India, we were in Chennai, Ronnie Pet, Valore City. We’re doing outreaches, we’re doing festivals at night. And every night we go down into the crowd and pray. And things we saw was a man delivered from demonic influence. And I fully expected as this screech came out of him, there was some cattle nearby for them to run into the cattle, and those cattle would run into traffic and get run over. I don’t know, but like the pig thing, right? But we also saw, I prayed for a kid who had a golf ball size thing on his head, and it was a tumor. And I prayed, God, it’s not big, long 5, 10, 20 minute prayers. It was just asking God to heal it.
(20:01):
And he had put his faith in Jesus, and I felt that just disappear under my hand. But the one that sticks out the most was a gal named Priscilla, and it was the same trip and she was so excited. She wanted us to come out to her little village area. She’s a wonderful woman of God. She helps out as much as she can, but she’d been hit by a vehicle three or four years earlier, and she was just crippled up. Her feet were all twisted. She couldn’t walk. She was paralyzed. I mean, it was all this stuff. And so we said, yeah, we’ll come out. And so we came out the whole team, and as we got out there and we started talking to her, they brought her out. They sat her in a chair and we were talking to her and one of the ladies, her name was Karen actually, she was a nurse.
(20:46):
She said, can we pray for her? And I said, yeah. And I had one of the team members pray. I said, why don’t you pray for it? And this gal bless her heart, because we’re Americans, we’re from the West, and we start praying these prayers and she started doing the same thing. Lord, please, if it’s your will, if you want to, we know you can just heal Priscilla. I know she probably won’t get healed today, but I know some days she’ll be dancing with you in heaven. And I stopped the prayer and I said, no. I go, that’s not how God tells us to pray. We’re apologizing for God to do a miracle before he even does it because we don’t think he’s going to do it. I said, we have to pray with authority. And I grabbed the pastor that was there because he was translating already this prayer from English to Tamil.
(21:31):
And I said, will you pray? Will you show these guys authority and pray and ask God to heal this woman? And I don’t know what he said because I don’t speak Tamil, but he prayed with boldness and confidence and he got done. And I was standing right there, and I said, Priscilla, stand up. Now. I don’t see good, but I know because I felt where her feet and all that. She stood up, okay, she’s paralyzed. She stood up and I said, I go, come to me. And Karen was right by me, the nurse. And so I put her right in front of me. I said, come to Karen. And every time she was walking, everybody’s like, wow, wow. And I kept moving. Karen back until Purcell had walked probably 25, 30 feet. And then she gave Karen a big hug, and then she sat down. I told her, no, get up.
(22:19):
I go, you’re healed. Celebrate. That was an amazing miracle. But this was the true miracle because all physical miracles are temporary, right? Because you die. Even Lazarus had to die again, right? We turned around, her entire village was out there watching this. And that gave us an opportunity to say, look, here’s who did this. Here’s who God is. Here’s who Jesus is, and the reason for miracles is to share the salvation message. And we turn and we watch this whole village put their faith in Jesus. That was a true miracle. Now, fast forward, as we’re back in the vehicle and we’re heading back, one of the guys, young guy, he says, Rick, he goes, because we’re celebrating, right? It’s awesome. He goes, Rick, he goes, you don’t understand. He goes her leg. I mean, you might thought that was some cool miracle, but her feet were all twisted up still.
(23:07):
And I go, I told him I won’t use his name, but I said, Hey man. I go, that’s a bigger miracle because she’s paralyzed and you’re saying she’s walking on twisted up feet. That’s awesome. Okay, so now fast forward a year, a year later, one of the guys that was with us, it was a guy from Passion for People. Brett Butcher his ministry. It was one of the guys that used to work with him. He was back in that same place, and him and his wife wanted to go see Prius. So they went to where she lived, she saw the vehicle pull up, and she saw Michael get out. This guy she ran, didn’t walk, didn’t crawl, didn’t have anybody carry her. She rant and lept into his arms and was praising God because her feet, her ankles, her legs, everything was 100%. Again, amazing thing to see. And the village was still all saved, still worshiping God, still doing God’s will for their life. And it was amazing. It was awesome.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:04):
What a great testimony. Well, if you’re listening and you have a church, you want to invite Rick to come minister, or if you want him to come to a school assembly or you want to invite him to come to your country, I encourage you to go find his Facebook page and find out more information about him. And give me the Facebook page one more
Rick Willison (24:26):
Time. So it’s TJ MI, the number nine, number eight, TJ MI 98. Just do a search and it’ll come up Team Jesus Ministries in the Extreme team. So pretty easy.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:37):
Awesome. Thank you Rick, so much for being on the Evangel of
Rick Willison (24:40):
Podcast. You bet. Thank you, buddy.
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Suli Akoteu | Missionary From Tonga to Uganda
Suli Akoteu is a missionary from Tonga, an island in the South Pacific. He serves God along with his wife and seven children in the nation of Uganda. He is a member of Team Xtreme, a ministry led by Evangelist Kevin Stark. Suli uses feats of strength to preach the Gospel to the lost. On today’s podcast, you will hear the testimony of how Suli got saved and decided to dedicate his life to following Jesus.
Connect with Suli Akoteu on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/suli.akoteu
Support Team Xtreme: https://www.teamxtremeintl.com/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Suli Akoteu is a missionary from Toga in island in the south Pacific. He serves God along with his wife and seven children in the nation of Uganda. He’s a member of team extreme, a ministry led by evangelist, Kevin Stark. Suli uses feats of strength to preach the gospel to the lost on today. Podcast. You’ll hear the testimony of how Suli got saved and decided to dedicate his life to following Jesus.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:40):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host mission evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:04):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me evangelist. Suli Akoteu from Tongo in the south Pacific. Thank you for joining me today.
Suli Akoteu (01:21):
Thank you. Thank I give you Daniel. It’s a privilege and order.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:24):
So we are in Ethiopia. Yes. We have just completed a big crusade. Yes. In Ambo, Ethiopia. Yes. And you came yes. All the way from Uganda where you’re a missionary to participate in this crusade. What did you think about what God did this week?
Suli Akoteu (01:42):
It was so powerful. It’s like, it’s, it’s unexplainable seeing the move of God, not only more salvation, but we have seen the miracle and sign and healing, all those accompany, the, the, the starvations of the people I’m. So still not yet really kind of seeing how the Lord was doing in humble.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:08):
Now this is actually the, the second time that you’ve come to Ethiopia to have a crusade with us. And the first time actually, there was a big problem. The crusade was scheduled, right. When COVID was for, are starting exactly in 24 hours before I was scheduled to get on the plane to come to Ethiopia. Yes. We had to cancel the crusade because the nation of Ethiopia said that no large gatherings were allowed. We, we, we literally could not even get into the country because there was a 14 day quarantine. Yes. But you were all already here in the country. You had come to the crusade. Yes. Two weeks early. Yes. In order to go into preach in the marketplaces and invite people to come to the crusade and, and, and you ended up getting stuck here in Ethiopia. And what was that like? Getting stuck in Ethiopia?
Suli Akoteu (03:01):
My goodness. Do explain that one is also unexplainable because come all the way from the small island con in the south Pacific to being with my family in Uganda. And that is the first time for me to experience crossing the port. And everything’s just closed down. We will rush from, from, to come to the airport, but everything is too late. I remember just in the hotel, like talking to my wife, my wife said, SU the power is off. Our vehicle is not even running. And then the water stop. I, I just went, I don’t know how to explain, but all I know that the one that he called me here to just to preach in albumin, he’s the one who’s going to look after my family. I just feel somehow very difficult to to, to, to cope with. But I know the one that he’s calling me, he’s promise that I will be with you even to the end.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:01):
So you are from Toga, but you are serving God as a missionary in Uganda. And so when you came to Ethiopia, Uganda actually closed the doors for people to go back into the nation, cuz they were so worried about COVID. So you got stuck here, not just for a week or, or two, but for several months, the crusade was in March. And then April, may you were still stuck here in Ethiopia at the time your wife was pregnant. Exactly. With twins. Yes. You didn’t know it. You already had five kids, but, but you, she was pregnant with twins and you were worried whether you would get back in time for your wife giving birth. And so you really made a great sacrifice to come to that crusade. And I want to say, thank you so much for your dedication in, in your faith that you would come back a second time after a, a horrible experience like that. So it it’s so great having you here this week and this week you’ve been so amazing. You you’ve taken steel bars and bent them in half as an illustration. Tell me, what does that mean when you break the steel bar in, into U shape?
Suli Akoteu (05:19):
Every, every power feed that we are using that has a message behind. So when, anytime that we are making pending the eye on bar, we just demonstrating that we are in a prison, but we always used to tell people the prisons of sin, only one person can set you free from the prisons of sin is Jesus Christ. So that’s why we used to pan in our head sometimes in our ti sometimes is our nose, but we just, that how the things that we are doing, we just spend it just to demonstrate court’s power.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:49):
And so you are a member of team extreme? Yes. A ministry that’s led by Kevin Stark. Yes. And both of you are YWAM missionaries. Yes. But how did that happen? That you from the nation of Tonga became a YWAM missionary in Uganda? How did that happen?
Suli Akoteu (06:12):
Let me go back a little bit to the, the beginning I was, I was joining YWAM in 98, 19 98. In 2000, I was doing the school of front mission. We do church planning in the west Africa the nation called Kana. So I worked there for four years and after four years, the Lord spoke to me. I have to go and top the program of team X him, because one day I was walking into the market and I saw one man doing his witchcraft and I see the way how he draw a crowd to himself. And then I just felt wrongly. The Lord said, go back, go back and join the team extreme. And then you adopt that strategies come with it to Africa. So I did 2007, the, the beginning of 2007, I have to went back Toma to the worm, Toma little did I know one person there with the wife, they already established the pioneer, the team extreme.
Suli Akoteu (07:06):
That is how, and then in two they do 2010. So I took a team to Uganda, purposely to stay in Uganda for a life. Me and my wife. We have no kitchen that time, but we have a problem with our visa. Only seven months. They just, they tell us to just leave the country. So we went back to Toma. I was thinking maybe I will not come back to Africa, but inside me, I still feel that the law just put a patent on me. You have to go back to Africa. So in 2018, that’s where we pray. And we feel the Lord just called us to work in Uganda. Since then we were here serving with my family there in Uganda, in Wawa.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:49):
And tell me about the ministry that you do in Uganda. What type of ministry are you engaged in and, and what type of miracles are you seeing God do in the nation of Uganda?
Suli Akoteu (08:00):
Actually I Uganda the ministry that I’m leading there, I’m leading the Evangel, combined with the team extreme in Wawa, Uganda Cland. So we are working there. I’m leading the evangelism. We used to go to prison. I have seen creating miracle and God using this strategies to show to the prison, how value are them and all the things that just take place. When we are in there, we used to go to prisons. We go to hospital, we go to street and we also move from village to village, just running seminar, teaching the people on the evangelism, the church member, those who have potential for the evangelism we teach, we take them out. We do evangelism. And then we also running crusade in that community. Yeah, that is what we, we have seen. We, we see a lot of young people. They have the passion to move on and continue telling Jesus about others. And we also seeing miracle, also healing in the church. This is a great need in the church, in new Uganda. And also we are responsible in our wild base. Hosting teams come from different places. Some from us, Hawaii, some from Germany, some from Egypt, some all over the world. We are, the people also are facilitate them as moving together with us doing the same thing of winning soldier, the kingdom. That is what, the things that we are doing in new Uganda.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:21):
The other day, I heard you share your testimony. It was so powerful. How you came to Jesus. Te tell me a little bit about what God did in your life to, to help bring you to the cross.
Suli Akoteu (09:34):
Very, very awful. I share my T my testimony. I was growing up in a Christian family. My parents, they always go to church, their, their preacher. My, my mother was a prayer warrior. I was thinking that I also, I I’m safe. So I always attending church activities. But little did I know when I was growing up, they took me to our school, our Methodist school in our country. One day, I I’m very good in rugby. So I’m, I’m be part of the team rugby. And then in 1998,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:04):
I’ll bet that if someone’s facing you under rugby field, they run in the opposite direction. Yes,
Suli Akoteu (10:10):
I amazing. So I, because of that, I like rugby and I know this is a talented God lesbian with, so we represent donga in 19 90, 80, there was a world school championship that was held in, in Al Zimbabwe. This is my first time in Africa. And that is the kind of encounter. Even on that time, I haven’t experienced having the relationship with God, but I was having an encounter one day. They took us in a bus to assume. And then when I looked down, I saw a old lady putting a firewood on the head. When I looked down, I just, I don’t know. I now, I, I, when I, now I can, maybe this is the holy spirit. It just afford, or maybe a voice saying Sui, I am going to bring you back to Africa. So just things dismiss. I went back to Donna and one day I remember in 97, I heard a missionary told me that God still speak my father, my mother, and all the pastor in the school where I was attend.
Suli Akoteu (11:09):
They never said this, that God still speak this days. So, because of that, I met a missionary, told I know a school, they were teaching how to hear the voice of court. And then I joined because I wanted to hear the voice of court. I wanted to affirm this one that I hear in Zimbabwe. Is it true or not? So I have to attend in a school called discipleship training school in YWAM. That is where I joined YWAM. And I said, I want to hear God. And the staff told me, so the only way for you to hear the voice of God is for you to have a personal relationship with Jesus. So I remember 25th of September 1998. I was knee down in that house and I raised my hand and I said, Jesus, come into me, my heart and be my Lord. And my master from today, I will follow you since that, that time I work, I follow Jesus until now.
Suli Akoteu (12:04):
And then when 2000 there is a school called school for, from mission. They train missionary. So they, I was attending the train. And when they trained, the teacher came to us and said, you choose this free nation, pun, India, or CIP in Micronesia or Canada in his Africa. I told them I will not, I, I’m not going to pray again, because I remember when God spoke to me in Saint a boys in Zimbabwe, I will bring you back to Africa. And I just, I, they agree. And then I went to Uganda, to Canada, work in Ghana, and then from Ghana compared to, to, I took a team there. So now I’m in Uganda. That is how the Lord just changed my life. And then I have seen how God using me to Uganda in Uganda.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:53):
Yeah. I’m so amazed that God has brought you from Tonga to be a missionary in Uganda, because a Tonga is not a wealthy nation as wealthy as, as maybe like America would be. And, and so sometimes people from nations like Tonga might think, well, never become a missionary. I, I don’t know how God would provide for me to go to another country and, and live in another country. But, you know, God can use anyone from any nation and he can make a way, and God is the, the provider. But can you tell me what has that experience been like coming from a nation like Uganda, having a big for family seven children now. Yes. And your wife it takes a big step of faith to, to launch out and to become a missionary. How have you seen God provide for you over the years?
Suli Akoteu (13:46):
It was so powerful. I always talk with Kevin stuck my, my boss in the team extreme. And he said, this kind of, of a weakness of you guys from the island, you feel ashamed to share what the Lord, what, what, what is your need and what you do because you, you know I just, I’m, I’m, I’m very confident to say that God, in his own way, he speak to people and send money to us in Uganda. I am saying in the presence of God, we are so amazed. And before we came to Uganda, you know I have a courage to tell the people of Uganda to challenge them. Don is a fat world. Uganda is a fat world. That world label, as we are poor, look at me and my, my family, you guys call us a white people. We are not white people.
Suli Akoteu (14:34):
We are the same. Like you, we are coming here to do the work of what you can do the same thing to move from out from Canada, from Uganda. So I just to cut it, that explanation short, the Lord will provide in his own way. Even now my wife call me there’s are people just calling them? They just show what I’m doing here in Ethiopia. And they just send money. We never ask. We never even share with them that we need money. They just the Lord in his own ways. And he keep his promise. Sometimes the people said, you, you, you are lying. How can you survive with your seven children here in yo, Uganda? And you come from con both of you are both the local con. So just God himself provide.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:22):
So what advice would you give to someone who maybe is, is living in a, a poor country where, where they don’t have very many resources, but they feel a call from God that they want to be used by God. They, they maybe even want to go to another nation to become an evangelist or a, a missionary. What advice would you give to someone who feels called by God, but maybe comes from a nation with not many resources?
Suli Akoteu (15:50):
I think for me, is that important. You need to hear from the, the Lord, because in, we, we wire him, the first things we teach, we need to hear the voice of God. Because if you want to go anywhere, you have to hear from him. If God himself speak to you to go to another country and he himself will responsible for what you want. Ali, for example, before I came here, I have 12 local yo Uganda, that I work with them, all of them know support. They don’t have any money. I remember very well. We were fasting and praying and they said, Suly, we don’t even some of them, they’re not even paid their six month. Some of them, they in five. So they’re all old. They don’t, they don’t know where the money come from. I told them let’s come let’s you guys come, we are going to pray.
Suli Akoteu (16:40):
And we are going to seek the vision of God. When we pray the Lord, give us the word from the book of second colonial chapter 20, the, the story of, of see ho when the, the army of army night and more by they come to attack them, they will never even ask help. They just call the country to come together. They pray and fast and ask the Lord for help. The Lord says, yes, the fight as house of heart, because you do the right things. I, this battle is not yours. It’s mine. So they position themself, praise in God. When they reach to the, the pedal field, they only see that they demand. So I told them my guys let’s come six to seven every morning, four times a week in a week, we are going to praise only praise God, Daniel.
Suli Akoteu (17:33):
We do it. Start Tuesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, the Lord clear up. And now I come here, they went to the, in the lake, Victoria in Uganda, there is 250 islands. They went there with a visions of why I’m called to end by poverty. They went there, distribute pipes. And the same time they do eventually, and also go to school. So this is what my advice, my advice here, the word of the Lord. And if God tell you to do, he will direct you to do what he wants you to do. Maybe he wants you to do raising. Maybe he wants you to write the letter and say, are your need with some people that you are going to collect. But if the Lord says praise and worship and wait, the, the fight is for me, don’t waste your time. Just do what God tell you do to pass what the fire is in you. No one will stop you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:27):
That’s awesome. Yes. Well Suly thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast. I am so happy to know an evangelist from the island of PGA, and it’s so exciting to see what God is is doing through your ministry. And I’m so grateful that you’ve come to be with us here in Ethiopia this week, the Lord bless you and your ministry.
Suli Akoteu (18:48):
Hallelujah. Thank you very much. I am really honor, just to be part of the Daniel King ministry. I have learned from you. I have learned from Kevin, I’ve learned from each other, the team, and I feel that I’m growing what, the things that I already experience with my small ministry in yo Uganda, my takeaway from this door, it will power. And I want to say, thank you very much for allowing God or you, or also for you inviting me to be part of this tour. I have seen that great move of God and just motivate me and elevating my spirit to continue winning soul in yo Uganda, to the kingdom of God. God bless you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:28):
Thanks so much for listening to the evangelism podcast. I am excited about telling people about Jesus and we could not preach the gospel without your help. Over our years of ministry, we found that we’re able to reach one person for Jesus, for every dollar that people give us. And so that means that if you would give us $1, we could start a party in heaven. In fact, I’m asking people to join our partnership program and give at least $1 every single month to help us to lead more people to Jesus. This is the greatest investment of your dollar that you can make. It’s the only investment that is gonna matter 10,000 years from now. So if you would like to help us lead people to Jesus, please visit king ministries.com K I N G king ministries.com and help us lead people to Jesus today. God bless you
Evangelism Podcast Host (20:27):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our world wide evangelistic outreaches. Visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
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Kevin Stark | Team Xtreme for Jesus
Kevin Stark is an experienced Youth With a Mission (YWAM) missionary who leads Team Xtreme. His teams do feats of strength as a way to attract young people to Christ. He has traveled to 70 nations preaching about Jesus. On today’s podcast, he shares his advice for young evangelists.
Read “Warrior’s Arise” the story of Kevin Stark and Team Xtreme: https://amzn.to/3KuJRgF
Website: https://www.teamxtremeintl.com/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Kevin Stark is an experienced youth with a mission YWAM missionary who leads team extreme. His teams do feats of strength as a way to attract young people to Christ. He’s traveled to 70 nations preaching about Jesus on today’s podcast. He shares his advice for young evangelists.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:33):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King or Daniel interviews. Full-Time evangelists, pastors, mission and, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:57):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I’m here with my great friend, Kevin Stark. He is the leader of team extreme, a missions team that has gone all over the world and tell told literally thousands and thousands of people about Jesus. Kevin, thank you for being with me today.
Kevin Stark (01:19):
It’s an honor to be here, Daniel I’m to not only do the interview, but do missions with you in several countries around the world and see so many people come to Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:29):
Now, I think we originally met on an airplane headed down to Honduras. We were, we were doing One Nation One Day in Honduras. Yes. And in that event, 18 crusade happened simultaneously. And I was doing one of the cities. And I think your team was doing one of the other cities. Yes. And since then we’ve become friends. Yep. And we have gone to several countries together. Right now we’re in the nation of Ethiopia. We just finished a beautiful week where we saw thousands of people come to Jesus Ambo, Ethiopia. And before that we’ve been in Mongolia Belize. I know there’s another one.
Kevin Stark (02:13):
Oh gosh, Belize, Mongolia, Honduras…
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:25):
Yeah. So, so here we are. We’ve done so many things that we can’t remember what countries we’ve been to.
Kevin Stark (02:31):
It’s funny. Yeah. It’ll it’ll come one of those countries, but yeah, it was good. It was, oh,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:37):
Myanmar
Kevin Stark (02:38):
Myanmar, Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:39):
And we’ve seen God do great fruit from the festival in Myanmar. That was just tremendous. I in fact Myanmar was really wonderful. We were there with my friend do Lao and, and because of that festival in, in Myanmar now there has been lots of ministry that’s happened in the nation of Myanmar and your ministry is helping to facilitate some of that, that ministry there. All right. So let’s talk about team extreme, this ministry that God has given you, first of all, what is team extreme?
Kevin Stark (03:09):
It’s a long story. I’ll give you the short version, but Team Xtreme is an evangelism team. So we preach the gospel everywhere. Anyplace schools rise, stadium events, VBS does any place. There’s an open door and open ears will preach the gospel. And it’s really a, the, the, the main part of it. It’s it’s Jesus, it’s the gospel it’s signs and wonders miracles, but we use athletes and strength feats in other things to on non Christians to an event. So that’s sort of the hook and the draw. And then we have guys that are breaking bricks and bending steel bars. But we also have guys that are, you know, dunking, basketballs, dribbling, soccer balls, all sorts of different things, but it’s you know, sports is sort of that universal language that sort attracts people. So they think they’re coming to see some strong man lift some weights, but we talk about the strongest man of all Jesus. And they come to the Lord in the droves. It’s a, it’s been a great 25, no about 30 years. We’ve been doing it all around the world.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:16):
And so when someone breaks a brick or a steel bar or rips a, a phone book in half or, or curls up a frying pan using their bare hands. Yeah. Each one of those feats of strength have a little object lesson that you use to, to share the gospel. Well, what are some of the object lessons that you teach from those feats of strength? Well,
Kevin Stark (04:37):
The steel bar is we talk about being behind bars of sin and the phone books. We rip phone books in half when we call those the devil’s book of death and your sins are written in the devil’s book, but when God comes, he grabs the book. And when you give your life to him and he rips the book up and throws it away far as from east and in the west the bricks, a lot of times we’ll talk about sin. So each brick will repent different sins. It could be, pornography could be, addictions, could be lies, get to be anger. And then we do a little drama where God’s on one side and man’s on the other side. And man, you know, he is trying to break the wall down, you know, cause we all have walls in our life and, and trying to get rid of the sin through good works or, or whatever. But then when he gives us life to Jesus, Jesus comes in and breaks the wall down and they hug each other. And there’s that show of a, you know, of unity. And so yeah, just, we, a lot of the guys are big, huge, strong guys that love to lift weights. They love to eat, but they love to to battle the devil and see people come to Jesus. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:45):
And you have team extreme teams that are in nations all over the world. I remember one time I was in the nation of India and I met a man who actually was one of the strongest men in all of India. He had competed in Mr. Universe and in some really big strength competitions. Yeah. And I started talking to him and he is like, yeah. Kevin Stark has been training me how to share the gospel using my strength and this guy could pull cars. Yeah. It was amazing. And so tell me about some of these different countries that you’ve impacted. Yeah.
Kevin Stark (06:18):
You know, we started with one team, we weren’t planning to multiply, but you know, that’s what God does. He multiplies. And a lot of my team members are from different nations and God just sort of brings them in different ways, different means. And then eventually they say, well, I think I want to go start my own team in New Zealand. And we have a team in para way and we have teams in India and Philippines. And so they just sort of stay and train with us for a couple years and then they go start their own evangelism team. And so that’s been the fun thing. I mean, you know, in Ephesians four talks about training other evangelists, just you’re evangelists. That’s like one of your main things is to train other evangelists. So, but it was just sort of organic. It was like, God did it. We got to be really close friends. And then we commissioned them now to, and it’s just a way to multiply, getting evangelism evangelists all over the world. Now
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:07):
I’ve heard you share a, a great testimony of your team in Norway that we’re on a television program. Tell me what happened.
Kevin Stark (07:14):
Oh yeah. It’s just, you know, God is opened up. You knows supernaturally, suddenly doors. We weren’t looking Isaiah 22 says he’ll open up doors that no man could open. And so several of our teams have been on the talent shows. So Norway has talent. It’s their own sort of, sort of like America’s got talent. And so they got invited to that. And our Norway, our team of nor just crazy Vikings, they have long hair. They seem like they just got off the Viking boat. They’re crazy insane. But yeah, they, they did their show and I think they got to the semifinals and they only have about three minutes to put all these different strength feats in there. And so they’re running through two by fours, breaking big, blowing up hot water bottles, band need steel bar, breaking baseball all within three minutes. And it’s just as fast, you know, high energy. And at the end, they all get together in the middle. There’s about five of them. And they’re speaking this broken
Speaker 5 (08:11):
Jesus is Lord over nor Jesus is Lord.
Kevin Stark (08:16):
And this is secular show. It’s going all over the Nordic nations. And then they run up to the judges and they say,
Speaker 5 (08:22):
We want to give you a Bible, read the Bible. Jesus loves
Kevin Stark (08:26):
You. And so this is being show all over the place. And then the judges, you know, they’re not Christians at all. And the one judges go, that’s amazing. That’s not like my Lutheran church growing up. But anyhow, they did really well went to the semi-finals and it was a great open door. They have, they think they have their own TV show that they do now. So, you know, people like things that are extreme different, but then you just, it opens up their heart cuz to hear the gospel. So that’s a beautiful thing, thing about it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:57):
And your ministry is connected with YWAM. And for many years you worked with Mark Anderson who actually wrote a great book on crusade evangelism. I reviewed his book as part of my doctor to ministry at U and into it and, and his defense of, of why crusade evangelism sure can be effective. And, and so tell me like some of the things that you did with Mark Anderson and, and his ministry over the years,
Kevin Stark (09:26):
You know, mark launched this whole thing called impact world tour. It was his vision to fulfill the great commissioner, being a part of fulfilling a great commission. And he just had this idea to use three different teams. One is team extreme international. One is a group called GX international and they’re hip hop dancers and, and, and skateboarders and, and rap artists. The other one’s called island Breezer Polynesian dancers. So it fits and reaches different demographics, you know, and I think one of the key key things with evangelism is reaching felt needs, you know, so young kids have felt needs, you know, we would fill stadiums all the time because they wanted to see some people that were doing hiphop dance or spoken word or skate or, you know, but they would never step in a church, you know? So mark started to organize these things, big visionary, very Apostol.
Kevin Stark (10:17):
We probably went to over 70 nations, over 3,400 cities in the last 30 years. And our citywide campaigns are not just one, one event. So it takes him six months to two years to set the event up. So he brings all the church together. He organizes the cities, they book all the venues, they raise all the budgets. So I mean, as an evangelist and I’ve talked to other evangelists, like we didn’t have to ever raise the dime of budget. He set up all of these, you know, events in over 3000, 400 cities over, you know, 30 year span. And we just got to go do the things we love to do to preach the gospel. So it’s like, I just took it for granted at that time. But now we’re not really doing a lot of stuff with mark and we’re raising our own budgets and, you know, grinding it out for finances and stuff. But yeah, it,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:08):
That’s a great way to do it. If you can find someone to raise the budget for you.
Kevin Stark (11:11):
Oh, it’s, it was amazing. But you know, gosh, from the very first alter call, you’re doing stuff today. It’s still, I still weep. I still, it still breaks my heart. It’s like you know, I know mostly Evangel watch this show and it’s the thing we live for. It’s the thing God created us to do. So you never grow tired of it. I mean, I turn 66 tomorrow and I still travel and preaching the gospel, telling people about Jesus. Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:37):
Yeah. You are a, a very experienced evangelist. I described you to my friend pair office as a, as a battle scar general, you have been through a lot of battles and, and you have done a lot of evangelism and now God is raising up a new generation of young evangelists is really exciting to see what’s happening. And, and so what’s some of the advice that you would give to a young evangelist or someone who has a heart and passion for evangelism. Yeah. What would you say to them?
Kevin Stark (12:07):
I mean, it all goes down to the word of God to great commandments. Love, God, love people. I mean, you gotta go a basic, I used to be an Olympic coach for a number of years in a division one football coach. And it goes back to the fundamentals. You do the fundamentals, right? You stay humble, stay faithful, be obedient to the next thing God wants you to do, you know, and, and be faithful. And it’s all those basic things, you know, it’s just like, sure. Some of them, some people are gonna see more miracles than others. Some are gonna see more salvations, but it’s really just loving God. And that means spending time in the world, spending time in worship, you know, our team would you know, be in locker rooms before a show and just crying out for the presence of God, crying out for souls, weeping for people.
Kevin Stark (12:53):
And anytime we could get into the presence into the glory, into where we would get filled up, that would be the passion into the word. So it’s just like you can get so busy that you forget the basics and you know, you know, it’s the, the things that, you know, like great evangelists, like bill Graham, don’t touch God’s glory, God’s gold, God’s girl girls, you know, it’s like those basic things. But I think if you’re, you’re in fellowship with Jesus, you’re in his presence daily, it keeps you from falling in those pits, you know? So in the word, in his presence and just loving God and loving people, having other people around you to keep you accountable, you know, that you can say to them, if you see something that’s wrong in my life, I want you to run to me and tell me exactly what it is, having those people around you and not just having yes.
Kevin Stark (13:46):
People around you. And you know, also listen to wise council you know, at the early days, I’d go to every revive I could got prayed over by every great evangelist I could impartation. And that’s really good too. And just listen to the people that had gone before you, you know, get a chance. I know you sat down several times with TL, Osborne and others, just sit down and ask some questions and be willing to be humble and just sit there and listen, you know, I think pride to is another thing that takes out a lot of evangelists. You know, you start to get a little bit of success. So success and failure are both things that can crash you, you know, so sometimes you start to get a little success or see, see a few good miracles and you start to think you’re all that and more, but we’re just all still, we’re humble servants of Jesus, you know, seeing that place of humility and obedience and you you’ll run the race and you’ll finish it. Well,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:39):
Let’s talk about what’s happened this week. We are here in Ethiopia, we’ve just finished a great crusade in ambo Ethiopia you partnered with us and, and together we partnered with Joshua campaign here in Ethiopia. And the crusade started with just a few thousand, but by the end we had thousands and thousands of people on the field. What were some of your impressions? What, what, what did you you think about the ministry that happened this week?
Kevin Stark (15:08):
I mean, some some of it’s just that I unit, he always demands a blessing. So with you and, and you know, just Joshua campaigns and I think as we come together, just that just pleases God, and then just having the pastors there and serving them and serving their vision. I mean, I think that’s the one thing that, you know, evangels need to, to work on. And, you know, you might be the one who gets to preach, you know, every event, the whole thing. But I think when you do the unity thing, you know, that brings the glory of God at a new level. And then just the passion of the African people, just like, I think they just get, I think the people in charge in heaven are gonna be Africans. You know, they just, they just love to worship man.
Kevin Stark (15:50):
And so just sit there watching you just enjoy them, jump up and down in the cloud of dust, you know, fill the air. And, you know, you look at ’em, they got dust all over their face and you just see their eyes out of the dust. And, and then all of a sudden, just incredible miracles. You know, one of the things where you preached one night and you just ask, you got on your knees and it’s just a simple message of the gospel and you ask everybody else to get on their knees. So most of the people are in the dirt, you know, on their faces, on their knees, just crying out for salvation. I mean, that just really wrecked me, really touched my heart to see. I mean, there was, I don’t know the exact number, but there was over several thousand people. Everybody kneeling, everybody asking for forgiveness, everybody crying out for God. So so, so good. Such a great three or four days. And even though they lost my luggage and I had one pair of pants and one shirt, I was still praising Jesus, but I got clean clothes on my own luggage. Oh, I’m so happy.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:51):
That is a Acker Fe to only have one pair of underwear for a whole week, but thank God you made it.
Kevin Stark (16:57):
We made it it’s. But anyhow, I just, it’s one of those little things, the honor privilege to be an evangelist. You know, I got, I know I have two circles of my life. It took me a where to a while to get there, but preaching the gospel, being an evangelist and training another people how to do evangelism. So pretty simple. I mean, I have my family, I, my relationship with Jesus, but my calling around those two circles and I try not to go very much outside those two realms. So yeah. What an honor to preach the gospel. Huh.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:26):
Now I know that your, your ministry has recently launched television program where you’re sharing the gospel in, in different places. And, and if someone’s listening, they wanna maybe watch some of the episodes of your television program or find out more about team extreme and more about your ministry. Maybe even support you, help you do crusade preaching
Kevin Stark (17:46):
From the good job.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:48):
How can they find out more about you? What, what’s your website?
Kevin Stark (17:50):
Yeah, it’s said team extreme. I NTL, but it’s T E a M no, E X, T R E M. So T E a M X T R E M a. I ntl.com. That’s our webpage. So you can get all the information there. The TV show is you can go to YouTube and you can go to team extreme or sorry, impact all nations. And you could get, we have about 40 episodes that are on there and you can watch any of them there. So it’s through also through the now TV network. And you can find that information on our on our web page or Facebook page impact all nations. We’ve got a Facebook page that can, and get more information, how to watch the show weekly, it’s a satellite show.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:34):
Let’s finish by talking about what God will do in the future. It seems like God is doing something new in the earth today. What, what type of sense do you have prophetically of what we’re going to see in the area of evangelism and missions over the next few years? Yeah.
Kevin Stark (18:56):
Yeah, I, I’m so excited about it. I just see an army of young evangelists being raised up. And, you know, I think in a lot of people know this, but the season of big name evangelism, I think it’s still air, but there’s no way that the big names can complete the great commission. So I just see an army of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of on fire totally sold out totally in love with God compassionate in all the different spheres of society preaching the gospel. And, you know, and one time I got home quick story from a crusade and we lived in a, in a house. It was sort of on a farm, but behind my house was a, a wheat field and it just happened to be, I got, I got home and I walked in my backyard and it was harvest time.
Kevin Stark (19:46):
So, you know, only takes some of a few hours to harvest the, the wheat behind our house. And the big John Deere green John Deere tractor was just whacking the weed and, and dust was in the air. It’s like that kind of stuff excites me. And so I’m just looking and the guy, I don’t know who he was, but he had the, he stopped his tractor and he looked at me and he sort of waved at me. He said, come on. So I went and jumped in the John Deere tractor and we’re riding. It was very modern. You had a stereo in there and all these, you know, different stuff in there. And the Lord, the Lord just said, me, the great harvest is coming the billion. So harvest is coming. I just hear him so clear. I’m just sitting in this John Deere tractor with this guy with overalls on, and it was one of those divine moments.
Kevin Stark (20:28):
And, you know, that’s what I’m living for. That’s what I’m believing for. We’re a worldwide supernatural revival. You know, my heart is to we’ve had great meetings, great salvations, but I wanna see, you know, a real transformation of nations. Do you see real revivals? And I they’re coming. I believe it there’s so many prophetic words where just people are getting saved. People are walking outta bars and people are getting healed outta prisons, and people are getting saved all over the streets. And it’s just not an event. It’s so huge that it’s touching every corner of a city and every a quarter of a nation. So the great harvest is coming. Hallelujah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:11):
Amen. Well, Kevin, you’re a good friend. I have such tremendous respect for you. And I’m so thankful for this opportunity to, to work together once more, thank you for being on the evangelism podcast.
Kevin Stark (21:23):
Awesome. It’s been an honor. You’re a great evangelist and a great teacher. Get some of his books. I know you listen to this podcast, but I get a lot of stuff from you. So, and copy some of it, but I change it a little bit. So it’s not, I know, but you’re welcome
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:37):
To have
Kevin Stark (21:37):
It. Thank you so much. All right, thanks. Great. Having me bless you, man.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:41):
Thanks so much for listening to the evangelism podcast. I am excited about telling people about Jesus and we could not preach the gospel without your help. Over our years of ministry, we found that we’re able to reach one person for Jesus, for every dollar that people give us. And so that means that if you would give us $1, we could start a party in heaven. In fact, I’m asking people to join our partnership program and give at least $1 every single month to help us to lead more people to Jesus. This is the greatest investment of your dollar that you can make. It’s the only investment that’s gonna matter 10,000 years from now. So if you would like to help us lead people to Jesus, please visit king ministries.com K I N G king ministries.com and help us lead people to Jesus today. God bless you
Evangelism Podcast Host (22:41):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.