1 877-431-4276Rescuing Children from Sex Trafficking | Lana Vasquez
Lana Vasquez is a missionary in Thailand who runs an international organization that rescues and cares for sexually exploited children in Thailand and Brazil. Her organization, Life Impact International, rescues, protects, and provides long-term care for vulnerable children, while also sharing the gospel with them.
Learn more about Lana Vasquez: https://lifeimpactintl.org/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Lana Vasquez. Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Lana Vasquez (00:10):
Thank you for having me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:12):
Now you and I are friends from Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Lana Vasquez (00:14):
Yes, sir.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:15):
And you know my wife Jessica?
Lana Vasquez (00:17):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:17):
And you are living in Thailand?
Lana Vasquez (00:20):
Yes, sir.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:21):
And so tell me about how God took you to Thailand.
Lana Vasquez (00:26):
Yeah, so honestly I had never heard about Thailand before. I got radically saved at 19. I knew for the rest of my life that I was supposed to do two things. I was supposed to protect children internationally, vulnerable at risk, exploited children because what had happened to me in my childhood and that I was supposed to tell as many people about Jesus before the age 19 because nobody ever told me. I was born and raised in Southern California and I never heard the gospel. Nobody ever invited me to church until I was 19. So I knew that I was rescue to rescue. I knew that that would be my life. And God did a quick work and I went to Bible school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I went from California to the first ever of my family to leave California, go to Tulsa, was there.
(01:09):
While I was in Tulsa, I started hearing about children being trafficked in Thailand. I started hearing about eight year olds virginity going for as much as $3,000. I started hearing about children in the Red Light district of Bangkok and that being sold to businessmen and that businessmen would sleep with their children to bring good luck. Or if they had HIV, they believed that if you slept with a child that it could take away HIV or you couldn’t get HIV for a child. But I just heard these things and something in my heart broke and I knew I had to do something. Simultaneously, I heard a missionary from Sa Paulo, Brazil, talk about the street kids in Sao Paulo talk about five-year-olds walking around sniffing glue to kill the hunger pains because glue was cheaper than food and there’s more kids on the streets than food in the dumpsters.
(01:53):
And I just heard about how the store owners would pay off the lease to line ’em up, massacre, and you could smell the rotting bodies of children in the open sewages of South Paulo, Brazil. At that time, my heart just exploded. I knew I needed to do something and I knew that I was supposed to work with exploited children internationally. So while I was there, I was praying and God gave me a hundred Psalms 127 verses three through five as arrows in the hand of a mighty man. So children of the youth, they will not be ashamed, but they’ll subdue and conquer the enemy at the gate. And I knew God was speaking in my heart to do children’s homes in these countries and different countries that I was hearing all these exploitations and abuses with children. And I said, but God, I’m an evangelist.
(02:33):
I want to win hundreds, thousands, millions to you. I don’t want to just have a little daycare for a God daycare, a little children’s home and have 10 kids and float to heaven singing kumbaya. My Lord. When Jesus comes back, I said, I want to have maximum impact for you. And he spoke to me and said, in the Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu nations of the world, there are generations who don’t know me. You’ll raise up a generation to know me and that generation will make me known to their own nation. And I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to go into different nations, close nations and reach that nation through the children that we would reach rescue and raise up a generation to know him. And that generation would make him known to their own nation and stop the evils of trafficking, exploitation, slavery in their own nation.
(03:17):
I knew that I had a picture of that. I was only 23 years old. I had never been on a missions trip. I was radically saved from the clubs of Hollywood. So I didn’t know what ministry was missions, I didn’t know any of these things. I just had this blueprint and this download and I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew I was rescue to rescue. And so in that time I was just praying it out. All of these pieces of the puzzle I say or like I connect the dots. All these dots were being connected in my life. And there came an opportunity to go on a mission trip to Thailand, and this is where I heard that eight year olds there, Virginia had been sold for $3,000 in the red light district to Bangkok. And so I knew I was supposed to go.
(03:54):
So I committed two months and then I was going to go end up in Brazil and be a missionary in Brazil with these three kids in Sao Paulo. I’d already planned I was going to go two months to Thailand and then I’d end up in Brazil. And so I got there, went to Thailand on this missions trip, and a little face came up to me, a 14-year-old girl and she said, I don’t have a mom. You don’t have a daughter from the state forth. I’m your mom and I’m your daughter and you’re my mom. And I couldn’t leave those kids. I became mama to 52 kids at 24 years old and the rest is history. I two months turned to six months, six months turned into a year and a half, a year and a half into it. I had went with other missionaries and they had said, children’s homes are expensive.
(04:33):
We do church planning, bible school planning where we can’t do homes anymore. It’s straining our budget. We’re going to hand these homes over. And I said, you can’t do this to these children. They don’t have anywhere to go. They don’t have any, but I’m their mom, they’re my children. We can’t do it. I said, would you pray about handing the home over to me, handing the homes? It was a boys and girls home over to me. And they said, how are you going to support? I said, I don’t know. And I was there with three other single missionary girls who put all our money together. We lived with the children and we took over the home. So at 24 I became mama to 52 kids, and at 25 and a half I became the responsible for two children’s homes and an international organization. And the rest is history.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:14):
How long have you been there now?
Lana Vasquez (05:15):
24 years. So two months turned into 24 years.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:18):
Wow. It’s so valuable what you’re doing. I’ve been back and forth to Thailand several times this year and we did an outreach in Patalia.
(05:27):
And so we were setting up our sound system in one night market, and as we were setting it up, an older woman drove up on a motorcycle. She had a little girl on the back of her motorcycle, probably 10 or 11 years old, and she sent this little girl over to talk to us because we were foreigners. And this little girl had her fingernails done super long full makeup and dressed in scanty clothing, and she was there to offer herself to us. And so we were there with several pastors who loved the women there and try to rescue women in Patalia. And we spent 20 minutes talking to this little girl and it broke my heart so much because she’s the age of my daughter. And for that to happen to a little girl is so horrific. And so what you’re doing is so valuable rescuing them and giving them a hope and a purpose for their life. Yeah. Thank you. So not only are you working in Thailand, but now God has brought you back to Brazil. So your vision for Brazil is coming to pass.
Lana Vasquez (06:45):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:45):
And right now we’re actually in Brazil at a conference where we’re talking about reaching everyone in Brazil for Jesus. And so what are you doing here in Brazil
Lana Vasquez (06:54):
With Brazil? So Thailand, when I was there every year, I’d say, God is a time for Brazilian here. No, not yet. No, not yet. So every year I waited and I just put on the shelf and we got property from the Thai Chinese Burmese Mafia, actually it’s called the Promised Land. It was supposed to be a brothel gambling casino resort. And we got this land, and I remember signing for the land to be under the Thai foundation’s name to protect it from the mafia or trying to come back or anything happening. So I remember I had to make some big legal things. I had to set up a foundation and I had to be the chairman on the foundation to protect it and protect all of it. So remember signing my name, and that meant I had to stay in Thailand permanently. And I just said to the Lord, I guess Brazil was just what you used to get me to work with exploited children internationally.
(07:43):
That’s how you brought the mess of exploited children to my heart and broke my heart with that. So I just lay it down, I put it on the shelf, I just give it back to you. I lay my Isaac on the altar so to say, and I remember signing my name to be the chairman and then to stay in Thailand for the rest of my life and everything like that. And I signed that piece of paper. And not too long after somebody that I went to bible school with a Brazilian pastor, he contacted me. He said, I heard what you’re doing with the children of Thailand. The children of Brazil are calling out to you. The Brazil needs life impact. The children of Brazil needs you here. And I didn’t. Thailand’s number one, it’s known in the world for child exploitation, actually has the largest amount of children forced into prostitution, children being sexually exploited for sex. Slavery is Thailand. That was the number one number. And I didn’t realize that Brazil was right up there with Thailand. Nobody would ever think about that for Brazil. So anyways, he called me and said, wherever you’re at in the world, we’ll fly you here. So we came to Brazil and at that time we went from one side to the other, and Brazil’s a big country. It’s the size of America, minus Alaska
(08:51):
With different states just like America. And we went from the top to bottom looking for the next place or how we were going to help the children of Brazil. And every story that I heard was worse than the other. And we had already rescued, we had rescue homes. My youngest victim was a year and a half boy when we took off his diaper, he had been messed with. My first girl ate, my first rescue girl was an 8-year-old girl, sold for $24. And so we had experienced so much, but when I came to Brazil, the stories and what I heard, the stories were worse than the other. And I just knew we needed to do something. And so in that, when I landed, and I always say it like this, you be faithful with what got put in your hands. He gave me Thailand and he gave me Burma, the wars that were on the Thai Burma border. And we have homes both on the Thai side and the Burmese side and how human trafficking works. Whatever the poor nation is, the children are trafficked and sold into the more wealthier nation.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:46):
And right now many refugees are coming from Burma over into Thailand. And so they’re very vulnerable,
Lana Vasquez (09:52):
Very vulnerable. I mean, we have moms selling baby auction off babies even in their belly on the border right now. So we have babies. We’re the only ones that will rescue babies. And so babies are going, they go for as little as 500 Bob, which is $18 you can buy a baby. Twin girls are considered good luck. So they’re a little bit more, there’ll be about 10,000 bought, which is roughly $300, $350 around there. So at that time, I was faithful with what God put in my hands, which was Thailand and Burma, but I still carried Brazil in my heart. So we came here and once we saw all of this, I knew that now was the time for Brazil. So six years later, we’re in three locations, we’re in the Amazon in the interior. We’re the first safe home in the interior of the Amazon.
(10:38):
It’s a place that you have to fly very stealth. And in that area, because of the trafficking, we just rescued a two month old boy that was sold for 300 hays to the drug traffickers. Oh wow. That’s about $5. The mom had 12 kids we’re investigating. We’re trying to look for a boy who was sold at two, he’s now four. They brought us in for investigation. While we were there, we found a baby that she was already in negotiations with the drug traffickers. And then she was also auctioning off the baby in her belly. So we’re there. We just rescued a 12-year-old girl, 11-year-old boy, 7-year-old boy. And then I have another 13-year-old girl there right now, the first safe woman interior of the Amazon. The government has already come to us and they basically said, okay, will you do what you’re doing in now the capitol?
(11:23):
And the only question we’re going to have next, we guarantee you it will be filled in two months. And the only question that we have next is, will you start another home? So we’re working, and it’s a crucial area. People don’t realize this, but the Amazon is known for sex trafficking in the fishing boats, in the fishing industry. So there’s actually companies that go from Florida in Miami to leave out of Miami to the Amazon for this purpose of sex trafficking. What they’ll do is they go to the shores of the poor villages along the water, they send their kids out to these yachts. I was there, I saw a middle aged man come out in Speedos with a drink in his hand, and cat called to the 10, 11-year-old girls that were swimming in the little lagoon right there. So it’s known for this basically.
(12:07):
And what they’ll do is they’ll pull up to the shores, they’ll send their kids out, and these little rickety canoe boats, the kids will go onto that big yacht. They’ll have these big parties and if something goes wrong, they’ll tie something heavy around them and throw them on the other side into the water. They’ll send back that rickety canoe with a pile full of money to buy the parents silence. And then they’ll never know. Nobody will ever hear. I was actually there when that happened to one of the girls we were trying to rescue. And so they call it an epidemic in the Amazon. One out of every two children in some villages are being sexually exploited. And then my Tim took me into one room where all these 10, 11, 12, 13 year olds, they’re sitting with babies on their lap. And I’m used to it in Asia because the older brothers or sisters will take care of their little brother or sister.
(12:51):
And I asked them, is this their brothers and sisters? And they said, no, these are their children. One of the girls that I rescued right now that’s in our home, she’s 12 years old and she’s pregnant from her stepfather while her mom is pregnant by her stepfather as well. So she’s pregnant at the same time as her mom is, and it’s just an epidemic there of proportions. And so we’re there in the Amazon, we have a prevention project right next to the Red light district. We’re in Rio de Janero and we got a crack house and we turned it into a prevention center and one of the most dangerous faves in the world called City of God. There’s documentaries about it. I got to pray for the number three. Basically up in the rankings of the drug traffickers, they came, they saw what we were doing on our opening day.
(13:34):
We had 800 kids there. They came in, their kids come to our project too. And he walked in and he said, can I meet with you? And I went to the side and we start talking and all of a sudden the Lord told me to pray for him. I said, can I pray for you? And he got all serious and said yes. And I said, can I put my hand on your arm and pray for you? Got even more serious, said yes. So I started praying for him and I said, thank you, God, that the blood of your one and only son is more powerful than the blood that’s on our hands. And it can wash away any blood that’s on our hands, anything that we have committed that we have done with our hands. And the guy started to shake. So then I preached the gospel in prayer and I said, and whoever calls on the name of Jesus shall be saved, so Jesus will be call and you save us.
(14:14):
And all of a sudden he opened his eyes and I opened my eyes and I didn’t know what was going to happen. I thought he was going to kill me or something. And we looked at each other and his eyes were full of water. And he said, I’ve never seen anything like this before. He said, but if you continue doing what you’re doing with these children, I promise you you will never have a problem with us and we will continue to protect us. Two years later, they protect us. The drug traffickers protect us. There’s one way going in and going out. They know who we are. We have our life impact little minivan. And when we stop, a little 16-year-old with an AK 47 looks in and he hits our head and they say, hi auntie. Hi auntie. So they know we’re reaching 350 kids there, 250 in the Amazon.
(14:51):
And then lastly, in the place that we’re at right now, Jo Che, the Northeast, which is the capital for child exploitation in Brazil, it’s known it’s an oversexualization of a generation. And this is an area that is still has starvation, that is still destitute, that is still very much in poverty. And so kids will sell their bodies for rice and beans in Thailand, kids are traffic. But here, kids freely sell their bodies for rice and beans. It is just what they know. The little girls know that they can sell their bodies for a cell phone or cell phone minutes. So it’s this that they know that they can do in this region in the desperation. The poverty is so horrible that they know the only way that they can get these things is through their bodies. So we set up shop here, we got a flip-flop factory, turned it into a prevention center, and we’re seeing another 350 kids weekly in the prevention center here. We feed them two warm meals so they don’t have to sell their bodies for rice and beans. We give them Jesus, most of all. So we’re seeing a thousand children now weekly in Brazil alone.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:49):
Wow, that’s so amazing. Sex trafficking is a huge problem, and especially when it happens to the young girls and young boys, it really tears at your heart. But I’m so thankful that God has provided you to help give an answer to this horrible problem. If someone’s listening and they want to help to support you or hear more about what God is doing through your ministry, what is a good website where they can find out about you?
Lana Vasquez (16:20):
Yeah, so Life impact international.org, international INTL. They can go there. We’re on all the social media, but look us up there. We have a whole thing Prevent Rescue Heal so they can get involved in one of our prevention projects, support one of our prevention projects. They could support the rescuing of a new child, or they can provide long-term support for their healing and their aftercare in Thailand, Burma, and Brazil.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:45):
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. Thank you.
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Leper Healed in Thailand | Pastor Richard Sangwien
Pastor Richard Sangwien’s father was healed of leprosy and jaundice after attending a crusade led by evangelist T.L. Osborn in Thailand. After his miraculous healing, Richard’s father became a pastor and planted several churches, leading many people to Christ. This miracle has now impacted multiple generations. On this episode of the Evangelism Podcast you will learn how one miracle can have a ripple effect that changes lives for many years to come.
Transcript:
Evangelist Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. My name is Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, pastor Richard, thank you for being with me on the Evangelism Podcast.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (00:14):
Thank you so much for inviting me to join with the Evangelism Podcast.
Evangelist Daniel King (00:18):
Now you have been my translator for the last couple of days here at the Jesus camp in Phitsanulok, Thailand.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (00:27):
Yes.
Evangelist Daniel King (00:27):
And I was so happy to meet you because your story is part of the reason that I have come to Thailand. Wow. So many years ago, pastor Richard, I was a student at Victory Bible College in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the great evangelist, Dr. TL Osborn, he came to teach at the school and I remember that he talked about Thailand and he shared stories about what God had done in Thailand. And one story he told was about a man who was a leper. And this leper came to one of Teal Osborne’s crusades many years ago, late 1950s, early 1960s, somewhere in there. And Jesus healed the leper and then he became a pastor. And when Dr. Osborne came back, he met the man who had been a leper, who is now a pastor. And so he shared this story and I remember that story impacted my life so much and I decided that I would pray and ask God to send me to Thailand to preach the gospel. Now, many years later, I’ve been praying for Thailand and asking God to provide an opportunity for me to preach here and now, here I am, I’m in Thailand. We came to this conference and I discovered that you are the translator
(01:56):
And the leper, the miracle story, the miraculous story of the leper. I found out that story is your father.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (02:06):
Yes.
Evangelist Daniel King (02:06):
And so now tell me the story from your father’s perspective. What did God do in his life?
Pastor Richard Sangwien (02:14):
Yes. When I was young, he told me that he used to be the monk in the Buddhist temple is the monk. And he got saved through something that is very special because he want to kill himself because he very shameful. And then he lost his hope so that he said that because I am got this disease, I cannot be in front of the people. And I lost everything. He lost everything actually, because he want to get healed. That’s why he went to see, that’s long, long time ago. Thailand is medical treatment is not like now this. That’s why he went to many of witch crab doctor and he lost everything until he said that I am going to make a decision that I want to kill myself. So that he tried to kill himself three time. Wow. Yes. And then first time is not success. The second time, not success, but third time almost success,
(03:37):
He went down from my village because my village is in province, northern of Thailand. And he came down from his province and came to city of Xang Mai, one of the city of Xang. They have the big river there across the city and they have bridge. Many people came to that bridge and jumped to the river, kill themselves. And my dad also, he make decision, this is the last time, last choice. So he came down and then he want to jump, but he came from the village late. He arrived the city at night. And then he said, oh, I need to stay overnight here. And then he stay in the market, the market because no hotel, he stay in market. And then in the market, people keep talking about one of the hospital we call Western Hospital that our kings donate, gave the land to the missionary and to set the start hotel there. No, no hospital, special hospital for the labor. And then he also, when he heard this, because at those time Thai people don’t trust the western medicine
Evangelist Daniel King (05:23):
Because
Pastor Richard Sangwien (05:23):
It’s something is news, but it’s something that click, it’s his heart change his mind. What another choice. Maybe my last choice because I went to many doctors, which doctor? Witch graft doctor. And then he said, ah, I might go to western doctor, something like that. In the morning he crossed that bridge, the bridge that he want to jump. And he crossed that. And then he went to the hospital that is a missionary hospital. And then he got saved in that hospital. He gave his life to Jesus at the missionaries,
Evangelist Daniel King (06:10):
Told him about
Pastor Richard Sangwien (06:11):
Jesus. And one of the key, his changes his life is he feel the love of the doctor and nurse who are missionary. They’re not European, but they’re so kind and they’re so gentle and love him and do everything because his hand is like this. And his
Evangelist Daniel King (06:40):
Fingers, the leprosy had caused his fingers to fall off. Yeah, fall off like
Pastor Richard Sangwien (06:44):
This. And then also he got some wool and smell, but the doctor and nurse took care of him very well.
Evangelist Daniel King (06:55):
Wow.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (06:55):
So I said that, wow, why these people, Christian, he heard Christian, but bad name, but why? They are just good person full of love like this. And then it starting open his heart for the gospel. And then the missionary keep continued to share the love in action and also share the gospel. So finally he opened his heart to receive Jesus
Evangelist Daniel King (07:27):
Christ. So then at what point did he go to the Tal Osborne? C.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (07:32):
And then after that he still have lepers and then
Evangelist Daniel King (07:38):
He still had leprosy, still have.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (07:43):
And also he have another disease. He have jaundice.
Evangelist Daniel King (07:46):
Jaundice. It makes your skin to become very yellow.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (07:48):
Very yellow.
Evangelist Daniel King (07:50):
Even
Pastor Richard Sangwien (07:50):
Your eyes turned
Evangelist Daniel King (07:51):
Yellow. Yes.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (07:52):
His eye. And he got very serious until he’s so weak and he almost died. So that’s why he made one of missionary over there send him down to T Osborne far away from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. Yeah. That’s a lovely way by train. And also because he’s sick, my mom have to come together with him. And so that my mom and my dad have to brought me together with them and with my brothers. And we came down as a family. This is the first time that I met t Osborn and also,
Evangelist Daniel King (08:33):
Wow. How old were you at that time?
Pastor Richard Sangwien (08:36):
About seven
Evangelist Daniel King (08:37):
Years old. A little boy.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (08:38):
Little boy. A little boy.
Evangelist Daniel King (08:39):
And so you came with your father down to the crusade. And at crusade Jesus
Pastor Richard Sangwien (08:45):
Did a miracle. That is the first miracle in our family. And the Lord is saved his life. He almost died very weak. And then my wife carried him to the crusade. And then at that first night in the crusade, his Steve yellow have lepers. And that night, the Lord is did a great miracle in his life and my family.
Evangelist Daniel King (09:17):
Wow.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (09:18):
Yeah. Because when he finished the crusade and he stay in that area, and then when he woke up in the morning, my mom just turned her face to see his face. Saw his face. She surprised. Wow, what’s happening? You look like not yellow. You’re not yellow, and you’re not yellow. The jaundice has been healed, be healed. And she checked with his eye and because his guilt is come back normal, it’s totally, completely healed. And he get the strain come back. And then the leprosy also, the Lord healed him. Totally. And he checked because they have to check the blood. Right. Normal. And so
Evangelist Daniel King (10:08):
After your father was healed of leprosy, he became a pastor.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (10:12):
Then he became a pastor, and actually he became the pastor. And he worked among the leprosy people, the lepers.
Evangelist Daniel King (10:25):
And he planted several churches
Pastor Richard Sangwien (10:27):
Through working with them and then take care of them. And then at that time, he worked with the Finnish mission, full Gospel Finn Mission. And then he shared the gospel and he, whatever, that he got the love from the visionary he learns. And he very impressed at that moment. He did the same thing with all the lepers.
Evangelist Daniel King (10:55):
That’s
Pastor Richard Sangwien (10:55):
Why he planned more than seven churches in two district in northern of Chiang Mai.
Evangelist Daniel King (11:03):
And now you continue the legacy
Pastor Richard Sangwien (11:06):
And
Evangelist Daniel King (11:06):
You are a pastor. What’s the name of your church?
Pastor Richard Sangwien (11:10):
My church name is
Evangelist Daniel King (11:12):
The Be a Blessing church. And tell me about your family because now God is blessing the entire family because of what God did in your father’s life.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (11:20):
Wow. That is great blessing. When I look back, because my dad, his labors, he’s poor, but he have heart for God and he very faithful to serve the Lord. And he has the man of faith and he plant the churches and he keep telling us and toss us about Jesus because we are just only one family in our village to be Christian. Sometime I feel that I am stranger among the friends, but I have seen his faith and his faithfulness to the Lord Jesus and his love is impressed me so much. Well, one day I come and pray to the Lord because I want to see Jesus. I said, I still believe, I still remember that I was 11 years old. I said that, Jesus, if you are real, if you are God, could you please show yourself to me? I can see if I see you.
(12:25):
And now I know that Jesus the same. You’re the God that my father believe I can have experience. So that at that night he don’t show me as I expect, but the holy spirits come to me. I feel with the love of the Lord, and I feel with peace and I totally surrender my life to him. And then I cry and I said that, yes, no, now I know you are real. And then I submit my life to serve the Lord. Because my dad, he always pray that all his kids should be serving God to be the God’s servants. So the Lord answer his prayer.
(13:18):
And from that day until now, more than 50 years ago, I follow Christ and serve the Lord. My church. We have organization. I am taking care about 30 more than 30 churches in Thailand now. And also my family, one of my brother, he’s a pastor, one of the church in my organization and also my dad before he became to be Christian, he have a wife already, but he, because he want to commit himself to die, he want to make the suicide and he throw everything out from his life. So he have one daughter there, daughter with that’s wife. And then when he got saved, he come back and try to converse his ex-wife and his daughter. And finally his daughter got saved. Wow. And then he tried to pray. He told me that he prayed for his daughter seven years. Wow. He prayed for his son-in-law altogether nine year. And then whole family got saved. And this family have one son now. He’s one of the pastor. He’s a great pastor. I think he have one big church here in Thailand. Pastor Liberty Church. At Liberty Church. Yeah. We were there
Evangelist Daniel King (15:12):
For the everyone Thailand conference Conference in February. And it was so beautiful to see what God is doing there. They have such a beautiful building, beautiful facility. God has blessed them in a great
Pastor Richard Sangwien (15:23):
Way.
Evangelist Daniel King (15:24):
And so the miracle that God did in the life of your father has continued down through the generations. Even his story impacting my life. And so I think it’s so neat that now you and I are here together and you are translating when I get to preach the gospel in Thailand, and I believe that this generation that we will see many miracles that will continue for many years to come. Now you also lead a team of intercessors for Thailand. What’s the name of the team?
Pastor Richard Sangwien (15:54):
This team we call intercessor for Thailand.
Evangelist Daniel King (15:58):
Okay. So on my evangelism podcast, I’m asking people to pray for Thailand. Oh,
Pastor Richard Sangwien (16:03):
Wonderful.
Evangelist Daniel King (16:04):
Can you give us some of the key things that people should be praying for as we pray for Thailand?
Pastor Richard Sangwien (16:12):
As everyone know around the word that Christians came, URI came to Thailand for a long, long time. Somebody said, that is a great yacht, the graveyard of missionaries. Yeah. I know that. You pay the price everything. Almost 200 years next on the year of 2028 Easter 200 year, we will celebrate that. But we have just only less than 1% Christianity here in Thailand. So the main key, and we would like every one of you to pray for us in Thailand, is we want to see this nation change. Actually, we have national goal together among the Christian in Protestant in the year of 2028. We want to see 1 million Christians and one and 10,000 churches and 10,000 pastor. Now we have about 600 something plus Christian here. So we need you to pray for us, and we want to see by the year of 2030 2030, we want to see more than 10% of the Thai people become to be Christian.
Evangelist Daniel King (17:36):
Amen.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (17:36):
This is the intercessor in Thailand. We mobilize and we teach them. We encourage them to pray for our nation that the Lord will do. Great thing among us is we want to see that the great revival and Thailand shall be saved and many people will come back to the Lord. So we put our heart and food of faith, we pray for our nation. This is, we want you to order intercessor everywhere in the world. You can pray for us of our national goal. And we want to see, it’s not just only Taal, but we want to see that we break through.
Evangelist Daniel King (18:22):
Amen. Yeah. Well, let’s finish the interview with a prayer for Thailand. Wonderful. We have just one minute left, but can you pray in the Thai language for Thailand to come to
Pastor Richard Sangwien (18:34):
Jesus? Yes. Shall we pray to generation out? Amen. Amen. Hallelujah.
Evangelist Daniel King (20:01):
Thank you Pastor Richard for being on the Evangelism podcast.
Pastor Richard Sangwien (20:04):
You’re welcome. Thank you so much. God bless you.
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The Vision of EveryONE Thailand | Mattheus van der Steen
Mattheus van der Steen leads Harvest Fields International. He is from the Netherlands and he is known as The Flying Dutchman. Today we talk about reaching everyone for Jesus in the Asian nation of Thailand. Mattheus explains how crusades and Gospel trucks will be used to spread the Good News across this nation that is only 2% Christian. Make sure you listen all the way to the end of today’s episode because we will be giving away free scholarships to all my listeners for the Christ for All Nations School of Ministry in Orlando, Florida.
Learn more about Mattheus van der Steen: https://harvestfieldsinternational.com/
Help us purchase a Gospel Truck for Thailand: https://everyonethailand.com/
Apply for your free scholarship for the Christ For All Nations School of Ministry: https://cfansom.org/
Key Points:
- Daniel King and Mattheus van der Steen are part of the global Evangelists Alliance and are focused on reaching Thailand for Christ.
- They believe God is doing a special work in Thailand, with an “underground revival” happening and thousands being saved and baptized.
- They have launched the “Everyone Thailand” vision to reach 7 million people in Thailand with the gospel over the next 12 months through gospel trucks, crusades, and other evangelistic efforts.
- They are training hundreds of evangelists and working with thousands of Thai pastors and churches to coordinate this nationwide evangelistic push.
- They are calling for sponsors to fund 77 gospel trucks that can be used to reach villages and towns across Thailand, making a significant impact.
- They are also promoting the Christ for All Nations School of Ministry, which is offering full scholarships for the first year to train up evangelists and ministry leaders.
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:05):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m very excited about telling people about Jesus. Today. I have a very special guest with me, Mattheus van der Steen from the Netherlands. Thank you for being with me.
Mattheus van der Steen (03:17):
Thank you so much. Eventually, Daniel, they’re actually calling me the Flying Dutchman,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:22):
The Flying
Mattheus van der Steen (03:23):
Dutch Flying Dutchman arrive here in your studio.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:25):
Well, thank you so much for coming to Tulsa and it’s wonderful to see you. A couple of years ago it was so wonderful to be in Amsterdam for the Everyone Conference, which you worked so hard to organize and to set up, and it was so beautiful because people came from all over the world who had a passion for evangelism.
Mattheus van der Steen (03:48):
Yeah, I think that was still until this day, the most significant, I would say, a courageous moment for the church history, that five 6,000 global leaders with impact reaching millions of people with all the networks together came together around the theme, the Great Commission. How can we work together to reach every person with the gospel of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit? I mean, just think about that day, nomination leaders, church leaders talking about how can we work together to see our area, our nation changed. So for us it was supernatural. The Great Commission is of course for us as evangelists, it was like heaven. I mean hearing church leaders talking about winning souls for Jesus. Yeah, it made me cry. I mean they were speaking our language and what for me was the most beautiful thing was that the existing church leaders and fathers and mothers actually are saying, we need needy evangelists. We want to embrace them. When I started 25 years ago, the ministry Evangel Daniel, that was not the case. I mean, most evangelists were, how do you say that? I don’t want to be sounding sad, but we’re lonely,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:11):
Isolated, ignored, ignored. No one understands. You come back from a big event and thousands of people would get saved and come back to a church in Europe or America and they’d just say, oh, did you eat anything weird? No passion for all the people that are coming to Jesus.
Mattheus van der Steen (05:29):
True.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:31):
But I think it’s a new day for evangelism in the world.
Mattheus van der Steen (05:33):
That’s what I say. It’s a courageous moment. It was like literally a new chapter of a book opened for evangelism. So I really think this is the time for a whole generation to rise up in faith. There are a lot of churches around the world who are embracing the great commission but don’t know how to do it. So here we are as evangelists. It’s really time to move forward and to be very radical about this.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:56):
And it was at conference that God gave Dr. Billy Wilson a vision to reach everyone on earth and to personalize the great commission to one by one to make sure that everyone has an encounter with Jesus. And the goal is that everyone would have an authentic encounter with Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit before the year 2033, which will be the 2000 year anniversary of the giving of the Great Commission, the death and resurrection of Jesus, the ascension of Jesus up in heaven, and then the day of Pentecost and how appropriate it would be to celebrate the original day of Pentecost by giving God a gift of thousands and even millions of new souls coming into the kingdom of heaven. And so this vision was launched and we are already starting to put it into practice. And so both of us are part of the global Evangelist alliance.
(07:00):
And last year we went to El Salvador and we saw God do tremendous miracles in El Salvador. We actually had 34% of the nation that was with us face, face-to-face in the services, which was amazing and 250,000 plus people that gave their lives to Jesus. But El Salvador is an easy country, many churches there, many Christians already. It’s a small country, only 6 million. And we were praying, we were at a meeting in Jakarta, in Jakarta, Indonesia, and we were praying and saying, God, where should we go next? And you had just taken your entire family on a trip across all of Thailand and you came and you brought a report to us and you said, guys, I think God is doing something special in the nation of Thailand and we could see a harvest of souls in Thailand. And we all began to pray about it. And do you remember when we started to pray, it felt like the Holy Spirit came into the room and when we ask God and say, God, should we go to Thailand, it felt like the Holy Spirit shouted, yes, I want to see Thailand say it was
Mattheus van der Steen (08:16):
Loaded. It was so amazing. It was so amazing. And again, it’s very touching again to hear you speak about everyone vision right now. I really feel like God’s anointing is on this. I mean, what does it mean to personalize the great commission? And when we talk about everyone, we talk about 8 billion people, right? Eight plus billion people, Dr. Billy Wilson told us that around 5.3 billion people don’t know the Lord. Why are we speaking right now? It means like 2.7 plus billion people know the Lord. What if these 2.7 billion people, and some of them they’re listening right now to your podcast, are making a commitment to personalize the great commission in their lives. So imagine with us that in less than it’s 2025 right now, in less than eight years, we have the opportunity of reaching 5.3 billion people all around the world. And we only can do this together. No one is called to run this race alone. It’s too big for one ministry. That’s what I love about this whole vision. So 4 billion people around that number are living in Asia.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:26):
We can’t reach the world for Jesus without thinking about Asia.
Mattheus van der Steen (09:30):
It’s say 45% is living in Asia. So if we talk about reaching everyone, I really love that there is a lot of focus right now on Asia. And again, let’s not forget America, let’s not forget Europe and all the other continents, but in Asia there’s a huge harvest. And again, Jesus is the Lord of this harvest. So when you say, I came back with a report and I love that we can talk honestly about this stuff, it’s really in faith like with my natural eyes. So I don’t want to encourage everyone who’s listening with your natural eyes. It was almost impossible. I mean, I saw the biggest giants walking around in Thailand, in any other nation when it comes to disunity, when it comes to networks, when it comes to people having a heart for the great commission. I mean, I really had to choose to look in faith and seeing the spiritually realm what God wanted to do.
(10:30):
But what I kept hearing was the famous word, Matt, it’s kairos time for Thailand. When I walked in Thailand in the south, seeing less than 1% people being a Christian, people getting actually in some of the areas in the south, people are getting persecuted there. Another strong religion, very active. I kept hearing the Lord say, but it’s my car’s time. When eter steps into our time, everything changed. And so I think the Lord was really challenging us to just really step in faith and say yes to talent. Even though there are incredible things happening in Thailand right now. We keep hearing from missionaries working there for 25 years, 30 years, that since two years they feel like there’s an atmosphere shift. So what do I mean with that? There’s a missionary in the north working for so long, they’re plowing, facing a lot of persecution. People are very antichrist resisting now. They have this ministry have lines of people. I saw videos. Benji Morph is very involved in this ministry. They want to stay unknown though, but they say that we saw on the video thousands of people on the monthly base are getting baptized right now in rivers. There is an underground revival happening in Thailand.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:53):
And actually I heard that a lot of that is in the district that I’m assigned to Luke. And so I’m so excited. I’m like, wow, I got the best place to go. God is moving in such a tremendous way.
Mattheus van der Steen (12:07):
I make sure eventually it’s Daniel, you do your crusade near the river because this is really a thing they want to get baptized. There has been a new report out two weeks ago and they had one line of three kilometers. Again, I come from Europe, so it’s like 1.6 miles I think of people waiting to get baptized. I
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:26):
Mean, what a miracle. It’s a miracle what a day of Pentecost type the thing to do where they had 3000 people saved in one day. So we just had a wonderful launch event in
Mattheus van der Steen (12:40):
February America itself
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:42):
For everyone Thailand. And it was so beautiful. We were at Liberty Church there in Bangkok beautiful church facility and filled the place up with pastors and leaders from across Thailand. And we started to talk about what does it look like to see a harvest here? And I saw so many that just had a great heart and a great passion for seeing God do something wonderful in Thailand.
Mattheus van der Steen (13:15):
And what really touched me about this, because people said before what you want is not possible. Even a Thai pastor said it’s not possible to get so much pastor around the great commission, but when the Lord speaks a word, just obey that. Just follow it. Don’t look and hear what all the critics are saying. Be open for correction of course, but really following the Lord. And I think that’s what we did together in faith. We moved forward and in the end we had around a thousand churches and 2000 plus pastors from every province. We have 77 provinces in Thailand. Being there hearing the vision, how can we work together in reaching talent for Jesus, our vision for the coming 12 months, and I do believe it’s God’s vision, is reaching 10% of the whole population of Thailand with the gospel of Jesus Christ. So there are around 70 million people, 74 million people, some say 72 million people.
(14:10):
So we keep it like, oh, we say 70 plus million people. That means that the coming 12 months and all your listeners, I want to challenge them to pray about this, to be part of this. Everyone can be part of this through enriching talent with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We want to reach 7 million people through gospel trucks, through crusades, like what you’re going to do through outreaches, through different types of evangelism. The Jesus film, the Jesus film is there. We are working together with the chosen. We try to get the whole chosen series in the Buddhistic nation on national television. Can you imagine that? It’s big. It’s wild. So really I do believe that between now and 12 months, we are going to see a major change in Thailand. While we are speaking, we have 12 young evangelists in Thailand. Right after the launch, they saw 17 and a half thousand teenagers coming to Jesus this morning. I got a report that the last week they saw seven of thousand teenagers surrendering the life to Jesus in schools in Thailand. That’s happening right now.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:15):
Wow.
Mattheus van der Steen (15:16):
So quickly we talk about the last four or five weeks, 25,000 teenagers are rescued for eternity. And that’s great news.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:24):
Amen. Well, I’m so excited about what God is doing in Thailand and it’s such a privilege to be a part of it. One of the things that I think is so beautiful is that when evangelists partner together with the local churches, you have these churches in Thailand that have been there for many years and they love God. They’re praying for people to be saved. They love the people of Thailand and they’ve been praying to say, God, do something in our nation. And God spoke to us from outside the nation, from Europe, from the United States, from Africa, all these evangelists and put Thailand in our heart. And really it’s the answer to the prayers of the churches of Thailand,
Speaker 3 (16:09):
A hundred percent.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:09):
And now when we join together, we can dream big and in the natural a dream might look impossible, but with God, all things are possible. And one of the anointings of an evangelist, I think, is to bring people together in unity and to bring different churches. Maybe one church doesn’t talk to another church that they have had a disagreement 50 years ago and so ever since they haven’t gotten along. But we can come and say, guys, let’s focus on the great commission, the words of Jesus to go and to bring all creation to the foot of the cross and to meet Jesus. And that’s something that every single church can agree
Speaker 3 (16:54):
On
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:55):
And that we can all can say yes, we may have different theology in different areas, but we agree that everyone needs Jesus.
Mattheus van der Steen (17:03):
That’s right. And I really love what you’re saying. That was a thing. So touching that when we came into Thailand and did a pioneering trip there, we kept hearing from the generals, the fathers of faith there that their desire was to see at least 1 million type people coming to Jesus, at least 10,000 new churches. So it was almost like the Lord already prepared the way. The question was how are we going to do that? The why is very clear, but how are we going to do that? So most leaders felt like that. The whole everyone talent vision was really connected with their vision. And I am pretty sure that if we do a podcast around maybe this time a little bit later, next year, 2026, we can tell the listeners, listen, this is what God has done. Five, 6 million type people surrendered the life to Jesus. Not only that, they are in training schools, they are in discipleship courses. The history of Thailand is going to be changed.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:02):
I’m going to be going to Thailand in just a couple of weeks. And so in my city we’ve put together committees of local pastors and they have been talking what is the best strategy for reaching people in our area? There’s many different strategies and we’re not saying you have to do it one way or one strategy, but we’re saying let’s do everything we can to focus on the great commission during this time. And one of the things that was so exciting at the everyone Thailand launch event was seeing the very first gospel truck, which was built, and I saw so many people, they came in, it was parked right beside the front door door and everyone was taking pictures. They’re standing up there pretending like they were preaching. But I think that this gospel truck is a strategy that is going to work because there’s so many villages in neighborhoods throughout Thailand.
(18:56):
How are we going to reach them? Well, let’s take young tie people, teach them how to share the gospel and send them out into the village. And so the truck, it was so beautiful, it has a platform, it comes down out of the side of the truck and then it has a sound system. And in just a few minutes you can set it up, set up the sound system, put some chairs out and invite people to come. And you could have 50 people, you could have 200 people, you could have 500 people just with this little truck. But we realized that one truck is not enough. That’s true. At first, I think we were saying maybe we could do 12 trucks,
Mattheus van der Steen (19:32):
10
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:32):
And 10. Let’s do 10 of these gospel trucks. And then we said maybe we could do 50. And then I remember the moment in the conference where you stood up and said, there’s 77 provinces in Thailand. Why shouldn’t we believe God for 77 gospel trucks?
Mattheus van der Steen (19:53):
And the whole thing, like pastors, I never saw pastors. This were not young people. Pastors stood up, it was a holy moment. And they start to cheer and clap. And I felt like to weep, I said, Lord, this pastors really are hungry. What I love Avengers, Daniel is that in Thailand you have to realize that they’re a little bit more, it’s a little bit more, how do you say that? Different than here in the states. So they have night markets. So every night you have night markets in the villages. That means when it’s dark, people are coming out and they’re going to shop in the night market. It’s one place in the city center. So to have a gospel truck there, it’s almost like free advertisement. There are always people in the night market. Normally we do our crusades in the night because it’s more cooler, it’s more effective.
(20:42):
So we can reach 500 to a thousand people per night just through a gospel truck. So right now we are training several hundreds of evangelists. They’re all on the list right now to get trained in Thailand, to be an evangelist for the gospel trucks, there are 80,000 villages all over Thailand. So imagine with us that in five years, if we have 77 gospel trucks and we do two or three small village crusades per week with a gospel truck, because we don’t have to do the weekends. On Monday, there is a night market. And on Sunday and on Thursday we can reach in less than five years every village in Thailand with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:27):
So in my district, there’s 95 sub-districts and I’m hoping that we can go and do an evangelistic campaign in each of the 95 sub-districts between this August and when my crusade will happen in February. And so at the end of July, I’m going to go and do a week of training in evangelism. And the pastors have said that they can give me 50 young people to train for the first part of the week. And then the second part of the week will have over 300 pastors and leaders and the people from the churches come and be trained in evangelism. And then each of the churches will take that truck out and begin to do these night markets, going to different villages, going to different places to share the gospel. And the truck will be used every night throughout the week. So a different church will use it each night. So each church will build an evangelism team and then take the truck out and so that the truck will be used full time. But each church is responsible for sending out an evangelism team once a week and say, guys, at least once a week, can you take Monday night? Can you take Tuesday night? And between August and next February, we want to do 95 mini crusades, the truck. It’s going to go from place to place. And I think we’re going to see such tremendous fruit.
Mattheus van der Steen (22:54):
That’s an amazing strategy. I like that a lot. So it would be great.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:57):
So I’m already talking to the pastors and they’re already excited about, they saw the truck and now I got to go to them and say, now we need to trust God to provide a truck for us.
Mattheus van der Steen (23:09):
Amen. And I think that’s where your listeners can really pray and consider joining us. What I love about this gospel truck is you don’t need like $10,000 to do a crusade with a couple of hundreds of dollars. You already can do a two, three night crusade with a gospel truck.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:26):
Yeah, once you have the truck, because a lot of the expense of doing a crusade is renting a sound system, renting a platform, and getting transportation there. But with this gospel truck, what we’re doing is we’re building the infrastructure of evangelism. So think about a church here in America. A lot of churches will do a capital campaign in order to build a building. Why? Because the building is where all the ministry of the church takes place. And so here in America, a church will raise 15 million, 20 million for building a new gymnasium so that they can reach the youth in their community. And so then every week they bring the youth to that gymnasium to preach to them. Well, think about doing evangelism. The evangelism doesn’t happen in a church building because lost people don’t come to church because they’re lost. So somehow you got to go to them. And so in order to do all of these evangelism trucks, what we need is a capital campaign to invest in the infrastructure of evangelism because the evangelism will take place on these trucks. And so investing in a truck is investing in a church building, but the truck goes from place to place doing evangelism. And so this is a great investment for the body of Christ to say, Hey, we want to reach Thailand for Jesus and 77 trucks. That’s big faith. What was the cost of doing one truck? The first truck,
Mattheus van der Steen (24:59):
50,000 per year. And that’s including also the maintenance and a small celery for an evangelist
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:05):
And then paying for some of the gasoline to take it from place to place.
Mattheus van der Steen (25:09):
We have all a whole detailed plan. It’s like an incredible organization to have 77 gospel trucks on the road every day. But there’s a very solid plan for that. We have great contracts and deals with a Japanese company or a building, this gospel trucks. And what I love as well about this gospel trucks is that we all using the same Q air code. Everything in Thai people love. What do we use here? Messenger or WhatsApp group? That’s the lying thing. Everyone is doing lying. That’s how they communicate. It’s like a sort of Instagram. Sure.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:45):
It’s like WhatsApp,
Mattheus van der Steen (25:46):
Facebook. So we are all using one QR code. So all over til people scan this QR code and through the chosen and jesus.net, we give them an opportunity to really start a journey with Christ. So I do believe we can reach millions of people the coming years with the gospel through the gospel trucks. And I think this is really important. Kingdom key.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:11):
Okay, so if you’re listening, I want to ask you to sponsor a gospel truck. It would cost $50,000
Mattheus van der Steen (26:19):
Or partly,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:20):
Or you could do part of it. But I want to go for someone who will do the whole
Mattheus van der Steen (26:25):
Gospel truck. Yes, your logo will be on the gospel truck.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:29):
So can you sponsor a gospel truck, give a gift of $50,000, help us do a gospel truck for one year. Now if you’re an evangelist, what I want to challenge you to do is do this through your ministry. You can come and you can do some of the first crusades with the gospel truck and then through your ministry, sponsor it throughout the entire year. And you can be a part of helping us to reach Thailand. If you’re a church, why can’t your church sponsor a gospel truck to go all year long in the nation of Thailand?
Mattheus van der Steen (27:03):
Yeah, five years.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:03):
And think about what an impact it will have going every single week, day after day, from village to village, from marketplace to marketplace. I think one gospel truck could be responsible for reaching a hundred thousand, 200, 500,000 people with just one gospel
Mattheus van der Steen (27:22):
Truck. That’s true. And that’s happening when you are sleeping. So example, you’re going to give while you are sleeping in the night. It’s 12 hours difference. Of course in Thailand, just the thought when you’re watching Netflix or you are in your prayer live or you’re on Sunday morning in church, that gospel truck is used to win full-time for at least five years on a weekly base. People for Jesus for eternity. I love that thought. Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:50):
Okay, so if you want to sponsor a whole gospel truck or maybe you could do a part of a gospel truck, you can go right now to everyone thailand.com. So everyone thailand.com and donate and give towards gospel trucks. And if you want to sponsor my gospel truck, I need a gospel truck for my area, contact me www.kingministries.com.
(28:17):
We need not just one. We need at least 77 gospel trucks so that we can have one in every single province throughout the nation of Thailand. And I believe right now, God is speaking to you. You need to go and help us to sponsor a gospel truck.
Mattheus van der Steen (28:34):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:35):
And we need evangelists that will come and adopt a gospel truck and come and you could even do multiple trips to Thailand, get your gospel truck working, get it started in a province, and then you could come back two or three times. Then you’d already have your equipment there. You could be doing crusade after crusade impacting the nation of Thailand. And Vinces
Mattheus van der Steen (28:56):
Daniel. Thailand is beautiful. I mean it is beautiful. I mean incredible islands. The people are I think the most nicest people on planet earth. They’re so humble. So hospital, the hospitality is great. And what I love is the food. The food is the best. People said, are you getting sick when you go to Thailand? I said, no, because everything really is around tourism. You don’t really get sick in Thailand. So the street markets are great. I really want to challenge everyone. Come with us. Go to Thailand. Experience is incredible culture and most important, see, revival. See Jesus moving through your life.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:36):
Another thing I wanted to talk about is the Christ for All school of ministry. And so you’re helping evangelist Daniel Kolenda with Christ for All Nations to launch this. And it’s going to be an amazing training center to help train up people who have a passion for ministry, a passion for evangelism. Tell me a little bit about that and how people can find out how they can go and be a student for the school of
Mattheus van der Steen (30:06):
Ministry. Well, I’ve actually very great news because we have some spots available for everyone who is listening right now. And we want to offer you all your listeners a very special deal. That’s a free scholarship for the first year.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:20):
A free scholarship.
Mattheus van der Steen (30:21):
Yeah, free scholarship. It’s really worth $5,000. We have the most amazing speakers. You are part of it, of course. Evangelist Daniel Klin and myself will we be teaching every week. We have a lot of C and evangelists coming over, but we also have Cindy Jacobs, Randy Clark, Ben Fitzgerald, Heidi Baker, the list goes on and on and on. We have like 28 international global speakers who’re going to pour out everything they received from the Lord in this school. This school is really based on the fivefold ministry. We want to train people to find their place in the harvest. There are a lot of students, they dunno what to do with their life. We really want to invite every person you’re called by God, not just as an evangelist, but like you are called in a fivefold ministry, including in the business and you want to make a change, please come to the school. We starting August 26th this year in Orlando places of all places, we have already 300 students. We have a cap of around 350 students. So again, I want to give all your listeners a free school leadership. If you’re interested in it, go right now to CFAN. It’s www.cfansom.com.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (31:38):
Yeah, cfan.org. They have information up about it and apply and get your scholarship.
Mattheus van der Steen (31:45):
Yeah, get your scholarship and come to Orlando and we come to train you. You can choose for a one year or a two year. We have even agreements with some of the universities, so it’s also academic. So besides like importation, great opportunities for outreach and great teachings, we have also an academic site in built into the school. So they actually get credits. So when you do our SOM school, we have agreements with SEU, we have agreements with the Oral Robert University and all the Christian universities around the states that you actually can get credits for that school year or you do the two year school.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:24):
And if you have a heart for evangelism, it will be fired up by being at Christ for all nations. The great ministry of Reinhard Bonnke and Daniel Kolenda, they have just finished their 50th year. They did 50 crusades across Africa in one year in their 50th year. Just tremendous faith. And to see what God is doing through their ministry. And they’re training up so many evangelists,
Mattheus van der Steen (32:47):
5,000 right now
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:48):
Around the world and it’s so amazing.
Mattheus van der Steen (32:51):
And they see around half million people like facts coming to Christ every month right now. So it’s like it’s an amazing ministry where they multiply, train, equip, and give them opportunities. So if you want to be part of this amazing school, please come and see us in August in Orlando.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:07):
Amen, Florida. Alright, well let’s finish with praying together for Thailand. Yes, we need your help in Thailand. It’s a big vision. We need people to be involved. We need evangelists to participate. We need churches to come help us with discipleship, to do leadership training. There’s so many opportunities for people to be involved. You can come and sponsor a gospel truck, find a businessman who will go and sponsor an entire gospel truck. I mean, we need your help for Thailand, but let’s just finish by praying together for Thailand and what God is going to do
Mattheus van der Steen (33:43):
There. Yes, let’s pray. Lord, we just want to thank you so much for this podcast and we thank you God for shaking the nations. We thank you Lord that we living in ous moments and we thank you Lord that you have said so clearly. Yes to Thailand. And Lord, we want to say yes to you. And I want to pray together with Aventus Daniel and all our listeners right now to this podcast, Lord, that your will will be done. That every stronghold will be broken over Thailand. That every person who’s living in darkness in deep darkness, Lord is facing eternal hell. We thank you Lord, that Lord your light and your glory and your love and your power and your resurrected power, your covered in blood will invade every person’s life living in Thailand right now. Lord, we proclaim your covenant blood over all the 70 million plus people living in Thailand. We thank you Lord that strongholds and demonic forces will be broken. We thank you Lord that we are going to see your light be is seeing every corner of darkness in Thailand. We thank you Lord for your glorious light. We thank you Lord for eternal life. We thank you Lord for your blessing in your hand upon this nation up into the government and up to the king. We thank you Lord that Thailand shall be saved in Jesus’ name.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:08):
Well, thank you so much for listening to the Evangelism podcast and come work with us in Thailand. Let’s see. Jesus do amazing things. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mathias, for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Mattheus van der Steen (35:19):
See you next year. I.
Daniel King Preaching on Boldness for Evangelism in Thailand
On today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast you will hear Daniel King minister on “Boldness for Evangelism” at the EveryONE Thailand conference in Bangkok, Thailand, hosted by the Global Evangelist Alliance. Over two thousand pastors and church leaders gathered together for this kickoff event to evangelize Thailand. The nation of 70 million people is only 2% Christian, but the churches of Thailand have a goal to increase the number of Christians to be 10% of the population. This would represent a total of 7 million souls coming to Jesus. The goal of EveryONE Thailand is to take the Gospel to all 77 provinces of Thailand over the next eighteen months!
Transcript:
Evangelist Daniel King (00:05):
Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Are you happy? Oh, I am so happy to be here
Translator (00:12):
Home. Happy man.
Evangelist Daniel King (00:15):
I love Thailand and Jesus loves Thailand, and I want to say thank you for having me. It is such an honor to be here between the time of Jesus’s resurrection
Translator (00:38):
And
Evangelist Daniel King (00:38):
The time of his ascension up into heaven. Jesus had one thought on his mind, and Jesus repeated this thought many different times
Translator (00:55):
And
Evangelist Daniel King (00:55):
In many different ways. And so each of the gospel writers record this thought in a slightly different way. And so these are the last words of Jesus before he went into heaven.
Translator (01:18):
Let’s
Evangelist Daniel King (01:19):
Read them together.
Translator (01:20):
Hello, my aunt
Evangelist Daniel King (01:21):
In Matthew chapter 28, verse 19. Jesus
Translator (01:29):
Says,
Evangelist Daniel King (01:30):
Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations,
Translator (01:34):
The man of
Evangelist Daniel King (01:38):
Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit in teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. So in Matthew 28,
Translator (01:57):
Jesus
Evangelist Daniel King (01:57):
Tells us to go and make disciples of all nations. I want everyone to lift your hand high in the air,
Translator (02:11):
Lift
Evangelist Daniel King (02:11):
Your hand high, and I want you to say, go and make disciples of all nations. Hallelujah. Now turn with me to Mark chapter 16, verse 15. Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
Translator (02:49):
Whoever
Evangelist Daniel King (02:50):
Believes in his baptized will be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned.
Translator (02:59):
And
Evangelist Daniel King (02:59):
These signs will accompany those that believe in my name. They will drive out demons.
Translator (03:11):
They will speak in new tongues.
Evangelist Daniel King (03:14):
They will pick up snakes with their hands. When they drink deadly poison, it will not harm them. They will place their hands on sick people and they will get well. And so in Mark, it says, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
Translator (03:42):
I want
Evangelist Daniel King (03:42):
Everyone to raise your hand high in the air,
Translator (03:47):
Say, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, Tuon to everyone in Thailand, tu,
Evangelist Daniel King (04:08):
Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Now look at me at Luke chapter 24, verse 47.
Translator (04:20):
It
Evangelist Daniel King (04:20):
Says, repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations.
Translator (04:35):
So
Evangelist Daniel King (04:36):
Luke tells us, forgiveness of sins will be preached to all nations. So lift your hand high in the air. Forgiveness of sins
Translator (04:55):
Will
Evangelist Daniel King (04:55):
Be preached in his name
Translator (05:00):
To all nations, including
Evangelist Daniel King (05:08):
Hallelujah. Yes, hallelujah. Now turn with oh, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Now turn with me to John chapter 20, verse 21.
Translator (05:21):
Jesus says, peace be with you. And
Evangelist Daniel King (05:27):
Again, he said unto them,
Translator (05:31):
He
Evangelist Daniel King (05:31):
Said, as the Father has sent me, I am sending you, as the Father sent Jesus.
Translator (05:47):
Jesus
Evangelist Daniel King (05:48):
Is sending you
Translator (05:53):
Lift your hand high in the air all the way in the back, lift your hand,
Evangelist Daniel King (06:01):
Say, as the Father sent Jesus,
Translator (06:09):
Jesus is
Evangelist Daniel King (06:10):
Sending me.
Translator (06:18):
Hallelujah. And then Acts chapter one, verse eight.
Evangelist Daniel King (06:26):
You know this verse,
Translator (06:28):
But you shall
Evangelist Daniel King (06:30):
Receive
Translator (06:30):
Power after the Holy Spirit comes upon. You will be my witness in
Evangelist Daniel King (06:41):
Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and to the uttermost ends of the earth, including Thailand. Lift your hand up to heaven. Then say, I receive power when the Holy Spirit
Translator (07:12):
Comes upon me, and I will be a witness to Bangkok, to all of Thailand, to Cambodia, tammar Singapore, Singapore here
Evangelist Daniel King (07:38):
And to the ends of the earth.
Translator (07:41):
Let on supply.
Evangelist Daniel King (07:44):
Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Clap for Jesus. Hallelujah. And so five times, Jesus repeats this thought.
Translator (07:56):
Matthew
Evangelist Daniel King (07:57):
28, go make disciples.
Translator (08:02):
Go
Evangelist Daniel King (08:02):
Into all the world and preach the gospels.
Translator (08:06):
Luke
Evangelist Daniel King (08:07):
24, forgiveness of sins will be preached to all nations. John 20, as the Father sent me, I am sending you Acts one, you’ll receive power to be a witness
Translator (08:28):
The ends
Evangelist Daniel King (08:28):
Of the earth. Oh, hallelujah. Now, how many of you know that if Jesus repeated himself five times,
Translator (08:40):
Some
Evangelist Daniel King (08:41):
We should listen to the words of Jesus? Can I tell you a story?
Translator (08:48):
One
Evangelist Daniel King (08:49):
Morning my wife woke up and the first thing she remembered was that there was no bread eat in the house. So my wife said to me, can you go to the store and buy some bread? Yes dear, I will do that
Translator (09:12):
By.
Evangelist Daniel King (09:13):
So then we’re eating breakfast. There’s no bread again. She says, go to the store and buy some bread. I will do it. And then I’m taking my children to school. We’re walking out the door and my wife sticks her hat out
Translator (09:37):
And
Evangelist Daniel King (09:37):
She says, don’t forget the bread. I love you honey. And then I’m dropping my kids off at school. My phone rings, hello,
Translator (09:54):
Hello.
Evangelist Daniel King (09:54):
Yes, I’m going to the store right now. I’m going to buy some bread. Don’t worry, I’ll bring it back. I love you too. And then I go to the store. I buy some rice. I buy some vegetable, and then beep, beep.
Translator (10:17):
It’s a text message. It’s from my wife. One word.
Evangelist Daniel King (10:26):
Do you know what the word was? Oh, you are so smart. Here, bread. Now, what would happen if I got
Translator (10:38):
All the way back home and I forgot to bring the bread? I
Evangelist Daniel King (10:48):
Would be in trouble.
Translator (10:51):
Now,
Evangelist Daniel King (10:51):
What happens if Jesus returns and we forget what he told us five times to do.
Translator (11:04):
Matthew
Evangelist Daniel King (11:04):
28, go make disciples. Mark 16, go unto all the world and preach the gospel. Luke 24, forgiveness of sins will be preached. 20.
Translator (11:21):
As
Evangelist Daniel King (11:22):
The Father sent, Jesus is sending me, you’ll receive power
Translator (11:31):
To
Evangelist Daniel King (11:31):
Be a witness. How many of you think we should obey the words of Jesus? Raise your hand. Amen.
Translator (11:42):
Amen.
Evangelist Daniel King (11:44):
I want to tell you another story. When I was 14 years old, I went on a mission trip to the country of Jamaica.
Translator (11:57):
Mission trip.
Evangelist Daniel King (11:59):
Jamaica is a very hot country. And so all day we were running through the neighborhoods, passing out flyers, inviting people to come to the crusade
Translator (12:09):
T. And then when nighttime came, we
Evangelist Daniel King (12:17):
Wanted to return to our hotel,
Translator (12:20):
Take
Evangelist Daniel King (12:20):
A shower
Translator (12:22):
And go
Evangelist Daniel King (12:22):
To bed. But all the water in the hotel was shut off. So we said, what do we do? One person in the group was a smart missionary. In the hotel, there is a pool of water in wash in the pool. We went to the pool and we began to wash ourselves. And as we’re playing in the pool, I noticed that on the side of the pool, there was a light that had smoke coming out of it,
Translator (13:10):
And there
Evangelist Daniel King (13:10):
Were some sparks. So very foolishly
Translator (13:18):
Swam over to investigate
Evangelist Daniel King (13:22):
The smoking light.
Translator (13:27):
When
Evangelist Daniel King (13:27):
I was looking at the light, electricity entered the
Translator (13:32):
Pool
Evangelist Daniel King (13:35):
And it shocked my
Translator (13:36):
Leg
Evangelist Daniel King (13:38):
And it scared me because you can die from electricity.
Translator (13:43):
I shot die. I pulled myself out of the pool and I began to walk away, and I was thanking God. I said, thank you, God for saving me. Thank you for saving me.
Evangelist Daniel King (14:01):
I was six steps away from the pool. Suddenly I remembered all of my friends were still
Translator (14:10):
In the pool.
Evangelist Daniel King (14:14):
I became concerned for their
Translator (14:15):
Safety. I rushed back over to them. I said, guys, get out of the pool. You stay in the pool, you’re going to die. Do you know what my friends did? They laughed at me. I said, no, get out of the pool. And I started grabbing them, them pulling them out of the pool. And finally they all got out the pool.
Evangelist Daniel King (14:49):
And thank God that one died that day. But then God spoke to me and God said, Daniel, I want you to have the same
Translator (15:02):
Passion,
Evangelist Daniel King (15:05):
Saving people from hell as you had saving your friends from the pool. You see many people, they get saved and they walk away saying, thank you God for saving me.
Translator (15:27):
How
Evangelist Daniel King (15:27):
Many of you are saved today? Thank God that you’re saved, but let’s not forget about all of the people
Translator (15:42):
Who
Evangelist Daniel King (15:43):
Are in danger
Translator (15:44):
Of dying in going to
Evangelist Daniel King (15:45):
Hell.
Translator (15:48):
So
Evangelist Daniel King (15:49):
Thank God that you are saved,
Translator (15:53):
But
Evangelist Daniel King (15:53):
Let’s not forget about the people that need to be rescued.
Translator (16:01):
I
Evangelist Daniel King (16:02):
Want to rescue as many people as I can. Are you passionate about leading people to Jesus?
Translator (16:10):
Do you
Evangelist Daniel King (16:10):
Want to rescue people from this danger of going to hell?
Translator (16:17):
Someone
Evangelist Daniel King (16:17):
Said that Christianity is like one starving man who finds bread.
Translator (16:27):
He goes and tells all the
Evangelist Daniel King (16:29):
Other starving men where
Translator (16:30):
They can
Evangelist Daniel King (16:31):
Find bread.
Translator (16:36):
And
Evangelist Daniel King (16:36):
When you
Translator (16:36):
Have Jesus, you have the bread of life. Hallelujah.
Evangelist Daniel King (16:45):
Hallelujah. I want to tell you another story. Do you like stories? Yeah. One time I went with my family to visit a cave.
Translator (17:01):
The
Evangelist Daniel King (17:01):
Cave went very far down into the ground
Translator (17:07):
And they had a path you could
Evangelist Daniel King (17:09):
Walk into the cave. So as we walked down, they told us stories about the original explorers, men and women who would explore using nothing but a tiny candle.
Translator (17:31):
When
Evangelist Daniel King (17:31):
We reach the bottom of the cave,
Translator (17:35):
Two
Evangelist Daniel King (17:35):
Kilometers under the ground.
Translator (17:39):
They
Evangelist Daniel King (17:39):
Said they wanted to show us what the dark cave was like. They asked us to sit down on a bench and then the guide walked to the light switch and the guide turned off the lights and suddenly it was dark.
Translator (18:01):
It
Evangelist Daniel King (18:02):
Was so dark I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face.
Translator (18:09):
I
Evangelist Daniel King (18:09):
Couldn’t see the people in my group. It was dark. But then she reached into her pocket and the guy pulled out a cigarette lighter. And I thought, this cave is so dark that a small cigarette lighter will not make much
Translator (18:34):
Difference.
Evangelist Daniel King (18:39):
We were in a room about the size of this one.
Translator (18:44):
Let me
Evangelist Daniel King (18:44):
Tell you,
Translator (18:46):
When
Evangelist Daniel King (18:47):
She lit the cigarette lighter, suddenly we could see the entire room. We could see the whole cave.
Translator (19:00):
All
Evangelist Daniel King (19:00):
The people in the group,
Translator (19:03):
The cave was very dark, but all it took was one light to light up a dark cave. Some people
Evangelist Daniel King (19:20):
Have told me the nation of Thailand is very dark. I have heard that there is a lot of darkness here.
Translator (19:32):
But I want to
Evangelist Daniel King (19:33):
Tell
Translator (19:34):
You that
Evangelist Daniel King (19:36):
When it is dark,
Translator (19:37):
What all it takes is one
Evangelist Daniel King (19:41):
Light. Everyone hold up one finger like this and say one light say, I am a light in the midst of a dark world. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Matthew chapter five, verse 16. Jesus said, let your light so shine before Ben.
Translator (20:22):
See your good works in
Evangelist Daniel King (20:26):
Glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Translator (20:31):
You were called by God be a shining light.
Evangelist Daniel King (20:38):
In the midst of great darkness,
Translator (20:42):
There
Evangelist Daniel King (20:42):
Might be great darkness. But I tell you today, Jesus is a great light. Jesus is shining bright in Thailand, shining bright in your
Translator (20:58):
Life,
Evangelist Daniel King (21:02):
Light in the midst of the darkness,
Translator (21:05):
And Jesus is ready to use you.
Evangelist Daniel King (21:10):
Lift your hand and say,
Translator (21:11):
Hallelujah.
Evangelist Daniel King (21:12):
Hallelujah, hallelujah. I want to give you another illustration.
Translator (21:20):
And
Evangelist Daniel King (21:21):
For this illustration, I need some volunteers. I have chosen two young men.
Translator (21:29):
Could
Evangelist Daniel King (21:30):
The two of you come stand right here, please? Yeah. Come stand right here.
Translator (21:40):
My
Evangelist Daniel King (21:40):
Time is going. You
Translator (21:41):
Got to leave my,
Evangelist Daniel King (21:44):
What is your name please? Jay. Everyone say hello, Jay. And you are Joseph. Everyone say hello, Joseph. Hello Joseph. For this illustration. Jay and Joseph are going to represent two pastors. Both of them have been called by God to plant a church. Both of them are men of faith.
Translator (22:21):
Both of them are men who love to pray. And so Pastor Jay, you
Evangelist Daniel King (22:32):
Are a man of prayer, but there’s one difference between the two of them. Their prayer is a little bit
Translator (22:41):
Different.
Evangelist Daniel King (22:44):
And so you have just started your church, and the first thing that you pray for
Translator (22:52):
Is
Evangelist Daniel King (22:53):
Chairs for the church. I want to give you the microphone,
Translator (22:59):
Microphone,
Evangelist Daniel King (23:00):
And I want you to just say, God, give me some chairs. Pray for chairs in your church.
Translator (23:11):
Go,
Evangelist Daniel King (23:33):
Okay, I want you to run over there. Come and sit in the chair right here.
Translator (23:39):
Okay?
Evangelist Daniel King (23:41):
Now, pastor Joseph
Translator (23:43):
Adan. Joseph,
Evangelist Daniel King (23:44):
You are also praying. But there is a difference in what you are praying. Your prayer is, God, help me to lead someone to Jesus.
Translator (24:00):
Give me
Evangelist Daniel King (24:01):
A soul. Can you pray that? Okay. Pray that God would help you to lead someone to Jesus. Okay? Pastor Joseph, I want you to look at the people out here. Look for someone who looks like they need Jesus. Go find someone that needs Jesus and bring them here. Look right here. We don’t point
Translator (24:57):
Over
Evangelist Daniel King (24:57):
Here.
Translator (24:57):
Go find
Evangelist Daniel King (24:59):
Someone who needs Jesus. You must go quick because Oh, who wants to receive you? Yeah. Come. Oh, come on. Look. Let’s clap for Jesus. Look, someone is coming. Say Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Yeah. Okay, pastor Jay, now you have started your church.
Translator (25:25):
God has given
Evangelist Daniel King (25:26):
You chairs. But your second prayer request, give me a guitar in our church. We need music. So you begin to pray for a guitar.
Audience Member (25:43):
Can
Evangelist Daniel King (25:43):
You pray for a guitar?
Audience Member (25:48):
Amen.
Evangelist Daniel King (25:58):
Okay. So Pastor Joseph, Joseph, you’ve led this young man to the Lord, and you have been teaching him to also pray for people to be saved.
Translator (26:11):
We must pray for Thailand. Let I know we can pray for people to
Evangelist Daniel King (26:15):
Be saved. And so are you ready to pray? Be a short prayer for Thailand.
Audience Member 2 (26:28):
No, do it in English. Do it in English. Okay.
Evangelist Daniel King (26:31):
So dear Lord, heavenly Father, we thank you Lord for Thailand. We thank you, Lord that your
Translator (26:36):
Eye and your love is for Thailand. And we just pray, Lord, that Thailand belongs to you in name.
Evangelist Daniel King (26:49):
Now, I want each of you to go look for someone who looks like they need Jesus and grab them and bring them back here.
Translator (27:00):
Don’t
Evangelist Daniel King (27:00):
Bring just one go. Bring two up here. Bring two
Translator (27:03):
Quickly.
Evangelist Daniel King (27:03):
Somebody who needs Jesus quickly, quickly. Who needs Yes. We’ve been praying for her to be saved. Hallelujah. Who else? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, pastor Joseph is finding someone else. Yeah. Come on. Clap for Jesus these people. Hallelujah.
Translator (27:28):
Hallelujah.
Evangelist Daniel King (27:30):
And now, pastor Jay, in your church, you need a computer.
Translator (27:37):
Computer.
Evangelist Daniel King (27:38):
And so you begin to pray. God, give me computer. So God is answering his prayers.
Translator (27:57):
But this church, pastor Joseph,
Evangelist Daniel King (28:01):
He is having an all night prayer meeting. He’s saying, let’s pray for the loss to be
Translator (28:07):
Saved. Let’s do a three
Evangelist Daniel King (28:11):
Day evangelism training. Let’s do a five day evangelism training.
Translator (28:18):
Let, let’s take
Evangelist Daniel King (28:21):
The small gospel truck,
Translator (28:22):
Let
Evangelist Daniel King (28:25):
Go to the village and tell people about Jesus.
Translator (28:29):
So
Evangelist Daniel King (28:30):
Everyone is
Translator (28:31):
Praying for Thailand to be safe. Sister,
Evangelist Daniel King (28:37):
Can you pray? Pray for Thailand to be safe.
Audience Member 2 (29:20):
Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord.
Evangelist Daniel King (29:23):
Hallelujah. Wow. I can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit here in this place.
Translator (29:34):
Wow. Can you feel the Holy Spirit? Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
Evangelist Daniel King (29:40):
Sister, I love you. So beautiful. Can each of you
Translator (29:47):
Go
Evangelist Daniel King (29:47):
Look for someone who needs Jesus?
Translator (29:51):
Grab
Evangelist Daniel King (29:51):
Them and bring them here
Translator (29:54):
Quickly.
Evangelist Daniel King (29:57):
You can get one, you can get two. Yeah. The Bible says, go out into the highways in the byways.
Translator (30:12):
This
Evangelist Daniel King (30:13):
Word compel is a very strong
Translator (30:15):
Word. You’ll go and
Evangelist Daniel King (30:18):
Bring people to Jesus.
Translator (30:21):
You don’t
Evangelist Daniel King (30:22):
Just sit in church.
Translator (30:25):
You go out
Evangelist Daniel King (30:27):
And you take people and bring them to Jesus. Look, everyone is coming to Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Wow. Can we clap for Jesus? Look at all of these people. They’re finding peace in Jesus Christ.
Translator (30:53):
Look how pops.
Evangelist Daniel King (30:55):
They’re finding healing in Jesus. They’re finding salvation in Jesus.
Translator (31:01):
Let’s clap for
Evangelist Daniel King (31:02):
What Jesus is doing
Translator (31:04):
In Thailand. This is so beautiful. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
Evangelist Daniel King (31:29):
And then in one night,
Translator (31:33):
K,
Evangelist Daniel King (31:38):
Jesus returns. Pastor Jay, when Jesus returns, I’m sorry, but you cannot take your computer with you to heaven, and you cannot take your guitar with you to heaven. And Pastor Jay, when you get to heaven, you’re going to be standing in front of the throne of God.
Translator (32:34):
So
Evangelist Daniel King (32:34):
You cannot take your chair with you to
Translator (32:36):
Heaven.
Evangelist Daniel King (32:40):
You’re a man of faith. So you go to heaven, but you can’t take any of these things with you to
Translator (32:46):
Heaven.
Evangelist Daniel King (32:50):
But Pastor Joseph,
Translator (32:52):
Joseph,
Evangelist Daniel King (32:52):
Where’s Joseph, pastor Joseph,
Translator (32:55):
Joseph,
Evangelist Daniel King (32:57):
Not only do you get to go to heaven, but look at all of the people
Translator (33:07):
That
Evangelist Daniel King (33:08):
You will bring with you to heaven. The only thing you can take with
Translator (33:17):
You to heaven is people. Sometimes we pray for things. God, give me me a new house. Give me new shoes. Long time. Give me a new bicycle. But you
Evangelist Daniel King (33:37):
Cannot take the house, the bicycle with you to heaven. The only
Translator (33:43):
Thing you can take with you to heaven is people.
Evangelist Daniel King (33:51):
This is what God cares about.
Translator (33:55):
This
Evangelist Daniel King (33:55):
Is what God loves.
Translator (33:58):
God loves people, and God wants the people of Thailand to be in heaven with
Evangelist Daniel King (34:08):
Him.
Translator (34:10):
So pastors, I
Evangelist Daniel King (34:13):
Have a question to ask you. What kind of church do you want?
Translator (34:21):
Like
Evangelist Daniel King (34:21):
This or this? Tell me what do you want? Let’s pray. Dear heavenly Father, you love people and because you love people. We love people. You love us, and because you love me.
Translator (34:53):
I love people the same way that you love people. God fill my heart with compassion. Compassion for the lost. I pray for the people of Thailand. Look at the time to come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Evangelist Daniel King (35:18):
Help us to care about people. Help us to bring people to Jesus. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Translator (35:31):
Amen.
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Eliot Morgan | A Light in the Darkness
Elliot Morgan recently moved his whole family to Thailand because he wants to train the church to evangelize in the unreached nations of Southeast Asia. His journey to Thailand began about 15 years ago after he read Foxes’ Book of Martyrs and felt called to reach the 10/40 window. He has been leading evangelism training camps in Thailand and the surrounding nations, focusing on teaching foundational biblical truths like Jesus as the Light of the world and the preeminence of Christ.
Learn More about Eliot Morgan and Lionface Ministries: https://www.lionfaceministries.com
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Elliot Morgan. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
(00:12):
Thank you, Daniel for having me.
(00:14):
And so you are a graduate of the Christ for All Nations Evangelism Bootcamp, and I was one of the instructors there, and now you’ve been going and blowing and doing big things for Jesus.
Evangelist Eliot Morgan (00:27):
Yeah, yeah. Actually prior to the CFAN Evangelism Bootcamp, believe it or not, I was a pastor for about 10 years. And I like to say it jokingly to my pastor friends that the Lord liberated me and he sent me out to be fully trained as an evangelist. And that’s actually where you and I met for the first time. As you said, you were one of our instructors, which I highly, highly enjoyed your class and your teaching, but it was thereafter it when I began to work with the bootcamp that you would continue to come and I got to have more conversations with you, grab lunch with you, that I really got to hear your heart and know you. So it is an honor for me to be here. Thank you for having me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:06):
Well, we are in the nation of Thailand and God has been speaking to you about Thailand, and tell me the story of how you ended up here and what God is doing.
Evangelist Eliot Morgan (01:16):
Sure. Yeah. I love Thailand. I’m glad to be here with you. We’re currently in Bangkok, but my home is Chiang Mai. It’s in about eight to nine hours north of here, one hour flight. So my journey to Thailand, I would’ve to say without exaggerating, probably began about 15 years ago. I’ve been walking with the Lord, I guess since 2005, and within a year of getting saved, somebody put a book in my hand, the Foxes Book of the Martyrs. And I don’t know if you’ve ever read that, but once you read that book, your life is never the same. When I began to read about people who were paying the ultimate price for the gospel laying down their lives for Jesus, it changed everything about the way I viewed Christianity, the world, and even my own life. And so soon after reading that book, I found out about a ministry called Voice of the Martyrs, which this ministry highlights the families of people that have laid down their lives for Jesus all over the world.
(02:14):
And as I began to read the stories of the martyrs and the persecuted nations of the world, I felt God beginning to tug me in that direction. That started about 15 years ago, and then one day God gave me a vision of the nation of Pakistan, of a great revival that he was going to send to the nation by then evangelist Daniel, I was undone. I was like, Lord, you have me here in this little city in the middle of nowhere pastoring a church, but you’re burdening my heart for these parts of the world. Well, I’ll save you the long story. By the time I ended up going through the Evangelism Bootcamp with CFAN and then coming back to work with them because I believed in the training so much, I wanted to continue to labor with them to raise up more evangelists. It was that time that I was given the invitation to lead what CFAN calls a Fire Camp, which is a one week training for evangelist.
(03:08):
I was able to lead CFAN’s very first Fire Camp in the nation of Thailand in January of 2024. It was during that training that I saw an open vision of the Lord Jesus standing in Southeast Asia, and he held his hand out to me. And it wasn’t a very forceful command, it was a loving invitation. Jesus held his hand out to me and he said, Elliot, would you come here? And that is how I ended up in Thailand because as he showed me the great harvest that is about to take place, not only in Thailand but in the whole of Southeast Asia, and then the Lord began to show me in the future how he would raise up Asian missionaries to send to the Muslim world. How could I deny that invitation? And so that is my journey to getting here. I said yes in January of 2024, and my family arrived in the nation December 28th, 2025, no, sorry, December 28th, 2024. So within the same year we were moved.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:07):
Wow. And so you took a step of faith, packed up your whole family. Now you’re living in Shang Mai, and your heart is to train the church in evangelism, but not just here in Thailand. You have a heart for the unreached nations. This is a very strategic place because there’s a lot of nations around. Tell me, what are you hoping that God does in this region of the world?
Evangelist Eliot Morgan (04:34):
Yeah, so early on, the Lord put the entirety of the 10/40 window on my heart. If people are not familiar with that terminology, 10 and 40 are just coordinates on the map, 10 degrees north, 40 degrees north. And in that span of territory or regions of the world, it encompasses all of North Africa, the Middle East, and all of Asia, most of Southeast Asia, I mean all of Southeast Asia for sure. God began to burden my heart for this place because when you look at it statistically, over 96% of the people in the world that have never heard the gospel, they live in the 10 40 window. So as an evangelist, as a person with a heart for the loss, I used to cry out to Jesus. Every nation needs to be saved. Every person deserves to hear the gospel, but Lord, I want to go to the places that no one’s going or that it’s very hard to go. And so I believe that Thailand is strategic because if you look at it on the map, Thailand sits in the middle of restricted
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:29):
Nations. Yeah, you’ve got Myanmar, you’ve got Laos, you’ve got China, you’ve got Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, all right here in this one region.
Evangelist Eliot Morgan (05:40):
Exactly. Because even though Thailand is unreached itself, it’s less than a 2% Christian nation. It is not restricted. So you can live in Thailand and freely preach the gospel, make disciples, train missionaries and evangelists, but you have easier access to these restricted nations. And what’s beautiful about what we’re finding is yes, we’re here training Thai evangelists, but we’re also working in Lao in Vietnam and Myanmar, and I know this is a further out of the way, but in Pakistan we have realized that even when times get tough or if it’s a bit too dangerous to get into a particular place, we can bring these leaders, pastors, evangelists to be trained in Chiang Mai or in Thailand in general to be sent back to their nations.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:28):
And so when you’re doing evangelism training, what are some of the key truths that you’re sharing?
Evangelist Eliot Morgan (06:36):
That’s a good question. And people would probably think that you dive right into evangelism, but we’ve found that you can’t do that because when we’ve come to Asia, we learned that a lot of people are, they have a real, genuine, authentic fear of Satan, of demons, of the demonic. And there’s no wonder because they’re steeped in centuries of darkness, centuries of deception. And we have found a great need to teach the principle of Jesus the light. And it’s a simple biblical principle that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. But as simple as that may seem to most people, even in the West, because of our plethora of the availability of Bible studies, resources, programs here, this is a very basic teaching that we’re finding to be quite effective, that we start our evangelism trainings with establishing Jesus is the light of the world and he’s greater than all darkness in the world. And that as the believer, see, Jesus said, I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you will never have to walk in darkness. I will give you the light that leads to life. Then he looks at his disciples and he says, you are the light of the world. And so we teach this in our trainings and we begin to see light bulbs go off in the eyes and we see the people come alive like, wow, I carried the light.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:57):
I really love the verse in John chapter one where it says, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness shall not overcome it. It cannot overcome. It cannot. And so when the light starts shining, darkness has to flee.
Evangelist Eliot Morgan (08:11):
I mean, that is a simple truth. That is, it seems to be changing the lives of many people here because what they need to understand is the darkness is never more powerful than the light. You can walk into a completely dark room and light a small match. You could take your cell phone flashlight, the smallest light in a large dark room. The light always overcomes the darkness. Another truth that we teach in the beginning of our trainings is Jesus, the first we start with Jesus, the light, but we move on to Jesus the first. And it’s the truth about the preeminence of Christ. We teach the people that Jesus is above all, because Jesus is before all, because of the demonic oppression and the things that they face here, we want show the believers that you do not have to fear darkness. You do not have to fear the enemy, that because of Christ in you, you overcome the world.
(09:03):
And so it’s with those base teachings where we begin and then we eventually move on into what is an evangelist, the call of the evangelist. What is the gospel of Jesus Christ? Give them a simple understanding of the gospel. Then we go into the practical teachings of how to share the gospel with Buddhists for in a Muslim nation, how to share the gospel with Muslims. And then we teach personal responsibility of evangelism that if you’re going to reach a soul with the gospel, that you have to be willing from the onset from the very beginning to take personal responsibility for that new baby that you born, that you helped birth into the kingdom of God. And so we don’t have it all figured out. Obviously we don’t have all the answers, but what we’re beginning to see is that what God is entrusting to us. It’s working.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:50):
That’s so amazing. Well, what is your website? If someone wants to connect with you, support your ministry, how can they find out more about you?
Evangelist Eliot Morgan (09:58):
Yeah, so our ministry is called Lion Face Ministries International, and the website is lion face ministries.com. And if you go there, there’s limited, we post limited things because of the nature of where we work and what we do. We can’t publicize much. But it gives you the vision of the ministry and how you can connect with us. You can subscribe to the email newsletters and if God should move upon anyone’s heart to sow into what we’re doing, there are ways to give listed on the homepage.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:25):
That’s awesome. We’re in the nation of Thailand this week, and we’re launching the everyone Thailand vision. And the goal is to reach everyone in Thailand with the gospel of Jesus Christ, that every single person in this nation, they have the right to hear the gospel at least once in their lifetime. And it’s a massive nation. 70 million people, only one or 2% Christian, about 97% Buddhist, but such a beautiful people, such a wonderful people. What do you see God doing here in Thailand, especially among, give me some testimonies from that first fire camp that you helped lead. I saw the pictures of it, and it’s just so beautiful. So many young people that were so excited about evangelism. Share with me some of the testimonies that have come out of that first fire
Evangelist Eliot Morgan (11:18):
Camp. In our evangelism trainings, one strong push, we always teach about the baptism and the Holy Spirit and the baptism of fire because we understand, if you look at the New Testament, when the Holy Spirit came upon people, they became a new person, a different person. The same Peter who denied Jesus Christ three times. When he received the power of the Holy Spirit, he preached boldly in front of 3000. And so with that illustration, we see these Thai people, even the Burmese people were at our training, they come in and quite naturally, they’re quiet people. They’re some timid, some just they’re very honoring culture. So they come and then here we come and we teach them the boldness of the Holy Spirit and the power that the gospel carries. We watch these students come in one way, and then when we train them on how to preach the simple gospel, the perfect life of Jesus, his death, burial on resurrection, and we show them that all of heaven will back the words that they say.
(12:18):
When they preach the truth, we take them into the streets. And these sometimes very small people, timid, quiet, become as bold as lions. Now, the Bible says, the righteous are as bold as lion. And the greatest testimony I can give you is I watch them come in one way. They leave the training another, they go out and they preach the gospel with power, seeing signs, wonders, and miracles, and they’re bold and they’re not afraid of the enemy. And to me, that’s the greatest testimony of what God is doing because he really changes them and he shows them that you can be effective if you’d be willing to go out and be obedient.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:55):
Wow. Well, I so admire your faith, especially moving your family here. What has that experience been like for your family?
Evangelist Eliot Morgan (13:04):
Yeah, I would like to say that it was very easy with no problems, but let’s face it, anyone, if you grow up in a particular nation your whole life, and that’s all your culture’s, all your family’s there, you’re comfortable, things are convenient. The Bible gives a call to leave all of those things. And I’ve preached it for years, honestly meaning it in my heart. But it became another thing when we had to live it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:30):
It’s
Evangelist Eliot Morgan (13:31):
Almost like Jesus was saying, you’ve been preaching this. You’ve been provoking others to follow me radically. Now, Elliot, will you do it? So when we did it, I have to say that we learned a lot more about the cost of following Christ. I learned a lot more about faith because I had to leave a lot of things behind and I had to trust Jesus for finances in levels or amounts that I never had to trust in before. But I can tell you now that we’re here, I look back and we’ve lacked nothing. Everything that we needed to happen, the Lord worked it out. I mean, moving to another nation, sometimes we romanticize the ministry, but we forget the very practical things. You’re leaving your home country. You have to get a visa to live in another nation for four people, me, my wife, and my two daughters, and Thailand is one of the hardest places to get a visa, and none of us have the same type of visa.
(14:20):
So we had to figure that out. We moved to a country where we do not speak the language, and we don’t even know the city. We had to find a house, but the Lord provided a home. We had to find an international school for our daughters to attend. The Lord did that. How do you buy a vehicle in another country? How do you learn to drive on the opposite side of the road? Where do you grocery shop? So I’m sharing these things. There are people that may hear this interview that have a call to relocate to another nation, and it’s okay to have those questions, and it’s okay to face the reality that it’s not to be easy, but I want to encourage people that if God is calling you to do it, God really will provide. Now, here we are, we have only arrived a little more than a month ago, but we have a home.
(15:04):
We have all of our visas. When I arrived back in Chang May on Monday, I’m purchasing my first vehicle in another country. All of our needs are taken care of. So I can say we learned faith like never before. We learned to trust Jesus like never before. But we also learned of the great support that the church gives. We have many friends in the states that support what we’re doing. We have many churches that support us, and we’ve really seen the body of Christ rally around us to lift us up. And that now more than ever before in my nearly 20 years of walking with Jesus, more than 15 years of ministry, I’ve learned the importance of community and that you can’t do this alone.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:44):
That’s awesome. Well, let’s finish by praying for this entire region of Asia. Let’s agree together that there would be a revival fire that would come and sweep across Southeast Asia.
Evangelist Eliot Morgan (15:58):
Absolutely. Well, heavenly Father, we come to you and we just want to thank you for what you’re doing here, not only in Thailand, but in the entirety of Southeast Asia. Jesus, this is the one thing that we know that when you set your eyes on a people or on a nation, that you will fulfill your purposes. Lord, we’re so grateful that you’re allowing us to be a part of what you’re doing here. Jesus. We know that without unity, without being in one heart, with one mind, in one accord and in one spirit, the work will be difficult. But Jesus, I see that you’re raising up a mighty army to link arms and walk together from the west and from the east, different ministries, different tribes, different tongues, different people are coming together in one heart to see you save this region. Father, we pray in Jesus’ name that you would continue to build unity amongst the brethren and that you would continue to give the Thai people, the Thai pastors and leaders, and those that belong to the body of Christ in this nation, give them boldness, give them favor, provide all that they need as they continue to push forth in this nation.
(17:02):
And Lord, we pray that the revival that breaks forth in this nation will spill over into the nation’s bordering to Thailand, bordering Thailand, and even to the ends of the earth. Lord, we love you and we thank you, and we know that this will be done in Jesus’ name.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:16):
Amen.
Evangelist Eliot Morgan (17:17):
Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:17):
Thank you for being on the Evangelism podcast.
Evangelist Eliot Morgan (17:19):
Thank you, brother. What an honor.
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Evan & Madeleine Threlkeld | Is a Gospel Awakening Coming?
Evan Threlkeld is a missionary-evangelist and a youth pastor. He is married to Madeleine and together they have a burning desire to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost across the earth through the power of the Holy Spirit. They fell in love on the mission field in Africa. On today episode of The Evangelism Podcast, you will hear the story of their romance and about the ministry God is calling them to. We also talk about doing neighborhood outreaches in the United States and about reaching Buddhists in Thailand.
Donate to Evan Threlkeld: https://www.modernday.org/field-workers/evanthrelkeld/
Connect with Evan Threlkeld on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/evan.charles.94064
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:03):
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. Evan & his wife, Madeleine Threlkeld. Welcome to The Evangelism Podcast. Did I say that right?
Evan Threlkeld (00:23):
Pretty close. Yeah, thro. K it’s it’s a tough one because it’s, it’s old Norwegian last name. So <laugh> you did good.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:30):
Well, wonderful. We met at the Christ for All Nations (CFAN) Evangelism Bootcamp. You were one of the evangelism students there, and now you’re a graduate and you are excited about evangelism all over the world. Tell me a little bit about how you ended up at the Evangelism Bootcamp.
Evan Threlkeld (00:54):
Yes, it’s, it’s an interesting story. So I, I interned with evangelist Chris Overstreet at Bethel in 20, 20, 19, and shortly after I went to the school of evangelism, the SOE where you were training, and actually that was evangelist Reinhardt Bonnke’s last school that he taught at. So had the privilege to see him speak. And there was a there’s an opportunity to go to Africa and preach on gospel trucks and do kids crusades. And so I at the time was with Chris, but I said I would be, I would love to go. And I was one of 12 evangelists at the school that was selected. So for five weeks I went to Nigeria, saw thousands, tens of thousands of, of Nigerians give their lives to Jesus. They’re just so hungry over Nigeria. And then at the end of the five weeks Evangel Kada did a crusade and I Ave ACUTA Nigeria and that changed my life. It was a four day crusade. I got to just see so many people get touched by God. And the last the second to last day, Ben was going to ask me to pray for the sick and we just saw incredible miracles. So from there I applied for the bootcamp and that was also life changing experience. So yeah, that’s, that’s how I ended up at bootcamp.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:28):
So first you were interning with, with Chris over street. Chris is a great friend. I was just with him last month, got to spend a whole afternoon with him and, and see the, the powerful impact of his ministry. I really love the, the huge truck that Chris over Street’s ministry has. It turns into a platform it’s got screens on either side and he’s using it to, to preach the gospel. And, and now he’s going into neighborhoods using a, a smaller like sidewalk Sunday school size truck, and preaching in the, in the neighborhoods. And you’ve been involved in, in helping with that to kind of tell me what you’ve been seeing.
Evan Threlkeld (03:14):
Yes, that’s been amazing. So I’ve been a part of nearly every gospel truck event that Chris had, the small gospel truck event that he’s done. Earlier this year, he got the small gospel truck and which has been amazing, cuz he is been able to go into neighborhoods, apartment complexes tight spaces that a bigger truck couldn’t get into and reach entire apartment complexes for Jesus. And it’s been amazing seeing families come out and give their lives to Jesus. And then Chris and their compassion action team started a youth basically kids school for kids where their discipling and pouring into the kids. And you know, if you reach the heart of a kid, you reach the heart of the family. And so it’s been really, really beautiful to see. And I’ve been DJing at I’m a DJ as well. So I’ve been like coming in, just DJing at these events, which is a creative way to, to draw people out. So that’s been really fun.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:16):
Okay. Kinda walk me through one of these apartment outreaches. What does it look like? How do you, how do you, and, and Chris’s team attract people to come to the, the event and, and then what does the ministry look like? And, and then what have, are some of the results that, that you’ve seen?
Evan Threlkeld (04:39):
Yeah. So what we, what, what they do is they, they start by going to different apartment complexes and talking to the apartment managers which I actually did in Orlando as well when I was serving at, at CFA for, for a season go in, talk to apartment managers, get permission from them, which which is pretty, it’s pretty easy. If you find someone that, you know, you, you really basically pitch it to them is this is gonna be really good for your community. Really good for retention of of your, of your residents. And you tell them the benefits of what you’re gonna be doing. Like they give away free raffle prizes. They give away cotton candy, snow cones, popcorn, you know, all of that. And so it’s something that apartment managers love to hear. So once you get some apartments, then they come with the gospel truck.
Evan Threlkeld (05:38):
But we flyer the apartments for, for a few days beforehand and let the people know we’re coming and what it’s about. And then we show up and, and families come, we start to share the music, maybe go around and let people know one more time that we’re there. And it’s so fun. See all the kids that come, I mean, really the kids are the ones that are so excited about the event they come and they get their popcorn and they’re dancing, they’re doing, we’re doing raffles. So it’s a really fun event it’s. And then in that, you know, in that timeframe, we preach the gospel. We take 15 minute moments to preach the gospel and people, you know, after you’ve blessed them after you’ve loved on them, their hearts are so wide open. And I remember we went down to one of the worst neighborhoods, easily, the worst neighborhood in Portland. Just like two days before we got there, someone was shot and killed in the apartment complex next to where we were. And we had a very diverse crowd. And if you know anything about Portland you know, it’s not really known for being receptive to the gospel per se.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:51):
Portland is always in the news for the wrong reasons.
Evan Threlkeld (06:54):
<Laugh> exactly. Yeah. It’s one of the most unreached areas of America and the most unchurched I should say. And so we did this gospel event and I actually had the privilege to preach just a 15 minute gospel message. I really used a lot of evangelist, Columbus stories and kind of how he trained us at bootcamp and like 17 people got born again, like 15 people raised their hands to get born again. And this was in a church parking lot. So we were able to have the pastor come up, introduce himself, connect with the people and they get plugged into their church there. So,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:32):
Wow. What a great report. All right. Let’s talk about romance. Normally I ask people, what’s the number one thing that you got from the evangelism bootcamp? Well, I think the number one thing you probably got was a wife. So tell me kind of how that happened and how the, this romance between you and your wife sparked and, and then what that’s like for two evangelists to marry each other.
Evan Threlkeld (07:58):
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, you know, <laugh>, we I love to, I love to tell this whenever I preach and I introduced my wife, but I remember evangelist bonky would always say, he’d call himself a hot evangelist. And I said, Lord, I need me one of those. And so God answered my prayers <laugh> but yeah, I, I actually went to the first bootcamp in 2020 and then served in the next bootcamp for a season. And I just felt to my heart that my wife is a part of this bootcamp. I just had that strong feeling and sure enough, you know, I, I I met Madeline and we she was actually one of my interns. So we would go to the streets and, you know, evangelize and we’d even go to some of the nightclubs and love on the people in the parking lots with the team and the way that she loved people.
Evan Threlkeld (08:58):
And the way that she evangelized just really touched my heart. She was weeping over these girls. Seeing them get saved and her compassion and love for people really blew me away. So after, after we finished boot camp, I asked her out and then we went on the mission field to Tanzania. And on the way there, I got to talk with her on the plane and in the, in the airport. And I just fell in love. I knew she is the one for me. I just instantly knew in my heart. And so we actually came back to Orlando. We dated for it for a month and confirmation after confirmation came. And in fact, I even wrote in a journal, the Lord really spoke to me and people ask me dating advice all the time, because it was just so successful. I have single guys that ask me all the time that are evangelists. Like, how did you, you know, and I said, well, one thing I encourage you to do is to write a list. And the holy spirit spoke to me to write a list of things that I wanted in a wife. And even one of the things I wrote was maybe somebody that’s Australian and sure enough, she’s Australian. So God really answered that list. And so we, we, I proposed her a month after boot camp after our dating. And then we got married another month after that. So,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:23):
And how long have you been married now?
Evan Threlkeld (10:25):
We’ve been married just over a year. August 1st was our actually yes, it was our anniversary.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:33):
Wow. You know, I, I think some people really have a tough time as an evangelist to maybe find someone that their, their calling would be compatible with the calling of an evangelist because it, it’s not easily being an evangelist. There’s, there’s a lot of travel you’re away from home a lot. I found my wife on the border of Rwanda in Congo, and she was a missionary for, for 10 years before we met. And at the time when we met, she was actually a crusade director. So I was a crusade evangelist. She was a crusade director. It felt like a, a match made in heaven, but it it’s so neat to see that the, the two of you got together. I know that God’s calling is not just on an individual. His calling is upon the couple. And, and so both of you are, are called together and will be a mighty team.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:29):
One will put a thousand to flight. Two will put 10,000 to flight. Yes. And so I think like as maybe some of our listeners, they’re looking for the right wife or the right husband, and I think if you’re just pursue God as fast as you possibly can just go in the direction that God has given you to go, you know, and you’re running after God. And if you turn your head and look, and there’s someone who’s running along with you yes. And running in the same direction, that might be the person that, that God’s called you to be with.
Evan Threlkeld (12:05):
Yes,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:06):
Absolutely. So, so this last year you’ve been serving as a youth pastor. What’s that like having a, a calling as an evangelist, but being in this position where you are, are serving as a youth pastor?
Evan Threlkeld (12:21):
Yes. Well, that’s great. I, I got saved in middle school and I’ve always had a heart for youth. And even when I was at the boot camp, it was, it was a desire in my heart to really reach the young generation. And I have had countless prophetic words about it and so forth. So my, my wife and I, when we got married, we, we really felt the desire to reach youth. And so actually right when we got married, we were traveling to different youth groups in Florida and, and the west coast. And yeah, there’s a compelling story of, I, I always made it a gold preach in youth groups. And just a powerful story that I still used to preach today was that I went to a youth group in Michigan and I had just come off the mission field in, in Tanzania.
Evan Threlkeld (13:11):
And the pastor said we only have 12 youth in our group, but would you come? And I said, I’ll come for one. And so I came, preached the gospel one girl came forward, gave her life rededicated her life to Jesus. And three weeks later, she was in an accident where she passed away. She was only 16 years old. And so the, the, the pastor and the the grandmother came up to me and said, thank you at the funeral. I went to said, thank you so much for preaching the gospel to my granddaughter, because now I know she’s in heaven. And so this young generation, there’s an urgency. So my wife and I, we came out to Vancouver, Washington at Bethesda church and been youth pastoring for about the last year pouring into the youth learning like their culture, their language.
Evan Threlkeld (14:06):
And there’s so much that could be said. But when we first came in, we noticed that a lot of their a lot of them were hungry, but they came from broken backgrounds or families. And so we really began to encourage them disciple them build them up in their identity, just the foundation of who they were were. And then we began to really teach them about how to pour out. Once we saw that maturity growing in their hearts and their lives, how to pour out in their community, in their family. And so now we, we have students that have been sharing the gospel with their own families and seeing family members get, get touched by God. We’ve seen we had one student he’s been faithfully doing a club in his school for the last three years in his high school. And his high school is very hostile in gospel. He’s just been made, he’s been like the, like the laughing stock of the school, but he’s continued to faithfully preach. He’s in downtown Portland. And so we did an evangelism training with him and Scott McNamara that we went to, and that week he went back to school and preached the gospel and 50 kids gave, raise their hands, give their life to Jesus. And so yeah, it’s just been phenomenal. Being able to pour, pour into them.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:32):
You’re about to enter a new season of ministry. God has put it on your heart to, to launch your own ministry. What, what are you gonna call your ministry?
Evan Threlkeld (15:44):
Yeah. So we’ve been really praying into this and the holy spirit has spoken to us gospel awakening because we want to bring clarity and the power of, of the gospel to the nations.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:58):
And talk to me a little bit about your vision and, and what you see God doing through your ministry over the next few years.
Evan Threlkeld (16:07):
Yes. Well, we really want to keep things simple. We want to preach the simple gospel disciple people, plug them into local communities where they’re gonna be discipled. And we have a really strong heart for Asia for Africa. We really want to partner with some other ministries that are in Asia. We have so my wife, you know, she’s from Australia and she, her parents are pastors just north of Sydney. And so what we’re, what we’re really planning to do is have our base in Australia and America as well. <Laugh> but we want to go to Asia from Australia, and we have plans to partner with friends that are doing crusades throughout Thailand. Indonesia is on our hearts as well as some of the Oceania like islands, Vanuatu Fiji, some of these different regions PNG, Papa, Papa, new Guinea. And so right now we, we really feel that soon we’re gonna be doing partnering with a, a friend that’s doing crusades in Thailand and reaching some of the literally most unreached people groups in Thailand who’ve people that have never even heard the name of Jesus. And so, so far they’ve had thousands of people coming to their gospel truck events, preaching the simple gospel and plugging them into local churches. So that’s where we we’re plan to start.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:46):
Well, I think that’s so brilliant to, to base your ministry there in Australia, because you’ll be so much closer to, to many of these places. It it’s a, a good 18 hour plane ride from the United States, but from Australia, you can get there much easier and much cheaper. And all of those countries that you mentioned have such a tremendous need for a, a gospel awakening, especially Thailand. It’s a nation that is mostly Buddhist. My wife went to Thailand one time and she told me she was on the, the Metro in, in the capital. And she was talking to someone about Jesus. And this person said, oh, Jesus is that an American music star and had no idea that Jesus was a historical figure that lived 2000 years ago. And, and so there’s so many villages in Thailand that you can go to and they, they literally have not heard any of the gospel story.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:54):
I mean, here in the United States, generally, people kind of have an idea of the story of the Bible that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and, and then Adam and Eve sin, and then Jesus came and died on the cross to save us from our sins. I mean, that basic gospel outline, even for people that maybe don’t go to church or aren’t living for God, they kind of know that general basic outline. But when you go to a, a Buddhist station like Thailand, you really have to start with just the very basic that there is a God who created the universe. And let’s talk about who that God is. And so I, I think God will give you tremendous fruit as you go there.
Evan Threlkeld (19:42):
Amen. And I, I know you’ve done a lot of ministry and crusades in Asia as well, Indonesia and Burma. And it’s just amazing to hear about the testimonies that have come out of that as well.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:56):
Yeah, God is moving. I love ministering to, to Buddhist people. Let, let’s talk a little bit about ministering to, to Buddhist, you know, in Christianity, the, the main issue that Christianity deals with is, is guilt. We, we talk about sin and being guilty of sin but in Buddhism, the main issue that that Buddha was trying to deal with was suffering. And so the story is that that Buddha was a prince who lived a very rich isolated life. And then one day he was in a, a, a little thing that he was being carried by his servants, and he was going down the street and the, the curtain open. And he saw sitting beside the road, a leper who was in horrible suffering. And seeing this leper shook him to his very core because he saw suffering for the first time.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:08):
And Buddha started to look for ways to deal with suffering. And he came up with four great noble truths of Buddism that helped people to get free from suffering. And so the first truth is that life is, is suffering. Now all of life is suffering. And then he decided that the, the second truth is that this suffering is caused by our desire. And then his third great truth is that the way to get rid of suffering is to get rid of desire in our life. And so he said that when desire is eliminated, then suffering can be eliminated. And then his fourth truth revealed an eightfold path for getting rid of desire in our ministry. And this was all a response to him seeing this Lepar. And so he came up with this, this very complicated plan for getting rid of suffering in our life.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:11):
And I always like to compare Buddha’s response to Jesus’s response because in the gospels, we find a similar story where Jesus encounters a leper. And again, this leper is in horrible suffering. No one is touching him. And what is Jesus? Does. He reaches out his hand, he touches the man that the man says, Jesus, are you willing to heal me? And Jesus says, yes, I am willing be healed. And immediately the leper was cured of his suffering. And so the very problem that Buddha was looking to solve Jesus solved. Wow. And I think it’s so beautiful that here Buddha is looking for enlightenment and Jesus actually said, I am the light of the world. And, and so Jesus offers hope to Buddhist, to hinders to Muslims, to people of every single religion. Jesus actually offers the very thing that they’re looking for. So, so I think that will be wonderful.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:25):
As you go to Thailand and in other nations in Asia God is going to open up great doors for you to minister and, and for you to, to have a, a tremendous impact. If you’re listening today and you want to support Evan and his ministry, I’m going to put a link on our website that would link to where you can go and to support him. And, and to, to find out more information a, about his ministry. But Evan, there’s a lot of young people who maybe feel called to be evangelist. What would you say to those who, who maybe have a heart for evangelism, but don’t know where to get started? What would you say to them?
Evan Threlkeld (24:15):
I would say that you have what it takes. You have Jesus in you. He is the desire of the nations, and there’s no junior holy spirit. And in fact, I’ve seen some of the young people have the most faith for miracle signs and wonders. And even in our church, when the young people come forward to pray for people, the miracles are astounding and in our youth group. And so I want to encourage every young person that might be listening to this, that you have, what it takes and that Jesus lives on the inside of you. And he’s the one that qualifies you, not your experience. You know, Paul told Timothy don’t let anyone despise your youth. And so you have what it takes. And secondly, I would encourage any young person to really plug themselves into an non-fire church to surround themselves with Onfi, believers mentors and fathers in their life, as well as peers that can encourage them run with them. This generation because of social media is a very isolated generation. And so I would encourage every young person to really run with a tribe of on fire P men and women of God that can encourage you. And so I, I, I would, I would just really love to pray for any young person as well for your school, for your neighborhood, for your family. There is hope.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:40):
Absolutely. Please let’s pray.
Evan Threlkeld (25:42):
Yes, father, we thank you for every young person. God, we thank you for every youth worker, Lord that may be listening to this today, father, we pray that your power Lord, that your love that your fire would fall in their lives. Jesus father, we thank you that the holy spirit is the best evangelist. He is the one that leads us, that guides us, that convicts people of their sin and reveals Jesus to their hearts. And so father, I ask for a fresh baptism of your fire. Lord, I thank you for boldness Lord to preach the simple gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of our king Jesus Christ that others may hear and be saved. I pray for their schools. I pray for their families. Lord my family, my parents got divorced when I was seven and they through a miracle, got remarried when I after 18 years of being divorced. And so father, any families that are broken, I pray that I pray that you would restore families. God restore marriages in Jesus mighty name. Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:51):
Amen. Well, Evan, thank you so much for being a guest on the evangelism podcast. I’m excited about what God is doing through you and through your ministry. And I know that God is going to give you a tremendous harvest and I agree with you for a gospel awakening all over the world in Jesus name.
Evan Threlkeld (27:09):
It’s been an incredible honor. Thank you so much, Daniel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:12):
Bless you.
Evangelism Podcast Host (27:15):
Daniel King is on a mission to save 1 million souls a year, but he can’t do it alone. Would you consider sewing a financial seed today to give, please visit www.kingministries.com.