Sharing With World Vision

Well, part of my heart is here in Bangladesh and it's a joy to be back. This is about my 25th visit. I don't know how I missed meeting some of you wonderful people in my previous visits.

I first came to Bangladesh in 1968, so I was here before liberation and I was here part of the time during liberation and saw things I'll never forget and it's been a joy to come back. In our work it's always been our conviction that the national people who know the language and the culture can generally do a better job than us foreigners. So wherever I've gone, even though I did learn a language originally when I went to Mexico and learned Spanish and Spain, I always tried to work my way out of the job and go on somewhere else.

So my wife and I have lived in about 20 different nations. We love them all but we love some a little more than others and it's a great joy to really be here in Bangladesh, such a young nation, such a nation with such tremendous possibilities. I just hope somehow my words will be an encouragement to you in your own work.

It's also a privilege to have contact with World Vision again. When I first became a follower of Christ, one of the first things I did was support a World Vision orphan in Korea and that was a meaningful experience for me as a young person. I was only 18.

I still have his picture. I would listen to Bob Pierce on the radio and his words would pierce my heart and I also had the privilege of watching some of those early films, World Vision films that were so powerful. I had the joy later on of getting to know him as a friend and I'm just in the midst of reading his biography right now written by his daughter, a very deep, meaningful book that God is really using in some places.

I'm here with my wife though. She's not here at this moment and I have this little family letter which will just help emphasize the human factor because as Christian leaders we are all so unbelievably human and so weak and often people get the wrong idea. So that's my wife's little epistle and you can have it if you would like that.

Of course it doesn't cost anything. We've been involved in promoting literature in Bengali language for over 20 years. I have my own book.

Two of my books are in Bengali. One is called Literature Evangelism, a bit out of date. The other is Hunger for Reality.

Both have sold quite a lot of copies in Bengali. But two books I especially would like to recommend. They're just worth their weight in gold.

It's True Discipleship by William MacDonald now in 30 different languages and Calvary Road. I know both these men personally. I've watched their lives.

Roy Heshin lost his wife in a motor accident when a piece of steel fell off a truck and crushed her to death. Yet no bitterness against God, against man, but only the sweet reality of Jesus Christ living in his life. William MacDonald, a man who's never married, puts into practice the writings of this little book.

And it would be worth coming here just to mention these two books because you will be greatly helped, challenged by them. And the reason I give out this letter, one of the reasons is it has my address so that you can write to me. Many people in the meeting last night made a recommitment of their life to Christ and to God and I've been reading their prayer requests this morning during my prayer time.

It's amazing the burdens and the problems that people carry with them and how we do need each other and how we need to be able to pray for one another. So if you have a prayer burden, something you'd like me to pray about, you can write to me. If you want to save the English postage, you can of course give the letter in the internal system here and somehow through some friends they'll get the letter to me.

I'll be here until Saturday. I thought I should begin by reading a scripture that has been an enormous continual help to me, found in the book of Galatians. I just wrote an article that's been published in some magazines on developing sensitivity in your public ministry.

I've learned the hard way that often when we're speaking there's such a wide range of people and that which is a help to someone actually is a hindrance to someone else. That's the risk of being a public speaker. But I hope that if you disagree with me on some point, you'll understand that one of my specialties is compassionate disagreeing.

In fact, my wife and I have a definite pact in this area that we compassionately disagree with each other on a number of points. So if my wife and I, we just had 24 years marriage celebration, if we can disagree and press on, you shouldn't feel bad if you disagree with me on some areas. But the book of Galatians, just to start off our thinking, chapter 6, verse 7. Be not deceived.

God is not mocked. God is not fooled. For whatever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well-doing.

For in due season we shall reap if we faint not. I was speaking just a few days ago at the Afghan border. We have a work among the refugees.

It's one of our main works in this part of the world. There are two and a half million Afghan refugees. And I was visiting the camps.

We would appreciate prayer for that work. We've started a carpet center to teach young Afghan boys how to make carpets. Because rather than just giving people more and more direct handouts, it's such a good thing, as you already know, to teach them a trade.

And now we're into solar cookers. And we're into teaching people how to conserve fuel, because we have a massive problem of deforestation there on the Afghan border. And we're into many other things there, which isn't our normal work.

Our work generally is training young people in how to be stable, committed followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. But because we've had such a long-term interest in Afghanistan, we consider this a special situation, and because of a need there, felt we should be in relief work. We'd appreciate prayer for that.

But I had a very unique meeting in the evening there, when about 15 of these Afghans came to the meeting. All of them, of course, followers of the Islamic faith. So I had all kinds of people in this meeting, and found it a very, very great challenge.

And I've just grown so much to love the Afghan people. And as you know, so many, so many have been killed in the past four years. The greatest problem in Afghanistan right now is not among the Afghans who are fighting the Russians, though there are some Afghans on that side as well, but the greatest problem is actually disease.

Enormous amount of disease, killing off many, many people in Afghanistan right now. So that's something else you might pray about. It's a number of areas really out of control.

Health is a wonderful thing, isn't it? You never appreciate good health until you lose it. We in Britain, though I'm American by birth, my father's from Holland, I now live in Britain, and I've been overseas for 24 years. We in Britain have just lost one of our greatest Christian leaders, suddenly just stricken down by cancer, David Watson.

And we're a nation, in a sense, in mourning, though we know he is with God. He was able to give his testimony over the BBC to the entire nation about what Jesus Christ had done in his life. Won to Christ as a young student at Cambridge University.

But I share this particular scripture this morning because many, many times I have grown weary of serving God. I'm not a natural follower of Jesus Christ. I'm naturally a person of much hatred, much lust, much foolishness.

And when God found me, I was a liar, a cheater, an evil person. Oh, people didn't know that. In fact, I was a leader in the church, president of the youth fellowship, awarded the highest religious award in my country in the scouting movement, the God in the Country Award.

My mother thought I was such a good little boy. But I was already at 16 in the grip of vice and I was living what we call in English a double life. Spiritual schizophrenia.

You've studied psychology, you know about schizophrenia, major disease in the world today. Spiritual schizophrenia is a major spiritual disease and I had it. Sunday, there I was with my little Christian plastic smile looking around the church for the latest Christian girl to arrive as that was my number one emphasis next to money.

And on Saturday night, on Friday night, I was a totally different person. It started as far back as I could ever remember. Even at the age of four, I wanted to fight.

There were people I didn't like. I took a big black bucket of paint and went to the house of this young man that I didn't like because he was different. We don't like people who are different and he didn't like me.

We don't like people who don't like us. And I had my little gang, my little group and he had his little group and we fought. So I went to his house, I was only small, and I painted on his big white house one of the most ugly words in the English language which I could not repeat, especially with a tape recorder going, on the side of his house.

Needless to say, my father was not overly impressed with my artistic ability. It's strange, isn't it? The heart of man. I've had the joy and the challenge of living and ministering in 50 different nations, 29 years.

We're all the same. I've recently been in the Soviet Union again. We think they're so very different because they're communists.

They're the same. I've been in China. They're the same.

I've lived in India for many years, in every part of India. They're the same. The problem is not nationality.

The problem isn't language. Of course there are differences, of course. But underneath, the heart of man is the same.

And it needs something. It needs soul surgery. It needs conversion.

It needs transformation. It needs revolution. Use whatever word you want.

There are many in both Bengali and English. I had, by 16 years of age, really become a slave to sin. The Bible says in John's Gospel, he that commits sin becomes a slave to sin.

What do I mean by that? I mean that I was not in total control of my behavior. I wanted to do certain things that I knew were right, but often I ended up doing other things. I actually wanted to like all people.

Now there are some people, their philosophy is not to like people. Actually my philosophy was to like people. I knew enough of the basic rudiments of the Christian message to know that I was to love everybody, but I couldn't do it.

And I had these wrong feelings about people. And I even once got in a fight with a woman. And this was a very difficult experience for me, because in this fight, out in the field, surrounded by my school mates, I lost the fight.

And this was before the birth of the feminist movement, which I don't know has spread this part of the world. I'm sure it has. It may have even originated here, been transferred secretly to the Western world.

If you know anything about the culture of South India, you may know what I'm talking about. Now I was not really from a really Christian family. We had the name Christian.

Which is really quite funny because my grandfather was an atheist. You can be an atheist in some of our countries and have the name Christian. Strange world we live in.

And so my grandfather was an atheist. He didn't believe in God. And my father was born in the Netherlands.

Small country. Some way similar to Bangladesh. The history of Netherlands has a similar history to Bangladesh.

More people died through cyclones and drowning in the Netherlands than almost any nation in the world except perhaps Bangladesh. If you know the suffering of your country through cyclone, it's just unbelievable. It's something none of us should ever forget.

And the Netherlands waged war against the sea and built the dykes and stopped almost 100% all destruction from the sea. I wonder how many people in this country are committed to doing something about the next cyclone and the number of people it will take. If somebody doesn't come forth with compassion and concern to stand against that great problem.

Anyway, my father and his father left the Netherlands looking for freedom. We do anything to find freedom, don't we? Freedom is very important. And I meet people all the time ready to die for freedom.

We have many Iranians now campaigning in London where I live for freedom. There was a different group five years ago. They were campaigning for freedom.

Now there's another group campaigning for freedom. What a world we live in. No wonder the number one philosophy in Europe today is despair.

Did you know that? I don't know if you know much about Europe. The number one philosophy... It's not Christianity. It's despair.

People have given up on everything. And it's this philosophy of despair. Despair means no hope, no answer.

It's existentialism. Don't worry if you don't understand the term. Most people don't.

It means there's no answers. Freedom has no meaning anymore. And so millions have turned to drugs.

We now have the same thing in Pakistan happening very quickly. I've just been in Pakistan for over a month. And drug addiction in Karachi is epidemic.

And we live in a world where there's a tremendous cross communication, tremendous mingling of philosophy and culture and ideology. We have a banned book in Pakistan called Among the Brethren by Mr. Naipaul. A very devastating book about Islam.

It's banned. Everybody's reading it. Every major book shop has a copy.

And this book of course leaves Muslims in despair, angry, confused. He's written a similar book, Devastating India. He's written other books.

Wherever he writes, he devastates. And if you want to be an outstanding author, you must destroy. You must devastate.

You must show the folly of all religion, all culture, all humanity. I say it's very easy to devastate. Very difficult to build.

I praise God that you in World Vision are committed to building. Not because you're ignorant. Not because you don't know there are problems.

Not because you don't know that there are intellectual questions that are not easy to answer. But because you are a people of hope, and you're even willing to work together with people of other nationalities, of other religions, because you believe there's hope. There's hope for Bangladesh.

There's hope for the world. There's hope for these poverty stricken people. I always like to have a different experience each morning.

In my quiet time, I believe in visual quiet times. I read the Bible, I pray, and then I go for a walk, and I meet people. So this morning I went to the Bihari camp for my quiet time, and I bought a piece of bread and ate it for my quiet time.

You've heard of breaking of bread. I had my own in the Bihari camp. These are people.

These are as significant as any American, any Frenchman, any multi-millionaire, any money squandering, narrow minded, bigoted Kuwaiti. These people are important with God. And the Bible teaches that God is concerned for the poor.

I praise Allah for your commitment to the poor of Bangladesh. This is very, very important. Let me go back on my story and tell you how my life was changed from a selfish businessman.

Oh yes, I was a businessman. At 16, I owned three businesses. I could lie, I could cheat, I could gamble.

And other qualities which are not qualities. And yet I knew I was wrong. So much so that when I was gambling, playing cards, after I won, usually by keeping an ace up my sleeve as a skinny man, I could quickly bring out an ace.

I would feel guilty. And I remember the story of Robin Hood, who feeling guilty about some of his events, or maybe he had it in reverse portion, he went out and helped the poor with his money. So after winning in gambling, I would take my friends down and buy them all cold drinks and ice cream to soothe the conscience.

Then into my life came a woman. In every man's life there's a woman. This one was three times my age.

I don't think she was because now she's only twice my age. But it seemed that she was three times my age when I was 16. Maybe it works that way.

I think it does actually. Never very good at mathematics. And she started to pray for me.

She believed in prayer. And she prayed for three years for me. Every year I got worse.

But she believed those words in Galatian. Let us not be weary in well doing, for we shall reap if we faint not. She not only prayed that I would be converted to the way of truth and to Jesus Christ, but that I would take the message of Christ to many parts of the world.

This was her specific prayer for an unconverted, very lost, bigoted, narrow minded person. What a woman of faith. Faith is a great thing.

Bible says if you have faith there's a greater mustard seed. You can say to this mountain remove and it will be moved. That is not, of course, a verse given for contractors and excavators, but it is a spiritual truth.

And she had prayed for this school that I was attending for 15 years. This same prayer. She sent me part of the New Testament through the post.

The Gospel of John. I'm sure you all know the fourth gospel. Gospel of John.

Now I'm sorry to say that by this time among other problems I was hooked by pornography. Living in Bangladesh I'm not sure, though there is pornography in Bangladesh, very quietly, very secretly, I'm not sure if you can grasp the dimension of this problem in our society. We have in the western society pornoholics.

You know what an alcoholic is? A man hooked on alcohol. We have pornoholics. They are completely hooked on pornography which leads them into all forms of sexual perversion and destroys their soul.

There are so many people in this category that I could be full time just in that ministry trying to help these people come off this literature. At 16 I'm sorry to say that I started to distribute this literature in its more mild form. I never got into the heavy form.

Thank God I've not even seen much of it. It's a terrible thing. And if you think it was born in the west, then you might want to take a trip to some of the caves of north India because pornography was in India before the west was even born.

It's as old as the heart of man. Let us not blame east or west on our problems. This is a ridiculous debate that will only bring further division in our world which many have described now as a global village.

Sultan Idzin, one of the greatest writers of our day, said to talk about internal affairs is really quite foolish. Quite foolish. Somehow in the mercy of God this lady prayed for me and sent me this book which made a greater impression on my mind than the evil literature that I was reading.

And then a man came to the city. I was from a small town but I was near a city. And that man was Billy Graham.

In many ways a very ordinary man. But a man who had been faithful. Very close friend by the way of Bob Pierce.

A mutual influence on each other. Bob Pierce and Billy Graham. But he came to New York City just one night and some people were praying for me and I went to that meeting and I heard not religion.

Religion had not done very much for me. I had become very religious. I had become a religious leader.

You know in my particular state, if you can follow my story, I'm now born in the states where my father immigrated to. The students take over the state government for one day. It's sort of a game but we think it's an important game.

And we all go to the state capitol and we sit in the chairs of the parliament feeling very proud. I was elected as the chaplain. I ended up getting involved in something less than the best with the chaplainess.

We call it necking. I don't know if you have an equivalent term in Bangladesh. You can ask somebody for a definition after the meeting.

The chaplain and the chaplainess within two days end up in this kind of exercise program. Of course I found at least in Pakistan unbelievable exposure to western films. The largest cinemas in all of planet earth are in Karachi.

These are like coliseums. Even at 3.30 in the afternoon you sometimes cannot get a seat as people have become worshippers of James Bond and Sylvester Stallone. And of course probably there are many in Bangladesh who consider these evil influences and they probably are.

So you will produce your own films and have other evil influences. But it's amazing the influence of the films. This is why I am a total committed person to Christian film industry.

We have seen many many people come to Jesus Christ through gospel films and we are putting Christian films into about 25 languages at this present time. But to make a long story short I went to that meeting I heard not more religion. Do this.

Do that. Keep this rule. Bow down here.

Stand up here. Put this hat on. Do this.

Drink that. Go here. I heard salvation.

I heard that God cared for me. That he had a personal concern for me. You see so much of religion is impersonal.

God is way out there totally beyond us. We are just nothing. We are just nothing.

And of course many people especially in our western society many people are just bound by religious chains. The chains of Christian legalism that says I must have a certain haircut and I must wear a necktie and I must sit in a particular way in the church. And we have created a western form of Christianity and we have exported this Christianity all over the world.

So now in Pakistan they tell me I can't preach in their church unless I put my necktie on. This is unbelievable. One man thought the necktie was a Christian symbol because Christ died on the cross and these things can be used to choke people.

Perhaps this was a Christian symbol of death because there have been people who have hung themselves on the necktie. And many people who are reared in these traditions and they are just superstitions. We are human beings.

We are all superstitious. We are all superstitious. And we mix our religion with superstition.

And we come out with something that is so far from the simple teaching of Jesus Christ that if people actually became followers of Christ and His simple teaching they would not be welcomed into many of our churches because our churches have gone so far from the simplicity of Jesus Christ. A man who had no place to lay his head. A man who had no money.

Have you ever visited the Vatican? I sat with an atheist across me on the train. He was an atheist working for the Vatican. His job was to invest money in arms, pornography, anything.

Didn't matter. He was an atheist. And they created a dichotomy where they do not know what's happening.

So they therefore cannot be blamed. And believe me, believe me, it is important for us to see the difference between the simplicity and the beauty and the glory of Jesus Christ and man-made religion with all of its often ugliness. The Iran-Iraq war.

Does this bring any pain to us? A quarter of a million slaughtered all in the name of religion. A quarter of a million people. What if they were your sons? What if they were your daughters? Maybe then it would be more than just a newspaper clipping or a few minutes watching television.

We live in a world of pain. And if we are to be followers of God and of Jesus, we must endure pain. Life is pain.

We must somehow take on some of this pain and then take it to our God and in intercessory prayer see something accomplished. And this is very much on my heart. So that night in that simple meeting, I was converted to Jesus Christ.

I decided not long after that that I would not firstly think of myself as a Christian. Though do not misunderstand me because I am completely linked all over the world with the church. I love the church.

Even when it's weak. I've just met with a number of the bishops in Pakistan. I love the church.

I know the church is weak. The church is not a special club for super saints. The church is a clinic.

It's a hospital for sinners. And as long as we face that truth then there is still hope for us. And we are as true believers part of the church.

First of all the church universal. All believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Even those who don't enter church buildings are part of the church universal.

It's a beautiful thing. But I decided that I would think of myself as a follower of Jesus Christ and His teaching. And that the goal of my life would be to put into practice His teaching.

Now I made some mistakes. I read Luke 14.33 except you forsake all that you have you can't be my disciple. And so before reading some other verses like Philippians.

My God will supply all of your needs according to His riches and glory. I sold everything I had. My businesses, my clothing, everything.

And I learned to just live one day at a time putting into practice what I felt was the simple lifestyle demonstrated by Jesus Christ. I sent all my money to missionary organizations and charity organizations and to Korean orphans. I learned later that God works in different people in different ways.

And though He led me that way I met other Christian Christ followers who God led to be businessmen. So they could give to people sometimes like me. And I realized that God's unity comes in the midst of diversity.

And there are many callings many callings and that God actually entrusts wealth to some people. And they have an awesome responsibility. What to do with that money.

Little did I know when I took these first steps of faith as a follower of Jesus Christ that someday there would be a movement called Operation Mobilization. And that God would give us 300 vehicles and two ocean going ships and 1,700 full time workers and 3,000 workers in the summer and permanent bases of operation and offices in 35 nations across the world. If I had known such a thing would happen I would have surely had a heart attack or at least run in the other direction.

Because I wanted simplicity. I wanted to just disciple a few individuals. My burden was to disciple only 12 men.

No more. And God gave me one or two Mexicans as I went to Mexico and lived among the poor and learned the Spanish language by living with the people. At university my Spanish teacher thought this fellow has no language ability.

I do not have a very high IQ. I left university and went to Bible school. They were not very impressed there either as most of the time I kept running off to help the poor and to work among drunkards and drug addicts and neglected my studies.

But anyway I managed somehow to finish and get a diploma. And the teacher of Spanish looked at me and was very discouraged. But one month living in a home of Mexican people I was speaking Spanish and had been preaching Spanish for 27 years.

Never did I dream that one of our ships, a bigger ship, three times bigger than the Lagos that many of you have visited would have a vital ministry in South America. So I launched out just wanting to obey Jesus Christ in simplicity. And his teaching, his basic teaching is love.

Take love away, there is nothing left. Nothing left of Christianity whatsoever. Nothing.

We must remember that. We must remember that. 1 Corinthians 13.

1 John chapter 3 and 4. Many whole chapters. Do you know some of our traditions in our churches are based on one verse? Some are based on no verses. No verses.

And we fight over these traditions. And we have whole chapters. 1 Corinthians 13.

Many other chapters. Well we don't fight over those chapters. Because there is nothing to fight over.

And so I had this burden that true biblical faith in Christ was a revolution of love. It was people having their lives changed. It was not everybody joining the same church.

It was not everybody wearing a necktie. Right? It was not everybody praying the same way. He said we must all pray nearly.

I actually pray better standing. Recently I had a wonderful prayer time in a mosque. Praying like this.

Oh what a beautiful prayer time we had in that mosque. And many Muslims are more open to reading the New Testament than my Christian friends. That's right.

Muslims who will honor the Holy Injil, the Word of God, more than Christians. And some of them have deep personal faith in Jesus Christ like my friend here. All over the world I meet with such people.

Jesus Christ when He came to this world there were no Christians. No Christians. No churches.

Jesus only came for people. He died on the cross for people. Not Christians.

For people. And we must understand this wonderful truth and see that the true mark of a believer in Christ is love. He may choose to worship in his own house.

Because if he gets rejected by those who bear the name Christian or laughed at or suspected of being some kind of a thief he may for the sake of survival worship in his own house. And he may know God in his house better than I may know Him in the cathedral. These cathedrals in any case in many countries now look very strange.

And there is no biblical basis for them. They are transplants. They are leftovers of the great British Raj which no longer exists.

And yet we treat them as museums of the Holy Spirit. It is good that God has a sense of humor my friends. And great patience and love or I'm sure He would be dropping some bombs on some funny strange buildings in Peshawar, Lahore, Karachi and other places.

I've spoken in all these places. I also have a sense of humor. How else can you survive with God's supposedly chosen people who are so often frozen people stuck in their traditions frozen by their own superstitions and unwilling to become God-like Christ-like lovers of people of the poor and follow in the simple steps of the master the man from Galilee who yea was a carpenter not a banker who operated a saw not a computer though I dare to say he could have learned a computer if he lived in our decade.

Someone might think that this is of course just a little bit of religious emotion. When I began to preach this way at 19 of course I was written off by many church leaders as just being a reincarnation of youthful zeal. I so thank God that now I'm in the middle years.

Any of you in the middle years 35 to 55 you can expand them on either side depending on what vitamins you take. I so thank God for these middle years because nobody says anymore as I've had the same zeal and the same love every day for 29 years and the people who worked with me 27, 28 years ago many of them are still with me. They know my life.

I have nothing hidden. Nothing. And they know it's not youthful zeal.

It is the Spirit of Christ. This gambler. This cheater.

This liar. This man so hopeless at 16 received the Spirit of Christ. Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 12 as many as receive Him to them He gives.

To them He makes the sons of God and to them He gives His Holy Spirit and His power. And I still cannot understand it because many, many times I have grown weary. I get discouraged easily.

I don't sound like that kind of person do I? But you see when you hear a person speak like this you only meet part of that person. The one who knows me better is my wife. She knows me when I am crying, afraid to go on in life because it's so terrifying for me.

I flew from Karachi to Dhaka with 200 men recruited from the villages of Pakistan who came here during liberation and they did not know what they were coming. They did not know they were coming to kill innocent people. I sat in that plane.

I wept. The pain was great as I saw a nation that I loved. Pakistan ripped in two.

Not that I mind having two nations but could it not be done without killing and raping hundreds of thousands. The pain is still here and it is still with many of your people. That's why we had a holiday two days ago.

Let us not forget the pain, the suffering that brought this nation into birth and let us be willing to continue to suffer pain to make it a nation in which people do love one another because it is a nation of many different kinds of people. It is a nation of many different varieties. Every nation is.

Every nation is. And we must love one another. We must live with one another.

Even if we do not believe in personal redemption through Jesus Christ as I do, we can at least believe that love is the answer. Every major religion has begun to accept at least that part of the teaching of Jesus. Hinduism has accepted it.

Gandhi accepted it. A man who lived with the New Testament by his bed. And many Muslims have also accepted that love must be the center of all that we do.

And without that we will continue to have Iran and Iraq. Without that even this nation could come apart again. Even England could come apart as Ireland has come apart and has left people wounded and destroyed and murdered and weeping for over 15 years.

I believe in Jesus Christ but I believe that He came to give a simple faith. A simple, beautiful faith in which we love one another. We love our enemies.

We love those who persecute us. We love those who despitefully use us. And we love one another.

And though I have been discouraged many times, I have turned to God's Word, to the Psalms each morning, to verses like Galatians and I have received the spiritual help to go on and to continue one day at a time walking with the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you ever become discouraged in your marriage? I'm not a good husband. I'm a natural divorce case.

If I had five wives I might be able to handle it. One secretary, one companion, one cook, one for traveling. My wife hates to travel and yet she's traveling with me 24 years.

But one wife, I have too much energy. I jog and run several miles just to burn energy. My wife is never having enough energy.

She said to me the other day, I'm getting tired just looking at you. And in myself, my marriage would have divided in two ten years ago to the hurt of my three children. But because of this book, because God is God, because Christ's Spirit gives great strength at that moment of weakness when we feel we cannot go on, we have not even five more taka of love, God refills us and revives us.

We have worked in Turkey for 20 years. Very little response. Turkish people are materialist people.

They're selfish people. Like all of us, they pay lip service like so many to their own religion. Ramadan is just, no one likes Ramadan apart from a few.

Like so many parts of the world, it's just religious tradition. The heart of the Turk, as the heart of the Iranian, as the heart of the Englishmen and the American and the Russian and the Chinese men, I have friends among all these people is a lost, barren heart until a spirit of love, spirit of Christ comes in. Well, that is my testimony.

That is my message. Perhaps I've said too much. So it is good now in the remaining 15 minutes to give you the opportunity to ask a question.

But let us first of all just pray. God, we thank you that you are real. If you are living and true, God, you are one.

There's none other aside from you. We thank you that you love all people and that you gave of yourself, not a son as we think. For living God, you had no wife, but you gave of yourself.

And we call him a son. And he died. We may have a spirit of love and peace and joy that our homes may be places of love and peace, that our nations may become places of love and peace, that we may be whole people, healthy people, joyful people.

Oh God, speak to us at this time and cause each one of us to make the right decision with our life. Bring revival to your church, which bears your name and so often is caught in tradition, lukewarmness and superstition. Revive your church.

Oh God, and cause us to be men and women of love and compassion, that there may be words of love alone that come from our mouths, even when we do not agree or we do not understand. We thank you God for this time together through Jesus Christ, our Messiah, our Lord, our King. Amen.

Amen. Is there anyone that would like to ask a question? Now when I speak, sometimes I speak a little bit loud and I actually am trying to speak softer, but my voice has not developed a medium range. I have a very low range I can speak, a high range.

But please don't be afraid to ask a question because I think it's beautiful to have dialogue and of course if you're afraid you can write to me and we can correspond. I've had 14,000 letters from a result of this book and I've answered half of them. The other half I've got some help to answer.

They are all mainly friends and they are reading the Injil and they are considering the claims of Christ. There are some of course that have become followers of Christ without necessarily turning their back on their own culture and their own people. Of course Afghanistan within the country is a fierce nation where many must understand it's not just Russians killing Afghans.

If the Russians leave, Afghans will kill Afghans. They are a fierce people. That doesn't mean they're not a beautiful people.

They need the message of love. Love is not well known in Afghanistan as the Russians are learning at this present time. Amazing country.

I've been there many many times and some have been martyred for their faith in Christ in Afghanistan. I think it is not considered legal among the Afghans but the present government which is the Russian amalgamation of some Afghans and Russians have invited Christian workers to help in their hospitals. This is not something that there is any publicity about and these people are there mainly with their life and love to demonstrate the message of Jesus Christ.

Whether technically it is illegal as technically it is in Nepal I don't actually know to be honest. Yes. Yes.

But I would be as I tried to emphasize not enough but I generally do when I speak. When after we become followers of Jesus Christ we are still human vessels and as I shared when I told about my marriage we fail. We fail and we have to continually seek God's forgiveness.

As I also tried to emphasize the church is not a place of super saints. It's a clinic. It should be for sinners.

That's why it's so terrible. It's so terrible when in the church we get proud and we think we're better than other people. This is a terrible thing.

We must walk in the church with all humility and when we talk to people outside the church we must be honest and when I witness to people whatever their background I often start by telling some of my struggles. I don't present myself as I am a great follower of Jesus Christ. You are a sinner.

You repent and come and be like me. I share from a position of weakness. This is also the way I lead the work of OM worldwide.

I lead from a position of weakness. Now God has given me some strengths as well but I feel that I am a servant. I'm not Generalissimo Bungo Bungo of OM.

I'm God's servant and I'm learning and I'm serving and I feel that we must be servants. Someone else. You said that the Muslims in some part of the world they really respect the Holy Book.

Well we must understand that many Muslims are taught to respect the Holy Book and once they accept that as the Holy Book then they of course respect it and want to read it. As you may know we have been very involved in the distribution and the publication of the Injil Sharif here in Bangladesh. I believe this is one of the great victories for the church.

Let me tell you something that you can pass on to your Christian leaders. Some of the Christian leaders here are not in favor of this. That all over the world all over the world the Christian leaders and even Christian scholars they believe that this is a wonderful and good thing.

The problem is it is difficult to see this objectively when you are in this particular culture and so we are being very subjective about this new translation. Now if you don't know the meaning of objective and subjective you can ask somebody. But basically subjective means our own emotions, our own feelings our own situations.

Get involved rather than a scholarly more objective biblical approach. We have to understand that all of our Bibles are translations. I actually want to produce, this is one of my unfulfilled dreams a Bengali Injil Sharif published next to the Greek New Testament.

I read the Koran and of course I have two Korans. I have Urdu Arabic and I have English Arabic. When they publish the Koran generally always two languages.

Emphasize original language Arabic. We also have original language Greek, Hebrew. We need a Bible.

We have Greek English Bible. We need Bengali Greek Bible. In any case all are translations.

So we have to explain that to people. Our Muslim friends for many years would not translate the Koran into English or any other language for many years. Only Arabic.

They change. They change. And they have to always explain this is translation.

So we must be willing to change and explain this is a new translation. Because language keeps changing keeps changing. And I believe this new translation is very very important for the work of God.

And we must pray because the big argument is still going on. Some want to change the cover. The Christians do not like the cover Injil Sharif.

They want to say Holy Bible. The word Bible is not found in the Bible. And you see if we change that cover this will confuse our Muslim friends.

Because they are already thinking this is what the Christians have done. They have changed the Injil. That is a basic teaching.

There are books explaining and answering those questions. Very good books. So if we now change the cover again many people are going to be confused.

So I personally though it is not my decision. I have only one little voice. Sometimes big voice.

I don't think we should change the cover.