Phil Prettyman: There was an abandoned coal mine shaft, and the fire went down into it and set it on fire, and the fire began to grow underneath the city until it was covering about 450 acres, so six, seven miles underneath of the city.

And at first they did everything they could to try to stop it, traditional things like pour water down the hole, try to dig the thing up, whatever they could do, and nothing seemed to work.

This was in 1962, and the fire began to grow, and it was so hot that if a person was walking on the sidewalk with a glass of water, they could drop it onto the sidewalk and it would just evaporate because the sidewalk was just that hot.

In 1972, the government finally got involved and they went into the community.

They wanted to see how hot it was, so they began drilling holes all over the community

and putting these thermal devices down into it to gauge the heat, which only oxygenated the fire and made it even worse.

And now the carbon monoxide and other poisonous gases started coming up into these homes, and it was becoming very dangerous.

But nobody seemed to really care.

It already had cost millions of dollars and it had not succeeded.

It came to national attention, though, in 1981, on Valentine’s Day, 1981, there was a boy out in his backyard playing, and unbeknownst to him, this fire had been eating away at the earth underneath, And a sinkhole opened up that was about four or five feet in diameter and 150 feet down.

And this boy, 12-year-old boy, began falling into what to him must have seemed like the bowels of hell.

I mean, it was just he was about to be engulfed.

So 150 feet dropped down into these flames that had been going on for now 20 years.

And the only thing that saved him was that he reached out, and there was a tree growing in their backyard, and he reached out, and his hand just happened to get hold of a tree root.

And there he was in this hole, five feet in diameter and 100 feet down, crying for help.

Can you imagine?

I mean, that’s like out of your worst nightmare.

Suddenly the ground opens up.

No warning.

and you are plummeting in total darkness toward this fire.

His cousin, who was 14, happened to overhear him and ran to his rescue.

And I don’t know the details of exactly how he did it, but he was able to reach down to his cousin just crying in absolute terror about what was about to happen to him and was able to rescue him from that fire.

And, you know, I remember thinking about that story.

I’m always reminded of the verse in Jude, and some have compassion making a difference, and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.

That fire is still burning today in 2020.

You could go to Centralia, Pennsylvania.

It’s just almost completely abandoned.

I think there’s like eight people that are too stubborn to leave, and they still live there.

But the fire is still going on.

You know, what brought our family to Uganda was that same cry of thousands and hundreds of thousands of children who grow up in the West Nile region of Uganda and never once hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And when they die, they face something far, far worse than the story that I told you.

They go to hell forever.

And that cry has reached our ears.

And our desire is to give our lives reaching them.

I traveled in full-time evangelism for around 13, 14 years.

And then God called us to plant a church in Wyoming.

And we planted a church.

And then God directed our steps onto Uganda.

Uganda is in East Africa.

It’s a population of about 40, 45 million people.

And it’s religious in name only, particularly the people that we deal with just have heard very little of the gospel.

I want to show you just a very quick video just to give

you a chance to see it and to see the people.

Probably maybe a little more informative than I would like for a setting like this.

I really just want you to see the people.

And when you look into

the eyes of some of these children, we do a Christmas project every year.

It’s one of my favorite times and one of my favorite things to do to go to thousands of village children who get nothing for Christmas, and they’re dressed in rags.

And you can always recognize them, because eight months from the last time you saw them, they’re still wearing the same clothes they were eight months ago, because that’s the only clothes they have.

And we give them gifts, and share the gospel

with them.

You’ll see pictures like that.

My whole purpose is to pull on your heart, and to appeal to you, would you consider giving your life, your life in Uganda would make the, not might, would make the difference in the lives of hundreds of children who, just like that boy, are on their way to hell.

And the only hope is if somebody hears that cry, if his cousin didn’t hear that cry and go to him, he would have perished.

But this is far more serious than that.

So I think we’ve got the video all ready to go.

So we’ll show this and then I’ll jump up and mention a few more things.

*Gunshot*

Participant: It’s hard to imagine a country with such stunning beauty, a country so richly blessed with tokens of God’s favor, signs of His majesty and evidence of His loving care.

How could a country like this be so lost in utter darkness?

Stop and listen to the laughter and the rustle of chains.

The unmistakable sounds of heathen bondage.

The sprinkling of western customs and clothes.

And the empty smiles do very little to hide the terrible bondage these people are in.

Alcohol, fornication, dark superstition reign over their dismal lives.

with a ruthless power, and only Jesus can set them free.

Let’s come to take the sins of the world upon himself.

The one that God is killing.

It is Jesus!

The priority of our first term has been simple.

Preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that is what we’ve sought to do, to go and to find the lost where they are, using whatever connections we had.

And then preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and praying over them.

And we rejoice.

Many people have been saved, baptized, and we’ve had the opportunity to train them.

And out of those who were saved, we saw the Lord move to begin three new churches.

And these churches are growing from ground zero now to being established churches where we have sought to ground them in good doctrine and to teach them how to fellowship and to play games together and laugh together and to sing together.

And also to model the need for evangelism, leading these men out into their own fields of harvest and showing them how to preach the gospel and then giving them reproducible materials that they can use as they seek to reach the lost themselves.

I’ve grown to love the pastors in the West Nile region and I’ve learned from watching them that pastoring a village church can be very lonely work and very draining work.

And yet the Lord has taught us this last term, the mission that He has for the West Nile region is going to be accomplished by these men.

So our burden for the second term is to strengthen this team, to bind together the hearts of this loose network of godly men

and to prepare for a strong, unified advance against Satan’s strongholds in this region.

This last year we held our first fellowship in the West Nile region for pastors, and right away we recognized fellowship as such a key element for encouraging and strengthening these men and just watching them interact and share each other’s burdens.

you could sense that this was a healing time, an encouraging time for them, and it just made us burdened to continue emphasizing this and to make more of it in the future

so that these men stay committed and strong in the work that God’s called them to do.

A second key need that we’ve noted is leadership training.

I’ve met so many young men who have passion right now to follow God’s will and be pastors.

And we need a central place where they can be trained and we can use faithful Ugandan pastors to mentor and model them and show them how to be a godly father and a godly husband, how to preach the Word of God, how to be faithful in difficult times and to be honest and have integrity.

These two needs, fellowship and leadership, we believe can be met by completing phase three, which is building the training center right here in the West Nile region

and have a central place where men of God can meet and we can train them and teach them.

Those would be times of fellowship and preaching and just times to seek the Lord together.

Please pray as we return to the field and begin phase three that God will allow us to raise this structure quickly and the work can continue here.

Praise the Lord!

Phil Prettyman: Thank you for going with me for a few minutes to Uganda.

I believe God could use so many of you in significant ways in the ministry that God has given to us.

You have so many tools that you would not believe how effective you could be.

One of the number one tools that you have is love.

These young people are living in a culture where children are treated much less than you would treat your dog.

Much less.

They are given less food, less respect.

Many of the children will go two, three, four days before they receive something to eat.

The families treat them like you and I would treat rats.

It’s probably the closest, honest equivalent.

And when you look at them, you would be amazed that your eyes are a powerful weapon.

When you look at these children and they see love in your eyes, it overwhelms them because they’ve never seen it before.

Hudson Taylor told the teachers in Honan that he wanted them to commit the best part of their day to communion with God.

But then he said, secondly, the most second most important thing, express love for the Chinese women.

And they tried to follow his guidance.

And a little bit later, the Chinese women in Honan had this to say to the missionary ladies.

They said, what is this strange, warm feeling we have when we come here to you?

We never feel it anywhere else.

In our own mother’s homes, we do not feel it.

Here, our hearts are ku and chau, broad and peaceful.

What is it that warms them so?

We have never felt it before.

What were they talking about?

Love.

And you would be amazed at how much just coming into a village and just spending time with the children and just using the two eyes that God has given you And the immense amount of love that has been poured into you by your parents, by your peers, by your teachers, by those who love you, just being in that village would change those children’s lives forever.

The power of love, the confidence that you have.

The Ugandans love Americans.

They absolutely love Americans.

And if you came, they would love you.

You could go into a school.

I have a school across the road from where we are, has a thousand students.

And they told me I can come anytime, have as many students as I want, and teach whatever I want to teach.

And I’ve even showed them what I would preach if I was there, the gospel.

And they said, that’s fine.

And you could go into a classroom and spend months and just week after week, and those, you would become the shining star of their life.

They would think about you.

In Uganda, if you say hi to a Ugandan, they will think that’s one of the best days of their life.

If you shake their hand, they will think a blessing is going to fall upon them now that can go for weeks and weeks.

Now, obviously we know that’s kind of crazy, but we can use that to our advantage.

They will listen to what you say.

And I can’t go to every Christian school and run a training center and raise seven kids and do all of the things that I do that I’m very limited.

We’re thankful Joe and Lindsay Reisinger joined us last year, and boy, they’ve taken a huge load off of us, but we could use people like you who would come and say, if my being in Uganda can be the difference between heaven and hell for over 100 Ugandan village children, isn’t that worth the investment?

I mean, even if that’s all you did, and that’s what you did in life, and then you died, wouldn’t that be worth it?

You could do that.

And it would be so easy, it would scare you.

How simple it is and how open they are to the gospel.

Your leadership, your experience.

Some of you could come with the music ability you have and bring 10 recorders and you could teach classes.

There’s just so many things that you could do.

We have a printing ministry that we are going to be developing with the training center and sending men out for reproducible ministry.

We are in more need now of printed materials and people who can organize things, people who own how to use a computer and do graphic design like Joe Mueller and get those things done.

There’s just so, so many things.

And the blessings are endless.

I love the team aspect of what we’re doing.

When you’re in Uganda and it’s just you and another family, you’re very tight-knit.

We built a volleyball court in the back of our place there, and we’re turning it into a sand volleyball court, and the Reisingers come over, and Joe Reisinger’s competitive nature starts creeping out from the shadows, and we go at it.

We have a great time playing Catan, and just, you know, it’s a great team effort.

We’re doing this together.

We’re serving the Lord.

We’re investing our lives in something we’ll never regret, and there’s such a blessing in that, and there’s a great adventure, too.

You know, most, I drive a motorcycle pretty much every day of the week, and I know my wildest dreams could have never imagined I’d have so much fun serving the Lord.

Going up into villages where the only way to get there is by a motorcycle, sometimes you have to park that motorcycle and climb up and do some hiking.

It’s so much fun.

I had three accidents in our first three years, but those weren’t very much fun, but the Marines say that pain is fear leaving the body, and I have found that to be true.

There’s very few things I’m afraid of anymore after three wonderful accidents on that motorcycle, But God protects, God watches over us.

But let me just talk just very quickly about some things that might be an obstacle that would keep you from coming.

You know, sometimes people fear that they don’t have the ability.

They’re just a very normal, average person.

And I really, I’m glad I got to be here because I feel very normal and very average every time I’m here.

But you guys are so special and so talented.

I love being here.

I love this shirt, by the way.

these are so awesome.

I put this on and I felt like a superhero, you know?

Then I looked in the mirror

and I’m like, okay, like a middle-aged, balding, overweight superhero.

Okay, so I feel super.

I really feel super today.

And I’m like, no, that’s probably because I just drank two cups of coffee.

Okay, so I feel.

I’ll just leave the sentence right there.

You know the point I’m making is, I am so ordinary.

I can’t play any instrument.

I can barely play the radio.

I really have very few

abilities, but God can use anyone.

And I’m telling you the truth, if you just come and say, God, I just want to be used by you, God will use you.

Somebody says, well, I just don’t know if I have the faith for something like that.

And, you know, sometimes we get the wrong concept of faith, you know, that

you’re just like this straining to believe, and it’s really a bad concept.

When I was traveling in evangelism, we had a very heavy RV, 20,000 pounds, and we pulled it with, we first had a Dodge Cummins, and then we went to the F-350, the Power Stroke, and I remember climbing up some mountains in the west with that, pulling that RV, and at the end of a few of those trips up like the Blue

Mountains and some really terribly steep places, I got out and I told my wife, man, I feel so worn out, my back is sore, my legs are sore, my neck is sore, and I realized that what I was doing is I was so nervous that the truck wasn’t going to be able to bear the load that I was helping the truck.

And I was like, come on, come on girl, you can do this, you know, and I’m just straining every muscle,

and I realized, you really think that that helped get that 20,000 pound trailer up the mountain?

Now there’s nothing in the world that I could do to get that, and sometimes we have that concept of the faith, that faith is like, well, I can’t strain that, you know, I mean, we’re about to break a spiritual blood vessel trying to make our faith look like someone else’s faith.

Those are just two simple steps in getting that up the mountain.

I have to have the expectation that when I put my foot on that pedal on the right, it’s going to pull it up, and the second thing I have to do is I have to act on that expectation and I have to push the pedal, right?

Now, if I get out of the vehicle and somebody different steps in the vehicle and they look totally different than me, what will they do differently to make the truck pull the trailer up the mountain?

Well, nothing.

Faith has everything to do with just trusting God and just obeying.

And you constrain if you want to.

If you want to do that to yourself, you could do that.

You could wear yourself out.

But it really is much simpler than that.

Coming to Uganda and serving the Lord, it’s not like, man, I don’t know if I had that kind of faith.

Well, forget about that.

Everything that takes place is in the engine, and God can do it.

Sometimes I think people fear that they don’t have enough love.

You know, will I love those people?

Will I be able to make the sacrifice?

And the greatest thing that will conquer us and make us willing to sacrifice is the love of Christ for us.

When I first told the Lord I was willing to go to Uganda, and I was at the end of 2013, I took a trip.

I told the Lord, if I do not know your presence in a very real way in Uganda, I would just take that from you that I’m not supposed to go.

And when we arrived, and, you know, after like 30 hours of travel time, and you’re just exhausted, and you’re worn out, me and this fellow missionary went to the hotel that we were staying at in Entebbe, and got underneath the mosquito net, and I was exhausted.

I was exhausted.

But God manifested his presence to me in such a real way, I did not sleep one moment that entire night.

I literally sat in bed with tears rolling down my face, and the presence of God was so real to me, and the love of God was so real to me.

That love conquers us and says I’d go anywhere.

You know, sometimes, I’ll have to tell you, my love for the Ugandans runs pretty low.

Sometimes they annoy the fire out of me.

You know, one work project we had, I had over 50 tools stolen out of our work project.

hey, that was pretty annoying.

But you know what?

The love of Christ compels me.

And it’ll do the same for you.

If you’ll go and say, you know, I don’t know how all this is going to take place, but I’m just going to go.

I’m just going to go and be a part of it.

God will use you in a great way.

I just really want to encourage you to seriously pray about giving your life and surrendering to come to the mission field.

Later on, you’ll hear about India, much about India.

Brother Casey is going to talk about that.

But that you would open your heart.

I would tell you, escaping this humanistic culture of America is going to be very hard for you.

I’m just being frank.

It’s going to be very difficult.

There are a lot of allurements.

It’s very comfortable here.

And it would be very easy to get lost in the shuffle of things.

And that’s why I think right now, the Bible says in the days of your youth, make that commitment.

I’m going to give my life to serve Jesus Christ.

And you’re not going to regret it.

I’m 44, and I traveled as a college rep for two years, and then I was in full-time evangelism, as I said, for 13, 14 years.

I planted a church in Wyoming, and now for the last three and a half years I’ve been in Uganda.

And I can look back and say, man, I’m so glad that I’ve made the investments that I have made.

It’s thick.

It’s real.

I’m glad I did it.

There are going to be hard times.

Man, absolutely, there’s going to be hard times.

That’s part of the adventure, isn’t it?

that’s part of the excitement.

I don’t want to live a painless life.

Must I be carried to the

skies on flowery beds of ease while others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas.

I pray God will never allow me to live an easy life with people like that little boy in Centralia, Pennsylvania, slipping into hell.

God, use us.

Amen.

Let’s pray.