Well, we're going to start. Why don't I pray for us, and then we'll get our session started. Heavenly Father, we thank you for just giving us this opportunity to get away and to focus on what you value, the things that you deem important. Help us through this time and through this session just to get a better understanding of the world that you created and this world's need for a Savior.

And I pray, Father, that you would help us really to reflect soberly on just the great heart of mercy and compassion that you have and help us to resemble you through this time. We thank you and we pray for your help to navigate through the next however many stories that we've got.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. My name's Peter, and just a brief introduction so you guys can kind of figure out how it is that I ended up doing the job that I did the last six or nine years. I was an education pastor here at Berean until 2009.

And Pastor Peter asked us to go to China. And in China for that first year, what I wrestled with was this one year is too short. We can't do anything really in this one year. And so I wrestled so much with, "Shall we stay longer? Shall we stay longer?" And someone asked me, "Well, Peter, do you feel called to China?" And it made me think, and I asked him, "Do you feel called to America?" And then I got my answer for myself.

The command is to go. I should be challenged. I should really make a confirmation of the call to ever make. The command is to go. And so we stayed there for a year, extended it to three. We said, "Well, we need two more years." And in the next two years, I was really burdened with this thought.

Every time we set a date to leave, we're not going to give our hearts into this ministry, so we just got to go home. And I have no passion for China. I have a vested interest. But we just made a commitment, "Okay, we will be here for the rest of our lives until God moves us elsewhere." And so that three years turned into a long-term vision.

But God put on my heart a desire to champion the cause of children. And so I've been a Compassion International sponsor since 1997. And I went on a trip to the Philippines with my wife. Back then, it was a five-year anniversary kind of a trip, and I was blown away.

And Compassion Korea recruited me, so I ended up in Korea. And what my job was, was a vision trip leader. And my job was to take anybody and everybody--VIPs, national leaders, church leaders, celebrities, random people, student groups--anybody and everybody. If they want to go somewhere, I'm the one who takes them.

Okay, so that was my job. And so wherever I went, it wasn't that--you know, we weren't staying at, like, the nice resorts and--well, our hotels were nice. But we weren't, like, going to hang out at the beach. What we were going to do was to visit the slums, visit the trenches, visit the garbage dumpsites.

And so a lot of the stories I've gained over the last six years are all pictures that I've taken. And I just want to just share with some--review some of the stories that I've gained. So in my time at Compassion, I totaled it up. I was on 279 flights in the five years, four months.

So that was about 55 flights a year. And so I had--all the boarding has to have, like, this many. So I've seen a lot. And what I would love to do on an airplane, I usually get the window seat, and I like to watch as the plane goes up.

But after a while, that gets old. But wherever I went to for the first time, I like to watch for the last hour of the descent. Because you kind of see a bigger picture. And I usually would--I didn't like to watch movies too much because I felt like it would be a waste of my time.

So I turned on the Sky Map, and I studied that map. And that was one of my favorite things to do. And I've discovered that this world is not small. It's huge. So during the course of my job, I visited many, many poor families. I've eaten ostrich, crocodile, guinea pig, donkey, dog--don't judge me.

I've woken up to monkeys fighting outside my room. Monkeys doing other stuff outside my room. I've woken up to alpacas screaming. If you don't know what an alpaca is, just look it up. Until I woke up to that. I've been bitten by mosquitoes in about 17 countries. And I've visited 162 Compassion Partner Churches all over the world.

But we have about 6,800 churches that Compassion partners with. So I've seen so much, but of all the churches that Compassion works with, I've seen 2%. So I've seen a lot, and yet I've learned--or I've seen so little. So I've learned a lot about poverty, and one of the greatest lessons I've ever learned through my job was how much I don't know.

Sometimes when someone posts on Facebook, "Christianity is like this," "Oh, the world is like this," and they've never left Orange County, it's kind of--I just feel like, "How arrogant of a statement is that?" You just blanketed it from your tiny little corner of the world. But this world is a big place.

So I'm going to show you how big the world is briefly. Last week we were in Vancouver, Canada, from LAX to Vancouver. It took three hours. Can you kind of chart LA and Vancouver? This is Africa. So people I have often seen, "Oh, I hate being in Africa," or "Africa's not nice." They're like, "You know, Africa is bigger than U.S., China, India, Great Britain, "Eastern Europe, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, "Italy, and Japan combined." It takes from one side to the other longer to get across Africa than to go from LAX to Korea.

So this is a big, stinking continent. And I've been to probably more countries than most of you have. I've only seen eight of these countries. But this is Africa. And Africa is not that big plot of land if you look at it from a much more global perspective. Broad generalizations are dangerous in Christendom.

To say that all Christians have to be like this, you have to be very careful once you make access outside of what we find in Scripture. And so what I've discovered is that this world is big. But one thing that I've also been heartbroken by is this fact. 40% of the world's inhabitants struggle to eat just one meal a day.

So this big plot of land. So it took me three hours on a plane to get from LAX to Vancouver, and that's just like boink on the map. But in this giant world, 40% struggle to eat how many? One meal a day. I don't know when the last time I've eaten one slice.

And I mean, not for diet purposes. But when we say one meal a day, it's usually no bigger than like this. It's a piece of bread. So for you, when you hear this number, when you see this number, it might not be easy to wrap your mind around, but for me, these are the types of people I've met all the time.

So I'm going to share with you some of their stories. There are three things just in all of my traveling and my experiences. And again, I share with you, there's so much more I don't know than I do know. That's the thing that I feel like is one of the best lessons I've ever learned.

I can't put that in bonds. But there are three things that have been reaffirmed for me. The first one, our big God created a big world. So for you and for me, it's hard to fully grasp this. But just know that right now where you're at, your God is too small.

God is big. And I'm going to share with you some stories of people that I've met whom God has created. Can you guys see this? No. Okay. Well, just -- there are people there, okay? This was in Tanzania. It's in a country that's part of Eastern Africa. And -- yeah, I'll wait for everyone to -- let's see how this -- is everybody good?

Oh, genius. My face is not that important, all right? So these are the Maasai. And what the Maasai are famous for is two things -- or three things. They have lots of kids. They have lots of wives. The believing is trying. And because there's a shortage of water, they bathe in goat milk and they drink in goat milk.

So their skin is super smooth. But there's snow and there's flies everywhere because everything is, like, sticky and mucky. But in any case, they have a lot of wives and a lot of children. So this is my friend Richard, who is Maasai. His father had 21 wives. Richard grew up with 78 sisters and 48 brothers.

So I asked him, "Do you know how many nephews and nieces you have?" And he just started laughing. He's like, "You cannot count that kind of stuff." But Richard's a Christian. And he's looked down upon as a Christian because he has already one wife. It's a different side of the world.

Here are some of the Maasai children who are part of the Compassion International Sponsorship Program. This is a circumcision ritual that we happen to stumble upon. And in the circumcision ritual, these boys who turn 13, they're put away for a month by themselves. And then when they come out, they're a man.

And so that's a different set of values. Can anyone tell me what country this is from? Any guesses? It's Indonesia. Indonesia has 34 provinces, and this is the poorest. It's an area called Papua. It's different from Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea is a country. Papua is a province.

And we went up on a mountain area where the Wamena people live. And they have a strange tradition of loving pigs. And so the Wamena people love pigs so much that when they put their kids to sleep at night, the pigs come in and they sleep between the children.

And then they're sleeping, so they're cush pillows for the kids. But a more interesting thing they do is for women who are nursing. If they have milk left over, they give it to the pigs. I'm going to do that real quick. It's a little inappropriate. And we have churches that are ministering to the children, to the poor, there.

I've never eaten a pig. I don't know how that works. But this is a different culture. And God created this world so big with so many cultures, so many people, tribes, languages, races. And our illness is a tiny bit. So God created a big world. And I've seen a lot of stuff that has broken my heart, that has caused me to weep.

And the second thing that has been reconfirmed for me is the world really needs Jesus Christ. So last year around this time, I was in an area of Togo. Togo is one of the poorest countries in all of Africa. Their per capita income is around $400 per person per year.

And so it's very poor. And three months out of the year, there's harvest. And the ground is not good, but there is some harvest. Nine months out of the year, there's famine. So for three months, you have stuff to eat. For nine months, the people in Togo have very little to eat.

Somehow they survive. But because 90% of them are farmers, when the land has nothing, they have nothing. And that's still okay until one of the kids steps on something or gets bitten by a dog. Or gets malaria. They die because their immune systems are weaker. They have no food.

They also have no money. So even if they could drive 11 hours to their closest hospital, they can't pay the hospital bill with a chicken. So Togo is very poor. And I've seen very emaciated adults, boys and women. And these people, I've discovered, really need God to work and bless.

Another area with food shortage is Ecuador. And this was taken in a very rural part of Ecuador. I don't even remember the name of the area. But it's like maybe seven hours outside of Quito, which is the capital. And this was a family that ate meat only once a month for protein.

And the meat that they ate was guinea pig. And I tried it. This was not the guinea pig that I ate. But we ate guinea pig. So because they're so poor, Dad has to go to Quito to work for 10 months of the year. And a lot of the fathers are not around.

But that causes a problem socially, functionally. A lot of sexual crimes happen. And they have no justice. They have no money to pay for anything. This girl who's 15 on the left, she's pregnant. And basically the rest of her life is now devoted to having to take care of this kid.

Mom is uneducated. And only two of the kids are in school. And that's the thing with poverty. Most of the world is poor. But the poorest of the poor live in the remote, like the farthest rural areas. That's why even if you guys go on like a mission trip somewhere, you're not getting to the poorest of the poor.

You're not seeing the poorest of the poor. Because to see the poorest of the poor, you have to get on a plane and then travel 40 hours more on boats and in cars and in trucks and jeeps and bouncing like carriages. You have to do that. But just keep in mind that most of this world is poor and most of the poor are in the rural areas.

But the thing is, urban areas actually feel more poor. When you go to a big city and you smell the stench of people, it feels more poor. But the rural areas, there's a lot more hopelessness, desperation, and poverty. This is a dump site. This is in Togo, actually, again.

And I'm not sure if you guys know that 15 million people in the world live amongst garbage. They live in the garbage. Because if you collect the recyclables, you can get some money out of it. So 15 million people in the world live in these garbage dump sites. This is in Bali.

So when I think of Bali, I don't think of a honeymoon destination. I think of one of the world's biggest dump sites. And one thing that you should be mindful of, this shouldn't ruin your vacations, but most of your vacation destinations, if you go to a third world country, let's say like places in Indonesia or even Thailand or just...

There are dump sites if you just drive a little bit, and there are many children living in these kinds of dump sites. There are a few thousand people living here. And this is in Bali. This is taken in Cebu, Philippines. And Cebu is a very wet place. It rains a lot.

But when it rains on all this garbage, what happens? Their water rises up. And what happens to two three-year-old toddlers? They don't know pollution. So what do they do? "Ew, water. Cold." They drink the water, and guess what happens to those kids? They get sick. And they have diarrhea.

In non-educated communities, diarrhea is one of the biggest killers of babies. Because the moms, because they're not educated, they don't think to give water to the child who's having diarrhea, because there's dirty water coming out of the baby, right? But these kids not only just have a lot of diarrhea, they also suffer from a lot of lead poisoning, because they just put their mouth on all kinds of stuff.

But the biggest tragedy of these dumpsite villages is if the government wants to build, let's say, like a hotel, or a shopping mall, or an apartment complex, and they're having a hard time getting the residents out of this area, they will set this place on fire. And what happens to all the people inside?

A lot of them die. But the problem is you're never going to read this on the news, because in the eyes of the government, people who live in these dumpsites, are they people? No. They have no value. So it's okay just to burn it, and let it rot. So these are things that you and I need to be mindful of, and of how much the world needs Jesus Christ.

I've met a family. James, he's a good-looking kid. He's 15 years old. He was 15 then, and now he's probably 17 or 18. And mom and dad met in this dumpsite. And James was born in this dumpsite. And mom and dad actually collect all these recyclables to send their kids to school.

But the little one right there doesn't like school. He refuses to go. Because, he says, "When I go to school, the kids tease me, saying that I smell." See, poverty is not just about not having enough to eat. There are so many different social issues and challenges that arise.

Broken families. We were creating God's image, but a lot of my friends who are poor, they don't see themselves with as much value as me. They see themselves as garbage. Because why? They've spent most of their lives in a garbage dumpsite. 15 million people live in these dumpsites. This was taken in Thailand, toward the north.

And did you guys notice anything about the map? This is in the church, outside the Sunday school buildings. What are on these maps? Bazookas. This area is, at any time, war can break out. So just a few miles across the border from Thailand, toward Myanmar, there is an area that is not a country.

It's called the Shan State. And it's run by soldiers. But the soldiers actually gave us special permission to enter into the Shan State. It looks like this. A bunch of tea farmers. Very little education. For most of their lives, all they knew was war. And in this area, after we went in, we met a bunch of people without limbs.

At some point, what happened was they stepped on landmines, and they just exploded. They're just limbless. So we met these people. And in August 2015, I met a 20-year-old brother. His name is Nasi. Five years prior to us meeting, his mom died of unknown causes. And many of the four, they just died of unknown causes.

And their causes are not known because they're not dying in the hospital. Because they don't have the money to go to a hospital. And then five days after that, dad died of liver failure. So since he was 15, Nasi was taken care of. He has three siblings. One of whom was a girl.

She's eight years old in this picture. And she has a blood condition, which causes the blood vessels in her -- the blood vessels to fill up with air. And it causes these little bumps all over her body. Because of compassion, she actually gets treated for this. But they come up all the time.

And when she crosses the border to go into Thailand to go to school, she gets teased by the other kids. This world is a very cruel place. You think kids are innocent and nice and sweet? Kids all over the world, you know one thing that they're experts at? Teasing other kids.

I see again and again that this world really does need Jesus Christ to change thoroughly, to change wholly, to change effectively. I've shown you guys -- some of you guys have seen this picture before. This is taken in North Korea. And I shared with you on a Friday night that these kids are junior high school students.

And if you actually look up closely to their face, you'll see that they're pubescent kids. But their bodies are like this big. And I shared with you the thing that broke my heart was hearing that all of these kids have seen a public execution. And most people, when they hit 20 years old in North Korea at that point, have all seen a public execution.

And there's spiritual oppression that's rampant in this country. And I mentioned the fact that they were abandoned and they basically grew up in this orphanage. And in the orphanages, they do get some food, but they're all severely malnourished. And when winter comes, a lot of them stay cold for three to four months over the course of the year.

This is Philippines. And you might see this in the Philippines all over the place. Anywhere there's a small body of water. This is Korea 60 years ago. And I don't know if you guys noticed or not, but South Korea actually was the second poorest country in the whole world at that time.

Does anyone have a guess as to which was the poorest country in the world in 1952? Guinea. So South Korea was the second poorest country outside of Guinea about 60 years ago. And so they were so poor, Koreans were so poor, that we had so many of the world's largest charity organizations all started in Korea.

I don't know if you guys knew that or not. But if you're a fan of Korean descent, you're here because the world ever is young. Otherwise Korea would still be super poor. And in the regular books of Compassionate International--ah, I wasn't there to take this picture because I wasn't born yet.

But back then, when they would get a shipment of apples, and each of the kids got two apples in this orphanage, they said that was a highlight of the year. It's a matter of perspective. So with all this oppression and poverty and sin and hurt and pain, what is the answer?

What is the cure? What is the hope? Is it to pour money into these countries? That's the easy way. That's the instinctive response, right? This is Korea now. This is Seoul now. But South Korea has the highest suicide rate, one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and the highest alcohol consumption rate in the world.

What does that tell you? Koreans are not happy. And the churches--there's a lot of churches and missionaries in Korea, but there's something that kind of went around in Korea. And the thing that kind of dawned on me was, truly only Jesus can save. But when you have the message of the cross and of Jesus Christ going into a people, in addition with all these Western values, in addition with the promises of wealth, and the health and wealth gospel is actually very effective in preaching to the poor.

But something happens there is where you damage those people. And one thing that I discovered in the poor all over the world, the poor are harder working than the rich. The poor are more compassionate than the rich. The poor are more generous than the rich. Let me give you an illustration.

This is a little girl. Her name is Naema. Her name is Grace. Naema in Swahili means Grace. This is actually James and Valerie Lee's compassionate child. So back in May of 2015, we were taking-- we were doing a photo shoot for the upcoming Christmas, and we were traveling all over Tanzania to get just shots of the kids just for our publications and stuff.

And to get kindergarteners to smile for a camera, it's not easy. So we had to bribe them. So we're like, "Ahh!" Like, smile and all that stuff. And we gave them each a small pack of Haribo gummy bears. You guys know what those are? In Costco, you still are looking at it, right?

So little Naema got this bag of Haribo gummy bears. And we were just traveling around. I didn't give any thought to this little girl. But we went to a home, and we visited with a mom. And she had five kids. All five kids were of different fathers. And the mom had eight.

None of the kids had eight, fortunately, but all five kids had eight. And little did we know, like, 20 minutes later, little Naema would actually walk in through the door. And what broke my heart, what, like, shocked me was she still had the pack of gummy bears in her hand.

And she came into the gate. She opened up this pack of gummy bears, gave one to each of the four other siblings, gave one each to the two neighbor kids that were watching us white people, and then she gave one to her mom, and then she ate one. And she ate one of the kids that was five years old.

And that caused me such shock. There's something about the beauty of people who are created in the image of God. Even though they're in this poor place, they know how to display the attributes of God. A lot of what you and I -- may I forgot some -- so this five-year-old kid -- I mean, obviously, not all the kids did that, but Naema went and she did this.

And I actually requested that she be enrolled into the Compassionate Program. I said, "I will find you a sponsor, and if the whole sponsor is not, I will sponsor this little girl." We already had four, but he -- so I'll pray to God, hope I'm not getting in trouble.

And then James Vidal puts in the email, he goes, like, "Would you recommend any Compassionate Children? I have a perfect one for Tanzania for you." And so this is their child. But this is such a common sight when you go to the communities of the poor. Because they were created in the image of God.

God created them. So the first thing that I shared that was reconfirmed through all of my traveling was that this world is so big, and God is so big. And this big world is badly damaged. And sin is everywhere, and everybody needs Jesus Christ. Rich, poor. Those who eat more than one pill a day, and those who eat only one pill a day.

Those who have, those who have not. Everybody needs restoration in Jesus Christ. That's something that I discovered. But now to the good stuff. I've seen things in the world that show me how much God loves the poor. And how God, through Christ, truly saves. And I want to share some stories of the things that God is doing around the world to transform lives.

This little girl in the middle, she's not little, she's 14 years old. Her name is Iyun. When she was 12 years old, her parents arranged for her to be married. She lives in an area called Java. My assumption is that's where we get the coffee stuff. But the island area, she's in Java.

So her parents, who are farmers, they arranged for Iyun to get married at the age of 12. Iyun didn't want to do this. And she refused. And the parents threw her away. So they sent her, and this is in Bali. They sent her away, and then somehow she ended up in Bali, digging through the trash.

To find something to eat. This church in Bali, which is actually, most of Indonesia is Muslim. But Bali, the majority religion is actually Hinduism. And so, but this church just adopted this girl. So this girl, Iyun, lives in the church. And they fed her, they clothed her, they taught her about the goodness of God, they taught her about the dignity of women, they taught her about the need for a savior, and she got saved.

And when we met her, she was telling us that she had accepted Christ, that she was number two at her whole school, and that she had been in contact with her parents to forgive them, and to try to mend that relationship with her parents who had thrown her away.

And that's not something that any just moralistic person could do. That requires a change of the heart. And in this small church in Bali, God was at work. And I met her, I think a year and a half later, and she's number three in her class. But just a Korean, you might oppose that name.

I'm not saying you want to, but yeah. Out of a class of maybe 800, from a girl who was just picking out trash, Christ truly did change everything about her life. I'm going to travel to a different place with you. This is in the Philippines. This is in the Luzon, the main island.

And I met this girl, her name is Micah Rose. Micah Rose was just kind of quiet, shy, kind of a youth kid. And she's been a compassionate kid ever since she was six years old. But when she was in her last year of high school, two boys and their friend, who's a girl, basically they drugged her.

And in her drugged kind of stupor, the two boys raped her. And she said the whole time she couldn't move, she couldn't scream, but she could hear them laughing away. She could hear the girl laughing away. So she went into severe depression after about, so for like a year, she took off school.

She didn't want to have anything to do with anybody. And you know, this kind of story is extremely common. Because you know the governments, like two billion people in the world actually have no protection under the law of any country. Usually they're all poor, right? So if a poor person gets raped, they go to the police station.

Sometimes the police will say, "Stop pushing us on this," or something worse will happen to you. So actually police tell them to stop bothering us or you're going to get hurt. So Micah obviously fell into depression. But this is one of the reasons I love Compassion International. Compassion International, if you sponsor a child, it goes all the way.

The compassion goes all the way. I keep saying we, because I'm so used to saying we, but I'm not that compassionate when I'm on brain computers. They hired lawyers from IGN who put both of those boys into jail. But one of those boys is actually getting out in the next two months.

And the last time I talked to her, she said it's okay that those boys are getting out, or one of those boys is getting out, because maybe that will give me an opportunity to be shared with the rest of them. Because what compassion did for this little girl was not just fight for her justice, not just vindicate her, but for all four years of university they paid for it.

And they paid for all the counseling that she had to go through. And she was crème de la crème. She was one of the best students in all of her class. And she graduated last March, because March is when the school year ends in the Philippines. And now she started her first year in law school.

She wants to become a lawyer to protect women who are abused, and protect women who don't have compassion and compassion behind them, to fight for them. And the thing that just jacked me up was this. She said, "You know, I am thankful for compassion more than anything else, because compassion taught me about Jesus Christ." "Compassion could have clothed me, given me multivitamins, given me vaccinations, checked my teeth, checked my eyes, sent me to school, paid for all of my books, and your sponsorship actually does all this." "Do a criminal prosecution on my behalf, compassion could have done all that." "The one thing it would never be able to do is make me forget those boys laughing." "And one thing it could never do is cause me to forget you." "Only Jesus could do that." That's why any kind of mission is endeavor without Christ.

You're just fixing the surface, and the heart will still pour. My girl, what she said was, "Because Christ changed my heart, and taught me to forgive, how can I not forgive that boy?" She was wrestling with all the, "Am I ever going to get married? What person is going to love me?" But this kind of story is also very common.

Because when Jesus saves, He doesn't just save for like, "Oh, okay, I raised my hand at a church, I have assurance of salvation." He teaches people who have been extremely damaged to repay with love and forgiveness. But this isn't just happening solely in the churches of the poor. I want to share with you, this family is very happy, right?

The little girl with the red hat, her name is Lucy. Lucy is the youngest of eight children. When mom was pregnant with baby number eight, dad ran away. At first you're like, "Dude, those men, men in the world are everywhere. They're the sick, those jerks, they'll leave the world." Before you say that, this man actually stayed from one through seven.

He was working in the fields, just doing two, three jobs to take care of his kids. But when number eight came along, I guess something snapped and he just went away. So Lucy's mom was doing manual labor to try to figure out how to get food into their kids' bellies.

Because she was in such a desperate need, she was enrolled in the church, into the Child Survival Program. But even still, what happened was, as mom was working, all of a sudden she had major pain. So she had to go to the hospital. She had to have an emergency C-section.

But after the C-section, the next day she went back out to work because she said her kids needed to eat. So she went back. And two and a half years after that surgery, after Lucy was born, actually that's when we met her, she said she was still having pains.

But that little lady holding the camera there was so broken by this story that she kept bugging me, she was harassing me to like, "I want to do this, I want to do that for this family." So she actually said, we got an estimate of, okay, for Lucy's mom to go back into school, to get some kind of a training, how much would that cost?

And the estimate came out to about $3,200 for the year to feed all eight kids. Well, the younger six, the older two, they were gone. But to feed the kids, what would they need? So the lady in this park, she set the $3,200. Mom went to school for the full year with the accountability of the church.

And now she's working at a beauty salon, making 11 times more than she did before. That was not possible just from the Pennsylvania church alone. That was not something that compassion would have initiated because we have so many poor kids. But someone from the Korean church saw the need, was broken, and was grieved, shared what she had, and she basically allowed this mom to have dignity, to make her own money to feed her kids.

And you know what her prayer is? I can't find my husband, but I want to tell him about Jesus. I want to share about the Lord. These are the kinds of things that are going on all over the world. The poor, they're not going to get rich by us helping them.

But something happens when Jesus Christ enters into a person and does some major cleanup work, does some major healing of scars and of wounds, a person is changed. And that's something that's a little harder to see because there's poverty all over us as well. Would you guys agree with that?

I'm not talking about homeless in Santa Ana. Spiritual poverty is a little bit harder to gauge. But we are not as broken over spiritual poverty as to the physical poverty, right? But if we were broken over people's spiritual poverty around us, and we were trying to figure out what's the best way to not bad-message a person by trying to help them, what's the best way to lift them up in dignity, to follow the Lord, I think there would be a lot more revival.

And that's something that I want to share with you is the more I study scriptures, the opposite of poor is not rich. The opposite of poor is not rich. The opposite of poor is enough. And as you go farther and farther away from enough, whether it's this way or it's this way, spiritual poverty just latches on and causes someone's tender heart to be weighed down by unnecessary things, by the evils of the world, and causes someone who was created in the image of God with dignity to turn and be oppressed.

Something to be mindful of. This is Sri Lanka, an area very far away. And I share a story in my sermon that I went to an area where the elephants just not found a building. This is completely in the opposite direction, up in the north, up in the mountains.

This was a different trip. But Sri Lanka is a very poor country. There's a lot of alcoholics. All the tea farmers, they're drinkers. And even the women drink. And they make their own alcohol. And they make their own wine and drink. And homemade alcohol is actually very potent. Or so I hear.

I don't know. I don't know. Okay? But this family, basically, this child was enrolled into a compassion program. And if you guys don't know anything about Compassion International, Compassion International only works with the local church. And so, basically, that kid is taken in and gets his physical, emotional, like, cognitive, all of those needs are met.

But it's all done through the church. So the parents obviously can't help but to be open to actually send a clinic to the church to receive the benefit. Mom found Christ through the Bible study. And then the husband who used to beat her went the next week to the Bible study with her.

Committed his life to Christ. And the dad who used to spend all of his extra money on liquor, this is a year and a half in to build a new house. If you look at the inside, it's nice and decorated. Because the father, having met Christ, started taking responsibility of the home.

This is the kind of stuff that's happening all over the world. And I think a lot of broken homes, when you have a weak dad, my assumption usually is that dad has not met Christ. Even if you go church. But when a man of the house actually stands firm in the Lord, the whole house atmosphere is changed.

And that's something that I've experienced. I have one more story. And then we're going to wrap it up. We've been talking a lot about India from our church, right? And there's a lot of pain in India. 14 million people are slaves. Current slavery, slavery still exists. 14 million people are enslaved.

There's a lot of oppression, there's a lot of persecution. There's a lot of illiteracy. I went to a village with 100% illiteracy. And something about India, for me, that I will never forget, is that God loves this place. That's this feeling I got. And in one of the villages, I don't even know what some of the names of these places are, but I met a girl, her name was Manasa.

And at 13 years old, Manasa started to have a major headache. And it just started hurting her so much, actually, the Compassion Programme. So if you have a Compassion Sponsor, and your kid gets hurt or gets sick, 100% of the medical bills are covered. Through your sponsorship. So she traveled 400 kilometers away to Bangalore, India, where the best brain hospital is.

And x-rays showed that she had a 5/7 tumor in her brain. And when Manasa's parents saw this, they were devout Hindus. When they saw this, they were just broken. They were weeping. They were like, "What did we do to have our daughter suffer like this?" So they were very broken, and they wept in anger.

And they screamed, "If God, you are real," they screamed at him. "Do something, God." But again, Compassion, that kid gets the best possible treatment we can get them. So a fund was implemented for this child. And so the decision was made to operate and take out the 5/7 tumor.

And they gave her a 10% success rate. So it's like, she's not going to be done. It's a 10% chance of success for this girl. And even if the surgery is successful, she's for sure going to be mentally impaired. So the parents obviously were distraught, and they were weeping, and they were like, "We will take care of her.

Let's go through the surgery." But just before the doctor initiated the surgery, the doctor felt like doing an angiography. I don't know what that is. But from what I heard, it was just like, "Do you want to do another scan?" The doctor just felt very uncomfortable. And this is a renowned surgeon.

He's like, "Okay, let's do it." But he's like, "You know what, let's just check it one more time to just reconfirm where everything is." But that pretty new doctor was completely surprised to see through the angiography that the swelling had disappeared completely. The surgery was set for April 3, 2012.

But that morning, that was gone. And we found out that that whole couple weeks, everybody was praying for Vanessa and her family. Spontaneous closure of the bacilar trunk 9 years in. So no one actually went to that she was done. So all this money was collected, all the things were prepared, all the equipment was prepared.

But God took that tumor away. But the funnier thing was, look what happens after. When all the other patients in that ward of the hospital came to know what happened to Vanessa, all the patients asked Vanessa to pray for them also. So Vanessa prayed for every patient to share the gospel with them.

Vanessa was highly certain in her faith, and so on April 4, 2012, Vanessa was discharged, taken back home. And she went back and was totally in person. She went and testified among the progeny children about what the Lord had done in their lives. All the children in tears prayed, "God, be close to the Lord." Also Vanessa's neighbors came to know about the miracle's healing.

And they all came to see her at her home. And Vanessa and her parents boldly shared with all of them about what Jesus had done in their lives to share the gospel to them. This is happening all over the world in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. When Jesus saves and heals, He saves and heals completely and thoroughly.

And there's a picture of her just sharing her testimony in front of the compassionate children. There were 512 compassionate kids at this church. And do you think those children believe in the power of prayer? Oh yeah. And you know those children, one of the first people that they pray for every day is their sponsors.

That's a shameless plug for sponsoring a compassionate child. I'm into prayers. You can come to prayers and they get privileged. You know, actually I have a story. I have four compassionate children. Three of them in the Philippines. I got to tell them personally that God answered their prayers and that He was pregnant, not just with one of the two kids.

And they just cried. They prayed. To wrap up. What do we all have in common? One, not all of us had a choice to where he was born. You're enjoying your life here because you were born in very suitable situations and very advantageous situations. You are living in one of the most nicest places to live in all of the world.

And you didn't choose it. That's something to keep in mind. The second thing that we all have in common is we all need Jesus. We need to be saved wholly. That's why a lot of people tell me to stop talking. We all need Jesus. And those are the things that we have in common.

No matter where you're born. And we all, and what God is desiring for is worshippers from every tribe, nation, language, tongue. Every place God is raising up people who will worship Him as holy. I'm going to just end with one video. In one of the most hostile, drug and prostitution ridden areas in all of the, in Cebu, in the Philippines.

Sex trafficking, drug trafficking, so much of that. Where it's rampant. And I want to show you how a church, in the love of Jesus, with the love of Jesus Christ, loved a lot the women in their church. And how they changed. I sing... 'Twas grace that taught... my heart to fear...

and raised my fears to fear... I'm gracious in... Thy grace to me... and now I've learned to be... When my shame's all gone... I'll be set free... But God the Savior... is running somewhere... And I don't know... what the secret is... of the delight... of His grace... For I was a girl...

to learn His word... by the full secure... Healing my sin... and promotion... As a girl... as a bride... in the groom... When my shame's all gone... I'll be set free... But God the Savior... is running somewhere... And I don't know... what the secret is... of the delight... of His grace...

When my shame's all gone... I'll be set free... Now, the lady at the end... She was trafficked as a child. And then the person who rescued her, her husband... got her into drugs. And she was so drug addicted... that she gave birth to a baby with a severe drug addiction.

The church just loved on her. Now, she's the one who discipled at least 40 moms with their babies. And she has a heart of empathy... like someone like me could never have. Everything that they've gone through, she would know. And I think God raises up people and allows for different points of hurt.

So we can empathize with people in this broken world that are hurting. Then we would genuinely have compassion on people. When admissions field... and when poverty and stuff remains at a number level... it's not going to stir your heart. But when poverty and admissions field start becoming people that you met...

people that you know... they become your people. It changes your approach to that person. Right? And I believe with all my heart that God wants to use every person in this room... to wholly bring the gospel of Jesus Christ... to people all over the world. So hopefully... I feel like I was the first one...

I took out like 13 stories, okay? Hopefully you had a very brief trip around the world. And it was all scattered because, you know, it's stories. But hopefully it gave you a little bit of a glimpse of the broken world that we live in. The world outside of Southern California.

And may the God of the nations stir your heart for the nations. Starting with the United States of America. Amen? Let's pray. Thank you for your attention. Let's pray. I just want to thank you for... just your love for us. And help us not to be spoiled brats that just take in all the love...

and think that it's given just for us to enjoy. But help us to be people who live with a passion... to share your gospel. To shine your light into the darkest premises of the world. We thank you Lord for this church. That any social justice and mission is endeavor does not...

substitute proper worship and proper reading of your word. So we pray that as you raise up people who are biblically literate... that you would raise up people who have a passion, God, to see the lost come to Christ. And the hurting come to healing. And the broken come to wholeness.

We thank you Father for just accepting and praising you Jesus. Thank you.