Podcast: Spiritual abuse on the mission field

The mission field is often described through stories of inspiration and sacrifice, but there is a more complex, difficult reality that many are hesitant to discuss. In this episode, we sit down with “Paul” (a name used to protect his identity), who shares his personal encounter with spiritual abuse while serving in Africa.

We explore how this form of abuse doesn’t come from external opposition, but from within, from peers, coworkers, or authorities who are meant to be a missionary’s primary support system. Join us as we define what spiritual abuse looks like, examine its biblical parallels, and discuss how to prepare and protect those called to serve.

This podcast is available on Spotify , Apple Podcast and Youtube. And the other option… see below for this episode:

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Transcript:

Martin (00:26.662)
And welcome, everybody, to this new podcast. Well, topic for today, spiritual abuse on the mission field. Well, in this podcast, we do talk about the real life of missionaries, not just the inspiring stories, but also the difficult ones. And this will be a difficult one because the mission field is, well, the mission field is beautiful, but can also be very complicated. And the goal is,

Well, pretty simple, I guess. Prepare, equip, and sometimes protect missionaries by talking honestly about what life on the mission field can really look like. So today we’re talking about a topic that many people do not like to talk about, but is incredibly important spiritual abuse on the mission field. And my guest today is someone who’s been personally encountered this reality.

For safety reasons, we will not use his real name in this episode. We will call him Paul. And the fact that Paul cannot even speak openly with his real name already says something about how serious this topic can be. Well, Paul, thank you for being here and for being willing to share your story.

Paul (01:41.499)
Thank you, Martin. It’s a blessing and a privilege to be able to talk about this and change my name. I appreciate that. That’s to protect myself from my own mistakes as well as perpetrators. So thank you for the opportunity.

Martin (01:55.411)
Ha ha!

Martin (02:00.064)
Yeah, you’re welcome. Hey bro, where did you serve?

Paul (02:04.977)
In Africa, my wife and I went there and we’re, as you can tell by my accent, we’re from America and we went to a country in Africa. I’ll just leave it at that. were, yeah, we were there for six years and our ministry was in church planting. were, yeah, we went there to plant churches and saw.

Martin (02:07.297)
Africa.

Martin (02:27.767)
Okay.

Paul (02:32.347)
Quite a bit of success, which was awesome. That was all God’s doing.

Martin (02:38.284)
Hey, before we talk about experiences, let’s define what we’re talking about. Can you, in your case, when you hear the term spiritual abuse, what does that mean to you?

Paul (02:52.143)
Yeah, that’s a great phrase, I think. It’s you know, any kind of abuse, it’s, we bandy it about quite a bit. Normally we hear it in marital abuse, spousal abuse, or parental abuse. And similarly in those instances, the abuse is coming from the hands of those who are closest to you and maybe even are supposed to be the number one

safest people in your life. Parental abuse, spousal abuse, and similarly, I think on the mission field, I think to define that it’s, we’re not talking about abuse, spiritual abuse coming from your spouse or your family, but from your peers, unfortunately, those either your coworkers or those in authority.

over you on the mission field or even from your own mission agency. So it’s not just the normal quote stuff of difficulties of living in a different place, the spiritual warfare that we all experience or it’s not resistance from the lost people that you’ve gone to serve, but it’s from your fellow Christ followers, your fellow peers. And I think that’s one of

makes it harder, just like parental or spousal abuse, any kind of abuse.

Martin (04:21.966)
Yeah, in our case, we also work with homeless people and that they sometimes try to scam us, which is also some sort of abuse, I guess. I’m almost okay with it. mean, that’s part of the game. They’re homeless, they don’t have any food, and most of them are non-Christians anyway. So that they try to abuse us in any…

Paul (04:27.27)
Mm.

Mm.

Paul (04:34.053)
Yes, take it.

Martin (04:49.374)
sort of form. Yeah, okay, that’s part of the game. But if it’s your colleague or if it’s your pastor or if it’s your fellow missionary or then it starts to be a whole lot of game.

Paul (04:52.497)
That’s right.

Paul (05:01.977)
Right, exactly. Yeah, when we go to the mission field, we’re prepped and ready and our mindset is prepared for quote abuse by those we serve. Certainly persecution, persecution, pushback, misunderstanding, all of that. We’re ready for that. I don’t know if it’s true still today, Martin, but when I was on the mission field, I heard that at some point the number one reason missionaries leave the field of all the reasons is not because of the challenges

of the actual mission work, but it’s because of conflict with teammates or the missions, yeah, the missions agency itself.

Martin (05:34.84)
Yeah, it still is.

Yeah, it still is. that’s sad. On the other hand, which is not making it any better, but this whole being abused by your fellow missionaries, it’s nothing new. We can see it in the Bible. It’s there. There are a lot of examples. I found one in 3 John 1. I wrote to the church, but the 03 piece?

Paul (05:40.688)
and

Martin (06:09.206)
I don’t know where that is, but okay, or who that is. Who loves to be first will not welcome us. So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that. He even refuses to welcome our other believers. So in this case, someone is spreading malicious nonsense about the missionary and he is suffering from that.

Paul (06:27.953)
Yeah.

Paul (06:34.363)
Yeah.

Martin (06:39.12)
He ain’t happy about that.

Paul (06:40.943)
Yeah. Yeah.

Martin (06:42.734)
So there’s nothing new and that’s the sad part, I guess.

Paul (06:47.215)
Yeah. Well, and I think I really appreciate Martin you coining. To me, it’s fairly new, this phrase of spiritual abuse, of equating that kind of behavior that you just read about with abuse. know, we we all are familiar with abuse of children, abuse of spouses, et cetera. But to to coin that as in the on the mission field as well. Some might argue, that’s not

abuse that’s just tough times. I think, yeah, think especially until you experience it, when it comes from authorities or even even peers, there is a, I think it’s accurate to call it a form of abuse. as we chat about it, I’m sure that’ll become more and more clear.

Martin (07:20.078)
Yeah, sure.

Martin (07:34.53)
Yeah.

Martin (07:39.311)
Yeah, and it’s sad, but well, it’s… So sadly there’s nothing new. The positive thing is we can learn from the Bible how to deal with it. So that’s I found another Bible voice. me… yeah, if somebody says this is not in… This doesn’t happen in church or this doesn’t happen in… On the mission field.

Paul (08:04.249)
Amen.

Martin (08:04.526)
Well, too bad. Jeremiah 23, verse one and two, who to the shepherds who are destroying and shattering the sheep of my pasture? So yeah, it’s the shepherds. It’s your fellow, or it can be the shepherds. It can be your fellow missionaries. So to say it doesn’t exist. Well, too bad for you. Jeremiah 23 is very clear that it does exist. So we should…

Paul (08:07.332)
Thank

Martin (08:32.354)
We should talk about it. Hey, brother, what does spiritual abuse look like? Do you have an example?

Paul (08:38.481)
Yeah, I think there’s going to be it’s going to be different for everybody because different things affect different people some pushback or some things that would lead towards abuse in some people is going to be water off a duck’s back on another person, but I think any anything that causes pain

Martin (09:02.359)
Mm-hmm.

Paul (09:08.749)
instead of edification and of course conflict and is inevitable because we’re humans but anything that goes beyond the biblical mandate of confronting your brother if there’s sin in a relationship for example if you see sinful patterns that excuse me that has to that causes discomfort that’s necessary like disciplining a child

out of love, you do that because you love your child. And similarly with brothers and sisters in Christ, we would confront each other’s sinful behavior necessarily. But to go beyond that and to cause a pain that actually detracts from their spiritual well-being, but instead adds to it, I think that’s when that threshold is crossed. you can’t just paint a blanket statement of anything that

Martin (09:47.982)
Yeah.

Martin (10:02.509)
Yeah.

Paul (10:08.057)
makes you uncomfortable or causes you discomfort is spiritual abuse. think you can recognize that just like in other abuse cases. In America, unfortunately, we’ll have children that’ll call the police if their parents spank them for doing something naughty. that’s our carnal nature that wants to stay. No, that’s beyond love.

Martin (10:33.251)
Yeah.

Paul (10:37.135)
but it’s on the mission field, think, as we, especially those in authority who try to take on the role of the Holy Spirit or want to be God in your life. Certainly quenching the spirit in a missionary or a missionary couple, I think that’s when you start to cross that line.

Martin (10:52.588)
Yeah. Yeah.

Martin (10:59.117)
Yeah.

Paul (11:06.117)
when you start to recognize that what I’m saying, what I’m doing is making them want to leave the mission field rather than get better on the mission field. I think that’s when it starts to become that way.

Martin (11:18.22)
Yeah. Yeah. We see a, well, we do coaching, counseling and therapy for missionaries who are not doing well. And we actually see quite a lot of missionary, not only leaving the mission field because of this, but leaving God altogether. And that’s a rough one. mean, the Bible calls us to make disciples.

Paul (11:28.326)
Yeah.

Paul (11:36.688)
Hmm.

Paul (11:40.249)
Yes, yes.

Martin (11:47.723)
And if we on the mission field are not making disciples, actually, or actually doing worse, that’s a rough one. We see missionaries leaving the mission field and never coming to a church again for the rest of their lives. Saying goodbye to God.

Paul (12:03.227)
Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s part of when you can recognize the abuse has become abuse, Martin, rather than just conflict, normal conflict. It’s when, yes, yes, when it goes to that level of making them even doubt their own calling, doubt their own relationship with God, doubt God’s love for them, any interaction we have with other believers.

Martin (12:16.183)
It goes way, yeah.

Martin (12:24.312)
Yeah.

Paul (12:32.921)
should be edifying, even if it’s a matter of church discipline. The worst case scenario of righteousness, you know, we can think of is that’s a biblical mandate. But even that must, must, must be done in love and with an arm around your brother and sister. And when the community is broken and when my way or my regulations or my policies or my rules

Martin (12:37.997)
Yep.

Martin (12:41.581)
Yeah.

Martin (12:45.667)
Yeah.

Martin (12:49.293)
Yeah.

Paul (13:00.557)
that aren’t necessarily biblical. You know, the term abuse, I don’t know if you look that up in a concordance, if you could find that in the Bible. It’s maybe a more modern phrase, but like you said, it’s certainly throughout the scriptures, certainly in Christ’s life. Holy cow. The very leaders that should… Yeah.

Martin (13:00.739)
Yeah.

Martin (13:11.878)
huh.

Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah.

As you said, mean, as soon as you see leaders who cannot be questioned, as soon as you see decisions are always justified with God told me, although you don’t have a clue what God told, but people will tell you that you have to do something because God told them that you have to do something. If you see a culture of fear instead of grace,

Paul (13:32.261)
Yeah.

Martin (13:47.479)
If you don’t do this, then we’re gonna shun you or you’re not a part of the team anymore, stuff like that. We see excessive control of personal decisions. That’s a weird one. And another one is no accountability for leadership. So if stuff does go wrong, their leadership is like, well, we shouldn’t divide, we should love each other.

Paul (13:52.529)
Yeah.

Paul (14:15.215)
Yeah. Yeah.

Martin (14:15.874)
Well, that’s avoiding accountability. We should keep each other accountable for what we do in a forked-out kingdom.

Paul (14:20.027)
Yeah.

Paul (14:27.151)
Yeah. And ideally in God’s kingdom, it’s always a mutual accountability. You know, they might say, yeah, I’m accountable to God as I abuse you. But a mutual accountability allows all both parties to say, hang on, you know, this is going beyond the normal, even just conflict. And unfortunately, you know, the problem with being a missionary is all missionaries are human.

Martin (14:33.122)
Yeah, definitely.

Martin (14:39.342)
Yeah.

Martin (14:50.062)
Paul (14:55.491)
And so we can’t get away from that. So it’s always going to happen. But I think when the abuse starts to kick in is when we take that role of the spirit and we forget that we are all servants to each other. Christ commanded us to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength by…

loving others as we love ourselves. And when we just forget the very simplicity of the golden rule even of putting ourselves in this missionary’s position, how would I like this situation to be handled? How would it edify me? How would it bolster my faith and my work and service on the field when we forget that? And that’s a dangerous place to be for sure.

Martin (15:26.798)
Yeah.

Martin (15:48.547)
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. Hey, in your case, if you look back at your missionary adventures, do you have an example where you would say, hey, that was definitely spiritual abuse, but I just didn’t see it. Only in retrospect, I thought, woof, this was.

Paul (16:09.441)
Well, yeah, yeah, certainly hindsight is is 2020 as they say we you can see things better after the fact I I think and it’s this is kind of difficult to talk about This particular aspect of it Martin in our my wife and I’s personal experience Because it can sound like boasting we really only began to see what we’re kind of coining today as spiritual abuse

after we began to see God doing some pretty significant cool stuff on the mission field. It’s when others saw it as Paul is experiencing some success, you know, is what we’d call it. And churches were getting planted and people were coming to the Lord and getting baptized. And when the spirit does something like that, it begins to take on its own nature.

and its own rhythm and its own progress and something we’d been praying for for years on the mission field when it began to happen. That’s authorities, if you would, and that’s why thank you for allowing me not to name specific agencies, but it was a very large and successful mission sending agency that we were with.

Martin (17:13.484)
Mm-hmm.

Paul (17:31.505)
That’s when they began to step in. again, in hindsight, I believe it was honestly in a weird way, it was similar to what the Bible would say again and again and again with Jesus facing the Pharisees and the Sadducees. It wasn’t necessarily his revolutionary ideas of what he was preaching. Again and again, it said they were jealous. And again, that’s kind of tough to say that without sounding boastful. we were so awesome. But that’s the way it was taken. Jesus…

never said, you guys are just jealous. He never said that, but the gospel writers said that again and again. They were jealous of the success of people beginning to follow Jesus and the thing that the Spirit was doing through Jesus. I think a degree of that happened because again, missionaries are all human. And when they saw success on this side of the country, but not on their side, their response was pride.

Martin (18:12.867)
Yeah.

Paul (18:31.083)
and how we can’t control this. It’s kind of taking on a nature of itself. And so the way that they unfortunately dealt with it out of that process was to kind of shut it down, to come to us and say, you can’t keep doing this anymore. And I would confess that a lot of the, quote, success that was taking place was unlike the traditional

Martin (18:51.383)
Oof.

Paul (19:00.299)
way that our sending agency would like to see churches be planted. We were starting churches in homes. We were starting churches led by men who were not seminary graduates, led by brand new believers. Churches that we quantified and said were churches reaching out to neighbors without a lot of Bible training.

Martin (19:12.657)
you

Mm-hmm.

Martin (19:28.984)
Mm-hmm.

Paul (19:29.069)
very little Bible training, but it was discipleship. was, I’d discipled the men, they were one day ahead of the people that they were trying to reach. And that lack of control and that lack of traditional ways of planting churches that was on the quotas, on the question sheets that we had to fill in and report about every month.

I think upset some folks because it was outside their understanding of how things should happen. And at the end, at the very end, the final straw, if you will, was a surprise to us. We saw the writing on the wall. This is a very long answer to your question, Mark. Sorry. Could you see things coming? We saw signs of it, but at the very end,

Martin (20:02.646)
Yeah. Yeah.

Martin (20:18.094)
No worries.

Paul (20:25.809)
We had kind of a surprise meeting and one of the regional directors came over and we had a discussion, or actually it wasn’t a discussion, we just had a lecture. And there was no, we felt there was no desire to understand what was really happening. He was reporting a lot of things that he had heard from third parties and he.

Martin (20:48.426)
yeah, that’s always great.

Paul (20:49.807)
Yeah, he didn’t have boots on the ground. He wasn’t there. He didn’t know what was happening. It was just, he had heard it by some of the disgruntled people in the established traditional churches who, yeah, and his mind was already made up. And so he was, he had the authority and he was mandating us to stop that work and work under the, the watch care.

Martin (20:52.631)
Yeah.

Martin (20:59.17)
That’s not good.

Paul (21:13.997)
if you will, of the local established traditional pastors and men that we knew well were. And again, this is is harsh to sound. I’m not the spirit. God knows these men’s hearts.

Martin (21:14.733)
Yeah.

Paul (21:30.737)
But we knew well that there was spiritual abuse in their churches because people had come out of their churches into some of the church plants. And so it was really a control thing and just really unfortunate. And in the end, that’s what caused us to leave the mission field. And it broke our hearts. It was the toughest thing that’s probably ever happened in my life.

Martin (21:50.477)
Wow.

Paul (21:59.701)
That said, that said, praise God that the movement that the spirit began, continues to this day. And it, and that just, again, proof that it’s not about our missions agency is not about me. It’s not about, you know, our awesomeness. was the spirit doing his thing and, praise God that it was just the right timing, for us to be able to bow out of the picture and, God.

Martin (22:00.472)
Yeah.

Martin (22:28.461)
Yeah.

Paul (22:29.061)
continue to do that work. So praise him that he takes care of his own even when spiritual abuse happens.

Martin (22:35.876)
Hey, how long did it take for you to recover from that? Did you recover?

Paul (22:42.001)
man. Well, I guess the fact that we’re able to talk about it today in a fairly objective way, might point towards recovery. The, the, the sorrow, the sadness of the tragedy still affects me. Obviously. fact, that’s one of the reasons, my wife didn’t want to be on this podcast. it’s just, she’s more empathetic, more, she has more mercy and, and that I do. I can talk about it somewhat objectively, but, I think.

Martin, it did. I would say it took at least a year because it was so much a part of our life and something that we had worked towards for years and years before going to the mission field. And it was the center of our lives. was like you could say it was our identity was wrapped up in that, which for better or worse, probably not a good thing. You know, our identity needs to be in Christ, not in what you do for Christ. But we had to work through all of that.

And that also was a good thing in the end. God and His grace and His love took a while. going through that, Martin, you, as with any tragedy, God, one way or the other, introduces you, if you will, to people who have gone through similar circumstances. And through that, you know, the negative side of it is misery loves company. But the positive side of that is as you

are able to communicate some of this with something that typically missions agencies and missionaries don’t want to talk about too much. You certainly don’t go home and give a testimony at your home church about, yeah, we experienced spiritual abuse. It was great. Yeah, you don’t do that. yeah, being able to talk with others who had gone through the same thing was very helpful. But yeah, it took a long time. So as you deal with folks and as people listening to this podcast,

Martin (24:19.277)
Yeah.

Martin (24:25.058)
Yeah, that’s a rough one.

Paul (24:38.967)
hear that, yeah, I would encourage them to seek out, find people outside maybe of your immediate circle of influence or your normal traditional sphere of support to find people who you can talk to about this. Yeah. Yeah.

Martin (24:53.752)
Yeah.

You do need to talk about it. We have an example of a missionary who went through, the same sort of, well, let me call it stuff. And she actually got told that she was not allowed to talk with her sending church about what did happen on the mission field. So they told her, you’re not allowed to talk with anybody about it.

Paul (25:06.629)
Yeah.

Paul (25:16.335)
Mm. Mm. Mm. Yep.

Paul (25:24.229)
Yeah.

Martin (25:26.634)
And that took her 20 years to recover from that. she, she felt, I, I promised to them that I would not talk to anybody about it. So I’m not going to talk about, I’m not going to talk about it, but that doesn’t help. You need to talk about it. which is also, well, it’s very clear that they abused her in that case. especially when you.

Paul (25:30.03)
Hmm.

Paul (25:36.955)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Paul (25:52.133)
Well, even that, yeah, even demanding that, that’s abusive. yeah, yeah, yeah.

Martin (25:56.207)
That’s wild. That’s wild. So if stuff goes wrong and you tell your missionary, don’t share what happened here. Woof. That means your, your missionary can’t talk about it. Can’t, can’t share their feelings. Can’t share, Hey brother, I need your wisdom. Can we talk about it? Can you pray for me? And woof, that’s another level.

Paul (26:20.495)
Yeah, that’s yeah, that’s a real, that’s a red flag. Certainly across the board, you can never talk to anybody about this. That’s, that’s crazy talk. So yeah, I could see an agency saying, please, if you can, don’t talk about it directly with your supporters or whatever, but do seek counseling, do seek a way to go through this with others. You know, I can, but even that is.

Martin (26:25.368)
Yeah.

Yep. Yeah.

Martin (26:40.268)
Yeah. Well, even with your supporters, I mean, I had a couple of missionary gigs that didn’t end very great. Let me give you an example. I went for a missionary trip to country A and I went there as an electrician sound engineer. Sorry, no, I went there as a sound engineer, full stop.

Paul (27:03.621)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Martin (27:09.07)
And it took us half a year to talk over the project. What do you need? What should I bring? What are you doing? What’s the project? So when there is a sound engineer, and on day one, when I arrived, they said, well, it’s great that you’re here, but we actually don’t need a sound engineer. We need an electrician, and you can do that as well. So we’re not going to do the sound engineering stuff. You need to be flexible, brother. We all need to be flexible.

and you’re going to be in an electrician. Well, just great. I I told all my supporters, my home church, I’m going to work there as a sound engineer. And on day one, now all of a sudden I’m an electrician and I should be flexible. Well, in all honesty, if that would happen with a commercial job, no way. mean, that’s wild.

But this does happen on the mission field sadly pretty often.

Paul (28:12.421)
Yeah. And unfortunately, even more so than that, mean, sound engineer and electrician engineer may be somewhat sort of kind of related, some missionaries will go thinking they’re in search planter and they find out they have to be a babysitter.

Martin (28:25.89)
Yeah, it has wires.

Martin (28:32.674)
well, yeah, stuff like that. And then you come into a very difficult situation as a missionary. What are you going to tell your supporters? Before you went away, your supporters did ask you, hey, why do you go to the mission field and did God call you and what is his calling? And you told them God wants me to go to country A to do B. And now all of a sudden, you’re going to do C. So what about your calling?

Paul (28:41.625)
Yeah.

Martin (29:01.07)
What did you tell your supporters? What did you tell your home church? And then you see weird prayer letters, weird newsletters with stuff that were like, something’s off here. They’re doing something different that’s in the newsletters. They’re twisting the truth in order to not…

touch the topic and it gets worse. Then they go back to their home country. So sooner or later, their missionary life is over. They get back to their home church and the home church is asking you, okay, so you went there to country A with calling B. So what happened to calling B? And there you are. You didn’t do anything with calling B since they told you to be flexible and you had to do kids work instead of church planting.

Paul (29:54.907)
Yeah. And flexibility is a great trait to have as a missionary, but I think the premeditated full on knowledge that this was going to happen as soon as the missionary hit the field, that’s where the abuse comes in. the, yeah.

Martin (30:07.318)
Yeah. That’s the thing. They knew. They knew. So please be honest. Hey, we’re not looking for a sound engineer. We’re looking for an electrician. good. I mean, no problem.

Paul (30:19.877)
Yeah, be honest and open about it. And the Lord can do a lot of great things with open transparency. if that’s what, you know, if somebody says, hey, you know, we are really sorry, this just happened. That’s one thing. But yeah.

Martin (30:33.55)
Yeah. But in this case, they knew it beforehand. Everything was already set up. And that’s wrong. If that would have happened with a commercial job, no way. on the mission, and this is only my example, but we hear these examples at least four or five times a month from different people. We had a girl who went to another, well, one of the bigger countries on this world.

Paul (30:44.347)
Yeah.

Paul (30:54.031)
Yeah, yeah, that’s tough.

Martin (31:03.03)
And she went there to work with students. So she said, well, God called me to work with students in this, well, pretty difficult country. And he wants me to do that. So, well, she went to her home church, to her family, to this is what God called me to do. And she got there on, and on day one, it turned out that the student team wasn’t there to begin with.

Paul (31:06.82)
Mm-hmm.

Paul (31:29.461)
boy.

Martin (31:30.36)
So she should have been part of a team that was already there, but the team never existed. And they were, and they just said, well, then you’ll have to start your own student team. And we have a contact for you. She’s also thinking of setting it up so you can give her a call and you can start a new team with her. So she called that person and that person said, no, I already gave up on that 10 years ago.

Paul (31:35.66)
Mm. Mm.

Paul (31:42.833)
Mm.

Paul (31:56.689)
for awhile.

Martin (31:57.711)
And she turned, and then the missionary team told her, well, you’ve got to be flexible. I’m starting to hate this word flexible. You’ve got to be flexible and we need people who are in the kitchen. yeah. And there you are in a country far, far, far away from home. You’re more or less burned all the ships behind you. There’s nothing there anymore. And that’s.

It’s happening too often. Just what I said, we hear it of times a week.

Paul (32:34.415)
Yeah. And, and boy, you know what? So, you know, the question hits us today on this podcast as people are listening to this, what, what do you do one to try to prevent that from happening? And then if it does happen, which it does all the time, what can you do when it happens? And then what do you do after it happens? Certainly, you know, the easy knee jerk reaction of how do you prevent that from happening is to do due diligence before you go overseas to get some.

Martin (33:03.437)
Definitely.

Paul (33:04.335)
Yeah, make some phone calls of people are actually over there and say, can I talk to your reference? And you talk to their reference and say, can I get their reference? And certainly make some contacts. do think a lot of naivete happens when missionaries go with especially well, any any missions agency that can happen, often certainly with smaller ones, maybe. But it happens with everything. And then in the midst of it, man.

Martin (33:06.526)
Definitely. Yeah.

Martin (33:12.558)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Paul (33:33.615)
You know, what do you what do you do, Lord, when this major monkey ranch is thrown into the to the mix? I’m not called to do this. I have no equipment to do this. I have no desire in my personal traits. Yeah. And here we are. Do I carry on? Do I go back home? That’s that takes the wisdom of Solomon man to to find that situation. So that due diligence going into the mission field. it’s still going to happen.

Martin (33:46.178)
Yep, and there you are.

Martin (33:56.44)
Yeah.

Paul (34:02.671)
You can, mean, Jesus, Jesus was perfect and everything he did and they killed him. So, I mean, and he did it perfectly. So even, even when you do everything you can, it’s, still going to happen. And so at the end of the

Martin (34:03.809)
yeah.

Martin (34:09.751)
Yeah.

Martin (34:17.966)
Well, I think this due diligence thingy, I guess you can prevent all, mean, 30, 40 years ago, okay, I get it. Going to the other side of the world, that was a big thing. But these days you can buy a plane ticket for, not too much money. And go there at least one year before you go.

Paul (34:28.795)
Sure. Yeah.

Paul (34:34.801)
Cough cough

Martin (34:43.438)
for a longer period, go there, do the interviews, drink coffees, see if what’s in the folder is really true.

Paul (34:50.267)
Yeah. Before you sell your house and move your family. Yeah.

Martin (34:53.762)
Yep, definitely. Go there. Spend a holiday in country whatsoever. And go and meet the pastor, go meet the team, go meet the missionary. See if then you can check, is the team there to begin with? Is the building there to begin with? Man, we’ve got a story that somebody promised us a building and we showed up and the building wasn’t there. So that was great. So it’s stuff like that.

Paul (35:08.249)
Amen.

Paul (35:17.073)
man.

Martin (35:22.808)
Go there before you go there for long term, I Check if the team’s there, check if the job is there. And it sounds like, yeah, we should trust each other. Yeah, we should. But God also gave us wisdom. And not using the wisdom that God gave you is a sin. So please don’t sin. Use the wisdom that he gave you.

Paul (35:27.909)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul (35:39.537)
Ha ha.

Paul (35:49.713)
And certainly part of that due diligence is asking yourself those tough questions. If I get there and this happens and I do experience spiritual abuse, am I willing to stay on the field? How will I handle that? Do I have the faith to see me through that? Do I have the spiritual maturity that that’s part of the due diligence as well to eyes wide open and just prepare yourself for that. Guess what? You don’t have to be on the mission field for that. But I think part of the reason

Martin (35:57.967)
Yeah. What? Yeah.

Paul (36:19.907)
Unfortunately, we see perhaps more of that on the mission field is you are going to the front lines of the gospel work and the enemy hates that. And if he can interfere with that and get you to go back home, that’s a huge victory on his part versus people who are just as much a missionary in their home country. At least we should be. But maybe the enemy is going to use a different tactic because you’re just going to

Martin (36:35.064)
Yeah. Well,

Martin (36:43.436)
Yeah, we should.

Paul (36:48.229)
go to a different church down the block, hopefully.

Martin (36:51.682)
Yeah, on the other hand…

When we start conversations with people who are thinking, I go into missionary work, yes or no? We always start with the question, what did God tell you to do? So what’s your calling? And if they’re like, yeah, well, God called me to do something for him. We’re like, well, that’s kind of vague, isn’t it? So let’s…

Paul (37:02.756)
Yeah.

Paul (37:09.873)
Mm. Mm.

Paul (37:19.793)
Mm-hmm.

Martin (37:23.246)
let’s drill it down. So where does God want you to go and what does he want you to do? Let’s make sure that calling is as, as clear as possible. then you, if you know what God wants you to do and where he wants you to do it and you go there and you do get spiritually abused.

Then you can say, hey, listen, God got me to do A and you’re asking me to do B. So now I have the choice. Do I listen to God or do I listen to you? And in all honesty, God got me to do A, so I better do A. And if A is not possible with you, I’m going to look for other opportunities to do with someone else.

Paul (38:08.625)
man.

Martin (38:21.454)
Or be honest and go back to God and say to God, hey God, sorry, but at this time it’s just not possible to do this. So either, dear God, you’re going to help me to make this possible. Or I have to go back to my home church and say, hey, listen, this is what happened. God called me to do A. All of a sudden I have to do B and no, that’s not what God called me to do. So here I am.

I’m back in my home country. It is how it is. I think that’s more, that’s a tough step to make. But on the other hand, you have to protect yourself. And if your calling is very clear, if God called you to do A, it’s a huge sin to do B. If God calls you to do A and you’re…

Paul (38:59.609)
And yes.

Paul (39:11.035)
Yeah. Yeah.

Martin (39:18.04)
boss, your team leader says you have to do C or green or square, something totally else, something totally different. A, it’s a sin that he wants you to do something that was very clear you should not do. But B, if you listen to that and you start to do something else that God told you to do, it’s also on you.

Paul (39:42.801)
Unless you get that new permission from the Lord, that’s right.

Martin (39:46.988)
Yeah, go back to God and say to God, hey, listen God, A impossible today. Should I go for B or should I go for green or square or crocodile? I don’t know.

Paul (39:57.521)
Yeah. And sometimes it really is just apples and oranges, know, plan A and B. And sometimes I think God doesn’t care. I will bless you in either direction, but there are times and there’s examples of this throughout the scriptures. There’s a very specific calling in place. I mean, you can go from one extreme of Philip, you know, being taken to the guy out on the eunuch out on the road.

Martin (40:02.861)
It is.

Paul (40:26.181)
miraculously all the way down to the disciples who are very slow to get out of Jerusalem and follow Christ’s command, go ye therefore. And you can either drag our feet or be so generalized in our calling that we don’t do anything. One of the things we experienced is even that term, my calling from the Spirit, at the end of the day, that is a faith step.

Martin (40:50.382)
Mm-hmm.

Paul (40:54.949)
where we believe we have interpreted what we believe the Spirit has been talking to us about because you won’t necessarily find in the scripture, Paul, go to this country on this date and do this thing. You won’t necessarily find that. What we do see in the scriptures is, you therefore and make disciples. And that’s for every single believer. So I think it can be on the one side of the coin, it can be dangerous to rely solely on our calling as the answer of what we do for Christ.

On the other hand, to have no calling whatsoever, then we don’t do anything.

Martin (41:24.931)
Mm-hmm.

Martin (41:31.631)
And that’s the thing. And there should be something in between. If it’s very black and white, I’m also… We also see people who go to the mission field and say, hey, I’m gonna be a pastor in A. And anything that’s not pastor-like, they’re not willing to do. So no, I’m not setting the chairs, I’m not making coffee since that’s not a part of being a pastor and God called me to be… Well, that’s also a sliding slope.

Paul (41:50.075)
Yeah.

Paul (41:59.803)
Yeah.

Martin (42:01.103)
So yeah, you’ve got to be flexible. Being a pastor is not only preaching on Sundays. On the other hand, if God called you to be a pastor and all of a sudden you’re in the kitchen seven days a week and you’re not preaching at all, well, that’s the other, yeah.

Paul (42:20.133)
Yeah. And that kind of takes us into that question of not only today, maybe we’re speaking to people who have suffered spiritual abuse, but we’re also speaking to those who may be perpetrators of spiritual abuse. That’s something we need to ask herself all the time. And I guilty of using my position or my authority or even just my friendship to take the role of the Holy Spirit in someone’s life and to cause them pain instead of being edification.

And again, big difference between the pain of conflict and correction, perhaps, versus above and beyond abuse. And sometimes there’s a fine line, but I think the spirit is very eager to let us know where that line is, if we will be honest. And of course, one of the best ways to find that out is to ask, is to ask those we are serving, ask those who are our peers, do you see any indication of that?

Martin (43:07.672)
Yeah.

Paul (43:20.217)
in my life and asking in a in a mutual accountability setting that they can honestly answer. And because they have seen you make adjustments to your practice or your behavior in the past when they have revealed sin or revealed behavior that might mean changing. And that’s true for everyone in our normal walk, much less for missionaries, is to just be aware of that in our own lives.

Martin (43:39.202)
Yeah.

Martin (43:45.164)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s the thing. mean, if at least we will be honest, what is life as a missionary? What do we expect from a missionary? What is your job going to be as a missionary? Be honest about it. And if we’ve got missionaries who are, well, God called them to do A, so they’re calling missionary agency and I say, hey, God called me to do A, do you have a job opportunity with your missionary organization?

And sometimes it does happen that missionary organizations say, yeah, well, we don’t have a job opportunity for that right now, but we’ll create one for you. And then you can serve here with team whatsoever. Well, in all honesty, if God would want agency X to do Y, that would have been very clear.

Paul (44:45.723)
Mm.

Martin (44:45.838)
And be honest, hey, sorry, if God called you to do A, we don’t have an opportunity for that right now. That’s not what we do. It’s not in our mission, it’s not in our vision. It’s not in our calling as a mission or organization. So yeah, although we’re very happy that you’re open to serve God, we’re not the agency that can help you with it. And be honest.

Paul (44:52.337)
It’s not what we do necessarily.

Martin (45:15.53)
Although it could be that you’re looking for a hundred different people, but still if it doesn’t fit, doesn’t fit.

Paul (45:24.593)
Yeah. And I think that honesty and openness, transparency, like you said, is key, Martin. Yeah. That’s the thing for all as we talk about a really tough subject of abuse. A lot of that happens with that. When I, again, think of that phrase abuse, I usually think of marital abuse or parental abuse. It’s done in secret. It’s done in hidden. That’s why it’s able to perpetuate itself.

Martin (45:30.327)
Definitely.

Martin (45:36.355)
Yeah.

Martin (45:46.712)
Yep. Yep.

Paul (45:50.841)
because it doesn’t get open. If other people knew about it, they would step in and do something about it, typically, normally. But the abused often, for one reason or another, allows that to happen somehow. And that’s why I think it happens on the mission field is because as missionaries, we don’t want to expose our fellow missionaries to others about that. Why? Because we’re nice people. We’re kind people. want to support their work and their service. And in general,

Martin (46:17.186)
Yeah.

Paul (46:20.431)
these people who were receiving abuse from are wonderful people. They’ve left their home as well and family and they’re serving the Lord and we don’t want to do to them as we’ve kind of feel like they’re doing to us. And that’s what makes it even trickier. So for mission agencies and missionaries, I think it’s so key. We need to have avenues where that can be discussed and openly in.

Martin (46:36.206)
Yeah.

Martin (46:43.768)
Definitely. Yeah, definitely. I found a Bible verse, Ephesians 5.11, which is a rough Bible verse though. Have nothing to do with fruitless deeds or darkness, but rather expose them. Yeah, that’s a tough one, but it does say, hey, if stuff does go wrong, do talk about it. Don’t shove it under the rug, but do talk about it. And if it keeps going on, rather expose them.

Paul (46:50.769)
Mm.

Paul (46:56.138)
Mm, mm. Mm.

Paul (47:02.463)
Thank

Martin (47:13.282)
And yeah, that’s a tough one. But if we don’t do that, this abuse will keep going on and you can be victim A. But if you don’t say anything and you don’t talk about it, there will be victim number two, victim number three, victim number four, and it will just keep going. And we have as missionaries, we have to stop that circle.

Paul (47:13.413)
Yeah, it is.

Paul (47:32.465)
Well, unfortunately,

Yeah, we become enablers to that behavior.

Martin (47:38.446)
Yeah, and that’s the thing. So if we don’t talk about it, we are part of the problem. Woof, so then we can be a victim and part of the problem at the same time. Woof.

Paul (47:43.203)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At what point do we become part of the perpetrators of that same behavior by not speaking? But praise God that most agencies, most mission sending agencies have member care people that you can go to. And that’s part of the tricky thing on the member care on the mission field too, because often the member care is fully aware of this scenario.

Martin (47:55.81)
Yeah, and that’s the thing.

Paul (48:15.249)
We talked to Member Care and our admissions agency and they were fully aware of the behavior and they specifically said, we are so sorry. We wish there were something we could do about this, but it is what it is. And that was their bottom line. They said we’re so sorry.

Martin (48:31.852)
Yeah, but they were the guys who were supposed to do something about it and they told you, yeah, we can’t, well, that’s wicked. Sorry.

Paul (48:41.465)
Yeah, yeah, the bottom. Yeah, the bottom line was they answered up the food chain, you know, to the same people that ultimately we were going to them to to get to and to talk about. And they said we can’t because then their their setting, their job would be on the line. And they they’ve been told.

Martin (48:57.998)
Yeah, yeah. they do call it member care and they are part of the missionary organization that should take care of you. But that’s not member care, that’s member destroy care or something like that. That’s not good.

Paul (49:11.223)
Yeah, yeah. And so I would encourage missionaries, if that is happening to you, to go outside your missions agency. There’s plenty of agencies that can give wisdom and counsel and comfort. Do diligence again, even if you have to call a different pastor back home. Call Martin, you know, he’ll direct you somewhere, talk to somebody.

Martin (49:18.776)
Yeah, definitely.

Martin (49:33.433)
Yeah. Well, that could also be a part of your due diligence thingy. Talk with your missionary, talk with the missionary agency you’re thinking to go with. Talk with them and ask the question, hey, if stuff goes wrong on the mission field, do you have an independent member care that I can talk to?

Paul (49:51.664)
Mm.

Mm.

Yeah, that’s a great.

Martin (49:58.295)
And if they say, no, no, we’ve got, we’ve, we’ve gathered ourselves and we would love like you to, keep that within. Woof for me, that would be a red flag. Yes, they should have their own member care. Let’s be honest about it. If they don’t have a member care, that’s not good, but there should be, there should be a way that you say, Hey, listen, I want to have an independent member care. You doesn’t have to do anything with you that I can share anything.

Paul (50:07.119)
Yeah, that’s a good

Martin (50:28.074)
about anything. And do you have that in place? And if they don’t, or they be around the bush, or they start to give you funny answers, already in that exploring phase, in that due diligence phase, most… Yeah.

Paul (50:29.457)
That’s a great word.

Yeah.

Paul (50:42.363)
So.

Paul (50:49.691)
Something to think about. Yeah, certainly to have that in your toolbox when you’re heading to the field to have a third party objective organization. Yeah.

Martin (50:54.658)
Yep. Have it ready.

Martin (51:00.172)
Yeah, have it ready. mean, every… Before you go into the mission field, you need to have, well, what you call a certain toolbox. And that doesn’t mean that you’re going to need all the tools that are in your toolbox. I hope you don’t need them. But at least have it ready. And if stuff like this does happen, open your toolbox, you’re already prepared for it, you already know who to call.

Paul (51:10.438)
Mm-hmm.

Paul (51:15.535)
Hopefully you won’t.

Martin (51:27.82)
You already have the phone numbers, you already have the contacts and it’s go, go, go. And you’re up and running. If you don’t have that ready before you go and you experience stuff like this, now all of a sudden you have to figure out in a totally different country, who can I talk to in complete honesty about anything that I would like? That’s a tough one. Where are you going to find someone since the whole world?

Paul (51:53.295)
Yes.

Martin (51:58.585)
But very often if you’re in another country, your whole world exists of your mission team.

Paul (52:03.941)
Yeah. Yeah.

Martin (52:05.518)
So if you want to find someone out of your mission team, well, good luck. I mean, that’s a tough one.

Paul (52:11.665)
Do that ahead of time. You need to Google it.

Martin (52:15.266)
Definitely. Yeah. Write down the phone numbers. Put it in a folder that says, case of not great times, have it ready. And it’s the same folder where you write down, what are we going to do if a war breaks out in country A? Or if, yeah, if.

Paul (52:24.965)
Yeah. Right.

Paul (52:34.169)
If the car breaks down, Yeah.

Martin (52:41.304)
financial trouble rises, it should be in the same folder, but we always have a travel insurance. Every, every missionary has a travel insurance, but we don’t have a travel insurer or very often we don’t have a travel insurance for stuff like this. And this should been taken care of before you go. Not if you’re on the mission field, then you’re already too late.

Paul (52:43.973)
Yeah. Right.

Paul (53:05.595)
That’s a great point. And again, to be honest, no matter how many tools you have in your toolbox, no matter how much due diligence, no matter how well you do it, do not let the enemy, those of you listening to this say you’ve done it wrong. You failed because you didn’t do A, B, and C. Again, Jesus was perfect and they killed him. So as, as a missionary on the front line, you will experience this. That is, it just comes with the territory. If you stay home.

Martin (53:22.177)
yeah. yeah.

Paul (53:35.025)
in your home country and are on the front lines. You will experience this. So, prepared in your heart for this. What do we do with it? Have some of those tools to help you through it. But don’t let yourself or the enemy beat you up to the point of you must have done something horribly, horribly wrong to receive this. That’s not always the case.

Martin (53:39.651)
Definitely.

Martin (53:54.478)
Well, and that’s the thing. I mean, you were willing to go with God to mission field A. You put everything on the line and there you are. I mean, we should give praises to people who do that. And if stuff does go wrong on the mission field, well, there’s always something that will go wrong. Hey, at least you were willing. You were there. Come on.

Paul (54:10.193)
Mm-mm.

Paul (54:18.48)
Yes.

Martin (54:22.062)
All praises to the person who does that. And if stuff goes wrong, even if…

Paul (54:22.502)
Yes.

That’s right.

Martin (54:31.956)
Even if stuff goes wrong, you didn’t do nothing. Sooner or later, there will be a moment that you can say, hey, this is the moment. Now I can do something. Now I can make steps. Take the steps. There are people. Google it. We’ve got AI these days. But find an organization that you can talk to. Call your home pastor. Give him a call and be open. Hey, this is what happened, or this is what’s happening.

Paul (54:50.929)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Martin (55:00.408)
How do I deal with this?

Paul (55:02.575)
Yeah, and that takes both humility and wisdom. We hate to do that because we feel like we’re letting Jesus down if we admit to our home pastor or to whoever that we’re having these issues. We feel like God has called me, I should be on the tip of the spear. I can’t be having these failures, you know, so I can’t, I got to keep it quiet or I’ll let the kingdom down by getting it out there. And that again, that’s just the enemy whispering in our ears, those kinds of lies.

Martin (55:06.198)
Yep. Yeah, definitely.

Nope.

Paul (55:31.831)
Open, humble transparency is where the healing takes place. Air it out when the organization or when yourself has cancer, has a wound, you don’t cover it up and let it fester. You got to get it out in the open. Much easier said than done, obviously. Yeah.

Martin (55:37.251)
Yep.

Martin (55:43.021)
Yep.

Martin (55:49.376)
It’s a tough one. Yeah, it’s a tough one. I I just looked up Bible verse Galatians 6.2, carry each other’s burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If you want me to carry your burdens, at least I should know that you have burdens. So if you do not share with me what’s going on, it’s hard for me to carry your burdens. So I would love to support you. I would love to help you.

Paul (56:06.874)
Amen.

Paul (56:12.887)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Martin (56:19.5)
I would love to carry your burdens, as Galatians 6.2 says, and it’s no sin to share with each other, dear brother, this is what’s bothering me. I’m struggling with A, or C. It’s different when it starts to become gossip. That’s a different ball game. And that’s the thing. In your case, yeah.

Paul (56:37.137)
Yeah. Yeah. Or if it’s just talking about it with no real intent of changing. Once you are given advice, well, thanks for the advice. I’m off to do the same thing again. That’s the definition of insanity, Continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results. But as long as I think part of, know, Christ calls us to be a servant.

Martin (56:48.78)
Nope. Nope.

Paul (57:06.829)
of others. He said we need to be a slave of all. And that even includes, and this is the tricky part about it, that includes those who are perpetrators of spiritual abuse. Is somehow, I mean, must be slaves to all for Christ. So how to take that? That does not mean that you remain silent and allow the abuse to continue because love, sometimes you have to exercise tough love. That is how you serve someone else by calling their behavior.

out into the open. So we need the wisdom of Solomon, the wisdom of Christ to move forward.

Martin (57:41.464)
Well, with the example that you gave, your missionary organization called you for a meeting, which wasn’t a meeting, it was a lecture, and told you this is the end of the line. And the information that they got, they didn’t get it from you. They got information from other people, not from you.

Paul (57:46.189)
Thank you.

Paul (58:05.356)
Yeah.

Martin (58:09.942)
And with the information that they got from other people without talking to you, let them decide that you should stop your work. Which is weird. If we look at Matthew 18, there’s this how to deal with sin in church. If stuff does go wrong in church, should go, first we should go in a one-on-one conversation and confront your fellow brother or sister.

Paul (58:28.539)
Thanks.

Martin (58:39.298)
hey, something’s going on, I don’t know what, but this ain’t right. So we need to talk about it. If that doesn’t work, then you bring somebody else along as a witness. So there’s no discussion about, well, you didn’t say that, blah, blah, blah. No, I’ve got an independent witness. So that’s step two. And then step three, then you go to the church. Then you go to…

Paul (59:05.881)
Right. Right.

Martin (59:08.654)
to your manager, then you go to your, to the big boss. But before that, please start a one-on-one conversation with your brother or sister. this is what’s going on. This is not, this is a sin. Then go with a, sorry.

Paul (59:11.771)
Right. Right.

Paul (59:24.561)
Yeah. And that was certainly part of the heartache for us. We specifically said, come, come see, we’ll show you. Walk with us. Come see some of these church plants. You’ll be excited. I think you’ll like it. Come see what’s happening. it just exclusive. They basically said, no, thank you. Basically, we’ve already made up your mind and this is what you need to do.

Martin (59:34.658)
Yeah. Nope.

Martin (59:49.134)
Well, and there you are. And they made up their mind with secondhand used information from somebody else. And they didn’t do what Matthew eight 18 said. They should have started the conversation with you first. If that didn’t work, they should have gone with a, um, with a second person and then they would go to, but that, all didn’t happen. So that’s a sign that there’s something very off and sadly they hurt you.

Paul (59:57.873)
That’s it.

Paul (01:00:15.931)
that. And we all have done that. We all have done that, myself included, you know, of course. We’ve all done that on some level or the other. I think when it happens on such a large scale to where it actually affects the livelihood, if you will, the actual calling, the work of a missionary, I think that’s when it ramps up into that level of what we’re talking about, spiritual abuse. certainly,

Martin (01:00:21.393)
yeah.

Paul (01:00:44.913)
You know, it starts small in us. We must recognize the small things when we are abusive, when we snap at our spouse or our child or a neighbor instead of responding in kindness. And if that’s not put into check, then it escalates up to the larger things when stuff like what happened to us happened.

Martin (01:00:48.694)
It does, yeah.

Martin (01:01:02.166)
Yeah. Well, and if it’s, don’t forget, I mean, if this happens between team members who are on the same level, that’s A. But if this is between the management and a team member, there’s this Bible verse in James 3.1, not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that who teach will be just more strictly. So if you are,

Paul (01:01:11.834)
Mm-hmm.

Paul (01:01:29.424)
Mm-hmm.

Martin (01:01:32.276)
a leader, watch out for your flock. You will be judged more than just a fellow team member. Yeah, you have to take care of the sheep.

Paul (01:01:41.839)
Now, yeah, all the more. And again, to be fair, I don’t know the percentage. know, 80 % of missions leaders probably do exercise very well their leadership. But there are definitely cases. And unfortunately, I think it’s more widespread than maybe

just the fact that today we’re having this conversation and I’m not using my real name. I think that’s part of the indicator that this does happen. I’ve certainly talked to many who would not even want to be part of this because you feel like you’re betraying your own agency or betraying the kingdom. But I think, again, to get this out in the open and talk about it is a first step. Yeah.

Martin (01:02:21.55)
Yeah.

Martin (01:02:34.606)
That’s step one. That’s step one. Yeah, we’ll probably get some flack about it, but that’s okay. Yeah.

Paul (01:02:41.189)
Yeah, and thank you, Martin, for being willing to catch some flack about this. And how dare you bring up this subject and cast dispersion on the agencies that are, you know, I’ll pray for you, brother. know, yeah. And even this, you know, that’s spiritual warfare, man. The enemy doesn’t want us to get this stuff out in the open.

Martin (01:02:54.732)
Yeah, you better. Yeah, you better.

Martin (01:03:01.038)
It definitely is, yeah. We already know that this is gonna cost us sponsors. This is gonna cost us, oh, it will. It did before, so it will do again. Yeah, but if we don’t talk about it, we’re part of the problem. And we do not, I mean, we’re into the coaching, counseling, and therapy for missionaries, and we would love to be out of a job. We would love to be…

Paul (01:03:07.425)
Mm-hmm. All right. I hope not. Yeah. And then, and then.

Yeah, yeah.

Paul (01:03:26.321)
Amen. That’s great. Yeah. Work yourself.

Martin (01:03:31.168)
out of work. mean, that would be great. But step one is at least be honest, it’s there. Stuff does happen. So make sure your toolbox is filled with the tools that you need in order to make, it will be great if you don’t need to call us. That will be a blessing.

Paul (01:03:43.098)
Amen.

Paul (01:03:49.453)
Amen. Amen. That’s the best calling when you work yourself out of a job. That’s a great. Yeah, that’s a great place to be. And at the end of the day, we must all remember God is sovereign. He is the one who allowed that abuse, whether we like that or not. He is sovereign. He didn’t necessarily instigate it. He doesn’t control that behavior of the abusers, but he did allow it. And so in his sovereignty, we’ve got to believe that he’s going to.

Martin (01:03:54.732)
That would be great. Yeah.

Martin (01:04:06.892)
Yeah.

Martin (01:04:15.938)
Yeah.

Paul (01:04:18.123)
use that somehow and he certainly has in our lives. He uses that to grow us closer to his son. If nothing else, it drives you. Yeah, drives you to your knees. It drives you closer to the cross. There’s no place better than to be ultimately totally desperate for the Lord. And I think that’s one of the things that being a missionary does. You wake up saying help Lord, then you go to bed saying help Lord, I can’t do this. That’s a fantastic place to be. But when that help

Martin (01:04:23.97)
Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

Martin (01:04:30.882)
Definitely.

Martin (01:04:34.882)
Yeah.

Martin (01:04:44.749)
Yeah.

Paul (01:04:46.385)
comes from fellow believers and authority, that can be especially tough. And I think that’s just one more of the enemy’s tricks. Go back to God, focus on Jesus, eyes on Jesus. He is our everything. He is enough.

Martin (01:05:03.182)
Amen to that. Let me end with a Bible verse. 11, 28, 30, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I’m gentle and humble in heart. And you will find rest for your souls. So if you’ve been listening to this podcast and you want to talk about it, please do give us a call. We’re here for you.

Paul (01:05:24.976)
Right now.

Martin (01:05:33.186)
no matter what happens. We definitely want to hear from you. If we can help you in any way or form, please do let us know. I want to thank my big friend Paul for being online today. Thank you for your honesty.

Paul (01:05:47.301)
Thank you, Martin. God bless you guys and what you do and how you serve. We’ll continue to be praying for you, brother. Appreciate what you guys do.

Martin (01:05:53.87)
Thanks, brother. And with that, we do end our podcast.