Sharing the Gospel and Learning from the Global Church: A Conversation with Bill Nienhuis of Childcare Worldwide

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer, and I'm joined today by Bill Nienhaus. He is the president and CEO of Childcare Worldwide, and we're going to have a conversation about what Childcare Worldwide does, what the situation around the world is with regard to children and families and sharing the gospel in these contexts, and just everything that Childcare Worldwide does. So, Bill, welcome to the program, man. Thanks for coming on. It's good to see you. Appreciate you having me on today. It's always a wonderful time to talk about not just childcare, but what God's doing in this world. And I'm anxious to give a little bit of that to you and your podcast listeners today. My name is Bill, as he said, and I came to childcare about five years ago. My former life was working at Logos Bible Software. So, if anybody knows Logos, the Bible software application, I was there for 25 years, and I was sure that God was going to keep me at Logos for another 25 years. But as he often does, he has other plans. And in 2018, through wonderful circumstances of his doing, I was introduced to childcare worldwide and became a board member. And upon becoming a board member, I realized that our current founder and CEO, who was 87 years old at the time, was getting ready to graduate into retirement. And as a board member, I was involved in looking for and thinking about new presidents, new candidates, and all of that. And going through three or four candidates that just didn't quite work out, a couple of board members looked at me and said, well, what about you? And I said, well, wait a minute, I'm the software guy. You know, I'm not the missions guy. I'm a software guy. But, you know, God works in amazing ways, and he opened my heart to missions in a way that I just never expected. I think it was there always, and I'm sure that through my career at Logos, he was preparing me and getting me ready to be a part of this wonderful organization. But I really do think it's just like God unlocking a part of my heart that was there and had always been there, but is very much involved in being a part of Team Great Commission, being a part of being an inspiration in the life of children, and to do amazing things to help them. So I was introduced that way to this wonderful ministry, and now it's been five years and we have gone through lots of changes and have expanded the ministry into being very gospel-focused. And as a result, we're watching amazing transformation take place. So this little transformation in the life of Bill has been minuscule compared to the transformation we're seeing in kids all over the world. So when you say now you're more gospel-focused, what would you say you were when you first took it over? And it's not, I don't mean to disparage anything or anything like that. I know how organizations change, but yeah, just expound on that a little bit. What's really shifted? Yeah, that's great. Prior to me coming on board as the leader of Childcare, the ministry was highly focused on education and supplying, essentially supplying school fees for kids in order to accomplish their education in country. And this is a little different in other countries than it is in the United States. In many, many countries, schools charge school fees every month no matter whether it's a public school or a private school. So one of the biggest barriers for children is how they're going to afford the school fees in order to stay in school. So what happens is, is if you cannot afford your school fees, you get kicked out and you can't come until you can pay. And that is quite typical everywhere where we serve. So we were heavily engaged in education as the primary mission, and as a secondary mission, we were doing certain targeted mobilizations. So for instance, in India, we would be supplying kids with eyeglasses. Kids who needed new glasses and things like that. In Africa, it might have been water filters. In another location, it could have been malaria tablets, mosquito nets, and things like that. But the primary focus was always on education. And as I came into the ministry, I noticed that our mission statement had the gospel as the third thing we did instead of the first thing we did. And, you know, God talked to my heart and I said, you know, that's got to be first. That can't be second. It can't be third. It has to be the first thing. And we changed our mission to ensure that transforming lives by delivering the gospel to kids was the first thing we thought about. That doesn't mean we're not in education anymore. We still do supply school fees for kids. We make sure that they are there and present and enrolled. But our first and foremost mission is to tell them the truth about Jesus. They have to know who he is. They have to know why he was born, why he was here on earth, what he did, and what happened when he died and what that means for them. And if we can work through an opportunity to help them understand that, we feel like we've completed the mission that God's given us for them. So, yeah, it was a small tweak, but not so small. Because now every single day, we just think about what it means to introduce Jesus to kids. And these other things are nice benefits. But the one thing we deliver is that eternal message. That'll never wear out. It'll never, you know, the mosquito nets will have holes that come into them and the water filters will break down eventually and school will end. But their citizenship in heaven will not. And that's really the biggest and most amazing thing we could be a part of. So when you, you know, you're talking about the schools and you said it's a little different than it is in the United States. You know, I think we've all seen the Sally Struthers commercials and, you know, we have a sense of maybe what, you know, the destitution looks like. But I don't think we really understand how to navigate a lot of these structures overseas and what this looks like. And so as you're going about sharing the gospel, you're caring for these other needs, what do you see? Like, give us some details about maybe some of the other real specific differences, some of the real challenges these kids face to not only get an education, but I think, to your point, more importantly, grow in their faith. What does that look like? You know, the church structure, the educational structure. We live in a world of wonderful systems and we often take that for granted. And so just interested to get some color commentary on that. Yeah, no, that's great. I think that for most Americans, you know, poverty isn't right outside their front door. That may be the case for some, but for the majority, it's not. So they're not confronted with that on a daily basis and their lives aren't dramatically affected by that on a daily basis. What I see in the countries where we serve is poverty is there every day, every day in a million different ways, whether that's poverty in terms of not being able to make ends meet, whether it's poverty in terms of even basic school needs like, you know, chairs and tables, right? Things that you would expect a school to have. Poverty in terms of the family connection where there is no father. There's just a mom or in case maybe not even a mom, just a grandmother. So there's a sense of poverty everywhere. And that becomes so intertwined with life that the struggle that people and especially children go through every day starts to become so normalized to them that when they do get opportunities through certain types of help or certain types of tangible goods, things like that, it could have an amazing effect on their outlook in life, their general joy that they have. So that's really the key thing that I see everywhere is there's an immense amount of gratitude that I've witnessed, whether that's parents of kids, guardians, church members, the children themselves, just amazing gratitude for what they're being helped with or given. One of the things that Child Care Worldwide does is we never take the credit when we're standing there giving something to a child. We say, listen, this isn't from Bill. It isn't from somebody. It's from the Lord above. The Lord orchestrated this event to give you this thing that's going to help you. And it's just a small taste of how much he loves you. And that can have a dramatic effect on the daily lives of kids. But the poverty is everywhere. I thought I knew what poverty was. I was shocked in my first travel over to our country programs. I've become a little more used to it now. But it's just everywhere. And I think that's the thing that is confronting kids every day. Most of the causes of this poverty might not be what you think. Most of the cause, frankly, is corruption. The governments in these countries do not take the money that they get from other countries, the aid and these things. Few of those resources actually make it down to the people. So as you travel around these areas, you'll say, my goodness.

Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up, and many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide, or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. There's no paved streets here. What's happening? Why are those streets filled with potholes? There's no plumbing. What's happening? Why doesn't the government provide these services? We're so used to that here in the U.S., but there, that's not happening. The money is being siphoned off, and that's the shame of it, is that you walk around thinking, it doesn't have to be this way, but it is. And as a result, kids grow up in a situation that they haven't caused. It's not their fault, but they are affected by it every day. So do you find when a child accepts Christ, I don't want to deal in stereotypes, but I will say, you know, I've had opportunities to work with Ghana, for instance, in the past. And one of the things the ministry that we were partnering with in Ghana talked about was the prevalence of health and wealth, the prevalence of skewed, I would say, charismatic sort of movements within certain of these countries where you have a higher prevalence of a different sort of false teacher than we're used to in the United States, right? Where the sort of signs, the wonders, the medicine men, like all these different kinds of things are far more prevalent than they would be here in the United States. We have a different sort of commercialized false teacher. There, it's a much more primitive, earthy, from what I gathered from working with them. So as you're helping kids find the gospel, how do you then nurture them up in the faith? What are those dangers that they're confronting within their poverty that I would think would present both this gratitude that you're talking about, a real deep sense of gratitude, but also a deep sense of vulnerability? Yeah. There's a few things to unpack there. The first is that it's very important for Childcare Worldwide to partner with a church who is a Bible-believing church, who feels and understands completely the basics of biblical foundational truth, that they're preaching that every Sunday, right? That there isn't any shenanigans going on or any other crazy kind of theology being taught. We don't want what we're teaching on Saturday to the kids at our life center to be dramatically different than what they hear on Sunday. So our choice in that partnership is extremely important. But you're absolutely right. I have attended churches where I have thought, my goodness, I haven't heard anything that relates to even what the Bible says coming from this pulpit. There is a huge amount of prosperity gospel in many of these countries. And I think largely the West is to blame for that. Some of these different kinds of preachers, I use that term loosely, go and travel to these countries and stand up and they can have 15,000 people show up for these things. And they're doing any sort of what might look like healing and all these kinds of things. And pastors of churches look at that and think, well, I want to have that. I want to have that many people come to my church. I want to have that kind of notoriety. So I'll just imitate what they're doing. So we have churches led by pastors who have almost no education. They've not gone to any school at all. They may have half a Bible and they have a phone in their hand that they can call up YouTube and they can watch preachers on YouTube and try to imitate them. And that's where things get really, really crazy because these people coming to this church are coming not only because they feel like they need somebody to help them. They've been told that God somewhere is up there looking on them and loving them. But when they come, they're told that if they give a little bit more, God will bless them. Or they'll say that any day now, I'm going to get my monetary blessing from the Lord. It's like this bag of money is going to fall from the sky. And it's just sad to watch that because so many people are disillusioned by it. They are defeated by it. They are put in further poverty because of it. And it's a shame to see. And I think that the U.S.-based church can do a lot to help change that. I mean, there's probably a million things we could think of and ways. But that's going on all the time, quite a bit. Now, besides prosperity gospel, you do have these weird situations where there might be an intersection between Catholicism and witchcraft. And that gets very strange because the kids will say that I go to church with mom and dad or I have church in my village or whatever. You peek into that a little bit more and you find out that it's not Christian church. It is something completely opposite of that. And that's evil and that is dark. And again, we're trying to find ways to introduce these kids and their families to a Christian church, a Bible-believing church, believers who really want to follow what God says and the only God, the mighty God. So we see that. The other thing we see is we see ancestral worship where they're praying to grandfather or great-grandfather or things like this. And that's, again, an interesting conversation because you're telling them something that their parents and their parents before them and the parents before them all see as completely normal and legitimate. And now they're hearing about this other thing and this guy named Jesus. And what? How does that work? So that's why Childcare Worldwide isn't the church. We depend upon the church partner to be with us and to be firm in proclaiming the truth and taking what it takes in order to get that through to the heart of the child. And I didn't mention, we're in India. And of course, there's Hinduism everywhere there. And the Indian kids are like, oh, another God? No problem. I'll add Jesus on. There's 2,000 others. So what's another one? So again, there's just barriers and things like that that exist and they're real. And you have to be prepared for that. And you have to be partnered with people who know how to address it. That's why the local partner, the local church, is such an important part. They know their community. They know what's happening there. They know how to address their people better than we could ever do that. And as a result, their ability to communicate the truths of the gospel is just so much more effective. I appreciate you going through all that because I want people to have a different picture of what's going on. This isn't my experience with evangelism started with Campus Crusade for Christ and going to dorm room to dorm room with the four spiritual laws. And that's very different. It's not that it's any less dark or you're finding people who are somehow more lost. It's just very different. You know, you're dealing with different people. You're dealing with different problems and situations. You're having to articulate the gospel in new and unique ways. And I appreciate the partnership of the local church there because I think that I can see how that would be crucial to partner with locals and really help to have them not only plug in after they've shared their faith, but to help you understand the context and to and to provide a rooting after you're gone. That's right. I find it fascinating that, you know, the influence of YouTube, that's unfortunate. It becomes how people learn how to preach. It becomes how they imitate what they see. And you'll see what they're doing from behind the pulpit. And you'll think, wait a minute, I've seen this before. Right. I've heard these words before. And it's because they're calling up the usual suspects and watching those videos and just doing what they do. And the shame of it is, is they don't know they're doing it wrong. They don't know what they're doing. And they think just by being able to repeat and mimic and have people show up and all of that, that they're somehow preaching the gospel of God. And that's not true. So, again, that's not our mission. You know, Childcare Worldwide isn't to go in and to, you know, educate or train pastors. I see it every day. My heart aches for that. We love ministries that do that. And that is a huge need. The ability for even, you know, a short amount or small amount of education to come into these churches goes a long way. And I'd love to see, continue to see more ministries do that work. Fantastic. Well, talk a little bit about, you know, you do not only the gospel-centered work, you're doing the educational work, but then you've got these other sort of downstream things that you're working with. You mentioned mosquito nets. Obviously, malaria is an issue. Water, these sort of...

basics. Do you partner with other organizations to do that, or is that all you guys? Is that in-country stuff? How do you facilitate those services and those kind of things? Yeah, it's kind of a mix of all that. I think what we do first is we see what is the biggest barrier to a child either coming to Life Center, which is our evangelism program on Saturday, or attending church on Sunday. What is the barrier to them doing that? And as a result, what is also the barrier for them to be in school? So we'll look around at different areas and see different needs. For example, we have a certain area in Africa, in Kenya, that we serve in, highly affected by drought all the time. That means food is scarce. And, you know, good drinking water is scarce. As a result, those kids can get sick. They could be malnourished. That can keep them out of school and it can keep them from coming to Life Center. So we will look at different ways to supply something simple as even a water catchment system, which is just a large tank that is connected to the church. The runoff from the rain goes to the roof and comes down into the tank and stores the water. We have filters on that so that the kids can drink and use and clean with that. Those are simple things. Sometimes it's just home water filter systems to where even if they have to go to the dangerously contaminated lake or river, they can still use the filters to drink from that. And I've done that. I've seen the dirtiest water on the top filter go through and become clean. And I've had a drink of it and it tastes like normal water to me. So simple things like that can make a huge difference in keeping kids out of the hospital and keeping them in school and attending Life Center. So it's really a targeted approach to where we look at region by region and say, what is the most important thing here that is causing these kids not to be in school and not to come to Life Center? If we can identify those things, then we will do what we can to try to address them. Sometimes we do that ourselves because we have the ability to mobilize those things. We have sources, etc. Sometimes we don't. And as a result, we go to a partner of ours. So one of the partners we have is around water filtration systems. We don't build those things ourselves. These people, that's their mission in life is to supply clean water to people because Jesus is life. Jesus is water to these people. We're happy to partner with them because that's their mission and their expertise. And we know the people that need them. So we get together on items like that. We have contractors and things that we use for shelter. And in the country of Peru, we have people that are homeless and they just don't have a place to live. Their walls are made of cardboard and they need something a little bit better. They're not getting a 3,000 square foot house. They're getting something that is completely suitable and worth it for them, but a huge step up. And we have a team of people that knows how to build those houses. So we really partner together when we need to. Sometimes we can do it ourselves, but we're looking at the key thing in that area that's a barrier and then doing our best to try to remove those if we can or just turn the volume down on those things so that it doesn't inhibit kids from coming to Life Center or being in school. Do you find that a lot of the kids, you know, you mentioned sickness and homelessness and some of those other things. Do you find that just the regular warp and woof of their life, work, you know, they have to actually help support families that they're, especially you think you mentioned earlier, you know, a lot of single parent homes, you know, so they, I'm going to assuming resources are short no matter what. And so kids really do have to help out. I mean, I hate to even say it this way, but it sounds kind of flippant, but help out around the house. Like do the various tasks that keep a household running in conjunction with the parent. Is that a hindrance as well? It can be a huge issue and particularly for even the youngest of kids. So as an example, many of the kids, again, going back to Africa, are the people that go and fetch the water. So what that means is they have these jerry cans and some of them are quite large. These kids are small and they're walking miles to the nearest water source to then fill those jerry cans and then walk them back to their house. They might do that twice a day and that is their job. So in between trying to attend school and trying to do all of those things, their job is to go get the water for the family. And of course, they're on the roads doing that, walking around, could be dangerous situations they might find themselves in. But just the energy it takes. And again, I can't overstate, some of these kids are so small and they're holding these massive tanks and trying to get them from point A to point B. So that's a common thing to be seeing on the roadside. But again, most of these issues for the families, everybody participates. At some level, everybody's got a job to do. And going back to the resources and things, it's so common for these families to be day laborers. That means you don't know what money is coming tomorrow. You have no idea where the next food plate is going to come. I had a young mom come to me and we were at a church where we were having Life Center that day. And at Life Center, part of what we supply is a really great nutritious meal for a kid. So they got a pile of food on there, more than they probably have seen, but it fills them up. And I just was very excited about nutritious food coming into the bodies of these kids. But this young mom came to me and she says, you have no idea how significant this food is. And I was like, well, yeah, I can't look at the big plate. You know, she's like, no, no, no, you don't have any idea. She says, let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed with inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty. More families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation. Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text guide to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text guide to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. For this day on a Saturday, I don't have to worry about where I'm going to get the meal for my child. That means I don't have that kind of stress in the morning thinking about where lunch or dinner is going to come from because that's how limited their resources are. That's how they have to kind of just go by the hour to know how to plan for basic needs for the family. And on that day, she looked at me and she said, I don't have the stress today. And I thought, whoa, that, you know what, that's a huge, huge significant thing for that family. She can rest a little bit, not having to worry about how to feed her child that day. But that's a very common, common situation. Most moms, if they're obviously the only parent in the home, they're leaving and they're finding a way to sell something or to create something to bring in some kind of income. Some of them might be lucky enough to have a little plot next to them where they can grow some vegetables. And if they can do that, then they can have some food for the house. They can go to the market and sell those things. But again, it's day by day. It's nothing you can sit and rely upon. And as a result, there's a lot of questions about what's going to happen tomorrow. What's going to happen next week. So when we explain to our kids that, you know, being a believer, being a part of God's family doesn't mean that anything is going to change for you here. It means you have a hope of a place, a home, and a part of God's family where you will never witness or be a part of anything you see here again. Let's have that hope. I just really don't feel comfortable talking to kids or to parents and saying, listen, we can bring you out of poverty. That we don't have that power. The government doesn't allow that. There's a lot of barriers that exist that won't make that happen. So I don't promise that. We don't ever promise that. But we talk about a hope that they can place in heaven and a citizenship there. So no matter how bad things are here, the faith and the hope they have in being a part of God's family is really what they look to instead of the poverty and the problems that they're having today. It's really interesting to hear you talk through, especially the lady who said, you know, I don't have to worry about what I'm going to eat today, what I'm going to feed my family today. I've had conversations with several people on the podcast, and one of them was with a woman who does ministry for military wives, military families. And when I asked her, you know, what are some practical things that everyday

And it just strikes me that, you know, we have these needs over in the States. I mean, I think, you know, in my mind when I'm asking the question about, you know, the kids working and you're talking about them carrying water back and forth twice a day, you know, I mean, we're struggling with it even as parents of teenagers, travel sports on Sundays, which was never a problem when I was a kid. Things just get busier and church tends to get squeezed out. And it's a completely different and it's a totally, you know, privileged problem. Travel sports are not exactly essential to life, but it creates the same problem you're expressing is that there are these hindrances and obstacles within our lives that we need to be figuring out how to get rid of if we really want people to feasibly have the opportunity to grow in Christ. And I don't say that in some sort of weird strategic way, but I think it's just the reality. You know, the worries and the anxieties of life tend to choke out faith if we're not careful. And so removing some of those can really be a help to people. Yeah, and, you know, what you say is true of everybody in the world, right? Believers in the U.S. can struggle just like believers in India, Africa, Peru, or anywhere else around, you know, what's going to happen next? And can I have security and assurance and can I trust? And, you know, obviously here in the U.S., we go through economic issues, things like that, and people wonder if they're going to have a job next month and all that. So there's a certain level of that anxiety and things that I think that lives in the life of every believer, no matter your circumstances. But in most cases, there's a bit of distance between what's happening now and what might happen. In these countries, the distance is very short. It's like, you know, what's happening tonight for dinner? Don't know, right? That kind of anxiety is just a different kind than, you know, the economy's going a little weird. I wonder what, right? So I think that's the big difference there. Now, I will say that, you know, when we're talking about distractions and barriers and stuff like that, I am always amazed by the simplicity of life in these places. They don't have the distractions we do. There's not a phone going off every two seconds. There's not Netflix on TV to watch. There's not, you know, all these things to do every moment that, you know, as a result, you're either at home or in school if you're a child. That means Sunday, if you are a part of a believing family, church is all day. I mean, there isn't anything else to do, right? So you show up, and you're at church most of the day, and you have fellowship with people. I mean, most church services in Africa are three hours long. And that, you know, if you get out after three hours, you're doing pretty good. Sometimes it might even go into four. It's because that's where life is that day. So, you know, I really do appreciate the simplicity of that, the lack of distraction. When you don't have these kind of just amenities everywhere like we do, you do sometimes take a different view of life. Things just slow down, you know. And I do think that's a great benefit for the kids who do come up in our program, decide that, you know, becoming a believer is a pretty good idea, and see their lives change, that when they get involved with a local church, there is a real community there. And there are people who love on them and people who just love being at church. And that's different, right? I mean, I know that in America, you know, I've been to many, many churches where the sermon starts to go into 22 minutes. It's like, hey, how much longer are you going to go here? Whoa, wait a minute. Right, and there is no sense of that in these other countries. You want to worship for an hour? Let's just worship for an hour. So, yeah, it's quite different. But I think the simplicity of life and the lack of all of the luxury and amenities can, if it's directed in the right areas, be of huge benefit and can really grow the connection of families, definitely the connection with families and their church, where church becomes a part of everything they do, not only Sunday, but most of the days of the week. So you can see that when we're approaching a child who has not yet understood who Jesus is or has not yet been to church and their family hasn't either, that by bringing this child to Life Center on Saturday, that truly is a seed that starts to grow, that once that starts happening and the child goes home and mom or dad or mom and dad are like, something's different about you. What's going on? They turn around and start going over to the church to say, what's happening here? The church starts to jump into gear and says, hey, well, why don't you all come over tomorrow on Sunday and you'll see a little bit more and you'll meet some people. We have seen, because of a child coming to Life Center, an entire family become Christians and start attending church. That is just nothing but the plain work of God. And for us to have a little piece of that is just such a privilege. And that's how communities change. That's how, you know, the corruption and the deception, things like this start to dissolve because whole families are being transformed. And that issue of deception and corruption, it's everywhere. I mean, you grow up as a kid knowing that if you want to be protected or even cross the street, you got to give a shilling to that guy on the corner. I mean, these things are just so normal. One of the people in my office just got a driver's license and went to go do the driver's test. And he said, I had to have my, he calls it gratuity. I had to have my gratuity for the driving instructor because if I want to get a license, he has to get his gratuity. These things are so baked in to the culture that it becomes normalized. And as a result, kids grow up thinking that's just how life works. So if I can be a little deceptive or if I can think of a little bit of a scam, I'll get some that will help me and maybe others around me. And there's nothing wrong with that because what else can I do? And, you know, that's where the church really has to come in and say, there's a better way. You don't have to do that. You know, Christ commands us to be holy and to understand what that is and to leave our old self behind. And that means in every way, not in just some ways. And I am just delighted when I see whole families convert and come to church and become Christian and really be a part of the community. It's just, again, an amazing work of God. You know, you don't, I don't want to discount the work that God does in America either, but I think something you said really resonates. I've worked a good deal in the area of technology. As a software guy, you'll probably kind of appreciate this. But there's a gentleman named Andrew Borkman who used to write, he used to be a philosopher out at the University of Montana. He wrote a book called Technology and the Character of Contemporary Culture. I believe that's the right title. But he talks about the difference between devices and things. And a thing is like, he uses a wood-burning stove. And he just encourages you to think about all that goes into creating the heat in a wood-burning stove. You know, there's somebody who has to go out and cut the wood and bring it back. There's someone who has to light that stove. There's preparation that goes on to cook on that stove. And then that stove is normally the heat for the home. And so you're gathered around it. It becomes, it's not just, hey, let's turn on the heat. It's something that everybody gathers around. It becomes a focal point for the community and the family to be working together, dependent on one another, and have community together versus a device, which is like our thermostats, which now is on my phone. I mean, I can mess with my wife and turn the heat down real far, you know. And she'd never know. But there's no real effort there. And it just strikes me that there is something in that way of life that is different and would yield such different results. The sort of results you're talking about where you're seeing families come to the Lord, where you're seeing the church being a more natural, maybe, part of that community than what we have over here where we're so focused on convenience. And so in talking about the problems, I guess maybe my question to you is, do you find it hard to communicate, harder to communicate the benefits of the life you see overseas than you do the problems that you see overseas? You know, there almost has to be a reciprocity in the body of Christ where we're seeing not just, oh, we should reach out and help these people, but also recognizing the beauty of the lives they're living even amidst all of that strife and difficulty. Yeah. No, I'm glad you say that because that's a very important part of why I'm involved with Child Care Worldwide. You mentioned Sally Struthers earlier and the commercials at nighttime, you know, just terrible poverty, kids laying in puddles of mud. I mean, everything, right? And I think that the need and the desire to help wears down when you start to see that again and again and again. It's like, I'm giving. Why isn't this helping, right? And I keep seeing the problem day in and day out. And everybody keeps telling me about it. We want to go the opposite. At Child Care

And, you know, we want to talk about those and explain those things, but the fact is, is we're not going to show kids on our website that have tattered clothes, that are dirty faces, that have the sour face because they're they're hurting, and we're not going to show that. We're going to show the result of what happens when God enters the heart of a child. That means joy, that means an amazing happiness on their face. It means a sense of gratitude, like they've never had. We want to show the outcome. We want to say to people that, here’s what your dollars do. This is what they do. So we have a term that we use at Childcare Worldwide. It's called proof of impact. And what we want to show people every day is that when they partner with Childcare Worldwide, they're going to see constant proof of the work being done and the transformation taking place. So they're going to see that when there's a new water tank that gets put up at a church and there's a huge inauguration program and people are there celebrating and whooping it up because... Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Now they finally have clean water. We're going to get a video of that and we're going to show that to people saying, you took part in a small way, maybe, in helping this take place. It's all about the proof of God acting. And I think many of us can be doubting Thomas's most of the time. We are aching to see God actually doing something. And some of us don't get a chance to see that often. So we go to church every Sunday. It's kind of same thing. You know, we all do that and we, we try to do the best we can with our daily devotions and all that, but it's nothing like actually seeing God do something. And our proof of impact is about showing what God's doing. So we don't have to spend a whole lot of time talking about the problem, talking about the issues, reminding people that this is happening. What we want to say is, look what happens when God enters the life of a child. It can be amazing and transform. It can transform them forever and change communities at the same time. So we go the opposite. We're not about trying to continue to hammer and, you know, kick the horse about the problem, but really say, look, there is a solution here. And that doesn't mean that life gets easier because for any Christian, that's not true. It means that it can become a bit brighter because of the promises that God makes and the promises he fulfills. So for us, proof of impact is really kind of our special sauce. And if a person decides to come and partner with Childcare, they will immediately begin to see the fruit of their gift. We'll show them exactly what we're doing. We do what we say we do, and we show people the proof of God's work in it. So that helps all of us in the ministry keep our joy up, right? We're able to see this all the time and we get excited about what's happening. We don't get depressed about the problem that just doesn't ever seem to go away, right? We have a unique solution and it's called, you know, the blood of Christ. And for us, that's just what keeps us going. So we, we see a lot of that in different advertising and different Instagram posts. It's just the same problem over and over and over again. And we want to tell people there's actually a solution. And when you see that, you can't believe the transformation in these kids' lives. And it, and it can change your life too. Very cool. I have a couple more questions and then I'm going to talk about how people can get involved with your organization and really helping out. But the first question I want to talk about is how has your experience over there? I mean, you said you were at Lagos for 25 years, I believe it was. That's right. And so, you know, since 2018 when you started working with Childcare Worldwide till now, where you're sort of transitioned out of the board to the president, how has your perspective on the American church changed? How do you approach and see the church differently in, you know, that you go to on, you know, Sunday by Sunday basis? And when you walk in, what do you think? Yeah. I love that question because it's very relevant to how we're thinking right now. For the first time, Childcare Worldwide is going to be focusing heavily on making partners out of U.S.-based churches, especially those that value the gospel and the evangelization of kids highly. And, you know, these are churches that do VBS regularly. I mean, all that kind of stuff, right? Getting together with them, not as a vehicle for us to have dollars to do something, but as a way to activate the church. I see two outcomes. One is, obviously, kids are going to get transformed in countries where people probably will never go ever in their life. But at the same time, the church itself, the people in the church, will see their lives transformed and their faith activated because of the proof of impact that we're going to be sending and showing that church all the time. That's the thing I think that can really make a difference now post-pandemic in the U.S. church. We need an activation of church. I'm not going to broad brush. There's, I'm sure, plenty of amazing churches that are activated every week. I mean, doing amazing things. But for those that aren't, for those that are kind of on pilot and are just kind of acting and have relied largely on tradition, we always do this. We always support this. There's an opportunity for activation. There's an opportunity for God to come in and light the fire again. And that's really kind of the dual mission we're going after, is not just to get kids hope and help in these other countries. That's obviously our prime mission. But secondarily, watching churches activate and watching members become excited again about their faith, excited about the work that God's doing, something that they can connect to directly to see that work being done and to be filled with the same joy that God promises when you put your faith in him. And boy, I can't wait to see the opportunities that God will do as he opens doors for us to be together with U.S.-based churches to activate their members. So that, to me, I think is the most exciting thing. I, like everybody else, hates to think of a church that's dead, a church that's just going through the motions, that is barely making ends meet because of a lack of tithing and all these things. And I die. I desire to see a church that's activated and on fire for God, even though that might mean, you know, that church is activating locally or activating internationally through us. The activation is the point. And if we can see more U.S.-based churches doing that, man, what a wonderful thing that would be. Very cool. I'm going to save my last question for after you answer the question about how people can get involved because I think it flows better this way. So how can people get involved with Child Care Worldwide? I mean, the church activation piece you're working on, what else? What do you have available now if somebody wanted to do something with you? Yeah, we have two simple ways that people can get involved. One way is to become a sponsor of a child. By choosing a child to sponsor that child, you know that child directly. You have a relationship. It's an individual relationship that you can write letters back and forth. You can be a part of that child's life. So often the kids in country either call you aunt or uncle or dad or mom because that's just the culture. So you'll suddenly adopt a kid from someplace. And I can tell you that the joy of being able to help and be a part of that kid's life is amazing. So sponsorship is an opportunity there. You can actually choose the kid from whichever country you want. That's $42 a month. That involves everything from school fees being paid to life center attendance every Saturday, which includes the food and the fresh water and all those things. That's $42. If you just simply want to see the gospel being sent and delivered to children, we have something called life center membership. And life center membership is $25 per month. That doesn't involve knowing a kid directly. It doesn't involve the letters or school fees, but it gives them membership to life center every Saturday. And they can be there with other kids, form lifelong friendships, hear the gospel preached every Saturday, get involved with worship time, play time, an enormous amount of food for them and plenty of clean water for them there. You know, life center is a little oasis for a child. And being able to see this all the time and we get excited about what's happening. We don't get depressed about the problem that just doesn't ever seem to go away. Right. We have a unique solution and it's called, you know, the

You want to be there, you know, they come early and they leave late. It's it's just a place that they love to be. We have too many kids who are not sponsored, and as a result, they stand outside the door and can't come in. They cannot participate in Life Center because they don't have the support. And all those kids that are waiting in the churchyard want to come into the church. They want to put on their blue Childcare Worldwide t-shirt. They want to be a part of Life Center. And Life Center membership at $25 a month can do that. So it's really those two things. You want an individual relationship? Become a sponsor because it's just amazing to know that you're supporting a child that can talk to and work with you and pray for you and all those wonderful things. If you want to help kids learn who Jesus is, Life Center membership is the best way to do that. So those are really the two ways. And we would be grateful for anyone that wanted to participate at that level. Fantastic. Well, we'll have the links in the show notes so people can link over to your website, check that out. And I'd encourage listeners to do so. I think the other thing I'd just like to close out, I ask all my guests this, and I think you'll have a unique answer to this, but what do you think that Christians in the United States should be thinking about to be more faithful in being and making disciples? Everybody, I think, at some level, if you're a Christian, if you've been a Christian for a while, you understand Christ's command to make disciples, but you don't always know how to do that. Some people are not comfortable going next door and knocking on their neighbor's door. Some people are not the type to stand on the corner with the sign saying, you know, John 3.16. There's just all sorts of things. And I think people immediately put that into that category. Like, oh, I have to go to the mission field. Oh, I got to go knock on my door. I mean, they think that that's what that means. And that's not true at all. There's so many ways to be on team Great Commission. And I think that even partnering through an organization like ours lets you to be a part of that team and lets you be involved in the work that ultimately God is doing. For whatever reason, God uses humans. He uses us. And I want to be a part of a team that he is happy to use. I have what is, I think, probably the shortest prayer I pray every day. One, I say, God, thank you for saving me. And I say, make me available. And I stop there. That's the prayer I pray every day. And that's what I would hope that a Christian who's listening today, who wants to be involved some way but maybe doesn't know exactly how to do that, just pray that God will make you available. If you're sincere about that prayer, watch out. He will make you available. You will be put into circumstances and be partnered with people that will make that happen at any level, at any level. And I think that's the key thing. You know, as Christians, let's be available. Let's be available to each other. Let's love our neighbors. Let's learn what it means to do that in a world where we're so divisive, where politics is constantly in our face every day. You know, let's recognize and understand what loving your neighbor means. And let's be available. If we're sincerely asking God to do that, he will do it. And we'll be amazed by what he does. Very cool, man. Guy, I appreciate that answer, Bill. It's been fantastic to talk with you. I love what you guys are doing at Childcare Worldwide. And like I said, we'll have all the links in the show notes and all the fun stuff for people to connect with your ministry. But just encourage everybody to take a look at it and really think through. I think you've done a great job of talking this through and just giving us a picture of what it is that your ministry does. And it's a really beautiful thing that you've transitioned this to focus on the gospel. I think it's really crucial. So thanks for being here, man. I appreciate it so much. Thanks for the time. I just always love talking about what God's doing. Absolutely. And I get excited about that. So really, thank you for the opportunity. Yep, not at all. Love it. Well, hey, everybody, that is the end of this episode of Thinking Christians. So we'll catch you again next time. Check out the links in the show notes and really consider supporting Childcare Worldwide. Thanks, everybody. Take care. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Well, the physician comes in and says, tells this lovely couple, hey, your son's not going to make it, but there's a young girl here in the hospital who just delivered a baby girl and she's given her up. She's going to leave her here. Do you want her instead? That was chart-topper Ryan Stevenson sharing a personal testimony on The Walk, a podcast for worshipers. Join us weekly to hear artists, songwriters, worship leaders, filmmakers, and other creatives tell their stories in the form of a devotional. The Walk can be found on lifeaudio.com or your favorite podcast platform.