#011 Lielson Penido - A Life that Preaches the Gospel

Speaker A: You are listening to GC Talk with Bo Ellis. This show is produced by Great Commission Partnerships in Tampa, Florida, to bring you inspiration and conversation with pastors, church planters and missions leaders who are making disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ locally, nationally, and around the world.

Speaker B: Hello, friends, and welcome to GC Talk. I'm Bo Ellis. Today we're talking the Great Commission with a missionary who, when he says God pulled him out of a garbage can, he means it literally. He was just a newborn when the Lord used a pastor, missionary, and his wife to rescue him and adopt him as their own. His name is Lielle Simpanito, and his very life is a picture of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And he wouldn't have it any other way. Brazilian born, he grew up on the mission fields of Ecuador, finished school in the US and served later with the IMB as a missionary in Spain and Portugal. More recently, he's a church planter who also serves as a chaplain and as a catalyst with the Tampa Bay Baptist Association. And we're blessed to call him friend and to have him as our guest on this episode. So let's bring in our friend, Lee Elson. Pastor Lee Elson, welcome to the show.

Speaker C: Hey, Bo, it's a great pleasure for me to be here with you today, man.

Speaker B: Thank you for taking the time to talk about the Great Commission, to talk about calling. And it's fitting that we have you on because you are a missionary. Uh, you've served with our IMB overseas, you've served as a catalyst, you've served as a pastor, a church planter, all these roles that we hope to help people, uh, try to figure out with the Lord. And here we've got you on, um, to just share part of who you are and, and how you grew up. Um, tell us a little bit about your, your background.

Speaker C: Okay, brother? Um, no, just to say what you just said about, you know, serving as a missionary. You know, I always believe this. This is something that I have in my heart. Every Christian is a missionary. Every Christian that has, you know, being saved, you are already a missionary by default. In my case, I decided to pursue as a career as a missionary, but just to start. When I started my father, my mom received, uh, the call to be missionaries from the Brazilian Baptist Convention when I was about 10 years old. But, uh, at the age 11 and a half, uh, they decided to accept

Speaker D: the call to serve, uh, in Ecuador in South America, uh, but to work in the jungle with Indians.

Speaker C: Um, so in 1982, we decided to move to Ecuador. Um, for me, was Um, I didn't know the difference between Brazil and Ecuador. For me it was just another place similar. But I feel that there was nobody speaking my language there because we have to learn Spanish first. Then we had to learn Quechua, which was the local language of the Indians there. So I stayed there for a couple years, had an amazing time living in the jungle with hard in the beginning to cope with the difference. After you leave in a city living, uh, in the middle of nowhere, you know, have to learn how to create your own things and get water. But my seeing my father Joy and my mom Joy to serve, and seeing, uh, people coming to Christ, you know, little by little, Lord started to work in my life. I believe those experience that I have helped me a lot to form, um, and accept the calling of Jesus in my life to about to be a missionary.

Speaker B: Well, take us back though. Tell me where you're from in Brazil.

Speaker C: So I was born in the state of Minas Gerais. The city is called Belo di Sante, which is considered the third largest city in Brazil after Rio and Sao Paulo. So it's a very big metropolis, about five, six million people. Um, so I am an adopted son. So, um, just to make his story very short, um, my mom and my dad could not have a child. But they decided to go to the hospital, uh, to seek for a boy or a daughter. Uh, in the meantime, my biological mother, uh, did not want me to have me. She already had six children at that time. And she found out she was pregnant with me. She did everything she could to abort me, but God had different plans and she couldn't. So at, uh, my birth, in the hospital, um, on the way out, uh, with the hospital, she threw me in the trash can. And I stayed there for a couple hours.

Speaker D: I don't know, maybe a couple hours, I don't know exactly.

Speaker C: In the meantime, my mom and my dad on the way to the hospital,

Speaker D: parked the car very close to the garbage can and hear this baby crying. And they go by and open the can and see this. That's me there crying.

Speaker C: And the moment that they saw that, it said, this is the one.

Speaker D: This is the one we want.

Speaker B: Brother, that's unbelievable. You just preached the gospel in your testimony that, um, the Lord has pulled us out of the pit. Brother, your parents pulled you out of a garbage can? That's unbelievable. What a testimony.

Speaker C: I, I say this all the time. If God can use me, can use anybody.

Speaker D: Amen.

Speaker C: Um, I was destined to die. There was a death sentence in my life. But, you know, on the Story of

Speaker D: Joseph, when they see the brother said, what you try for evil, God turned into good.

Speaker C: And I, I feel very blessed for that. So I grew up in a Christian family.

Speaker D: My father was a pastor, my mom was a newspaper worship leader, uh, choir,

Speaker C: reactor, things like that. So I was taught very early on love the Lord.

Speaker D: And my parents taught me the way of the Lord. And so I was turning 11, we moved to the mission field where I

Speaker C: grew up among Indians, uh, for three years. Ah. After that, my mom decided they need

Speaker D: to go to a school.

Speaker C: So we then decided to move to

Speaker D: the capital of Quito in Ecuador. And after being there for also another

Speaker C: three years, my father decided to move to another jungle.

Speaker D: And he got a call to go to New York.

Speaker C: What a big.

Speaker B: What a jungle. Yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, what a change for me. I moved to this place and I went back to Ecuador like two months later. I couldn't stand that noise, that cold, the higher apartments, high buildings. But in there, you know, God started also continue to work in my life as well. Not only during the time in the jungle, but also in the city in Ecuador, serving there with my dad, playing the guitar, uh, you know, playing the piano and all that.

Speaker D: But in New York, uh, I would

Speaker C: not really receive, uh, a final call from God saying, are you going to

Speaker D: serve me or what? Are you going to follow me or what? You're going to be a beauty or what?

Speaker B: So, well, you're a pastor's kid. It's, you know, it's not, it's not assumed that you would follow in your dad's footsteps, but, you know, many do. Yeah, but, but it needed to be your faith, that you needed to own your own faith. And, and every Christian kid wrestles with that because, you know, they don't, they don't want to. It's not their parents faith anymore. So what was that like for you as a teenager, uh, as a young adult?

Speaker C: Well, I always say to my children today that God doesn't have grandchild. God has children. So my children have to make their own decision. And see, growing up in a family of pastors, not only my father's the pastor, but all his brothers were pastors. And um, I don't know if I have time today, but my grandmother prayed for at least one of her son to become a pastor, a missionary. And she had four, four sons. And all four sons became pastors. And today in the family have about 17 pastors in our whole family, including me. But like you said, growing up as a pk, you know, is always challenged because there's a lot of pressure. Pressure from my mom to be, hey, because I'm the son of the pastor, uh, pressure from my dad on top of my mom because he has to take care of me. Plus I have the pressure of the people expecting me because I'm the son, I need to behave certain way. Um, I have found many friends that are not in today. They're not following the Lord, um, because they could not cope with those pressures and demands and expectations. Um, um. And I have seen many, many of them astray right now. But uh, God was working in my life little by little. Things little by little. Uh, and like we're talking about calling, right Bo? You know, calling is not like a snap of a finger. You call right now. No, it's a process of your life. It's uh, what you read in the Bible that God's confirming through the word but also confirming through your prayers. Confirmed conformity, friends, through a message to a song, but also through experience of life that God allows you to live. That you kind of each time you live. Okay, God is, God is telling me something here. Uh, and, and then you have this. I had, I had this all moment in my life that God said, do you want to come and serve with me and be, be a full time missionary? Then I decided from now on everything that I would do, I'll prepare myself

Speaker D: to be a missionary.

Speaker C: But I waited many years to really to be, become let's say a um,

Speaker D: a missionary for, as a career. 19, um, 82, 83, um, until I 2004.

Speaker B: Well you mentioned, you mentioned that word career. And it's, it's probably a term we don't, we don't lean into that very often because we, you know, it's a calling, uh, it's serving the church, serving the Lord. But at the same time, I mean we're married with kids and raising families and many in our shoes have to decide, you know, how am I going to serve um, the Lord in a way where I can uh, explore uh, these passions that God has given me and all these abilities that God has given me. And at the same time we've got to um, I like to say we gotta, we gotta pay the light bill because Tico doesn't care. They'll just turn you off. But you were, you were a young kid, you were pursuing um, a vocational ministry as in your early 20s even.

Speaker C: Yeah, yes, yes. When I mentioned a career because that's

Speaker D: what we were to use when we

Speaker C: went through the imd. Uh, you've been called to be A career missionary. What it is, um, in that case, I left everything behind.

Speaker D: You left. You leave your career, you leave your

Speaker C: house, leave your cars, dogs, pets, anything to leave behind so you can go and serve completely 100% in the mission field, not in the United States and

Speaker D: in another country in the world.

Speaker C: Uh, a lot of people, you can be an engineer, continue to be a missionary, but sometimes you use the bivocational thing sometimes to be a missionary, because like I said in the beginning, we are all missionaries and we all called to share the gospel.

Speaker D: We all called to, to bring the

Speaker C: good news to other people. In my case, I made a decision to completely leave everything behind and live just for that. Uh, so I took my family and

Speaker D: we moved and we moved and thank you.

Speaker C: The Lord has always blessed us, always provide us. Um, and when God calls, he'd pay his bills.

Speaker B: Yeah. Amen. But help us understand what that process was like, applying for you. Uh, at what age were you when you decided, hey, I'm going to pursue overseas missions. And how did you decide to partner with IMB in order to do that?

Speaker C: Um, I think, Bo, it was not like one month or one year. It was several years of my life that God was little by little, working in my life. Little by little, as. As a, As a son of a

Speaker D: pastor, son of a missionary, living in

Speaker C: the mission field, seeing the things, seeing the hardships, seeing the good things. And God was just working in my life, working in my life and being exposed to that, exposing to those things, to one moment, one time, one of the sermons my father was preaching, um, about missions, he made the call, he made the after call. He said, who really wants to make a step of faith? And decided to be obedient. And that day for me was like, you know, snap. That day say, you know what? All. Everything that you've been hearing, all these things that have been happening to you, and I'd be hearing from other people to confirm in my own life, I think you'd be a great missionary, you'd be a great pastor, you'd be a great dad. So people were affirming my life. The moment, you know what? I don't remember the age was, was 1988. Uh, right now I'm 57, so I just have to make some math.

Speaker B: Yeah, right.

Speaker C: And, yeah, but on the 20s, early, I mean, maybe 22, 23 years old, maybe, um, that one, I felt I have, I have to. Everything that from now on that I'm going to do or study has to

Speaker D: be because I want to be a

Speaker B: nutrient so at what point did you meet Veronica and you guys get married and have kids and all that?

Speaker C: So when I decided to go to the mission field, uh, to go to be a missionary, say I need to go to seminary. So when I decided to go to the seminary, a lot of people decided to say, you need to stay here in the United States to do seminaries. You know, I want to go back the same seminary my father studied.

Speaker D: I want to.

Speaker C: I want to be in the same seminary. I want to follow my father, uh, steps. So I went back to Brazil in Rio, and I went to the seminary in Brazil. And when I got to the seminary, uh, I met Veronica in my class. So she was in my class. And, well, we can have this story about how we got together in another day. But that's where I met her. And everything became story.

Speaker D: The history of our lives.

Speaker C: And we got together and we served together in missions. Uh, I got the call to missions first. I never pressured my wife to do it. Said, lord, you're going to talk to

Speaker D: her in your own way, in your own time.

Speaker C: But I'm standing on standby. The moment she say yes to me, I call IMB the next day.

Speaker B: Amen.

Speaker C: It took a few years.

Speaker B: Amen. Super. So the guy who's a native Brazilian, speaks Portuguese, plays guitar and piano and sings and obviously speaks Spanish, you know, in Ecuador, uh, God set you guys out for Portugal. Was that the first stop?

Speaker C: Yes. Portugal, uh, was the country, uh, we decided, even though Bo, when we got accepted, they. They told us, what country do you like?

Speaker D: I said, I want to a one

Speaker C: of the romantic languages. So it can be French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese. Uh, and they said. I asked, do you guys send missionaries to Brazil? That heavy border in Brazil said, imbu never sent anybody that is born in Brazil. Okay, that's fine. So they send us all these countries. They give us a couple countries. Argentina, Spain, Colombia, Portugal. And so we pray about it. And out of the descriptions of the request, the one that we felt most led was to go to Portugal.

Speaker D: But that work was to be to

Speaker C: work especially with immigrants from Africa, from Portuguese colonies. So that one was. That caught my attention. So we submitted to them. And, uh, a day later, I got a phone call from one of the representatives for IMB saying, remember I told you you cannot go to Brazil? Say yes.

Speaker D: Okay.

Speaker C: I just got out of a meeting and your name came up. To be a missionary in Brazil. I said, are you. Are you playing with me or you're just testing me? Because you told me we cannot go to Brazil. No, because we need somebody to work with the Indians in the Amazon.

Speaker D: In the Indians and the Portuguese.

Speaker C: Uh, Brazilian government will not allow any

Speaker D: foreigners to work with Indians.

Speaker C: We need a Brazilian passport to be in there. Ah. But I said, you know what? I have my share work with Indians.

Speaker D: When I was younger, my dad and

Speaker C: my mom, uh, I think God is

Speaker D: calling me to a different country. We decided Portugal and was amazing. Nine years in Portugal, one year in Spain, nine years.

Speaker B: Were you in the city?

Speaker C: Yes, I was living in Lisbon. In the capital?

Speaker B: Yeah, in the capital city. Wow. What was, what, what was it like? What was your favorite, favorite part of that and what was the hardest part of that?

Speaker C: Um, my favorite was the, the diversity. The food is amazing in Portugal.

Speaker D: The people are great.

Speaker C: Uh, the challenge that we had was to. Because I was working with kids, um, from Africa, which was like a minority group which is very, um, Europeans have attended sometimes, you know, to look down some, some of the colonies from Africa and other places. But uh, so I had to work with kids, a lot of kids from Muslim countries. Um, and God opened the door for us to open there as a soccer coach. So I had to go to FIFA, get my certification to be a soccer

Speaker D: coach for under 18.

Speaker C: And God allows to open the doors to have a club and to have this club of 150 kids by the end of the week, finish at 150

Speaker D: kids, uh, playing soccer.

Speaker B: What was the hardest part?

Speaker C: The hardest part was to work

Speaker D: um,

Speaker C: with uh, our other believers in the country. Seems uh, like they're um, they're always pulling their own way, not trying to get together. Uh, we had some difficult moments about uh, working in the ghettos. Um, a few threats, uh, that we

Speaker D: had some scary moment, that gun in the head.

Speaker C: But God protect us, um, from that, you know. So what was one of those moments

Speaker D: that we went to rescue one of the kids and one of the father came hitting him with that, with the gun in my hand, you know.

Speaker C: But God save us from that.

Speaker B: Well, it, you never really question your calling, but you always wonder in those cases is God calling me maybe to something else. So, um, you know, career missionary with IMB is, um, there's a rhythm that for us in the US we don't, we don't understand that because, you know, I've never gone overseas. But were you, was it four years on and a year furlough, what was the rhythm like?

Speaker C: So you always start as an apprentice. So it's a three years apprentice program which you basically have to learn the language in my case I didn't have

Speaker D: to learn the language because I spoke Portuguese.

Speaker C: So we went straight to ministry. But most of the pattern, or the path is you go to one year of language, you have two years more to pass the test. And then after three years, you come back to the United States.

Speaker D: Used, uh, to call furlough.

Speaker C: Now they call stateside. You come back for six months, recharge, um, and, you know, do anything you

Speaker D: need to do here and promote IMB work and all the.

Speaker C: After those three months, Six, uh, months, sorry, you come back to the mission field.

Speaker D: Now is this time as a career, um, uh, missionary. I mean, that's what they call career machinery.

Speaker C: Luigi, you stay there four years, and after four years, you allowed to come

Speaker D: back to the United states for another 12 months, uh, every four years.

Speaker B: So you guys did a couple stateside assignments. Did you have kids over there?

Speaker C: Yeah, my son was born in Portugal. Uh, my daughter was born here, but

Speaker D: when we left, she was one year old.

Speaker C: Uh, so she got there very early

Speaker D: until she grew up in that culture, uh, Portuguese culture, and Spain as well.

Speaker B: Oh, man. So, I mean, I. I've known you as someone who lives in the U.S. you know, in Tampa Bay. So what led you guys back?

Speaker C: Well, we felt. We felt some things, Lord, uh, changes in our heart, um, to move back to where some changes were happening in our own organization, um, and some challenge that we found in the city that

Speaker D: we moved in, uh, in Spain, was

Speaker C: making very difficult for my kids. Um, and we had to make a decision. I did not want to come back. Uh, to be honest, um, I still. I say this. I left imb but I AMB has not left me. Um, I still love the organization, love

Speaker D: the opportunity to serve.

Speaker C: But we decided at that moment that

Speaker D: we maybe to need to make a

Speaker C: change, uh, to return. Um, hopefully one day we come back

Speaker D: and we still talk about it all the time.

Speaker B: Well, I've had the privilege of knowing and loving missionaries like you, because you're the guys that I can have lunch with. You're the guys who are here, um, so many missionaries that I don't have that kind of relationship with who are still, you know, serving abroad. Um, what would your advice be to, um, those early, uh, missionaries that might be in the process of applying in terms of, um, giving God your. Yes. But always being open to his leading and maybe changing a direction.

Speaker C: Yes. Uh, I can answer with one word

Speaker D: that I learned from one of great

Speaker C: mentor, um, that I had. He said the key for you to success in the mission field. It's, uh, Besides your time with the Lord, besides you spending time with the

Speaker D: Lord, because that will keep you there.

Speaker C: It's called flexibility to learn to be flexible. Because, uh, you have a call and I had a call, and sometimes you have a very specific call to a very specific country. But sometimes God is moving different ways in different types of the world. That sometimes you have to be open, that God may be open to you to call in a different place. Um, my advice is just be available, uh, be available to the Lord whatever he wants to use you and God will use in a mighty way. And have an open heart, a teachable heart, so that Lord can use anywhere. You know, sometimes it's easy to go to a country that you want to go that if there's a, uh. Because, you know, it's not only like a country that you want to go with. I'm talking about amb. Okay. Other organization may be different, but sometimes you have to combine your calling with the necessity, the need of the country. Sometimes you want to go to a country that maybe there's not a need or is not a necessity is, uh, like all the country that has priority. So you have to be open for those things. So will send you a lot of options for you to pray about and

Speaker D: say, lord, maybe where you send me, I know I have the call for

Speaker C: this place, but there's not an opening right now. So maybe God is calling me to another place. So always have a teachable heart and be flexible. Uh, I think all we looking for missionaries is just to be available. I want to serve, I want to share the gospel.

Speaker D: I want to see people coming to Christ.

Speaker C: Whatever it takes, I'm available.

Speaker B: Yeah, go and make disciples. And yeah, you know, God, God uses everything that you've, you've been through to, to continue to use you and me and others in ministry. So how, how did you zero in on Tampa, Tampa Bay? What was that like? Um, as you started thinking about where you would go?

Speaker C: Yeah, the connection was, uh, interesting because we had a common friend that used to be a member of a, a church back in New York when I

Speaker D: lived in New York.

Speaker C: And he was actually the vice president of the church where my father was a pastor. So after many, many, many years, he decided to come to Florida and he

Speaker D: decided to go into ministry.

Speaker C: So he comes to Tampa, uh, and he start pastoring a church. And so I found out that he's here. So I contact. That's why we got came to Tampa, because we had, as a, we had a point of contact. Uh, a friend of mine that, uh, we came here down to, to spend some time as. To relax. You know, most people like to come to Florida. We want to come to Florida to go to the beaches and things, take my kids to Disney, things like that. So we knew he was here, but we contacted him, but, uh, we didn't

Speaker D: even know we were going to come back and live here. I never had that in my mind.

Speaker B: Well, brother, a lot of people come to Florida and set up the home and then never leave because it's a wonderful place to live and do ministry. Just a wonderful launching pad. Many, many I know can, can have a home base in Florida and still have ministries all over the world. But you guys decided to come and serve the church and then you connected to pastor, uh, Mike at the local Baptist association. I know you. You've planted a, a church in Riverview. So many, so many ways the Lord has used you. What is that passion that, that every morning you, you know, you're ready to hit the floor running.

Speaker C: You know, it's. It's interesting you saying that because that's the, the key word there.

Speaker D: The passion.

Speaker C: I woke up every day, every day

Speaker D: in the morning with a sense of

Speaker C: purpose in my life. And so when I get up, I don't get up. Uh, oh my gosh, I gotta go to work.

Speaker D: I gotta go to this. I gotta know.

Speaker C: I. I get up with a sense that this is exactly what God wants me to do. This is exactly what God wants me to be.

Speaker D: So when I come to work, uh,

Speaker C: when I met Mike Khan, I just approached him as a missionary. So look, I'm a missionary coming out of the mission field. If you know any churches that need any help missions, I'm here to help. Um, I had nothing in mind. My first six months was just doing Uber.

Speaker D: I had no idea what I was going to be doing.

Speaker C: I did Uber for six months just

Speaker D: to maintain my family.

Speaker C: God opened the door here and I

Speaker D: had the privilege to work with the

Speaker C: Tampa Bay Baptist association along with you as well.

Speaker D: BO is part of our great team here.

Speaker C: And it has been almost 10 years.

Speaker D: That journey.

Speaker B: That journey also includes, um. Is it Corporate Chaplains of America?

Speaker C: I am, yes.

Speaker D: Yes. I am also corporate chaplain.

Speaker B: Amen. And what a ministry. It's into the workplace. Tell us more about that.

Speaker C: Well, that's a fantastic for me has been one of the greatest things to do because that keeps my fire of missions are, uh, always burning because I have the opportunity every week to go into the marketplace to go to companies and intentionally seek a person, someone to talk to so I can share the gospel. So I'm always intentional when I go to the mission to those places. What you call the biggest mission field

Speaker D: in the world is the marketplace.

Speaker C: So I have the opportunity as a chaplain to go to pray for people, uh, but also seeking that opportunity so we can share the life changing news of Jesus Christ. And for me has been a privilege.

Speaker B: Well, amen. Um, just do a little commercial for the group that you ended up connecting with and, and help other folks know how to connect with them.

Speaker C: All right. So Copper Chaplains of America, it's a great organization that is based in, in North Carolina. And the intention is to have people that will uh, be the bridge between the employee and the owner. Sometimes the owner is so busy that they don't have a way to connect with the employees. They don't able to talk to the employees. So they hire us as this bridge between the employees and the owners. So uh, uh, we do rounds every week. We go to the companies every week. We try to talk to every single employee that we can. Sometimes we cannot, but we try to always talk to employees. We always, always, always available. 24 7. So I'm basically on call. I'm like a first responder. I'm 24 7. I have to sleep with my phone. In this case that's the best thing about that. But I have to be 247 and I have a 10 minutes window to re answer any call that comes to

Speaker D: my phone from any employee.

Speaker C: So we try to provide a high quality service to employees um, that go that struggling. Sometimes they don't and a struggle. So but we do visit to hospitals

Speaker D: and do funerals, we go to prisons.

Speaker C: Uh, um, we do weddings.

Speaker D: We used to do weddings anymore, but

Speaker C: no, all those kind of things that we come just to care. Uh, we have a word in missions there's a, you got to care before you share. So we try to care for those people with the opportunity hopefully to bring the good news to them. So the owner, uh, most of the owners are Christians, uh, and they understand our vision and why we are there. Uh, and we have also in our inside our own organization, uh, this logo, this mode of symbol. You have to have a missionary mentality.

Speaker B: Amen. Amen.

Speaker D: Missionary mentality, brother.

Speaker B: It's evangelism and discipleship. Two sides of the same coin. So I wonder how corporate chaplains has developed uh, I guess a policy on connecting employees to local churches. And what does that partnership look like for you and corporate chaplains as far as folks hearing the gospel and then getting connected to members in local churches that can disciple them. There

Speaker C: many churches, I'm not aware of corporate chaplains yet, but I think with something that, uh, our presidents, uh, right now, Mr. Larry Smith is trying to really to push hard for us to

Speaker D: be more connected with churches and how to help.

Speaker C: And I think we have to see ourselves, I told them we, uh, have to see ourselves as allies, as friends come alongside churches. So when we have an employee that comes to Christ, we need to find

Speaker D: out where can we point them, what church that we can plug them in,

Speaker C: you know, so we try to have a database of churches in our organization that we, depending where they live, we help them to connect to a local church. We also have materials that we also, we can start the first baby steps in Christ so we can meet with them regular basis. Uh, now we have policies, of course we have policies. We can. As a man, uh, I cannot be with, by myself, with another woman, all kinds of things. You know, it's been a public place, so we have a lot of policies. You know, we don't discuss certain subjects. Our goal is there is just to

Speaker D: care and love people, uh, and hopefully gain permission to share the gospel.

Speaker C: But we, uh, tried always to connect more, uh, employees with local churches.

Speaker B: Uh, amen. It's come alongside and it's good you mentioned that because that's the tagline for the Tampa Bay Baptist Association. And I know you're the pastor to the pastors there alongside Pastor Mike, working primarily with our ethnic churches in your area. So help us understand how the missionary heart, the Pastor Hart can help you shepherd those guys. And how have you grown in that role over the years? And what are you looking forward to maybe over the next three to five years?

Speaker C: You know, Bo, like I said before,

Speaker D: I have the privilege to grow up in a Christian family. Uh, my father's a pastor, my uncle's a pastor, cousins, pastors. I believe God has allowed me to live in this family, in this life. And I had opportunity to be in the mission field for many years as, as a kid and as a missionary

Speaker C: and also working here with association.

Speaker D: And that helped me to grow me a lot to see the heart of the pastor.

Speaker C: Um, we always talk about healthy churches, and we do have to have healthy churches, but we're not going to have a healthy church if we don't have a healthy pastor. So one of my big desires is to come alongside those pastors and care for them and try to find tools and find ways that we can help them, um, navigate this, the ministry, uh, in the ministries can be very lonely, very painful and I, I have felt that I have gone through uh, you know, burnout in my own life. So I know what it is. So in the next three years God has laying my heart, my heart and desire to be focused on more in the mental state, the spirit of that pastor. Try to create a mechanism idea of things to help pastors alleviate some of

Speaker D: those pressures from, from ministry.

Speaker C: It's going to be impossible to do to everybody. At least we have to start with something, with somebody. My goal is to help pastors with resources, financially, training, uh, anything we can to help pastors um, um to navigate ministry communities. Minister can be very painful but is

Speaker D: also very good, very great uh, amazing opportunity to be doing this.

Speaker C: It's a pleasure and an honor just

Speaker D: to be able to be a pastor.

Speaker B: Yeah. And also you're, you're connecting Spanish speaking pastors to um, internships, uh, mentoring and even accredited type coursework. Uh, tell us more about how you got some of our local pastors involved in that and how has that evolved over the years?

Speaker C: Oh yeah, after nine years ago we got in touch get uh to know

Speaker D: a great friend today that is from

Speaker C: Dominican Republic that has a great curriculum for helping people in our church to learn, to grow. And basically it's a discipleship program of two years where you help people to learn to grow. And so we came up with this progress uh, of this institute called Bible Institute uh which is our uh slogan is more the idea is to be than to do so. The idea is to make people aware maybe God is calling them the ministry over there, sharpening their skills to serve in the local churches. So we got involved with some pastors and we laid down this idea and many pastors, so many, one of some of them is killed but they're not serving only besides their church. So he said let's, let's get together, let's impact this community, let's impact the Tampa Bay in Spanish serving uh, uh, in this capacity. So for, for almost 70 years we had about more than 150 people coming through the program and uh, having their associate degree in theology. Um, last Saturday we just, I went to another one but now this time is doing by another church. We gave it to them so they can do it and they are doing uh through them and they had about

Speaker D: 25 people graduating for after two years.

Speaker C: So it's just now sitting in the pew and watching that for me is

Speaker D: a great complimentary well amen brother.

Speaker B: And what's so inspiring to me, the way you encourage me is because so many would have looked at that and said, ah, uh, too hard. I've got, I've got enough going on. You know, how could I add something else to my plate? But you, you gave God your. Yes. And you brought godly men, godly pastors from our association around that. And, um, you got up tomorrow and did it, did it, did a good day's work. And, um, God is using that. So what would your advice be for folks in ministry about, you know, not setting the, the, your plan so, so rigid that you're not able to see that maybe God is doing more?

Speaker C: Yes, I believe it's not. It's not about you, right? Not about me. It's about God. It's about his plan, his desire. And sometimes when we just put our desires in the box and they said, God, come and help me. No, I think it has to be

Speaker D: other God, what exactly you want me to do?

Speaker C: And I think that's the thing I told the pastor, you have to have

Speaker D: a bigger, uh, picture about the church. The church is not yours, it's not mine. Church belongs to the Lord.

Speaker C: But how can we as a family together unite, uh, and work together? We may have differences, we may have

Speaker D: different opinions, we may have different, um,

Speaker C: ah, way of thinking.

Speaker D: But we have one thing that can bring us together, which is Jesus Christ.

Speaker C: So let's somehow pray and they take. It was not easy in the beginning, Bo. It took a few years for them to really realize that. So it took me a lot of years to talk to them, pray with them, um, go out with them, preach in their church. So create this relationship which for me

Speaker D: was for very, very important.

Speaker C: Create this relationship that, uh, we. I'm here to come along with you guys together and we can do something

Speaker D: even bigger when we are together.

Speaker C: So anything that we do, if you're

Speaker D: even in the mission field, if. When I went to the mission field, I could not do anything by myself, had to find local believers, local churches that for me to plug in to

Speaker C: work together like you. When you do your ministry, believe you need people, uh, to come along with you, to serve with you and find partners that align with your vision to help you. So that's one of the things I try to find with the pastor, you know, always try to be kind, listen to them. And when you have the opportunity, you

Speaker D: share, you know, what God is putting in my heart.

Speaker B: Well, amen. And that for you was also planting a Portuguese speaking Brazilian church in Riverview. Um, tell us more about how you planted that church. And as we get up against time a little bit. Take us, take us through how, how, how you want to end it.

Speaker C: All right, so we uh, the church now is four years and a half. Uh, and we decided to. Because we review. I was doing some research and re.

Speaker D: Review Brandon Ruskin.

Speaker C: Those uh, areas. 20% of the homes that are being purchased in the area was being purchased by Brazilians. And I said, wow, there's something here. And I was also doing a research if there's any Brazilian church in the area at Ruskin Gibson, Apollo beach, um, Branton. And it was none. And so that thing was starting to move in my heart. I think we need to do something. And just to make the story short,

Speaker D: I don't need to go all the

Speaker C: details, but I got a phone call

Speaker D: one day that one of the church in the interview needed somebody to help with the music.

Speaker C: And Mike said look, I have a guy that a um, mile and a half from, from your church, maybe he can help you. So I called him, he, we got together, we started talking and he said what are you doing besides association? Well, I do this and this. But also we have uh, we planted a new church in my house where I have actually right now six people. So right now we just started. In my heart, in my house, six, six people. And the pastor immediately said, why you don't come to our church?

Speaker D: You can come to our church.

Speaker C: So he talked to the elders and

Speaker D: then the end of the story is that today we have been there for almost three years.

Speaker C: Um, and the church has grown considerably, about surpassing 100 people every Sunday. Um, and I'm a part of the leadership now. Now we have a brother, new pastor. I was there for, for three years and a half as the main pastor.

Speaker D: But now we have a new pastor, young pastor there.

Speaker C: And um, so God is doing amazing things. You know, uh, you know it's like Philippians 1:6.

Speaker D: The good work that he's starting, he's able to complete it.

Speaker B: Yeah, he'll complete it, brother. That's the whole point of GC talk is to bring folks like you on. Just to encourage folks, to inspire folks to, to, to let God use them. Yeah, to just with open hands, open hearts. He would just God use me today. And you've done it. And um, you're only 57 brother, so keep going.

Speaker C: Yeah, my encourage to everyone is just go, go. If you have another had an experience

Speaker D: of going the mission trip, you definitely should go.

Speaker C: It's a life changing.

Speaker B: Well as we end up, as we end this, uh, this session, I hope you'll Come back again. Would you just pray over those folks right now?

Speaker D: Of course, of course.

Speaker C: Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we, um, so blessed Lord, just to have the opportunity to use technology, Lord, just to talk about things that, uh, your heart is beating faster, which is missions. I know that we are called, um, the Great Commission is not a great suggestion, Father.

Speaker D: It's a Great Commission is an order.

Speaker C: And we have all of us to

Speaker D: go and share the word in our Jerusalem Samaria into the end of the earth.

Speaker C: Maybe some of us are not called

Speaker D: to, to go overseas. Some are called just to share in their own neighborhood, but we are called,

Speaker C: Father, help us, those that are still struggling or is just, just thinking what to do. Help them to have clear vision. Clear vision and boldness to, to make the step that they need to move forward, Father. Because I know that when you call, Father, like I said before, you pay your bills, Father, you back us, um, up and you help us through this process. May Lord continue to bless, uh, brother Bo and his ministry, uh, Great Commission, Father, that they can continue to spread, uh, the good news that changed one time only his life, but also my life as well, Father, that everyone that can come alongside, if they need any advice, they can contact Bo and for searching for, for ways to serve. And Lord, thank you for the opportunity again to just to be here and have this time with my friend. And we pray that everything that, uh, we do, we do for you, Lord, with our heart, our soul in mind. In Jesus name.

Speaker D: Amen.

Speaker B: Amen, brother. Thanks for coming on. And next time you come on, we'll talk about that book you're working on.

Speaker C: Uh, yes, I will we talk about this book.

Speaker B: Amen. See. See you later, brother.

Speaker D: I'll be ready.

Speaker B: See ya.

Speaker C: Take care.

Speaker A: Thank you for listening to this episode of Great Commission Partnerships. GC Talk with Bo Ellis. Find us wherever you get your podcasts and on the web@gcpartnerships.org where our mission is connecting Christians to missions and supporting church planters and missionaries locally, nationally and around the world.