David:     We call these get together via podcast “Before We Go.”

Karen:     And that’s because these visits are an opportunity for the two of us to reflect on our lives and the lessons, we’ve learned through the many decades the Lord has allowed us to live.

David:     In this visit we’re talking about the value of pursuing friendships with people unlike ourselves.

Intro:      Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David:     Would you agree, Karen, that most people tend to gravitate to friends of their same race, politics, religion, whatever?

Karen:     I think that’s the natural flaking together instinct for all of us humans. And that’s true. But in our long lives we’ve discovered that purposely pursuing friendships with people unlike ourselves can pay rich dividends.

David:     Let’s give some examples of those kind of people, okay? I ask you to think about it. I’ve been thinking about it. It’s been kind of a fun thought process to go through.

Karen:     It’s been a retrospective. Very nice.

David:     One of the persons who immediately came to my mind was from India. I met him when he was a young man, burning with passion to reach his country for Christ.

Karen:     His continent for Christ.

David:     Well, that’s right. In fact, I remember saying to him, “Why don’t you just concentrate on one country? India’s big enough.” “And oh, no, Asia. You need to see Asia, one for Christ.”

But what a wonderful connection that was for me.

Karen:     In his name?

David:     Well, his name is K.P. Yohanan. He’s the Bishop of the Orthodox Church in India.

As I’m thinking about it, I had no idea who he would become when I first met him because he was kind of a nobody. He had come here to the States to study in a Bible college. And he was looking for people who would agree with him that the day of missions was changing. And you had to think not in terms of continuing to send people over there, but all these converts over there. They’re tremendous skills they have if we just utilize them and support them. And he wrote a book called “Revolution in World Missions,” which was a phenomenal book. And it’s old. I think it’s like three, three and a half, four million copies now.

Karen:     It was a Revolution in World Missions because he said, why are we paying for mostly Western Americans? Let’s just say that. To come to India. They don’t know the language. They don’t know the customs. They have…

David:     …all kinds of experiences just to bring them over.

Karen:     And they need a larger salary than what Indians would need who are working in the same sorts of business. And so, he put that dream out and all kinds of people from all of the caste systems in India. Even the highest caste, were moved by the Holy Spirit, I’m sure, to begin planting churches. They were the ones who were not waiting for Western missionaries to come and do that. They took the initiative and there were just thousands and thousands of people who became Christians because of that.

David:     And what K.P. did was he stayed here in the States to raise funds. I don’t enjoy raising funds. I don’t know if he did or not, but he built a phenomenal organization.

Karen:     I think it’s the largest mission-sending organization in the world. And I know it’s one of the largest, if not the largest development organizations in the world, because he combined the needs of the people going in and not just preaching the gospel, but also reaching the needs of the social needs of the population with the giving of the gospel.

David:     This friendship through the years, it’s benefited me in so many different ways. Just this little incident, he first came from Dallas looking for friends who would be supportive of him. And he came by our office. And our son, Randal, l was just at that point in time, probably high school, early college, working on the hedges around the office, and he said, “How do I get an appointment with a man in charge?” And Randall said, “Come with me. Just walk me right into the office.” Who else could do that?

We talked for maybe an hour and it’s this wonderful friendship. I’ve just benefited so much from that. And I think if I say I don’t have time, he didn’t look like someone important to me. That’s not what happened. It was a wonderful gift the Lord gave to me.

Karen:     You would have missed out. And plus, how many times have you been to India with the gospel?

David:     Yeah, he said to me, “You’ll never understand what I’m feeling about India unless you come with me.” So yeah, I’ve been there I think seven or eight times. And I’ve always gone over with KP or his son Danny. It’s absolutely mind boggling what he’s been able to accomplish in his lifetime.

Karen:     So, let’s remind our listeners what we’re asking them to do because it’s easy to get that thought lost in our stories.

David:     Well, what we’re doing is saying sometimes these unusual relationships develop into something that’s massive as far as your life is concerned. So, you need to be open to other people and really working on saying let’s develop that friendship.

Karen:     To be intentional about it.

David:     Do you have somebody in mind?

Karen:     I do. I have a whole bunch of people in mind.

David:     It’s been fun thinking about it.

Karen:     Yeah, it has really been fun working on this because it’s like we said, a retrospective of our lives. But I was asked to serve on the Medical Ambassadors International Board, MAI. This is an organization that use health needs around the world as their way to step into a community and begin to help the community. Or those people all around the world again to come to terms with basic health understandings.

David:     And in the process they get introduced to the person of Jesus.

Karen:     And that was the door that opened the way for the MAI workers to tell the story of Jesus. And it has made extraordinary inroads across the world. It’s just extraordinary inroads because of their methodology. So, I pulled my MAI file out. One of those plastic boxes.

David:     Who have you met in your lifetime who’s not like you that’s enriched your life? So, you got the MAI. What does that stand for again?

Karen:     Medical Ambassadors International.

David:     Okay, and so what did you come up with?

Karen:     I came up with all these wonderful names. Well, there was Viviana McLeod. She’s a doctor. Many of these people were in the medical field in one way or another.

David:     Yeah, I think you visited her in Haiti.

Karen:     In Haiti. She was from Venezuela. She married a Canadian.

David:     Effervescent personality. Tremendous skills.

Karen:     She had Canadian citizenship. But the point where I met her was, as she was working in Haiti, that was part of her field. So, that was Viviana McLeod. Just wonderful, wonderful person.

Let me find some of the other names here. Charlotte Duel. This is a gal who is still going into countries you wouldn’t go into easily to share the gospel. Your life would actually be in peril. So, I’m not going to give her real name, but she would go into Afghanistan. And they had this village methodology called Community Health Education that had developed in Africa. These are worldwide people. They could take that methodology and give tools to people. So, the CHE, it’s called CHE, Community Health Education methodology would just spread like wildfire because it was easily taught. And people who were even illiterate could learn it and then teach it to the members of the local village. So, one of those people who is a world changer, very different than I am because I would never have done anything like that with Charlotte Duel.

David:     I have another name and kind of coming at it from a different angle. You’ll know this name right away. Cirillo Leon.

Karen:     Yes.

David:     Now he’s a friend of both of us and he comes from Mexico, way, way in the south of Mexico. The state is called Oaxaca. And what would you say his employment is?

Karen:     He’s an immigrant gardener.

David:     Well, he would be considered a laborer, but actually first met him when I went over to my brother Doug’s house. Doug was an orthopedic surgeon. He’s dead now. He had quite a large estate and he met Cirillo and said, “I will teach you how to become a gardener if you’ll just stick with me on a continuing basis,” which Cirillo did. And there was a very close relationship between the two of them. Cirillo had very broken English.

Karen:     He still does.

David:     Yeah. Well, he’s much better now, but it’s not as though he went to some course to learn how to speak English. He just picked it up, but he comes up every year. And what I have learned from him, it’s just amazing. The hard work, he is always on time. He comes to our house once a week.

I would say that he does about the work of two or three people. He’s absolutely amazing. But seeing him and the struggle of having to be away from his family for these many months at a time. He calls them by cell phone and so on. But what a tough life and just this steadiness. And the beauty in fact, Cirillo has become a believer which makes it even more endearing to us. But he’s one of those persons I would have missed out so much in my life if it hadn’t been that I knew Cirillo.

Karen:     Well, he lived with us for three summers. So, we really did get to know him.

David:     Yes.

Karen:     We had an extra room in the basement and so I said, “Well, why don’t you come stay there?” And so, he did come and live with us and ate at our table. We shared our meals with him, and he said to me, “I never thought I’d be in the American home.” Seeing our world through his eyes, of course, then running places to get his vaccine shots and his papers and our son who died at age 42, he had his own immigration outreach ministry.

So, I got exposed to all of that through Cirillo. And Cirillo being in our home, and we visited him in Oaxaca. His wife was a beautiful woman and she died of breast cancer. So, we went through that grief process with him and now he got in the car first time. I picked him up this summer after he had arrived here and he’s living with friends up the road with more room. And he said, “I tell you. I tell you first.”

David:     Yeah, this was like three years after his wife had died.

Karen:     Yeah, I have good, good happen. And I said, “Well, Cirillo, tell me, I’m so eager to hear.” “I found a lady to love.”

David:     Yeah, so wonderful.

Karen:     And I was so thrilled and happy for him. He told me about her and how they had met. And I said, “Well, can I tell David?” “Oh,” he said, “you tell. You tell everybody.”

David:     You tell Mr. David.

Karen:     So, we just have loved him and it has been a real look at the immigration systems through his eyes.

David:     The tenacity of people like this. He has two sons. One of them is just graduated from medical school. Absolutely incredible.

Karen:     So wonderful.

David:     Yeah. So, we would have lost out on so much if we hadn’t met Cirillo and people like him. I have another one. Are you ready?

Karen:     Yep.

David:     Go ahead.

Karen:     Well, how about this name? Dio.

David:     Oh, my goodness. Yeah, Dio is from Nigeria. He was up in the area caring where the Bocca Raton had come in and his life was in danger. Yeah.

Karen:     He’s a regional coordinator. It was at that time for medical ambassadors in West Africa. But these are extraordinary people. Now the backstory on Dio was he was a prince in his tribe.

So, we don’t have that kind of knowledge about these sorts of systems that are different than our American Democratic system. We elect our officials. We don’t understand what it’s like to be the prince of your tribe, but we got a glimpse of it.

David:     A name that is similar, at least in terms of the continent, Africa, Uganda. I had a chance and I really wanted it to meet Festo Kivengere. I’m not Anglican. He was a bishop with the Anglican Church. But during the reign of terror of Idi Amin, the Archbishop was murdered, and the word was out that they’re after Festo now. And he and his wife had to walk through the mountains at night.

Karen:     They had to escape.

David:     Yeah, to escape. Then come over here and in parts of Europe where he’s trying to put his life back together again. But what an incredible man and handsome, tall, articulate. I learned a lot from him about revival, Karen.

This has been an interest of mine for a long time. But when he talked about revival and they experienced it, it was different than when you read the books of people from England or from the States or so on. I just want to read a little bit from one of his books called Revolutionary Love. And it gives you a feel of the total differentness of his world and how it affects how we think about our own world.

“We were a cattle people,” he writes. “To my tribe cows were what made life worth living. By the time I was three, I knew the name of every one of my father’s 120 cows, bulls, and calves. Some men I knew thought more of their cattle than of their children. So, there were many, many things that happened that were incredible during the revival. For instance, one day the chief was holding court and his elders were listening to his wisdom when a man arrived who was well known to be in pig and wealthy in cattle. His servants had eight fine cows they were driving along, and all the elders turned to look at them appreciatively. The cattle baron greeted everyone and then said, ‘Your honor, I have come for a purpose.’

The chief answered, ‘Fine, what are these cows for?’ ‘Sir, they are yours. I have brought them back to you.’

‘What do you mean they’re mine?’ ‘Well, sir, when I was looking after your cattle, I stole four of them when I told you we had been raided. These four are now eight and I brought them to you.’ ‘Who discovered this theft?’ ‘Jesus did, sir. He’s given me peace and told me to bring them.’

There was dead silence and no laughter. It was quite a shock. My uncle could see that this man was rejoicing, and all knew that what he had done was impossible for a man of our tribe. ‘You can put me in prison, sir. Have me beaten. I deserve it, but I’m at peace and a free man for the first time.’

‘Hump,’ said my uncle. ‘If God has done that for you, who am I to put you in prison? Leave the cattle and go home.’

A day or two later when I saw my uncle, I said, ‘I hear you got eight good cows free.’ ‘Yes, it’s true.’ ‘You must be happy.’ ‘Forget it. Since that man came, I can’t sleep. I have wanted the peace he has, but I would have to return a hundred cattle.’”

It just gives you a whole new view of the gospel and its reach around the world. And again when the presence of God touches people’s lives.

Karen:     So, what we’re saying is deliberately, intentionally make relationships with people that are different than yourself because they can change your thinking about the world.

David:     They really can. In our church, they had a testimony from a man whose home country was Peru. And then the Lord touched his life. He’s now here in the States. He’s married a Christian woman from the States. I thought to myself when I heard his testimony, I could learn from that man. So, he’s coming for breakfast with his wife and his two young daughters. We will get to know him and see what the Lord has for us and maybe for him as well in that relationship. But again, let’s go through that sentence that we have been writing as the key to the program. Okay?

Purposely pursuing friendships with people unlike yourself can pay rich dividends. I don’t know how to find a verse that supports that, but this kind of comes close to it as to how God acts. This is from Matthew 5.

If you read only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Don’t even the pagans do that. Your Father in heaven sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

In other words, you’ve got to expand your vision so it’s not just your little clump. So that’s what we’re saying. Do you think that people will hear us and maybe be more sensitive to that possibility in their lives?

Karen:     I think that we are living at a time of such extraordinary globalization. We have such a large immigrant community. Of course, we’re all descendants from immigrants here in America.

David:     That’s a good reminder, isn’t it?

Karen:     I think there are opportunities all over the place. Sometimes we see that the new neighbors are different from ourselves, and we think that’s interesting, but we don’t act on it. We’re just encouraging people if they have the opportunity to act on it. And if they don’t have a near opportunity to seek one out and then to act on that.

David:     And I think the Lord will be in some of those. And if not, you haven’t lost anything. You probably learned something as well. And it may even be life changing. These people who we’ve mentioned, and we have a longer list that we haven’t talked about, they have changed our lives for the better and we are grateful.

Outro:     You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all lower-case letters, hosts@beforewego.show.

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