Bill Nienhuis

David W Ebel: you Welcome to the God Says Yes podcast. You are welcome here. Welcome to another edition of God Says Yes. I'm David Ebel, I'm your host. After 50 plus years of ministry and knowing how people get hurt and kind of worn down by life, our ministry focused with this podcast is to find people where they are, whether they've been let down, abused, betrayed, ⁓ bills not paid back, church hurt, whatever it is that's got them stuck on the side of the road of faith and encourage them that People fail and as a result we get wounded by people But God didn't never fails. He created us to love we're custom made by God from the inside out So that he we look like him from the inside out We don't look like him on the outside because he created us individually, uniquely. But from the inside out, we're to be like him. So he created us to love, he always loves us, he never stops loving us, and we can't even do anything stupid enough to stop his love. Even on our worst rebellious day, his love is still pure, and it's always there for us. So today is a day that we're here to encourage you. And we want you to know that God loves you and he's got a great plan in spite of the people in the the left ounce of life. So we're grateful you're here. And I have with me my brother Bill and Bill say your last name so I don't mess it up. I'm glad you asked. ⁓ It's not an easy one, but it sounds like N E E N H O U S E. So it's Neen House. Neen House. That's a Dutch name. And ⁓ I've had to pronounce it for people all through my life. So quite accustomed to it. Would you introduce us to yourself? Yeah, thank you. I am Bill Neenhouse. And today I am the president of child care worldwide. is a child evangelism ministry serving in four different countries. We ⁓ serve in Uganda, in Kenya, in India and in Peru. And what it means to serve there is that we have something called Life Center. Life Center is in a local church, about 35 kids in each Life Center. And that local church is a partner of ours where we have a Life Center teacher. The church embraces the teacher and embraces us as a partner to them. We are not the church. We're coming alongside the church to minister to the kids in that church and disciple them and teach them about who Jesus is and why they need to know him. We have 72 life centers all over in those four countries and they operate every Saturday for three hours. And it is an amazing environment. It's a great place. God shows up every single week and we see transformation. in the lives of kids. It's just the greatest job I've ever had. All right. Now personally... ⁓ Tell us a little bit about, you know, are you married? Got kids and that kind of stuff? Yes, I am. I have a wonderful wife. name is Melissa. We have been married for 35 years. We have four adult children and we have three grandchildren with one more on the way to Lord willing in August. So we're excited about that. We have three young granddaughters and we have understood that we're going to get a grandson. So that's that's very exciting. That's right. No doubt about it. We have a golden retriever. name is Barney and he gets into trouble every day. He is a wonderful member of our family. ⁓ And we live in Linden, Washington, which is way up in the corner of Washington State. So we're actually maybe five minutes, if not a couple minutes from the Canadian border. So we're tucked up in here and it's a wonderful place to live. It's a great little community of around 12,000 people. And we've been here for about 23 years. So we really enjoy our life here and have had just a wonderful time raising our kids and now grandkids. Fantastic. I've been married 52 years and have three kids and nine grandkids. So, you know, you can catch up to me anytime you want. I'll get my kids right on that. Yes. But we're just excited that you're here. And I'm motivated by your ministry. My wife and I started with kids and family ministry. So we resonate with the same passion you have. now. Our concern for this podcast, its beginning lives, is who you were before Jesus and then when you met Him, what happened. Can you share, take your time and share some of that? Sure. ⁓ I don't have the most dramatic story. I'm not the kind of person that had lightning come out of the sky or some kind of ⁓ vision of Jesus in front of me. ⁓ My introduction to who Jesus was was a slow but deliberate introduction. ⁓ I was lucky enough to grow up in a Christian household. My mom and dad were believers and brought me to church. My brother and my sister. I'm the middle child. We were all in church every single Sunday and ⁓ on Wednesday night there was a program at church and we attended that as well and we did that for years and through my entirety of my youth and up until becoming ⁓ a teenager ⁓ I spent time in the church didn't actually know who Jesus was at that time. I was too young. I was around people who said they knew who he was. I didn't have a personal identification or anything with him other than just learning. from what my pastor preached and what my Sunday school teachers taught me and teachers and and my parents and all those folks that were in my life. ⁓ So I had a pleasant upbringing as a child. didn't have huge issues or problems. ⁓ But I did in the middle of my teenage years, right around 16 and 17 years old, experience a tragedy in my life. it was my cousin who I was very close to. He was an adventurer. He was always out doing things. He was skiing. He was hunting. He was boating. He was always out in the environment. So it wasn't uncommon at all for him to grab a canoe and go head out someplace and be gone all day and take pictures. of eagles and all things. ⁓ And one day he did take a canoe out and got caught up in some terrible weather and the canoe tipped over and he was lost. ⁓ And that was a really big dramatic event for me. I had not had anybody my age who had lost their life at that point. ⁓ And you know, we grew up together and everything and it was a real loss. And ⁓ at that point, I felt the tug of of Jesus in my life and it wasn't a conviction. It wasn't you know bill if you don't do something something bad is going to happen. was a sense of love and a sense of ⁓ care and a sense of ⁓ destiny and belonging and I felt that pull bigger and better than I had ever felt up until that point and ⁓ I I don't want to attribute it uniquely to that event because. God was going to get me anyway. There was no question about that. He just chose that opportunity to do it. And I'm eternally grateful for that because my life dramatically changed from that point on. The things I was learning in church started to make a lot of sense The teachers who around me were saying things that resonated with me. I had ⁓ friends and ⁓ colleagues and folks who were ministering alongside and ⁓ What a what a benefit it was for me to be in that moment with those people and I know that God set all of that in motion ⁓ now like most people ⁓ I had a little period of wandering and wondering and and all of that when I went to college ⁓ I probably wasn't ⁓ the perfect Christian during those years. I ⁓ experimented with lots of reality and worldliness and all the things that people do when they go to college. ⁓ But God never let me go. He never did. Even in all of that, He never let me go. And I was lucky enough after getting out of college that I met my wonderful wife. And she was not a Christian at that time. She was not a believer. Her family ⁓ was family that was ⁓ steeped in witchcraft and ⁓ just crazy ⁓ traditions and things which were incredibly destructive and she came out of that and was able to be ⁓ to meet a person who introduced her to Jesus and to this day as long as far as we know she's the only one in her family who has become a believer ⁓ even to this point so it's amazing how God plucks people out of circumstances. And that doesn't mean their upbringing or who they lived with or whatever had to be a permanent thing for her. Her life was changed because of that. And that was exactly the time that her and I got together and met. And so she was a brand new Christian. I'd been a Christian for years. And ⁓ we started our life together realizing how important it was that we had a stable faith. And I'm just so grateful for that. I didn't have to struggle through an unbelieving. spouse, ⁓ you know, trying to drag her along to things that she didn't want to go to. ⁓ We were there to support each other and I fully believe that was by God's design that he put us together and ⁓ we have been an unshakable force in terms of our faith and our commitment to God ever since that day we said, do. And ⁓ I realize even in this day and age that's unique. ⁓ We kind of laugh because ⁓ We really don't have arguments and fight. I know that's crazy. A lot of people are like, are you kidding? You don't do that? We just don't. ⁓ God has put us together in a way that ⁓ we're able to deal with one another and work through things. ⁓ I'm just, so grateful because I didn't deserve any of that. I didn't deserve to have such a wonderful companion and God brought her to me. ⁓ So our lives together have been ⁓ a whirlwind. had ⁓ one of our daughters. We have three boys and a daughter as our main children. Our daughter went through terrible drug and alcohol ⁓ issues and that was a shock to us. ⁓ She was raised just like I was raised in the church and went to church with us every week. But ⁓ circumstances have a way of coming about and my daughter got involved with the wrong crowd and there was just a lot of term. ⁓ and she ended up being in rehab three times. ⁓ We struggled with her sobriety and just all sorts of things that really challenged us and shook us and just had a dramatic effect on our worldview. But we realized even in that circumstance, God was present through that entire time. to this, now today, my daughter is a clean and sober ⁓ mom and she ⁓ loves the Lord and we're grateful for that. ⁓ Doesn't mean she still doesn't have her struggles, but we're watching God work in her life. And we know that because we were an amazing example to her by God's grace, she had an upbringing where she could turn back and see that God was present in our house and realize that she wants that for herself. So ⁓ we're so grateful for that. Professionally, I worked for Logos Bible Software for 25 years, a Bible software product that ⁓ pastors and others ⁓ academia, they use this product. ⁓ I was lucky enough to start there when there was four people and when I left 25 years later there was 450 people. We went through a whole lot of different ⁓ changes in technology through the years and ⁓ I never imagined that I would... ⁓ stop being a software guy and become a missionary. That was not my plan, but God had that plan. So I'm happy to talk more about that, but my formation and what I was was a struggling person trying to understand who Jesus was. And people in my life showed me great examples of him. And then he saved me and brought me a wonderful wife and ⁓ great circumstances to continue to serve him ⁓ each and every day. Awesome. for the listeners, not everybody may know when you say, saved you, what that means realistically. So I want to kibitz a little bit. ⁓ When we give our lives to Jesus and we really want to change, we ask Him to forgive us. And scripture says, if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and of all the unright things we've done. And when we do that with a truly repentant heart, that means I'm going this way, I really want to change, and I give my life to God and go that way. I go for Him. When I make that change, that opens the door to my heart so that the Holy Spirit, the active part of God on earth, can now lead and guide that heart, fill it up, and give us direction and wisdom and understanding and all the things necessary so we are saved from our old self. And now the term is born again. But we started again with this new life with Holy Spirit in us, helping us to learn to love God, serve God, reflect God, and as a result, impact people with His love. So what God did for you, He wants to do for everyone who let Him. It's not something qualified for just people who were in Bible software or people who have started off with really rough lives. It's for everybody of every, you know, to me, the greatest testimony, the story of life change isn't a guy who's had to go through so many knotholes and be so beat up that there's only one choice. That's my story. God loves Bill without having to have to go through all the knotholes. Bill is custom made to love and love by God just the way he is as I am. And that, you know, there's no bad way or good way. And I've had people tell me, I can't go back to church. The building would fall in on me. Well, I'm sorry, but there's no scripture to justify that. That's right. But there is scripture that says that the enemy of God, Satan is the enemy. ⁓ He's the accuser of the people who believe in God. And one of the ways he does it is to throw our past up in our face to get us to stop looking at the forgiveness of Jesus and to condemn ourselves. Where Jesus, when he died and shed his blood, it was so that we would be not only forgiven, but that our past was gone. Not just like a white, you get a blackboard and you wipe it off with an eraser, but there's still be some white residue left. When Jesus shed his blood, it cleansed it to the point there was no residue. It was our hearts become pure without the history that we had of all our bad choices and all our bad deeds and all our faulty things. We start fresh. And that's the most amazing part. And that's why Bill is here today is because what he did, when he received Jesus is now changing thousands and thousands of lives across the world. And so that gets us to where we are now. Now Bill, tell us about the next step in the journey. Well, I'm just going to say that what you said is good news. That's why the gospel is such good news. It's because we are cleansed completely and that God sees us with the righteousness of Christ. And what a wonderful, unbelievable gift that is. And I want to consistently tell that to people. It's not that I made some special decision and now, you know, from time to time, God does good things for me. No, no, it's none of that. He has completely and totally changed my heart. It went from dead to being alive. And only he can do that. No one else can do that. Amen. That is so significant and profound that when it happens in people, their lives are never the same. And I have seen that happen consistently in my life, the change that has occurred in people who whose hearts have been changed by the Holy Spirit. ⁓ And it's just a wonderful privilege to be able to see things like that. ⁓ Yeah, for 25 years I was at Lagos Bible Software and I didn't have any intention to go into the mission field whatsoever. ⁓ I never even thought about evangelizing kids. It wasn't a part of what I was thinking about at the time. And I was sure I was gonna stay in that field ⁓ forever. And ⁓ I found out that at my 25th year of being at that at that company. went to my boss and I said to him, hey, I've been here for 25 years. What's next? How can I continue to serve this organization and you? And he said, huh, that's a great question. I have three bits of advice for you. And I was all ears. I'm like, great, tell me. He said, the first thing is, is that you need a mentor and it can't be me. Because I've known you for 25 years and you need someone else to mentor you through different things and different or. business issues and things and I was like that's great I love that advice I'm going to take on that advice. He said the second thing is you probably need to join the board of a non-profit because if you do that you'll get exposure to something completely different than a for-profit company that's all about Bible software and I had never considered that before and ⁓ I thought that was wonderful advice so And then the third thing he said to me, and he qualified it, he said, I don't want you to do this. I don't want you to do this. And he was a very honest guy. He would always give really good advice. So his third thing was, if you really want to do something new, you probably have to leave the organization. But I don't want you to do it. But if you want to learn something new, you're at the right age where you could make a pivot and do something else. So I really took that to heart and I actually followed through on every one of his bits of advice. I found a mentor, that mentor introduced me to the Board of Directors for Child Care Worldwide, where I am today. ⁓ That Board of Directors, I served there for a few months. The ⁓ founder of Child Care Worldwide was getting ready to retire. He was 87 years old at the time. He's still alive today. He's almost, he's 94. ⁓ So God has given him an amazing long life. But ⁓ when I came into that board of directors and I learned about childcare worldwide and heard about the offer to perhaps be the president of the organization, I was in disbelief and denial. I thought, well, no, I'm the software guy, right? I'm not supposed to do this. This is not my life work. I'm just supposed to go back to what I was doing. And I was so used to God shutting doors on career changes or different opportunities that I was just waiting for that. I mean, it's like, okay, here comes another one. I'll just wait for God to say no, and it'll be clear. I just go back to the company and keep doing what I'm doing. And God just kept saying, yes, yes, yes, Bill. And he put people in my life and he had pastors who I've known forever give me counsel, a lot of prayer, ⁓ a lot of advice from a lot of people. And the door kept staying open. And finally I said, okay, I've got to listen to this because this is clearly something that God wants my attention on and the long and short of it was is I did take that job and I took it in November of 2018 and my life has not been the same since I bet it has been dramatically changed by God and what I have figured out is that 25 years of software business actually prepared me to do what I'm doing today. I didn't know that I didn't put those two things together, but now I can see it clearly. The administrative work I learned, the travel. I traveled everywhere around the world in that software company. So I was completely accustomed to getting on planes and traveling over to Africa and over to India and all those things. I met so many people in the Christian publishing world and in Bible societies through the world ⁓ that I just had all of this historical experience. that translated pretty quickly over to what this job was about. But one thing happened to me that was super significant. And it is just another miracle of God. I did not know that I had a heart for children and evangelizing them. And when I took this job, it was like God took the key, put it into my heart and unlocked that portion. It was there. It had always been there, but he just didn't unlock it until 2018. And when he did, it was like, ⁓ there you are. That's what it is. That's what this has all been leading toward. And it's been my life work. So for the last seven and a half years, I've been leading childcare worldwide, going through a lot of different changes, a lot of different things that we had to do because the ministry was already almost 40 years old by the time I took it. ⁓ But we are solidly a evangelism ministry. We can't think of anything better than to introduce kids to who Jesus is and what Jesus can do in their life. Amen. know, there's a lot of great nonprofits, a lot of great organizations who are feeding kids and clothing them and educating them and giving them all of these tangible things that are important for their life. But as far as we're concerned, there is nothing more valuable than everlasting life. There is nothing more valuable than that clear understanding of who Jesus made you to be and how you can spend your life serving him and watching him do amazing work. And if you can do that when you're a child, you have so much more years to potentially invest in working and being alongside as a servant with God than waiting until you're in your 40s, 50s, 60s or later. Right? And God has a plan for everybody that's different. I get that. ⁓ And we're not in the business of trying to convert kids and make sure they accept Jesus before they leave child care. We're seed planters. The kids who we're evangelizing every single day, if they make a decision right there that they want Jesus in their life, amen to that. But we're there to plant seed because God has a plan for each one of those kids. And that timeline is God's timeline. It's not our timeline. So when we're there evangelizing kids, we're not asking every week who wants to accept Jesus because every single hand will go up, right? It must be genuine. It must be life changing. It must be a real, real call of the Holy Spirit. And if we're able to be witness to that while those kids are in our program, amen. We are excited and enthusiastic. If we took part in the ability for that child later in life to come to terms with who Jesus is and why Jesus should be their savior. Amen. Right? We don't have to take credit for any of this. That's God's job. That's his job to fulfill. We're the servants out there doing whatever he's asking us to do. Exactly. out there worldwide is God's ministry. It doesn't belong to Bill. I don't take credit for any of the things that go on. ⁓ It's him. And it's him alone. And I make sure that every kid I encounter, every parent I encounter, Every church partner we have understands that just because I've got the title president, it doesn't mean that I'm God. It doesn't mean that I can grant or take away. God is the one who does that. I'm the steward. I'm the person he's put into place to be able to act on his behalf to tell kids about Jesus. Amen. Amen. You're the mailman. That's right. Exactly. 100%. ⁓ When we did evangelism, I had to constantly remind people that it didn't matter. The skills I have were what once God prepared me before He sent me. Just like God prepared you with 25 years of work experience, but yet He was preparing you for His next chapter in your life. I was prepared for what I was going to do. Even though I didn't even know Jesus yet, the experiences of my life prepared me so well. that when the door opened, I was able to run through it, not have to go get the crayons out and start with scribbling. ⁓ the results are in the experience. When you do it His way, His Holy Spirit leads and guides people, and they fall in love with Jesus because He draws them. We don't have to push it. It's not green baloney. You don't have to force people for it. That's right. You're offering the premier, the prime rib of life. Exactly. And as a result, you're offering the greatest gift they can ever find. So, you know, this has been wonderful. And I'll just mention one last thing, and that is that my wife gets to walk alongside me in this ministry. She writes all of the curriculum for our kids. Wow. She's writing the lessons that these kids learn every single Saturday. My wife has been a Bible study warrior since the day we met. I've never seen somebody put more time into studying the Bible than she does. And she even thought to herself, what am I going to do with all this? I study. I don't teach Sunday school. I don't do any of those things. And for years, she was just enthusiastically being fed by the word of God and didn't know really where that was going to be applied or how it would be applied. And when Child Care Worldwide came along, I was like, you know what? We need curriculum. We need gospel focused. Curriculum that doesn't have a bunch of side issues in it that doesn't have somebody else's agenda It's got to be the biblical word and I think you're the perfect person to do it And she was like again like me what what I'm not that person. I'm not a scholar and I'm like, no, no, no You don't this is about sharing your heart and sharing the love of Jesus and the truth of God's word and you can do that and now 400 plus lessons later she ⁓ She got the hint. She is phenomenal at what she does, and the kids are blessed. But one other thing that has been so significant, not only are the kids blessed, but our Life Center teachers are learning about God and the Bible in ways they had never learned before. In some of these churches, especially in Africa, you don't have a Educated pastors teaching from the pulpit. They don't have a lot of experience. They don't have a library They they have may not have been guided or anything and some of them actually learn to preach by watching YouTube So they don't really know a lot about the foundational aspects of what God's Word says So it's not that they've been not enthusiastic. They've been enthusiastic, but they just didn't have the equipment necessary to really teach these foundational issues So when our lessons who are designed for kids come to our Life Center teachers who take them and prepare to teach the kids, I've had more testimony from Life Center teachers that have said, my goodness, this lesson changed my life. It taught me about things I never knew about. I had no idea the Bible said that. I had no idea Jesus said or did that. And wow, what an amazing testimony that is. And our life and our teachers are growing in Christ because of the lessons we're preparing for these kids. We had no idea that that was going to happen and it happens consistently. So God has been so good in not only teaching these kids the truth, but affecting even the teachers and the pastors and the rest of the people in the church by what his word says and how he, we aimed it for the kid, but God's pushing it to all the people in that congregation. and he just needs to be praised for that. You know, he's not going to deny himself any good thing. No. And if he sends his word out, he's going to bring something back from it. Exactly. And I'm just so excited. ⁓ I knew a little bit about what you did, but I am so excited for what God is doing. It's a wonderful thing. You just made my heart sing. I'm grateful for that. ⁓ If someone is given their heart to Jesus and they feel in their heart, maybe they should do something, but they feel under qualified. ⁓ Why don't you speak to that for a minute? I'm really glad you asked that because ⁓ I felt under qualified. I didn't feel like I was qualified when I came in. In a lot of ways, I still don't. But God gives me the power, gives me the words, gives me the opportunity. And I'm grateful for that. At Child Care Worldwide, we talk about being on team great commission. Jesus said, go and make disciples. He didn't say, but you got to be a pastor to do that. He didn't say you got to be a scholar to do that. He didn't say that. He said it to believers and believers are to participate in the great commission. OK, well, how does that work? The Great Commission and being a team member can mean lots of things. Sometimes that means you actually pack your bag and get on an airplane or a boat and go over in another foreign country. Sometimes that means you resource people to do that. Sometimes that means you volunteer in church to do things, or you may be compelled to walk across the street and talk to your neighbor about who Jesus is. That's all being on Team Great Commission. You don't have to come to the table with lots of credentials or lots of knowledge. You just got to be willing to be on the team. And that's what we say to everybody. If you want to be a part of Team Great Commission and follow Jesus' command to make disciples, but you don't know how to do it, but you think you may want to help people who do it, you can do that by helping folks at Child Care Worldwide. We would love to have people resource us to be able to do more of what we do. Of course, the most important thing people can do is pray. Pray that kids' lives are changed. That's the biggest part of being on Team Great Commission is you become a prayer warrior for people who are on the front lines introducing Jesus to people. And we would love for people of the listeners of this podcast to spend time praying for the work of childcare worldwide, praying that God opens doors to more and more children who need to hear his good news. But secondly, if you'd like to be a resourcer or someone who ⁓ You know just becomes even more integrated in what we're doing. We would love to have that our website is childcare worldwide dot o-r-g People can go there and see what we do But we really want God to move into the hearts of people. We have something that we call proof of impact and what that means is No matter where you are if you're a prayer warrior for us or a resourcer for us We're gonna show you what God's doing and now more than ever in this world. We need to see proof of God doing things. We hear bad news every day. There's evidence of evil all over the place. And at some point we can sometimes wonder, well, what is God doing? Why doesn't he act? And we know for certain that God is acting every minute of every day, and he's doing amazing things in the lives of people. And we're on a front line to be able to see that. And what we do is we take pictures and videos and stories and everything. And we send those to people so that they can see what God's doing. Not because we're trying to necessarily get donations from them. We want them to be fed. We want them to be, we want their own faith life to grow because of what God is doing in real tangible ways. And we would love to get people on a list so they can just start getting proof of impact from us. So that they can see that God is doing amazing things in this world and that he's alive, he's got a purpose. and you'll be blessed by seeing some of the things that he's doing. So ⁓ be on team great commission. Choose the way you want to do that, but just be on the team and choose the right way for you to do that. Doesn't mean you have to stand on the corner with a sign. You don't have to jump in front of moving vehicles, but you can be a prayer warrior and you can be a resourcer. And we're happy to have people do that. Anybody who is available to God will be used. Yep. He will equip you somehow before he sends you. And sometimes that's when you're praying, he will reach through his Holy Spirit, he'll speak to you. And all of a sudden, ⁓ something that seemed impossible. did ministry in the ghetto of Detroit. We had people who come to us and say, people are dying all around you. And that, yes, that's true. And aren't you afraid? No, I'm too busy serving. You know, if God wants me in heaven, He'll take me, whether it's in my bed or wherever it is. But until I wake up in heaven, I have a job to do. Exactly. And then I'd have people say, but I'm not you. I'm a baker. All I do is make bread. Right. And OK. But can you pray? yeah. Well, when you're making your bread, take 15 minutes out of every loaf from the time it comes from flour to sale and turn them into prayer time. That's right. And I had a baker do that and then it turned into 15 % of all the bread each day. The money from it, he ended up giving it to Inner City Missions. And he would have never dreamed it, but when he was making the bread and praying over it, God said, you can't just give 10 % to your church. You need to top that. So he gave 15 % of the sale before he tithed, before he gave to the church. his bakery exploded. He ended up with so much. He ended up at one point giving an entire bakery full of everything to a rehab ministry and training the rehab people who had had tore up lives, turned them into bakers. Praise God. And he had no idea. He just thought he was going to be a wallflower the rest of his life. Just go to church and being happy. don't know God's plan for our lives, but we have to be willing to trust him in spite of how we got there, in spite of who we were around. the good people, the rotten people, the people that, you know, I usually mention church along the way because the church is supposed to be the emergency room with the body of Christ. As a result, everyone who comes in the emergency room doesn't come in happy. Some people are screaming and yelling and really not doing well. And when they show up on our pews, sometimes we forget that our job is to shine the love of Jesus on them. not to take them home and take every word they say as gospel. So as a result, we get hurt and we pull away from God because of people. But God never did anything wrong. He never hurt anybody. so what you're doing right now is changing people all over the world without having to have anyone leave the block. Whether they knew nothing but pray. Or they start with praying and then find out what else God wants them to do. And even though they might be inspired by you, they may find another ministry that belongs to God. And God wants all the ministry supported. So it doesn't matter what the label on the ministry is, it's all His. Yep, exactly. And every dollar in your pocket is His. That's right. So how we use it for Him really makes a difference in changing lives. It does. It does. You're so right. And I'm glad you say that because there is no competition here. We are all about saving lives because of what Jesus did. He commanded us to do that. And we're going to do that with our brothers and sisters, whether we're the ones being resourced or they're the ones that need the resources. I support a lot of other ministries besides my own because I want the gospel to go out. And that means everybody's on equal footing there. And I just love that about our faith. Amen. Amen. So ⁓ at this point, I'm going to invite you to give us a nugget, a golden nugget. something that people can mull over, know, polish the diamond, if you will, something that they can think about in the weeks, in the weeks, even months following something that God's good speak to their hearts that they could receive. You do have something maybe that you'd like to share? I do. ⁓ And this came to me after I came to childcare worldwide, because ⁓ when I was taught to pray as a kid, what do you do? You mimic what you hear and see. And I thought that there was a certain way to do that and even through my ⁓ bulk of my life as a Christian There was always the case of huh I wonder if that's the right kind of prayer or and I know that's the enemy judging and you know Challenging me on whether I'm a real Christian or not ⁓ But when I was in child care worldwide in the first couple of years ⁓ what came to me was a simple simple prayer and to this day I continue to pray that prayer and that prayer is very easily one God, thank you for saving me. That's proclaiming faith and ⁓ saying, I acknowledge what he's done. The second thing I say is, make me available. Without any conditions. I don't say make me available in this way or that way or only from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. or only on Wednesday nights. I say, God, make me available, open-ended. And if you pray that prayer earnestly, every day you will be amazed at what God opens up for you. Amen. the encounters, the conversations that you may think are just insignificant, but they're not. If you are being made available to God, He will use you. And that is my ⁓ advice, my nugget, if you will, for everybody. God, thank you for saving me. Make me available. If you pray that with no strings attached, God will use you in ways you never imagined. And as a result, he will be glorified and you'll be blessed. And I guarantee you that. Now, you mentioned your website. Would you say it again a little slower so that it's child care worldwide? That's one big word. Child care worldwide dot o r g. And. Do they have books or anything that they offered through them? What you'll see there is a way to support our Life Center Program, which is the evangelistic program for kids. You'll see where we work. You'll get to see videos are proof of impact around what God's doing and how he's operating and you'll see various ways that you can get involved. Sometimes if people are not necessarily wanting just just put a kid in life center, they may be wanting to make sure a kid has a mattress or a kid has mosquito nets. If they live in a place where there's malaria, we have tangible things that we offer kids, but they're tools for discipleship. We don't give a kid anything physical without something spiritual, so we make sure that even if it's a mattress that we're bringing into their room because they need one, we're helping them understand who gave them that mattress and Almighty God did. Right. Somebody bought it, but God influenced them to do that. Amen. A gift from him. So everything that we hand over to a child ⁓ in terms of tangibility is given with discipleship in mind. So there's a lot of opportunities there, too. But we would ask people first and foremost to pray. Secondly, if they want to join, there's lots of opportunities on the website to do that. Perfect. Well, folks, I don't know about you, but I certainly am moved. I am blessed beyond belief. with what God has shared with you, Bill, today. And I encourage you to not only watch this issue for yourself, but then share it with other people. I think others would love to see what Bill is doing through Child Care International. Now, as we get ready to close, I'm going to invite us to pray. And then after prayer, I always have a challenge. And I encourage you to don't just take this for granted. apply it to your life. God didn't do all of this so that you could go, mm-hmm, he did all this because he loves you. And he wants you to have the most blessed life possible. Doesn't mean he takes away pain and makes everything great and everybody wins a million dollars, but you can have peace. You can have hope. You can have courage when it's hard. You can have healing when it's necessary. He will do what's best for you like the perfect parent would do. He'll meet your needs and he'll even use you to meet other people's needs as a result. So that's why God says yes. Yes to new lives. Yes to hope. And yes to you and me and anyone else who is open to Him working in their lives. So let's pray. Heavenly Father, we're grateful for this privilege that we have. We're grateful for the ministry that Bill has been given as he is the steward of it under you. We ask that you bless that ministry and do mighty things in it. that you'll reach lives that we would never get to reach through the vehicle that God has created, that you've created. Lord, anoint it and bless it. Bless Bill and give him knowledge and wisdom so he can be an effective administrator and a servant leader. Lord, meet the needs of his family and those that are on his staff. Do a mighty work of love and change lives, Lord, because that's your bottom line, you said, for us to go into the world. highways and byways and compelled them to come in. Compelled does not mean force. It means to bring. So for those that are ready, bring them in. For those that aren't quite ready yet, let us plant the seeds and let God do the harvest. But Lord, please do the work. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. And the challenge for today is seek after God. He will be found. If you want to know how to get to know God, Jesus is the way. Seek Him and He will show you the way. Amen. Amen. And amen. And we're going to be grateful to have you ⁓ come back and see us again sometime, I'd be happy to. Thank you, David. And if there's other ways we can be a blessing, you know how to reach me. you. God bless you all. This has been the God Says Yes Podcast with David Ebel. To connect with David, email him at godsaysyespodcast.gmail.com. You can get his latest book, When the Doctors Say No, God Says Yes, at Amazon.com.