Pastor Ken Keith and Dr. Scott Hughes join us this week to discuss the ways in which this year’s Harvest Offering will be used to reach people for Christ.
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Episode transcript:
Chris Harper: Welcome to Harvest Time. My name is Chris Harper, and our host on this program is pastor Gary Walton, the lead pastor at Harvest Baptist Church. Every week, we spend these 25 minutes together telling you the stories of our church, interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. We’d like to invite you to join us at Harvest Baptist Church this week. There are 2 services on Sunday, 8:45 AM and 10:45 AM.
We have Japanese and Korean translation during the 10:45 AM service, and that’s also the service we live stream at hbcguam.org. Hbcguam.org. This week, it’s part 3 of the underappreciated ministry of the Holy Spirit from John 14 through 16. Let’s begin today’s harvest time by welcoming pastor Gary Walton. Hi, Pastor.
Gary Walton: Hey. Hafa adai, Chris. Yeah. This will be week 3 of our series on the holy spirit. It’s really been, challenging, encouraging, lot been a lot of questions after the, sessions.
Just I think we’re thinking through some things that many of us have thought of before but didn’t have answers. And so, we’re gonna come back to these three chapters, John 14, 15, and 16 and trying to just get a general overview of the understanding of the scriptures in regard to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. This week in particular, we’re going to talk about how does the Holy Spirit speak to us. So, does that does the Holy Spirit speak to us like in an audible voice? Do we see riding up in the sky or on the wall?
You know, how do we hear God’s voice? How do we hear the Spirit’s voice as he’s speaking to us? So, the bible gives us some real clarity about that and also some things that actually are not part of the Holy Spirit speaking in. So, we wanna talk about that and as always, we’ll try to get our answers directly from the scriptures. Let the scriptures teach us, what god wants us to know about this very important topic.
So we’d like to invite you to come. It’s been great and I think you’ll be blessed and encouraged and and grow in your faith and in your understanding of god’s word. This Sunday is also a special Sunday because we’re doing, we have a harvest offering each fall the Sunday before thanksgiving. And so that connects us with 2 guests that we have in harvest time today. Both of them are familiar here, but I’m gonna introduce pastor Ken and, doctor Scott Hughes.
Welcome you guys at Harvest Time.
Scott Hughes: Great to be here. Thanks.
Gary Walton: Both have been, here before, so it’s not brand new voices. Pastor Ken, of course, a lot. But let’s get a quick what’s your roles here at Harvest? How long have you been here? Yeah.
Ken Keith: My wife and I, we’ve been here. We came out in 2005. We took a, we had to go back to the states for a little while for one of our kids’ health. So I think the total years are around 16 or so years that we’ve been on island. My roles have changed throughout the years, but missions has been a key part of it, which is one of my key roles today, getting out on the islands, getting the gospel to the areas around us, the continents around us and so that’s been a key part and then I my wife and I do the, summer ministry. We’re bringing about 15 interns every summer to administer to the island through different variety of camps and outreaches during the summer. And then if you’re in a place for 16 years, you’ve got a lot of other little little jobs.
So there’s a handful of those that float around.
Gary Walton: Just a few.
Ken Keith: Yeah. But the main the main is, the missions, summer, then, some pastoral responsibilities.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Okay. Great. Thankful for your ministry for sure. Doctor Hughes, you got an interesting background.
Tell us, you know, kinda what brought you to this spot.
Scott Hughes: Okay. I’ll try to be brief on this as I can, but, I’ll date myself a little bit. So I was a 1989 graduate from the Air Force Academy.
Ken Keith: Okay.
Scott Hughes: I originally went into the academy at the very beginning thinking, gosh, I think I’d like to go do go into medicine, and got to the the Air Force Academy and was rapidly redirected by people who said, no. We don’t need doctors right now. We need pilots, and I was pilot qualified. And so I became a pilot for the Air Force, and did that for a number of years. And you mentioned the holy spirit talking to us, and I and I think that was, through a variety of methods.
Again, God redirected me back into the field of medicine. It took me 13 years after graduating, you know, from pilot training, and I did a a variety of things for the air force, including as
Gary Walton: Top secret. Right? That’s what Castro did.
Scott Hughes: Yeah. Right. So I was a b two test pilot for a while and and ran that program and the and the b one for a while. And then finally, again, just through, you know, re had to go back and retake college chemistry and things like that. Wow.
Yeah. I ended up in medical school in 2002, graduated in 2006. And then, went back into the Air Force at that point as a family physician in Omaha, Nebraska. And then my first assignment after residency was in Guam, from 2009 to 2012, but Anderson in the clinic. And, you know, that was one of those just first introduction into the islands and the culture and into this part of the world.
And, again, we were we were blessed to have some people who were very interested in reaching out beyond, where where we are attending at the time, which is the the chapel because we’re helping with Awana and other things that were going on up there. And we ended up in Cambodia for, several, ultimately several missions with an organization there that started churches, orphanages, ran those churches, and and we did a number of medical and dental projects and things through the through the years with them. And, you know, that kind of just kept us focused on on this part of the world for us. And I retired when we moved from Guam back to Omaha and, got to, again, be out in Cambodia, including my wife and some of the kids. And so, again, it was just kind of a great opportunity for us to focus on missions in this part of the world.
And that was part of what brought us back out here too, in addition to an opportunity to do a church plant up in Yigo. Like many small churches, COVID, you know, really impacted that church and, and ultimately the church closed in 2021 and that’s when we started coming to Harvest. And I’ve been here, working with Ken on missions and have always just kind of had this focus of I really want to be back involved with missions, back involved missions as part of the world. And again, being out here, being around, HBBC and pastor Clinton and everyone has really brought this focus, I think, to an I or to an area that harvest really has a big impact on, and that’s the outer island surrounding us, and Yap, and Chuuk and Palau and and all of these places.
Gary Walton: I really love that whole story. You know, some very distinct pieces of your lives for sure. And but the God’s leading through all of that. And, I mean, you and I have talked about this personally, but I just feel like, God’s brought you and your wife, Carolyn, your wife teaches in the school. You got kids here, some older and then some kids still here.
But it just feels like God brought you all of these experiences to this place at harvest at a really critical time for some of our burdens and, you know, some of the things ways we feel like God is leading, you know, the church. I want to talk about that in a little bit. You continue to be in practice. Right?
Scott Hughes: Right. Yeah. I I should have said I’m I am a, still a family physician. Yeah. I I work here on the island at the United Clinic, which if you talk to most people, I don’t know, they have no idea we exist.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Scott Hughes: But we’re just a little clinic over at the airport that helps primarily, United, employees and family. But we see lots of people Yeah. Including we’ve seen many people here from from the church and from the school and things too, which, you know, honestly, it’s become kind of part of the ministry for me too.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Yeah. It really has been. We’re we’re thankful for that. Always interesting how God leads us and, the gifts that he gives us and then how in his wise, sovereignty, you know, he directs them in specific ways.
And I think we’re gonna hear that in in the story that’s coming. Pastor Ken, I mentioned earlier that this Sunday is our harvest offering. Can you tell us
Ken Keith: a little bit about that? Yeah. So, once a year as a church body, we come together around typically 2 projects and projects that have a global reach, global outreach. And and this year, we have 2 projects which we’re gonna talk about. 1 today with the outer islands and a medical opportunity with doctor Hughes here.
But the other one is very unique and and honestly can’t say a lot about it because of its location, but it’s in a place that’s 99.7% is non religious, don’t know the Lord’s name besides just the name, don’t know the story of salvation, and there’s really no one there. And so there’s an opportunity we have to partner with a cafe that the Lord has just I I wish I could tell on the radio waves all that has happened. If you wanna know, come find me, and and we’ll talk about it a little bit more. But it’s amazing how in these last couple years, this family, these doors have slowly opened up to a place that really you can only give God the credit for them opening up. It shouldn’t be opening up.
And and these doors have been slowly opening up to an opportunity for this family to have a cafe in this this area of the world that’s close to the gospel. I mean, truly close to the gospel. In fact, the first time they visited, they could not find a place to stay Mhmm. Because of, they were American and therefore infidels. I mean, it was very much a it is a very strong area, in their religious views.
So the fact that they’re at where they’re at right now is only God. There’s there’s no other explanation for it. And, they wanna take these next steps with a with a cafe, but they need they need funds. And so we’re we’re gathering together as a church and and desiring to raise funds to be able to help them turn their little shop, for lack of a better word, where they’re kind of processing some stuff. It’s really a processing center into an actual functioning cafe where they can have believers there working, have an opportunity to invest, in in those new believers, but also an opportunity to share the gospel through this through this cafe.
So like I said, I wish I could tell you so much more. There’s so much more to this story, but it’s unreal what God is what God has been doing, and we get to partner. And and I was telling the church, I mean, this is awesome. You talk about, paying into God’s economy, putting money into God’s economy. I mean, there’s been because of all the political stuff, there’s been a lot of, you know, financial discussions and money and investments and stock market and all this.
Man, you’re you’re putting money into the gospel, and and God promises to use that for his glory and and the refunds on that are gonna be eternal. And, us just being able to have a part in giving to this where souls are going to be saved because we know the word is powerful. We know as we’ve been hearing in church, the spirit is at work. And and from testimony of the missionary there and the people that he’s been talking to, the spirits at work and these people drawing them and convicting them of sin and and bringing them to the truth. And so we get to be a part of that.
We get to be a part of that in a place that is 99 point I think it’s 7. 99.7 percent, in a in a religion that is deceiving them and and ultimately sending them, to hell. And so, man, it’s exciting. It’s exciting. So that’s one of our projects, and then it’s the one we’re gonna talk about today, an opportunity to to help a church through means of technology and and medicine, which we’re also very excited how God has, opened those doors also.
Gary Walton: Let me back up just for a minute to that Cafe Project because I I agree. It really is thrilling to be thinking about that. And I’m just doubling down on your on your comment, Pastor Ken, because I thought it was really so cool. But, you know, we do have a lot of opportunities to invest, you know, to venture our capital in a number of areas. And this very specifically is in a place where there’ll be eternal dividends.
And, it’s that’s really a powerful concept, you know, because I mean, people are thinking along these terms and to be able to say, I mean, just fully and completely this is this is eternal dividends is really cool.
Ken Keith: Yeah.
Gary Walton: And so, we’re excited about that. The harvest offering is kind of a unique concept, too, in that we are, it’s different than our we do missions giving year round. Alright? We we really are passionate. We want to partner with, you know, missionaries and pastors.
We all around this region. But these are projects where we feel like we can come in and sort of complete a project.
Ken Keith: Yeah. Yeah. We do. We have our monthly giving. So our church where what we do here is we have our tithes and offerings, and then we have opportunities to give, through the offering to missions.
And that’s how we support our missionaries. So we have a variety of missionaries, variety of fields in this area, or like minded, ministries, and we have opportunities to give to them. And that’s how we support them. Each one of them, we give a monthly support that that as a church we’ve agreed upon to give them. So that’s that’s connected through our our, you know, weekly, monthly giving to missions.
No. The the harvest offering’s unique in the way that it is. It’s projects that we look at and we go, these would be great projects to come in. And usually, they are key either key spots are getting completed. We’re we’re completing, specific steps maybe in a building project or we’ve we’ve gotten a vehicle for a missionary in the past, or like, the things we’re gonna talk about today.
We’re taking first steps or finishing steps, which is really cool when we’re able to do that. We finish off a Bible translation or the funding for Bible translation. So these are very specific things as a church. We get around and say it’s unique. It’s kinda like the holiday season.
Right? I mean, it’s a it’s a time we’re always given to our kids. We’re always given to our family and and people, but there’s something about that holiday season where there’s, like, unique giving. And that’s really where where this comes out of from the from the, you know, the abundance of what God has truly given us. And, really, we are blessed in so many ways.
We give we give to his really, as we were talking about before, into his economy, and and that economy is never gonna fail. That that economy is never gonna, you know, there it’s not relying upon someone saying, you know, these are gonna go up and down. We don’t have to wake up every morning worrying, did it go down? It’s gonna go up, and and God uses those things. And the cool thing about it is we we’re blessed.
They’re blessed. God’s glorified, and, it’s an awesome opportunity that we’ve been able to take part of. I think it’s, what, our 4th or 4th year.
Gary Walton: It might be 5th. I’m not sure.
Ken Keith: I should’ve looked that up. But it’s one of but we’ve been doing it the last few years and got us provided above and beyond each time, and and, it’s been awesome. Doctor Hughes, this outer island medical equipment, this idea was birthed,
Gary Walton: you know, some time ago. Give us a kind of the background of that.
Scott Hughes: Yeah. You know, this is something I kinda born out of being, a primary care physician, family physician, like I am being and participating in in medical ministries before. And and, honestly, I always feel a little bit of dissatisfaction with kind of the end result of those. And and and I don’t wanna, you know, downplay the effect that you can have when you go to some place. And and and literally just touching somebody can can mean a lot of a lot, to that person, Potentially someone who’s never had, you know, someone friendly, or nice touch them in a way and provide something for them.
But the the aspect to me that always always felt like we were short on was there was no follow-up. There was no long term relationship. There was no no way and no practical way to to to really make that happen. And in some of the places that we’re talking about, that’s, I mean, that’s key. I mean, I I always kind of am a little bit envious, I guess, of the the the surgeons and the dentists and the optometrists and the people that can go into some place and do something right there and and they make this long term impact or have this long term impact with somebody.
But I think now, with technology and the way technology is developed, and I specifically think of things like Starlink where you have the ability to instantly have communication with someone. COVID’s taught us that telemedicine has been, and has some real potential.
Gary Walton: Yeah. It can be effective.
Scott Hughes: Right. And, things that we all kind of, you know, tended to resist a little bit, but kind of COVID forced this on us. Amazing the way God works and those things.
Ken Keith: Yeah.
Scott Hughes: And suddenly realizing, you know, we have a real potential to be, again, in these long term relationships with people. And because of where we are and who and and who we are and the fact that, you know, places like Faiza and Eulife have active churches and people there that then we can involve directly with the things that we’re doing, suddenly we have the ability to have these long term relationships and have impacts on them, medically, but more importantly involve the the church in those relationships with these people.
Gary Walton: So Phaes and Eulites are outer islands in Micronesia specifically. I mean, people around here would know this, but connected, outer islands of Yap. And, we have church partners, church plants, HBBC grads, both in both of those locations in particular, which is kind of why those have been targeted initially. But Faison Eulite, we have HBBC grads pastoring churches, starting churches in those regions.
Ken Keith: Right.
Gary Walton: And, there was a group that did sort of a survey trip.
Scott Hughes: Right. We, took a small very small group of us out to both locations, with the assistance of PMA, and we had pastor Clinton along to help make sure that we were, you know, staying where we were supposed to be and and, you know, observing everything that we should and, just to go out and survey and talk to the the health assistants on the island. And for people who don’t know, you know, each of these islands, through YAP have a health assistant, is what they’re they’re termed, that that basically handle medical care on the island. And the scope of their training is at the LPN or licensed practical nurse, and that’s it. And they’re handling pretty much all the healthcare for 350 plus people on each of these islands with their only communication typically in the past having been, an HF radio or maybe some sort of Internet connection.
And of course while we were at FICE, we had Internet for a couple hours a day and their radio was broken. And so really, they’re out there pretty much entirely on their own. Mhmm. And, you know, I think we have some ways to to help and improve the the system that they have. I think it’s important to know that we’re not talking about Harvest becoming the medical care system for FICE, but we’re there to augment what YAP has provided.
In fact, we’ve offered YAP some assistance in training, some of the health assistance, and other things like that.
Gary Walton: So working with the health department on fight in Yap Right. Communicating together. We’re not kind of, you know, out there on our on our own, but really genuinely trying to provide a help that would be long lasting.
Scott Hughes: Right.
Gary Walton: Which is the difference in the model of not just a one shot deal, but being able to be there, you know, maybe semi regularly, but then with the opportunities to continue to provide guidance at least in a, you know
Scott Hughes: In real time. In real time. Yeah. And that I think that’s the real strength of of that system is we can get contact from them and talk to and talk with the health assistant real time with the patient. They’re visible to, you know, whoever the the doctor is that that’s talking to them and can offer real time advice.
Gary Walton: Yeah. We have a team of, you know, medical professionals that are already burdened for this. We’re launching with plans. The offering part of it will be to try to provide some of the equipment that would be needed primarily for the for the contact.
Scott Hughes: Right. Yeah. And there are some, plans, potentially for some equipment then that is better utilized over a video type connection, things that you can transmit, stethoscope or pictures or other other things like that through medical equipment. So those are, and and there are several organizations that have really tested and gone through some of those equipment. So we know what kinds of things we should be getting for them.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Awesome. Maybe for both of you, got just a couple of minutes. So why does this matter, this kind of a project? What’s the what’s the burden?
Why does it matter?
Scott Hughes: Well, I think the obvious one is you have a group of people who have very limited access to to medical care. And and and often, you know, again, as we saw in FICE when we were there, that that access can be measured in in days or longer for even for emergency type situations. And, to have instant access, for some of these people can can truly make a life or death difference for them.
Ken Keith: Yeah. Okay. I think the other part is I mean, we see this in Jesus ministry and how he tied physical needs, the meeting of physical needs to the meeting of spiritual needs. And this is all gonna be through the local church there. This is gonna be housed at the local church.
It’s gonna be a key ministry really of the local church there with the desire to continue to build the relationships and to tie care and love to the one who, you know, produces that and and, doc Hughes and the other doctors. I mean, this is a a love that is a byproduct of of God’s work. In fact, through the spirit, which I we talk about and and help them see and connect that to the one who’s giving us that, which is ultimately Jesus. So the this is, again, one of those we’re not just trying to heal and be a help, though we are. We’re burdened for the sanctity of life and for these people that we can we can help, but it is tied there to the local church which will allow, hopefully, again, the communication of God’s love quite literally to these people which would ultimately draw them to a saving knowledge of who Christ is.
Gary Walton: Well, harvest is has been, you know, for many years is a place of joyful generosity. And this week is one of the sweet expressions of it, every year. And so we’re excited about that. We You know, we’re trying to put out, communicate well the burden for these projects so people understand with clarity about the need and, but then it’s always cool to watch god meet the needs and then the joy that comes with the generosity of god’s people. It’s it’s really sweet.
Thank you guys, both of you, for your investment in these areas, for leading, forward in it. We’re praying that God would use these, you know, these two projects, that people come to Christ, the gospel grow, his church would be strengthened around, you know, in these regions. So thank you guys.
Ken Keith: Glad to be here.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to Harvest Time. Of course, at this point in the program, we always wanna personally invite you again to services at Harvest Baptist Church. 2 services Sunday, 8:45 AM, 10:45 AM, Japanese and Korean translation during the 10:45 AM service. That service is carried live here on 88.1 FM and khmg.org. We hope to see you this Sunday.
Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.