Pastor Gary spoke with Nick about living and working in Southeast Asia. Nick was a special guest at our recent missions conference at Harvest.
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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 twenty five minutes together telling you the stories of our church by interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. We’d like to invite you to join us at Harvest Baptist Church this week. We have two services every Sunday, the first at 08:45AM
the second at 10:45AM. If you come at 10:45AM, we do have Japanese and Korean translation available during that service, and that’s also when we live stream at hbcguam.org, hbcguam.org. This week, we’re back in our series, love is part five from first Corinthians 13:4-8.
Let’s begin today’s Harvest Time by welcoming Pastor Gary Walton. Hi, pastor.
Gary Walton: Hey, hafa adai, Chris. Yeah. Way back in the second week of January, we started this this study, this series of studying through I Corinthians 13. Pretty familiar text to most people about the definitions of love. And, actually, before we’re done with this, we’re gonna, look at the full context of chapter 12, 13, and 14 because all of it is talking about spiritual gifts, we’re gonna we’re gonna look at all that together.
But in the middle of it, we’re just going one by one through these definitions of, of what Paul says to the church of what love should look like. You know, there’s a lot of human definitions that we have out there, and the English word is sort of vague in some ways, but the Bible gives us some pretty clear descriptions of what it should look like when we genuinely care and love for each other. And so we’re just trying to walk through, each of, those. And so we’re back in that, this Sunday, Love Is. We’d like to invite you to to be with us.
We actually have taken a long break. I was gone for a few weeks. We had missions conference and so a number of things in the middle, but we’re diving back in, this Sunday and it’ll go for another couple of months. So we’d love to have you come and join us and discover what the Bible says, what God says about what love means. We’d love to have you with us.
We’re recording this episode of Harvest Time a few weeks earlier. It’s actually the first week of March, right in the middle of our Missions Conference. So at the beginning of March, we had this incredible privilege to have a number of guests, speakers, missionaries on our campus and spent four days together talking about the cause of Christ and the mission that the Bible calls us to and God calls us to. And it’s been a fantastic week together. And at the same time, felt like it would be good for us to do some interviews for Harvest Time with those guests that were with us.
We’ll air a little bit later, so that’s kind of the history of this. What it means is that I’ve got Nick here in studio with me and I’m actually gonna not use last name because some of the sensitivity of his ministry, but Nick and Julia and their family have been with us this week, and Nick’s here on Harvest Time. So welcome, Nick.
Nick: Thank you so much, Pastor. I appreciate it.
Gary Walton: So I hear, before we kind of talk to you about your background, but I hear this little space is familiar to you from back in the day. Nick and Julia actually were on staff for how many years? Four years. For four years with Harvest. And at that time, you did some Live ’til Five in this location.
Nick: Pastor Jared looped me in, and, I would occasionally share. He called me the culture vulture, for better or for worse. That’s what my tag was. Uh-huh. And I would share different words of the week and things like that that we would go through.
It was a lot fun. Lots of laughter.
Gary Walton: There has been a lot of laughter come out of this space in, Live ’til Five over the years. We’re so glad Pastor Jared’s back. Yes. And, Live ’til Five is on the air again.
Nick: Yes. I love it.
Gary Walton: So it’s it’s cool just thinking about your history there. Nick, you and your family have been serving in a Southeastern Asia country and serving in missions. We will talk about that in a minute. But let’s back all the way. Alright?
Let’s lay some foundation. Some of the people that will be listening know your story, but I think a lot won’t. So, tell us about your background. Where’d you grow up? Tell us that and then let’s lead after that to, you know, your spiritual story.
Nick: Sure. That sounds good. I was born just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Grew up, my parents were believers. We attended a local church there.
And, there were some visiting missionaries when I was about five years old. They came to our church and they were saying, We’re back for R and R, recruiting, I think like resting and recruiting or something like that. And they joked, they said, We’re gonna start with a couple couples that are in the octet. They used to be a singing group.
Gary Walton: Okay.
Nick: And everybody’s laughing. My parents were in the octet. Everybody’s laughing except for my parents. And so as they’re driving home, they’re like, wasn’t that kinda funny what he said? Yeah.
What do you think about that? I don’t know. And so at that point in time, they both were realizing God was working in their heart. Wow. And so my dad jokes, he had his juris doctorate, practiced law in Philadelphia.
Okay. So then he jokes that he made the jump from law to grace. Yeah. That’s a good one. He left he left practicing law and then started into deputation and we then transitioned out to South Africa as a mission field when I was six years old.
So I grew up some of my time there from when I was six to when I was nine. And then we moved back to Atlanta, Georgia. My dad became the area director of the missionaries in Europe during that time for our mission organization, Biblical Ministries Worldwide. Okay. And so we were in Atlanta for six years, and then when I was 15, we transitioned back to South Africa.
So I was there from 15 to 18, graduated from high school, and then I went to Northland Baptist Bible College at the time. Mhmm. And I would do summers working in Pennsylvania, and then graduated from Northland in 2011. That’s, where I met Julia, was at that time at Northland. We lived in Utah for a year.
We got married and and lived in Utah. And then Bobby Wood sent me a message on Facebook and said, hey, how about you come and do some dramas out here? Because we had been involved in a lot of the plays at Northland. Yeah. So we came out and I got to teach at Harvest, teach here seventh and eighth grade speech, seventh grade English, and then a variety of other things as well, and got to be a part of directing the plays, which is a lot of fun.
Wow. That’s great. You know? So since then, we moved back to Atlanta. We were there at a Christian school in Atlanta for five years or so, four or five years.
And then God called us out to Southeastern Asia.
Gary Walton: Do you remember I mean you had some missions background. How about Julia? Tell us quickly her background.
Nick: Sure. Julia was born and raised in Utah, which in and of itself is kind of like a unique mission field.
Gary Walton: It is.
Nick: Yeah. She had a lot of, similar experiences kind of feeling like she was different than a lot of the people in her town because, you know, 98% of them are Mormon, LDS. And so she had a lot of that similar growing up experience. They would get together, a lot of the, some of the churches in Utah would get together for a camp in the summertime, and she worked there at the camp. And it ended up being a lot like missionary experiences, where there’s not very many of us, we’re kind of spread out, we’re all seeking to share the Gospel and it’s difficult where we’re at, kind of being the minority.
So she grew up in that type of milieu, and then she went to Pensacola for a few years and then eventually transferred up to Northland, had a missions major. And actually, the country that we’re serving in, that was her her kind of capstone project, was studying
Gary Walton: Wow, interesting.
Nick: Yeah, the Muslims that live in the country where we serve. And so that was part of her journey. We got married then and God continued to pull on her heart through various different avenues about this specific country that we’re in.
For me, I’ve been a lot more of a present person. Wherever God puts me, that’s where I’m gonna lean in. And so I think he knew that if he was gonna call me out to Southeast Asia, he could do it. But for her, he planted seeds so that she’d be ready to go when he called.
Gary Walton: Tell me about your time at Harvest.
Newly married, a year maybe into it. Do you remember, you know, when you first came out and what that felt like? Sure.
Nick: Yeah. It was hot. We walked out of the airport and you run into this wall. And I always joke, my mom is half Norwegian, half Swedish, so I’m a Viking, and I’m built for Viking temperatures, which are not present here on Guam. But we came and really one of the things that we loved was the community that’s here at Harvest is really unparalleled.
I mean, we’ve been a lot of different places, and it almost felt, in a sense, like college extended, where there’s a bunch of young people we were all serving together. We worked alongside each other. We worshipped together. We played together in our hobbies and whatnot. And so at first, you know, getting adjusted to being out here, there’s always the bumps of transition.
But we found so many good close friends that we could connect with. We could laugh together, we could cry together. And we work, you know, there’s a lot to do here, there’s a lot going on. So we felt like we were very busy and active and involved, but never invisible. We always felt like we had comrades, we had coworkers with us all the time, which was such a huge blessing.
We got to have our first two kids here on Guam. Jace, who is now 11 years old, and Nora, who’s nine. They were both born not too far from here. So
Gary Walton: Well, that’s a good segue to this. You have, how many children now?
Nick: Now I have six.
Gary Walton: Okay. Six kids
Nick: So they’re Jace is 11, Nora’s 9, Ethan’s 8, Crew is 5, Paxton’s 3, and Emma is 9 months. So they’re pretty pretty well packed together. We don’t have too much of space. And so it ends up being a lot of fun, a lot of different events and activities where it actually, you know, appeals to all of them. They’re all interested and we have a good time together.
Gary Walton: So the time here, you know, serving together, God’s, you know, sovereignty, providence, he brings you back to The States in a couple of ministries. Then in that time, you already said your wife had a historical interest in the country that you’re in. Mhmm. How did that happen back in The States? How did you feel like God was calling you separately way out of the country?
Sure. How’d all that happen?
Nick: It’s a great question. It was somewhat humorous. We made some friends at the church we were at, Derek and Allison, and we connected on parenting, our kids are similar ages, we went to the same church. So we had dinner together one Saturday night and they were just asking, Hey, you know, with some of your kids, how do you handle this or that? We were chatting about those topics.
And then they brought up the topic of missions. They said, like, we feel we feel that God actually is sort of calling us into missions. I’m like, that’s so exciting for you guys. That’s wonderful. Julia and I felt at the time that God was kinda closing the door for us because we had talked a little bit with my parents who are still serving in South Africa.
Mhmm. And they had said, why don’t you guys come out here and serve with us? And so I thought that makes perfect sense. You know, Julia had a missions major and I know South Africa. Sure.
That would be great. So we prayed about it and we just felt like God would not give us peace about it. Like he wasn’t opening that door for us, even though it made a lot of logical sense. So when Derek and Allison told us, you know, we’re we’re interested in missions, we feel like God’s opening the door, we said, well, we feel like God’s kinda closing the door for us, specifically thinking about South Africa. But nevertheless, we prayed together, we encouraged one another.
That was Saturday night. Sunday morning, you know, just a couple hours later, our pastor there, Chris Anderson
Gary Walton: Sure. He was just here this fall?
Yeah.
Nick: Yeah. So he had just taken a vision trip out to Southeast Asia, and he had visited a number of different places and seen some of the needs, the needs for the Gospel. So he came back to where we were at Killian Hill, he said, we need to send people from our congregation to go. And so me, being the very, you know, obedient, respectful person I was, I was texting them in the service, and I texted Derek and Allison, said, guys, this is you. You gotta go.
This is the Holy Spirit. You know, just a couple hours ago, you’re telling me.
Gary Walton: You identified it for him.
Nick: Yeah. I know God’s will for your life. So after the service, and continuing on in conversation with them, we’re saying, this is so exciting. You know, it feels like God is just making it really clear for you guys. And they said, Derek and Allison looked at us and they said, well, Jesus normally sent disciples out in pairs.
Would you guys pray about going with us? Mhmm. And I said, no. I don’t I don’t wanna pray about that. No.
But whenever someone asks me to pray about something, I’m gonna pray about it. So we prayed. Julia was thinking, okay, you know, she would love to go, but she was thinking Nick’s not gonna want to go. Because at that time, I had been transitioning out of education at Killian Hill, and I was planning to move up to Pennsylvania where my brother is. He was remodeling kitchens at the time, I was gonna work with him, we had all these plans, it was gonna be great.
But looking at this, was like, Southeast Asia, that’s a lot farther away, that’s not really in my crosshairs. And so my prayer that summer was, God, if this is what you want us to do, I need you to change my desires. Right. I need you to change my heart. Help me to want Pennsylvania less and want Southeast Asia more.
And as I prayed throughout that summer, I just watched him do that. And I mean, logically, I didn’t want it, but I watched him change my desires, what I cared about, what I was focusing on. And so then by the end of that summer, we felt pretty confident this is what we need to be doing. So that fall, we took a vision trip out to Southeast Asia, visited a number of different people. But even by the time we had gone on that trip, both me and Julia and also Derek and Allison, we felt like this is where God has us.
So it was more like a preparation trip where we got to see what was going on and how we could prep best to go.
Gary Walton: It’s a big decision for anybody. Yeah. And particularly for somebody with a young family, you know, six kids.
What were the hurdles that you had to overcome as you’re trying to figure out is God leading us here?
Nick: Sure.
Some of the practical ones is that you’ve got when you have that many people in your family, there’s a lot of things, a lot of tools and clothes and supplies and things like that that go along with it. So that in and of itself was tricky. Doing deputation and fundraising, that was difficult. We all packed into a van, we got a trailer and just started going. Yep.
But really, that’s the story of of God’s sovereignty and His grace, because we technically signed on as candidates at biblical ministries worldwide, January of 2020. So as you know, the timeline of 2020, that was a really bad time to start fundraising. But God just showed himself mighty. He displayed, yeah, I’m in control, and I’ve got all the cattle on all the hills, and I will take care of this. And I think part of it was, I mean, specifically for me in my pride, I was thinking, yeah, I can do this.
And God was like, no, you need to be, you need to humble yourself, you need to sit down and watch me work.
And so I got to, and it was it was beautiful. Not easy, but beautiful. But specifically regard regarding transitioning with kids, we got some training on the front end from an organization in Colorado Springs, Mission Training International, and they specifically have classes for our kids to give them terminology. Specific words to know how to verbalize what they’re feeling, what they’re struggling with.
And part of the beauty of that program is that the parents are getting trained with a lot of the same ideas, a little bit more complex and unpacked, but it’s the same basic idea that the kids are going through. So then after classes we would connect together and talk through, hey, have you been struggling with this, do you feel like this is something that’s hard for you? Getting good training like that beforehand was super helpful for us with our transitions over. I will say that because of the age of our kids, we didn’t struggle with a lot of the same things you would struggle with if your kids were in high school or later on.
Gary Walton: Right. Asking questions, why are we doing this? Where are we going? What about my friends?
Nick: Right. Was a lot more of like, here’s an adventure, we’re going on it with our family. There was a lot of enthusiasm for that.
Gary Walton: Yeah. That’s great. Let me ask you about the partnership with churches. Sure. You know, maybe some of our listeners would be familiar with this, but some wouldn’t.
So you’ve sensed that you were God was leading you to go to this country, Southeast Asia, and, you know, in this place where you wouldn’t probably not possible to get a job there. Sure. Idea of helping God’s Church and be connected with the Church. So there’s a funding need, right? Right.
How are you gonna go? And so you said, I don’t remember the term that you used, prefilled or what’d you call it, deputation?
Nick: Deputation.
Gary Walton: Okay. So you used the deputation term.
What does that mean, and what did you do as a family?
Nick: Sure. So the way we see it is that we are partnering together with churches to fulfill the Great Commission. The Great Commission is not it’s not parceled out for different people, like your church only has to do this part of it. You guys just have Judea, you guys just have Samaria, you guys just have Jerusalem. No.
Right. Instead, it’s that commission is given to every believer. And so as we gather together with local churches, we then start to fulfill different elements of the Great Commission. So what we felt like we were doing, that God had called us to, was to participate in the the uttermost parts of the world element of it. So that that way when we would connect together with different churches, we would say, hey, we can partner with you, and in a sense you would, to use the term deputize, kinda like, you know, sheriffs and deputies, like you would deputize us as being part of your gathering to then reach the outermost parts of the earth.
And so if you would partner together with us, it’s almost like your church is now affecting Southeast Asia, and you’re participating in that Great Commission in a unique and innovative way. So what we would do is travel around to different churches and say, this is what God has laid on our hearts. This is what we feel like God is calling us to go do. Do you, after praying, after seeking his will, do you feel led to partner with us as we’re seeking to fulfill that element of the Great Commission? And that way it’s not so much, some people use the term fundraising, and I use it as well just for the basic element of
Gary Walton: Yeah, it’s clear, right.
Nick: Right. However, the idea is that God has given you resources, and God has given us, all of us, a task. Do you feel like God is leading you to use those resources he gave to you to accomplish part of this task? We end up being just a conduit for it. So we would travel to different churches and present that, and if they feel like, you know what, this lines up, this is what we feel called to do, They would then partner with us in prayer and also financially to enable us to go.
Gary Walton: It’s a beautiful concept. I really love it. Some people, you know, there’s some modern thinking about, Hey, is there a more efficient way? And I’m all about actually thinking clearly and, you know, even here at Harvest, we’re doing things a little bit differently. But there is a beauty to having that support team behind You know, financially for sure, but prayer and care.
Nick: Absolutely.
Gary Walton: You feel that?
Nick: Oh, definitely. There have been a number of different situations, whether it’s trials or difficult decisions where I have like 10 pastors that I can reach directly out to. They already know who I am. They know the scenario. They know our history.
And I can say, Can you guys speak into this? Pray about it, but also give me some wisdom. Give me some guidance. What would you guys say? And I will say that I think the spectrum’s really wide, right?
I have a friend that had over 100 churches that were supporting. And that was difficult for him because reporting back in, that was a lot. What
Gary Walton: That’s another conversation.
Nick: It is, it is.
But for us having this, we have less than 15. And it’s just been Love that. Wonderful. So encouraging.
Gary Walton: That’s cool. Hey, Nick. What can you tell us about Christianity or Christians in the region of the world that you’re in? And could you and can you tell us about the church?
Nick: Sure.
Gary Walton: Almost two different topics, but similarly.
Nick: Definitely. So the country specifically that we’re in is we would call it limited access. It’s not full on restricted in that it is legal and allowed to be a Christian in the country where we are. What’s illegal is any sort of proselytizing.
Gary Walton: OK. So By proselytizing, you mean like
Nick: Sharing the gospel with other people.
Gary Walton: Trying to convert.
Nick: That’s right.
Trying to convert. Yeah. Okay. It’s not just the sharing of it, like this is what I believe, but to state the exclusivity of Christ. That’s where it becomes incendiary.
So there are Christians that are there, and there are churches, specifically in the country where I am, they use a bunch of different series of letters to display their denomination. And, oh man, that is a learning curve. I still am trying to figure out what each one means, and there’s like sometimes four or five letters, and you’re like, I don’t even know what’s happening. So there’s a bunch of different denominations, and there ends up being quite a bit of siloing and kind of factioning, or we’re part of this one, and and really maybe theology may line up between this denomination and that denomination, but because, you know, never the two shall meet, there’s not a lot of fellowship, even in evangelical, Bible believing churches. So part of what we would love to do is understand more of what people genuinely believe, and then helping to see, okay, whether it lines up with the Bible or not, helping them to understand the Bible better, but then also to help network together like minded believers for more fellowship, more encouragement, more equipping, and mobilizing.
So there’s been a lot of accusations, by different missionaries that I’ve interacted with, accusations that all of the above ground churches, all of the ones that are visible legal entities, that they’re dead because, partially because, there’s no evangelism that’s allowed. And so it ends up being just kind of little clubs where people get together. They’re not necessarily doing a lot of learning, they’re not really reaching out to other people, they’re just kind of meeting together and doing their due diligence per se. And so there’s a whole movement, a series of movements of trying to go more house churches. And really, maybe some would say thinking creatively about what the church needs to look like.
I would say maybe blurring the lines for some ecclesiology or the study of churches, what churches need to be biblically. So there’s a really wide gamut of churches and believers Sure. In in the country where we’re serving. But because evangelism is that’s a nonnegotiable for for Christians. There are still are believers that will share.
They’ll get in trouble for it, but they will share. So we’re seeking to come alongside those that are faithful.
Gary Walton: Yeah. It’s such an interesting conversation, you know, as we track the New Testament models of of missionaries. Right. And then just the people of God sharing, some of them in very open environments, some in very closed, you know. Right.
Yeah, coming alongside. We’ve got just a minute left, but I don’t want to leave this conversation without this. You know, the commission, the mission, go into all the world, disciple, all the nations.
That’s what we’re called to.
So we love this idea around here. God’s Church does of disciple making. I know that you love that and you’re invested. What’s that mean?
What does it look in the context that you’re in for you?
Nick: Okay. We’ve come alongside with the local church that we’re at. And we’re able, by God’s grace, to do an English Bible study, where we dig deep. It’s every Sunday afternoon. We have anywhere between 8 to 15, I guess sometimes we’ve had close to 20 young adults.
Most of the people that are coming to the island specifically where we are, there’s some education and work opportunities there. So a number of them are not from the island originally. Okay. But they come, we meet together, and we just dig deep into the word. And we’ve been going through second Timothy right now, second Timothy two is what we’re finishing up.
And it’s wonderful. It it provides us a space for each one of those young men, young women to be able to talk through scripture and practically look at, okay, how does this apply to my life? And and ask some of the questions that maybe they would feel uncomfortable to ask in a more of a formal church setting, just like like my brother is struggling with this, my cousin, my uncle, or what have you. How do I deal with this in in regards to this passage? So that’s been something we’re really excited about, and I’m getting to work on a translation project right now, trying to translate discipleship materials into the language there so that they can be spread and used in the church in the context of discipleship.
Gary Walton: Cool, man. We’re we’ll pray that God will multiply your discipleship in order that those that you’re discipling would disciple others Amen. You know, all throughout that region. So thanks for being with us this week. Thanks for joining us on Harvest Time.
Nick: Thanks, pastor.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to this edition of Harvest Time. Of course, at this point in the program, we always wanna personally invite you again to Harvest Baptist Church. There are services at 08:45AM and 10:45AM, Sunday morning. We have Japanese and Korean translation during the 10:45AM service, and that’s the service we broadcast live on 88.1FM and KHMG.org. We hope to see you this Sunday.
Thanks again for listening to harvest time.