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[00:00:18] The Missional Life - Dan: All right, welcome back to Mission Life Podcast. Today we have Dirk Smith on the show. Dirk is the CEO of Eastern European Mission, an organization committed to spreading God's Word by providing Bibles and Bible based materials to over 30 countries in more than 20 languages. Dirk, welcome to the show.

[00:00:33] The Missional Life - Amanda: Welcome.

[00:00:34] The Missional Life - Dan: Thanks for having me. Good to be with you guys. Absolutely. Tell us a bit about the background of Eastern European mission. There's probably a lot of listeners that have heard of your organization and heard stories, but don't fully know that this is your organization that's doing all this amazing work around the world.

[00:00:52] Dirk Smith: Yeah, so EEM as it's known now, used to be Eastern European mission, but we're kind of going the route of UPS or, or IBM because we're definitely working in places that are not Eastern Europe anymore. But E em started with seven couples in their twenties who. Graduated from their undergrad at Abilene Christian College at the time in Abilene, Texas and headed to Vienna for the sole purpose of Enrolling in grad school there and that would give them visas so they could go behind the Iron Curtain Back in the day as it was known as and teach people about Jesus.

[00:01:24] Dirk Smith: That was the whole goal That was the whole plan. So these seven, 20 somethings head over there and they get behind the iron curtain and the guy who I really credit with being the entrepreneur for Jesus, Gwen Hensley, he and his wife, Gail were two of the couples. Gwen goes on one of these trips and he comes back and he tells Gail, Gail, this is impossible.

[00:01:43] Dirk Smith: This is an impossible task. They don't have Bibles in their language. How do we teach them about Jesus when we can't point to him and we're just telling stories without, without anything there. And so he said, if I do anything, I'm going to make it my mission that everybody will have a Bible in their heart language.

[00:02:02] Dirk Smith: So that turned the ministry on its head and they began printing and we were, we were printing and smuggling ourselves and providing for all the various smugglers that were smuggling during those. Days. I mean, it was very, very clandestine. We have lots of lots of interesting documentation of just random P.

[00:02:22] Dirk Smith: O. Boxes that Bibles were delivered to and stories of sleeping kids on mattresses with boxes of Bibles underneath them going through checkpoints and just a lot of fun Christian espionage, if you will. Well, then the wall, of course, comes down in 89 and I praise God for our board at the time who said there was a lot of pull to, Hey, leave, you know, they've got freedom now.

[00:02:48] Dirk Smith: So they're, they're good. And they just really felt God, you know, pulling on their hearts and saying, no, stay put, stay put. I need you to stay here. And so we did. And so back in the day, a smuggler, it was phenomenal if they could get 50 or 60 Bibles across at one time. And now across those very same checkpoints, we're driving tractor truckloads and at the request of these very nations, and we're printing in country.

[00:03:18] Dirk Smith: So very simply what EEM does is we publish, print, and distribute. Bibles and Bible based materials. Last year, 36 different countries, 32 different languages, just over 2 million books were distributed last year, all free of charge.

[00:03:35] The Missional Life - Dan: Wow. Amazing. You know, the Bible talks about that the word of the seed, right?

[00:03:40] The Missional Life - Dan: I love how a few Bibles were really planted behind the iron curtain, so to speak. And now there's just been a multiplication of those seeds to the tune of , how many did you say per year? Just over 2 million. Wow. Yeah. But never despise the days of small beginnings, right?

[00:03:58] Dirk Smith: Well, that's, you know, one of our early stories and this, this dates back to the early team. There was a gentleman by the name of Yvonne Martos, who was Romanian. We were talking about Romania earlier. He was Romanian. And. He, of course, it's part of the communist country and he was a banker in, in, in a member of the communist party.

[00:04:19] Dirk Smith: His father was also a writer and so he would have to make an annual trip for a banking convention and then he would couple it with, Picking up royalties for his dad's writings in Vienna in Austria. Every year he'd make this trip and the team got to meet him and he was a believer and they said he was just a fun loving guy.

[00:04:41] Dirk Smith: He was just great. You know, he's always had a, always had a funny story to tell him. Always. They're laughing and they always look forward to this annual visit from Yvon to come to Vienna. But this one year he shows up and I mean he looks like he has lost his last friend. I mean he is just down. I mean seriously depressed.

[00:05:01] Dirk Smith: And they said Yvon, what's up? And he said, Oh, I said, I'm just, I don't know what to do. I'm distraught. You know, I just, I, it's, this is horrible. And they said, what happened? So when I'm on the train Like I do every year we're leaving the communist territory We're coming into the free land and the guards come through all the cars to check everybody's papers And he said i'm in my i'm in my cabin and he said for some reason two guards came And one of them grabs my paperwork and is looking it over and the other one grabs my briefcase And he opens it up and he finds my bible in my briefcase And he looks at me and he says mr.

[00:05:38] Dirk Smith: Martos You're a ranking member of the Communist Party. Why do you have this book of lies? This is embarrassing. Well, it's a warm summer day, traveling about 65 miles an hour. Windows are down in the train at that time. This is about 1969. And he said, the guard just took my Bible and he threw it out the window.

[00:05:59] Dirk Smith: He said, my Bible, it's gone. It's gone. And of course we were in the Bible production business. So, you know, our team was like, Hey, we can get you another Bible. He said, I know that, but that's my Bible. And we can relate to this. You've got your Bible that you study with. He said, I know where my highlights are, where my notes are.

[00:06:18] Dirk Smith: And I've had that. That's my Bible and it's gone. I mean, he was just down and they tried to console him, but. Unconsolable He leaves they didn't see him for two years two years later. He comes back and man. He's old ivan martos He's back top of the world and they said man. It's great to see and he said oh I couldn't wait to see you all guess what about two weeks ago I got my bible back in the mail and they said what?

[00:06:45] Dirk Smith: Said yeah, my address was in the front of the bible and it came in the mail and with it Was this letter and he said, listen to this. Dear Mr. Martos, we are so sorry we kept your Bible this very long. Two years. Some children from our village were playing by the railroad tracks and found your Bible and brought it to some of the older women.

[00:07:11] Dirk Smith: Of our village and they recognized it as the book of books We are so sorry. We kept it this two years, but it took us that long to make a copy So that we would also have god's word We're returning this to you with thanks and would like you to know there are now 65 of us who meet together and call ourselves christians That's That's it.

[00:07:45] Dirk Smith: That's, that's the parable of the sower, you know, Jesus tells that parable in a very specific way. And the one character in that parable that gets little to no attention is the sower. Other than to say, he sowed the seed. That's the responsibility. Sow the seed and trust the Spirit. It's Isaiah 55, 11. God's Word's gonna go out.

[00:08:10] Dirk Smith: It's not gonna come back void. But so often we want to put our earthly metrics on things. And man, what's happening? What's ha Hey, did you put Did you plant God's seed trust that somebody's going to come and water and somebody's going to come and and that's in the in the form of love and just, you know, taking people in and being a friend to them and growing that seed.

[00:08:34] Dirk Smith: And we see it all the time in the work that we're involved in. And we're like the wholesaler for free for all the retailers that are out there that are doing mission work. I mean, our, our only requirement is if you make a request to us for Bibles, number one, they're not going to be sold. They are free they're free to you and it's got to be free number two.

[00:08:53] Dirk Smith: They're not going in a drawer Or in it on a shelf someplace. They're actually going into somebody's hands. It's evangelistic work That's taking place then the third thing because we're really like the wholesaler tell the stories give us the god stories Tell us what's happening the stories that come back.

[00:09:10] Dirk Smith: Damn, man. It's it's crazy I mean, it's just You see and are reminded there is a revolution taking place. The spirit is alive. The spirit is moving And sometimes we just have to get out of his way And we have to trust him and and say okay We're gonna throw the seed and and see where it goes And some of the things that have happened in our ministry.

[00:09:32] Dirk Smith: I mean i've been this is my 14th year The year before I came in we distributed 200, 000 books now we're doing 2 million books and we honestly are at a place right now Where i'm looking at our european team and saying okay guys How do we build the infrastructure here to go from two to four? You Because the requests are there and they're coming in from all over the place.

[00:09:58] Dirk Smith: It's just, it's, it's crazy what, what is happening is. And, and again, it's as a, it's as a result of people who get a Bible and whose life is transformed. They're not about to keep that a secret. You know, that's I mean they got the cure for they got the cure for everything They got the cure for cancer.

[00:10:15] Dirk Smith: They got the cure for anxiety depression. They got the cure for it all They're not gonna keep that to themselves. They're gonna say hey you need to know jesus I mean, it's it's honestly crazy what's happening in ukraine as a result of this war. It's going on I mean when the war broke out after the first full year of the war our distribution of the ukrainian language Bibles rose 40 percent in one year.

[00:10:38] The Missional Life - Amanda: Wow, that is incredible

[00:10:42] The Missional Life - Dan: To your point, you talked about Bibles in drawers, right? And when we talk about the us, they're everywhere, right? You can go into Walmart, you can go into the dollar tree, you can . Take the one from the drawer at the hotel they're everywhere.

[00:10:55] The Missional Life - Dan: But when something is so prolific, sometimes we don't value it as much, but when something is very rare off the times, , those are the things that we treasure the most. And I love how they took that treasure, , that Bible, and took the two years to write that down.

[00:11:10] The Missional Life - Dan: And during that time, it multiplied. It did what it said it would do. It would multiply. It would grow. And I just think that's just so amazing that when we apply our lives, when we take something and we value it, it will grow. And that's what God does in our own life?

[00:11:23] The Missional Life - Amanda: On such an amazing testimony as well. Like that it was really the enemy that took the Bible and threw it out the window. It wasn't the man himself. Of course he wanted his own Bible, but the enemy and inadvertently turned it into seed. You know, God took what was meant for bad and turned it to good. So that is such a beautiful story.

[00:11:41] The Missional Life - Amanda: And then using little children to find it and take it back.

[00:11:45] Dirk Smith: And isn't that the story of Jesus? You know, Satan thought he won, Satan thought he won, let's crucify him, and he used his demons and the hate and the vitriol, which is all from him, to hang our Lord and Savior on a tree, murder him, in the very city, in the town, part of the world that he was supposed to be glorifying God.

[00:12:13] Dirk Smith: God and raising up his church and they thought they Satan 31. I got him killed him. God's like nice job Thanks, I needed that, you know, we needed that to happen and you walked right into the trap But but it only happens when we're faithful and Jesus models that for us all the way through he models that faithfulness He didn't want to do that I mean how often do we you know, sometimes we glamorize that was yeah, but he was God.

[00:12:40] Dirk Smith: No, he was human He was absolutely human, and he prays, God, if there's any other way, let's do it some other way. I don't want to do this, but he stays faithful to it without sinning, goes to the cross. And that's our task, is regardless of my earthly circumstances, I'm going to glorify him. And that's when that word becomes life, and we become the salt and the light.

[00:13:10] Dirk Smith: That Jesus called us to be. I mean, we see it happening all over. I mean, in Ukraine, one of the crazy things that I say crazy, because it just, to me, it was, I mean, it was shortly after I started with the organization. We get this request from a regional minister of education in the nation of Ukraine, and they said, Hey, we would like to know if you would provide us Bibles for our public school.

[00:13:37] Dirk Smith: Okay. Well, tell us more about that. So we go in and we meet with them. And it's literally every denomination under the sun. I mean, we got Orthodox, we got Catholic, we got Evangelical, Pentecostal, we got, I mean, everybody is there. And they said, well, here's what we're doing. We've developed this curriculum called Christian Ethics.

[00:14:02] Dirk Smith: For the sole purpose, we realize we need to get our nation back to a Christian biblical worldview. And the way to do it is through our kids. But if we're going to do that, we have to set aside all of our traditions, our differences, because that's really all they are. They're just traditions. And we have to go back to just teaching the Bible.

[00:14:22] Dirk Smith: And we want to get the Bible into schools, into children's hands and get them back reading the Bible. But we got to have Bibles to do this. And we said, if that's what you want to do, we're your people. Absolutely. Let's get this going. Well, that continued. Right before the war broke out in Ukraine, we had put Bibles in over three fourths of the public schools in the nation of Ukraine.

[00:14:46] The Missional Life - Amanda: Wow.

[00:14:49] Dirk Smith: Now I want to talk a little bit here. I'm not going to get political. I promise I'm not going to get political, but I want to, I want to speak. Truth to the evangelical Christian world. Sometimes we do the worst thing. The enemy of our enemy becomes our friend. So the enemy for so many in the conservative evangelical world was Biden.

[00:15:22] Dirk Smith: And Biden's enemy was Putin. And so Putin became their, their friend. And it's, it's crazy. We, when the war broke out, we did because we just were pulled into it. Crazy money was being thrown at Ukraine, but it wasn't going to the people on the ground. You know, we didn't see it going. There were a lot of little ministries and little places of need.

[00:15:48] Dirk Smith: So we jumped in and said, okay, we're going to do humanitarian aid. Well, in that first year, and we did a pass through account. If a dollar came in, a dollar went out. If a hundred dollars came in, a hundred dollars went out. We just sent it in and we were putting it to people we knew on the ground. Cause we'd, we'd been working there for so long.

[00:16:04] Dirk Smith: And we knew that these people needed food, clothing, medicine. I mean, they needed just to live and survive over 2 million came in the first year. And we passed it right through and then the narrative hit the media from the right That we don't like ukraine because biden is sending all this money to ukraine and it's not going to good places And so ukraine is not trustworthy and I mean all the the narrative that was happening I'm, not going to discuss whether it was or wasn't Unless you've got some really high security clearance, nobody knows where money was going and they probably still don't.

[00:16:46] Dirk Smith: But that wasn't the point. It wasn't going to the government. It was going to the people. This was the parable of the good Samaritan and they're on the side of the road. Are we walking by? I'm here to tell you guys the money. off. We were doing the same promotion and showing the same need. And we were getting hate emails from people saying, if you're helping Ukraine, we're out.

[00:17:12] Dirk Smith: Wow. We're not doing. So you don't want to give somebody a Bible because you're, you're Whatever you're reading and you're hearing that money from our government that's going to the ukrainian government isn't going to good place How does that even connect? I mean critical thinking was gone. It was gone And I mean by the third year it was barely a trickle.

[00:17:36] Dirk Smith: I mean we couldn't we couldn't plead for people I mean we were going to people saying please help these people. I mean there's going to be a need to rebuild that nation But it's, it's crazy. It's a, it's truly, this war is more than is on the surface. I mean, it's a spiritual war. You know, the Ukrainians don't understand this, but we do in our country.

[00:17:59] Dirk Smith: They're kind of the Bible belt of of Europe. And it's it's amazing what has happened there. And that's why the request for Ukrainian Bibles rose so much is because you had believers. Who were traveling and escaping with non believers and the non believers are looking at the believers and going, okay, wait a second We're going through the same hell, but you're handling this a whole lot differently and much better than I am I mean dare I say with a peace that passes understanding How's that happening?

[00:18:35] Dirk Smith: And they're telling by Jesus and they're either giving their Bible and then they're requesting a new Bible or they're saying here contact these people This is where you can get a Bible and I mean the request or they're hitting and they were getting to where they were Going and saying even many times we heard stories before they were asking for humanitarian aid You're asking for a Bible.

[00:18:55] Dirk Smith: I want to know about this Jesus. I got to know more. And it just has taken off and taken off. Now again, that doesn't mean that Ukraine is this crazy, you know, perfect Christian nation, but there's a movement happening there. And of course, we see that. We've seen it all through history. When there are trials and tribulations, People come back to God.

[00:19:21] Dirk Smith: I mean no more You never hear any Prayers any more prolific than in the foxholes with war going on people are praying they might be an atheist But they're praying to god, you know, like hey, they might even say hey if you're up there I don't even know if you're up there. I'm gonna pray to you because I need you.

[00:19:38] Dirk Smith: I mean our nation post 9

[00:19:41] The Missional Life - Dan: 11

[00:19:41] Dirk Smith: I mean I was living up in philadelphia at the time when 9 11 happened and We were a different nation, completely different nation. Post 9 11, man, our church buildings were full, spiritual conversations, sober conversations were happening. People were thinking more soberly. What am I doing here?

[00:20:00] Dirk Smith: You know, what, what is this, what is this whole existence about? And. We had never had a tragedy like that before so it's It's really not surprising to see this part of the world that we're working in because russia's close I mean ukraine is close I mean, it's close to all of these nations all the way around and there's just a lot of turmoil And they're looking for hope they want to know man.

[00:20:25] Dirk Smith: Tell me something good Tell me what i'm doing here and and give me something to hang on to and what a gift To be able to say, yeah, let me tell you about the, here's the hope. The only hope, the only true hope is Jesus. And you have to know him.

[00:20:43] The Missional Life - Dan: What a gift. You're giving the gift of gifts, right? You're giving the biggest gift possible.

[00:20:47] The Missional Life - Dan: I think that's so amazing that you are going in there and in the midst of a crisis, you're. Being the hands and feet of Jesus and helping people with something that matters for eternity Because we can go in and we can help people Physically and those things are all well and good. But at the same time there are people that are very Seriously in threatening conditions and you have to go in And bring them something that can bring them life.

[00:21:11] The Missional Life - Dan: Not just life here, but life eternally and That's just amazing how god has positioned you and not only that but You He positioned you in the past as well because God strategically builds those things that you guys didn't have this infrastructure when it first came, but over the years it progressed and progressed and you began to have favor with the government.

[00:21:32] The Missional Life - Dan: And, and I just was wondering for, there's a lot of listeners that work for organizations or that do missions saying, I just wondered what was your experience of beginning to be welcomed? into those countries. And I also know they're putting this in the schools. And so tell us a little bit more about what the results that they're seeing in their schools with the word of God being taught.

[00:21:52] Dirk Smith: Yeah. Then the, you know, the process honestly is as you may, a lot of prayer. I mean, a lot of prayer. The first request came and I mean, we just started praying. And we had all of our partners praying, everybody praying. We don't know what God's doing. You know, we're, we're praying for wisdom because he says, I mean, if you, that's, that's one gift, he's going to give us all, he's going to give us wisdom, you know, discernment, clarity, and, and give us boldness.

[00:22:18] Dirk Smith: Give us a boldness to step through the doors. Cause we know how long they're going to stay open. So let's walk through and be prepared to go through them when they, you know, when they open, but the other thing was, you know, To just move and truly be the light and salt that God called us, you know, and i've used this analogy before I love and i've i've really meditated on That analogy that jesus gave us light and salt because you know when when either is too much It's not good You know, you come into a room, the light's too bright.

[00:22:50] Dirk Smith: You're like, Oh man, turn that down. You're blinding me or heaven forbid. And we take a bite of food and there's too much salt. You're like, Oh, you can't even eat this. This is nasty, you know, get it away. But the other is true too. If it's non existent. Then I can't see, you know, I'm tripping, I'm falling. Or the first thing I do is I reach for salt and say, Hey, give me salt.

[00:23:13] Dirk Smith: There's no flavor in this food. I get, I get a seasoning. But the interesting thing is, is when they do when salt and light do it, they're supposed to do, they get no attention. There's no fanfare on them. They get noticed if they're too much or too little, but if they're just doing their job, what gets emphasized?

[00:23:33] Dirk Smith: Man, this food is fantastic. Nobody says, Oh, the salt in this is just perfect. You walk into a room, you go, man, I love this room. They don't come in and say, Oh, the lighting in here is just absolutely fantastic. Now, some people might do that, but very few. I mean, they're going to come in and say, this, this room is great.

[00:23:50] Dirk Smith: So what gets accentuated the area? That's our job. So when we moved in with the governments. We made sure they said move and we clarified how far are we moving? Okay, we're going to go right there We're not going a step further. We're not doing anything else and we built relationship. That's good. We built trust We built that that camaraderie on a common goal and focused on that common goal and that You know that worked in ukraine and as a result of what happened in ukraine Then yes, and you asked about results.

[00:24:26] Dirk Smith: I mean in ukraine People don't know their their ukrainian history and nor should they necessarily but when yanukovych who was president when he was ousted and fled to russia Poroshenko came in as the president. He was the guy that was the chocolate mogul Well when poroshenko comes in and he's now tasked with I got to govern this nation And so he asked for reports from all of his ministers and when he got the report from the minister of education He called the minister of education back in and said I need you to explain something for me It's okay.

[00:24:56] Dirk Smith: What is it? He said, okay, I see in this oblast or we would call it a state They called it oblast in this oblast in this oblast this one there's about five of them at the time He said in these five oblasts I see the test scores are up and the discipline problems are down in the schools Is there a common denominator here and the minister of education for the nation of ukraine said?

[00:25:22] Dirk Smith: Yeah, that's where we're teaching christian ethics in the bible and he said And i'm i'm Pretty certain Poroshenko was not a believer, but he was pragmatic. And he said, well, that's, what's doing it. We need to make this offering all across the entire nation. Well, that really escalated. I mean, I actually went in and had a meeting with the minister of education for the nation with, with the people in, you know, we, we signed a bunch of documents, everything that was very legal and signed off on.

[00:25:50] Dirk Smith: But as. Other nations heard about it. This spread to Croatia. Now in Croatia, we've put almost 2 million Bibles in their public schools to their children. It spread to North Macedonia. We just got done doing a project last year of 450, 000 children's Bibles into their schools. It's in Romania. It's in Bulgaria.

[00:26:12] Dirk Smith: It's in Hungary. It's spreading throughout that area because When people truly engage, and we know this in our own lives, when we engage with Scripture, we truly engage with Scripture, anxiety comes down, pressure comes down, behavior changes. When we, when we rely and recognize there is, there is something higher than me here, and I am giving up to Him, to that Supreme Being, to that Creator of all things.

[00:26:47] Dirk Smith: There's a peace that happens. I mean, he promises that his spirit's gonna come inside of us and indwell us and we're seeing that happen everywhere You know that you know, Dan, I this nation. It's not surprising to me that we're where we are You may be from it Lifeway Lifeway research did a piece of research has been like two or three years ago now, but they surveyed Church, what they called it church going Protestants was the title survey of church Protestants.

[00:27:19] Dirk Smith: And as you dug in and you found out, okay, who qualified to be in this in order to qualify as a church and Protestant, you had to say that you went to church regularly, at least twice a month. And brother, I don't know about you, but that's the A team. You know, in, in this nation, you got somebody who's going to church twice a month.

[00:27:37] Dirk Smith: That's the, that's definitely the A team. So that's the group that was surveyed. And one of the questions they asked was, How often do you read your Bible? And I thought, okay, this is, this is church going Protestants. Every day was only 32%. Wow. 32%. Now, the bottom was rarely, never, and I thought, well, surely this is church going Protestants.

[00:28:07] Dirk Smith: That's going to be zero, 12%, 12 percent of church going Protestants rarely or never open their Bible. Well, why are we where we are? I mean, this is not rocket science and that's why you've got in some pulpits, some heresy being taught because the people sitting in the pews have no idea. It's like being a football coach and not knowing the rules of the game.

[00:28:36] Dirk Smith: You don't know when to throw the challenge flag. You know, wait a second. I don't think that's right. And they're just taking it in. Somebody's very articulate. That sounds good. I'll buy that. Why not? I'm not going back to the book. I'm not really talking to God to find out if it's true or not. Heaven forbid I do that, but I'll call myself a Christian.

[00:28:56] Dirk Smith: I mean, that's really crazy. I mean, that's like you, you and Amanda, you know, you say, hey, are you guys, Dan, you married? Yeah, I'm married. Do you ever talk to your wife? Nope. Nope, never do Do you ever spend any time with her? Nope. Well, you're not married I mean, I guarantee you that's not a marriage that's gonna last and here we are We're the bride of christ, but we never talk to it We never spend any time.

[00:29:18] Dirk Smith: We never let him talk to us, you know, this nation. And so when we see other nations doing the opposite, it's kind of an indictment that we are shocked, you know, that we sit back and go, wow, that's fantastic. What's happened. Well, that's what he tells us is going to happen. I mean, it's, it's just very prophetic.

[00:29:39] Dirk Smith: There's

[00:29:42] The Missional Life - Dan: so much in that. You're right. We shouldn't be shocked of what's going on in our nation. And what's also stood out to me is as these other nations were realizing what was going on and they were welcoming you in you, you moved in. And so there's a couple, a couple of big lessons here. One is you prayed, you prayed about getting into these countries.

[00:30:04] The Missional Life - Dan: And so when we are praying, we should be carrying these things to, to the father and asking him for wisdom, asking him to open those doors. And when he does open those doors you, you sought wisdom to make sure, but you, you took that step in. And so I think so many people. the door open and then all of a sudden, wow, is this God or not?

[00:30:21] The Missional Life - Dan: And you kind of wonder, and then you kind of hesitate. And sometimes those opportunities are only open for, for so long. Now, God will open other doors and things can still happen. But so as God opens those doors, we need to step in. But I was also thinking about how, you know, when God goes calling his people into into the promised land.

[00:30:38] The Missional Life - Dan: With Joshua, he, he laid it out. He said, look, , this is the boundary. It goes from east to west here, north to south here. And he laid that out and that was their land. And for them to encamp somewhere else outside of those boundaries , wouldn't have been right. And I love how you as a ministry went in and the government.

[00:30:55] The Missional Life - Dan: In a sense, laid out those land. Hey, look, if you want to come in, here's the boundaries of this land. And you moved in there and you took that territory and you stayed within the confines of that. I think that's so important because so many times we hear of organizations or ministries that want to go in and they think that.

[00:31:13] The Missional Life - Dan: you know, they can do any the gospel. And to be fai obviously the historical But at the same time, if you want to grow, if you want to begin to work with organizations and other government things, you need to abide by the rules that are presented you.

[00:31:30] The Missional Life - Dan: And then you will gain favor and more favor and God can continue to open doors. You can't just go from zero to a hundred. You got to make those notches and, and build trust and yeah, confidence.

[00:31:40] Dirk Smith: Absolutely. And, and I'll give you a brief example of that. Bibles, it's just Genesis revelation.

[00:31:46] Dirk Smith: There's nothing else in there. That does say in the front of it, this Bible is not for sale. You should not have paper. It's free. But there is no To work with the schools in all of these countries because they are multi denominational And they've said we just want to go back to the Bible. It's interesting.

[00:32:04] Dirk Smith: They say no proselyting information or propaganda in the Bible I'm like Which is kind of funny. Cause you're like, okay, I think it's in there, but you know, don't worry about it. So we can't, you know, and we wouldn't anyway, cause it's all there, but we have had people who have pushed back. In fact, we had, you know, it's, it's funny when you're again, example of sometimes we shoot each other, you know, we, we, we use statements like there's no competition amongst lighthouses and then.

[00:32:38] Dirk Smith: You see lighthouses that are, Hey, I don't want you shining. So I'm going to have to outshine you. And we got pushed back one time from a guy. I'd never forget this, an older gentleman approached me and he said, Hey, I just have a, I'm an issue with, with your Bibles. And I said, Okay, I mean all of ours are I mean the language they're translated from the Hebrew and the Greek you don't ever take anything from English You know into another country.

[00:33:04] Dirk Smith: It's all and and most of them are common language. We look for the translations I mean, we don't translate the Bible we get the translations that they want I mean, whatever the translation they asked for that's what we give them. Anyway, he said he said I'm just upset that the plan of salvation Is not printed in your bibles and I said what?

[00:33:25] Dirk Smith: That sure is absolutely it is and he said well, I don't see it there and I said have you read it? He said well, yeah, and I said man the plan of salvation is in every single bible. We print it's in your bible It's in every bible and he's like Really? But you've got to be kidding me. I mean, he wanted some five step or, you know, the, some prayer in the front.

[00:33:51] Dirk Smith: I'm like, dude, just read the Bible, just read it. I mean, and, and you step back and you watch what happens when somebody who again, parable of the sower, when it's good soil and it lands on good soil. Man, you can't stop it. You can't stop the growth. I mean you can't hold it back They're gonna they're gonna feed each other.

[00:34:11] Dirk Smith: They're gonna clothe each other They're gonna take care of each other's needs they become the church that is described in acts And that jesus lays out it's it's really not rocket science We try and make it very very difficult and I think dan sometimes It's so we can pat ourselves on the back. You know, I like to, Hey, look what I did.

[00:34:32] Dirk Smith: And man, it's not about me. It's not about you. It's not about any of us other than. Man, just be faithful and walk through the doors as they present them and pray that you do it in a way that glorifies God and you don't do anything to mess it up. I mean, it really takes a humility to recognize, man, I've got all the capacity in the world to really screw this up.

[00:34:56] Dirk Smith: God, don't let me do that. You know, let me move through this in a way that you get all the glory and that these people, because what we all ultimately all want is me, we want people to know Jesus, so don't let me get in the way, don't let me step on my own feet, you know, let, let, let me make sure that that happens and you are glorified in this.

[00:35:17] Dirk Smith: So we, that's our, that's our prayer in our. Ministry every single day. And we see the requests just pouring in on a regular basis.

[00:35:27] The Missional Life - Dan: And doing the research and getting more familiar with your organization visited your website. And I love how you have that right on the front website. You can fill in the words for me, but the Bible, we want everyone to get it.

[00:35:38] The Missional Life - Dan: Everyone to get it. And it's really that simple , our job is to share the word, to preach the word. The Bible talks about that. We, when we speak the word, he'll do those things to confirm the word. And , so many times we're trying to do so many other things. We're trying to prove the word of God.

[00:35:55] The Missional Life - Dan: We're trying to do all these other things and we've never actually preached the word of God. Of God, right? We're doing all these other activities and ministries and programs and such, and it comes back to what's the word say, what's opening up the Bible and allowing the Holy Spirit to do what the Holy Spirit does is just, that's right.

[00:36:20] The Missional Life - Dan: Revealing the Father, revealing the grace of the Father, convicting the worlds of sin and of the righteousness that is available to, and the plan of salvation, Jesus. That's it. And so I love how pure. The ministry is, it's look, we're, we're just going back to the pure basics of Christianity. We believe that Jesus is the word of God.

[00:36:48] The Missional Life - Dan: And, the Bible is the word of God. So in a sense, the Bible is Jesus. So we're just going and giving Jesus to everyone we can, and we're just gonna watch the results.

[00:36:59] Dirk Smith: And, and it's a blast here. And I mean, you know, when you, when you When you see all in disciples, I mean truly all in disciples for Jesus When they use their god given creativity and they think about The ways they they come up with to share god's word It's incredible.

[00:37:21] Dirk Smith: I mean I sit back and I go that's brilliant I mean, that's, that's absolutely brilliant. And, and then the boldness too. I mean, they're not, they're going to risk everything again. They're going to do it gracefully. They're going to move through, but they're not afraid to walk in. And I mean, some of the places we've been requested to, Hey, we want you to, you know, ship here or do that.

[00:37:38] Dirk Smith: You know, and we talked beforehand off offline before we started this. I mean, the fastest growing church movement in the world is in Iran, man. That's not a, not a place that any of us would say, Oh yeah, that's a Boy, that that's ripe soil right there. That's easy. That's easy. So in there No, but you know again sometimes in our country, you know, we i'm gonna use a phrase that a mutual friend of ours used we struggle with the idolatry of freedom and that is We believe that freedom of religion is required first so that the gospel can Grow And the gospel can, you know, prolifically be spread.

[00:38:35] Dirk Smith: And if that's true, then Iran makes no sense. It absolutely makes no sense. And, and, and I said this earlier, you know, again, offline. And if, and if that doesn't make sense, one even worse than that is why in the world did God say, Hey, you know what? During this time, during this most horrific dictatorship, this globe has it.

[00:38:58] Dirk Smith: Ever seen that's when I'm going to come to earth and set up my kingdom And i'm going to come in the form of jesus and i'm going to be the son If that were the case you go god Bad move, man. What the heck? I mean, you picked a sorry time to do this because there is no governmental freedom. There's no freedom of religion.

[00:39:19] Dirk Smith: There's no freedom at all. And Christians are persecuted. And what happened in that persecution? Man, it grew exponentially. It took off. We are so spoiled. We are so spoiled. And we Honestly, it becomes a kingdom issue in my, in my opinion, we don't know which kingdom we're in. We, we, we say we belong to his kingdom, but we're living in, I mean, we are so bound by this kingdom and, and this kingdom really rules, you know, how, how we spend our money, how we spend our time, everything.

[00:39:54] Dirk Smith: I mean, it, it dictates what we do and, and, and whether we sit down and we just share with somebody, man, you got to know about Jesus. I mean, you, you got to hear this. This is you, you need him. I need him. We all need him. I mean, let's, let's share it. But you know, it's one of my, one of my frustrations in living in In the nashville area and you know kind of in In sec territory for sports, you know, we've got some you know, you got tennessee here You got the volunteers you got alabama not too far And i've done this at times when i've spoken in places I was in alabama not too long ago and I said I said, okay i'm not a theology degree I've got an mba i'm a businessman and so i've you know spent majority of my life You know helping businesses make a ton of money and and so i've got a great business idea You I'm just looking for angel investors.

[00:40:45] Dirk Smith: So in the crowd like this, if you want to, you know, let me know, come up and tell me that you're ready to invest, but here's my business idea. And I was actually just outside of Tuscaloosa and I said, I'm going to come here to Alabama and I'm going to teach you poor, pitiful Alabama fans how to be all in rabid fans, because you just, you're not good at it.

[00:41:07] Dirk Smith: I mean, you're just not good at it. You know, you don't even know that you're a, an Alabama fan. I mean, you can't even tell. I mean, you never, you never wear the, you know, the what is it? The black and white, you know, that they, that bear Bryant or, you know, you don't wear that. You don't wear the crimson, you know, you don't see the elephant, you don't see, I mean, nothing.

[00:41:24] Dirk Smith: And of course people are laughing in the audience. And I said, so who's ready to invest? And they're all like shaking their head. Like me, I said, yeah, what a stupid idea. I mean, that's a dumb business proposition. That's going to fail. Now, if I could teach you people and I could train you how to be quiet about it.

[00:41:40] Dirk Smith: Now I'm doing something you, you know, all the stats, you know, all the coaches, you know, everything about it. I mean, you're going to tell everybody about it. I said, then explain this for me. Why do we As people who claim to be Christians, why do we have evangelism seminar?

[00:42:04] Dirk Smith: Why do I need somebody to teach me how to share about the person who has transformed my very existence and who is transforming my life every day?

[00:42:24] Dirk Smith: Why do I need help with that?

[00:42:29] Dirk Smith: I mean, that is an indictment. And I said, unless he's not transforming me.

[00:42:40] Dirk Smith: If he is, then you don't want to just roll off my tongue. I shouldn't say, well, that's an uncomfortable topic to get into. You think going in to some stadium and professing that your team is better than, that's not a little, I mean, you're never afraid of those conversations. You're never afraid of the political conversations.

[00:43:03] Dirk Smith: But you don't want to talk about Jesus? And you don't know how to? Well, I just don't know how to start that conversation. Really? Now that translates into I don't want to I really don't want to because it's not that important to me and that's tragic

[00:43:20] The Missional Life - Dan: Wow, so amazing it's convicting and it's challenging all at the same time because You know, we all could share more, you know, we we can all go and be hands and feet, but man I wanted to share just how you were talking about our brothers and sisters in You And I'm so glad you raised this point because so many times here in the States, , we are champions of freedom and we want to champion that for other country, the freedom of, you know, fill in the blank, but freedom of religion is really, really important.

[00:43:54] The Missional Life - Dan: And to your point that oftentimes there's places like Iran. Or China or other places that are more closed. They don't have that freedom, but the church is growing. And I want to take that a little bit further , you know, we've had some other directors and one of them was sharing about what we asked him, what, what do those believers in persecuted areas?

[00:44:16] The Missional Life - Dan: What do they pray? Because, you know, we're all told to pray for the persecuted church. What do they pray for us? And, you know, there's a little bit of quietness, but they, they actually pray that we would go through some, some challenging times, some hardship, because when you go through that, you find out what you believe and you rise up to the occasion.

[00:44:36] The Missional Life - Dan: And , that comfortable faith becomes. Little less comfortable and a little little more urgent. A little more. I've got a, I can't just sit on the sidelines. I can't sit on the fence anymore. I have to choose which side. And so , there's believers around the world that are saying, Hey, , we need you guys to not be the 12 percent that are reading the Bible every day.

[00:44:57] The Missional Life - Dan: We need you guys to be the ones that are picking up the Bible, reading, praying, , and standing with us and, going to your places as well and getting this gospel out. And so that's so, that's so amazing. You lead an organization that, and being conscious of your time, you lead an organization that gives a lot of Bibles, millions and millions and millions of Bibles.

[00:45:18] . There's gotta be one Bible that you were part of giving out, , share with us a story that sticks out to you personally, that you'll never forget those moments where you look back and that Bible, when I gave that to person , I'll never forget that.

[00:45:33] Dirk Smith: Yeah. I mean, there's a bunch of them, Dan, Dan, there's a, but. But one that will probably always be with me. And I was, I was early on with the organization and. So I'd gone in and it was it was one of my first times that I was going to be there because we're not we're not really there when bibles are being distributed because we're using you know, We're going through partners who are on the ground and we're you know, we're the wholesaler But we were there and this this ministry partner said hey, we want you to go with us.

[00:46:01] Dirk Smith: I said, yeah, that'd be great and the first place we were going was to a Old folks home, you know, you know, I wouldn't even call it a retirement home because man it was it was pretty rough it was in ukraine and so You We go and we walk in and the guy in, in Russian, cause it's an Eastern Ukrainian, Russian, he tells, and there's, there's probably 45 or 50 people in this room and he says, Hey, you know, we're so glad, you know, we could be here and we're here to give you Bibles.

[00:46:34] Dirk Smith: And I mean, it didn't, it wasn't the react, it wasn't the response that I was expecting. Maybe he just kind of sat there. You know, and even though I couldn't speak the language, I could tell this is not excitement. I don't, I don't see excitement here. And I thought, Hmm, okay, I'll figure this out. And then we cracked open one of the boxes and it was our, we had provided our large print Bibles because over there they don't have reading.

[00:47:02] Dirk Smith: I mean, they don't have a Walmart on every corner. They can't, they don't have reading glasses laying around like you or I might have. And so, They had received in the past Bibles from people that, A, it was the archaic language. It was so, it was like, it'd be like you or me reading it in Shakespearean language.

[00:47:21] Dirk Smith: So this was a common language. And it was in such small print before that they couldn't read it. So when they heard Bibles, they thought, well, this is just another book I can't read. I mean, they're going to hand it to me and I'm gonna look down and go, I can't read this. You know, I'm not going to say anything.

[00:47:35] Dirk Smith: They were trying to be gracious, but it just wasn't, it wasn't what they were planning to get. When we opened that box. And I handed this large print Bible, which, man, it looks like an encyclopedia botanica. It's massive. And I handed it to the lady. And this little lady opens it up, and she sees the font.

[00:47:56] Dirk Smith: And she can read it. And she squealed. It was like a child getting their favorite Christmas toy. She squealed and she grabbed it and she pulled it to her chest and she started saying spasiba, spasiba, which is thank you in Russian. And then in Russian, she says to everybody, we can, You know, it translated, we can read these.

[00:48:26] Dirk Smith: They're, it's big letters, big letters, and everybody, oh, give, give, give. We started to hand them out, and they all began to weep. I mean, just started crying because they could now read it. It was something they could read, and man, I tell you, I walked out of there and went, Okay. I love what I get to do. This is, this is incredible.

[00:48:52] Dirk Smith: But I mean, there's just so many stories like that where we're invited in and, and you see a child. I mean, we, one little kid who, who got one, who's a refugee child, who was fleeing and the mother, we got him a children's Bible, never read it before. Mom reads the stories to him. She had never read them before.

[00:49:14] Dirk Smith: And she went to take the Bible from her little girl. At night and they're in a shelter, they're, they're sleeping in a shelter. And she sent us a picture. She just took it with her phone and got it to the ministry and said, you know, I don't even know how to, you know, if you could share this with whoever gave these Bibles, but the little girl was sleeping with the, with the children's Bible, she wouldn't let her mom take it.

[00:49:36] Dirk Smith: And she said, no, I want to, I want to stay. I want to sleep with these stories of hope was her word that she chose. I mean, stories of hope. And, and you just see that happening over and over and over again, you know, the, the stories of somebody getting a Bible and then you see them just naturally out of that, they start a feeding out of their poverty.

[00:49:58] Dirk Smith: I mean these two older ladies and i'm thinking of that started this feeding the homeless out of their poverty They reached out to people and they said, okay, we can cook it in one group and they would they were making borscht I don't know if you've ever had borscht. It's phenomenal in ukraine but You know one one group would buy the turnips one group would buy the potatoes one group would buy the beets and you know And then they were their job was to cook it and they lived on the ninth floor this little oh very communist looking apartment complex, little, little stove that, I mean, had two burners on it.

[00:50:30] Dirk Smith: I think the oven, you probably could fit a Cornish hen in there. I'm not sure. It was so small. But they, these big gigantic pots and they're making borscht. And they tell me they're making it for the poor people and i'm like you are the poor people What are you talking about? And and then no, I mean the elevator is not working.

[00:50:47] Dirk Smith: So we help them schlep down these steps nine floors and they pack it in their little cart look like a You know game of jenga, you know how to fit it all in there, you know, and and They haul it and I mean they're feeding the homeless and they did it every single day every day And and why if you ask him why well because jesus told us to he said to do it So that's why we do it.

[00:51:10] Dirk Smith: So it's just, you know, on and on and on and on, you know, and we see this in Ukraine, we see it in, I mean the 30, you know, like I said last year, 36 different nations that we were blessed and just so humbled to get to work in. So it's, it's It is. It's, it's very, very humbling and such a, such a gift to be able to be involved

[00:51:31] The Missional Life - Dan: in this.

[00:51:33] The Missional Life - Dan: Wow. That's an amazing organization. Eastern European mission. Tell us how our listeners can connect with your organization, get information.

[00:51:40] The Missional Life - Dan: Your social profiles? Give us all that information.

[00:51:43] Dirk Smith: Yeah, real quick. I mean, our, our website is just em. org and they can go there, sign up for our for our newsletter. It's a great way to keep in touch with what's going on. And they can just send an email at info at em.

[00:51:56] Dirk Smith: org and request that, Hey, I want to get on your mail list. You know, give me, send me, Send me your your newsletter. They can follow. We have a podcast called the 55 11 podcast. It's, it's 55 colon 11. It doesn't mean it's 55 minutes and 11 seconds long, which somebody said to me one day it's after Isaiah 55 11.

[00:52:15] Dirk Smith: And so they can hear great stories on there. But those are really, if they're on Prey, I'll put a plug in for Prey. com Prey. com, all of our, all of our information and all of our media is, is free. Pushed out through prey. com. So if they're on prey, they can find and follow our channel, but they can follow our podcast, go out to our website, eem.

[00:52:35] Dirk Smith: org and get really anything anything they're, they're looking for, but our newsletter

[00:52:40] The Missional Life - Dan: is a great source for that. Absolutely. Listeners be sure to do all that. We'll have those in the show notes. Dirk, what an amazing. Opportunity and an amazing organization that you get to help steer. And we just pray that you continue to have that wisdom that you, you saw it.

[00:52:56] The Missional Life - Dan: We just pray that you continue to have wisdom in growing. And we just, believe with you for that 4 million going from the two to 4 million, we just pray that you guys get the wisdom from God on that and how to make it happen. So, and we just we look forward to having you back on the show and hearing that you're now at eight million.

[00:53:11] The Missional Life - Dan: And so we're encouraged by that. We speak less in favor over what you're doing. And, and thank you again for being on the show today.

[00:53:17] Dirk Smith: Thank you. Great to be with you.